"So many things I could tell you," Sashi-san murmurs. "So many things come to my mind. When you were just a child, three norms attacked you in the street. And you were ashamed. For although you fought them off, you went home bleeding from the nose. You cried that night to Chizu-san, she you called mother, you cried that Kuroda -kai would not have allowed the bullies to hurt him. You wanted so desperately to be like him. How can I make you understand what this meant for me? Did you not think it remarkable when, a few weeks later, a dojo run by an elf, a master in the katana, opened just a block from where you lived? Did you not imagine that perhaps some unseen hand was at work?"