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	Shinobu was taking everything in stride—including the revelation that Yui had been a magical girl before. [color=powderblue]"Oh yeah, that checks out,"[/color] she replied to Izumi's question about it. Unbeknownst to everyone, she wasn't buying any of this magical girl stuff for a second. When the light entered her chest and filled her with a warm tingling, she tried to guess at what might actually be happening to her in the [i]real world.[/i] She stood frozen as she imagined herself upon an operating table, being given open-heart surgery. It filled her with a sense of dread. [color=powderblue][i]Oh, this is what they call a "bad trip,"[/i][/color] she thought, but didn't say.

	Strangely, though, her surroundings didn't change to match the encroaching sense of impending doom. That was weird. In her state of confusion, she ended up abandoning her plan to stay in the room and just followed the others down the hall. According to what the fairy girl was saying, she [i]should[/i] have changed into a magical girl by now, right? —but she didn't look any different. Did she have to transform or something? How would that work? As two students appeared down the hall, Shinobu hatched a silly idea. Striking a pose, one hand on her hip and the other making a V sign in front of her eye, she smiled at the girls. [color=powderblue]"[i]Kira, kira~[/i]"[/color] she announced with a goofy grin, prompting the girls to snicker. "What's with that?" one asked. "She's doing that substitute teacher positivity thing," the other girl replied, shrugging it off as the pair of them went down the hall, only occasionally glancing back. Despite what they'd said, though, their sudden lethargy after having passed the entrance of the cocoon seemed to recover a bit from her "positivity thing."

	[color=powderblue]"Hmph! Well, I'm sorry for having [i]substitute teacher energy,"[/i][/color] she quietly sassed back, sticking out her tongue at the students. By the time she was done with these antics, she was almost the last one to enter the cocoon, quickly rushing to catch up to the other teachers. As she walked into the detritus-filled sports field, at first she wondered why she'd have conjured such a scene from her mind—but then, it clicked. This wasn't [i]her[/i] "bad trip," it was a student's, and she might even know which one it is! A suddenly serious Shinobu struck a sufficiently serious pose, hand over her heart like she was about to recite an oath. Imagining herself as a magical girl was somewhat difficult for her, what with her whole complex about her age—or rather, just because it was [b]weird.[/b] Right.

	Shinobu's transformation felt to her like being dropped into a dunk tank. Watching it was like seeing what could only be described as a visual glitch open up in the air above her head and douse her in buckets of ink. When Shinobu opened her eyes, inspecting her "drip," she had an understandably confused expression on her bewitchingly beautiful face. [color=cyan]"Not what I expected from a magical girl outfit, to be quite frank. Hey, tell me I haven't fallen to the dark side already! It's too soon for that!"[/color] she pleaded with Lux.