To Your Eternity – S2 16 – Cheat Code

Fueled by rage and his hatred of Nokkers, Fushi punches it into overdrive, constantly transforming into different vessels once he gets exhausted, which happens at different intervals with different vessels. Then, when the Nokkers have Fushi cornered, he is rescued … by Kai, Hylo, and Messar, who have been resurrected.

We later learn Bon did so by disconnecting the bodies from Fushi by cutting the rope. It’s Bon’s way of easing Fushi into the realization that he is capable of resurrecting dead people; the three warriors are a trial run. Fushi puts them to good use, but in cases where he transports them from one distant location to another, the fastest way to do so is for them to die.

As the logistics of defending Renril continue to grow in complexity as the battle rages on, the cycle of death and rebirth, and recycling of material (both rubble and corpses) takes on a nightmarish scale and level of efficiency. Fushi can pretty much infinitely conjure crossbow bolts, gun bullets, and the bodies of his three deathless allies.

This is the kind of shit that gives Kahaku pause, because the more Fushi takes on and creates with his expanding powers, the more he risks losing his humanity. You can see it in his relatively blank expression when the warriors decide to kill themselves as a shortcut.

When Kamu and the other citizen soldiers restrain Kahaku, they fear he’s a Nokker (he also cuts off Yuiss’ arm because she got infected, so he really saved her life). Kahaku, perhaps given unique perpective by his left arm, still sees “the black demon” as the ultimate puppet master and not someone deserving of loyalty.

Kahaku is on Fushi’s side; the only one looking after his well-being as a person. Everyone else considers that a luxury they can’t afford, they, including Bon, need him operating at peak efficiency and, where the Nokkers are concerned, peak lethality.

So it’s heartening as Fushi continues to get swept up in a maelstrom of death and destruction with no end in sight, he happens to spot March’s unmistakable calling card: a handprint that indicates she’s “doing great”. I wish I could say the same of Fushi!

Kino no Tabi – 07

Eating a hot dog reminds Kino of a time she once unsuccessfully tried to get one over on her Master, who was cooking hot dogs at the time. Kino then shares a story with Hermes that her Master shared with her, about a country with a big clock tower and, suspiciously, an even bigger police force.

When Master’s young male apprentice is framed for drug possession and locked up, and she is unable to bribe the dirty cop to let him go, Master uses some of her Apprentice’s infiltration equipment and uses an elaborate set of diversions in the form of city-wide trash can bombs to clear the jail of police and slip in wearing one of their uniforms.

The Apprentice knew she would come—like Kino, he knows very well how good she is—and the question is not can they leave, but how. Both Master and Apprentice agree to make a bang rather than sneak out; demonstrate their full power to an arrogant bully that could use a good nosebleed.

For three days and nights they hole up in the central clock tower, shooting any and all policemen who draw within range, but not killing anyone; only wounding them. They cause such a disturbance, the police start to lose their grip on the country, as the public and their leaders demand something be done.

Master and Apprentice do not relent as smaller and smaller formations of police form up at the base of the tower. All are scattered by gunfire, until the very petty-tyrant commanding officer who sat on his petty throne and told Master no price was high enough to free her companion, is now the one who must offer a price to the Master—and it better be high enough, or more bullets will rain down.

It’s a good story, and one I’d think was apocryphal were it not for the somewhat magical realist nature of Kino’s world. Not to mention it just makes sense that the woman who made Kino the kind of “traveler” she is would be that badass!

Kino just so happens to be in the neck of the woods of that Clock Tower Country, and when she arrives in the courtyard where many shots were once fired without taking a life, she finds a monument made from a door blown off one of the police trucks back then.

An old man with a cane and and a granddaughter explains to Kino and Hermes that the memorial is a tribute to the two “Travelers of Justice” whose brazen acts freed the people from a corrupt and oppressive law enforcement system by essentially wearing them down until they grew ashamed of their conduct and shaped up.

Kino and Hermes alike are a bit amused that the country took Master and her Apprentice’s actions in such high esteem, but was the Master simply keeping her skills sharp in service of escaping the country, or did she have grander plans for that three-day-and-night stand?

We’ll never know, nor will Kino, but after this black-and-white and sepia-tinged look back to the past, she turns Hermes around and continues forward, into that Beautiful World, to  make some history of her own.