When she wakes, the room is full of sunlight. Sliding panels off to her left stand open, looking into a small, domed garden. But it is neither the sunlight nor the garden that snare her attention. On the threshold of the room kneels a solitary figure, facing the light, the garden, his back to the room. His hair, black as the darkest heart of metahumanity, flows over his shoulders a halfway down his back. He wears the green gi of a master of the Guard. Machiko would know him regardless of such superficial traits as grooming and attire. Kuroda -sensei has the presence of a man whose body is made of rock, rooted in the earth, beyond doubt or uncertainty.