Yasuko should be been screaming too, but the speed with which the oni had arrived and destroyed everything, everyone, hadn’t caught up with her yet. Spotted with her friends’ blood, her fury smothered the blank terror of it all. ‘How will you kill me, then, you bastard?’
‘Oh, little one, you do not die today. That is how I thank you.’
Her fury tripped on those words. ‘Thank… me?’
‘The words this little morsel found were powerful, but her song magic was weak. Without your magic to give strength to hers, I would not be free.’
‘M-my magic?’
‘Funny little one. The music magic was in you both, but yours is stronger. You have powerful earth magic in your voice and your hands.’
The demon laughed, rocks tumbling down a ravine, at Yasuko’s horror and dismay. It leaned close to her. ‘You are responsible for the success of my summoning.’
The oni laughed and laughed and laughed at Yasuko, standing blood specked and numb amongst the wreckage of erupted floor, shattered instruments, her fragile, dead friends.
She tried to speak and only sobbed. Her harrowed eyes asked the question: What next?
‘You cannot stop me, little minstrel.’ And wasn’t it pleased with itself. Didn’t it find this all deliciously, cruelly funny. ‘You are not strong enough.’
It taunted, but Yasuko wasn’t listening. Her heart pounded, guilt burned, but rage surged and she tried to think. The stories say that demons lie with the truth.
And she thought: We were strong enough to raise it. And this bastard says I have strong earth magic, whatever that means.
The demon wasn’t likely to explain, but Yasuko could feel the power underneath her skin. She reached for it, just as she had always reached inside for the rhythm of her music. Her heart thudded with this awakened power. Her fingers itched with the pulse of it.
She reached for the spare drum sticks she always kept in her belt when playing.
I have power. I can feel it.
Her fists closed around the drum sticks, gripping so hard her knuckles stood out pale against her skin.
I can use it to stop this demon. Even if I die trying.
The bastard demon was still laughing at her and its arrogance fuelled her fury as well as her courage.
‘What will it take to send you back to hell?’ she demanded, but she already knew the answer.
‘More than you have,’ the demon replied, in a voice to curdle blood.
‘I don’t believe you.’ Because the demon had told her she had magic in her voice and hands. She hadn’t been singing when it was summoned, only drumming. If she combined the two, perhaps she stood a chance.
‘Believe what you like,’ the demon said. ‘I will devour your world all the same.’
Yasuko raised her drum sticks like weapons, then crouched as though ready to pounce.
The demon regarded her, amused, as she opened her mouth to let free a pure vengeful note.
And Yasuko Hidaka beat her drumsticks on the floor while she sang instinctively.
Aiooooooooooooooo, Demon of the Earth
I curse you, I abort your birth!
She launched herself at the oni and the demon, shocked by her audacity, did not defend itself as she crashed into it and began to beat its head and body with her glowing drum sticks.
The demon recoiled, wincing at the pain of the blows and her song.
With my drumming and my voice, you I banish
And you will go now from this world, you I punish.
We paid your price and bound you to my will
The demon collapsed to its knees as Yasuko beat it down. She stood atop its bent back and shaking shoulders, singing and drumming with savage intent.
Demon of the Earth, become forever still!
The notes rang out, the rhythm of her sticks upon its skin filled the air. Beat upon beat, the demon changed. Froze and transformed into grey, grey stone.
And then, with a final blow, the stone broke into a million pieces, into dirt and dust and gravel beneath the feet of the girl who had defeated it.
Yasuko, covered in blood and grime, bruised and bleak, stood as the floor began to shake. The rubble of the demon vibrated all around her. The ground opened like an earthquake and swallowed down its remains.
Only when the shaking stopped did Yasuko move.
She fell to her knees, her fists gripping the drum sticks. Her knuckles and fingers were raw, bleeding, from where she had scraped them against the demon without knowing.
She was kneeling, numb, in the rubble when the firemen arrived, when the police and the paramedics came.
Behind her, someone said: ‘It was a…a gas explosion? Yeah. That must be what it was.’
‘She’s lucky to be alive,’ an unknown person said.
‘Being behind her drum kit must have saved her.’
‘What happened? An earthquake?’
‘Hardly. A gas explosion we think.’
Yasuko had never felt so alone, hearing and understanding that these people would never understand what had happened. Even if they believed her, what would they do? What could she do? It was partly her fault, even if she hadn’t known what her voice and hands could do. Akemi’s fault too, but Yasuko could hardly tell Akemi’s father that his ancient book had summoned a demon to slaughter his child.
Everyone thought Yasuko’s mind had been damaged by the tragedy. She hardly spoke, except to beg for pieces of the instruments that had been smashed in the disaster.
Silently, she sewed the fragments of drum and guitars and keyboard onto leather braces for her wrists. Nobody asked her to explain why, which was a relief. She wouldn’t have known what to tell them.
Her soul had become heavy with an ancient secret that nobody wanted her to share. The only thing she knew was that she had to leave.
The oni had said both she and Akemi had music magic. Where two had it, surely more carried it too. They must, or her life would be too lonely and dangerous to bear.
More than that, she knew she had to learn how to stop anything else like the oni from ever threatening the world again. She would avenge her friends and redeem herself. She swore it on the blood of her friends, on the memory of them she carried in her wristbands.
A month after, Yasuko packed her bags and slipped away in the dark of a winter night.
An elderly woman named Shiniqua was the first teacher Yasuko found. Shiniqua had lost her legs to the blades of the kama itachi.
‘The sickle weasels didn’t beat me, though,’ Shiniqua insisted. ‘I’ll teach you the song I beat them with if you like, girl.’
Yasuko bowed and thanked her, but didn’t otherwise speak.
‘You have a name, girl?’
‘No, Shiniqua-san.’ Yasuko Hidaka had been left behind in a smashed shed. She didn’t know what to call herself any more.
‘Before I teach you, Yuka, fetch water for me.’
he girl raised her eyebrows.
‘I have to call you something,’ the old woman said.
Yuka obeyed her music-magic sensei in every way, and learned everything