Machiko hesitates. Her thoughts travel back to Kuroda -sensei's unexpected appearance at the Yoshida -kai teahouse in Brooklyn, then further, to her years of training at the GSG academy. In fact, such masters as Kuroda -sensei spent many hours training her and others in the sword and other martial disciplines. Various of the masters from time to time were said to go into "seclusion," presumably for purposes of meditation. Machiko had occasionally supposed that perhaps certain masters had gone away from the academy to perform certain special duties—perhaps familial duties—especially when their terms of "seclusion" ran on long, but she has never really inquired as to the nature of the duties performed.