Tyki listened curiously to Hakuba's words. He could sense the loneliness behind them. A gaijin in Japan was a poor lot in life, in his time, and apparently it wasn't much better a hundred years in the future.

Of course, in his Japan, all of the humans had now been wiped out completely, but that was a relatively new development.

"I like your eyes," he said with a grin. "Mine change colour, too, but for a different reason." He made a small effort of will and his skin lightened to a swarthy, but pale colour, and his eyes turned from gold to blue. The marks on his forehead were gone without a trace. "You see? This is what I looked like before I awakened as a Noah."