I always knew I’d perform here one day, but I never thought it would be like this…
Ranko exhaled heavily, peeking out from behind the black curtain surrounding the stage.
My gods, there’s so many people…
The north side of the Nippon Budokan’s seating had been covered with black cloth, as the seats would have had a terrible view anyway of the stage situated on the arena floor. However, the remainder of the floor was open space for standing fans - dancing fans, most likely, more than making up for the lost capacity.
The arena was home to Japan’s national martial arts teams, and indeed, such tournaments were held in the hexagonal building quite regularly. In fact, the venue a stone’s throw from the emperor’s palace would be the home of the Honshu Mixed-Style Martial Arts tournament in just over five weeks, and Ranko intended to be there again, this time performing in a purple gi rather than sparkling red platform heels and a knee-length skirt. Crazy as it was, even that wasn’t the last of her scheduled appearances in the building, as it was also the site of the kickoff show of her international tour in just a few months. Nor was it to be the next, because on New Year’s Eve, the building would play host to the Japan Record Awards telecast at which she was a performer and a nominee. Something I only ever dreamed of, and now four times in four months? Who are you, Ranko, and how did you manage to do all of this?
She watched surreptitiously from the shadows as Firebirds of all stripes streamed into the building, filtering into the seats in the three levels of seating surrounding the floor and jockeying for the best standing positions on the floor closer to the stage.
Most of the revelers carried pinkish-lavender jewel cases in their hands, as well as bright green quarter-sheets of paper. Ranko couldn’t guess what the papers were - sales receipts, probably - but the CD, she recognized quite well. In fact, it was the release of her second album that had prompted the show, before the largest crowd she’d ever drawn. The announced attendance was just over seventeen thousand people, but Ranko could have sworn it was closer to twenty. Officially, the Budokan only seated fifteen thousand, but with the packed standing space on the floor of the arena, they were bursting the joint at the seams tonight.
“Nervous?” Ranko’s eyes snapped up as Crash’s firm hand clapped her on the shoulder through her red leather jacket. “Don’t be. You’re gonna have to get used to this, girl. Come March, it’s gonna be this or bigger every night.”
“No fucking way…” She looked up at her best friend through her wince at his forceful greeting with wonder in her eyes. “You really think? Like, are we opening for Metallica or something?”
Crash hugged his friend tight around the waist from behind. “Oh, please. Like you don’t know you’re the headliner. Give it another year, Metallica will be opening for us.”
Ranko giggled brightly. “Keep dreamin’, Matsuyama.” She grinned giddily up at him, leaning back against his chest gently with a contented sigh. The bouffant red waves atop her head threatened to choke him as they filled his nostrils. “It’s a nice dream, though.”
“Hey, take it easy with the snuggles over there, Crash. That’s my girl, you know!” Akane stalked up to the pair, her black heeled boots clacking on the wooden floor of the backstage platform. She was all smiles.
Ranko nodded, slipping out of Crash’s arms and letting herself be enveloped in her wife’s. “Forever and always.”
The songstress motioned with her neck out to the still-filling arena, the interior lights of which had just begun to dim, through the thin gap between the wall and the curtain. Several white spotlights zoomed through the crowd, seeming to spark electricity in them wherever it passed. “Look at it, Akane. It’s everything we ever dreamed. What more could I ever ask for?”
As she spoke, Crash disappeared to the front side of the curtain, and Ranko heard his guitar make its presence known over the massive speakers spread throughout the concert venue as he tested it. It joined an occasional thumping from Ken Hirata’s bass drum, and the high-pitched trilling arpeggio that flowed from the fingers of Jacob Trimble into his Yamaha DX-7 synthesizer keyboard.
“Look at me, Mrs. Tendo.” Akane smiled, physically spinning her lover in her arms to make eye contact. Ranko gazed into her eyes as if she’d almost forgotten the nearly eighteen thousand souls on the other side of the curtain who were waiting for her.
“You are strong. You are brave. You are talented. You are beautiful. You belong here. Tonight, and every night. This is who you were meant to be, and gods, what a blessing it is to be next to you while the world truly discovers who you are.”
But you’re not gonna be there while the world discovers me, Akane. You’re gonna be home, doing math homework, because you decided that was more important. She sighed, pushing the resentful thought from her mind. Don’t be angry. Not today. Let’s just enjoy this.
Ranko blushed, forcing a giggle as she leaned back in her wife’s arms. “Yeah? And who am I?”
On the other side of the curtain, the house lights dropped to nearly black, other than the running lights along the aisles and stairways to guide the latecomers still making their way to their seats, and the wordless roar formed into an answer to the question the starlet had asked her new wife.
“RAN-KO! RAN-KO! RAN-KO!”
Akane leaned down, brushing Ranko’s hair from her face and pulling her into a kiss. “You are the woman I love, and you are hell in heels. Now, go get ‘em, babe. You sing your heart out. You dance your heart out.” She let Ranko go, and as the redhead turned to face the stage, she let out a yelp as she felt Akane’s palm strike her hard on the backside under her pleated skirt.
“And you save just enough energy for me when we get home.”
Ranko giggled, more naturally this time, biting her lip coyly and letting her eyes linger on her wife for just a moment before pulling apart the two sides of the black velvet curtain and stepping out into view of the crowd. Within half a second, the spotlights found her, instantly roasting her like an ant under a microscope in her red leather half-jacket. She waved excitedly to the crowd, whose chanting only intensified once they laid eyes on the star of the show. The lead vocalist of the Dapper Dragons bounced with energy on the balls of her feet as she made her way to center stage and donned her headset microphone.
“HOW WE DOING, TOKYO?! Can you believe we’re doing this shit again?!” Ranko waved to the crowd, smiling brightly as she saw Akane slip into her seat in the first row of the middle tier of green plastic seats.
“RAN-KO! RAN-KO! RAN-KO! RAN-KO! RAN-KO! RAN-KO!”
The building shook.
Ranko just stood silently, covering her mouth to hide the fact that she was biting her lower lip.
My gods. I have to be dreaming.
“RAN-KO! RAN-KO! RAN-KO!”
“Gods, I love you guys, too! You about ready to get this show started?” Ranko blushed, soaking in the moment as a crowd that would overflow the Phoenix fifty times over roared her name.
“RAN-KO! RAN-KO! RAN-KO!”
“Seriously, you guys! We’ve only got the place ‘til eleven; ya gotta let me sing!” Ranko giggled into her headset microphone. “Besides, it’s Monday night; don’t you guys all have work and school and stuff in the morning?” A smattering of laughter rose from the crowd in the darkened arena as the chant finally began to dissipate.
Ranko pointed to a large banner hanging in the covered seating area behind and above the stage. It, like the jewel cases in nearly every hand in the building, prominently featured Ranko’s face and shoulders. She lay on her side with a contented smile, her cheek resting in a bed of orchids. She wore a white wide-brimmed hat with a lavender band, and she looked the perfect picture of a girl daydreaming about a springtime date. At the bottom, the words Wild Orchid were scrawled in white, in the same font as her name in the Ranko and the Dapper Dragons logo.
She loved Akane’s suggestion for her second album’s title; a subtle nod to the change in her name from wild girl to orchid girl on their wedding day. The day she’d finally left the last trace of the boy she once knew behind. Indeed, the album’s twelve songs were largely all about Ranko’s journey as she discovered who she really was, abandoning the ghosts of her past and embracing the promise of her new, softer, sweeter future. In Ranko’s mind, she now had a distinct name for all three phases of her life’s journey: wild horse for the boy she had once been, wild girl for the reluctant tomboy who crawled across the threshold of the Phoenix two years ago, and now orchid girl for the blissful young lady whose heart burst with pride at the idea of being a singer, a songwriter, and Akane Tendo’s doting wife.
“So, here we are again. Two album release parties in a year. Talk about crazy town, right?! But the band and I can’t thank you guys enough for all your support. And don’t forget, starting in March, the Wildfire Tour gets going! We’ll be hitting fourteen countries, but it all starts right here at the Budokan on March twenty-first! You guys all got your tickets, right?”
The building quaked in response.
“My name’s Ranko Tendo, and these are my friends! On guitar, the amazing, the astounding, the annoying, Crash Matsuyama!”
The songstress giggled as Crash plucked a rousing solo on his electric guitar, the crowd showering him in adulation.
“On the ivories, my spikey-headed buddy, Jacob Trimble!”
The spotlight whooshed up to the back row to Crash’s left, where Jacob’s fingers danced along the keys to punctuate his presence.
“On drums, my friend and yours! Let’s give some love to Ken Hirata!”
Ranko whooped over a thundering cascade that the twin wooden sticks in her friend’s hands and the pedal under his right foot coaxed from the seven drums surrounding his seat.
“On the bass, on the brass, and always on my ass, it’s Shinji Yokota!”
The tall man in the black leather jacket laughed as his white bass guitar squealed loudly into the amplifier to which it was connected via a long black three-prong XLR cable.
“Let’s hear it for my incredible background singers and dancers! My girls! Emi Kimoto and Hitomi Uyeno!”
As the rhythm to Back for More began oozing from all four instruments, Hitomi and Emi strode out from behind the rear instruments, whooping as they took their places flanking Ranko. Hitomi wore a shimmering emerald dress, and Emi was costumed in a similarly-cut dress in scintillating sapphire.
“Together, we are Ranko and the Dapper Dragons, and we are back! For! More!” Ranko threw her right arm skyward victoriously, her clenched fist recalling her first-ever single.
“After the last time, you thought that I was done with you? Thing ab…”
Ranko trailed off mid-word, looking back at her band in shock and confusion. All four instruments had ceased at once, as if her bandmates had decided in spontaneous concert not to perform after all.
“What the hell, guys?!” Ranko shrugged back at the boys, an urgent, exasperated glare in her eyes. You’re ruining everything!
So focused was she on trying to determine the reason for the music stoppage that she did not notice the crowd behind her pulling out the neon green papers they had been handed when they purchased their CDs and reading from them. In fact, she did not turn to face the audience again until, in one ebullient voice, they all began to sing.
“Happy birthday to you… Happy birthday to you…”
Ranko gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. Two years and a week ago, she hadn’t been sure that a single person alive would acknowledge her eighteenth birthday, herself included. Now, as she formally came of age on her twentieth, seventeen thousand, six hundred and twenty-four voices serenaded her in a sold-out stadium full of strangers who had paid to hear her sing.
“Happy birthday, dear Ranko…”
Ranko slumped to her bare knees on the stage, wiping tears from her eyes. Akane. This had to have been you.
“Happy birthday to you…”
Ranko sniffled, squeezing her nose to try and clear her sinuses. “I… just… I hope they promised you all some cake.”
----------------------------------------
“Once upon a rhyme, not so far away, there lived a little girl who had lost her way! Her fairy tale had been an epic fail from the beginning!”
Ranko kicked her left leg high in the air, swooping it in a wide circle down until it rejoined her other ankle. Miss Kanzawa was right as usual; the ballet moves really do work in modern choreo if you use ‘em right. She grinned back at Hitomi as her friend echoed the movement a beat behind her.
She was having the time of her life.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Her heroes taught her how to make her stand, and now? That little girl is in her own ROCK BAND! She turned the page, and they’re here on stage, and now, she’s winning!”
The capacity crowd thundered in response, celebrating her achievement with her in real time.
“Sure, it seems just like a fantasy…” Her voice hit the C note in the sixth octave a bit more easily than it had in July when she’d first written the song, owing to months of practicing what was currently the most popular song on the Wild Orchid track list. The one that had already won two Japan Record Awards.
“... that fate would reach backward for a girl like me, but now, my happy ever after happens all the time…”
A pair of canisters mounted on the far front corners of the stage belched flames nearly two meters skyward, far clear of the lead singer at center stage. She still felt the radiant heat, but she was so drenched with sweat already from an hour and a half of performing at her fullest under the scorching stage lights that she barely noticed its addition.
“Oof,” Ayako grunted, resting her hand on her belly. “I think the kiddo’s hungry. I’m gonna go try and find a concession stand or something.”
Akane smiled warmly at her wife’s eldest sister, shaking her head. “Nah… You’re almost eight months pregnant; you don’t need to be pushing through a crowd in the dark. I’ll go get snacks for everybody while I’m up. Ma Shimizu, would you please come with me and give me a hand? It’ll be a lot to carry if I get drinks for all of us.”
Nodoka turned her head after a moment’s delay, rising from her seat to the left of her daughter-in-not-quite-law. Responding to her maiden name again after more than twenty years was still taking some getting used to for her. “Of course, sweetheart.”
Akane rose, shaking her head with a little smile. Sometimes, just like Ranko, her head spun at how quickly their lives - their family - had changed for the better. Five months ago, Akane couldn’t have fathomed having someone in her life she would think of as a mother, and now, as she watched her wife sing her heart out about how blessed she felt, she was seated directly between two people both girls regularly used that honorific to describe.
As she led Nodoka down the aisle and shimmied past Ranko’s sisters, Akane silently mouthed thank you to Aya for her help in executing Ranko’s plan.
“Once upon a rhyme, not so far away, I got to drop a record on my damn birthday! Who could have guessed that I could be so blessed with how my life was going?!” She giggled into her headset microphone at her ad-lib change. She hadn’t intended to acknowledge her birthday from the stage, but that ship had sailed before she’d managed a dozen notes thanks to the surprise the concert organizers and the crowd had sprung on her.
“She’s found family, friends, and true romance - doesn’t know how she deserved the gifts she got by chance - but her fresh start has filled up her heart until it’s overflowing! Now, she’s living out her fantasy…”
She held the stunningly high note, not for a second as in the studio version of the song, but for nearly a full two. She did not stop until the crowd whooped and whistled in respect of the vocal feat.
“Don’t know how it happened to a girl like me, but now, my happy ever after happens, whoah-aaall the ti-i-i-ime! Once upon a rhyme…”
The crowd had only just died down in their applause and adulation by the time Akane and Nodoka had made it into the hallway outside the main arena and begun their search for a food vendor. The concrete outer walls muffled the sound from the performance, which was precisely the intent behind the timing of Akane’s snack run and her choice of companion for it. Look for the longest line, she thought. If she played her cards right, their errand would give Ranko enough time to sing both You Don’t Know Me and Ghosts, sparing her biological mother the pain of having to sit through the performances.
While Akane sought a vendor for some snacks, Ranko began her next song by singing to the standing-room-only crowd about her wife’s favorite meal.
“I’m good at cooking. Yeah, the furikake salmon that I make is the best. Not half-bad looking, even though sometimes I need half the afternoon to get dressed…”
----------------------------------------
“You are a non-compliant! STRONG! DEFIANT! Self-rescuing princess!”
Ranko waved to the raucous capacity-plus crowd, her chest heaving with exhaustion. That’s eleven. One to go. Shit, I should’ve saved Worthy of You or something for the end to give myself a break.
“So, my princesses, who’s here with their Prince Charming tonight? Let me hear you!” The arena shook with feminine shrieks, buying Ranko a few more seconds to catch her breath.
“That’s awesome. And, I mean, you heard There Are No Words, so you know how madly in love I am, right? But, it wasn’t always that way.” The redhead stalked across the stage, the spotlights following her and drawing attention to stage left to obscure Hitomi and Emi working in the shadows behind her on the right.
“And like I said, girls, we have the power to take what we want from the world. Always. And I got tired of waiting for my happily ever after. Sometimes, a girl has to take matters into her own hands…”
As she spoke the last word, every light in the arena save the running lights on the stairs and the emergency exit signs blinked out. Throughout the arena, white flashes pierced the darkness as dozens of personal cameras went off from various sections of the crowd. The stage lights, too, flickered intermittently with white light before settling into a sickly green illuminating a thick mist that had been pumped onto the stage. The miasma originated from a fog machine hidden in the black wooden cauldron that Emi had dragged to center stage and locked into place. In the shadows, Ranko grabbed a small object from the edge of the prop, slipping it into the pocket of her leather jacket.
Off to Ranko’s left, Shinji slipped off his bass guitar, picking up his brass saxophone from the stand behind him. As Ranko gave a sly little laugh, Jacob’s synthesizer began a solo, singing in a fast, upbeat piano voice.
Ranko leaned on the edge of the cauldron, silhouetted in the murky green haze, kicking one heel off the ground and looking wantingly out at the crowd as if she was gazing at something she knew she could never have. When she began to sing, each of the quadruplets was delivered in a rapid, bouncing rhythm in rhyming lines of ten, three, three, and seven notes that tended to start high in the third octave and scoop downward into the middle second.
“I could never find the right words to say…”
Hitomi and Emi joined her in the second half of the couplet as Hitomi wiggled her way toward Shinji. Shinji stepped forward, not yet playing his saxophone, but holding it in both hands in front of his chest. The fog machine cut off and the lights switched back to a neutral white, allowing the scene behind the singer to play out for the crowd.
“Every day, I would pray, as I watched you walk away.”
Ranko turned, still leaning on the cauldron but now with her backside rather than her hands, toward Shinji. The expression on her face was one of sadness and unrequited need. “Wanted to tell you the way I feel…”
Again, Hitomi and Emi joined her for the second half of the rhyme. “Here’s the deal: dreamin’ we’ll be together soon for real.”
Hitomi walked a full lap around Shinji as he began to add his saxophone to the rhythm, her left hand never breaking contact with his body.
“Saw her creep up on you from behind…”
Hitomi kicked one heel back, leaning over Shinji’s instrument as he leaned forward. As Emi helped Ranko carry the matching line, Hitomi planted a kiss on the musician’s cheek.
“And it kinda blew my mind, seeing your lips intertwined.”
Looking away from Shinji, Ranko hung her head in resignation. “That’s when I knew we could never be. Finally, I could see that you didn’t care for me.”
Hitomi model-stomped forward on her tall heels, backing Shinji nearly behind the stage curtain as he played, and Ranko left the cauldron, walking to the front of the stage with her hands clasped just under her chin, vocalizing as she moved.
“Whoa, ah-oh, oh, whoa, no, oh! Whoa-ah-oh, whoa, no-o-o-o-o!”
Ranko turned her back on Shinji, fitting to the back left of the stage next to Ken’s drum set. She leaned over him, leaning on his unused snare as if she were telling him the story. “I ran when I couldn’t watch anymore. Wasn’t sure quite what for; I just picked a random door.”
The songstress looked around the stage and out at the crowd, her hands folded across her chest with wonder in her eyes as if she had just stepped into some sort of magical kingdom. “I found a shop full of all these antique books. Just a look’s all it took! Found myself completely hooked!” As with every couplet, Hitomi and Emi harmonized with her through the second line of the rhyming pair.
Ranko withdrew the small black object from her pocket, flitting back to center stage and opening the little black leather-bound book as if reading it. Those closest to the stage could see that the front cover was emblazoned with a pentagram in silver puff paint. The pages of the little journal she’d bought at the bookstore on Akane’s college campus last week had been yellowed by a tea-staining technique Mei had come up with in order to give them an aged look.
“I found a leather book bound all in black, in a stack, in the back, on the metaphysics rack.”
She turned the book to the crowd, letting them see the first page as she walked closer to the still-smoking, green-tinged cauldron. The page featured a hand-drawn cauldron, a pair of hearts in the lower left corner, and several paragraphs written in far too small a script to be read from the floor.
“And I found instructions for brewing a potion for filling the subject with total DE-votioooooon….” Her voice scooped low and then rose through the full fourth octave, as if building to something.
She closed the book with a loud clap that was clearly audible through her headset and tossed it into the audience, where it was caught by a young man in the second standing row. He held it high above his head, whooping loudly before opening it. He found that all the pages after the second were blank, but the first two were filled with the lyrics of the song in the singer’s own handwriting. At the end, it read Wild Orchid album release party, November 25, 1991, and it was signed with Ranko’s name in romaji with her signature heart at the end.
In the young Firebird’s distraction, he did not notice as Hitomi and Emi took Ranko’s hands and lifted her on top of the cauldron, where a perforated clear acrylic cover supported her weight as she stood on it. The ambient light dimmed again as the spotlights once again went green, the beams suspended in the mist from the cauldron below Ranko to illuminate her in an eerie, and yet still sultry, silhouette.
“And now, I got that witchcra-aaa-aft, and I’m fin’lly gettin’ through to you, through to you, with the voodoo that I brew! Witchcra-aaa-aft, and I’m decidin’ what to do with you, do with you, since my love is new to you.”
She packed her lungs as the stage lights came back up for the pair of lightning-fast lines that ended the chorus, her voice plummeting through an octave and a half twice in a single breath, each line culminating in the very lowest note Ranko’s feminine voice could produce. Both of her backup singers joined her, Emi for the first line and Hitomi for the second, as the pair frolicked around the cauldron like nymphs at a campfire.
“You never would’a messed with me before I found the recipe, but now, I’ve got you under my spe-ell! So I’ll change around your destiny and make you wind up next to me! Together, we’ll be hotter than hell!”
Shinji stepped forward out of the dark back corner of the stage, walking toward the cauldron still playing his saxophone as he strode. Hitomi approached Shinji again, reaching for him as if to hug him, but Shinji just walked right past her, toward Ranko, a bit stiffly as if not entirely of his own volition. As he approached, Ranko hopped down from the cauldron, curling her finger in Shinji’s direction in the classic come here gesture with a mischievous sneer in her eyes and her right hand placed sassily on the hip of her miniskirt.
“Just like that, you belong to me. Utterly, endlessly, hopelessly in ecstasy.”
Ranko put her arm around Shinji’s back and skipped forward, and he scampered along beside her, the reed of his sax still in his mouth. Hitomi’s mouth hung open and she glared in shock and rage at the new “couple” and the girl she had suddenly and inexplicably been spurned for in the song’s storyline.
“And now, you’re right beside me everywhere I go. Every show, rain or snow! Not like you’re gonna tell me no.”
She led Shinji right past Hitomi, who shot the pair a furious facial expression as Ranko cackled darkly. The redhead threw her thumb over her shoulder to point back at Hitomi as she leaned against her saxophonist’s torso with a mocking smirk of satisfaction.
“Now, it’s your old girl that’s constantly missin’ you. She’s the one crying, and I’m the one kissing you…”
The redhead split from Shin, dashing three steps toward the center of the stage and then channeling all the grace and athleticism of a ballerina, a cheerleader and a martial artist combined as she leapt up onto the cauldron unassisted. The stage lights dimmed but did not fade entirely to black, and Ranko raised her arms above her head and crossed her wrists, rolling her hips like an Arabian belly dancer from any number of old movies Akane had made her suffer through.
Hitomi continued to mime talking to Shinji, but he never turned his head, continuing to watch Ranko move in the mist pouring from the cauldron as if he were enchanted beyond the capacity for free will by the redheaded sorceress writhing in the smoke.
“Because I got that witchcra-aaa-aft, and I’m finally gettin’ through to you, through to you, with the voodoo that I brew! Witchcra-aaa-aft, and I’m decidin’ what to do with you, do with you. At least a date or two with you.”
She wagged her finger at the audience, extending her arm as if in denial. As had become something of a trademark for her, each rendition of the chorus had slight variations in the lyrics to keep things interesting. “You never would’a messed with me before I found the recipe, but now, I’ve got you under my spe-ell, so I’ll change around your destiny and make you wind up next to me! Together, babe, we’re hotter than hell!”
Ranko lowered herself to a crouch, resting her right hand on the clear acrylic cover of the cauldron on which she stood. The synthesizer and drums rolled in an undulating but ever-rising, ever-building few bars, and when it had reached its crescendo, Ranko launched herself upward from her crouch into a jump. As she did, the sound of an explosion rattled the arena and red and orange light flickered in the brume pouring from the cauldron as if the final ingredient had just been added to the volatile brew. As she landed in an almost superhero crouch a meter in front of the cauldron, she began the again-modified chorus alongside her harmonizing twin backup singers.
“Yeah, I got that witchcra-aaa-aft, and I’m finally gettin’ through to you, through to you, with the voodoo that I brew! Witchcra-aaa-aft, and I’ve decided what to do with you, do with you: I’ll spend my whole life through with you!”
She ran around the cauldron to her right, grabbing both lapels of Shinji’s leather jacket and yanking him close enough that the bell of his saxophone rested between her breasts. She sang directly up into his eyes with a commanding presence, stifling a giggle as the vibration of sound through his instrument tickled her ever-sensitive flesh.
“You never would’a messed with me before I found the recipe, but now I’ve got you under my spe-ell, ‘cause I changed around your destiny and made you wind up next to me!”
Ranko threw her bassist and saxophonist back a step, sprinting to front center stage and waving to the thundering crowd.
“That’s our show, everybody! Thanks for coming! Enjoy the album, and we’ll see you right back here at the Budokan in March! We’re gonna spread this thing all over the world like Wildfire! Good night, Tokyo!”
Taking a deep breath as the audience roared, Ranko planted her feet and prepared to belt the last few words at the maximum volume that her lungs could produce. She closed her eyes, clenching her right hand tightly in front of her in an open claw as if trying to channel every last scintilla of power she could muster from her slight body.
She was going to need it.
“TOGETHER! We’ll be ho-o-OO-ott-er… than…. HEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLL!” On the last word, her voice soared midway through the fifth octave, her voice plummeting in a four-octave slide down to the mid-second in a single syllable that took just over two seconds to complete.
As soon as the word hell began, Ranko’s backup singers began singing over her, summarizing the song’s story by cobbling together two half-lines from the chorus. “But now, I’ve got the recipe to make you wind up next to me…”
Ranko’s slide ended at the same time as Hitomi and Emi’s line, and the three of them winked seductively in unison at the audience as they sang the last line together.
“Together, we’ll be hotter than hell!”
With another crashing peal of thunder from the speakers, the stage lights all went out. The white ceiling lights flickered in flashes of residual “lightning” before leaving nothing but the green glow of the cauldron’s miasma to illuminate the performers.
“RAN-KO! RAN-KO! RAN-KO! RAN-KO! RAN-KO! RAN-KO!”