Angel Beats: Harmonics girl
Disclaimer: I do not own Angel Beats
Warning: I am still studying so please forgive me if there is too much grammar mistake
Chapter 6
Gears of Music
"Gears of Music?"
"Yeah, the name of our musical diversion group. We will be doing Operation Tornado tomorrow night. Have I explained to you about the operation?"
"Basically is about distracting the students will the band and lift their tickets is it?"
"Eh, you knew about this operation?"
"Of course, I am one of the poor victims got her meal ticket lifted after all."
"…"
A few days had passed since last time our chat on the roof top. Days had passed by peacefully without any shadows disturbing. Tomorrow night we would be doing Operation Tornado. Sekai and I were on our way to meet our diversion members.
Now that I thought of it, I never really met anyone asides from the main SSS2 group. I wondered what the diversions members were like…
"So Sekai, what would we be doing during the operation? Most of the job is up to the diversion members, right?"
"Ah, about that…"
"Huh?"
"Nothing, here we have reached their class."
Before I noticed, we had stopped in front of a class that had a music room sign on it. After knocking onto the door, Sekai immediately let us in.
And I must say that I was quite surprise at the sight in front of me.
For some reason, I was sure that I seen Miyuki in the headquarters before coming out towards the diversion group but she some how managed to be faster than me. She was now pinning down a guy with blond hair with her knife in his head while a black haired guy was hugging her from behind. A girl with long black hair and a big ... (look at my own chest), and another girl with red hair was oddly, sleeping onto of the drums.
It seems that this kind of situation happened a lot of times that it doesn't seemed to faze Sekai a bit. The girl with long black noticed us and stared to call out to us. As for the black haired guy, he ended up being stabbed in the head by Miyuki later.
"Ah you are here! Is this the new member?" The girl came towards us and started inspecting me.
"Yes Ayane-san, let me introduce to you Tachibana. Tachibana, this is Kirishima Ayane, the leader and vocalist of the diversion division." Sekai introduced both of us.
"Nice to meet you Tachibana-chan, we have heard about you quite some time from Miyuki already." Ayane started to start a conversation with me, looking at Miyuki whose uniform was now drained in blood. She looked at her blood soaked uniform before vanishing to the shadows, she must had left to change her clothes.
"Anyway, now that I have finished my business I will be taking my leave. Good luck on your piano lesson Tachibana."
"Eh, wait a minute!"
Before I could respond or asked my question, Sekai had quickly gave me a I-am-sorry-to-betray-you-but-Miu's-orders-are-orders look before closing the door with the sound of his running foot steps beginning to fade away. Abandoned, I realized that I still haven't known what was going on…
"Erm… do you want something from me?" I asked Ayane-san, who was already grinning at me already. I had a bad feeling from this…
"Say Tachibana-chan, do you know how to play piano?"
"The piano?"
"Yup, have you played a piano before you died?"
"No…I don't have any memories about playing a piano… … I don't think I know how to play them."
"Too bad then, you are going to learn how to play them anyway!"
"…"
"^-^" I was at lost of words to comment on what was happening while Ayane-san just kept in putting her smile at me. Before I knew it, I was dragged to the piano in the room.
"Eehhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
"Traitor….."
"Ow come on, learning piano can't be that bad right?"
"What do you mean that it can't be that bad! They had me strapped with a tap literally to the piano chair and had me practicing piano for the entire day! You better have a good reason for betraying me into this or else…" I said to Sekai with my knife now in my fingers that were trembling from practicing too much piano. Sekai quickly backed away from me and handed me a can of Key Coffee. Sensing that my tired fingers won't be able to hold the knife much longer, I gave up and snatched the coffee from him.
It was morning when I entered the music room and now was evening already. I was now with the traitor (Sekai) on the roof top again. For the entire day I was strapped to the piano chair and Ayane-san kept on teaching me about piano. Given up on struggling, I tried to learn but failed miserably. The piano there is not even a proper real black piano! So I decided that if Sekai can't give me a good reason of not letting me to torture him…oh well…
"Well you see, Ayane wanted a girl to be the pianist of her division. Miu was the leader so got her job to do, Miyuki was too emotionless to be one, Shiina-san was out of the option and Reina was too short to be one so you are the only one left."
"Why do they need a pianist anyway? I thought they were a band?"
"Well they are a band but Ayane-san wants to have a pianist when she wants to sing different kinds of songs. I heard the she is even trying to find a violist from the NPCs."
"I give my pity to the violist when she comes."
We shared a small laugh together as I put behind the incident earlier. Well learning a musical instrument wouldn't be that bad would it?
"That occurs to me, what would you guys be doing during Operation Tornado, you avoided my question last time remember?" I asked Sekai while drinking my Key Coffee. The aroma of the coffee filled me with slight energy after a tiring day.
"Well, it seems that the Shadows are attracted by the music or the voice during Operation Tornado. So we would be guarding outside the cafeteria, and engage them when they come. Normally they would come and attack us once a week; Miu said that they are "recruiting" more shadows to begin another attack."
"So the shadows' attack was like a weekly routine for you guys is it?"
"Of course not, we get to risk our lives just being in the front lines. Well it was no problem when we are well-prepared and better trained. Before you came the SSS2 was once a lot more bigger group. But our lack of training get a lot of killed, I had lost a lot of good friends back then…"
"Sorry…" I felt a bit guilty; it seemed at there was lot more history behind those casual smiles I seen in the SSS2 everyday.
"Don't worry about it; it's not your fault anyway. The last time we had ever lost a member was about two or three months ago, with our skills I doubt we would lost any member anymore. Even if you just came I doubt that you would be killed so easily, so far as I know you are even almost as good as Miu or Miyuki-chan."
"Haha, don't think flattery could make me forgave you about the piano part."
"And I was wishing that it would work…"
We shared another laugh as the orange-red sky began to faint and was replaced by the growing dark clouds.
"Can't you find another person to be your pianist?"
"I tried but there was no one better than you already. Besides your long silk white hair is suit for being a pianist."
"Just what does having white hair have anything to do with being a pianist?"
It was now in the morning and I was dragged to the music room by Ayane-san and another girl that felt asleep on top of the Drums yesterday. Since it was morning I was too lazy to resist them but I was really regretting that idea when I had the chance.
"So you're the new member? Nice to meet you I am Ichinose Daigo, the lead guitarist, but you may call me Wolf." The black hair guy that was hugging Miyuki yesterday introduced himself; since he was stabbed in the head yesterday I never had the chance to meet him.
"You forgot to introduce me! Hello my name is Nagasi Karuto, the bassist." The blond head that was also stabbed in the head yesterday introduced himself.
"Hello, my name is Tachibana… …the pianist?"
"You just said that you were the pianist of our division, so from now on you are officially the Gears of Music's pianist."
"Damn I fell into the trap!" I cursed myself while Ayane-san only lightly chuckled.
"Oh yeah why was Miyuki here yesterday? Was she a division member too?" I asked them once the thought of Miyuki in the room occurred to me.
"Oh she was my cousin, she came yesterday so that she could see her favori-" Before Wolf-san could finish talking, Ayane-san already bashed the back of his head. He immediately rubbed the back of his head while Ayane-san only continued.
"Well it was true the Miyuki is Wolf's cousin, but she didn't have such a cousin complex. Since some pervert decided to molest me, I had to call Miyuki here to depose of it." She said while looking at Karuto-san's direction, which I assumed is the pervert.
"So there are even people that got families here…"
"Of course, some families are just lucky to be able to die together."
"No, dying is bad luck in the first place already…" I countered while the group shared a laugh. I wanted to talk to the last member of the diversion division but she fell asleep onto of the drums again…
"Oh that sleeping pig there is Sakuragami Hatsune, our drummer. The reason she kept on sleeping so much is because she has Narcolepsy, a chronic sleep disorder which makes someone will have an excessive urge to sleep at inappropriate times. Most of the time we would have to pray that she never fell asleep when we were doing Operation Tornado." Ayane-san saw my confused face and explained to me. The sleeping Hatsune-san carried on her sleep in peace.
"Have she eve felt asleep during the Operation before?"
"Ah about that one, she did once. But that was at the last moment but we were lucky that we have already lifted the meal tickets or else I don't know what we would do about her." Wolf helped to explain before Ayane-san could open her mouth. It was more like he was trying to make some appearance instead of a background character.
"What are you going to do if she fell asleep in the middle of the operation?" I asked Ayane-san, trying to get the conversation flowing and distract her from teaching me.
"Well…we will see when the time comes and improvise!"
"Improvise!"
"Don't worry about that; by the way don't think that you could distract me away from your piano lesson. Sorry guys but you two go practise for the operation? We wouldn't want to disturb her piano lesson would we?" Ayane-san gentle smiled; even I could tell that it was an evil smirk that was telling me that I was going to pity my fingers again.
This is going to be a long day…..
"Sigh, my fingers are all numb now…"
"Come on, it's just pian- okay okay I will buy you a drink later."
Sekai changed his sentence when he saw me glaring threatening at him. Who was the one at fault for bringing me there in the first place? It was now night time, Sekai and I were now on patrol just outside the cafeteria. A few minutes have passed since the Gears of Music had started their concer-
"Stay sharp Tachibana! They're here!" Sekai suddenly snapped me back to attention. I looked towards the field, even though it was dark but I could make out those hungry yellow eyes of theirs in the middle of the night. Taking out my knives, I prepared myself for my battle against the shadows.
"Ayane-san, the shadows had appeared, the SSS2 will dispatch them. How long will this concert last?" Miu, who was on top of the cafeteria told Ayane-san through the head phone. Beside her was Reina who was now sniping out the shadows from far away with her Dragunnov SVD sniper rifle. Being the leader of the SSS2, her job is to supervise the battle and give out orders or act as a last line defence when the shadows slipped through. The crowds in the cafeteria are very lively as the band finished their second song and were preparing for the third.
"About two more songs and we will be wrapping it up. Keep up the good work protectors~!" Ayane-san's merry voice echoed in the microphone before it goes off. Miu sighed before over viewing the situation.
"So far, so good. I see Tachi-chan was able to hold herself quite well… Well after this it would just be another operation finished. Haha, I can't believe that the operation that killed some many of our members before was now only a piece of cake to the last remaining members of the SSS2…"
"Hrm, why are you laughing Miu?" Reina turned her head towards Miu with a confused face.
"Nothing, just recalling old times…" Miu simply said, leaving a confused Reina back to her target practise.
"Hrm…everything seems to be-"
Paaannngggggg!
"Wha-what was that! The drum!" Miu cried a little out of shock upon hearing the sudden stop of the drums. Looking at the stage, the band had stopped their music half way, the worst thing had happened. Hatsune-san could be seen lying on her drums, sleeping.
"Of all times! Ayane-san!" Miu quickly shouted into the head phone upon realising the situation.
"Don't shout into the microphone Miu, you are going to break my ear drums! I am trying to improvise the situation!"
"Improvise! You haven't thought of an emergency move when this happened!"
"Spare me the lecture… Ah! How's the situation outside?"
"Most of the shadows have been defeated, we are now trying to sweep of the rest. More importantly what are you going to do about this, abort the operation?"
"… ...Ah I have an idea!"
"Tachi-chan, return to the backstage of the cafeteria and find Ayane-san now! This is an emergency!" Miu said through the head phone that was given to us before the operation started. The others and I were now almost finishing the rest of the shadows already, just what would Ayane-san want with me at this time?
"You go first Tachibana, we will sweep out the rest!" Sekai shouted to me while shooting with his berretta 72 handgun.
"Thanks Sekai!" I gave my thanks and quickly headed towards the backstage.
….
"What is it Ayane-san, is the operation over? I didn't see any meal tickets lying around yet…" I called out to Ayane-san while walking up to her, wasn't she supposed to be singing for the operation? The ground outside the cafeteria should be filled with meal tickets if the operation was a success but…
"Well you see Tachibana-chan… …Hatsune fell asleep during the operation due to her Narcolepsy…"
"Eh! Then!"
"Well I decided to improvise just like I said! Sorry about this, I promise I am going to treat you a dinner later." With that she sudden had a tight grip onto my arm and started to run towards… …the stage!
"Wha-" Before I could even finish forming a sentence, I was dragged onto the stage, facing hundred of NPCs that I had never seen before.
"Hello boys and girls! Sorry for the sudden break down of our drummer Hatsune just now but no worries! Let me introduce to you our newest member Tachibana the pianist! And I am going to sing my new song "My soul, Your beats!" so as apology for just now! So please wait a while for us to prepare!"
After Ayane-san had suddenly shouted to her microphone, she immediately dragged me towards the black piano just a little bit behind the band.
"Ay-Ayane-san! What the hell are you thinking! I only started practise piano, how do you suggest I could play with you!" I whispered and shouted to Ayane-san quietly who was now taking out the musical pages for the song.
"I told you that I was going to improvise when the times comes. And now it is your turn to improvise in this situation!" With that and a wink, she left me with the piano and a piano script (is it called a script?) and headed for the stage.
…
I am so going to kill Ayane-san and Sekai for this…
mezamete ha kurikaesu nemui asa ha
ten ten ten teeeen~ (I don't know much about sound words)
Eh?
eri no TAI wo kitsuku shime
ten ten t~
My fingers
kyoushitsu no DOA kuguru to honno sukoshi mune wo hatte arukidaseru
ten ten t~
they are moving on their own
sonna nichijou ni fukinukeru kaze
Somehow, I felt that I recognised this song…
kikoeta ki ga shita
have I played it before?
kanjita ki ga shitan da
what is this feeling
furuedasu ima kono mune de
this relaxing felt familiar….
mou kuru ki ga shita
The harmonics angel, guided by her fingers, began playing her piano for the night…
A/N: I AM ALIVE! Finally my End of Year exam was over. It felt like having a long fight with the shadows…Anyway long time no see everyone, I hope you guys taking your test will score well! Since there's not much to say I will end this chapter. Though the next chapter may take a bit longer but I will try to make it as fast as possible so for now, Bye!
