It was an early morning at Partys Bar when Luffy kicked the door in as well as his tiny body could allow. Shanks didn't bother turning around to look at him because this wasn't the first time Luffy had done this, and if it was going to be anything like his daily entrances of the past month, then he knew exactly what was going to come next.

"Uta! Join my crew!"

"Nope. No way. Get lost, moron." There was usually a slight variance in what Uta would say without skipping a beat, but it was still the exact routine they had fallen into for a month, and hearing it brought a smile to Shanks' face behind his beer.

"No! I said you're joining my crew, so that's that!" Luffy said.

"Stop being so annoying! You really think I'm gonna give up being Shanks' musician just to be a third-string lackey in your third-string crew?" Uta asked.

"You can be vice-captain if you want, but that's as far as I'm gonna budge."

Shanks saw a smile on Uta's face that lasted for three seconds before she stuck his tongue out at Luffy.

"Don't be so hasty there, Uta. Not every day you get a chance to be second-in-command of an up-and-coming crew, so you might want to consider it at least," Shanks said.

"Don't even joke like that, Shanks. There's no way I can just leave you like that," Uta said.

"Hey, we've still got Monster. He's almost as good as you." Shanks laughed and ducked his head to dodge an incoming roundhouse kick from Monster, currently screeching about one thing or another.

"Come on, Luffy, let's go have you lose to me at something outside," Uta said as she jumped off her seat at the bar.

"Yeah! I'm gonna win, though," Luffy said. Monster followed the two of them out of Partys Bar while screeching more nonsense at Shanks, and Shanks found the entire scene to be nothing but adorable as he went back to his drink.

"I know that you're just messing around, and Uta probably knows it, too, but you really shouldn't be joking about getting rid of her with everything that's happened between you two," Makino said as she refilled Shanks' drink.

"I wouldn't be a dad if I didn't have bad jokes," Shanks said. He took a swig of his drink and continued with, "Besides, not like this'd be the worst place for a kid like her to settle down."

"So you really are still thinking about that, then." Shanks couldn't blame Makino for her tone, but that didn't mean he liked to hear it.

"Speaking from personal experience, growing up on a pirate ship isn't all fun and games, no matter how good the company. We've already had some close calls," It took a moment for Shanks to realize he was touching his scar, "and we're going to start taking things seriously once we finally leave for good, so that'll just make things even harder for Uta. I know how badly things went last time, but I still think the best thing for Uta would be if she could grow up somewhere safe."

"That's a nice plan and all, but maybe you should think about including Uta in it someday." Makino walked off to tend to other customers before Shanks could think of a response, but try as he might, nothing came to mind. He kept talking about wanting to do what was best for Uta, but he couldn't bring himself to actually talk to her and see what she thought was best for herself. He knew that if he did, she'd just keep insisting that they stay together, but that was what he was trying to avoid for her own good, and trying to argue that point would just make them fight again.

Plus, at the end of the day, I don't want to leave Uta, either! I want to watch my little girl grow up, but this is what's best for her, dammit! Shanks thought. Wow. Caring so much about your kid that you force yourself to look selfish in their eyes. Wonder how many times you were in this boat with us, Roger.

"I'm telling you, it was real, and it almost scared the pants offa me!"

"Man, I think you've had a few too many."

"Maybe, but not back when I saw it! I swear, there's some crazy, giant, pink cat runnin' around the woods!"

"In a three-piece suit."

"It's a super dapper giant cat!" Shanks caught the drunken ramblings of some of his subordinates by chance. Something about it sounded a bit familiar, but he had better things to worry about, so he went back to his drink and paid them no more mind.


"Luffy, you sure you don't wanna yield? Like, super sure?"

"Super duper mega—Ow ow ow, fine! I give up!" Uta let out a sigh as she undid the camel clutch she had locked Luffy in and officially put an end to their impromptu wrestling match. Monster jumped over to give Uta a high five, and Uta gladly reciprocated as she watched Luffy struggle to get back on his feet.

"Seriously, Luffy, just calm down, already," Uta said. "We usually space out me kicking your butt at stuff with us just hanging out and having fun, but it's been nothing but me putting you in your place for the past month."

"I'm gonna beat you one of these days, Uta!" Luffy said.

"No, you really won't. It's one thing for me to beat you in eating contests and boat races, but you're even challenging me to stuff you should know you'd never have a chance at like feats of strength, board games, keepy-uppy, knifey-spoony—That last one really annoys because you keep saying you've played it before, but you clearly don't know the rules."

"Not my fault it's a weird game."

"So don't challenge me to it! If this were a Davy Back Fight, I'd have won you a million times by now!"

"I don't know what that is, but I'm just gonna challenge you a billion times if that's what it takes for you to join my crew!"

If it was anyone else spouting such stubbornness, Uta wouldn't be having any of it, but because it was Luffy, it was just barely endearing enough to touch her heart, if only a small amount.

"Look, Luffy, just because I don't want to be in your crew doesn't mean I don't want to be in a crew with you," Uta said. "Just make more of an effort to join Shanks and everyone and we can stay together. I'll even give you his secret tell for his coin trick so you can make him let you join." Monster jumped on Uta's shoulder and gave a thumbs up at that.

"No way! I wanna be a pirate on my own terms, and I want you to be there with me, so I'm not gonna stop until I prove that I'm tougher than you!" Luffy said.

"Luffy, you've got nothing to prove because you're not stronger than me in any way, shape, or form." Luffy pouted at Uta and Monster jumped over to his side to pat him on the back. The scene resonated with the softest part of her heart, thus prompting her to say, "But that's part of the problem with what you're doing: you're acting like you need to be the strongest around."

"Don't you need to be to be the Pirate King?"

"Well, yeah, but you don't need to be the strongest guy around to get people to follow you, you just need to be strong, in general. Brains, brawn, heart, other stuff, there are lots of things a pirate can have that can draw people to them. The reason you're not winning me over is that you're so busy trying to prove you're tougher than me that you're failing to prove you're tough all on your own. Do that and maybe, just maybe, I'll consider joining you!"

"Really?"

"Really!" There was a definite smile on Luffy's face now, so Uta knew she had done her job right. She had no idea what Luffy would do with this revelation, but it would probably be more of the same sort of silliness she had gotten accustomed to with Luffy.


"And then he stabbed himself! In the face!" Uta slammed her hands on the counter at Partys Bar so everyone could know how frustrated she was with Luffy; the shared laughter of Shanks and the crew made her hope she got the point across.

"You told me to prove I was tough! What's tougher than taking a knife to the face and not feeling a thing?" Luffy asked from the seat next to her.

"But you were crying! And you still are!" Uta said.

"Nuh-uh! I'm just sweating from my eyes!"

"That's not a thing, and the only thing you've proven to me is that you're an idiot! Why would I be impressed with that when that's the only kind of captain I've ever known?"

Monster made some noises from the floor to direct Uta to Shanks sitting right next to her and Luffy, but if she didn't know that, she wouldn't have said it as loudly as she did. Shanks mumbled something about moving to more inviting company and left the two alone at the bar, Monster following right behind him.

"Okay, so if stabbing myself doesn't make me strong in your world, then I'll do something else." Luffy pulled a treasure chest someone had left on the counter close to him and said, "I'll buy food for everyone in town with whatever's in here. Well, whatever I don't use to buy meat for me, anyway. That'll make me strong of heart or something, right?"

"Don't steal other people's stolen money, Luffy." Naturally, Uta's words fell on deaf ears as Luffy opened the chest. Rather than be blinded by the flash of light against gold coins, however, the two of them saw what appeared to be a large, purple fruit covered in swirling indentations.

"What is this thing?" Luffy asked.

"Beats me," Uta said. "Come to think of it, Shanks got this chest from some people we fought a little before we came here. We really fought some guys over a fruit? And he didn't even eat it? That's weird."

"Bet I can eat this whole thing without throwing up," Luffy said, completely ignorant of everything Uta had said.

"Didn't you hear me, Luffy? That fruit's over a year old; it's gotta be rotten and filled with maggots and junk. You're gonna die if you eat that thing," Uta said.

"Only if it kills me." Uta wanted to be the second person to stab Luffy in the face. "If you're so worried about it, then you eat it, too. Even if it is poison, I won't die if I only eat half the fruit, right?"

"What are you gonna do if just half of it is enough to kill you? What then?"

"Sounds like you're scared that I can eat more than you."

Uta grabbed a knife, cut the fruit in half, and split the halves between the two of them. The rational part of her brain knew that Luffy was tricking her into ignoring the inherent danger of the fruit, but there was no way she would entertain the idea of losing to Luffy in anything.

With her half of the fruit in front of her, Uta could see that there weren't any bugs crawling around inside, and it didn't appear to smell, either. Somehow, the fruit was preserved in a way that prevented it from rotting inside and out, so Uta had no hesitation as she bit into it.

That all fell apart when she actually bit into the fruit, as it was the most disgusting thing she had ever tasted in her life. It was like there was a party in her mouth and everyone was having diarrhea on the dance floor underneath the disco ball's light. Just having it rest against her tongue was pushing her gag reflex to its limit, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't so much as force the juices of the fruit down her throat.

"Man, this thing tastes nasty. No wonder Shanks didn't wanna eat it." Luffy, however, didn't appear to have the same difficulties, based on how he had somehow managed to swallow three bites with nothing but a smug look on his face. Naturally, Uta couldn't have any of that, so she pushed down every rational instinct in her head to shove what remained of her fruit into her mouth and vigorously chewed it until it became a fine paste that simply slid down her throat. Then, just for spite-fueled good measure, she took what was left of Luffy's half and repeated the process in kind.

"Hey, what'd you go and do that for? It's almost like you don't want me to be your captain or something!" Luffy said, shaking his head in misplaced disappointment.

"I would punch you so hard in the face if I wasn't scared of vomiting from that much movement," Uta said as her head fell against the countertop. Luffy started laughing at her misfortune as if he had won anything, and despite it all, it did soothe her stomach a little.

At that moment, the door to Partys Bar flew open with a bang. Shanks and the rest of the crew didn't appear interested, but Uta and Luffy turned and saw a large group of people marching over to the bar. Each one of them looked more unsavory than the last, and the worst of the bunch was the one leading pack, a tall man in a red coat with a sword almost as big as him and a scar on his forehead nearly as crooked as his smile.

"Wow, these guys are really just goin' about their business. Pirates are stupider than I thought," said the leader of the pack. Uta wanted to punch him in the face, but she knew Shanks would take care of that before the day was done. Makino scurried over to the counter to face him, and he continued with, "Name's Higuma, and as you probably know, I'm a pretty notorious bandit around these parts. Lucky for you, I'm not looking to cause trouble today, so long as you can get me and my boys ten barrels of booze."

"I-I'm sorry, we're fresh out of alcohol, so you'll have to come back tomorrow," Makino said as Uta watched her slowly reach for what looked like a knife under the counter.

"Is that right? So what're all these guys drinking? Frothy mugs of water?" Higuma asked.

"Yes, they're drinking alcohol, but they just grabbed the last of it. Sorry." Makino let out a small laugh that ended as soon as it was clear that it wasn't diffusing the tension.

"Are you serious? Maybe you don't know who I am." Higuma pulled a piece of paper and slammed it on the countertop. It was a wanted poster with an unflattering picture of him on it. "I'm not just some run-of-the-mill bandit, little girl. I've got a bounty of eight million Berries on my head from killing fifty-six people. You want to be number fifty-seven?"

"Why's he so happy about a bounty that small?" Luffy whispered to Uta. "Uta, didn't you say Shanks' bounty was—"

"No no, don't! It's funnier like this!" Uta whispered with a smile because sure enough, Shanks had marched over to the counter next to Higuma, and she couldn't wait to see how badly he would beat him up.

"Sorry we took all the booze. This bottle's unopened, so you can have it if you want," Shanks said, holding a bottle of unopened beer out to Higuma. Uta was disappointed that Shanks opted for the diplomacy route, but it was probably better to not start a fight in the bar.

Higuma, however, didn't get the message, as when he took the bottle from Shanks, he immediately hit him over the head with it. That was when the Red Hair Pirates as a whole finally started paying Higuma and his gang any mind, and it took a stern look from Beckman for Uta to not jump out of her seat and punch him in the face.

"What'd you go and do that for? You shouldn't be breaking glass with kids running around. Makino, give me a rag, please," Shanks said. He crouched down to pick the glass up off the floor, and he did so with such perfect timing that he dodged a swing from Higuma's sword that left a deep cut in the countertop and destroyed all the glassware in its path.

"If you like cleaning up after me so much, have a little more!" Higuma said with a laugh. "I knew pirates were weak, but I didn't think they were cowards. Think we're gonna go somewhere where people have some actual guts."

Shanks sat up against the bar, held out a dripping sleeve, and said with a smile, "Well, I guess drinks're on me." Just like that, the tense atmosphere Higuma had created vanished as the bar was filled with laughter from all of its patrons.

""Stop laughing!"" Everyone, of course, except for Uta and Luffy.

"What's wrong with you, Shanks? You could have beaten that guy with one hand, but you let him make you look like a chump!" Uta said.

"Yeah! You've got no right to call yourself a pirate if you can't even stand up for yourself! Don't be such a loser!" Luffy said.

"Man, the first time you two agree on anything, and it's about how mad you are at me," Shanks said. "Look, there's no point in picking a fight over dumb stuff like this. You'll understand when you're older."

"The hell we will! Luffy, let's go before we catch his cowardice!" Uta said before walking off in a huff with Luffy in tow. Shanks, however, was quick to grab the two of them, and Uta hated that he was going to force her to stay and listen to his excuses.

Any feelings of frustration she felt towards Shanks faded away when she saw that Luffy was still walking away as his arm suddenly elongated within Shanks' grip.

"What!" Uta was hardly the only person in Partys Bar to shout that as everyone caught sight of the bizarre spectacle. Shanks let go of his arm and Uta watched it snap back to its regular size, but that didn't stop everyone from freaking out over whatever it was that was happening.

"Luffy! There was a fruit inside one of our treasure chests! Did you eat it?" Lucky Roux asked, sweating more than Uta had ever seen him sweat in his life.

"Yeah, Uta and I ate that nasty fruit. So what?" Luffy asked.

"Wait, Luffy, I think he's saying the weird fruit is why your arm's all stretchy!" Uta said.

"No way!"

"Yes, way!" Shanks said. The energy radiating off of Shanks felt almost as intense as what Uta felt when he saved her and Luffy from the bandits. "Luffy, that nasty fruit was the Gum-Gum Fruit! It's a Devil Fruit! Now that you've eaten it, not only is your body made of rubber, but you'll never be able to swim for the rest of your life!"

Luffy cried out in disbelief, and all Uta could do was allow the words, "I told you so" to fly through her mind in various languages and dialects. She tried to tell Luffy to leave the fruit alone, and she tried to tell him not to eat it, and this was where ignoring her got him. And to think he thought that he had the right to be in charge of her.

"What are you doing looking so smug, girl?" Shanks asked, snapping Uta out of her reverie. "Don't think you're off the hook for this! Who in their right mind just lets someone eat a Devil Fruit at the drop of a hat like that?"

"What? I-I didn't know it was a Devil Fruit!" Uta said.

"You're a Devil Fruit user!"

"I was a baby when I ate mine, I don't remember what it looked like! Why is this about me all of a sudden, anyway? What about you? Why'd you even bring that thing out here, in the first place? Better yet, why've we been keeping it around for over a year without anyone ever eating it?"

All eyes fell on Shanks as his expression softened a little. Some of the staring eyes were as curious as Uta's, but others, mostly the more senior members of the crew, looked more like they were in on something no one else was privy to.

"Well, that's, um, none of your business! Maybe I'd tell you if you weren't such an idiot, but here we are!" Shanks said, his statement a mixture of unconvincing lies and blatant slander.

"I'm not an—"

"Yes, you are! Luffy said you both ate the Gum-Gum Fruit, right?" Uta instantly regretted nodding her head. "That's why! A Devil Fruit user can't eat more than one Devil Fruit; the second they try, they die on the spot!"

"What! B-But I feel fine!"

"That's because Luffy swallowed his bit before you did, so you only ended up eating a regular fruit. But if you were a little quicker about it, you would have been the one eating the Devil Fruit, and that would have been the end of you!"

"No way."

Uta felt her body tremble as if she were caught in a massive earthquake. As a pirate, she had long since accepted that she lived with death always being a possibility, but not like this. Not with it being something that she would bring about all on her own.

"Wow, Uta, you sure are stupid," Luffy said, smiling as if he had forgotten about the entire ordeal in an instant.

"I don't want to hear that from you!" Uta said.

"No, no, he's right!" Shanks said. He bent down to look Uta square in the eye and said, "Eating a Devil Fruit out of the blue is plenty stupid, but eating a Devil Fruit when you've already eaten one? That's a whole other level of stupid! Even stupider than Luffy's!"

"I-I'm stupider than Luffy?"

It was only then that Uta finally found it in her to vomit.


It took several days for Uta to recover from the shock of being declared even stupider than Luffy, who now even had a scar as a permanent reminder of his stupidity, and by that time, the Red Hair Pirates had gone off on a secret expedition that Uta wasn't allowed on; no one would say anything, but she knew she was being punished for her part in what happened with the Gum-Gum Fruit.

At the very least, Uta still had Luffy to keep her company, and despite him now being made of rubber, nothing had changed between them. There was a brief moment when Luffy started acting arrogant at the thought that being made of rubber meant he could finally beat Uta in a fight, but that ended when Uta made it clear that while she couldn't punch and kick him anymore, she had no problem stabbing him or tying his limbs into intricate knots. After that, Luffy went back to being the same happy-go-lucky boy Uta couldn't even think about getting rid of, which made his stubbornness about not wanting to join Shanks anymore all the more infuriating.

With everyone still away from the island, Uta and Luffy, having already exhausted themselves on failed attempts of Luffy's to impress Uta, ended up at Partys Bar for lunch. The bar would normally be filled with noise and merriment from Shanks and everyone, but now it was almost depressingly empty and quiet.

"Sure is boring without those guys around," Luffy said as he nursed a glass of juice.

"Yeah," Uta said, nursing a glass of similar flavor and size.

"Sounds like you two really miss Shanks," Makino said from behind the counter.

"Nuh-uh! No way I'm missing a bunch of wimps like them!" Luffy said, Uta nodding right along with him.

"I think you're being too hard on them. Sometimes it's braver to avoid a fight than it is to start one at the drop of a hat."

"That's stupid. Shanks picked tons of fights out at sea with guys a million times stronger than that loser, so he's just being dumb for not laying him out flat," Uta said.

"Right, right. I guess I just don't know what I'm talking about," Makino said.

Makino went back to cleaning some dishes after pointing out the obvious the way she did, but all three of them stopped what they were doing when they heard a loud slam of the door. Uta mentally slapped herself for feeling excited at the prospect of seeing Shanks again, and that feeling grew even worse when she saw that it was Higuma and his gang filing into the bar.

"Oh, those pirates really are gone. No wonder I don't smell the fresh scent of piss in the air!" Higuma said; he and his gang laughed as if it was the funniest joke in the world, and that just made Uta want to punch him. "Hey, girl! There better be booze today!"

"Yes, we've got plenty to drink!" Makino said with what Uta could tell was faux enthusiasm. Uta watched Makino roll her eyes as she started pouring drinks. Uta wished that Makino would have taken the time to spit in some of their drinks, but then again, that wouldn't have made them leave any faster.

"Hey, girly, you're that Shanks guy's little brat, right?" Higuma asked, his feet rudely perched atop one of the tables in the bar.

"Yeah, so what?" Uta asked.

It took the words leaving Uta's mouth for her to wonder how he would have known that, but it wasn't meant to be a secret, so she didn't think much of it.

"So, I feel sorry for you. Kids are supposed to have strong role models, so it must suck that you got stuck with such a dud of an old man! I mean, I broke a bottle over his head, for crying out loud, and he just stood there like a chump! Sure, I woulda killed him if he tried to fight me, but you gotta at least try! Your old man's nothing but a loser, is what he is!"

Once again, everyone was laughing along with Higuma as if he was the funniest person in the world, and once again, Uta wanted to punch him square in the face, although she didn't understand why it was to such a degree. It was one thing for her to want to punch him for being annoying, but for some reason, that urge kept resurging every time he made fun of Shanks, even though she felt like she agreed with him about how weak Shanks was being. Uta didn't know what to make of that, so she didn't know if she had the right to punch him.

"But hey, if you want to know what a real man is like, I can put on a show for ya. After I'm done here, you can come with me and I'll—"

Whatever ridiculous thing Higuma was going to say was cut off by Luffy throwing his glass at him with enough force and surprise to make him fall out of his chair. All of Higuma's goons went back and forth between staring at him in shock and staring at Luffy in anger.

"Shut up! Shut up about Uta, and shut up about Shanks! He's a million times better than you, so stop making fun of him!" Luffy shouted.

Leave it to Luffy to not show any hesitation to say or do the things Uta might struggle with.

"Oh, no. Uta, please don't let Luffy get hurt," Makino said as she put her tray of drinks down and started rummaging behind the bar.

"It's fine, I can deal with morons like these," Uta said.

A part of her felt that she might have been acting too confident for the situation at hand, but above all else, she was happy to have an excuse to punch Higuma in the face.

"Man, what a world we're living in where a snot-nosed brat has more guts than grown men," Higuma said. "I really wanted to have a drink or three before we got started, but here we are! Kill the boy and grab the girl, and be quick about it!"

Higuma's goons all shouted like animals as they sauntered in Uta and Luffy's direction. Luffy, for his part, looked raring to go, but Uta knew from experience how things would go if Luffy was left to fend for himself, so she, naturally, had to do her part to help.

"'You think you're radical, but you're not so radical. In fact, you're fanatical. Fanatical. You think you're radical, but you're not so radical. In fact, you're fanatical. Fanatical.'"

Uta's voice filled the air of Partys Bar, and with it came the empowering effect of her Sing-Sing Fruit. A faint pink glow enveloped Uta and Luffy both, and when one of Higuma's goons took a swipe at Luffy, he was able to jump above him and follow it up with a punch to his face, all of which was performed to a degree Luffy couldn't have done without Uta boosting their abilities.

"That girl's got powers? Shit! He didn't say anything about—"

Whatever Higuma was going to say was cut off by Uta jumping up and headbutting him in the stomach. The rest of his goons all circled Uta and Luffy and charged like they were going after a wild animal. That, of course, wasn't right in the slightest; an animal might show mercy.

"'Woah! I'll tell you right now you ought to change your mind. All of your friends are standing in a line.'"

Uta and Luffy kicked one bandit in the knees, grabbed him by his ankles, and swung him around against the others. A fourth of them went flying with each rotation, and another fourth went flying when Uta and Luffy released their captive like a projectile weapon. The bandit's shoe had fallen off in the middle of that, and Luffy took it upon himself to lengthen the laces until he was able to start waving it around like a flail. Luffy hit about half of the people he swung at with it, and the other half were taken out and blown clear out of the bar—Higuma included—when Uta let a translucent shockwave out of her mouth.

"Let's get him!" Luffy said as he charged out of the bar. Uta was quick to follow suit, and they were both quickly treated to the sight of Higuma trying to unsheath his sword.

"'They're getting tired of your attitude fast (Da-da-da-da-da) (Da-da-da-da-da). Without all your bodyguards, how long would you last?'"

Just as Higuma was about to unsheath his sword, three half notes the size of Uta's head appeared in the air in front of her connected by pink string. Punctuated by a self-proclaimed graceful twirl, Uta threw the musical bolas so they wrapped around Higuma's sword and tossed it into the street behind him. Higuma tried to make for the sword, but Luffy was there to hit him with a big stick and send him tumbling to the ground.

"'Not long (Not Long).'"

Luffy laughed and cheered about how they won and showed Higuma who's boss. In most situations, Uta would be annoyed at such a premature celebration, especially when Higuma was already standing up to retrieve his sword, but in the span of ten seconds, Makino had run out of Partys Bar, hit Higuma in the head with a bat, and tied him up with some rope, so it wasn't worth complaining about.

"Next time, try and drag everyone outside so you don't mess up my sole source of income. Well, I guess I can just get Shanks to pay for the damages, so whatever," Makino said before kicking Higuma in the stomach.

"Yeah, that's what you get for making fun of Shanks!" Luffy said. Luffy then turned to Uta and asked, "Wait, so we're not mad at Shanks anymore?"

"I don't know, but it was a ton of fun beating up this creep," Uta said as the pink light around her and Luffy died out. "He definitely wanted me for something weird. Not that I can blame him for that, but still, it always makes you feel better when there's a personal reason for kicking someone's ass."

Uta, of course, was speaking from very recent personal experience. She didn't know if she was completely over her fight with Shanks, but having Higuma as a punching bag certainly made her feel better in the moment. It almost made her want to go over to him and create another moment by punching him in the face.

Oddly enough, it was at that moment that a small hole appeared in Higuma's face, specifically his forehead, and blood spurt out as his eyes rolled back and he fell to the ground. It took a second for the surrealness of the scene to register with Uta, and when it finally settled in, she was joining Luffy and Makino through an alternating cycle of screams and gasps.

"God, you'd think that it'd be easy to have some mountain hicks grab a little girl for you, yet here we are. Never trust a monkey to do a tiger's job, I guess."

Everyone's flustered panicking came to a halt from that sudden declaration coupled with the sound of padded footsteps. Uta turned in tandem with Luffy and Makino to see what looked like a giant, bipedal feline with large fangs sticking out of his teeth. A pair of red horns, along with some sticks and leaves, were sticking out of a thick head of pink hair, and the three-piece suit he was dressed in would have looked fancy if it weren't covered in dirt, rips, and blood.

Worse than that, however, was how he licked his lips as he glared straight through Uta's soul, almost as if he wanted her to guess what would happen after he swallowed her whole.


"We're absolutely sure they're gonna like this, right?"

"It would be weirder if they didn't?"

"But that doesn't mean they will. What if this isn't good enough?"

"It's plenty good, Boss. Stop worrying."

"Maybe we should get some other ones, just in case. If we go through the Calm Belt, it might not take that long."

It was at that point that Monster slapped Shanks in the face with his tail; it didn't hurt in the slightest, but it was enough to calm him down and let him think about things rationally once again.

With how sour a note Shanks had left Uta and Luffy on, he was well within his right to be nervous about seeing them again after the better part of a week, but that was why he was taking care to fix the problem with incredibly lavish gifts for the both of them. For Uta, an assortment of new dresses and Tone Dials of her favorite artists, and for Luffy, piles of meat from the tastiest animals he could buy or kill. Shanks knew that he didn't have to go all out to patch up such a small fight, and he wouldn't be surprised if they had already forgotten about it, but after everything he had just been through with Uta, he wasn't taking any chances.

Fusha Village's port soon came into view, so Shanks knew that it wouldn't be long before he could put it all into action. He could already see Luffy jumping into the pile of meat and shoving half of it into his mouth while Uta marveled at all of the new clothes she could wear and all of the new music she could listen to. Uta would probably hug him and go on and on about how much she loved him and how much he was killing it at being a dad. To think that he ever thought about leaving her somewhere and giving up on all of that; that was why Beckman was the brains between the two of them.

"Hey, looks like we got a crowd waiting for us at the port," Beckman said. "And the mayor's there, too? I thought he hated us."

"Maybe the old man's finally warming up to us. Better late than never," Lucky Roux said, laughing between bites of miscellaneous meat.

Shanks wasn't so sure of that. Not when everyone in the crowd, including Makino, looked so upset, and especially not when Uta and Luffy were nowhere to be seen. The second they dropped anchor, Shanks jumped straight onto the dock and ran over to Makino, doing so with so much speed and force that he nearly knocked her over.

"Makino, what happened? Where are the kids?" Shanks asked with a tone that made it more like a statement.

"Shanks, I—I don't—Those bandits who tried to mess with you the other day came back and Luffy and Uta got in a fight with them, but that wasn't really a problem because of Uta's powers," Makino said. "But then, just when it looked like it was over, this giant cat in a suit showed up and killed the leader!"

"A giant cat in a suit? Did it have pink hair?"

"Y-Yes? Horns, too."

The pink hair was all Shanks was looking for. That was enough to tell Shanks that it was the same dapper cat he heard his subordinates talking about the other day, and that was all he had wanted to confirm. But then Makino said that he had horns, and he was finally able to remember where he had seen a cat like that.

"Makino, I'm going to ask you one more time: Where are the kids?" Shanks asked, barely attempting to mask his fury as he realized what was happening.

"The-The giant cat, he put a metal cuff around Uta's wrist, and then he ran out of town with her yelling t-that we needed to tell you, and I don't even know what he meant, to give him the treasure you stole if we ever wanted to see Uta alive again! Luffy didn't want to wait for you, so he ran off after them, even though the giant cat started moving so fast it looked like it was teleporting, or something. I tried to stop him, but then Luffy started yelling at me, and the next thing I know, I just blacked out, and Luffy was gone by the time I woke up!"

"You see this, everyone? This is what happens when you get cozy with pirates!" Mayor Woop Slap shouted at the townsfolk. "You've all spent over a year thinking I was just mad at how much they liked to party, but I knew that one day, they'd bring the chaos that goes hand-in-hand with pirates right to our doorstep, and here it is!"

Mayor Woop Slap hooked his cane in Shanks' shirt, pulled him down to eye level, and shouted, "There's a corpse lying in our street and two kids could be dead for all we know, including your own daughter! If you really think you're better than other pirates, clean up your mess and get the hell out of my town!"

There was bickering from both sides after that; the people on Shanks' side were arguing that the townsfolk were being too hard on Shanks for something he had no control over, and the townsfolk aside from Makino were arguing that they needed to take responsibility and that they never should have come to Fusha Village in the first place. Shanks wanted to listen, wanted to take in both sides of the argument, but he wasn't in the mood for that. Not in the slightest.

"I can't fix things with all of you in my way."

Shanks sounded calm as he spoke those words, but the air that resonated from them was enough to silence everyone on both sides. Mayor Woop Slap was quick to remove his cane from Shanks' shirt, and the second he did, Shanks stepped through the crowd towards the edge of town, each footstep of his coming off as carrying tremendous weight to it.

"Hold on, Boss, wait for us!" Lucky Roux shouted from the ship.

"Sorry, but I'm going alone on this one," Shanks said without turning around or stopping.

"You gotta at least take Monster with you!" Bonk Punch said, Monster screeching in response.

"I'm not the one who's going to need help today."

Once again, everyone was stunned silent, and Shanks kept marching off by himself as his lie settled in.

After all, the truth of the matter was that he could only handle so many people seeing what this man was going to force him to do.


Uta tried picking at it, but nothing worked. Uta tried clawing at it, but nothing worked. Uta tried biting at it, but still, nothing worked to get rid of the strange metal cuff that made her feel woozy the second it was clamped around her wrist, and she needed it gone. She had just been kidnapped by some crazy man who could turn into a giant cat, and no matter how much she wanted to use her powers to at least try and escape, they weren't working all of a sudden. It had to be because of the cuff, but it was too tough for her to get rid of, and every attempt to do so just made her feel even worse.

Uta couldn't do anything to get rid of the cuff, so she was stuck. She was stuck in the woods with some insane cat man who had it out for Shanks; she was stuck without any way to defend herself; she was stuck feeling more scared than she had ever felt before in her life.

"So yeah, the base flavor isn't much to write home about, but as long as you rotate it around an open flame long enough, crows are at least somewhat edible. The tricky part is catching them without accidentally killing them; you wanna try and keep them alive as long as possible so their meat stays fresh. Roasting them alive also means you're less likely to agitate the parasites inside of them, which I have done more often than I would have liked. I haven't vomited as much as I thought, though. Guess one of the benefits of my damned bloodline is being able to tolerate rancid shit like that, but I do try and avoid it if I can."

All of that was just the rotten icing on the rotten cake. It was bad enough that the cat man had kidnapped Uta, but ever since they settled down in some random part of the woods, he just would not stop talking. He prattled on about gross ways to forage through the woods, how the World Government was run by fascist pigs who couldn't point out a good employee if it killed them, and random gambling stories riddled with inside jokes that flew over her head. She always imagined kidnappers and would-be murderers being relatively silent in the middle of their operations, and the cat man going against that idea just made her hate him even more.

"Hey, are you listening?" The cat man asked, instantly stealing Uta's attention away from thoughts about how annoying he was.

"Um—"

"I'm regaling you with the tragedy that is my life, and you can't even bother to pay attention?"

"I didn't—"

Uta stopped talking when the cat man stabbed a dagger into the tree behind her mere millimeters away from her face.

"I should kill you. I should chop you into bits, grind you into a fine powder, stomp on you, and savor every bloodcurdling scream you let out as your bones break. I should do all of that and more, whatever it takes to make Shanks pay for destroying my life!"

The cat man's breath stung Uta's eyes with its stench and ferocity, and the bits of spit that splashed against her face did nothing to alleviate that.

"I was the top agent in CP9, you know. Sure, there's that upstart little shit everyone's saying is just as good as me, if not better, but I could take him, no problem. I was still the best, and if I kept going at my pace, it wouldn't have been long before I got promoted to CP0. That's the big time, kid! I would have been on easy street for the rest of my life!"

Uta, still terrified, took his word on that, as she had no idea what he was talking about.

"But then Shanks came along and ruined everything. Shanks, Shanks, Shanks, Shanks, Shanks, Shanks, Shanks, Shanks, Shanks!"

The cat man screamed and punched the tree behind Uta so hard that it split in half straight down the middle.

"Shanks! He ruined my mission, stole the goods I was supposed to deliver to Mary Geoise, and CP0 is suddenly trying to haul me off to jail! Hey, World Government, maybe you could have told me this was the most important mission of my life ahead of time? Fucking bastards! I've been on the run for a year trying to figure out where Shanks went to get my revenge, and it's been a year of hell! I've had to dodge assassination attempts from bounty hunters and my former allies and live off of garbage and dung; I'm a shell of the pinnacle of man I once was, and it's all Shanks' fault!"

"And you think getting back at Shanks will fix all of that?" Uta asked.

Uta hadn't meant to open her mouth; the words had just slipped out. Still, they made the cat man bend down and stare at her with an utterly deranged grin, and it made her sorry that she had ever learned how to speak in the first place.

"Wouldn't that be something?" The cat man asked. "Yeah, maybe that does happen. Maybe I get back what Shanks stole from me, give it to the World Government along with his bloodied head on a silver platter, and they forget this whole thing ever happened. Hell, maybe they finally give me that CP0 promotion after all the shit they put me through. I'm gonna try and see if it's that simple, but if I'm being honest, no matter what happens, I'll be happy as long as Shanks is dead, and that's why I'm so glad to have you around.

"See, even though Shanks has been pretty quiet the past year, he has gone out and stirred up trouble now and then. At first, it looked like all the places he went to were random, but by cross-referencing the directions he was reported to have set sail from each island, I could figure out a general area where the bastard was setting up camp. It took a lot of guesswork and fighting for my life, but finally, finally, I hit the jackpot and found him hiding out here; if the man weren't an utter piece of shit, I'd almost admire the balls on him to hide out in a Government-affiliated kingdom.

"Anyway, once I found Shanks, I devoted my time to spying on him and his crew to try and plan out my next move, since I knew that going right into a fight with them wasn't going to work. That let me see something pretty interesting, and it made me remember something that could be useful: a fun little rumor. There was never any concrete evidence of it, but according to dozens of reports of sightings of the Red Hair Pirates, there's a little girl among their numbers, and considering her young age, it wouldn't be surprising if that girl was Shanks' daughter."

The cat man whispered that last part into Uta's ear, his words dripping with sadistic energy that sent a chill down to the depths of Uta's soul.

"Oh, is it true? I feel sorry for the poor woman who wasted three minutes of her life on him, probably against her will, but hey, it gave me the perfect hostage! There's no way Shanks won't want to save his daughter, not to mention everything else you give him! I'll have him begging on his knees to have you back, and the second he lets his guard down, I'll tear out his heart with every fang in my mouth! Then, and only then, will I finally be able to feel content with this shit storm of a life of mine!"

The cat man laughed like a maniac; if asked about that, he probably would have blamed Shanks, but Uta had no reason to believe that he wasn't deranged long before that. Every syllable that came out of his mouth stank of the most putrid filth imaginable, and every one of them made Uta want to kill him more and more. It was different from what she felt from Higuma where just smacking some sense into him would have been enough for her; hearing the cat man talk like this genuinely made Uta want to see him dead. She didn't know where those thoughts were springing from, nor why there was a degree of familiarity to their sensation, but she did know that she didn't like how little she could do to quash them despite how much they frightened her.

"Uta!"

The cat man's maniacal laughter came to a stop as Uta and his attention were drawn to the sudden appearance of Luffy covered in dirt on the back of a gorilla. Uta wanted to question how Luffy found them or tell him that he needed to run back to town, but the joy she felt from seeing him appear so suddenly put a stop to that, just as it put a stop to the dark, intrusive thoughts that appeared in her head.

"Oh, it's the other brat who likes to cling to Shanks and his band of assholes," the cat man.

"You're the asshole!" Luffy said as he jumped off the gorilla's back. "Let Uta go, you creep, or else we're gonna pound you!" The gorilla stomped off from the scene, and Luffy continued with, "Let Uta go, you creep, or else I'm gonna pound you!"

"God, how stupid are you? If Shanks isn't the one coming here with what he stole from me, then you can kiss your little songbird goodbye! I thought I was pretty clear about that, but I guess you're just an idiot."

"I'm not so stupid that I'd believe you! There's no way Shanks is a thief, and if he did take something from you, then it's better off with him!"

"Better off with him? You think the Gum-Gum Fruit is better off with a bastard like Shanks?"

Uta didn't understand a word the cat man was saying, and the look on Luffy's face told her that he was of the same mind.

"Right, I guess I never felt the need to explain to you what Shanks stole from me, but that's what it was, and when you think about it, I'm doing the world a favor by making him give it back," the cat man said.

"Doesn't it just turn you into rubber, or something?" Luffy asked.

"That's what I thought! But if Shanks cared enough about it to steal it and ruin my life, then it has to be as deadly as the Sing-Sing Fruit, the only other Devil Fruit he's ever obtained! The last thing the world needs is for Shanks to have another weapon of mass destruction on par with Tot Musica, so if anything, I will be a hero for taking it back!"

"Tot Musica?" Uta asked.

Repeating the words made something vile bubble up inside of Uta, making her feel sick in every corner of her body, and while it might have been the stress of the situation, she thought she heard someone laughing in her ear.

"Yes, Tot Musica! The God of Music, the Demon King of Song, the Lord of Dark, the Trumpeter of Hell, the Dishonored One, the One Who Would Blot Out the Sun, whatever you call it, Tot Musica is the deadliest creature ever to exist in this world, and summoning it is the ultimate power of the Sing-Sing Fruit! Everyone who has ever eaten the Sing-Sing Fruit has called forth Tot Musica at some point, and it's always resulted in a disaster that could lead to the end of the world!"

As the feeling of something vile continued to bubble inside of her and she kept hearing more laughter, Uta's nightmare, against her best wishes, played in her mind. She once again saw herself destroying everyone and everything in Elegia, saw herself laughing as it all burned around her, saw Shanks and everyone else putting their all in trying to kill her. She had wanted so much to believe that it truly was all in her head, but now the only solace she had was the knowledge that she wasn't the monster who destroyed Elegia, just its master.

If there was anything in her stomach other than negative feelings, she would have spat it all on the ground in front of her without hesitation.

"Don't worry, girl, I'm not gonna do anything to you because I don't care about any of that right now, but you should know that I'm the good guy here for trying to stop that bastard," the cat man said. "Once I kill Shanks, he won't be able to use you to destroy the world, and he won't be able to use the Gum-Gum Fruit as a backup plan, or whatever the hell he had planned for it! That's pretty big, now that I think about it; forget CP0, if they don't kill me, they might make me a Celestial Dragon at the end of all this!"

The cat man started laughing again, and between his laughter and the laughter in her head, Uta was half-afraid, half-hoping that she would go deaf at some point. Anything to make the laughter stop, anything to make it easier to put her visions of Elegia out of her mind.

"Stop laughing! You're not funny, so stop laughing!" Luffy said.

Luffy's shouting felt like it had its own weight to it; Uta didn't understand it, but it was enough to make the laughter in her head and from the cat man stop dead in their tracks.

"I'll laugh however much I damn please, kid, and you're not in a position to stop me," the cat man said.

"Says you! Uta's a good person, and so's Shanks, so I'm gonna kick your butt if you keep talking bad about them!"

"You can't even reach my butt, brat, so stop trying to act tough! You want to be a big man, the hero who will save your little friend? Then tell Shanks to get off his ass and give me the Gum-Gum Fruit!"

"Don't tell me what to do! Even if I didn't already eat that stupid fruit, there's no way Shanks is the bad guy for having it if someone like you wants it!"

The cat man stopped looking at Luffy with disgust, and the laughter in Uta's head died down enough for her mind to scream about how stupid Luffy was.

"Wait, maybe I shouldn't have said that one part," Luffy said, doing so far too late.

"You ate it? You, with your stupid face and your stupid teeth, you ate the Gum-Gum Fruit?" the cat man asked.

Luffy nodded with an oblivious expression on his face, and the cat man stared off for a few seconds before he started crying. Of everything that the cat man had done that day, that was the most bizarre, and it somehow frightened Uta the most with its unpredictability.

Before Uta could fully process what was happening, she had already picked up a large rock by the tree and started slamming it against her hand while biting down on a stick she found.

"Oh, man. Why'd you have to go and do that, kid? Now all I have to do is kill you to get the Gum-Gum Fruit, so I can just do that and leave without having to kill Shanks. Killing Shanks is the only thing I want in the world, but I'm not so obsessed that I'd go for it over something as easy as this. You're one shitty brat, you know that?" the cat man asked, his ranting going largely unnoticed by Uta as she pounded away at her hand.

"What? You're just crazy! Stop being crazy!" Luffy said, his retorts going largely unnoticed by Uta as she pounded away at her hand.

"Too late for that, kid; I've been crazy for a long time to match this crazy world. If you've got a problem with me, you've got a problem with the world, so the sooner I take you out of it, the better!"

Uta didn't know how Luffy and the cat man were going to act, but they both stopped in their tracks when Uta took one more mighty swing at her hand and, following the impact, let out a scream that finally alerted them to what they were doing and surely could have been heard all across the island.

"The hell are you—"

The cat man never finished his sentence. At that moment, Uta forced her bloodied, broken hand through the cuff until it came clean off her wrist and jumped in a large arch to slam it down to the base of one of the cat man's horns. The cat man fell to his knees as he tried and failed to pull the cuff off, but Uta didn't give him time to relax and punched him in the face the second she felt her strength return.

"Luffy! Run!" Uta said as she ran to Luffy's side.

"Uta, your hand!" Luffy said.

"Not now! We need to run, run, run!"

Uta grabbed Luffy's hand, but before they could take a single step, a guttural roar sounded through the forest. The two of them turned around to see the cat man with blood dripping down his nose and a key being jammed into the cuff for a second before it unlocked and fell to the ground.

Uta very much wished that they had turned to look at a far more pleasant sight.

"Okay. Guess I'm killing two kids today. I can work with that!" The cat man said.

Befitting the nickname Uta had given him, the cat man finally returned to his transformed state. It was just as menacing as it was when Uta and Luffy first saw it so many hours ago, but Uta knew that they had even less time to gawk than they did back then, and they ran off as he yelled out once more.

"Tempest Kick: Line!"

Uta didn't dare stop to turn and see what the cat man was doing, but she heard the sound of something flying through the air at incredible speed that felt like it was getting too close for comfort with every millisecond.

""Duck!"" Uta and Luffy said at the same time.

Uta didn't know why she was telling Luffy to duck, nor did she know why he was saying the same to her. All she knew was that something was screaming inside of her head for her to duck right then and there, and rather than think about why that was, she decided to just duck in tandem with Luffy. When whatever it was that was screaming inside of her head stopped, Uta picked up her head to see what looked like a blast of air shooting off in a line that turned a nearby tree to splinters upon impact.

"Holy crap, that coulda killed us! Good thing we ducked!" Luffy said.

"Less talking, more running!" Uta said, grabbing Luffy's hand to make him do just that.

"What the hell? Didn't realize I was that rusty," the cat man said. "Guess I'll go straight to the big guns, then. Iron Body: Fang Flash!"

Uta heard the sound of something flying through the air again, but it sounded entirely different from the last attack. Either way, Uta still heard something telling her to move in a certain way, so without skipping a beat, Uta, with Luffy somehow perfectly in sync with her, stopped running and jumped over to the right. The second their feet hit the ground, the cat man hit the spot they were just at with fangs that had suddenly turned black and an impact that shattered the earth beneath them.

"How in the—Twin Finger Pistol!"

Without skipping a beat, the cat man jabbed his index fingers at Uta and Luffy, but the two of them each managed to move out of the way at the last second and end up no worse for wear, save for a few missing hairs on their heads.

"Are you kidding me? A couple of snot-nosed little brats like you can use it? Doesn't seem like you have any control over it, but still, if that ain't annoying, I don't know what is," the cat man said.

"I don't know what you're talking about! Leave us alone!" Luffy said.

Luffy clearly had no interest in whatever the cat man was talking about. By comparison, Uta did want to press him for answers about whatever was letting them bob and weave around the cat man's attacks, but she also wanted to be as far away from him as possible, so she and Luffy went back to running away.

"Can't let kids like you grow up and learn how to really use that. Once again, I get to be the hero by killing people. Things really are looking up for me! Tempest Kick: Victory Bird!"

Uta heard the same sound she heard with the blast of wind, and when she looked up, she saw a blast of wind in the shape of a bird flying overhead. As soon as Uta began to wonder what he was aiming at, she saw the attack cut a large tree in half and send the top half careening to the ground directly in hers and Luffy's path. Whatever had been telling Uta and Luffy how to move around the cat man decided to stop working at that moment, and with the lack of whatever it was they had, they tripped over the tree and fell in the dirt.

"Time to die!" As Uta tried to pick herself up, she turned around to see the cat man jump in the air and shout, "Fang Pistol: Exploding Fire Pick!"

The cat man took a deep breath that made his chest puff out like a balloon, and his exhale sounded off with a mighty roar that released a giant ball of fire with teeth-like protrusions at Uta and Luffy. Uta had never seen anything like that, and with how fast it was coming at them, she didn't know what to do about it, especially when there wasn't anything in her head telling her how to move. It took all she had to ignore Luffy's shouting and embrace him before the ball of fire collided with them.

It wasn't long before there was an explosion, and it took even less time for the air to become hot like an oven and for fire to cloud Uta's vision, but she felt fine. She wondered if the cat man had missed his mark again, let himself mess up by being too assured of victory and give Uta and Luffy another chance to keep running. Uta would have loved that, she would have so much loved for their survival to be due to his failure.

Instead, when the smoke cleared up enough for her to see clearly, she saw the truth behind their survival: Shanks standing where the cat man's attack would have landed, his clothes singed and his left arm burned to a crisp as it lay facedown in the dirt.

""Shanks!"" Uta and Luffy shouted in unison, neither one ever having said his name with such sorrow before.

"Shanks, I'm sorry! I'm sorry I got mad at you and called you a coward! I didn't mean it!" Luffy cried.

"Me, too! I'm sorry I ate your Devil Fruit and I got mad because you called me stupid! I am stupid, and now because of me, you-you, your arm, you! Shanks!" Uta cried.

"Shanks!"

"Shanks!" The cat man shouted. "Finally, I have you! I've been waiting so long for this moment! All of the abuse I've suffered, all of the filth I've wallowed in, it's all been leading up to this moment where I will finally get what I'm owed! Now let's just see how good these gloves are at catching mice!"

The cat man's body turned pitch black as he charged at Shanks with lightning speed and took a massive swipe at his left side. Uta stared wide at Shanks doing nothing about the attack coming at him; even as she and Luffy cried out to Shanks, he didn't make a single effort to move out of the way, and Uta forced herself to cover her eyes to avoid seeing what would happen next.

Three seconds later, Uta opened her eyes to see not the cat man ripping Shanks' head off, but Shanks sending the cat man flying with an uppercut and having him hit the ground with a heavy thud. It didn't look like the cat man had even touched Shanks, but Shanks had managed to send him flying without moving a single step. It was the kind of thing Uta would be gushing over if she weren't feeling so scared for her life, and she felt that Luffy, unfortunately, was of the same mind.

"How did you—I couldn't even see you—Ow!"

The cat man rolled around on the ground alternating between shouting obscenities and crying about how much pain he was in. No one was making a move to stop him, and it only came to an end when one of his fangs fell out of his mouth covered in cracks.

"My tooth! You broke my tooth! You bastard! You son of a bitch! How dare you—"

"How dare I what?"

That was the first time Shanks had said anything since he miraculously appeared, and the sheer volatility of his tone, combined with how he had seemingly teleported to the cat man's side, silenced him in an instant.

"You think you have the right to cry about a broken tooth? My daughter is standing here with a broken hand and keeping it all together, and you have the audacity to cry about anything?" Shanks asked, staring at the cat man like he was a giant pile of filth.

"You—Shanks!"

The cat man jumped up with a snarl and put twin fists together as he lunged at Shanks. Shanks, however, flipped behind the cat man and swept his legs to make him fall. The second he hit the ground, Shanks stomped his hand so hard that a cracking sound came out that was only barely drowned out by the cat man's screams.

Uta barely heard any of it over the abstract laughter sounding off in her head, once more.

"Maybe you didn't think it was a big deal because you weren't the one with a broken hand, so there you go," Shanks said. "As for your tooth, well, that's easy enough to deal with, so let me help you."

Shanks picked up the cat man's discarded tooth and stabbed it through his left cheek. The cat man's screams were muffled by the tooth, and they were further strained when Shanks started repeatedly kicking him in the stomach.

Every kick to the cat man's stomach made the laughter in Uta's head grow louder, more persistent, and more rhythmic. She thought that Luffy was saying something to her, but she couldn't make anything out over the laughter that felt like it was tearing her mind apart, just like it did in the nightmares she thought, she hoped, she had surpassed.

In tandem with a kick from Shanks that sent the cat man flying into a tree and Shanks unsheathing his sword, Uta let out a massive scream that seemed to draw all eyes her way. Through haggard breaths and tear-riddled eyes, Uta could almost feel the laughter losing its grip on her mind, but it wasn't until she saw Shanks standing over her with his sword back in its sheath and a much softer expression than what he was wearing before that it all finally stopped.

"Sorry, Uta, didn't realize I was ignoring you. You're probably really scared right now, and here I am, just making it worse," Shanks said. "I didn't mean to scare you and Luffy, but I heard about what Who's-Who was doing, and I couldn't stop thinking about how it's all my and I just—No. Now I'm just going from angry Dad to sad Dad, but I just want to be happy Dad again. You want that, too, right?"

Uta nodded her head amid tears that wouldn't stop flowing.

"Okay, great. There's a big boulder right behind you, so I need you and Luffy to run behind there and cover your ears for two minutes. Don't do anything else, I'll come get you when it's time to go home."

"Why can't we just go now?" Luffy asked.

"I don't have it in me to do that, so please just listen to me," Shanks said.

Something was lurking behind the calm with which Shanks spoke, but Uta didn't know if it was anger, sorrow, or a mixture of the two and a third, unidentifiable thing. She wanted to say something, but she didn't know how to confront whatever it was she was witnessing, so she just nodded her head in tandem with Luffy before they ran from Shanks and hid behind the boulder.

Uta heard what sounded like a cutting sound for a second before she covered her ears and tried to shut it out. The sound of whatever it was Shanks was doing to Who's-Who became muffled nonsense, but then there was laughter. Chilling, mocking laughter that echoed through her head as if she wasn't making any attempt to cover her ears.

"Uta, calm down! Shanks is gonna be fine! We both know that!" Luffy said. "Wait, is this about something else?"

"I don't know!" Uta cried. "That guy was saying all that weird stuff, and now there's weird stuff in my head, but it's not just that I'm thinking stuff I don't want to think! I don't get it, I don't like it, and I just want it to stop, but it won't!"

The laughter increased in intensity and rhythm as if to mock her outburst. Every beat felt like whatever was at the other end of the laughter was punching her in the face, and with each blow, it felt more and more like something disgusting and familiar was going to force itself out of her. She wanted to keep crying, but she knew there wasn't a point to that, that there wasn't a point to anything that wouldn't even attempt to put her at ease.

"'Oh, ThE isLanDs in the South are waRM! AND thEIr hEaDs get really HoT! ThEY groW-A pineAPPleS, tHey GROw-a coconuts, AND THEy're aLL MoRoNs!'"

Uta's eyes went wide as she heard and saw something new: Luffy right in her face singing the weird song he made up. Before she could even think about questioning him, Luffy's mouth was already opening up for another horrid verse.

"'The ISlANdS IN THE nORTH ARE snOwy! and tHeIR heads GET really CoLD! theY'RE VEry chilly-chilly, THEy're veRY WILLY-NILLY, and theY'RE iDiOtS!'"

Every time Luffy sang his song, it somehow managed to be worse than the last time. The lyrics were utter nonsense, his pitch was all over the place, and there was never a consistent tempo. It was always the worst excuse for a song Uta had ever heard, and this sudden outburst of it was no exception. It was like nails on a chalkboard, and every crooked note that flew out of Luffy's mouth wedged itself into her head without a moment's hesitation.

And with that, every ounce of laughter she didn't want to listen to flew out the other ear. Whether it was because Luffy's song was so terrible, his attempt to help Uta calm down so genuine, or some odd combination of the two, there was nothing else in her head anymore.

For the first time since meeting Luffy, Uta found herself getting wrapped up in his singing, and she felt all the better for it.


Uta didn't know how long she had spent caught up in Luffy's wonderfully terrible singing, but a tired-looking Shanks poked his head out from the side of the boulder, so it had to have been about two minutes.

"Okay, let's go home," Shanks said, his candor only slightly more genuine than before.

"What happened to the guy?" Uta asked.

"He's gone, don't worry about it."

Uta wanted to worry about it, but she was afraid of the obvious thing Shanks might say if she pressed him, and she felt like Luffy was of the same mind, so they just followed Shanks through the woods under a sun long since set without ever turning back in the direction of where they last saw Who's-Who or questioning the odd smell that was permeating the air.

"I'm sorry we got mad at you before," Luffy said.

"It's fine. You didn't know any better, but now you do. That's how life works," Shanks said.

"I'm sorry I let Luffy eat your Devil Fruit," Uta said.

"Hey, I shouldn't have left it sitting around like that, so that's on both of us."

"I'm sorry about your arm," Luffy said.

"I'm super sorry about your arm," Uta said.

"I wasn't doing much with my left hand, anyway. Besides, with all that weight I lost, I don't need to go on that diet anymore, so thanks for that!" Shanks said with a laugh.

That laugh actually sounded like a real laugh, one that wasn't being forced out through some sort of filter. That made Uta think Shanks wouldn't try to scare them again, and more importantly, it made her think that everything would be okay.

As Uta thought all of that, Shanks suddenly stepped in front of her and Luffy and seemed to be once again oozing the tense aura he had shown in front of Who's-Who. Before Uta could question what was happening, a leopard dressed in a three-piece suit with a goatee and a top hat atop a mane of wavy hair stepped out of the shadows with a smarmy grin on its face. Uta didn't know how leopards could grin like that, and she wasn't even sure if leopards could grin, but she did know that she wanted to be as far away from him as possible.

"Allow me to thank you for all the trouble you saved me, Red Hair," the leopard said because, of course, it could talk. "The year I've spent tracking Who's-Who has been nothing but a waste of taxpayers' Berries and time that could have been better spent killing dozens of people on his level, at least. At this point, my annoyance with the whole thing was outweighing the joy I'd feel from getting to gut him like a fish, so thank you for saving me from all that boredom.

"Speaking of guts, I'm impressed with how viciously you butchered the bastard. Killing him was one thing, but it's hard to identify what you left behind as even a pile of meat. I'm almost jealous of how brutal a job you did. I know you have a reputation of being one of the kinder pirates in the big leagues, but I guess even you aren't above staining your hands with blood for the fun of it."

However far Uta wanted to be away from the leopard before, she now wanted to triple that distance. That's what she wanted to do, but all she could manage at the moment was to form a tight grip around one of Shanks' legs while Luffy did the same with the other.

"I don't know how useful it'll be to cling to a corpse for support, but whatever makes you feel good as you fade away, I suppose."

The leopard flashed a wicked, toothy grin as it dug its claws into the dirt, ready to pounce. Shanks, as tired as he looked, already had his hand on his sword, ready to cut down anything and everything in his path. The leopard looked as if he was about to make the first move, but everything came to a standstill when the familiar "Purupurupurupuru" of a Transponder Snail sounded out. The leopard repositioned himself in a sitting position and removed his top hat to reveal a Transponder Snail and a pair of headphones atop his head.

As the leopard used his tail to put on the headphones and plug them into the Transponder Snail, Uta realized that she had no idea how to process any of that.

"This better be important," the leopard said into the receiver.

Thanks to the headphones the leopard was wearing, nothing could be heard out of the Transponder Snail, so it looked like it was miming a conversation with the leopard, one that made the leopard's face become increasingly disgruntled.

"What do you mean, 'pull out'? …It's just two brats and a man looking ready to bleed out. I'd probably be done by now if you hadn't—What? …What? …Garp is where?"

Luffy tensed up at that part, but before Uta could contemplate why he was even aware of the Hero of the Marines, the leopard, who had kept talking while Uta was distracted, hung up his Transponder Snail and stuffed it and his headphones back into his top hat.

"Well, looks like you got lucky. For now, anyway," the leopard said. "I got nothing to say to you, Red Hair, but you kids. You might feel compelled to coop yourselves up in your little podunk village after everything you've gone through, but I hope you don't. I hope that you remain as dumb as you are today and never quell your wanderlust. I hope you take it upon yourselves to venture into the outside world and follow in the footsteps of this poor excuse of a man. I really, really hope you do that because the second you do, no one in their right mind would stop me from killing you and satisfying the deep hunger I'll feel from having to cut things short today. I pray you keep that in mind and one day trick yourselves into thinking you can stop me; that sort of foolish resistance would add the perfect bit of flavor to something like this, and I would hate to miss out on it almost as much as I hate not getting to kill you today."

"I'm not in the mood to scare these two anymore, so if I were you, I would stop testing me and get out of my sight."

That was all Shanks said before the leopard slinked off into the shadows, the light of his wicked grin still shining a bit through the darkness even as the rest of him disappeared. It wasn't until it was completely gone that Uta felt at ease, and with that came her legs giving out and Shanks having to carry her and Luffy back to Fusha Village.

There was no other way she could have seen it ending once she realized she wasn't going to die.


The wind blew delicately across the blades of the abandoned windmill. It was barely enough to make the tattered blades rotate, but the breeze still felt cool against Uta's skin, and that was enough for her. She was alone, of course, but unlike before, her decision to be alone was intended to be purely temporary. Just long enough for her to relax as all the noise outside of her headphones died out.

Two weeks had gone by since everything that happened with Who's-Who and the talking leopard. Uta and Luffy were swarmed with tear-filled hugs from everyone in the village and the entirety of the Red Hair Pirates, and after Uta's broken hand was properly attended to, things surprisingly fell back into their usual rhythm. No one felt upset at anyone or themselves, or if they did, they did a better job of hiding it than they did before; even Mayor Woop Slap was being a little nicer to Shanks, if only by not yelling at him as much when the crew's partying got out of hand. It seemed that everyone had enough awareness to recognize that none of them deserved any blame for what happened, and that made it easy to fall back into their routine.

If there was a change for anyone, it was Uta. Ever since that day, something unexplainable had felt off with her and the world around her. She hadn't heard the laughter of Tot Musica again, and she didn't even feel bad about herself like she did with Elegia, but now she just kept feeling like there were times when the sounds of the outside world were too much for her. The sounds of nature and the people in or around it, Uta usually loved it, but now there were moments when it would suddenly become grating and a nuisance to deal with. Uta didn't understand it, but it was easy enough to deal with; whenever she felt like that, she would just go off somewhere with her headphones and a Tone Dial, and after listening and singing along to a few songs, a new wave of calm would wash over her.

"'When, when was the night so long? Long, like the notes I'm sending. She waits in the air, matte kudasai. She sleeps in her chair, in her sad—'"

Uta cut her singing short when Luffy suddenly jumped in front of her, his face forcing an unintelligible yelp out of her as she fell backward.

"Luffy, come on! You know this is my alone time!" Uta said, removing her headphones and putting her Tone Dial on pause.

"Yeah, I know, but can't we do it together?" Luffy asked.

"You're not gonna have fun. The only music you listen to is cheesy songs talking about all the superpowers and attacks a superhero will use to beat up the bad guys, and I'm not in the mood to listen to that right now."

"I'll listen to your stuff if it means we can hang out. I won't even bug you while we do it; I'm just bored not having you around."

The polite thing for Luffy to do would be to respect Uta's desire to be alone, but he was still making something of an effort to concede to her wishes, and Uta was happy about that, so she unplugged her headphones and played her Tone Dial out in the open. Luffy sat down next to her with a smile, and while it wavered for a moment, it stayed on his face, if only a little smaller.

"Your music's weird, but I think it's a good weird," Luffy said.

"Thanks," Uta said. The breeze flittered by the two of them as Uta said, "I think we're gonna leave soon, and I think it'll be for good, this time."

"Yeah, I've been getting that feeling, too. Well, I've already decided to be a pirate all on my own, so I'm already prepared."

"I still think it's stupid that you don't want to come with us. I can talk Shanks into letting you tag along, you know."

"I don't wanna go with him because I wanna have my own crew. And you're supposed to be in it."

"Yeah, well, you still haven't proven that you're tough, so that's a no-go."

"Stop being so stubborn and join my crew, already!"

"Ain't that the fishman calling the Sea King scaly. This would be so much easier if you just shut up and came with us, and you know it, but you just keep going on and on about being your own person, as if that's so easy."

"It is easy."

"Not for me!"

Uta's hair loopies drooped down at the end of her outburst. A silence then emerged between the two of them that was slightly undercut by the song from the Tone Dial still playing on a loop.

"I'm scared, okay? I'm scared of losing the people I care about," Uta said. "Leaving here with Shanks and everyone means that I won't be able to see you anymore, but I can't stay with you without losing Shanks. I don't want to abandon anyone, and I don't want to be abandoned by anyone, but that's all that's going to happen at this rate, and I hate it."

Luffy looked like he didn't know how to respond, and Uta was okay with that. As far as she was concerned, better he be silent than spit out empty platitudes or say anything as depressing as what came out of her mouth.

"I don't feel like listening to music anymore," Uta said. Uta's hair loopies perked back up as she turned off the Tone Dial and said, "Let's head back and try and forget about all this, even if it's just for a bit."

Luffy jumped up with a smile and led the charge back toward the village. It was moments like these when Uta truly appreciated how easy it was for Luffy to just put the weight of the world aside.


Uta was very quick to forget about everything that was weighing on her, but it wasn't because of anything she or Luffy did. Rather, it was because the two of them almost immediately found themselves joining the village in their collective astonishment at the arrival of a Marine battleship. The ship had a dog with a bone as its figurehead and, overall, was one of the biggest ships Uta had ever seen and made the Red Hair Pirates' ship look like a rowboat by comparison.

Equally imposing were the two Marines who were stepping off of the battleship. The one furthest back stood at almost three meters and wore a beige suit, had a sword attached to his hip, and wore a hat with a brim so wide that it covered his eyes in shadow. The man in front, despite being slightly shorter, having a steady streak of gray in his hair, and wearing shorts and a floral print shirt, was no less intimidating thanks to his surly grin, the scar around his left eye, and for being so muscular that Uta wouldn't be surprised if one of his biceps was bigger than his entire body. It only took a second for Uta to recognize the man as Vice-Admiral Garp, "Hero of the Marines" and arguably the strongest person in the entire organization, and if he were here, then that could only mean nothing but trouble.

"Garp! It's good to see you, man!"

"Can't believe it's been a year, already. We gotta catch up, like, now!"

"I've got tea and crackers with your name on them!"

Vice-Admiral Garp showing up out of nowhere should have meant nothing but trouble, but instead, the villagers were welcoming him with open arms. They talked to him like he was an old friend, and he responded in kind with hearty laughter peppering his speech. In the back of her head, Uta knew that her biases of being a pirate were at play, but even ignoring that, it still didn't make any sense to her.

"Heh. A two-toned girl with hair loopies. You must be Uta," Garp said.

Uta didn't even notice Garp step in front of her, and the surprise of it all made the hair loopies in question stand up on end.

"H-How do you know my name?" Uta asked as she put up a poor excuse for a fighting stance.

"Woah there, settle down. I'm sure you could give this old man a hard time if you wanted to, but I'm just trying to say hello to the little ragamuffin who's been keeping my grandkid in line for a year."

"Ragamuffin? Do you know who made my dress? I should punch you just for that."

A strange thought ran through Uta's head before she could be forced to make good on her alleged threat.

"Grandkid? What? I've only ever been playing with—Luffy!" Uta said, turning to Luffy with her exclamation.

"What?" Luffy asked.

"This is your grandpa?"

"Yeah, so?"

"So! So your grandpa is the 'Hero of the Marines'! The biggest threat to anyone who sails the seas! And you never told me!"

"You never asked. Is he a big deal, though? Grunkle Bogard's way cooler."

Uta could hardly believe that Luffy had the nerve to say he wanted to be a pirate.

"I'm gonna ignore all that nonsense you've been saying about me," Garp said. "Pirates are the only ones who need to be scared of me, Uta, so an innocent little girl like yourself doesn't have anything to fear, I'm way cooler than Bogard," Bogard vigorously nodded his head, "and if you're gonna call me anything, call me 'The Fist'. It's got way more punch to it, and only an idiot wants to call themself a hero. Now why is that, Luffy?"

"Um, because, wait, hold on," Luffy said. Luffy pursed his lips and groaned for a bit before saying in a single breath, "Because calling yourself a hero makes you a self-mythologizing narcissistic autocrat who has to share meat with everyone!"

Uta barely understood what that meant, and that told her that Luffy likely didn't understand it, at all.

"Atta boy!" Garp said, patting Luffy on the head. "Bogard, give him some candy!"

"Sir, yes, sir!" Bogard said with a salute.

Bogard reached into his coat and pulled out an increasingly large assortment of candy. Some of it was gummies, some of it was chocolate, some of it was cookies, but regardless of what it was, each piece made Luffy's eyes go bigger and brighter, and Uta found her eyes doing the same as she watched the pile of candy turn into a tower.

"Sir! Permission to give the other small child confectionaries, sir!" Bogard said with a salute.

"Yeah, sure," Garp said.

Uta hardly suppressed a squeal as Bogard started piling sweets into her hands, as well. Uta's pile ended up being a little taller than Luffy's with roughly the same composition, but it was evened out when Bogard removed a lollipop from the top of her pile.

"Apologies. This is actually for me," Bogard said.

As he began innocently licking his lollipop, Uta remembered that he wasn't just a random Marine. He was none other than "Blade of Judgement" Bogard, world-renowned Rear Admiral, Garp's second-in-command, and also someone who was one of the most fearsome Marines in the world. He was supposed to be that, anyway.

"Hope there's not an age limit on the candy, 'cause I could use a snack right about now," said Shanks, entering the scene and standing in front of Garp and Bogard as if they weren't a pair of deadly Marines.

"Bogard, he doesn't get candy. Candy's for people we respect," Garp said.

"Love you too, old man."

The two were arguing with each other, but Uta could tell that it was less a fight and more of a back-and-forth between people who had a history with one another.

"Are you two friends?" Uta asked.

"Sort of," Shanks said.

"Hell no," Garp said. "I knew his old man, so I've had the displeasure of watching Red Hair grow from a smart-mouthed, troublemaking brat into a smartmouthed, troublemaking adult. Not here to deal with him, though, in case you're wondering; these are not the shorts I wear when I arrest people."

"Are you here because of me, then?" Luffy asked, surprisingly.

"Huh? Why would I—"

"Because the weird cat guys were your friends or something, and they kept wanting to hurt Uta and Shanks and Makino because I took a bite of Gum-Gum. Was that thing important? Did I do a bad thing when I ate it?"

Uta couldn't remember the last time, or any time, when Luffy spoke with such melancholy in his voice and had such a stern look on his voice. It tore apart the surprisingly good mood that had emerged as everyone, including the surrounding villagers, all started looking in Luffy's direction.

The mood seemed to soften a bit when Garp punched Luffy on the top of his head and, by the way Luffy hollered out in pain while holding onto his candy for dear life, somehow managed to hurt him.

"Stop being an idiot! Even if I wasn't a dog person, there's no way in hell those assholes would be my friends!" Garp said. "And we're gonna talk about you doing something boneheaded as eating a Devil Fruit later, but those guys were stupid for thinking you did anything bad by eating, so don't you dare be as stupid as them!"

"Your grandpa's right, Luffy. More than that, though, you're too young to be worrying about stuff like this. You too, Uta," Shanks said. "You're both just kids, and you both deserve to grow up in peace, no matter how hard it may be."

The somber tone in which Shanks spoke created an odd parallel to the boisterous pomp of Garp's tone, and Uta didn't know what to make of it, so all she did was nod to Shanks' words.

"You know, it's been a while since we saw each other and you weren't trying to send me and my friends to a watery grave. We should go catch up over a drink," Shanks said.

"You read my mind. Kids, go find something fun to do while the grown-ups talk," Garp said.

Garp tousled Uta and Luffy's hair, told Bogard to give them both some more candy, and the two of them and Shanks headed off toward the local inn. The last thing either of them saw was Bogard bombastically telling them to enjoy their youth and live every day to the fullest, but Uta didn't pay that as much mind as Bogard likely wanted her to.

"So, they're being weird, right?" Luffy asked.

"Yep. In the way that all grown-ups get when they don't want kids to know something secret," Uta said.

"We're gonna follow them, right?"

"After we eat all this candy. Does he always have this stuff on him?"

"Told you Grunkle Bogard was cool."


It truly had been a long time since Garp had seen Shanks. It wasn't just that his physical appearance was different from what he remembered, what with the scar, the adult physique, and how he was now very asymmetrical in terms of appendages. The way he carried himself was different, as well; despite his youth, he acted like someone who knew the seas like the back of his hand and had to deal with it not being as fun as he thought it was the hard way. It almost made Garp miss the naive little boy who would cling to Roger's side and give him the stink eye.

"Hope you like West Blue sake," Shanks said, pouring three cups from a bottle he pulled out from under the bed. "Bogard, c'mon, get over here and have a drink!"

"I must humbly decline!" Bogard said from a far-off corner of the room. "I am merely an observer to your parley with Master Garp, so it would not be right of me to engage with your activities!"

"Shut up and have a drink," Garp said.

"With pleasure, sir!"

Bogard ran over to grab one of the cups Shanks poured and then quickly ran back into his corner.

"So if a little kitty is to believed, then I have you to thank for making things end so smoothly the other day. Relatively speaking, anyway," Shanks said. He took a sip of his drink and continued with, "Care to share the story there?"

"A few days before all this crap started, I'm at Marineford trying to force Sengoku out of some boring-as-hell deskwork for a snack break when I come across this weasely little panda namedropping my hometown. I stuck around long enough to hear him talking to someone over a Transponder Snail about taking down that Whosits-Whatsists guy who's been on the run for a year now, which was fine, but then the two of them started talking about Luffy and Uta. How they thought Luffy ate that stupid Gum-Gum Fruit and that since they had the opportunity, they should kill him and get it back, and that they should add the Sing-Sing Fruit as a side dish."

Garp saw his, Shanks', and Bogard's cups all break out in cracks. No one said anything about it.

"So, after beating that stupid panda's face in so hard that it began to collapse in on itself, I'm basically flying over to Mary Geoise and marching through that damn eyesore of a castle until I'm right in the face of those five geezers. They tried to spout a bunch of nonsense about those fruits being too dangerous in the hands of kids and pirates and how sacrifices had to be made and I never wanted to punch people in the face more than I wanted to right then."

"I'm feeling that same urge, right now," Shanks said.

"Right? Anyway, I managed to fight back the urge, but I did tell them in no uncertain words that if they ever tried laying a hand on those kids before they actually did anything again, then I'd come back and make sure they and those pea-brained, inbred little assholes they spend so much time protecting realize just how good it is that they have, or at least had, someone like me on their side."

Naturally, Garp would have loved nothing more than to raze that place to the ground and take everyone there with it, but he couldn't do that. It would feel good in the moment, and likely several hundred moments to follow, but the fallout and how it would affect Luffy and the villagers wouldn't be worth it, in the slightest.

"I don't know how to thank you, Garp," Shanks said. "If you didn't do all that, then I was ready to do things, to become something, that I know I couldn't walk back from. I'm not ready to make that choice, and if I had to make it in front of the kids, I don't know how I could have forgiven myself."

"No one's asking you to look after Luffy, I sure as hell never did, but how much do you think you can keep defending Uta?"

Shanks looked at Garp without saying a word.

"What happened on Elegia was one of the biggest tragedies in decades, and while the world might think you did it, it was Uta, wasn't it? Or, rather, Tot Musica?"

Shanks looked at Garp without saying a word.

"Elegia never should have happened. The blood that spilled that day wasn't her fault, but I could tell just by looking at her that the guilt is gnawing at her from deep inside. What kind of child has to live with that? What kind of father lets their child live with that? If it's not the guilt that kills her, it'll be the assholes who either want her power taken off the board or want it for themselves, and if you keep dragging her along in your world, there's gonna come a day when even you can't defend her."

Shanks looked at Garp without saying a word.

"That's it? I'm not getting anything out of you? This isn't even about you; it's about the little girl you're failing as a father, so stop ignoring the issue, you little—"

"You're right," Shanks interjected. "I thought that after we fixed what happened with Elegia, we could just go about things like normal, but there was never a normal, to begin with. It's too late to stop Uta from becoming a pirate, but she at least deserves to live a normal life before she commits to that, and that's something I can't give her."

It was everything Garp had wanted to force out of Shanks, yet there was nothing he could do to feel happy about it.

"Hey, it's not all your—Anyway, what're you gonna do about it? Self-reflection is nice and all, but it's worthless if you don't act on it," Garp said.

"I know, and that's why I'm glad you showed up when you did," Shanks said. "This has been a pretty cozy place to live, mostly because it's so quiet. I know that the East Blue is considered the weakest of the Blues, but it's still remarkable that we're the only pirates who've ever shown up here. I've gathered that Makino's done a good job of keeping riffraff away, but this being your hometown is probably the bigger deterrent."

"It sure as hell better be," Garp said as he took a sip from his drink.

"So if someone wanted a kid to grow up in peace, then there are few better choices than leaving them here. Leaving them with you."

Garp just nodded along with every good thing Shanks had to say about him. He kept doing that up until the moment that he got what Shanks was trying to say, a revelation that made him spit his drink out on the floor.

"You want me to take in your kid? You can't be serious!" Garp said.

"Hey, we both agree that Uta needs a good place to grow up, and who's better up for the task than you? I mean, you've done such a great job with Luffy, after all," Shanks said.

"I must concur, sir! Other than Luffy's inordinate desire to become a pirate, you have done an excellent job raising him, and you would be just as successful at raising Uta!" Bogard said.

"No one asked you, Bogard!" Garp said. Bogard bowed his head in shame as Garp said, "And you! You must be out of your mind to try and put this on me! I've already got my hands full with two brats, why should I take on a third?"

"Because you're a good guy and—Wait, two? Who else is here?"

"No one. I didn't mean it. I'm going senile, shut up! The point is you got way too much nerve for your own good! I've turned a blind eye to you and your pals bumming around here even after you corrupted my grandson, and I've even made sure those assholes in the capital never found out about you, and I've done it all because we have some history together, but this is too much! If you really want Uta to have a good life, then you should let me throw the book at you so she doesn't grow up with everyone knowing she has a filthy pirate for a father!"

"Okay."

"And another thing—Wait, what?"

"I turn myself in, and you take care of Uta. If that's the deal I have to make, then I'll do it."

It was supposed to be an off-the-cuff comment and nothing more. Garp would love nothing more than to see Shanks rot in jail, but he wasn't serious about arresting him for the sake of his kid. Shanks was too smart not to know that, he had to be, but there was nothing to tell Garp that he was anything but serious about this.

"Just like that? It's that easy for you? Don't you have dreams you want to follow? Didn't Roger inspire you to do something?"

"If Roger were in my position, he'd do the same thing. The one thing I want more than anything is a world of true peace and equality, but there's no point in making a world like that if Uta can't enjoy herself in it. If giving up on my dreams means that I can give Uta a good life, then it's hardly even worth thinking about."

If Garp had any lingering doubts about Shanks being a changed man, then they had all been formally quashed in that instance. This was the resolve of a man who would do anything to protect the ones he cared about, no matter the sacrifices.

Yet despite all of that, Garp still found himself punching Shanks on the top of his head like he was still a kid.

"Ah! Hey! What gives!" Shanks shouted as he accidentally tried to rub his head with his missing arm.

"That's my line, you son of a bitch!" Garp said. "I can't believe you would just give up like that! That girl deserves better than to grow up with you around, but you're still her father! You think it'll be better for her if she spends her whole life moping about you rotting away in a jail cell? Hell no!"

"But you said—"

"I don't give a damn about what I said! The only thing worse than a kid having a pirate for a dad is having a jailbird pirate for a dad, and if you care about that kid at all, then you're not gonna put her through that! It kills me to have to do you a favor, but this ain't about either one of us, so I'll grit my teeth and bare it, dammit!"

Shanks gave Garp a dumbfounded look like the idiot Garp knew him to be, almost as if his words were somehow hard to grasp. In a matter of seconds, that gave way to the same kind of goofy grin Garp had long since associated with Shanks and his friends, and for the first time in his life, he was happy to see it.

"I wanna say that you have no idea how much this means to me, but that's pretty meaningless at this point, so I'll just thank you and leave it at that," Shanks said.

"Don't thank me just yet," Garp said. "You know I'm gonna do everything in my power to turn that girl into the best damned Marine anyone's ever seen, so you better count your blessings you don't wake up one day to find your daughter hauling you off to the slammer."

"Good luck with that."

Whatever sort of mood was developing between Garp and Shanks was immediately interrupted by Bogard loudly crying about how joyous a resolution this was to behold. That being said, Garp wouldn't have had it any other way.


The guitar felt heavy in her hands, and with each haggard breath she took, it seemed to double in weight. Still, Uta didn't drop it, and with a scream at the top of her lungs, she slammed it against the tree in front of her again and again and again until it finally shattered to pieces and vanished into thin air.

Uta didn't know what she and Luffy were going to hear when they finally got around to eavesdropping on Shanks and Garp, and by the time they got there, it was clear that they had missed some of their conversation. They had, however, shown up just in time to overhear them talk about how Shanks was going to leave Uta with Garp, something that Shanks was willing to go to jail for to make happen. Uta didn't know how Luffy was processing the news, but as soon as it all sunk in for Uta, a ghastly, toxic sort of bile bubbled up inside her from head to toe. She knew she needed to let it out, but the last thing she wanted was for Shanks to overhear her and be prompted to shower her with more empty platitudes.

That was why Uta dragged Luffy outside the village so she could scream to her heart's content and vent out any extra frustrations by hitting a tree with a guitar. When exhaustion finally hit her, nothing was solved; she knew that would be the case, but she had at least hoped she would feel even a little better.

"Uta, I don't wanna say anything that'll make you feel worse, so you start talking so I can have more time to think," Luffy said.

"I can't believe he's doing it again!" Uta said, barely aware that Luffy was even still there. "After everything that happened, he's just going to abandon me again! That's not fair! I should have a say in what happens to me, right? But I can't even say that because what then? I force myself to stay with Shanks and everyone and they keep getting hurt because of people who hate me? And then I copy Shanks and ignore how having me around will just force him to compromise on his dreams? I don't want that, either! I just want to stay with my family, so why is that so hard?"

With nothing else to say, or at least nothing else she wanted to say, Uta fell onto the ground. Her face was almost immediately covered in dirt, but the tears pouring down her face did plenty to wash it off.

"This sucks," Luffy said. "This sucks, and I hate it!"

"Yeah, well, that's life, I guess; one big disappointment after another. Not like we can do anything about it," Uta said.

"Maybe you can't, but I'm gonna do something! There's no way I'm letting it end like this!"

"Oh yeah? What are you even gonna do?"

"Something!"

Uta didn't pick her head up from the dirt, and it would be a good hour before she did, but she did hear Luffy run off somewhere to do who knew what. It was nice that at least one of them still believed that a happy ending was in sight, she supposed.


Uta didn't know if Shanks' talk with Garp was responsible, but the very next day, the Red Hair Pirates were packing everything up and getting ready to set sail. Everyone except Uta, of course; still in a foul mood about how everything was going, she simply stood around and watched in silence, not even letting Monster try and comfort her. Everyone was just letting her do that, probably because they knew what was in store for her and, completely unaware that she was in the know, wanted to spare her feelings for as long as possible.

"Can't believe we're almost ready to go and Luffy still isn't here. I know the kid gave up on tagging along with us, but he could still see us off," Uta heard Building Snake say.

"Kid acts tough, but I bet he's just too sad to see us go. I bet Makino'll drag him out here at the last second," Uta heard Bonk Punch say.

Uta then heard Monster let out a melancholic screech, and it, like everything else, meant nothing to her. If Luffy wasn't there, then that meant his poorly-conceived plan to do something about all of this unsurprisingly bore no fruit and he would rather hide away than show his face again after all of that. It was the exact kind of stupid thing he would do, and it was even stupider because it wasn't as if this would be the last day they would see each other.

Thinking about that made Uta feel sad and confused all over again.

"You know, I'm gonna miss this little village. Cozy little places like these where you aren't always looking over your shoulder are pretty rare. I had plenty of fun growing up the way I did, but I can't say that I would have hated spending my youth in a place like this."

All of a sudden, Shanks walked up to Uta and started saying nonsense like that. Nonsense that just beat around the bush instead of getting to the bomb he was looking to drop.

"You're still young. No one's saying you can't live here," Uta said.

"I may be young, but I'm an old sea dog at heart," Shanks said with a laugh.

"Your life, your lover, your lady is the sea. Something stupid like that? Good for you, but where's that leave the rest of us?"

"I wasn't trying to—Listen, Uta, the thing is—"

"Shaaaaaaanks! Let's go!"

As Uta prepared herself to hear the worst news in her life straight from the horse's mouth, a familiar voice sounded out with enough volume and presence to draw in her, Shanks, and everyone else's attention. Sure enough, stomping through the village was Luffy with a determined look on his face and Makino right behind him.

"Luffy, it's good to see ya, buddy!" Shanks said. "Listen, I was just about to talk to Uta about something important, and you should be here for it, too."

"Nuh-uh, no talking! I just want one last go at you!" Luffy said.

"Luffy, this isn't—"

"In a Davy Back Fight!"

All of the amused looks and laughter from pirates and villagers alike turned into a collection of surprised gasps, even from Uta.

"Davy Back Fight? Where'd you learn about something like that?" Shanks asked.

"Uta talked about it a little bit, and then I had Makino help me look up stuff. I had to read a book for this, so we're doing it! One game, sudden death, no items, right now!" Luffy said.

"Well, if you had to read a whole book, I don't think I can!"

Shanks laughed at the whole thing, and Uta thought it was all so stupid. It was stupid that Luffy was doing something like this now, of all times, stupid that he thought he could beat Shanks at anything, and stupid that Shanks was going along with it in a clear attempt at putting off her abandonment for a little while longer.

Even stupider, however, was when Luffy pulled out a gun with an oblivious smile on his face and kept wearing it Uta and everyone else started freaking out.

"Whoa! Luffy, why do you have a gun?" Uta asked.

"The captains are supposed to fire off pistols to start things off, so I took one of Makino's," Luffy said.

"Which I told you not to do!" Makino said. "I love you Luffy, but honestly, you are the last person here who should ever have a gun."

"Well, I do, so—"

Makino took away the gun without another word. She didn't even look at Luffy's disappointed look as she and Shanks stepped into the middle of the crowd and fired off their pistols in unison.

"Okay, let's do this! What's the big event, Captain Luffy?" Shanks asked with a laugh.

"Wingspan Measurement!" Luffy said.

"All right, Wingspan Measurement, it is!" It took a few seconds for Shanks' smile to vanish and for him to say, "Wingspan Measurement? What? Luffy, that's not a game."

"It is, actually," Makino said. "It's a game used in the longarm tribe variant of the Davy Back Fight, and there are no rules saying that you can't use games from different regions."

"Yeah, what she said!" Luffy said. "You know how we learned about that? By reading books! We were up all night reading tons of books about this stuff, and it sucked, but we found something that I knew you couldn't beat me at, even with all your dumb tricks! You're the one who said that pirates don't play fair, so don't you dare cry about it!"

"The one time he listens to me about something," Shanks mumbled.

Uta had even less of an idea of where Luffy was going with this, and her confusion paired nicely with the genuine anxiety some of the Red Hair Pirates appeared to be feeling, even Shanks. If this was going to be Uta's last day with everyone, then it would at least be nice to see Shanks embarrassed like this, although even that thought barely made her happy.

"Well, here I go," Shanks said with a sigh.

Shanks, moving with none of the confidence he was typically known for, held out his single arm as wide as possible; Makino measured it to be about 122 centimeters. It then became Luffy's turn, and with a big grunt, his arms shot out to incredible lengths, almost covering the entire width of the street they were standing in, until they each fell into big, spaghetti-like piles.

"Makino, how'd I do?" Luffy asked.

"You're kidding, right?" Uta asked.

"It has to be official, or it doesn't count!"

Uta rolled her eyes, but Makino still went on to measure Luffy's wingspan. It took a while for her to unravel the big piles that his arms had fallen into, but she soon got her measurement: 500 centimeters.

"We have our winner!" Makino said as Luffy's arms snapped back into place, the force of the recoil almost making him fall over. The villagers all cheered for Luffy, the Red Hair Pirates all uttered varying degrees of shock and surprise, and Uta just stood there, still uninterested.

"I can't believe he won with a dirty trick like that! I'd be proud of him if it wasn't coming at our expense!" Yasopp said.

"What're we gonna do? We can't just let him take one of us for his made-up little crew, can we?" Hongo asked.

"We have to, though! The only thing worse than losing a Davy Back Fight is refusing to honor the game. We'd be the biggest disgraces to piratedom if anyone found out!" Benn Beckman said.

"Hey, Luffy, I've been thinking lately that our Jolly Roger is a little outdated, so feel free to take our flag, if you want," Shanks said.

"Don't try and trick me; your flag's way too cool for you to want to give it up!" Luffy said. "Uta, you're coming with me!"

"Luffy, I really need everyone here, so if you could just—Huh?"

Everyone went silent at Luffy's declaration, but no one more so than Uta. Luffy knew that Uta wasn't leaving, yet he chose her, of all people, as his prize. He could have chosen Monster or Beckman, or even Shanks in a foolhardy attempt to get him to change his mind about abandoning Uta, yet he chose her. Despite everything that was happening, Luffy chose her.

It was the stupidest thing she had ever seen, yet for some reason, it made her happy beyond words.

"This isn't how I wanted you to join my crew, but this was the only thing I could think of to fix everything," Luffy said. "Now, you're not staying here because Shanks is abandoning you, you're staying here because I won you sorta fair and square. Shanks doesn't get to hurt you, you don't have to feel like you're making anyone sad, and best of all, no one has to feel sad about any of this. This is way better than what we all thought we had to do, so everyone just stop being annoying, already!"

If Uta was in more control of herself, she would try and point out all the ways in which that didn't make sense. How it didn't change anything and made things more a matter of semantics than anything. But Uta wasn't in the mood for rationality. She was giving herself entirely to emotion, and because of that, when the emotional weight of what Luffy did just to make her feel better, when he finally proved to her that he was strong in his own way, all that she could allow herself to do was hold him tight and cry, with Luffy almost immediately following suit.

"You really are something else, Luffy, you know that?" Shanks asked; either Shanks was tearing up, or Uta was simply mistaking her own tears for his. "Every time I think I have to give up, there you are, coming up with a better way all on your own. There's no one in this generation I'd rather bet on; you and Uta, both!"

Uta didn't know what Shanks was talking about, but he was actually talking to her, so she was happy just for that. Shanks then broke up her and Luffy's hug, turned the two of them toward him, and put his straw hat on Luffy's head and his cape around Uta's neck. Uta thought Shanks' cape would be bigger, but it looked and felt like a perfect fit on her.

"Luffy, Uta, this hat and this cape were both given to me by someone important; they're basically the most important things to me after the two of you. I could use people like you to keep them safe for me, but if you don't want them, then you can return them when you become great pirates in your own right. Don't become so great that I can't beat you, though; gotta have a rematch to get my favorite musician—no, my favorite daughter back, after all."

It might have been because of how vulnerable she was feeling at that moment, but hearing all of that brought Uta's emotions to their peak as she hugged Shanks and said, for the first time in her life, "I love you, Dad."

It was a moment that Uta never wanted to end, and even after it did, it still felt like it was happening.


It took Beckman five minutes to pry Shanks away from Uta, but when he finally did, the Red Hair Pirates were able to finish packing everything and set sail from Fusha Village. It was hard for them to leave the little village they had grown to see as a second home, more so for Shanks than anyone else, but Shanks knew that with time, he would be able to accept it all.

"Uta has her toothbrush, right?" Shanks asked.

"And her floss, and her mouthwash, and we just renewed her subscription for her dental strips," Hongo said.

"What about all her Tone Dials? She get all of them?"

"Yes, even the ones she doesn't really listen to and just uses for sampling," Bonk Punch said.

"We tell Garp about her dietary restrictions? Like how she's not supposed to have two spaghetti meals in one day?"

Monster screeched out something that Shanks assumed to be a confirmation.

"Boss, Uta's going to be fine. She's got lots of people by her side, she's got Luffy with her, and more importantly, she still has us and she'll always have us. The only thing we can do now is have faith," Beckman said.

The rational part of Shanks knew that Beckman was right. More often than not, the most you could do for someone was have faith that they would be okay without you. That was what Roger did for him, and now, it was his turn to do the same for Uta and Luffy.

"Let's go back," Shanks said, ignoring the rational part of his mind in its entirety.

"Boss, no."

"We're not that far away, we can still turn back."

"Boss, stop it," Roux said between bites of a big stick of meat.

"I know I only have one arm, but I bet swimming back won't be a problem."

Shanks started to strip off his clothes with the kind of rapid speed and reflexes that should have been saved for combat, but before he could get to his underwear, all of the senior officers tackled him to the ground, with Monster slapping him in the face over and over again.

Shanks objected to all that and was on the verge of accusing them of mutiny, but he realized this was for the best. He was expecting so much strength out of Uta, so the least he could do was try and match her.


It took less than an hour for her dad to be completely out of view. The villagers, of whom she was now a part of, had all departed one after another to return to their various businesses, but Uta and Luffy stayed at the dock. Still looking out into the horizon the Red Hair Pirates disappeared into. Still doing the best they could to process everything. Still doing their best.

"Luffy, you're really gonna do it, right? You're gonna become the Pirate King?" Uta asked with her surprisingly snug cape caught in a vice grip.

"Of course!" Luffy said as he tightened the straw hat atop his head.

"Well, as your vice-captain, I'm gonna hold you to that, so you better not disappoint."

Luffy turned to Uta and laughed, and when she laughed right back at him, that's how she knew everything would be okay.