In one last FMV, the Beast Rune flares to life on the tile. The orb itself spins out of the symbol and erupts with blue flame, making the candelabras on the wall gutter out. The flames form into the same dual wolf heads Barry and Miklotov saw in Muse. The beast takes shape in front of Barry and his party as a fully corporeal, two-headed, whitish-blue wolf with the orb of the Beast Rune bobbing between the heads. “This shit again?” at least three people in this party have to be thinking. I would say four, but did PUGGY!!! really bring along ugly, shitty, Guard Robe-wearing Luc v1? I don’t think so, and I expect Jeanne will back me up on this.

Each front-facing section of the creature–its two heads, its two front legs, and the Beast Rune–is a separate, attackable component. The team only has to kill the rune and the heads to take out the boss–yeah, I know, the legs don’t have brains in them, weird–but it’s wiser to take out the legs first since one of them casts a shitload of random status ailments on the entire party. I know this because I forgot to refresh myself on a strategy until the middle of the fight, and as a result of my lack of focus, the whole party gets silenced! RAD. Since they can’t cast anyway, I have Flik cast Silent Lake in the hopes that it will keep the wolf from casting as well.

“But Sam! You just said the whole party–”

Shhh. SHHHHH. Sweet friends. I know. I KNOW. But the thing is done, and time only moves forward. (This also does not work! Those bastard wolf heads continue throwing as many flaming swords as they want!)

Fortunately, thanks to Two Wolf Moon not silencing literally everyone, once Silent Lake has worn off, Flik and his Flowing Rune can keep everybody alive while they whack away at the various pieces of the wolf with their weapons, even poor useless Luc. Flik even gets to bust out his special rune combo, simply called Thor. (It involves lightning-charged icicles. No, I don’t know either.) And the party did manage to get plenty of big spells off before they were confused and silenced and whatever else by some sentient wolf paws, including one last Forgiver Sign for posterity, so Luc, Barry, and PUGGY!!! aren’t entirely dead weights tied to the front row dudes’ ankles. And with, again for posterity, a final Crossing Wieners unite attack from Bear and Flik, Two Wolf Moon’s left head goes dormant and the Beast Rune is defeated, letting out a dying howl before…turning to stone? That’s a thing we can do now?

The work of containing the Beast Rune done by others, and so a job well done by him in his imagination, Leon Silverberg has long fucked off to parts unknown (possibly to go spend time with his grandchildren) by the time the battle is over. I’m sure he’ll help himself to a nice “bonus” from the late king and queen’s jewelry boxes on his way out a window. Barry proceeds through the door Leon had been blocking and into the throne room itself, where he never exactly expected to find Jowy, but did not expect to find his white military coat draped almost insultingly on the high-backed marble throne. Is Jowy still trolling him? Or does he expect Barry to hand this off to Shiro and have him track Jowy’s scent? As Barry holds the coat in his hands, unsure of what exactly he’s even mad at but really goddamn mad, PUGGY!!! breathes, “The throne room…” and Luc adds, just as helpfully, “Looks like the king isn’t here…” I’m going to laugh if Jowy is hiding behind the chair.

But Barry doesn’t have time to check, or even to appreciate the lovely scenes from Highland history rendered in stained glass in the back of the room, because the room itself begins to rumble. Either the Beast Rune was a load-bearing boss, or Jowy packed the basement with C4. Bear and Georg try to get Barry moving, and he can’t get out “No. We’ve got to find Jowy!” because my finger slipped. Flik agrees, “Right, you can’t die in a place like this!!” I guess this is a callback to everyone thinking he and Bear died in exactly this way, despite no evidence of any kind and the well-publicized fact that they were living out their days as mercenaries right across the fucking border. Anyway, this leads to Barry running, in literal slow motion, back out of the castle as it shakes around him but does not visibly fall apart at all. No falling beams or anything! How is Georg supposed to romantically whisk Barry out of mortal danger when there’s nothing about to fall on his head?!

After roughly 30 seconds of watching him run slowly and out of my control, we cut back to the folks waiting at the gate, who now include Klaus (nice), Viki and Leona (useful), Meg and Gadget, Tsai, the Carny Trio, Big Gay Fitcher, and Nearly Naked Amada (why). This is just convincing Barry once and for all that he is never, for the rest of his maybe endless life, going to have less than 100 percent control of any party’s guest list. Nobody else can apparently be trusted with this responsibility. Leona is in the middle of yelling at Fitcher for almost raising the possibility of Barry’s grisly death within L’Renouille’s walls. Teresa tells them, “He’ll come back. I know it. He can’t die…. He’s going to bring peace to this land… He just can’t die.” JUST FOR THAT I hope Barry dies. Or at least fakes his own death by throwing Hoi’s body in the moat. But just then, Ridley yells at everyone to look, as Barry jogs nonchalantly out of the front portcullis. All his “friends” gather around him and mostly say his name a lot. The scene fades to white with a lot of excited hopping, and Klaus on the outer periphery of this exuberant circle instead of at its center, jamming his tongue down Barry’s throat. Seriously, anyone who wants to be within 50 yards of The Hero of the Highland War from now on is going to need to be on a list. That list will have maybe seven names on it.

Some time later, the presumptive new king of half the continent wakes up in his bed back at HoYay Castle, because Eilie is yelling at him. Get ready for a lot more days like this, Your Majesty! “Representative General Makai from Two River and Mayor Gustav from Tinto are waiting for you in the great hall,” she says. “C’mon hurry already! The war may be over, but there are still lots of things to be done. You’ve got a whole new country to create, right?” OH BOY CAN’T WAIT, I BET HE’S IN THE MARKET FOR A QUEEN TOO RIGHT EILIE??? God. Barry gets out of bed, with maximum reluctance.

Barry makes a point of talking to every single person in the castle before entering the war room, including Shu’s cat. (The cat doesn’t have much to say.) Vincent and Simone invite him to stay for tea on the terrace, and he would honestly love nothing more, though sitting up here in the open does leave him exposed to other, less chill people showing up to ask him for stuff. Like Eilie and her siblings, who now ask him directly about going on the road with them. Yes, why wouldn’t Barry want to spend the forseeable future with three people with boundary issues, one of whom would spend every day throwing knives at his head? Ugh, sorry ladies and Andre, he TOTALLY WOULD, but Shu is going to make him be a king and live in luxury here instead, with Klaus appointed his Minister of Backrubs! SO UNFAIR, I KNOW. But duty calls!

After Barry has spoken to just about everybody in the castle (most of whom seem worried about losing their jobs, so that’s a cool happy ending) and is proceeding back through the main entrance hall to hit the last few rooms on his rounds, he runs into Flik and Bear, who were clearly waiting here for him. “Yo, Barry. Where ya goin’?” Flik asks, in a not-unthreatening manner. He goes on, as Barry is exercising his right to walk away from this situation, “Barry…..there is a great power within you. I don’t mean that Rune stuck in your hand either. You’ve taken a great burden on your back thus far, and you have a duty to fulfill it to the end.” YOU have a duty to eat Barry’s ass, Flik. “For all the people who died in the war and for the people who survived…..” You have to be the President of Jowston now, for your sister who died explicitly not wanting you to do that! This fucking guy.

Bear, who I have to imagine was initially here in support of this deeply inappropriate attempt to guilt Barry into a lifetime of this bullshit, decides to intervene. “Let him go…Flik. It’s necessary…that is…” He does add, though, “But Barry, don’t forget. You’ve always got a home here….” Goddamn right. And to make sure of it, Barry will be installing a surveillance system and a variety of traps in his bedroom. (For starters, this bed, which he can periodically come back and check to see who thought they were bad enough to screw in the boss’s room.) Bear and Flik walk away from Barry without saying anything more. Once they’re out of earshot, though, I’m sure they’ll congratulate themselves on ensuring the people have been served, before retiring to their room to plan their fun adventure free of civic responsibility. Bear’s just always wanted to see Paris, but not like a tourist, you know?

Barry is so annoyed and perturbed by these two jackoffs, of all people, lecturing him about duty and public service that he goes fishing with Yam Koo to take his mind off it. He catches a boot.

Eventually, Barry’s exhausted the supply of bored and uncertain people to talk to, minigames to play, and ways he can tell Eilie “I’ll think about it” that don’t sound like any kind of commitment. So he heads for the war room. In addition to his core strategic and diplomatic team, representatives of all the City-States are present. Except South Window, because for once Waylon has not been invited to a meeting. I guess Barry and his strategists are kind of the South Window representatives, given where this castle is. When Barry speaks to Shu, the music is already melancholic, because everybody in the room has knowingly entered this meeting prepared to ask a teenager to do something none of them want to do. Yeah, they’re all going to act like they just don’t have his leadership abilities or have too much of an unfortunate punchable face (hi Jess) to inspire the citizenry, but we know what’s happening here.

Makai is the first dignitary to speak, congratulating Barry on his victory and the imminent rebuilding of their country. Gustav is less subtle: “Well, at least now there’s one less enemy threatening City-State soil.” Teresa piles onto this with, “But we still don’t have true peace in these lands.” Great! It’s going to be endless war, then. Fuck, Jowy was actually right. He was right in a way that helped absolutely no one and no war would have been prevented by listening to him, but he was right! Teresa goes on that there is “something we wish to ask of you.” REALLY??? WHAT COULD IT BE???

Teresa moves from her place in the assembly to stand directly in front of Barry for this next part. It feels rehearsed, because it almost certainly was, but I find myself grateful she didn’t whip out a chair and sit in it backward in front of Barry, to really “rap” with him, at his level. “Lord Barry,” she says, “There’s still Harmonia to the north of here and so we can’t yet completely relax. Furthermore, because there was no trust between us, [Adolf Hitler] was able to divide the City-State. We need a single, unified country. One that can stand together against its enemies.” God, this pitch sucks. “We are a group of squabbling cats. Please spend the rest of your POSSIBLY ENDLESS life herding us.” Who the fuck would ever say yes to this? Teresa finishes, “Lord Barry, We want you to create a new country here, Barry Country, and we want you to lead it.”

BARRY COUNTRY!

It just amazes me that this entire brain trust held no doubt several clandestine meetings on this subject, with Teresa writing down all their ideas in her brushed leather notebook with her vintage engraved quill, probably soliciting input on some of the elements from her four Patreon subscribers, and no one ever was like, “Should we circle back to ‘Something like Barry Country ***PLACEHOLDER REVISE LATER***‘?” Makai walks up to Barry to announce that this half-assed nothing has been “approved by Two River’s Three Houses of Parliament.” That is confusing and they should consider kicking out the wingers all over again just to fix it. Gustav says his piece, and it’s typically martial: “If it means a stronger nation, able to defend itself, we have no objections either.” Miklotov says, “The Knightdom of Matilda is no more,” which is news to me, it seems like there are a lot of knights around and these two dudes could, like, lead them. But the knights will defer to Barry, is the point. “I feel the same way as Miklotov,” Camus adds. This is the last line of dialogue this man will have in the game and it’s that. Harsh. Finally, Jess says Muse still has its “pride as the center of the State” even with the one percent of their population they may or may not have lost, and that he’ll go along with whatever Barry wants to do. The leaders, even the ones that didn’t get to speak up in favor of the Barry Country Initiative, all look up to their leader expectantly. After a pause, Barry says, “I can’t do it.” Listen, I know there was a dialogue choice here, but Barry was never going to do this. Not without firing half of the people in this room, at the very least, and that wasn’t one of his options.

Barry is already walking out the door without a backward glance as the assembled leaders of the City-States hop up and down in agitation. Apple leaps in front of Barry. “So where will you go, Barry!!” she shouts in his face. I want him to be like, “Maybe I’ll travel the world pretending to write a book about my dad but really doing nothing but couch-surfing,” but instead he just deploys his best weapon, silence. Apple slowly backs up out of his way again and he continues walking. Note that Shu and Klaus weren’t stupid enough to jump up in his face like that. They know their man. Also Barry left a note on Klaus’s pillow that reads, “Still love you. Make sure Eilie doesn’t follow me,” and he thus assumed this meeting would end this way.

Barry had already mentally said his goodbyes before entering that meeting, so he talks to no one on his way out. Except for Viki, of course, who happily teleports him to Kyaro and probably has no idea what’s going on. In Kyaro, Barry heads behind his old house to his Separate Peace tree, and loots what I can only assume is a time capsule Tiny Barry and Tiny Jowy lodged in the folds of the trunk. Inside he finds a Hunter Rune (a weapon rune that forces enemies to drop items, i.e. a rune that would have been amazing AT ANY POINT up to now), something called a Trio Painting, and a whopping 30 potch. The Trio Painting, as is probably obvious, is just some stick figures of Barry, Jowy, and Nanami standing next to this tree, but Barry hangs onto it regardless. Maybe he’ll soon have a brand-new bathhouse to decorate! Shit, he should have collected all his curios before leaving! Whatever Lepant-level jerk ends up doing this job instead of him absolutely will not have his same appreciation for the peeing boy.

Obviously, Barry has only one place on his mind, a place he promised to return to if he and Jowy were ever separated. And boy, were they ever. He finds Jowy standing in front of their Promise Rock in Tenzan Pass. Since King Jowy left his white coat behind on the throne, Plain Old Jowy Atreides is back in his original sleeveless turtleneck. Was he just wearing that coat over his old outfit the entire time? Should Barry have put on a peacock feather-covered Ric Flair robe while he was running things, only to shrug it off dramatically, a metaphor for the shedding of his responsibilities? Wait, no, that would have been silly. There’s no way Barry would part with a garment like that.

I digress, as a coping mechanism. The Sad Theme of Lovers Fighting for No Reason is playing before Jowy even opens his mouth, and even then, he’s initially just happy that Barry kept his promise. I’d say Barry was tempted to forget their long-ago pledge and stay, but if they wanted to woo him into a life of civil service they should have put their pitch in Shu’s mouth, not Teresa’s. “This is where our journey began,” Jowy explains to Barry, who was there and knows this. “You and I walked along the same path for so long together but this is where they began to diverge…” That is, the literal first time they were ever separated. Other than Jowy having to eat dinner with his shitty dad every night, I guess. Just saying there were other more meaningful divergence points later, like when they got their stupid True Runes, or when Jowy was having clandestine meetings with a ninja.

“But…I have no regrets,” Jowy goes on. Ooooof. Really? None? “But if I did, it would be that I had to betray the City-State and assasinate [hi, it’s me again, your buddy sic] Lady Anabelle….” So he doesn’t regret that, but if he did have regrets, he would regret that? I…okay, dude. Barry was mostly thinking about that time they went to jail for posing as father and son. Maybe that was truly where their paths began to diverge. How could they not have?

Jowy is plowing ahead with his non mea culpa. It’s not like there’s anyone present who would try talking over him. “You and I were a lot alike….. We were both aiming for the same thing. But I just….. At the Highland camp, after I let you both to escape ahead, I was captured and met [Adolf Hitler] again. I hated him from the beginning, it’s true, but I think I admired his strength a little bit too…..” My Godwinizing of the guy really lays bare how insane of a thing that is to say, right? “Also, he was actually a talented artist, and those uniforms were so fashionable,” Jowy is this close to adding. “I thought if I was that strong, I could protect everyone and I could create a gentle world where nobody would ever be hurt. But…” But he realized that’s called a dictatorship and he maybe shouldn’t? No, sorry, that would imply he ever willingly stepped off this ledge. A peaceful world! For the children! He just needed to do some light murdering first.

Jowy seems like he’s about to have some emotional breakthrough about how truly on one he has been for this entire game, and how it was entirely about his daddy issues, but he stops himself. “No….forget about it. This is a battle between the King of Highland and the leader of the Yaoi Army. This is truly…the final battle.” Barry is given two options, “I guess you’re right….” or “We don’t need to fight.” A third option, “Actually I quit, and your kingdom has been torn down to the foundations, so it’s just us two sweet boys in love now,” is not available. Given that, Barry goes with choice #2. Jowy is, unfortunately, not having it, and regardless of Barry’s feelings he is now in a duel with his soulmate.