Work Text:
Suzume Minami carefully slid the last fold into place and set down her crane. Admiring for a moment the delicate creature, she then picked up a small needle tied to a long thread. She opened the bottom of her crane and squinted. Blowing a white hair out of her face, she pushed the needle through the top. Smiling, she let it fall down and admired her work. 317 cranes stared back at her, a motionless string of colors and patterns. That done, she hung the string up next to her desk. Given everything that happened, she thought it was a bit crazy to keep making them, but then again, she hadn’t expected that she’d become a magical girl partway through her quest to make a thousand. Just getting a wish was a bit selfish after all that. She brushed her hair back and took out another piece of paper. Logan had given her this paper for her birthday a few months ago, a really nice green with tiny black spots. She had a bet that Logan would be mad if she found out what she planned to wish for once she’d made a thousand.
She felt a warm furry thing brush between her legs and bent down. Akio, her tiny fluffy dog, panted beneath her. Smiling, she grabbed him and pulled him into her grasp, brushing his fur. She cooed at him and made a few signs which she was pretty sure he didn’t understand. He rumbled beneath her touch, and licked her arm a few times, but mostly she knew he was happy from the constant beating of his tail. After a bit she put him back down and he wandered off. She watched him go back out towards the kitchen and was about to turn back to her work when her eye caught the clock. Time for work.
Her dad caught her on the way out the door, grabbing her arm as she walked by. He signed, “Logan called, said she needed you at the hospital? She tried to explain to me over phone but then said easier to explain in person.”
Suzume nodded back, and gave him a quick hug. Made sense; though he was a good note taker and understood magical girl work (he had to, given how much of their merchandise he worked on), he didn’t really understand the technical side of Logan’s work. As they pulled away, he held just a bit longer than usual, and Suzume looked him in the eyes. He smiled, but she spied a bit of concern that wasn’t normally there. Logan had some emergency news.
Logan had approached her almost two weeks ago and asked her to take over leading Team Rescue patrols for a while. It wasn’t a step that surprised her, given how much coordination work she already did, but she had to be suspicious. She’d done her best to hide it, but Suzume had noticed Logan going to the hospital the last few days.
“Ok, but what’s going on?” she had signed back.
Logan sighed, ran a hand through her hair, and signed, “Ryder’s going through some stuff, and she needs my help. Well, a lot of help, really, but I don’t wanna involve you all in that.”
Suzume remembered Ryder. Black hair with stars. They’d met a few times, early on, but Suzume had a tendency to avoid anyone who couldn’t understand her back then. But if one of Logan’s friends was in trouble, Suzume wanted to help. She signed back at Logan, “Going through some stuff? Is that why you’ve been at the hospital?”
Sighing, Logan nodded. Suzume responded quickly. “Well now I’m involved. What can I do?”
Logan smiled. Suzume could see a bit of tension leave her shoulders. “I’ll let you know. For now, can you help run things for me?”
Waving her dad good night, Suzume closed the door behind her and took a deep breath. It wasn’t the responsibility that surprised her; Logan had been trying to get her to do more as it was. She’d never really thought too hard about it until now, but given the last few days, it made a lot of sense. Team Alchemical had been all over the news, and then Logan had taken that night off to help Ryder with some Team Courier business, and now almost their entire team was in the hospital. Facing all of that, so close together and so close to home, Logan had to be thinking about what came next. If something like that could happen to Team Courier, would Team Rescue be safe? What would happen to them if Logan wasn’t around? Suzume could only imagine what it might be like to leave behind something as big as Team Rescue.
But tonight was different. Logan wanted her for something specific.
Suzume always left early to make sure she had enough time to prepare with the team, but she hadn’t planned for the detour. The hospital wasn’t too far from where they usually met, but better safe than sorry. She decided to practice a bit and jogged to the hospital. Counting lamps was the best way she’d found to tell where she was going, especially when the barrier had a way of making everything look different, so she kept track of each one she passed.
She arrived a bit faster than she’d expected due to her pace, but she almost wanted to die when she reached the door. Logan had told her to train cardio but Suzume could never bring herself to do it. After gasping for a few seconds, she managed to bring her breathing back to normal and pulled open the door. The air around her changed, replacing the clean cold of the night with the warm and sterile of hospital. Suzume squinted a bit and wrinkled her nose. If Logan hadn’t asked, she wouldn’t have come in at all. Fortunately, the front desk staff were helpful (one of them even knew sign language!) and guided her up to the fourth floor, where most of Team Courier had been unconscious for the last two days.
She saw Logan in the hallway and ran up to her, frantically signing. “What’s up? What’s wrong? What can I do?”
Logan waved her hands in front of her and tried to respond, but Suzume read her lips before she read her signs. “Slow down, slow down.”
Suzume caught her breath and tried again, this time slower. “What do you want me to do?”
This time Logan nodded and gave a reply in signs Suzume could understand. “Put up familiars around the blue building by Everstone Park. Don’t go inside; there’s a dangerous magical girl in the basement. Just make sure to keep an eye out for her and keep the area clear.” Suzume nodded. She committed the plan to memory, already adding the details to her normal surveillance routes.
Her glance turned to the door, and she looked back at Logan. “How are they?”
Logan didn’t respond, but Suzume caught the way she glanced back at the door herself. Instead of prying further, Suzume continued. “You want me to run Team Rescue tonight?” Logan nodded, a small nod but enough that she knew it was an intentional response.
Suzume nodded back, and transformed there in the hallway. She pulled herself into a small ball, and then a large paper box folded over her, an enormous paper container that covered her completely. Then she lifted a hand and snapped, and the box unfolded to reveal her outfit; a white hakama, a deep red kisode, and ribbons tying her long white hair into a ponytail, with a variety of paper flowers nestled in her hair.
She held her eyes closed and summoned in her hand two pieces of paper, beautiful deep reds, which folded themselves into a crane and a flower, which she handed to Logan. She signed unnecessarily, for she knew that Logan knew the code: “Crush flower for help, keep crane nearby for alerts.” But she added on a bit more, “Tell whoever is staying here the code too, and stay safe.”
As she turned to leave, Logan grabbed Suzume’s hand. She turned to see her leader signing, “Don’t you want to know who did it?”
Suzume signed back, “Can you tell me?”
Logan laughed, or what Suzume thought was a laugh. But instead of answering, she just signed, “Stay safe and tell me if you find out anything else.”
Suzume could still remember the first time she and Logan met, over a year and a half ago. Her powers were not much use against monsters and, given her deafness, she didn’t feel like a random teammate would work out. Word had passed around Future’s Promise that Team Rescue was a good place to go if you were in the area and needed some girls to support you for a few days, so Suzume headed to their meeting place. The crowd was rather large that night, but a short girl with green hair seemed to keep everything under control, authoritatively pointing people to various places or other groups. She’d heard that Logan wasn’t very old, but Suzume never would have guessed it watching her work. With all her muscles, she almost looked like she’d been doing this her entire life, if not preparing for it. But as she watched Logan moving girls to various groups for their patrols, Suzume noticed something. She couldn’t really tell what anyone was saying in the crowd, but she could see Logan watching carefully, gauging reactions and responding accordingly. She was surprised to see that level of care in someone like Logan, but she supposed it was what made her such a good leader.
With her attention on Logan, Suzume hadn’t noticed a group of girls push ahead of her, moving her even further back in line. Suzume sighed. Even if she wanted to make a fuss about it, no one was going to understand her anyways. With little else to do, she accepted her new place in line and started using her powers. Small squares of paper appeared in front of her, floating in place until she focused on them, bending and folding them over and over until they turned into perfect origami shapes. She tried a few different ones. The frogs fell to the ground as soon as they were done, jumping around as she willed them forward, and the flower sort of floated through the air, falling as if it had fallen from a tree. The crane, however, just floated in the air, flapping its wings to stay aloft as it waited for Suzume to give it some sort of directive.
A tap on her shoulder surprised her, and she turned to see Logan staring at her. The first thing she noticed up close was Logan’s eyes, green just like her hair. She looked Suzume over quickly and then leaned back a bit, giving a clear view of her mouth as she spoke. “Can you read lips?”
Suzume nodded, and Logan continued, pointing at Suzume’s crane. “That’s a cool power. How many can you do?” Suzume started to sign, but she instantly saw Logan’s face turn to confusion. She put out one finger, then a fist, then a fist, then a fist. Nodding, Logan looked at the crane floating in the air, and tickled it. Suzume giggled. Eyes wide, Logan turned back to Suzume so her mouth was visible. “Think you could help us out for a few nights?”
She had been surprised when only a few months later Logan started using sign language. Her grammar and vocabulary were terrible to start, but none of Suzume’s friends (well, besides Gail and their mutuals) had ever bothered. After an embarrassing night of miscommunication, Suzume wrote her a note offering to help her practice. Twice a week, they met up at Suzume’s place and just talked. It started out pretty basic, but Logan turned out to be an exceptional student, picking things up really fast. Eventually they would sign in the halls, or between classes, or sometimes during when the teacher wasn’t looking.
During one such practice, Suzume finally had the chance to ask. She signed to Logan, “Why?”
Logan looked confused and signed back. “Why what?”
“Why do you want to learn sign language?”
She just shrugged. She looked at Suzume and said so she could read her lips, “You deserve to be understood.”
Suzume turned a bit red, and folded a piece of paper on her desk. Logan watched with interest as what had once been a square piece of pink paper became a rose. She offered it to Logan with one hand, the other signing, “Thank you.” Logan repeated the sign.
The night was still young, but Team Rescue usually got together much earlier than the announcement to make sure they could organize their group. They’d organized their meeting place at a market square near the center of the city, so it wasn’t too hard for unfamiliar teams to find. Suzume was there first tonight, something that had become more common in the last few days with Logan’s other matters. The run had been a bit easier tonight since she’d already transformed at the hospital, so she had some time to admire the lights on all the shop signs before Adama arrived. Her friend waved at her and pulled down the hood of her jacket, brushing a bit of sweat off her dark-skinned brow and wiping it on her sweatpants. She seemed to slacken a bit at sight of Suzume, probably relieved for the same reason Suzume was; with two regulars, no one would have to greet any first-timers alone tonight.
Adama signed to her, “No Logan?” and Suzume nodded. While she didn’t expect everyone to learn how to sign, Suzume was surprised at how many members had bothered to learn anything. She could see her friend’s shoulders droop at the news, but her mood quickly improved. This time she didn’t sign; what she said took too many words. Suzume watched her lips forming the words, “You need me to talk for you tonight, I assume, while you cover some stuff Logan didn’t tell us about?” Suzume nodded, though she put her hands together and bowed a little as if to ask forgiveness. Adama smiled, the kind that reached her red eyes, and put a hand on Suzume’s shoulder, signing with her other “OK.”
Thirty minutes later and roughly 30 girls were all assembled. it wasn’t unusual for them to get stragglers, but this many was too many. Suzume would have trouble communicating with most of these girls, much less her own team. But Adama took Suzume’s hand as soon as she started to shake and started speaking for her. They assigned each girl into pairs and each pair to a section of their range, making sure Suzume had time to give them their familiars and explain the code: “Crush flower for help, keep crane nearby for alerts.” She’d figured out that with so many girls coming in and out or working with Rescue for a night while a friend was out of commission, they needed to keep things simple. The other girls on Team Rescue may understand what Frog Frog Crane Flower meant, but explaining the whole system to the temporary girls would be way too much. When all was said and done and all jobs and routes were assigned, Suzume got to her real work.
After a few minutes of finding a suitable safe place to sit (tonight was on top of a roof near their meeting spot), Suzume started working. She’d already made 32 familiars today, one pair for every group plus a pair for Logan, but that was nothing. Adama watched as hundreds of paper squares appeared from nowhere and folded themselves into tiny red paper cranes. The flock flew into the air and then split into groups, each one moving to a different part of the city.
Suzume focused and spread out her senses. She could see Logan, talking to one of the members of Team Courier. She wasn’t sure which one, hadn’t met them all yet, but she thought it was the brown one? She could see Adama, walking around the roof they were on. And everyone else came through clearly through their flower and their crane, giving her somehow a view of them from the view of both familiars. With that tested, she turned her attention to her extra task.
Thirty cranes flew toward Everstone Park, splitting up to approach it from different angles. It might have been overkill, but if Suzume was going to scout this place, by the Founder she was going to do a thorough job. Suzume could see through all their eyes at once, and coordinated their movements to cover the entire park before circling back to the blue building. She checked every entrance and exit, waiting for the perfect moment. Fortunately, she was in luck; a man came to open the front door, giving Suzume the perfect chance to sneak one of her cranes in the front entrance. Just as she was considering how she would get down the stairs, the man seemed to answer her prayers and headed down the stairs to the basement. Careful to remain out of his range of view, Suzume willed her familiar after him, squeezing between the door and the frame just before it slammed shut.
Though there was little light further down, Suzume could still see through her familiars. Whatever it was she did, she could never quite explain, but she just knew what was there in front of them. There were a bunch of boxes scattered around a surprisingly vast storeroom. The man ahead of her moved towards the back of the room and she followed, trying to see what he was doing down there with whatever dangerous magical girl was hiding here. She kept the wing beats low, trying to keep her familiar’s presence unnoticed. But before she could get too much of a view, her vision of the room cut out completely.
Suzume flinched, putting a hand to her head. Adama tapped her shoulder and Suzume looked back at her, concern plain on her friend’s face. “You okay?” It was an easy sign, one Suzume remembered teaching to her. It was just as easy to nod back, despite the headache. She could see Adama’s face in one of her familiars’ visions as she turned away, her concern not quite gone from her face. But she couldn’t worry about that. Losing a familiar was rough, but Suzume had to focus.
She lifted the crane she’d left with Logan and poked her in the ear until she turned to look, then began changing its shape over and over. Elephant Butterfly. Lost a familiar. Dove Crane Bird. Watching with many others. Then she turned it back to its original shape and dropped it in Logan’s hand. The code was Logan’s idea, so she’d better get the message.
Suzume closed her eyes and focused enough to see Logan clear as day. Her face was a bit hard to read through her familiar’s senses, but she could feel a bit of determination in Logan’s stare. She hoped her friend would be all right tonight. But she had another job to do, and let her friend fade into the background as she focused her attention on Everstone Park. Whatever was coming, she would need to be on top of her game. Using her magic, she formed another piece of paper and began folding another crane. Even if she didn’t count it towards her thousand, she hoped it would still help her grant Logan’s wish.