Lord Barry has just come off a very bad week. His sister sacrificed herself to both save his and Jowy’s lives and to rekindle their love for each other, and that gambit was only 50 percent successful. His most fearsome and respected general also sacrificed himself to allow the army to infiltrate Rockaxe, and to at least drag Leon Silverberg to hell with him, and that gambit…well, we’re getting to it. And Barry and High Yo experienced their first loss in Kitchen Stadium, and the leftover cheesecake from the dessert round failed to make them feel any better about it.

HoYay Castle is still, given all this, suffused with an air of melancholy. So fuck it, Barry goes to speak with Shu. It’s not like his mood could deteriorate. Though the background music still remembers that everything currently sucks out loud, Shu has some good news, at least, telling his boss that the Highland Army has retreated back home. “But one thing is certain,” Pessimist Daddy feels he has to say, “as soon as they regroup their forces, they’ll attack again.” He therefore advises they attack Highland on their home turf “and eliminate the root of this whole war.” Barry asks what he means by “the root of the war,” since he knows code for “your dirtbag ex” when he hears it, but it turns out, to Barry’s dismay, that not only is Shu uninterested in shitting on Jowy, he…agrees with him? “The Highland Kingdom and the City-State of Jowston have both gotten too big…..” Shu echoes his romantic predecessor. “The Holy Kingdom of Harmonia to the north, the Toran Republic to the south, the great sea to the east and the Grasslands to the west…. In order to keep this land, we’ve had no choice but to fight. History has proven that. Human wisdom has its limits.” Did I say Barry’s mood couldn’t deteriorate? More fool I.

His lecture completed and his boyfriend worried he has a type and it’s definitely not “emotionally healthy men who make him feel good about himself,” Shu straight-up demands, “Lord Barry. Give us the order to invade Highland.” Barry is too lost to despair to do anything but assent. Shu bustles from the room to begin his preparations, and Barry follows. He’s about to take the elevator to the top floor so he can stare at the clouds with Feather and Muku Ranger Red and maybe claim five minutes of peace for himself, when his body gives out and he collapses between the Journeyman Crystal and the suggestion box. Knowing this game, the box currently contains one note, from Nanami, advising Barry to eat more to keep his strength up.

Everything’s fine, Klaus. Please continue standing in your room.

But the cause of Barry’s fainting spell, as usual, is Jowy advancing the plot by doing something terrible hundreds of miles away. I wonder if Jowy is afflicted in the opposite way, and faints whenever Barry wins a chef battle or recruits an assistant undersecretary librarian. Anyway, King Jowy is standing on a balcony in L’Renouille, overlooking ranks of Highlandclones. He’s flanked by Richard and Julia as well as two Harmonian priests, but before I get to the real, ahem, centerpiece of this tableau, I also have to note Leon fucking Silverberg is standing at Jowy’s left shoulder. Son of a goddamn bitch! Did both of the deaths in the last recap have to be in vain? Yeah, two City-States were freed from Highland occupation, but all Barry got out of that was watching Clive mope about his gun jamming! Was that worth Kiba’s life? He had a son! And a future son-in-law! And a dog husband!

But Leon’s survival, be it a zombie situation or just a case of Yaoi Army Fake News, is not the point of this scene: that would be Jillia Blight lying on an altar at the center of the balcony. But whatever Jillia’s role is in this rally for the troops, it will have to wait for the main event. First, Richard warms up the crowd by lying to them: “Listen up, soldiers of Highland!! We defeated the Knightdom, but we haven’t won yet!!!!!” Is this a flashback from right after they took Matilda? At no point has it ever been even implied that these Highland interludes are not simultaneous with the current action, but maybe that’s why Leon is here and not in a coffin! (I’m just going to keep kicking this can down the road until it collides with Leon’s dead body.) But Julia follows up with something that sounds a little more attuned to the Highland Army’s current situation: “We’re still stronger than them!!! The outcome of the war is not yet decided!!!!!” You’re not, and it is. But, be the change you want to see in the world, I guess.

Next in the ceremony is a scripted exchange between King Jowy and the two priests, who intone at him, “In the name of the ‘Beast Rune’, one of the 27 True Runes, received from the Holy Kingdom of Harmonia, and passed down from generation to generation in the Blight Family, swear your oath, oh King of Highland.” At this cue, Jowy steps between the priests and approaches his BELOVED WIFE, SOULMATE, AND SUN-AND-STARS. “In the name of the Highland Kingdom and the Blight Royal Family, I beg thee for victory….” he announces. “Oh noble ‘Beast Rune’, I sacrifice to you the blood of she who is dearest to me…my wife….Jillia Blight!!!!!!” I wish I could tell you all that I did not do the Borat voice just now, but it would be a lie. Without waiting for anyone in the crowd to ask, “Iiiiiiiiis she?” or to wonder if the grammar here is creating a very qualifying category of person dearest to him who is also his wife, Jowy produces a knife (possibly the same one that he absolutely did not use to cut his wrists into his wine glass, because that was, we have all agreed, his penis) and jams that bad boy right into Jillia’s abdomen.

Okay, yeah, it’s definitely the same knife.

For a moment, let’s all ignore the large, glaring tell that Jillia does not gasp, flinch, cry out, or react in any way when she is STABBED IN THE GUTS. Hey, maybe they drugged her! Why not. But for argument’s sake, let’s take the murder of Queen Jillia at face value. My initial reaction was that Jowy, the dunderhead, the absolute idiot, was wiping out the very bloodline he just invoked in this ceremony. While that is not true–given Jillia’s parentage, it was already eradicated with Adolf’s death–it still seems like maybe a bad idea to kill off the only person the subjects of Highland even think is a blooded royal when their name is your only claim on power, and you haven’t even very reluctantly produced an heir with her yet. And it’s also not like the Beast Rune needs the blood of a Blight, since a) Jillia isn’t one anyway, b) it will definitely accept some non-Blight blood later, and c) it happily drank up the sacrifices of a bunch of Musians some time ago, though as I’ve noted they all seem present and accounted for and the more I think on it, the more I have to conclude Beast Runes can’t melt Jowston penis pillars.

All this is to say that if it is Jillia lying there on that slab, at best choosing her as the sacrifice seems unnecessary to the proceedings, and at worst she’s the most beloved public figure remaining in Highland and one that Jowy theoretically should very much need to keep alive or face some justifiable challenges to his kingship. And if this is some kind of elaborate ruse, well…see above. Not only is it still not great, but there’s the additional problem that it doesn’t even count as a sacrifice to their hungry rune god, and is just for…what? The morale boost of seeing a woman butchered? Just fucking call John Cena and the Dallas Cowgirls next time, Your Highness.

Just so we aren’t kept in suspense, Jowy says to Leon as he walks back inside, “Clean up the doll for me…..” Might want to wait for the troops to disperse before putting her back in the RealJillia box. (Two free abdominal blood capsules and RealBlightBaby included, for all your possible roleplay needs!) Leon was standing there the entire time, but he still feels the need to ask how it went. Jowy says it went great, because he can’t read what I just wrote, but a beat later he too collapses to the floor, though he just lands on his knees and doesn’t pass clean out like Barry did. True Runes seem great, guys. Real quality of life improvers.

That night at HoYay Castle, Bear, Flik, Eilie, Waylon, and Tsai–you know, all Barry’s favorite people–are clustered around Dear Leader’s bed. Eilie, nearest Barry’s head, just wants to know if he’s okay, so she can continue being in his personal space guilt-free, while Bear yelps at him, “Don’t scare us like that! [Waylon] looked like he was about to have a heart attack….” This has happened at least two other times, so I don’t know why we’re having this conversation now. (Pointless note to Past Sam: whatever the comedy value may have been, a Barry Suffers a Magical Fainting Spell counter would have at least been useful!) Waylon vigorously disputes that he almost died from panic, as if Barry were in doubt. He knows he can’t have nice things. Flik and Tsai beg Barry to get his shit together long enough for this final battle with Highland, and then he can have all the sissy-ass sudden losses of consciousness he wants.

Look out, hot take coming through.

The men leave, Bear saying they’ve got battle preparations to attend to, but a black screen fails to vacate Eilie from Barry’s bedside. “C’mon now….. Don’t be so gloomy,” she says. “It doesn’t suit you. You look much better smiling.” HEY EILIE, YOU LOOK MUCH BETTER GETTING THE FUCK OUT OF BARRY’S ROOM. Did she seriously just pull a “You’re prettier when you smile”? And when his sister’s body is barely cold, and he just collapsed from sadness and exhaustion, to boot? The nerve of this bitch!

THE NERVE.

It’s still nighttime when Barry gets out of bed, hopefully to give Eilie a piece of his mind now that he has the energy to do more than lift his head off his pillow and glare at her. But on his way downstairs to say ACTUALLY he looks great with his normal tiny frown and giant sad eyes, he spots Apple walking into Shu’s office. Assuming she has lost track of the entire army in the last hour and has to report the new and bad analytics to the boss, Barry eavesdrops at the door. But Apple’s business relates to a different point of her incompetence: “When I came up with the plan for attacking Muse… You knew that it was going to fail, didn’t you?” Shu knew a plan devised by Apple would be bad? But how?! Shu admits that he figured she had “a fifty-fifty chance…..at best, that is.” Woof. Shu’s continued refusal to sugarcoat anything he says to anyone is hot as hell, but also not exactly endearing, even when it’s to Apple. She asks why he let her go ahead with it anyway, and his apparent hope was that at worst, Apple’s doomed amateur hour flailing would “disguise [his] true plans.” This feint of his did get a bunch of Yaoiclones eaten by rune wolves. I only mention this because no one else will. Those soldiers also had families! In theory! “Also, I figured between you and Klaus, even if we lost, the damage wouldn’t be too bad,” he adds. I have a feeling the percentage split in Shu’s mind between Klaus and Apple’s damage control competencies is…lopsided.

Apple probably has the same hunch I do, and is in her feelings about it. “I’m useless….Shu…… Isn’t there anything…. Anything at all I can do to help you….” He probably has some filing that needs doing! Or that cat by his bed looks a little ratty and could use a brush. Just some ideas. Shu merely replies with Suikoland’s only renewable resource, ellipses, and realizing she’s not going to get reassurance, she turns to go. But Shu stops her at the door. Without even turning around–actually, he has not turned to face her this entire time–he says, “There are 3 cards on that table there.” There are! At his prompt, she takes one of the cards and tells him it says, “Fire….that’s all.” This concludes Shu’s business with her, and he dismisses her for real this time. Pretty fucked up to call her back and make her think she’ll get to hear, “Actually, you’re not a useless, mediocre waste of your education,” only to pull this. I’m not complaining. I will note that those cards were also sitting there before Apple came in, which means he had this three-card monte routine ready to go for whichever person first entered his office tonight. It was probably for Barry! One of those cards might say “Good for one free blowjob” on it! Shit!!

Apple almost plows into Barry on her way out, and tries to cover for her mortification by telling him to get some rest. I’m assuming he’s been asleep for like 20 hours so he’s probably good to go, lady. Still fully blind with emotion, she stalks off down the hallway, where a stationed guard keeps Barry, the boss of the entire castle, from going the same way. What a load. Also, the only door past said guard leads outdoors to the squirrel perch. I guess Apple wants to be alone to think, and Anita and Valeria routinely use her room to make out where no one will see them.

And yet, when Barry heads to the second floor to see if Klaus is lonely, there Apple is, in her room, sitting at her desk and holding a calculator upside-down! What gives? Sorry Klaus, Barry isn’t in the mood anymore.

The next morning, another coterie of Barry’s very best friends surrounds his four-poster bed. This time, it’s Rina, Andre, Cocko, and Eilie, with Eilie still taking the place of honor where she can mop his brow with a damp cloth or whatever. But now that he has been out of bed once since his collapse, Eilie and Andre both just yell at him to get out of bed. I’ll take that any day over their mewling concern, honestly. Rina helpfully adds, “Barry, everyone is assembled in the great hall,” so Barry knows where not to go.

Partial credit.

As it happens, this morning Barry is feeling like tackling his primary duties first thing, and proceeds directly to the gathering of his loyal subjects. As in his last major address to “everyone,” there are around 40 people in the hall–if I’m not mistaken, in fact, the exact same people who were assembled before (minus, of course, Kiba and Nanami, and thanks for that again, game). It’s sobering to realize how out of step I am with the writers on the matter of who in this army is important. Shu, for the benefit of the audience who didn’t get to see him boss Barry around in private, says now, “Our goal is Highland’s capital city of L’Renouille. Please give the order to deploy.” At least he says “please” this time. Barry’s all “Okay” and steps forward to address his adoring, curated public, which is of course the cue for everyone but him to talk. Shu shouts, alarming me so deeply I get up from my desk to find a respiratory mask or some leftover antibiotics, “With this one battle, we can finally put an end to this long, tragic war!!!!!” Bear adds, not helping, “Oi!!!!! Let’s end this damn thing!!!” I mean, he was an early punctuitis carrier, but still, Barry thought he had this thing licked. Flik chimes in, “By my sword, we will win! I swear it!!!!!!!!” Oh my god. Also, he swears it by his sword? That’s the one he named after his girlfriend as a pledge to protect her, and then she died? Right? That sword? I haven’t been sharpening Bear+++ this whole time, just saying. Once a few other people get their two cents and nine exclamation points in, Barry finally shouts, “We’re off!!! To L’Renouille!!!” The plague has claimed its final victim. It’s all over.

Their marching orders received, the outnumbered but motivated ranks of Yaoiclones file out of HoYay Castle in neat rows, as alternating sprites of other (injured?) Yaoiclones and Ladyclones see them off. This is somehow more galling given that this army has a number of women in leadership positions. Yes, I have treated each and every one of those very nice women (not you, Eilie) as an imposition on Barry and his (his!) disturbing lack of boundaries between his leadership duties and his sex life, but that doesn’t mean gals can’t fight, you know? At least let all these twin sisters of Pico’s non-girlfriend join the ranks instead of waving lace handkerchiefs and swooning at the brave boys in orange.