"I guess."

lol do I eat all the treats in the cupboard or what. ha ha ha.

ha ha ha

so like anyway if you have any different thoughts re. what that character should tell her time traveller friend

...no, he backspaces that last message. That won't help.

but yes

dedicating this pain au chocolat to you being a bag of dicks

"I guess next time do not ask her what her time traveler friend should tell her."

amen

"Yeah." He stretches, looking around. "Almost showtime."

"They're not technically late yet but if they cared a lot about not being late they'd be here by now," Haru grumbles.

Sigh. "Yeah. But let's give it our all."

Haru's soaked and freezing and it's not worth the magic to keep the rain off and an umbrella would be destroyed immediately. "That's the plan."

Nobody is egregiously late. Each unit forms up as planned, less Azumaya, who was supposed to be in Haru's unit.

The gingerbread men come thicker and faster, and the witch, roiling and red, comes blurrily into view.

Haru kisses Yutaka for good luck and then he and his team climb into the sky to get a good angle to shoot at the witch itself.

And then Yutaka's gone, to help every group at the same time, occasionally in stopped time but they don't want to waste any more magic than strictly necessary.

The telepathy's flying. They tried practicing something like a radio protocol, but it's hard to maintain discipline.

Lots of gingerbread at the harbor, we're holding our own so far but could use unit 3 help.

Nozaki, the girl one, just broke off to -
I was getting a civilian into a shelter!
That's not what we're doing!
That's the whole point of what we're doing!

Somebody in there has a witch kiss on them - no, two people, at least.
Just keep killing gingerbread men and hope you get the right ones.
What if the kissed guys start murdering people in there??
What else can you possibly do about it -

Chiaki's cut down, can we get Hanyu or Swan here or should I do it - we're low on seeds -

Hanyu's closer. How many seeds do we have, everybody report in -

Unit 3 can spare one.

Okay, Hanyu, go get Chiaki back up and take their spare, we've got two left but Ueda's really chewing through 'em.
Oh, shall I stop?
Absolutely not, we need the visibility. He's shearing the rain away, turning it into bullets that don't hurt the witch very badly but do a far sight more good even barely fraying the yarn than they would if they were falling to the shoreline below.

Three arrows. Nock aim loose. Three arrows - shield! - nock aim loose. Three arrows - reposition onto a different lower platform as the yarn shifts and opens a different path into what might, optimistically, be the vulnerable hitbox - Ichinoya, can you -

—time stops without warning and Haru is being hugged extremely tightly by a hyperventilating boyfriend.

"Oh," Haru breathes into Yutaka's neck, and he hugs back hard. "Fuck. Did you see what it was or do I just need to be a hundred meters away."

"Hundred meters. But I need. 'Rty s'conds. Please."

"Of course." Haru rubs his back. "Yeah of course. I love you."

"I love you. Forever."

"...your gem's not looking good, is this your first rewind -"

"For you, yes. In general, no."

"You have seeds?"

"Yeah. Some."

"Maybe charge up before you resume, don't go back to it like that."

"Yeah."