As the contestants Uta had defeated were gradually carried out of the arena, her fight with Kid was finally ready to begin in earnest.
Most of Kid's mechanical arm was still stuck together by Perospero's syrup, badly restricting its movement, so he simply released the structure and redirected his magnetism toward every loose metal weapon he could find.
In an instant, blades, spears, and scraps of metal tore through the air and came crashing toward Uta from every direction.
"Is that all you've got?"
Uta smiled lightly and spread her arms, making no attempt to attack or dodge.
Kid's expression twisted.
"You're seriously not moving? You're even crazier than I am, brat. Then die!"
With a roar, he changed the trajectories of the weapons in midair.
What had originally been a straightforward barrage split apart and surrounded Uta from every angle, closing in from a full three hundred and sixty degrees without leaving even the smallest opening.
A deafening series of metallic impacts rang across the arena.
Several blades pierced straight through Uta's body without the slightest resistance, and the remaining metal immediately collapsed inward around her, forming an enormous iron sphere so tightly packed that not even a gap remained.
"Bro—"
Perospero had almost called out brother-in-law before catching himself.
He quickly swallowed the word and turned toward Cain and Katakuri instead, only to find both men completely calm.
Neither of the two people capable of seeing the future looked remotely concerned.
In that case, Uta was obviously fine.
Cain even had to suppress a laugh.
He had originally shown Uta Naruto as entertainment, never expecting her to actually take inspiration from it and start developing techniques of her own.
Sure enough, the next moment Uta simply emerged from the iron sphere.
Calling it "emerging" wasn't quite accurate.
She walked straight through it.
Kid's overwhelming barrage hadn't left so much as a scratch on her.
This was—
Kamui Intangibility, Sing-Sing Fruit Version.
Under normal circumstances, whenever Uta activated her ability, two versions of her existed simultaneously: one in reality and another inside the Uta World.
That dual existence was part of the Sing-Sing Fruit's original rules.
But after the incident with the God's Knights, Uta's real body had physically fallen into the Uta World, and in the process she acquired the ability to overlay the Uta World onto reality itself—the technique now known as the Music Domain.
From that point onward, the relationship between the two versions of Uta began to change.
The "Uta" in reality and the "Uta" inside the Uta World could overlap according to her will, eventually becoming a single unified existence.
By taking advantage of that connection, she learned to freely shift herself between a real-world state and a Uta World state.
Whenever she transferred herself completely toward the Uta World side, the body remaining in reality became something closer to a spiritual projection.
No matter what kind of physical attack struck it, the blow would simply pass through the image without ever touching her true body.
Normally, that should have meant Uta couldn't touch anyone else either.
But Tot Musica changed that.
By borrowing part of the Demon King of Songs' power, Uta could reverse the interaction and physically affect other people even while she herself remained in that projection state.
At first, Uta hadn't even realized this was possible. The spiritual projection created by her ability couldn't ordinarily remain stable in the real world long enough to be useful.
Once she gained access to part of Tot Musica's power, however, that limitation effectively disappeared.
(Demon King of Songs: Every single time I hear the summoning, I think, 'Finally, I'm getting out!' Then the door opens just wide enough for one strand of hair to fit through… not that I technically have hair.)
Cain had complained about the whole thing more than once.
A jinchūriki of the Demon King of Songs, Kamui-style intangibility, and an ability that already looked suspiciously like Infinite Tsukuyomi—
what the hell was this supposed to be, One Piece or Naruto?
…
After calmly walking out of the iron sphere, Uta finally prepared to counterattack.
Then she stopped.
Her eyes settled on Kid.
She managed to hold it in for perhaps one second before completely losing control.
"Pfft—! Hahahaha! What the hell is that look? Are you trying to imitate Shanks?"
The more she looked at him, the funnier it became.
Messy red hair.
Missing arm.
From a distance, Kid looked like an embarrassingly cheap imitation of Shanks.
Since he had just thrown every piece of metal he controlled at Uta, his missing arm was now completely exposed, with nothing but bandages wrapped around the stump.
"Shut up!"
Kid's face flushed red.
"This has nothing to do with Red-Hair! Damn it, we just happen to have the same hair color!"
The moment the words left his mouth, he effectively exposed himself.
Uta's grin widened.
"So it does have something to do with Shanks."
She looked him up and down with obvious amusement.
"You still don't get it, do you? Not everyone with red hair has the right to be called Red-Hair."
Kid's anger surged even higher.
"You don't know a damn thing!"
He clenched his teeth and shouted,
"This arm is proof that I'm going to smash the old era apart with my own hands! Every one of those old bastards will eventually be swept into history's trash heap by me!"
His expression turned almost feverish.
"I'm the new era this sea is waiting for!"
Katakuri and Perospero both frowned at that.
The brat's arrogance truly knew no limits.
They could only hope he would still be capable of talking like that later.
Uta, meanwhile, laughed even harder.
"New era?"
She stared at him as though he had just said the funniest thing imaginable.
"You're seriously talking to me about a new era?"
"You lost. That's all that happened. Why are you inventing an entire philosophy to make yourself feel better?"
The remark struck Kid's pride with surgical precision.
All that talk of ambition, the new era, and destroying the old generation had been armor wrapped around the humiliation of his defeat.
And Uta had stabbed straight through it.
Being mocked so openly by someone he saw as just another brat finally burned away the last scraps of Kid's restraint.
"AAAAAAAHHHH! DIE!!!"
He roared like a madman, looking as though he wanted to tear Uta apart with his bare hands.
His severed arm jerked forward, and his magnetism erupted at full power. Every piece of metal scattered around the arena began flying back toward him, rapidly assembling into another giant mechanical arm.
Kid stared at the growing construct.
"Not enough!"
He increased the magnetic pull.
"Bigger! Get over here!"
The air hummed beneath the force of his ability.
He waited.
Nothing happened.
Not another blade moved.
Not a screw.
Not even a scrap of metal.
Above the arena, Cain, Katakuri, and the others collectively put their hands to their foreheads.
"Idiot."
Cain sighed.
"This is Totto Land. Look around you. Everything here is made out of cake, candy, and biscuits. What exactly do you think you're going to tear apart for metal?"
Kid froze.
He slowly looked around.
His expression went from furious to stiff.
Then his eyes dropped toward the disappointingly small mechanical arm he had managed to assemble.
After several seconds of silence, he ground his teeth and charged anyway.
"Red-Hair is nothing but a coward who wouldn't even show his face!"
His voice thundered across the arena.
"A spineless bastard like that has nothing on me!"
"I'm hundreds of times stronger than him!"
Uta's laughter stopped instantly.
Ever since she was little, Uta had admired Shanks.
Even during the years when bitterness and resentment had clouded her feelings toward him, she had never truly denied that admiration.
And now that the misunderstandings between them had finally been resolved, there was no chance she would tolerate someone insulting him in front of her.
Just as she wouldn't tolerate anyone insulting Cain.
Or Bella.
The hand Uta had been resting against her forehead slowly slid down through her hair, partially covering her face and leaving only one eye visible.
That eye had gone ice-cold.
"Who…"
Her voice was quiet.
"…gave you permission to talk about Shanks like that?"
There was no anger in her tone anymore.
Only something that sounded disturbingly close to a sentence being passed.
"Die."
In the next instant, the pocket-sized Music Domain connected to Uta's clothing expanded.
Countless enormous golden swords poured out of it.
Hundreds.
Then thousands.
They spread across the sky until the arena was almost completely covered in gleaming blades, every single point turning toward Kid at once.
Then they fell.
Kid sneered.
"Tch! You really are an idiot! You know I can control metal and you still—"
He thrust out one hand and clenched his fist.
Nothing happened.
His grin froze.
Not a single golden sword responded to his magnetism.
He couldn't control them at all.
Kid's expression stiffened, but there was no time to think about why. He swung his giant mechanical arm forward, attempting to crush Uta before the barrage could reach him.
Just like before, the arm passed straight through her body.
And this time, he couldn't afford to focus on that either.
The golden blades were already raining down from every direction.
Kid hurriedly raised the mechanical arm and began blocking desperately, only for the barrage to shift around him and attack from every possible angle, perfectly recreating the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree assault he had used against Uta moments earlier.
He fought frantically to keep the blades away.
Then something felt wrong.
A faint sound was coming from his mechanical arm.
Music.
At first it was nothing more than scattered vibrations, tiny disconnected notes buried beneath the crash of metal.
But the longer he blocked, the clearer those notes became.
One by one, they joined together.
Until Kid could hear what sounded unmistakably like someone singing.
His movements slowed.
His thoughts became hazy.
The arena blurred in front of him.
Then everything went black.