Set faster, sun.

School was out, by now, and nightfall couldn't come quickly enough. Not that Tokiko had gone to school that day— she'd been too tired, after the long night before —but perhaps she should have. Something to take her mind off the upcoming battles would have been nice, might have stopped her from spending every waking moment fretting about the upcoming battles.

Why hadn't Sonya been able to take out Naoko? Had the opponent really been that strong, or was she just a scrub? And then there was the rumor going around on the chatroom about a rabbit-masked figure... It sounded like something out of a creepypasta, and Tokiko was tempted to put her moderator powers to use and just delete all the messages related to it, but something gave her pause. This was the Hex Night, wasn't it? There was a chance that such a phenomenon could be real. She'd never heard of a Shade wearing a mask, but it might have been some visiting magical girl, or an Archetype.

In fact, the more Tokiko thought about it, the more curious she became. She sat quietly on a park bench, sipping a canned coffee and thinking... it was probably nothing, probably just a stupid rumor, but as a scientist, she ought to at least look for evidence before drawing a conclusion, right?

She reached for her phone, considering texting Hikari, and then decided against it. After all, it wasn't like the newbie magical girl would have any interest in investigating something like this. She probably just thinks I'm weird, anyway.

Sighing, she downed the last dregs of her coffee and crushed the can, resolving herself. I'll find a good place to transform... and then use that device, and confirm these rumors for myself.

And if it turned out to be false, then 'snowfairy' was totally getting banned!

---

@VitaVitaAR

Walking alongside Hikari, Fuyuko nodded back. Her parents would understand if they knew - especially if aware of her reason for becoming a magical girl - but it was better for most people to believe magic and monsters a myth. Noriko understood completely, although Fuyuko kept quiet. Newcomers were unlikely to take part in events as monumental as the Hex Night, and therefore unlikely to target other magical girls. Still, best not to mention more than she had to. For all she knew, others could be watching and listening.

"We've got to keep a look out," she whispered, peering from side to side down the streets. "I don't know if this watcher appears before the evening, but even so..." Her muscles tightened, her body primed to transform at any moment if she needed to. The nearer she and Hikari drew, the more the choice felt like the right thing. Not only did a creep like that have to be stopped, her carelessness yesterday could mean Noriko and Sophia were targets. She had to make sure they didn't suffer for her screw-up. Nonetheless, trepidation clawed its way up her spine with every step. What if she got Hikari into trouble too? She wasn't a natural leader, not like Shining Fist. Where was Shining Fist, anyway?

Hearing a ping from her blazer pocket, she pulled out her phone. The gauntlet-wielding magical girl still hadn't gotten back to her, but Noriko had. With a sigh, Fuyuko read the message.

"Sort of? Wait, what's this? What's going on? The girl you were talking to, who is she? I know you can deal with whatever happens, but please be careful. And please, please, don't get caught up in anything too major, no matter how much you want to help everyone."

Fuyuko stared. She hadn't expected such an undertone of cynicism from her sister. Yet another reminder of how dire the situation was. She clenched the phone as she thought how to word her reply, then started typing.

"It's alright, there are reasons why I doubt she means any harm. We're just searching for someone who might be causing a few too many issues for magical girls right now - that watcher in the rabbit mask from yesterday. We'll stop them as quickly as possible. In the meantime, please stay safe yourself, and keep Kiyoshi with you as often as you can."

Pocketing her phone once she'd sent the message, she looked up at the distant woodland. That sense of foreboding grew as the last part of Noriko's message played through her mind. Yes, she did want to help as much as possible, but was the Hex Night a time to do so?

She knew the answer even as she continued along the path.

"Hmm... well, if they have some kind of base in the forest, it wouldn't just disappear, right?" Hikari commented, glancing up towards Fuyuko as she spoke. Ahead, the forest wasn't much further... there was a park, but it wasn't in this area, meaning they'd more or less be walking right into the woods. If there was some kind of mansion or whatever there, then it wouldn't be that hard to find, right? Even if it was magical, they were magical girls, so that meant they had an edge on this kind of thing. At least that's what the short brunette assumed, it made enough sense to her.

"So, it has to be in there somewhere... it's just a matter of tracking it down," declared Hikari, nodding confidently to herself. This was the kind of thing magical girls were supposed to do! So there was no reason to be doubtful, right? This bunny mask creep, archetype or human, was going to go down tonight!

Almost as soon as Fuyuko pocketed her phone, it buzzed with another message.

It was from Shining Fist.

"Great! I'm caught up doing something with my family right now, but I'll see if I can join you soon!"

@LuckyBlackCat

Chise's transformation was quite amusing to watch. The girl that Himeko had pegged to be fairly serious had instantly been won over with the promise of sweets, now resembling a carefree little girl, led only by her sweet tooth. It was quite adorable, really.

"Yes, it's really okay~" Himeko assured her. Still leading Hanako by the hand, she guided her small entourage to the shop, wondering if Chise's weakness for sweets could be exploited for extra cuteness points. Why was she surrounded by cute girls lately?
"Pick out whatever you want. Your doting maiden here will happily buy it for you! Though feeding it to you costs a little extra~"

She looked over the offered sweets for herself, figuring she might as well partake.

@VitaVitaAR@Raineh Daze

---

@VitaVitaAR

Disappear. Fuyuko grimaced at the word. "Uh, well... It kind of did," she muttered. "All I got was a glimpse." She cast her eyes downwards, at the path, at her shuffling feet. That hadn't exactly been the reassurance a teammate needed. "I-I guess there's a chance it's still in there though..."

She took refuge in silence once more. The more she spoke, the more it sounded like she was leading Hoshino on a wild goose chase. All she did was nod in response to her comments.

At another buzz from her phone, she grabbed the device from her pocket. It couldn't be Noriko, nobody could reply that quickly, so instead it had to be... She sighed in relief when she saw her guess was correct.

She read over the message, her heart growing heavy. Family. As much as she and Hoshino needed assistance right now, Fuyuko of all people knew how precious family time was, and how taken for granted. She couldn't take that away from Shining Fist. With another sigh, she typed her own text.

"That's ok, and thank you. Don't worry, we'll be alright for now."

Putting her phone away, she hoped they would be, without Shining Fist around. The armoured warrior knew most about this. Lack of knowledge of a situation didn't tend to help it any.

"That was the girl I was working with yesterday," Fuyuko told Hikari as they neared the darkening shapes of the trees. "She's busy with family right now, but she should be here soon."

For all her attempt to make the message sound like good news, Fuyuko felt that all she'd done was reinforce the uncertainty.

"I wasn't crying for chocolate..." the girl mumbled, plainly ignored in favour of well... being taken to a sweet shop. Had the shrine maiden worked out that these two were magical girls and after her for some reason? Was this a ploy to protect her? Or was this just further humiliation through sweets? Well, she wasn't going to go overboard or anything here... one KitKat. That would do.

And then she started looking around in earnest. What did you get gods...? Did gods like chocolate? What about tea-flavoured chocolate? Hanako thought it was nice, but would supernatural entities...?

Chise's eyes were shining as she surveyed the array of sweets on display. To be honest, the clear option in the little black-haired girl's mind was simply to ask for as much as possible. There were so many tasty-looking candies and pastries of a wide variety that there was no way she could ever even begin to consider holding back from claiming them all. Some would say that she perhaps ate too many sweets, but Chise rejected that assertion and continued to eat sweets instead.

"Haah..." she let out an excited sigh, "Onee-san... I want everything!"

"Chise-chan, you can't have everything!" admonished Hina, surprisingly seeming to be the reasonable one for a moment. Until... "If you ate everything, then there'd be nothing! And then no-one could ever have any sweets again..."

She allowed such a horrifying prospect to hang in the air for a few moments, as Chise was briefly brought out of her sweets-induced trance to give her friend a rather perplexed look.

@RolePlayerRoxas@Raineh Daze

---

"Does she know where to find us?" Hikari asked, cocking her head towards Fuyuko. That seemed like it was a pretty important aspect of her joining to help, after all! It'd just be stupid if she wandered aimlessly through the forest, trying to figure out where they even were. That wouldn't be helpful at all.

When her gaze focused forward, however-

A little girl, her blonde hair in a pair of drills, smiling. A parasol resting on her shoulder. When the small brunette tried to focus, to perceive what she had just seen, however, the little girl was already gone.

"Did you see that?!" she said immediately, stepping forward. There was no way that wasn't real...!

@LuckyBlackCat

---

@VitaVitaAR

Fuyuko wanted to smack herself upside the head. Of all details to overlook, it had to be a crucial one. "Well, she'll probably guess we're in the forest, but if she's having trouble finding us..." She glanced down at the path, deep in thought. She could rise up in mist form upon getting notice that her ally had arrived, but what if yesterday's luck didn't hold out? What if she attracted more than just Shining Fist's attention?

She sighed. Inconvenient as it was, it seemed inevitable. It was that or try to give directions by text, possibly getting Shining Fist even more lost in the process. "There is a signal I could give her," she admitted, looking back up, "but..."

Her eyes darted from Hikari to another figure, one who hadn't been there a moment ago. A little girl, doll-like with spiralling curls and a parasol. Just as quickly as she'd appeared, the child vanished.

Blinking at the empty space, Fuyuko nodded as Hikari asked if she'd seen the girl. She almost wished she'd asked Noriko to come along after all, her sister having more insight into identities than she did. Fuyuko herself could only glean one hint.

"That's... exactly what the house did," she whispered. Did the little girl have something to do with the mansion, and by extension, the watcher?

"... That has to be the one who owns the mansion then, right? Or... something..."

Hikari stared at the space that the little blonde girl had so recently occupied. Stepping forward, it was clear that there was nothing discernibly off about the forest where the little girl had been standing. There was no-where she could have gone so quickly. There was nothing at all. It was as if she was a ghost, or something of that nature. Hikari frowned. It was eerie... and ghosts... well, if magical girls existed...

No. No way! She wasn't going to just easily accept the existence of ghosts just because magical girls existed! There had to be more then this, right? Maybe it was a magical girl who could hide herself somehow? Gaah! This was just weird and frustrating.

"If that girl disappeared like the mansion, and them mansion is where the rabbit masked person went, then they're connected, right?" she asked, "Why else would a little girl be out here in the forest and just disappear like that? But... if she was a magical girl... she hasn't attacked yet."

Hikari didn't really know what to expect, still. But... something was going on here. Something strange.

@LuckyBlackCat

---

@VitaVitaAR

Thinking over possibilities, Fuyuko frowned. "It could be some kind of trick," she said, her voice only just audible. She peered around as she ventured further into the forest, but there was no sign of the girl. Nonetheless, she kept her guard up. At every rustle, every movement of a woodland animal, she tensed. That smile... That had been the look of someone toying with her and Hikari, most likely, no matter how innocent it had seemed.

"If she's a magical girl, though, that fits the theory of the house being an archetype," she continued. "Hmm... Maybe her concept is ghosts, and her archetype is a haunted house - an obake yashiki." She thought of the traditional summer attractions, the ghost and yokai animatronics within meant to 'bring on the chills' and counter the heat. The masked watcher, with their mechanical movements, could very well be part of the house if that were the case.

It was just a speculation, and it wouldn't do to cling to it too rigidly. Still, it was something to consider.

"Obake yashiki..." Hikari paused for a few moments as she thought the possibility over. That wasn't impossible, was it? From what Tokiko had said, Archetypes could be anything that inspired human imagination, regardless of how true they were or not. Therefore, it was entirely possible that a magical girl could possess such an Archetype. But what did that concept have to do with rabbits? Was the mask just because it was creepy, and therefore gave everything more of a horror theme? She'd yet to see the watcher herself, though... not that the idea of the little girl having ghosts as a concept didn't make sense. It would certainly explain why she was able to disappear so quickly, and why the mansion seemed to be able to disappear too based on what Fuyuko had told her. At the moment, it seemed like the best guess they had at the true nature of this strange rabbit-masked figure and the little girl that had disappeared.

"I guess I can't think of anything else that makes more sense," Hikari responded, peering into the forest, "I wish I'd gotten a better look at her. Maybe then I'd have seen if there was any distinguishing marks on her, or something like that. Anything that might make it easier to confirm what her abilities are."

She paused for a moment. It was already obvious someone was here, so...

"Do you think there's any way we might be able to draw her out?"

@LuckyBlackCat

Himeko was struggling to suppress her laughter. Really, these girls were an utter delight! Chise wanted absolutely everything in the hop, and wasn't even attempting to hide it. Hina was taking her friend's words so literally, and that cutely serious way of delivering her words of wisdom managed to break even Chise's sweets-induced trance. And little Hanako was browsing for more sweets... oh yeah, was she still under the belief that she needed an offering or something? Well, clearly it would be too embarrassing to clear that up now, so best to leave that as-is.

Still, as generous as Hanako could be, her budget was limited, and being too carefree around Chise seemed disastrous, so with a clap of her hands, the shrine maiden reminded the girls, "Let's try keeping it to a maximum of three snacks each, okay~? Restraint is a sign of power and selflessness, after all~!"@VitaVitaAR@Raineh Daze

---

@VitaVitaAR

"The watcher even moved like a robot," Fuyuko replied, keeping watch for any sign of the girl, the house, or the person with the rabbit mask. As things were, this seemed the most likely explanation, although she couldn't shake the fear of leading Hikari the wrong way with her theory. "It's just a possibility, though. We've got to look out for any more hints."

She pondered Hikari's words, trying to recall the child's appearance. Having only glimpsed her for a split second, details eluded her. Sighing, she swept a glance through the dappled shadows once more. Nothing.

It was then that Hikari piped up. At her question, Fuyuko's pensive look returned. Draw out the girl? It would be a great deal easier if they knew the first thing about her. All they could do was work with what they had. "Uh well... She might be more drawn to us if we're in our magical girl forms," she suggested. The watcher certainly had been, she thought with a shudder. At least there probably wouldn't be any other magical girls in the forest, not at this time of day.

With a deep breath and a tentative step forward, she focused. Snow swirled as magic flowed through her body like ice water, turning her hair white, lengthening her school uniform into a kimono. The flurry died down, leaving her in her rather more conspicuous form. Tension tightened its grip, but she kept advancing. As much as she hated drawing attention at the best of times, let alone during the Hex Night, this mission made it a necessity. She just hoped she didn't draw the wrong kind.

It was her again. That same girl from yesterday. There and then gone in the blink of an eye.

Who? Who is this mystery party? What are their connections to the Hex Night? These questions would not leave Sophia's head. There was little doubt that these events were tied in some manner. Appearing in a brief phantasmal glimpse was one thing but now it was certain that she was following magical girls specifically.

Following the two she had observed from yesterday had paid off. On top of netting her more knowledge on them both it got her closer to the mystery that laid at the heart of it all. By this point her ravens had for the most part concentrated around the forest, only a couple left around her warehouse to keep an eye on her own position.

But alas her concentration of surveillance in that area meant her work was much more prolific as a result. The trees were thick with them, nary a stretch where several black inky eyes were fixed upon the duo who had ventured so far in. While the physical forms of these shadowy beings were silent in all manners they were nonetheless physical, the rustling of the branches as they flew to a fro being clear evidence of this.

Many, many ravens, all searching for something.

That made sense. Whoever this was probably would have a lot more interest in magical girls then non-magical girls, so there was plenty of reason to transform if they wanted to draw her in.

Hikari took a deep breath, remembering how she had felt last night when she had first transformed the previous night. Soon enough, light flooded across her body, her clothing seemingly being destroyed and replaced with a warm sensation as her magical girl outfit formed over her petite frame once more.

When the light faded, she was gripping her hammer once more, a previously non-existent wind causing the large bow and her yukata in general to flutter for a few moments before going still. Her platform geta had raised her height rather noticeably as well, even though the only things that had changed about her physical appearance were her eye and hair color.

The now-redhead raised her hammer and gripped it in both hands, looking around carefully as she did. If that little blonde girl showed up again...!

... Wait...

"... Where did all these ravens come from?" she asked, narrowing her eyes," They definitely weren't here before, what's with this?!"

@LuckyBlackCat@A Lowly Wretch

---

@VitaVitaAR @A Lowly Wretch

In a blaze of light, Hikari took on her own kimono-clad magical form, as bold and vibrant as Fuyuko's was pale and ethereal. Dresssed in brilliant red, gripping a hammer the height of her body, Hikari would certainly attract attention if the ghostly girl happened to be nearby.

And attract attention she did, as did Fuyuko, though not that of the child they searched for. Fuyuko stared up at the mass of ravens gathering in the trees, several pairs of beady eyes trained in their direction.

"Wha...?" Fuyuko grabbed the fan from her waist, but the birds didn't attack, their gazes unrelenting. Realisation dawned. She recognised the shadowy forms of these birds, recalled them flitting around Sophia, just before that first glimpse of the watcher.

Letting out the breath she'd been holding, she turned to Hikari. "It... It's ok, I think. I've seen these birds before. The person behind them... The masked figure saw her too." Wasn't it only logical for Sophia to keep a look out after that?

Fuyuko lowered her fan, but her grip on it remained tight. While Sophia had a reason to investigate, was that the sole purpose of sending the birds here? The macabre magical girl hadn't meant or done any harm yesterday, but had she just been waiting for the right moment? Could her new 'friend' truly be trusted? Could anyone?

What guarantee was there that this was indeed Sophia's doing, anyway? Fuyuko studied the ravens, looking for anything that set them apart from the ones she'd seen. Many magical girls had ice powers like hers - probably where the yuki-onna myth came from in the first place - so surely there were others in the city with bird or shadow related abilities. For all she knew, this could be a trick by the very people they were searching for. The watcher had seen Sophia and her ravens, after all.