AN: Alright! The definitive version of this chapter! Some of you who follow this story know I initially posted a version of this chapter that I wasn't happy with and wasn't fully beta read. Now it's been revised and has a new ending that I'm far more happy with. Sometimes I do that with these stories given the fact that the posting manner is kind of blog like in nature, but in the future I'll try to make sure the work is more heavily revised when I'm posting in the future
This is the first chapter where a song by A Wilhelm Scream comes into play. The song is titled "The King is Dead" (hence the chapter name). I highly recommend giving it a listen when reading the section of the story where the song comes into play.
One of the defining features of A Wilhelm Scream is their two and three part vocal harmonies, which was one of the reason I picked their music as a source point for this story. Because A Seed of Sorrow features three different vocalists, I had to figure out a way to show how the voices are interchanging, separating, or harmonizing. The system is as follows:
Any lyrics italicized are sung by Diana
Any lyrics in bold are sung by Akko (also the reason why this author's note is not in bold text)
Any lyrics underlined are sung by Amanda
Any combination of underlined, italicized, and bold text signifies a harmony between multiple singers
As always, please review, critique, and thank you for the support! Rock on, folks!
Kind Regards,
Symbiotic
Later that night Akko returned to Poseidon's Poison, this time with Lotte agreeing to pick her up so that way she could have a drink for a change. Lotte could tell by the way Akko was completely silent and breathing heavily in the car that something bad had happened at work, and that her friend wasn't in the mood to talk about it. She was worried about what had happened with Akko and Diana. She had been present when Andrew presented the scheme to her that was supposed to help her get what she wanted.
The two arrived to find Sucy and Andrew already there, both hanging out near the corner of the bar. Andrew went to ask Akko how the attempt at asking Diana went, but instead he watched her walk right to the online jukebox, put a five dollar bill, and pick five songs. Lotte ran up by her side to prevent Akko from picking anything too crazy, but unfortunately only made it in time to stop her from picking two more songs. The ones she picked were highly abrasive "You Suffer" by Napalm Death, "Hell Awaits" by Slayer, and a song she spent extra credits on to play first in the list, "I Will Be Heard" by fellow Massachusetts residents Hatebreed. Sucy put her head in her hands and Lotte winced away at the music. Andrew looked up with a raised eyebrow at Akko as Jamie Jasta's powerful declarations emanated throughout the Poseidon's Poison.
"You're so lucky my boss isn't here," Sucy seethed as she began to make Akko a kamikaze shot. She was not in the mood for Akko's antics, but knew exactly what kind of potion would calm her friend down.
"Shut up," Akko shot back as she took the shot from Sucy. She threw her head back and downed the shot in a single gulp, making both Lotte and Andrew look at their friend worried. "Give me another." Sucy shrugged her shoulders. She had a rough idea of what made Akko so upset, but she was smiling from ear to ear that it put her friend in a mood to down a few more of her shots. Quickly she whipped one up and passed it to Akko, watching the brunette quickly down the shot before throwing cash down onto the bar to pay for her two shots and two more shots.
Before she could pay Andrew reached over and handed Sucy a metallic credit card. "Put it on my tab," he offered. "I got a feeling this is going to be a rough night."
"Let me pay for my own drinks, Andrew," Akko growled at her wealthy friend. She took another shot from Sucy and downed it quickly, setting down the glass a little harder than necessary. "You don't need to help someone as pathetic as me."
Andrew craned his head back and raised his eyebrows at Akko. "Pathetic?" he said surprised. He watched as Akko slumped down in her seat at the bar, a dejected and distraught look on her face. "Pathetic is the last word I would ever use to describe you, Akko."
"Well tell that to Diana Cavendish," Akko stated in a tone that was half a choked cry and half an angry growl. Andrew watched as Akko put her head in her hands and, much to his surprise, actually began crying, unable to stay the typical assured girl that Andrew was so used to seeing. Now she seemed broken, a shell of her usual uppity and confident self.
She sniffled from her nose and tears fell from her eyes upon the bar table. "What happened today, Akko?" Lotte asked, putting her hands on her friend's shoulder next to Andrew. Akko remained silent, only sniffling and letting her tears fall as her two friends held her shoulders. "You can tell us. We're both listening. Sucy's listening too."
"Do I really have a choice?" Sucy questioned with a roll of her eyes followed by a gentle smile. She came over and took her place at the bar in front of her friend. Akko may have been stubborn, thick headed, abrasive, and sometimes a complete idiot, but she was Sucy's complete idiot and bandmate, and she always respected and cared about Akko's feelings.
With her three friends now showing their support Akko picked up her head and wiped the tears from her eyes. "I'm sorry," she squeaked out of her throat. She took a deep breath to center herself before going back and leaning on her hand against the countertop. "Things just didn't go the way I wanted them too."
"What happened?" Lotte asked curiously.
Akko felt her lips quiver as she struggled to recount the story of what happened. "I tried to ask Diana to come to one of our rehearsals." She looked over at Andrew with watery eyes. "I even tried to word things just the way you said they should. I called us an 'ensemble' instead of a band. Instead Diana called us pathetic." She didn't bother telling them about calling Diana scared. She felt completely defeated and regretful enough that she didn't need Andrew or Sucy calling her stupid, which she knew they would do. "I should've listened to you, Andrew. You were right when you said I had a better shot at winning the lottery than getting Diana to join A Seed of Sorrow."
"Akko," he said gently. He looked at how dejected his friend felt and frowned, upset that he had helped put her in this position. "If anyone here is pathetic, it certainly isn't you."
"Not according to Diana Cavendish," Akko scoffed before sniffling and tearing up again. "She tore me down pretty good at the shop today when I asked her." Her sniffled developed into small sobs and she put her face in her hands. Tears stained her palms. "And who knows? Maybe by this point we are pathetic. We can't play live and record without a lead vocalist. And if we don't do anything soon then we might as well call it quits."
"You want to give up because of what Diana said to you?" Lotte asked. "Akko, that doesn't make any sense."
"That's also not very punk rock," Sucy pointed out. "And frankly stupid after all you've accomplished."
"Akko, look at me," Andrew began. He reached over and gently put his hand on her shoulder to calm her down. She looked up at him with watery eyes, her own emotions being held down by nothing more than swallows in her throat. "I don't know what Diana said to you at the shop today, but I know for sure you aren't pathetic. You've taken something that I admittedly didn't think anyone cared about and built it into an international brand. I still don't know much about punk rock or heavy music in general, but I do know a lot about businesses. And by any measure you put it Akko, you've run a successful business." He could see Akko smiling and shook her shoulder to get her to chuckle. "And you know what else? That's a lot more than someone like Diana Cavendish can say."
She wiped the tears away from her eyes and wrapped her arms around Lotte and Andrew, smiling from ear to ear as she sniffled a bit. "Guys, what did I do to have such great friends?" She looked at Lotte and Sucy closely. "And two even better bandmates."
"You're just lucky we go along with all your plans," Sucy said with a light smile. Akko rolled her eyes at the puce haired woman. She could still be poignant even when it wasn't necessarily called for, though Akko appreciated her honesty.
"So what's next, Akko?" Lotte asked. She held her best friend and band mate's hand tightly. "Like Sucy said, we'll go along with whatever plans you come up with."
Akko sighed again and put her chin in her hands. "I don't know," she sighed. She sniffled to get rid of the last of her tears. "I guess we'll keep looking for a singer. And we'll keep writing new stuff for when we find one." She looked over at Lotte, Sucy, and Andrew and felt the positive thoughts come back to the forefront of to her mind. She couldn't stay upset forever, not in the company of her two bandmates and one of her closest friends outside of the band. "And you know what, fuck her!"
"Huh?" Sucy muttered from behind the bar.
"Fuck Diana Cavendish!" Akko declared loudly, loud enough for the whole bar to look at her with raised eyebrows. Akko didn't back down from her declaration and even stood up on the barstool in triumph. "We don't need her. We're A Seed Of Sorrow and we're gonna conquer the world!"
Andrew sighed with a smile and went back to drinking his gin and tonic. He was happy to see one of his closest friends back in the form he was always used to seeing her in.
A few nights later on the other side of New Bedford which wasn't far away from the bridge connecting the more working class town to Dartmouth, sat Le Pace Night Club. It was a mid-size nightclub, hardly the most exclusive establishment in the area but not one with the most open doors. It was fairly modern on the inside, with relatively new decorum from a recent renovation and a flashy bar that was lit by black lighting from above. Usually a DJ was in attendance to provide live music, mostly of the newest dance hall remixes and dubstep tracks for the patrons to dance to. But perhaps most importantly to Diana, Hannah, and Barbara was that it was a place where they inevitably wouldn't be bothered by lascivious men and they could dance in peace. That's because Le Place was a gay bar, and the idea of going to a gay bar pleased Hannah and Barbara. Diana herself was not fundamentally opposed to attending Le Place. On the contrary she was someone who actually wouldn't be out of sorts in the club there given her own sexuality.
Diana had known since childhood that she was not straight, having discovered it at a very young age. She always dreamed of being not the princess to be saved from the clutches of a dragon but the knight in shining armor who would save the princess. When her childhood best friends would ask who she wanted to marry when she grew up, Diana always said she wanted to marry a girl, usually one of her friends, always confidently and assuredly even in the face of laughter and taunting. Diana knew that her own sex was what she was attracted to and that she would always be this way, no matter what she tried to change about herself. She never did try anyway, for she was content with her sexual orientation and accepted it as being what it was.
While she was never angst ridden over her sexuality she made it a point to keep it as close to her chest as possible. She viewed love as a burden given her profession, knowing that anyone she potentially found attractive and worth courting would never be around her permanently as she traveled from one stage to the next. And while Diana was certainly not completely opposed to sexual flings and had experiences with such, she always sought greater commitment beyond the lustful bouts that she had undertaken in the past. In recent years she resolved not to seek out any sexual gratification beyond what she could provide for herself unless she found a committed partner. And so far she had been unsuccessful in finding such.
She watched from the bar as Hannah and Barbara moved their bodies on the dance floor. They were held from behind on the hips by two gay men who were willing to partake in the two straight girls' games. Their amusement was not something that Diana shared. She wasn't opposed to straight people attending a gay bar, but she was opposed to the way Hannah and Barbara treated the space and its patrons. In her eyes gay men were not just some toys to use as an outlet to vent their own frustrations and be a safe place for them to dance with. She felt treating them as such was less than dignified, but she didn't make a scene about it.
When the one song ended and a brief lull swept over the dancefloor Hannah and Barbara separated themselves from the two men, giggling with them briefly over the flirtatious exchange. Both girls blew each one a kiss. It was in this moment that Diana watched Hannah get approached by a young brunette woman who had been on the dance floor. She was very effeminate in appearance. Her shoulder length hair fell in soft waves and she sported a fairly tight and mildly revealing outfit that Diana actually found to be somewhat attractive. Had Diana been on the dancefloor herself she would have readily accepted her offer. She watched as the woman walked up behind Hannah and slid an arm around her slender waist. Diana's mouth dropped open when the redhead proceeded to turn and harshly shove away the girl. She could see Hannah spewing angry words and only caught the last few words when Hannah raised her voice towards the end of the exchange. 'I'm not one of you ok? So go away!' The display filled Diana with a deep disgust and anger she had never felt towards her friend before.
Diana wondered if it was really fair to be upset with Hannah given that she never told her or Barbara about her sexuality. Her preferences were technically her business. But yet Hannah's response still filled Diana with a burning anger. She would remain composed, but she was going to do everything in her power to leave Le Pace because she had no desire to be around the company she had come with any longer.
She watched as Hannah and Barbara came up to her and sat at the bar. "Everything okay, Diana?" Hannah asked blotting her brow with a napkin. She took her place at the bar and watched as Diana stared at the wall of liquor in front of her while her mind roiled with emotions. "You want another drink?" she asked in annoyingly lilting voice.
She pursed her lips and shook her head. "No, Hannah," Diana replied curtly. "I'm actually a bit bored if I'm honest."
The two girls eyes grew wide and they immediately leaned in close to their friend. Concerned looks were strewn across their faces. "What's the matter, Diana?" Hannah asked
"Are you feeling feverish?" Barbara asked as she placed her hand onto Diana's forehead. Quickly and without a second thought, she slapped Barbara's hand away, eliciting a shocked reaction from the black haired girl. "Diana?"
"What?" she hissed. She turned back to face the two girls, her piercing gaze puncturing any exuberance they had felt before. The both turned pale and glanced at each other. Diana felt true anger creeping into her system. She clenched her fists and pushed onwards. "You know what's wrong ladies? I'm not into this scene, and frankly the way you two are treating the patrons of this place is beyond rude. Watching you two grind your asses into the crotches of a bunch of men who couldn't care about the fact that you're women is repulsive. Have you no decency?"
"Diana, we were just…" Hannah began nervously. Diana was having none of it.
"No, Hannah, Barbara, you know what you just are?" she hissed venomously clenching her fingers onto the bar. "You're disgusting. Both of you are absolutely disgusting."
The two girls shirked back in their barstools like small dogs. Diana dug threw her handbag to find her loose cash and grabbed a clump of money. Mixed with all of the crumpled bills was a piece of paper with a hastily scrawled address and time. She studied it carefully and decided what her next move would be.
Diana looked across the sea of sweaty bodies before making her choice. "I forgot I have an audition ladies, I apologize," Diana explained while rushing out of the bar in a huff.
In the recesses of a basement lit by some overhead tube lighting, Akko stood with her black Epiphone Les Paul guitar slung over her neck. She reached over at the tuning keys on the headstock, fiddling with them as she watched the lights on her floor placed chromatic tuner indicated to her the tune of each string. Her turns were fine movements, not to drastic in either direction, trying hard to just get the proper tune. Her bandmates respectively stood around her, holding their instruments or in Lotte's case sitting behind her drum set. The three of them waited patiently for the Japanese girl, but their patience was wearing thin.
"Why are you so stressed over whether or not you're in tune?" Sucy questioned while she held her bass in her hands.
"Because if my guitar isn't in tune then I'm not going to be in tune when I sing," Akko explained. She didn't take her eyes off of Sucy, looking at the tuner instead of at her friend.
Sucy got the impression that this was not something that Akko was actually trying to perfect and more like a nervous tick. The explanation that Akko gave also didn't make sense. "Akko, we're just playing in Amanda's basement. Why are you…"
"Look I'm just trying to make sure everything is perfect, okay? Is that hard to get, Sucy?" she shot back in agitated manner, clearly not willing to hear her bandmate. Sucy threw her hands up in the air and took her place over by her amplifier. "Can't a girl just tune her guitar in peace? God damn."
Amanda decided she had enough of her band mate's stalling and decided to call her out on it. "Okay Akko," she said, standing up from her sitting position and picking up her brown Schecter C1 guitar. "Spill the beans on whatever the fuck is bothering you or we're calling it quits for the night."
"Amanda I…" Akko began while not picking her head up from her tuner.
"Spill the beans now," Amanda demanded firmly. She was no longer in the mood for Akko's stalling.
Akko sighed in defeat and stopped fooling with her guitar's tuners, feeling she had got close enough to where she wanted to be. She turned and faced the rest of her bandmates. Her stiff posture and straight but a cracking look on her face were clear indicators of the anxiety that she was experiencing. "Look guys, after what happened the other day, I did some thinking and decided that I'm done trying to find us a singer," she stated in defeat. "I'm just going to sing everything myself."
"You're gonna what?" Amanda questioned with a raised eyebrow. Her band mate's declaration caught her completely off guard. It was if it came from nowhere without any reason.
"I'm gonna sing everything by myself," Akko repeated. She sagged her shoulders and looked down at the carpeted floor which they played upon. "It's hopeless, guys. We're not going anywhere and we need to get back out playing live if we have any chance of surviving. And I'm not going to let A Seed Of Sorrow wither away like this any longer."
"Well that pun was clearly intended," Sucy remarked with a snicker. Akko didn't appreciate the humor, so Sucy turned back to her with a serious look on her face. "You sure you want to do this, Akko? You're gonna fundamentally change everything we've written and played up to this point."
"And you know that neither Lotte nor Sucy are going to sing," Amanda stated as she held the neck of her guitar.
Akko turned back to her two other bandmates that held down the rhythm section and looked them both. She never expected Lotte to sing. That would be too much of her to ask knowing the workload she put herself through playing the drums at the kind of pace they played at. Sucy had a pretty good voice but the puce haired bassist refused to use it as part of any kind of vocal harmony no matter how hard Akko begged. Akko realized that what Sucy had said about everything being radically different was right, but she felt she had no other choice.
"We'll make it work," Akko declared. Despite her assured proclamation there was a nervousness to her voice that Lotte, Sucy, and Amanda all picked up on. They knew their friend wasn't confident in her declaration.
They watched as Akko turned on her amplifier head and put a set of earplugs into her ears. Her band mates followed suit. "Let's do 'Kursk' from the top, okay?" She watched as Amanda, Lotte, and Sucy all nodded at each other and got in position to play. "Give me a countdown, Lotte."
The bespectacled girl held up her drumsticks over her head and went to tap them together. "One, two, three…"
Before she could get to four the door to the basement opened up. The four of them looked up to see a tall, somewhat pudgy girl with braided hair at the top of the steps. She wore a plain grey t shirt with a pair of shorts and munched away on Sun Chips from a bag. Amanda sighed at the sight. "Jasminka, we're trying to practice here! What's your deal?"
"I'm sorry, Amanda," the Russian girl said with her mouth half full. "But I wanted to let Akko know that someone she invited here is at the door."
"Someone that Akko invited over?" Amanda said. She raised her eyebrow at her Japanese friend. "Who did you…"
Lotte and Sucy both looked at each other with surprise, joined by Akko when Jasminka broke the news. Akko didn't even hesitate to put her guitar down. She bolted up the steps with her guitar in hand. She knew exactly who had shown up.
The house had rough white siding with a rundown facade over ragged concrete steps that had clearly seen better days. Diana knew immediately that the property was a rental given the way it looked on the outside. She should have known better than to expect anything else. She hardly expected a mansion like her estate in Dartmouth, but perhaps she expected something a bit nicer. Then again this was New Bedford after all. Dartmouth was where all the wealth was.
She pulled up in her Range Rover and paused before going inside. Was this really worth it? She had no idea what she was stepping into by attending this rehearsal. What kind of 'ensemble' was actually rehearsing behind those walls? Would the young woman from the shop be there? And, Diana asked herself, would she actually participate or just watch?
She quickly brushed that last question aside. Of course she was going to participate. Akko had asked her if she was to fill in the void of a soloist, whatever that exactly meant. Diana had a rough idea, but was far from certain. But not participating would be incredibly rude of her, and being rude was the last thing on her mind given the way she had bailed on Hannah and Barbara.
She stepped out of her Range Rover and made her way over to the front door. Pressing the button for the doorbell, she stood and waited for a few moments. The door was opened by a tall but somewhat round girl eating from a bag of Sun Chips wearing nothing but shorts and a baggy t-shirt.
"Hi," the girl greeted with her mouth half full. "How can I help you?"
"Hello," Diana greeted politely. She watched as the girl swallowed and wiped off the crumbs from the chips with her shirt, which made Diana grimace and lean back slightly. "I'm looking for an Akko. Are you one of her roommates?"
"No but Akko is here," the girl replied. She took another handful of Sun Chips and ate them with a smile. "What's going on?"
"She told me there was a rehearsal of some kind at this address," Diana explained politely. The girl kept eating the chips in front of her, getting seasoning all over her face. Diana found the display very distasteful. "Is there any way you could go fetch her?"
"Mmhm," the grey haired girl replied. "Hold on just a minute."
The girl with the braided hair shut the door and disappeared for a few minutes. Diana took the time to check her text messages until she heard the sound of the door opening. She expected the girl eating the chips to appear, but instead was greeted by the brunette Japanese girl with her hair slicked back into a ponytail. She held an electric guitar in her hand and wore a white t-shirt with red lettering that spelled the word "Balls" on it. Diana raised her eyebrow. She knew Akko was lower class but didn't expect something so vulgar. And what was with the electric guitar?
"So you actually decided to show up," Akko said with a begrudging tone in her voice. She looked up at Diana with a furrowed brow and a suspicious glance. "What for? To grace our pathetic ensemble with your presence?"
Diana sighed at the girl's response. She should have known the greeting would be less than pleasant after what had happened back at the shop. She didn't seriously expect Akko to grovel at her feet, but maybe she thought Akko would be more enthused to see her. "Look," she began. "I was very harsh with you at the shop the other day, perhaps too harsh given the circumstances." She crossed her arms and looked away from Akko, not wanting to meet the brown haired girl's gaze directly. "I figured to make it up to you by attending and participating in your ensemble's rehearsal."
She watched Akko's eyebrows go up, but the suspicious look stay strewn across the Asian girl's face. "You're gonna sing instead of just standing around?"
"That's my intention. Unless you don't you want me to partake in your ensemble's rehearsal tonight," Diana asserted, looking back directly at Akko. She watched the brown haired girl stand up to meet her gaze. "So what will it be?"
She watched as a smile came across Akko's face and the girl stepped aside. "Come on in," she offered. "We're rehearsing in the basement."
Diana nodded and followed Akko into the house. She could see the hastily painted over spots on the walls and felt the somewhat rickety floorboards squeak beneath her feet. She followed Akko to a door and let the Japanese girl open it. From there the two walked down an old staircase to the basement. "So, Akko," Diana asked, looking curiously at the Les Paul in her hands. "Are you an instrumental ensemble as well?"
"You could say that," Akko said coyly. Diana raised her eyebrow.
Eventually the two made their way down the steps and arrived in the basement. Under the tube lighting better made out the rehearsal space. Interspersed between the tiles of soundproofing material were various posters and flags for what appeared to be either rock bands or various gangs, with names like Cro-Mags, Metallica, Stormtroopers of Death, and Agnostic Front pressed against black and white fabrics. The room was strewn with band equipment, ranging from amplifiers to drum racks to cases and a mess of wires and cables. Perhaps most striking to Diana however was a purple flag with a gold triumvirate emblem and the words "Luna Nova College of Art and Design" written on it. Diana took careful note of that piece of regalia.
There were three other women who were standing around, one sitting behind a drum kit while the two others held a guitar and bass respectively. Diana raised her eyebrows at the whole scene, and the red haired girl who she recognized from the shop stared back at her with an equally shocked look on her face.
"Akko, why did you invite the woman who had the busted Range Rover to our rehearsal?" the redhead questioned, surprised just who arrived down the stairs.
Diana looked at her suspiciously. She remembered the redhead from when she had brought her Range Rover in and didn't trust her, given that she had been so quick to insult her over her then broken SUV. "Why would you ask that?" she replied. Diana looked over at the Japanese girl, who was now blushing like a tomato. "Akko, what am I missing here?"
"Hehe. .. hehe…hehe. . .heh. . ." Akko laughed nervously. She pointed her hands back at Diana. "Guys, meet Diana. She is here to rehearse with our 'ensemble'." She said the word ensemble with gritted teeth, as if to not reveal the true nature of their dealings. She turned back to Diana nervously and pointed out each of her bandmates. "Diana, these are the 'ensemble' members. Amanda on guitar and vocals, Sucy on bass, and Lotte on drums."
"Nice to meet you," Lotte said with a wave her drumstick and kind smile.
"Nice to meet you as well," Sucy said with a wave of her hand.
"Likewise," Diana replied. She looked back at Akko and knew something was very amiss. "Akko, you never told me this was an all instrumental ensemble. Just what kind of music does your ensemble play?"
"Wait wait wait," Amanda interjected while looking over at the brunette. Akko was now red all over and shaking like she was out in the winter, deeply embarrassed. Diana was clearly not expecting this kind of reception. "Akko, you didn't fucking tell her what kind of music we play?"
Sucy facepalmed herself and held her hand on her forehead. Lotte looked completely embarrassed, her face falling onto the head of her snare drum. "Akko, remember how I said you were our idiot and we would always go along with your plans?" Sucy brought up. The Japanese girl nodded nervously. "Well you are officially the biggest idiot in the universe."
"Sorry guys…" she stammered. "I just had to…"
Diana sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. This nonsense had gone on for far too long. "Enough of this," she interjected. All the women in the basement looked at her. "I should have known better than to not ask what kind of music this 'ensemble' plays." She turned to Akko and stared directly into her eyes. Diana could tell she was piercing directly into Akko with her gaze. She was doing everything in her power to squeeze out an answer. "So tell me, Akko, what kind of music does this 'ensemble' play?"
For a moment she watched Akko tremble, but then something somewhat remarkable happened. She watched Akko clench the neck of her guitar and hold her picking hand in a fist. Suddenly, where she appeared meek and defeated, now she appeared confident and strong. Now it was her eyes piercing Diana, like fire shooting out at a storm of ice. Diana looked sideways briefly at Akko. She wondered what spurred the change the sudden change in the shorter girl.
"We're called A Seed of Sorrow," Akko asserted confidently. She narrowed her eyes and pointed her finger at Diana. "And we play punk rock!"
Diana felt a laugh creep up from her chest and into her throat. Punk rock? That's what this ensemble played? It slowly came to a realization that she was not here to rehearse with any ensemble in need of a soloist, but with a rock band looking for a singer. She couldn't believe what she had gotten herself into, and tried so hard not to laugh at how ridiculous this situation had become.
Diana inhaled deeply and then exhaled. "Okay then," she muttered. She still felt the nervous laugh creeping up in her throat. She quickly cleared it before she could let it out. "You play punk rock. That's positively wonderful."
She saw Akko raise her eyebrow and look at her suspiciously. Perhaps she was giving away too much sarcasm in her voice. "So are you gonna sing with us or what?"
Diana felt herself actually taken aback by the statement. Was she going to sing? That was ridiculous of her to think she wasn't. "Of course I am," she retorted. "It's just that…" She cleared her throat again. Why was she so nervous? "It's just that I…" She paused and looked away. She felt unreasonably nervous in the given situation. "I don't have any experience singing punk rock."
She watched Amanda face palm herself and Sucy groan before looking up at the ceiling. "You know what, Akko? I agree with Sucy," the redhead remarked. "You are the biggest idiot in the universe."
"Hey!" Akko exclaimed with her brow furrowed. "Give the girl a chance! We won't know how good she sounds until she tries." She glanced over at Diana with a more welcoming look. "Besides, you haven't heard her like I have."
She greatly appreciated Akko's defense, not that she needed it. It was a surprising change in tone from the curt manner in which Akko had treated her before.
Diana felt herself tapped on the shoulder and looked behind herself to see Sucy holding a pair of headphones with her free hand. "You'll want to put these on," the puce haired bassist stated matter-of-factly. "It's about to get really loud in here and none of us want you to blow your eardrums out."
"Thank you," she replied notedly. Diana reached out and took the headphones from Sucy's hand. Sucy nodded and walked back to her amplifier. Diana slipped the headphones over her ears and turned back to Akko, who was fishing through a backpack on the floor. "I don't presume you happen to have any notated lyrics for me, do you?"
"Hold on," Akko stated. She watched the brunette rummage through the backpack . After a few minutes of searching she pulled out a black spiral notebook with the word "Ruiner" written in red ink. Akko handed Diana the notebook. "Turn to the first page."
"'The King is Dead' from the top?" Lotte asked curiously.
"Mhmm," Akko replied. Diana raised her eyebrow and opened the notebook. She expected scrawled lyrics without any rhythm whatsoever, but was somewhat shocked to find an almost fully notated staff sheet, complete with a fully notated rhythm for the words. She nodded impressed. This Akko girl knew more about what she was doing than Diana thought.
She still wasn't entirely sure how to approach the lyrics pitch wise. "How exactly do you want me to sing this?" Diana questioned.
"However you see fit as long as it follows the rhythm," Akko said with a shrug of her shoulders. "I trust you'll get it right."
"Look at it this way, Princess," Amanda said with a smirk. "Punk rock doesn't necessarily have a right or wrong way to do things. You just follow your heart and do what you think is best."
Diana scoffed at the nickname Amanda had bestowed upon her. It seemed unduly derogatory and highly crass. She didn't appreciate it in the slightest. Still, the redhead made an interesting point. Following her heart? Singing however she saw fit?That was something that was wholly new to her. However she saw fit, she thought. That was rather unnerving considering her whole life she had been following instructions in her performances.
Diana decided in her head she would approach the lyrics as a recitative. That seemed the most fitting way to go about them, given their lack of rhyme scheme and the vocal patterns on the staff sheet. She did a few quick exercises to warm up her voice before turning back to the other women in the room.
"I'm ready," she said. She turned back to her microphone in the center of the room and inhaled deeply before exhaling. "Whenever you are, Akko."
Akko nodded her head in affirmation. She was more than ready. "Lotte, give us a countdown?"
Once again the bespectacled girl raised her drumsticks over her head and tapped them together. "One, two, three, four!" Diana winced for the coming onslaught of what she thought would come out of the amplifiers in the room. But it never came.
Instead, she listed as Akko strummed a lone arpeggiated power chord, rather quietly and nuanced. The Japanese girl then shifted into a muted arpeggio sequence, gently picking the strings of her guitar. Amanda then proceeded to do a tapped guitar pattern while Sucy followed along with some high notes on her bass. The bars made Diana raise her eyebrows to. Just what kind of music was this? Was something this well arranged and nuanced actually considered punk rock?
Akko and Amanda then went into the same arpeggiated sequence briefly before Akko began to play her own different one. Sucy followed along with some bass notes from behind. After four more bars of the arpeggiated riffing, Diana watched as the two other girls approached their microphones. Then it was her turn to join, right as the music went from being calm to onslaught she was expecting came into form.
The knife or the rope or the lemon, this brain and I.
The sight of the drop got me off the roof.
Hey, the garage looks cleaner when you look at it sideways, from high!
To finally admit we are born alone,
And that your only one's got an only one of their own.
We'll get the right sun block for the nice explosions.
Oh, the king is dead!
To absolve the joy from me is to erase what made me a slave.
I'm a king to be!
And then Diana heard something she never expected, a voice that was unlike any she had heard before. And it came from the Japanese girl standing next to her.
I traded my life for art and the guilt is weighing down my arms!
Diana raised her eyebrows and felt herself go slack jawed. Where in the world did such passion, such emotion, come from? How was that even possible?
She was so awestruck by Akko's vocal display she almost missed her re-entry to the song.
Tell me again what a monster is, give me the words to describe.
Can you tell me what the use of endorphins is when my city dies at night?
Take away the sentence of house arrest and watch me ruin it right.
Put me in the back of an ambulance cause my city dies tonight.
Before Diana could appreciate just how good the vocal harmony between her and Akko sounded, the song picked up speed again and she had to turn back to her staff.
I see the levity of every meeting of the minds.
I lie to myself,:
It's my right to do.
I'm separated like an elevator door for privacy from my eyes.
To finally admit we are born alone
and that your only one's got another robot to take the throne.
Heartless of the world deny
The king is dead!
Fuck, the king is dead!
(Woah!)
Heartless with your burning eyes.
The king is dead!
Fuck, the king is dead!
(Woah!)
In the heat of the moment Diana realized she had forgot to censor herself from saying the profane parts of the lyrics. But that didn't seem to matter, not with how this music seemed to get her blood coursing in ways she had never felt before. And it didn't help that the way she harmonized with Akko made her forget a lot of things as well.
The song showed down once again with the help of a slick bass riff from Sucy before going quickly into a short guitar solo by Amanda. The two guitarists then tremolo picked their way around a soft beat from Lotte before erupting into a rapid breakdown section. And then Akko took her place at her microphone again as the song slowed down.
To wade through the virus of your lies
To cheat through death is only in my eyes.
To wade through the virus of your lies
To cheat through death is only in my eyes.
And the sinking feeling came over me…
Diana felt herself shiver at the vocal solo, not in disgust or fear but shiver in pure shock, like she had been rattled to her core. The emotion displayed simultaneously sounded both gentle and raw, conveying both grief and understanding at once in a manner she never expected. Diana could hardly believe what she just heard. It made all sorts of questions run through her head. Was she trained? Who did she study under? Was she just naturally gifted? Just where did that voice originate from.
Once again she was so awestruck she nearly missed her bars.
And it said, "never again, never again".
"Never again, never again."
The king is dead!
I traded my life for art and the guilt is weighing down my arms!
Tell me again what a monster is
Tell me again what a monster is
Tell me again what a monster is
'Cause my city dies tonight.
With a quick drum beat the song ended. Diana breathed deeply, inhaling and exhaling with sags of her shoulders and controlled rises of her chest. She looked down at her left hand and went wide eyed. Her hand was gripping the microphone in the stand tightly, to the point of growing sweaty. Her right hand holding the notebook was trembling. Her heart was beating rapidly and goosebumps were all over her arms and collar. Even the hair on the back of her neck was standing up.
What in the world just happened, she thought. Why did she experience such a rush, such a burst of elation and excitement? How was it possible she had never felt this before?
She looked back at the other girls in the room. All of them expressed equal shock to her on their faces. Lotte, Sucy, and Amanda all had their eyes widened as their stared down Diana in complete awe. But none looked more shocked than Akko, whose wide eyes and eyebrows sitting at the top of her head along with a slacked jaw indicated a level of surprise that clearly neither of them expected.
Diana looked away from the girls and shook her body, running a hand through her blonde locks to compose herself. The adrenaline still flowed through her, and nothing she could do could seem to calm her nerves fully.
"Well then," she muttered. She flipped to the next page in the notebook and looked closely at the next song. "Shall we do a rendition of…" She looked closely at the song title. "'Killing It', I suppose?"
"Y-yeah," Akko stammered. Diana could hear the tremble on her voice from her own adrenaline rush. "That sounds good." She watched Akko straighten herself out and get into better posture. "Lotte, give me another countdown?"
The orange haired girl raised the drumsticks over her head and tapped them together. "One, two, three, four!" With that two power chords rang out from the amps and the song began.
