The sun was on the verge of setting into a murky twilight, and most of the inhabitants of Fusha Village were ending their days before eventually going to bed. Most everyone, of course, save for one boy, a happy-go-lucky boy by the name of Monkey D. Luffy. He didn't have anyone waiting for him back at his home, but the main reason he stuck around at the port wasn't to avoid loneliness, but to welcome back excitement. Excitement in the form of Shanks and his pirate crew finally coming back after going on an adventure for a week.

"Oh, they're back!" Sure enough, the ship of Shanks' crew was breaking through the horizon, and Luffy soon found himself jumping with joy. He didn't know what kind of adventure they went on, only that they had the nerve not to let him tag along, but he wasn't going to let any of them get a moment's rest until they told him everything. He stood at the edge of the port and waited with heavy anticipation for their ship to touchdown on the island so he could greet them all one by one.

"Hey! What kind of adventure did you guys go on? I wanna hear everything!" Those were the first words out of Luffy's mouth when their ship dropped anchor and everyone started filing out. Much to Luffy's surprise, however, everyone who stepped off the ship just ignored him and walked toward the village with sullen expressions on their faces. "Hey, what's wrong? Did something bad happen?" Luffy's words continued to fall on deaf ears. "You're not even gonna look at me? Fine! I'll just wait for Uta, then."

At the mention of Uta, Luffy could have sworn that he saw some of the crew twitch a little, most notably Bonk Punch and Monster, but they still wouldn't talk to him, so Luffy ignored them back and waited for Shanks and Uta to appear. He waited long enough for everyone to have long since disappeared into town, then he waited some more, and just as he was getting tired of waiting, he started to hear footsteps again. Luffy turned his head back to the ship and his eyes lit up when he saw Shanks walking out.

His eyes lit up even more, however, when he saw Uta walking right behind him. As great as Shanks, Beckman, and all the other guys in the crew were, Luffy always found himself feeling the most excited to see Uta, if only because she was the only person he knew who was the same age as him; granted, Kujaku was around the same age as him, but he rarely ever got to saw her, and being around her was an annoying test of endurance more often than not. Uta was nothing like that, and if anyone would tell him what was going on, then it would be Uta because of how much she loved to brag about being a real pirate when that wasn't even true. Now was the one time Luffy would welcome that with open arms, however, and he stood at the ready for her to start going off about the adventure she, not him, just had.

"Hey, Luffy." That was all Uta had to say to Luffy when their eyes met. No showboating in her voice, no smug look on her face, and most telling of all were how her hair loopies were drooped instead of being perked up. None of that was right for Uta.

"What's up with you? You don't look like yourself," Luffy said. Uta didn't say anything and tried to walk past him just like everyone else did, but Luffy wasn't having any more of that and blocked her path. "Come on, don't just ignore me. Say something!" Rather than say anything, Uta pushed Luffy aside and ran into the village. "Hey, Uta!"

"Luffy, now's not a good time for this," Shanks said. "Uta's feeling pretty down right now, and so are the rest of us, so we really just want to get some rest."

"Why, though? What happened on your big adventure, anyway? And if Uta's so upset, why aren't you doing anything about it?"

"That's a good question." Shanks covered his face with his hat, so Luffy couldn't see his face as he walked away from the port, but Luffy didn't need to see it. Everything from the way he walked to the broken tone in his voice said all that needed to be said.

And Luffy hated everything about it.

When Luffy woke up the next day, he had hoped that he would wake up to everything going back to normal. Shanks and his crew would be partying in Makino's bar and making a mess of the village, Uta would be singing and smugly lording her alleged superiority over him, stuff like that. The thought of it all was enough to push the memory of yesterday's awkwardness almost entirely out of his mind and he kicked open the door to Partys Bar to dive right into it.

"Uta! Shanks! You gotta tell me all about—" The words died in Luffy's mouth as he saw the scene inside Partys Bar. Everyone from the crew was there, just as they had been almost every day for the better part of a year, but instead of laughing and getting rowdy enough to make mayor Woop Slap come in and yell at them, everyone was just milling about keeping the volume at a respectful level. "This is boring. Why're you guys all being boring?"

"Come on, we just got back. Give us some more time to get into the swing of things," Yasopp said, not even turning to look at Luffy.

"You've never needed time before!" Yasopp didn't say anything to that, and when Luffy got bored of waiting for something out of him, he stomped over to Shanks at the bar and said, "Shanks, make everyone start having fun again!" Shanks kept to his drink without saying a word. "Come on, be fun, already!"

"Luffy, Shanks and his friends are—They're having a bad day, so maybe you should play with Uta," Makino said from behind the bar. She pointed Luffy toward a corner of the bar where Uta was sitting by herself with plates of food in front of her, still looking as worn down as she did the previous night, drooping hair loopies and all. Shanks also looked her way, but the second they locked eyes, they turned away from each other with their own uniquely strained expressions. Luffy didn't get why everyone was being weird, but he decided to listen to Makino, if only because Uta was the person he wanted to talk to the most.

"Whatcha doin', Uta?" Luffy asked the second he sat down at Uta's table.

"Eating. What does it look like?" Uta asked.

"No, you're just putting food in your mouth."

"That's what eating is."

"It's only eating when you're happy about it!" For some reason, Uta rolled her eyes at something so obvious. "Well if you really call this eating, then let's have a chicken race! Monster, you be the dog!" Monster jumped off Bonk Punch's shoulder with a tempered screech and ran to the wall opposite Luffy and Uta.

"Not in the mood," Uta said.

"Okay. Guess I win, then." Just for a second, Uta's hair loopies perked back up to their usual height.

"Excuse you? How do you win just because I won't play with you?"

"By default. Duh," Luffy said. Uta said nothing as she piled some chicken on an empty plate and slid it in front of him. "Okay, that's more like it!" Luffy got straight into the thick of things, wolfing down piece after piece of chicken as Monster ran toward their table, bone and all. Just like always, Uta was quick to catch up to him, and it wasn't long before they were dead even. This time, though, Luffy was going to win, and he wouldn't let Uta get one over on him with any of her cheap tricks.

"Here," Uta said as she slid a glass of juice in front of Luffy. It wasn't until Luffy had downed the entire thing that he realized three things: he fell for the same trick Uta always got him to fall for, Uta had finished all of her chicken first, and Monster had knocked him to the ground with a rolling savate. "There. You lost to me again. Leave me alone."

"What, that's it? No bragging about how you kicked my butt like you always do, even though you never do? Are you really Uta and not some psycho doppelganger? What happened on that trip that's making you so weird?"

Uta glared at Luffy for a few seconds before slamming a piece of cherry pie in his face and storming off. For some reason, the pie tasted awful, but Luffy was more focused on how, through his crust-covered eyes, he saw Uta stomp out of Partys Bar without so much as looking at anyone, not even Shanks when he made a move to get out of his chair that ultimately went nowhere.

Everyone was being really stupid, and Luffy didn't know why.

It had been a week since Shanks, Uta, and everyone else had come back, and everyone was still being stupid. Shanks and his friends were still acting like everything was fine even when no one was having fun, Uta was still not talking to anyone and letting her hair loopies droop down to unreasonable lows, it was beyond unbearable. Luffy couldn't remember the last time he hated living in his village as much as he did now, and now here he was, reduced to fishing with Makino because there was no one else who wanted to be around him and no one else he wanted to be around.

"You know, I bet if I caught a really big fish, all those guys would want to come and eat it, but I'm gonna eat it right in front of them and not give them a single bite! Because they're all dumb!" Luffy said as he kicked his feet across the surface of the water.

"Don't you think that might be a little mean, Luffy? They are our friends, after all," Makino said as she reeled in her tenth fish of the day. Luffy had yet to get a single bite, but he was confident in not needing to change a single thing about his strategy.

"They're not acting like it. Everyone's being all mopey and not having fun and they won't even say why! If they don't want to have fun, then they should all just leave!"

Makino let out a sigh and said, "Luffy, it's probably because you say things like that that they don't think they can talk to you." Luffy didn't understand what she was getting at. "You know how you do that thing where you only ever do what you want to do and never listen to other people?"

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Luffy said.

"No, I'm not trying to do that, and you do have a knack for making it endearing! It's just that it doesn't exactly make you the best person to have big, emotional talks with, that's what I'm trying to say."

"What, they need that?" All of a sudden, Makino looked as if she had something caught in her throat, and even someone like Luffy knew what that meant.

"Shanks hasn't told me everything, and it's not my business to start spreading it around, but the things they went through on that last trip were bad for everyone, and it was especially bad for Uta. If she could talk to someone about it, she might feel better, but she's so upset with Shanks and the crew and herself that she can't bring herself to do anything but mope. Normally, someone as close to her as you would be okay to talk to, but I'm betting she knows that you wouldn't be a good listener, so that's why you're getting ignored, too."

"That's stupid! I'm a great listener! I heard everything you just said, didn't I?"

"Luffy, you know that's not what I mean." As much as Luffy wanted to protest, he knew Makino was right. Luffy was never one to care about the details of other people; his being friends with someone would depend solely on whether or not they were fun to be around, and if something was bothering them, he didn't need to know the details, just what needed to happen to cheer them up. That's how he had lived his whole life, and even though it had only been seven years, it had always worked fine for him up until now.

"I don't like doing stuff I don't like to do, but I don't want Uta to be sad anymore." Luffy took a deep breath, "I guess I'll try listening to her."

"Thank you so much for your noble sacrifice." Luffy didn't understand the tone Makino was using, but he did appreciate the sentiment since it would be one of the hardest things he'd ever have to do.

And he'd get on it as soon as Makino pulled him out of the water and took care of the fish that had dragged him in there.

It took far more doing than she had wanted, but Uta had finally found a spot outside of the village to be alone. No one would find her there to bother her with questions about how she was doing and why she wasn't talking to Shanks and what happened on Elegia. She was free to mope about and feel bad about everything, and that's exactly what she wanted to do for the rest of eternity.

"Uta! Come out and face me!" Much to her annoyance, Uta was snapped out of her self-loathing, and it was Luffy who did it. She didn't understand how someone like Luffy could be smart enough to track her down, but then she realized what her mistake was: she had unconsciously hidden in the abandoned windmill where the two of them first solidified their friendship. She wanted to lambast herself for being so stupid, but Luffy was still shouting for her at the top of his lungs, so she at least needed to make him go away first.

"What do you want?" The second Uta climbed down the windmill to face Luffy, she put everything into her posture and tone to tell him that she wanted nothing to do with him.

"I want to know what's been bugging you all week." Luffy didn't get the message, because of course, he didn't.

"I keep telling you, it's none of your business, so leave me alone," Uta said. With the windmill no good, Uta pushed past Luffy so she could search for a new hideout, but he immediately jumped back in front of her like a dog eager to go on a walk.

"Come on, tell me what's going on with you!" Luffy said.

"Like you really care. Sorry I can't be a playmate for you anymore, but you can go back to hanging out with the monkeys and tigers if you need someone to hang out with."

"I don't care about that anymore!" It was a bald-faced lie, but Uta couldn't stop herself from being taken aback by it. "I know you all think I only care about what makes me happy, but if that means you won't talk to me, then I don't want to be like that, anymore. So!" Luffy slapped his chest and said, "Tell me whatever's on your mind and I'm gonna try real hard to listen, okay?"

"Shut up. I bet you never even thought about any of that until Makino or someone else told you about it." Luffy made a big show of diverting his eyes away from Uta, his signature tell for when he was trying and failing to lie. "Yeah, you really want me to buy any of this when you couldn't come up with it yourself? As if." Uta stepped past Luffy again, but once more, Luffy was quick to jump in front of her.

"Hey, I'm trying here, give me a break! At least I want to change! What do you want to do, just stay sad all the time and never talk to anyone ever again?"

"Yes!" It was a louder and more emotional outburst than she had intended.

"Why?"

"Because! Because, I," Uta trailed off, forcing her words to die on her tongue. The whole thing was stupid. Luffy, of all people, shouldn't be someone who could get her worked up like this. She was supposed to be the one leading the flow of the conversation, not him. She was supposed to be better than that, yet here she was making like a fish and floundering. None of that would have happened if it was two weeks ago, when everything still made sense. Before they left the village for that trip.

"Shanks and everyone decided to take me to this place called Elegia. It's an island way off in the Grand Line that's supposed to be the biggest music spot in the world." Before she knew what was happening, Uta was laying everything out for Luffy and not making an effort to stop herself. "I'm the diva of the Red Hair Pirates, so they thought I'd get a kick out of it, and I did! I learned so much about what it really means to be a performer, and everyone there loved my singing and kept wanting me to go on lots of different tours. It was the best time of my life until…"

"Until what?" Luffy's tone sounded sincere and his eyes weren't leaving Uta's. As far as Uta could tell, Luffy was making a real effort to listen, and as much as it killed her, that pushed her to keep talking.

"I don't know, okay? I blacked out as this party we were at was getting into full swing, and the next thing I know, Elegia was on fire and, and everyone was d-dead." The memories Uta had tried to ignore were returning in full force; the hot air burning her skin and throat, the sight of buildings in the town crumbling to ash, learning for the first time what dead bodies smelled like and being thankful for how Shanks had always kept her away from that. Remembering it all made her want to cry and vomit, but she held back her tears, pushed down her lunch, and turned back to Luffy, whose face was now full of fright.

"I didn't know what was going on, I just wanted to find Shanks and go home, and that's when King Gordon found me. H-He said that Shanks and everyone were the ones who destroyed Elegia, t-that they used my singing as an excuse to get permission to enter Elegia, steal all of their treasure, and then destroy everything to try and cover it up."

"What?" There was a small hitch in Luffy's voice.

"Crazy, right? This whole time, I thought that they were my family, that Shanks was my dad, but they were just using me to make a big score and kill a ton of people. I guess they're no better than any other pirates; probably would have thrown me overboard years ago if they didn't think they could get anything out of me."

"That's not true!" All of a sudden, Luffy's hands had a tight grasp on her shoulders. "I don't know why that stupid king guy said all that, but there's no way Shanks would do that! They're not the kind of pirates who go around killing people and hurting their friends! There's just no way!"

"Shut up, Luffy."

"No, I'm telling you, you're wrong! And if this is why you've been acting like this, then you're an idiot, too! Let's just go ask Shanks and he'll tell you what really happened!"

"I said shut up!" Uta slapped Luffy's hands away and threw her face to the ground. "God, and this is what you call listening to people? I know Shanks didn't do anything; I just said that because I thought it'd be enough to get you to shut up!"

"What? That's stupid; stop being stupid."

"Don't tell me what to do! I'd love to be as stupid as you, right now! If I was as stupid as you, then I could just flit about without a care in the world and not have to think about how—How—" Uta clapped her mouth shut, both to silence herself and to keep her impending vomit down a little easier.

"What are you—

"How I destroyed Elegia!" Uta threw her head up to face Luffy once more, and after her declaration, the only sounds that could be heard were the wind and her tears falling on the ground.

"After we left Elegia, I heard Shanks talking to everyone without me," Uta said while making a poor attempt at wiping away her tears. "They were all talking about how they didn't know what to do about me, how the government wasn't going to let this go, how my life might be over now. I tried to get them to tell me what was going on, but they kept trying to tell me not to worry and how I needed to forget about it, but I can't forget about it if I did something that was hurting everyone, and I know I did!

"I-I know I said I blacked out that night, but ever since I left Elegia, I keep having dreams and visions or something of that night. I'm always up in the air, burning the island to the ground, laughing as everyone dies around me, and Shanks and everyone all jumping around to try and k-kill me. It always feels too real to be something I made up, so that means that it had to be me. I don't know how or why, but I destroyed Elegia and killed all those people!

"I just—I just wanted them to say something about it; I wanted them to tell me the truth about what I did, but they kept acting like I was being crazy. I kept fighting them about it, and then Shanks and I really got into it and I-I said I hate him and-and he said he didn't care! That's that, then, right? If I really did something so bad that Shanks doesn't care about me anymore, then there's no point in caring about anything!"

Uta fell into a series of haggard breaths, a combination of the emotional toll of everything she had just laid out and talking far longer than she had planned on talking. Ideally, she would have preferred not to say anything at all, but Luffy just wouldn't leave her alone, and now she didn't know if she felt better for getting it off her chest or worse for being forced to confront it.

"You're wrong, Uta," were the first words to come out of Luffy's mouth after a silence she had wished had gone on longer. "I don't know what happened, but even if you did mess that place up, that doesn't mean you're a bad person, right?"

"Yes, it does! You can't just do all the stuff I did and not be a bad person! That's why Shanks and everyone hates me!"

"That's not true!" Luffy said. "If Shanks really hated you, then why didn't he leave you behind and why is everyone so sad that you won't talk to anyone? You're the only one who wants to be mad at you, Uta, and that's stupid!"

"You're stupid!" Luffy shook his head, and for some reason, that was the trigger Uta needed to push Luffy to the ground and run away from him without looking back.

Not that it changed anything about her situation, of course.

Uta finally stopped by a large cliff further outside the village, and the second she did, she could no longer keep herself from vomiting. How humiliating it felt for her to be brought to such a point, and with Luffy, of all people, being the cause of it.

"What's his problem, anyway?" Uta asked the dead air surrounding her while wiping her face. "Making me talk about all of that, as if he even cares, and then saying I'm wrong! I hate him! I hate him hate him hate him hate him hate him hate him hate him hate him hate him hate him hate—"

Uta bit her tongue, but even the sudden spark of pain wasn't enough to change her mood. If anything, it only reminded her of how terrible everything was and how much she needed to accept that, no matter what anyone else had to say about it.

In the middle of her acceptance of that, which largely consisted of Uta kicking rocks around while avoiding the sun, Uta heard a rustling from the woods. It had to be Luffy sticking his nose where it didn't belong again. She didn't know why finding her was the one thing he wasn't an idiot about, but it just made her hate him even more.

"God, can you just take a hint, alre—" Uta stopped when what emerged from the woods wasn't Luffy, but a pair of men, specifically the two bandits they had gotten into a fight with a few days before she left for Elegia.

"Well ain't this a coincidence; we were just thinking about getting some payback for the other day," said the short bandit.

"Heard a rumor that you were playing by yourself lately. Didn't know if it was true, but I guess it pays to be a little optimistic," said the tall bandit.

Any other day, the sight of the two lumbering buffoons trying to pass themselves off as bandits would only make Uta laugh before headbutting one of them in the groin and running off, exactly as she had done the last time they met. But Uta, in her current state of being, had none of the same nerve she used to pride herself on, so all she could do was run for about three seconds before the short bandit grabbed her by her hair and hoisted her off the ground.

"Heard you became a creepy little weirdo who won't do anything but mope, too, so I guess that means we don't have ta worry about your freaky little powers," said the short bandit.

"Speakin' of which, I hear that fancy rich people like the ones on the other side of the island will buy one of those Devil Fruit things for a hundred million Berries. 'Course, when someone's already eaten one, you gotta gut it out of them, or something." Uta flinched as spittle flew from his mouth on the emphasis of "gut".

"Enough cash to start running this place, and all we gotta do is carve up some brat? It's almost too good to be true!"

The two bandits started laughing like hyenas and Uta felt her heart sink down to the soul of her sole. With everything that had happened to her lately, she should have expected such a fitting ending for her story, and with that should have come an equally bittersweet acceptance, as well.

And yet, she refused. She couldn't bring herself to fight or struggle against her captors, but she still found a part of her rejecting the idea of this being where she dies. She still found a part of herself wanting to cling to life, wanting to hope that someone, somewhere, would be able to appear at her lowest to save her.

Before she could question the rationale behind those thoughts, a rock flew into the back of the short bandit's head with enough force to knock him to the ground and Uta out of his grip.

"Ah! What the—"

"Get up, Uta!" She didn't know if it was relief or surprise, but Uta felt something when she picked her head up to see Luffy standing there.

"It's the other brat! Tryin' to be a hero, kid?" Luffy responded to the tall bandit by throwing a rock into his face.

"I'm trying to be a friend, you jerk!" Luffy shouted.

"What are you—How did you even—" Uta was interrupted by the short bandit pulling her back into the air with a hard yank of her hair. Luffy picked up another rock, but the tall bandit, having regained his bearings, ripped it out of Luffy's hands and slammed it into his head. "Luffy!"

"I'm gonna enjoy this!" The tall bandit kicked Luffy in his gut, and Uta kept her wincing just short enough to watch Luffy latch onto his leg and bite him. He then ran to the cliffside and swung the leg Luffy clung to at it, but at the last second, Luffy crawled onto his back and bit down on his head in tandem with him banging his leg.

"You were saying I only cared about myself before, but what about you? There are tons of people worried about you and you're just ignoring them! You're the one being a brat, not me!" Luffy said.

"It's not a competition, Luffy!" Uta said. "And if it is, then we're both losing because I'm still me and now you're getting caught up in it!"

"I don't care! If I didn't want to stick with you when things got bad, then I wouldn't be your friend, and that's all I want to be! Even if you don't want to care about anything, that won't stop me from caring about you until you stop lying! I mean, if you really didn't care about anything, then why's it matter so much that I want to care about you? Explain that!"

Uta didn't have an answer for that, and before she could question why that was, the tall bandit finally ripped Luffy off his head and slammed him into the cliffside. Luffy's face was bleeding as the tall bandit lurched over him, and his shadow became even more menacing as he drew a knife.

You see, Luffy? This guy's gonna kill you, and it's all because you wouldn't leave me alone! Uta thought. Why couldn't you just keep being a selfish little kid like always? Why'd you have to keep following me around and showing up when it never made sense? Why do you have to keep forcing yourself into my life when I just want you gone?

At that moment, tears began to well up in Uta's eyes, but not for the reason she wanted. She wanted to be crying because she lamented how Luffy was another person getting hurt because of her, as was the train of thought running through her head just then, but that wasn't what she came back to. Instead, her mind suddenly became focused on the sudden realization of how Luffy managed to find her: the cliffside she had run off to wasn't a random place on the island, but the same place where the two of them first started competing with each other, where they first started to become friends.

As much as Uta had tried to deny it, she didn't want to be alone. She didn't want to lose Luffy or Shanks or anyone else she loved, and it was Uta finally admitting to that that allowed her to cry.

"I-I," Uta took a breath and steeled herself as she wiped away a portion of her tears. "'I never felt so all alone—"

"Yeah, we got that, so shut up," said the short bandit.

"'In this lifeboat I call a home.'"

"Hey, quiet down so I can maim your little pal in peace," said the tall bandit.

"'You're my only refuge in this raging sea.'"

"Stop ignoring us, you little—Wait, are you singing?"

"'Over the howling wind, your voice rescues me.'"

"Oh, shit! I thought she wasn't doing that anymore!" The short bandit tried to throw a hand over Uta's mouth, but it was too little too late, and the next thing to come out of there was a translucent, pulsating shockwave that freed Uta from the short bandit's grasp and blasted him into a tree.

"Oh, no," was all the tall bandit said as he dropped his knife and backed away from Luffy.

"'Oh-ho, yeah, yeah! I hear the sirens calling me, baby!'" At the call of the next lyric to Uta's song, mismatched pink and white wings sprouted from her back and lifted her off the ground. As Uta floated in the air, pink light materialized around her right hand and eventually turned into a red electric guitar with a picture of a griffin on the body. The guitar was almost twice as big as Uta, but she managed to effortlessly hold it up with one hand. "'Oh-ho, yeah, yeah! I see your lighthouse shining onto me! Keep me off the rocky shore—'"

"Hey kid, come on, we were just messing around, you know?"

"'Keep me off the ocean floor.'"

"Okay, so because I don't feel like killing you anymore, I'm gonna let you off with a warning—"

"Nope!" All of a sudden, Luffy jumped up and wrapped himself around the tall bandit's legs, and it became a clear struggle for him to leave. Uta smiled and flew at him with all the speed her body could muster.

"'Oh-ho, yeah, yeah! Keep your beacon shining bright, baby!'" In a single sweeping motion, Uta slammed the flat side of the guitar into the tall bandit's head. Luffy let go at the exact moment of contact, causing him to be sent flying across the ground. As the weight of everything began to hit her, Uta flew back to the ground and dispelled her wings and guitar.

Then she screamed at the top of her lungs, almost as if everything hurting her was trying to escape through her throat.

"Uta, you did it! You sang!" Luffy said, smiling as if their lives weren't in danger just a moment ago. "Wait, why didn't you just put those guys to sleep?"

"I didn't want to do that, or maybe it's more like I don't think I can do it right now? Really, though, I kind of just wanted to smack them," Uta said. "And I wouldn't have felt like that if you had left me alone like I wanted."

"Wait, doesn't that mean I screwed up on learning to listen? But I was doing it before, really! It just wasn't working the way Makino said it would!"

"Listening to people takes a while, Luffy! So does responding to people, I guess, I don't know." Uta was getting lost in her own head, and while it was a far different sort than how she had been lost in there since she left Elegia, it was still frustrating, nonetheless.

That paled in comparison, of course, to the frustration brought about by the bandits, who Uta apparently didn't take out, grabbed her and Luffy from behind, the short bandit even taking the time to wrap his smelly arm around her mouth.

"You stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid little shits!" shouted the short bandit as Uta squirmed in his grip to try and bite down on his arm. "We were just trying to have some fun and make some quick cash, but here you are, making a whole chore out of killing a couple of brats! I hope you're happy!"

In lieu of the rather obvious answer to follow such a rhetorical question, something flew straight into the short bandit's face with enough force to knock him down and Uta out of his grip. The second Uta regained her bearings, she caught sight of what had felled the short bandit and her eyes widened with the immediate recognition of her savior.

"Monster!" The musical monkey of the Red Hair Pirates turned and smiled at Uta before he went back to punching the short bandit in the face over and over again. She didn't know how or why Monster was there, but she did know that Monster never ran off on his own and that there were only four people in the world he liked to have stick close to him. Luffy and Uta were already there, and Bonk Punch would be standing right next to Monster if he were around, so that only left one person to be accompanying Monster.

"I think you're playing a little too rough with the kids." It was almost as if he had appeared out of thin air, but sure enough, Shanks was standing right in front of Uta. Maybe it was because she had spent the past two weeks ignoring him as much as possible, but Uta couldn't recall him ever looking as imposing as he did now. The way he walked, the way he stood, the way he glared, it was all different from the few times she managed to sneak a peek at Shanks fighting out at sea, and it felt as if there was a previously unseen aura oozing out of his body.

"Who the hell are you?" asked the tall bandit. "This ain't your problem, asshole, so just walk away and—"

"Did you not hear me? You're playing too rough with the kids. You need to stop. Now." The air around Shanks felt like it suddenly gained an incredible amount of weight and density to it as it narrowed its scope toward the tall bandit, with him now breaking out in a cold sweat. Barely a second of that had gone by before the tall bandit put Luffy back on the ground and patted him on the head.

"Look, he's okay. Not a scratch on him, so let's all just—" The tall bandit was cut off by Luffy punching him in his nethers. He screamed as loudly as Uta would expect a man to scream in that situation, and any thoughts of retaliation faded away from his face the second Shanks locked eyes with him again.

"Take your buddy and go. And don't let me catch you so much as breathing in our direction again." That was all Shanks said before Monster tossed the short bandit—his face swollen from endless pummeling—into the tall bandit's arms, thus prompting him to run off into the horizon without skipping a beat.

"Yeah, you better run! Not so tough with Shanks here, you jerks!" Luffy shouted while sticking his tongue out. "Oh yeah, what're you and Monster doing here, anyway?"

"We got a feeling that you were in trouble, so we've been running around trying to find you. You and—You and Uta." Uta twitched at the mention of her name. She was quick to lock eyes with Shanks, and the moment she did, the intensity he had been exuding faded away for the same visible melancholy she had forced on him after Elegia. Even with everything that had just happened, she didn't know what to say to him, what to do with him, what to think about him; it made her want to run away all over again, but her feet felt like they were clad in lead.

Whatever choice Uta had thought about making, Shanks took it out of her hands when he walked over and embraced her.

"I'm sorry. Uta, I'm so, so sorry. I didn't want you to worry about Elegia, but I just made you feel like you were all alone. You're not alone, Uta. I want to help you when you ask for help, I want to be there when you need someone by your side, and I'm not the only one who thinks like that. I'll try to explain everything, but right now, all you need to know is that I never want to hurt you again and I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am that I did."

From there, Shanks just kept saying, "I'm sorry," over and over again, and when anything new was added, it was the warmth of tears dripping down onto Uta's head. Suddenly, it all came back to her. She had forgotten with all the time she had spent feeling bad about everything, but back on Elegia, as the fires raged around her and she watched Shanks and everyone sail away, all of a sudden, Shanks dove into the sea and swam back to shore. He ran like a blur to Uta and hugged her just like this; said he was sorry just like this; cried to her just like this.

There was never truly a time when Shanks had stopped loving her, and that realization brought Uta to tears, as well.

"It's not like you to say sorry, I was waiting on a different story. This time I'm mistaken for handing you a heart worth breaking." After a week of being a metaphorical graveyard, Partys Bar was once again filled with life, and it was all thanks to Uta. The Red Hair Pirates had all fallen into a funk because they didn't know how to fix things between Shanks and Uta, but the second they saw Shanks come back from the woods with an Uta whose hair loopies were standing straight up, a wave of euphoria swept over them and they were back to their old selves. Fittingly, they were quick to start partying with Makino tending to their every whim, and Mayor Woop Slap coming inside to yell at them—although Uta couldn't help but notice a smile on his face—was the biggest sign that none of them had lost their step.

"And I've been wrong, I've been down, been to the bottom of every bottle. These five words in my head scream, 'Are we having fun yet?'" Everyone applauded and cheered as Uta's song came to a close. She missed this sort of scene where everyone in the crew, in her family, were just loving each other and being loved by each other. If Uta had honestly thought she could live with not caring about anything, then it was only because the anxiety that had plagued her had made her forget the warmth that everyone around her provided.

"Amazing! Another hit from our amazing little diva!" Shanks, of course, was especially good at that, and Uta couldn't believe she had forgotten how great it felt to have him hold her and simply be there for her.

"I am amazing, aren't I?" Uta asked, Shanks wasting no time to disagree. "Aren't I amazing, Luffy?"

"Yeah, totally." Uta nearly fell out of Shanks' arms from hearing that. It was so out of line with how their dynamic of trading off lighthearted barbs went that she had to make sure it wasn't an imposter standing in front of her. It wasn't, of course; it was the same Luffy whom she always competed with; the same Luffy whom she always got to have fun with; the same Luffy who was the first to help her when she couldn't even admit she needed help. "Shanks, I'm done trying to join your crew, you hear me?"

"What? Where's this coming from?" Shanks asked.

"My mouth!" Luffy said. "You don't need to take me along with you 'cause I'm gonna be a pirate all my own! I'm gonna make a crew even better than yours that'll find the One Piece, and then I'm gonna be the Pirate King!" A silence entered Partys Bar at Luffy's declaration. Anyone who knew how things went between Luffy and the Red Hair Pirates would have expected them to burst into laughter, but it never came. Uta wasn't surprised by that; yes, the idea of Luffy beating Shanks was utterly ridiculous, but the resolution in his voice was too respectable for anyone with an ounce of dignity to want to laugh at.

"Well, those are some pretty big goals, Luffy! I'm not gonna make it easy for you, so you better not slack off!" Shanks said as he put Uta back down on the ground.

"I won't! I'm getting started right now!" Uta didn't know what Luffy meant by that, but before she could think about it, Luffy stepped in front of her and said, "Uta, join my crew!"

"No. What are you saying? That's gross. Shut up." It took less than a second for Uta to think of saying all of that to the boy who was responsible for reigniting her will to live.

Songs used this chapter:

"The Beacon" by The Glass Pyramids

"How You Remind Me" by Nickelback, covered by Avril Lavigne

Two notes worth noting:

1. Uta is the same age as Luffy instead of being two years older than him;

2. The Sing-Sing Fruit's regular ability of transporting people into a virtual landscape is now its Awakened ability (Uta was able to Awaken it at a young age due to her natural affinity for singing), and its basic abilities now revolve around materializing things through song, but the trauma of what she went through on Elegia causes her to subconsciously repress her abilities. Partial credit for this goes to Red Flag in the ideas thread on Spacebattles.