- Narrator: In that place, the boundary between life and death...
- Tony Takitani, Shozaburo Takitani: Was as slim as a single strand of hair.
- Narrator: Yet, what now confronted him, their vital roots severed, seemed a flock of shadows, withering with each moment. As Tony...
- Tony Takitani, Shozaburo Takitani: Watched this happen, I gradually began to suffocate.
- Narrator: He found his home had been destroyed in the firebombing, and his parents and his only brother, lost to the same fate. In other words, he was then... utterly alone in the world.