"Dueled a human. Yatsuhashi and I both did, actually. Turned out to be pretty strong."

She chuckles miserably.

"Maybe it's just that we're fraudulent tsukumogami."

"Sounds like you had it rough."

"Oh, that's not why I'm moping."

"Ah."

"You knew already. I guess that's why you left."

"I don't actually know the details of what's going on, I just knew something was wrong."

"Oh. Well, the queen of the castle's got this cursed treasure. For some reason, she wanted to raise a rebellion. Tsukumogami, other weaklings. Except we're not even real tsukumogami, it's just the mallet's curse."

"Huh."

She stays quiet for a bit.

"I was a real tsukumogami."

"Lucky you. The human's been tearing things up inside, and that's probably it for us fakes."

"Nah."

Benben scoffs.

"What, you going to ride in and fight the human?"

"No need."

She stretches her limbs and smiles.

"Look at me."

Benben looks up, and looks Raiko over.

"You really do look weird."

"Where's my drum?"

Benben stares.

Raiko smiles.

"I don't know either. Left it in the mud somewhere."

"What the fuck."

"I figured some things out. Not like I know everything, but I want to talk to the tsukumogami here."

"...yeah. I'm not getting rid of my biwa, though."

She hugs it protectively.

"You shouldn't need to. I did, but I was taking a big risk. I understand more things now."

"Yatsuhashi's been flying around in a panic. I'll have to track down the others. Hope none of them got smashed."

"The koto?"

"We're basically sisters."

Raiko nods.

"We don't have to give anything up."

She creates a red, hexagonal drum pad in front of her, then another.

"What, are you branching out into cymbals?"