Sadako Yamamura
Hiroshi Toyama calls journalist Kenzo Yoshino to tell him more about Sadako Yamamura. Yoshino has just attended Kazuyuki Asakawa's funeral and also receives news of Mai Takano's death in an exhaust shaft. Toyama is nearing his fifties, a twice-married man with children and a stable job, but he longs to meet Sadako, the only woman he truly loves. He recounts to Yoshino events that transpired 21 years earlier, when Toyama was merely a young sound director trainee of Theater Group Soaring. Toyama had a secret affair with Sadako, who begged him not to reveal it to outsiders as she still wanted to achieve success as a stage actress without controversy. Sadako pointed out the existence of an altar with a wrinkled umbilical cord behind Toyama's work room, which unsettled him. Toyama was further unsettled when Sadako groped director Yusaku Shigemori, which she stated was just a way to keep him away from her. She later apologized by having sex with Toyama in his work room. Toyama felt as if her voice penetrated his head directly.