The following article contains spoilers for To Your Eternity Season 2, Episode 1, "Infatuation Reborn", now streaming on Crunchyroll.
After spending 40 years alone fighting Nokkers on a deserted island, the Fushi's self-imposed exile is brought to a sudden end by an unexpected arrival. After reacclimating viewers with the shape-shifting immortal's plight, To Your Eternity's second season premiere drops a bombshell by introducing Hisame -- the self-proclaimed granddaughter of Hayase.
A high-ranking official from the country of Yanome, Hayase spent To Your Eternity's second arc terrorizing Fushi and his newfound friends March and Parona. While Fushi managed to escape, Hayase wound up killing March and capturing Parona. When Hayase returned in the "Jananda Island" arc, she revealed she had killed Parona and was now intent on capturing and controlling Fushi for herself in an act of twisted infatuation for the immortal.
Hisame Has Inherited Her Grandmother Hayase's Will
Despite Hayase wreaking havoc on Jananda and goading Fushi into killing her, he left her alive -- but alone and restrained in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean. After being rescued by an unsuspecting fisherman, Hayase's fate afterward in To Your Eternity was left ambiguous -- until now.
After cheerfully introducing herself to Fushi, Hisame explains that she's the leader of the Guardians, a guild founded by her late grandmother to protect Fushi. Revealing that she knows everything about him from her grandmother's autobiography, she offers her help to Fushi, but the immortal is clearly unnerved by the sight of his nemesis's nine-year-old doppelganger.
As Fushi departs for the island where the Beholder told him Nokkers were attacking, Hisame and her fellow Guardians follow close behind, continuing to offer assistance. Although Fushi repeatedly refuses their help, he senses that Hisame isn't a threat, and shows concern for the young girl when it's revealed that she has a Nokker infecting her arm. While Fushi insists on cutting her arm off, Hisame refuses, revealing the Nokker was a ''gift'' passed down from her grandmother and that it protects her. She then claims that she's Hayase's reincarnation, with her grandmother claiming before Hisame's birth that she would be born again as her future granddaughter.
The Beholder Explains the Nature of ''Fyes'' to Fushi
While it sounds like Hayase's typical twisted brand of narcissism, the Beholder reveals to Fushi that there may be credence to Hisame's claim. It's here that the Beholder drops a major revelation about the nature of To Your Eternity's world, explaining that all living things are vessels for ''fye'' -- in other words, the soul. He elaborates that once a person's body dies, their fye goes somewhere else of its own free will. Fushi takes great relief knowing the spirits of his fallen friends like March, Gugu and Pioran continue to exist in another plane. The Beholder goes on to explain that the fye can also choose another vessel, and Hayase's fye may have been passed on to Hisame.
Given that reincarnation resets a fye's memories, Fushi acknowledges that Hisame and Hayase are still distinct people, and refuses to blame the granddaughter for the grandmother's sins. Still, he admits that Hisame makes him uneasy, and he wants to get over his underlying discomfort. The Beholder suggests that Fushi gradually let his walls down around her, and eventually his anxiety around her will go away.
When Fushi, Hisame and the Guardians finally arrive at the fishing village where the Nokkers have been attacking, they find it mostly evacuated. The party are greeted by a man and woman who arrived to help against the attacks, and the duo reveal that they know Fushi -- thanks to the Guardians' preachings, the immortal protagonist is now famous across the land.
An Unexpected Fushi Ally Returns and Thwarts Hisame's Plans
Over dinner, the woman warns Fushi that the Guardians just want to own him. Hisame argues against this accusation, insisting they just want to protect him, and the two bicker. The woman then regales a seemingly random anecdote of how she trained herself to resist various poisons, and just as Fushi questions where the tale is going, both he and the woman's male companion suddenly collapse face-first into their food.
The woman reveals to Hisame that she knows the Guardians poisoned their food, but that she is immune. When Hisame orders the Guardians to restrain the woman, a familiar bird-of-prey swoops in and knocks them out. As the owl perches on the woman's shoulder, Hisame recognizes the woman as Tonari Dalton -- Fushi's main ally during the "Jananda Island" arc who helped rescue him from Hayase's clutches in Season 1.
It's a tense note to end To Your Eternity's Season 2 premiere on, and while it's terrifying to know that Hayase's machinations have persisted for 40 years, it's equally reassuring to know the friendships Fushi forged have endured as well.