Meanwhile, somewhere else—
"Why the hell do I have to do something like this?!"
Smoker clenched the pink wig in his hand as irritation shot straight to his head, and he finally snapped at Ace beside him.
Ace, meanwhile, looked perfectly unbothered. He was crouched in front of a makeup mirror, carefully applying lipstick.
Hearing Smoker complain, he didn't even turn around.
"This is the fastest way we've come up with to evacuate that many people. If you hate it that much, we can switch. You can dress up as Uta instead."
Ace stood, adjusted the red-and-white wig on his head, then casually repositioned the two papayas stuffed under his clothes. After inspecting himself in the mirror, he nodded in satisfaction.
"Think about it. The second Cain's identity gets exposed, the whole place is going to explode into chaos."
"That's when we slip into the crowd disguised as Cain and Uta, draw everyone's attention away, and use the confusion to get the civilians and other uninvolved people out of there."
Ace grinned.
"Pretty good plan, right?"
"Good plan, my ass!"
A vein throbbed on Smoker's forehead.
"If you weren't one of the Seven Warlords, I'd have beaten you flat already!"
Complaints aside, he eventually steeled himself, grabbed the pink wig, and reluctantly pulled it over his head.
The moment he finished, Ace dropped another bombshell.
He turned toward Smoker, gave him an outrageously flirtatious look, and said in an unbearably sweet voice,
"Oh, right. When we're distracting everyone later, remember to carry me."
Smoker froze.
"After all, I'm playing Uta. Making a girl run around on her own wouldn't look very convincing."
Crack.
The cigar between Smoker's teeth snapped cleanly in half.
Ace saw his expression darken and immediately shrank back.
"Then… holding hands would work too."
"GO TO HELL!!"
Smoker finally lost it.
He drew back his fist and smashed it straight into Ace's lipstick-covered face with enough force to make the air whistle.
At the same time, he screamed internally,
'Damn the Seven Warlords system! Which bastard came up with this garbage?! One day, I swear I'm going to smash the whole damn thing apart and abolish it myself!'
…
At the main arena, the stands were already roaring with noise.
Perospero stood in the center of the ring and slowly recapped the previous rounds, dragging out his words in his usual theatrical way until the anticipation had been pushed as high as it could go.
Then he spread his arms.
"And now—for our final contestant, Ado! Please enter the arena for the last examination!"
Uta emerged from the contestant tunnel under the alias Ado and calmly stepped onto the stage.
The instant "he" appeared, however, the audience erupted.
Questions and complaints came pouring in from every direction.
Most of them centered around Edward Weevil and contestant Lucy—Sabo.
The reason was obvious.
Weevil had practically cleared out most of the serious contenders by himself, while Lucy had displayed strength so ridiculous that anyone with eyes could tell he belonged among the tournament's strongest participants.
Yet both had voluntarily withdrawn at the last moment, effectively handing the opportunity to advance to someone else.
Perospero immediately stepped forward to explain.
He maintained his usual smile while soothing the growing unrest in the stands, yet inside he was thanking every god he could think of that Katakuri had arranged this final test beforehand.
As one of the event organizers, Katakuri personally testing the last remaining contestant was perfectly legitimate.
No one could reasonably complain.
Without that safeguard, Big Mom's authority might still have suppressed most of the crowd, but the tournament's credibility would have been far harder to preserve.
…
"So we finally made it this far."
Uta stood in the arena and smiled at Katakuri, who was waiting opposite her with Mogura in hand.
There wasn't a trace of nervousness in her expression.
Instead, she sounded almost cheerful.
"Come on, then. I've got an En-chan to marry and take home."
Katakuri remained silent for a moment.
Something complicated flickered through his eyes before he answered in a low voice,
"I'm sorry."
"If this were happening at any other time, I might have accepted you."
"But right now…"
"I have to stand in your way."
The instant he finished speaking, his eyes flashed crimson.
An immense wave of Conqueror's Haki erupted outward and crashed directly toward Uta.
She didn't move.
Uta simply straightened her back and accepted the pressure head-on.
The overwhelming Haki swept across her body—
and accomplished almost nothing.
As for Katakuri's future sight, Uta had already prepared a way to deal with that too.
Still, a fight was a fight.
She couldn't exactly let all those people in the stands think "Ado" had reached the final stage through luck alone.
So Uta stopped holding back.
With a sweep of her hand, an enormous golden sword materialized in her grip. A brilliant crown appeared on her head, a crimson cape unfurled behind her, and a golden shield formed along her left arm.
If she had been in her usual female body, the outfit might have looked regal and elegant.
But with Uta currently transformed into a man, the effect was entirely different.
Tall, sharp, and heroic, she looked almost exactly like a prince arriving to rescue a princess.
Cain, meanwhile—
despite currently being female—
was dressed in a crisp white men's suit with spotless gloves, looking neat and composed without the slightest resemblance to a princess.
The contrast was almost absurd.
Back in the arena, the tension climbed rapidly.
Katakuri wanted to end this as quickly as possible—for Big Mom's plan, for the sake of the tournament, and above all for Uta's own safety.
So he attacked first.
"Peerless Mochi Blade Barrage!"
His right arm immediately transformed into a rapid-firing mochi weapon.
Countless compressed mochi projectiles erupted outward like a storm, pouring toward Uta from every angle.
They weren't coated in Armament Haki.
Katakuri's intention was simple.
He wanted to use the mochi's adhesive properties to immobilize her first.
Unfortunately, that plan failed immediately.
The moment the projectiles entered Uta's immediate surroundings, a faint barrier rose silently around her and blocked every single one.
The mochi couldn't get anywhere near her.
It simply struck the barrier and slid uselessly to the ground.
Uta didn't pause.
Two propulsion units suddenly appeared behind her and erupted with blazing exhaust, launching her forward at tremendous speed.
Katakuri didn't dodge.
He planted his feet, raised Mogura, and met Uta's golden sword head-on.
CLANG!
The collision of metal rang through the arena.
Before the echo could fade, Katakuri twisted his weapon violently.
A massive force traveled through the clash.
Several golden blades Uta had secretly prepared for a surprise attack were instantly knocked away and scattered across the ring.
Even Uta herself was forced backward several meters before she finally regained her footing.
This time, she deliberately refrained from activating the bone-conduction effect of her sword.
She wanted to fight Katakuri properly first.
A genuine contest of physical ability and combat skill.
Only after that would she use her final trump card.
…
With her ability to phase attacks through her body and create weapons almost at will, Uta was already capable of fighting Katakuri on roughly equal terms.
Most of Katakuri's attacks couldn't even touch her clothing.
But Uta faced the exact opposite problem.
Her offense was fierce, yet Katakuri's future sight allowed him to avoid nearly everything she attempted.
Before long, the battle became a pure war of attrition.
Neither could reliably hit the other.
So the question became simple—
who would run out of stamina first?
They exchanged blows continuously.
Nearly an hour passed.
By then, the spectators had fallen almost completely silent.
All the earlier complaints and doubts had disappeared beneath the undeniable reality of what they had witnessed.
No one questioned Ado's strength anymore.
The arena itself had been almost completely destroyed, smoke and debris hanging over the shattered battlefield.
Uta was drenched in sweat.
After such a prolonged fight, combined with the constant strain of using her Devil Fruit, exhaustion was finally beginning to show on her face.
'I can't drag this out any longer.'
Once she reached that conclusion, Uta stopped holding back.
A massive megaphone appeared in her hands.
Cain, who had spent the entire fight worrying about her from the stands, stared in disbelief.
"Wait…"
"Is Uta seriously going to sing?"
Even Cain had no idea what she was planning.
Katakuri understood even less.
But the sight of that megaphone immediately set off every warning instinct he possessed.
There was no reason to hesitate.
His eyes flashed crimson.
Future sight opened completely.
He focused on the next moment—
and then his body went rigid.
Katakuri remained standing upright.
But his consciousness disappeared.
That was Uta's finishing move.
Observation Haki heightened the senses.
Naturally, hearing was one of those senses.
Katakuri's ability to "see the future" was merely an advanced extension of Observation Haki, which meant the sensory information he perceived from the future included sound as well.
In other words—
Uta hadn't sung a single note yet.
But Katakuri's future sight had already allowed him to hear the song she was about to sing.
And Uta's Sing-Sing Fruit was always active enough to receive the consciousness of anyone connected to her music.
That created a tiny loophole.
A pathway from the future.
Uta seized it perfectly.
The power of the Sing-Sing Fruit traveled backward along the auditory information Katakuri had perceived through future sight and dragged his consciousness straight into the Uta World before she even opened her mouth.
In a strange way, Uta had discovered a weakness inherent to future sight itself.
She lowered the megaphone.
Her sword was already resting steadily in front of Katakuri.
Then she released her ability.
Katakuri's eyes slowly regained focus.
Uta smiled at him.
"You lost!!!"