[The hustle never ends for space-time wanderers! Leave it to Cecelia to end up in the future while others just got frozen in their original timelines for a while... but that kind of "break" indeed wouldn't have been very rewarding at all.

Hijikata looks just as she last saw him, not bearing any visible new scars or marks or signs of illness or hardship. He's been making his best efforts like everyone else and braved various dangers in the months she was gone, but he did advance in his use of magic to the point where he became quite secure and hard to overwhelm in combat.]

Yeah, I know. It's just... well, the heat.

[He wipes his sweaty forehead, momentarily pushing his fringe aside.]

With the dragons' spell we'll manage. This is the last hurdle... or the second-last, if the monarchs need us to power the ritual, if there'll be one.

[As usual they're kind of in the dark about what will actually happen once they procure the last of the three artifacts. Glancing over Cecelia does give him pause with regards to her outfit... did she just come on the expedition as she was, without buying anything more suitable?! Or is this a status thing? He feels like asking might be taking as him insulting her intelligence, so he opts to just not mention it.]