"That's the whole story. Mama has already approved their marriage, and today's banquet will serve as their engagement ceremony."
"Now that Big Sis has someone she loves who's willing to risk everything to protect her, I'm sure she'll live a happy life from now on."
Inside the carriage, Pudding softly told Uta and Cain everything that had happened before dawn, her voice filled with genuine emotion.
"It was so wonderful. I can still remember what they said at the time. It was really moving, especially when Mr. Bege said, 'I survived. This time, I can finally taste the cake you made for me.' I wonder when I'll meet my own prince."
Cain broke into a nervous sweat at the mention of a "prince."
Only then did he suddenly remember Sanji, whom he had completely forgotten about.
He had no idea what condition Sanji was currently in.
Cain had been far too busy at the time and had completely forgotten to tell Ivankov about Sanji.
On top of that, Ace had survived.
Even if the 3D2Y message had already spread, it might not have been enough to snap Sanji out of his state when he was desperately avoiding the okama and rejecting everything around him.
Thinking about it now, Sanji might still be trapped on the Kamabakka Kingdom wearing a frilly dress.
He might even have completely fallen and become…
Cain shuddered violently!
He immediately decided that he had to find a chance to contact Ivankov as soon as possible.
As Pudding continued speaking, intense curiosity suddenly appeared in her eyes.
She changed the subject and leaned closer, unable to resist asking about Cain and Uta.
"Cain-nii-san, how did you and Uta-onee-san meet?"
Both were children of Emperors, yet Uta had somehow ended up with the grandson of Marine Hero Garp.
Just thinking about it felt unbelievable.
More importantly, judging from Red-Haired Shanks' attitude, he did not seem determined to oppose their relationship.
His crew, on the other hand, had objections large enough to shake the heavens.
After all, the Red Hair Pirates had all been wearing headphones at the time.
They had not heard Cain and Uta reject the arranged wedding on the spot, nor did they know the wedding had already been canceled.
They assumed this trip to Whole Cake Island was still for the purpose of marrying the two of them.
The entire crew had exploded on the spot.
Filled with resentment, they cursed and tried to charge onto the island to cause complete chaos.
Fortunately, Shanks and Benn Beckman had restrained them and ordered them to remain behind to guard the ship, preventing another disaster.
…
Cain and the others chatted with great interest in the carriage behind, while Garp, Shanks, and Katakuri shared the carriage ahead.
At the moment, Garp's stomach was full of regret.
He had planned to explain his and Sengoku's idea to Cain, then leave immediately.
Instead, not only had he failed to leave, he now had to obediently sit in a carriage and attend this baffling engagement banquet.
"Why does this old man have to come too?! Fine, I came, but what kind of terrible hospitality is this? There's a doughnut that huge on the carriage, and you're telling me it's only a wheel and I'm not allowed to eat it?!"
Garp slapped the carriage wall in frustration, looking exactly like a child who had been denied a snack.
Katakuri said nothing.
He merely raised a hand and signaled to the Homie beside him, which brought over the enormous doughnut Katakuri had specially prepared for afternoon tea.
Garp, who had been raging a moment earlier, instantly calmed down.
His eyes lit up as he grabbed the doughnut and began devouring it happily!
The carriage was soon filled only with the crisp crunching of him eating, without the slightest trace of his earlier frustration remaining.
"Garp-san, your presence really is necessary for this banquet," Shanks said, his voice carrying a rare seriousness.
"Big Mom sent invitations to the emperors of the Underworld for Cain and Uta's wedding, advertising it as an unprecedented grand banquet. If it ends with nothing more than Capone Bege's engagement ceremony, it'll look far too unimpressive and won't be enough to hold the crowd's attention."
"That's true," Katakuri agreed. "Even after a full night of emergency repairs, Whole Cake Island has only been restored to its condition before the battle. Our preparations are still insufficient for receiving the emperors of the Underworld. We need a focal point with enough weight to stabilize the occasion."
"And Cain now being a member of four pirate crews at once is already enough to draw intense attention from every major power on the sea," Shanks continued. "That makes him the perfect central focus for this banquet."
"But if we recklessly publicize it, people will assume the Four Emperors have formed an alliance, which would do more harm than good."
"The moment the outside world believes there are signs of an alliance between the Emperors, the sea will fall into chaos."
"After the Summit War, the Marines barely managed to stabilize the turmoil caused by Whitebeard's death. If this matter reignites that chaos, it could completely destroy the balance between pirates and the Marines."
Garp chewed his doughnut, scratched his head, and snorted.
"You're a pirate, but you've thought this through pretty carefully. The way you explain it, this old man really does have to show his face."
"Still, if trouble happens, it'll definitely be caused by Morgans. He was roasted that badly last night, yet he's still forcing himself to write an article. That bird really has no regard for his life!"
"I suppose that's the obsession of the King of the News," Shanks said with a helpless laugh. "Even if he were on the verge of death, whispering that there was an exclusive scoop into his ear would probably make him leap straight out of bed."
While the three of them were talking, tiny glowing notes suddenly appeared in the surrounding air, and a strange scene unfolded.
The unusual soldiers Uta had once summoned inside Uta World began emerging one after another from both sides of the street and from the shadows of the buildings.
They formed neat ranks and completely surrounded the road.
The Totto Land chess soldiers escorting the carriages immediately tensed. They raised their rifles and spears in unison, protecting the two carriages at the center as they entered their highest state of alert.
"These are…!"
Katakuri's pupils suddenly contracted, and his top-tier Observation Haki spread outward at once.
He remembered these soldiers clearly.
Back when Cain had faced the out-of-control Uta, these creations had emerged from Uta World and swept across the entire battlefield.
Katakuri immediately became serious, and his aura rose sharply.
The smile on Shanks' face vanished as well.
The pressure around him suddenly sank as he pulled aside the curtain and stared toward the carriage behind them, where Cain and Uta were riding.
His heart tightened.
His first thought was that something had gone wrong while Uta's memories were being extracted, causing her ability to lose control again.
Even Garp, who had been happily biting into his doughnut, stopped moving.
He stared warily out the window with half a mouthful still hanging between his teeth.
"Everyone, don't panic! I'm fine!"
At the moment when the atmosphere became dangerously tense, a clear female voice rang out and instantly suppressed the commotion.
A figure wearing golden armor, carrying a spear and massive shield, with a crown on her head and a jetpack on her back, flew steadily in front of the leading carriage on glowing particles of music.
It was Uta.
She smiled and waved at the people behind the curtain.
Although the core memory of the score used to summon Tot Musica had been completely erased, Uta had not allowed all the related power to disappear.
Instead, she deliberately preserved a tiny, incomplete fragment that had once been used during the summoning.
The fragment was nowhere near enough to summon Tot Musica itself, nor could it cause her to lose control.
Unexpectedly, however, it allowed her to discover an entirely new way to use the Sing-Sing Fruit.
By borrowing the residual power of Tot Musica, she could break through the boundary between Uta World and reality, directly summoning creations she made inside her Music Domain into the real world.
Previously, her ability had only allowed her to pull real people into Uta World or overlay Uta World onto reality in the form of a domain.
Now, she could finally perform the process in reverse and allow everything born inside her domain to descend into reality.
Using an expression Uta had once encountered, she had effectively become 'Tot Musica's jinchūriki'—except without any risk of losing control.
(Note: When Uta summons inanimate objects, or soldier-type units with no independent consciousness that can only follow simple instructions, the physical cost is extremely low. These creations can be constructed directly by borrowing Tot Musica's power, requiring little mental effort from Uta herself.
However, summoning life-forms with complete independent consciousness is nearly impossible. Such beings require extensions of dream memories to manifest and can normally only exist inside Uta World.
Even if there were a one-in-ten-thousand chance of accomplishing it, doing so would consume an enormous amount of Uta's stamina. That already exceeds the limits of Tot Musica's ability, meaning Uta would have to bear the entire burden herself.
The efficiency would be so poor that she would be better off simply using her Music Domain.)
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