After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

The Brothers Karamazov
, I 
recall. The Christ is undergoing harsh austerities in the wilderness when the devil 
challenges him to perform a miracle—to change a stone into bread. But the Christ 
ignores him. Miracles are the devil’s temptation.” 
“Yes, I know that. I, too, have read 
The Brothers Karamazov
. And what you say is 
true: this kind of showing off doesn’t solve a thing. But I had to convince you in the 
limited amount of time we have, so I went ahead and performed for you.” 
Aomame remained silent. 
“In this world, there is no absolute good, no absolute evil,” the man said. “Good 
and evil are not fixed, stable entities but are continually trading places. A good may 
be transformed into an evil in the next second. And vice versa. Such was the way of 
the world that Dostoevsky depicted in 
The Brothers Karamazov
. The most important 

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thing is to maintain the balance between the constantly moving good and evil. If you 
lean too much in either direction, it becomes difficult to maintain actual morals. 
Indeed, 
balance itself is the good
. This is what I mean when I say that I must die in 
order to keep things in balance.” 
“I don’t feel any need to kill you at this point,” Aomame declared. “As you 
probably know, that is what I came here to do. I can’t permit a person like you to 
exist. I was determined to obliterate you from this world. But I no longer feel that 
determination. You are suffering terribly, I can tell. You deserve to die slowly, going 
to pieces bit by bit, in terrible pain. I can’t find it in me to grant you an easy death.” 
Still lying facedown, the man responded with a small nod. “If you were to kill me, 
my people would be sure to track you down. They are absolute fanatics, and they are 
powerful and persistent. With me gone, the religion would lose its centripetal force. 
But once it is formed, a system takes on a life of its own.” 
Aomame listened to him speak as he lay there facedown. 
“What I did to your friend was very bad.” 
“My friend?” 
“Your girlfriend with the handcuffs. Now, what was her name again …?” 
A sudden calm filled Aomame. The inner conflict was gone. A heavy silence hung 
over her now. 
“Ayumi Nakano,” Aomame said. 
“Poor girl.” 
“Did 
you
do that?” Aomame asked coldly. “Are 
you
the one who killed Ayumi?” 
“No, not at all. I didn’t kill her.” 
“But for some reason you know—that someone killed her.” 
“Our researcher found out,” the man said. “We don’t know who killed her. All we 
know is that your friend, the policewoman, was strangled to death in a hotel.” 
Aomame’s right hand became tightly clenched again. “But you said, ‘What I did to 
your friend was very bad.’ ” 
“That I was unable to prevent it. Whoever may have killed her, the fact is that they 
always go after your weakest point—the way wolves chase down the weakest sheep 
in the herd.” 
“You’re saying that Ayumi was a weak point of mine?” 
The man did not answer. 
Aomame closed her eyes. “But why did they have to kill her? She was such a good 
person! She would never hurt anyone. Why? Because I am involved in 
this
? If so, 
wouldn’t it have been enough just to destroy me?” 
The man said, “They can’t destroy you.” 
“Why not?” Aomame asked. “Why can’t they destroy me?” 
“Because you have long since become a special being.” 
“Special being?” Aomame asked. “In what way ‘special’?” 
“You will discover that eventually.” 
“Eventually?” 
“When the time comes.” 
Aomame screwed up her face again. “I can’t understand what you are saying.” 
“You will at some point.” 

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Aomame shook her head. “In any case, they can’t attack me for now. And so they 
aimed at a weak point near me. In order to give me a warning. To keep me from 
taking your life.” 
The man remained silent. It was a silence of affirmation. 
“It’s too terrible,” Aomame said. She shook her head. “What real difference could 
it possibly have made for them to murder her?” 
“No, they are not murderers. They never destroy anyone with their own hands. 
What killed your friend, surely, was something she had inside of her. The same kind 
of tragedy would have happened sooner or later. Her life was filled with risk. All 
they
did was to provide the stimulus. Like changing the setting on a timer.” 
Setting on a timer?
“She was no electric oven! She was a living human being! So what if her life was 
full of risk? She was a dear friend of mine. You people took that from me like nothing 
at all. Meaninglessly. Callously.” 
“Your anger is entirely justified,” the man said. “You should direct it at me.” 
Aomame shook her head. “Even if I take your life here, that won’t bring Ayumi 
back.” 
“No, but it would provide some degree of retaliation against the Little People. You 
could have your revenge, as it were. They don’t want me to die yet. If I die now, it 
will open up a vacuum—at least a temporary vacuum, until a successor comes into 
being. It would be a strike against them. At the same time, it would be a benefit to 
you.” 
“Someone once said that nothing costs more and yields less benefit than revenge,” 
Aomame said. 
“Winston Churchill. As I recall it, though, he was making excuses for the British 
Empire’s budget deficits. It has no moral significance.” 
“Never mind about morals. You are going to die in agony while some strange 
thing
eats you up whether I raise a hand against you or not. I have no reason to sympathize 
with you for that. Even if the world were to lose all morals and go to pieces, it 
wouldn’t be 
my
fault.” 
The man took another deep breath. “All right, I see what you are saying. How 
about this, then? Let’s make a deal. If you will take my life, I will spare the life of 
Tengo Kawana. I still have that much power left.” 
“Tengo,” Aomame said. The strength went out of her body. “So you know about 
that, too.” 
“I know everything about you. Or perhaps I should say 
almost
everything.” 
“But you can’t possibly tell that much. Tengo’s name has never taken a step 
outside my heart.” 
“Please, Miss Aomame,” the man said. Then he released a brief sigh. “There is 
nothing in this world that never takes a step outside a person’s heart. And 
it just so 
happens
—should I say?—that Tengo Kawana has become a figure of no little 
significance to us at the moment.” 
Aomame was at a loss for words. 
The man said, “But then again, chance has nothing to do with it. Your two fates 
did not cross through mere happenstance. The two of you set foot in this world 

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because you were meant to enter it. And now that you have entered it, like it or not, 
each of you will be assigned your proper role here.” 
“Set foot in this world?” 
“Yes, in this year of 1Q84.” 
“1Q84?” Aomame said, her face greatly distorting. 
I made that word up!
“True, it is a word you made up,” the man said, as if reading her mind. “I am just 
borrowing it from you.” 
Aomame formed the word 1Q84 in her mouth. 
“There is nothing in this world that never takes a step outside a person’s heart,” 
Leader repeated softly. 

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