You glare at the intervening walls for having the temerity to block your path, wishing that you could simply melt them away. You simply don't have the
time to sidle between the rows of trellises, and-
You wave your left hand at the nearest trellis in the direction you can hear the fighting coming from, tearing away the Grief. You're rewarded by a roar echoing from the fight, and the trellis collapsing in sprays of what looks like sawdust.
A feral grin, and you take off towards the fight at a fast jog, the faux-wood frameworks simply melting away from your path. The amount of Grief under your control balloons rapidly, more even than usually goes into your wings of corruption, and you form the mass of Grief into a roiling, pulsating ring that orbits you, spinning slowly.
It's pretty cool, since you know what it does, but it probably looks pretty terrifying, from the outside, since you can practically
feel the malevolence the ring radiates, and paying too-close attention to the maelstrom of deep purple reveals eye-warping, unsettling fractal patterns that dive deeper and deeper and
deeper.
You leave in your wake a trail of splintered trellises and greying Barrier as you rend away the very Grief forming it away from the Witch.
The sounds of fighting seemed to have stopped, and you can hear furious, unearthly roars rapidly dopplering in your direction, you note, and instinct has you leaping to the side in a dodge that comes just as something massive crashes through the labyrinth, smashing a heavy, overhand blow at where you'd been moments before.
The Witch is an enormous, misshapen mass, a seeming scarecrow's head bound to a single, human foot and arm which it lopes around on in a motion at once unsettlingly fluid and yet eye-stutteringly jerky. The leg and arm move spasmodically, letting the Witch stagger drunkenly at you with deceptive speed. The scarecrow's head has been split in half, and devolving from where the eyes would be are huge, white worms with crudely drawn faces of their own.
One of the worms swings ponderously, and you spy in its mouth a body, one with a long, deep red ponytail, and dressed in a similarly red outfit clearly based on a priest's cassock.
Kyouko.
She's not in good shape, you observe with detached clarity. Her left arm is simply
gone, as are both of her legs. Blood sprays as the worm reels drunkenly about, crushing down on her torso.
"Big sis!" a voice cries from your side, and you glance down at your carry-along, still bundled unceremoniously under your arm. Yuma's eyes are wide and terrified as she stares at Kyouko's greviously mangled body, before they set hard in determination. Pulses of magic roll off her, almost powerful enough to have physical force, and they converge on Kyouko, whose wounds begin to glow.
Well, you can't have the newbie showing you up, can you?
You glare at the Witch as it rears back for a strike, and snap your left arm straight out to the side. The Witch's worm-eye appendage, swinging down at you with crushing force, disintegrates, and what strikes you is simple grey powder. The Witch, mirroring the bird Witch you'd fought earlier, roars its pain in an alien voice that throbs and hammers at your eardrums. Yuma, still hanging by your side, squeaks in fear.
A glowing flash of red, and Kyouko breaks free, spear manifesting in her hand. She spins through a rapid flurry of stabs, shredding the worm that had been holding her in its jaws, before landing gracefully in a low crouch on her now-restored legs. She throws you a glance, but clearly puts you aside, deciding that the Witch is the bigger threat for now.
You turn your attention back to the Witch, and flay off its single leg with your mind. The Witch crashes heavily to the ground, bereft of support, and Kyouko leaps, spinning, and delivers the coup de gras as a heavy blow that carves the Witch in half.
The Barrier wavers, and you gladly release the Grief you've accumulated to join the Grief inrushing to the Grief Seed, which lands with an unceremonious clack between you and Kyouko.
The three of you evert back into reality as the Barrier complete vanishes, leaving you staring at Kyouko, and her back at you. She seems quite nonplussed with you. Yuma, still under your arm, wiggles. "Kyouko!"
You shrug, and set her down, whereupon she promptly runs over to Kyouko and throws her arms around the older girl in a hug. Kyouko seems to look at her properly for the first time, and her eyes widen in what you know is horror.
There's suddenly a spear pointing at you, held steady in Kyouko's outstretched arm. Her other arm's protectively wrapped around the younger girl. "Right, so," the redhead drawls. "Not that I'm not grateful for the assist, but if you had any part in Yuma here contracting, I'm afraid I'm going to have t' gut you."
"Big sis!" Yuma protests, tugging at her, but Kyouko pats the younger girl with her arm. "Hush, Yuma." The spear remains pointed steadily at you.
[] Write-in
=====
Oriko Magica had some
thoroughly weird Witches.