Nothing could have prepared three young mages for what they saw atop the bright summit of Mount Hakone. That was if they did see anything past the blinding brilliance of the beacon.
Natsuko abruptly looked away to shield her eyes while Kazuma simply covered his and Kasumi's face with his arms, instinctively preventing themselves from completely losing their sense of sight.
"How do we expect ourselves to extinguish this thing?!" screamed Natsuko as she desperately tried to approach the magnificent beacon. "I can barely distinguish the colors around me! Everything seems white!"
"I'm sorry to put that burden upon you, but you three our only hope, Natsuko-chan," said Shizune through her classmate's thought projection. "That's probably the only sure way to protect us from the shadows around us."
