"Nice of you to drop in!" Norio laughed, clutching the slender redhead tight. He frowned at how furiously her body trembled in his grasp, and her skin was cold to the touch. Once he was confident she was steady on her feet, Norio released the young singer's waist. "Alright, madam. I will get out of your boudoir so you can get gorgeous… er. Your clothes are over there by the heater."
Ranko nodded her gratitude, hurrying over to the heater. She did not take her thin white dress off immediately, however, opting to huddle closer to the first source of warmth she'd had in nearly an hour. Not even the array of canister lights, and all of the movement she'd done on stage, had been enough to offset the zero-degree ambient air. Her teeth chattered as she held her hands out to the glowing electric device.
Norio reached up through the hole in the stage floor, stuffing the length of chain dangling from the inside of the cauldron back into it and looping it through the bottom eye hook. That done, he lifted the heavy trap door, triple-checking that it was securely latched in place. "Trap's closed, and we're clear."
"Heard. Closing the panels." Ariel flicked a series of switches, and the floor panels began sliding back into place over the flamethrowers embedded in the stage floor. "Go grab it, Kaz."
Norio made his way up the steps to the backstage area at stage level. "Hey, Ariel? Mind taking me off broadcast a sec?" he asked quietly.
Ariel punched a few buttons on his audio board. "Done. Just you and me now. What's up?"
Norio sighed down at the darkened staircase leading down to the undercarriage of the stage. "You think you could run the promo early and give her a few extra minutes, boss? She's fucking frozen solid down there, man." He quickly side-stepped to clear the stairway as Hitomi rushed past him, still in her purple witch costume, a foam cup clutched in her hand.
Receiving a nod of assent from his partner in the booth, Ariel smiled. "Yeah, we can make that happen. I'll let her know. Good looking out, Nori." He returned the audio board to its usual between-songs configuration. "Hey, Ranko? Listen, I'm gonna run the reel early. Take a second and get those bones warm if you can, alright?"
"I'm g-... I didn't ask you to do that," Ranko said, rubbing her bare arms firmly. She stared at the shimmering silver gown hanging from a hook screwed into the bottom of the stage floor above. Come on, Ranko. No time to waste. Besides, that one will be warmer, and at least there's two layers. I just gotta take this one off first, is all. "I'll be okay."
Ariel chuckled into his microphone. "And that's why I didn't ask you, dumbass. Rolling in three. Two."
Jogging out onto the stage, Kazuki stood on his tiptoes and glanced down into the basin of the cauldron, confirming that the trap door underneath was closed and the chain was not snagged in it. That done, he kicked the levers locking each of the four caster wheels in place and began pushing the prop back to its storage place backstage.
Hitomi approached the shivering singer from behind, resting a hand on her bare shoulder. "Here. Drink this." She handed the coffee cup over to her friend.
"Thanks." Ranko held the cup up to her lips, but even with as cold as she was, her hypersensitive skin could not bear the touch of the nearly-scalding liquid. Instead, she opted to hold the cup in both hands for a moment until it reached a temperature she could handle, and given the crispness of the air, she did not expect it would take very long at all.
"We gotta get you changed, girl." Hitomi motioned to the sparkling silver dress. "Here." She sat on a plastic tour case, slipping off her shoes. "I want you to take these. That dress is almost ankle-length on you, so hike 'em up a little bit on the bottom, and they won't see 'em under it. It's not much, but hopefully, they help a little, for a couple of songs, at least." She pulled off her black tights, offering them to her friend.
Ranko's face cracked into a grateful smile. "You sure? And it won't be bad to, like, mess up the costume or anything?"
Hitomi waved her friend's concerns out of the air with the back of her hand. "I doubt anybody will notice, and if they do, well, they're sitting out there too. They know how cold it is. I don't think anybody could blame you." She smirked with the realization of what may well have been Ranko's true concern. "Don't worry. What Izumi doesn't know won't hurt her."
Needing no further encouragement, the redhead snatched the garment from Hitomi's hand, kicking her sparkly heels off. "Omigods, thank you so much, 'Tomi. You're a lifesaver." She unplugged her headset from the battery pack stuffed into the waistband of her white compression shorts, setting it down on a spent fuel canister for one of the nearby pyro jets.
The video board popped to life, showing Ranko's animated signature again. When it finished with the little plop sound that appended the hand-drawn heart to the end of her name, the screen cross-faded into a recording of Ranko, wearing a pair of black jeans and a lavender sweater, singing into a stand microphone. She wore a bulky pair of headphones, her red braid dangling out the back of them. In the foreground, an array of electronic equipment blinked in every color of the rainbow as switches and sliders were moved by the technician seated in front of the board. A slight glare was visible in the right corner of the image, as the scene had been filmed through the glass of the recording studio booth.
"The dreams I never dared to dream are starting to come true, thanks to the things… all the things… whoa, all the thi-i-i-ings… I've learned from you," the recorded Ranko sang, her eyes closed as she belted the final line of the chorus. She leaned back a bit from the microphone, careful not to overwhelm it and cause distortion in the recorded audio.
Hitomi motioned to the pair of hangers dangling from the hook near the heater. "C'mon, honey, let's get you into this."
Begrudgingly, Ranko reached over her shoulders, grabbing the back of her white A-line dress and pulling it up over her head. She hissed loudly through her gritted teeth as the biting cold air met her sweat-slick bare skin, and she shivered violently.
The brunette wrapped Ranko in a coral-colored plush beach towel, rubbing her back rapidly through it in an effort to increase her circulation and remove some of the sweat. "Just think, after this, it's nothing but inside shows. It's gonna feel like summer in the Tokyo Dome come Christmas. No more of this Frosty the Snow Girl shit for a while."
On the video board, Crash and Jacob laughed between takes, sipping at brown glass bottles of beer. Behind them, Hitomi was holding out a headband with a large pink bow affixed to it, and Zoe was flailing at her with their glowing drumsticks in an attempt to keep the accessory at bay at all costs.
"You p-promise?" Ranko freed herself from the towel, her teeth chattering in the cold.
Hitomi hurried behind her friend. She took the loose end of the cable Ranko had unplugged from her headset and slipped it under Ranko's bra strap, securing it more tightly against her bare skin. The brunette reached up to the hook, retrieving both of the clothes hangers. On the hanger behind Ranko's silver dress was a hot pink bodysuit with thin shoulder straps. "Alright, you. Get this on, quick, before you freeze." She pulled the plastic hanger out through the neck hole of the bodysuit, handing the pink garment down to her friend.
"Too late, I think," Ranko said with a frown. She quickly threw the bodysuit over her head, stretching it down over her torso. It was made of a warmer material than her white dress had been, and she was grateful for it. She reached between her legs for the strap that dangled from the back, pulling it forward and snapping it together with its mate to secure the bodysuit between her thighs. That done, Ranko raised her arms. "Hit me."
Hitomi slid the glittering silver empire gown over her friend's arms, letting it cascade down her body.
As soon as the dress was in place, Ranko reached down for her borrowed black tights. She lifted her foot into the left leg, sliding the leggings on under her silver dress without so much as sitting down, hopping slightly on her standing leg. She pulled her right leg into them much the same way. They were still slightly warm from Hitomi's residual body heat. It was unlikely that anyone else would have perceived such a slight difference, but Ranko's hypersensitive skin was keenly aware of every fraction of a degree. The redhead bent over, rolling up the leggings to expose the bottom half of each of her calves. "There," she said, letting her skirt fall back into place. "Can you see 'em?"
Hitomi stooped down to check the area around Ranko's ankles. "No, and if you do catch a glimpse, it'll just look like a shadow. You're all good, hon."
Sighing in relief, Ranko sat down on the plastic case Hitomi had vacated. "Fantastic. Thanks again!" She reached down for a pair of heavy, crystal-clear shoes with chunky heels. "Right tonight, yeah?"
"Not sure it matters this close to the end of the run, but no. Left. It's the twenty-first." Hitomi picked up Ranko's discarded white dress, slipping it onto the newly-emptied hanger and clipping it to the hook.
Chuckling, Ranko shook her head, stepping into the unwieldy left shoe. "Shit, you're right. I don't know why I'm so bad at that."
Hitomi shrugged. "The days run together on the road sometimes, I think. Just don't forget Christmas, and we'll keep you square on the rest of it."
The crowd laughed along with Emi as she made a funny face on the video screen, scrunching her nose and affecting her voice with a nasal twang in mockery of the redheaded lead vocalist standing next to her in the recording booth. Ranko, in turn, pulled her arm back in the sleeve of her sweater and whipped at Emi's head playfully with the empty cotton sleeve.
Having slipped her foot into the right shoe, Ranko reached down the back of her dress, fishing for the wire for her headset that was still dangling over her bra strap. Grasping it, she pulled it up and out the neck hole of her dress, reconnecting the headset to it and slipping it carefully back onto her head. This done, Ranko rose back to her feet. "Alright, well… time to go back into the freezer, I guess." She sipped at the coffee Hitomi had brought her, finding its temperature more tolerable, but still warm enough to melt away a little of the ice in her bones.
"I'm gonna make some noise up in here with the boys up in here! You got no choice up in here; you gotta move it, move it, move it, move it!" Ranko sang in the video recording, dancing in place behind the stand microphone in the recording booth with her wrists crossed over her head. Hitomi and Emi raised their hands toward the roof, silently partying alongside their friend.
Ranko carefully ascended the rickety stairs out of the understage area, her heavy heels clacking loudly on each. "Okay, guys. You about ready?" She joined Crash and Zoe near another space heater, holding out her hands to it.
"Aye, right as rain, mate," Zoe said in their distinctive Aussie drawl. "Might be snow, consid'rin'."
Crash pulled his hands away from the heater, applying them to Ranko's back. He did so more gently than Hitomi had, letting the warmth his fingers had absorbed from the small electric furnace radiate into her skin. "How about you? You holding up okay, with your thing?"
Ranko shivered - and this time, not from the cold. "Gonna have to be. The show must go on."
"That's the spirit," Shinji said with a smirk as he collected his bass from its stand. "And maybe next time, you won't laugh at us guys for doing all leather."
"Look, it was a terrible fucking idea in August! Not so much now," Ranko retorted, crossing her arms over her breasts in a vain attempt to retain body heat.
The screen mounted above the stage faded to black before displaying a still image of Ranko, Hitomi, and Emi standing behind the bar at the Phoenix. The band's logo, consisting mostly of Ranko's bright fuschia signature, was spray-painted on the temporary wood paneling that had been erected over the usual mirrored back wall of the bar area. All three girls wore white long-sleeved dress shirts and black slacks. The angle of the light cast three vertical shadows over each of the girls' shirts, as if they were trapped behind ghostly prison bars. On the customer side of the bar, Jacob, Zoe, Crash and Shinji sat on stools, drinking and laughing.
"The third studio album from Ranko and the Dapper Dragons, Behind Bars, is coming soon from Yokai Records!" a male voiceover narrator said, and the number 1993 appeared in bright red text under the album cover art.
Ranko's headset crackled to life. "Alright, Dragons," Ariel said. "Ten seconds. Let's get through this thing and get you all out of the cold. Hot chocolates all around after we shut down, my treat." Ariel sat up in his uncomfortable seat, readying the video clip for the upcoming song.
"I'll hold you to that, Ari," Hitomi said, giggling into her microphone as her bandmates made their way through the gap in the black velvet curtain and out onto the stage again. She stood, following Emi and making her way behind the drape into the changing area.
Ranko waited until the band had re-situated and readied their instruments before she emerged from backstage. A pair of blinding white spotlights shone on her as she strode heel-over-toe in her formal gown and the uncomfortable rigid heels. The light refracted this way and that off of the glitter and sequins that made up the custom-made dress, as if Izumi Sando's youngest sister had suddenly exploded into starlight itself.
The crowd, perhaps thinking the show had ended when the band left the stage, erupted in cheers as the starlet took the stage anew. "RAN-KO! RAN-KO!" they chanted, many rising to their feet.
The redhead smiled, waving to the crowd. Before she could open her mouth to speak, however, Crash's guitar interrupted the chant. A bright bubblegum pop melody poured forth from its strings, supported almost immediately by Jacob's Yamaha DX-7 keyboard.
"Alright, Firebirds! I already told you, we're defyingdestiny tonight!" Ranko laughed at her own subtle reference to her never-to-be-released sapphic love ballad. "To hell with fate! We make our own rules, girls!" A furious run on the drums accompanied the introduction of Shinji's bass, leaving only the instrument in Ranko's throat to join in.
It promptly did.
"Hey there, Cinderella! Get your foot out of that shoe! Stop try'na fit in for some fella who would tell you what to do!"
A mostly-feminine roar rose from the stands as Ranko planted her feet, reaching out toward the audience with an open hand.
"C'mon, break out of your shell, girl, and give it all you got! You don't need a magic spell to make you somethin' that you're NOT!"
She smirked behind the thin microphone extended over her cheek as she strode along the edge of the stage. Even though, sometimes, you do need a magic spring to make you something that you were all along, she thought. The video board behind her displayed an anime-style animation of an elegant castle nestled into a clearing in a forest glade. The only parts of the image that were not static were the clouds moving left to right behind the building and its triangular red and blue flags waving in the breeze. Ranko's high school best friend, Kumiko Iwata, had hand-drawn the animation for her before heading off to her arts college in Sapporo to begin training as a mangaka.
"Girl, throw down your broom, and leave your room, and know that - come what may - if you build it on your own, midnight can't TAKE IT ALL AWA-A-AY…." the songstress belted at the top of her lungs over a swell of cheers from the capacity crowd. The glass in one of the windows adorning the tallest tower of the animated castle shattered as a battered old broom crashed through it and fell to the ground below.
Ranko hopped ever so slightly on the balls of her feet, the unyielding rigidity of her crystalline shoes offering her little leeway to do more. She pumped her fist in the air as she made her way across the stage, waving to as many young girls as she could make eye contact with. After all, she had written the song for them first of all.
"That's right, girls! It's our time now! You ready? Let's go!" The redhead grinned ear-to-ear at the furious feminine furor that rose from the exuberant crowd.
"When they said 'once upon a time', that time is NOW!" Ranko pointed down at the stage floor as if to indicate the very spot in space and time that she currently occupied. "So, chase your glory! Just pick up the pen, and start again!"
With her left hand, she mimed writing with an invisible quill, imagining signing her name in the frigid air with a wide, uncompromising flourish. "This time, YOU write the story!"
She slashed her hand through the air as if emphatically underlining her invisible signature - leaving no doubt who it was that had stamped the spirits of Seoul with their declaration of feminine power.
"You have always been your heroine! No damsel in distre-e-ess! You are a…"
Ranko lifted her arm, pointing up at the seats in the upper deck of the baseball stadium to her left as if she were a slugger calling her shot.
"NON-COMPLIANT!"
Her hand panned right until it indicated the center third of the crowd.
"STRONG!"
Each declaration was almost shouted more than it was sung. Her hand moved right again, now acknowledging the rightmost third of her field of vision.
"DEFIANT!"
The redhead pulled her arm back, curling it upward and flexing her bicep as if she were a bodybuilder.
"Self-rescuing princess!"
The curtain at the back of the stage parted, and Ranko's four backup dancers emerged. Hitomi and Emi wore long yellow gowns in a Victorian style, complete with faux corsets designed for appearance rather than rigidity. Each was escorted by one of the male dancers - Sanyo with Emi, Utaru with Hitomi - wearing long brocade green tailcoats over black slacks. From the shiny silver buckles on their black boots to the metallic gold rope trim adorning their coats, the boys gave every appearance of being regal princelings escorting their lady loves to a ball that happened to also be attended by twenty-four thousand South Koreans and one very enthusiastic Japanese redhead.
Each couple took a position at thirds halfway back on the stage, leaving the center of the stage mostly clear for Ranko. Two of the three overhead spotlights split away from the lead vocalist to highlight the additional performers as they spun into a waltz that was significantly sped up to match the tempo of the pop anthem the Dapper Dragons played.
Even losing two-thirds of her light could not diminish the radiance with which Ranko Tendo held court over her subjects. For the last hundred minutes, and the seventy-four yet to come, Jamsil Baseball Stadium was her kingdom, and she ruled over it with a velvet glove, a satin voice, and an iron will.
"Hey there, Sleeping Beauty! There's no time for countin' sheep! You think somewhere, a man's been makin' plans for you while you're asleep!"
Ranko strode forward on the stage. Less than a meter in front of her, Hitomi and Emi crossed paths in mid-air. Both had been thrown into an aerial twist by their partners. Each girl was caught by the other's partner, and they resumed fast-waltzing with their new consorts as Ranko continued the second verse.
"If you need somethin' to wake you up, you might find this alarming: some girls wait their whole lives long, and never stumble on Prince Charming! So, don't waste another second waiting for some strapping knight!"
The redhead crossed her hands over her heart, closing her eyes as she often did on the lines she had written with the greatest sincerity.
"Learn to truly love yourself, and when ya do, you'll be alright!"
Ranko squared her feet, reaching down for her skirt. She swished it around her ankles in a modest attempt at a solo baroque dance, making tiny, mincing steps mostly in place. To her left and right, Emi and Hitomi did the same while their partners looked on, standing straight with their right arms tucked behind the smalls of their backs.
"When they said 'once upon a time', that time is NOW! So, chase your glory!"
With a mischievous smirk, Ranko released the hem of her gown, waving it away dismissively before spinning her arms up to shoulder level. The two women flanking her did the same, and the three began a new dance, this one more closely resembling the hip-hop style that was beginning to gain traction in the United States. While Hitomi and Emi kicked their legs up as they moved, Ranko mimicked the movements of their arms, but kept her legs mostly stationary.
"Just pick up the pen, and start again! This time, WE write the story!"
Behind the performers, the animation on the video display showed a woman in a long, regal dress and a tiara being escorted through the grounds of the castle on the arm of a handsome prince in a resplendent cloak. A longsword hung from a frog from his belt, and a glimmering steel kite shield was strapped to his left arm.
"You have always been your heroine!"
From the right side of the screen, a turquoise dragon lumbered into the frame. It roared noiselessly, blasting a torrent of flame into the sky from its throat. The princeling leapt back, beads of sweat flying from his forehead. He turned his back to the dragon, fleeing as fast as his legs would carry him and flailing his arms in the air, having abandoned his shield in the grass at the princess' feet.
"No damsel in distress! You are a…"
Again, Ranko pointed to the left side of the stadium, this time, motioning more to the lower bowl. "NON-COMPLIANT!"
She reached out with both hands, her palms open, to the Firebirds closest to the edge of the stage.
"STRONG!"
Ranko turned to her right, snapping her head to the side hard enough to send her hair billowing over her shoulder. She stomped her foot down firmly, slowing its descent only at the last possible moment before making contact with the stage floor as she punched the air in the direction of the rightmost third of the audience.
"DEFIANT!"
The princess in Kumiko's animation lifted her skirts and bent down, picking up the knight's shield.
"Self-rescuing princess!"
The animated girl lifted the shield, upside-down, overhead in both of her hands. She swung it downward hard, bonking the dragon atop its head with it as the dragon swooped its head down to bite her. The dragon's eyes widened in pain, its red pupils changing shape until they were both in the shape of an X. It turned away from the girl, taking to the sky and flying away.
Sanyo and Utaru re-engaged their partners, pulling them away from Ranko. Both girls made a show of resisting before relenting to rejoin the elegant dance with their escorts.
"Sometimes, life can get you down, and drop your confidence to zero," Ranko sang, and if anyone knew it to be true, it was her. But, despite every trial and travail, every disappointment and dismissal, there she stood, sparkling like a thousand fireflies and igniting the hearts of thousands despite the frigid cold. There, in that moment, the once-broken girl that crawled half-starved into a dive bar four years almost to the day earlier was nowhere to be found. What stood in her place was, simply, invincible.
"C'mon, polish off your crown, girl! You're becoming your own hero! And don't ever let the fire in your soul begin to dim!"
On opposite sides of the stage, Hitomi and Emi pulled their hands free from those of their partners, giving both a shove. They turned their backs to the gentlemen, waving over their shoulders dismissively.
"There's still time to take control back from those stupid Brothers Grimm!"
As Emi and Hitomi resumed their more hip-hop inspired dance, the scene on the video board changed. It showed a storybook bound in green leather, opened to the first page of a story. The words Once upon a time were illuminated in large block text opposite an illustration of the same princess that had starred in the video thus far. She sat alone in the bay window of a high tower, hugging her knees in her pink nightdress and gazing balefully up at a starry night sky. The rest of the text was deliberately illegible, the pages bearing it decorated with gilded flourishes along its margins.
"Yeah, I know you want your wishes on the stars to all come true, but you have the power that it takes to make sure that they do!"
Ranko turned her back to the crowd, staring up at the board intently as if it was displaying the sum total of her destiny.
"When they said 'once upon a time', that time is now!"
Ranko lifted her arm, slashing it through the air. On the video screen, a bright, jagged red line rocketed across the text of the story, as if the invisible paintbrush in Ranko's hand had crossed out the top third of the narrative on its first page.
"So, chase your glory!"
Another slash of Ranko's arm in the opposite direction was echoed on the screen, completing a large X over the top two-thirds of the text of the written page.
"Just pick up the pen, and start again! This time, you write the story!"
Ranko again began waving her hand in the air as if she were writing, still facing up at the screen. As her hand moved, red ink echoed her movements on the page in sloppy handwriting that jutted diagonally across the remaining third of the page.
"You have always been your heroine! No damsel in distress!"
The bottom third of the page was entirely covered with jagged red romaji letters. They read, Ranko was here.
She whipped around to face the crowd, still holding the fingers of her left hand as if they grasped an unseen pen.
"You are a NON-COMPLIANT!" Ranko slashed her arm horizontally in the air, and a dark underline appeared under her words on the screen.
"STRONG!" Another slash of her arm, and a second, even bolder underline materialized under her written declaration in the animation behind her.
"DEFIANT!" She dragged her arm downward thrice in rapid succession. On the eight-meter cartoon page behind her, three exclamation points appeared after her sentence. She grinned, hearing the crowd begin to join her in the shouted assertions that made up the heart of the chorus. They're ready, she deduced.
"Self-rescuing princess!"
"Bringing up the camera," Ariel announced, turning to the small monitor positioned on the table to his left. He reached for a small plastic joystick, using it to pan the device mounted to the trusses above the stage. Images of reveling Firebirds in the crowd appeared on the little television.
Ranko turned back to the screen, reaching up toward it with her left hand and snapping her fingers. In the illustration on the page opposite the defaced story, the stone tower crumbled into rubble around the princess, who danced away with a wide grin on her face.
"Ooh! That's a good one!" Masa pointed over Ariel's shoulder at a girl of about fourteen in the upper left corner of the monitor screen. Ariel manipulated the joystick until she was in the center of the frame. She was wearing a teal sweatshirt that read not yours, don't touch under her puffy pink coat.
As the instrumental bridge that had been added to the live version to allow for audience interaction began, Ranko stalked to the front edge of the stage, raising her voice to almost a yell. "Ain't nobody gonna tell us to be quiet! Ain't that right, girls?! 공주님, 비명을 지르시는 걸 듣고 싶어요!"
Answering her demand, most of the women in the audience screamed and cheered as loudly as they possibly could.
"Damn right! But we're not done!" As Hitomi and Emi were dragged reluctantly back into their waltz by their partners, Ranko planted her foot, her knee bent forward. She whipped her head to the side hard, sending her hair flying behind her where it was unrestrained by her headset.
The screen behind Ranko changed to a new image, showing an oval-shaped mirror mounted on a stone brick wall. The surface of the mirror was murky, covered in a swirling purple miasma as if some manner of magic were being worked on it.
"Hey there, Snow White! Somewhere, there's a mirror on a wall…"
As Ranko sang, the oily ripple covering the image of the mirror behind her quelled and disappeared. The interior of the oval frame showed not an animation, but live video of a teenage girl in a puffy pink coat. The woman seated next to her grabbed her arm and pointed up at the screen, directing her daughter's eyes to it. When the teen saw her own image on the screen, she screamed with excitement, leaping out of her seat.
"... and, I hope, one day, it swears that you're the bravest of them all!"
Emi and Hitomi disengaged from their partners again. Utaru reached for Emi's forearm, but she lifted her leg, pretending to knee him between his legs. He dropped to his knees on the stage floor. The blonde flicked her hair behind her dismissively as she glared down at him, before scurrying over to join Ranko in a resumption of the more modern dance at center stage.
"They might say you're overzealous when you're making your own way, but it's only 'cause they're jealous of the girl you'll be someday!"
From the control booth, Ariel continued panning the camera, lingering on every young woman he could find in the crowd for a few moments so they could see themselves reflected in the "magic mirror" that Ranko had commanded to seek out the bravest of them all.
"So, let this be your 'I want it!' song, and shout it to the rafters!" Ranko pointed with one hand down at her feet, and the other skyward. "You have waited far too long to start your HAPPY EVER AFTER!"
With a loud puff sound, a torrent of shiny silver confetti erupted from a pair of cannons near the front of the stage, raining sparkling paper on the first ten rows of the crowd.
Her feet still planted, Ranko doubled the speed of the dance she was performing from the waist up, thrashing her head side to side hard enough to make herself slightly dizzy. Hitomi and Emi followed suit. On the video board, the magic mirror faded, and the princess from earlier in the video re-appeared. She stood in the center of the frame in front of her castle in a sparkling silver dress that was an almost perfect replica of Ranko's, performing an identical dance to the three women standing on the stage below.
"When they said 'once upon a time', that time is NOW! So, CHASE YOUR GLORY!" Ranko commanded as loud as she could manage given the burning in her lungs from the frigid air she'd been forced to power her voice with.
"Just pick up the pen, and start again! C'mon, girls! Write YOUR story!"
Ranko leaned back, pointing high into the upper deck on the left side of the stage. "Sing it with me, princesses! You have always been your heroine! No damsel in distress! You are a…"
"NON-COMPLIANT!" the left third of the crowd roared, joining all three of the women on stage.
"STRONG!" the center third added when Ranko's hand had panned over to them.
"DEFIANT!" shouted the right third in turn.
Ranko raised both arms, gesturing to as wide of an area at once as she could. The audience correctly interpreted her unspoken command, combining twenty thousand voices into one.
"SELF-RESCUING PRINCESS!"
"Yeah!" Ranko grinned, splitting from her friends and walking the edge of the stage. The music continued beyond the point that it should have ended following the final chorus, and Ranko just kept smiling and waving until a murmur began to build in the crowd. The stage lights went down, save for the spotlights that shone directly on Ranko's position. In the dark, three of her backup dancers retreated backstage, leaving only Hitomi to accompany her.
"Whaaaaat?" Ranko grinned, shrugging her shoulders. "You're acting like you want something."
The redhead stood silent for a moment, listening to the audience roar. Behind her, the animated princess on the video board stomped her foot impatiently, staring down at her wrist where a timepiece would be and tapping at it with her fingers.
"So, you guys see any good movies lately? I ask, because, well… it seems there's a new princess now." Ranko shrugged as the frenzy built in the audience. "And boy, do I have a few things to say to her." A devilish grin spread across her cheeks.
The music behind her changed keys, stepping up a third of an octave. The animated princess began jumping for joy on the video board, and a good many of the people packing the waterfront baseball stadium in South Korea did much the same.
"Hey there, little mermaid! C'mon, crawl out of the sea!"
Rather than animating a transformation to give the girl in Kumiko's cartoon a fish tail only to remove it again, Ranko had asked to represent the live verse by making the princess part of the band. She continued dancing in lockstep with Hitomi and Emi, while her prince from earlier in the song watched in horror at the object of his affection's newfound independence.
"It's high time you figured out exactly who you're s'posed to be!"
Ranko still sang, but she did so with a ferocity normally reserved for her dis tracks such as Freak or Not Yours, Don't Touch. There was an urgency in her words, and it only helped add to the energy already electrifying the December air.
"Nobody said it's easy, fighting self-doubt and deceit. But if you wanna stand your ground, then first, ya gotta find your feet!"
The redhead lifted her leg, gazing in pantomimed wonder at the heavy crystalline pump encasing her left foot.
"Sure, it's scary, and it's risky, life on unfamiliar shores."
Ranko furiously slashed through the air with her hand at eye level. "But, girl, find your voice…"
She planted her feet firmly on the stage floor as if bracing for a charge, throwing her arm emphatically downward and pointing down at the floor.
"... and make your choice…"
Ranko raised both of her arms, pointing out at the crowd. Her voice lost all semblance of musicality, more closely resembling a berserker's war cry.
"... AND FUCKING TAKE WHAT'S YOURS!"
Not waiting for the deafening roar shaking the building to subside, Ranko barrelled immediately into the chorus. "When they said 'once upon a time', that time is NOW! So, chase your glory! Just pick up the pen and start again! This time, YOU WRITE THE STORY!"
Nearly everyone in the audience was on their feet, and most were singing along with her. It was exactly what Ranko was counting on. The setup for it had been deliberate.
"You have ALWAYS been your heroine! No damsel in distress! You are a…"
In the shadowed back third of the stage, Norio and Kaz began wheeling a tall wooden armoire out from behind the curtain. They placed it not far from Crash's usual position on stage right, locking the caster wheels in place. Norio pulled its double doors open, leaving them ajar.
Ranko pointed up and to the left, falling silent. She was counting on the frenzied Firebirds to remember their cues, and they did not disappoint her. On they went, each section responding in kind as she motioned to them.
"NON-COMPLIANT!" "STRONG!" "DEFIANT!" "SELF-RESCUING PRINCESS!"
"Sorry? What are you again?" Ranko pointed up to the left side of the stadium again, and the wave of voices began anew.
"NON-COMPLIANT!" "STRONG!" "DEFIANT!" "SELF-RESCUING PRINCESS!"
Ranko approached Hitomi on the left side of the stage, shrugging her shoulders. "Do you hear something? It's so quiet."
Kaz emerged from the back again, dragging a queen-sized bed on wheels behind him in the dark. Norio pushed it from behind. They positioned it close to the armoire, locking its wheels as well. Norio reached over the bed's puffy purple duvet cover, grabbing the folded canvas changing screen that rested atop it. He walked a meter behind the bed, unfurling the screen's five sets of hinges to stand it up with its printed side facing the audience.
Accepting her challenge, the audience bellowed their responses again, nearly twice as loudly as they had before.
"NON-COMPLIANT!" "STRONG!" "DEFIANT!" "SELF-RESCUING PRINCESS!"
Backstage, Sanyo picked up a bundle of fluffy tulle, holding it at arm's length as if it were a poisonous snake. "I don't get how she wears shit like this."
"It's called being cute. You'd never understand," Emi shot back with a smirk as she began pulling the snaps of her yellow tear-away ball gown apart to reveal the emerald green skater dress she wore underneath. "That is, unless you're curious…" She slid the yellow dress off of her shoulders, holding it out to the strapping dancer.
Sanyo shook his head emphatically, picking up a small wooden end table with his free hand. "I… um… I'm good, thanks." Laughing to himself, he carried both articles out onto the stage.
Norio followed, dragging the cord to the light in his hands on the floor behind him. Both men quickly placed their burdens behind the changing screen. Sanyo set the frilly garment on the table, folded as best he could manage given its volume. Norio positioned the lamp on the floor, aiming it at the back of the screen. It was not yet turned on.
Ranko lifted her left foot, pulling the crystal-clear shoe off of it and holding it in her hands. She turned it this way and that, letting it catch the spotlights shining on it from several directions at once. Her voice fell from the near-scream it had been to an almost whisper-soft tone as she examined the shoe, contemplating it as if all of the answers to her destiny were somehow encased within. The instruments ceased their work as well, leaving her voice to carry the final repetition alone.
"When they said 'once upon a time', that time is now, so chase your glory. Just pick up the pen, and start again. Let's all go write our story. You have always been your heroine. No damsel in distress. You are a…"
The singer closed her eyes, basking in the largely woman-made earthquake that shook the arena. She did not finish the chorus, but her charges understood their assignment nonetheless.
"NON-COMPLIANT!" "STRONG!" "DEFIANT!" "SELF-RESCUING PRINCESS!"
Ranko held the shoe up to the crowd, an almost disgusted look on her face. With a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders and a disinterested little "Hmm," she tossed it over her shoulder as if it were an empty soda can to be discarded without a second thought.
The glass slipper shattered on contact with the stage floor.