A second playthrough reveals that Orience is trapped in a stable timeloop created by Arecia and Gala, the respective servants of the deities Pulse and Lindzei, as part of an experiment to find the gateway to the Unseen Realm. Competing with each other to open the gateway using a different method, both failed and reset the world for another attempt. By the events of "Type-0", the experiment had been performed over six hundred million times. Cid, aware of the cycle, wanted to free Orience from the Crystals' control, and killed himself in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent Gala from using him. In a sequence unlocked during the second playthrough, Joker and Tiz speak with Arecia after the Arbiter's defeat and show her the memories of Class Zero and the people of Orience to make her reconsider restarting the experiment. After speaking with Machina and Rem, Arecia decides to abandon the experiment and returns the two to human form. In an alternate ending, Arecia chooses to remove the crystals from Orience's history, creating a new timeline where the war never occurred and the world's population can live happily.