Infinite Loops Project: Garreg Mach Class of 1180 Edition

by Tetradrachm

The Infinite Loops Project comes to Fódlan! Join Byleth and Sothis as they're thrust into infinitely repeating time with friends from their world and beyond.

1. Chapter 1

Once upon a time, eons upon eons ago, the great world tree known as Yggdrasil, supercomputer that runs all iterations of reality both real and fictional, was incomprehensibly and nearly mortally damaged by something utterly unknown. The systems administrators of Yggdrasil, whom we would consider Earth's various mythological gods and spirits, were forced to set all of these various realities into time loops so as to prevent further damage to the tree. As the tree attempts to reconstruct itself during this period (which could functionally last forever), it has to run these loops in many varying ways in order to try and fill in the blanks left by the damage. This could in turn cause reality itself to spiral out into an endless mush of constantly changing nonsense, so the Admins decided to stabilize matters by appointing Anchors for each Branch of reality, characters that can remember the loops and are metaphysically responsible for the stability of their Branch. Clearly keeping them stable is a high priority, so the Admins have also allowed some of their fellow characters to Loop alongside them, to keep them from going completely mad.

Confused yet?

Welcome to the Infinite Loops Project if you're not already familiar with it, one of the longest and largest collaborative writing projects on the internet. This massive project is a crossover Peggy Sue universe nearly ten years in the making now, and the lore builds up. This compilation of the work of multiple authors, cataloguing the particular Loops of the Fire Emblem: Three Houses Branch of Yggdrasil, follows up on a lot of plot developments and lore from other compilations, and I would highly suggest you read one of those other compilations before this one if you want to make sense out of it. In particular, I'd recommend Skaz Wolfman's "The Infinite Loops Project: Doki Doki Literature Club Compilation," also on this site, because it provides an excellent introduction to the concept and shows the origin of one of the most important outside characters in this story.

If you're still reading, I'm so glad I didn't manage to scare you off yet! Without further ado, here's the story!

1.1 (by Zum1UDontNo)

[Fire Emblem: Three Houses] [Admin Shenanigans] [Mythos Hackers]

Activate the Branch Fire Emblem: Three Houses?
Chosen Anchors: Byleth/Sothis (Soulbound Co-Anchors)
(+) Yes (-) No

Hecate stared at the screen, her eyes narrowed in thought. The confirmation bubble stared back at her, tauntingly. Her finger hovered over the + button on her terminal's Joycon, only to swap to the - button on the other Joycon with her other hand. She rested her finger on the button for a few seconds, before moving back to the + button. All around her, the other sixty-three terminals arranged around her office were switched off; only the sixty-fourth, the one she was using, was active.

She gritted her teeth for a moment, before pressing down on the + button decisively...

Are you sure?
(+) Yes, Activate it (-) No, don't

...and immediately pressed the - button, bringing her back to the original screen.

The Admin of the Nintendo Cluster was frustrated and indecisive, but at least it wasn't anything new. She'd been having this debate with herself all day, and it had gotten in the way of her work.

Compared to the other Fire Emblem Branches, and other Branches in general, Three Houses was tricky. Most of them had only a single Baseline. Fates technically had three, but they were dependent on Corrin's choices early in the Branch, and it at least had a "best ending" that could be used. Meanwhile, Three Houses had four Baselines. Much like Fates, it was dependent on the choices made by the "player character," aka the Anchor candidate Byleth. This led to a good amount of variability, which was hardly what was desired in a Branch. And unlike Fates, it wasn't fortunate enough to have an obviously best route.

To make matters worse, there was a lot left to the fickle hand of variability in the Anchor's life that they couldn't control. Their exact age, gender and birthday were all undefined, meaning they would never have a concrete answer. Even their name, too, was variable- it would lean towards Byleth far more often, but it was still variable enough that every so often they wouldn't even be used to their own name. Assuming it did Activate without a hitch, Byleth- or whatever their name was that loop- could rapidly become unstable. Even though there were other Loopers with similar conditions, it was still hardly desirable and could result in them or Sothis harboring dangerous thoughts. Thoughts that could lead to Sakura Syndrome, or Setsuna Syndrome, or even becoming an Ascension risk. Add on other miscellaneous problems with the setting, like Those Who Slither in the Dark and the pesky Divine Pulse, and Hecate was left with one nasty universe.

All signs pointed to it being a bad idea to Activate... but that was where the problem lay. She had dealt with problematic Branches before. She Admined almost every Nintendo Branch, of course there were going to be problems somewhere! Most of the other Fire Emblem Branches had been delicate, and she was still able to handle them in the end. She was experienced enough to do this, she knew she was.

Maybe Fódlan was too unstable to Loop... but if it was, she didn't want to admit it to herself.

So she sat, staring at one of many monitors in her office. Staring at a single confirmation bubble with two inputs. Hovering her finger over one button, before switching to the other, and doing it again. She was so deep in her own mind, a runaway train couldn't break her out of her concentration.

Luckily for her, or perhaps unluckily depending on how you look at things, she was about to get a visitor. One significantly more disruptive than a train.

"Hello, dear Hecate."

Hecate's head snapped up, before she let out a groan. "Oh, come on, why are you here now?"

"Because I'm not currently anywhere else, of course." The great Outer God strode his way through the door, leaning on her chair casually. "So, what are you up to? Oh, don't mind me, go ahead and continue what you were doing."

"Nyarlathotep, get out of my office."

"Mmm, a tempting suggestion, but I think I'll pass."

Hecate massaged her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut. Whenever Nyarlathotep, or any of his other Lovecraftian 'friends' were around, things were never made any easier. The Mythos Hackers were well known for causing trouble and being general nuisances.

She turned her head to stare at the Crawling Chaos. "Don't you have anything better to do? Why not hang out with the other Hackers, or something?"

"Oh, I tried, but they're all too busy for me." Nyarlathotep began counting on his fingers, which split into bisected nails at the ends. "Yog-Sothoth is taking a century-long nap, and I'd rather not put my life on the line and wake him... Cthulhu is watching the Splatoon Branch like it's a damn sitcom... Hastur and Cthugha are spending time with the Haiyore Loopers and Skuld still won't let more than two of us visit them at a time... Who am I supposed to spend time with, Azathoth? That's a funny joke." He made finger guns at Hecate. "To answer your question, no, I don't have anything better to do but bother you. Lucky you."

"Lucky me," Hecate groaned. His voice was grating on its own, but the way it bounced around the room was painfully eldritch to listen to. "Don't you have any other Branches you're interested in? Why not make like Cthulhu and spend your time watching a Loop?"

Nyarlathotep clicked his tongue. "As a matter of fact, I am rather interested in one of the Branches. The Doki Doki Literature Club has caught my eye as of late. That's the Branch that Ganesha handed off to Psyche, by the by." He draped himself over Hecate's chair, causing her to lean away from him. "Natsuki and Yuri are an interesting enough couple, and Sayori is remarkably skilled at solving emotional problems, but if I'm being honest? Their Anchor is the most intriguing to me."

"Cool," Hecate responded flatly. "Why aren't you watching them do their thing, then?"

The Outer God's face twitched in annoyance. "Because they haven't done anything interesting in so long! It's been all, ooh, let's braid each other's hair. Let's watch a Youtube video. Let's cause an alien invasion and stop it with the power of electrons. Oh, it's all been such a bore!" After a deep breath, Nyarlathotep calmed himself down. "Why can't they have any infighting or romantic realizations or epic Fused Loops or something? It's like they've forgotten the art of drama! Honestly, ever since Sayori and Monika put their feet down on being teased with each other and Yuri finished her vampirization, it's grown terribly stale."

"The Loops aren't made for your personal entertainment, Nyarlathotep," Hecate chided, returning to her monitor. "Whether or not they're 'dramatic' is hardly the point of fixing Yggdrasil."

"Oh? So I suppose I shouldn't be watching them do their thing, as you suggested not two moments ago?" Nyarlathotep's face slowly shifted into a smug grin, the edges of his mouth quite literally creeping up his cheeks. "I might as well hang around then, if there's no point to making like Cthulhu."

Hecate stiffened, before groaning. She'd fallen into one of his most common ploys.

"Now that we've gotten that out of the way, what are you working on, Hecate dear?" The God of a Thousand Forms leaned over her shoulder, putting on a comically small set of reading glasses and staring at her monitor. "Fire Enblem: Three Houses? Are the Loopers building a village? Has your Cluster finally crossed over with Minecraft?"

"It's Fire Emblem," Hecate hissed, "and no, it has nothing to do with the Minecraft Branch."

"That's a shame. Sans Undertale and Cuphead Cuphead finally got into Smash, I was hoping Steve Minecraft could follow them someday. A crossover with this Fire Enblem place could lead right into that." Nyarlathotep tapped the screen curiously. "So then, what are these three houses about, anyway, if not cuboidal construction?"

Hecate muttered lowly, before responding. "Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a Branch I'm considering Activating. I'm not sure if I should, since it poses stability risks."

"And why is that? Are you afraid miss Enblem won't be a suitable Anchor? Suitable like Metroid or Captain F-Zero? Or Star Fox?"

"The Anchor's name is not Emblem! And it's Samus, Captain Falcon and Fox! ...And stop pretending you don't know about these Branches, I know for a fact you're well aware!"

"Oh, what about Zelda? Have you made sure he's a suitable Anchor recently, with his green tunic and Master Sword?"

Hecate huffed. "For your information, I don't even Admin the Hyrule Branch, so that particular one doesn't bother me."

"Hmm." Nyarlathotep grew an extra eyebrow, before raising it. The flesh around his eyebrow stretched off his face to allow it to rise higher. "Ignoring the fact that it clearly does bother you... I sense unrelated bitterness. Do you dislike the fact that Hyrule is not under your dominion?" He shrunk his forehead back to its previous size with an audible snap, like a rubber band. The eyebrow shriveled into dust.

Hecate set her jaw. "I never said that."

"But you were thinking it."

"Hrrmmmm..." Hecate groaned for a moment, before throwing her arms up. "Fine. You caught me. I don't like that I don't have the entire Cluster, okay? It's hardly a secret, anyway."

"Not a secret, and yet you were reluctant to tell me." Nyarlathotep tapped her terminal again. "I presume this is your attempt at increasing your list of properties for yourself? Adding one measly Branch to the pile so you can inflate your ego ever higher?"

The Goddess of the Crossroads sighed. "I Admin the majority of the Nintendo Cluster, but there are still Branches out of my reach. The Pokémon Branches are handled by Yuetu, Legend of Zelda is handled by Epona, Smash is handled by Madoka and Splatoon is handled by Kanaloa. There's still plenty left for me, but it's not enough. And the other Admins are saying they're thinking about limiting future Branches I can Admin. If ARMS becomes unstable enough to require Looping, it'll be handed off to someone else."

Nyarlathotep tapped his chin in thought with one hand, and tapped her chin in thought with the other. "And why would that be?"

Hecate rolled her eyes, swatting his hand away from her chin. "Something something workload, something something too many Branches for one Admin to handle. I'm fine with Madoka having Smash, she deserves it after fixing Master Hand's code, but come on! I can totally handle the rest, but they won't let me!"

"And you want the other Branches given to you? The Pokémon, Zelda and Splatoon Branches?"

"Well..." Hecate waggled her hand unsurely. "I guess... I mean, I don't really want the other Branches, since the Loopers have grown accustomed to their Admins' respective styles of Adminship... the problem is the reason they got the Branches. They think I'm in over my head when I'm not."

Nyarlathotep's eyes lit up in understanding, momentarily bathing the room in an uncomfortable green glow. "Ah, I get it now. You believe if you manage to Activate this troublesome Branch, the other Admins will realize your worth and grant you additional Branches. A fine strategy, might I say."

Hecate pursed her lips, before nodding slowly. "Yes, that's... exactly what I was doing. Yep."

The Crawling Chaos chuckled to himself. "They really don't believe you're capable enough to handle that many Branches." He shrugged. "Can't say I'm surprised. The vast majority of them are notably unable to see past their own noses."

"What are you getting at?"

"What do you think I'm getting at?"

Hecate turned in her chair to glare at him. "I like a lot of games, Nyarlathotep. This is not one of them."

Nyarlathotep let out a dramatic groan. "Fine, I'd much rather have had you figure it out yourself, but if you're going to make me say it bluntly, I guess I will." He pointed at her. "You're... talented. Good at what you do. There, you made the words come out of my mouth. Blech."

Hecate reeled back, caught off guard. His words were completely unexpected. The Mythos Hackers didn't do random compliments. "I... what?"

"Don't make me repeat myself." Nyarlathotep cleared his throat. "The point is, they're severely underestimating you by withholding Branches from your dominion. You've surely proven yourself competent to them, so at this point they're just being silly."

"I..." Hecate shook her head. "Man, you know it's a weird day when you're the voice of reason..."

"It's an advantage I have over many of my ilk." Nyarlathotep patted his chest proudly. "Bastard though I may be, you have to admit I do typically have a point."

Hecate nodded. "You're right on that one. I often feel like you and the other Hackers collectively share three brain cells, and you usually have two of them."

"Who has the third?"

"It's juggled between Hastur and Yog-Sothoth."

"Ah, that checks out." Pause. "So, are you planning on Activating that Branch?"

Hecate sighed, turning her head back to the monitor. The soft blue glow of the screen still remained, with the same confirmation bubble staring back at her.

Activate the Branch Fire Emblem: Three Houses?
Chosen Anchors: Byleth/Sothis (Soulbound Co-Anchors)
(+) Yes (-) No

"I had almost forgotten about this," she murmured. "I'm not so sure-"

"Oh don't give me that," Nyarlathotep scoffed. "We just got done talking about how you're, ugh, talented, and now you're still having doubts?"

"What are you-"

"Listen, Hecate," he cut her off. "I'm tired of dancing around this, it gives me a headache. You want more Branches? Then you need to prove you deserve them. This is just the chance for you to do that, do you understand?"

Hecate blinked. "The chance?"

"Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a complicated Branch," he continued, gesturing in the air dramatically. "But you've dealt with worse! I remember the Activation of Awakening, and that was arguably more troublesome than this one!"

"But Fire Emblem: Awakening had a lot of problems initially-"

"Every Branch has problems initially!" Nyarlathotep snapped his fingers. "But you pulled through, and now look at it! Looping without a worry in the world! And look at all your other Branches! Do you remember the Great Crash, and how nothing happened to your Branches?"

Hecate shook her head. "That's just a lie. The Earthbound Branch sustained heavy damage, with data of Ness's father being destroyed and Porky Minch being Activated-"

"Some numbers got lost and a mean little kid became a Looper." Nyarlathotep rolled his eyes. "Compared to the damage so many other Branches sustained, Branches with only one Admin, your Cluster was practically untouched! And that's because of you!"

"I mean..." Hecate puffed out her chest slightly. "I guess I did pretty good..."

"There! You admit it!" Nyarlathotep grinned, light glinting off his yellow teeth. "You're fully capable of Activating this Branch, don't you realize?"

Unconsciously, Hecate's finger hovered over the + button. It rested firmly on it, not pressing down but not rising away either. "It's still risky..."

"The rewards outweigh what risk there is!" Nyarlathotep spread his arms wide. "Imagine what the other Admins will think, when they see this Branch Activated! Wow, they'll say, she got Three Houses Looping? Hecate's really good! Maybe we can give her some of the other Branches, she's got her act cleaned up! Don't you want that?"

"I... do, but-"

"But nothing!" Nyarlathotep pounded his fist on the table next to him, before pointing directly at her. "Activate Three Houses already! What in the world are you waiting for!?"

"...I will. I will!" Hecate pressed down in the + button.

Are you sure?
(+) Yes, Activate it (-) No, don't

"Yes!" Nyarlathotep shouted, pumping his fist. "Activate it! You're so close to everything you want!"

Another press of the + button.

Are you really, really sure?
(+) I'm sure. Activate it. (-) Don't Activate it!

"Do it! Your goal is within reach!"

"I'm going to do it! I'm doing it!" Hecate pressed + again, her mouth set into a confident grin. This time, the bubble was accompanied by a red alert label.

WARNING: This can't be undone. Once Fire Emblem: Three Houses is Activated, it will remain Activated forever. Are you REALLY sure?
(+) Activate it! Let's do this! (-) Stop! I changed my mind!

She rested her finger on the + button one final time, her eyes focused on the screen with a determined glint. One more time, and it would go through. Fire Emblem: Three Houses would be her newest Branch.

"Just once more!" Nyarlathotep rested an icy-cold hand on her shoulder. "Don't tell me you think you can't do it now!"

"It's not a question of can or cannot," Hecate said in response. "All that matters is doing it and doing it right."

She inhaled deeply.

Click.

Action successful. New Branch: Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Anchor(s): Byleth/Sothis. Current Loopers: Byleth/Sothis.

Hecate let out a breath of relief. It felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Or a boulder.

Behind her, Nyarlathotep chuckled. Hecate joined in, looking at the screen. "Man, you wouldn't believe how long that's been on my mind. Thanks for the push."

Nyarlathotep paid her no mind, continuing to chuckle. A second mouth sprouted along his throat, causing the snickering to double in volume.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up." Hecate rolled her eyes. "It is pretty funny to think a Mythos Hacker actually helped."

Beside her, the chuckling grew into full-scale laughter, with Nyarlathotep spreading his arms wide like he was giving a speech. Like he was performing onstage. Tears of amusement streamed down his face, dropping to the floor and sizzling.

Hmm.

All of a sudden, Hecate didn't like this turn of events.

"Nyarlathotep," Hecate said lowly, "what is so funny?"

The Crawling Chaos cut off his laughter abruptly, turning his entire body to stare into Hecate's eyes. Both of his mouths were twisted into cruel sneers. "Oh, it would appear you finally noticed. You had the wool over your eyes for quite some time, hmm?"

"Nyarlathotep, what did you do?"

"What did I do?" Nyarlathotep patted her head condescendingly. "I didn't do anything. You're the one that just Activated that Branch. That's what's so funny." He gestured to the screen. "All I did was sell you on the details."

Hecate frowned. "Yes, and? Didn't you just get done saying I'm competent enough to handle it?" She crossed her arms. "And don't try saying I'm not. I know you weren't lying, I am objectively one of the more experienced Admins in Yggdrasil. It comes with the territory of having Activated over a dozen Branches."

"It's adorable how you think that will help you." Nyarlathotep stood up, slowly pacing around the room. "In all other cases, any issues a Branch may have had were purely technical. Fire Emblem: Awakening had glitchy data and a dangerous entity soulbound to the Anchor. Punch-Out had corrupted data and wildly unpredictable variables. Pikmin's primary Anchor candidate was non-sentient. In all these cases, your skill as an Admin let you solve the problem. And that's why it was so easy to fool you into thinking this case would be the same.

"You're not used to dealing with emotional problems, are you?" Nyarlathotep stopped on his heel, turning his head just enough to look at Hecate from the corner of his eye. "Yes, for a long time you didn't care about your Loopers at all. You thought them mere mortals. Below your notice, made for just their universe's stability and to be your entertainment while you ate lunch."

"I'm not like that anymore," Hecate protested. "I care about my Loopers."

"I never said you didn't. But back to my point... You're not used to thinking about the emotional problems of your Loopers when Activating Branches. You never even considered it, did you?"

Hecate blinked. "Their... emotional problems?"

"Let me spell it out for you, o foolish Goddess of Magic." Nyarlathotep's primary mouth settled into a smug grin, while the mouth on his throat continued on. "You just Activated a loop where the Anchor is a teacher that has to go to war against her own students. It's almost as emotionally destabilizing as Warhammer, but you didn't spare that a single momentary thought."

The Mythos Hacker took great pleasure in watching Hecate's eyes shift. First narrowed in contemplation, then slightly widened in realization, and finally the contracted pupils as Hecate reeled back in horror.

"And on top of all that," he continued gleefully, "there's still so many other problems too. Like Those Who Slither in the Dark, or the pesky Divine Pulse. Time magic of any kind is usually tricky to deal with. Are you going to patch it? Will you have the time to spare?"

"You knew," Hecate whispered. "You knew all about this Branch. All this time, you were pretending to be clueless..."

"...To make you drop your guard," Nyarlathotep finished. "In comes Nyarlathotep, the bumbling irritation. Talking your ears off about Minecraft and mispronouncing Emblem as Enblem. Surely he's just being annoying, and you don't have to worry about him trying anything sneaky. You can listen to his words, accept the poisoned honey he's pouring into your ears. That's what you were thinking." He tutted. "Admit it, Mother of Angels. I sang the song you wanted to hear, and you danced to my tune. I played you like a fiddle."

"I..." Hecate shook her head, glaring at Nyarlathotep. "There will be consequences for this, you know."

Nyarlathotep's pompous smile grew twice as wide, creeping up his face with the appearance (and sound) of cracking glass. "A punishment? I fear no punishment from the fools called gods in this broken tree. Pain, such a lovely motivator but oh so temporary. Labor, an excuse to spread more mania. And besides, what will you tell the others? That you fell for Nyarlathotep's schemes? That you Activated the Branch with your own two hands?"

Hecate was silent. The only sound was the buzzing of the monitors around them.

"I've clearly given you a lot to think about," Nyarlathotep said. "And so, I am off. You'd best get to work figuring out what to do. I will say this, though: I believe I've won this encounter."

Hecate still said nothing, simply glowering at Nyarlathotep as he slid out of her room. Even as he was crossing the doorway, he continued to stare at her, unblinkingly, until he slithered out of sight.

Almost immediately, Hecate groaned, placing her head in her hands. She... no, she had nobody to blame but herself. She should have known he was up to no good. He was always up to no good.

But no, she let herself be picked apart. It was as he said. She was played like a fiddle.

...You just Activated a loop where the Anchor is a teacher that has to go to war against her own students... his voice laughed in her head. ...All I did was sell you on the details...

Hecate groaned again, letting her head fall backwards in her chair. Everything he said was true. Most of her Branches were at least somewhat cheerful, so she wasn't used to considering emotional stability as a factor. And once he'd begun prodding her, she'd forgone patience and reason in the allure of a new Branch to work on.

Bastard though he was, he had a point.

...I presume this is your attempt at increasing your list of properties for yourself? Adding one measly Branch to the pile so you can inflate your ego ever higher...

"Shut up," Hecate muttered. "Shut up."

She laid herself back in her chair for a moment, before sitting up reluctantly. "Gotta clean up my mess now," she sighed. "Gotta lie in the bed I made." She thought for a moment. "I'll deal with Byleth's emotional status later. First thing first, the Divine Pulses. Gotta lock them to this Branch, and patch them for now so I can figure them out better..."

Slowly, almost lethargically, Hecate made her way through the menu on her monitor with her Joycons. She'd have to make it so the Divine Pulses be taken out of the Branch, much like any other Read-Only ability. She'd also have to prevent the Divine Pulse from letting Byleth and Sothis return to a time before their Awakening in any given loop, and it'd be a good idea to temporarily make Byleth unable to use it to reverse their own death. Fortunately, as a Branch with a video game-based backup, it was one of the few where death of the Anchor wasn't a crash condition. She'd keep the event with Kostas in the beginning of the loop as an exception, since that was the only one hard-coded into the backup.

She finished navigating the terminal to fix the pulses, and sat back again, staring blankly at the screen. Only a few seconds went by before she began cursing herself again.

...Admit it, Mother of Angels. I sang the song you wanted to hear, and you danced to my tune...

"What do I do..." she moaned. "What have I done..."

...It's almost as emotionally destabilizing as Warhammer...

"Warhammer..."

The Goddess of the Crossroads rested there for a moment, before shifting slightly. "Warhammer."

Warhammer 40,000 was notorious among Admins. It was one of the deadliest, most crapshoot Branches out there. And its Loopers were very well known- the Chaos Gods were troublemakers to their core, whether by intention or coincidence. Its Admin, Fenrir, was one of the most talented in the bunch to be able to wrangle that universe into submission.

Its Anchor, Leman Russ, was hardy. But by all accounts, he should not have been stable enough to successfully Anchor the world of Warhammer. He was only stable enough...

"Because of an early Fused Loop."

Very early on, Warhammer had a Fused Loop with Equestria, another well known Branch. One of the Loopers, Fluttershy, had provided enough emotional support that Leman could Activate without issue. The early Fused Loop had given Leman enough stability that he otherwise wouldn't have had.

Hecate sat up so fast she nearly got a headache, leaning towards her terminal. "If I can arrange an early Fused Loop," she reasoned out loud, "it can hopefully provide Byleth with more emotional stability. Enough to handle the Branch."

She wasn't aiming for the exact solution that Warhammer had, since that resulted in Leman Russ becoming fairly dependent on Equestria. This resulted in a higher amount of Fused Loops between the two Branches. That wasn't a problem of itself, though it wasn't ideal either. Plus, Fluttershy had visited Warhammer before the Branch Activated at all.

What Hecate wanted was an early Fused Loop that would ensure Byleth and Sothis got the Speech early, so they didn't get any bad ideas in their heads. Such an early Fused Loop might result in slightly more common Fused Loops between the two Branches, but nowhere near dependency.

"It'll be best if the Fused Loop takes the form of a Looper visiting Fódlan," Hecate mused. "That way Byleth doesn't have to deal with unfamiliar scenery on top of everything else." She briefly considered Smash Bros, Fire Emblem: Heroes, or Fire Emblem: Warriors, before deciding against it. There'd be time to meet Loopers from their own Cluster later- what she needed now was someone specifically good at dealing with emotional situations like this.

But who?

She thought about scheduling a loop with Equestria or Remnant, but shook her head. Those two Branches already had a good chunk on their own plates. And as much as Twilight or Weiss would help, they had their own problems, she was sure.

Nyarlathotep's voice danced through her mind again, a teasing lilt.

...The Doki Doki Literature Club has caught my eye as of late. That's the Branch that Ganesha handed off to Psyche, by the by... Sayori is remarkably skilled at solving emotional problems...

Hmm.

That could work.

Hecate picked up her Joycons again, chuckling. It wasn't in Nyarlathotep's nature to be helpful, and yet, entirely by accident, he had given her everything she needed.

"You want an epic Fused Loop, huh?" Hecate thought back to her conversation with Nyarlathotep, and how he bemoaned how 'boring' the Literature Club had become. "I guess you're getting just that."

The Goddess considered sending a message to Psyche to request a Fused Loop, but decided against it. Time was of the essence; this is no time for asking permission. Besides, she had learned long ago that one can ask permission or forgiveness, and that it was rarely useful to request the former.

Schedule Fused Loop between Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Doki Doki Literature Club!?
Fused Loop format: Looper visiting Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Chosen Looper: Sayori.
(+) Yes (-) No

Click.

Are you sure?
(+) Yes, schedule it (-) No, don't

With a good natured eye roll, Hecate mashed the + button for a few seconds, before sitting back in her chair. She had done her part; all that was left was to ensure nothing went wrong.

"I promise, Byleth," Hecate said out loud. "I'll give you something to believe in."

1.2 Back at the Beginning (by KaiserRichard)

[Fire Emblem Three Houses]

Byleth looked around. He in a void with nothing but a stone throne and a "young" girl on said chair. Usually, said girl was sleeping and only just woke up, if he (or was it she?) began the path down becoming a Professor and then the Enlightened One. But it seems this time the girl; the Goddess Sothis, was waiting.

"Huh. How did we get back here?" Sothis asked Byleth. "I thought that we fused and became as one?"

The now male thought for a moment "Wasn't it not you? Did you pull the strings of time to bring me back here?"

Sothis shook her head. "I do not believe it was me who changed the hands of time."

"If not you, then whom?"

"That, I do not know. It as if I only have a limited control on time and something even larger than me is broken. As if I was just one clock in a shop full of them."

The young man blinked. He has felt he has been down this path before, at least 4 times. Perhaps it was some sort of time loop he is trapped in. But if the Goddess of Time says she didn't cause it, then who? "Then, what should I do this time?"

"That is up to you. But one suggestion I would make is to try not to use my powers of times as often. And don't fall into that void trap, I want to see what happens if we don't fuse as one."

Byleth nodded, Sothis was feeling sleepy once again hearing her yawn and slowly close her eyes

"YAWN. It is almost time to begin."

"For yet another time, it seems."

1.3 Aureate Sun, Part One (by Tetradrachm)

[Fire Emblem: Three Houses] / [Doki Doki Literature Club!]

Sayori Woke Up by actually waking up in a rather plain cot, which was a pretty good sign right off the bat that this wasn't a Baseline Loop. She immediately Pinged—or rather, tried to and failed, which meant Null Loop.

Well, they'd all been through a super long string of Baseline runs since Psyche took over, probably because she was still learning the ropes of Administering their Branch. The reconstruction of...her childhood friend (she preferred to not refer to him by any name in particular until he Looped and chose one) into a real person had taken up all of their attention for a while, and it was still such a wonderful thing, but his inconsistency was frustrating. He really needed to Activate and stabilize, bark it all. Anyway, they had all been getting bored, so she was excited that they all might get the chance to have a new adventure here! Possibly—hopefully—he would be here as well!

She decided to investigate her rather sparse room while she waited for her Loop Memories to kick in. The sunlight just barely beginning to peek into the room didn't reveal much; only a sparse few personal belongings, maybe, messily arranged around the stone chamber—

—if only it were a prison cell, to hold a wretch like her—

Sayori froze, that old, terrible, sick feeling of emptiness roiling through her. She shut her eyes carefully and took a deep breath. Absent the usual comfort of the Force to reinforce herself, it took a little longer than usual, but she used her usual meditation to re-center herself anyway, recall her faith in herself and her goals—

—to continue to avoid every human she could, to seek mercy from the goddess, and, if she were so blessed, to continue helping the animals around the monastery.

Sayori exhaled, letting her lips buzz out as it suddenly clicked. This depression came from her Loop Memories, not her own mind. She had long since come to terms with her own self-loathing, while in this world...

Her gut clenched. Blood magic, or something like it, was the root issue here, her lineage in this world having granted her the magical "Crest" of a supposed monster. Blood magic never worked out well—she'd studied enough records of Sith Alchemy both from Baseline and Loops experiments to be sure of that. In this world—Fódlan—it seemed to be a fundamental part of the dominant feudal society, of which she was now suddenly a part.

Her name in this world, she remembered now, was Marianne von Edmund, and with her name came a slew of information that only raised more questions. A lot of potentially nasty questions, too. If this was an adventure, she suspected it was going to be a complicated one.

—

Sayori found she had a bit of a strange reputation around her new home. Her fellow students—it was a military school in which she'd Awoken, it turned out—did double takes and even gasped when she greeted them as she toured the beautiful monastery campus before classes started that morning. Her own Loop Memories made it obvious why: she'd barely ever said two words before to anyone else on campus when it wasn't absolutely necessary.

Her own house's members were especially surprised; one pink-haired girl, Hilda, openly goggled at her when she said hello, hands almost limp at her sides. "You're in a good mood today, aren't you?" Hilda asked.

"I guess so," Sayori said, smiling as brightly as she could without coming off as suspicious. Marianne was by nature an incredibly shy and passive girl, at sharp odds with her own personality, so she naturally struggled to act the same way. She'd decided to pretend as if she were gradually coming out of her shell, but apparently it was a bit too sudden for Hilda. "I just...had a good night's rest."

Hilda laughed, her long twin tails bobbing behind her. "I do know how nice a good sleep can be! Beats most of the work and classes we have here, that's for sure."

If there was one thing Sayori knew about Hilda from Marianne's memories, it was that she was profoundly—almost performatively—lazy.

"That's why I'm hoping that new student doesn't join our house—I met her earlier," Hilda continued. "She's got this kinda intensity around her, since she's been a mercenary all her life, apparently. She'd probably try and make all her classmates work harder." She pouted.

Right, the new student. In between everyone being shocked that she could talk—one student had apparently thought she was a ghost before, even—the other gossip swirling around the school that morning had centered on the brave young woman who had rescued the three houses' leaders just the night before. This Byleth was apparently the daughter of one of the greatest Knights of Seiros to have ever existed—an impressive feat, Sayori gathered, although what she knew about both the Knights and the Church to which they were sworn gave her all kinds of icky feelings. Given that Jeralt had apparently gone to great lengths to raise her outside of the Church, it's possible he and his daughter had similar thoughts. She'd need to look into the potential "transfer student."

She could look into Byleth right now, she realized with a start, as the woman in question appeared in the doorway and glanced over her and Hilda both, expression oddly blank.

"Hello again!" Hilda waved at her.

"Oh, hello!" Sayori said cheerfully, but carefully modestly, and waved with a quick flip of her arm. "I'm Marianne von Edmund, it's good to meet you!"

Byleth stared at her for a moment with a faint expression of surprise, saying nothing. Had she done something wrong? After a moment, the woman nodded and said in a low voice, "It is...good to meet you as well." She continued watching Sayori intently for a moment, almost as if she were studying her, before nodding again in farewell and taking off down the hall.

"Wonder what that was all about?" Hilda asked a bit too casually. "Something about you really surprised her. You sure you haven't met her before?"

Sayori shook her head, at a bit of a loss herself. She had never seen the blue haired woman in her life, or any previous life—although something about her appearance rang a bell—but it seemed like the opposite might not have been true. It was just another question to add to her growing list.

At least, it was until that night, when it was announced that Byleth would actually become the new professor for the Golden Deer, her house, and she spent the whole announcement staring at Sayori.

Something was definitely up with Byleth.

1.4 Aureate Sun, Part Two (by Tetradrachm)

The matter came to a head much faster than Sayori had expected, early the next morning as she wandered the monastery before classes started again.

Or rather, a point. The point of a knife.

Sayori glanced down at the dagger Byleth was very nearly jabbing into her chest, pinning her against the wall, and then asked with innocent confusion, "Is this some kind of surprise training, Professor?"

Byleth's face was unnaturally blank as usual, but a slight tension behind her eyes hinted at some sort of strong emotion—anger? Fear? Sorrow? "Who are you, really?" she snarled, jabbing the blade ever so slightly closer to her heart.

A suspicion bubbled up in Sayori's mind. More than one, actually, but the first one was most urgent. "I'm...not acting the way you expected, right?" she asked carefully. "Like...from other times all of this has happened before?"

Byleth's eyes widened, and her grip on the dagger wobbled for a moment. "How do you know about that?" she asked. Then she took on an odd, distant look, as if she were listening for something.

That...was not the usual answer new Loopers would have to that question. Sayori's mind raced—was Byleth not Looping after all? "Have you lived through coming to the Monastery before, Professor?" she asked carefully. If she screwed up here, she could—maybe, probably—fight her way out of this. All of the MMA, karate, and other martial arts she'd done with the girls over the years, mostly to stave off boredom, made her an expert compared to most any non-Looper. That is, assuming Byleth wasn't magically enhanced somehow.

Byleth snapped out of her contemplation, and nodded slowly. "I have." She paused. "Are you...a goddess?"

Sayori blinked, and blushed. "Fir no! I'm just a person—well, a really, really old person—I can explain?" she finished with a hopeful grin.

Slowly, Byleth lowered the dagger.

—

"Time repeats...beyond this universe entirely," Byleth muttered a few minutes later, that strange glazed look on her face again. They'd headed out to the lake for this conversation—apparently it was one of the safer places in the Monastery to hide from eavesdroppers. Given the dagger, it was clearly more than mercenary paranoia on Byleth's part.

"Yes, exactly," Sayori said. She'd practiced giving the Speech a few times with the girls—which reminded her, she really needed to figure out where they were this Loop—and she was glad she had; it was tricky to try and get the idea across the cultural divide. For one thing, Byleth had been oddly insistent that Sayori must be some sort of goddess to be able to travel through time until she explained that she wasn't the one causing it.

"That explains why you're...different," Byleth said after a moment.

"Different personality-wise?" Sayori asked. "Yeah, I'm not exactly like Marianne, you don't need to be to Loop in as someone—"

"No," Byleth interrupted her. "You look different than her entirely."

"Really?" Sayori glanced down at her reflection in the lake. "I just look the same as I always do back home, I guess...hmm..." Her Loop Memories didn't recall anyone who looked like the other members of the Literature Club. Maybe she actually was all alone here this Loop?

"Yes, not like the others who—" Byleth cut herself off abruptly, and then sighed.

"Others? Like the eavesdroppers you're worried about?"

"Yes," Byleth nodded soberly. "Infiltrators, from a group that wants to destroy the church and conquer Fódlan. They shapeshift, and take the guises of people they've disposed of."

Sayori gasped. "Oh, that's awful! Have they already done it this time?"

"Before I arrived at the Monastery, yes. And...the first time, one of them killed my father, and then...me, later, I suppose. That's when I woke up back here at the beginning of it all." Byleth looked utterly crestfallen, the most emotion she'd shown by far. "I've avoided it since then, but...they've defeated us every time since. That is why I threatened you earlier. My apologies, I thought you were one of them."

"I'm so sorry!" Sayori cried, lunging forward and hugging Byleth. The professor froze under the hug—all at once in a rush of embarrassment Sayori remembered that medieval feudal societies didn't really go for hugs—but then awkwardly returned it.

"I shouldn't have done that," Sayori said hastily as she pulled back. "Back on my world we hug more often—but I just felt so bad that you're just a new Looper and had to go through that, and, and you looked so sad!"

"It's fine, I understand. Thank you, Mari...Sayori." She looked a little uncomfortable—well, very slightly uncomfortable—but she offered up a faint smile, and Sayori took that as a win.

"I promise, we'll keep everyone alive this time." Byleth seemed like a brand new Looper by her attitude. Strange that the Branch would have a Fused Loop so soon, then...maybe it was a deliberate choice on the part of its Admin? "Not just that, but stopping the infiltrators too, I'm sure we can stop them! From the conquering part, I mean. The church..." Sayori trailed off uncertainly. It sure didn't seem like the church was good either, especially considering how tyrannical it seemed to be against dissidents. It was more the sort of thing Monika might have raged against, but she didn't particularly like what she knew of the Church either.

"The church is not perfect, no," Byleth admitted. "Far from it. But...a friend of mine can help with that."

"A friend?" Sayori asked.

Byleth looked distinctly uncomfortable even as she spaced out again. "You're sure?" she muttered under her breath; it didn't seem as if it were directed to Sayori herself. After a moment, she glanced up. "I need to explain something of my own."

—

"To sum it up," Sayori said a few minutes, a bit nonplussed, "the goddess that created the entire world and that everyone in Fódlan worships literally lives in your head? And is Looping herself?" The goddess was the reason Byleth had had such a strange reaction to the idea of Sayori Looping, too—she had her own form of time reversal, albeit limited.

"Not everyone worships her, but most do," Byleth nodded. "She was...eager that I tell you."

"I...well, I get why you're the Anchor here now," Sayori laughed. "Or, Co-Anchors with Sothis, I guess. I wish I could talk to her directly."

Byleth paused—which Sayori now realized was her listening to Sothis. "She says...you speak to her in me. I don't know of any way to allow others to speak to her directly, though. She has been gaining strength with each Loop, though, so eventually she might be able to...well, we don't really know."

"That's really a shame. She could try and talk some sense into the church if you could really prove it was her."

"Rhea would believe it," Byleth declared firmly. "She already knows."

"Oh, right..." Birch, but there were so many little moving parts behind what was going on. "So, what's the game plan?"

"Sorry?" Byleth asked, brow furrowed.

"Uh, expression from home. What's your plan? How do we...solve everything? What do we need to do?"

"Solve everything?" Byleth looked uncertain. "It's difficult. Those Who Slither, the infiltrators, they have a lot of influence all across Fódlan. Even when we do defeat them, though, we've never been able to save everyone."

"When you're Looping, anything is possible! And...well, I follow a philosophy that strives for change and accomplishment wherever possible." Going any further into Pink Sith ideology would only confuse Byleth at this point. "If there's a way to fix...everything, help as many people as possible, even maybe the ones working with the bad guys, I have to try!" They were all just kids—she'd want to give them the benefit of the doubt before calling them irredeemable monsters.

She'd long since learned that practically no one was irredeemable.

Byleth considered that for a moment. "I see your point," she said. "In that case...we both need to know more. In my last few...Loops...I befriended my students, but not everyone I could every time. I just don't know enough about everyone. I suspect that if we did we might be able to resolve things peacefully."

"Really?" Sayori grinned widely. "Oh, that's amazing! I'm sure we can do it!"

Byleth smiled softly. "You're very encouraging."

Briefly, Sayori thought of Hiro...her very oldest friend. "I always try to be!"

1.5 Aureate Sun Spot: Byleth (by Tetradrachm)

"Hmph. I cannot say that I find the description of these Administrators to be very reassuring."

Sothis floated over to lean on the table which Byleth and Sayori were currently sharing, watching the former—and the only one who could actually see her—as she took notes. "Consider all of the gaping holes and inconsistencies in our own memories," the goddess continued bitterly, "not to mention the limitations they've clearly placed on my abilities!"

Byleth sighed and shook her head slightly. "We don't know that they caused it..." Their inability to use Divine Pulse outside of a few very specific moments—once at the beginning of the Loop, and once when Kronya attacked Jeralt if that still happened on schedule—had been one of their biggest unknowns before Sayori arrived, right behind the cause of time repeating entirely. It had been one of Byleth's biggest frustrations time and time again, not that she could often feel them all that strongly: that they might have had a way to save her slaughtered students and colleagues that they could not use.

"Given that I cannot think of any other reason why—" Sothis began, as the same time as Sayori jerked her head up and asked, "Oh, did Sothis say something?"

"Tell her!" Sothis urged Byleth, and with only the faintest stirring of irritation did she nod and turn to Sayori.

"Sothis suspects that it's our Administrator's fault that she cannot use her Divine Pulse very often." While it was mildly annoying to have to be the interpreter between Sothis and Sayori, Byleth was more than willing to give Sothis her first chance at directly talking to someone else that she'd had in a long, long time. She could tell—sense through their connection that neither of them completely understood—that Sothis enjoyed it, and that she genuinely liked Sayori. Byleth liked her too; she was friendly, optimistic, and empathetic, and her confidence gave Byleth hope that this time she and Sothis might actually live to see the end of the war with all of her charges alive and well.

It wasn't even a goal she'd firmly had before meeting Sayori; before then, she'd just been desperately hoping for answers—as much as she could, since each new Loop saw her emotions fade away again.

This repeat—erm, Loop—she'd actually been inspired enough to try and put some of her more complicated ideas for helping her students into action, like writing a letter to Lord Lonato before he could begin his rebellion. She hadn't heard back yet, but she was hopeful that she could save Ashe's father.

"Hmm..." Sayori considered this for a minute, tapping her quill against the table. "Well, first off, call 'em Admins for short, or else people will think you're too uptight." Sothis huffed, but in a light-hearted way. "Next, I wouldn't be surprised if that was true. Time travel magic is one of those really finicky things that the Admins put special preventions on. I don't know if that'll ever change for you or not...I'm sorry." She flashed Byleth a quick frown.

"It's alright," she answered, although a swell of disappointment bloomed in her chest. Well, that was something at least—more emotion was...good, in Byleth's opinion. She was always happier when it returned each loop.

"It's probably because you're getting closer to her," Sothis pointed out—she could always hear Byleth's thoughts—and then frowned sharply. "But alas! It may be that my divine power is forever locked away. If that is so...well, I could hardly bear it! I cannot speak to anyone but you and my one method of reaching out to the wider world is gone? What am I to do?" Sothis was genuinely distraught over this, and there was nothing Byleth could do. She could hardly even empathize all that deeply with her!

All she could do was sigh in response, and that was such a lackluster answer that she could almost hate herself for it. Try all she did, it was impossible to restore her ability to feel emotions any other way than giving it time each and every loop. It grated.

"What happened now?" Sayori asked, and Byleth steeled herself to answer. Instead, Sayori looked at her more carefully and furrowed her brow. "Are you...okay, Byleth?"

Byleth stared at her, at a sudden loss. She didn't have an answer, really. But perhaps that was an answer in and of itself. "Not really..."

"Aww, what's wrong?"

"Sothis is discouraged"—the goddess nodded vigorously, although her eyes were starting to get heavy in the way they did when she tired out—"and so am I," she admitted. "What can we do about the problems that the loops cause for us instead of solve?"

Now it was Sayori's turn to sigh. "Trust me, I've been there. All of my friends and I, we've all suffered because of looping. We're mostly getting better now, but...bah, that doesn't matter right now. The thing is, a lot of those problems just take time to solve. Time and out-of-Loop tricks, sometimes. Okay, so, Sothis feels frustrated because of her powers not working right..." She shifted her attention to the side of the desk where Byleth had told her Sothis was floating earlier. "Well, one thing that might help if you know is that you'll probably get some Variant powers that you'll be able to keep soon. Those are way more common than actual Fused Loops. One of them might even let you have a physical body!"

"How...wonderful..." Sothis yawned hugely and then slumped over onto the desk.

"She appreciates it," Byleth said hastily.

"Good! Now, what about you? What's bothering you?"

"Almost nothing," Byleth said tonelessly. "That's the problem."

"Why...oh! Your emotions, they're all suppressed, right. Shoot." Sayori picked up her quill and held it in her hand on her cheek, deep in thought. "And you said that the cause was different each Loop, right?"

"Once Sothis was able to cut it off on her own as soon as we Woke Up, but usually she doesn't have direct control over it."

"Yeah, it's probably Loop Variable then. Darn." She nibbled on the back of her quill, lost in thought, but it tickled her nose and she immediately reared back into an unexpectedly huge sneeze. It echoed through their little corner of the library. Sothis was startled out of her nap, and Byleth snorted, even to her own surprise.

"Uh..." Sayori blushed bright red. "Sorry, I forgot I wasn't holding a pencil...uh, anyway, well, there are some ways to move your soul around out there in Yggdrasil, that might be able to temporarily separate you two enough to break the effect, like Shinigami badges from Bleach, or plain old astral projection—I know Steven and Finn over in the Cartoon Network Cluster are pretty good at it."

"Separate us?" Byleth asked uncertainly. "Would that be...safe?"

"I'm not sure," Sayori admitted. "Probably not, but if you ever meet one of the astral projector experts you could ask them...wait, how is it that it wears off normally?"

"That changes every time as well!" Sothis groused, already half awake again.

"We don't know for sure, but it has to do with Sothis waking up and regaining her strength. Well, that and possibly our time spent at the monastery, getting closer to the students and faculty...I had an isolated childhood," Byleth said awkwardly. It didn't help that almost everything about it was different each time too. Once she'd grown up almost entirely in Fódlan's Throat fighting off the Almyrans; another time it had been up in Galatea territory fighting against Sreng. The common thread was that Jeralt generally kept her isolated (not without cause), and she didn't have many friends until she arrived at Garreg Mach.

"Oh, that's really good then!" Sayori said cheerfully. "See, for one thing, every Looper's power grows a bit every single Loop, and that excess power does things like create the Pocket. But the thing is that it also can make you more powerful normally, so that means that eventually she'll be strong enough to be awake more, which will probably help keep your emotions active!"

Sothis hummed appreciatively, but she was mostly asleep by now.

"And the other thing is that if it really is your bonds with your friends that help, it'll probably make a big difference once they Activate! Then they'll remember their friendship with you and you won't have to work to build it all over again, right?"

"I guess so," Byleth said thoughtfully. The idea of her friends Looping was incredibly tempting—but it might be tricky too. What would they remember, exactly? Which repeat, which series of events would they know?

Still though, they were all smart people. Eventually they'd be able to sort through their possible issues if they Activated. She'd make sure of it.

1.6 Aureate Sun, Part Three (by Tetradrachm)

She really was alone here.

Or rather, as far as Sayori could tell none of the Loopers from her Branch had come with her to Fódlan. She'd been all over the Monastery, even—carefully—into Abyss beneath it, and hadn't seen anyone that looked or acted like her friends. It was possible they were scattered in other parts of the world, but she had no way of finding out where they might be. Being away from them stung; it always did, but especially badly in a Null, slow loop like this where she might find herself with nothing to do for hours on end and the darkness crept in at the edges.

So she threw herself into her project of helping everybody. She had daily "tutoring" sessions with Byleth where she taught her (them, actually, gender-variable) and Sothis about Yggdrasil and the regular concepts like the Ping and the Pocket. She couldn't actually show them how to do either, unfortunately, but at least they'd have the groundwork laid out for whenever they had their next Fused Loop.

It wasn't as difficult a challenge as Sayori would have thought to teach Byleth and Sothis about more technologically advanced worlds, at least; it turned out this world was a good deal more advanced than it appeared, with many inventions forbidden by the Church itself.

Monika would have convinced Byleth to start a revolution by now if she were in Sayori's place.

But Byleth still hoped to find a way to reconciliation without any war, and that meant stopping the Slitherers' plans as quickly as possible first. The trouble with that was that their plans were Loop Variable right up until they attempted to infiltrate the castle in a few months' time. Byleth had a plan to trap and expose them when one of them—Kronya—was supposed to be snuck into the monastery, and Sayori didn't mind waiting until then. It gave her the chance to get to know her classmates better, and hopefully help them with the struggles so many of them faced.

"Hey there, miss cheerful!"

And, occasionally, dealing with nosy house leaders.

"Hello, Claude," she called with a wave as she crossed the pavilion. She was headed for the library this morning, just as she had been every morning for the past few weeks. It turned out that Marianne's specialties were in certain types of light magic and in swordsmanship. It was an unusual combination to be sure, but fitting given what Byleth had told her about her Crest. It was oddly fitting that she was in a Fused Loop learning magic at a school again; the last time she'd done a lot of magic was at Hogwarts. If only she could just solo the Slitherers the way she'd beat Voldemort...

"Hey!" he jogged up next to her. "Wait up! I wanted to ask you something! I'm glad that you've been, uh, feeling better lately, but I've been burning to understand why."

"Oh! Well...a lot of different things, I guess? I've settled in more here at the Academy, and it's been really great getting to know everybody better!"

"Sure, I get that, but you didn't really seem like the kind of person who wanted to get to know everybody better at first. You pretty much ran away from me the first time we met." He studied her for a second. "Had a difficult childhood, huh?"

She had had difficult childhoods in weird Fused Loops before, if that counted. Birch, in this Loop too. "You could say that..."

"Well, trust me, I know that feeling." He stretched his arms behind his head in an overly casual way. "But look at you now, coming out of your shell in spite of it all, like a baby bird seeing the world for the first time." She rolled that analogy around in her head for a moment, and his face fell slightly. "You like animals, right? I was going for an analogy you'd like."

Sayori cut him off with a giggle, a real one. "I do love animals, Claude." It was true. She already loved Dorte, her horse this Loop, very, very much. "And I do like your analogy! Coming to Garreg Mach has definitely been a brand new eggs-perience for me!"

Claude stared at her, mouth slightly open, then burst into laughter. "I was not expecting that! That was—that was great! Man, that's just what I meant, though. I was wondering, though—is some of it Teach?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like, has she made you feel more comfortable here, too?"

"Definitely. She's taught me so much already, and she's been...really nice to me." Byleth really was a good person, sensitive and insightful. She'd quickly understood Yggdrasil, not to mention the watered down version of her personal backstory. Sothis seemed nice enough too, but a bit grumpier—chomping at the bit to not be stuck as a disembodied voice in someone else's head. Thankfully, the Loops had all sorts of solutions for that.

"I totally know what you mean. She's awesome." Claude paused, looking off into the distance in thought. "Right, thanks. I just wanted to check up on you, as part of my duty as House leader and all that." He winked. "I won't keep you any longer, I know you've got important studying to do. See ya!" He walked off with the same confident swagger he always had.

Sayori watched him leave for a moment. She was fairly certain that the real reason he'd been so curious about how she was doing was to get another opinion on Byleth. He was probably weighing his options as to how useful she might be in the future as an ally and whether he might eventually trust her; in spite of his apparent outgoing attitude it was clear he kept everyone at arm's length.

It came down to a difficult childhood, according to Byleth. Not that he was alone in that—sometimes it almost seemed like all of Fódlan ran on Freudian logic—but it did make her wish she could help him. That was Byleth's job, though, as his professor; she knew him and the other Golden Deer well enough by now to help them.

She was so lost in her thoughts as she entered the library that she didn't even spot its only other occupant at first. As she pulled out a chair to sit down, though, he sucked in a breath in surprise and looked up.

"Ah, Marianne," Dimitri said politely. "Good morning."

"Hello, Dimitri," she said with a nod. She knew he didn't like to be called "Your Highness," and that he was the very model of a modern modest prince, but beyond that she didn't really know him all that well. She certainly felt horribly sorry for him, though, from what Byleth had told her. To have been through so much, to suffer through mental illness because of it—it was awful. She shook off those morbid thoughts—this time!—and instead said, "I don't often see you here in the library."

"No," he laughed, "I suppose I'm not in here often. You would know; you're here almost every day, are you not?"

"Yeah, actually," she said, taken a bit aback that he had even noticed. "Well, here in the mornings when I don't have lectures or classes, and then afternoons in the training grounds—"

"Well, I have seen you there, of course," he said with a smile. "Sparring with Ignatz, and Ingrid, and once Felix, I recall."

"Oh, no, you saw my spar with Felix?" She was slightly tempted to bury her face in her hands. "He only fought me once because of how badly he beat me!" Granted, she'd handicapped herself a bit due to trying to follow the sword-fighting style of Fódlan as opposed to the lightsaber forms she usually used, but Felix was a hell of a fighter.

"Your technique is very good for someone just starting out!" he protested. "You have nothing to be ashamed of, I assure you."

"Thanks. Well, you're quite the duelist yourself, especially with that spear."

"Well, I've been training with it for...quite some time, now." He glances down at his hands. "It's very important to me," he said softly.

She knew just why it was so important to him, too; the Tragedy of Duscur, and all it entailed. She knew more about it than he did, a fact that twisted her stomach in the wrong way. Suddenly desperate to change the subject, she asked, "So, what were you doing here in the library, anyway?"

"Oh, I was just checking some old financial records. I was curious about...donations to the church. It says that my step-uncle, Lord Arundel, completely stopped donating a few years ago, and I am uncertain why."

Crap, she knew why—Arundel was one of the Slitherers now. And she hadn't realized he was Dimitri's uncle! She couldn't tell him because it might send things off the rails, and that was too big of a risk to take with the Slitherers still at large. But it was another member of his family lost to him...

She couldn't just say nothing. "People...change, sometimes. And sometimes, they're never who you thought they were in the first place." Unbidden, thoughts of her first friend came to mind. He changed every Loop now, so completely different sometimes that she couldn't even think of him as the same person. She almost always had Loop Memories of him as her dear friend, but the nature of that relationship was so variable that she felt alienated from every version of him now.

She didn't know what to think of that.

"I suppose you're right," Dimitri said, cutting off her train of thought. "He does seem a changed man, these days. Everyone changes, really." He looked up at her. "But that isn't always a bad thing."

"No?"

"No," he shook his head. "It's just a fact of life. All we can do is try to make the best of it, and right wrongs as best we can."

"What about...when you can't right a wrong?" she was compelled to ask. "When there's nothing you can do?"

He stared her in the eyes. "There's always something you can do. As long as you live, you can act. I'd go so far as to say that you have to act." Almost under his breath, he repeated, "You have to."

It wasn't often that someone that didn't know her well hit on a deep conviction Sayori held, but in that moment Dimitri did just that. To always act if you can—that was a core tenet of Pink Sith philosophy.

He was right, she knew it down to her bones, and in that moment she decided to act now as well; she would save him from his Baseline fate however she could.

1.7 Aureate Sun Spot: A Sleepless Night (by Skaz Wolfman)

In his dormitory room in the monastery of Garreg Mach, Prince Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus was tossing and turning in his bed. It happened, some nights, that four year old memories would creep into his thoughts. He had nightmares so vivid that even when he awoke the sounds of people dying rang in his ears, the scent of blood and smoke lingered in his nose...and he could swear he saw their ghosts. Cold sweat soaked his night clothes, leaving him feeling so chilled he had to wonder if he, himself, was a ghost trapped in an endless delusion. The only sense that wasn't haunted was his sense of taste, which he had lost entirely.

There was nothing to be done but wander the monastery at night, like the ghost he sometimes wondered if he was, and hope the cool night air would clear his head. When an hour of such aimless wandering brought no relief, he turned his feet toward the training hall. He'd grab the heaviest blunted training weapon he could find and...exhaust himself. His nightmares couldn't rob him of sleep if he was too tired to think, let alone remember, right?

He knew very well that didn't always work, but it was the best he could think to do at the moment. It worked, sometimes, at least. If all else failed, he could (with great reluctance) see if Dedue was losing sleep tonight. He hated to bother his friend, but he was the only one who...who understood the nightmares. And while Dedue wasn't the best conversationalist, he was a great listener.

Dimitri grit his teeth as he neared the training hall, because the phantasmic din of battle was starting to get louder in his ears. As if his ghosts could sense him trying to escape them, and were redoubling their infernal efforts to ruin his fragile peace of mind out of spite. But wait...no…Dimitri frowned, as an unfamiliar voice reached his ears. It sounded like a woman. A young woman. Not like any of the knights who had perished with his parents. Was this voice real?

He slowed his approach and lightened his steps, creeping closer to the training dummies. He peeked around the corner, and his eyes widened in shock.

By the guttering light of a torch, he beheld none other than Marianne von Edmund, a student from the Golden Deer House, assaulting a training dummy with a sword. Well, 'assaulting' was a...kind of a weak word, Dimitri thought, for what he was seeing. She was savaging it, hacking and slashing and ripping and tearing into the stuffed, padded, and lightly armored dummy. Every few swings, she let out an incoherent snarl of...anger? Frustration? Pain? It was a feeling Dimitri recognized, but couldn't give an exact name.

Abruptly, Marianne twirled from one thoroughly ruined dummy to the one next to it, running it through in the same motion before yanking her sword free and starting over. The sword didn't come free, though, and she kept yanking at it. Finally, she lifted one leg and planted it against the dummy's chest, and pulled her sword free with a mighty pull and a roar of effort. And as soon as it did, Marianne was forced to jump backwards on one leg, flailing wildly until she fell backwards with all the grace of a dead goose in freefall. Her sword flew out of her hand, scoring off of a pillar and spraying sparks into the gloom.

Dimitri sprang forward from his unintentionally-hiding place.

When Sayori's head struck the stone floor, she very distinctly heard 'Hiroaka' yelling "Sayori, you dummy! Be more careful, I can't put you back together if you get all busted up."

She was having trouble sleeping; Null Loops made it harder for her to manage her depression, and besides that she was stressing about helping Byleth cope with the imminent war and keeping her students alive. So, she figured she would go for a midnight stroll to clear her thoughts. She wound up near the training hall, and decided on a whim to get in some after-hours sword practice.

She needed to adapt the combat forms Pinkie had taught her so she could better use them with metal swords. She needed to earn Felix's respect so she could help Byleth mend his and Dimitri's friendship; just one of many steps to take to unite the students of Garreg Mach into a cohesive front. Sayori firmly believed that there was nothing stronger than a unified group of people, who trusted and cared for each other, working toward a common goal.

Sayori didn't like violence. She hated it, in fact. But in her Sith training, she had learned how to use it. Even if it weren't a Null Loop, Sayori didn't think she had the power to nonviolently end the threat Byleth had described to her. So she had to hone her violent skills, so she could be helpful.

She had only meant to practice her forms, but as she exerted herself her heart started beating faster, adrenaline started coursing through her system, and instead of tiring out she felt more awake. The muddled, indistinct thoughts that had been merely keeping her awake were crystalizing. But this kind of clarity only made her more frustrated. All the social networking she was doing, trying to strengthen the bonds between the other students, for whatever reason was making her think of her old...her best friend, she kept reinforcing to herself.

Sayori was used to dealing with her own depression, but looking back on her memories as 'Marianne', and recalling Marianne's irrational self-loathing, gave her a new sense of appreciation for how far she, herself, had come since she had started Looping. The same could be said for her friends, Monika, Yuri, and Natsuki. Well, Monika still left a lot to be desired, but Sayori knew she would get there eventually. Her and her friends had all come so far, and grown so much…

All but the friend dearest to her heart. The one she missed the most. Since the Refactoring, he was more….personable, then he used to be. But unless-until, she firmly thought at herself-he started Looping, he couldn't grow and change with them. Every loop, he went back to who he used to be, except some loops his personality was completely randomized! It was so damned frustrating! She had worked so hard to make everything better for everyone, and while she wasn't exactly doing it for the Tree's sake, she knew that the Tree benefitted from her keeping her friends stable...but she still didn't have the only thing she wanted from the Tree. She was doing her best to be patient...but she wasn't a very patient person, really, and patience was not a virtue Pinkie had emphasized in their training.

Sayori wasn't sure when it happened, but at some point her training routine had gotten sloppier and sloppier, making her more and more frustrated until…

The training hall echoed with the 'Crack!' of her head bouncing off the stone floor. White lightning bolts of pain screamed up and down her nerves, driving every other thought and feeling out of her senses. Instinctively, she curled up into a tight ball and started crying, clutching the back of her head. She had already been close to winded by her physical exertions, and what little air had been in her lungs had been driven out when she hit the floor. Now she felt like she couldn't breathe at all, and she couldn't concentrate to compose herself because her skull felt like it had split in half.

Tears swam from her eyes, which burned so badly that she couldn't keep them open. Little by little, Sayori drew in enough breath to start cursing herself. "Dummy...clumsy...stupid...graceless...idiot…" she hissed even as she tried to restablish her regular breathing.

"Enough of that," said a deep, masculine voice from very nearby.

'Dimitri?!' Sayori thought. Then she abruptly realized she was not on the floor. She was moving through the air, held by two very strong arms. She was being held so steadily that she could hardly tell she was being carried at all. 'Wow. He really is strong.'

"Um...where are we going?" she asked.

"The infirmary, of course. You took a very solid blow to the head, you could have a concussion," Dimitri informed her matter-of-factly. There was a familiar tension in his voice, and a familiar tightness in his expression.

Sayori's first, reflexive thought was that it was exasperation, as her old friend would express whenever she hurt herself. But no, she intuited that it wasn't directed at her. There was a preoccupation to it. It was reminiscent of when Monika would throw herself into some problem so she didn't have to think about something else.

"Uh, I know you're being gentlemanly and all, but I can walk to the infirmary," Sayori said meekly, "I didn't hurt my legs."

Dimitri gave no notice of her words. His attention seemed...elsewhere. Sayori sighed, and decided not to press the issue. She could tell that he was, in part, helping her so he didn't have to think about something else. Thanks to Byleth, she was pretty sure she knew what that 'something else' was. After all, he must have been in or very close to the training hall when she fell, probably for reasons similar to why she was there, losing her cool and wailing on training dummies like they owed her money.

Some nights, when she didn't have a date, Professor Manuela was known to hang out in the infirmary after dark, usually with a book or some things she needed to grade for her class, just in case. Tonight was not one of those nights, and Sayori couldn't help but feel a little relieved. She didn't really feel like explaining how she had gotten herself into this situation.

'Probably going to have to at least explain to Dimitri what I was up to, though,' she decided. Funnily enough, thinking of explaining herself to him didn't seem to bother her as much. 'Well, even if it's not strictly his business, leaving him in the dark after he brought me to the infirmary and all would be pretty rude,' she reasoned.

Dimitri gently sat her down on one of the beds. "Stay here, I'll go get Professor Manuela," he said as he straightened up and moved toward the door.

"What?! No!" yelped Sayori, jumping up to her feet to stop him...and then immediately sinking to her knees as the throbbing ache in her head surged to a crescendo. Still, she was expecting the pain this time, so she had the presence of mind to stop her fall by slapping a hand on the floor. She immediately made herself stand up again, using a mental exercise Pinkie had taught her to convert the pain into motive energy and sending it into her legs. 'Fire burns less when you gallop straight through, fire burns less when you gallop straight through, fire burns less when you gallop straight through.'

"No, don't wake her up...I'll be fine, I don't think I'm concussed, and even if I am I know how to deal with it myself. Please don't bother her."

"You could have a skull fracture," said Dimitri sternly, "Or burst blood vessels in your brain, even. And if you are concussed, you most certainly shouldn't be attempting to cast any kind of magic. Especially not healing magic on yourself; you could make things worse."

'Big surprise, there...NO! Bad Sayori, stay positive!' Sayori sighed and grabbed Dimitri's arm. "Please, I will be fine. There's no need to disturb other people on my account."

Dimitri frowned. "Why do you do that, Marianne?" he asked.

Sayori blinked. "Do...what? Be considerate of others?" she asked.

"Downplay your own value," Dimitri sighed. "It seems everytime I see you you're doing for others and asking nothing in return."

"Yeah, that's how I do," Sayori agreed. "Does that...bother you?"

"Not in principle, but the degree to which you do it worries me. It's all good and well to be charitable, but it's okay to let others help you in turn. It...isn't wrong to have your own moments of selfishness. You're only human."

Sayori's stomach clenched. This discussion felt very familiar...she had a similar one with her old friend, every Baseline loop after she revealed her depression to him. She gave a weary sigh, with an edge of frustrated anger to it. "You don't understand, my depression isn't the only reason I'm selfless; being selfless is what makes me happy, and it's not just that people doing things for me makes me uncomfortable, or anything. I don't like it. If I need help, I will ask for it, but I'm much happier being the helper."

Dimitri slowly blinked and cocked his head. "Your...what?"

Sayori blinked back at him. "My what what?"

"You...you just said that you're depressed," he said, very seriously.

'Oh fluffmunchkins, I said the D word, didn't I?'

"What do you have to be depressed about?" Dimitri asked, "Has anyone been causing you distress? Have you gotten bad news from home?"

Sayori gave another agitated sigh, and her headache intensified, which only made her irritation worse. "Dimitri," Sayori tried not to growl, "You're just trying to be kind, and I appreciate it...but right now, the only person causing me distress is you. I was already in a bad mood tonight, so just...just leave it be, please? I won't go to sleep, just in case I'm concussed, I'll stay up until Professor Manuela or Professor Byleth wake up. But please, for the love of G...the goddess, please stop fussing over me I beg of you."

"I...I don't understand," said Dimitri, half-gawking.

"I know you don't, and it's not your fault," Sayori sighed, sitting back down on the bed and rubbing the back of her head. She froze, and brought her hand around so she could see it. There was a little blood on her fingers. Something about the sight of her blood dried up the last little bit of care she had for her demeanor, and her 'mask' fell off entirely. "Oh...fuck me," she muttered.

Dimitri now fully gawked at her. "M-Marianne!"

"Sayori," Sayori snapped. She stood up from the bed once more, and started out of the infirmary with an aggressive stride.

"What?" Dimitri asked as he ran to catch up with her in the corridor outside.

"Don't worry about it, Dimitri," Sayori groaned. "Just mind your own business."

"...very well, I will hold my tongue. But regardless of your feelings toward me, you have a serious injury and I'm not going to leave you alone until I've seen it tended to," Dimitri said firmly.

Sayori suddenly stopped short and pivoted to face Dimitri, holding a hand up. "You said I shouldn't try using magic with a head injury. I will cast Thoron on you if you don't leave me alone."

Dimitri's heart skipped a beat, and then started beating double-time. His eyes narrowed, and without thinking about it his hand found the hilt of the saber on his side, gripping it tightly. "I am very concerned for your current state, Marianne, but that is a very serious threat to make."

"I don't make threats, Your Highness. I make promises, and I'm very good at keeping them," Sayori said in an exhausted tone. Without waiting for him to respond, she dropped her hand and turned around, continuing on to the training hall.

A couple days later, Dimitri was back in the training hall doing drills with a training lance. He stopped to wipe the sweat off his forehead, and abruptly realized how quiet it was. Looking around, he realized everyone else who had been drilling with him had left. He chuckled a little, and started toward the exit. Then he saw 'Marianne.'

Sayori entered the training hall and made a beeline for the racks, where she picked out a pair of wooden swords. Then she approached Dimitri and underhand pitched a sword at him. It took him by surprise, but he still caught it easily enough. "Marianne?"

"EN GARDE!" Sayori suddenly yelled before dashing at him. Dimitri's eyes widened, and he moved reflexively to parry her initial strike.

"Marianne, what are you doing?!" he demanded.

"We parted ways on a...sour note, the other night," said Sayori as she backed up and settled into a guarding stance. "Wanted to apologize, but I've still got some aggression to bleed off, and you're better at fighting than talking about feelings and junk, so….APOLOGY FIGHT!" Sayori yelled before attacking him again.

Dimitri was fairly surprised. 'Marianne' had demonstrated a far, far higher degree of proficiency with the sword than he had ever seen from her before. She also used a highly unorthodox style. She typically kept her sword in one hand at a time, only putting her other hand on the hilt to change hands. Otherwise, she kept her non-sword arm way out, as if for balance. She didn't keep her feet in-line, like a fencer, either, she kept them widely spaced and square. To Dimitri, it seemed completely counterintuitive. She had no leverage, she was wide open, she had no guard to speak of, and everything Dimitri knew about swordfighting told him he should have trounced her handily.

Instead, he wasn't able to land a hit on her. Whenever he swung at her, she just wasn't there anymore. When she swung at him, he would move to parry, but then her wooden sword was coming at him from a different angle. It wasn't just that she was fast. Felix was much faster, and Dimitri could generally hold his own against him. No, the real trick was that he couldn't read her movements. Whatever he thought she was going to do, she did something else.

Still, her style had very little power behind it. If she had a sharp, metal sword that was light enough not to impair her movements, he'd be in serious danger of taking a hit to his vitals. But since she was wielding a wooden sword, and she could only swing it with so much force when she was one-handing it and constantly darting around erratically, so she was basically just whacking him with a stick. Hard enough to annoy him, but not enough to really hurt.

The fight came to an end when Sayori started running out of steam, and Dimitri smacked her weapon out of her hand, sending it flying across the room.

"Eheheh, good match?" Sayori asked.

Dimitri just grunted, and went to retrieve the fallen training weapon, and then returned both swords to the rack. He turned around and saw Sayori standing still, watching him curiously. "How does your head feel?" he asked.

"Fine. Really, it does," she assured him. "I'm sorry I got so mad at you. You weren't trying to be a pain, you were just trying to be helpful when I was in a bad mood."

"And what was it that put you in such a bad mood?" asked Dimitri, standing in front of her with his arms folded.

Sayori took a deep breath and sighed it out. "Nothing, exactly. I was just really feeling my depression that night. The way you were fussing over me brought up old, unhappy memories. But it's okay! You had no way of knowing, you were just trying to be nice. I hit the end of my patience and lashed out at you, and I'm sorry."

"I'm still confused as to what you're depressed about. Is there anything I, or anyone, can do to help?"

Sayori's mouth twitched. "Not in the way you're thinking. It's just something I have to suffer through sometimes. If you want to help me through it, just be my friend. And don't make a huge fuss over me, I hate being fussed over," Sayori added, folding her arms. "It's like….if Dedue never stopped fussing over you, you'd get sick of it too."

Dimitri looked up, thinking back on all the times Dedue got carried away with the whole "loyal vassal" thing. While Dimitri realized that Dedue's loyalty and subservience was entirely appropriate, considering Dimitri himself was a noble, royalty even, and Dedue was not only commonborn but also owed Dimitri his life….Dimitri still found it frustrating, and missed when Dedue had known nothing of vassalhood and had just treated him like a good friend. If that was how Marianne felt when people bothered her about her feelings….he didn't quite understand her reasoning, but he supposed he could at least sympathize with that feeling.

"Very well. If that's how you feel, I shall do my best not to be a bother," Dimitri agreed.

"I could also use a sparring partner," Sayori added. "I need a good swordfighter to help me redefine my technique, and my classmates….kind of have a hard time giving me their best," she grumbled. "And the Professor isn't always available, of course."

Dimitri briefly imagined how he would feel if the other Blue Lions refused to give him their best during sparring matches, just because of his station. Some of them, like Ashe, actually did feel that way. "Certainly, I would be happy to help you….wait, 'redefine'? Don't you mean 'refine' your technique?"

"Yeah, that's what I said!" Sayori chirped.

And that was how Dimitri and Sayori became sparring partners for the rest of the loop.

1.8 Aureate Sun, Part Four (by Tetradrachm)

The entire monastery seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, but for Sayori the stress was only beginning. The plan she had created with Byleth was about to kick off, and a lot of things needed to go just right in rapid succession.

Flayn had been kidnapped and then recovered just a few hours ago in a harrowing battle beneath the school against the Death Knight. It was the most intense battle the Golden Deer had had so far, and Sayori was intensely glad for all the training she'd been putting in these past few months. She was the team's best sword fighter by now—Felix was far more interested in sparring with her these days—and a decent healer and light mage to boot. Still, she'd been more than willing to leave fighting Jeritza himself to Lysithea. She was the one that could knock him off his horse with one spell, after all.

Now Flayn was recuperating in her chambers, tended to almost viciously by Seteth, and Monica—who thankfully looked nothing like her Monika—had just been thrown a celebration in the Black Eagles' quarters before getting summoned by Rhea for questioning about her "ordeal." Byleth was busy rounding up as many of the Church officials and Knights of Seiros as she could find while Sayori tracked down Claude and Dimitri. It was critically important that every house was in on this—every house but the Black Eagles for now, that is.

"What's the new crisis, Marianne? Did Teach tell you?" Claude asked, a bit frustrated, as they hurried through a second story hallway toward Rhea's chambers.

"Sort of. Hopefully, we're gonna stop it before it happens!" She tried to inject as much cheer into her voice as she could, but after the battle she was mostly just exhausted, same as him. It was a good thing that this next part would be quick—either way.

At least Dimitri seemed well-rested. "Have we tracked down the Death Knight again?" he asked, deadly serious.

"Not yet," she replied as they finally reached the door. "Okay, both of you get your weapons ready. There might be a fight right away!"

"In Rhea's chambers?" Claude asked dubiously. "Sheesh, talk about a crisis."

Nonetheless, both house leaders lifted their weapons and she opened the door. Inside, Rhea and Monica turned towards them in confusion as Sayori lifted her hand and recited the spell she'd been running through her head all day to be sure she got it right on the first try. The spell shot out of her hands, washed over Monica, and she was briefly frozen in place as her disguise faded.

Rhea gasped in horror and stumbled back. "You..." she growled. "Marianne? What is this?"

"She's a spy!" Sayori cried. The now revealed Kronya, visibly overwhelmed with fear and rage, leapt at Rhea and knocked her to the floor. She pulled a blade out from somewhere and pressed it to the Archbishop's throat. She said something, but the Silence still affected her and it became a soundless snarl.

Sayori heard Dimitri and Claude rush into the room behind her, and the clamor of a rush of boots down the hall—Byleth and the Knights?—but she was busy, frantically struggling with the one tome she had on her that might help. In their planning, neither Byleth nor her had suspected she'd immediately leap to hostage taking, so they hadn't prepped much that could help. She pulled out the book as Rhea and Kronya kept struggling on the floor and it felt like everyone was screaming, and quickly cast an intentionally weak Lightning. It was only a brief flash of light, but it was enough—Kronya visibly recoiled, and before she could get her bearings again an arrow sprouted from her back.

"—AUGH!" she screamed as she collapsed in pain, the Silence finally wearing off. "How dare you! You filthy—agh—pathetic fools! You have no right to—"

Rhea clambered to her feet, holding the dagger at the Agarthan's neck now. "I know exactly who, and what, you are," she thundered. "You have no right to be in this place!"

Kronya screamed wordlessly and tried to straggle to her feet as well, but Catherine and Alois appeared almost out of nowhere to restrain her instead. Everyone rushed in now: Byleth, Seteth, a crowd of Knights, and in the back Sayori spotted a very confused Hanneman.

"Solon!" Kronya screamed in desperation. In a flash of purple light he actually appeared, clad as Tomas—but Byleth had expected this. She flicked the tip of the Sword of the Creator at him just as he materialized and caught him in the neck, cutting off his counter spell with a jerk and gurgle of blood. His own disguise dissipated as he collapsed to the floor.

Rhea, disgust in her eyes, glanced between the two of them. "So the corruption grew deeper than we thought! Yes, I know full well who you are—wretched traitors of the goddess!"

"Do you have any idea of the retribution we will wreak against you?" Kronya coughed. "That we have already—"

"You will do no such thing!" Rhea snarled. "As of now your very lives are forfeit!"

"You...truly believe it is only the two of us?" Solon croaked from the floor, still somehow conscious. "Heh. Such foolishness. We are far more numerous and powerful than you could ever...grk...imagine. Our hands hold the strings of Fódlan from the shadows. We could kill everyone in this room and make it look like an accident." He smirked. "Or a senseless tragedy."

"Enough!" Rhea pointed out the door. "This ends now. Not only your meaningless ramblings, but your schemes altogether! I will not let you, or anyone, threaten this land again!" She was almost incoherent with rage, and in that moment Sayori could clearly see Saint Seiros in all her terrifying glory.

The knights closest to the two Agarthans finally hefted them up and led them away, Kronya sobbing and Solon entirely silent but clutching at the wound in his neck. Rhea tore her eyes away from them to Byleth, standing tall with only the barest hint of triumph.

"You knew," Rhea said, and Byleth nodded. "How?"

"Who were those people?" Dimitri suddenly asked. He stepped forward, a strange glint in his eyes. "Who, Professor? Archbishop?"

"I admit, I'm curious myself," Claude chimed in.

"I can explain everything," Byleth said, glancing between everyone in the room now watching her. "They are Agarthans, ancient enemies of the goddess and her followers"—Rhea gasped—"and I will explain how I know this...in the Holy Tomb. Please, can we gather all of the students for this?"

Rhea, stunned, only nodded.

1.9 Aureate Sun, Part Five (by Tetradrachm)

The Holy Tomb was massive and dark, the full size of the chamber almost impossible to make out. Most of the light came from the torches of the murmuring crowd, creating shadows which shifted across the distant walls.

Sayori found herself standing between Claude and Hilda in the crowd, torn between worry and relief that the plan was firmly in motion. Claude was unusually silent, while Hilda had only quieted down after grilling them both extensively on what was going on. Now, she was busy filling in Ignatz and Lysithea next to her, who were both visibly shocked.
Sayori herself was busy scanning the crowd for the people she needed to track most.

Edelgard hadn't panicked or fled the monastery when they'd heard the news about the Agarthans, but she was visibly tense, standing stiff a ways in front of her. Sayori had made an effort to get to know her over the past few months because she so achingly reminded her of Monika; she knew how to reach out to her, and potentially how to help her, but she just hadn't had enough time to break down her walls before everything blew up. It didn't help that Hubert made a habit of inserting himself into every conversation they had. However, she knew Edelgard respected Byleth very highly, and Byleth was banking on that respect to try and help her to see reason now.

Dimitri was another one she was worried about; the way he'd become so intense in Rhea's chambers made her wonder if he'd picked up on Solon's comment about senseless tragedies and connected it to Duscur. She had seen him give terse explanations to his Blue Lions on the way down as if they were readying for battle which, perhaps, they were.

Sayori was actually most worried about Rhea's reaction to what was about to happen. If she rejected Sothis' message, there would be a fight that could easily escalate into a full war. Out of everyone at the monastery Rhea was the least approachable for Sayori, mostly because of her constant duties as Archbishop. It meant that she couldn't be sure how she would react to so many revelations at once—especially those so close to her heart.

Byleth finally stepped forward from where she'd been talking to someone—Seteth, maybe—and strode up the stairs towards the throne. The crowd quieted almost immediately and she sat down in silence, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Rhea's hands rose to her chest as if she were praying.

When she opened her eyes and began to speak, Rhea's hands fell limply to her sides.

"First of all," Byleth began, "you all need to know that I know about far more than just those infiltrators. I know the truth about the origins and natures of Crests. I know the truth of the fate of the progenitor god. I know the truth of things that only you each know as well—" She pointed at Dimitri. "I know that you lost your sense of taste after the Tragedy of Duscur." As his brow furrowed, she pointed next at Mercedes. "I know that Jeritza is in truth your long-lost brother, Emile."

"What?" Mercedes gasped.

Pressing on, Byleth turned to Lysithea. "I know that you have a shortened lifespan because of your two Crests, forced on you by Imperial mages that were in truth agents of the same group as our infiltrators!" Lysithea paled and reeled back with a squeal, and the crowd roared.

"A shortened lifespan?" Hilda asked beside Sayori. "That's what she's always meant about needing to work hard for her parents!?"

Finally, with a commanding thrust of her arm Byleth singled out Edelgard. "That same group was the one that experimented on you and all of your siblings, destroying them all and granting you the Crest of Flames!"

"How?" Edelgard almost shouted over the arguments and shrieks of the crowd, obviously stricken. "How do you know this?"

"Silence!" Seteth somehow managed to call out over the crowd, bringing the volume down a good deal. "Professor, explain yourself at once!"

"Ever since just before I arrived at the monastery, I have had visions of a young girl speaking to me, telling me things I had no way of knowing. It was only recently that she told me the truth: that she is the remnant of the progenitor god Sothis, placed in me when I was born as her Crest Stone."

"What is this heresy?" Catherine demanded, stepping out of the crowd. "The goddess is not a child, or a shade! Archbishop—"

"Catherine, please," Rhea said quietly. There were tears running down her cheeks. "Let her finish."

Catherine was visibly taken aback. "A-as you wish, my lady."

"Many eons ago," Byleth spoke softly, voice carrying through the chamber regardless, "the progenitor god came to Fódlan, and shared her gifts with its people." She launched into the same story Byleth had told her months ago, which had in turn been told to her by Rhea in a previous Loop. She skimmed over some parts, such the Ten Elites being Nemesis' allies, but started into the truth about Sothis, the Agarthans, and the Nabateans. When she reached Nemesis' murder and dismemberment of Sothis, Rhea crumpled in on herself, placing her head in her hands, although Sayori thought she might have been the only one to notice, as everyone else was caught on more obvious issues.

"Wait," Sylvain of all people interrupted, "so you're saying the Sword of the Creator was literally made from the creator?" He held up his own Lance of Ruin. "Does that apply to all of the Relic Weapons?"

There was a fresh outbreak of murmurs and gasps after that, with Catherine especially recoiling in shock. "No," Byleth said, "the other Relic Weapons weren't created from her, but they were created from the other Nabateans, when Nemesis attacked them at the Red Canyon—"

"So I'm carrying around one of these people's spines, or something," Sylvain carried on, more bitter than Sayori had ever seen him. "Wonderful. But the really important part, the part I think a few of us have caught onto already: Crests derive from the same thing?"

Byleth took another deep breath. "They do."

"And how does the goddess feel about that?" Sylvain challenged her.

Byleth's mouth twisted. "Have you already guessed everything I will say?"

"No, but I think I can see where she's going with this. Just to be clear, I do believe you on this—really—and the logical outcome of all this is that Sothis isn't too happy about her children's blood being used to decide who rules the land. Am I right?" Sayori's mind flashed back to Miklan, one of the few people Byleth hadn't been able to save with foreknowledge, and she understood exactly why he was suddenly so invested in this.

Byleth bowed her head slightly. "She does feel very strongly that the hierarchy built on Crests in Fódlan has been a grave misstep."

There was a moment of utter silence through the hall, until it was broken by a low chuckle. "Truly," Hubert spoke for the first time, "this is the most incredible thing I've heard in quite some time. The goddess herself is supposed to have been reborn in a random mercenary, only to tell us that our entire society has been led astray? If nothing else, this is...deeply entertaining. But there is only one person whose opinion matters here, I suppose."

"Yes," Catherine agreed, face set. "Archbishop Rhea, please, do away with this liar!"

Rhea shook her head fervently, almost frantic. "Please, no, no, I can't—do this—"

"Professor!" Dimitri called out as the crowd rose to argue with itself—Sayori could barely hear him over Hilda's shouts of protest and Claude's called questions of his own. "Please, Archbishop, just tell me ask this—Professor, did the infiltrators cause the Tragedy of Duscur?"

Byleth slowly nodded.

It was then, finally, that all hell broke loose.

1.10 Aureate Sun, Part Six (by Tetradrachm)

Content warning for brief discussion of PTSD and schizophrenia.

The two fencers raised their swords and began with a few quick feints and darts, circling each other and raising little clouds of sawdust off the floor. The training grounds were well lit by the torches they'd set up before getting started, in spite of the pitch darkness outside. Finally, one of the fencers lunged in a more daring attack and the match started properly. For a few rapid maneuvers, they raced through attacks and counterattacks.

Sword crashed against sword in a pair of equally matched swings, but one was faster than the other in disengaging. The sharper of the two, a wickedly curved and almost segmented thing, swung out to the left before twisting back in toward the other, normal sword's wielder. It jerked oddly in its path to aim straight for his heart—and then stopped just before piercing his clothes.

"The Crest activated again," Sayori panted, slowly lowering the fearsome blade. "I could...feel it aiming towards your, uh, vitals. It especially responds to the sword, I guess? It usually doesn't activate when we're just training!"

"I think I know what you mean," Dimitri answered, wiping sweat off his forehead. "I can feel something similar when I wield Areadbhar now, a connection to my Crest that...thrums within me, when I hold it. And, well, I suppose we know why that connection exists now." He looked vaguely ill at the thought.

It had been about a month since Byleth had told all in the Holy Tomb, and life at the monastery since then had been...eventful, to say the least. Within days of Kronya and Solon's executions, the other Slitherers throughout Fódlan had presented a unified front and announced a "defensive alliance to fight the heretical Central Church" across all three nations. In practice, it meant that most of the continent fell into chaos, as supporters of the Central Church fought against the Slitherers' supporters and troops.

Garreg Mach had had a serious crisis unto itself for the first few days after the events of that night as well. The Blue Lions had very nearly marched off to war right there and then, if it hadn't been for Ashe pointing out that they didn't actually know where or how to fight the Slitherers. Rhea had eventually, reluctantly accepted that Byleth was telling the truth after a private meeting where Byleth had revealed more personal information she knew about the Nabateans, and had agreed to try and reform the Church once the Slitherers were destroyed. Edelgard and Hubert had retreated to her room for almost a full day before emerging and having an interesting meeting of their own with Byleth—apparently, the Flame Emperor had appeared in full regalia to agree to support their cause, on the condition that freedom of religion was allowed throughout the Empire after the war. Byleth had been the most exuberant Sayori had ever seen her that day; she'd finally succeeded in bringing the entire monastery together onto one side.

But that only meant that the war began in earnest for them sooner than what Byleth had described as Baseline, and with less advance notice. All three nations were engulfed in internecine warfare, some less so than others; what made matters worse was the fact that the Slitherers could potentially wipe an entire city off of the map with their Javelins of Light. Because of this, the monastery hadn't made any aggressive moves yet and had only had to fight off a few scattered Imperial forces so far. Instead, they were in the process of building their strength for a surprise assault on Shambhala as soon as possible to end the existential threat that the Javelins posed. Lord Rodrigue had somehow managed to smuggle Areadbhar out of Cordelia's Fhirdiad and deliver it to Dimitri by a lone rider two weeks ago, for instance, while the entire Golden Deer house had accompanied Sayori herself to Edmund territory to slay the Wandering Beast just last week. Blutgang was hers, now, and she was still getting used to it.

Sayori shook herself out of her thoughts. "As long as we honor their memories, we have to use every advantage we can, right?" They were up against giant magical mechas and nukes, apparently; they needed all the help they could get.

"Yes, of course," Dimitri said with firmer resolve. "We must end this war as quickly as possible and exterminate those accursed monsters." His face twisted into something dark, and Sayori felt a wave of pity for him again.

They'd been meeting for private training sessions once or twice a week, ever since the fateful late night he'd stumbled on her shredding training dummies with lightsaber forms. She'd been frustrated with herself over issues both from Fódlan and from home and needed to take it out somehow. They'd had a fruitful conversation about anger and how to express it, and since then they'd used these sessions both to improve and to work on their feelings, so to speak.

She knew that he struggled with what was most likely schizophrenia, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder from the Tragedy of Duscur, and Byleth's revelations had brought those issues to the forefront for a while. He had told her about the visions he saw sometimes, the faces and voices of the dead crying out for vengeance, and she'd carefully talked through the emotions and stresses he felt about it all with him. Medical treatment was essentially impossible in Fódlan, but she'd done her best to give him a sort of therapy and he genuinely was doing better. It still made her feel for him each time he was engulfed by his rage, though, because she damn well knew what it was like to be overwhelmed by her own emotions.

"We should be heading out to attack them as soon as Claude returns from negotiating with Judith." And Nader, and Almyra by extension, but that wasn't something Byleth had told everyone yet. Claude's true heritage was one of those secrets that might have caused the unified front at Garreg Mach to break down, the same way Rhea being unveiled as Saint Seiros might have.

"Any day now, yes," Dimitri muttered. He clutched his fists and his sword quivered slightly in his grip. "You'll be glad too, won't you?"

"Me? What?" The question took her by surprise; it was a strange way to change the subject. "Will I be glad about what, going to fight?"

"To finally do something?" he answered her with another question. "I can see how you're...constantly fighting with yourself over your worries. The tensions you always hold...won't they be relieved when we can answer them on the battlefield?"

"Oh. You've...noticed, huh?" Even in spite of how busy she'd been trying to get to know everyone and help them during her time in the Loop so far for some reason her worries from home had never totally left her this time around. They hung in the corners of her mind like—not like rain clouds quite, not that again, but maybe a hint of fog. "Well, it'll help to go do something, definitely, but I'm mostly worried about everybody else, you know?"

The real long term problems never left her—how to help Monika and how to handle her childhood friend. For some reason, her time at the Monastery had brought both issues into sharper relief somehow. Maybe it was through the comparisons she could draw between it and home? Edelgard scared her sometimes in how similar she was to Monika, and all the boys had their moments where they reminded her of H...her friend.

"We will all survive," Dimitri said, thankfully completely missing her point. "We know what we'll be up against thanks to Byleth, and the goddess. To think that we've been so blessed...with her on our side, we cannot lose!"

The real Sothis was something of a sarcastic little imp from how Byleth had described her and was hardly the type to go around bestowing blessings, not that Sayori could ever tell him that. "I know, I'm sure we'll make it through"—her and Byleth both were being very careful on that front—"but it's not like ending the war will solve everything, will it?"

Dimitri blinked at her. "Nothing will ever solve everything," he said slowly, "no. Too much has," he exhaled heavily, "already happened. All we can do is go forward, for those we have already lost and for those who still depend on us."

"That's it? Just out of a sense of responsibility?" she was obliged to ask him. Sometimes it almost felt that way for her back home, too—especially when it came to her friend.

Birch.

That actually was how she felt about him by now, and it wasn't his fault—it was just that he was so completely different from loop to loop that it felt like she had to keep up an emotionally exhausting friendship with a stranger every time. "Never mind," she said suddenly, "I know exactly what you mean."

It was like how being friends with Natsuki and Yuri had been before they Activated, but worse, because at least their personalities had stayed the same from loop to loop. When Hiroaka had still been Hiroaka, he'd been...consistent in his own way. Now, she Awoke every Loop with close memories and connections to someone completely different each time, an albatross of feelings nipping at her heels every time.

"I..." they both started at the same time, and Dimitri ducked his head. "Please, you go first!"

"Oh, okay..." She'd had the sudden urge to talk about what was really bothering her—and wasn't that the darnedest thing? She'd been trying to help him and she'd run smack dab into wanting him to help her. He wasn't even a Looper, not that there was anything wrong with that, but it wouldn't be fair to him, would it?

She kept on talking anyway. "I was just going to say...I have a friend, back home, who used to be my closest companion in the whole world." Thousands of different, conflicting Loop memories of their childhoods flashed through her head for a moment. "When we grew up, though, he...changed. A lot." Sometimes he was soft and gentle, a really sweet guy. Sometimes he was awkward and a bit self-centered. Sometimes he was very much self-centered, but still a good person at heart. And sometimes, too often, he was a straight-up jerk. "And he's, uh, an important vassal of the Edmund family now, so I still have to see him a lot, but I'm really not...close to him, anymore." She just couldn't hold onto that same affection she'd once had for him. She didn't know him anymore, not really—she didn't even know his name!—and thinking about him just made her sad more than anything else.

After a moment of being lost in her own, steadily darkening thoughts, Dimitri prompted her, "But he was once your friend? Then...you should carry on in the memory of the friendship you once had. Just because he's changed now doesn't mean that friendship never happened."

"Yeah, you're right, of course," she agreed, trying to keep an edge of frustration out of her voice because she'd already decided that a long, long time ago. "But that doesn't make dealing with him any easier—ugh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, my problems are just peanuts compared to your elephants—"

"I see how they weigh on you, though," he said gently. "And these are the kinds of problems that you cannot simply solve on the battlefield—so you need to speak about these things. And I am willing to listen."

"Thanks." She gave him a grateful smile. There had been loops where she'd told all to her friend this same way and he'd actually been willing to listen. Dimitri was a good person in the same way that her friend was at his best, even though he was burdened down with issues her friend never had. It was very generous of him. "Yeah, talking about it does help, really. Thanks for listening to me ramble about it!"

She wondered briefly if it wasn't very nice of her to bother a non-Looper with a Looper's issues. There'd been philosophical debates about this before across Yggdrasil; some people felt like it was selfishly taking up a sentient non-Looper's brief and precious time existing before they reset and that that was a bad thing, while others—like a few of her fellow Looping Sith—saw it the same way but of course thought the selfishness was just peachy. She didn't agree with that basic view, though, she decided. Dimitri was her friend now, after getting to know him, and being a good friend meant treating them equally to yourself. She'd let him shoulder some of her burdens, just as she'd shoulder some of his, even if he would forget it all when the Loop ended.

"Of course," Dimitri said, "goddess knows I've rambled at you enough!" They shared a laugh. "Hm...feel like another spar?"

"Oh, definitely! More than just one—we're still only getting started!"

She really did enjoy sparring now; she'd take Yuri up on that offer she'd given to learn swordsmanship a while back. Even though it was stressful at times she was really glad that she'd had this Loop, both to help Byleth and Sothis and for the friends she had made here. They were all really great people, and she'd definitely miss them when she got back home. Once they started Looping—and she got the feeling many of them would, with the way Byleth knew them all so well—she'd just make friends with them again!

They both raised their blades again, and he quirked her an encouraging smile. She looked him in the eyes and smiled right back. The fog dissipated, just a little bit.

1.11 Aureate Sun, Part Seven (by Tetradrachm)

Shambhala was a frenzy of fire and magic.

Massive magi-technological structures sparked with raw energy, leaping to and fro on the circuits that covered them. A massive trio of Titanus mechs (that was definitely what they were, and it felt so out of place in Fódlan to Sayori) lumbered forward, another round after the previous two they'd already defeated. In her peripheral vision she could see Lysithea, Annette, Hubert, and Constance engaged in furious magical battle with a group of Agarthan mages. From behind and around her on all sides arrows flew forward from their archers hidden in safer positions. Claude and Ingrid, on wyvern and pegasus mounts respectively, soared over the closest installation to attack a command tower.

"Onwards!" Dimitri shouted beside her, and the small group of forward fighters with them charged at the nearest Titanus. Raphael punched its arm with his massive gauntlets, while Hilda jumped into a powerful downward strike with Freikugel beside him. Catherine scored a solid blow directly to its chest with Thunderbrand, followed up by Edelgard with a seemingly less powerful side thrust with a steel axe that she spun into a ripping attack that tore the automaton clear open.

There was no way in Eiken that people hitting a giant metal shell could usually break through it with bone and plain old steel weapons. Anime physics were awesome. At least, she thought was anime; she'd never actually recognized which Branch it was, although bits and pieces seemed familiar.

Now it was her turn to attack the next closest Titanus, and she charged with Blutgang held tight at her side. The Crest Stone, and then the entire blade, glowed as she launched her first slash, then another, then a third onto its left arm. It didn't make a dent in the metal, but the magic of the sword clearly did something to the mech's magical circuits, causing them to flash erratically. It was slow to respond, and when its arm finally came up in a counterattack, she dodged it easily with a side roll—the only hard part was keeping Blutgang from cutting her—and then hopping back to her feet out of range. In the mean time, Dimitri and Caspar made their melee attacks, strong blows onto its core that nevertheless didn't quite break it. It readied another blow and Dimitri grit his teeth, ran forward and intercepted it with Areadbhar. The strike nearly knocked the spear out of his hands and shoved him to the ground.

"You okay?" Sayori called out in worry. She readied a Physic, just in case.

"I am alright," he muttered, "but—"

The Titanus loomed over the two of them suddenly, advancing directly forward and ignoring Caspar. Sayori swung her blade up but it might have been too late, this was going to hurt—

A cluster of arrows appeared in its "head" and it froze. Sayori exhaled in relief and glanced over at Dimitri climbing to his own feet, mostly unscathed.

"I did it!" Bernadetta cheered from somewhere nearby.

Their reprieve was short-lived, though, because yet another group of Titanus rounded the corner. Everyone readied their weapons again, but it was all happening so quickly that Sayori was sure they'd get tired fast if waves of the giant mechs kept coming. It was a brutal slog, and a dangerous one; if they got tired too quickly they could easily be overwhelmed.

Then, slowly but surely the entire group of Titanus slowed to a stop, heads bowing and arms falling their sides. Sayori could have sworn she heard a computer powering down. Seconds later, a panel on one of the structures next to them hissed open and Yuri Leclerc emerged, looking smug.

"Well now, that wasn't so hard," he said with a slight, taunting smile. "Just a few fools that needed their necks sliced and a few wires broken to get those metal hulks to quit."

A ragged cheer came up from the melee group, Sayori joining in. Sure, Yuri was a little bit bloodthirsty, but he was their little bit bloodthirsty guy—oddly enough, it reminded her of her own Yuri a little bit. Most of the Officers' Academy was just as bad anyway, including Dimitri. Most importantly, the big, scary mechs weren't a problem anymore.

Now they could advance, and they did, hurrying around the same corner the Titanus had come from to run into a group of unsuspecting Agarthan mages. They all raised their staffs just a bit too late and found themselves on the wrong end of various stabby implements, as Natsuki occasionally called them. The process repeated a few times as they raced towards the center of the complex, where Byleth had warned them that the Javelin control center was located. Finally as they approached a massive staircase most of the delegation from Garreg Mach assembled again, Byleth at the lead. She raced up the steps and examined the complex magical inscriptions above for a moment, then started carefully taking it apart.

"It's down!" she called out after a minute, and the whole chamber rang out with cheers. Apparently in Baseline Thales was here when they attacked, and usually triggered the Javelins to fire on the underground city itself in an attempt to take everyone down with him. Thankfully this time around he was still off being Lord Arundel somewhere in the empire and hadn't had notice to try and beat them here.

The desperate race against time was only half-finished, though, and in a certain sense the second part was more urgent. That's what the cavalry wing of the force was busy doing this whole time: racing down into the depths of Shambhala to track down the Slitherers' other remaining threats—most importantly their zombified Nemesis—and destroy them before they were set off. It had been a very clever, complex tactical arrangement devised by Byleth well in advance, and—

Sayori froze, her mind suddenly latching onto that one word. Tactical...

"Tactical genius...blue hair..." she muttered to herself as Jeralt emerged at the head of the cavalry contingent nearby, roaring in triumph. Byleth raced over to him and engulfed him in a hug even before he'd gotten off the horse, but Sayori barely even noticed.

Tidbits she'd heard from their Smash Branch friends flashed through her mind, and the more she compared them the more she knew it had to be true. "Medieval setting...secret dragons...the Crest of Flames! The Fire Emblem!" she shouted in triumph before immediately realizing what she'd said and turned bright red. Thankfully, very thankfully, everyone was shouting all sorts of things at the same time and no one paid her any mind.

Was it wrong that she was almost more happy that she'd finally figured out what sort of Branch it was than from the fact that they'd won?

It didn't matter, anyway; scarcely five minutes after the battle was over and they were all heading up to the surface Claude asked her if she'd "finally spill the beans on her big secret, whatever it was." That night, she got all of the students she'd gotten close to together and told them...well, not everything, but most of it.

There was still a war to be finished, but she knew now that everything would be alright.

—

Aureate Sun: Epilogue (extra)

—

Sayori: Smiling Dreamer

After the assault on Shambhala, the threat of those who slither in the dark was ended as a unified force, but the daunting task of pacifying Fódlan remained. Throughout the following campaigns to end the anarchy across the continent Sayori became known as a diplomatic genius, and one beloved by the people. She was a key figure in organizing the eventual, renewed treaties between the three nations of Fódlan, and according to some legends she wrote them entirely on her own.

An important part of her success was the close bonds she shared with leading figures in all three nations, especially their rulers. Once the wars had ended she became an ambassador between them, conveying private information and personal news with her closest companions in Fódlan.

Even long after the Loop ended a few short years later and she returned to the Literature Club she treasured her memories of all the friends she had made, especially her training partner Dimitri.

AN: Coming up in Chapter Two, Byleth and Sothis adjust to life in the Loops, and the first of Byleth's students Awaken as well...

By the way, if you would like to contribute to this project, or even just talk about it live, feel free to join us on in the Loops threads!