"HUH? WE HAD THAT ON OUR SHIP TOO?!"
The group all tilted their heads in unison, staring blankly as they asked.
Cain tilted his head as well, scratching the back of it with a dry laugh.
"Did I never tell you? It's not like Ace was the only one with Seastone, haha… I just forgot!"
The moment the words left his mouth, his heart skipped a beat.
It wasn't just that he had forgotten to mention the Seastone on board.
He had also almost forgotten about Enel's Mantra—Observation Haki.
Ordinary attacks simply couldn't touch him.
Unless someone's Haki or speed surpassed his, or unless Enel chose to take the hit head-on, they wouldn't be able to hurt him at all.
Which meant that even if Cain had told them about the Seastone, they still might not have been able to make good use of it.
The knowing air Cain had been putting on just moments ago vanished instantly!
He rubbed the tip of his nose, his smile turning awkward.
"Heh… heh-heh."
"Oh right, Cain, have you seen Ace? That guy suddenly jumped off the ship!" Luffy leaned in and asked with a puzzled look.
"Ah, Ace…"
Cain's eyes flickered for a moment, and he quickly sidestepped the truth.
"He already left. Said he'd meet you all at the summit."
There was no way Cain could tell Luffy that Ace had been taken away by Garp for protection.
If he did, that idiot would probably cause an even bigger uproar!
"CAIN!!!"
Just then, a familiar voice slammed into his ears.
Cain turned instinctively, only to see Uta running straight toward him.
She threw herself into his arms and said firmly,
"THIS TIME, I'M NEVER GOING TO BE A BURDEN TO YOU AGAIN, CAIN!"
Cain was completely caught off guard by the sudden declaration.
Confused, he turned to look at Luffy and the others.
In their hands were the Sky Island-exclusive Tone Dials—shells that could record and play back sound like tape recorders.
At that moment, Uta's clear singing voice was flowing out from them.
"Do you remember what you told me before?" Uta said. "When you broadcast sound through a Den Den Mushi, no matter how short the distance is, there's always some delay. By the time someone hears the end of a song, I might already be done singing here…"
"Because what the Den Den Mushi transmits is only my voice. It's just a tool…"
So the question became—
What were people actually hearing? Uta's own singing? Or "Uta's singing" as transmitted by the Den Den Mushi?
The greatest difference between the two lay in the limits of time and distance.
Over the past two days, Uta had made countless guesses and run countless experiments.
If she used a Tone Dial to play a pre-recorded song, without singing herself, could she still activate her Devil Fruit ability?
The answer was now obvious.
Her theory had been correct.
The power of the Sing-Sing Fruit, when transmitted through a Den Den Mushi, really could affect the entire world.
That meant this power could ignore the barrier of distance.
And because Den Den Mushi transmissions carried a delay, it also meant the ability could, in a sense, transcend the limits of time.
After repeated testing, Uta confirmed that as long as a recording of her singing was being played, no matter how far away it was, she could sense it through her Devil Fruit ability.
More than that, she could freely choose whether to use that playback as a trigger and drag everyone hearing the song into her personal musical world.
The only drawback was that the farther away the sound source was, the more stamina it consumed.
In other words, if Uta wanted to, her Devil Fruit could become a wide-range attack even more overbearing than the intimidation of Conqueror's Haki.
"You worked hard, Uta," Cain said sincerely.
"I never thought something I said offhandedly would push your fruit to this level…"
"Exactly!" Nami added with a smile. "When we were fighting those priests, Uta was a huge help!"
"Cain, you'd better thank me properly too! If I didn't volunteered to test things for Uta-swann, she wouldn't have confirmed the effect this quickly~"
Sanji puffed out his chest as he said it, looking every bit like a knight ready to sacrifice himself for a beauty!
This time, he willingly served as Uta's willing guinea pig!
Purururururu—Pururururu!
The Den Den Mushi in Cain's pocket suddenly rang urgently.
"Ah, excuse me for a moment. I'll be right back."
With that, he grabbed the unconscious Enel off the ground, stepped onto the air with Moonwalk, and shot toward the distant cloud layer.
When Cain rose high into the clouds, he saw a cluster of black figures circling below.
He answered the Den Den Mushi.
The other side seemed to have sensed his arrival as well and spoke in a low voice, "Drop him down."
Cain didn't dare be careless.
At the moment, he still couldn't use Observation Haki, and if he accidentally dropped Enel to his death, that would create a whole new set of problems.
"He's wearing Seastone chains. Be careful when you catch him."
"Understood."
The other party replied with only those two words before falling silent.
After confirming they were ready below, Cain gently pushed Enel down.
Not long after, the Den Den Mushi reported back with a single phrase.
"Received."
Only then did Cain let out a breath of relief and turn back toward Luffy and the others.
By the time he returned, Luffy had already gathered noisily with the Shandians and the people of Sky Island, shouting at the top of his lungs about holding a celebration banquet.
...
That banquet lasted a full three days!
The singing, laughter, and clinking of cups seemed never to stop.
Everyone was immersed in the joy of it.
Surrounded by the crowd, Uta sang once again, her clear voice mingling with the damp air of the cloud sea and echoing over Sky Island for a long time.
To protect the peace of Shandora, and to keep it from attracting the greed of the World Government or other pirates in the future, Cain and Uta had no intention of broadcasting from here.
The giant bell Luffy had rung earlier had already proved Shandora's existence to the world.
That was enough.
There was no need to completely expose this hidden city of gold to the eyes of the world.
Meanwhile, Robin remained focused on investigating the Poneglyph on Sky Island.
Beside it, she found a line of writing left behind by the Pirate King Roger himself:
"I have come here and will lead this text to the ends of the world — Gol D. Roger."
Elsewhere, Luffy dragged Nami and the others aside and began secretly plotting how to take the gold they had found earlier.
What they didn't know was that the people of Sky Island had already prepared a massive golden pillar as a gift for them.
Unfortunately, those idiots were too busy scheming over a few sacks of gold to notice the surprise.
Watching Luffy and the others sneak off toward the snake's belly to steal the gold, Uta couldn't help but laugh.
But when she turned to look at Cain beside her, her smile froze.
His face had turned frighteningly dark, his brow tightly furrowed with an indescribable heaviness.
Uta's heart tightened.
"Cain… what's wrong?"
Cain slowly shook his head.
In a strange voice, he suddenly asked, "Do we… have any blue-green paint here?"