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Post-Revenge Blues	By : susanna Category: Naruto > General Views: 1211 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
Chapter
Seven: An Instrument from the other side of the world

They
travelled without any questions being asked or answered though of
course everybody longed to know what the mysterious item was that
Sasuke had bought, and which news their jounins would have for them.

So
they were all glad when they stopped rather early that night to find
a place to set up the camp for the night. The jounins separated
themselves from the group, as they had to discuss a few things,
leaving the work of setting up the camp and preparing food to the
younger shinobi.

Sasuke
did not help. He was still special, and no one told him to do his
share. So he took what he had bought at the music store, opened the
dark long case, took out its shining silver content. Carefully he
cleaned it with some piece of cloth, put fat on the surfaces that had
to go one into the other, and then put the pieces together.

He
was perfectly aware that all the other young ninja were watching him
intently, fascinated and wondering because – he was well aware
of that as well – the instrument did not go together with their
image of him. It did not really go together with his image of
himself, if he was honest. But this was not important now, he loved
it and he longed to play it again after so many years of abstinence,
he could not tell how much. He had played a bit in the music store
(that was what had taken him so long), but that did not count, as it
had not really been playing but trying different instruments...

Eagerness
and anticipation took over, when he carefully lifted the instrument
to his lips and blew through it so that the air inside could get
warm, and he forgot the people who were watching him, he did not care
whether they admired or despised him, whether they were realizing
that he was not as broken and empty and out of his mind as they
thought he was, or whether they believed that he was now gone
completely crazy: It didn't matter, he could only think of playing
now. He began with some scales.

His
fingers, his lips, his tongue were out of practice. He had not played
during his years with Orochimaru of course, but even before his
desertion from Konoha, from the time when he had become a genin, he
had practically abandoned it because of lack of time, but also
because his mother's sister, who had taught him to play the flute,
had moved to the capital of the Fire Country after having married.

He
had not known whom to ask where to find a new teacher, as music was
considered a waste of time for a young shinobi, and the flute with
its sweet, gentle, rather feminine sound was considered particularly
unsuitable for a young man from an old Shinobi clan – but it
had been his mother's instrument, and playing it had been a way to
honour and remember her, and after some time he had grown to love it
for its own sake.

“I
know”, he said, putting the instrument down when he felt all
eyes (and ears) were turned to him. “It is one of these foreign
instruments from the other side of the world that have become
fashionable in recent decades. I know it would be more appropriate if
I had chosen an instrument that is traditional for the Fire Country.”
But then it would not have been my mother's instrument, he thought.

“Anyway,
I have been told that people on the other side of the world are
fascinated with our culture, so it probably all evens out”, he
continued.

No
one answered. They were still watching in fascination. Only the
blackbirds took up their singing.

Blackbirds
showed off by singing, Sasuke remembered. They had to sing in order
to prove that they were real men – well, rather eligible males.
They did not have to fight. (Though often they did it all the same.)

If
I had not been born into the Uchiha clan I might have become a
musician, he thought. I might not have needed to become a fighter.
But I could not think of anything but following the footsteps of my
father and all my other ancestors from his side, and Itachi's, whom I
still admired at that time, and later I followed him in order to
become strong enough to defeat him.

Maybe
Itachi was right and my fate was drenched in blood the day I was born
an Uchiha.

Sasuke
had bought some sheet music as well: The “Magic Flute” in
a version for two flutes. He had never really understood the opera as
a whole, but he had loved the idea of a flute that would overcome all
evil, and, most of all, there were the happy memories of his mother
playing the duos together with her sister and later of himself
playing them with his aunt and teacher.

There
was one particular piece he wanted to play: The song Tamino sings
while playing the flute in order to call Pamina, and complaining that
it does not work. He had used to practise it a lot because it was
difficult and his tongue and fingers had to move really fast, but by
putting so much effort into it he had come to love it.

He
found it, began to play it, discovered that even if he had not
practised for years, all the training as a ninja he had gone through
had also increased his speed and stamina when it came to playing the
flute. He grew more confident realizing that he had not to
concentrate on getting the notes right, and he began to play with
more emotion, putting as much longing into the music as he could, and
to concentrate on his flute's sound to make it warm and full.

Then,
to his surprise, Naruto fell in, singing the melody with his sweet
tenor's voice.

Annoyed,
Sasuke put down his instrument. Could Naruto not for once just
listen?

“Why
have you stopped?” Naruto asked. “Am I not good enough
for you?”

No,
you are not, Sasuke wanted to answer. Your voice is too thin, every
note is a little bit too flat or too high, there is no rhythm in your
singing, and you don't even know the melody or the text really well –
you sing like a person who has heard the song once or twice and now
enjoys singing it in the shower.

He
did not say any of it. He was not perfect either, and he did not have
the music of the original, just a version for two flutes, and after
all, the aria was a duet between a flute and a singer's voice.

“It's
okay”, he said, and together they tried to play and sing it
again, even though Naruto was really insecure as a singer, and even
though neither of them knew the complete text or really remembered
how flute and singer's text go together in that song.

“Jiraya
once took me to the opera when we visited the capital”, Naruto
told when they had finished. “It was of course to impress a
woman, but he did not know what to do with me, so I had to come
along. I liked the story of the prince trying to save the princess
from the evil sorcerer's place, but then I got confused because the
prince changed sides. Later Jiraya explained to me that it was all
about revenge being evil.”
- 6
- 7
- 8
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Post-Revenge Blues