Seimei nods and resumes drawing. The area near the bottom of the tower blurs and new patches of color appear, coalescing together into a figure - a human - an old woman in a kimono. With one hand she points up at the top of the Genbaku Dome. Although her back is to the viewer, she is looking sideways and down over her other shoulder, so her solemn face is visible.

Another figure begins to appear, this one a little boy in a school uniform, holding on to the woman's other hand. He is looking up at her (or perhaps at where she is pointing), so his face is not visible. In his free hand, he holds a single paper crane.

Then Seimei begins to fill in the sky above the tower. First clouds appear, and then colors - yellow and red. It may be an early evening sky with clouds drenched by the setting sun, or a sky filled with plumes of smoke lit by the flames of a great conflagration. It's not clear which (and that's the point). The colors of the central tower and skeletal dome change, growing darker until they are barely more than a silhouette against the red-orange sky.

The effect is eerie - in large part because the tricks of perspective and lighting employed in the picture are not typical of ukiyo-e, and the juxtaposition of the two is strange and unnerving.

"And that," Seimei says, "is what I mean by splitting the difference.