That seems like enough recruiting for now, so Barry returns home to check out his improved digs, noting the empty stage where a bunch of Suikoclones complain about not having any free entertainment yet. Barry should put together that Rockaxe All-Male Revue himself. He also finds Connell on the rooftop terrace and hands him all the sound sets he’s been sitting on. To select new game sounds, Connell asks Barry to point at the set he wants, which is represented by a different, caterwauling Do-Re-Mi Elf. Barry would have really thought twice about bringing this kid to his castle if he knew he had a bunch of tiny Do-Re-Mi Shitheads in his pocket. One of them makes creepy pigeon noises. Barry now vows to visit the terrace as little as possible.
Yes, let’s.
Now that he’s done everything he can do, except visit High Yo again for more Iron Chef adventures, he walks into the war room to get the bad news train a-chuggin’. He finds out from Shu that the Highland Army is in Radat. Wait, he already knew that. Anyway. “Lord Ridley has deployed to check the enemy’s numbers.” Bear, Flik, and Apple moan for a minute about how fucked their army and country are if they lose here, so naturally this is the time to deliver news that will make that even more likely. A Yaoi Army Suikoclone rushes in to report, “Lord Ridley’s forces have been ambushed and surrounded. At this rate, they’ll be wiped out. Please send reinforcements!!!” God dammit, Ridley. Everyone in the room is like, “Dude, fucking Mondays.” After Barry futzes around with his army units a bit, he agrees to get out on the battlefield immediately to save the World’s Smartest Kobold.
Out on the battlefield, Ridley and his lone kobold unit are indeed surrounded by a buttfuckload of Highland units. “Stupid of me…. Caught in an ambush!!” he durrs. Jowy, Sasarai, and Julia are representing Highland in this inevitable ass-pounding. Sasarai is so unconcerned that he talks about using “finesse” to kill Ridley and all his stupid kobolds, while Julia banters with him that he sounds like he’s talking about cooking. Or buttsex! He could also be talking about buttsex.
Ridley says for my benefit that he needs to wait this out until his reinforcements arrive, which they do after a couple of turns. Bear yells at him, “Hey old man Ridley. Looks like you’re having a tough time. Need some help?” Ridley tells him to stop being an asshole and make with the rescue. And Shu reminds Barry that they’re there not to pound his ex-boyfriend’s face into the turf, but to save Ridley and get the hell out. Now, if Ridley is defeated before they can extract him, his goose is cooked, but this is actually winnable. It’s just pretty difficult and requires a bit of luck.
Meanwhile, Sasarai and his continent-sized blue hat are suddenly not so relaxed. “What’s this….” he murmurs. “This is wrong…. Something feels wrong…..” Luc is a little more direct about what’s bugging him, muttering to himself, “So…..it’s him.” In this battle, the Twink Twins won’t do anything to each other, so this is merely an exercise in blatant foreshadowing.
Of course, it doesn’t take long for King Fuckface Adolf to show up with even more backup, like this wasn’t getting shitty enough. Ridley actually gets lucky and kills a generic Highland unit in one shot, only for Jowy’s unit to swoop in and beat on him. Thanks a lot, sweetheart. Adolf shouts at his army, “What are you all waiting for!! This is how to fight!!!!!!” Jowy, perhaps spurred on by his liege lord, rolls a natural 20 himself and smacks Ridley in the mouth but good. Shu withdraws the troops without even getting Barry’s permission.
Now, this looks really bad, since theoretically, Ridley having his head mounted on a wall next to Salon Jhee’s means I can kiss the good ending goodbye. Not really, actually–even if Ridley dies, like he threatens to like a dozen times before the game is over, the game provides a failsafe kobold Star of Destiny, like Leknaat saw in her crystal ball that Ridley can’t stop almost dying and knows Barry is too big to fail. But Barry and his generals don’t know all that, so they go back to the war room and fret. Apple announces that the enemy has moved on to South Window now that Radat is secure. Apple reminds them again, totally unnecessarily, that Highland is also accompanied by soldiers from “another country,” but it turns out it’s just a cue for Luc to teleport in. “Sasarai of Harmonia…..” Luc says, like he’s been on the ceiling listening in this whole time. “I know him well. Let me take care of him.” Flik gets all bitchy with Luc when he won’t elaborate on this, and Bear has to tell him to not pick a fight with a “kid.” Naturally. Luc teleports out again, but I can tell from the subtle change in his sprite that he’s giving Flik a total trollface.
What do you think he means?
Klaus gets back on track, noting that Adolf won’t do anything crazy in the next battle because he’s got the numbers on his side. He tries to add what he thinks their strategy should be, but Shu cuts him off. “If it’s a strategy you’re looking for, I’ve already got one,” he says. Ooh, catty! I don’t think Shu likes all the time Klaus and Barry have been spending together. “I’ll explain tomorrow. For now, rest the soldiers.” And everybody clears out, presumably to find a bed and spend the night covered in anxious terror sweat.
Barry heads off to do that himself, or at least to wait naked under the sheets until Shu is done with his plans, but he’s stopped short of the door to his new, fancy penthouse bedroom by Tsai. Ugh, this fucking guy is still here? Anyway, he wants to talk to Barry, and Barry figures it must be extremely important if he ran all the way up here to talk. “I left some tools at my house,” he says, robbing Barry of this notion instantly. “As a craftsman, it’s hurts me to part with my tools.” Oh, it’s does, huh? Sigh. “I know that it’s selfish, but would you mind going back to the house with me? That’s all I came to say. I’m so embarrassed.” You should be! I wonder why everyone in this castle thinks they don’t have permission to leave the grounds unless accompanied by Barry. They can go on stupid outings to their houses if they want! Barry’s not their fucking keeper!
Worse still, Tsai doesn’t even ask to join the party then and there–he just walks out of the room, leaving Barry to hoof it down to Leona’s and pick him up. Barry would ignore this asinine request and go to bed, but his invisible controller can see over the wall and notes that Eilie is in there waiting for him, probably in the most expensive lingerie Gilderoy Lockhart had in stock. Pass. Walking to Tsai’s fucking cabin has to be better than that. First, he teleports to Banner, where he finally finds that fabulous Rose Brooch he’s had circled in his Glitter Aficionado catalog for ages. Stashing that away for the party he’s going to throw when Adolf is finally dead, he returns home, teleports to Ryube, and makes his way through the dingy forest to Tsai’s hermitage.
As with Barry’s trip with Gengen back to his home in Two River, Tsai has an eager young visitor waiting for him. Wait, that came out wrong. See, Tsai’s eager young visitor is his daughter. Shit! It’s in my head now. The girl, named Tomo, has been sitting around his shitty cabin waiting for him to come home, instead of, as Tsai seems to assume, being safely ensconced at her mother’s house, keeping his precious home estrogen-free. Tomo pouts that she never hears from Dear Old Dad and wanted to come check on him. He apologizes to “Tomo-chan,” whoops, and then she pulls the old, “When are you and mom going to make up?” How much do you want to bet that they got divorced because Tsai was humping his fire spears in the corner while she sighed to herself and read Cosmo? It’s a wonder they managed to create Tomo at all. Instead of “Try fucking never,” Tsai tells her, “I don’t know really know, princess.” The typos seem to come out of the woodwork whenever Tsai is involved.
‘Well, I masturbate a lot. So I have that going for me.’
When Tomo asks what he’s doing to keep himself busy these days–since he needs his hobbies or his crushing heterosexual loneliness will surely threaten to devour him–he tells her that he’s in the Yaoi Army, because his “spear could be useful in the war.” I mean, I guess it was that one time, back before the Yaoi Army existed and it was just Bear and Flik’s stupid mercenaries. Whatever, Tsai, your spear is still not that divine. Tomo realizes that her dad is fucking useless, and to make sure he stays out of the way of the important people, she says, “Well in that case, I’m going to join the Yaoi Army, too.” We’ve already been through this with Yoshino and Gabocha, so no one should be surprised that Tsai forbids this. But she counters with, “Or maybe I should tell Mom what you’re up to….using your spear again and all.” Awesome. The former Mrs. Tsai is probably all about using scissors herself these days, and probably couldn’t care less, but maybe Tsai is worried that she’ll up her alimony demands if she knows he’s gone back to fondling his spears at night. Anyway, Tomo addresses the “famous” Lord Barry, tells him she’s joining up, and walks out, completely ignoring her dad’s pathetic protests. When she’s gone, Tsai says, “Forgive me, Lord Barry. I’m embarrassed that you have seen me lose face.” On the contrary, Barry considers public embarrassments like this the only reason to keep Tsai around at all. The schadenfreude is even worth recruiting another girl.
Back at the homestead, Barry supposes he has one last thing to do before confronting Eilie in his bedroom. He has a new recipe in his inventory for High Yo, and yet he knows perfectly well there’s going to be some crazy, over-punctuating rival chef in there when he arrives. But another round of tossing the salad with High Yo sounds infinitely better than being alone in a room with Eilie, as most things do. So he is hardly surprised to walk in on yet another chef confrontation. This chef and his assistant are wearing bright red chef’s jackets. I was watching Hotel Hell last night and Gordon Ramsay was dealing with this old dude who was forced by the owner to wear a bright red chef’s jacket, and at the end he gave him a white one because there is apparently no bigger affront to the profession than having to wear a red chef’s jacket. Gordon Ramsay also gets naked at some point in every episode of that show, so I’m sure it’d be a favorite in HoYay Castle. Unlike the first two competitors in Iron Chef HoYay, however, this chef, named Shiki, seems more than a little off-balance. He greets High Yo with an Adolf-like “He he he he he he he!!!” I hope he isn’t going to go slaughter all the pigs in Yuzu’s pen after this. High Yo correctly interprets this wild cackling to mean it’s time for another cooking contest. Shiki replies, “A contest….hmmm, a contest, eh,” like the thought only just occurred to him. “Very well, [High] Yo……. If you can beat me, I’ll give you this ‘Cake Recipe’.” Of course, Barry is sick of ice cream being the only available dessert at his restaurant, like they’re ever going to get their Michelin star that way. “Show him how good you are,” Barry creeps at High Yo.
Fukui-san introduces the judges: Lawrence of Assholia, who “claims to be a vegetarian, but [Fukui-san] heard he’s just dieting,” heh; Klaus, who Fukui-san hits on, jeopardizing his continued employment with the Yaoi Army; Luc, who is an asshole; and Katniss, who Fukui-san assumes is also vegetarian because she lived in the woods, but he doesn’t know about her hobby of sharpshooting squirrels. And even if Fukui-san’s judge anecdotes meant anything, High Yo and Barry are absolutely not going vegetarian. They know the Yaoi Army craves juicy meat at all times. They prepare the exact same menu as they did in the last battle, because I am lazy and High Yo’s recipe book is still woefully inadequate.
We already know the judges are going to love High Yo’s food, because they’ll be in the unemployment line if they don’t, plus Klaus is screwing the sous chef. So what about Shiki’s dishes? Well, he serves a spicy stir fry as his appetizer, and we know how much these judges hate being served anything of substance in the first course, so that does not go over well. He prepares tamagoyaki for his entrée (again, barf), but the judges are actually all right with it, though in my imagination Luc complains in the most nasal tone he can muster about being served an egg dish for dinner. And his dessert, the aforementioned cake, actually does better than High Yo’s pudding. Duh, that’s why I want it. Nonetheless, the massive error of serving stir fry for an appetizer does in Chef Shiki and his cute blond assistant. After getting chopped, Shiki giggles again, and the Suikoclones in the crowd don’t like the sound of it, so they detain him. High Yo goes, “It, it couldn’t be…… N, no…… You can’t do that…..” Barry has no idea what’s going on. Further confusing things, Shiki mutters, “He he….you can’t hide there… Hiding won’t help you [High] Yo…. The ‘Group’ already….ungh…..” After a black screen, Shiki is gone, and someone says, “It’s…..poison……..” So he giggled like Kefka and then poisoned his own water supply? Good job, genius. Also, did he poison the cute blond too? That was unnecessary. Barry and some random assholes in the crowd demand to know what that was about and who the fuck the “Group” is, but High Yo just stares them down with ellipses until they all leave.
With nothing else to do, Barry sucks it up and heads upstairs to his room, only to find that Eilie has left her bedside vigil and now Nanami is hanging out in the room instead. Not that he wants to sleep with his sister, but that’s still a huge improvement.