"Mm. Sensei would not permit anything less." She remembered the disaster that was their first transport mission—the way he had cradled her against himself, protectively, savagely—the scent of blood and the lingering fear from the drugs and the box. There was a stiff strength to him, then.

Masanori seemed to have contracted a fraction of that same strength now, unwilling to let her falter on alone. It blurred his image in her mind even further.