BlazBlue: Central Fiction is the end of an era. With this installment, a quartet is complete. Many questions we’ve had about its world and major characters are answered, allowing people who have had enough and are ready to go to walk away. But, for people who do still find themselves craving more from this particular line, it manages to offer additional questions to continue the story. To make things easier for people who want to know what happens, here’s a general summary of the things that happened and where the series could go from here. It’s a very confusing, twisting and turning storyline, so we’ll go over the most important points and how that ties into the future.
Warning: spoilers for BlazBlue Central Fiction lie ahead.
Let’s start with something simple. We know BlazBlue is trapped in a time loop where the world keeps getting reset. Certain special people, like Rachel Alucard, maintain their memories despite this. At one point in the story, Rachel tells a tale about a young woman who wants to be saved by her prince. Except, he never saves her. He keeps fighting the monster instead. She keeps resetting the world because she wants to be with him again. Ragna is the prince. The Origin is the young woman. Ragna kept becoming attacking her, which is why she would reset the world.
In BlazBlue: Central Fiction, we see that most of the roster has survived the end and are considered Entitled, ones who possess Drives and could rebuild the world with their dreams. If they defeat Hades: Izanami, they can make their own world with the Azure. Ragna isn’t qualified, so he begins defeating the other people who are qualified, taking their memory and dreams so they become unqualified. They turn into seithr, but he remains. (Es is also fulfilling her role as Embryo Storage and “stores” people’s existences along the way.) Since Doomsday is going to happen as long as Hades: Izanami exists, Nine uses her Requiem spell, giving her life in the process, to stop Hades: Izanami for a week, giving Ragna and the others time to possibly set things right.
Ragna takes Noel and Mu to the Black Beast’s corpse, after Rachel tells them it could act as a Cauldron. Since Noel is the Origin recreated and her and her sisters all share the same soul, she and Mu fuse together. Ragna and Noel come up with a plan. Instead of killing Ragna killing Hades: Izanami, he distracts her so Noel can observe and fuse with her. (This happens as Minerva is sent to counteract Requiem’s explosion as time resumes, preventing the world from being destroyed.) As Ragna and Noel go to reunite with Jin and Tsubaki, they find Nu. Since Nu’s soul is complete, Noel can’t fuse with her.
Nu can still be controlled, though. Terumi activates her and sends her to attack Tsubaki. Hakumen protects her, at which point Terumi kills him. Terumi takes Hakumen’s body and becomes Susano’o. He takes Noel and the Master Unit. He then heads to the Gate. We learn Ragna is the Azure Guardian and is determined to end the Central Fiction. This means going to the Gate with Jin and Trinity to face Terumi. Terumi tells them he wants to destroy every world the Origin creates. Jin and Ragna each fight Terumi, with Ragna using BlazBlue to pull him out of Susano’o. Jin takes then takes Susano’o, with Trinity’s help, and kills Ragna and Terumi. (This makes Susano’o a hero, so Terumi wouldn’t be feared.) In the Azure Horizon, Ragna kills Terumi and takes back Noel. She fuses with the Origin, making her soul whole again. (She still considers and calls herself Noel.) Ragna then reunites with his siblings, says goodbye, then takes Noel and Jin’s dreams and memories of him.
Ragna is the Central Fiction in BlazBlue: Central Fiction. He is the constant, the thing that the Origin is attempting to connect with. They speak, she asks why he kept attacking him, and he apologizes and says she won’t be alone any longer. Ragna activates and stays with the Master Unit, removing himself from everyone’s memories, restoring their dreams, and reconstructing the world without Amaterasu or Takamagahara in the process. Amane is there to see him off and have his memories taken. Ragna’s sword is left behind at the gate.
New questions arise in BlazBlue: Central Fiction’s ending, as there are a number of cliffhangers. Many people are happy and well. Noel and Lambda are both sisters (as in nuns), living with Nu at the church. In this new reality, Homura is the Imperator and accompanied by Jin, Kagura, and Hibiki. We see people like Litchi, Tao, Mai, Amane, Kokonoe, Jubei, Tager, Bullet, and Valkenhayn alive and happy. Everything is good with all of them. It’s others that hint at something more.
Many characters have new possibilities ahead of them. Naoto is a big factor and needs to find his own world again. How might it return? During BlazBlue: Central Fiction, we see something go into Carl’s eye after looking in Kagutsuchi’s Cauldron, despite Nirvana attempting to pull him back, and see him showing interest in Relius’ work. He has a mask like his father’s in the epilogue and is exploring the First District. Could history be repeating? Will he turn into a man like his father? Rachel and Tsubaki, who is bearing Hakumen’s sword, are at a grave that has Ragna’s sword beside it. Rachel doesn’t know whose grave it is, but says she will never give up, continues to hope, and will try to find him. She ties her ribbon to the sword. But, after Rachel and Tsubaki leave, the sword disappears. Will Rachel go looking for Ragna? Does his sword’s disappearance mean Ragna exists as an active participant in this world? And what happened to Hazama and Relius? Could either come back?
While the story that began in BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger has clearly come to an end in BlazBlue: Central Fiction, things aren’t over. Ragna, Jin, and Noel’s story has been resolved. But, there are many possibilities ahead that could be explored in future entries. Could Naoto be our new protagonist? Will we see Carl become an antagonist on par with his father? Will Rachel end up actually searching for, and finding, Ragna? We’ll have to wait and see.
BlazBlue: Central Fiction is on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4.
