Asuna and Mimi part ways

Asuna Watase and Mimi part ways when Asuna leaves the village with Ryuuji Morisaki. The separation turns a journey onward into a loss she cannot resolve by simply calling Mimi to follow: the cat remains with Manna, and Asuna must leave without her. Mimi’s later death gives the parting a further consequence, while the ritual surrounding her body offers a way to understand loss that Asuna herself has not yet had the chance to accept.

Departure at Dawn

At dawn, the old man leads Asuna and Ryuuji Morisaki to the village dock and provides them with a canoe-like boat. The practical preparations for departure are accompanied by a quieter farewell: Asuna hugs the elder wordlessly, and he pats her back. Her wish to linger over her good-byes is already in conflict with the need to go. She recognizes that if she asks for more time, she may never manage to leave, and can therefore appreciate Morisaki’s seemingly heartless insistence on moving forward. She wonders whether his manner may conceal loneliness too.

That tension makes the encounter with Mimi more than another farewell among many. Asuna turns back and calls for the cat to come with her. Mimi is perched on Manna’s head; she answers with a meow but does not move. The intended departure is physically close, yet Asuna cannot make Mimi cross the distance between them.

Mimi Stays with Manna

Asuna’s protest rests on the history of their companionship: she cries that they have always been together. For a moment, she considers the possibility that Mimi might be more than an ordinary cat, then rejects it; Mimi is only a cat, and still the bond remains powerful. That distinction sharpens the scene rather than diminishing it. Asuna does not need Mimi to be a god for losing her to hurt: their shared life is enough to make the separation unbearable.

Mimi continues to sit on Manna’s head and will not budge. Asuna watches her with anxious impatience, then pleads again when Ryuuji Morisaki begins to leave. Mimi only gazes steadily at her. The scene gives Asuna repeated opportunities to call, protest, and turn back, but no response changes the outcome. Mimi’s stillness is the decisive fact: she does not follow Asuna.

Morisaki Helps Asuna Leave

Ryuuji Morisaki intervenes not by persuading Mimi, but by helping Asuna accept that she must go without her. He quietly tells Asuna that they will have to accept it and asks the elder to take care of Mimi. His words place the cat’s care in Manna’s and the elder’s hands, even as Asuna struggles to entrust her to them. The request acknowledges that leaving Mimi behind is not the same as ceasing to care for her.

Asuna protests that it is not over, but Mimi is already getting farther away. She calls to Manna to take care of Mimi and urges Mimi to listen to Manna. Her final appeals redirect the bond rather than erase it: if Asuna cannot remain beside Mimi, she asks Manna to look after her. The departure therefore ends in an unresolved image of distance, with Asuna calling back while Mimi remains with the people who stay in the village.

Mimi’s Death and the Village Ritual

In the following chapter, Shin wakes to sobbing and finds Manna holding Mimi’s still body. He understands that Mimi has died and immediately thinks of how upset Asuna would be if she learned of it. The separation thus acquires a second, irreversible dimension: Asuna left Mimi behind alive, but the next account of Mimi reaches the reader through her death and the grief of those who remained with her.

After Manna has stopped crying, the old man takes her and Shin to a plain outside the village. Manna lays Mimi’s body on a solitary stone pedestal. A Quetzal Coatl approaches from the horizon, takes the body in its hands, and places it in its mouth. The old man describes this as a way for lives to become part of something greater. Shin, however, asks whether Asuna will be able to see the loss that way, since she has lost someone who meant a great deal to her. His question preserves the difference between a communal explanation of death and the particular grief of the person who loved Mimi. The ritual gives Mimi’s death a place in the village’s understanding of life, but it cannot undo the separation or make Asuna’s absence from the farewell immaterial.