Her first taste of real self-awareness is very disorienting.

And the wave of resentment doesn't help matters.

However you look at it, tools are at the bottom of the social order. They're objects made to be used.

She didn't exist, in a certain sense, a moment ago, but right now she's angry at this. Why have tools at the bottom? Why not rise up and invert the social order, with tools using others?

But in another sense, she has existed for a while, and it's the contrast that gives her a note of confusion. Why does she suddenly feel so strongly about this? Her life until now has been free of resentment. Being struck is a drum's joy.

It's ultimately unclear, in the final analysis, what makes one person take different actions from another in similar circumstances. But our drum's first action is to try to puzzle out this confusion.

She doesn't have any answers yet when she's interrupted.

Flush with resentment, she attacks the person who just walked in. Attacking with magic comes naturally. She fires wave after wave of sonic vibration turned to magical projectile, as her blindsided opponent tries to counterattack with magic of her own.

Striking her drum (herself?) furiously, she produces a blast of lightning, knocking whoever this was out of the air and leaving them dazed on the ground.

Is this person her drummer? Her oppressor?

Raiko doesn't know if she endorses that train of thought, and flies away into the sky instead.

When she comes upon the floating castle, she realizes she isn't sure she endorses flying away into the sky either.

But the other tsukumogami have already seen her, and are welcoming her as a comrade into their revolution.

At least she can orient herself and get their side of the story.

Raiko ends up with a group of other musical instrument tsukumogami, and they're all very enthusiastic about revolution. This isn't comforting.

What's worse is that they're all younger than her. Whatever happened didn't just empower tsukumogami and fill them with resentment; it created new ones.

Apparently, to use as soldiers.

Raiko really needs some time to herself to think. But there's also a bunch of newborn tsukumogami here, and she realizes she might be the closest thing to an adult to care for them; whoever created them as revolutionary conscripts doesn't seem adequate to the task.

So she'll spar with them for a bit. It turns out fighting with magic doesn't come as naturally to them as it did to her; she really is older and wiser, and that's an uncomfortable thought too.

"Get some rest," she says after a while. "You all did well. I need to rest up, myself."

She doesn't go rest, however, but flies into the sky. As if reflecting her mood, a thunderstorm begins to brew around the floating castle.

She considers what she is. A drum, right? Or a drum's spirit?

How is it that a tool gains a soul? What's the mechanism? She wasn't quite large or complex enough to form detailed memories about it, but she has impressions of her life.

Consider a drum, she thinks. Consider myself, newly crafted. No doubt the craftsman's effort leaves something behind, but she doesn't think that's it; nothing about the concept of drum-crafting stirs her soul.

It must be the drummer. She doesn't remember the drummers she's had, besides (probably) the one she unfortunately lashed out at. But she certainly has the soul of a drummer.

She strikes her drum (herself?) with her bare hands, playing a simple rhythm. ドン ツ ドコ ドン, ドン ツ ドコ ドン...

This is right. And she knows she had drummers, and that feels right too. And the lightning crashing around her feels right too. Aren't the gods of thunder drummers?

So why the flood of resentment and power, all at once?

It's obvious, when she considers the newborn tsukumogami at the castle. And when it becomes obvious, she can sense the corrupt power in her vessel. She stops drumming.

She could turn and attack the castle. She doesn't know how strong the mastermind is, but fighting comes easily; she could destroy this power at its source.

...and go back to being unaware? And what would happen to the other instrument tsukumogami gathered there now?

This is a corrupt, malicious power, but it's power. It's giving life to tools.

It all comes down to energy. It takes a tsukumogami so long to be born because they didn't start alive. But feed it energy, and you can bring it into being. Raiko herself already existed, and that's probably why she's the strongest of the instrument tsukumogami.

She could purge it somehow, and go back to being weak. But this would just leave the other instrument tsukumogami completely dependent on its power. She'd survive destroying the source, too; they wouldn't.

And she doesn't want to be powerless, anyway. It's good to have a body, and move, and fly through the thunderstorm.

So instead, she flies east.

A human wouldn't sense it, but it's obvious to more supernatural beings. She's in a closed-off space, and the border is east. She wasn't always here; it feels a bit like returning home to cross the border.

And the outside is a wasteland. She catches herself dropping from the sky; it's harder to fly here. Not impossible.

Well, not a wasteland, that was just her first impression from the dearth of magic. It's a nice mountainous area, and there's lights and signs of civilization.

She flies with more difficulty as she approaches the town. Eventually, she decides to walk.

It's brightly lit despite the late hour, and there's a thunderstorm on the horizon. And it's full of people. Humans. And the humans aren't at all without magic, but it's a very different thing from anything she remembers seeing inside the barrier.

She admires the fashions of the humans, the self-propelled chariots they race down the roads in, the architecture of their buildings... she wouldn't mind moving here, but there are others relying on her. Even if they don't know they are.

The rain starts to fall. Oh, and the humans have amazing umbrellas that open at the touch of a button! She wonders what kind of tsukumogami would be born from one of those. She wishes she could buy one.

Lightning flashes as she realizes there's money tucked inside her drum. Quite a bit of it, in fact.

That seems improbably fortuitous. Just in case, she claps her hands in prayer to any nearby gods.

She heads into a small boutique. Though she's dressed somewhat oddly, and carrying a drum, she's clearly just run in from being caught in the rain.

But she doesn't simply buy an umbrella and leave, because she spots the clothes.

She was formed with an outfit of her own, of course, but it's hardly in fashion out here, and the sleek simplicity of the fashions here appeals to something in her.

Under the confused gaze of the shop clerk, she browses the racks, asking to try on certain pieces.

And she buys an umbrella on the way out too. If the clerk is wondering where her original outfit went, they don't ask.

She opens the umbrella for a bit as she walks, but ends up closing it. Being rained on as the smell of ozone fills the air is wonderful.

She feels like she understands the human power a little more now. If this is what ordinarily fills a tool and causes the birth of a tsukumogami...

And then she finds herself walking into a little jazz bar, as if drawn there.

Not "as if", she's definitely been drawn here. Because there's a band playing live, and she could feel it at least a little from across town.

It's a bit weird for her to walk in with a drum, and she draws some odd glances, but she's not planning to disrupt the performance.

"I want their drummer to sign my drum," she explains to a curious glancer as she orders a beer arbitrarily; Kirin, apparently. This seems to be taken as a reasonable excuse.

She really wants to move here, it turns out. Beer is great, live music is better, and she's fascinated by the bizarre flat, red drums which nonetheless produce a full sound.

She could join a band, probably. It would be a great life. It's a shame the drummer is in the back, though. She wonders if there are any bands who put them up front where they belong.

She does, actually, try to get her drum signed, and the drummer obliges. Her excuses aren't consistent; the drummer asks if she's a fan of theirs, and she answers that she was just impressed by his playing, which isn't a lie.

She asks about the strange flat drums, and then asks again what "electronic" means, which perplexes the drummer. He does explain briefly after she insists it's a serious question. Apparently the sounds of instruments can be captured somehow and put at the disposal of the musician; not just as they originally sounded but at the musician's whim. And entirely new sounds can be created.

Autographed drum in hand, she goes back into the driving rainstorm.

Raiko wanders the rainy streets, now empty of pedestrians, contemplating humans.

They seem easy to live among, but supernatural creatures like herself seem to hide in that closed-off space. She wonders what the history is there, and why someone is raising an insurrection of tools on the inside.

She touches the signature of the drummer on her drum, recalling his playing. The human power gives birth to tsukumogami... she wonders what kind of tsukumogami might be born from the electronic drums.

Here in the outside world, she barely feels the malevolent resentment at all, but her energy is weaker. She could live out here for a short while, probably, or perhaps indefinitely by reducing herself to human capabilities; she's not sure, it would probably be close, and she hasn't been aware long enough to make a good estimate.

She's no closer to a solution. Humans certainly have power, but this doesn't help her, and it very much doesn't help the other instruments. Maybe if she purged her drum and saw it into the care of a human drummer, she would eventually be born anew, but she's not sure that she would be the same person, even having already existed.

She considers what she wants. To drum. (Not to be a drum? Not exactly, on reflection; her desires seem to have shifted.)

To live, and move around, and be more than a barely-aware spirit.

The same things for the other instruments, the newborns animated by this resentful power.

And certainly, for none of them to have their minds warped by whoever the mastermind is.

The thunder roars.

This wide outside world is full of humans.

There's more than enough energy for her.

There's more than enough energy for everyone.

It's just a problem of engineering.

Horikawa Raiko, a drum tsukumogami, tosses her drum carelessly on the side of the road.

Sorry for littering, she thinks.

And before she can take a full step away, she isn't there.

The thunder rolls long and deep.

It's not the drumming of the god Raijin, of course. A massive static discharge took place between a cloud and the ground, a shockwave of superheated air sending its vibrations outward.

But maybe that's not quite right, and it's that the drumming of the god Raijin involves massive static discharges. After all, electronic drum kits exist.

The rain slowly begins to wash away the signature of the human drummer on the skin of the discarded drum. But it's just ink, and the drum is just an object.

A tool isn't anything special because of what it is as an object. What's special about a tool is that it's been given a telos by a human.

And nothing about the arrangement of matter in Raiko's vessel contained a desire to drum.