Girls Dead Monster was gathered in the music room discussing their last guerilla performance.
"So…what happened?" Iwasawa asked of her gathered band mates.
"We failed," Hisako said in her straightforward, overly-honest way.
"We didn't completely fail," Sekine said.
"So…why was it such a failure?" Irie asked. The other members glanced in her direction.
"Because, Irie," Sekine said. "Hisako messed up on one of her riffs, I accidently started to play Alchemy instead Crow Song, and Iwasawa mixed up the first and third choruses of Alchemy. Just because you didn't mess up at all doesn't mean it was a smooth performance."
"Like hell I screwed up!" Hisako shouted.
"Hisako, you were the one who screwed up the most obviously," Sekine said.
"No way! At least I didn't play two completely different songs," Hisako argued. She looked ready to kill someone.
"It was the crowd." Iwasawa cut in. The other three stared at her. "Our crowd was smaller than usual. I think that threw us off. We just had a bad night."
"So how do we up our concert excitement?" Hisako asked.
"You could perform is a bathing suit," Iwasawa suggested. "That'll turn heads."
"Hell no! Why don't you do it?"
"I don't have F cups."
"God, not that again!"
"Why don't we do something that involves the fans?" Irie interjected.
"Such as?" Hisako asked.
"We could…raffle off a guitar or something to one of the people who comes to the concert," Sekine suggested.
"Except that we don't have an unlimited supply of guitars," Hisako argued.
"We'll let a fan perform with us," Iwasawa said. "We'll choose on fan at the concert and let them come up and sing the concert with us. That'll make fans come and keep them there." The other band members nodded their heads in agreement.
"So who will we pick?" Sekine asked.
"Not an NPC," Irie insisted.
"What about that fan-girl Yui? I think she might murder someone if we don't pick her, and I heard her do a street performance once; she's not too bad," Sekine said.
"But she's so damn irritating," Hisako groaned. "She's always bouncing around and trying to take pictures of us and shouting in her annoying voice."
"Come on, Hisako," Iwasawa said. "She's our best option."
"Fine. Whatever." Hisako grumbled. "So what are we doing; are we asking her ahead of time or are we surprising her at the concert?"
"We'll keep it a surprise. I have the feeling she's not the best at keeping secrets," Iwasawa said.
"Kibou terasu hikari no UTA O! SONO UTA O!" Iwasawa sang out to the crowd, then gave her band mates a look only they could see under the blaring multi-colored lights of the stage.
The musicians finished the song, the music resonating with the crowd's cheers, when Iwasawa announced, "All right, everyone! Tonight, as promised earlier, we're letting one person sing with us for our last song of the night! If you know Alchemy, let me hear you shout!" Hisako cast her a side glance. "Isn't that the kind of stuff rock stars say?" Iwasawa asked. Hisako rolled her eyes at her best friend and smiled. Meanwhile, the crowd was cheering like crazy. Yui looked like she was going to touch the ceiling, she was raising her hand so high.
"All right, don't blow out your voices," Hisako said. "How about…Pinkie?" She smirked.
"You mean…me?!" Yui gasped from the audience. Hisako winced. Her voice…so high-pitched!
"Yeah. Come on up!" Hisako shouted.
"SWEET!" Yui raced onstage and positioned herself behind the empty mic next to Iwasawa. "I'm so excited-I've dreamed of this moment! Thank you, Iwasawa-senpai! I admire you so much! I'M SO EXCITED!-"
With an amused smile, Iwasawa cut off Yui's rant by starting Alchemy. Yui immediately shut up and started singing with Iwasawa.
"Mugen ni ikitai mugen ni ikiraretara subete kanau."
The crowd exploded. Even Angel wasn't doing anything to stop the diversion. Yet, anyway. The music was more enthusiastic, the entire cafeteria bursting with sound. And Iwasawa's and Yui's voices swirled together, balancing each other perfectly.
Back in the music room, Girls Dead Monster excitedly discussed the performance.
"It was the best performance this month!" Sekine exclaimed.
"Yui's vocal range is amazing. I bet you can't even go that high, Iwasawa-san," Hisako teased.
"I bet not," Iwasawa said. "I've never really tried."
"So try now. Write a song that shows exactly how high you can go." Hisako challenged.
"Yeah, Iwasawa-senpai. I want to see that," Irie said.
"Yeah!" Sekine agreed.
"And it'll give us a new diversion song," Hisako added.
Iwasawa smiled a little at her friend's antics. "Guess I don't really have a choice now, do I? All right," she nodded.
"Yay! I can't wait!" Irie exclaimed.
Iwasawa sighed and dismissed the practice, after which she headed to her dorm room, pulled out her guitar, and began to play.
Iwasawa sat at her desk, frowning. She had been at it for hours, and no matter what she did, she was stuck. She knew her vocal range perfectly well, but actually using it was something she had never done before. She just wasn't comfortable in higher octaves like Yui was. She admired the girl's ability, and although she'd never admit it, she was slightly irritated that she wasn't more comfortable with her own voice. And now she was giving herself a headache, which didn't even seem possible in the Afterlife. Just then she heard a knock on her door. She stood up and went to answer it.
Iwasawa opened the door to find two NPC girls standing there. "Um, Iwasawa-san, we heard you were writing a new song, and um, we were wondering if you take requests…?" They jittered nervously. Iwasawa frowned. She didn't like the idea of taking requests, since it put restrictions on her creativity when she was writing songs. Taking requests was like making a promise: you had to make sure you did it, usually as soon as possible, with lots of opportunity to screw up and potentially disastrous results if you did. However, seeing as her creativity wasn't taking her anywhere this time, and there was plenty of opportunity to screw up either way, she decided it would be more helpful than hurtful to at least hear them out.
"I guess it depends. What's the request?" she responded. The girls looked ready to faint, they were so thrilled that an idol like Iwasawa was considering their request.
"We were wondering if maybe you could make it an acoustic song. You know, like on the acoustic guitar." One girl said.
"I love acoustic songs," the other added.
Iwasawa nodded. "No problem."
The girls squealed in delight. "Thank you!" They gushed, and left talking excitedly. Iwasawa closed the door after them and went back to work, replacing the Fender Stratocaster electric with her precious acoustic. She hadn't even hit three chords when there was another knock on the door. Drawing her eyebrows together in worry, Iwasawa opened the door. Why are there so many people? She wondered. It was another NPC girl, brave enough to come alone this time.
"I-Iwasawa-san? I heard you were writing a new song, and that you're taking requests." Knew it was a mistake, Iwasawa thought.
"What are you requesting?" she asked.
"Can you add a fade-out ending? Like when the music just fades instead of ending? Gldemo never does fade-out endings." She exclaimed.
We never do fade-out endings because fade-out endings are what musicians do when they can't think of a good song ending, Iwasawa thought. Still, not wanting to let her fan down, agreed. I'm going to have a lot on my hands now. She returned to her desk with her guitar and did her best to plan an acoustic fade-out ending that didn't sound like a cheap ending as so many did. This time, she managed to get music on the page before realizing she was almost late for a Battlefront meeting.
Iwasawa was about to return to the music room after the meeting when Yuri stopped her.
"Iwasawa-san. You're writing a new song, right?" her leader asked.
"Yeah. Are you here to make a request, too?" Iwasawa asked jokingly.
"Actually, yes." Yuri smirked at her warfront member's surprised reaction. "I want you to make it long. I'm planning another operation, and it's going to be pretty complicated. I'm gonna need a longer diversion than usual."
Iwasawa sighed. Another restriction. But it was from her leader, for the sake of Battlefront, so there was no way she could refuse.
"Got it."
Yuri nodded in approval. Iwasawa continued from the music room.
Over the next few days, Iwasawa got more and more requests, each one adding more to list of requirements as well as worries. Requests like to make it about Iwasawa's feelings about the Afterlife if she were to pass on, or something like that, anyway, and to make it slow, to make it include the word "warawareteiru*", and even to use Battlefront as backup. ("But Battlefront will be fighting during a guerilla performance." "Well…not all of Battlefront.") How am I going to manage all this? No, I can't think like this now. I have to focus. I can't let anyone down with this. This song is for everyone else, not me. I can't fail now.
Worst of all, not only was Iwasawa stressed about fitting in everyone's requests, the plan to use requests to spark creative ideas had backfired. Every time Iwasawa wrote something, she scrapped it. When she was writing, she had no idea how good the song actually was until she was done with it and could listen to it properly. But now, she knew before she finished the attempts were no good. Hisako listened to these frustrated attempts on the other side of Iwasawa's door, worried. I've never seen her so stressed before. Maybe I should talk to Yuri about it… she thought. Meanwhile, Iwasawa wondered, why is this so difficult? I've never had a problem writing songs before. It doesn't make sense.
Hisako knocked on the door to the seemingly empty Battlefront room, knowing her leader was probably waiting inside. Yusa had probably seen Hisako moving in the direction of the principal's office and reported to Yuri, so Yuri was expecting her. It was actually a little creepy, but with the time Yusa spent with Girls Dead Monster, Hisako had learned the secret to Yuri's knows-all nature. What she hadn't figured out was how Yusa managed to be everywhere and see everything to report to Yuri. Oh well.
Hisako entered, and went over to where her leader sat. "Hisako-san. What's wrong?" Yuri knew that the only reason Hisako would come to her for something was if Iwasawa wouldn't. Hisako opened her mouth to speak. "I'm worried about Iwasawa-san." Yuri nodded for her to elaborate. "She's really stressed out. I think all the requests are…affecting her. Or something."
You're asking me about feelings? Yuri thought. She could deal with battle strategy issues, questions about God, anything but feelings. Especially love, but love didn't seem to be the problem. "So, you're saying we might've put too much pressure on her," the leader guessed.
"Exactly." Hisako confirmed. "I wanted to talk to her, but I wouldn't know what to say to her. She'd just act like everything was fine, and that she just needed to play some music to vent and then everything would be okay. I think she's relying on the new song to make her feel better like she normally does, but the requests are making it hard for her. But maybe, if you talk to her, she'd listen."
"Why would she listen to me over her best friend?" Yuri asked. She really didn't want to have to talk to people about feelings.
"Because you're her leader; she has to do what you say," Hisako countered. "Please! Everything she's written so far for this song has turned out like crap because she's so stressed!
Yuri sighed. "I'll talk to her." Hisako nodded and left. Yuri started off to the music room, where she figured Iwasawa would be. Yusa had told her something a little like what Hisako had just told her earlier that day, so they must have been right. She stopped in front of the music room door when she heard music coming from it. Must be the new song. She listened.
Iwasawa erased another line from her battered sheet of paper. The sheet, despite sitting in front of her for four hours, remained empty. Suddenly, she stood and pulled out papers containing all of the songs she had written in the Afterlife. Iwasawa leafed through the mini-masterpieces one by one, remembering the sound and feel of all of them. Crow Song, Alchemy, all of the ones she had written had something in common. They all consisted of her deepest feelings, deepest feelings that she sang out in the music, giving everything she had. And then it all came rushing down around her. This song is for everyone else, not me. For everyone else. These were the feelings and wishes of everyone else, not Iwasawa. Not one pain-staking minute of writing that song had Iwasawa reflected her own feelings. It was all pieces of everyone else's that came together to make a chaotic piece of disaster. Iwasawa smiled. She hesitated for a moment, then started to write. This time, she didn't try to force the music. And the music came. She was also able to accommodate all of the requests with a little bit of work. When she was done, she picked up her guitar and began to play. And because it was Iwasawa and not anyone else, and because it was Iwasawa singing for herself, and not anyone else, it wasn't just a song. It was music.
She stopped in front of the music room door when she heard music coming from it. Must be the new song. She listened.
From inside the music room, Yuri heard Iwasawa playing her new song, and was startled. Whatever stress Iwasawa was under, whatever roadblocks she was hitting with her songwriting, the new song momentarily took Yuri's breath away. It was really good. No, it was amazing. Yuri paused, then smiled. She didn't need to talk to Iwasawa. No matter what Iwasawa was faced with, whatever might try to discourage her, she would be able to overcome it on her own. She was strong. Even alone, she'd go on, even if it was painful. But we've got to move ahead toward tomorrow, so I'm going to sing like this. Yep, that was Iwasawa. Yuri smiled, then turned and walked away.
*warawareteiru=are laughing, laughs