Junior shouts up at Riku, his goofy face contorting into something resembling rage, “Whoever you are, let Riku go! Give him back his heart!” Ugh. Really? I would say I’m so over this heart nonsense, but obviously I was never on board with it in the first place. Riku, with full-on crazy eyes, responds, “But first, you must give the princess back her heart.” At this, he points his Big Black Keyblade at Junior and Junior suddenly topples over from chest pain, thankfully without the darkness semen fireworks show this time. “Don’t you see yet?” Riku asks. “The princess’s heart is responding. It has been there all along. [Token]’s heart rests within you!” Oh, for the love of God. It was with him all along! If Junior clicks the heels of his clown shoes three times, he’ll wake up on the Island of Wankers! And you were there, and you, and you! Not you, Tightass.
‘Our sex ed teacher has SO MUCH TO ANSWER FOR.’
Junior is still bent over and groaning, but he manages to get out, “[Token]…[Token]’s inside me?” Heeeeee. That’s a nice tuck job she’s doing under that tiny skirt. But Junior gets over that little surprise quickly enough, and still wants to know who has invaded Riku’s sweet ass and made him wear even more terrible clothing. “It is I, Ansem, the seeker of darkness,” he announces. BILLY ZANE IS ANSEM?! WHAAAAAAAAAAAT?! The Ansem Junior knows and read all about would never do such a thing! Oh, wait.
Well, @%$#!!! for one is just incensed about this whole turn of events, and sprints toward Riku, quacking with fury and brandishing his stupid staff with the red mage on it. Riku bats him through the forcefield and down the stairs without even blinking, and then turns to his quarry. “So, I shall release you now, Princess,” he declares, pointing the BBK at the prostrate Junior. This makes Junior a princess! I love it. “Complete the Keyhole with your power. Open the door, lead me into everlasting darkness!” If he had said “heart” instead of “power,” I feel like that quote would have been the perfect encapsulation of Kingdom Hearts. Junior is still on all fours, and looks ready to let Riku have his way with him, but at the last moment, Token’s voice cries out from his own chest, “[Junior]!” and he suddenly gets his shit together. He leaps to block Riku’s attack with his own Keyblade, snarling, “There’s no way you’re taking [Token]’s heart!”
The fugly Samcules Keyblade is really taking me out of this scene.
I guess, in retrospect, it was nice of the game to make Junior fight Samcules alone so I could get used to not having @%$#!!! and Goofy spam his inept ass with Elixirs, but the two fights are dissimilar in every other respect, so fuck that, it was still stupid. Specifically, Riku, infused with the glorious power of Billy Zane, is much faster, deadlier, and less likely to stand around preening. But this fight is also much friendlier to the “strategy” of mashing X with occasional healing breaks, so it’s not that hard. Around the time he is whittled down to his last life bar, Riku glows blue and zips around the room in a streak, stabbing any available orifice with his Big Black Keyblade, but even that is no match for, um, gliding around the room out of his reach and giggling at how silly he looks. Junior learns the Ragnarok ability after the fight is over, and I’m already looking forward to spending the MP to use it only for the target to move out of the way immediately.
After the battle, Riku drops his Big Black Keyblade and vanishes, which should be alarming, but @%$#!!! and Goofy are more concerned about the giant keyhole they’re standing in front of. But Junior’s Keyblade just can’t get it up for this gaping, maybe diseased keyhole, and Goofy explains for my benefit, “It won’t work! The Keyhole’s not finished yet!” It’s a hole that a key can fit into–I don’t see what the problem is. But Goofy already has an idea for how to fix this problem: wake up Token. I like how the door/keyhole/doorhole/what-the-fuck-ever isn’t even all the way open yet, and now the Wanker Trio has to figure out how to open it just so they can close it again. This is surely the best possible use of their time.
The three of them stare at Token, and Junior wanks poetic about freeing her heart, even if he doesn’t know how to do it. But with a sinister sound effect, the camera focuses on Riku’s Big Black Keyblade lying innocently on the floor. “A Keyblade that unlocks people’s hearts…I wonder,” Junior says. You wonder what? What is there to wonder? That is the solution! Goddamn. Junior casually walks over to the BBK and picks it up, right as @%$#!!! and Goofy realize what he’s about to do. Unlike me, they yell for him to stop, because unlike me, they care about him. Well, Goofy does. Maybe. But Junior just looks back at them and shoots them his best soul-burning grin, before jamming the BBK into his chest and making a lot of Junior/Riku doujinshi canon.
Why wasn’t this face banned by the Geneva Convention?
Junior sags with something resembling relief or exhaustion as the BBK sticks out of his tiny chest. After a moment it disappears, and the instrumental “Hikari” theme kicks in to make me start taking this more seriously. It fails spectacularly, but it’s trying. The glittery remnants of the BBK coalesce into six balls of light that zip back to their Mary Sue owners. And one final sparkly Mary Sue heart emerges from Junior’s chest to float down to Token, who immediately opens her eyes, just in time to see Junior fainting as the golden shimmer of THE HEART THAT BELIEVES covers his whole body. And right as Token runs over to catch him, and @%$#!!! is quacking his name, he disappears too, leaving nothing but gold dust, memories of wanky laughter, and the patter of clown shoes in a baby’s dreams.
POOCHIE’S JUNIOR’S DEAD, KIDS!
I know, I know, he isn’t. But let me have these five seconds of Token looking super duper sad, still holding her arms out like Junior’s noodly body should be there, and @%$#!!! throwing a grieving, webbed-foot-stamping tantrum. I need to savor it, because what’s coming next is going to test my patience.
We rejoin Junior as he’s floating on a black screen, or “falling into darkness,” wondering what’s happening to him. This is triggering traumatic flashbacks to his tutorial adventures at the beginning of the game, so I am relieved when the game immediately cuts back to @%$#!!!, Goofy, and Token. Token shouts at the ceiling once she’s come to grips with what just occurred, “No. He can’t be! I won’t let him go!” Oh, what are you going to do, fall into a coma again? Thank God Billy Zane is back to distract her, or she’d probably go on like this for a while. “So, you have awakened at last, Princess,” he creeps at her. With Riku defeated, it looks like Billy Zane has returned to his own body, which, for the record, looks like Sephiroth and Ganondorf had a baby, banned him from wearing shirts, and draped him with belts and shoulder pads. He gestures dramatically at the keyhole and tells Token, “The Keyhole is now complete. You have served your purpose. But now it’s over.” He’s used up these ladies–they can go back to their kitchens now!
But with Junior totally dead and never coming back, @%$#!!! decides it is his duty to protect Junior’s woman in his place, and he therefore steps to Billy Zane, warning him not to come closer. From behind his shield, Goofy stage-whispers, “Do you think we can stop him all by ourselves?” @%$#!!! is like, “Dude, are you stupid? No,” but they don’t have to worry about it, because as Billy Zane strides forward, he jerks to a halt and looks like he’s being held in place by an invisible force. He grunts, “Impossible!” right before a spectral image of Riku–the good Riku with the yellow wetsuit–emerges, bent over and groaning right in front of Billy Zane’s crotch. “No,” he cries. “You won’t use me for this!” Wow. I hadn’t wondered until now what Billy Zane was doing inside Riku all that time, but now I’m guessing it was extremely inappropriate.
Oh dear.
Token–who, remember, doesn’t even really like Riku–suddenly remembers a beat too late that they’re supposed to be friends and cries out his name. And Riku–who, gay for Junior or not, has gone through hell to save this girl–yells at her to run, because “The Heartless are coming!” Such a nice boy. He deserves better friends. On cue, they’re all surrounded by Heartless, albeit the cute, mostly harmless bug kind. Token considers this for a long moment, while Riku is straining to hold back the creep who’s been molesting him from the inside this entire recap. Then she finally nods, and we smash cut to @%$#!!! quack-screeching as he, Goofy, and Token high-tail it out of there. Fuck you, Junior! Fuck you, Riku! In fact, the only thing Goofy is worried about leaving behind is the unlocked keyhole. “Let’s just get out of here!” @%$#!!! yells back at him.
The trio’s escape is observed by a lone Heartless bug. The other Heartless are gone, and so is Billy Zane, for some reason, so he hops down from the platform with the keyhole. As if its droopy ears and sad expression at being left behind weren’t enough to indicate that this is Junior in Heartless form, the game shortly gives me control of the little bugger. Heartless Junior can’t do anything but run and jump, and the only thing I need to do with him is follow Token, @%$#!!!, and Goofy back to the castle entrance, which would be horrible and break my spirit forever if it didn’t mostly involve jumping off the ramparts until he reaches the bottom. So I have no idea what the goddamn point was of having me play through this part–it’s not like this game has ever been shy about using cutscenes.
But eventually, we catch up with Token as Goofy is yelling at her to hurry her skinny ass up. But all the way down here, in the foyer, miles and miles away from where they last saw Junior and Riku, Token has just now decided, “I can’t leave them behind!” Fucking spare me, girl. You can, and you did. @%$#!!! and Goofy don’t have time for her bullshit, though, since Goofy has noticed a Heartless is after them. One dinky little Heartless? It might as well be none. Even @%$#!!! couldn’t run out of MP killing this thing, and he says he’ll handle it. At this, control switches back to Heartless Junior, who must simply run up to his friends. This triggers an admittedly funny cutscene where @%$#!!! repeatedly bonks Heartless Junior on the noggin with his staff to get it to leave them alone. But Token somehow instinctively realizes this sad sack of a creature is Junior. Their hearts are one! I wish I could say that things get less cheesy from here, but I think you all know they don’t.
While these idiots have been standing around chit-chatting, more buggy Heartless appear and surround them. As @%$#!!! and Goofy set to work, Heartless Junior cowers behind Token and she assures him, “This time, I’ll protect you.” Or, @%$#!!! and Goofy will protect both of them, but that’s just semantics, right? Well, as it turns out, @%$#!!! and Goofy are so busy blowing their MP on one fucking Heartless by the door that they fail to notice the swarm that dogpiles on top of Token. She throws her arms around Heartless Junior, and after a flash of light from under the Heartless pile, the bugs are blown away by the power of THE HEART THAT BELIEVES, leaving only Junior, back to normal, with Token in his arms. She saved him, and he’s still the one shielding her two seconds later! This game. Everyone’s all happy to see him again, like they weren’t ready to fly out of here without him five minutes ago.