Chris and Yuiri both have murder in their eyes (and Yumi is staring blandly at them in the background, no doubt glad she wasn’t the one with a speaking part in this scene), so Nash throws his arm between them and tells Chris to “Forget it.” Ladies, ladies, please! Nash is here to help you reason this out, or failing that, to fill a kiddie pool with butterscotch pudding and let you work things out from there. Chris gets the message, but still grouses, “Is a ‘lucky’ rabbit’s foot so lucky for the rabbit who lost it? Damn this superstitious garbage!” Wait, are there people out there amputating rabbits and then leaving them alive but maimed? I assume the rabbits were already dead, Chris.
Of course, Yun chooses this moment to saunter up, all casual, and ask Chris to come with her somewhere. Yuiri goes, “Yun, remember, the ritual starts soon.” Yeah, Yun, how dare you not respect the itinerary of your death! Yun says she just wants “a brief moment” to talk with Chris. Again, feeling really bad about how many of her final hours Yun is wasting on Chris. Yuiri is still unhappy about this because Chris is an outsider, and might taint Yun’s perfect Alma Kinan soul or some shit, but she relents and Chris follows Yun offscreen.
Never has a full moon felt so wrong.
A full moon is shining over the Alma Kinan sacred ground, sending light through the hollowed-out tree trunk that serves as some kind of altar. Yun’s all happy that the weather is so perfect for her impending death, leading Chris to ask, “Yun, do you know what you’re getting into?” I mean, I guess it’s possible Yun is unaware of what’s really about to happen to her, except that Chris only figured out that Yun was the human sacrifice by remembering stuff Yun herself said. Get your head in the game, lady. Yun’s like, “No shit, I’m going to die, I’m not an idiot.” She goes on, “This is my duty. Many people die without finishing, or even knowing their duties… I consider myself lucky. No regrets. In Alma Kinan, a girl whose soul is offered will become a spirit. My soul will live forever.” This is morbid, but I wonder what happens if baby boys are born during their Vulcan mating ritual. They probably “become spirits” too, right? Chris should probably be madder about that than about Yun sacrificing herself knowingly and willingly.
Once Yun is done telling Chris what a compassionate and kind soul she is for caring about little old her, Chris tries to ask one more time, “Why did you bring me here? Was that one of your duties?” Yun tells her, “I’ve had visions of today’s events ever since I was little. Maybe that’s why you feel like an old friend to me.” Chris was her imaginary friend and then became real! Jesus, this is almost too sad to recap. “I’ve always wanted to meet you,” she continues. “Of course there was the ‘destructive force’ to consider, but it wasn’t just that.” Chris is here because Yun foresaw that she would be, fantasized about meeting the super-cool Silver Maiden, and then made sure it came to pass. Wow.
But no, Yun really does need Chris to do something, though she still won’t say what the fuck it is, asking instead, “You do not like expectations placed upon you by other people?” Wow, she does know Chris well. Chris grinds her teeth and sprays ellipses, more or less an affirmative response, and then says, “I put all efforts as a Zexen Knight into combat. I only intended to defend my fellow men, the Zexen Knights and my country. But I found myself hailed as a hero, tormented by unsolicited attention and overt jealousies.” Look, Roland just snapped at you that one time because he’s never been able to pull off milkmaid braids. Don’t take it to heart. “Was I born with these qualities? Why do my people love me as a hero?” Chris asks Yun, who is about to die before she can even watch an R-rated movie, but no, Chris has it way worse. “Was this my destiny? That has always bothered me. Maybe it is why I distanced myself from the Knights. Maybe I wanted to escape the role of a hero. But I still…” This is slightly less shoehorned character work than Hugo’s was, since Chris’s obvious discomfort with her lot in life has been a constant from her first moment onscreen. And yet, this is still a big-ass “What’s my motivation?” infodump. Yun just lets her get it out of her system, since she can see the future and already knew Chris was going to make this all about herself.
Finally, Yun says, “You don’t need qualifications to make a difference. Let expectations bring happiness, not burdens. Do whatever you feel is right. Trust your intuition. Stop fucking whining about how much everyone loves you.” You know which part of that was me. “Just as I have my duties,” Yun finishes, “you have yours. Wouldn’t you be more upset if you had no purpose in life?” She would be–Chris craves activity and meaning, obviously–and yet she can’t just tell the girl who’s about to die that she’s right.
Oh, and about that death: “After the last ritual is complete, the seal of the Water will be released. Its power will be sought again. The power of the True Rune that has been suppressed by the seal will be released as well, and the whereabouts of the Flame Champion will be identified.” Let’s just skip past how much multitasking Yun’s death is going to do–the ritual will also reveal the location of Atlantis and tell us how many roads must a man walk down–and wonder why they would want the True Water Rune to be unsealed. I assume Yuber was here looking for the seal specifically because he wanted to break said seal and find the rune. Why not leave it be? I mean, not complaining, because the True Water Rune is the tits and I am looking forward to using it, but this doesn’t seem like a smart plan.
Tell, not show!
Yun says something about the True Water Rune being necessary to save the Grasslands, and Chris being integral to that, but we also know Yun can’t see the future past tonight, so she’s probably just bullshitting so Chris will let her die already. The AK ladies and the rest of Chris’s party show up to signal the end of this important one-on-one confab. Yun says goodbye to Chris, Nash, Fred, and Rico, and to Yuiri and Yumi, the latter of whom, I just realized, has not said a single line in a really long time. It’s like the three sisters have to tag in and out of expositing. She breaks this silence by saying, “Yun…” like Chris has been doing off and on for the past 10 minutes. The girl knows her name by now!
Yun calmly walks to the altar. Chris looks like she’s going to try and stop her, but Nash says, “This is not Zexen or Holy Harmonia. The Grasslanders have their own ways. Look how they curse us for cutting trees and burning grass to make way for ‘stone piles.’” Oh, you’re a stone pile. Chris wonders aloud again about the vital difference between dying in battle and committing suicide. Did Yuiri not tell these two that this ritual requires some fucking respectful silence? She really should have mentioned that.
Oh, but I hope you didn’t think this thing was going to go off without a hitch. The camera cuts from Yun at the altar to a black-gloved hand forming a fireball and blasting Rico and all the Alma Kinan greenshirts. Oh no! They’re going to kill Yu–wait. That’s fine. Yuber is accompanied now by Sarah and the Mask, who says, “I’d advise you to stop the ritual. I’ll release the seal of the True Water Rune.” But…the ritual…will release the seal of the True Water Rune? Was I not just saying three paragraphs ago that the plan to unseal the rune is bad because y’all would find it? Guys? Hello?
The two groups make vaguely threatening noises at each other, but without much ado the boss fight is on. The AK girls are pretty solid party members and all, but I’m not sure this is the party I want to face the Mask’s entire overpowered group. Like, at the least, Fred and Rico would not be here if I had my druthers. As usual, it’s highly recommended to take out Sarah first, lest she be left free to heal the other two, but I’m not in love with the idea of leaving the Mask and Yuber alive any longer than I have to. There aren’t really any good answers here.
Attempt #1 to get through this fight alive starts out okay–Sarah is dumb enough to cast Kindness Rain on her first turn, and she’s so fast that it goes off before anyone else even does anything. But even with Sarah dropping shortly afterward the same turn, the Mask and Yuber together are just too much. They’re both entirely too difficult to hit with melee attacks (whoops, so much for Fred having anything useful to contribute), and worse, Yuber uses his Eightfold Rune to murder Yumi and her ass-saving Earth Rune before she can cast a single thing. And let’s not even get into the Mask torching the party with his not-even-trying-to-hide-it-anymore True Wind Rune, and the Pale Gate Rune that should really give his identity away even if the True Wind Rune doesn’t. Someone who is adept with wind magic and possibly has links to users of gate magic? HMMMMMMMM.
Thankfully, attempt #2 goes better. Sarah is still a dumbass and still dies immediately, but Yuber decides this time to blow his Many Yubers, Handle It attack on fucking Fred, which saves me the trouble of wondering what to do with him. (At one point before he dies, I have him and Rico attempt the Maximillian unite on the Mask. It does one damage. Literally one fucking damage.) And having Yumi up to cast Clay Guardian keeps the Mask from being able to slaughter the entire party at will. It’s still an ugly win, but it’s a win. God help us all if Sarah ever figures out how to time her heals.
Yuber accuses them of cheating, which is sour grapes but I kind of get it–on its face, this party is entirely too shitty to take on these three. Good going, Sarah. Chris snarls at the Mask, “I don’t know who you are, but I won’t let you go near Yun!” The Mask asks her, reasonably enough, “She’ll be dead after the ritual anyway. What difference does it make?” Also, if the Mask kills her here in this clearing, won’t that just complete the ritual? Can’t Yun be like “THIS IS FOR YOU, GHOST COUSINS” before she bites it? But it turns out this is all academic. A flash of blue light and a laser beam sound effect emanate through the sacred ground, and when everyone turns around, Yun is gone. (“Oh, brother,” Fred actually says in response to this.) The altar under the hollow tree is spurting out luminescent blue glitter that is either the dissipating True Water Rune seal or Yun’s soul, or possibly both. (Either way, it’s a squirter!) After a moment and some gurgling sounds straight out of the Zora Birthing Center, the blue light disappears, and Yuiri announces, “The ritual is over.” Ha! Sucks to be the Mask! Now the True Water Rune is unsealed, just like he wanted!
This would be obscene enough without the phallic ornaments in the background.
Sarah duhs at the Mask that they took too long. “The seal has been released,” she says. “The True Water Rune is…” The Mask finishes her thought: “…gone with the Water Seal, I imagine. That’s fine. There’s another seal left. We’ll still manage if we get that one.” But if it remained sealed, they wouldn’t have it, and if he had unsealed it, wouldn’t it still have disappeared? Am I having a stroke? Sarah teleports the trio out before they can confuse me further.
Everyone else’s backs were turned, staring at Yun’s glitter ghost, so they miss the Mask’s escape. Chris is all pissed about this, even though them leaving without the True Water Rune in their possession was really the only positive outcome they could have hoped for. But Chris doesn’t know how to be happy about things. We’ve established this. Morning comes after a black screen, and Rico asks if Chris got a good night’s sleep after “such a hectic day yesterday.” Rico, you were all up in the middle of the night fighting superpowered evildoers, and the “reward” for your success was Chris’s new friend dying. No, she did not sleep well.
Chris finds Nash hanging out by the altar where everyone last saw Yun. For no reason, Chris wonders why Nash is up “so early,” like we have in any way established a sleeping pattern for any of these people. But this is just so Nash can reply, “What’s wrong with rising at dawn? Only old folks have to wait until the crowing stops before getting up.” Has this motherfucker ever met an old person? They get up at like 4:30 in the goddamn morning! Young people sleep in! Stupid. Chris tells him she’s not in the mood for his “sarcasm,” which makes me think Nash got all that backward on purpose, but I think she’s just referring to him being cheeky, which would be true no matter what he actually said. That wouldn’t have been good sarcasm anyway. Nash whines, “I’m always getting chided by you women for whatever I do. I’m not out fooling around, you know.” Says the dude who has literally spent every second of his screen time hitting on a woman who is not his wife. And no, it doesn’t matter that all of those attempts have been pathetically insincere. “I think you make fooling around your business,” Chris replies. Yup.
This conversation is not going to Nash’s liking, so he derails. “Are you off to find the Flame Champion?” he asks. Oh, right, now she magically knows where he is, because Yun died for her sins. “My, what big ears you have!” Chris says. Ha. She’s not going to let that spy thing go, and I applaud her for it. “I guess I really should go,” she adds. “Someone’s got to put an end to this. Yun thought it should be me.” But she is quick to clarify, since Nash nags her about it, that she’s not just doing this because of Yun’s cold-reading. “It’s more than that. My heart is guiding me now. My sworn enemies will be those who use senseless wars to further themselves. Anyone who massacres innocent lives will answer to me. As Captain of the Zexen Knights–no, wait! I shall follow my heart. The heart of Chris Lightfellow, not that of some ‘silver hero’ figure.” Well! That escalated quickly. And this is, ironically, probably the most Silver Maideny thing she’s ever said. Boy would be rock hard hearing this speech. Even Nash is like, “But…you ARE a hero.” Chris is basically running from semantics at this point, and that is a race she’s going to lose, but she says she’s only in this for “what needs to be done.” Whatever floats your boat, honey.