After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

Somebody else made the decision, and all 
I could do was go along with it, like it or not. Who could have decided that this was 
how my nails would be shaped?
The dowager had recently said to her, “Your parents were—and still are—ardent 
believers in the Society of Witnesses.” Which meant that they were probably still 
devoting themselves to missionary work even now. Aomame had a brother four years 
her senior, a docile young man. At the time Aomame made up her mind to leave 
home, he was still living according to his parents’ instructions, keeping the faith. 
What could he be doing now? Not that Aomame had an actual desire to know what 
was happening with her family. To her, they were just a part of her life that had 
ended. The ties had snapped. 
Aomame had struggled for a long time to forget everything that had happened to 
her before the age of ten. 
My life actually started when I was ten. Everything before 
that was some kind of miserable dream. Let me throw those memories away 
somewhere
. But try as she might, her heart was constantly being drawn back into that 
nightmarish world. It seemed to her that almost everything she possessed had its roots 
sunk in that dark soil and was deriving its nourishment from it. 
No matter how far 
away I try to go, I always have to come back here
, she thought. 
I must send that “Leader” into the other world
, Aomame told herself, 
for my own 
sake as well
. 
A phone call came from Ayumi three nights later. “I’ve got some facts for you,” she 
said. “About Sakigake?” 
“Yes. I was mulling it over when all of a sudden I remembered that the uncle of 
one of my police academy classmates is on the Yamanashi Prefectural Police force—

---

241
a fairly high-ranking officer. So I tried asking my old classmate. I told him a relative 
of mine, a young girl, ran into some trouble when she was in the process of 
converting to that faith, so I was collecting information on Sakigake, and if he 
wouldn’t mind, could he help me? I’m pretty good at making up stuff like that.” 
“Thanks, Ayumi. I appreciate it,” Aomame said. 
“So he called his uncle in Yamanashi and explained the situation, and the uncle 
introduced me to the officer in charge of investigating Sakigake. So I spoke to him 
directly.” 
“Oh, wonderful.” 
“Yup. Well, I had a long talk with him and got all kinds of information about 
Sakigake, but you probably know everything that was in the papers, so I’ll just tell 
you the stuff that wasn’t, the parts that aren’t known to the public, okay?” 
“That’s fine.” 
“First of all, Sakigake has had a number of legal problems—civil suits, mostly 
concerning land deals. They seem to have a 
lot
of money, and they’re buying up all 
the property around them. Sure, land is cheap in the country, but still. And a lot of 
times they’re pretty much forcing people to sell. They hide their involvement behind 
fake companies and buy up everything they can get their hands on. That way they 
start trouble with landowners and local governments. I mean, they operate like any 
ordinary landshark. Up to now, though, it’s all been civil actions, so the police 
haven’t had to get involved. They’ve come pretty close to crossing the line into 
criminal territory, but so far things haven’t gone public. They 
might
be involved with 
organized crime or politicians. The police back off when politicians are mixed up in 
it. Of course, it’ll be a whole new ball game if something blows up and the prosecutor 
has to step in.” 
“So Sakigake is not as clean as it looks where economic activity is concerned.” 
“I don’t know about their ordinary believers, but as far as I can tell from the 
records of their real estate transactions, the top people in charge of the funds are 
probably not that clean. Even trying to cast it in the best light, it’s almost 
inconceivable that they would be using their money in search of pure spirituality. And 
besides, these guys hold land and buildings not just in Yamanashi but in downtown 
Tokyo and Osaka—first-class properties! Shibuya, Minami-Aoyama, Shoto: the 
organization seems to be planning to expand its religious activities on a national 
scale—assuming it’s not going to switch from religion to the real estate business.” 
“I thought they wanted to live in natural surroundings and practice pure, stringent 
religious austerities. Why in the world would such an organization have to branch out 
to the middle of Tokyo?” 
“And where do they get the kind of cash they’re throwing around?” Ayumi added. 
“There’s no way they could have amassed such a fortune selling daikon radishes and 
carrots.” 
“Squeezing donations out of their believers.” 
“That’s part of it, I’m sure, but nowhere near enough. They must have some other 
major source of funds. I also discovered another fact of some concern, something you 
might be interested in. There are a fair number of believers’ children in the 
compound. They generally attend the local public elementary school, but most of 
them drop out before long. The school insists that the children follow the standard 

---

242
education program, but the organization won’t cooperate. They tell the school that 
some of their children simply don’t want to go there, that they themselves are 
providing an education for those children, so there is no need to worry about their 
studies.” 
Aomame recalled her own experience in elementary school. She could well 
understand why children from the religion wouldn’t want to go to school, where they 
would be bullied as outsiders or ignored. “The kids probably feel out of place in a 
public school,” she said. “Besides, it’s not that unusual for children not to go to 
school.” 
“Yes, but according to the teachers who had those kids in their classes, most of 
them—boys and girls alike—appear to have some kind of emotional problems. They 
show up normal in first grade, just bright, outgoing children, but year by year they 
grow less talkative, their faces lose any hint of expression. Eventually they become 
utterly apathetic and stop coming to school. Almost all of the Sakigake kids seem to 
go through the same stages and exhibit the same symptoms. The teachers are puzzled 
and worried about the kids who have stopped coming and stay shut up inside the 
compound. They want to know if the kids are okay, but they can’t get in to see them. 
Nobody is allowed inside.” 
These were the same symptoms Tsubasa had, Aomame thought. Extreme apathy, 
lack of expression, barely talking. 
Ayumi said to Aomame, “You imagine the kids in Sakigake are being abused. 
Systematically. Maybe including rape.” 
“But the police can’t make a move based on unconfirmed accusations by an 
ordinary citizen.” 
“Of course not. The police department’s just another bureaucratic government 
agency, after all. The top brass don’t think of anything but their own careers. Some 
are not like that, but most of them have worked their way up playing it safe, and their 
goal is to find a cushy job in a related organization or private industry after they retire. 
So they don’t want to touch anything the least bit risky or hot. They probably don’t 
even eat pizza without letting it cool off. It would be an entirely different story if you 
could bring us a real victim who could prove something in court, but I’m guessing 
that would be hard for you to do.” 
“True, it might be hard,” Aomame said. “But anyhow, thanks. This is really useful 
information. I’ll have to find a way to thank you.” 
“Never mind that. Let’s just have another night out in Roppongi sometime soon 
and forget about our problems.” 
“Sounds good to me,” Aomame said. 
“Now you’re talking!” Ayumi said. “By the way, are you at all interested in 
playing with handcuffs?” 
“Probably not,” Aomame said. 
Playing with handcuffs?
“No? Too bad,” Ayumi said, sounding genuinely disappointed. 

---

243