Delina and the Moonlight sonata

Our next stop was Vienna, specifically a concert hall containing a grand piano that anyone could play. But when we entered, I was floored by what this era deemed a piano. Stretching an entire stage length was a piano-like structure, but there were far more gizmos and gadgets strewn about it, not to mention keys.

I had seen videos of people playing famous songs on public pianos, even tried it once myself to no avail, but I was struggling to process just how I'd even play this thing.

"Jaw-dropping, right? This baby's the standard though in this era. The key is the seat. If you look closely, it hovers and will take you to the notes you need to play, assuming you want to try and do everything in unassisted mode," Irina grinned.

"There's an assisted mode?"

"Yeah, you've heard of a player piano right?"

I nodded my head. I still couldn't believe those had existed before I was born, but if this was a giant player piano, then I could understand why it was so big.

"Bet you're thinking it's impossible for someone to play on their own. Well start filming, cuz I'm about to be trending," Irina grinned as she sat down.

To my surprise, she suddenly began flying from end to end as music began playing. By the motion blurs, I assumed she was moving faster than light, but I couldn't tell for certain. The song she was playing was nice though.

When she finished, she stood up and took a bow.

"That was impressive. How'd you do it?"

"I told ya, it's all in the chair. You can take a seat, though be warned, this thing will send ya flying."

I nodded and set my phone in a tripod before sitting down. I was greeted with a menu screen asking if I wished to compose a song or play an already existing song. I chose the latter and was taken to another screen filled with song titles. It was almost like selecting a song at a karaoke place.

I chose a song I knew, and after selecting assisted mode, I suddenly felt myself being lurched around. The feeling was an anomaly; I was being hurled around, yet I remained stationary in my seat. To be honest, that sensation consumed my thoughts so much I almost forgot to play.

Once I touched a key, I immediately realized one of the tricks of the piano, that being it's keys were all holographic, or holographic-like, making it easy to play them. There were times the keys would even move around to stack on top of each other, or even arrange themselves in a rotating spiral. It truly baffled me how I had spotted none of this when I saw Irina play.

And before I knew it, the song reached it's end and things seemed to return to normal.

"Not bad for an old timer like you," Irina clapped as she hopped on stage.

"Thanks, but I'm no- ...!?"

Things suddenly became wobbly and blurry as I felt myself falling to the ground.

...

"Oi Hana... OI HANA!"

"GAH!"

I bolted up to find myself surrounded by not just Irina, but Selena, and even Delina and Suzie.

"See, I told you she'd be fine. It's just like when my pops played it," Irina grumbled.

"Irina, you should have adjusted the settings for her," Selena sternly glared.

"Luke she'd even know how to. This ain't her domain," Delina grumbled as she stared at the piano.

Suzie began shifting awkwardly as Delina's face began to scowl. Irina and Selena also seemed to be queued into what was going on with Delina, but I figured I shouldn't ask as I didn't want to accidentally trigger the gag order on them.

"Hunk of junk should just be scrapped," Delina grumbled as she began walking away.

"W- Wait! Delina, we gotta fix this so she can play it proper!" Suzie protested.

"Huh? This thing's busted. We need a new-"

"Just because you-"

"SUZIE!"

"Ahh!"

Delina looked as though she was possessed with hatred. Just why did she hate this piano so much? Now seemingly stable, I did a quick internet search and found nothing, until I dug a little deeper on some forums. There, the answer was right before me, but so too was Delina as she grabbed my face and pulled it up towards here eyes.

"You looked it up dammit... I thought it had been wiped. Damn researchers and their back-up accounts."

"Why are you so ashamed? It was just a bad piano performance," I nervously stated.

The remark only seemed to further sink Delina into the bowls of anger as I swear flames of fury began to light up in her pupils. Yet to my surprise, she released me and headed back towards the piano.

"Check your phone, dammit. I don't want to explain shit with words."

I did as she said, and found a file titled "Memory tape 644". When I opened it, a video played filmed from the perspective of someone playing the piano. The song was Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14, the Moonlight sonata. Yet there appeared to be more instruments playing than just the piano. Yet midway through, a notable miskey occurred. The person playing stopped immediately and then replayed the note, but the other instruments were continuing on without her. This appeared to frustrate the player even more as she began playing at a faster tempo, eventually leading to everyone stopping and the conductor reprimanding her.

"The worst day of my life right there. And I wanted to keep that secret buried, but now you've brought it all back up and it's all because of this damn monstrosity. Suzie, hit me with a neo-vein enhancer."

"N- Delina!"

"DO IT! ...You're tired of seeing me rage endlessly about this, so heighten everything so I play this perfectly."

"But you've played perfectly before, and the orchestra-"

Delina didn't bother listening and pressed a button on the piano causing more keys to spring forth. "I'll play the whole damn thing alone."

Suzie took a deep breath before neon lines appeared on her arms. She then jabbed her fingernails into Delina's shoulders, causing neon lines to course through Delina's body.

She stepped aside and Delina immediately began playing. This time, it looked as though multiple arms had sprung forth from her as she played perhaps the most beautiful iteration of the Moonlight sonata I've heard, both on the piano and seemingly on the entire orchestra.

But even though Delina was moving faster than the eye could see, I could make out a deranged look on her face. The poor girl must have been tormented by that failure for so long, and overwhelmed to the point where she entered stasis so she could run from it as far as she could go...

My thoughts were interrupted by the conclusion of the song and Delina collapsing to the floor on her back.

"Per... Per... PERFECT! Take that! You said I was only a prototype of humdroidian's potential, well I just played the whole damn ORCHESTRA!"

I couldn't help but feel Happy for Delina. "You're so brave facing your past like that... braver than me..."

"Her brave? She's never gone near this piano since she was revived. The closest was when she performed on a less fancy one in Bangkok," Suzie smiled.

"You sure pick the most convenient times to start acting confident," Delina growled as she slowly rose to her feet and turned to face me. "First off, I'm not thanking you, in fact I'm doing the opposite. I just subjected myself to hell thanks to getting called over on account of one dumbass letting you play without tweaking the settings."

"S- Sorry?"

"Better be! In order to mod that for you, I had to play it!"

"I'm sorry you had to go through such pain, but you overcame it."

"... Guess you're right. Now I can finally put the piano behind and start looking into other instruments to master.

"How about the violin?"

"Mocking me? The violin's child's play."

"So you can play Paganini?"

"Paga-what now?"

I shot Delina an odd glance and quickly pulled up a video of a performance of Paganini's Caprice no 24. Little did I know I was making a horrible mistake as Delina's eye began twitching as she watched the video.

"You're lucky I got a protocol that prevents me from slugging you," she angrily smiled.