Angelic Tigrean
Shingeki saw this in his dealings with the outskirts of human society. The angel was planted amidst a community in which tattoo parlors, psalmists and up-and-coming heavy metal bands dominated the landscape. Abandoned warehouses were the backdrop against which demons assumed human forms to barter for souls.
The rejected and lowly. Those most in need of a single kind act to pull them from the darkness...before it was too late.
Shingeki saw the marks on these battered souls...but he also saw great beauty buried deep.
He learned to move through Tokyo's underground culture until he had made a name for himself, a musician in his own right. The heavy and accelerated beats of metal melodies could be both a shield against the pain...and a way to work through it.
It always started as a dull vibration through the soles of his feet, one that was subtle yet powerful enough for even the dim senses of mortals to pick up on. The music was more than sound. It was feeling. It was connection to all that was and all the possibilities of the future. It both gave the listeners a story and took their pain, at least for a few blissful minutes.
His people swayed like an electric current. They were silent for now. Screaming it out...that would come. He didn't know if the calm before the storm was his favorite part of doing concerts but it had to come close.
He knew them. He loved them. He was as much a part of them as they were a part of him.
The first lyrics, sharp enough to cut his inner muse and leave her bleeding.
Cold fire burning in a hell of inner making
It's a pain there's no mistaking
Subtle as a heart that's breaking.
World keeps turning
Seared by frozen, inner burning
As the pieces of me keep churning
Churning, churning.
They're coming alive now, joining in on the next set of lyrics.
Jagged words that leave a scar with every passing
It may be too much that I'm asking
I have no skill for multi-tasking
Subtle cruelty
Pain turned into fate's mockery
I am my own worst enemy
Pray for me, stay for me.
He knows the faux names they wear like snake skins that can't be shed, trying to become part of something great, if only for a few hours before the monotony of "average" lives swallows them up again.
Chihiro, whose dozens of tattoos are for the sisters she lost while fighting overseas. Godot, who keeps getting himself thrown into jail because he likes being a mentor to young men who still have a chance not to become repeat offenders. MC Squared, who's secretly working on a chemical compound he sincerely hopes will cure cancer. His own mother died when he was just eight years old.
Shingeki pivoted, flashing the audience with his signature jacket. The characters "神撃" on the back - his name in their script. An honorary he had not expected but had eagerly adopted. A hint of vanity perhaps... but vices can sometimes be accepted without corrupting.
The ending of a set is bittersweet, for he no more wants the music to end than they do. They crowd around, eager to be near him but always a little bit shy, sensing there is more to their hero than meets the eye. He will stay until dawn to make sure he's given every single one of them a moment of his time. The demons he fights while they dream the day away...those self-serving monsters will never know what it is to touch a mortal soul on a deeper level.
That is why he feels every loss so personally but it is also why, in the end, he will win.
story by
Pureflowerconcert image made with Midjourney
