Everyone heads to some spot in the room, and Squally talks to each of them. Selphie, despite all the shit that has gone down, is still busy comparing the two Gardens in her mind. She wants to know if Galbadia has a Garden Festival, too! Obviously a very important subject to consider. Zell bitches about having to wait, which is kind of understandable since they made such a big production of ordering them to go to the reception room. This triggers Quistis’s entrance, so I guess I miss Rinhoa’s undoubtedly riveting dialogue.

Quistis announces that they’re AOK, and Balamb Garden is not fucked. “The attack on the president in Timber was classified as an independent action,” she continues. As such, Galbadia officially announced that they weren’t going to pillage and burn Balamb Garden. WHEW! Zell practically loses control of his bladder in relief. He wonders if Seifer is taking all the blame. I’m sure he would….if he were ALIVE. That’s right. Quistis informs them that “The trial’s over, and the sentence has been carried out…” This extremely vague wording leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Luckily, the Ominous Music of Tragedy, along with the exaggerated gestures of shock from everyone else in the room, let us know that the sentence in question was DEATH. Indeed, everyone’s worst expectations from the last recap have come true. Seifer is no more. He has kicked the bucket, bought the farm, gone to the big gay bar in the sky, and, well, died. And there’s no chance whatsoever that this is false, since it all happened offscreen. Yeah.

Rinhoa sinks dramatically to the floor, wondering if he was really executed. Nope, Quistis was just kidding! Ha, ha, gotcha! No, seriously, he’s really dead. OR IS HE?! “…Of course he was. He attacked the president,” Rinhoa answers her own question in a surprising bit of intelligence. Holy shit. “He sacrified himself for the ‘Forest Owls’…” Rinhoa continues, making it all about her. Quistis points out that yeah, Rinhoa’s responsible for getting Seifer involved in her stupid resistance shit, but surely she, as a strong and responsible leader, should be prepared for all possibilities. Just like Seifer surely was. “So don’t think of it as Seifer sacrificing himself for you.” This is a really long way of saying, “You knew what would happen, so quit whining and making such a drama whore out of yourself.” Which would have been much better dialogue, if I do say so myself. But then Quistis has to ruin everything by freaking apologizing. What is it with people in this game?

I get control of the undoubtedly heartbroken Squally. As much as he’d like to sob into his pillow (not to be confused with biting his pillow), he manages to drag himself over to talk to the others first. The sacrifices he makes to advance the plot. Selphie rags on Zell for hating Seifer, like Zell should feel guilty or something. It’s not like he forced Seifer to stupidly help Rinhoa. Zell announces that though he hated the guy, Seifer was “one of [them]” and now he wants revenge. Okay, sure, Zell.

On to Quistis. “I don’t have any good memories of him,” Quistis admits with Rinhoa’s crotch squarely in the foreground. “I’ve seen some troubled children, but he was beyond troubled.” And he also wasn’t a child. In spite of him being pretty much the worst guy she’d ever seen, by this description, she says he wasn’t that bad. How typical that everyone is being all diplomatic instead of saying, “Yeah, the guy was an asshat.” Isn’t that how it always goes when someone dies?

Talking to Zell, he does admit that Seifer was a raging dickweed, but he never wished him dead. This obviously shocks Selphie’s little black-and-white world. Now the only person left to talk to is Rinhoa. That sound you hear is my aggravated swearing. “I…really liked him,” Rinhoa whines, hanging her head. Squally bristles like an incredibly gay hedgehog. She goes on about how dreamy and wonderful Seifer was, then, “Just by talking to him, I felt I could take on the world.” Like Seifer was some sort of cult leader. Also, the idea of Rinhoa taking on the world is as ludicrous as the thought of one of my rabbits doing the same thing. Except that the rabbits have a much better chance. Especially Cinnamon — she’s tough.

Selphie wonders if Seifer was Rinhoa’s boyfriend. “I don’t really know,” Rinhoa says, confused by his unwillingness to engage in any intimate contact. “I…I think I was in love,” she says vaguely. Wow, that’s a passionate declaration. Trying too hard, party of one. “I wonder how he felt…” she trails off. Squally doesn’t know whether to laugh at her obliviousness or to smack her. How dare this hag think she had any chance with his man! But why, oh why was Seifer spending time with her instead of making sweet, sweet love to him? Oh, if only Squally had let his feelings be known! But now it’s too late… Alas…

Selphie wonders if Rinhoa still likes Seifer. But is she talking like, or like like? “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be talking about it,” she says necrophilically. Yeah, right, like there’s any chance in hell she wouldn’t try to attention whore over it. Rinhoa pulls her knees up to her chest and rocks like a schizo as she vaguely mentions that she spent a lot of time with Seifer during the summer of her 16th year. Man, she’d be such a skank if she actually bothered to date guys who…I don’t know…weren’t gay.

With all these reactions in mind, Squally starts to engage in one of his signature internal monologues. He thinks back over what everyone just said about Seifer. “Seifer…You’ve become just a memory,” he sighs to himself. “Will they… Will they talk about me this way if I die, too?” This thought bugs the shit out of him. What if they say things like “He was a fashion disaster. His lip gloss was totally the wrong shade”? This makes him all philosophical about the meaning of death. The stress of his lover’s death, along with the terror of after-death gossip makes him freak out. “I won’t have it!” he shrieks, flailing his arms dramatically. Everyone else’s shocked animations start before he wigs out, kind of like high school drama students who always anticipate their reactions to events onstage. I guess this is the bad acting we got before voice actors came along. “Are you MAD!?” Selphie attempts to out-drama-queen Squally. “I’m not having anyone talk about me in the past tense!” he declares before running out the door. No, but I’m sure they’ll talk about you plenty in the present tense after that little production.

But we can’t blame him, can we? Not only is the love of his life now worm food, but he’ll never have the chance to have the mind-blowing buttsex he always imagined. That’s tragedy. Back out in the hallway, Squally heads down the stairs immediately outside the room. At the base, he finds the group of pushup guys again. Along with Zell. Somehow Zell, who was firmly ensconced in the reception room just five seconds ago, made it out of the room, down the stairs, and into a pushup session. Without being seen by Squally. Not only are the logistics beyond impossible, but why in the fuck would Zell be there? Jesus, at least try, game designers.

Squally heads out to the front lobby as someone calls out his name from the second floor. It’s not any of his party members, but instead Raijin, of all people. He disappears into the upstairs doorway and immediately appears in the doorway to the lobby like there’s a freaking teleporter there. Fujin accompanies him, as usual. Their presence actually has a purpose, and was not just some freaky contrivance. Raijin has a message for Squally from Headmaster Cid. A new order, to be precise. And who better to deliver an order from the headmaster to a SeeD than a couple of random Garden students? Actually, they delivered it to the headmaster of Galbadia Garden, as Cid apparently requested. Incidentally, after every one of Raijin’s lines, he and Fujin look at each other and nod. The first time just kind of makes me go, “What the fuck?” Then it just gets silly.

Raijin explains that he was supposed to go to Timber, but the trains weren’t running, as we remember. So he came to Galbadia Garden instead. Wait, if Cid wanted Raijin to deliver the orders to the Galbadia Garden headmaster, then why would he tell Raijin to go to Timber? I’m confused. Raijin, though an asshole at the beginning of the game, is actually relieved to find the SeeDs at Galbadia Garden. Okay. Fujin looks back and forth, then wonders — in all caps — where Seifer is. I like how she was searching with the expectation that he would be close to Squally. Hee! It’s up to poor Squally to deliver the sad news. Fujin clutches her heart in shock for a moment. This is a lot more real and believable than Rinhoa’s attention-seeking reaction. Fujin and Raijin don’t believe the hype — they’re convinced that Seifer’s alive somewhere. That’s because they saw all the FFVIII merchandising with Seifer plastered on everything. If they were going to kill him off, it wouldn’t be in the first six hours.

But with all the reasons that this could be a lie, Raijin’s reasoning is, “There’s no way he’d put up with a trial, ya know!? Or an execution for that matter! It’s just so not Seifer, ya know!?” I think I’m going to try that excuse if I ever commit a crime. With their magical powers of denial and psychic plot ability, Raijin and Fujin decide to go to Galbadia to search for Seifer. Uh, they’re in Galbadia. But whatever. They run out of Garden. Squally looks after them, wishing he could chuck this stupid assignment in the crapper and search for his prince as well.

Oh, what the hell. He follows after them, right out the front gates, only to run into Quistis. Well, I suppose she could have gone some back way that the GG headmaster told her about during pillow talk. I’m fanwanking again. Oddly, she acts as if Squally’s tantrum never happened, instead telling him that “it’s time to meet.” So in the last two minutes, they apparently heard from the headmaster. Got it.

As if this wasn’t nonsensical enough, when Squally heads toward the outer entrance of Garden, the other four are already in front of him, leaving Squally to bring up the rear. Well, that’s not really a surprise. At the outer entrance area, Rinhoa sits on a low wall, pointing her toes out in front of her in another one of her dippy look-at-me! positions. The others all stand around doing their usual shit as well. Quistis informs Squally that the meeting in question is so that the headmaster can give them their orders. Oh, the orders that Raijin and Fujin brought. So at least something kind of makes sense here. There’s a first time for everything. Selphie remarks that the headmaster is late. And there goes sense, right back down the toilet. Yes, damn that guy for making you wait a whole five seconds. Talking to Rinhoa triggers the headmaster’s entrance. She suggests that they pretend she’s a SeeD, too, in order to make things less complicated. Squally is almost done laughing his ass off by the time the headmaster’s vehicle reaches them.

The four SeeDs and the wannabe imposter line up in a row. When the headmaster — who looks like some sort of highly-decorated sea captain — approaches them, the SeeDs do their little salute. Rinhoa conspicuously watches and copies them, a moment too late. Way to go, Rinhoa, he’ll never catch on! The headmaster, whose name is Martine, must be as dumb as a brick because he says nothing and proceeds to give them their highly confidential plans. The fact that this meeting is taking place right out in the open doesn’t really bode well for its secrecy, either.

“I have official orders from Headmaster Cid addressed to you,” Martine announces. “Following regulations, I have gone over these orders.” Oh, enough of this military bullshit. Martine essentially says that Galbadia Garden will go along with these orders. Not only that, but they’ve had this particular plan in, well, planning for a while as well. This is fascinating. Let’s get on with the good stuff already.

Sea Captain Martine paces back and forth in front of the SeeDs, and I can’t tell from the animation, but he probably throws a few winks and knowing smiles at Quistis. He’s not done blabbing yet, though! He reiterates the information about the president appointing the sorceress as the peace ambassador. But in actuality, this is just a ploy — she is being used to threaten the other countries. “The sorceress creates fear among people. Therefore, peace talks are impossible.” He blathers on some more before he announces that Galbadia is aiming for world domination. No! An evil dictator who wants to rule the world? Surely no one could have predicted that.

But more dastardly than any of that, and the real issue in Martine’s mind, is the sorceress’s intention of using Galbadia Garden as her base of operation. And if she takes over, he won’t be able to use his position and his fancy clothes to get with the female students. There is only one option. “We entrust world peace and the future to you. Except for that dumb-looking girl in blue. She’ll probably just fuck up this plan.” With that, Martine hands the official orders to the prettiest person in the group — Squally. A second later, Martine wonders if they have any questions. Squally, who has used that single second to browse the entirety of the orders, wonders about the part where it says they’ll need a sniper. No one on their team is qualified, and Rinhoa shouldn’t even think about using her stupid arm boomerang for that. I’m sort of getting the idea that they’re not intending to win the sorceress to their side with kindness.

Martine has this sniper problem all worked out. “Let me introduce an elite sharpshooter from Galbadia Garden,” he says. “Kinneas! Irvine Kinneas!” Cue overdone intro FMV. A pretty butterfly flutters down, landing on the outstretched finger of…someone. It’s a tan-clad…person…who gets to his or her feet dramatically. The camera pans up to show tan pants and a fur-trimmed tan coat. Finally we see this “mystery” person’s face. He — I think it’s a he — has a long ponytail, layered side bangs, and extremely gay chaps. He’s also holding a large phallic rifle. Hooboy. He also looks like a younger Brad Pitt. I would call him Brad, but his actual name — Irvine, as we just heard — sounds so much gayer.

After Irvine’s obnoxious glamour shot, he becomes less fabulous in gameplay mode. He paces back and forth in front of the group, possibly imitating Martine’s stance from earlier. Martine tells us what we figured out ten seconds ago — Irvine is to be the group’s sharpshooter. Ride ’em, cowboy! Squally doesn’t know what to think about this guy who is possibly more fabulous than he is. If only Squally had those long, flowing locks. But at least his gunblade is bigger than that puny rifle. Martine tells them to leave whenever, as if there’s no hurry at all to carry out this plan. “Failure is not an option,” he warns. Thanks for clearing that up. I just figured that important orders were generally a “do your best” sort of thing.