When Uta opened her eyes, she felt utterly refreshed.
It was all thanks to Cain, who had let her experience something entirely new.
As for what the two of them had actually done last night, the story had to be told from the beginning.
Last night, Cain had been so thoroughly pinned down by Shanks's faint but ever-present aura that he could not sleep at all!
And since he was obviously no match for Shanks, he knew that in Shanks's eyes, he probably still looked no different from a child.
Left with no better option, Cain suddenly had a flash of inspiration.
He reached out and gently shook awake Uta, who had only just gotten drowsy and was lying against his arm.
He suggested that she use her power so the two of them could enter a dream together.
Outside, in the real world, Shanks noticed that the room had finally gone quiet.
He quietly pushed the door open, carefully tucked the blanket around the two sleeping figures—who were in fact only entering the dream world—and let his gaze linger for a moment on Uta's peaceful face before silently leaving the room again.
Inside the dream, Cain covered Uta's eyes, led her to a giant index labeled One Piece, and the moment his fingers opened to the right page, the two of them stepped together into the scene woven from his memories.
"Cain, you brought me here because...?" Uta asked, looking around curiously.
"Heh, it just came to me all of a sudden."
Cain hid the truth with a harmless lie.
"I ran into a pirate before, someone who was on the same ship as Shanks back in the day."
"I heard some stories about Shanks. Even though this dream is built from my memories, it can still recreate similar scenes."
What he did not say was that these images actually came from the manga he had read in his previous life.
—The young Shanks in the dream was practically a "childhood copy" of the real one, still untouched by hardship, full of youthful innocence.
The scene now unfolding was the moment when Roger and his crew had departed for Laugh Tale, leaving the young Shanks alone to look after the sick Buggy.
Cain tightened his grip on Uta's hand and activated his control over the dream, instantly shifting the two of them into a pure white space.
At the same time, the young Shanks, who had been sitting at Buggy's bedside, was also drawn there by an invisible force.
"Who are you?! Where's Buggy? What did you do with him?!"
The sudden appearance of strangers, and the equally sudden change in his surroundings, made the young Shanks instantly tense.
His eyes were full of wariness, and he instinctively dropped into a defensive stance.
"It's okay. Your crewmate's fine."
As Cain spoke, he created an image showing Buggy recovered and free of fever.
After all, this was only a dream. No matter how much he interfered with it, it would not affect reality.
Seeing that scene, the young Shanks gradually relaxed, and the worry in his eyes for Buggy slowly eased.
"Wow. Shanks was actually this... well-behaved when he was little?"
Looking at the way young Shanks worried over his friend, Uta could not help blurting it out.
Cain walked over and lightly tapped the boy on the head with a finger.
The touch was unexpectedly soft.
"Probably," he answered casually.
After all, this place was an illusion extended out from the manga's plot, so the characters' personalities were naturally restored exactly as they had been written.
"I'm not afraid of you! If you want something, come at me! Don't hurt my friend!"
Young Shanks clutched the spot where he had been tapped and shouted stubbornly, his childish defiance making him oddly cute.
"Huh. I didn't expect him to be this... well-behaved as a kid either. It's kind of amazing he turned into what he is now."
Cain clicked his tongue in surprise.
"I almost feel bad bullying him."
"So you brought me here just to bully kid Shanks?"
Uta's eyes curved with laughter.
She lifted a hand and conjured a candy wrapped in colorful paper, then turned to young Shanks and coaxed him in a sweet voice.
"Hey, we're not here to make trouble. If you call me big sister, I'll give you this nice sweet candy."
"Hmph. Ugly lady, I'm not falling for that."
Young Shanks shoved her hand aside without hesitation.
At once, a little vein popped on Uta's forehead.
She dropped the pretense of being polite, reached out, and lightly pinched his cheek, her eyes gleaming with mischief.
"Naughty little boys really do need to be properly 'played with' before they learn to behave~"
...
"Ah-choo!"
Just after stepping out of the castle doors, the real Shanks suddenly sneezed for no reason, a strange chill running down his spine!
...
And so, Cain and Uta spent the entire night inside the dream, playing to their hearts' content.
They had an absolute blast, and the young Shanks gradually realized that he had no power to resist them at all.
Still, since they never actually hurt him, all he could do was pout in silent outrage.
Sometimes their sudden tricks caught him completely off guard, leaving him flushed and flustered, not knowing how to retaliate.
That mix of anger and embarrassment made him especially entertaining!
...
...
By morning, Cain and Uta stretched at almost exactly the same time, so perfectly synchronized that it looked like a mirror reflection, then rose together and walked toward the washstand.
They had not spoken a word, yet their movements were full of effortless coordination.
If one looked carefully, however, one would notice that Cain was not fully awake.
His body was currently being controlled by Uta.
Over the past few days, Cain had designed training specifically around Uta's ability:
First, she would pull a target into her music world, then seamlessly connect it to that person's dream.
As long as Uta kept her own consciousness in the outside layer rather than entering the dream herself, then the stamina required to sustain it all would be drawn from the body of the one being controlled.
And because of that, Uta's control over that person's body could reach an astonishing 99%.
Aside from a few special techniques, she could even use that person's Devil Fruit ability and Haki as if they were her own.
What was more, once someone had been pulled into the dream, if they did not understand the dream's rules and had not been allowed out by Uta, then escaping the dream, returning to Uta's music world, and making it back to reality was extremely difficult.
The only limitation was that Uta was not yet skilled enough.
At her current level, that kind of control could be maintained for at most half an hour.
By the time Cain truly regained consciousness, he found himself already seated at the breakfast table.
Uta was right beside him, eating bread while staring at him without blinking, a faint, smug satisfaction hidden in her eyes.
Cain was already used to this sort of thing, so there was little surprise on his face.
He glanced down at the still-warm food in his hand and took a bite, his mind drifting back to last night's antics with little Shanks.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught Gordon moving about in an oddly furtive way.
So he turned to Uta and said, "Uta, after breakfast, go pack your things first. And remember to say a proper goodbye to Gordon."
"Okay!"
Uta nodded obediently.
Once she had finished breakfast and left the room, Cain's gaze went straight to Gordon.
Gordon handed him a visual Den Den Mushi, then solemnly passed over a thick stack of papers.
—They were the plans he had spent years putting together for Uta's development, as well as his long-term roadmap for making her the world's number one diva.
Every page carried the weight of entrustment.
Cain leaned in and took the papers, thinking to himself:
Aside from secretly keeping that dangerous score instead of destroying it, the old man really did care about Uta a lot.
He flipped through the pages, and suddenly a line written in a different hand stood out sharply among the rest.
It was a message Shanks had left for him:
"Cain, if you've made your choice and decided to take Uta out to sea, then go to the end of the first half of the Grand Line—to the Sabaody Archipelago.
There is a bar there called Shakky's Rip-off Bar. Inside is a senior of mine. I'll go ahead and speak to him.
He'll teach you the deeper uses of Conqueror's Haki, and he'll also help plan your future training."
Seeing the location written there, Cain could not help muttering in amazement.
"I never thought... the one arranged for me would actually be Rayleigh?"
A bar in Sabaody called Shakky's Rip-off Bar, and Shanks's senior?
The answer was almost obvious.
That was Roger's right-hand man, "Dark King" Silvers Rayleigh.
In his previous life, some One Piece fans had jokingly called him an "incompetent teacher," but regardless of the teasing, there was no denying that in his prime, he had been among the absolute strongest in the world.
"There's one more thing. Ace is your brother, right? We've met before, and he mentioned you."
"He's joined the Whitebeard Pirates now. We've received word that he went alone into the first half of the Grand Line in pursuit of the traitor from his ship."
"If you run into him, you must stop him. The man he's chasing is far more dangerous than he appears. I'm trying from my side as well to get Whitebeard to call him back."
"Ace…"
Cain felt a pang of heaviness.
Judging by the timing, Luffy and the others should have already left Drum Island by now. If he hurried, he ought to be able to run into Ace at just the right moment.
"I'm sorry. I've said all this, yet I still can't guide you personally. Uta likely still has no wish to see me, so it's better if we meet as little as possible.
I'll wait for you in the New World.
And make sure you take good care of Uta."
Cain opened his mouth and breathed out a small burst of flame.
The note was instantly swallowed by fire and turned to drifting ash.
His eyes were full of resentment toward Shanks.
Shanks had clearly mentioned Ace and even hinted at how dangerous Blackbeard was, yet he still refused to come out and say things plainly—leaving Cain with no way to explain the situation to this former crewmate of Roger's.
—That brat Ace was Roger's own son!
Given how maddeningly mysterious Shanks always acted, Cain could not help wondering whether the man even knew Ace's true identity at all.
In the end, some things really could only be taken one step at a time.
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