Part I, Chapter 9, Aomame Summary

Aomame goes to the library and searches through old newspaper archives. Some of the stories she remembers vaguely; other stories, she does not remember at all. She finds this is puzzling because she always reads the newspaper front to back. She finds the story she is looking for, about a gunfight at Lake Motosu in Yamanashi, which led the deaths of three officers and the changeover in weapons from revolvers to automatics. She wonders whether or not her mind has willingly blacked out certain events, of if the world has begun to change around her, like a parallel world.

She begins thinking back to when she noticed the police officer with an old uniform and old handgun after she had killed the man in the hotel room. She begins taking notes and jotting down thoughts. She takes...