Sara was in her actually physical body, but she still found herself reaching up past her shoulder for the hilt that wasn’t actually present. She had thought leaving the house after staying to eat breakfast was a good thing. Himari certainly seemed excited even if the woman had tried to appear nonchalant about Sara joining the family for breakfast before the young woman had headed out. But now Sara really wanted her Zanpakutō as people came flying out of buildings and angry Shinigami kept yelling about supplies. If it came to a fight it would go as well as last night, Sara thought, but she still wanted easy access to her Zanpakutō.

Sara looked at the woman as she invited them inside. She had heard of Komorisaka Emi, proprietor of the candy shop, but honestly Sara couldn’t remember most of it. She had been too busy fading into the background. Right now Sara was stuck between continuing with that plan, running the hell away, and saying hello. The woman seemed … energetic and while Sara had made pledge to do better, to be better, it was kind of overwhelming. She had already had breakfast with her family. That had to be enough self-improvement for one day, right? The one thing that made Sars trail in after the others and attempt to bow respectfully to the woman was the fact that if she ran away, she wouldn’t be able to ask anyone about the strange voice Also, she found herself unwilling to disappoint Hayasegawa.

Stepping inside Sara found herself a corner and managed to tuck herself behind a few shelves. Okay, she was hiding, reverting to attempting to fade into the background. But she had had breakfast with her family and hadn’t run away from the scary woman with a pipe. Sara had the insane thought that Komorisaka Emi could do a lot of damage with that pipe, and she didn’t want to put that theory to the test. Plus she was still exhausted from last night and she didn’t know the woman and she had never been her. And yeah okay, even in her own head it sounded like justifications and excuses. But she was present, willing, and could still hear what was going on. Two steps forward, one and a half steps back was still net progress.