This is a new chapter. However, first:

RECAP

Since it's been three months since the last chapter, here's a recap to remind everyone what all has happened in this arc so far.

-Shortly after arriving in France, Subaru, Mash, and Mordred were yanked into Francois Prelati's [Grand Illusion]. Subaru was killed by a polymorphed Fafnir.

-After escaping Fafnir in his second loop, Subaru found himself on the Ahab's [Pequod], alongside Prelati and Mash. He spent a command spell to teleport Mordred onto the ship.

-Prelati formed a temporary contract with Subaru after explaining that he was currently trapping Demon God Bael in an illusion. He then allowed Fafnir to find the Pequod. He almost tricked Ahab into killing Fafnir with his Noble Phantasm (a suicide attack), but Subaru accidentally broke the Grand Illusion using [EMT].

-Prelati teleports the crew minus Ahab away to a leyline by folding space with grand illusion.

-Mordred fights and kills Martha

-A summoning rigged by Prelati to summon a foreigner is performed, and Roy Alphard arrives, before immediately transforming into Reid Astrea.

-Reid defeats Fafnir, but is killed by Lancelot. Total Party Kill occurs. Lancelot is revealed to be able to directly steal Subaru's Witch Factors with [Knight of Owner]

-Upon reviving, Subaru breaks Prelati's illusion immediately with EMT, and resolves not to go out of his way to meet with the guy again.

-The team unites with Jeanne d'Arc and spends several days walking to La Charite, where they encounter Vlad and Carmilla. Subaru is revealed to have been killed by a vampire at some point in past earth loops, something that leaves him with a weakness to their presence. Jeanne gifts him with a holy shroud to protect from the effect, which he later turns into an improvised whip.

-Carmilla is defeated by Mash and Jeanne, but they have to flee Vlad before they can finish her off. Jalter bathes carmilla in dragon blood.

-The group meets Mozart and Marie, and begins to flee by carriage. Lancelot intercepts and proceeds to kick everyone's collective asses.

-Jalter arrives with Edmond Dantes (Berserk Avenger) and dismisses Lancelot before he can finish anyone off, because she's a big chuuni idiot.

-Edmond and Fafnir fight the heroes. Fafnir takes a critical wound because of conceptual bullshit, and Mozart bullies Edmond with music. Edmond swears revenge, but Subaru double taps. Unfortunately, Edmond's healing is bullshit and he survives this.

-Tarrasque arrives and forces a retreat. The heroes meet up with Prelati again, who blackmails Subaru into accepting a contract with him.

-Subaru attempts to summon a servant, but Edmond arrives and performs another Total Party Kill.

-Edmond is revealed to remember some of the events of previous loops. Francesca Prelati is revealed to be present in the singularity, and he kills her in a fit of horror at the depravity of her plan to 'save' humanity. (Or does he?)

-Subaru rushes the encounter with prelati to get through and summon Gareth. Edmond is cheesed by the ring of Transformation and Prelati's illusions. Mordred has to be sent back to Chaldea, as two knights of the round are too mana intensive for the generators to handle.

-The heroes head to Lyon to meet up with Siegfried, but d'Eon has already killed him. Fafnir attacks, but d'Eon switches sides, sacrificing herself to save Marie. Fafnir flees, signifying a change to hit-and-run tactics. Mordred and Gareth don't think this is too strange for a dragon.

-We head to paris to meet with Saint George, but Chlodovech (The second Berserk Rider, first king of France) breaks Prelati's illusion with his Axe. Jeanne is killed by Chlodovech and Mash is grievously wounded by Vlad. Mozart reveals his identity as Demon God Amdusias, and sacrifices himself so the rest can escape.

-Lancelot is waiting at Paris for the heroes. Gareth fights him and injures him, forcing him to reveal his identity. He kills her.

-Galahad possesses Mash to fight Lancelot and buy time for Guillotine Breaker to come off cooldown, but Lancelot summons [Dolorous Gard], blocking Marie's attack and trapping Galahad in a 1v1.

-Carmilla ganks Marie, and Prelati teleports Subaru away to the Paris catacombs to torture him to death.

-Prelati reveals that he has been trapping subaru in an unknown number of loops to create for him a personal history so horrid Goetia can't bear to look at it. He has hypnotized Subaru each time so he forgets the previous loop, and even Prelati does not know how many loops have passed.

-Prelati is suddenly killed by the Phantom of the Opera, who rescues Subaru. Subaru learns Galahad beat Lancelot, and learns Satella has appeared in Paris and is eating everything.

-Ahab tells Subaru about the twenty loops he missed in which his servant was Zhuge Liang, not Gareth. Zhuge Liang rigged this loop with [Chu Shi Biao] in order to break Prelati's trap and possibly end the singularity.

-Chlodovech backstabs Jalter, takes the grail, banishes Satella, and hands the grail over to Subaru

-But Mash died during Galahad's fight with Lancelot, so Subaru uses his new gluttony authority to kill himself by consuming Ahab's harpoon.

-Prelati reveals he didn't need the dream cycle to learn about return by death, and teleports Subaru away to torture him to death again, but Subaru barely escapes, killing Prelati in the process.

-Subaru is separated from everyone else, and meets Siegfried and Merry, his Master (and the master of Watcher).

-Subaru summons Zhuge Liang again, and they kick Fafnir and d'Eon's asses. Fafnir escapes, losing several fingers and his wings in the process. d'Eon dies.

-Also worth noting: Napoleon was present at one point in the singularity, and Prelati did something to make him go missing. His defeat has not been confirmed, and Waver is hesitant to believe he COULD be defeated on French soil.

79: Sometimes it's not a good time to talk.

Purity is there. A fragile flower, white and radiant, shining brighter than the sun and the stars. Gleaming, gorgeous without compare - and then, a flash. The sharp sting of metal. Deep burgundy splatters across the petals of the flower. A blade divides it in half, spilling out the rot within, and with the eyes of a righteous judge, the ████'s boot crushes the fallen lily into the dirt.

"You wretched… Ingrates…" Chevalier d'Eon mutters, and her body dissolves into golden dust, leaving a wide-eyed Merry d'Lyon behind, still gripping the rapier that slew the Berserk Saber.

Her hand falls slack, and the rapier slips from her grip, clattering to the ground. She heaves a deep breath - and then another, and another, growing quicker and quicker. I've got all kinds of questions rolling around in my head - so by the time I realize Merry is hyperventilating, I just barely have enough time to catch her as she passes out.

Fortunately, there's more than one source around able to answer my total confusion - so after laying Merry safely on a bed in the abandoned manor we've been using as a base, I turn my attention to a certain Clock Tower Professor.

"The Watcher class?" I ask, raising an eyebrow. "That's… one of the really out-there Extra Classes, right?"

"That's right." He nods. "Although even that might be an understatement. Extra Servants like [Shielder] or [Ruler] look normal in comparison. I can't say with confidence that it's the most bizarre extra class, but I can't think of anything that competes at the moment."

"I get that it's weird - but what does it do exactly? It's got… something to do with Pseudo-Servants and Demi-Servants, right?" I press, trying to bring us back to the topic at hand.

"...There's some loose approximation of correctness there, if only by way of analogy." Professor Velvet says evenly. "To summarize… the [Watcher] Class's purpose is to 'watch' the transformation of his master into 'a living heroic spirit'. Possibly, in some cases, the end result might resemble a Pseudo-Servant or a Demi-Servant - but that's pretty much the most I can say about it. Kongming isn't even sure if there's a single record on the Throne of that process actually reaching its end."

I can't help but grimace. "A living heroic spirit, huh?" From every impression I've gotten of Merry up to this point, that's just about the last thing she wants. "But putting that aside, have you got any idea who this Watcher might be? What kind of person even qualifies for a class like that - famous mentors, or something?"

The professor shakes his head. "No, it's nothing that simple. The type of being that could qualify for the Watcher class would have to be an edge case just as severe. Hero, anti-hero, god, demon, elemental, vampire… it couldn't be any of those things. Or at least, not 'just' one of those things."

My wrist communicator beeps, and Doctor Roman appears. "I can provide a bit on this- we hadn't picked up any readings before, but - well, whatever happened to that girl when she killed Berserk Saber, we managed to get a brief scan of her Servant." He grimaces. "Well, that being said, it doesn't look like good news. I'll send it over now."

The display changes - oi, [Fallen God]? That skill alone makes this obvious bad news!

"Tch." Professor Velvet shakes his head. "With skills like that… And taking into account the girl's appearance, Watcher's Identity is pretty obvious."

"[The Evil God of the Reef] - is what we're calling him for now." Doctor Roman says. "He's not really one of them, considering his true origins, but the fact remains that it's against best practices to directly name any of the beings who resemble the writings of Howard Phillips Lovecraft."

"A Sumerian god who ought to have faded from existence, only to have his legend preserved as a demon, and then a sea monster from the stars… that'd qualify, alright. That level of distortion is just perfect for the Watcher class." The Professor sighs. "It's all coming together, but the picture isn't pretty."

He takes a puff of his cigar, and continues.

"Merry. Spelled as the English emotion, with two Rs - that's not a French name. The French form of Saint Mary's name is Marie, as you're no doubt aware. Why? It could have been that she was from an English family, but that seems unlikely. She hasn't got the appearance of someone whose gene pool has seen much mixture from out of town. No, she's got the 'Innsmouth look'. And if Lovecraft is to be believed, that sort of influence runs deep - who else do we know with a face like hers?"

"...Chlodovech." I mutter, as I start to see exactly where he's going with this. "And his grandfather, the guy he probably inherited his face from, was Merovech, right? So the reason that the Quinotaur is so weak compared to the typical Divine Beast is… probably because it never existed in the first place. Merovech's true father was the [Evil God of the Reef]."

"It makes a strange sort of sense. France was never a nation known for its aquatic prowess, so the story of its descent from a god of the Sea was strange. But before medieval etymological misinterpretations, the [Evil God of the Reef] was a god of the weather and the harvest.. The fish aspects were added later." Doctor Roman says.

"...Ugh. In the end, though, all this amounts to is a big question mark, right? We still don't know what Watcher wants, so we're back to square one in determining whether Merry can be trusted." I groan. "Fine, whatever. We haven't got time to waste going in circles. What else have we got to go through?"

"There's Fafnir, but I need one more piece of evidence before I'm comfortable putting forward my current theory." Professor Velvet says.

"On our end… Director Animusphere is looking quite a bit better today, but she's busy going through Chaldea's records for some reason, so she can't handle communication right now." Romani says. "More importantly, the Middle Eastern and Roman singularities are continuing to diverge from their original values."

"Oh, there was something like that, wasn't there?" I mutter.

"Hey, I'm not the Director, so don't go using that gag on me." He deadpans.

"But with that in mind, can I actually have a look at the values for the Roman divergence? I just had a reminder of something recently." I ask.

"...What do you even think you'll get out of them?" He mutters. "Aren't you just a first year Clock Tower student?"

He sends the data to my communicator anyway, and I scroll through them with a frown on my face. Yeah, it looks like I was right.

"I'm a high-school dropout too!" I reply, closing the data reader and flashing a thumbs up.

"You can't read it and you just did it to annoy me!?" Romani gives the perfect Romani response.

"-Anyway, the incineration in Rome has been reduced to almost nothing, but that 'almost nothing' is burning its way forward in time faster than the other singularities." I say. Well, I may have dropped out, but I spent eight loops learning theoretical physics after all. "Considering this is Rome we're talking about… everything about it screams of one of Atlas's Seven Superweapons. [Powered Armor RESTITVTOR ORBIS], the same weapon used as construction materials for Chlodovech's axe. What a pain in the neck.."

"You can read it after all!? What kind of High School dropout are you!?"

"I'm a High School dropout with a Theoretical Physics degree and training at Atlas Academy!" I say with a thumbs up.

"Anyway, that means - oh crap!" Romani suddenly tears his attention away to look at something else. "Subaru, you guys need to head east right away! Mash's group has almost reached Lyon, but they've encountered enemies! They're being attacked by Berserk Avenger!

…I knew I was forgetting something.

A/N:

Not happy with this chapter, but the writer's block won't go away unless I put SOMETHING out, so here it is.