"Heh. Thanks, you two. Still kicking myself over not bringing rope."

"Live and learn, right? We lived through it, so we can prep more tomorrow."

"Yeah. You've got me there." 

She exhales and lays her head back against the glasa of the train window.

Ann smiles. "Don't be so hard on yourself."

She looks over at Ryuji. "Everybody makes mistakes sometimes."

"Heh, yeah. Know I did, for sure."

"It's cool. We're all figuring this out."

He nods. "We are."

Soon enough it's time to make the transfer, and Akira's able to make her way from train to train with a littoe more leaning on Ann. Then it's off down to Yongen-Jaya. 

By the time she's back down there, she can even walk a little on her own. 

"Leblanc's that way," she says as they disembark. She manages to point with the arm that's not slung over Ann's shoulder.

Being leant on by Akira is kind of nice. She's Being Useful.

She helps Akira along back in the direction she's pointed. 

Soon enough they're walking up to the coffeeshop. Ryuji gets the door and helps Ann and Akira through.

Leblanc's empty, thank goodness. Sojiro looks up from his work when they come in.

"Damn, kid. You look worn out. You made it back though, so that's good."

"Yeah. Powers came in. Takes a lot out of you." Akira slumps into a booth. "Ann, Ryuji, this is Boss."

"Uh, hi. I'm Ann Takamaki and this is Ryuji Sakamoto." Ann bows.

She looks around. "Honestly, I can't say I was expecting a café."

Ryuji hastily bows as well.

"Sojiro Sakura, but yeah, just call me Boss. I don't need all that formal crap. You two are the kids she's been helping with that demon of a volleyball coach, I take it?"

"Yeah. She hasn't really told us much about you though."

Ann looks over at Akira. "I didn't even know she'd told you about everything."

"It kind of happened by accident, honestly. I talked about the coach situation with Doctor Takemi and then that convinced me to tell Boss, and from there I introduced Morgana as a person, and then Boss pretty much guessed the rest so I figured I might as well confirm it."

She rubs her forehead. "I'm not cut out for secret-keeping, really. I gave Ryuji shit about not keeping his mouth shut but here I am a day later and I've already blabbed." The corner of her mouth turns up. "But Boss is great, so everything's fine."

He huffs and looks to the side. "Just doing my job. I've taken the side of a smart kid against an abuser before, so this ain't exactly new. Akira stays upstairs. You lot can help her up in a minute, even hang out here if you want. Probably need someplace safe to meet and talk about all that magic crap anyway, right?"

He looks down at the counter for a moment, then back up. "You kids eaten yet?"

"Me and Ryuji ate while Akira was recovering, but I don't think she's eaten."

Ann pulls her phone out of her pocket and checks the time.

According to her phone, the time is 18:13. School let out at 15:15, an hour picking up gear takes them to 16:15, Ryuji waiting fifteen minutes to get Akira up from the tree and then walking twenty minutes with her means 16:50, they spent twenty minutes eating so 17:10, and a half hour train ride here bring them to 17:40. 

The difference, which they must've spent in the Metaverse, is thirty-three minutes.

"Last time we spent a couple hours in the Castle and it took no time at all, but this time it seems like we spent about... a half hour? In the Metaverse. Plus a bunch of hauling Akira around while she was exhausted. So yeah, we'd better get something into Akira."

Akira manages a small smile. "Sounds like a good idea to me."

Sojiro will start making curry, then. "Sounds like you can't count on any consistency in the time difference between there and here, if you spent a similar time inside today as yesterday."

"Yeah. Which isn't great." Akira lays her head back against the back of the booth and blows out a puff of air. "Still, we survived and now we've got one more person with powers to make things easier. I should be happy."

"You're not still beating yourself up for forgetting to bring rope, are you?"