Miyo lays beside her Sleeping Beauty Kiyoka, and Arata instructs her to take his hand so that her soul can leave her body and travel to meet his, using her Dream-Sight ability. But while he seems locked in an endless battle with grotesqueries, she ends up in a dark dream version of the now-destroyed Saimori house.
In addition to giving off creepy vibes, I knew that this is the place her mind strayed to because there’s still a part of her trapped in the storeroom. That part addresses her directly, insisting that she doesn’t deserve Kiyoka, and that anyone she gets close to meets with misfortune. To our Miyo’s credit, she’s past this kind of treatment and doesn’t let it get to her.
She admits she once believed she only deserved to be alone, and was scared of getting hurt, but now she willingly and forcefully advances on her old self, breaking through the brambles she created, eventually replacing the dour storeroom with a cloudy pink void and taking on the garb of the Dream Maiden. She hugs her old self and says she’s going to live a happy life by her husband-to-be’s side. The other Miyo smiles and gives her blessing.
As Miyo was locked in a battle of words with her less confident self, Kiyoka was starting to wear down as the enemies won’t stop coming. He even loses the hair tie Miyo made for him, but that ends up guiding her to where he is. She arrives in a flash of dazzling white light, takes her place beside him, and blocks the dread grotesqueries with a shield of, well, let’s call it goodness.
Even when the Emperor joins the monks presently directing the grotesqueries against Kiyoka and merges them into one huge boss bearing his face, nobody is any match for Miyo in the dream world. With her powers unsealed and fully realized, she’s able to raise her hand and tell the Emperor himself to begone, and he and his monks explode in a burst of flame in the waking world. Good riddance, assholes!
With the enemy defeated, the dark, blood-red forest fades away, replaced by a majestic blue sky, reflective ground, and resplendent blooming sakura tree. Miyo ties Kiyoka’s hair back and apologizes for saying she “didn’t care” what happened to her earlier. Kiyoka apologizes for losing his temper and saying “something unreasonable”. They embrace in joy and relief, and when they hear their friends and family calling to them, they wake up together.
In the midst of the tearful reunion, Arata slips out, but Miyo stops him, asking if he’s leaving. Arata says his work here is done, and that he only did what he wanted to do—for perhaps the first time in his life. Kiyoka tells him he’ll challenge him to a rematch one day—hopefully for lower stakes!
Miyo and Kiyoka then return to their home together, and a series of happy days follows. They’re happy for Miyo because she now knows what happiness is to her: being by her husband-to-be’s side, whether it’s for a meal or laughing or talking about anything or nothing at all. One by one, those moments big and small weave together to form an ever-stronger tapestry of love.
In the final scene, Miyo makes her debut at a party in a gorgeous Western dress, and she and Kiyoka reassert their intention to marry and remain together forever. It’s an achingly adorable capper to an equally heart-bursting episode and season, and it’s thankfully not the last season, as a second has already been confirmed.
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