Fanfic / Where We Don't Belong

Due to the nature of this fanfic, it's impossible to talk about it without revealing massive story spoilers for Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and the Future Redeemed expansion. It's recommended you play the game first before continuing. All spoilers for the Xenoblade Chronicles series will be unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

With the restart of Origin, the worlds were supposed to be reverted to their states right before the convergence, but something goes wrong and the system is forced to go back to earlier backups, back when their original creator was still alive. This process caused errors small enough to be ignored by the system. These errors take the form of the eight members of Ouroboros, who find themselves spread across the worlds of the Bionis and Mechonis and Alrest with their abilities and, more importantly, their memories still intact, right when two adventures were about to start that would change their respective worlds forever.

Where We Don't Belong is a post-ending, Peggy Sue-type fanfic, in which the main characters of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 are sent back to the beginnings of Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 respectively and affect their stories in various ways. It was written by DewitLater and can be read here.

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This story contains examples of:

• Adaptational Early Appearance: On account of the Ouroboros waking up in very different locations across their respective worlds, this was bound to happen.
  • Both Egil and Vanea appear within the first few chapters due to Lanz waking up in Agniratha.
  • Due to Sena waking up near Garfont Village, we meet Vandham and his mercenaries before Rex and his group make it to Uraya.
  • Alvis appears in Chapter 4 during the attack on Colony 9 to stop Noah from interfering.
  • Eunie encounters Gael'gar, whose only appearances are in the Future Connected epilogue, in Chapter 6.
  • Similar to Gael'gar, Maxis, who also only appeared in Future Connected, is introduced in Chapter 9, set around the same time as the Colony 6 incident.
  • Chapter 15 has the Bionis group encountering Fogbeasts while on their way to Makna Forest.
• All of the Other Reindeer: During her time in Alcamoth, Eunie is treated rather negatively by many full-blooded High Entia due to her blatantly Homs features and her highly unusual personality for a High Entia.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Noah catches Riku off-guard with one after finding out about their current circumstances, forcing him to fess up about what he knows is currently off about the past.
  Noah: We're not just in our home worlds, split apart once more. Rather, we've all found ourselves transported into the past of them ... we've gone backwards in time. But that's not news to you, is it Riku?
• Armor-Piercing Response: When Mio and Sena overhear Vandham refuting Rex's Technological Pacifist stance by noting that armies rely on far more than just weapons and that one way or another everyone is involved in the "war", the former doesn't take that very well given the Forever War she spent so much time ending on Aionios and tries to refute him in turn. Vandham still manages to pick apart her argument just as succinctly as he did Rex's.
  Mio: [Sena and I have] seen too much war not to know [life can be cruel]. But I don't want to believe that's all there is to our lives. There's more than conflict in this world... I know it.
  Vandham: It's noble to want peace, Mio. But even peace is a resource to be fought over. After all, that's why Mor Ardain and Uraya are at each other's throats… because they want that peace and security, even at the expense of others.
• Beat the Curse Out of Him: After Ethel and Ashera get possessed by the Fog, the only way to free them is to knock them out.
• Berserk Button:
  • Even before she meets Dughall face-to-face, Mio is up in arms the moment she hears the title of "Consul" given her experiences with Moebius. She immediately draws arms to resist arrest.
  • Unsurprisingly, Mio and Noah are hostile the second they find out Moebius, especially X and Y, have returned.
• Big Little Brother: Played for Laughs when Fugiri (Number 13) declares Lanz her and Segiri's little brother.
• Big "WHAT?!": Sena has one big enough to be heard in all of Garfont when learning about Noah and Mio being able to communicate in their dreams.
• Breather Episode: Chapter 18, which deals with the emotional aftermath of the events of Chapter 17, with Sena coming terms with her vengeful behavior. However the chapter ends with Egil deciding to imprison Lanz as the former could no longer trust the latter.
• Brought Down to Badass:
  • The Ouroboros lose access to their class switch and related abilities, meaning they're merely experienced soldiers. Well, until they start discovering the specifics of their natural abilities (i.e. Sena discovering her Blade abilities) and learning the techniques of their worlds. They also discover they can still use Ouroboros, though without the ability to communicate outside of sleeping, the risk of leaving the other side vulnerable makes it only feasible as a last resort. That said, Mio managed to tap into part of the Ouroboros power when fighting Teach and Miyabi, unaware that is how the power was used before the discovery of Interlinking in Future Redeemed, though how it is achieved is unknown.
  • To stop Lucky Seven from cutting through everything, including the Faced Mechon, Alvis had to tie its powers to that of the Monado. He turned it into essentially a second Monado to nerf it.
• The Cameo: Mio dreams of her sister Glimmer just long enough to note the resemblance to Pyra, but there's no sign she'll show up for real.
• Discard and Draw:
  • Taion may have lost access to the class-switching and instant mastery of weaponry from being an Ouroboros, as well as an inability to transform without Eunie being present, but he's the first of the Agnian trio to bond with a Blade, with his being Adenine.
  • To compensate for the loss of many of their advantages as Ouroboros and to keep pace with the rest of Rex's party, Mio and Sena begin learning to work together as a Driver and Blade team once they reunite in Uraya.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap:
  • Mio, Sena and Taion have retained their Blade abilities in Aionios. However, due to the fact that Alrest isn't open-minded about human-blade hybrids, especially with Mio risking execution as a Flesh Eater, Mio and Taion can't get away with fighting with their own blade weapons without raising questions, thus necessitating them to learn how to fight as Drivers, with Sena acting as Mio's blade once they reunite.
    • It's slightly downplayed with Taion, since the Blade that he awakened is Adenine, allowing them to pretend that Taion's Mondo are an extension of Adenine's abilities.
    • Mio, Sena, and possibly Taion, have retained their access to multiple elements (So far, Mio has wind and dark, Sena has fire, electric and earth), but since no other Alrestian blades have demonstrated such, they often need to stick to one element (Sena with fire, for instance) to avoid sticking out more than they already have.
  • Despite no longer being in Aionios, Lucky Seven still retains its ability to cut through anything, so Alvis actively intervenes to apply a handicap, by tying its power to the Monado. This ensures that Noah can't just cleave through most of their opposition, especially the Faced Mechon.
  • The Ouroboros can merge into their Ouroboros forms, but considering they're separated by time-and-space in separate dimensions with no way to contact each other directly unless they're asleep, they can't use it on a whim since it could leave the other vulnerable at the worst moment and only for a limited time. As such, it's only ever used as a last resort, and even then it may not be sufficient to solve the problem, as the fight against the fog-boosted Leone Telethia demonstrates.
• The Dreaded: Unsurprisingly, Mórag and Brighid are viewed with equal parts fear and respect by the Ardainian military for their roles as the Special Inquisitor and the "Jewel of Mor Ardain" respectively. Dirk goes from ready to escalate his fight with Taion to the death to all but pissing himself when she shows up, and even Taion is shocked by how quickly he obeys her orders without complaint.
• Dreaming of Times Gone By: Mio begins to dream of her own long-lost childhood, finally remembering some hints of her parents. She also starts to remember her parents' friends, noting that Zeke and Pandoria seem oddly familiar to her.
• Enemy Mine: X and Y have formed one with Ontos, who had previously directly opposed them as both A and Alpha, to ensure that Aionios can exist once more. That said, the alliance is Teeth-Clenched Teamwork at best: Ontos makes it clear to them that if it weren't for the extraordinary circumstances, they would have erased the two Moebius immediately, X and Y are only cooperating with their self-proclaimed creator to fulfill their own agenda of bringing Z back, and ultimately their reasons for wanting to make Aionios exist again will likely put them in conflict.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Mórag is quick to pick up on various oddities in Mio's and Taion's personalities and fighting styles, correctly surmising that they've had military training, likely worked closely together before they abandoned their organization, and have developed a personal dislike of military service due to their likely unpleasant experiences. However, unknowing of Aionios and the events thereof, she instead believes they were involved in some remnant of White Chair or some internal power play within Mor Ardain's anti-imperial faction that they escaped from.
• Face–Heel Turn: Given the circumstances in Alrest that are less favourable to Blades, Cammuravi is now a member of Torna and is thus fighting to destroy Alrest, a fact that takes Mio and Sena by complete surprise.
• Fee Fi Faux Pas: Eunie instinctively refers to Melia as "Your Majesty" instead of "Your Highness" when she first meets her, earning her a number of weird looks from everyone else in attendance since Melia is only a princess and not even the one expected to take the High Entia throne at this stage.
• Fighting Your Friend: The Ouroboros group on both worlds end up fighting some of their old Heroes allies due to unique circumstances.
  • Juniper ambushes Mio in Gormott to collect her bounty after her group escaped Mórag.
  • Noah is forced to fight Ashera and Ethel when they become under the effects of the Black Fog in Chapter 15.
  • Mio and Sena are forced to fight Cammuravi when he shows up as a member of Torna. Later on, they go against Teach and Miyabi when Teach seeks to forcefully bring Nimue back to the Praetorium.
  • Subverted when Noah's group meet Zeon in Chapter 20, as Eunie confirms her familiarity with Noah before things get too hostile, not helped by Ashera actively goading Zeon.
• Four Lines, All Waiting: The fic starts with six different stories, one for each of the Ouroboros, running at the same time, plus a few side scenes such as Mórag and Brighid or Alvis and Dickson. Most of the time, several characters get their plotlines paused for a chapter or two while the focus is on someone else. That said, the plotlines eventually merge together as the members of Ouroboros reunite.
  • Mio and Sena's plots merge when they meet up in Chapter 7, after Rex's group get eaten by Uraya.
  • Noah and Eunie finally reunite in Chapter 20, after the latter's group is still spent from fighting the Leone Telethia.
• Gilligan Cut:
  • After ending up in Alcamoth and seeing the mural she last saw in Keves castle, Eunie hoped that Noah and Lanz had better luck than her. Cut to Lanz, in the middle of Agniratha.
  • While quietly grumbling about having to climb to reach Makna Forest, he notes that Eunie might complain, then acknowledge that she could be in worse circumstances. Cut to Eunie struggling to keep Melia, Zeon, and Melia's guards alive against the Leone Telethia, quickly made worse by the black fog possession.
• Half-Human Hybrid:
  • It turns out that Juniper's parents were a Driver and her Blade, making them a natural Blade-Human Hybrid in opposition to the products of experiments such as Blade Eaters and Flesh Eaters. It's all but stated that the Praetorium would react very poorly to their existence.
  • In Alcamoth, Eunie is immediately identified as a half-Homs High Entia. Considering she doesn't really know what either of those things are, she does not appreciate being looked down on for this.
  • Mio is all but outright stated to be the daughter of Rex (a human) and Nia (a Blade turned Flesh Eater).
• How Do I Shot Web?: Mio and Sena run into this as they start training to fight like a "proper" Driver and Blade team. Not only have they lost the ability to instantly master each other's weapons as Ouroboros, forcing Mio to relearn how to use Sena's hammer properly, but since both of them lack the instinctive knowledge of a Blade they don't even know how to use an Affinity Link at first and need pointers. Nimue infers from such that Mio has no memory of being a Blade in the first place, in response to her uncertainty of being a Flesh Eater.
• Identical Stranger:
  • Everyone comments on the similarity between Nia and Mio; not only is Mio arrested under a case of Mistaken Identity, but Nia talks to her about Flesh Eaters after Brighid declares she's one, and Torna's Blade tracker identifies them as nearly identical. Mio's dream implies that Nia is in fact her mother.
  • Downplayed when Sena and Mio see XC2 Vandham, as his appearance due to his Urayan heritage compared to "regular human" XC3 Vandham trips them up until they hear his distinctive voice and hear other people use his name, then the similarities hit them like bricks.
• Inconvenient Summons: As each Ouroboros pairings have been split between Bionis and Alrest, Interlinking works differently. When the one who evokes the Interlink calls for their partner, their partner's body ends up unconscious, which means rather unfortunate circumstances if they were in the middle of something.
  • Lanz was finishing up his workout when Sena called for him, which lead to him getting knocked out in front of Fugiri. This unfortunately leads to Egil going through his memories and thus imprisoning him.
  • When a desperate Eunie called for Taion, Taion was about to begin sparring with Kylie and her Blade Finch as part of a training session headed by Mórag.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • On the XC1 side at least we have Dickson and Alvis, who are obviously very interested in ensuring that canon events still happen like they're supposed to. Moebius X and Y, who are cooperating with Ontos, are equally invested in ensuring that Aionios can come to being, by preventing the worlds from being destroyed before the Intersection occurs.
  • Nia still ends up captured by Brighid, even after they mistook Mio for her. In fairness, the captures took place not long between each other when the Ardainians were still on alert.
  • Metal Face still kills Fiora during the Colony 9 attack due to Alvis interfering with Noah's attempt to save her.
  • Due to Mio's attempt to avert Vandham's death in Olethro Ruins leading to her seemingly performing a Heroic Sacrifice, Rex still ends up recklessly charging at Malos, this time to avenge Mio. As a result, Mythra has to reawaken to save him, and Obrona and Sever die, though the reason Obrona dies this time is due to Sena rather than Mythra.
  • Despite Eunie and Zeon joining Melia's hunting party, they aren't able to prevent the group from being nearly wiped out, must less defeat the Leone Telethia. Even Eunie managing to Interlink with Taion didn't help, partly due to the Telethia being possessed by the black fog.
• Internal Reveal:
  • The audience is aware right from the start that the Ourobouros have been transported to the past, but it takes 17 chapters for the protagonists to discover this.
  • Chapter 19 sees Noah finally confirming that Riku is originally a native of the pre-Aionios worlds, or at the very least knew from the start that they are in the past, from a combination of the revelation from Y and Riku's subtle but unusual reactions to their circumstances.
  • In Chapter 20, due to the previous fight revealing many things that could not be easily hidden away, most of the chapter is dedicated to getting the whole of Rex's group up to speed about Mio and Sena's unusual capabilities and circumstances, such as Mio's Blade Eater status, partially explaining their Ourobouros powers, and how Sena and Mio aren't a typical Blade and Driver.
• Kid from the Future: Mio is all but stated to be an unknowing one to Nia and Rex.
• Luke, I Might Be Your Father: Mio had never considered the question of who her parents might be, what with the whole "born from a Uterine Replicator to fight a Forever War" thing. Speaking to Juniper leads to her finally wondering about her own past, and then she has dreams of her childhood implying her mother is Nia.
• Mind Probe: In Chapter 18, it turns out when Lanz interlinked with Sena, the Machina were witnesses to seeing his physical body going limp. This leads to Egil insisting on scanning his memories, and the things he sees in Lanz's mind leads to Egil having Lanz imprisoned for the latter's association with Noah and the Monado.
• Mistaken Identity:
  • After having her hair cut short again, Mio is almost immediately mistaken for the wanted Nia and captured by Ardainian soldiers. Mio in turn initially thinks Dughall is a Moebius due to his Consul title, though she quickly realizes otherwise when she sees how little respect Brighid has for him during the interrogation, as such disrespect would be unthinkable for most Moebius to tolerate.
  • When Alvis confronts Noah to stop him from interfering with Metal Face's attack on Colony 9, he introduces himself as "A" and this, coupled with his battle form resembling Moebius armor, causes Noah to believe he's a Moebius that somehow survived Aionios' destruction, not helped by Alvis's cryptic references to the Merged Reality.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After her rampage in Chapter 17, Sena becomes horrified and ashamed of her grief-fueled actions, from lashing out at Lanz, to her sadism with Torna, especially since Mio turned out to be alive afterwards.
• Mythology Gag: Rex is amused when Mio rides Dromarch, because he tried to convince Nia to do the same thing in 2.
• Named by the Adaptation:
  • Nia's human "sister" never received a name in the original XC2. In this story, she's named Fille.
  • Number 13 never received a proper name during the original XC3, here she's referred to as Fugiri.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Eunie acts flippant about her upcoming mission, Gael'gar completely drops his usual smug antagonism to warn her about the danger she's going into.
  Gael'gar: Do not underestimate a Telethia, Eunie. They are dangerous beasts, through and through - a cocksure attitude will only get you and your allies killed. If you take nothing else away from this conversation, do not forget that.
• Orwellian Retcon: After the first hero DLC came out, the author went back and rewrote much of the Alrest side of the story. Ino's constant references to Drivers and Blades are too obvious for the Agnian trio to fail to comment on. And following the release of the Future Redeemed DLC, the author touched up on Riku's dialogue.
• Outside-Context Problem: The very existence of the Ouroboros is this to the respective antagonists. Alvis even notes that Noah doesn't appear in any of Zanza's visions, which Shulk later confirms. This is ultimately the reason Ontos kept X and Y alive, despite the mutual animosity between them; they want to minimise the risk of an already bad situation becoming worse.
• Peggy Sue: The story's main premise, the Ouroboros are essentially sent back in time to their respective worlds before Shulk and Rex started their journeys. The twist is that the Ouroboros have no experience with their own native worlds; rather than expertly altering the plot, they're just bungling through with no idea what they're doing.
• Point of Divergence: The main premise of the story is the characters of XC3 interfering with the plots of XC1 and XC2.
  • Not only do we have the Ouroboros, who have most of their powers and memories of XC3, but we also have the Heroes and several major characters and minor NPCs from that game, along with several members of Moebius, who have all been reimagined in what could have been their lives in the original worlds, with Riku and Manana being the only exceptions. Ontos notes that this is a consequence of their existences melding into the worlds, allowing them to exist within the events of XC1 and XC2 without remembering Aionios. Riku further clarifies that several of the former denizens of Aionios are not supposed to be present in the past, citing Ethel, Ashera and Bolearis as examples.
    • Ashera is a famous Colony 9 soldier, with a tendency to refer to Dunban as "Teach".
    • Juniper is a Gormotti archer mercenary. They're still a half-Blade (even though it was implied such a thing never existed before the Architect's gift at the end of X2), and on the run from the Praetirum.
    • Zeon is a guardsman at Alcamoth.
    • Nimue appears as a Blade in Garfont Village, on the run from the Indoline Praetorium.
    • Teach is a warrior monk of the Indoline Praetorium with Isurd and Miyabi as his Blades. He is still a Blade Eater, but hides his core.
    • Triton makes a cameo in Alrest as a pirate captain along with Irma and Fiona.
    • Dirk shows up as a rather infamous Ardainian soldier who begins antagonizing Taion, with a blade named Zahak that resembles his Moebius armour.
    • Ethel is a member of Colony 6's Defence Force, with Bolearis serving under her as usual.
    • Segiri is an awakened member of the Machina under Egil, alongside her sister Fugiri, who was known as Number 13 in Aionios.
    • Cammuravi shows up as a member of Torna, though it's unknown if he's a Flesh Eater or still a normal Blade.
    • X and Y, being among the original Moebius, appear with their memories intact, with their goal being to ensure Aionios is recreated so that they can continue ruling it.
    • Ontos, being the core of Origin itself, is also aware of the events of Aionios, and has formed an alliance with Moebius to recreate Aionios, with the intent to have it be redestroyed.
    • Eunie encounters several High-Entia she encountered in Aionios within Alcamoth.
    • Taion discovers that Kyrie is a Driver recruited by Mórag, with Kyrie's Blade being Finch.
  • The Black Fog from the merging of the two worlds starts showing up significantly sooner than their canonical appearance in Future Connected, though it is unclear what exactly is causing such.
  • Due to remembering Nia mention that she was once saved by a Vandham, Mio manages to prevent Vandham's death by seemingly taking his place in performing a Heroic Sacrifice. Despite A and Y's best efforts to prevent her interference from saving him, Sena's interlink leads to Vandham surviving the encounter with Torna.
• Proportional Aging:
  • Lanz tells Vanea that he's eighteen (though it takes him a minute to guess). She tells him that a Machina would be little more than a fetus at that point.
    Lanz: Hey! What the snuff are you talking about? I mean, what age is a Machina supposed to be an adult?!
    Vanea: Lanz... a Machina is a child until they are well over one thousand years old.
  • Eunie manages to avoid a similar blunder by learning about High Entia lifespans in Alcamoth, then later hearing of Melia's age first (88) before having to give an estimate of her own age (97, which is 88 plus her term number).
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Alvis, the Ouroboros, Riku and Manana, and the original Moebius, X and Y, are the only ones in the rebooted universes who remember or are at least aware of the events of XC3. However, other denizens of Aionios do seem to possess some subconscious memory of it, such as Nia expressing an odd sense of familiarity with Mio or how Dirk/Consul D has an instinctive irritation over Taion. Ethel later recognizes Noah's offseeing music.
• Secret-Keeper: Mio agrees to keep quiet about Nia's status as a Flesh Eater, the latter having revealed it to heal Mio, Sena, and Nimue after their encounter with Teach and Miyabi.
• Stepford Smiler: After the events in Olethro Ruins, Mio retroactively recognizes that Sena's extreme grief from losing her again was a consequence of them not addressing their trauma from the eclipse in Aionios.
• Story-Breaker Power: The Ouroboros retain most of their powers from Aionios aside from class switching. Of particular note so far are Lucky Seven, which can cut through anything due to its Origin metal, Mio's ability to use multiple elements, and, obviously, the power to merge into Ouroboros. Of course, most of them have a Drama-Preserving Handicap in place to ensure that they can't use them recklessly, or at all.
• Supernaturally Young Parent: Mio slowly gets hints that Nia is her mother (and Rex her father), but due to time travel she's actually slightly older than them right now (specifically, her body is physically about 20 years old, Rex is 15 and Nia (at least physically) isn't much older than that).
• Tempting Fate:
  • Ashera manages it twice in Chapter 11, much to Leater's exasperation. The first time is when after Xord goes toppling into the ether river, she points out the possibility of a Disney Death, leading to him coming back badly damaged but alive for Round 2. The second time is afterwards when she discusses how much she'd love to send Metal Face packing too, only for him to show right up behind them. According to Leater, this is not an uncommon occurrence.
    Leater: You just had to say something, didn't you?!
  • In Chapter 16, Sena notes that "Nothing's happened because you [Nimue] were here so far, right?", seconds before Teach and Miyabi show up to take Nimue back to the Indoline Pratorium.
• Uncanny Valley: Noah finds the Face Mechon Xord disturbing not for being a giant Killer Robot who self-admittedly eats people, but because his human-like actions and wording - comparing them to the elderly denizens of The City - is just so off when paired with that giant mech body. Of course, at this stage, he along with the rest of the non-Machina XC1 cast don't fully realize what Face Mechon really are.
• Uterine Replicator: As established in XC1, the Machina use them, keeping their children safe inside pods until they are adults. Segiri and Fugiri came out of their pods slightly early and lost their memories as a result, so everyone theorizes that something similar happened to Lanz.
• Villainous Rescue: A rescues Mio from her attempt at a Heroic Sacrifice out of fear of the potential consequences of her death, as well as being aware that their options for ensuring Aionios can end without total annihilation are extremely limited as is.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Downplayed with Ontos and Riku, who ultimately want to keep the plot of XC1 and XC2 on track to ensure that the future they hail from exists again. This leads to Ontos siding with Moebius and Riku persistently keeping mum about his knowledge of the future (including Fiora's death) until Noah corners him into admitting it.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 15, where Noah encounters the Black Fog and Fogbeasts, long before their initial canonical appearance of Future Connected. The Fog even possesses Ethel and Ashera, turning them against the party and having them act like some of their Aionios incarnations. Also, Riku, who not only identifies the Fogbeast threat by name, inadvertently states that the Fog only sought to possess those connected to Aionios, making Noah suspect Riku having more secrets, eventually leading to Riku being force to admit his awareness of their situation.
  • Chapter 17. Hoo boy. During the confrontation with Torna on the Urayan Titan, Mio seemingly takes Vandham's place performing the Heroic Sacrifice, because she couldn't get her Interlink up in time. Mythra awakens to save Rex as per canon, but Sena also Interlinks with Lanz to brutally murder Obrona in retaliation. Turns out that Mio was actually teleported away by Ontos/Alvis/A, since the latter is trying to keep both worlds to canon so that they can be saved, and thus deemed Mio's survival and Vandham's death necessary ... but Vandham is saved anyway thanks to Sena's Interlink. It is through this encounter that Mio finally learns through the recently returned Moebius Y that they're in the past, allowing her to relay this information to Noah and eventually the others. Later, Moebius X is also revealed to be be around, and that X and Y are working with Ontos, much to their mutual displeasure.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Mio and Sena do this to Cammuravi when they see he's joined Torna, who from they know at this point are just a bunch of terrorists, and is aiding Akhos on his attack on Garfont, since the man they knew from Aionios was far more "honorable" (though they don't mention Aionios specifically). He, since he lacks memories from Aionios, is rather confused by the personal call-out, getting particularly angry when Sena mentions his "Warrior's Way", and answers that the world isn't deserving of him to fight for it.
• Who's on First?: Lanz and Egil have a moment of confusion when Egil talks about his "Face" (which Lanz identifies as a Levnis) and Lanz wonders why he's suddenly talking about his face.
• Wrong Assumption: Since the Ouroboros have no knowledge of their own home worlds, they jump to quite a few incorrect conclusions.
  • Mio and Sena don't realise there's anything weird about people with core crystals walking around openly, and so make some assumptions about Driver/Blade teams that turn out to be ... misinformed.
  • Mio hears the name "consul" and immediately gets the worst possible impression of Mor Ardain. The consul in question is actually a minor bureaucrat, certainly not the secret master behind the throne.
  • Noah assumes that Alvis is a consul (which, in fairness, Alvis plays up), and is immediately antagonistic to him as a result.
  • Eunie doesn't know what half-Homs/half-High Entia are, nor what racism is, and it takes her a bit to get used to the idea that she's not considered the same as everyone else.
  • Eunie is surprised to see the Queen of Keves, and reflexively calls her first by name, then by "Your Majesty." But Melia is a princess now, not a queen, and she practically kicks herself for not looking further into Melia's family tree when confronted with Prince Kallian.
  • Lanz, while calculating his own age, assumed it would be normal to go by City growth rates. Except he's supposed to be a Machina, who age at a rate literally two orders of magnitude differently.
  • With the exception of his preconceptions of Blades being challenged by the appearance of Adenine, Taion is the only one who avoids any major incorrect assumptions, taking the time to learn as much as he can before doing anything drastic. It helps that Adenine herself is willing to fill in the gaps in his knowledge on Blades.
  • Mio has a dream of playing with Dromarch as a child, and specifically calling him her mother's Blade. Since they don't know they're in the past until Chapter 17, she assumes her parents were Dromarch's drivers before Nia, and are dead now.
• You Remind Me of X: Both Mio and Taion find themselves zeroing in on Brighid's blue Flaming Hair and how it reminds them of Sena's, despite how they note otherwise the two have almost nothing alike.

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