By the time Roxas reaches his gang’s shanty, his three friends are waaaaay too-casually sucking down blue popsicles. Hayner looks like he spent five minutes perfecting his “I don’t care” pose. I’m also puzzled as to how they beat him back here and stopped for ice cream without him catching up. I would say they bought it before they saw Roxas, but the ice cream is so obviously petty revenge ice cream that I refuse to believe it wasn’t bought afterward. Indeed, Chumlee is the first to speak, and he says, “So…you hung out with Seifer’s gang today?” Oh my god. “N-no… It’s not like that…” Roxas protests, like he was caught naked and mid-thrust.

Desperate to change the subject, Roxas turns to Hayner. “Oh yeah! How was the beach? Wasn’t that today?” It is beyond weird that he thinks his friends, with no notice, excluded him from something to which he was explicitly invited, in writing. Hayner continues to deep throat his popsicle, pointedly not looking Roxas in the eye, as Olette deadpans, “We didn’t go. It wouldn’t be the same without you, right?” Shit. I know Roxas has bigger problems right now and this wasn’t his fault, and yet his complete refusal to just tell them what happened–choosing instead to blurt out “It’s not like that” like a scumbag philandering husband, and ask how their totally planned-without-him beach trip was–makes me think he owes them an apology anyway. “…Sorry,” he says, hanging his head. Fucking right you are! How dare you get kidnapped by gimp-suited weirdos!

This one word is enough for his two junior friends, who smile and nod in acceptance. But Hayner is still being intensely passive-aggressive and acting like his sea salt popsicle is the most interesting thing he’s ever encountered, so Roxas once more tries talking to him. “Hey…how ’bout we go tomorrow?” he asks. “We could get those pretzels and…” Finally, Hayner breaks his silence. “I promised I’d be somewhere,” he says, with maximum put-outedness. Roxas is first disappointed, and then remembers, as he flashes back along with us to the previous day, that he and Hayner promised each other with a manly arm-bump that they would make the Struggle finals, which are tomorrow. Hayner waits for Roxas to realize this, like he forgot their fucking anniversary, and then grunts, “I’m outta here.” As he walks past Roxas without looking at him, and Chumlee and Olette look like they’re about to walk out too, the scene fades to static and the robot voice says, “Restoration at 48%.” Oh no! We’re at Clown Shoes DEFCON 3!

And we’re back to Saruman the Red and Ziggy. The latter asks the former, “Was that Naminé made of data?” I mean, aren’t we all, like, made of data? Whoa. “No…” Saruman answers. “Naminé hijacked the data herself. “Look what she’s done now… She’s totally beyond my control!” …Oh. That’s…bad? Saruman slams a fist onto his console, and Ziggy has to tell him in a typical emotionless monotone, “Calm down.” But Saruman has already composed himself. “It doesn’t matter. As long as Naminé accomplishes her goal…we needn’t worry about what befalls Roxas.” Sure. That’s why you’re sitting here watching his life play out like you’re binge-watching Degrassi. Man, I’ve been there. No judgment.

What I will judge, and harshly, are these ongoing recaps of Junior’s travails in the last game, and the implication behind them that I have the memory of a goldfish. We start now with Junior flying into the golden shining light of Kingdom Hearts, tripping over his giant feet as he reaches out to a hologram of Kairi in Hollow Bastion, and struggling futilely as the Keyblade chooses Riku over his dorky, entitled ass. I can’t be mad at watching that again, admittedly. In fact, I’m just gonna sit here, awash in the afterglow of Junior getting owned, and totally ignore the ensuing montage of him getting the Keyblade and his friends back and flipping the chump script on poor Riku yet again. It’s just rolling off me, like water off a duck’s back.

But then things get a little weird. First, one of the dudes in black robes walks through Junior and Junior looks like he just had his soul ripped out of him; then, in the room where the team fought the Black Dragon, he and the same black robe play light ball ping pong like they’re Twink and Ganondorf; finally, they have an intense staredown (read: Junior looks like a goober). None…of that…happened? Or some of that happened, but differently, and to Riku? I don’t know. I really don’t appreciate having these scenes be pure flashbacks for this long and then segue into gaslighting me. As it is I have to check my front door every time I leave the house because I forget whether I locked it one minute before. I can’t deal with this.

After this brief foray into shit that quasi-happened, we land back on Riku/Billy Zane and Junior fighting over Kairi’s comatose body. This time, when Junior grunts out, “Forget it! There’s no way you’re taking Kairi’s heart!” her name and her face are no longer obscured by static. Nor are they when she revives him from his bug Heartless state with a chaste hug and he says her name again. I think this has something to do with the moment their hearts are no longer one (hurk) when he stabs himself with the Keyblade to release hers from his thin little chest. But that’s getting awfully close to me understanding what the hell is going on here, so it’s probably wrong.

Let’s wrap this up: Squally tells Junior they’ll be friends forever and never forget each other, fully planning on forgetting him as soon as is humanly possible, while Airhead clutches her chest and says the same basic thing, but without Mandy Moore’s voice; Kairi hands Junior her fifth-grade arts-and-crafts-ass paopu fruit keychain; and Kairi tells Junior in voiceover, “Wherever you go, I’m always with you,” as he seals Hollow Bastion’s keyhole with a white-hot jizz beam. I have to say, it pleases me how consistently these dreams of Roxas’s close on the nut shot. Really reinforcing my totally true and canon narrative.

Creepily, we watch Roxas awake from above his bed. After furtively gazing downward at what his body did to him in the night, he looks around the room, presumably checking for Naminé ghosts. Sitting up, he says to himself, remembering Kairi’s keychain, “Right…’Promise’…” Then he swipes his right arm in a sword-swinging pantomime. Which promise is he remembering? Who cares? They’re both stupid.

It is now “The 4th Day,” the day of the all-important Struggle of Boyhood Promises. When Roxas emerges from the Wankhouse, with no explanation for why he went there at all, some weirdo on the street tells him, “Hurry to the sandlot! You’re gonna be late!” Is this guy Roxas’s stalker? Or does he have money on him? I was gonna say that’s a bad bet, but the line on Roxas winning this thing is probably high enough to make it tempting.

It looks like the entire town has turned up for this highly anticipated event–there are like a dozen people lining the rooftops around the sandlot. Tattered banners of red, blue, green, and yellow (confusingly, in different sizes) hang from the bell tower, with one giant red banner proclaiming “STRUGGLE” over clip art of a dildo bat and four stylized orbs in those same colors. On the ground, a fighting area has been erected, more or less a double-sized wrestling ring without ropes. In the “crowd,” Chumlee asks Olette who she’s going to root for. “Both of them, silly,” she replies. She just hopes everybody has a nice time! Sports!

A brief flurry of unimpressive fireworks–why would a town that apparently has no nighttime ever have fireworks?–kick off the proceedings, as Struggle head honcho Ken Kratz welcomes, in a monotone that does not match his words, the “Struggle-fiends of Twilight Town” to “summer’s most sizzling clash!” No, really. There is a significant chance the writers wanted to call this SummerSlam and ran headfirst into a WWE cease-and-desist letter. “Who will be the one to break through the ranks and take on our champion, Setzer?” Well now. Another weird teen version, I’m sure. The spectators yell their favorites, with Rai shouting, “Seifer, y’know?” while he’s standing right next to Seifer. It’s weird. Chumlee and Olette stan for “Hayner! Roxas!” like they can be co-champions. They’re both tops!

As some girls scream, “Setzerrr!” in unison, Ken Kratz turns around to do a little sideline report with the reigning champion. It would be nice if I had his introduction in the Final Fantasy VI recaps to point to for my impressions of his original incarnation (though if I may offer a brief preview: CHIIIIIIIIIIICKS), but unfortunately I haven’t gotten there yet. Even better, I actually have said introduction recorded and ready to write, but I chose to recap this KH2 installment first. Well done, me! Not a missed step in this perfectly choreographed dance!

As for this version of Setzer, it turns out I was wrong–Setzer is not a teenage boy, but a full-grown man. A full-grown man in a competition otherwise exclusively for teenage boys, and whatever the hell Vivi is! Wholly appropriate, Setzer. He’s dressed in a fitted, narrow-waisted blouse open to his sternum, a black trenchcoat with gold trim and purple lining that he’s wearing like a cape, and a fancy purple sash tied around his waist. His belt buckle and the chain holding his coat around his shoulders are both accented with silver skulls, an incongruous choice that seems sourced neither in his depiction here nor in his original game. It’s like he had Gucci custom-make him this entire ensemble, and then strolled over to Spencer’s for the finishing touches. Lastly, he has a brown leather wrestling championship belt with gold plates flung over his shoulder. The center plate, unfortunately, is facing the wrong way on his shoulder. If you’re going to do the belt-on-the-shoulder thing, Setzer–and I get it, you wouldn’t want the belt simultaneously clashing with and covering up your lavender sash–at least do it right, man.

Ken Kratz doesn’t actually speak to Setzer at all, which is just as well since he’s preoccupied with waving to the crowd like a beauty queen. Instead, he announces, “Yes, the crowd is fired up, so you know what comes next: Let’s…STRUGGLE!” The whole crowd says that last word along with him as he flings his arms out. It’s an odd moment. I’m having a hard time processing “Struggle” as a staged fight with nerf bats, rather than a bunch of Twitter eggs helplessly trapped in the teen boy Matrix where their small businesses only have like three customers. ECONOMIC ANXIETY, is my point. But there are more bad fireworks! Whoo! Let’s forget our real struggles with this fake one!

The armor shop proprietor–who I see now has paired his brown ’70s vest with red jorts that go down to his calves, like Kevin Smith–has the honor of introducing the challengers to Setzer’s title. I don’t know why Ken Kratz isn’t doing this part, but I suppose real-life sporting events also have fifty more commentators and announcers than is necessary. He calls them “The four bad boys who struggled their way through the preliminaries!” It doesn’t sound any better when he says it out loud, either. “Regular finalist and head of the Twilight Disciplinary Committee: Seifer!” Seifer, ever the cool dude, ignores this announcement and keeps chatting with his underlings as girls scream for him. “Completely out of nowhere–who knew he’d make it so far THIS year? Vivi!” What does that mean? Was this the year he was suspended for deflating Struggle bats so he could handle them more easily? Vivi looks as puzzled by this as I am. “An underground favorite and local attitude problem: Hayner! It’s his first trip to the finals!” I…I don’t even know what to say to that nonsense. Hayner stares unsmiling into the camera, and I am totally cutting myself on all his sharp edges. It turns out his resting bitchface is because he’s staring across the sandlot at Roxas, who is staring right back. Jesus, just make up already. Seifer probably doesn’t want to bang either of you anyway. “And Struggler number four, who happens to be my absolute favorite customer: Roxas!” Roxas is too crestfallen by the look on Hayner’s face to notice the announcer creaming his giant shorts over him. Not that this favoritism is a surprise, given how everyone in town’s most prized possession was a fucking photo of him.

“So, who will win this sweltering summer Struggle!?” the announcer asks the crowd. “Who will take home the grand prize?” He gestures over to a trophy on a nearby table, adorned with crystal orbs of red, yellow, green, and blue, set in a swirling onyx structure. “The summa cum laude of Struggle–the Four Crystal Trophy!” I was all ready to make the world’s most predictable joke here, but I find myself too annoyed that this yokel just used “summa cum laude” as a noun. Also, what the hell is Setzer’s title belt for if there’s also a trophy? I refuse to believe he would carry something that clashes so terribly with his outfit unless he had to.

Well, shut my mouth, because the announcer has an explanation for that: the winner of the trophy gets “a chance to take on our defending champion, Setzer!” Wait, do not shut my mouth, because that makes no sense. So defeating the champion is not required to win the Struggle? You get a fabulous crystal trophy just for becoming number-one contender, but beating the actual champion gets you an ugly belt? Did Setzer win the Struggle last year, or was he just not defeated by the person who did? Setzer holds up the belt at this moment, and I’m surprised his hands don’t automatically expel it away from his body in sartorial disgust. No wonder the main event structure works this way: there has to be a prize so the Struggle champion can safely tank the championship match and keep this thing off their hips. How Setzer ever ended up with it in the first place is beyond my comprehension.

The announcer finishes, “I suggest our challengers go over the official Struggle Rules before we begin!” This is as naked of a plea for me to read a dry minigame summary as I’ve ever seen, since all four of our “bad boys” presumably fought through the prelims and know the damn rules already. And I don’t know how complicated the rules could be for a game that involves nerf bats, but again, I have real-life sports, and specifically the hopeless bureaucratic quagmire that is the NFL rulebook, to serve as a counterexample.

When Roxas asks yet another official with blond hair and giant shorts about the rules, he gathers all four participants in front of an 8-person tournament bracket drawn on a chalkboard. Except there are no names filled in, and it is therefore useless. As for the rules: “You’ve each got 100 orbs. Attack to take away your opponent’s orbs. That’s all you have to do.” Whoever has the most orbs at the end of the fight wins. So this is just a blunted-swords version of smacking enemies until their lifeforce and valuables fly out of their bloodied mouths. Fine.

Roxas talks to everyone in the sandlot, and learns from Olette that Seifer and his gang are hanging out in the alley. (Minus Vivi, who is choosing to be a giggling creep by his lonesome today. Must be Struggle nerves!) Seifer apparently needs to work out some aggression in a “good street brawl,” and challenges Roxas, “Win or lose–no grudges!” On paper this is a terrible idea–what if he injures himself in this exhibition match, or is otherwise sapped of all his stamina, somehow?–but there is no way Roxas is turning down the opportunity to cross plump, stiff nerf bats with the town’s most “discipline”-minded teen boy. And in fact, he levels up from this experience, even though all he does is swing his bat a few times and stoically resist Seifer’s insistence that he, a loser, should kneel down in front of him. Our boy is all business today!

After running Poster Duty a couple times to get money for potions, Roxas is ready for his Struggle semifinals match, against…Hayner. Now, wait a fucking minute. They made a goddamn elbow pinkie promise to both make the finals, securing the prize for themselves and their freeloading lesser friends, when there was still a possibility they’d be slotted together before the finals and that would be literally impossible? I had to not only witness that saccharine scene, but see it replayed when Hayner was upset at Roxas for breaking said promise? Was Hayner just setting up Roxas to fail as a best friend this entire time?

Back to the “action,” I guess, Hayner has already leveled his dickbat at Roxas’s mouth, but Roxas still looks all mopey. “Hey… Sorry about yesterday,” he mutters. The thing he apparently has to be sorry about is being around Seifer, and yet he was just hanging out with him again. I don’t know anymore. And Hayner, confusing me further since he was definitely still pouting in Roxas’s direction in the last 10 seconds, says, “What, you still worried about that? You need to learn to let that stuff go.” Oh, bullshit, Crunchy Hair. Your face has been stuck in My Man Wronged Me mode since yesterday. Roxas sighs, truthfully, that he has a lot on his mind–not that he’s going to tell his best friend about any of it! And not that Hayner is going to ask! He just goes, “Sorry, man,” and then, “Wait, what am I sorry for?” Well, you are sorry.

As a break in the tension, this “joke” from Hayner works reasonably well. He smiles, Roxas smiles and gets his shoulders down from around his ears, and in the crowd, Chumlee and Olette smile at each other, their friends’ body language apparently clear enough to them in the distance. Best friends! Keeping promises! But breaking them because they can’t possibly both make the finals now!

The announcer very patiently waits for this teen drama to play out before announcing the match to the crowd, and no shit, he says the bout is between “Roxas and his best friend, Hayner!” If we didn’t already know Twilight Town was a fake reality constructed specifically with Roxas at its center, that would be a dead giveaway. If Hayner dies, his obituary in the Twilight Town Tattler is going to be headlined, “Roxas’s best friend: An unimportant life remembered.”

When the Struggle match begins, I note that Roxas’s orbs are blue and Hayner’s are red; unfortunately, this means I won’t get to make a joke about anybody getting the blue balls slapped out of him, since Hayner doesn’t land a single hit on our boy. It’s just red balls everywhere, and that is so disappointing. Roxas doesn’t successfully end the bout at 200 to 0, only because he is too slow to collect the final eight of Hayner’s red orbs after he’s beaten them out of his ass. It feels uncharitable, after they just made up, to force Roxas into making his best friend look like a complete fool. Worse, when the announcer holds up Roxas’s arm and announces him the winner, he adds, “Not even friendship will slow this kid down.” Harsh. He adds, “And Hayner put up a great fight, too.” Don’t lie to the people like that. They saw. We all saw.

Speaking of Hayner, Roxas yanks his arm away from the armor shop guy and runs to the center of the platform, because Hayner is still on his back. Really buying his concern when he was all smiles just now, even though unlike us, he could see the situation the whole time. Hayner is thankfully conscious, just whining as he rolls around on the mat about how losing sucks. As he gets to his giant feet, he says, “I guess I taught you well.” Sure. That must be it. “I had a lot of fun fighting you,” Roxas replies. Well, unambiguously proving you’re the stronger man probably is fun. Hayner pouts that it wasn’t that fun for him, which, again, obviously. Roxas slaps him on the back since they’re now besties again. “Hey, let’s find a way to cheer you up,” he says. He does not mean sea salt ice cream. But he might mean something else salty. Hayner demurs, but their pillow talk is put on pause while Seifer and Vivi make their way to the ring.

Seifer is stone-faced and silent, even as Hayner asks him if he’s ready to lose. I feel like he’s actually less hypocritical for doing this after losing himself. Losing set him free. But Roxas jumps halfway out of his skin as Vivi suddenly appears next to him. I mean, he didn’t teleport or anything–it’s more that Vivi quickly walked over and Roxas was too busy mentally pressing his face against Seifer’s abs to notice. But still, Vivi is creepy, especially when he starts laughing. It is unclear if anybody other than Roxas can hear his boyish giggles, or if they are coming from Vivi’s invisible real mouth or his visible hat mouth. I’m trying not to think about it.

Once Hayner and Roxas get out of there, probably holding hands and being really obnoxious, Seifer and Vivi can square off. Vivi, for some reason, won’t stop eye-fucking Roxas. This lack of respect and attention annoys Seifer, who tells his “friend”–I say for lack of any knowledge of what their relationship is–“Don’t mess with your elders.” Vivi says nothing to this, which leads the announcer to gush, “Whew, just look at those sparks fly! I guess Seifer didn’t expect to fight one of his own boys!” Oh yeah, man, this is electric. Such a rich shared history between these two, after all. I prefer their camaraderie as depicted in the musical based on the novella series, but I know others are really into the pair’s Midnight Run-esque escapades in the radio drama.