Tales of Zestiria the X

Tales of Zestiria the X is a 2011 anime film. It is the fifth installment in the Anime Cinematic Universe and the fifth installment of Phase One.

Synopsis
In Tales of Zestiria the X, Sorey wants to do his part and join Hyland's armed forces, but the military rejects him because of his small stature. Finally, Sorey gets his chance when he is accepted into an experimental program that turns him into the Shepard. Joining forces with Mikleo and Princess Alishia Diphda, Sorey leads the fight against the Rolance organization, the CCG.

Plot
In the present day, researchers in the Arctic Circle uncover the buried wreckage of a large, temple-like aircraft. While investigating the aircraft's interior, two of the researchers discover a frozen, humanoid form with a white cloak of ornate design.

In March 1942, General Heldalf, commanding officer of the Rolance science division CCG and his men invade a stone church in Loegrhin, seeking a mysterious cosmic artifact known as the Dragon Ball, which possesses untold powers. Upon discovering the Dragon Ball, Heldalf has the Church Keeper who guarded it killed, along with everyone else in the village.

Meanwhile, in Ladylake, Sorey is once again rejected for military duty on the battlefields of the war, despite making multiple attempts at different enlistment offices, due to his frail physical appearance and numerous health issues. While attending an exposition of future technologies with his friend Mikleo, Sorey attempts to enlist again. After overhearing Sorey's conversation with Mikleo about wanting to help in the war, Rintaro Okabe allows Sorey to enlist as a candidate of Project Shepard, a “purification” experiment being conducted by the Strategic Scientific Reserve under the supervision of Okabe, Woodsmen Lucas, and Princess Alishia Diphda.

During basic training, Lucas is unconvinced by Okabe's claims that Sorey is the right person for the procedure, but relents after seeing Sorey commit an act of self-sacrificing bravery. The night before the treatment, Okabe reveals to Sorey that Heldalf underwent an imperfect version of the procedure and suffered negative side-effects due to his inner ambition for power and obsession with becoming a “superior man”. However, he reassures Sorey that he chose him because he believed Sorey was an inherently good man and one that, because he had been weak his whole life, would not lose respect for the strength he would gain.

Back in Rolance, Heldalf and Symonn, using one of Symonn's Seraphic Artes, successfully harness the energies of the Dragon Ball, intending to use the power to fuel Symonn's Artes. Meanwhile, Heldalf, having discovered Okabe's location, dispatches an assassin to kill him.

In Ladylake, Okabe subjects Sorey to the purification treatment, putting him in a special chamber where he is injected with the blood from the Seraph Lailah (the Lady of the Lake) and dosed with "Flames of Purification". Sorey emerges from the chamber taller and with an enhanced physique. After witnessing the success of the experiment, one of the attendees reveals herself to be Heldalf's assassin, Rose, who stabs Okabe, killing him. Rose grabs the last vial of the Lailah's blood and escapes the facility into the streets of Ladylake. Sorey runs after Rose, using his new strength and stamina to run down Rose's car on foot. Despite attempting to escape in a submarine, Sorey manages to catch Rose, but the vial of Lailah's blood is broken in the process and the assassin immediately commits suicide by cyanide capsule before she can be interrogated for information.

With Okabe dead and the Shepard formula lost, the Knights of Hyland are ordered to join the war and engage CCG directly; however, Lucas decides to leave Sorey behind and allow scientists to study him in an attempt to rediscover Okabe's formula. The Hyland Chancellor approaches Sorey and instead offers him the chance to tour the nation for Hyland to promote war donations, using his image as the strong, ideal Shepard as a symbol for the public to rally behind, which Sorey accepts. During his work for Hyland Sorey performs in scripted stage shows as the white robed hero "The Shepard." As Sorey continues touring across the country, the Shepard gains great popularity among the public, leading to increasingly more elaborate shows as well as making appearances in film strips, comic books, and other memorabilia. Eventually, Sorey begins to grow weary of being paraded around while not being able to have a more direct role alongside those actively fighting in the war.

Meanwhile, Heldalf unveils his new Dragon Ball-powered weaponry to three Rolance officers sent to oversee his operation, but uses the weapon to kill the officers after they realize that Rolance is among a list of Heldalf's intended targets. Heldalf uses this moment to declare his secession from the Rolance Empire, claiming that the CCG could grow no further in the Church's shadow and will now follow their agenda. The CCG continued to siphon energy from the Dragon Ball, using the stored energy to create a variety of weapons and integrated it into a range of artes and other magics, quickly giving the faction the potential to become a major threat to the war front, and the world at large.

In 1943, while on tour in Marlind performing for active servicemen, as well as encountering his colleagues from the Strategic Scientific Reserve, Sorey learns that his friend Mikleo's unit was lost in a battle against Heldalf's forces. Despite Lucas' insistence on the vainness of the situation, Sorey refuses to believe that Mikleo is dead and becomes determined to mount a solo rescue attempt, receiving help from Alishia and Hoenheim Elric, who fly him behind enemy lines. Sorey manages to sneak into the CCG's main factory where he finds and frees most of the captive soldiers who begin a riot and start escaping while Sorey continues on to find Mikleo, who he discovers in a separate room where he was being operated on.

Heldalf, seeing the prisoners escaping and Sorey moving through the facility, sets the factory to self-destruct to cover CCG's operations and evacuate to another facility. As the building begins to detonate, Heldalf confronts Sorey on a high catwalk where he makes light of his similarities to Sorey following their mutual use of the Shepard Serum. Heldalf expresses his belief that they have risen above the visage of normal humans before revealing his true form, to display the large, lion like visage covered in Malevolence. Heldalf and Symonn make their escape while Sorey leads Mikleo to the roof where they both barely manage to escape the factory themselves before regrouping with the escaped soldiers and marching back to base.

Following the liberation of the allied prisoners, Sorey gains his superior officers’ respect and acknowledgement as a soldier and is given high rank and the chance to fight as the Shepard, as a key figure on the war front opposing the CCG directly. Sorey recruits Mikleo, Dezel, Edna, Eizen, and Lady Maltran as his personal team, the "Shepard's Posse" to take out the other known CCG operations. Hoenheim Elric outfits Sorey with tougher ceremonial clothing, and a sword made of strong alchemized metal. In the following months Sorey and his Shepard's Posse lead a strong offensive, sabotaging various CCG operations, much to Heldalf's frustration.

The team later assaults a train carrying Symonn. Sorey and Mikleo engage in a fight with the soldiers on the train, during which Mikleo falls from the train to his apparent death, while Edna locates Symonn on the train and captures her. Sorey is deeply affected by the loss of his best friend and is convinced by Princess Alishia to use his sorrow as motivation to put an end to the CCG for good. Using information extracted from Symonn, the final CCG stronghold is located and Sorey leads an attack to stop Heldalf from using artes of mass destruction on Hyland cities.

Sorey climbs aboard Heldalf's massive aircraft temple, Innominat, as it takes off. During the subsequent fight, a machine containing the Dragon Ball is damaged. Heldalf physically handles the Dragon Ball, which opens a wormhole into space, sucking him into it in a bright light. The Dragon Ball falls to the floor, burning through the temple and falling into Earth's ocean. Seeing no way to land the temple without the risk of detonating its magic weapons, Sorey instead crashes it on the Arctic shelf while making a sorrowful goodbye to Alishia, making a mock promise to take her dancing, knowing he'd never be able to make the date. Hoenheim later recovers the Dragon Ball from the ocean floor, but is unable to locate Sorey's body or Heldalf's temple.

Sorey awakens in a 1940s-style hospital room. Deducing from an anachronistic radio broadcast that he was out of place, he flees outside into what is revealed to be present-day Amestria, where Ciel Phantomhive tells him he has been "asleep" for nearly 70 years. Stunned by this revelation, Sorey's only response is that he had a date.

Sometime later, Ciel approaches Sorey, proposing a mission with worldwide ramifications.