"Huh. Well, in that case I guess just walk in with me, I'll cover you, and stop time if things get gnarly? Like my insurance policy."

"Yeah, okay, that works." He is useless dead weeeeeeight and also Yamanaka Junko dies in a mooooooooonth.

"D'you know how to dowse?"

"No. Is it complicated?"

"Nope, give it a try."

Okay, uh, he looks at the gem on the back of his glove and—looks for one of those bizarre mental levers that might be associated with this...?

And now he's got an egg-shaped bauble!

Okay! Cool! And is dowsing with it similarly obvious?

If he waves it around like he's seen Haru do before, it flickers in response to - something - in that direction!

"There you go," says Yamanaka.

"Alright, then, hyup," he says, and hyups that-a-way.

She keeps up with an easy loping gait. "Wonder which kind we'll get. Most often around here I get the cherry tree kind but most often still isn't most of the time."

"'Kind'?"

"Yeah, there's kinds of witches like there's kinds of dogs."

"Oh. Huh." He's not sure why he's surprised. He thinks he kinda thought they were, like, unique monsters? For some reason.

"So like when one of the squirrel guys gets loose from the cherry tree witch it'll grow into another cherry tree witch, if nobody catches it first."

"Oh. Huh. Yeah that makes sense."

"Yeah. When I'm on tour I get ones I never saw before."

He nods.

HOW does he TELL HER that she is GOING TO DIE. ARGH.

"Are you the kind of guy who wants to tell everybody what you wished for or the kind where that's a really personal question?"

Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. ...okay, it's fine, you know what? It's fine. If it goes badly he can just rewind. It'll be fine. Actually it's even better to try it now because then he'll know what goes wrong. Even though actually this is a terrible time for it? Like either he should've told her when they met or he should wait until later to tell her.

Argh.

Okay, here goes nothing.

"...Yamanaka Junko-san, there's—actually—"

There's something I need to tell you about my wish. I—maybe should've told you when we met up and not waited until now, probably should've, but I didn't know how to. Still don't.

I came from the future. One month from now, a huge witch shows up and starts destroying Tokyo, Godzilla style. You died there. A—friend of mine, who was your partner then, died there. I hadn't made a wish, and I almost died there, I would've if I hadn't wished that I could—go back and do it right, this time.

That's why I have time powers. I'm back here because I want to do it right, this time.

"Wow. I guess that explains the time powers, I was pretty confused about that..."

Yeah. Uh. Sorry. I just felt—I didn't know how to bring it up—but—I want to stop it. And, and save you, and Haru, and Tokyo.

Haru?

My friend. In—the original timeline, he was going to get powers sometime in the next two weeks, and he was going to partner with you. The two of you—saved me from a witch, once, it almost got me to kill myself, and I recognised him, we're classmates.

This is not going horribly? He might not need to rewind at all??

Wow. Okay, so I guess we're even, huh!