To Your Eternityseason two, episode eight, “Beyond Dreams”, has probably brought us the best way a friend of Fushi’s could have died. That may sound a bit callous, but the episode itself starts right off with Bon’s execution. While in the middle of it, everyone in the assembly suddenly falls unconscious. Cyrila is awoken from where he stands on the podium, and he leaps to his feet to see everyone collapsed in heaps on the ground,fast asleep. Worried that Fushi came to ruin the execution, Cyrila turns to Bon, trapped in the guillotine, and smiles at seeing his bloody, headless corpse. The Church of Bennett has won; they killed Prince Bon.
Bon wakes up to his ghosts, and they assure him when he asks that he is indeed dead. Bon accepts that easy enough, so he’s completely caught off guard when Fushi, wearing Rean’s face, comes around the corner and welcomes him back home to Uralis. Bon is confused, and Fushi leads him towards his castle, where down in the courtyard, his family his crying at his funeral. Fushi explains that he knew Bon had the right idea by staying behind, but hedidn’t believe that was the only option. Fushi talked to Kahaku, and they flipped through Tonari’s journal for any ideas. There, they found a certain anesthetic that induces a harmless sleep. Fushi learned how to create this by consuming it, and he released it in the form of an owl flying overhead at Bon’s execution. Once everyone was asleep, Fushi made a Bon corpse for them to decapitate, and the two friends fled back to Uralis.
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Bon’s Survival
Bon tearfully reunites with his family, who are in on the secret of his survival unlike the rest of the world. Bon is completely shellshocked by his own good fortune, and all the character development he gained while imprisoned is still present. He formally and sincerely thanks Fushi for saving his life.
Bon has to change his entire appearance since he now must take on a new identity. He cuts off all his hair, removes his makeup, and wears mundane clothes by Uralis standards. When he can finally goout in public without people recognizing him, he walks with Kahaku to where his sister, Fushi, and Todo - well, Iris, now - are having a tea party. He is stopped by a guard and is almost sent away until Poccoa gives him an alias. It’s hard for Bon to recognize Iris because of her extreme weight loss due to famine. He now recognizes her as that one girl he spoke to when he was younger.
Bon and Iris have an awkward reunion, but it’s sweet nonetheless. He asks to see the handkerchief she had be working on, and she shyly ands it over along with her old one for years ago thatshe left at his bedsidebefore she had to leave the castle. The queen did not suffer girls from the town to talk to Prince Bon, and so she had to leave. Then, a sweet shop opened in her hometown, and she gained a lot of weight in cake.
Bon has to excuse himself and hides out in his old room, throwing a bit of a fit. Chabo,who is happy, healthy, and bringing a platter of foodtell him that this is the prince’s old room, so Bon shouldn’t be here. While those two become reconnected, Iris and Fushi come to the door. Bon gets overwhelmed by their presence and snaps at Iris. He tells her that the girl he knew that looked like her wouldneverbehave like her.
Bon’s New Look
Iris leaves in a rush of hurt, and Chabo tells Bon off for throwing a hissy fit. She frantically starts stuffing food in her mouth, screaming that she was going to return to her Todo identity, but Bon runs to her side and stops her. He tells her she cannot impersonate a dead soldier’s identity, and if the prince were alive, he’d thank her for saving his life. Behind them, fireworks alight the sky as the people celebrate the fallen prince.
Iris, after Bon asks her, agrees to stay at the castle, and Chabo comments on how the three of them were like a family, much to the embarrassment of the two adults. With everything settled, Fushi decides to take his leave. His comrades see him off, and Bon asks him how he would feel if his friends became immortal. Fushi answers that he would love it of course, but he’s cut offby feeling a surge of pain from somewhere.
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Bon and Fushi follow it to find Kahaku in his tent, trying to cut out the Nokker in his arm. He’s drunk and telling them that the Guardians are finished because of what happened with Fushi’s new status as a heretic. The woman he loves hates him, and he does not have any children to carry on Hayase’s legacy. While Fushi tries to help his wound, the Nokker in Kahaku’s arm grabs the knife and starts writing in the sand.
This is our first time communicating with a Nokker, and the trio appropriately ask what the Nokkers want. It replies that they are trying to free their friends, pointing at Bon’s chest as an example. The Beholder emerges and comments dryly on how he understands now, but itsn’t, impressed. He explains a little further that Nokkers are just fye - or the word thatTo Your Eternityusesto mean soul- and that they long to free other souls from painful, mortal bodies. He also comments on how pathetic it is a philosophy, because are they also going to make every animal cross over, too?
Kahaku’s Nokker
Kahaku’s Nokker then tells Fushi that they plan on attacking the Church of Bennett. Bon comments that they picked a spot that is difficult to defend for them, but Fushi already starts heading that way. Bon also packs up to follow him, Iris promising to wait as long as it takes.
As Fushi sets up to defend the Church of Bennett, the people who have caused him nothing but grief for months, he smiles and shifts into Gugu, happy that he now doesn’t have to hold back against something he doesn’t understand. He’s more than ready for a Nokker war.
