Xenosaga II : Part 6

By Sam
Posted 12.01.17
Pg. 1 : 2 : 3

What’s up, tripletcest fans! How’s 2017 treating you? Like rancid garbage? Of course it is. That’s why you’re here: so 60xx (currently minus 14) and its fantastic world of androids, cyborgs, clone kids, and dummies with their PhDs printed on Fruit Roll Ups can–somehow!–apply a soothing, escapist balm to your exhausted soul. With those reduced expectations in place, let’s enjoy the world of tomorrow, but yesterday, together!

In our last installment, the gang dove into MOMO’s brain via Encephalon and tagged along as the many and not-varied fruits of Dmitri Yuriev’s loins embarked on their mission to cure Sakura Mizrahi’s plot cancer. But rather than do anything helpful for this child, they–and by “they” I mean the ghosts from the future following them around–instead beat up on one of the non-variant U.R.T.V.s that got turned into an U-DO penis monster. This, naturally, awakened Albedo’s latent homicidal rage, and Rubedo and Nigredo’s latent contempt for him. What does any of this have to do with Sakura, let alone MOMO? Um…look over there!

In a flash, KOS-MOS and friends are back at the Yuriev Institute, in the Encephalon dive room. Out in the hallway she witnesses the boys running out a door to the east, so once again we all get to feel like creeps chasing little boys around. This particular chase doesn’t last too long–once KOS-MOS is outside in the tidy courtyard, she is slapped in the face with a cutscene, as Rubedo and Nigredo confront Albedo. Albedo is having a good, rehearsed sulk in front of a big stone slab that probably has Dr. Yuriev’s Ten Commandments for Healthy Clone Living etched on it. “What?” he snits, turning to face his brothers. But Rubedo isn’t going to be guilted out of yelling at him. “What were you thinking?” he shouts. “Number 623’s badly injured!” I must again register my surprise that he isn’t dead, but sure. Albedo hears this and immediately relaxes, putting his arms up behind his head. “Is that what this is about? All he’s got to do is just regenerate. What’s the problem?”

I’m not sure this lands as well as it could, since we already know Albedo can do this and also expect him to act like the tiny psychopath he clearly is, but it is absolutely news to Rubedo and Nigredo, whose eyes widen just a touch, like they’re not even comprehending this enough to be shocked yet. But they’re going to fully get it in a second! Albedo demonstrates this entirely normal skill, summoning a ball of blue lightning in his right hand–and now I’m wondering if they knew he could do that–and, as his brothers watch with dawning horror, using it to blow off his own head and splatter blood all over the monument of Daddy’s Doctrines. They both scream as Albedo’s headless body totters around on its feet for a moment, only for his head to reappear with a sound effect and purple flash that wouldn’t be out of place on the Enterprise’s holodeck, and a slight groan from him as he stretches his neck. He smiles vacantly. “See?”

'Oh look, Albedo's private Instagram, what's he OH MY GOD'

‘Oh look, Albedo’s private Instagram, what’s he OH MY GOD’

I love several things about this: 1) Albedo is about to act like he had no idea other U.R.T.V.s cannot do this, but he leapt right into a physical demonstration instead of, I don’t know, rephrasing to see if his brothers maybe call this ability by another name; 2) not only that, instead of blowing off his hand or something, he opened with decapitating himself, because he fucking lives for theater; and 3) these three can all mind-meld, and even if they couldn’t they apparently spend all their time together, but Rubedo and Nigredo have never picked up on the fact that Albedo has been able to mutilate himself and regrow his body parts for 12 fucking years, and Albedo’s never noticed that his brothers never do this. Honorable mention: 4) Nigredo totally looks like he’s about to vomit.

Rubedo, though, reacts predictably, for him: after staring in terror at his dumbfuck of a twin until this can sink in, he balls up his fist, screams, “You idiot!” and decks him. “Don’t you ever pull anything like that again!” Nigredo recovers from being doubled over in dry heaves to hold Rubedo back. “If you die,” Rubedo is cry-yelling from Nigredo’s arm-lock, “you can’t come back to life!” Hahaha. No spoilers, Red. Albedo is holding his hand to his cheek, like the deserved punch he just ate hurt much worse than the auto-guillotining he performed seconds ago. Maybe it did! EMOTIONALLY. “You mean…” he moans, disbelieving, “Are you saying you can’t regenerate?” It’s possible Rubedo’s just saying the ability to explode one’s own brain should not be used for a cheap party trick, and that it was very upsetting! That would be reasonable. But also, no, nobody else can do this. “That’s a special ability only you possess,” Nigredo says. This is an odd thing to say, especially with the certainty with which Nigredo delivers it–did he already know about this and just thought it was fine not to mention it until now? But nobody comments on this, so I’m going to chalk it up to yet another awkward unintended implication. Wait, I mean, THIS GAME IS A MASTERPIECE. SO PERFECT. NO SCABS INVOLVED.

Albedo’s eyes are now brimming with tears, because he’s realized something about this gift of his. “You’re both gonna die and leave me behind?” One day we will all die and leave Albedo behind. I can’t wait, personally. He lets out a sobbing “Noooooo!” and throws himself into Rubedo’s chest. “I don’t wanna be alone! If you die, I wanna die, too.” Rubedo tells him to “Stop it,” and basically starts crying because Albedo’s crying, for the love of God, but Nigredo just backs up, like he either doesn’t want to intrude on their bond, or is feeling way put out about it. It can be both.

'Don't be silly. Of course McRib will be back someday.'

‘Don’t be silly. Of course McRib will be back someday.’

This particular blast from the past concluded, a white flash takes us from Albedo’s despondent howling to the cheery background music of the Yuriev Institute. I spend a lot of time wondering if this type of dissonance is intentional, because there’s a lot of it in this game. No matter! KOS-MOS already sees Albedo’s backside disappearing into a secluded copse in the courtyard. I was going to say she follows suit despite her best judgment, but it’s possible Shion programmed her judgment modules. And if not her, Kevin, and his judgment included banging Shion.

At the foot of a tree in this gloomy area, Albedo is on his knees, digging a hole in the dirt. Next to this hole is a mound, a crude cross made of sticks poking out of it and flowers in front of it. So it’s unmistakably a grave, but I also just said the words “stick,” “poking,” and “mound,” and you can deal with these details however you like. This time, we get to see Team Encephalon react to the scene. Shion asks Jailbait what Albedo is doing. “I don’t know, but…ever since that day…ever since Albedo learned he couldn’t die, he somehow started to change.” The looming, sinister music, as well as Albedo acting real fucking weird, should be selling me on this being a dark turning point for our antagonist, but as ever with these fucking Encephalon journeys, I am stuck on logistics. Jailbait doesn’t know what this is about, because Rubedo is not present! How are they even seeing this? But Shion brings me back to the moment by asking, “Really?” I was about to get all bitchy with her, like “Yeah Shion, Rubedo is lying to you about this for no reason,” but she has a point. They just witnessed Albedo going HAM on one of the lesser clones over absolutely nothing, and that was definitely before he was dealt this crisis of (im)mortality. Either way, Rubedo ignores this. “We didn’t understand. There was no way we could have understood… We couldn’t know what it felt like to have a body that wouldn’t die.” Well, when you put it like that, who wouldn’t feel so misunderstood that they morph into a mustache-twirling maniac who kidnaps little girls and plants bombs in their brains? POOR ALBEDO.

Ziggy’s contribution to this is to tell Jailbait, “Death is rest for the soul. Who was it who said that?” Well, judging by the entirety of the Google results I got for that quote, it was Ziggy who said that. Oops! It’s possible I’ve just created a time paradox. “If the body did not die, and the fears borne in the mind just continued to pile up, the world would be nothing more than an eternal prison.” The camera spends a lot of time centered on KOS-MOS as she nods to these words, when KOS-MOS is near the bottom of the list of people present for whom I’d consider Ziggy’s words relevant, certainly way below Ziggy himself. She is arguably not even alive! Jailbait just goes, “Old man…” and hangs his head. “In the beginning,” he explains, “Albedo and I were one.” Shion asks, “Because you’re both from the same fertilized egg?” and her totally earnest delivery has been making me laugh for a solid minute. Like, she really thought she cracked the code on this one. But of course, it is more than that: “He was literally attached to my back from conception until the 28th week.” Pointing behind his back to his right shoulder blade, he adds, “His heart was attached right around here.” Yes, Rubedo and Albedo were conjoined twins–Canaan actually already noted this, but let’s assume it’s news to everyone but CHAOS!!!. That said, we’re all on the same page now, right? Conjoined twins. Not just close, but, like, SUPER CLOSE. This is something we can all understand, biologically and metaphorically!

“What?” Shion asks. If Shion is merely expressing surprise at this revelation and not genuine confusion at the concept, we’ll never know, because KOS-MOS jumps at this opportunity to help: “Occasionally, due to incomplete cell division, twins are born sharing some portion of their internal organs.” Yup! KOS-MOS literally just explained conjoined twins to Dr. Shion. And this is not some long-forgotten condition eradicated by thousands of years of medical advances, since these boys were born 26 years ago. But also, while I’m here, that isn’t an accurate explanation of how Rubedo and Albedo were conjoined. He just said they were attached chest-to-back, not that they shared a heart. “That’s right,” Jailbait says. Just fucking shoot me into the sun.

“Our special abilities, the power to halt or stimulate cell growth, are both based on the same basic principle,” Jailbait says. “But after we were split apart, our powers headed off in different directions.” The implication here is that their powers were totally simpatico in the womb, and in a recap of any other series that would be the most ridiculous thing I could possibly say. I think this is also the first time Jailbait has stated why he is permanently a boy, but nobody comments on it, though I personally find it somewhat counterintuitive and therefore am flummoxed that Shion has no questions about it. If Jailbait can halt cell growth, wouldn’t he actually age and mature more and look like a gross old man because his cells just wither? And if Albedo is the immortal one, wouldn’t he be the one who remains a boy forever, since he would keep regenerating boy-heads? I don’t know. I’m sure I’ve thought myself into a knot here, and KOS-MOS is going to have to explain to Shion that some people have double-jointed brains.

Jailbait is really feeling his guilt now, finishing, “And that’s why I shouldn’t have just abandoned him.” If he means the super-busy night the Miltian Conflict ended, didn’t Albedo just freak out and run away after his UUUUUUUUU-DOOOOOOOOO infestation took hold? And weren’t Rubedo and Nigredo literally airlifted out of there, the latter half-dead? And then Albedo didn’t show up again until recently? That doesn’t strike me as abandonment, other than the letting go of his hand and fucking them all over part of it. Man, never mind, I just talked myself into it. The point is, there is a LOT to unpack between these two, and it might be too much for them to ever overcome. Which means it’s a perfect time for Shion to say, “Couldn’t you try just one more time to approach him?” I don’t know, couldn’t YOU just try one more time to be cool to Jin, if you of all people are going to deploy the “BUT YOU’RE FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMILY” card? I’m really trying with this woman, I swear, but she makes it difficult. Jailbait–to either his credit or detriment, I cannot decide–considers this. “Well, you know…we’re both pretty stubborn.” Yeah! Hoo-eee, these stubborn magical clone twins! Hopefully they can just see sense and let bygones be bygones, so Gaignun will stop crying in the bathroom every Thanksgiving! WHAT ARE WE EVEN DOING HERE, ALBEDO IS A FUCKING TERRORIST.

On this pat note the scene ends, and I don’t think we ever find out what exactly Albedo was burying in the woods. So…what was that about?

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With that mystery left unsolved and intriguing no one but me, KOS-MOS moves on to the next mandated Flashback of Portent, back in the Encephalon pod room. The boys are all in their pods again, and as Yuriev, Dr. Yuri, and–goddamn, this dude is everywhere–Mace Windu observe, a woman announces they are beginning “neural monitoring of unit number 666.” Though it’s really monitoring of them all, as Albedo’s “brain wave frequency” changing an entire 8 Hz prompts Yuriev to deadpan, “Calm down, children. Don’t get flustered.” Shit, man, I can’t wait until Yuriev sees what Albedo not being calm actually looks like. Funnier still, when Albedo drops back down to his normal frequency, Yuriev goes, “That’s better,” like he actually helped. This fucking guy. I bet he doesn’t even remember which number is which.