"Ah!"

The light had made Hikari flinch, just a little. Inwardly, she cursed herself. 

She had just... aah, she'd gotten caught up in what she'd been doing and not even realized an attack from Tokiko was part of this! The diminutive girl almost wanted to chew her fellow magical girl out about it, complain about how it was hard to prepare for something like that when Tokiko had never stated she, too, was part of the barrier test. But the current redhead managed to restrain herself, at least for now. She had learned something valuable about her barrier, at least, that being just how powerful it really was.

That didn't stop her from letting out a huff, and nor did it prevent Hikari from glaring at Tokiko just a little as she listened to the more experienced magical girl. She didn't have to be happy about how things just went, even if she was trying not to complain about it.

Wait. She was supposed to just hit Eve? The monstergirl even seemed scared!

"Heh? Just... whale on her?" she asked, eyes drifting back to the living archetype as she spoke. After a few moments, though, Hikari began to really think it through. They were magical girls, and Eve was an archetype... that meant there was no way that this kind of blow would seriously hurt her, right?

"... Well, if you say so!" she declared, with a shrug. It would let Hikari vent some of her frustration, if nothing else... slowly, she raised her mallet back over her shoulder. In this less frantic scenario, she was able to recognize its form better: It looked almost like a firework launcher, the rear of the hammer decorated to look like the face of a dragon. Had that been why it had given her a boost, that it had fired a rocket blast out of it like a firework?

With a small shout, she swung the hammer forward. Almost immediately there was a whiff of gunpowder and a flash of brilliant light as an explosion erupted from the rear of the hammer. It rocketed forward, hurtling towards Eve with incredible force.

No matter how the monstergirl took the blow, it was immediately clear that Hikari's chief power was in her melee capabilities, an incredibly strong close-range offense via the blunt force of her hammer.

[@Anza]

[hr]

"It's still pretty! Not a lot of people have white hair when they're not old, you know?" Hina explained, as if to clarify her sudden interest in Hanako's hair, "You're like the little princess in Hisa-nee's manga!"

"You just mentioned that," Chise pointed out, with a small sigh, "... Onee-san reads such weird manga..."

After a moment, the black-haired little girl decided to attempt to address the older girl's question about their project.

"It's a project about our culture as Japanese people," she explained, quickly. Perhaps a little too hastily, it almost sounded like she was trying to quickly get out some kind of excuse and move on as swiftly as possible... but before she could try and continue along those lines, Chise fell silent.

"... Hina-chan," she asked, suddenly giving the brunette girl a very serious look, "Did you check?"

"Check...?"

For a moment, Hina looked bewildered, before suddenly having a look of realization dawn on her face. Without another moment's pause, rather confusingly, the girl with the side ponytail began sniffing at the air, almost like a dog would.

"... So that's it!" she declared, suddenly. Before Chise could ask her just what 'it' was, however, Hina's attention was fixed on Hanako.

"Let's go outside to finish our talk," continued the brunette, "[i]Magical girl.[/i]"

[@Raineh Daze]

[hr]

What Fuyuko encountered was not a shade.

No, there was soon the sound of footsteps on a nearby rooftop. Thankfully, any chance of it being an ambush was rather quickly dispelled.

"Oiiii! Oiiii!"

The source of the voice was a magical girl. She was of average height, with short hair. Currently, it was a bright, silver shade, almost looking metallic from the way it seemed to gleam. In terms of her features, she was fairly pretty, with silver eyes that matched her hair, and a slightly tomboyish look. She work a long jacket and shorts, with thigh-high socks and boots that, on closer inspection, seemed to be armored. But the most striking feature was what was on her right arm.

It was a thick, complex silver gauntlet, one that appeared to be made of up a number of different mechanisms. If Fuyuko had been closer, she may have heard a faint whirring sound from it.

"Hey!" called the girl, "I'm not interested in a fight, okay? I was just wondering, have you seen some weirdo in a rabbit mask? Wearing a suit?"

[@LuckyBlackCat]