"Yeah I would have still fucking taken it but - oh my god there's more of them over there, how many moths did you need, fucking creepy doll! - but I'd've had some more questions about the magical ecosystem, if I'd gotten numbers on the death rate -" Pwing pwing.

"I think this might be grenade time."

"Yeah with you there."

"Next time I'm shopping around for weapons I'm gonna see if this buckler is the kinda bag of holding that can fit stuff bigger than looks like it should go through the opening, maybe get a rocket launcher or something if I can find one," he grumbles, starting to throw grenades.

"And a chainsaw."

"I'm going to be a fucking army of one." He stops by the creepy doll and shoots it a few more times. "Now are there any more moths, I'm not actually going to run out of grenades and bullets anytime soon but it feels like I am."

"I think we got them all unless they're really good at getting up again after being punctured but lemme make another pass." He runs around, shining the flashlight everywhere in a search pattern, finds one stray moth that hadn't assumed into a swarm yet and shoots at it, and then: "I think we got the moths."

"Well then, fucking showtime." He gets somewhere safe from the bullets and arrows and grenades with Haru and resumes time.

Arrows strike home. Bullets slam into wings and bodies. Grenades turn moths into so much colorful fuzz and greasy smears and broken twitching legs. The porcelain face of the witch shatters, as silent as if it were coming apart of its own accord, the swathes and the gathers of the dress exploding into taffeta tatters; a delicate ceramic arm crashes down on the corpses of a score of moths, grinding them into the carpet.

Everything is still. It's so quiet. The only light is the beams of their flashlights, Haru's at this point tangled in bowstring and tied to his waist to shine forth from his hip, swinging across the scene.

"Why isn't -" Haru begins, lining up another shot.

A smaller doll, this one fast and willing to look fast, beribboned pigtails streaming behind her, bursts out of the ruins of the first doll. She lances through the air towards the outstretched arm positioning Haru's bow and she doesn't rip it out of his hand, because his whole arm comes with it, up to the shoulder, and is obliterated in her lightning-swift crushing grip, and then she wheels toward Yutaka.

—he stops time.

"H-Haru?"

Haru's body is still tied to Yutaka's. He drops like a puppet with its strings cut and tumbles off the precipice of the rugs. His shoulder bleeds, though not that much. Not as much as it would if there were a heartbeat.

Wh-

"Haru, Haru it's just your arm, why are y—"

—the gem. Was. On Haru's glove.

Yutaka throws up on the floor.

He—can't go back, yet. He needs to look at the smaller doll first because he'll need to KILL IT.

She's poised in midleap, staring black eyes and pouting painted mouth and a fucking bonnet and stockings and a lace gown stained with Haru's blood. She has already dropped the demolished arm and the jewel shards and they're in the process of raining to the carpet below.

He grabs a grenade. Pulls the pin, releases the trigger, counts, lets it go so it'll explode immediately on resuming time.

(Haru Haru he needs to save Haru his Haru this can't happen Haru—)

He hides.

(Haru)

He resumes.

Her head explodes. Her momentum carries her into the side of a rugpile, where she crumples.

The scene is silent, and dark -

Pause again.

There's another one, isn't there.

He's not going to find out in stopped time.

Not in the destroyed remains of the one he just killed?

She looks hollow from here.

But the witch is not dead. He flees—

(Haru's body)

—reasonably far before resuming time.

A few beats later, yes, a smaller witch, this one only slightly larger than life. She blooms out of the previous one like a satin-clad phoenix, with bouncing ginger ringlets and opera gloves and buckle shoes and a violently pink dress.

Pause.

Grenade.

Run.

Resume.