Raine darts in behind it, aiming for its neck.

The strike connects, and the familiar's head is severed; it catches its own head in midair, spins around, and fastballs it at Raine point-blank.

She mostly dodges, the head barely clipping her arm, and curses, throwing herself back for more distance.

While it's distracted, Bryce whips her kusarigama towards it and lassos it - 

- and it disintegrates back into seven or so smaller, cat-sized familiars.  A handful go for Raine, one still mostly hand-shaped; a handful for Bryce and Tobi.

She jumps, starts floating a few feet off the ground, and fiery ribbons burst from her hand, lancing at the familiars, aiming to slice into them. 

Most of them go down, but one gets through, latches onto her leg, and bites down.

With a yelp and a flick of her wrist, Bryce skewers it and rips it away from Raine's shin.

The handful that went for Tobi are lanced, in quick succession, by one of her staffs; once they're all taken down she twirls it, one handed, sending them spinning into the darkness.

"Raine, are you okay?"

"Yeah," she says, focusing for a moment to heal herself. "I just need to work on my speed with those ribbons some more. Thanks for taking care of that familiar."

"No problem.  - Let's keep moving?"

Tobi nods in agreement.  "This complicates the plan a bit.  I'll try to run interference if I notice a buncha little rats coming together."

"Keep moving sounds good to me."

Deeper and deeper; rafter-passages split and splinter at impossible angles, cavernous mouse holes spiral back on themselves without intersecting.

Periodically, familiars will emerge from the darkness, splitting and coalescing. Tobi scatters them as well as she can, flashing in and out of clusters of little ones faster than they can react, jumping away if they merge into a creature too large for her.

Rains takes on the larger familiars, darting in to take out the familiars on the edges when they split. She mostly manages to avoid further injury.

There is, after a time, a sense of many paths converging: they're nearing the center.

"All right," Tobi says, once they're only one twisting mouse-hole-passage away from the central chamber, "you guys ready for this?  It's gonna be a big one."

Bryce nods, gripping the handle of her weapon tightly.

She rolls her hands, holding her fans in a ready grip, and nods too.

The center of the maze consists of twenty-four wooden pathways radiating outward from a central pillar and a straw nest, suspended above a vast emptiness.  In the nest -

Barn owls, or a mutated owl-creature, feathers and talons and beaks and staring black alien eyes; it spreads an illogical array of wings, screeching and leering, its heads cocking and swaying strangely.

"Ah shit, there's people - "

A few of the suspended wooden paths do have humans on them - outsiders, not magical girls, staring enraptured up at the owl-shape or walking slowly forward.

"I'll try to keep them away from the fight, can you guys handle the witch for now?"

"Sure thing." She glances at Bryce, then takes off for her usual hit and run opening, pouring on more speed than usual.

Bryce leaps from path to path, aiming to circle around and flank with Raine.  She cards her hands through the empty air; thin chains trail out from between her fingers, and she lashes them through the air, aiming to bind it.  It's not much bigger than a minivan - 

Or, now it is; it's growing as it moves, like an owl-fractal expanding in size and complexity, extruding and detailing limbs with which to pull itself forward, whipping out with something wing-like and claw-like to catch and tangle Bryce's chains without becoming entangled in them.

A scaly leg reaches out and blooms into a thousand talons that reach out to grab at Raine -

She moves, and she's fast - faster than an unaided eye can track, possibly one of the fastest girls alive (she'd wanted teleportation; this is nearly as good) - and she's out of the way of the talons, slashing at what looks like the weakest point. Her soul gem actually dims noticeably for the first time in the hunt.

It screams, beaks and faces sprouting along its mass.  Bryce conjures three kusarigama, blades hooked to catch the witch's flesh, and lashes them in its direction; they catch its back and two of its limbs, and she pours magic into her legs and arms and spine and pulls back as she shortens her weapons' chains, trying to restrict the witch's movements.

It rears back, sprouting new limbs from its chest, but it can't seem to make them big or strong enough to attack with right away, giving Raine a window of opportunity.