Full title: "Ordeal Call I - Inner World of the Void Compass, Paper Moon".
With no more Lostbelts to deal with, the Storm Border continues surveying the world for signs of the "Ordeal Call". But although the leisurely trip has given Chaldea a much-needed reprieve from their constant battle, weeks have gone by with no signs of distortions on the bleached Earth. It's driving the crew a little antsy.
Unwilling to sit on their hands, Sion, da Vinci, and Nemo Professor took up a joint project: the "Human Order Foundation Display". Similar to how they measure the foundation of the Human Order in Singularities and Lostbelts, this device measures the Human Order Foundation of Chaldea itself. Measured in ranks with A as the highest, Chaldea is currently at the lowest rank of E. Da Vinci posits that the Ordeal Call won't begin on its own - it's Chaldea itself that has to make the call, which they've done now that they're actively measuring their Human Order Foundation.
Days later, something malfunctions with Chaldea's distortion-detecting device, the Paper Moon. Mash and the Protagonist curiously check in. Sion, the one who manages the device, is incredulous because the Paper Moon is designed to be foolproof. She fires it up for a test run - and it's screen immediately points to a Singularity based around Egypt, but no other equipment detects a Singularity there. Sion theorizes that the Paper Moon might be sending the signal to itself, but before she can finish, the screen of the Paper Moon suddenly lights the room brilliant, blinding white...
When the Protagonist's sight returns, they are no longer on the Storm Border, but in a futuristic city populated by multiple "R.A.N.I." AIs. They are joined only by Sion, who has mysteriously aged backwards to a child with a much more serious personality, and the Assassin Servant Kama, who wasn't even in the room during the abduction and is thus very confused aside from "briefly talking to a mysterious voice". After some exploration, they realize that they've been inserted into a Holy Grail War with the Protagonist and Sion serving as the joint Master of Assassin Kama, competing with other Masters in a virtual realm - the Singularity is within the Paper Moon itself. The Ordeal Call has begun.
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Tropes in this chapter:
- Arc Words: "Who am I?" A question nearly every single character in the story asks themselves once.
- Awesome, but Temporary: Sion's Mystic Code is a significantly improved version of the Chaldea Combat Uniform and Decisive-Battle Chaldea Uniform, but can be only used during certain chapters.
- Awesomeness by Analysis: Duryodhana at first attempts to go with the proper Holy Grail War procedure of hiding your True Name from potential enemies, but the heroes point out that he's very obviously Indian, he called himself a prince, and, most damningly, he mentioned Karna as if they were close friends (which alone indicates that not only was he in the Mahabarata, but he's also not one of the Pandevas if he's so close to Karna), allowing them to easily narrow down his identity.
- A Day in the Limelight:
- This is primarily Sion's focus chapter, with her even taking over the Mystic Code commands that the Protagonist has.
- Servant-wise, the chapter is essentially Kama's story, as she is the primary ally of the Protagonist, and has a role from the start to the end, getting development and follow-ups to plot points established as far back as the Ooku event.
- Dynamic Character: Explored as the theme of the chapter. This being the Alter Ego Ordeal Call, the primary focus is on people's multiple aspects and emotions, and how people can change when certain aspects and emotions become more prominent. Chaldea's surface understanding of Alter Egos is that they are the isolation of one such aspect/emotion into its own being, but the deeper meaning is that this isolation demonstrates how the original holder of that aspect/emotion might've changed and had a different path in life if they followed it. Haphazardly creating Alter Egos like what happens during the chapter results in potentially single aspects becoming too dangerous without the rest of the emotions and feelings to go along with it, such as Bluebeard being the negative aspects of Gilles de Rais without any of the history. Reaching this understanding raises Chaldea's Human Order Foundation from E to D.
- Foreshadowing: Another hint to a fourth chapter of the Ordeal Call comes in the form of the Human Order Foundation Display, which needs to climb in ranks from E to A and goes up one rank per Singularity. Reaching Rank A means four increases are needed, one more than the three trials that "Romani Archaman" predicted after his Verbal Backspace in the Ordeal Call prologue.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: Paper Moon's virtual world wasn't part of its design; the whole thing is very much just a program, and there shouldn't be artificial intelligence within it. The Singularity spawning within it morphed everything into a medium that a human could comprehend, resulting in an interactable world populated with AIs.
- Greater-Scope Paragon: The finale reveals that BB, of all people, is responsible for Kama's appearance in the Paper Moon virtual world. The Paper Moon Ordeal Call was initially going to abduct the Protagonist with no accompanying Servants, and even BB thought this was unfair, so she hijacked the hijack. Originally she was considering sending one of Chaldea's Alter Egos or even herself, but decided that Kama was better suited.
- The Greatest Story Never Told: Only Sion and possibly Kama have any real recollection of the events of the Singularity. Not even the Protagonist is able to remember this time. This results in all of Chaldea being very confused when their Human Order Foundation has somehow gone up a rank and a detailed analysis of Alter Ego Servants (courtesy of Sion) was shadow-dropped into their database overnight, yet from their perspective they've done basically nothing.
- Inside a Computer System: The Protagonist and Sion are forcibly shunted into the internal systems of Chaldea's Paper Moon compass, which is revealed to appear as a city whose programs all are different iterations of Rani.
- Irony: In taking A Form You Are Comfortable With, the inner world of the Paper Moon resembles the setting of a standard Holy Grail War. But this being Grand Order which is best described as "the biggest Grail clusterfuck in history", while the Protagonist does know how a standard HGW works, this is the first time they've actually seen one.
- Lighter and Softer: In comparison to the vast majority of Cosmos in the Lostbelt. There are no world-ending stakes at play in the Paper Moon, no destroying an entire timeline simply to get through, and most of the Holy Grail War participants are friendly with no interest in the usual violent subterfuge that's standard operating procedure for Fate.
- Not Now, Kiddo: Midway through the chapter, Kama has a chance to gain some very valuable information about the Alter Egos within Paper Moon... and she bluntly tells the speaker to piss off because they're interrupting her cuddle time with the Protagonist. The reveal thus doesn't happen until much later. (The speaker being BB who extracted Kama's "cuddly" side in the first place, she has no one to blame but herself for that one.)
- Out of Focus: The Protagonist, Sion, and Kama were taken into the Singularity alone, leaving Chaldea's Mission Control out of the action for this chapter.
- Riddle for the Ages: Was the Protagonist within the Singularity an Alter Ego, and if so, what part of the Protagonist did they represent? Sion raises the question in the epilogue of the chapter and lists a few possibilities, but ultimately dismisses the subject, leaving the true answer ambiguous.
- Spanner in the Works: There were only supposed to be five Masters in the System Grail War, with the sixth Master being the Overseer who only takes shots at people disrupting the war. The Protagonist appearing with Kama and filling the unclaimed Assassin Servant seat, while possibly part of the Ordeal Call, wasn't within the plans for the actual war.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The first half of this chapter's story heavily lifts from Fate/Zero, as a variant of Gilles teamed up with the only truly malevolent Master, who is determined to have gone too far when he summons his Eldritch Abomination to wreak havoc and the other Masters are ordered by the Grail War's supervisor to take it down for the sake of the War and are offered an additional Command Spell as a reward for doing so.
- Wrong Context Magic: Played With. In this world populated by AIs, the Protagonist is the only human presence, still using magical energy instead of digital energy like the AIs have. This isn't a good thing, because processing the digital energy leaves the Protagonist disoriented and sick. Sion has to inject some of her Etherlight threads into the Protagonist as a converter so they can use the digital energy safely.
