Recap / Fate Grand Order S 4 E 2 Id

All of them. All of those vistas you have seen before. They are things that exist within your memories. Things that you even feel a sense of nostalgia over. Things that you cannot forget, even when far away, meaning...

For some reason, you feel like something is very wrong. Familiar faces. You're almost certain they're gentle ones. And they're smiling at you. Brimming with kindness. It's not an unpleasant feeling, you think. Still... There's one thing you're confident about. This must surely be a dream. And if not, some sort of illusion. Your uncertain hunch soon warps into reality, and whatever that fleeting experience was comes to an end. A pitch-black cloak flutters in the back alley, sounding the trumpet of the end. Open your eyes. Now, adorn your Mystic Code. Go forth... Forge ahead, and surpass the flames of vengeance.

Remember/Try to remember.
Your own path/Your course.
What are you here for?/For what reason did you come here?

Full title: "Ordeal Call II - Id, Wastehole of the Unsalvagable".

While Chaldea waits for the next Ordeal Call or Elemental Olga Marie to pop up, it's brainstorming time in the Storm Border's mess hall. Twice now they've had to deal with this mysterious "Count", the final apostle of the Foreign God, and they've decided they won't face him blind a third time. Putting together what they know, they narrow him down to three suspects: Count Dracula, Count Dantès, and Count Cagliostro. Considering their familiarity with the first two, da Vinci is confident that their foe is the latter, which Marie Antoinette and Dantès himself corroborate. It's especially rare for Dantès to chime into idle banter, and he leaves as quickly as he appeared... and notices that he's bleeding out. The Human Order is not playing nice with the Avenger. The Ordeal Call for his Class needs to start soon, and if it's not going to come on its own, he'll make it happen...

Later, an alarm sounds: the FATE Summoning System has activated on its own! The system needs the authorization of both Director Goredolf and da Vinci to access, a copious surge of energy from the Storm Border to power that not even Nemo noticed, and a Master to operate it. Everyone is very perplexed. Meuniere escorts the newly summoned Servant to the Command Room, and we're introduced to Hassan of the Shining Star, an Assassin. An Assassin that claims to know the Protagonist, having fought with them in Tokyo... not that anyone has any knowledge of this. He also has a serious chip on his shoulder for Dantès. Kadoc figures out that this Servant must be from the future.

—But as discussions get heated, the Protagonist is suddenly beset by a massive wave of exhaustion. They barely take a few staggered steps towards Mash before abruptly falling unconscious... and when they next wake, they find themselves in Tokyo, having some holes in their memories and living an oddly ordinary school life with their family. But they deeply recognize that none of this is right...

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Tropes in this chapter:

• And You Were There: All of the characters the Protagonist meets in "Tokyo" are facsimiles resembling Mash and many Servants from Chaldea.
• Anti-Frustration Features: This chapter heavily pushes the player to use the story-mandated Avengers. Unlike previous instances of Forced Story Supports that are not fondly remembered, the Avengers are given a very meaty damage boost and fight-specific buffs so they're properly tailored to the fights they're forced into.
• Arc Hero: Jeanne Alter, the game's invokedEnsemble Dark Horse of the Avenger Class, gets the spotlight for the first time in a long time.
• Arc Words: The Count of Monte Cristo's involvement with Chaldea began and ended with the same three words: "Wait, and hope."
• Armor-Piercing Question: Dantès mercilessly hammers the Protagonist with the ugly truth of Avengers throughout the entire chapter. Even when they finally understand the true nature of the Class and still manage to find a good reason for it to exist, they must still answer the question: if the Protagonist can only retain their Avenger friends by walking the same bloodstained and burnt-out path they do, would they do it? And the answer remains no. They seek salvation for others, not vengeance; to destroy out of hatred just isn't who they are. Even with the Complex Breakthrough and the Protagonist and Avengers considering each other a friend, they are almost entirely incompatible as Master and Servant.
• Big Bad: Dantès reprises his role from Prison Tower, managing to be both this and the Big Good just like before.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Count Cagliostro, on the other hand, got the short end of the stick despite his previous build-up in the Flare-Olga Marie fight and the Fate/Samurai Remnant crossover. Despite the threats posed by his creations, Cagliostro himself couldn't measure up; Dantès not only made a trap for Cagliostro as a secondary function of the Singularity, he correctly predicted and countered every move he'd make against the Protagonist. By the time he's gotten a One-Winged Angel cooked up, he's a mere Post-Final Boss next to Dantès who has him beaten twice over, either by collapsing the Singularity on top of him or teaming up with the Protagonist to massacre his final form.
• Bittersweet Ending: Dantès' Gambit Pile Up goes off without a hitch, perhaps even better than he'd hoped, resulting in the Protagonist killing two birds in one stone by achieving the Avenger Complex Breakthrough and defeating Count Cagliostro. But it's ironically because of the Complex Breakthrough that many of Chaldea's Avengers still have to leave, and the parting is clearly something that neither the Protagonist nor any of the Avengers are okay with, but it's still better than annulling every Avenger contract or letting the Master become The Unfettered just to stay with them. All the Protagonist can do is maintain their Shadow Servant versions and pray they'll be reunited in the future.
• Black Bug Room: Id is the Protagonist's own Black Bug Room turned into a Singularity. On the surface it looks like a Happy Place at first, but it hides the Bug Room (within the Protagonist's own house, no less) that takes the form of a long, winding stairwell into the darkness where Dantès does his work of burning away the Protagonist's trauma and mental interference. Part of the reason Dantès made the Singularity is to tackle the fact that the Protagonist is not okay after their long journey through the game, and this gives them a chance to finally address their lingering trauma in a controlled environment.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: With the Ordeal Call now forcing the issue, the dangling plot thread of the Protagonist's ideals versus the Avengers' methods finally reaches a head here. The Avengers are Secretly Dying if they can't sate their lust for vengeance and destruction, and the Protagonist is too kindhearted to let them cut loose. There's a Hope Spot in the form of the Complex Breakthrough (which Jeanne Alter in particular was really hoping for), but it tragically doesn't erase the Avengers' flaw — because it's not a flaw at all, Avengers are meant to expose humanity's problems as violently as possible and then burn themselves away. In the end, Dantès has to make the Protagonist to face the sad reality: if they continue to walk the path of salvation rather than destruction, then the Avengers can't walk alongside them anymore.
• Call-Back:
  • Cagliostro's presence hearkens back to Heian-kyo as he was one of the participants there, which allowed him to enter the protagonist's mental landscape via Douman, a fact that's teased in the Appendix before being directly confirmed in Cagliostro's profile. Several Servants are understandably cross with Douman when this is revealed in the epilogue, with Sei Shounagon called in to punish him like she has in previous events/Interludes.
  • It's revealed the Garden of Lost Will trauma in Lostbelt 6 amplified the issues Dantès had to deal with in the Protagonist's mind. The reason he's seen bleeding out in the prologue is because he's been working himself to the bone trying to fix it, and the emergence of the Ordeal Call didn't do him any favors.
  • In the ending scene of the Avengers saying goodbye to their friends in Chaldea, they're mostly towards people they were familiar with when they were alive — so you might be wondering why Nursery Rhyme is among them. That one is Hessian Lobo's farewell scene; it was established in Avicebron's Interlude, of all things, that Nursery Rhyme Speaks Fluent Animal and is actually good friends with Lobo.
  • Abigail is an odd non-presence that only appears in flashbacks here, despite her being confirmed in Interludes to be one half of the Protagonist's primary mental defense force (the other half being Dantès himself) while the hellscape that is this chapter takes place in the Protagonist's mind; surely she of all people would know the nature of the Singularity before anyone else? It turns out, she certainly did — because Dantès informed her about his real plans first thing. She's the backup in case something goes wrong, and Dantès' departure means she'll be protecting the Protagonist's mind from now on.
• The Cavalry: Funnily enough, it's not the Protagonist's Servants, but the Protagonist themselves showing up in the final battle to empower their Servants to defeat Cagliostro.
• Continuity Nod: Servants can possess people with similar characteristics to them to maintain their own autonomy in the world, as seen in Fate/Apocrypha with Jeanne d'Arc possessing Laeticia. It is surely no coincidence that Jeanne Alter does the same with her facsimile in Id.
• Cruel to Be Kind: Goodness gracious fuck, Dantès. He constructed a peaceful School Setting Simulation somewhat resembling the Protagonist's life before Chaldea for the express purpose of tearing it down as brutally as possible. Even worse, Dantès does the bloodiest of the work himself, having used real souls from the Bleached Earth to make the simulation lifelike and killed the Protag's substitute family personally. He did this to Teach Them Anger so they can see what makes Avengers tick, and ultimately to prepare them for the brutal fact that if their goal remains to fight for salvation, then the Avengers who fight for destruction cannot walk alongside them to the end. No one can refute Dantès' points, but everyone (including Dantès himself) agrees that he took it way too far.
• Cryptic Conversation: When everyone finally gets a chance to question him, Dantès is profoundly unhelpful, being to-the-point yet not actually answering the important questions, something everyone notes is not at all like him. Jeanne Alter is practically screaming at him to answer any of the questions the Protagonist just asked, and his only response is silence. Even the more helpful shadow of Dantès answers an important yes-or-no question by nodding and shaking his head. His motives are a total mystery until the Protagonist finally confronts him alone in the Grand Battle.
• Darker and Edgier: If you thought the other Ordeal Call chapters were all going to be light-hearted romps like Paper Moon, you're in for a ride.
• Debut Queue: Marie Antoinette Alter (SSR Avenger) returns and debuts on launch, along with newcomer Hassan of the Shining Star (SR Assassin). The following week introduced the Count of Monte Cristo (SSR Avenger)^note (a different version of Edmond Dantès) and Alessandro di Cagliostro (SR Pretender).
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Like in previous cases where the Protagonist has taken a mental trip, Chaldea quickly realizes a Singularity is responsible. Unlike previous cases, the Singularity is actually inside the Protagonist's head this time. They expect a new distortion to be found on the Bleached Earth, only to be struck dumb when they find it right on the Storm Border in the medbay where the Protagonist is currently sleeping off their coma, and they can't Rayshift anyone in.
• Gambit Pile Up: True to form, the Count of Monte Cristo doesn't do anything by halves, juggling all of the gambits himself.
  • Plan the first: he instigates the Avenger Ordeal Call himself, setting up a carefully crafted simulation to teach the Protagonist about Avengers in the hopes they'll reach an acceptable answer for the Human Order. His own opinion is that the Protagonist should just ditch the Avenger Class altogether, and though he's not against being proven wrong, he fights them at full strength in defense of this.
  • Plan the second: he constructs the simulation around the Protagonist's unaddressed traumas. Dantès has moonlighted as the Protagonist's main mental defense mechanism ever since the Prison Tower event, so he has access to their mind. This lets them face their trauma so they won't be as burdened by Dantès' absence in the aftermath, and in the event of a relapse, Abigail has taken up the mantle. Her backup is especially important in case the plan to defeat Cagliostro goes south, which leads into...
  • Plan the third: lure Count Cagliostro in so that he can be defeated. Seeing an opportunity to deal with Chaldea's latest recurring pest, Dantès organizes things so that the Apostle of the Foreign God sees the Singularity, and a world made up of their enemy's trauma is just too juicy of a target for the world-renowned plagiarist to ignore. It's a risky intrusion, but Dantès believes the Protagonist can handle it. Once the Ordeal Call is solved, Dantès confronts Cagliostro intending to collapse the Singularity on top of them both.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • This Singularity is doing unfriendly things to the Protagonist's mind that empower Avengers under their employ, but weaken every other kind of Servant, and the penalty lessens as the Protagonist gets closer to the Complex Breakthrough. This is reflected in many of the Singularity's enemies having Damage Reduction against everything but Avengers.
  • The Avengers that get Put on a Bus are reflected by a "LINK LOST" text imposed on their icon in the Servant archive. They leave their Shadow Servants behind so the Protagonist can still use them in battle, but they are no longer physically at Chaldea. Any Avengers still present are summoned after Id is cleared (like the Count of Monte Cristo), have an alternate Class they can fall back on (Servants with alternate versions that didn't start as Avengers), or are Servantverse Servants (literal Joke Characters)... and Aŋra Mainiiu (the odd one out which no one can explain... because everyone keeps forgetting he exists).
  • Special mention goes to the Count of Monte Cristo, another version of Edmond Dantès. Being summoned post-Id means he has a better Master-Servant connection, but still not a good one following the Complex Breakthrough, so his Servant data is appended with "LINK BAD" rather than LINK LOST. Marie Alter escapes this due to having a Rider fallback option, but her Saint Graph is still noted to be volatile in her profile.
  • Post-Id, Dantès mentions that Abigail is in charge of protecting the Protagonist's mind now, and she's been asking other magic- and dream-savvy Servants for advice. If the player owns Abigail along with any of the interviewees, they'll be given new My Room lines addressing this.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: The Complex Breakthrough, and the accompanying Human Order Foundation increase from D to C, have their animations play when the chapter is completed as usual. But in this case these canonically happened after the Protagonist defeated Dantès, and at that point in the chapter there's still a fair bit of plot and the final battle with Cagliostro to get through.
• The Gloves Come Off: This isn't like the Prison Tower where Dantès was behaving as an Aloof Ally guiding the Protagonist out of Solomon's trap. This time, Dantès is playing to win, signified by his new Count of Monte Cristo form that unleashes his full power on the Protagonist.
• God Was My Copilot: No one notices that Aŋra Mainiiu slipped in with the rest of the Avengers when The Cavalry arrives. The player, on the other hand, will sure as hell notice the senior Avenger's going-away present for his Classmates: both versions of Dantès getting a titanic damage buff that demolishes Cagliostro's several-million HP final form.
• Good All Along: Just as in the Prison Tower event that introduced him, Dantès is not as villainous as he appears.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Nope. The facsimiles of Mash and the child and adult versions of da Vinci are shown dead in the bloodiest CGs in the game.
• Gut Punch:
  • The Protagonist finds the fake Mash, big da Vinci and little da Vinci all bloodily murdered in their house. While it's not the first time they've seen their friends die, they've at least had Resurrected for a Job, Dying Moment of Awesome, or Face Death with Dignity in play to lessen the sting. But in this case their substitute family has been murdered in cold blood, and they are clearly going through it.
  • The Protagonist and Jeanne Alter outright go on a date complete with holding hands, and it's clear neither of them mind. It's the biggest Ship Tease that's been featured in a Main Story arc to date... and then a bunch of the Avengers have to be Put on a Bus following their Complex Breakthrough, including Jeanne Alter. She and the Protagonist clearly take it the hardest out of everyone, to the point where they're both brought to tears.
• I Am a Monster: This is the Avenger Ordeal Call, so naturally exploring this is the Central Theme. How can they be called Heroic Spirits if the Avenger Class is comprised solely of villains and monsters whose only purpose seems to be destroying things to sate an insatiable lust for vengeance? Dantès has it the worst, fully believing Avengers to be an irredeemable stain on the Protagonist's soul, and he constructed the Id Singularity hoping their solution for this Ordeal Call would be to sever every Avenger contract they have. The Reconstruction that leads to the Complex Breakthrough is that while the destructive nature of Avengers is an immutable fact, it is also true that Avengers become Avengers because there was some sort of injustice involved; their deeper purpose is to expose those injustices rather than let them be swept under the rug, for good or for ill, forcing humanity to confront the root of the problem and emerge better for it.
• I Am Not a Gun: Tragically defied. Unlike other Classes that have more agency, the self-destructive mold of the Avenger Class is Necessarily Evil. They are meant to be self-disposing tactical nukes deployed against a specific target, collateral damage be damned, and nothing can change that. Allowing Avengers to linger in the world makes them a danger, not due to instinct or nature akin to crazier Servants like Berserkers, but because burning everything around them like an uncontrolled flame is simply what they do and they have no control over it. As cruel as it is to say, they are ultimately Living Weapons, and weapons as dangerous as Servants need to be shelved when their work is done.
• If I Wanted You Dead...: Dantès being in control of a Singluarity within the Protagonist's own mind meant that he had so many ways to kill them virtually unopposed, some of which they even point out, but he hasn't followed through. This is what tips the Protagonist off that Dantès hasn't gone rogue like he appears.
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: The Ordeal Call Singularity takes place not in Tokyo, but a mental space in the Protagonist's head resembling Tokyo.
• Love Redeems: Dantès has been defeated and ejected the Protagonist out of Id, intending to collapse the Singularity atop himself in a Heroic Sacrifice. What convinces the Protagonist to go back for him? A manifestation of Haydée — Dantès' wife, the very person he went on his famous crusade to rescue in life, and the ideal that the Avenger Class prevents him from reaching. Dantès never knew it, but she's been a part of his Saint Graph all along, and it's more than enough for the Protagonist to save him from the miserable self-destruction he'd planned.
• Mind Rape: Dantès had been well-established by this point as the Protagonist's main line of mental defense... except in this case, he's the Big Bad of the chapter. The Protagonist is not in for a good time. Cagliostro tries to take it up a notch by becoming a One-Winged Angel nightmare mish-mash of the worst enemies the Protagonist has faced (Demon Pillars, Trees of Emptiness, the Olympian machine gods, Cernunnos, and Lostbelt ORT), but thankfully Dantès is back with us at that point.
• Mind Virus: The true Cagliostro was turned into one by Douman, having been injected into the Protagonist's mind all the way back in Heian-kyo. With the Garden of Lost Will having made the Protagonist's mental state worse and the Ordeal Call imposing a time limit on fixing it, Dantès decided it was time to deal with that ticking time bomb.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning: Count Cagliostro is defeated here. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean the Elemental Olga-Maries are no longer a threat, as Cagliostro reveals before dying that they're primed to activate on their own.
• Morton's Fork: The Protagonist fails the Avenger Ordeal Call or loses to Dantès? They'd have to sever every Avenger contract they have to continue the Ordeal Call. The Protagonist passes the Avenger OC and defeats Dantès? The Avengers still have to be Put on a Bus because their destructive methods run contrary to the Protagonist's goals of saving as many as possible. Whether the Protagonist had passed or failed, the Avengers had to go.
• Normally, I Would Be Dead Now: When Cagliostro finally makes his move, it's with a literal Back Stab straight through the Protagonist's heart just as they are about to confront Dantès. Too bad for him, Dantès predicted this and loaned his "Wait, and Hope" Noble Phantasm to Hassan of the Shining Star to help the Protagonist survive and fend Cagliostro off.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Several Avengers are Put on a Bus and officially gone from the story. This is especially gut-wrenching in regards to Jeanne d'Arc Alter and Edmond Dantès who have been with us since the first year of the game, the former being a massive invokedEnsemble Dark Horse who owes her very existence to Chaldea in some ways, and the latter having a well-established hand in the main plot as our protector from mental attacks.
• Not Quite Dead: Dantes manages to pull this off on the Protagonist's behalf, as when Cagliostro stabs them through the back and pierce's their heart, it's revealed that Dantes gave access to his Noble Phantasm Attendre, Esperer to Hassan of the Shining Star so he could stop the Protagonist from dying.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The opening narration notes that Dantès is inevitably Chewing the Scenery with practically every declaration he makes. The fact that he doesn't do this when taking charge of the Avenger Ordeal Call is the first sign that he's not messing around. Throughout the chapter, he has none of his usual hamminess and is either straight to the point or dead silent, neither of which suit him at all and do a damn good job of painting him as having turned traitor.
• Out of Focus: As in the previous Ordeal Call chapter, the Protagonist is cut off from Chaldea. A brief scene in the early chapters showing everyone panicking at the Protagonist's collapse is the only proof we're given that none of the characters we see in Id are the real ones, who otherwise only appear in flashbacks.
• Passing the Torch: Because this Singularity will end in Dantès' departure from Chaldea no matter what happens, he is no longer able to protect the Protagonist's mind. Knowing this, he entrusts that task to Abigail in full from now on. In voice lines for various mystically-inclined Servants unlocked after clearing Id, Abby is going around asking for advice, showing she's taking the job seriously.
• Post-Climax Confrontation: As far as the actual events of Id go, the Complex Breakthrough and resolution to the plot happened when the Protagonist defeated Dantès. What comes after is the confrontation with Cagliostro, who is not as difficult of a fight and serves as more of a sendoff for Dantès' and Jeanne Alter's character arcs.
• Puff of Logic: The Complex Breakthrough reveals that this is the price to be paid for misusing Avengers. Their true purpose that caused the Breakthrough is that they're meant to swiftly and violently expose injustices (like the ones that made them who they are), and on a Bleached Earth with no living beings, there can be no injustice. By participating in Chaldea's more protracted and altruistic fight, they're denying the reason their Class exists, and as a result their Saint Graphs are deteriorating; the failure to sate their lust for vengeance is slowly killing them. This is seen in Marie Alter's profile, having been canonically summoned after the events of Id, feeling that her Saint Graph is very unstable.
• Put on a Bus: Dantès, Jeanne Alter, Salieri, Gorgon, Hessian Lobo, Taira no Kagekiyo, and Nitocris Alter are ultimately forced to leave Chaldea behind. Even with the Complex Breakthrough, their Class has no place in a battle where the objective isn't to destroy the enemy.
• Psychosomatic Superpower Outage: Invoked. Dantès Singularity tweaks the Protagonist's mind to work better with Chaldea's Avengers than their spot-summoned Shadow Servants. As the Protagonist grows closer to an Avenger-like mindset, their Shadow Servants acclimate better in turn.
• Ret-Canon: The female protagonist is stated to be in the volleyball club, which was a trait introduced in the manga adaptation of Shimousa, and has now been subsequently retroactively applied to the game's story as the school simulation is based on the protagonist's actual memories of living in Tokyo.
• The Reveal: After hiding his face for so long, the Count makes his first physical appearance and his True Name is revealed to be Alessandro di Cagliostro.
• Sacrificial Lion: The facsimiles of adult da Vinci, child da Vinci, and Mash serves as the Protagonist's mother, little sister, and childhood friend respectively. Their only purpose in the narrative that Dantès wrote is to die horribly and be Stuffed in the Fridge for the Protagonist to find.
• School Setting Simulation: The primary setting for this chapter is a Japanese school with Servants as the students.
• Sequel Hook:
  • Unlike the lack of info that followed clearing Paper Moon, there is a visible distortion on the world map after clearing Id. It appears to be at Florence, Italy, coinciding with two things. The first is that it lines up with The Divine Comedy that was namedropped in the Ordeal Call promo trailer, as its writer Dante Alighieri was born in Italy. The second is that it's also the birthplace of Leonardo da Vinci, who has a... rather concerning plot thread that hasn't been tied up yet.
  • Yet another prod at a Foreigner Ordeal Call in a post-chapter scene. The flashbacks that take place in Chaldea aren't shy about Abigail knowing more than she lets on. With Dantès Put on a Bus, he's asked Abby to take up his job of protecting the Protagonist's mind from their trauma, and she knows better than most how the Foreigners and their Outer Gods operate. After Id is cleared, she's seen going around asking for advice from anyone knowledgeable about mentality and dreams, preparing for the storm she knows is coming.
• Ship Tease: The Protagonist and Jeanne Alter end up on what is basically a date, which both of them quickly notice — and neither of them are terribly off-put by it, going as far as holding hands. The subtext is not subtle.
• Stab the Scorpion: Cagliostro introduces himself this way, at first appearing as a Dual Boss featuring himself and Marie Alter, but then turning against her mid-fight to put himself on the Protagonist's side. Of course, Cagliostro being the Count that Chaldea has been looking for, this is a long con that only lasts until the Protagonist's guard is sufficiently lowered.
• Suddenly Voiced: To make the farewell more special than the normal Servant departure, both Dantès and Jeanne Alter are voiced for their final goodbyes to the protagonist.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Rather then wait for him to reappear and lend more clues about his identity, Chaldea is able to quickly figure out that The Count is Cagliostro simply by having Servants who would've dealt with Counts in their life listen to a recording of his voice and see if it rang any bells. The fact that his moniker is "The Count" already narrows down the candidates to mainly three, and Chaldea has had enough interactions with Vlad (Count Dracula) and Dantes (the Count of Monte Cristo) that they can confidently eliminate those two, so it's mainly formality that they're confirming that it's Cagliostro.
  • Even with the deeper meaning of the Avenger Class discovered, destructive monsters that serve a purpose are still destructive monsters; it's literally their job to expose injustice as swiftly and brutally as possible, and not doing this damages their Saint Graphs. How does the Protagonist reconcile this and keep their Avenger friends? ...The simple answer is that they can't. They're just not the sort of person that can be The Unfettered even if that's what it takes to let the Avengers stay, and none of the Avengers want to see them become like that either. Neither side is willing to let the other destroy themselves, and so for the sakes of both, they have to go their separate ways.
• Symbiotic Possession: Jeanne Alter, Salieri, and Taira enter the Singularity by possessing their counterparts there.
• Wham Episode: Chaldea has to pay the dues for misusing Avengers by letting several of them go. While their contracts are maintained thanks to the Complex Breakthrough so their Shadow Servant versions can be called upon, the genuine Servants are gone. It's a sobering demonstration that we got off lucky in Paper Moon and that there are consequences for misusing Extra Classes, painting the coming Ruler and Foreigner Ordeal Calls in a much more dire light.
• What the Hell, Hero?: After Dantès is defeated and he goes on alone to deal with Cagliostro, he's later found by the other Avengers who rightly let him have it for the hell he put the Protagonist through, and they especially let him have it for marching to his own death when he knows that's the last thing the Protagonist wants. Dantès admits he's guilty as charged.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The story starts as light-hearted school nonsense with a hint of Magical Girl-esque shenanigans taking place beneath the surface, with characters "contracting" to unlock Avenger powers to combat monsters that manifest in distortions in reality — and then things suddenly plunge into grimdark territory with brutal on-screen deaths, along with the revelation that the Avenger power isn't as benign as it seems and confronting the contractor about it. Did we just describe Fate or Puella Magi Madoka Magica?
• Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: The Human Order Foundation has once again "increased on its own" while Chaldea was sitting on their hands, having no context for Paper Moon or Id. Goredolf irritably lampshades it.
• Wolverine Publicity: Marie Antoinette Alter, a Servant that has been hotly requested by the playerbase ever since the Fate/Requiem crossover event, is marketed front and center for this chapter (even on the title card as seen at the top of this page). Despite this, she's actually just another Monster of the Week whose introduction coincides with Cagliostro's; aside from coming back to "repay" Cagliostro for his Stab the Scorpion moment at her expense, she has little overall bearing on the plot.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: The Protagonist has always believed this about Avengers, and now the time has come to prove it to the World. What's interesting is that it's the Avengers themselves they need to convince, because all of them believe they're only good for destroying things and think the Protagonist is a fool for believing otherwise. It's the Protagonist that's proven right, though they still have to part ways in the end.

---

"Wait, and hope.

All the stars in the sky are watching. Never forget that your journey is toward light.

—We've had a long journey together, my accomplice."