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Homura Akemi Sometimes, the Witch is somewhere awful, hard to access, and surrounded by bewitched, suicidal maniacs that need to be stopped before you can proceed. And then sometimes, it's out in the open, possibly because it's starved, or maybe because someone ran into it before you did. And sometimes, magical girls happen to be doing their job and pick up on the Witch before it manages to bare its fangs, and there's nothing to worry about beyond the fighting. It is, lucky you, one of those times.

Whether it was Homura or Mikoto who found it doesn't especially matter; they'd tracked the Witch with their lich magic, and identified it as the run-away Mitakihara Radio Tower one. It'll be a simple talk from here on out - enter the Barrier (or Lair, or Labyrinth, or Maze, you pick your favorite word), punch it until its candy falls out, go home. If only every Witch was this simple a task.

It's an empty parking lot for a mall, in broad daylight no less. There's no traffic; the mall is closed today. Something about a holiday unique to Mitakihara. The Barrier has already been exposed (again, either by Homura or Mikoto), appearing as a crack in reality that can be entered simply by reaching out for it - and which is conveniently invisible to the mundane, so if anyone passes by, you all just look like a bunch of cosplayers in a parking lot. That's convenient.

Entering the Barrier shifts things to another perspective, though you're ready for it this time. There's solid ground under your feet, this time; but the sky still seems endless, like you're at the bottom of an impossibly tall sky-colored tube. The parking lot ground seems painted on, no longer asphalt but instead a nice, fine paint. It feels like wood under your feet.

There's no "center" to this Barrier, per se, but the only thing that stands out in the whole place is a massive doll shelf set up on the ground. There's a number of different dolls, toys and teddy bears on it, each roughly your size. But one position on the shelf is empty. Dust suggests something large and round was there before, so it's not vacant. Mikoto and Homura both can feel the Witch is "up", but there's not a single platform, elevator or... anything, really, that might help anyone go up.
Sumiko Mikoto had been doing some hunting after school because the sooner she got the grief seed, the sooner she could go back to doing anything else but dealing with what she is.  Already transformed, her green dress obvious from a mile away.  On her shoulder was the jade weapon, glinting in whatever light shined down here.

As people showed up, she looked over her shoulder at them.  She wasn't super pleased with being here right now, she wasn't super pleased about having to work with others either.  She does feel pressured into this, but right now she's doing her best to make it as good of a situation as she can.  Then again, she had been warming up to Homura.  

Stepping through the barrier into witch town, she looked around trying to get her bearings.  The witch, at least according to her senses was up...and the shelf seemed to have a place where a toy once sat, much like the round toy they had faced before.  Her blade comes over her shoulder and easily handled in one hand as she thrusts it into the ground and releases a bunch of birds, each one flying upwards into the sky trying to find just where the witch was.
Staren     Staren is here! He's in his power armor today instead of going full robot. And... The witch is Up, huh? "Does anyone want to try sitting in that empty spot to see if something happens?" If not, or if it doesn't do anything... well, he starts building a spiral staircase with the matter manipulator! Just laying down wood and concrete and pillaring up with himself on top. "I guess we have to go Up."
Sanary Rondel After the last run-in with a Witch, Sanary is marginally more prepared! She's brought a backpack with her, loaded with all sorts of useful people-saving supplies: Big nets, small nets, rolls of bubble wrap, axes.

The axes aren't so good for saving people, but they sure are good for chopping up Witches! She's donning her usual white coat, of course, to aid in recognizability as she steps into the Barrier Labyrinth of Maze Lairs.

Or it could be a parking lot. That's actually not a terrible place for a fight, all things considered, although the lack of people has her both enthused and annoyed. "Crap. And I brought all this extra stuff for nothin'." The healer sighs as she carries the whole mess by one shoulder strap, walking right up to that doll shelf and looking it over briefly.

Naturally, her gaze falls on the empty slot. "Huh. Weird. Hey, what do you think'll happen if I do this?" And then she starts climbing into the empty spot. Surely nothing could go wrong here.
Touta Konoe      It doesn't matter how, why, or found the Witch. He's no Mahou Shoujo, so it technically not his job to deal with Witches, but saying it's something of a burden makes it sound like it weighs on him or it's something he doesn't want to do. In truth, the last few times he had taken a Witch's magic into himself was painful on both occassion, but at the same time. He was happy to have been able to help Homura,and hope to help put Karen's soul at ease. So that's why he's here again...

     The young man, enters into the barrier ready for anything. He's got his usual go to attire of black, his jet-black taichi, Sable Side-stick. He's ready to do his part to deal with this Witch, and do what he can to help when the dust settles.

     Upon entering the barrier with the others he's left to the same scenery as the others, an empty room with an endless sky more or less...With the exclusion of that dresser.

     As he looks around it feels so off from the last few times he enter a barrier, "Why aren't there any Familiars around? The last few times even if they didn't try coming after us first there were at least Familiars all over the place. Is it weak now or something?"

     For the time being he's just trying to get his bearings along with the others, not trying to get too far or too close to anyone person.
Rean Schwarzer Rean's here too, despite still being a bit beat up from the other day. But as Mikoto liked to keep reminding him, he talked her into letting them help, and it'd be bad form if he didn't show up at all.  He's at least being a /little/ careful, though, loading a few more spells in his ARCUS than normal to back up Sanary on healing / spellcasting, instead of getting in the thick of it as usual.

...Speaking of people being careful, Sanary definitely isn't and sits on the toyshelf where there clearly used to be something huge and round.

"Sanary, wait-" Rean says, reaching out to stop her.
Homura Akemi Mikoto's birds see nothing in the sky. It seems infinite. It might be that you're INSIDE the pillar, instead of outside. And indeed if someone tries to test the bounds of the painted-on parking lot, it turns out to be a circular, indoors area. The areas past the parking lot are just painted on the wall. With the way Barriers look, it'd be impossible to tell if the background was real or painted on until you checked, anyway.

Homura, being the nervous ball of stress at the back of the party, hesitantly tries to stop Sanary (but fails to raise her voice enough for it). Sanary gets onto the shelf, claiming the empty doll spot as her own.

The Barrier rumbles in what can only be described as anger and fury.

Like a comet falling from the endless sky, the Witch appears. A massive wooden doll, the size of small house, one of those russian painted dolls. It's painted to look like an approximation of a magical girl, dressed in all silver and gold, an overly fancy outfit. She's smiling serenely, holding onto an ornate puppet that looks like it could be a weapon.

As it hits the ground, it sends a shockwave of wooden shards out across the Barrier at everyone. Well, shards. For its size. For you, they're more like stakes and sharpened two by fours. Sanary and the shelf of dolls is completely spared from this wrath, but she has something else to worry about. As the Witch's name floats over your eyes like awful, alien subtitles, one of the wooden puppets on the shelf jerks to life, erratic movements taking it towards her, strings launching from its joints in an attempt to tie Sanary up.

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                                    Youlia
                             The Matryoshka Witch
Sanary Rondel "What? Relax, it'll be fine." Sanary says to Rean and Homura as things are most certainly not going to be fine. She looks up as the whole place rumbles, squinting a bit as the Witch comes out of the sky. "Oh, hey, see? That must be the girl that-" And then giant stakes start flying. Inhaling sharply through her teeth, Sanary gets ready to hop off that shelf when she notices something out of the corner of her eye. Unfortunately, she doesn't notice it for a good while since it's on the side of her bad eye, and she's already got a good number of strings around her by the time she notices that she can't move her arms all that well!

"Watch yourselves, everyone! If it's a fight she wants, then w-oh. Hey, this doesn't involve you!" She yells at the doll trying to tie her up, getting more irritated when she realizes she's yelling at a DOLL. Still, the yelling makes her feel better, and it spurs her on to rush at the doll directly, aiming to slam right into it and pin it against the opposite side of the shelf!
Sumiko Looking up, the witch comes screaming straight down.  It was all that she could do to swing the sword in a massive arch in front of her.  The shockwave hits the blade and the two forces collide in a brilliant show of force.  The result is Mikoto being thrown from the blast, but with a spin, in mid-air, she lands on her feet and skids to a stop.  

Her eyes snap up to see the image on the doll's body, which causes her eyes to narrow.  "You stupid monster...mocking us with your last kill huh?!  WELL NOT THIS TIME!" she says, with a roar.  Leaping with her stolen speed from the point, she launches herself at the witch, aiming to swing her blade in a massive arch, aiming to try and tear through the witch's body, trying to tear through the image of the poor magical girl she assumed died at the witch's hand.

She wasn't going to share her fate.  She wasn't going to share her fate.  She wasn't going to share her fate.  

She was going to live.  

She had to live.  

She had to enjoy the life she had, no matter the cost.  
Staren     The witch! Staren drops prone atop his tower for cover from the wooden shards, then pulls the laser rifle off his back and, well... since he's built himself a little sniper tower, he may as well use it until the Witch knocks it over or something, right?

    He briefly considers shooting the doll to help Sanary... but someone will get that, right? A big, round target is the optimal target for his heavy ranged weapons, so... he'd better take advantage of it before it transforms or something.

                                  *PEWPEWPEW*                                  
Rean Schwarzer B O O M.

The Witch suddenly falls from the sky, sending shrapnel everywhere. Rean sidesteps, but one of the shards cuts into his shoulder, leaving a deep gash.

He winces, but then raises his other arm as a ring of blue light surrounds him.

"Fire Bolt!" Rean shouts, and the ring vanishes, collapsing into a single fire ball headed straight for the puppet that was accosting Sanary.
Touta Konoe      Would these be considered wooden stakes? Would those be potent against Touta? Was that even a vampire or a werewolf thing again? He'd rather not find out either way. As the pikes shoot out, Touta's chopping up wood with his blade as it comes. Making it more of a priority to dea with pieces that might really dig into him or end up in someone's blind spot. Once the attack's averted it would be their turn to retaliate but sadly Touta can't really think of a powerhouse attack go give to this doll from down below.

     "If I could just get on top somehow I could..." It's thinking this he can see that even without messing with the walls that some of the wood has stuck into them, guess this place wasn't as empty as he thought, and if it's such a confined space then that'd work for Touta.

     Mikoto's already going on the offensive and while she does that, Touta's trying to get into position, "Grasp the Earth..." He says those words like they're suppose to be magic words or something. In the next moment he's darting off at blurring speeds, but he's not charging at the doll. He's charging the wall, or rather, he's charging up it! Touta wall runs higher and higher till he finds himself at just the right height to get ahead of the Matroyska Witch.

     "TEN-THOUSAND FOLD!"

     Touta shouts another 'spell' of his as he jumps from the wall at the Witch. He swings down with force attributed to his own strength, gravity, and the amplified weight of his sword to try and split all the way through this Witch till he hits the core.

     But even more than that though...He's trying to find where the Grief Seed's lurking. It had to be deeper in obviously, right?
Homura Akemi     Sanary beings to WRASSLE with a large wooden puppet. It's surprisingly strong, and slamming into it makes it a lot easier for it to keep shooting strings out to wrap Sanary up. Though it loses an arm in the exchange, the quantity of puppet strings gushing out of its wooden frame triples, putting pressure on Sanary and trying to... stick her to it? It might as well be trying to absorb her, for all intents and purposes.

    Or it would be, if it wasn't suddenly ON FIRE. Though that's potentially dangerous for Sanary, if she let herself get dragged and tied up against the puppet, it isn't long before it's consumed by the fire.

    To Mikoto, the Witch has no reply. Of course it wouldn't. They don't tend to, really. Mikoto and Touta both plunge their blades into the Witch's wooden body, carving, but not especially deep. There's a lot of resistance inside. It's not hollow at all!

    But shots from Staren prove just a nudge more effective. The outer layer of the Witch bursts into flames as the wood scorches and cracks from the gashes caused by Touta and Mikoto.

    Like a snake molting, the Witch gets rid of a layer of 'skin'. A true russian doll, containing who knows how many smaller versions of itself.

    Wood shatters and flies in every direction like deadly projectiles as the Witch reveals a new body, a very slightly smaller doll. This one, equally painted with that gold and silver magical girl, shows her chained and bound by her own puppet-weapon.

    Chains of puppet string and paint rattle out of the ground, joining with the second hail of wooden death and trying to pin everyone down.

    Surprisingly absolutely no one, Homura gets pinned down and needs some help. At least she avoided getting staked.
Sanary Rondel Never let it be said that Sanary's approach to things has ever been smart. As she notices that her tackling maneuver is not quite as effective as she would hope, she starts preparing her eye to fire off a devestating eye laser that has a distinctly non-zero chance of blowing herself up in the process. It'd be a risky manuver, but probably better than whatever it is that doll's trying to do!

Luckily, Rean comes to her rescue, shooting up that doll and immolating it. "Okay... Not bad, Rean. Let's.. Uh. Let's call that one a draw."

Was this a contest in any way? It sounded better in her head than it does coming out of her mouth! Shoving her self-inflicted confusion aside, the axe-wielder brings up her foot to boot that puppet back and away from her, then turns her attention to the Witch's second(?) form. "Enough of that crap, then... Let's just beat it down!"

She glances towards the other dolls first, though. Sanary can't be too sure they won't spring to life as well, but if they don't, she'll launch herself right at the Witch and hurling a massive axe at her before finding herself snatched to the ground by yet more chains. Instead of thrashing, however, the healer starts projecting her magic energy outwards, aiming to bolster her allies' overall capabilities to help them fight off any chains headed for them as well.
Sumiko Mikoto narrows her eyes, it's basically nothing but instinct now.  She's not trying to see the greater fight, but trying to grasp her life in the next minute, trying to get to the next.  With the chains and wood coming out, she spins, her blade swings out.  

She can either focus on chains or splinters and right now she can live if she isn't chained up.  The blade swings in an arch, tearing through chains that get too close, she tries again, but splinters splatter across her blade and body, bloodying the dress a little and causing her to skid back again.  

The magical spark buffs cause Mikoto to surge a bit, as she swings her blade in a circle around her.  The ground in the circle turns to jade.  She pulls the sword up and thrusts it straight down into the jade.  

"TRAP OF AVARICE!" she shouts, thrusting the blade deep into the earth, as Jade spikes shoot out from around the doll, each one aiming to piece the Doll from the ground, trying to both pin and pierce it.  Mikoto pulls the jade weapon out a moment later, eyes narrowed.  

That image again.  "I am not going to be like that girl.  I'm going to survive this.  YOU HEAR ME WITCH!" Of course, it doesn't, but it makes her feel good.  "You'll all pay.."
Staren     Well, Staren's in a good position to avoid the shards! But after taking cover from them, he doesn't see the strings coming. "What the-- lemme go!" He tries shocking them, then struggles to try and reach some cutting tool. "Little help? Dammit..."
Touta Konoe      Touta basically on the head of this thing gets sent flying as the Doll molts like an explosion of wooden shrapnel. And boy it's a might decent fall, it's a good thing Elite's are made tough or that could have hurt! Also healing factors are nice... Though there's one person who sounds like they could really use it. His attention deters to Mikoto's who's shouting her lungs out with her own magic spells. Blood tarnishing her dress as it sounds like she's going into a panic.

     "Mikoto! Hold on -Ah!" He says that but finds himself quickly being chained by as his attention gets diverted. Good going, Touta!

     Well the only thing he can really do at this point is try to use Magic Cancel to dispel the chains...Without his hoop?! It wasn't exactly impossible, he had been using Revolution a bit without it since the MECC had started taking place. And even if it was only for a second it'd be enough to get rid of his chains.

     If that ended up working, he could even try getting anyone else who got snared by these chains as well! He may not have a long-range attack, but he's got a long-range magic-negating beam! The closest person he'd be able to help would turn out to be...

     "Staren!"

     If Touta was able to break free for even an instant he'd be the next one he'd try and get released. He was in a good position to help Mikoto and his gun seemed effective against this thing so it was the best call he could make. Though that left Homura...
Rean Schwarzer "Uh...Sure?" Rean says, not sure what the heck Sanary meant with that. Still at least she was no longer tied up now.

Unfortunately, Homura IS tied up, and Rean hits the deck as another explosion of wooden death happens. This leaves him open to getting snared, though and now he's stuck to the ground. Rean sighs, and charges up another Fire Bolt, trying his best to blow up his bindings (and probably burn himself, but yeah.)
Homura Akemi     Axes are made for chopping wood. The Witch is, as far as Sanary needs to care, wood. The axe slams into the wooden doll, causing a split to form vertically along its entire height.

    Mikoto's jade pierces the Witch's base, pinning it to the ground. The wood splits, revealing the next doll underneath, still partially covered by the second layer. The third painted doll looks furious, blood red paint splattered randomly across the doll's surface.

    Staren and Homura get tied up! The strings try to squeeze and cut, but in both cases, people intervene. Touta's anti-magic is strong enough to break free from the strings and the paint, and then help Staren do the same. Rean helps indirectly; spreading fires along the length of all those strings causes most of them to burn out, and Homura gets back onto her feet!

    She even contributes, lobbing a grenade at the Witch, blowing the last of its second layer off.

    The third layer, the furious one, "leaps" into the air, insofar as something without legs can. It's thunderous, since it slammed the ground to launch itself up.

    It splits open, horizontally. Two more dolls, each smaller than the last, leave of their own accord, giving the Witch three active bodies. The largest is painted to appear angry - the second largest is crying - the third is unusually completely blank and unpainted.

    The largest slams into the ground, trying to flatten Mikoto. The second largest also hits the ground, but starts rolling instead, its path taking it towards Rean and then Touta and Staren. The third remains airborne, launching another volley of strings towards Sanary. These aren't trying to bind, they're just stupidly sharp.
Sumiko Mikoto looks up, her eyes tracing along with the various dolls.  The small one gets her attention, but before she can do anything she has a major problem.  The massive doll comes to try and flatten her, to which she can only grit her teeth.  

Until a phantasmal Elephant appears underneath of her and literally tears out of the ground, aiming to headbutt the massive doll and try and keep it from smashing on its master.  Mikoto takes the time to look at her path...

She leaps from the elephant to the top of the angry doll, and then /leaps/ at the blank doll with her stolen speed, aiming to try to end up on the other side of it, blade extended...

Yes, she attempts to flash cut the witch.
Sanary Rondel Binding strings? Annoying, but workable with enough brute force or fire. Sharp cutting strings? Much harder to deal with, especially being someone that's not all that great at avoiding things as a general matter. Luckily, catching strings with an axe is far safer than catching them with her face, and the healer works valiantly with a pair of hand-axes to swing wildly at the third doll's strings and keep them off her head!

She still gets the shit cut out of her arms, of course, since keeping them off her head just winds up with most of those strings on her arms. Her healing magic glows brighter around her as she uses that to keep herself from getting completely torn to shreds, though, while her eye glows with a red light.

"Hey. Hey. Let me... Cut your... Nuh. Burn, dammit!" Shouting in frustration, the healer lets loose an explosive laser from her eye at the third doll, sweeping it around to spread those explosions around to try and burn it to a crisp. Should one of her hands get freed from their slicey embrace, meanwhile, she'll pull out YET ANOTHER axe to start chopping at those strings to free herself!
Staren     Staren's difficult to cut into, a benefit of wearing a hardsuit. The strings dig into the armor somewhat, but Touta de-magics the strings before they can do serious damage.

    And now there's multiple Witches? The magical girl (well, one of them) says 'kill the small one', so he crawls to the edge of his tower and lines up another three-pulse burst. "Thanks, Touta!"
Rean Schwarzer Rean runs out of the rolling doll's path as quickly as he can, and then once he's at a relatively lower chance of getting squashed, starts casting again. This time, it's not a fireball, but a large blast of heat aimed at the third ball.
Touta Konoe      "Yeah, yeah, just remember that the next time you try to sass me!"

     Being able to help Staren's good but with three of these Witch bodies now it makes it three times more difficult to keep track of all of this. Plus, "Maybe I should have tried getting the chains..." He mumbles to himself.

     Mikoto looks like she's got the largest one dealt with, Touta tries to see if he can stop the second one in it's tracks so everyone can focus on dealing with the smallest one like Mikoto's trying to shout out. Plus...If everyone's attention is on dealing with the third one, then who's gonna watch their backs if this one tries getting in their way.

     He could try using Magic Cancel again but if this thing was somehow the main body well...He's not trying to destroy these things outright. Not yet at least. Instead as the crying doll starts rolling he does something risky, he flings his sword at the doll. It's probably sounds silly and to be fair even he's not sure how well this'll work but he figures even if the blade gets lodged in just a bit since it wouldn't be a completely smooth surface for the doll to roll on it'd get inhibited, and if that didn't work well... Touta turned the blade onto it's heaviest setting so hopefully that'll keep it from trying to jump or move around. Plus it gives him time to try and find the Grief Seed as everyone else lays it on heavy on the last doll!
Homura Akemi     The largest of the three dolls is HEADBUTTED by an ELEPHANT. Its wooden body cracks and breaks under the pressure, and it's sent back into the air, out of Mikoto's way. Which lets her Cool Anime Cut the smallest of the three dolls (which is still twice as large as any of you). A nasty gash appears, the wood groaning from the damage.

    As Sanary starts cutting the strings that bind her, her EYE LASER blasts the smallest doll just as Rean and Staren focus fire it as well. From the repeated blasts, the doll losts large chunks of its body (thanks to Mikoto weakening it), revealing within it not another doll, but...

    A minotaur?

    It's a wireframe minotaur, made of black metal. The wires are close enough together you'd miss it's actually hollow unless you were paying attention, but once you notice the sky shines through it, you can't miss it.

    -- that, and it looks like it's digested, for a lack of better words. Corroded, missing an arm and a horn, almost melting in places. It erupts from the smallest doll like a prisoner thirsting for fresh air, and its single, large eye glares at the assembled party.

    As Touta slices and stops the second doll in its tracks, the wireframe minotaur surges down and smashes into the second doll, sending its wooden shards in every direction. It picks up the largest piece, and tries to maul Touta with it.

    The remains of the third doll finally hit the ground. From out of them rolls out a Grief Seed, and the doll that Mikoto had knocked airborne rots away from the death of its primary body.

    The Barrier is starting to waver, like it'll collapse at any moment. This doesn't stop the minotaur from trying to maul Touta in the slightest, being the closest target.
Sumiko Mikoto lands, executing a YOUTH ROLL to land without hurting herself.  The blade swings down once, as bits of the witch fade away from the blade flick.  She turns, only to see that there is...another witch?  This is strange as hell, but whatever...Touta said he had it, so Mikoto goes for her objective.

She runs for the Grief seed, aiming to snatch it up and pocket it before turning around and looking towards the new witch.  She takes the moment to rest, eyeing the new witch as she starts trying to size it up.  What was a second witch doing inside of it?

"Hm...maybe it was a familiar?"
Sanary Rondel "Holy balls, how many of these things are hidden in these things?!" Sanary lets out a frustrated grunt as she carves the last of the strings off her arm, focusing healing energy into it to keep the arm still in one piece while the gross-looking minotaur emerges from its dolly cage. Leaving the Grief Seed to Mikoto and... Was that an elephant? That was an elephant. Shaking her head, Sanary channels more healing magic Touta's way as that minotaur begins assailing him.

"Hey, Touta! Go nuts on it!" Could Sanary head over to help him out there? Probably, but he did say he wanted them to leave it to him. Instead, she turns her attention to the rest of the Barrier, noticing its current wiggly wavery state. "Hey.. Uh. Is that gonna be a problem?" As she speaks, she does a quick search to try and find Homura in all the madness, moving to keep her covered and directing some energy her way just in case.

"Hey. You okay? We're almost done with this mess, so chin up. You're doin' fine, kid."
Rean Schwarzer The Witch is defeated! ...well kinda, there was a Minotaur puppet hanging around inside one of the dolls, probably a remnant of the Witch's last meal...right?
It had Touta in its sights, but apparently he had the situation under control. Rean raises a hand, then lowers it. He'd just have to trust that he'd be ok. "...Alright." Rean says, backing away from the witch. Mikoto was en route to what she wanted too, so hopefully things would play out fine after she got it.
Staren     They got it! Or, one of them, anyway. Inside was... a wire minotaur? Which... hmm. A laser shooting a point, a beam of particles which will only partly interact with the wires? Fortunately, another solution is at hand: The laser sniper rifle has an underbarrel grenade launcher.

    "Fire in the hole!" Staren shouts as he fires a plasma grenade down at the beast, hoping to melt it.
Touta Konoe      Stopping the doll was apparently the easy part. The hard part was apparently dealing with when they exploded and shot more plank-sized shrapnel everywhere! It ends up sending Touta reeling once more and even sends his trusty side-stick someways away. Though that's the least of his worries as a few planks ended up stabbing into his shoulder and one into his leg...Ooooooow. Oh there's also a minotaur now? Neat...

     "This has got to be the actual witch...Guy's leave the puppet to me!"

     This thing's about to charge him and that's fine with it. Maybe if he can try taking in a bit of it's melting metal he could finger something out. Though that idea shaters as Mikoto tells him that it's not the case or rather it might also be a witch?! His eyes avert back to the other doll and spots the Grief Seed.

     The barrier's already beginning to fade he needs to absorb this thing before it fades away. But there's problems. Lots of problems.

     It was one thing to use Magic Cancel for a moment without his hoop, but to store this magic, he'd need alot of concentration and even worse...He might have to try absorbing magic from both of the Witches but knowing how well just maintaining one felt, it was going to be trying.

     There's a cumbersome look on his face that had overtaken his confidence prior when sayinghe had this, "Guess I just gotta try..."

     The Minotaur rushes him, Touta gets into a stance as the ground below crumble. A yin-yang symbols appears below him and as the minotaur brings the wooden plank to try and maul Touta, he attempts to absorb it first. It's probably not the best thing for him to try and take, but it's all that's left from the first Witch, and he needs to absorb it quickly before the Minotaur can release what's going on...Then, if he doesn't drop to his knees from that, he's gotta try for the second Witch immediately after being the Minotaur. The best he can think of trying to absorb from that is maybe it's melting body. And then if that doesn't bring him out of it he still needs to land a finishing blow to this thing...Okay, maybe this is more than he can handle?
Homura Akemi     Staren's grenade causes calamitous damage to the minotaur, weakened as it already is. In the wake of that explosion, Homura, startled, nods to Sanary slowly. "I-I'm fine!"

    Touta delivers the final blow, striking at the minotaur. It dissolves as it's absorbed, and Touta gets -- surges of negative emotions, as badly damaged as the minotaur was.

    Fragments of memories jumbled together into a soup of rage and abandonment. The feeling of not needing any friends, not wanting any friends, and being perfectly able to handle anything thrown your way.

    It's not like last time. Something was off about this Witch. Incomplete, maybe?

    Whatever the issue was, it's gone. A second Grief Seed rolls onto the ground, with a little axe for its symbol. (The first had a puppet.)

    The Barrier dissolves completely.