Next it’s back to the very first person Yuna found and then sailed on past, who it turns out is running in tight circles at a dead end. The best possible plan: expend energy that could be used to escape, without actually going anywhere. He whines that the fiends came “out of nowhere”–that is literally what fiends do, always?–but is at least grateful for the help. He will basically be fine as long as he’s no later than fifth in line. Isn’t it just so totally normal how all of the people down here are responding to a stressful situation by caring about their precise spot in the rescue queue, like this cave is a fucking deli? So, so normal. But that is the last thought Yuna will give to Pacing Pacey’s problems.

The dude who was running down the hallway earlier is now in the big chamber where Yuna picked up Head of the Line Hal. So he’s already seen Yuna and her growing conga line, but he still tenses up and tells her to back off. “I thought you were a fiend,” Jogger John says after a beat. “Sorry, easy mistake!” Sure it is. John wants to be no later than sixth in line, and doesn’t like groups larger than seven. So he wants Yuna to more or less tell everyone else still in the cave to fuck off after he’s been personally rescued. Yeah, he’ll stay regardless, but I am still amending his name to Fuck You, Got Mine Fred.

It’s time to pick up the two people who were hanging out by the Blue Ring chest and not opening it for themselves for some reason. Only YRP are allowed to wear jewelry around here! These two are actually a couple, and we know this because they’re bickering when Yuna’s mass of goggling tourists arrives. (By the way, it is more like a mass now–even though these people are all fucking obsessed with their place in line, they don’t remotely stay in a line or adhere to their own desired order. Tell me again why any of this is necessary.) Anyway, the woman is shouting at her boyfriend, I guess, about how coming to this stupid cave was all his stupid idea, and he is stupid. But lo and behold! He is the picky one who wants to be no later than seventh in line if there are at least eight people, meaning she has to be eighth, and probably has to bind her feet and walk no fewer than five paces behind him. But the woman really takes the cake: “She can put up with anything. If the man leaves, the woman will leave too,” the box reads. Codependent Cathy here will bear any indignity, but the second her gross man, whom she clearly does not even like, bolts, she will meekly follow suit. Have we finally found a couple worse than Tightass and Yuna? Could it be?

Once Cathy and her beau, Misogynist Mitch, are on board, it’s time for Yuna to drag this whole terrible entourage to the very back of the cave, where the children from earlier are cowering behind the teleportation pad to Hojimbo’s fayth chamber. “Why are you following us? Go away!” one cries. Oh my god, why do you fucking think? “You’re not gonna eat us? You’re gonna save us? Oh.” Why is everyone in this cave afraid of other humans? It’s not that poorly lit in here, people. The kids want to be ninth and 10th at most (good news!) and will stick together, hopefully unlike Mitch and Cathy the second this ordeal is over.

It occurs to me that this entire mission would fall apart if any of these people were counting Yuna toward their total, but they all seem to intuitively understand that she is less of an autonomous person and more of a bundle of neediness and Mary Sue tropes underneath a bad haircut. And it would be even worse if they were counting Rikku and Paine, but thankfully they’re safely stowed in Yuna’s asshole, munching popcorn and shipping Cathy with Priscilla.

Nobody tell Rikku about flash mobs right now. She has enough terrible ideas.

This leaves the three people back where the White Ring chest was. It turns out two of them are children. “I could’ve made it out on my own,” the adult woman says. “But I couldn’t leave these children by themselves. If you can’t take all three of us with you, I won’t leave.” Why…why would Yuna not take all three of them? It’s not like she just pulled up in a minivan with only 11 passenger seats. The Box of Eccentricities reads, “As long as the three of them are together, nothing else matters.” Wow. Someone doesn’t have kids of her own and has a lot of feelings about it. Barren Betty and two more unnamed children join the ranks. (Sorry, even when I’m half-assing it, I’m not making up names for all these kids. They’re not even people until they’re at least 10.)

Yuna leads these 13 helpless babies out of the cave, and one by one (or group by group), they hand Yuna a gift as thanks. The gifts are almost all energy cores needed to activate the teleporter pads at the back of the cave. (Fuck You, Got Mine Fred hands over a “Besaid Key,” whatever that is; Misogynist Mitch just walks off and lets Codependent Cathy do the thanking and gifting, since his penis won’t let him be considerate; and Head of the Line Hal and–sigh–Pragmatic Priscilla give her jack fucking shit. They can rot in hell.) How all of these people individually found one of these things and all then independently decided Yuna might want them is beyond me, but then again, this is pretty far down the list of Spiran mysteries, such as “Why Tightass?” and “Really, why Tightass, though?”

But the question of why Yuna would want these cores is answered by a small text box once all her charges have left, which reads, “Still trapped: 2.” Clearly these people are past the teleporters, or Yuna would have found their loafing asses already. She also does not have enough cores to activate both teleporters now, not even after getting one from some other jerk outside, so there is also probably a right order to finding these two. Super. Silver lining: the other pads throughout the cave are working again, so Yuna’s hooker boots can have a tiny bit of a break.

In one of the hidden chambers at the back of the cave, Yuna scores a Lightning Gleam and finds another shirtless mulleted man. “With the right mindset,” he tells her, not even looking up from his relaxed pose on the ground, “not even fiends are scary. Yeah, I am the apex of cool. ‘Course, even the apex of cool needs help once in a while. How ’bout it?” I cannot even handle how radical this bro is. He’s totally in my face! His lone note under Eccentricities lets us know, “He’s a loner. A rebel. Yeah.” I’m trying not to think about Yuna’s urgent desire to fuck this guy while Kimahri watches. I make her escort him out of the cave immediately, before she does anything I’ll she’ll regret.

This does not remotely answer my question about what the fuck this thing is supposed to be.

That, of course, leaves the other hidden chamber, not counting Hojimbo’s Money Bin, and thankfully Poochie has an energy core for his new favorite lady. Ugh. Gross. Along with a Wall Ring, Yuna finds in the other chamber the polar opposite of Poochie: a young man clutching his hands over his head and stammering, “Wh-Wh-Who’s th-th-there? Y-You’ve got to h-help me!” Y’know, Poochie was trying way too hard, but being aloof actually made sense in this context, what with being in a sealed room and all. What does this geek have to be scared of? Courage the Cowardly Cuck (I’m sorry), like Poochie, “wants your undivided attention.” Oh, is that all? A bespoke rescue job, just for you? Anything else while Yuna is here? Maybe, per Jeanne, a tasteful cheese plate and a distiller’s edition Lavagulin? How about a back massage? Yuna is great at those! Best of all, he also “doesn’t have anything” to give Yuna as thanks for her additional efforts on his lone behalf. This Justin Bieber-ass motherfucker.

If Yuna leaves the cave now–even to heal at the save point–the mission ends and she’s spirited out of there, so I burn some of the billion items I bought from O’aka and return the ladies to the back of the cave. When the gals teleport into Hojimbo’s fayth chamber, of course, they find a gaping hole where the fayth used to be. Paine tries to hide her excitement (Rikku is uninterested, as Hojimbo’s fayth was not her cousin). Almost immediately, Goth Hojimbo and his goth dog appear in the pyreflies. “Please, tell me! Why is this happening?” Yuna shouts at him. But Gothimbo is uninterested in talking–unsurprising, since aeons have never been able to talk, Yuna–and instead whips his katana out of its scabbard for a boss fight.

You’d think, if this were really some corrupted, Bizarro version of Hojimbo, he’d actually pay Yuna gil and then leave, but that would be too nice, wouldn’t it? At the beginning of the battle, Yuna murmurs, “It’s been a while,” like she just ran into him at their high school reunion and is searching for something neutral to say so she doesn’t blurt out that his hair seems to have migrated from his head to his back. (“Speaking of missing wads of hair, HAVEN’T SEEN YOUR BOYFRIEND LATELY,” Hojimbo would reply to this, if Yuna said it, and were he capable of speech.)

Separated at birth?

As for the fight, it turns out to be fine that nobody has any mana left, since Hojimbo enjoys draining it, and again, two Dark Knights and an Alchemist can pretty much do anything in this game, no mana required. The only trick to the fight, really, is holding a mega potion for the moment after Hojimbo uses his Zanmato ability. Since Hojimbo the summonable aeon was a tetchy, greedy bastard, it’s possible to have never even seen him do this in FFX, but he basically slices all his enemies in half, after staring with Margulis-and-Jin-level lust at his own katana for an hour. Here, it reduces all three of our heroines to 1 HP and 1 MP. Not that I’m complaining, but is he holding back on them? Do he and his stupid Duck Hunt cock of a dog still care for Yuna, deep down?

Well, if they do, it’s tough shit for them, because Yuna doesn’t seem all that conflicted this time about dispatching her beloved former aeon-for-hire. After Hojimbo has once again kicked the bucket, we return to a scene of Yuna, Rikku, and Paine standing at the edge of the fayth-hole. “Hello!” Rikku shouts down into it. “HEY GIRL,” Greyskull does not answer. As they stand there, the scene fades out, long enough for me to spot an unopened treasure chest, and when the next scene commences, the girls are bounding out of the cave and screwing me out of my chance to open it. Hey, no, that’s cool! Who wants free stuff, anyway?

Outside, YRP is swarmed by grateful idiots. “We can’t thank you enough for your help,” one says. Another pledges that Open Air won’t be attempting to monetize the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth anymore. It’s sad that that even needs to be said, but great! From the back, Buddy is nodding approvingly, hands on his hips, as a text box and some triumphant guitar licks congratulate me for saving every single lumpen oaf in the cave. With the mission complete, the girls do get some experience and 1500 gil, but I have no idea if that money is from the boss fight, or if Buddy actually managed to collect a fee for their services. And if that was their fee…1500 gil? For saving 15 people and murdering an immortal samurai demon? Either way, Buddy is hella fired.

The girls backtrack to let Shinra put down commspheres, grab the Stone Breath Blue Bullet Yuna missed in the cave because the stupid undead cinder block thing never cast it on her, and to pop that chest of Hojimbo’s (okay, maaaaybe a Star Bracer wasn’t worth having a fit over). With that done, it’s time for the Dullwings’ next stop, Mount Gagazet. Maybe this time Kimahri will need Yuna to coach him through losing his virginity to Mrs. Only Remaining Female Ronso. She can just do it for him!

Hey, maybe Shinra designed YRP’s outfits.

But Kimahri, it turns out, is uninterested in Yuna’s guiding magic hands today, or in any of her help, for that matter. “Yuna must leave,” he says. “Ronso youth use force. Seek vengeance for fallen Ronso. Gar[prick] lead angry Ronso youth. Decide to take revenge on Guado.” So much for Yuna’s peace summit! Kimahri continues in his infuriating clipped monotone, “Gar[prick] go to battle. Now Gar[prick] climb peak, tell mountain battle plan.” I can’t help but think the mountain might rumble back, “MOUNTAIN HAVE NOTES.” Rikku is incredulous that Kimahri is standing here doing fuck-all about this, but Kimahri is confident that once the mountain tells Garprick that he’s being a dumbass, he’ll totally change his mind. It says something about Kimahri’s leadership that not only is Garprick listening to a fucking mountain that only can speak to him in his own head instead of his elder, but Kimahri also accepts this as the logical choice. Paine wonders what will happen if the mountain is like, “COOL, BRO, YOU HAVE GREEN LIGHT,” and Kimahri says at that point he’ll put a stop to it. Or he could do it now! Or he could have done it much earlier than this! Jesus, Kimahri is bad at this. Naturally, only now does Yuna say, “That’s crazy!” I know she means that Kimahri can’t stop all 12 of his remaining subjects by himself, but it reads like she is now fine with the Ronso and Guado murdering each other, so long as Kimahri doesn’t have to stir himself.

But forget about Kimahri, and Garprick, and the impending mutual genocide of two Spiran races–this conversation has lasted exactly 30 seconds and nobody has talked about Yuna’s problems yet. This cannot stand. “Kimahri give Yuna something,” Kimahri says. “Kimahri search mountain, but find only sphere.” He holds it out in his claws for her. Now that YRP’s egos aren’t bound up in being good at sphere hunting, this is the perfect moment to neg on “only” finding a sphere like any asshole can do it. I don’t know what else I expected. He adds that he doesn’t know if it’s the one she wanted, “But Kimahri happy if sphere help Yuna.” Not that it was ever great writing, but the Ronso syntax was much less noticeably awful back when they all had nine lines of dialogue, combined, in the entire first game. Kimahri alone talks more than that now.

I PAUSED AT THE WRONG MOMENT 🙁

So the sphere is not a video sphere at all, but a new dressphere, the Trainer. (Except dresspheres still have footage on them sometimes, right? Man, I don’t know anymore.) Yuna takes the weirdly large sphere in both of her hands, and meanwhile Rikku and Paine are worried, having correctly interpreted the whole exchange as Kimahri bequeathing another stupid outfit to his next of kin before he commits suicide by angry Ronso. Yuna eventually picks up on this too, and decides they should climb the mountain and talk to Garprick themselves. “If Yuna go, Kimahri think Gar[prick] listen. Maybe,” Kimahri says. Yeah, you just stay down here and plow your girlfriend, pal. Wouldn’t want you going out of your way for the future of your people! “If not, Kimahri deal with Gar[prick].” Sure. Sure you will.

This means it’s Mission Time! “Gar[prick], in his hatred of the Guado, has decided to launch an attack!” I’m told, again. “Meet him on the summit of Mt. Gagazet and stop him–by force, if that’s what it takes.” Even the mission dossier knows that this is all down to YRP and that Kimahri isn’t going to stop jack shit. And so it’s up the mountain one more time, through random battles and past other Ronso meandering to the summit to join Garprick’s Third Reich. “What will mountain tell Gar[prick]?” one wonders in Yuna’s hearing. “Ronso will watch with own eyes.” Does Gagazet use sign language or something? Or is this a burning bush situation?

Shade.

Allllll the way at the top of the mountain–through the goddamn cave and everything–our heroines find Garprick, seemingly waiting for them. At least, when he shouts bitterly, “Ronso hold anger no longer. Ronso youth fearless. Go to battle with Guado!” it doesn’t seem like he’s addressing the mountain. Yuna replies, “And if I ask you not to go?” Obviously, Garprick says, “Oh, well, Garprick listen to wise Lady Yuna. Ronso become traveling acrobat show instead.” Nope. Yuna announces in the stilted fashion she often falls into, “Then I must stop you.” She awkwardly walks forward and points her stupid fucking pistol at Garprick’s head. But Garprick, likely having seen Yuna’s killer Stormtrooper aim in action, looks more puzzled than concerned. “Why?” he asks. “Summoner defend Guado. Why? Who punish Guado if Ronso not go?” I bet Sphereddit’s Yuna sub has some hilarious theories about Yuna protecting the Guado because of her beloved deceased husband. Kind of surprised Garprick wouldn’t be all over this.