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In From the New World (episode 18), during the Summer Festival attack, Koufuu Hino is protecting the people:

I'm a fan

And he got killed by a sneak attack from the Monster Rats.

Upon his death, uh, his eyes kind of shot a beam of light into the sky, and a figure of a woman appeared. Apparently, she smiled at Saki.

What exactly happened there? Who was that woman supposed to be?

I'm a face

senshin
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Saturn
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  • I checked the corresponding part of the novel (part V-3, p. 667 of the one-volume version) a little while back in hopes of answering this question, but the novel didn't contain much extra detail. Hino Koufuu is only mentioned a few times after that in passing, with no mention of this woman. – senshin Jun 12 '14 at 20:04
  • "There was the image of a woman holding a child in the dying flames of the mobile library. But in the same episode, there was also the figure of a woman holding a scythe in the storm created when the monk released his cantus. In retrospect, we never did get an explanation for that." - from Reddit so this & senshin's search sound like there isn't a direct answer. – Daz C Jun 18 '14 at 23:06
  • @DazC The image of a woman that arose when the moving library (the false minoshiro) died was explicitly a defense mechanism designed to trigger death feedback in whoever attacked it. In the novel, Saki speculates that false minoshiro triggered the image too late (i.e. after Rijin had already delivered a fatal blow), suggesting that ordinarily, the false minoshiro would project that image as a pre-emptive defense. – senshin Jun 19 '14 at 16:12

1 Answers1

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This scene was never actually explained as far as I'm aware.

It's possible that it was his Cantus leaving his body and returning to Heaven, as he states "the art within me is losing it's flame," which may be a reference to the ceremony when one receives their Cantus, during which they look into a flame and say their Mantra. However this explanation doesn't explain who the woman is. (but doesn't she look a bit like Saki?)

Perhaps she was a hallucination by Saki. She did have a few of them that night after all.

Izumi-reiLuLu
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