Who's that Magical Girl?

The Fool Arc

Somewhere in darkness, there’s crying. Not loud, attention-grabbing sobs, nor the wailing of pain that comes from injury to the physical. The silently flowing tears that only end when the body is too dry to keep going. When each breath is rasping from dry throat and chapped lips.

Someone looking for help. For solidarity. For something to make the world stable and make sense for just a moment longer.

To the floating creature that called itself a fairy, that lonely cry was something it couldn't leave alone. Even if only in a little way, if it could help, it would.

♥ Magical Girl Rinrin ♥

“Bringing Peace and Powerful Punches, It’s Magical Girl of Hearts, Rinrin!” I throw in a hip out to my side, place my hand in front of my face in a sideways “peace” sign, and give a cocky wink. Or at least, try to. I’ve never been good at winking. I'm well aware that my wink looks more like I'm trying to stare up my own nose. But this is how a Magical Girl should introduce herself. When you're wearing a perfect white and pink dress, matching shining pink hair, and impractical ribbons to fight evil, showmanship is basically written on your forehead. That and a declaration of insanity.

The eyes of the large shadow-like monsters at the other end of the alleyway turn to face me. Hollow and unformed faces, mouths gaping unnaturally wide. Their jaws dislocate into cavernous maws as they gape at me. Between them is the frozen form of the innocent civilian that I'm here to protect. I'm struck by how much this reminds me of the old anime that I used to watch as a kid.

“Here. To. Punish. You!” I call out, leaping forward towards them, my leg kicking out. My foot lands with elegance and grace, smashing into the face of the shadow-creature as it gawks and stares at me. One comes in with some sort of bizarre hug-like attack and I slam my fist hard into its neck. As it flies over me and lands hard on the pavement, its form dissipates into a black mist, swallowed by the ground. Good. One down. Two more.

"Surrender, evildoers! Repent your wicked ways!" I call out to them, and they seem to grunt in response before charging straight at me, fists raised and arms swiping like giant weapons.

After the flurry of motions, movements, kicks and punches, easy strikes against slow and grunting enemies, the world returns to that sizzling calm, the air after a big confrontation, a big event. The fulfilled emptiness that comes afterwards is heady, intoxicating.

“You know they can’t understand you, right?” A small voice comes out of my pocket, deflating my mood like letting air out of a pink-frilled balloon. I dust my hands off, looking at the last of the three turn into mist and ash on the wind. I grab the scattered possessions of the would-be victim from the ground. Spectres like to cause misery and chaos, but they're easy enough to defeat.

“...Doesn’t hurt to show off.” I pick up the handbag from where it landed after the business woman threw it at her supernatural attackers, place the items I'd gathered inside carefully, and slide it into place over her shoulder.

“...That speech was nonsense, too. ‘Peace and powerful punches’, mu?”
“It’s poetic!”
“...You ever actually read a poem?” I roll my eyes in response to the voice from my pocket, looking instead at the woman frozen in terror. Like, literally frozen. Her body is unmoving, as if someone hit “pause” on a TV remote. She’s young, but put together. Probably the terror of some boardroom or courthouse from the severe cut of her hair and plain but artistic makeup. Maybe a rising star in her firm. Odd to be down this alley, but given the distance to the station was probably taking a shortcut somewhere.

"Hey, I can't hold this forever! You can figure out what she's doing here another time!" The small voice continues from nowhere. I step around and adjust the scene to look as if nothing happened, before reaching into my pocket and releasing the fairy from within.

The time stop magic that the fairy uses is limited. It doesn't stop objects or magical beings from moving, but does halt non-magicals, the beings of the mundane world. It's limited in scope, too; the larger the area he freezes, the less time I have to operate within it. Since we started working together, we'd more or less figured out the optimum space-to-time ratio for getting work done without getting seen. Well, excluding a couple of accidental near-misses.

“Looks good. Disturbance dealt with in record time, even with no magical Resonance. I guess even if you can't handle school you’re still good at something, mu.” The little fairy nods approvingly. At first glance, it’s like a little glowing ball of light, flitting here and there in a gentle white colour, but looking closer reveals a tiny humanoid form. I grab it out of the air and smoosh my thumb into its little face. That Resonance comment stung, and the school thing... well, that's hardly my fault.

“Heeey! I can't help it if I'm a magical late bloomer!” I glare as it squirms a little. Resonances... the secret power unique to each Magical Girl. That's how he explained it to me; every Magical Girl has a special power that exists only within themselves, based on their personality and desires. I don't know too much about them beyond what he's said, truthfully. I still haven't 'awoken' mine, and I haven't really met any other Magical Girls since I became one myself. Honestly, I've started to feel a little embarrassed, but given I don't know when people are supposed to awaken their Resonance, maybe it's all normal and the little fairy is just being a jerk about it.

“Alright, fine! You did good, now lemme finish!” The voice whines indignantly. This fairy was the first glimpse I ever had of the magical world that exists within ours. When I first heard that beneath the glitz and lights and fast-pace of Tokyo life lay a world of magic, my heart thrilled. I’d always believed there was more, that life could be more. When I was a kid, I'd draw pictures of myself as my ideal Magical Girl, admittedly heavily inspired by the anime that were around at that time. I'd annoyed my parents with requests for obscure merchandise, and even dragged Dad out to movie screenings so I could get limited edition free merchandise they'd hand out. Maybe I’d always wanted to be invited to be a part of a different world. The world I was born into definitely didn't feel interesting enough to hold my attention long.

The Fairy was my first ever sign that there really was something beyond the schoolbooks and study, something more important than getting a job and going to work. His form is a flitting humanoid with butterfly wings. He glows faintly, only perceived by the magically-inclined and those wishing they could see something beyond what they've been told is there. 

"If you'd practice your sigils, you could help with this, you know, nyamu." I’d given him the name “Nyamu” from his odd verbal tic. He objected at first, but seemed to silence those objections and go with it after I ran through a few of my other ideas. I thought they were all brilliant, but the expression on his face started to resemble mom's when she got back from a long day at work.

"You're doing fine! You don't need me!" I cheer him on half heartedly and get some grumbles in response. Memorizing magic seals was hardly something that I had time for when I had so much energy in my new form. I looked up and down the alley to check again that everything was in place. The woman now with her bag back, no sightings of the monsters that had once crawled through the walls, and watched Nyamu do his job. He floated a distance away and began glowing brightly, causing glowing magical orbs to rise from the areas where the vanquished foes of the night had sunk into the ground, as if pulling them out and purifying them into orbs of pink, yellow, green… all vibrant colors.

I reached my hand out to each, and they responded to my touch by popping like bubbles, absorbed into my skin. Each one felt energizing, like chugging a cola after a hot bath. I mentioned it to Nyamu offhandedly.

“Well of course. It’s pure energy.”
“Really? Like an energy drink?” Now that comment was met with a blank stare. The sort where a parent is wondering how their child could be quite so…
“No.” His response is curt. I rub the back of my head and offer a grin.
“Eheheh… Well.” I feel a raindrop dot on my face, and realize time is slowly unfreezing. I pick up the woman’s phone from where it hangs in mid drop, place it back in her hand. Once adjusted, I give a nod and kick up with my feet, gliding through the air from a standing position to land on a nearby rooftop.

As time resumes, the woman back in the alley blinks a few times. It's like the expression of a puppy when air is blowing in their face, I always get a kick out of watching that part of the show. Terror becomes confusion, her scream cut off before it starts. She shuffles awkwardly, checking her bag, her phone, then adjusting her jacket. Her cheeks are the pink of someone who scared themselves while staring too hard into an empty shadow, her heels clip-clopping as she continues safely on her way home. Her memory might retain some glimpses of a blur in white-and-pink catching her phone from mid air, but that would be all.

Nyamu's time freezing magic is designed to hide shadows and the worlds of magic from the world of the mundane. That's one of the first things I learned. The brief frozen moments keeps people safe and keeps the magical world hidden from view. Time comes back slowly, going from slow motion to full speed, giving enough warning signs to get out of there before you're spotted. Only beings of magic can move within, or even perceive, these bubbles of frozen time. Everyone else will find their eyes drifting away, or their mind focussing on something else. Nyamu says it’s like when you’re walking home and out of nowhere your brain starts considering what’s for dinner, and you don’t even remember the rest of the walk when you touch the door.

The time freeze keeps us secret, and keeps the mundane safe, but it's not without limitations. There are other methods that are used, too, of course- sometimes you need to use memory alteration on a wide scale, other situations require a simple distraction spell. All practices designed to hide the magical realm and its denizens.

As I dance and run over the rooftops, laughing with each leap and graceful landing, Nyamu begins his lecture once more.

“Emergences are caused when too much negative emotion wells up in a location and allows the Belowlings to walk among us.” He explains as I pause on top of one nice outcropping and look across the rooftops.

"I know, I know. Emergences, negative emotions, buildup." I try to cut the lecture short, but the fairy exhales.
"Obviously you don't, because you keep forgetting to practice your magic." He points out, and I can't really say much in response, so I just poke my tongue out and try to balance on one leg on top of an electric pole.
“As Magical Girl of Shinkawa District, your duty is to find and eliminate Emergences before they pose a threat to society...” He starts up the lecture again. Knowing how long this will take, I let my mind wander. It's not the first time I've heard this speech. He sees lecturing as a method of punishing me when I step out of line, I'm sure that's his motivation. He certainly can't think I'm interested because I never listen to him when he starts going on too long. As the words wash over me with all the repetitive talk about duty, tasks, and education, I sit down on a roof, dangle my legs over the edge, and stare across the buildings.

It hadn’t even been a week since…

*            *            *

“Don’t feel bad. Everyone cries.”

He’d said those words when he flew into my room, a small glowing light in the shape of a fairy, with two brilliant butterfly-like wings. I sat with my head against the wall, staring out the window at the rooftops with tears drying on my cheeks. A glowing fairy had appeared in my room, defying all logic. Even in my tired and emotionally exhausted state, that was enough to catch my attention. With croaky grunts, my surprise choked out a slew of questions; I’d asked what he was, if he was in trouble, and why he'd come to me. I even, for a moment, assumed I was dreaming. He took all my comments with a gentle shrug and a simple response.

“Your heart ached, mu.”

The explanations didn’t make much sense back then. There were beings, the glowing fairy explained. Beings from two worlds. A world above and a world below. Humans had given these worlds many names over the years, and built up many beliefs about them. Some more accurate than others. Each world was created by the emotions of humanity, they would coalesce into an entire realm, a reality of emotion.

Below went the dark feelings. The everyday anger, foolish jealousy, and pointless hostility of the every day, seeping into the earth to create a shadowy realm comprised of the combined misery of humanity. The world above would take the hopes, dreams, and joy. It was where the wishes of people went when they grew so large they had to be shared with the universe. Honestly, it sounded a little cheesy, not to mention ridiculous, at the time. There were two whole realities built from the emotions of humanity, the combined suffering and the combined joy.

"Emotions have weight. They don't just exist inside you, they color the world you see."

He'd explained in response. That made sense to me, in my little cocoon of misery in my room. Even the bright sun of summer dims when you're sad, like the whole world becomes desaturated. And when you're happy, even the dullest winter day shines bright like a beacon that saves ships from crashing against the coast. That was the energy of these two worlds affecting you as you contribute to them in turn. There was a world where everyone's wishes and dreams were physical forces as much as gravity and magnetism.

“That world is suffering. It needs help. Your help.”

I’d stared. I tried to laugh, but it came out as raspy and choked gurgles. My world was a mess, and it was a world I thought I understood. How can I help another world? One that, until this moment, existed only in print-pages and the images of a TV screen?

“Your heart is strong. You have within you the power to protect others.”

 He went on to explain that I'd been chosen to manifest magical powers earlier that day, and he'd been sent to find me and guide me on the right path of using them. He went over the rules, what I could and could not do, and some of the specifics on the way that transformation worked.

"Here. A pendant."

He'd thrown up the odd-shaped necklace, and I'd wrinkled my nose. He explained that if I clutched it in my hand and said my transformation phrase, I would be given a new form with increased speed, strength, and agility. I'd stood up. Maybe I was mad, maybe I just wanted to run away.

"Repeat after me- Magical Girl of Hearts, Beat!"

I did as told. My room warped. I was lifted up in a brilliant shining void, my clothes vanished into the light and straps of something emerging from it, wrapping around me. After a few moments, the light disappeared, and I stared at myself. I was dressed in a classic white-and-pink magical girl dress. Gloves, boots, and a skirt, all adorned with a simply unreasonable amount of ribbons. I ran over to the mirror on my desk, and saw what appeared to be a prettier version of myself, idealized, with startling pink eyes and hair and matching but subtle makeup. It was exactly like I'd always dreamed as a little girl. For the first time since coming home, I was no longer crying.

“As a Magical Girl, you must keep the existence of the Magical World a secret. Never let people know. You’ll be an urban legend, a dream, something seen only by children and kind souls.”

The birth of Magical Girl Rinrin, and the start of our long nights patrolling the rooftops, looking for Emergences, fighting shadows, and defending the innocent.

"It's a pleasure to be working with you, nyamu!"

Like the Magical Girls in the shows I grew up with, I would be a defender of Truth and a warrior of Love.

*             *             *

I yelp in pain, Nyamu is squeezing my nose grumpily.
"You could at least pretend to listen." He pouts, grumpily. I nod, face a little warm from the flush of embarrassment at getting caught, and stand up.

"It's a long way home. Race you?" I look at Nyamu, who sighs exasperatedly. Here, in the city at night, it's my domain. The realm of magic feels much closer as I start running, bouncing over and between rooftops.

Whatever the future holds, I hope it includes more Magical Girls.