"When is the sonic attack worth it?"

"I pull it out if there's lots of little flying guys."

Hop hop hop maybe this time they'll kill this witch so quickly no Lotads will escape.

"Bingo," says Yamanaka, when they find the witch, which is presently in the form of a fortune-teller.

"Ready when you are."

She produces her sword and slices herself free of the bowstring.

And then he can resume time and watch. If just hitting it won't do anything it's better to see what she does and figure out what will.

Yutaka's seen Yamanaka fight before, of course, but: she's really good at it. She swings the sword like a weightless Beat Saber. She dodges attacks, or leans into them and shrugs them off like they don't hurt at all if that works better with the flow of her movements. She pierces the heart of the fortune teller and it kaleidoscopes into a frog, she takes off the frog's legs and gets a lotus, she shaves off the tips of enough petals that it becomes a butterfly; she cleaves the butterfly in two and it's a crane. She cuts off its head.

And it... doesn't die. Its back unfurls and its wings, neck, and tail fold, and now it's a crab.

"- what the shit." Okay she's going to try cutting off its legs.

It becomes a rose, and starts shooting thorns at them.

"Yamanaka-san?" says Yutaka, dodging thorns.

"Last time the sequence stopped with the crane!" She makes little indigo shields to fend off the thorns and cuts the blossom from the stem.

When she does that the blossom shoots up high in the air—

—turns upside down—

—and the entire place changes. A flurry of paper and stained glass spirals around them, trapping them in a kaleidoscopic cathedral with hallways folding into themselves in the distance and eldritch light dancing beyond misshapen windows. The watery floor becomes crystalline, and below it flocks of paper cranes and pigeons and birds of paradise in all colours swirl around each other, except when they occasionally fly up and through the crystal as if it weren't there to attack Junko, Haru, and Yutaka with more violence than the razor petals from the cherry blossom witch before diving into the floor again, beyond their reach. The lilypad frogs reappear and the lilies on them bloom into flowering glass shard lilies.

And the witch, it—

The witch, she blooms, too. The rosebud becomes a paper dress, and out of where the stem was cut emerges her origami body, thin folded arms swaying from side to side and directing her minions like an orchestra conductor. Her paper smile talks, or sings, or laughs, but nothing can be heard other than the rustling of paper.

OH WHAT THE FUCK OKAY

"Iwasaki, stay alive, you're - fucking - INSURANCE," yells Yamanaka, slicing through the flocks of paper birds trying to get closer to the witch. She wants to behead it.

Haru's shooting the paper birds down, trying to cover Yutaka. He takes a slice in the arm and crushes the offending pigeon viciously underfoot but apparently has pain turned down.

The witch laughs her silent laugh and flies off, conducting glass shards from the lilies in Yamanaka's direction as both defence and offence.

Rrrrrrrr he is not insurance!!!! And he does not like it when his boyfriend is attacked by things, especially protecting him. He is going to stop time to show them what's what.

The witch and her familiars obligingly freeze.

Haru catches his breath for a couple of heartbeats and then resumes shooting all the paper birds and also the witch.

Yeah, Yutaka will do the same. Pew pew at the paper birds and witch, and also at the flowering frogs. "I did not realise witches could have a second form," he grumbles.

"Me either, it's very rude of this one. More to worry about with Witchzilla." Pwing pwing.

Alright can Yutaka figure out how to... do that platform summoning thingy?