They are fighting too, but not in this neighborhood.

Oh.

Right.

This "typhoon" is all over everyfuckingwhere.

He wishes, wishes, I wish I could help them.

Kyubey hops onto his shoulder. You don't. Not enough.

The red-white-pink thing is very close, now. It's... yarn? Thick, ropey yarn, the cheap acrylic kind, as thick around as Yutaka's waist. Squirming around like a hundred invisible giant hands are trying to detangle it and just make it worse and worse and worse.

Argh. I wish, I wish it weren't attacking. I wish I were good enough. I wish, I wish I wished it. I wish I could save them! All of them! I wish, I wish—

Kyubey shakes its head.

A tendril of yarn shoots out over the horde of gingerbread men storming the library roof. It seizes Yamanaka around the neck, tightens, and flings her to the ground. It takes less than half a second.

"JUNKO!" screams Haru.

She lands with a splash, the shards of her gem falling out of her choker, in the flooded sidewalk just a couple meters away from Yutaka.

He screams, too, and trips and falls onto his ass.

She's. Dead? She's dead? That's—she's dead?

Well, she's not getting up.

And she was the melee tank.

Haru falls; Yutaka doesn't have a great angle to see exactly what the gingerbread men are doing to him.

No. No no no no. No.

Haru? Haru, Haru, say something, say you're alive—

I'm

That's it.

What.

No.

No? No.

No.

No no no no no no no no no no no no

I wish he were alive. I want him to be alive. And Junko. I wish to bring them both back. Bring them back!

Closer. But not quite.

But I. I. What do you mean not quite? They're dead! They're dead because of me!!! What else, what, he pushes himself to his feet to try to look at Yamanaka up closer, see if he can want it badly enough, but he, if he doesn't want this, then, What else could I want? What else? She's dead. Haru's dead. Haru's dead because of me. And I, I never got to kiss him. Never got to, I, was always so caught up in, and now he's dead?

I don't know why your feelings are what they are. I can only tell you they are not strong enough for that wish. Not quite.

There's more and more gingerbread men.

He's broken. That's the only explanation. Yutaka's broken. Two people are dead because of him, so many people are dead because of him, because he couldn't find anything he wanted enough, anything he cared about enough, and even now, staring at the lifeless corpse of Yamanaka Junko, he can't want it enough. Kyūbey was wrong. They were wrong about him, he can't, can't make a wish. Can't make any wish. He just doesn't want things. He just doesn't care.

What's there to want, if not that? He wishes, he wishes he cared. Wishes he cared enough. Wishes he felt it strong enough, felt it in his bones, the way he feels the cold and the wind and the rain right now. He wishes, wishes—

Another yarn-tendril shoots out and strikes a skyscraper.

None of the debris hits Yutaka, but it makes a big splash in the floodwater. A car, previously wedged against a parking meter, floats with surprising alacrity on the wave, and presses him into the wall of the library hard enough to crack ribs.

"gh."

And now he dies.

That's. That's stupid. That's the stupidest fucking thing. That's so fucking stupid, and the only thing more stupid than this is him. He couldn't help anyone. Couldn't help Haru, couldn't help Junko, couldn't help himself. What was he even thinking, believing he could just come here and save them? Or even help them? Did he think that, what, he'd make a wish and then suddenly he'd be the most competent magical boy? He'd save them all? Him, on his own?

Yes, it's his fault that they're dead, but not because he didn't make his wish today. It's because he didn't make his wish last week. Or the week before. Or the day he found out about all of it. That's when he should've made his wish. And he didn't, so now he dies, not even to the witch or a familiar, but to being trapped by a car and drowning in the rain.

The lamest, stupidest fucking death.

Now he dies, and he can't even wish to live. Now he dies, and he already knew that people's lives flashing before their eyes upon death was bullshit but he knows it's double bullshit, because now he dies, and what flashes before his eyes isn't his life, it's his unlife. It's the life he didn't live.

You know what he wishes, Kyūbey?

He wishes he'd done more things.

He wishes he hadn't given up on Haru so easily. Wishes he'd gotten to kiss the boy, at least once. Wishes he hadn't fucked that up so completely, wishes he could do it again. Wishes he could have found the right things to say, the right things to do.

He wishes he hadn't messed the Kobayashi twins up so badly. Wishes he'd noticed, wishes he'd known. Wishes he'd made better decisions. Wishes he'd been more careful with both of them, more careful of their hearts, which they gave him and he never even noticed. People's hearts are so, so precious, and he was so, so callous, and he didn't even notice.

He wishes he'd gotten that picture with Yamanaka Junko-san. Wishes he'd gotten Matsumoto Tarō-kun to meet her. He'd have been so happy.

He wishes he hadn't been to needlessly mean to Eiji. And, really, he wishes he'd known what to say, what to do, so that Eiji would've been happy rather than sad, so that Eiji wouldn't have felt like he needed a beard, needed to be so deep in the closet all the time.

He wishes he'd gone to France. He was talking such shop but he's actually never been. He's never been to France, and now he'll never go to France. And Aiko will just hear that he died, and think that maybe she should have insisted. Or maybe not. But he'll never get to see the Eiffel Tower and decide for himself whether it really is overrated or not.

He wishes, he wishes, he wishes...

I wish I could do it all again, but right, this time.

Yes.

Kyubey's still on his shoulder.

Its eyes gleam pink in the dimness of the rain.

Its ear-tendril things reach out and touch Yutaka's cheeks -