After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

back door
. Even if he 
asked, he knew he wouldn’t get an answer. The only thing for sure was that his 
methods weren’t legal. He would start by trying to bribe somebody inside. If 
necessary he might try trespassing. If computers were involved, things could get 
complicated. 
There were only a few government offices and companies that managed 
information by computer. It cost too much and took too much effort. But a religious 
organization of national scale would have the resources to computerize. Ushikawa 
himself knew next to nothing about computers. He did understand, however, that 
computers were becoming an indispensable tool for gathering information. Earlier 
ways of finding information—going to the National Diet Library, sitting at a desk 
with piles of bound, small-sized editions of old newspapers, or almanacs—might soon 
become a thing of the past. The world might be reduced to a battlefield, the smell of 
blood everywhere, where computer managers and hackers fought it out. No, “the 
smell of blood” isn’t accurate, Ushikawa decided. It was a war, so there was bound to 
be some bloodshed. But there wouldn’t be any smell. What a weird world. Ushikawa 
preferred a world where smells and pain still existed, even if the smells and pain were 
unendurable. Still, people like Ushikawa might become out-of-date relics. 
But Ushikawa wasn’t pessimistic. He had an innate sense of intuition, and his 
unique olfactory organ let him sniff out and distinguish all sorts of odors. He could 
physically feel, in his skin, how things were trending. Computers couldn’t do this. 
This was the kind of ability that couldn’t be quantified or systematized. Skillfully 
accessing a heavily guarded computer and extracting information was the job of a 
hacker. But deciding which information to extract, and sifting through massive 
amounts of information to find what is useful, was something only a flesh-and-blood 
person could do. 
Maybe I am just an ugly, middle-aged, outdated man
, Ushikawa thought. 
Nope, no 
maybes about it. I am, without a doubt, one ugly, middle-aged, outdated man. But I do 
have a couple of talents nobody else has. And as long as I have these talents, no 
matter what sort of weird world I find myself in, I’ll survive
. 
I’m going to get you, Miss Aomame. You are quite clever, to be sure. Skilled, and 
cautious. But I’m going to chase after you until I catch you. So wait for me. I’m 
heading your way. Can you hear my footsteps? I don’t believe you can. I’m like a 
tortoise, hardly making a sound. But step by step, I am getting closer
. 
But Ushikawa felt something else pressing on him from behind. Time. Pursuing 
Aomame meant simultaneously shaking off time, which was in pursuit of him. He had 
to track her down quickly, clarify who was backing her, and present it all, nice and 
neat, on a plate to the people from Sakigake. He had been given a limited amount of 
time. It would be too late to find out everything, say, three months from now. Up until 
recently he had been a very valuable person to them. Capable and accommodating, 
well versed in legal matters, a man they could count on to keep his mouth shut. 
Someone who could work off the grid. But in the end, he was simply a hired jack-of-
all-trades. He wasn’t one of them, a member of their family. He was a man without a 
speck of religious devotion. If he became a danger to the religion, they might 
eliminate him with no qualms whatever. 

---

580
While he waited for Bat to return his call, Ushikawa went to the library to look into 
the history and activities of the Witnesses. He took notes and made copies of relevant 
documents. He liked doing research at a library. He liked the feeling of accumulating 
knowledge in his brain. It was something he had enjoyed ever since he was a child. 
Once he had finished at the library, he went to Aomame’s apartment in Jiyugaoka, 
to make sure once more that it was unoccupied. The mailbox still had her name on it, 
but no one seemed to be living there. He stopped by the office of the real estate agent 
who handled the rental. 
“I heard that there was a vacant apartment in the building,” Ushikawa said, “and I 
was wondering if I could rent it.” 
“It is vacant, yes,” the agent told him, “but no one can move in until the beginning 
of February. The rental contract with the present occupant doesn’t expire until the end 
of next January. They are going to be paying the monthly rent the same as always 
until then. They have moved everything out and the electricity and water have been 
shut off. But the lease remains intact.” 
“So until the end of January, they’re paying rent for an empty apartment?” 
“Correct,” the real estate agent said. “They said they will pay the entire amount 
owed on the lease so they would like us to keep the apartment as it is. As long as they 
pay the rent, we can’t object.” 
“It’s a strange thing—wasting money to pay for an empty apartment.” 
“Well, I was concerned myself, so I had the owner accompany me and let me in to 
take a look at the place. I wouldn’t want there to be a mummified body in the closet or 
anything. But nothing was there. The place had been nicely cleaned. It was simply 
empty. I have no idea, though, what the circumstances are.” 
Aomame was obviously no longer living there. But for some reason they still 
wanted her listed as nominally renting the place, which is why they were paying four 
months’ rent for an empty apartment. Whoever 
they
were, they were cautious, and not 
hurting for money. 
Precisely ten days later, in the early afternoon, Bat called Ushikawa’s office in 
Kojimachi. 
“Mr. Ushikawa,” the hoarse voice said. In the background, there was the usual 
emptiness—a complete lack of any sound. 
“Speaking.” 
“Do you mind if we talk now?” 
“That would be fine,” Ushikawa said. 
“The Witnesses had very tight security. But I was expecting that. I was able to get 
the information related to Aomame okay.” 
“No homing missile?” 
“Nothing so far.” 
“Glad to hear it.” 
“Mr. Ushikawa,” the man said, and he cleared his throat a few times. “I’m really 
sorry, but could you put out the cigarette?” 

---

581
“Cigarette?” he asked, glancing at the Seven Stars between his fingers. Smoke 
silently swirled up toward the ceiling. “You’re right, I am smoking, but how can you 
tell?” 
“Obviously I can’t smell it. Just hearing your breathing makes it hard for me to 
breathe. I have terrible allergies, you see.” 
“I see. I hadn’t noticed. My apologies.” 
The man cleared his throat a few times. “I’m not blaming you, Mr. Ushikawa. I 
wouldn’t expect you to notice.” 
Ushikawa crushed the cigarette out in the ashtray and poured some tea he had been 
drinking over it. He stood up and opened the window wide. 
“I put out the cigarette, opened the window, and let in some fresh air. Not that the 
air outside is all that clean.” 
“Sorry for the trouble.” 
Silence continued for about ten seconds. A total, absolute quiet. 
“So, you were able to get the information from the Witnesses?” Ushikawa asked. 
“Yes. Quite a lot, actually. The Aomame family are devout, long-time members, so 
there was plenty of material related to them. It is probably easiest if I give you the 
whole file, and then at your end you decide what is important material and what 
isn’t.” 
Ushikawa agreed. That was what he had been hoping for. 
“The sports club wasn’t much of a problem—just open the door, go in, do your 
job, shut the door, that’s it. Time was kind of limited, so I grabbed everything I could. 
There’s a lot of material here too. I’ll send over a folder with both sets of material. As 
usual, in exchange for the fee.” 
Ushikawa wrote down the fee that Bat gave him. It was about twenty percent 
higher than the estimate. Not that he had a choice. 
“I don’t want to use the mail this time, so a messenger will bring it over to your 
place tomorrow. Please have the fee ready. And as usual, don’t expect a receipt.” 
“All right,” Ushikawa replied. 
“I mentioned this before, but I will repeat it just to make sure. I was able to get all 
the available information on the topic you asked me to look into. So even if you aren’t 
satisfied with it, I take no responsibility. I did everything that was technically 
possible. Compensation was for the time and effort involved, not the results. So 
please don’t ask me to give your money back if you don’t find the information you’re 
looking for. I would like you to acknowledge this point.” 
“I do,” Ushikawa replied. 
“Another thing is that I wasn’t able to obtain a photograph of Miss Aomame, no 
matter how much I tried,” Bat said. “All photos of her have been carefully removed.” 
“Understood. That’s okay,” Ushikawa said. 
“Her face may be different by now,” Bat commented. 
“Maybe so,” Ushikawa said. 
Bat cleared his throat several times. “Well, that’s it,” he said, and hung up. 
Ushikawa put the phone back in its cradle, sighed, and placed a new cigarette 
between his lips. He lit it with his lighter, and slowly exhaled smoke in the direction 
of the phone. 

---

582
The next afternoon, a young woman visited his office. She was probably not yet 
twenty. She had on a short white dress that revealed the curves of her body, matching 
white high heels, and pearl earrings. Her earlobes were large for her small face. She 
was barely five feet tall. She wore her hair long and straight, and her eyes were big 
and bright. She looked like a fairy in training. The woman looked straight at 
Ushikawa and smiled a cheerful, intimate smile, as if she were viewing something 
precious she would never forget. Neatly aligned white teeth peeked out happily from 
between her tiny lips. Perhaps it was just her business smile. Very few people did not 
flinch when they came face-to-face with Ushikawa for the first time. 
“I have brought the materials that you requested,” the woman said, and extracted 
two large, thick manila envelopes from the cloth bag hanging from her shoulders. As 
if she were a shamaness transporting an ancient stone lithograph, she held up the 
envelopes in front of her, then carefully placed them on Ushikawa’s desk. 
From a drawer Ushikawa took out the envelope he had ready and passed it over to 
her. She opened the envelope, extracted the sheaf of ten-thousand-yen bills, and 
counted them as she stood there. She was very adept at counting, her beautiful, slim 
fingers moving swiftly. She finished counting, returned the bills to the envelope, and 
put the envelope in her cloth bag. She showed Ushikawa an even bigger, warmer 
smile than before, as if nothing could have made her happier than to meet him. 
Ushikawa tried to imagine what connection this woman could have with Bat. 
Passing along the material, receiving payment. That was perhaps the only role she 
played. 
After the small woman had left, Ushikawa stared at the door for the longest time. 
She had shut the door behind her, but there was still a strong sense of her in the room. 
Maybe in exchange for leaving a trace of herself behind, she had taken away a part of 
Ushikawa’s soul. He could feel that new void within his chest.