"Tot Musica, huh?"
"What a pain."
Step.
Amid the smoke and raging fires of war, the moment Ozz set foot on Elegia's shattered ground, a pitch black tuxedo wrapped around his body.
Facing the Music Demon King Tot Musica, whose presence was terrifying enough to crush an entire nation, there was not the slightest trace of tension on his face.
"Hey, Ozz!!!"
Shanks shouted over the roar of lasers and lightning, his voice barely pushing through the chaos as he called out to Ozz.
"If you want to beat Tot Musica, relying on pure physical attacks alone is…"
Before Shanks could finish, Ozz simply glanced at the incoming lightning and beams, calmly pulled his blade from its sheath, and vanished from where he stood. In the blink of an eye, he was already right in front of Tot Musica, body poised and steady.
Scarlet light flickered in his eyes as he locked onto the Demon King of Song.
The slash he raised looked similar to Shanks's Divine Departure, yet it was clearly sharper, more tyrannical, and carried a power that shattered space itself.
"Sky Divine Departure."
Boom.
Rumble, rumble, rumble.
A pillar of red light tore into the heavens. Violent crimson explosions detonated across Tot Musica's body in an instant. Space itself began to crack. The sky was split straight down the middle.
That terrifying strike hacked away more than half of Tot Musica's massive body in one go.
Its colossal frame shuddered violently, then began to distort. It unraveled into twisted musical notes and crackling lightning, and finally dispersed into the air.
"…!!!"
The second half of Shanks's sentence stuck in his throat.
He stood there with his mouth open, a few beads of cold sweat sliding down his cheek. For a long moment he could not force out a single word.
That Tot Musica…
Had been taken out with a single slash.
After a brief daze, he could only let out a half helpless, half admiring smile and shake his head.
What else could he say?
So this was Ozz.
Ozz himself did not look particularly pleased about one shotting Tot Musica.
As Uta slowly drifted down from midair, he caught her in his arms, his mind replaying the feeling from just now.
That thing just now…
Probably was not in its full power state.
And more importantly…
He had only used his Spatial Warp Fruit out of habit, twisting his attack with spatial energy. Yet in the instant his strike landed, he had clearly felt something strange.
It was like his blow had passed through into another space, or perhaps another world altogether. Because the attack carried spatial attributes, the slash had also taken effect in that other place.
Which was why he could truly destroy Tot Musica in a single hit.
As for what that space was…
Ozz looked down at the unconscious Uta in his arms, and a guess formed quietly in his heart.
It was probably related to the Sing Sing Fruit.
He knew that through singing, Uta could create a Sing Sing World. Anyone who heard her song would be drawn into a dreamlike realm, a world whose rules were entirely under Uta's control, where even Devil Fruit powers could partially fail.
Meanwhile, the bodies of those who entered that world would fall asleep in reality.
Looked at that way, Tot Musica's existence also relied on its host, Uta, to some extent.
From the clips he had watched in his previous life, Uta had grown up to be the movie's final boss. She had needed both peak Shanks and Luffy in his protagonist form working together to take Tot Musica down.
So what if he had to face a fully unleashed Tot Musica, summoned by an adult Uta?
Ozz frowned slightly.
He genuinely started to think about that question.
Ten years from now, if he had to fight a peak Tot Musica, it might not be as simple as a one slash kill.
He would probably…
Need two.
Ozz shook his head and stopped thinking about such pointless hypotheticals. If things really got tricky, he could always just fight seriously with his Black Gun techniques.
Besides, if something went truly wrong, there was still Shanks, the chosen child of fate, and Luffy, the world's main character, to clean up the mess.
While Ozz was still off in thought, Shanks and the others made their way over. Shanks looked at Uta in Ozz's arms and carefully took her back.
"Uta… she is okay, right?"
There was obvious tension in his voice.
"She just passed out."
Ozz nodded lightly.
Hearing that, everyone finally let out the breath they had been holding.
"Thank goodness."
Right at that moment, on the distant horizon, Marine warships finally appeared, slowly cutting across the sea toward the ruined kingdom like the always late police in a movie, arriving only when everything was already over.
"Now they show up. Are the Marines here to clean up, or to put out the fire?"
Watching the approaching fleet, Ozz's mouth twitched.
Not that he expected anything from them.
Against Tot Musica, unless an admiral personally came, they would have been useless.
And facing that walking artillery fortress, the Music Demon King, those warships would have just been blown to pieces, one after another.
"So, what now? Do you want to evacuate with Uta first?"
"As long as I am here, the Marines and the World Government will not say anything."
Ozz himself did not particularly care. In this world, Celestial Dragons wiping out entire countries was practically routine. The Marines often acted as their attack dogs. None of that was rare.
So for Ozz, taking the blame for the destruction of one little kingdom to shield Uta from an extermination level crime was nothing at all. It was just a small favor.
No one on the seas even had the guts to spread such a story openly.
The flames threw orange and red light across their faces.
Whether it was for the sake of his long standing friendship with Shanks, or for the girl he had watched grow up, Ozz felt that stepping forward here was a trivial matter.
Harsh as it sounded, cruel as it might be, a tiny kingdom like Elegia being wiped from the map did not mean much to the strongest beings in the world. On that scale, extinction level events were almost background noise.
Besides.
The reason Uta's Tot Musica had been able to destroy Elegia so quickly might very well be because Ozz had helped her train her physical condition in the first place.
On the other side.
Shanks knew very well what Ozz's status was now. He had been to Mary Geoise. He understood how special Ozz's position was among the Celestial Dragons.
Shifting the blame onto Ozz really would make things easier for him. Uta would avoid crushing psychological pressure, and Shanks himself would dodge a mountain of trouble.
It was the simplest solution, and on the surface, it harmed no one.
So…
"Sorry, Ozz."
Shanks raised his head and looked at him with a calm, resolute gaze, a faint smile on his lips.
"Uta is my daughter. This is something the Red Hair Pirates should shoulder."
Hearing that, the rest of the crew fell silent as one.
But that silence itself was their answer. It meant they agreed.
Ozz was quiet for a moment.
Then he smiled too and clapped Shanks on the shoulder, hard, like he was slapping a younger brother. Shanks bared his teeth in pain.
"You are her father, sure. But do not forget…"
"I am half her godfather too."
He had been there when they found little Uta. He had changed her diapers and rocked her to sleep.
So when Shanks and the others turned to go, Ozz walked with them and sat together on the Red Hair Pirates' mast, watching the Marines draw closer as the ship lingered in place.
And then…
Well…
They all watched as the Red Force slowly sailed away.
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