As the curtain fell on the public performance.
The masked old woman before the curtain finally lowered the biwa in her arms with trembling hands.
Only after the curtain had closed completely and the last audience member's footsteps had faded into the distance.
Did she shakily rise to her feet.
Then she went around the dark curtain behind her.
And approached the terrifying monster who had kept her head lowered all along.
Although the other woman had a lovely face and a slender figure, in the old woman's eyes.
She was more frightening than the tigers and jackals in the mountains.
After all, not long ago, she had witnessed with her own eyes...
"You played well today."
A cool, indifferent female voice came from beneath the face concealed by long black hair.
The voice made the masked old woman shudder involuntarily.
"I... I did everything you told me to. Can you let me go now?"
The old woman kept her voice so low that only the two of them behind the curtain could hear.
"I promise I'll pretend none of this ever happened."
"And I'll leave this place and never come back..."
She had originally been nothing more than an ordinary old musician who played the shamisen backstage at a kabuki theater in Kyoto.
She lived alone, without family or friends.
All she had were the skills inherited from her master and decades of experience playing.
She had thought she would simply grow old and die in obscurity.
Never had she imagined that one day, this freak in human skin would suddenly come knocking.
And demand that she serve as a stand-in for her performances.
At first, the old woman and several geisha who had likewise been approached.
Had all refused.
But that night, the heads of two of the