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Caroline stood off to the side, watching the crowd of new volunteers for Team Rescue queue up to be assigned roles. She was thankful that the days when she would have to be the one to make sure to get powers from others were long passed; it had become an organized tradition among the regulars to gather around her and give her a set of powers for the night, and the ritual had already been done. She summoned a small ring of fire and tossed it in the air a few times, testing how it felt to move. That wasn’t strictly necessary; she already knew just from receiving the power exactly how to use it and how to move so the related red ribbon flowing around her arm didn’t catch on any other parts of her costume, but she enjoyed getting to use an old power again, and this one more than some of the others. Not every power gave the user the same kind of creative control as this one, and it wasn’t every day that she really got to practice with a power rather than adapt it on the fly.
Despite being one of the older members of the team, Caroline was thankful that she was rarely called upon to do any leadership related tasks, which was why she was surprised when she noticed Logan, the newest leader, leading a short (though not as short as Logan), white-haired girl over to her. The girl seemed to have already been transformed, wearing a red puffy shirt and white skirt patterned with flowers, and based just on that Caroline suspected Logan wanted her to give an assessment of her powers. But she hadn’t been expecting the girl to look up at her and greet her with a sign. “Hello,” the girl signed, smiling.
Logan scratched the back of her head. “Hey Caroline, this girl here wanted to volunteer tonight, but she’s deaf and I’m kinda concerned about her given what she’s shown me about her power. But I think she could be a real big help, so would you mind looking after her tonight?”
Caroline nodded, letting the ring of fire in her hand dissipate into nothing. She heard the subtext in that statement all too clearly. “Yes, I can partner with her if that would be good? We can stay here and cover this part of the street.” Meanwhile, she signed back to the new girl, “Hello, I’m Caroline, nice to meet you.”
The girl’s face lit up a bit, a change that Logan caught from the corner of her eye and which lit up her face a bit too. Smiling, the girl gave a small bow and then signed back, “I’m Suzume Minami, nice to meet you too!”
She looked at Logan as if for some sort of confirmation, and Logan made a wide gesture and pushed the girl slightly forward. Logan let out a breath and gave Caroline a thumbs up before heading back the crowd to give her usual opening speech. Caroline didn’t really need to hear the speech anyways; she’d been here long enough, and if she was going to be initiating the new girl she might as well get started. Signing to the new girl, Caroline gestured up to a nearby roof. “How about we go up there? That way the monsters won’t be too bad if they do bother us.” Suzume nodded and followed as Caroline made her way up a nearby stairway to a higher vantage point.
Not all the rooftops were as accessible as this one, but that’s why Caroline liked it. From up here, there was a sort of rooftop balcony, a totally flat roof with a small wall that wrapped around the outside, barely high enough to reach Caroline’s waist. Up in the open of the rooftop, Caroline turned to get a bit of a better view of the girl, Suzume. Her costume seemed to flow rather easily as she walked, despite how rather large and loose her sleeves and skirt seemed to be. If it wasn’t for the obvious nervous energy the girl had, Caroline would have thought she was comfortable in her clothes. And she could see when the girl turned to glance behind them that she wore a few small red flowers in her hair, though they had more sharper edges than normal flowers. Looking a bit closer she could see the folds on them, similar to the folds of the red paper crane that circled around her and seemed to look where she looked.
She seemed totally unaware of Caroline at first, so she tapped the girl on the shoulder. That seemed to startle her a bit as she jumped slightly, but Caroline tried to smile and reassure her. “You seem nervous. Are you okay?”
Suzume nodded. “Yes. Just my first time going out when the monsters would be out.”
Caroline signed back, “You’ll be okay. I’ve been doing this a long time.” She pulled four small orbs off of a bracelet on her left arm and tossed them out. As soon as they left her hand they grew, almost as big as Suzume, and floated outwards to the corners of the roof, slowly rotating in place. Normally she would try to be vigilant, but today she was glad to have a power that would take care of things for her. A bit easier to focus on the task at hand if the job didn’t get in the way. Monsters wouldn’t be able to get the jump on her through those.
As if on cue, the roof changed color, a wave of colors passing over it as it turned into a mixture of blues and greens with a subtle line of wavelike motion through it. As if to match, the sky became a deep mixture of blue and green, lighter at the highest point but darker as it went down. Caroline recognized the colors from a few books she had read about the ocean, but seeing the colors herself was something else.
Caroline did notice that for her part, Suzume seemed focused on her surroundings, trying to take in what Caroline was doing and observing. She recognized the gears turning in the new girl’s brain, and tapped her shoulder again to get her attention. “My power lets me copy other magical girl’s powers, so I can have a few at once. Do you want to try?” Suzume gave a nod, and Caroline signed back. “Okay, hit me with your best attack and I’ll try and tell you about it.”
Suzume nodded again, and closed her eyes. Suddenly around her eight new pieces of red and white paper appeared in the air around her and began folding themselves into cranes just like the one that now paused in the air above the girl’s head. Caroline admired the artistry; she had certainly tried doing papercrafts, but got a bit bored of it once she had made a few shapes. But she could tell this girl really knew what she was doing with how the folds came together. Each paper crane was just as pristine as the last, almost as if they were copies rather than individual pieces. She looked back as Suzume opened her eyes, and with determination the girl through both hands forward and the flock of cranes flew straight towards Caroline. She closed her eyes, waiting for her power to kick in.
Instead, she felt eight tiny impacts hitting her across her front. She opened her eyes to find them eight paper cranes on the ground, their beaks slightly dented from the impact, and Suzume rubbing her own nose. The cranes jostled a bit, then lifted themselves off the ground, circling around Caroline before they came to rest flying in the air around Suzume, flapping their wings every so often to remain aloft. Suzume gave a small sigh. “Sorry, I wasn’t sure if that would work. That’s really the best I can do though.”
Caroline let out a breath and couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s okay. Not the first time that’s happened to me.” She pointed at Suzume’s nose. “Are you okay?”
Suzume nodded. “Yeah, just a bit sore.”
Intrigued, Caroline pointed at one of the cranes with a dent in the beak. “Do you feel what they feel?”
“A bit. Not quite.” Suzume went back to rubbing her nose, then looked at her hands and immediately put them down at her sides.
Caroline’s mind was already running through possibilities. “How bad is it?”
Suzume shook her head and signed back, “Not bad. It’s sore, but it also happened a lot of times very close together.”
“Does it hurt when they break?”
Nodding, Suzume rubbed her arm nervously, then signed, “Yeah. It feels like a slight headache, but not too much if I’m not actively trying to look through that particular one. Usually if I can tell they’re about to get hit, I can avoid it.”
One of the birds flying close by Caroline caught her eye. She pointed at it again and signed, “Can I take a closer look?”
Suzume nodded and the bird floated down into Caroline’s outstretched hand. Her initial instincts were right on; the folds had an artistry to them that even for something as simple as this Caroline could recognize immediately as something that required great skill. She turned the crane over in her hand a few times, then looked at Suzume and lifted her hand up, which seemed to be enough for Suzume to understand. The crane flew off into the air again, leaving Caroline’s hands free to sign again.
“These are very well made.”
Suzume turned a bit red and signed back, “Thank you.”
Caroline admired the paper cranes as they flew overhead, now taking a small circular orbit above them. “Do you make a lot of these normally?”
Suzume nodded. “Yeah. My mom and I used to make them all the time.”
Caroline braced a bit before signing back. “Used to?”
“Yeah. She got promoted at her job, some sort of bank person or something? She does a lot with money. But she didn’t really have as much time after that, so I mostly made them by myself after that. I try to make a lot of different things, but.” Suzume stopped for a bit, and Caroline saw her considering what to sign next. “I really like cranes more than the other things, I guess.”
“So, you see through them? Like they had eyes?”
Suzume nodded, and closed her eyes. “Yeah.”
Caroline turned around and signed so she was facing away from Suzume. “How well?”
She turned back towards Suzume, who was smiling. The girl signed back, her eyes still closed. “Pretty well.” Caroline felt a small poke in her back and turned to find a crane floating there. Suzume opened her eyes and winked.
“So, what sorts of things can you make?”
As if to answer, a few new pieces of paper appeared out of nothing and folded themselves into different shapes. A few different shapes of birds, a butterfly, a frog, an elephant, a flower similar to the one in Suzume’s hair, and even a few other shapes like a small box and what looked like some sort of star. Once each shape was finished it seemed to act as what it was, the frog and elephant falling to the ground before beginning to move on their own accord, while the box and star sort of just fell and sat there. Suzume gave a bit of a nervous look as Caroline picked up the star and studied it in her hand, and signed a bit frantically, “I can do a lot of them, but not all of them really work very well. The ones that are animals seem to move on their own a bit but the others mostly don’t seem to really do much.”
Caroline looked down at the paper star. It was incredibly even and symmetrical; she had struggled to do that the first several times she’d tried to make the same thing. Looking up at Suzume, she pointed at the star in her hand. She wasn’t as good with one hand, but Caroline tried her best to sign, “Can you change it?” but Suzume looked at her with a bit of confusion. Caroline thought for a bit, and tried to unfold the paper herself, moving her fingers along the creases until she could find where it folded in on itself. Before she had much success suddenly the star in her hand seemed to unfold itself, returning to a flat piece of paper which seemed to have no creases whatsoever before folding into a crane in front of her and flying away.
Suzume signed back. “Sorry. Yes, I can change them to other things.”
Caroline put a hand to her chin, watching as the cranes flew around. She turned to look at Suzume every so often, watching her as the cranes flew around and trying to gauge exactly how Suzume could help them. There were a few things to work out, but she could immediately think of a few ideas that she thought might work especially well for the girl. Logan was right to try and recruit this girl. She’d have to make sure to mention it to her next time she saw her.
She saw Suzume looking around nervously, checking the edges of the roof, her cranes making constant orbits around her. Careful not to knock any of the cranes out of the air, she tapped Suzume on the shoulder and signed, “You okay, Suzume?”
Suzume nodded, but she kept looking around. Caroline tried again. “You nervous?” Suzume nodded again. “What about?”
Smiling, Suzume signed back, “My power. It’s not a very useful power for a magical girl.”
“What do you mean?”
Sighing, Suzume signed back, “I can’t really protect people with this.”
Caroline remembered back to when she first got the Dream, when she stood in that office and couldn’t figure out how to do anything. She remembered how long she’d been in that same spot. She signed, “I wouldn’t say that.”
“Why not?” Suzume signed a bit more frantically now, a bit faster. “I can’t hurt monsters; my power isn’t even enough to trigger whatever your powers do. If I send my paper cranes at monsters, I’ll be the one who gets hurt, not them. If you weren’t here, I’d be in big danger, I wouldn’t even be able to fight. And I’m not, like, sporty or anything, I hate sports, I can’t even run. I would just be a liability or get you hurt or something.”
Caroline looked around as the cranes circling above them started moving faster and more frenetically, their orbits changing from smooth to more scattered, and she placed both hands on Suzume’s shoulders. The smaller girl looked up at Caroline, tears in her eyes, and she saw Caroline’s stoic expression and wiped her eyes dry. Pulling away so Suzume could see her signs, Caroline replied, “It’s no problem. I usually take care of newer girls anyways. Usually, the reason I’m with them is because they’re actively a danger to others, but I think you’re in much better control of your powers than they are.”
Suzume threw up her hands and let out a huff in frustration. “Well, I’m not really a danger to anyone or anything so I guess that’s something.” She turned and walked to the edge of the roof, putting her hands on the outer wall to look out onto the street.
Deciding not to follow her quite yet, Caroline followed the girl with her eyes. She’d felt that before. Suzume wanted to help, but with a power like hers…Caroline couldn’t help but remember that night many years ago. The night when, without even knowing at the time, Team Rescue had come to her aid. Sometimes rescuing someone was just being in the right place at the right time. She smiled.
Walking over to the roof’s edge, Caroline leaned next to Suzume, still watching her as she gazed off into the distance. She tapped her on the arm and started signing as she looked over. “You know, one of my friends used to be really good without ever killing any monsters.”
“Really?”
Caroline nodded. “She had two teammates that she had to take care of, and she helped them with magical music.”
Suzume smiled. “I don’t really know anything about music, but she seems like a nice person. But what does that have to do with me?”
“Do you want to keep people safe?”
Suzume nodded. “Yeah. That’s what magical girls do, right?”
Smiling, Caroline nodded. “I think if she could do it, you can do it too.” Suzume looked down at her feed for a moment. Caroline decided to wait a bit, then she placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder, pulling her out of her head to look back up at Caroline’s hands. “I remember when I was just starting. I too worried that my powers were useless. I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t even seem to have any powers at all. It took me months to even realize what my powers were, and longer to figure out how I could really use them. But over time, I discovered that my powers gave me the ability to do things no one else could do, or even dream of doing.”
As if to punctuate her point, one of the rotating orbs at the corner of the roof exploded, with a loud bang and a flash. Caroline looked over to see a small shadowy creature bursting into a cloud of smoke, with another two or so following. Caroline turned so Suzume was behind her and summoned the ring of fire in her hand, then threw it in a wide arc. It flew gracefully towards the edge of the roof, striking another shadowy monster just as it began to rise above the edge. Smiling, Caroline opened her closed hand and the ring expanded, surrounding the monster before closing on it again, trapping it in a binding of fire. It made the motions of screaming but made no noise whatsoever. She clapped her hands together, and the orbs on the other corners of the roof flew towards this new foe, creating an even bigger explosion.
Caroline pulled a few more orbs off the bracelet and threw them out, once again allowing them to grow to full size. But it didn’t seem like any more monsters were trying the roof after that first batch got eliminated so quickly. Satisfied, she turned back to Suzume and continued signing.
“And there were many times when I couldn’t do anything. When I was alone, or when my friends forgot me. Not all of us have powers that are so easy to use, after all. Some of us have to learn how to use them, to find new tricks or abilities or ways to use what we have. But I think you have the ability to do that, and a very good place.”
She reached out an open hand and one of Suzume’s cranes landed in it, and she carefully unfolded it, then folded the paper into a small flower, not quite as pristine or complex as Suzume’s but still distinct. Holding out a hand, she gestured towards Suzume, who took the flower from her, holding it in her palms.
Caroline signed, “You have the heart for it. And everyone here at Team Rescue will help you be as good as you can be. You just have to have a little bit of trust in us, and give yourself permission to think a bit outside of the box.”
Suzume, beaming, nodded. “I, um, I’ll try, Miss Caroline!”
She smiled and signed back. “Please, just Caroline. Or, Magical Girl Living Canvas, if you prefer.”
Suzume signed back. “And I’ll be Magical Girl Folding Crane.” Caroline smiled at the sudden confidence in her gestures. This one might go far.