Finally, Ziggy returns to the dive pod room. From his pod, Albedo is looking across the room at the non-special U.R.T.V.s like he can smell a fart. “I can’t stand them…” he sneers. Nigredo tries to shush him, but he keeps talking. “Just look at them. They don’t even have wills of their own. All of them together just form one collective consciousness. Why is everyone up to 665 like that?” I admit I did not see that coming: Albedo complaining about being more special than other people. Rubedo–who just bragged two scenes ago that the three of them are superior to their blond brothers–explains that the non-variants have “weak anti-waveforms,” through no fault of their own. Albedo hears his brother mildly reprimanding him and gives him the sort of glare that usually comes with a war declaration in Civilization.

As Albedo is still regarding the non-variant U.R.T.V.s as a cootie risk equal to Citrine, Dr. Yuriev announces over the intercom, “This is not a drill. You will initiate a U.M.N. dive into the subconscious domain of the sleeping patient and repair her sensory impairment. This mission will also serve as valuable anti-U-DO training for you.” Well, as long as they’re getting something out of this, right? I’d hate for the only purpose of this dive to be helping another person, especially one whose mother is probably paying private island-level sums for the privilege.

Speaking of Yuri, she tells the U.R.T.V.s, “Your descent target is a white beach. This beach is a subjective image created by the patient that exists below her consciousness. Within it lies whatever is obstructing her neural connection. We want you to identify and eliminate it.” How does Yuri even know this? Without communicating with Sakura–and maybe even if she could–it seems odd that she knows exactly what the dive will look like. Shion literally created KOS-MOS, or at least pretends she did, and had no idea she’d find her hanging on a goddamn cross in her own brain.

Did I just imply that Yuri is as intelligent and knowledgeable as Shion? Wow, that was uncalled for. I’m sorry, fictional bitchy lady!

Meanwhile, Rubedo has zeroed in on the important words here: “The beach?!” he cries, visibly excited. Even Albedo snaps out of being a dillhole for long enough to reply, also excitedly, “I’ve never been to the beach!” The two of them both look to Nigredo, like Tiny Daddy might not give them permission to go in the water. I don’t know. Nigredo instead tells them, “We’ll definitely have to go sometime!” Rubedo and Albedo actually look back at each other and pump their fists. Tiny Daddy is on board! I guess this is to explain why Nigredo and Rubedo end up creating a fake beach where horrible things happen on the Kukai Foundation. That was a burning question I definitely needed answered!

The game unsubtly cuts to a pre-rendered cutscene as the boys prepare for their dive. Rubedo casually moves his head to face forward, only to cry out and stagger backward in his pod, because Daddy Yuriev’s towheaded stepchildren are all staring at him. It’s actually not immediately obvious that this is the problem, because they look like that all the time. But they are also talking to him telepathically, and not being very kind: “Why? Why are you the leader, number 666? You’re a variant… You’re a monster!” I enjoy that these U.R.T.V.s are fine with the concept of leadership–even though we know they’re one collective consciousness and if anything that would be the sticking point for them on paper–just not with Rubedo being the leader. Except they also think Nigredo is creepy, and Albedo is just a bad copy of Rubedo. So do they think they should be the leader? Like, all of them?

Rubedo is clearly shaken by all this psychic shade, and looks down with horror at the red 666 in his palm, as if he’s thinking, “Number 666…oh shit, that’s me!” But Albedo jumps to his brother’s defense, mind-yelling at Comrade Children of the Corn, “Shut up, you losers! Don’t make fun of Rubedo! Your power doesn’t even come close to his!” I feel like that was kind of their point? That he’s a monster because of his weird powers? Not that I expect Albedo to be rational on this or any other point. To that end, Nigredo cuts in with, “That’s enough, Albedo. They’re not our enemies.” Craning his neck toward the far pod, he adds, “It’s all right, Rubedo. We both believe in you.” Rubedo continues looking despondently at his hand until the pods recline backward and they’re transported to the dive via devices plugging into their necks, Matrix-style.

It’s hilarious how deliberately pointed that entire exchange was. Like, the storyboarders were given a bullet points list of the things they had to get across in one scene:

• Rubedo’s status as the confident, but troubled one
• Albedo’s status as the snobby, mentally unstable one
• Nigredo’s status as the peacemaking one nobody cares about
• “Foreshadowing” that maybe they shouldn’t have trusted their sainted leader
• Bible reference!

And these were all things we already knew, to boot. I’m all for these flashbacks if only for the sexual power dynamics between these three–I have problems–but if their purpose is to flesh out the U.R.T.V.s’ backstories while we’re supposedly here to help MOMO, at least throw in a detail or two we didn’t already have. Albedo is a serial killer in the making! Rubedo is emo! Nigredo is also there! Like, noted.

Anyway! The dive sends the boys to a gas station on a roadside in the middle of a forested area. I know because it says “GAS STATION” above the pumps. Again, this is 60-something-something and people are still using gasoline? The place looks dilapidated, but in a “this was in use 30 years ago” sense, not a “this is an ancient relic from the pre-hyperspace era” sense. The old truck in the lot even has all its tires intact! So many questions. Rubedo announces for my benefit that the beach is to the north through the forest, and the three of them run off. A moment later, Ziggy teleports in to the same spot. Anybody else completely lost as to how this is all working? This is a dive into Sakura’s consciousness, within a dive into MOMO’s consciousness, which is also Sakura’s consciousness. It’s possible the entire rest of the series actually takes place within Encephalon, and the end credits to the next game will zoom out on CHAOS!!! sitting in a hospital in Chicago, shaking a snowglobe with his pants python.

Naturally, since the dive target is the beach, this gas station is miles from said beach. The road the gas station is on looks like where your dad would park the station wagon on a trip to the beach because it’s free, and then he’d want to turn around an hour after you finally made it there because he wants to get back to the car and beat traffic. Given that this entire place is imaginary and there’s no good reason to make the U.R.T.V.s walk all this way when it would be best for everyone if they arrived at their destination right away, I cannot think of a reason for this distance other than “The invisible creeps from the future following Rubedo around haven’t gotten to crawl through a long-ass dungeon yet.” Lucky Sakura was thinking of them!

Ziggy makes use of the convenient save point before destroying the door to a cement outhouse and the (I’m guessing) “PLEASE WASH YOUR HANDS” poster over the toilet, getting nothing out of it. There’s also graffiti on all of the inner walls, including behind said poster, but Ziggy already has Shion’s phone number so he doesn’t bother reading it. But when he blows apart a couple boxes under the gas pump awning, he throws the party into a battle with…Gnosis? What the fuck?

More on these specific Gnosis in a moment, because hoo boy do they suck out loud, but what the hell is going on here? This dive-within-a-dive “took place” 14 years ago, before the Gnosis invasion. And even if they somehow existed within Sakura’s mind before that point because of her irregular U-DO wave-surfing or whatever the hell, wouldn’t the U.R.T.V.s be rather alarmed by these never-before-seen monsters showing up on their mission into a girl’s brain?

However they’re here–and the odds are good it’s “Because the party needed monsters to fight in here, fuck you and your nitpicking”–these are also on the less fun end of the Gnosis spectrum. Notably, Expression–a lizard-faced Gnosis cloaked in shadow that looks like the Grim Reaper is trying to bring ’80s shoulder pads back into style–makes a point of negging a random member of the party on its first turn, by announcing, for example, “I loathe your charm.” All this means is that it will boost whenever the person it’s referring to attacks it. “Charm,” here, refers to Jailbait or MOMO. The Expression negging “strength” refers to Ziggy. And if it decries “beauty,” it’s referring to CHAOS!!!, KOS-MOS, or Shion. I’ve got problems with this across the board: 1) this makes “charm” feel like code for “I wanted to say beauty here too, but y’all are 12,” and 2) KOS-MOS’s main attribute is her beauty? Fuck all of that. This Gnosis could at least strive for a little more bespoke care in its taunting.

Worse than the actual mechanic is that this Gnosis appears in damn near every battle in this area, and every single one has to announce their plans separately, with a zoom-in on their gross green faces, over and over and over again. And have I mentioned that, even though I know what the Expression’s gimmick is, I repeatedly fail to apply this knowledge to my attack patterns and the goddamn things boost a billion times and beat MOMO within an inch of her fake life? In a too-long dungeon that already feels pointless, this is just the bit of repetitive drip torture I needed to send me over the edge and justify drinking before noon.

Ziggy clanks north up the road, fighting through two more packs of Expressions, only to find the road blocked by a crashed hay truck. Sakura’s brain is reaching Ganondorf Glamour, Inc. levels of arbitrary dungeon nonsense. Sighing, Ziggy turns off the road and heads down a dirt path into the forest. Along the path, the party runs into some more types of Gnosis: Necessity, a hulking brute with an axe; and Vacillation, a flying devil seahorse that looks like Hakkar from World of Warcraft. What is with the Gnosis names in here? It’s like our heroes are fighting a Christian-themed gift shop, a fragrance by Giorgio Armani, and a hip “dive” bar in Brooklyn that only serves cocktails that contain housemade gin and birch soda.

Off the path a bit, Ziggy finds an old shack, which he obviously destroys for a very good and obvious reason that I will think of an hour from now. Its obliteration by Ziggy’s legs of steel reveals a “‘Forbidden Device’ …It appears to be an Encephalon dive device.” Jesus, we’re not going one level deeper, are we? I’m already in the weeds, here. Thankfully, the device doesn’t seem to do anything right now, and I will take this thing being useless over it convoluting the plot even further. Speaking of useless, down the path some more, Ziggy also finds a conspicuous cave entrance blocked by the world’s most obvious bombable wall. Seriously, I am starting to think Ganondorf lives in Sakura’s head and he set up this whole place, and this means CHAOS!!! is Twink and I have a lot of headcanons to rethink.

Moving on, the path runs straight through a small stream, requiring KOS-MOS–now in the lead because Ziggy was doing fuck-all to most of these Gnosis–to blast a tree and create a bridge across. This dungeon’s most dastardly test yet! It’s also plainly unnecessary, since at best this stream is two feet across and a foot deep. Even if there is a concern that Ziggy and KOS-MOS would short circuit if they get their feet wet, they could still hop over this tiny creek with no trouble. A literal toddler would not be scared of this body of water.

On the other side of this terrifying, torrential river, the gang encounters a new type of Gnosis, called Information Type. No, really, that is its name, unless the game bugged out on me and this was a failure to recall data error. Though this creature shaped like a buttplug badminton birdie shoots homing missiles at its targets, it’s not all that threatening compared to the rest of the enemies around here, but it does make some…bizarre sounds. Whenever it shoots off its little rocket volley, it lets loose this utterly unsettling “Ehehe hoo!” noise, like it’s a middle-aged white lady on her iPad who just found a perfect photo of wet and shirtless Tom Hiddleston. Almost weirder still, when it’s attacked it actually cries, “Ow!” in a high-pitched voice, except when it opts to exclaim, “Daaaamn!” It’s almost trite, or at least rhetorical, to ask this anymore, but what the fuck were the game designers smoking when they made this thing?

Past these high-as-fuck, gabby Gnosis, KOS-MOS finds another stream. Was I just complaining about the last one clearly not needing a bridge to cross? This branch of the stream may be a tiny bit wider than the last one, but if anything it’s even shallower–judging by the foot-tall rocks jutting out of it, it’s maybe ankle deep. KOS-MOS frets over how to traverse this impassable obstacle for a moment, before seeing another dead tree she can turn into a log bridge. But this one presents a real thinker of a puzzle: instead of bridging the land around the creek, this log will float downstream until it hits a rock. Blasting the rocks allows for multiple crossing options. But which ones to destroy?! After several hours with a protractor and slide rule, and experimentally dropping some wood chips in a beaker of water, KOS-MOS realizes she can either destroy none of the rocks to cross near the save point, or the very first rock in the path to cross downstream and reach a treasure chest with a Segment Address decoder inside. Whew! I was worried they’d be stuck here forever, and I’d never find out how Rubedo’s trip to the fucking beach goes. Her precious toes moisture-free, KOS-MOS secures her loot, saves, and moves on to the next screen.

The next screen’s puzzle requires KOS-MOS to pick one of two wooden planks to cross over a small gorge: a sturdy-looking one, or the one that looks like a mild breeze might disintegrate it. HMMMMMM. I hope I don’t fuck this up.

Only now that I have proven I am a puzzle dungeon super genius can our heroes catch up with the U.R.T.V.s. The boys, variant and otherwise, are all staring at a pulsing purple-red ball of energy floating above the dirt road. Rubedo breathes, “So this is…the fear that Sakura holds.” This makes it sound like they’ve reached their target at the beach, but this is definitely still a road running through a fucking 20th century wind farm, with no beach in sight. The energy orb starts shooting sperm beams all over the place–Nigredo shields one from hitting Rubedo, while Albedo leaps out of the way of one and kicks another in its sperm tail, but is sure to snivel as much as possible while doing so. Perfect, everyone is on brand.

Rubedo starts shouting orders to the others so they can take care of this UUUUUUUUUUUU-DOOOOOOOOOOOO tumor, but the special boys soon realize the non-special boys are not dealing with this situation well. “The waves…” one moans. “The waves are coming!” Well, there was all that purple sperm just now. Speaking of, more sperm spurt out of the tumor, striking the blond U.R.T.V.s, just as Albedo was struck in the Miltia flashback that’s a flash-forward from this point. The sperm turns them into brand-new embryos, that is to say, skinny Gnosis boys with white mask faces and blades sticking out of their elbows, not unlike the Athra 26 in the Phallus of Nephilim. Guessing that similarity is intentional. Albedo whines that they’ve been infected, even though “we’re not even inside the U-DO simulator!” So I guess Albedo and I agree on one thing: nothing about this Encephalon dive makes sense. One of the infected boys leaps high into the air and dives down at Rubedo, who screams, and then present-day Jailbait starts screaming with him in unison. I want to giggle because my boy is making a blowjob face in stereo, but it’s kind of unsettling.

The “Infected U.R.T.V.s,” as these are creatively named, attack with annoying speed, awkwardly frog-hopping forward to slash Jailbait, primarily, with their sword-elbows. Why are our heroes even attacking these things? What does it look like to the hologram memories (or whatever) in this dive that their infected brothers are now attacking…air? I’d better give up on trying to make heads or tails of this. But however they manage it, Jailbait, Shion, and KOS-MOS are able to make quick work of these past memories of infected boys who they were never able to interact with up to this point, and the day is saved. Wait, there are more packs of them all the way up this wind farm road. Of course there are.

Thankfully, I don’t have to kick over any more logs or blow up any rocks from here to reach the beach, which is on the next screen. I mean, I guess–it’s more like a sandy cul-de-sac overlooking the ocean. As Jailbait walks onto this overlook, he spots another infected U.R.T.V., which I now realize looks like Xenosaga’s version of a Nobody, what with the white motif, prominent buttcheeks, and the creepy sidewalk sashay. This one wanders to center stage, and as Jailbait, Shion, and KOS-MOS look at it in horror, it gets on all fours, then bends its body backward so its head is pointed at the ground and staring backward at them, like a spider. Then, as the screen pulses white seemingly just to make my now-drunk ass blink sleepily, its carapace opens up along its thorax and unleashes a demon with bigger sword-elbows and golden ram’s horns. The infected boy exoskeleton flops to the ground, discarded, as the demon flips fancily into the air, hits the ground in a pounce position, and hisses, exposing and flaring its cheek flaps like that dinosaur that killed Nedry in Jurassic Park.

Leaving aside, again, why our heroes are fighting this thing instead of Rubedo et al getting off their bony asses and doing it, the boss fight against this demon, called Level 4, is on. A text box informs me that its “cerebral functions” are offline, like I’m fighting Shion. In this thing’s case, all this means is that it will eventually get more powerful stats and start healing itself–all the more reason to not fuck up my boosting and combos so it dies before it does any of this. The combo, CCBB, is pretty easy to set up with Jailbait, finish with KOS-MOS, and then let Shion wail away with her stupid superweapon Miyuki thanklessly provided her. As a matter of fact, the former two just end up boosting off each other as Level 4 is floating in slow-mo in the air, shooting and slashing it with their tiny and large penis replacements, respectively, killing it before Shion even gets a shot in. Really good thing she insisted on being here for MOMO. Invaluable help so far.

Once Level 4 is dead, it reverts to being a blond U.R.T.V. corpse, making it even easier for Albedo to kick it in the stomach. Rubedo and Nigredo–yards away, probably getting ready to duck behind some bushes while these invisible ass-kickers from the future do all their dirty work–turn around to see Albedo crouching over the boy’s body, pounding his head into the dirt. “I told you to leave Rubedo alone!” he growls, and this could be actually directed at Nigredo for all we know. He adds, punching this dead body some more, that variants aren’t monsters. He’s sure making that point loud and clear! Totally normal, well-adjusted dudes. Got it. Rubedo rushes back to put a stop to this, warning Albedo, “You’ll kill him!” Oh. Was he not dead? I mean, he got infected with UUUUUUUU-DOOOOOO, turned into a monster, shed his monster skin to become a different monster, and that monster got hella murdered by an invisible robot with tiny feet and Rubedo’s future self. I don’t see a lot of room in there for this U.R.T.V. to not be dead, but what do I know?

As the Sad Windchimes of Mostly Dead Children tinkle in the breeze, Albedo pulls up short and gives his brother his best “What, me worry?” face. “Rubedo…” he starts, but Rubedo and Nigredo are both so disgusted with his behavior that they walk away, making sure to deploy maximum bitchface as they pivot. They’re full-on mean-girling Albedo, which is unsurprising given what we know of how they all turned out. Even less surprising is that Albedo throws a damn tantrum about it. “Don’t look at me like that!” he shrieks, stomping his feet and balling up his fists. Then he screams “Rubedooooooooooo!” at the sky like he’s William Shatner. Albedo is definitely the guy who gets way too into community theater.

Once we’ve maybe gotten the very subtle point that Albedo didn’t require an UUUUUUU-DOOOOOOO infection to be crazy and have major issues with his twin, the boys and our heroes return to the Yuriev Institute. On the subject of Albedo having deep need of intensive therapy, we have oh so much more ground to cover, but let’s leave it here for now. Next time, even more twincestual clone boy angst, another motherfucking dive-within-a-dive, Jailbait and Albedo going Super Saiyan on each other again, and…is that a visit to Old Miltia on the horizon? Holy shit, could be! See you in part six!