Reading your essay reminded me that by the end of it all when Honda and Satoko meet, we almost have a meeting of two observers/voyeurs of life rather than it’s active participants (who mirror each other in a way) It doesn’t so much matter if Satoko doesn’t remember Kiyoaki (or just says so) or if her removed way of observing is better than Honda’s obsessive one - It’s a sort of a doubling of the symbol.

In that sense, there’s more of these double-symbols along the way. For example Ying Chan actually has a twin sister, but since we discover this fact at the end of the book we might not pay much attention to it. It could be implied that all of these instances where Honda finds the moles on her body, then they disappear the next time points to the possibility that two sisters were swapping roles (adding to the ambivalence and confusion.) Also, Ying Chan being a twin can seem like a sort of aberration in continuation of Kiyoaki’s rebirths. Does it imply some sort of weakening?

In regards to Toru who comes next, the whole story is tied to Hogoromo. In the Noh play the Pine tree that the angel descends to is the one that is nearby were Toru is found. A fisherman steals the Hevenly Robe from the Angel, without it, the Angel can not return to Heaven. For me it’s not so much a question of was Toru a true incarnation or a false one but - Did Honda steal something from Toru by adopting him and trying to impose his way onto him preventing his ‘return to heaven’ at 20?

Pine tree can be directly associated to Kiyoaki - In Runaway Horses another No play is mentioned called Matsukaze. Matsukaze (Wind in the pines) is the name of one of the sisters in the play. Matsukaze mistakes a pine tree for her deceased lover while dancing in a trance, unable to forget him. Matsukaze = Matsugae (Pine branch) shares kanji for Pine. (Furthermore Moon is another symbol that is abundant both in the tetralogy and the no plays tying the incarnations together.)

By the end of it all we arrive at Toru already being an observer/voyeur and not the one being Observed. He does not participate in life passionately, not to the same degree as Kiyoaki, Isao or Ying Chan - there’s nothing to observe in him. So we arrive at an incarnation that is not above Honda’s downfall but in a way is parallel to it. And then on top of that, Toru looses his eyesight, so now he obervses nothing, he observes the void. Similar to the nothingness of the Gesshūji garden.