Plot summary of Xenoblade Chronicles 3

This page describes a plot summary of Xenoblade Chronicles 3. It is not a full description nor a complete novelization, but simply an overview of major events.

Chapter 1: Ouroboros
A group of four kids dashes through a dense crowd awaiting the Queen's Anniversary. The clock strikes six, and time stops for all but one of the children. He looks up to see a planet in the sky, its shadow casting over the land.

In a starry abyss, two masses of energy meet. Across an unknown landscape, spherical chunks of terrain vanish in flashes of light. A battlefield comes into view, with footsoldiers and giant machines on both sides. Keves is the side wearing black and blue, while Agnus is in white and yellow. The battle is eventually won by Keves, and the Agnus machines are depleted and fall.

In this world, Aionios, killing the enemy faction empowers one's own with their life force. People are "born" as child soldiers, said to be from the Queen of the country, and know nothing but fight. They only live up to ten years (called "terms"), and those who survive that long are honoured in a Homecoming by the Queen as they fade away. The narrator, Noah, is an "off-seer", one who plays a flute melody to honour the dead (by battle or by Homecoming). He grew up in a friend group of himself, Lanz, Eunie, and Joran; today, he fights in a unit with Lanz, Eunie, Riku, and Mwamba. Since Noah likes to see off the enemy if their off-seer is dead, they tend to get left behind, and they must make the trek on foot back home yet again.

On arriving back to, the gang hits the showers. It's implied that Joran was killed shortly after a disagreement in the group's youth, and it's part of why Noah became an off-seer. The next day, a royal decree arrives and is visualised through the soldiers' Irises (essentially a modern-day smartphone and VR overlay in humans' eyes): a large mystery transport needs to be intercepted, and its ether cargo destroyed. The army deploys and advances through the Yzana Plains and into Alfeto Valley, killing the creatures that block their way and gaining minimal amounts of charge for the Flame Clocks in their eyes (much like those that power the colonies' giant machines). Mwamba talks about how his Homecoming is in a month, so he wants to transfer out of active service, and leaves the group to go on ahead.

The Keves army reaches the target first and begin to fire on a cloaked ship, with Agnus troops not far behind. The mystery ship loses cloak and makes a hard landing, deploying unmanned ground forces to protect itself as both sides approach while fighting each other, and the grey-wearing crew digs in to protect a glowing egg-shaped "Ouroboros Stone". The defenders are whittled down to just Guernica Vandham as the party approaches, who end up in a fight with three elite Agnus troops, including their own off-seer. The battle dies down and Noah becomes suspicious, so he stops fighting to kill and starts trying to talk, though he gets nowhere until Guernica interrupts the fight himself. He tries to tell the two groups who their "real enemy" is, but gets stabbed by a projectile from a new arrival: a giant humanoid monster with Mwamba in one hand and an Agnian, Hackt, in the other. The monster, which Guernica calls a Moebius, goads the soldiers to try and fight each other again by killing his captives. Guernica manages to get into the downed ship and fight the Moebius for a bit, but the ship is torn apart. All this only spurs the two groups of three soldiers into fighting the Moebius together. Guernica takes advantage of the distraction to open and activate the Ouroboros Stone, which causes Noah and the Agnian off-seer Mio to have an out-of-body experience and fuse together into a single larger form. The Moebius says they've used an Interlink to merge into an Ouroboros, which makes them his mortal enemies. After further fighting, the Moebius concedes defeat and leave, but not before projecting an infinity symbol into the sky, visible to many across the world. Noah and Mio return to normal and an uneasy truce forms. Guernica explains that all six of them are now Ouroboros, that he is sixty years old, that they must fight the Moebius coming after them, and that they must go to his City in Swordmarch to reclaim the proper way of things. He finally dies, and the two off-seers send him off. Noah and Mio use the fact that they shared memories to reduce the tensions between Lanz and Eunie, and Sena and Taion. They then make to return home.

Before reaching home, Noah, Lanz, Eunie, and Riku encounter Colony 9 troops that immediately open fire on them and ignore all else, so they are forced to return from where they came. Mio, Sena, Taion, and their tagalong Nopon Manana find similar trouble, and the groups end up meeting again at the site of Guernica's ship. Taion suspects the colony soldiers are under control of the Moebius due to their glowing red Irises, so Noah suggests they band together and go what Guernica told them, and Mio helps the others agree. They raid the ship's remnants for new clothes and other supplies. Mio notes in her diary that she has three months left.

A mystery girl arrives in the night and takes Guernica's eyepatch.

Chapter 2: Moebius
A flashback plays of an Agnian attack on the young Noah's group. They are rescued by a girl with two swords, Silvercoat Ethel, a legendary figure from Colony 4. Elsewhere, scenes of the Moebius attacking the party play in a theater. The lights go out as the Moebius walks onstage and breaks up into two people, "D" and another. D banters with another mysterious figure as others in similar getups, including P and H, are revealed and speak of controlling remote events. The presumed leader, Z, shuts them up. K is sent into action, and the meeting is adjourned.

It's the next morning. Lanz and Sena suspect they might be able to Interlink, but have no results yet. Taion is skeptical (since that would leave him with Eunie), while Noah thinks that it can only be done in the heat of the moment. The group begins to head south through Millick Meadows. Back in what is presumably Colony 4, Commander Ethel is receiving a new Consul, the K seen before. Consul K tells Ethel about the "deserters" and to take them down. The party has a slight disagreement at a fork in the road about whether to take the faster or safer path, and it's decided to take the safer path through Eagus Wilderness. Mio notices something odd about Noah's Blade, so he explains: When the group was young and training themselves, trying to decide what sort of weapon to use, Noah hated fighting so much he refused to use his Blade. When his non-Blade weapon broke after some bullying from Garvel, he visited Riku to get repairs. Riku instead offered Lucky Seven, a magic sword capable of slicing through anything, even a Ferronis, and convinced Noah to take it, hidden within the sword he uses normally.

The party is soon surprised by the arrival of Colony 4's Ferronis and Ethel. Noah tries to talk, but Ethel sees them as human-shaped black shadows, and is implied to be under the control of Consul K. During the ensuing fight, a patch of black fog rolls in, disrupting K's control of Ethel enough that he decides to step in personally. K turns into a Moebius and sucks up the life energy from both the Ferronis and its soldiers, healing him from any damage inflicted. Noah decides their only chance is to destroy the Ferronis's Flame Clock. In the chaos, Lanz and Sena manage to Interlink, as do Eunie and Taion. Noah uses Lucky Seven to destroy the Flame Clock, disabling the Ferronis and allowing them to defeat K, who reverts to human form. They take off his mask to find an old man's face, which quickly fades away as like a Homecoming. Noah plays for him even though everyone agrees he shouldn't, and Mio joins him.

The people of Colony 4 are all unharmed and freed of their personal Flame Clocks, and no longer see the party's Keves members are enemies. Ethel orders Bolearis and the others to accept the whole party despite half of them being Agnus. As the party rests, Taion notes that K seemed too similar to the Consuls of Agnus, which is very suspicious. The discussion afterward goes into whether the queens might be equally antagonistic, and whether all Consuls are Moebius.

The news of K's defeat reaches both queens. They both order more resources be put into exterminating the Ouroboros.

Chapter 3: Saffronias
A flashback plays. Under the Ferronis of Colony Lambda, Taion lays out a safe and textbook plan for attacking Colony 13, but is convinced by his peers to present a more aggressive approach to the higher-ups Nimue and Commander Isurd. The plan goes wrong, and the Agnian forces are ambushed by the Kevesi ones. Nimue sacrifices herself so Taion can get away.

In the present, the Consuls discuss K's loss, and D's as-yet-unnamed fusion partner heads off to Lambda and Isurd.

As the party goes to meet Ethel, they run into Bolearis, who mentions his personal Flame Clock is completely gone with the destruction of the Ferronis's. He also tells the group (as does Ethel when she arrives) that Colony 4 got dropped from Silver rank to Dirt when she defeated Agnus's greatest warrior, Smoldering Cammuravi, but chose to keep him alive for a more honourable rematch in the future. Ethel gives the group three options for getting to Swordmarch. The path through the ocean is no good due to the unnatural vortex, and the north path goes right past the Agnus Castle, so the south path it is. It will take two months, and no one knows what a "city" is, but they still choose to go.

The party heads through the Ribbi Flats. Someone called Valdi spots them, and they have to fight him and his Levnises. Valdi quickly becomes attached to the team due to their skills, and reveals he's the commander of Colony 30 (and that the party has a huge bounty on them but he doesn't care anymore). The party helps him collect parts to build a new Levnis, and along the way he realises he'd rather make one that isn't meant for combat, so he builds a Mini-Levnis. Consul Q arrives and collects Valdi back for his building of the "Ultimate Levnis". The party follows the Mini-Levnis as it tracks Valdi back to Colony 30. Q realises that Valdi has changed his mind, so he takes over the incomplete Levnis, but the Mini-Levnis protects Valdi as the party arrives. Q is defeated, and Valdi gives Noah permission to destroy Colony 30's Flame Clock. As they head back out, Noah notes the newfound realization that animals grow old like Guernica, yet the people they know don't; this is watched by three Consuls and Z in the theater, who note an "Eclipse" approaches.

As the party journeys, Taion spots a Saffronia tree that reminds him of Nimue, which is spotted at a distance by Isurd. The lone Consul considers using mind control on him, but decides on something else, which is unseen. The party comes upon an old battleground and starts searching the Ferronis parts. Eunie discovers that one of the corpses is a copy of herself from a Colony 18, and gets flashbacks of the battle, including being confronted by a Moebius. Noah finds the wrecked Ferronis' Flame Clock to be Gold rank, and Taion notes there are no Agnian corpses - only Kevesi ones. A lone Agnian Levnis from Colony Lambda interrupts the group, so the party leaves before it can call reinforcements. Eunie keeps getting war flashbacks as the team camps, where the audience can more clearly see the Moebius that killed her is similar in appearance to D's merged form; Taion notices something is up, so he gives her some of the tea he uses to stop his own nervous tremors.

Since the upcoming region is under Colony Lambda's control, Taion knows the place, and he directs the party through the Urayan Tunnels. They get ambushed by Agnus troops with a smokescreen just like how Colony 13 did it in the past, and Taion is forced to direct the party to escape down the same river he did back then, ending up at the Great Cotte Falls. The Ferronis of Colony Lambda is waiting to meet them, and the mind-controlled Isurd confirms that he specifically picked the soldiers' tactics to mirror what resulted in Nimue's death, with the goal of making Taion feel bad because of how guilty he feels over it. While fighting the Ferronis itself, the party discovers they can control who exerts their will over their Interlink, changing who is in control and what their Ouroboros form looks like. The turtle-like Ferronis is flipped on its back, and its Flame Clock is destroyed.

Isurd comes out to face the party himself. Taion offers himself to die if that would please him, but Isurd instead turns into a pile of mud. The lone Consul appears, and the party recognize his voice before he shows himself: he is Joran, or Consul J, who did indeed die but is now a proud Moebius. He was granted the ability to turn people's memories into mudpuppets, beings that believe they're the real person and will freely say what the original person would keep hidden. He brags about this by killing all the remaining Agnus troops, who are all just mudpuppets, and then attacks the party. The full flashback of Joran's death plays, showing that Joran put himself at risk to save both Lanz and Garvel, before sacrificing himself for Lanz. The present Joran believes that by doing this he became better than them all. He then decides he's had his fun and leaves.

The party finds the real people of Colony Lambda nearby and mostly unhurt. The real Isurd speaks to Taion of Nimue, and makes him feel better. Taion muses to Eunie about what happens to the people who die before making their Homecoming, while Noah and Mio do their off-seeing for the mudpuppets. The mudpuppets producing motes makes Noah suspicious, and thinks back to what his mentor once said - that it's the voice of the survivors, not the dead. Meanwhile, Lanz is sulking because he thinks it's his fault that Joran became like this, which both Noah and Eunie try to defuse.

Keves and Agnus are still fighting in a battlefield elsewhere, which two Consuls are watching like pieces on a board with bets on the action. Z is less amused, and says so to the Consul in the golden armour, N.

Chapter 4: Life
A Kevesi colony pushes Colony Delta to the brink before Cammuravi deploys himself in his personal Ferronis, destroying the Keves Ferronis and causing its Consul to flee. The scene changes to Cammuravi in a cell, and N comes to meet him. Shortly after, N asks to see O and P.

The party continues to use their Ouroboros forms as they travel, learning the limits of its duration. They soon see Keves Castle in the distance, so change their path to go through Maktha Wildwood. In the castle, Ethel and Bolearis are meeting with the queen and N, who show them the Annihilator, a large cannon on the castle that can cause the annihilation effect at a distance. After the test fire, they threaten to use it on Colony 4. The party sees the flash of light from the test fire, though not the cause or result, and wonder if Moebius are involved. As they travel through Maktha, they get jumped by an Agnus group, but the enemy retreats as quickly as they appeared. Noah insists they track them down, which leads to Colony Tau, a colony abandoned by Agnus but still lived in by many. They're told by Commander Juniper that they don't fear their near-empty Flame Clock because they're doomed to starve anyway, but are convinced to the better, and the Flame Clock is destroyed.

Upon heading back out, the party gets their food stolen by Tirkin, so they start to fetch more. Lanz continues to wonder what happened to Joran, while Mio reveals to Eunie of someone similar, Miyabi, and wonders if she might reappear in the future. They then run into Bolearis, who has escaped the castle. He tells them that Colony 4 was being threatened because of the Flame Clock being destroyed, and only Ethel killing the Ouroboros will save it. Ethel and Cammuravi have been told to work together and granted new specialized Ferronises to do this, mostly for N's entertainment, and will be assisted by O and P. Bolearis gives them schematics of the castle and the Annihilator, which he also takes back to his colony under Ethel's orders. The party thus starts to head towards the castle so they can destroy the weapon, while Ethel and Cammuravi discuss what they intend to do.

Mio is starting to feel like her body isn't working correctly because she only has two months left. The slow pace of the journey is getting to her, and Noah fails to make her feel better about it. They apologize to each other in the morning; she tells him of Miyabi, which he finds in the shared memories, and suggests they trade flutes so Miyabi's can be used longer. Ethel, Cammuravi, O, and P find the party fairly quickly. As they fight the two Ferronises, the two Consuls suspect Ethel and Cammuravi aren't trying hard enough, so O applies his Iris to him. Cammuravi fights off the control before it sticks and tears his own eye out. Both commanders now free, they turn to duel each other. In response, P sucks the life from both them and their Ferronises, and they both die in battle. O and P then shift into their Moebius forms before Interlinking themselves, but Mio interrupts their monologue with a punch to the face. During the fight, O & P neglect to respect their Interlink overheating, which causes a confluence of black fog to build up centered around them. Noah and Mio break the ground under them, so they fall down and the annihilation effect goes off at a safe distance.

The party reaches the Syra Hovering Reefs that surround Keves Castle. As the party considers whether their plan of continuing to the castle might have been guessed by the enemy, someone watches them from a distance. Taion tells the group he's analyzed the Annihilator's plans and thus found some weak points, so they now have a plan to destroy it. The party successfully sneaks into a container and get transported into the castle. They reach the Annihilator without issue, but the Moebius D & J is waiting for them. He breaks up into D and J, followed by D showing his face (it's no one they know), before merging back together. The ensuing fight stalls the party as the cannon starts moving and charging. Eunie gets over her fear of D enough to help Taion destroy the Annihilator's weak point, causing it to fall and explode, and D & J get away.

The party's planned escape route is blocked, and when trying to get around it, they end up entering the castle's throne room. They see the orange pods where everyone is born, and Noah spots a young Ethel in one of them. Queen Melia and N enter the room, who state that Ouroboros existing will destroy the world. They try to fight the queen but it goes very poorly due to an impassable barrier. Noah thinks about pulling out Lucky Seven for it, but the queen instead reveals it's a robot by malfunctioning and shutting down. N steps forward to finish the fight, which gives Noah an instant headache, but he is interrupted by an attack by the "Lost Numbers", a squad of grey ships similar to Guernica's that crash into the throne room and steal a bunch of the pods. The party uses this chance to escape.

N mopes, taking off his mask to make obvious that he actually looks very similar to Noah. A Consul wearing silver approaches, and she looks very similar to Mio.

Chapter 5: Eclipse
A flashback plays of Sena enduring some minor bullying by her Agnus contemporaries for her choice of weapon. She joins Mio for food, who encourages her to be herself rather than copying her all the time. In the present, the party has escaped Keves Castle. Lanz has clued in that Sena seems insecure and lonely, but she brushes him off.

The party reaches the Great Sword's Base. As they approach, two Lost Numbers ships decloak and land in front of them. Monica Vandham, daughter of Guernica, comes out to greet them and invites them to the City, accompanied by Shania, who looks familiar to the audience. The party is provided with the same eyepatches the Lost Numbers are all wearing, to be worn over their Iris, before they're guided into the sword itself. An elevator takes them way up high to the Great Sword's Hilt, as Monica explains the eyepatches block a signal that allows Moebius to track the Iris of Ouroboros. They reach the City, which has its own jammers so they don't need the eyepatches while inside, and are a bit unnerved by how the people whisper about them. They encounter some Ouroboros "candidates", who are upset that the party were chosen instead of them. Shania was one of them, as well as someone who's been spying on the party since the start; Monica has been waiting for a chance to contact the party ever since, and sent the attack at the Keves Castle when it became clear the party wasn't headed straight for the City.

Monica shows the party the growth modules they stole from the castle, among many others. The cycle of life ordained by the Flame Clocks is only to provide sustenance for Moebius; those who die are simply reborn without their memories. She then takes the party to a maternity ward, where they learn about the concepts of reproduction and family. They then go to see statues of the Founders, the first Ouroboros that everyone in the City is descended from. It's said that the two Queens (the real ones) created the concept of Ouroboros so that Moebius could be defeated, and that only six can exist at a time, created if those with aptitude are present when an Ouroboros Stone is activated. One day, the real Queens can be found, and they will help defeat Moebius and return real human nature to the world.

The next day, the group figures out the next plan of action: sneaking into the prisons of Agnus Castle to bust out Ghondor, as she knows where the true Queens are. Prisoners are publicly executed on eclipse days to make an example of them, and one is coming up in a month. Monica directs the team to Samon, who lends them a ship, the Boundary, so they can traverse Erythia Sea. Accompanied by the City's Ouroboros candidates, they travel around the sea to gather hints on how to get into the prison. They meet an escapee, Kisame, who provide them with stolen ID devices they can use to pretend they're in for real. During the island recon, Shania talks with Sena, and they find a common ground in having to work hard for the approval of others. The party finds a map of the prison camp and use it to form a plan of attack.

The party successfully gets into the prison and make to blend in. They find Ghondor fairly easily, but she's very unwilling to help them "kill the now", and instead starts a fight. She gets surprised when her necklace starts to glow from being near Noah and Mio, but continues to be belligerent until the guards break up the fight. They keep trying to get through to her, and eventually she gives them help: her necklace, the key to the Cloudkeep where the real Queen of Agnus is, and information that a training exercise in three days will mean lower security in the prison. As the team lives through the forced labor, Sena learns that Ghondor and Shania have some bad blood between them, with a flashback showing Shania getting upset that copying Ghondor's style ended badly for both of them.

The prison break is executed, but as everyone gets out the final gate, the castle guard arrives. Shania sold them out because she doesn't want a world where people only get one chance. Both N and the silver Consul, M, are also here, and they take off their masks so everyone recognizes them as Noah and Mio. Noah convinces Ghondor to take back the Cloudkeep key and escape while the party holds off the army. M insists on fighting the party herself, which N is surprised by and allows. It turns out that M's power is to take over peoples' bodies, causing one person at a time to attack their teammates. Taion figures out that his Mondo can track her movements through their bodies, which lets them hold up for long enough that N steps back in. N gets the upper hand in the fight, and Lanz and Sena try to defeat him with an overheated Interlink sacrifice, but Consul X shows up out of nowhere to thwart it, using her power to magically prevent the party from using their Blades or Interlinks.

N chooses not to kill the party, but instead get some entertainment out of them. He chucks Mio in one cell and everyone else in another, so when the eclipse happens in a month, she can have her Homecoming at Agnus Castle - and he spells out that those who have a Homecoming are not reborn, because he's having way too much fun gloating about all this. Noah spends the next month punching the cell bars and walls, long after everyone else gives up, bruising his knuckles in the process. Shania comes along to gloat that she's connected to a Flame Clock so she can be reborn. The Homecoming begins, presided by the Queen of Agnus. Riku admonishes Noah for not even having tried to take out Lucky Seven at any point. Mio comes on stage, and N gives Noah his flute so he can send her - he can't bring himself to do it as she fades away.

After the Homecoming, N steps up to Noah and seemingly executes him.

Chapter 6: Choices
Noah sees himself dead on the ground, before then finding himself in a cloudy void with someone in a cloak, with Keves and Agnus soldiers fighting in the background. The cloaked figure asks if he wants to try again, or sit in the "endless now". A series of flashbacks then plays for him, showing various past lives of Noah and Mio, all ending in death trying to make a stand against Moebius, including a cycle where they had a child. In the end, a previous Noah sits in the Consuls' theater, watching his past lives, and meeting Z. Z introduces himself as the leader of the world and offers him an "eternal now" with Mio, which he accepts, becoming N. The cloaked figure asks why Noah has split from N and is now in this void. Noah replies that he became an off-seer to know why both Joran and his mentor, Crys, smiled as they died - he now believes it was being satisfied that the world was being left with someone they trusted, something Noah feels shouldn't have been something they had to do at all. He vows to change the world from this, even if he might become N again, or even if left alone. The cloaked figure then becomes Mio.

Noah comes back to reality as M's power distracts N from his execution. M picks up both discarded flutes and hands hers to Noah. N has a breakdown as he realizes that M switched bodies with Mio a month ago, and they both kept up the ruse since - it was M who was just sent off, who had long tired of eating souls to remain alive, and Mio lives on in M's body. N then goes on a tirade about Mio belongs specifically to him, so Mio frees the rest of the party and destroys X's control tool, and they gear up to fight. During the battle, Noah pulls a sword out of his Ouroboros's chest, which N calls the Sword of Origin, and uses it to win the fight. N is severely wounded, so X takes command of the false Queen of Agnus and uses it to distract the party so N can get away. They destroy the machine, which also takes out the castle's Flame Clock. X responds by revealing the castle's Annihilator and shooting the City, which Shania revealed the location of. Or at least this was the plan - Ghondor arrives to reveal that Mio-in-M's-body had already warned the City some time ago, so the whole City had relocated somewhere else. Shania loses it and shoots herself in the head.