Part I, Chapter 21, Aomame Summary

Aomame returns to the library to read about the Yamanashi fight between the Sakigake, the police, and the Self Defense Force. She learns about the separation of the commune and how the members had ended up in separate villages. Public and media access to the Sakigake compound is tightly controlled. She asks Ayumi about the Sakigake group. Aomame takes Ayumi into her confidence, and reveals why she needs information about Sakigake. Ayumi agrees to help look things up at the station.

Ayumi finds out that the elite members of the Sakigake are heavily-invested in land and real estate. Children from the commune follow a pattern of becoming emotionless in first grade at school, then drop out altogether.

Part I, Chapter 21, Aomame Analysis

Aomame's friendship with Ayumi begins to pay off, in terms of both having a friend...