TOC - Category Placement Links

I have two containers.
Container A (Required)
Cat a1
Cat a2
Cat a3

Container B (Distant Parent of Container A)
Cat b1
Cat b2

The TOC Link to Distant neighbors is enabled and set. (BOTH)
Before (as a 'prev' or 'up' link)
After (as a 'next' link

The issue I'm having is Cat b1 & b2 are the parents of all Cat a1, a2, a3 always display in the links as the neighbor of Cat a1 when I don't want them too.

I want to Show assigned node count in TOC ~ show the parent categories node count [this works]
AND I would like the (prev, next) links to always show a1, a2, a3 (DONE) [this doesn't not work]

Unfortunately they are displaying starting from a1:
Container 1 UP b1
a1 UP b2
b1 UP (DONE)
Starting from a2 they display:
UP a2
a1 UP (DONE)

a2 never links back to a1 and a1 never links to a2.

How do I get the links not to show the distant parent containers in the middle of the prev, next links?
How do I get better control on what shows in the TOC and what doesn't show in the TOC?

Any help is greatly appreciated.