Chapter Text
The words clattered around inside Uta’s head, smashing into each other, cutting and bruising her from the inside out.
"It was you."
She sat slumped against the wall, knees pulled to her chest, staring blankly at the cracked marble floor. Her fingers curled into her sleeves, twisting the fabric over and over as if she could somehow anchor herself with the pain.
"You released the demon."
"You destroyed Elegia."
Her.
Not Shanks. Not his crew. Not pirates sweeping through the city like a tsunami of terror and senseless bloodshed.
Her.
The memories flooded back now that the truth had been unearthed — bright, searing flashes she had buried deep. The strange, dark melody hidden in the forbidden song. The way her voice had seemed to stretch and twist in the air when she sang it. The panic, the screaming, the devastation. And Shanks… He hadn’t destroyed the island. He had saved it — saved her — and left carrying a crime that wasn’t his to bear.
Uta pressed her forehead against her knees, her breath shaking. Rage warred with shame, terror with unbearable guilt.
"They lied to protect you," Gordon had said, voice low and heavy with sorrow. "We all did. We just did what we thought was best for you.”
She hated them for it. She hated herself more.
Somewhere, beneath the guilt and the rage, something dark stirred.
"It would be so easy," it whispered. "Finish it. End it."
The song still existed. She could feel it humming in the back of her mind, oily and sweet. The forbidden notes thrummed through her veins like a sickness she couldn’t shake.
"Just a few words," the demon crooned inside her skull. "A few notes, and you can make it right. Destroy the monster you’ve become."
Tears spilled hot and fast down her cheeks. She was broken. Poisonous. She didn’t deserve to exist. Not after what she had done. Her fingers dug into the stone, nails scraping uselessly.
A shadow fell over her.
“Uta,” came a soft voice — warm, familiar, unbearably kind.
Calypso.
Of course she was here. She was always here.
Uta squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could disappear into the stone. "Go away."
Instead, Calypso sat down beside her. The silence was thick, until it became unbearable.
"I found the song," Uta said hollowly, not lifting her head. "A forbidden one. I sang it when I was little. I thought… I thought it was just another lullaby." She laughed bitterly. "I destroyed everything. Everyone. And they made me believe it was someone else." She turned, finally, to look at Calypso — to make her see the monster she was. "You should hate me."
But Calypso didn’t flinch. Didn’t look disgusted. She simply reached out and took Uta’s trembling hands in her own.
"I could never hate you," she said quietly. "You were a child. You didn’t know."
"I killed them," Uta whispered, choking on the words. "I killed them all, Calypso."
"No," Calypso said firmly. "The demon killed them. You were tricked. Lied to. Manipulated. Just like you're being tricked right now."
Uta shook her head violently. "No one’s tricking me anymore!"
But even as she said it, she could feel it — the dark whisper slithering in the back of her mind, pushing, pushing—
"Sing it again," it hissed. "Sing it and let yourself be free."
"Listen to me, Uta," Calypso said, her voice cutting through the fog. She cupped Uta’s face gently, forcing her to meet her eyes. "That thing is lying to you. It’s using your pain. It doesn’t want to help you — it wants to finish what it started."
Uta trembled like a leaf in a storm. "I don’t know how to stop it."
"You don't have to do it alone," Calypso assured gently. "You have me. You have King Gordon. And you have Shanks and the others, even if they’re a little farther away.”
"But the song—" Uta gasped. "It's inside me, Calypso. It's part of me now."
Calypso smiled — small, sad, but determined. "Then let's tear it out together."
The old music hall was one of the few structures that still stood tall among Elegia’s ruins. Its stained-glass windows were shattered, and its grand piano lay in splinters, but the stage remained — a battered, weary survivor.
Uta stood on the stage, clutching the ancient sheet music that contained the forbidden song. The worn-out parchment trembled in her hands.
"You don’t have to do this," Gordon said from the foot of the stage, his voice thick with emotion.
"I do," Uta said, her voice stronger than she felt. "I have to end it."
Beside her, Calypso nodded. They had crafted some sort of counter-song together — a melody drawn from light and love and the stubborn refusal to fall to despair. It was simple, just a few, pure notes, but it should be enough – it had to be. After all, the demon had been imprisoned by music. Why couldn’t it be destroyed by it, too? And if anyone could do it, it would be Uta.
Uta closed her eyes.
She could feel the darkness stirring, recoiling in fury, sensing its end. It screamed and clawed inside her, urging her to flee, to surrender.
Instead, she lifted her voice.
At first it was only a whisper — shaky, uncertain. But Gordon was there – her mentor, her guardian, her family. And Calypso was there too, a stranger turned friend. Her first friend.
The forbidden song thrashed, twisting inside her like a wild beast caught in a net. Uta gritted her teeth, forcing the notes out, her body trembling with the effort. Light burst through the cracks of the music hall, filling the space with a radiance that burned away the shadows clinging to her heart.
The demon’s wail rose to a fever pitch — and then, with a final cry, it shattered.
The music sheet in Uta’s hands crumbled into dust, carried away on a sudden breeze.
It was over.
She collapsed to her knees, gasping, the weight of it all crashing over her. Relief, grief, exhaustion — a tide too big to hold back. And Calypso was suddenly there, steady and sure, gathering her into a fierce hug.
"You did it," she simply whispered. "You’re free, now."
For the first time in what felt like forever, Uta allowed herself to believe it.
They sat together at the top of the hill overlooking the bay, watching the sunset bleed gold and crimson across the sky.
"I have to leave," Uta said after a long silence.
Calypso turned to her, unsurprised.
"I need to find Shanks," Uta added, voice tight with emotion. "I need to see him—all of them, really.”
"You deserve answers," Calypso said gently.
"I’m still angry with them," Uta confessed. “There’s still hate. I understand, but a part of me still wants to rip them apart. Is that weird?”
Calypso smiled a little at that. “I think hate is just the heart’s way of shielding itself from pain too pure to handle. And like all wounds, it can fester if left untreated. It can still heal, but it’s gonna take a while longer, is all.”
Uta hummed in understanding. They sat in silence for a while longer, the breeze tugging at their hair, the sound of the waves below a steady heartbeat.
Finally, Uta turned to her, suddenly determined. "Will you come with me?"
Calypso’s face softened, but she shook her head.
"My journey’s different," she replied. "The Sea’s calling me somewhere else."
Uta bit her lip, blinking back tears. "I don’t want to say goodbye. You’re my first friend, and now you’re leaving me, too”
“Because we’re following our hearts, and they’re taking us in different directions, is all,” chuckled Calypso. “You have a dream, don’t you? I’m looking forward to seeing you achieve it.”
Uta’s lower lip trembled, and she suddenly pulled Calypso in an almost suffocating hug, which Calypso was quick to return. When they finally pulled apart, Uta wiped her face and managed a watery laugh.
"Fine, but I’m stealing your flag. It looks cooler than anything I’d come up with, and I don’t want people to mistake me for a pirate, either.”
"That’s okay. It’s the Flag of the Sea—it doesn’t belong to me.”
Uta laughed again — a real laugh this time — and it felt like a heavy stone finally rolling off her heart. She rose to her feet, slinging a battered travel bag over her shoulder, one King Gordon had prepared for her a little earlier with a knowing look in his eyes.
"Thank you," she said simply. “I’m glad you washed up here.”
Calypso grinned up at her, the wind ruffling her wild hair. "Me too. Tell Shanks and the others I said ‘hi’ when you find them.”
Uta grinned, determined, then set off down the broken path toward the docks, where a ship waited—one King Gordon had apparently repaired and been holding onto knowing that, one day, Uta might want to leave.
It was strange, truly, to be the one waving goodbye from the shore. Calypso understood a little better why people cried when they waved her goodbye, now. But she wasn’t sad, not really—because this may be the end of another leg of her journey, but it was the grand beginning of two others, hers and Uta’s.