Still in Sanza's arms, young Uta lifts her head and looks around. She watches Shanks and Jannali hold Tot Musica at bay—the demon's body convulsing, Jannali's spear burning bright, the air itself wailing.
Young Uta goes still. "I can't hear him."
Sanza meets her eyes. "We should go."
Young Uta's voice comes out small. "But I'm scared."
Sanza smiles. "Don't worry. I won't let anything bad happen. I promise!"
Young Uta sniffles. Tears well along her lashes.
Sanza asks softly, "Do you trust me?"
Young Uta presses her lips together. She scrubs at her eyes. Then she nods.
Sanza takes her hand. "Whatever you do, don't let go."
Young Uta gives a solemn little nod.
Sanza draws a breath and shuts his eyes, reaching for the waking world—for everyone waiting, for the lab, for the way home. And then—
They vanish from the stage.
Tot Musica screeches—a sound of fury and loss, of something precious torn from its grip.
Shanks glances at the empty patch of stage where Sanza and Uta stood a heartbeat ago. The corner of his mouth lifts. "Guess it didn't like that. Nice job, kid."
Jannali swears. "Oh no you don't, you bloody, grumpy bastard!"
She drops her spear in a downward slash. Tot Musica is cleaved across the torso, a smoking gash splitting its body in two.
Shanks asks, "What do you say we finish this up and get out of here?"
"That's a good shout," Jannali says.
---
Sanza leads young Uta by the hand through a wide cavern. Moisture glistens on the walls. The air bites with cold. Far ahead, a point of light burns steady—the way out.
But the walls are not empty.
Hands push out of the rock. Pale, wasted fingers twitch and brush against their arms, their legs, their faces, plucking at clothes, at hair, at skin. They are cold. They are clammy. They are hungry.
Young Uta screams.
Sanza looks down. "Hold on tight! We are almost there!"
He lifts his eyes to the light—and feels a tug on his arm.
He looks back down.
The hands have her. They coil around her waist, her legs, her arms, and drag her toward the wall. She is pinned fast.
"Sanza!"
Sanza's jaw clenches. His eyes flare red and gold—the colors of the Byakko, the colors of his blood.
"LET HER GO!"
Golden light floods over them both. The hands fall away—not torn loose, not cut, but coming apart, flaking into drifting ash until nothing remains.
Young Uta smiles.
"We are almost there," Sanza tells her.
Young Uta nods, beaming.
The light ahead swells. Sanza looks back one last time.
Young Uta is gone.
In her place is teenage Uta—taller now, her red-and-white hair grown long, her eyes carrying years the little girl never had. Her hand is still in his, and she gives him a radiant smile.
---
Uta's eyes flutter open.
Hongo's face swims into view above her. "UTA!"
Uta manages a weak smile. Her voice is a dry rasp. "Hongo."
Beckman leans over her. Uta forces the words out. "Beckman. Is this real?"
Beckman nods, holding his expression carefully steady. "Yeah, kid. It's real."
A tiger's face appears over her—Sanza's. Uta smiles and pushes the words past her dry throat. "Sanza, is that you?"
The tiger grins and bobs his head eagerly. "See? I told you!"
Uta's smile widens. "You are so cute!"
Sanza's striped brow creases. "I am not cute! I am the—"
Sanza sways on his feet. Then he topples over.
Uta's voice catches. "Sanza...?"
Hongo hurries to the boy's side. Sanza lies unconscious, his body already shifted back into human form. Hongo presses two fingers to his neck. "He's okay. He's just exhausted."
"Why can't I move?" Uta asks.
Hongo leans back into view. "Your muscles are weak from lack of use. We just have to build up your strength again."
"Okay," Uta murmurs. "Can we go then?"
Shanks stirs, his eyes opening. He finds Law. "NOW!"
Law nods. "All of you, stand back."
Law flicks his wrist. A small orb, clouded with black aura and throbbing with dark energy, tears free from Uta's core.
Shanks rises. Beckman tips his head toward Jannali, still deep in her trance. "What about...?"
"She's keeping the demon's psyche at bay so he can work," Shanks says.
Shanks looks to Sanza—out cold, his chest rising and falling evenly. "What about...?"
Beckman exhales smoke. "Passed out."
Shanks nods. "Makes sense. He was impressive in there."
Beckman's mouth quirks. "Living up to the family name."
Uta's voice scrapes out of her throat. "Shanks."
Shanks is at her side in an instant. He looks down at her. "Hey."
Uta's lips curve faintly. "You came for me."
Shanks smiles and brushes a strand of hair off her forehead. "Of course I did. You are my daughter."
Hongo cuts in. "We need to get her out of here."
Sweat beads and slides down Law's face. His focus never leaves the sphere of dark aura hovering before him, and he speaks through gritted teeth. "We can't move her yet. I have to get rid of this thing, and it's fighting me to get back in."
Bepo pipes up. "Um, Captain..."
Law snaps, "Not now, Bepo. Can't you see I'm busy?"
Bepo tries again. "Yeah, but, um, we..."
Eliane's scream jerks every head upward.
"LET ME GO!"
---
The group is surrounded.
Clones of Uta and Gordon pour into the chamber—dozens, then hundreds. And not all of them are whole.
Some are grotesque. Malformed. Half-made.
One Uta clone wears a face as smooth as an egg—no eyes yet, only a lipless slit for a mouth. Another has arms that fork into smaller arms, fingers budding from fingers like tangled roots. A Gordon clone hauls itself forward on legs that bend in three places, torso wrenched sideways, head lolling at an angle no neck should allow.
These are the failed experiments. The discarded drafts. The ones that were never meant to wake.
Beckman lets a slow curl of smoke escape his lips. He draws his pistol. "Looks like we pissed it off."
Law barks, "You are going to have to hold them off!"
Shanks surges to his feet. Beckman catches his arm. "I know that look. Remember, we are underground. If you cut loose, then the whole place comes falling down on us."
Shanks shoots him a hard look. He tugs his arm loose. "I know that."
Beckman's eyes narrow. "Do you?"
Then they move.
---
Beckman fires first. His pistol cracks—once, twice, three times—and each round punches through a clone's skull. They drop. They dissolve. He reloads without hurry, his hands steady with decades of practice.
Bepo charges. His huge paws sweep in wide arcs, bursting clones into scraps of dream-stuff. Electro crackles to life, blue lightning crawling through his fur, and every blow sends another clone cartwheeling into the wall.
Shanks is everywhere at once. Griffon flashes—not with the sweeping Haki he unleashed on Tot Musica, but in tight, measured strokes. He cuts. He parries. He threads through the horde without wasting a single motion.
Eliane hangs back at the rear, bamboo sword clutched in both hands, her fingers clenched bloodless, her knees knocking. A clone lunges at her. She swings. PAKOON! The bamboo cracks against its skull, and it staggers. She swings again. And again. Her face is screwed up in concentration, her silver ponytail lashing at her cheeks.
Bepo bellows, "CAPTAIN!"
A clone breaks through and rushes Law.
Eliane panics.
Her eyes go huge. The flame on her back flares—not a spark, not a flicker, but a BURST.
"NO!"
Fire pours out of her and rolls across the chamber, a white-hot tide that swallows every clone it touches. They shriek. They burn. They crumble to ash.
Law's sphere—Tot Musica, caged and still fighting—catches fire. The dark aura writhes inside it. It screeches.
The clone pods and control panels go up in flames. Glass cracks. Shatters. Blows apart.
Eliane wails, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to!"
Everyone stares at her.
Then the ceiling starts to come down.
Jannali's eyelids flicker. She surfaces from her trance and takes in the blaze, the crumbling ceiling, the bedlam all around her.
"Bloody hell! What are ya all hanging around for? Let's piss off out of here!"
Shanks nods. "Right! Hongo, carry Uta!"
Law shouts to Bepo. "Grab Sanza!"
Hongo gathers Uta into his arms. Bepo scoops up Sanza.
Shanks roars, "Everyone, let's move!"
Eliane falls in beside Jannali at a run, sniffling.
Jannali asks, "What's got your knickers in a twist?"
Eliane glances up. "I accidentally blew up the lab."
Bepo lopes up beside them, an unconscious Sanza in his arms. "That was amazing! You saved everyone!"
Eliane gives a wet sniff. "It was? I did?"
Law, out in front, snaps over his shoulder, "Keep moving! We can hug it out later!"
A beam slams down at their backs.
---
The group spills out of the lab's entrance.
In the distance, Tot Musica still towers over everything—a peak of shadow and sound, still fighting, still howling.
Uta's eyes are drifting shut, her head resting against Hongo's chest, as Law turns to him. "I will call for a mini-sub. We can take them both to the Pluton and we can treat them there."
Hongo nods.
Law pulls out a Den Den Mushi. He glances over his shoulder. "Bepo, keep up!"
Clear of the lab, Shanks stops short. He turns on his heel. He reaches for Griffon.
Beckman notices. He looks back. "Shanks."
Shanks ignores him. He swings Griffon.
"Divine Devastation."
A vast arc of Haki breaks loose and floods the lab.
It surges forward with a will of its own—Conqueror's fury given an edge, a violence only an Emperor can command. It rips through stone and steel. It shatters glass and bone. Nothing it touches survives.
And in its wake, a spectral griffin—enormous, shrieking, wings flung wide—soars through the collapsing structure. Its beak splits support beams. Its talons gouge through control panels. Its wings hammer the walls, and the walls give way.
The lab caves in and blows outward in the same instant.
When the dust settles, only smoke and rubble remain.
Shanks turns to Beckman. "Let's get out of here!"