Work Text:
“Goodbye, Luffy.”
The dagger; a holy, sacrificial blade soaked with heartwrenching melody (I'm sorry, forgive me, I'm sorry, don't despise me, this is for the world, this is for the world) plunges downwards, piercing the stained cloth of the pirate's (boy's) shirt and the rubbery flesh of his heaving chest, delving into his beating heart—
A hand.
There's a gloved hand, twice the size of her own, keeping the blade's tip still, just inch above Luffy's sleeping form.
Uta's erratic breath hitches in the back of her throat, an echo of dying scream dissolving like a morning mist upon her tongue, before the accursed sound could form and fly through her chapped lips.
Her insides crack like a mirror of divine selfreflection, white lines of her own self-loathing and wickedness branching out like a tree through the crystal glass. A foreign, incomprehensible tidal wave of palliation washes over her, and her heart thrums with joy, before fear and savageness seize her mind.
A singular thought, “how dare he steal my victory”, resonates through her whole being, filling her mouth with sweetness-turned-curse.
And yet.
The unyielding warmth of the steady hand seeps through the black leather glove into her own cold, wet skin. A thumb brushes the pale knuckles of her hand, a gesture familiar, reassuring—humane; the very notion going against his divine nature. Still, he doesn’t stop.
Uta swallows the anguish and hatred, the evil of her own making pouring out of her through hot crystals of liquid salt as she weeps, proud shoulders shaking.
Her self-righteous grasp falters around the blade's handle, a divine spirit burned by the iron of mankind. Then it tightens for a fraction, knuckles turning paper-white, her composure dancing around the edge of a cliff, to break or to remain, she doesn’t know which to choose.
Her slumped figure, cleansed by the ethereal touch of heaven’s light, quivers where she sits. The cracks within her mirror keep on branching, her spirit still dances the gutwrenching waltz, no partner, all alone—her own doing, naturally.
A dull spark ignites within her chest, a wildfire; but she is still cold (and heartless, just like him) as the rain keeps its steady descent from the murky blanket of silent, grieving flock.
She deserves to perish by his blade, Uta thinks. A disobedient nuisance, unworthy of his (non-existent) mercy. A coward. A wretch. A craven born of sin, a bastard daughter, unlovable, spurned by gods and men alike.
She doesn’t raise her gaze, the weight of her sins folding unto itself, bending her spine of steel, now copper—weak and worthy, just like him.
(She can't meet his searching gaze. To be drowned in the knowledge of the scope of his hatred he has for her; for abandoning her family, her legacy, her rightful place within the ivory cage. For being a wit-lacking, disobedient little girl, for being his daughter, for daring to exist…)
Uta breaks.
There’s nobody to catch her fall.
The spindled web of cracks that once covered the mirror shatters, a sensation so agonizing (grief, pain, pain, fury, terror, pain) and so intimate, it forces a choked cry out of the fallen star’s parting mouth, a sound akin to a crumbling iceberg.
Hundreds of thousands of shards, like an avalanche of hardened snow, sweep her off of her feet, plunging her waltzing spirit down the cliff and into the waiting ravine of thick, oily darkness—Hell.
Uta breaks.
She falls into the waiting arms of a man as rotten and wicked as the vilest of demons that await her down there with eager, famished smiles.
The bleached, awfully glum colours of her surroundings blend together like flavours of her least favourite tea (oolong, she remembers) melting into an indistinguishable oily painting, like those ugly portraits of Lords and Ladies Figarland that hang inside the gallery.
And, why is the world suddenly so blurry and quiet? There should be music, right? Yes. Yes, she should be singing… singing what? She can’t remember. It’s all so fuzzy now.
Exhaustion, like a gentle shanty-turned-lullaby washes over her, a balm to her aching Soul.
How long has she been awake? And why is her face so warm?
Uta’s brows knit together in a faint frown. She blinks. Once. Then twice. The drowsiness that should’ve dispersed into gentle buzz settles instead, a weightless shawl wrapping around her closing eyes—stars and moons and holy dome of a private chapel painted silver instead of gold, a dream of home she forsook for mud and bone and sins of men, salvageable.
Not anymore. But perhaps, if fate is kind enough…
Something other than a cold, impersonal curtain of rain and her own large tears slides down her cheeks. She tastes the salty droplets on her lips, dripping down on her cheeks from above.
Uta’s eyes widen, eyebrows arching upwards as she finally raises her gaze, and…
Oh.
Oh, he's crying.
The laughter of a child long-dead, cast into shadows of a ruined kingdom, bubbles in her itching throat.
Even the mere thought of the possibility that a heartless statue carved out of flesh-sown marble, heresy and sun’s stolen reflection feels convoluted with his stoic and ruthless character.
His face is gaunt and pale, carved into sharp lines and angles, the once smooth cheeks now aged with wrinkles that Uta remembers weren't there before she ran. A mask of ruthless commander worn and tattered, yet still plastered over his visage, only broken by the quiet droplets falling down, not in a stream like her own, but in a rhythmless silence.
He weeps still as his other gloved hand reaches out, the scent of chrysanthemum and wet leather hits her nose as tips of fingers brush the edge of her face.
Uta flinches, as words (apologies, so many pointless apologies) spill out of her in a stream of mechanical buzz. Syllables forming into a film that is all but taped into a meaningless confession. It was a meaningless attempt of desperate and lost Soul trying to preserve the remnants of the picture she had once broken.
Two years. It has only been two (unfairly long) years, and yet it still feels like a moment within eternity, stretched out into an endlessly spanning abyss without the coarse hum of his deep-sea voice.
“Uta.” A tender voice, a plea—so unlike him, so humane. He said it once himself, didn’t he? “Gods Knights do not beg, that is the way of common whelps and lesser deities.”
Uncle Sham was right afterall. Grandfather is one hell of a hypocrite.
“Uta,” he repeats her name carefully, as if the word’s a songbird carved from porcelain, something to gently cradle in his hands, to hold onto with draconic avarice, seal away and never let go of.
There’s something broken about the low pitch of his voice, the whisper of relief that breathes through that singular word—her own name—like a gentle summer breeze, enveloping her in a sudden warm embrace
His tears are shed with solemn hardness etched into the blazing pair of crimson eyes, the light dancing within those blood-red pools close enough to be mistaken for grief and longing. And all of the in-between that could've been but never will be, but might be if Uta sets Him free.
The hand cups her cheek, cradling her pale face with a soothing touch that everyone but her would find peculiar or out of character, since they weren’t privy to Grandfather’s… sweeter side.
(Selfish and cruel is the man who loves her, who never deigned to reserve a space inside his sad, small heart for his own flesh and blood, only fashioning careless open affection for her.)
(Uncle Sham despises him. Uta tries not to think of that.)
Uta immediately sinks into the large palm with a broken sigh-melted-apology, her head pressed against his chest, cushioning her. She has never been as sleepy and he holds her in such a gentle embrace, it surely must be a dream. And for a long, exhausting moment, Uta’s mind wants to succumb to the saccharine lull of Slumber, to the tug of the World of Dreams.
The fresh scent of lavender oil, his favoured coconut hair gel and… rice crackers… ensnare her senses, and all she can do is remember.
Remember the commanding weight of his scarlet cloak hanging from her slender shoulders as she marched through the sanctified hallways and towers of Temple of Shangara; her voice resonating through the air like a clean slash of slaver’s whip as she ordered around the trainees and God's Knights alike, matching the cool, snide tone Grandfather liked to use.
(No one dared to protest, to deny her the right to rule, lest they risk their heads meeting the jaws of the Figarland patriarch.)
Remember the callousness of Grandfather's palm and the delicateness of his long fingers as he braided her hair, usually into the classic Figarland fashion similar to Uncle Sham’s, just adding more ribbons and loopies, to make her stand out—a rainbow mess of flowers and melody.
(No one dared to oppose Grandfather’s choices to leave her walking around in ‘commoner’s dresses’, lest their flayed hides would decorate his bedchamber.)
“I’m sorry.”
She glances up, amethyst eyes shining with unanswered questions, locking with his own hollow pair. This is… certainly not what she had expected. A thorough interrogation, or even one of his chastising talks that sound very cruel once you brush away the soothing tone of voice were more likely than a… sincere?—sincere apology.
Uta opens her mouth, then closes it again.
She bites down into her wobbly lower lip, soon tasting droplets of coppery flavour upon her tongue’s tip.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats a little bit louder.
Oh. Okay. No, wait. This… this is not okay.
Grandfather shouldn't apologize for anything (he should, he really, really should.) The tone he took, the weightlessness his words carry; a previously uncharted sea Uta has never sailed through, the fear of the unknown pressing down on her. It feels wrong. The apology. His tears.
Not him, she thinks, not Grandfather. He’s the embodiment of selfassurance, a man born into power and control, a commander who’d seen horrors beyond her imagination (she spares Elegia a brief thought before she shoves it deep, deep inside). He’s always so… so strong. Firm, like the walls of the sacred land, or the gateway to the Figarland Manor. He’s Grandfather.
“…what?” is all the red-haired diva manages to croak out, her voice breaking the queer silence, not unlike that akin to a cemetery, the single question soaring through the humid air upon uncertain wings.
“I should’ve known by then how kind-hearted of a child you are, how easily swayable your mind is by the agony that drenches the seas of the lower world. The afflictions and wailing of our lessers seized your heart and pulled you from the light of our home back here, to this… hellscape. If I had been more attentive and firm, you wouldn’t have had to suffer so much by the hands of these beasts.”
The words are broken shards of glass cutting her skin, flesh and heart, as the apology—or, whatever Grandfather thinks of as an apology—settles down within her mind, like a puddle of poison; served with quiet honesty, but leaving a terrible taste in Uta’s mouth.
She doesn't know what to say. No, she knows what she wants to say, but is cursing Grandfather's misunderstanding of her situation worth it? Is pushing him away truly what she wants?
Her mouth is an acidic hellscape, burning and raw, unable to produce worthy sound. The throat is still itching from the aftertaste of the wakeshrooms, and tongue is coarse and dry as dunes of Alabasta's desert.
Those damned tears of hers just won't stop coming. Grandfather’s tears stopped running… wait, since when? No matter. He isn’t crying anymore and that’s good.
Uta’s jaw clenches in effort to suppress the incoming yawn.
She hasn’t had a wakeshroom in a while, and now her body is starting to feel the effects; weariness keeps growing and spreading at a frightening pace, just like a fungus would, sharp ache pulsing around her temples and nape. Uta blinks thrice, her jaw working back and forth (a habit she learned from him) to force the pain away.
“Sweetling,” Uta doesn’t fight back as Grandfather carefully pries the dagger out of her trembling hands, “you have no need for it any longer.”
Uta frowns, knowing very well Grandfather is in the wrong here.
Can't he see she has to do this? Even if it'll break her heart, even if the guilt of killing her only friend will gnaw at her mind for the rest of her life, even if the self-inflicted grief suffocates her? Luffy is just like him—a pirate, he… he has to go.
If his rotting carrion will bring forth dawn of Uta’s New Genesis, the red-haired diva will gladly extract his still beating (kind) heart out of his chest.
Grandfather should understand. It’s Uta’s duty to the world and to the endless flock of sinning sheep crying out for her guiding hand (and for the world she’ll create once she sees this through.)
“I can’t, my people—” Ura protests, shaking her hand, but Grandfather cuts her off with a sharp sigh.
“No. Your people are waiting for you within the safety of our gilded halls.” His expression softens, just an edge. “Uta, sweetling, you cannot fix this broken place, there’s no need for your divine voice if it’ll fall on deaf ears. Please, let's go home.”
Grandfather kisses her forehead, a tradition of a bygone times when she was but a child of singular digits, silently crying through countless hollow nights as remnants of molted rubble and bloodless faces trailed after her like two persistent shadows. Yes, nightmares, she recalled having those. At least more than going through dreamless sleep.
She remembered nights with Grandfather’s form lying curled around her, a watchdog protecting its master’s vulnerable form, Uta using his forearm as a cushion, his scarlet cloak a blanket. There were no nightmares with Grandfather around. She was safe with him.
She’s still safe with him. (Right?)
“I… I can't! Don’t you understand? My work here isn’t over, I still need to create my utopia for all of humanity, to… to keep them safe from evils like pirates and wars and—and three hells!” Grandfather doesn’t bat an eye at her obvious curse. Odd. “All people inside the Sing Sing World are counting on me. I won’t give up on them or on my dream!”
Her hands frantically claw at the pitch-black overcoat of his uniform, yet failing to grasp it, as if the smooth fabric was tar or some other black oil, just trickling past her fingertips.
Uta bites her bottom lip in frustration, the unfairness of it all squeezing her chest, hard.
Why is he leaving her (again)?
Why Grandfather?
Why can't he stay?
Why couldn't they stay?
Uta’s eyes bulge as an abrupt rush of fatigue gets a firm hold of her body. The faint echo of her aching nape turns into a pulsing bruise. Uta grits her teeth, trying to keep all of herself together, even as her eyelids grow heavy. She has to stay awake. For the world. For her people (subjects, followers, devotees.)
The basket. Yes. All she needs is the basket and the irritating buzzing and fuzzy vision will go away. The basket… the wakeshrooms. Just one more.
One more. Just to taste the melting saccharine energy pulse on her tongue. To chew through its gummy texture, to not succumb to Slumber’s siren song.
Just one more.
Yes, one more.
One more.
Her body grows numb. She can barely speak, her throat’s burning, the sensation akin swallowing a handful of coals from breathing hearth. She tastes salt and copper on her tongue—blood fills her gaping mouth. The metallic taste makes her stomach twist like a wet rag and she resists the urge to retch.
“…ne more.”
That's all she needs.
Just give her one more.
Please.
“Uta. Uta, can you hear me?” a voice cries out her name—Grandfather?—but the sound of it is… distant. As if she has been plunged underwater and he’s calling out to her from the surface.
Powerful hands squeeze her shoulders, with the careful sort of firmness one would expect from a baker. Uta wants to snort. She's not made of porcelain… silly Grandfather. She's not going to break, she’s… one hell of a girl.
“You must tell me what is happening right now… No! No, sweetling, don’t fall asleep. Stay with me, Uta, yes? Good. Don't fall asleep, not yet, you shan’t leave me.”
“Grandfatther? Can… Can we go and play cards? I bet… I could still beat you if you just… let me,” Uta mumbles, spittles of blood staining his spottles garb. A twinge of guilt washes over her. “But not now… need… sleep more.”
Everything surrounding the two of them dulls in tone and shade, as if some divine power drained colour and life from everything, organic or not.
From the corner of her eye, Uta catches a small blotch of red-and-blue lying within a puddle of murky water, close enough to reach out to.
Luffy.
An acute tone rings through the air, and even Uta, drowsy as she is at the moment, wrinkles her nose in disgust, before burying her face further into the lavender fragrance.
She gags.
The air reeks of death, and the familiar scent is accompanied by a thick smell of lead and gunpowder. The humidity and mud-soaked ground only cloys the once crispy afternoon further.
Another shot bursts through the veil of rain. And another. And then a ten, dozen, twenty, fifty, hundred.
A never ending onslaught of bullets, a hail of hellish creations resonate through the world, soon followed by the cries of those who fall.
Red. Everywhere she looks.
Grandfather's talking, but she’s too tired to listen. What a shame. He always had such a nice voice. The perfect pitch for a storyteller. A shame indeed.
She reaches out one last time, gathering whatever strength she has left in her body. With all her might, she moves her arm, fingers brushing against what might be Grandfather's cheek. Not in a goodbye. Just a see you later.
Something coarse and crumbling passes through her fingers. She perks up at the stench of dusty papers, the sound of crawling melody that rots man’s heart and infernal echo it leaves in its wake stir something within her one last time, before the cold embrace of unconsciousness welcomes her with open arms and a smile with thousands of sword-shaped teeth.
Uta sails into the lake of darkness upon a boat that bears no light, all alone and with no true destination, it sails and sails towards an endlessly expanding horizon of null—her dream crushed beneath the weight of her own mortality.
It’s quiet down here, blissfully silent in ways the waking world never was. She doesn’t miss the constant noise, not really. This change is almost nice. In a way, it feels like her own personal heaven. Just her and the comforting silence, and darkness with no end.
Then, as if the unkind mistress known as fate wasn’t merciless enough…
Uta listens as the world shatters into a million pieces.
The Song of Ruin echoes through the dead soil of Elegia, carried on by a voice that demands, rather than summons, as if Tot Musica isn't a sacred rite but a really long call to Hell.
ᚷᚨᚺ ᛉᚨᚾ ᛏᚨᚲ ᚷᚨᚺ ᛉᚨᚾ ᛏᚨᛏ ᛏᚨᛏ ᛒᚱᚨᚲ
ᚷᚨᚺ ᛉᚨᚾ ᛏᚨᚲ ᚷᚨᚺ ᛉᚨᚾ ᛏᚨᛏ ᛏᚨᛏ ᛒᚱᚨᚲ
Uta stirs within a sea of living, bubbling obscurity, floating aimlessly within its coiling and loving depths. Her eyes are wide open, staring up ahead into the vortex of thousand eyes and teeth and music sheets, as it twists into swirls and burns horrific images past her eyelids.
She's alive. Alive and breathing, with no sandpaper for tongue or cold liquid iron flooding her mouth.
And yet, her body is completely still, frozen in time, watching from nowhere and everywhere at once as the world Unravels beneath the Hymn of Reclamation, tearing itself apart to welcome new order.
Wandering heart, clouds above
Rain begins to fall down
Uta can see through His lone eye, even from the solitary depths of His prison.
All Blue cracks like a chicken's egg. A slow, painful death to a once beautiful world bearing thousand blue hues.
Earth's blood; a crimson, liquid fire, sizzles through the root-shaped cracks that spin around the globe, enveloping the crust and cape like a titanic cobweb.
It spills right into the Four Seas, the raging waves howling like pack of wolves, the melody of their untimely decay rising and boiling, nearing its wicked crescendo.
The ocean’s dyed black and green and in all shades of yellow a human eye sees, all colours of a new unified dynasty, one Grandfather is currently singing to existence, the Moon’s fall nearly as terrible in its nature as the Star God’s.
The ancient rot that has settled among greenery and snowscapes, and mountains, and dunes is being cleansed alongside old blood grievances. There’s no place for petty grudges and animosity in the world all three of them shall create. And if there are foolish non-believers with venom in their Souls who believe in those outdated ideals, then allow their meaningless lives to be swallowed by the Tide of Oncoming Change.
My bitter tears flowing out, they never dry up
I let the words of a curse be my deliverance
She’s unprepared for the white-hot pain that comes crashing into her from all sides, as words—her words, His words—are forcefully plucked out of her very Soul, harvested by a man who… oh. His voice. The bargain. Uta nearly forgot.
Father, she thinks, you sly bastard.
Grandfather’s voice grinds her bones into powder, twists her muscles until they blend together into a cacophony of unrecognizable pattern, and tears at her flesh and skin, ripping apart sinews with ease of a puppeteer controlling his marionettes.
Uta doesn’t scream, for her voice has been stolen.
Her mind unfurls from the inside, a tapestry of both beautiful colors and monochronic tones, its threads pulled one by one; her life flashes before her eyes like a silent film.
Uta doesn’t cry, for she has no eyes to weep with.
The colourful hell that embraces her so warmly ripples beneath her, brushing against her back, before it slowly rises in small streams, encircling her from all sides.
Uta doesn’t fight back, for she has no body, no senses, only terror and rage as her spirit is the only remnant of herself, an echo of a god.
The form it takes is all that's vile and repulsive, the liquid darkness morphing into precise, anatomically correct and symmetrical shapes, the sort that makes bile claw up Uta's no longer existing throat.
Hundred dozen of tiny hands crawl all over her, claiming her, sinking her deeper into His endless love—
Uta only lays still and listens, her hopes she has built over the years, an era for New Genesis now outshone by the thundering rage of the bleeding Moon.
Uta is dying.
Garling knows that with a certainty of someone who files a constant like hunger, unemployment and death for granted.
He’d been a boy once, the kind whose eyes had glanced past the gravestones of his late parents with an impassive look bordering on boredom, his then eleven-year-old face seemingly carved from the same pristine marble as their shared tomb.
He had no sorrow to spare, no flowers to decorate their resting place with. He found it pointless, even back then. Why should he remain stuck in the past? And for what? For two grown-ups who paid him no heed even when he demanded their attention? Pointless, all of it.
Uta is, by all means, a different case. If his father and mother were pieces of cheap South Blue copper, then Uta was a delicate diamond-studded tiara, worth more than Ope Ope no Mi and Gura Gura no Mi combined. In other words, she was perfect.
Clever, sharp and strong-willed with a silver tongue and many, many unsettling opinions about slavery and how free labour is a myth constructed to serve the higher classes. Many found her too wild and too feisty to be considering a saintess. Garling found her entertaining—a breath of fresh air, above all else.
Because, as heavens preordained, Uta is the embodiment of his legacy, of the pristine slate that’s his peculiarly woven family tree. She’s his granddaughter.
And now she’s dying in his arms.
Garling looks around, and in what must’ve been nearly four decades, properly examines the Lower Realm and what an awful and crude place it truly is.
The sight before him reeks of imperfection; the hills and forests are all asymmetrical blend of dozen unmixable flavours—that pine is too tall, that moss-covered boulder too jagged on its left side, that tuft of grass greyer and sadder than the rest of its unsavory brethren.
The air down here’s putrid, unlike the crisp freshness of the sacred land, each gulp of this… toxic gas makes Garling’s stomach churn. And the sky, gods, don’t get him started on the weeping flocks of woolen clouds. A truly abysmal sight.
Disgusting wretched hellscape that has stolen from him more than it had any right to own.
A hand, smaller and colder than his own lightly presses against his cheek, a tender touch, one a man of his station is unfamiliar with.
Garling’s gaze locks with her one amethyst iris and the fading light that just… disappears. The hand falls down. Uta’s body grows cold.
And something inexplicable shatters within Saint Figarland Garling. Quietly. Unhurried. As if the force that took hold of his all-too-still form is a lighthouse, guiding his ship through the ocean of internal turmoil; his emotions.
Garling has no words, no appropriate drawer to file those indescribable thoughts into. This numbness isn’t exactly new, but the amount of it crushing everything inside of him is… Higher than anticipated.
Garling’s mouth opens.
Instead of a choked sob or a shaken sigh, a reaction from a man of his post that could be considered inappropriately emotional, a howl not unlike that of a wounded animal resonates through the rotting place.
The scream is loud and gutwrenching, and the sheer volume makes the Figarland patriarch double over, lungs and throat burning. His arms cradle Uta in a bone-crushing embrace. He’s out of breath by the end, red-faced and trembling. Garling doesn’t care.
He sucks in a deep measured breath...
...And he screams again, louder this time, pouring all of his pain, his rage and grief into his voice, and the raw agony that has been inflicted upon him grow into words, then sentences that blossom into threats, his eyes blazing as he stares past the endless flow of snow-white uniforms firing at the masses of sleep-walking men.
There’re no remaining tears to be shed, only burning rage to be honed and weaponized into something (self)destructive, then pointed at the cause of Garling’s festering fury.
For there’s a world, a heartless sinful monstrosity of badly bred creatures in need of annihilation.
Numbly, Garling blindly reaches out for his saber, his resolution to destroy everything and everyone unwavering, as the sight of Uta’s ashen face carves into his memory.
And yet. His searching hand finds something else entirely. Its surface is coarse and bears marks of aging upon each slim sheet of, what he assumes, is papyrus, some edges bent if not crumbling, each corner bearing identical angle on all four sides.
Without looking down, Garling grasps the ancient sheets, his otherwise carefully measured grip now tight enough to make his knuckles grow pale.
Garling glances up, towards the swirling vortex of grey clouds and wonders, his mind strangely silent.
‘Will this bring her back?’
As expected, there’s no response. However, for a split second, the music sheets grew warmer in his hand. A reassurance. A maybe. Yet it’s enough to convince him to… well.
‘If she truly dreamt of ushering in a new age,’ Garling neatly spreads out the yellowing pages upon the mud-soaked ground, ‘then I’ll be the first voice of the choir to hail forth the impending doom.’
Saint Figarland Garling opens his mouth and finally, after a decade of waiting, fulfills his part of the divine bargain.
ᚷᚨᚺ ᛉᚨᚾ ᛏᚨᚲ ᚷᚨᚺ ᛉᚨᚾ ᛏᚨᛏ ᛏᚨᛏ ᛒᚱᚨᚲ
ᚷᚨᚺ ᛉᚨᚾ ᛏᚨᚲ ᚷᚨᚺ ᛉᚨᚾ ᛏᚨᛏ ᛏᚨᛏ ᛒᚱᚨᚲ
The words that form on his tongue are in a language he doesn’t recognize, but the emotion trapped within those lyrics are intimate enough for him to claim understanding.
The world around him changes with a mighty burst of Conqueror’s Haki; a beautiful symphony of his divine will and the absolute untouchable might that is His own.
For the first time in two years, Garling smiles.
Wandering heart, clouds above
Rain begins to fall down
He’s weightless, a flesh-sewn form but a mere illusion of one’s mind as a pair of charchoal-coloured wings sprout from his back. Feathers as sleek and as sharp as daggers allow him to rise to the darkening heavens with one mighty sweep, the limp form of his granddaughter cradled against his chest.
My bitter tears flowing out, they never dry up
I let the words of a curse be my deliverance
He sings the world anew, unmakes its ugliness and grows paradise from the old order’s ashen soil.
ᛗᛁᛖ ᚾᛖᚷ ᛟᚾ ᚷᛁᛖᚲ ᚷᛁᛖᚲ
Garling sings, his voice an undulating disharmony of low and high notes, remaking time and space into a painting of his own vision of perfection.
The sheets dance around his head, before the order is remade and for a singular moment, they are a halo designed for a fallen deity, before they continue their joyful waltz.
His untamed rage, newfound grief and malice blaze from within his very Soul, the power of the Echo flowing through his mortal form, pouring into the cursed words that deny reason and laws of nature the right to exist.
His voice is a commander’s order, a man’s prayer and grandfather’s vengeful symphony.
The world around him bursts into flames.
Figarland Garling laughs.
ᚾᚨᚺ ᛈᚺᚨᛋ ᛏᛖᛉᛉᛖ ᛚᚨᚺ
Garling sings, and the Grand Line splits in half, the Four Seas parting in understanding, their watery bodies bending beneath the force of His awakening.
The wound grows wider, small scars stretching into canyons with unfathomable depth, and soon enough, magma pulses from the fresh wound like blood, smearing across All Blue's crust, laying waste to all that stands in its destructive path.
These ancient words like a hymn of reclamation
Not even death will escape them
Garling blinks, and he’s no longer a herald of oncoming doom soaring through the wild, thunder-loved storm that blasts through the makeshift island, but standing upon a theatre’s stage, embraced by enormous set pieces painted to resemble fallen pillars, dozen golden eyes and purple-and-blue flames.
Eyes, millions of glassy eyes stare up at him in reverence, mesmerized by the one who replaced the red-and-white haired martyr, whose still weight no longer troubles the silent Commander.
A microphone stands in the center of the stage, bathed in a cone-shaped beam of light. It’s no sword and he’s no muse. He picks it up anyway, the shape and coolness of the metal throat strangely familiar in his hand.
How to center these troubled thoughts? I pray
Can the future bring calm to the sea? I beg
Then comes a sound unlike any other.
A choir of billions blended into one, a sound so pure and yet so awful to one's ears, a howling storm and a breeze within a magical oasis, clash of polar opposites, creating a fragile union between discord and harmony.
It’s the sound of a mad and beautiful god whose first embrace with freedom comes with unhinged yet completely sincere delight lacing His laughter.
The frail barrier between reality and madness shatters.
Tot Musica is free.
It's time for salvation to finally come
I feel this rage, and I'm feelin' it strong
This weeping and wailing has gone far too long
Nothing left but to yеll! Yeah! Yeah!
Garling screams into the mic, his scarlet eyes shining with loud retribution, one hand reaching out towards the wailing crowd, fingers resembling claws that intend to pluck all these unfortunate souls and squeeze, before they clench into a fist.
The stage lights up with an awesome burst of purple-and-blue wall of flames, bathing the hollow faces of Uta’s “fans” with unholy light.
I know you feel it too so keep on singin' this song
Even whеn they abuse us, we'll keep singin' along
We'll start another big bang when we all sing as one
United, we're fightin', bring 'em down with our song of ruin
It's the soft brush of ice-cold fingertips that wake her from her slumber, pulling her out from the dreamless haze of purgatory, back into the beautiful divine light of the living world.
Uta exhales a startled gasp, her purple lips parted, eyes bulging; a frightened rabbit caught in a snare. Alive. Gods above, she’s… oh. Oh no. She died. For a moment, she… no.
Not die, Avatars can’t die unless—Oh.
Well. No matter, this isn’t important right now.
Carefully, Uta plants her hands flat onto the ground—grass, soft thin blades that tickle her flushed skin and thick soil that smells quite alright as she frantically looks around, searching for the cold hand that brought her back.
No one. She’s certainly no longer surrounded with the sleeping carcasses of her beloved fans or the marching children with guns and Justice written on their backs, shooting into the crowds. Grandfather isn’t here either. Which is obviously bad.
Uta takes a deep breath, her lips stretching into an uneasy grin as the crisp air of early morning fills her no longer empty lungs, yet the abruptness of the movement—Three hells, but she feels so stiff!—forces a choked groan out of her heaving chest.
Okay. She has lungs. And hands. And the rest of her body. Good. That’s good! She’s no longer… well.
Blinking once, then twice for the measure, as if to reassure herself, Uta’s eyes, momentarily blinded by the broad stream of blooming sunlight, take in her strange surroundings.
The sky above is a mixture of warm, friendly looking hues of red and orange, streaks of gold and pink dancing and reshaping the heavens to the whims of the tender melody echoing through the air. There’s no clouds in sight, which is quite a relief, but the sun is… well, to say odd would be an understatement.
It isn’t a physical presence that brought light and life upon the piece of this lit up land. It resembles a crude painting child would’ve made upon a greasy surface of an empty bottle of rum. Surreal. Imperfect. An oddity that is beyond the word ugly.
Uta doesn’t mind. She’d seen stranger things when she sailed with the Akagami—no. Nope. Not unpacking that.
The azure grass that sings about marching ants and dancing hoppers, and lurking nightmares that feast on your fears beneath starless sky; she doesn’t mind it either. The delicate blades reach up to her knees, carrying the fresh scent of summer and peppermint—hm, a lovely combination.
Uta pushes herself upwards, slowly steadying herself up on her wobbly feet. Her muscles wail in protest as she does, but she spares the strain little to no thought whatsoever.
It’s a hilltop’s crown, the place she woke up on. And beneath the hill upon the endless plain of—she squints harder—of houses! Oh! There’s a city down there, which means people, which means Uta’s certainly not alone! Huzzah.
And surrounded by the quaint blotches of dozen colours lays a lake.
Uta tilts her head in bewilderment once she takes a better look at it. It’s shaped like a—a rabbit? Yes, its smooth and wobbly contour somewhat resembles a hopping rabbit—but instead of murky, sweet water one would expect from an inland mini-sea, the rabbit lake’s filled with milk instead.
Huh, Uta wonders, would it taste like milk if she took a sip?
Well, white lake and rainbow-ish city itself isn’t as absorbing attraction as the crooked tower sprouting from what appears to be the rabbit’s left ear.
The asymmetrical nightmare of swirling structure grows tall and proud, in near semblance to the World’s abyss-coloured crown. Its thick façade branches out into all sides like pale fungus, the sharp angles glowing beneath the artificial sunlight in gold-and-violet shades. From what Uta can count, there’re at least a hundred windows from this side, with twenty nine smaller cone-shaped roofs covering the tinier mini-towers branching from the main one.
It sings a song of home; warm bed, freshly brewed tea, books and musical den dens all stacked upon servant-made shelves, just waiting to be read and heard.
Uta bites the inside of her cheek. Now’s not the time to feel sentimental. She must find Grandfather, before—
A growl, not unlike that of a rabid dog resonates through the hilltop, its low pitch thick with a clear warning; Leave or die.
Uta yelps as a scalding puff of awfully smelling breath—is that wine?—washes all over her back, and she turns around, facing the beast that dares to threaten the Avatar in what certainly must be her domain.
Uta’s body freezes at the sight, her face paling, not from terror or anger. In recognition.
The creature is a titan in size, surely as tall, if not taller, than Red Line itself. Its mighty silhouette’s enhanced by a thick lining of golden sunlight, painting its unsightly appearance in a saint’s light. The creature resembles a wolf, but Uta is acutely aware this thing isn’t meant to be a wolf and has never been a wolf before, and the red-haired diva thinks the creature growling down at her knows it as well.
It's as if someone dressed a wainscot in a wolf’s spelt, but didn’t quite adjust it to fit in properly. It resembles a wolf, but only if you avoid looking at the glaring inconsistencies in its design; how the head is too large and too narrow around the sharp-pointed snout; or how there should be only two pairs of legs, there’s six instead, the hind ones thrice the mass of their counterparts; or how its tail is too long and too smooth, resembling a horsetail in structure. Or that wolves have only two eyes, not three, the third glaring down at her from the creature’s forehead.
The wolf’s not a wolf, never has been a wolf and it doesn’t seem to know how to act like a wolf.
This unsettles Uta more than it has any right to.
The beast’s sharp pupils dilate at the sight of her, the white circles nearly filling up the scarlet sclera. The deep, rumbling growl fades into the morning, replacing the ominous sound with tired huffs as the beast thankfully closes its waiting maw.
Uta finds its silence far more unsettling than its threats as empty as they were.
(Just like someone else she knows.)
With an elegant ripple of fur-covered muscles, the beast lays down, cocking its head downwards to get a better look at her, its three eyes—ew, they don’t blink at the same time—fixed upon her.
Painted sunlight brushes against the left side of the beast’s crudely sung-made face, and…
Wait. Oh, three hells. She hasn’t noticed them before.
Crimson-tinted shades, still humansized, unbroken and most importantly still there glint from where they sit near the tip of the thing’s half-opened maw.
Uta suppresses a startling snort, hand clasping her mouth. They look like grandma’s opera glasses, worn out as they are, and on it—on him, because those are his shades—look exceptionally funny.
Uta cocks her head to the left.
Amusingly, the beast does the same, long forked tip of a tongue no wolf should possess, licking the left canine with dutiful care of a knight polishing his sword.
A genuine smile blooms on her face, relief washing over her as she carefully approaches the beast who, apparently, used to be the Supreme Commander of God’s Knights—or perhaps still is, human intelligence glinting in that three-eyed glare.
With an extra care, Uta places a gentle hand against Grandfather’s fur-lined jaw, burying her fingers into the thick, soft tufts of pale gold, patting a spot right there.
“Hello, Grandfather,” she whispers, forehead brushing against the fur.
“Uta,” a monstrous voice replies, its distorted decadence shaken by bestial unmaking yet still his as her name tumbles from the parted maw, thousand jagged teeth glinting in morning’s light. “I’ve done it. Your utopia. It’s here.”
“You are here,” Uta half-sobs, “and that’s all that matters right now. We can… we can figure out the rest later, okay?”
Grandfather blinks down at her, before he nods with his enormous head, the horsetail wagging twice or thrice in small delight.
“As you wish.”
Uta giggles before she buries her face against his own.
Yes, they’ll figure something out, but now… Now it’s just the two of them inside a strange yet familiar world, their tender silence accompanied by a distant echo of a waiting God’s violin.