Hidaka discovered drumming as a child, pounding on the Taiko drums with a grin as wide as the sky. Long before she was Yuka, way back in high school, she discovered the driving howl of heavy metal and gleefully became a trial to her family’s neighbours, and her family, as a member of Fierce Stagecoach Bandits with four high school friends.
‘You chose that gaijin name from that American book,’ Yasuko had accused the band’s lead singer, Akemi. ‘Jesse James and his gang.’
Akemi laughed behind her black bangs and dark eyeliner. ‘It’s funny, though.’
‘Are we funny?’
‘Chibi Heavy Metal is,’ Akemi insisted.
‘Is that even a thing?’ asked the band’s token white guy, Todd, whose English father worked with a car manufacture in Nagoya.
‘It is now.’
Akemi’s indulgent and wealthy father was the one who negotiated for his daughter’s band of 16-year-olds to use Shibo Joto High School’s old sports equipment shed for rehearsals, now that the shiny new one had been built. ‘He just doesn’t want us to keep practising at home,’ Akemi said, wrinkling her nose.
Akemi had brought something special for their first rehearsal in the shed. She refused to tell them what it was until everyone was set up. Yasuko finalised the placement of her drum kit while Naoki checked that his keyboards were properly connected to the amp. Natsuko and Todd played guitar flurries to check their volumes before Akemi strolled up to do the same for her own guitar.
‘Hey, Nat! Pass me a pick!’ Todd called out, knowing that Natsuko hated the diminutive. He liked to tease her, not having worked out yet how best to say he would like to kiss her, if she was interested. Teasing at least kept her noticing him.
Natsuko was predictably annoyed. ‘I’ve told you, it’s Natsuko. Na-Tsu-Ko.’
‘Fine. Na, pass me a pick.’ The request came with a cheeky grin, to show he was joking.
Natsuko passed him a pick and a scowl, wishing she knew how best to tell Todd that if he wanted to kiss her, he should just say so, because until he did, she wasn’t sure if that was the point of all his charming idiocy.
Akemi was planning to tell them both to damn well kiss and get it over with to save them all the awkward, oblivious flirting. Tomorrow, maybe. Today she was excited about their new song. Super metal. The best. Yesterday’s lyrics had been awful, but she’d found the answer.
Todd strummed the melody of the song they’d been working on all week and regarded Akemi with a quizzical frown. ‘You said you were going to rewrite this one.’
‘I’ve written new lyrics!’ Akemi announced, brandishing a sheet of paper. Naoki, Natsuko and Todd peered over her shoulders to see.
‘These lyrics are weird,’ Natsuko said.
Naoki was impressed. ‘They’re awesome!’
‘You think everything’s awesome,’ Todd said absently while peering at the Japanese characters on the page. ‘What does it even mean?”
‘Ha, Britboy, are these words too hard for you to understand?’ Akemi teased. Todd’s Japanese was good for everyday, but he stumbled through a lot of the nuances.
‘‘I get the gist of it fine,’ Todd protested. ‘It says “Hey, Demon of the Earth, we call you. Take this… ah… gift”…’
Yasuko joined them in studying the new lyric. ‘Sacrifice.’
‘What?’
Natsuko and Naoki were both troubled, but Akemi was amused.
‘The lyric means “take your sacrifice”,’ Yasuko explained. ‘Akemi, where did you find this?’
‘You know my dad, always buying old books at auction. The older and rarer, the better, and this book was very old, with all these notes written by hand in the margins. It must be three hundred years old at least.’
‘Very old and very weird,’ Naoki said. ‘This is freaky.’
‘Freaky and very metal, that stuff about sacrifice,’ Todd said. ‘And there are those lines about blood,’ Natsuko added.
‘I know!’ Akemi said excitedly. ‘So I worked it up to scan with the new song. Want to give it a run?’
Keen and intrigued, they took their positions. Yasuko counted them in on the snare and Natsuko’s bass built on the beat. Naoki brought his keyboard in as Todd’s rhythm guitar threaded through, and Akemi’s lead guitar whined over the top of it before she began to sing her new lyric.
Aiooo, Demon of the Earth,
We summon you, we give you birth.
There is a Japanese proverb – asa no kougan, yuube no hakkou – which means “a rosy face in the morning, white bones in the evening”. It means that life is fragile and death comes for us all, young or old. Especially if we call it to us.
Let our instruments and voice bring you life
So you may bring this world blood and strife
None of the Fierce Stagecoach Bandits noticed how Akemi’s guitar or the tips of Yasuko’s sticks began to glow.
But to bind you to our will, we pay the price
Demon of the Earth – choose your sacrifice
Nobody noticed how the floor began to crack like crazed glass, it was so fast then, just as Naoki heard the concrete split, the floor erupted with rocks, dirt and sulphurous steam. The five of them were tossed up with the eruption, then to the smashed floor, where they gaped at the thing that stood in the epicentre of destruction.
A red-skinned monster loomed there, with black horns and yellow teeth and a laugh like mountains falling.
‘Thank you, little humans, for the summoning,’ the oni rumbled, turning each belly to water, each heart to terror. A leathery red tentacle unfurled from its body, wrapped itself around Todd’s throat and squeezed. ‘I have chosen my sacrifice.’
The brimstone-stinking claws of its left hand struck Naoki, sank into his body. The claws of its right slashed at Natsuko, and blood arced behind her as she fell.
Akemi, speechless with terror, tried to run. The monster sprang at her and another tentacle unfurled around her ankles and lifted till she dangled, inverted and screaming, above the rubble that had been the floor.
‘Stop it! Stop hurting them!’ Yasuko screamed, the only one the oni had not yet attacked.
‘Gladly,’ it said with a horrible courtesy, and dashed Akemi head first into the floor.
Yasuko heard the snap of Todd’s neck, the shrieks as it disembowelled Naoki and Natsuko.
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.
