Player Next Button not obeying triggers

Hi everyone! I'm assisting a coworker with this one and we're both stumped.

There are 4 characters on slide 5.5 and each is clickable to launch into a branching scenario. Slide 5.6 is character 1, slide 5.8 is character 2, slide 5.7 is character 3, and slide 5.12 is character 4. I tried to map out here how the navigation should be working in this screenshot; each character's branch should navigate back to slide 5.5 when the learner clicks the player "next" button. Initially the next button on 5.5 is disabled until all 4 characters are changed to a "visited" state and then it navigates on the blue arrow to scene 6. 

Instead, what's happening is if you click the next button on 5.6 it navigates to 5.8, then from 5.11 it navigates to 5.7, and then from 5.7 to 5.12. So it's reading left to right in this diagram and disobeying the triggers we have set. If I disable all next button triggers and remove the next button from the player on those slides, I can have it navigate correctly by using alternative triggers like a custom "close" button or "jump to slide 5.5 when timeline ends". Unfortunately, this fix doesn't really fit with our company's preferred method of design.

These are the triggers on each of the 4 branching character slides (5.6, 5.8, 5.7, and 5.12): 

I did also try to change the navigation from within the question form view, but that didn't seem to change anything: 

Any ideas on why the next button is still just going to the "next" slide, instead of jumping to slide 5.5. like the trigger states?