The rest of his own goddamn castle is off limits, so Barry returns to his bedroom, expecting to find some clingy sad sack waiting there to talk about their feelings. Instead, he finds a woman waiting in the shadows, one he’s never met before–though, in fairness, she could in fact be a clingy sad sack who wants to talk about her feelings. The woman is named Lucia–yup, that Lucia–and in her youth, the leader of the Karaya Clan apparently preferred to style her hair like a floppy used condom. It’s like Twink’s hat, but hair. She also has giant hoop earrings and a turtleneck bodysuit, just so we don’t forget that this game was developed in the ’90s.

“Are you Barry, leader of the Yaoi Army?” Lucia asks. Barry can answer her or demand to know who she is, but regardless of response Lucia jumps at him, bullwhip in hand. Yikes. Whoever set up this surprise for him either doesn’t know him at all or forgot to specify gender to the event planner. Barry goes all out against his foe, because why save rune power when you’ll be going to bed immediately after the fight? And also because Lucia has a Fire Rune and isn’t shy about using it. After a few turns the battle automatically ends, and as she leans against Nanami’s bed, Lucia mutters, “Cough… I thought…you were just a child… I was wrong…” Do these people all expect to find Tommen Baratheon, wetting his pants and playing with Ser Pounce? Barry is a general, and has been in battle and everything! This is not some secret!

The sound of a bunch of runes exploding on the fifth floor brings Flik, Bear, and Tsai upstairs. They file into Barry’s bedroom and form a wall between Barry and Lucia. Because he is a fragile flower in need of protection! As his burly protectors grab her arms, and Tsai stands there, Barry asks why Lucia wants to kill him. She answers, “If only you were dead, this damn war would end too….” I’m pretty sure that’s not true, but okay. Barry can opt to let her go–too many women in this place as it is!–or to throw her in the dungeon. He goes with the latter, just so Flik won’t whine at him for doing the former and endangering himself. Fragile flower! Just a kid!

The next morning, Barry awakes to find guards at his door, per Shu’s orders. He’s okay with the overprotective thing from Shu, though. He also finds that the castle’s cheerful background music has bugged out and is playing discordantly with half its notes. It’s like HoYay Castle has been transported to Lyton. A reset fixes this issue, but leaves me with a paranoid feeling that either my PS2 or my copy of the game are dying on me. Super!

In the war room, all of Barry’s boyfriends apologize for how “trying” dealing with Lucia must have been, and apologize further because oops, she escaped. I like that HoYay Castle has a prison, and the only prisoner that’s ever in custody escapes before Barry can even see her behind bars. Really glad we had that installed. Shu shouts at the room at large, “We can’t have such laxity! Tighten our security!!!” Shu likes things tight, people! But we have no time for a montage of Suikoclones installing new window locks and putting a TSA scanner next to the Blinking Mirror, because it’s time to go to battle again.

Shu tells Barry that for the liberation of Greenhill, he has divided the army in half: one half, led by Hauser, Bear, and Flik, will bottleneck any Highland forces at the Muse-Greenhill checkpoint; while the other half, led by Kiba and Klaus, will attack Greenhill itself. “Apple will stay here and coordinate communications between the two armies,” Shu adds. So one army will be east of Greenhill, and one army will be at Greenhill, and the two armies will communicate via HoYay Castle, across a damn lake from either location, and these communications will run through Apple, the least reliable person in the entire army? Shu, we need to talk about this plan. There are issues.

After rearranging the battle units to his liking yet again–because I’d forgotten who goes where for this battle and have no interest in giving units I won’t even use access to characters not named Tuta or Yam Koo–Barry tells Shu he’s ready to go, and that he will be accompanying Kiba and Klaus. Kiba and Ridley, who is also coming to Greenhill, bump fists and giggle about how they’re old but wily, and their dicks totally still work, thanks to the bowls of Cialis on every end table in the castle.

Outside Greenhill, seven Yaoi Army units stare down the Highland units being led by both Yuber and Lucia. Yuber tells Lucia, or Barry, I don’t know, “…You’ve done well to make it this far.” This incarnation of Yuber has his blond hair flowing unbound from under a horned black helmet. He looks like a viking in a Dio music video. Lucia replies, “Lord Jowy Blight has promised to recognize the lands of the Karaya if he wins. The time has come for us to fight to regain our ancestral lands…and to gain honor as warriors!” It’s possible she is referring to some other ancestral lands, but assuming their ancestral home is in Grassland (and nobody in Suikoden III ever indicates otherwise), it sounds like Jowy’s mouth is writing checks his ass can’t cash. He also told Lassie that she’s totally getting a pony for Christmas, and Jillia that he’s totally done banging Richard and Julia in the fur coat storage closet.

ANYWAY. The goal of this battle is merely to enter Greenhill, but unlike the other half of Shu’s attack, this one can be more challenging and doesn’t just end automatically. I enjoy the challenge of wiping out the entire defense force, since Lucia and Yuber’s units are very tough. To give myself the best possible shot at Yuber, I have Katniss’s unit, which includes Runemistress Jeanne, sneak through the forest using her Hunting Squirrels in District 12 ability, and snipe at Yuber from a distance using archers and Jeanne’s Lightning Rune. Most of the time this fails to accomplish anything. And it does so this time as well. The perfect plan!

Despite my questionable strategy, and the fact that I have Tsai nearly kill Barry with his own fucking fire spears, the battle goes as well as I could hope. This is mostly thanks to Luc, a force of nature that blasts through both Lucia and Yuber more or less single-handedly. Why, it’s almost like he’s got uncommon magical abilities! No spoilers. But it’s Barry who delivers the deadly, erm, blow to Yuber, probably while screaming, “I’M NOT A LITTLE BOY!!!” at the top of his lungs. This Just a Kid stuff is starting to get to him.

A black screen transports our principals to the path leading to Greenhill’s front gates. Even though the siege force, with Barry’s help, just wiped out every single unit, Kiba tells him now, “So, Lord Barry, you have arrived. Things aren’t going well. Their defenses have proved much stronger than we anticipated.” Just…whatever, man. Klaus sighs that he now understands why Jowy used the tactics he did to take Greenhill in the first place, because it’s so difficult to attack it conventionally. Barry grits his teeth through that ugly memory. But Teresa, for once, has a useful contribution: she suggests using the same secret path into Greenhill that they used to escape and opening the city gate from the inside. I have a hard time believing that the Highlanders would just ignore this known and obvious weak point in their defenses, but let’s not start giving Highland credit they have not earned. Teresa offers to guide Barry, like he didn’t already go this way, and when Shin protests that walking through a forest is too dangerous for her–and it probably is–she monologues, “Shin, I am acting mayor of Greenhill. If I don’t fight for my people, who will? I am going.” She is going to do so much fighting, I bet! A whirling dervish of monogrammed stationery covered in The Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby quotes.

Teresa and Shin are both stowed in the convoy so Barry can put a serious party together: Flik and Nina (leave me alone), Nanami, regicide enthusiast Georg Prime, and Luc. In retrospect, I realize I should have left Flik behind in favor of Khan, but my sad, gross shipping outweighs my common sense, and specifically my memory of how the upcoming boss fight works. Not the first time!

The return trip through Greenhill Forest is fairly uneventful–other than the treasure chests that were left untouched last time, it’s basically the same as the first trip. After fighting through interruptions from patrolling Highland soldiers and motherfucking DoReMi Elves, the party is just about to Teresa’s Log Cabin of Martyrdom when they encounter Lucia and a group of Karayan Suikoclones who all look like Beecham. Lucia remembers Barry and also recognizes Teresa, for reasons we’ll see in a moment. But for now, Lucia only bothers introducing herself as the daughter of the Karayan Chief before throwing down with Barry yet again. She has a one-track mind, but Barry will absolutely take that over, say, Eilie’s one-track mind.

Other than the complement of Beechams, Lucia hasn’t changed battle tactics since last night, but she’s a little more difficult to handle this time since I can’t remember if I get to heal before the real boss, and therefore hold back a bit on using runes. Nonetheless, she goes down–ahem–without too much trouble, and it’s all over but the crying. Specifically, the crying while dishing heavy exposition, and also while sad music plays. Teresa asks what Lucia’s problem with them is, and it turns out Lucia’s problem with them in general is more her problem with Teresa in particular. The Most Reasonable Lady in the World lays it out. “We, the people of the Karaya, have been caught up in countless foolish wars with you, and have always been oppressed,” she says. “And just when some measure of harmony was in sight… Your father Alec and Gordeau [sic, she means Gorudo/Wart] of Matilda poisoned my father to death at a peace council. They assassinated him!” Those goddamn peace councils! I bet Wart and Alec Wisemail didn’t even put out the tiny flags on the conference table! Lucia’s theory–which could be tinhat or could be totally true, I don’t know–is that her father was killed because she was his heir, and they could more easily control a giiiiirl. Obviously Lucia has now made it her life’s mission to upend that sexist worldview, starting with deciding that Teresa is powerful and capable enough to shoulder the blame for her father’s actions. I’ll allow it.

Somehow, everything Lucia just said is news to Teresa. I know she only recently became mayor, but come the fuck on. She didn’t even know about this apparently longstanding feud with the Karaya? Was she too busy pretending to read Crime and Punishment to notice? But she, in fairness (SIGH), does promise to investigate Lucia’s claims and, if they are true, she says, “I swear my father’s sin will be acknowledged and you will be compensated.” Her reparations will come from Barry’s fucking pockets, I’m sure, because why not make him literally pay for the shittiness of the past City-State leaders? But on that note, Teresa implores Lucia, “For now, I ask you to believe in us. Lord Barry is different from my father, and from the past rulers of the City-State. I ask you to watch our struggle and decide for yourself.” Even when she has a point, she can’t help but phrase it in a way that makes me want to punch her. She’s like a slightly less tone deaf Gwyneth Paltrow. Lucia is noncommittal, but does at least get out of their way for now, since she was defeated in combat. Good enough! Barry drags mopey Teresa the rest of the way to Greenhill.