And, most of all, trust what you hold, a Hell-cursed bow that even now seems to hunger for your soul.

Nothing is like walking onstage.

There is no one to shield you, no one to protect you—yet everyone is focused completely upon you. Your eyes, your body, your breath …

How could you ever have forgotten this?

Not in these few short years. Not ever. Not when teachers and doctors doubted you. Not when your parents called you a failure.

Not even when your hand could no longer grasp a bow.

As the stage lights blaze, you have never forgotten.

Never!

And here, once again, you begin.

But then—

From your first note, you notice. The violin is not responding. The notes seem dead, distant. The colors are wrong … The texture is flat.

Frantically, you peer into the audience. Surely they must sense a breakdown, a problem. But no one is muttering, no sound of shifting in chairs—everyone seems perfectly satisfied.

And Tremon? Even in the dark, you can sense his smile—and as impossible as it seems, the demon’s joy is deep and genuine.

For this is not Hell’s deception. Not even Hell can save you.

For your music, the music you would die for—even give your soul for—is a music that not even Hell can hear.

Your music. Oh, how you’ve believed in this music!

But others will see only what they wish to see.

Even when you play faster, cleaner, or with greater expression—

People will see a delicate China doll, exotic, enticing.

Even when your hand felt like burning, broken glass. Even when you have sacrificed your soul—

Will it even matter? People have long stopped listening, if they had ever listened at all.

Not just years ago, not just tonight, but for all the notes that you have ever played—when the music is over.

Julie Kiyama has moved away.

You will be alone.

And nothing, nothing has changed.

And so you stop. You turn. You walk away.

And while the audience is still in shock,

you leave your soul onstage.

“Had even a single person applauded the performance, my soul would have been forfeit then and there,” Miss Satomi said.

“However, not a single person made a sound.

“And so, although I had technically played music, I had not received the promised applause. And that left my agreement with Tremon, and Hell, in limbo.”

“And Tremon?”

“Oh, Tremon was furious. No one had rejected the bow in this way before! But, looking back now, I think he was also intrigued—I had done something that Hell had not foreseen. So we came to a compromise. Although I could keep my soul, I would send him the souls of promising musicians in return.”