"[color=a36209]The correct term is metaphorically.[/color]"

Nao released one last ragged breath, the adrenaline of the fight still pumping through her veins. That had been ... incredibly intense. The vines had been defeated, the train car supernaturally brought back into the form it most commonly possessed, yet - She placed a hand over her stomach, feeling for wounds that were no longer there. The pain of being thrashed into pieces by those vines were still stuck with her, a memory engraved harshly into her mind. Yet she was now ... utterly unharmed, as if she had not been so close to death. As if she had not fought some horrible, Cerberus creature. It was only the presence of the bloodstains ([i]her blood[/i]) that proved that the last several minutes had not been an eerily violent dream.

That and the memory of the agony. The phantasmal soreness that she kept expecting to return when it was all ... gone.

She stared down at her left hand, the gaze of her amber-brown eyes full of an unreadable emotion. That compass ... the one that she had utilised to manifest that supernatural being ([i]the Persona, Dikē[/i]) ... it sat there harmlessly. As ornate as it appeared, it seemed so utterly unremarkable, when the truth was so much different.

It had helped her live. Helped her survive.

But it was still so ... unorthodox, seeing it resting in her palm like it belonged.

"[color=a36209]This ... timestop has always occurred at the same time each day,[/color]" she said quietly, eyes refusing to peel away from her palm. "[color=a36209]Always ... but what happened here? Why today of all days?[/color]"

She could still feel the blood rushing through her head, the harsh beating of her heart. She was ... high-strung. Too awake. Too alert.

The memories of that fight continued to replay and replay in her mind.

For a few scant seconds, she was lost in thought. Then she blinked and her face immediately flushed, the red of her exertion immediately changing to one of embarrassment. Nao had realised that everybody else was syncing up their phonebooks a bit later than she should have, and immediately moved to grab her phone from her trouser pocket. It was surprisingly intact, though given that she had bought the model for durability, it shouldn't have been too unexpected. Then again, she had engaged a demonic hound in combat.

Her day had been one of many strange and improbable occurrences.

She flipped open her device, holding it close to that of the others until she heard the "beep" that indicated the successful transferral of contact details between their entourage.

"[color=a36209]Hopefully fighting another monster will be unnecessary,[/color]" the brown-haired teenager admitted. "[color=a36209]However, given everything we have just witnessed, I expect my hopes to be quite dash-[/color]."

She trailed off upon witnessing the blue poltergeist sitting in the tattooed girl's hands.

It was ... alive?

It had survived?