An interesting jaunt from the rest of the story. It veers from some of the initially established “rules” for the character’s time travel, but it’s a neat visual.

Yeah, I knew that the only way that our protagonist could escape from The Girl was if he travelled far enough back in time to be before her.
And although this deviates from the rules set out at the beginning, that’s kind of the point: our character is discovering that his power is becoming more powerful, and that the rules of time travel aren’t as straightforward as he first thought. (Remember, in the part after the redux of the Day Of Swearing, our main character was baffled by the non-appearance of his other self, so we know already that things aren’t exactly how they seem.)
Basically, we’re starting to get into the realm of the story where the protagonist realises a truth that Doctor Who once acknowledged: that Time, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, isn’t a straightforward case of cause to effect, but is really just a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey…stuff.
=P