Note: Sooo yeah, I dunno, I did a thing? And now the thing has been done and wants to be shared. This idea has been floating through my head for the last couple of days and I just absolutely had to write it down. I've never been part of an orchestra, so please just ignore the fuck out of any irregularities and mistakes. Hope you like it, let me know what you think.
Also, please watch 2CELLOS - Thunderstruck on Youtube (preferrably the official video version where they're dressed in baroque clothing) before reading the chapter, as this is the piece Sakura will be playing. I feel like you really need to hear/watch it beforehand to be able to fully dive into the musical experience I'm so desperately trying (but probably failing) to describe. Also sharing it simply because it's fucking awesome. Enjoy.
"Why is she getting a solo again? This isn't part of our usual programme."
Someone next to her made a shushing sound.
"You know why," whispered her seatmate while leaning down to her face. "She's the star of the show."
"She's been with us for more than a year now, she never got a solo before. What's so different tonight?"
Another shush. This time accompanied by an angry glare and a finger pressed tightly against a pair of lips. She shot the shusher a fake smile, gave a tiny, barely audible grunt of contempt and leaned back in her seat. As she watched the person in question approach the seat at the centre of the stage amidst excited applause, she had to supress the urge to roll her eyes, fully aware of the cameras surrounding them.
A tap on her shoulder made her turn her head slightly to the left, as she felt another voice whisper in her ear, "Rumour has it the maestro gave her the solo tonight, because somebody asked her to. Supposedly another conductor who's trying to poach her."
Her eyes went wide as she turned her gaze from the girl getting ready underneath the spotlight at the centre of the stage to the person sitting behind her. "Why the hell would she even agree to that? If I were a conductor and someone was trying to poach my best musician, I'd lock her up instead of presenting her on a silver platter. Besides, our maestro doesn't even like any of the other conductors, she thinks she's better than all of them. I can't think of a single one she would do this for."
Another shush. Another glare. Another finger.
They all momentarily turned their gazes to the front and listened to the last bit of their maestro's short speech introducing the solo and its musicians. There was that whisper behind her again.
"Well, rumour has it that he recently kicked out a cellist and is looking for a replacement."
Her jaw dropped. It couldn't be. With wide eyes, she frantically searched the large concert hall as if she could spot the infamous conductor somewhere in the sea of guests enveloped in darkness. She suddenly felt her nervousness grow into exorbitant heights while at the same time feeling her confidence shrink to the size of a peanut. He had that effect on musicians.
Her heart was now beating to the beat of the Radetzky March, and she was afraid it was so loud her seatmate would hear it when he leaned towards her again. "Don't be jealous. I hope he does take her on. At some point, she won't be able to meet his crazy high expectations and that'll be the end of Miss Goody Two-Shoes. He'll eat her alive."
Sakura watched her fellow cellist approach the two seats in the middle from the stage entrance on the other end. As she let the applause of the audience wash over her, her right hand went to the left sleeve of her white blouse to roll it up to her elbows and do the same on the other side. Normally, such an unkempt look was an absolute no-go in the world of classical music. Everything had to be ironed, styled, and made-up to perfection – they were, after all, Tsunade Senju's orchestra. However, for this particular performance, both cellists were allowed the singular exception of discarding their suit jackets and rolling up their sleeves.
Grabbing a hold of her beloved instrument and settling it between her spread legs, she listened to her maestro explain her two cellists' dishevelled look and assuring the audience that they will soon realise why the musicians need a bit more freedom of movement from their restricting concert outfits. Their maestro went on to explain that even though this was supposed to be a solo for the principal cellist – Sakura – the piece nevertheless required another to accompany her.
Setting down the microphone on her music stand, Tsunade gave her two cellists a silent nod and retreated to the back of the stage, where the rest of the orchestra was sitting underneath dimmed stage lights.
Sakura exchanged a knowing look with her cellist partner and took a deep breath. Lowering her head and silently setting her bow onto the four strings of her Knilling Maestro cello, she positioned her fingers onto the neck and started to play.
Perfectly in tune with one another, the two musicians let a harmonic, baroque melody engulf the audience while their fingers deftly wandered across their cello's neck and their bows carefully drew over the strings with years of hard practice and musical passion.
The melody started out slow, gingerly eliciting the sounds from their instruments. Sakura's experienced fingertips caressed the neck while her bow glid across the strings like a gentle breeze over a valley. While the first few bars of their piece were very classical, careful, and conservative, the melody slowly picked up its pace. The gentle breeze turned into a gust of wind as Sakura's hands no longer caressed her instrument but gripped it with a starved passion. The two cellists seemed to be goading each other with their frenzied movements and the fast-paced melody, the gust of wind growing ever stronger, the originally careful tune of their piece long since replaced with hectic staccati and exhilarating chords.
And then, Sakura locked eyes with her partner, and they unleashed a hurricane.
At this point, she could no longer keep still. Her feet were tapping on the floor, her entire body writhing in her seat, longing to be part of the melody, and her head was bobbing up and down to the beat of their rendition of AC/DC's Thunderstruck. What the two musicians were doing to their cellos now was bordering on instrumental torture, mercilessly yanking on the strings and dragging their bows across them with such a force half of the horse hair had already snapped.
As they neared the finale of their piece, Sakura could feel her lips spreading into an excited smile and with one last forceful, passionate draw of her bow, she silenced the hurricane.
The principal cellist took a few seconds to regain her breath and only when she heard the thunderous applause of the audience in front of her did Sakura raise her head to peek at them through the strands of her hair that were ripped out of her sleek chignon through the force of her headbanging and were now hanging in her face. Quickly pulling the loose strands behind her ear, she stood up, leaned her cello against her chair, and joined her partner at the front of the stage. With her haggard bow still in her right hand, she offered her left to her fellow cellist and together, they raised their arms, smiling broadly, basked in the admiration of their audience for a few seconds before bowing deeply.
"Are you going to tell her today?"
Tsunade took another sip of her coffee while her eyes scanned over the sheet music for the symphony they were going to rehearse today.
"Of course not."
She could feel her publicist's expectant gaze boring into her back without turning her gaze away from her desk. Shizune sighed and asked again, "Are you at least going to tell her about the Sapporo concert?"
"No, I'm not and you know why. So stop bugging me."
"Because he asked you to? Seriously, when have you ever done something someone asked of you, especially him."
"I didn't do it for him, I did it for her. He was absolutely right to ask it of me. He needed to see her perform without the pressure, without knowing what's expecting her, without any doubts or hopes obscuring and tarnishing her performance."
Shizune sucked in her bottom lip and let her worried gaze fall on the newspaper next to her. They were once again sitting in Tsunade's spacious office inside the Kyoto Concert Hall, discussing the future of their orchestra's best musician. While the maestro seemed to have her mind made up, Shizune still had doubts.
She picked up the paper and let her eyes rest on the picture that took up half a page in the Arts & Culture section. It was a photograph of their principal cellist, Sakura Haruno, taken during their recent concert in Sapporo, right after her solo performance of AC/DC's Thunderstruck. The young woman is seen with both arms raised, one holding the hand of her fellow cellist and the other her half-wrecked bow, her dishevelled hair framing her beautiful young face, grinning like a maniac. Next to it, there was a review of their concert and praise upon praise for her performance and above it, written in bold letters: IMPERATRIX FURIOSA – SAKURA HARUNO BOLDLY TAKES JAPAN'S CLASSICAL MUSIC SCENE TO THE NEXT LEVEL.
"I'm not sure what this kind of medial coverage will do to someone so young. So far, I was able to shield her from prying eyes and the many interview requests, but if she signs on with him, that will unleash publicity hell upon her. I mean, she's only 20 and she's only been playing professionally for three years now and the public already has an unhealthy level of interest in her. She already has a nickname, for heaven's sake. Do you know what they are calling her?"
Tsunade grinned from behind her coffee cup. "The Furious Empress."
Shizune sighed, strode over to her best friend's desk, and let the newspaper fall right on top of her sheet music. With a perfectly manicured finger, she pointed to the picture of Sakura and said, "This is what a Tsunade Senju-level of fame looks like for her. Imagine what it will be like with him. They will eat her alive. And I doubt that he has a publicist who looks after the young, inexperienced, and vulnerable musicians like I do, much less that he himself even cares. Do you really want to do this to her?"
The blonde conductor sighed and set down her coffee cup. "You make it sound like I'm sacrificing her to some evil volcano god."
Throwing one last glance at the picture of her best musician, she turned around in her chair and fixed her best friend with a determined stare. "I have nothing to teach her anymore. She surpassed my expectations faster than I even expected her to meet them. She needs new challenges, and as much as I hate to admit it, he can offer her that. He's got the bigger gigs, the bigger stages, the bigger audiences, and the more challenging pieces, though I would rather eat a shoe or set myself on fire before ever admitting to that in front of him."
Tsunade got out of her chair and stalked over to her beloved, overpriced coffee machine before turning around and pointing her index finger at her best friend, glowering, "Now I will have that stuck-up Armani potato sit in the control room, unannounced and unnoticed, listening to our rehearsal as he requested and you will tell no one of this, especially not Sakura."
The pink-haired cellist was busy packing up her sheet music and her cello when she suddenly heard the booming voice of her maestro calling out to her. "Ms Haruno, would you mind seeing me in my office in five minutes?"
It was a rhetorical question of course, Tsunade didn't give her time to answer as she was already stalking off the stage. The pink-haired cellist followed the retreating figure of her conductor with a confused gaze, before being distracted by a hand on her shoulder. Turning her head, she was met with the face of another fellow cellist, Amy.
"Great rehearsal today, Sakura. I loved how you played the decrescendo in the end. I was just wondering if you could show me real quick how you do that. It just doesn't sound quite right with me."
"Sure, no problem. But I'll have to be quick. Maestro wants to see me in five minutes."
Sakura gave it her best to concentrate on Amy's playing and give her tips, but in her mind, she was already in Tsunade's office, contemplating what she might have to discuss with her. Their maestro rarely had her musicians come into her office for private talks, she usually said everything she needed to say during rehearsals in front of the entire orchestra.
Biting her bottom lip, she remembered the newspaper article she read this morning. Was it her appearance after her solo? Maybe she did look more dishevelled and ungraceful than she thought. It couldn't have been her performance; Tsunade herself said how pleased she was and the rave reviews spoke for themselves. So what was it, then?
After finishing with Amy and packing up her things, Sakura made her way to her maestro's office with a nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach. She could hear hushed voices from afar, one undeniably male, so she remained rooted to the spot, waiting for her conductor's previous appointment to leave. When she realised the man made no move to vacate Tsunade's office, she slowly approached it, only to see the doors were opened halfway.
Casting a careful glance into the part of the office that was visible to her, she only saw her conductor and decided to make herself known with a knock on the door.
"Ms Haruno, come in."
Her maestro hurriedly ushered her into her office and it was then Sakura saw the annoyed expression on her face. Dear God, she really was in trouble.
"Ms Haruno, there's somebody I would like you to meet," Tsunade said slowly, her mouth set in a grim line.
Before Sakura could ask what was going on, she could hear a deep baritone behind her. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Ms Haruno."
Sakura turned around and gasped. Her eyes widened in disbelief and glued themselves reverently to the man in front of her.
"I'm Madara Uchiha."