“Still sleeping, Barry?” Nanami asks as he enters the room. This opens Barry’s mind to the possibility that he sleepwalks and visits girls in the process. Yikes. Oh, Nanami is still talking. “………….It’s awfully quiet,” she says. “It was this quiet during the night, too. Here we are…nothing but fighting.” I have no idea what the quiet and the The Cold Truth of War™ have to do with each other, but Nanami is pretty much a walking stream of consciousness. And clearly what Jess just said to them in the hallway is getting to her. She goes on, “So what do you think of what Jess said? Where do we belong… Everyone took care of us well in Highland, but they were distant somehow… It seemed strange at the time, but now I feel like…I understand the reason.” Well, I hope so, since Bear explicitly explained it. Speaking of exposition, Nanami runs through their personal plotline and their geographical hopping between the two countries, wondering where they will fit in, if anywhere. And once again, she looks like she has something else to say, but this time, after almost stopping, she comes out and says it: “Barry… Let’s stop this fighting… There’s no reason for you to keep fighting… We fight, we get hurt, we wield weapons, we kill people, there’s no reason to do these things.” Barry can think of a few, mostly variations on “Jowy is a slag,” but he is not getting a word in edgewise here. “Why? Why, Barry?” she demands. “There are others more suited for the job! [Bear], Flik, Shu, General Ridley, [Waylon]…” Waylon is absolutely not suited to warfare. Waylon peed himself in front of Lepant.

But the real reason Nanami is tired of this shit is probably the same reason Barry is doing it: “There’s no reason for you to fight, Barry… If we keep going on like this, you and Jowy…” They’ll never be GOOD FRIENDS again! How can he go on living without his GOOD FRIEND? Since Nanami uttered the verboten J-word, he tells her tersely, “I’m needed.” Jowy has new GOOD FRIENDS now! It’s over! “But, but, but why does it have to be you?” Nanami still wants to know. “You, Barry, and I are just kids.” Did she pull the Just a Kid card on him? What the fuck, Nanami? “If there wasn’t this fighting, you and Jowy could end your youth service and go to a school like the one in Greenhill and we might die tomorrow.” Again, what the fuck? Nanami sure has some elaborate fantasies about Barry and Jowy, and not at all like mine.

“What happens if you die, Barry?” she asks. I get a game over and go back to my last save? I kid. Poor Nanami–she’s pouring her heart out and I’m heckling from the peanut gallery like an asshole. “Grandpa Genkaku is gone, Jowy is gone, and yet, and yet…” Fuck, even Lassie abandoned her. She’s got a complex, poor girl. Barry feels like shit now, but he’s not going to tell her what she wants to hear either, so he settles for, “I’m sorry.” Nanami has enough dignity to turn her back to him before she starts crying, her previously slumping sprite shoulders now shaking with sprite sobs. Ugh, it is so dusty in here. My allergies!

After a moment, Nanami composes herself, turns around, and makes a face at Barry. “Nyah!” she says, trying to play off her sadfeels. “Ha ha ha ha. Hey, were you surprised? Were you surprised? Liar. L-I-A-R. You’re right. You’re needed, Barry. You’re strong enough to accept it, too. Yeah, I’m proud of you.” Nanami admits she is already “sick” at the idea of arguing over battle strategies in the morning, but is ready to handle it with grace and shoos Barry back to bed. Now, for once, these choices matter, and had Barry agreed with Nanami instead of shutting her down, he would have eventually gotten the option to peace the fuck out of Tinto and out of the Yaoi Army with her. The extremely short version of the “peace the fuck out” option is that Barry isn’t around during the battle with the Count, Ridley dies, and Shu slaps Barry in the face for his desertion. Rowr! But Barry can even take it so far as to end the game early and go into exile in some shithole cabin in the woods with his sister. And abandon his many hunks, and his castle before the unicorn penis is even built? Fuck that.

So…good thing he didn’t do that! Silly Nanami. I’m sure this is the last we’ll hear of her desire to escape the despair of The Cold Truth of War™. The next morning, as they enter the makeshift war room again, Bear is all, “Oh, TOO BAD, Jess just left, I bet you guys wanted to hang out.” And no sooner has Bear said this than a Suikoclone runs in spraying sweat and punctuation everywhere. “Master Gustav, there’s trouble!! It’s Jess!!!” Turns out Jess, in a fit of compulsive dick-wagging at Outsider Lord Barry, is sending out his troops to twerk all over the Count’s crotch. Everyone in the room except for Klaus files out to witness this ass-pounding and get some video on their iPhones, with the door to the room hilariously clack-clack-clacking as everyone opens it.

Barry files this away for later.

At the city entrance, Jess is instructing his men to strike directly for the Count himself, since all his zombies will die if he is destroyed. If you insist, buddy. Bear wonders how Jess knows where the Count is hiding. “Previously, when we were reforming the State Army,” Jess says, throwing shade at Barry, “we had spies all around. There were many who were caught by the Highland Army and lost their lives, but they all fought for Muse. One of those found out where [the Count] lives.” Wait, one of the guys who died knew where the Count was? Was he raised as a zombie? Why would a dead guy tell Jess anything? Why would anyone tell Jess anything? Bear wonders if Jess’s shitty dead zombie spy was all that reliable, causing Jess to pissily retort, “…This information was brought to Muse by a loyal man who risked death to bring it. The information is not wrong!” It was brought to Muse? So this was before Muse fell to Highland? Nobody even knew the Count was out there at that point! The fuck is going on here?

Jess ignores Bear’s protests and orders Hauser to order the troops to move out, which Hauser does without a moment’s hesitation. Ridley, as a last ditch effort, appeals to Hauser to see sense if Jess won’t. Hauser knows the plan is dumb as hell, but he won’t act against his excruciatingly lame liege lord and probable boyfriend. “I am a soldier of Muse,” he tells Ridley. “Lady Anabelle is no longer alive, and according to Muse law, Lord Jess is the acting mayor. As long as Muse still exists, I will follow the law of Muse.” That should be enough for us to see that Hauser is a SOLDIER and he follows ORDERS, and would be the first person to die in literally every movie, but Hauser is obviously working out some frustration at having virtually no lines in his appearance earlier in the game, so he keeps talking. “A soldier should not act on personal feelings. War is an exchange of lives, and I will not act as a soldier for other than reason of law.” That’s kind of…nihilist. Hauser confirms to Ridley that he will still feel that way even if he dies from Jess’s rank stupidity.

After Jess, Hauser, and the Muse soldiers are gone, Gustav says, “Lord Jess was hasty.” You don’t say! Klaus finally finishes jacking it in Gustav’s coat closet and comes out to tell them they’re pot committed now that the Muse brain trust has thrown itself at the Count. Even if Jess is wrong (and of course he is, he’s the worst), they have to help him anyway or the Count is going to have 5000 new idiotic zombies. But one of those zombies might survive to sell them military secrets! This could really pay off later!

Klaus obviously isn’t super happy about the prospect of getting turned into the world’s most attractive zombie, but he and Ridley prepare to lead the army into battle after Jess and Hauser’s troops. Barry and Bear are left to protect Tinto and make out until they’re needed. But Bear is way too hairy and sloppy for Barry’s tastes, so that gets old after like five minutes, and he leaves Gustav’s house to take a stroll around the city with Nanami. Eventually, after several minutes of me wandering around like a doofus because I forgot how to advance the plot, the siblings come across the entrance to the mine, in front of which several miners are milling about anxiously. They tell Nanami and Barry that a mine tunnel collapsed, that miners may be trapped inside, and that there might be a gas leak. Well, that doesn’t sound too dangerous! What’s the harm in checking it out?

Jess’s house

Somewhat ominously, the mine seems to be totally empty of random encounters and devoid of any signs of life. After a few screens of dimly lit cart tracks and dirt clod walls, Barry and Nanami emerge into an open work area and Nanami leaps into the air and shrieks, “Ugh!! What’s that?!!!!!!” Oh no, it must be Zombie Adolf Hitler! God, that would be so horrible. Let’s all be grateful that does not happen.

Of course, the Count is waiting for them, deep in this isolated mine. This is going really well. When Nanami asks what he’s doing there, he doesn’t reply, “Waiting for some idiots to come down here all alone. Oh, hi.” He does explain that he got here through some other connected tunnel. “That kid named Jess or something was gathering the Muse soldiers, I mixed in a few spies,” he says. I love the contempt apparent in “Jess or something.” Barry is going to call him that from now on, or just forget his name entirely. “With a few threats and an offer of money, they cooperated easily. It became even clearer that humans are filthy creatures. The true value doesn’t come out until they become corpses.” Hey, let’s not be judging all of humanity on Jess and people who take orders from Jess. That’s a bad sample.

The Count is eager to turn Barry into a very special, well-dressed zombie in his zombie horde, and so Barry and Nanami are thrown into yet another battle with him that they cannot win. It’s mercifully over after a few rounds of the Count sucking Nanami’s blood. He continues to confuse me. Afterward, he says dramatically yet awkwardly, “I’ll show you the power of my Rune. The magic requires the blood of 100 people, so be thankful. My Moon Rune, we sacrifice the blood of 100 people and the lives of 100 people. Now go, ‘Blue Moon Curse’. Strike his enemies!!!” Nanami urges Barry to run away, but like the Count said, this is a rare opportunity! As long as he stupidly came down here, he may as well stupidly stick around and see a show. Besides, says the Count, they’re not going to get away anyway. A black dome appears at Barry’s feet and expands to cover the entire screen, not unlike the Soul Eater’s Black Shadow spell. But from the darkness, a bright ball of green light emerges to nullify the effects of whatever the fuck it is the Count just did.

Barry and the Count stand there and stare awkwardly at each other for a second, until Nanami wakes the fuck up and throws herself between them, shouting, “No!!!!!! No!!!!!!!” The Count takes this as an official declaration of Punctuation War and shouts at them, “Wha…what did you say?!!! Rejecting my curse?!!!!! Thi..this… The true power of the Rune!!!” Jesus Christ. If I didn’t know better I’d say the Count is Zombie King Adolf. This time Nanami successfully convinces Barry they should get the hell out, as the Count summons a bunch of zombies from the dirt to sloooowly chase after them. Oh no! They’re groaning and shuffling kind of toward our heroes!

The kids make it all the way back out of the cave, but they do not emerge to good news: not only has Tinto been completely overrun by zombies in the five minutes they’ve been gone, but Barry chooses this moment to collapse to his knees, exhausted by the light show the Bright Shield Rune put on back there. The screen dims as if this is it for Barry and Nanami, but Nanami, ever the fucking boss, loads her skinny little brother onto her back and then bobs and weaves her way out of town. A black screen prevents us from seeing how in the hell Nanami manages this, but let’s chalk it up to her powers as Sister of the Fucking Year.

Yeah, he wishes this were Jowy instead, but he appreciates it anyway.

Meanwhile, in Muse! King Jowy is in Anabelle’s old office for some reason–I’m guessing that reason is level 5 irony–but he’s not exactly enjoying his new position so far. He stutters incoherently, “Ku….u…uu… Again…power… Have to…hurry…” Sensing her daddy might have gas, Lassie runs in, and like her daddy she has sprouted a new avatar and a new outfit. Someone, possibly Jillia but more likely Richard and Julia, has also bedecked her in a frilly pink dress and pink hair ribbons. Lassie cries out, “Joei!! Are you okay? Does it hurt?” I know that’s just the kana of his name, but it cracks me up that even Jowy’s name can’t stop morphing. Maybe he’ll go back to being Pete for a while. He assures Lassie that he’s fine, though he’s obviously anything but, judging by his ellipses use.

And back to Barry! So I guess that was what Barry saw while he was unconscious on Nanami’s back. Dude just can’t escape his awful ex. Bear, Gustav, and Nanami are hovering over Barry’s bed, and when he gets up Bear tells him they’re in Crom, staying at the village elder’s house, since shit got real in Tinto really fast. “You were asleep for two whole days,” Nanami adds. Jesus, at the rate he was going, the Count has probably taken over Greenhill and Two River by now. Bear fills Barry in: Klaus and Ridley escaped, but Jess and Hauser are still missing. I’m sure Zombie Jess has already annoyed the Count so much that he killed him all over again. And in case anyone was wondering if Lilly ever came back from wandering around in the dead of night during an invasion of the undead, Gustav confirms that she is also missing.

Bear and Nanami join the party and leave Gustav to grieving his surely zombified daughter. Downstairs they find Klaus, Ridley, and Leona, who was conveniently sent by Shu to help Barry fill out his party after it got emptied out the other night. Oh, I didn’t mention that, did I? Nanami dropping her feelingsbomb on his head required them to be alone, and ever since he has had an empty party. Which is fine, except for that extra special trip I took just to rent the considerable services of one PUGGY!!! motherfucking McDohl. FUUUUUUUUUCK.