Jowy turns to Pilika, who I’m also stuck with, to see if she’s okay. To my absolute delight, she’s not. Apparently the fright of nearly dying and fleeing from a burning building, coupled with her parents dying and stuff, has made it so she doesn’t feel like talking anymore. Damn, this is fantastic! Pohl is gone forever and Pilika’s a mute! I’ll never speak a bad word about Prince Adolf again. Jowy’s worried about Pilika, but he’d better get over it. It’s not hard. I’m already over it. The group heads northwest to Toto Village, en route to Muse.
Once back in the remains of Toto, Pilika starts acting all weird. Great. She runs ahead of the party, and when they find her, she’s standing in front of what was once the door to the shrine her father guarded, but is now just the mouth of a cave. Pilika goes inside. Jowy determines that she wants them to follow, so they do. Jeez, this is like watching an episode of Lassie. Which means I’ve, at long last, found a nickname for Pilika.
Inside the cave the group finds a well-lit area with a stone tablet at the back. Lassie pantomimes at it. Jowy steps forward to examine it, and finds an inscription which reads:
“My friend and I seal our thoughts here. We deeply regret that we could not make them one. -Han, Genkaku”
Jowy wonders if this Genkaku is the same as the Grandpa Genkaku buried beneath the penis stone in Kyaro. Again, it would be hilarious if he weren’t, but we all know they’re the same guy. At the mention of the name, Barry steps forward to take a look, and then the two of them vanish in a flash of white light.
Elsewhere in the cave, Barry and Jowy reappear. Does this mean what I think it means? Yes! They’re alone! Time for the making out, right? Right? Of course it’s not right. They’re barely alone 10 seconds when a woman in light blue robes appears in front of them. Dammit. This woman is Lady Leknaat, the horoscope chick from the first game. She exposits some nonsense about destiny and stars, and stars of destiny. Right. She disappears, but now our heroes aren’t in the mood anymore. They probe further into the cave (heh heh) at Leknaat’s suggestion. Now it’s flashback time!
Some sad music starts playing as we go to sepia-toned flashbacks in the style of the ones from the opening credits. Power? Am I looking for power? the screen says. I’d say it’s FFVIII Syndrome, but they came out so close to each other that isn’t really possible. So let’s just call it Inane Floaty Text Syndrome. There’s a flashback of Barry and Nanami training with Genkaku, and being spied on by Jowy. Barry notices the eyes on him and they introduce themselves. Aww, how adorable. Ever since the first day I saw you…. goes the Inane Floaty Text, and the next flashback shows our boys getting in a fight with, and losing to, some other Kyaro kids. Because Jowy is a rich brat and Barry is a loser orphan. What a bunch of nice children in that town. Nanami eventually beats up the snotty kids, showing once again that she has twice the testosterone of Barry and Jowy put together. I somehow knew that we would be friends…. the IFT continues. Yeah, if by “friends” you mean “fuck buddies.” Flashback #3 shows Barry and Jowy attempting to see over the wall of a nice manor in Kyaro. Jowy gives Barry a boost (and more than likely gets a good long view of little Barry’s butt) while he asks if the girl beyond the wall is cute. So young, and already they’re covering up their true desires. Tsk. The girl is Princess Jillia, which means this is a Significant Scene in terms of what happens later. I know I’m surprised by that, how about you? I was never lonely because you were there, the IFT goes on, leading to a scene by the big tree where Barry found Muku Ranger Red. Apparently Jowy and Barry just did something they want to keep secret. Oh my God. Nanami tries to beat the secret out of Barry, but Jowy insists “It’s a secret between boys.” Oh. My. God.
‘…I knew I wanted to jump your bones.’
It felt like those days would last forever…. Flash way forward to the day Barry and Jowy were accepted into the Unicorn Brigade, with Nanami watching from behind a bush. She probably figures she’ll discover their “boys’ secret” if she just spies on them all the time. Right on. Now the flashbacks are all scenes we’ve witnessed before, as they’ve happened since the beginning of the game. We walked along the same paths because… leads to the highly significant jumping-off-the-cliff scene. We chose Life and Death [and Sex] together…. is followed by Jowy busting Barry out of the mercenary fort. I believed in you….always…. leads into the final flashback, where Barry assures Nanami that they will one day return to Kyaro. How that last one has anything directly to do with Barry and Jowy is beyond me, but I guess they needed one more and ran out of Angsty Barry and Jowy Scenes. The Inane Floaty Text fades out with because we shared so much…. leaving me to wonder just how much they’ve shared.
Jeez, he just wanted your NAME.
Back to reality. Jowy determines that they just shared the same hallucination, but Leknaat makes her second entrance to tell them, “Young followers of Destiny…We have looked into your hearts and witnessed your ‘character.'” Ah. That makes perfect sense. Leknaat introduces herself with a lengthy set of epithets that aren’t worth repeating, and then spouts more destiny garbage. More importantly, she tells them they’ve been recognized by the Rune of Beginning, and to go get some magic and shit. Jowy chooses to take the right-hand path, so Barry goes to the left. Barry finds a pedestal with the white shield from the opening FMV, and Jowy finds one with the black sword. They each raise their right hand, and with a bunch of sparkly light effects, are imbued with runic power. They return to Leknaat, who tells them they’ve inherited the Bright Shield Rune (Barry) and the Black Sword Rune (Jowy). They’re the two halves of the Rune of Beginning, meaning that Barry’s and Jowy’s destinies are now intertwined. This raises the likelihood of a yaoi scene by about 200 percent, but I’ll still probably never get one. Because the game designers hate me. Leknaat teleports our boys back to the party, where they’re bombarded with questions about what happened. Nanami, especially, seems pretty piqued to find out what she missed since she wasn’t included. I have a feeling she’d be less eager to be included all the time if she knew what Barry and Jowy are really doing when they’re alone.
Now that Barry and Jowy have awesome rune magic, you’d think life would only get better and better. But this is an RPG, so their incredible power will only make things suck. Bet you didn’t see that coming. In the next recap our heroes will try and fail, and then try, and then succeed, to get into Muse, and we’ll be introduced to a few new characters, including a guy with a stylin’ pair of yellow pants. Until part 4!