– Byron –
To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the festivities and the laughter, which had characterized the first weeks of their stay, disappeared overnight, only to be replaced by a general sense of gloom. Even the Foxy Foxy Pirates were affected. Severely. Having been Uta's fans since day one of her debut, seeing their beloved idol being driven to tears had been a critical blow to their morale. Though, if one thought about it, their lack of motivation was probably the only thing keeping the villain responsible for the crimealive so…win some lose some, Byron supposed.
As for Uta, she had barricaded herself inside her own room and was refusing to come out. Naturally, her regular live streaming sessions had been cancelled without warning as well, causing worldwide panic. If the World Economic Newspaper was to be believed, the central stock market had recorded a whole 5% dip when Uta failed to show up to one of her scheduled streams. That had then worsened to 19% a week later, leading to economic experts tentatively naming this sudden halt in economic activity the Uta Effect.
Gordon had done everything he could to try and coax open her door, from cooking her favorite meals to outright begging. He did get as far as to relaying his version of events but had beaten a hasty retreat after Uta began…destabilizing when Shank's sacrifice was mentioned.
The next batter up had been Judy, who had been volunteered by Foxy. "You caused this mess, so you fix it"was a surprisingly convincing argument when backed up by five hundred angry fans. Plus, seeing as he did have something called a conscience, Byron's bartender hadn't resisted all too much when Foxy gave him a literal kick up his backside. Not that it made him any more successful.
Briefly, it had seemed as if he would get through to her by revealing his own traumatic experiences of being uprooted from everything he'd known. Especially his sense of betrayal at his friends and family, all of whom had cumulatively turned a blind eye to Marie's kidnapping, almost struck a chord with the teenage diva. However, the revelation of his current status as a lawless pirate had doomed any further progress. Marie found him hours later, sleepwalking his way out the castle and towards the dock.
Was it any wonder then, that Byron felt that they'd overstayed their welcome? It pained him to leave, to forgo enriching his soul with the secrets of Elegia…yet, if their presence caused distress to his teacher and his teacher's favored student, if their presence caused them to lose their joy in music, then Byron would leave. Out of respect for Gordon if nothing else.
Bags were packed, tents were dismantled and water barrels refilled. All of it finished before the sunset. The log pose had finished recalibrating days ago and all that was left, was to wait for dawn. Dawn, which would mark their departure from Byron's second home. For that was what Elegia had become, despite Byron only having spent a scant few weeks on the island. The island called to him, to the musician and artists within him, encompassing his soul in a comforting embrace. Perhaps that same feeling was why Gordon had never left, despite the no doubt traumatic memories associated with its ruins. Thus, Byron spent the remaining hours of night, wandering the castle, trying to burn its sight, its smell, its sounds into his memory…until his feet led him to the great hall. More importantly, to the grand piano bathed in the silver glow of the moon shining through a window, sitting within the single circle of light within an otherwise darkened room.
Like the day he first laid eyes upon that fateful piano, all the way back during his childhood, the same feeling drove him onwards like a siren's call. His fingers fell into place, seeking out the right keys as if they'd been born for this moment even as his eyes closed while his mind travelled through the sea of memories, seeking out the perfect piece for the occasion. Its choice surprised him, for what his mind commanded his body to do and what his body decided to play, was a composition Byron hadn't touched in years.
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How long had he lost himself to his private performance? Byron did not know. But when the last note was played and he awoke from his trance like state, the moon had slightly dipped, casting a longer beam across the hall. A beam, which in accordance with the window's design, fell upon the large oaken doors and the figure standing before them.
"Who did you kill?"
"Many. Far too many."
"Aren't you going to ask me how I knew?"
"Whether intentional or not, every song carries within it a story, visible to all who care to listen. Considering how I wasn't trying to hide it either, I'd have been surprised if you didn't."
"…how can you bear it? Knowing that your music was the cause of so much death?"
"I couldn't. Not for years."
"You hated yourself."
"I did."
"You despised your own music."
"I did."
"But you went back."
"I did."
"Why?"
"How could I not? I am and always will be a musician."
Uta didn't say anything for a while, obviously mulling over his words, her mind probably half a world away. Byron left her to it, his fingers beginning to tap out a gentle melody, soothing to the soul. Nothing supernatural but simply calming music, for to go beyond that would be a disservice. Though, perhaps he should have because when Uta stepped up to him, the air surrounding her had changed. Nothing that was audible to the naked eye, but her melody smelled slightly off.
"Gordon always told me that my voice could bring joy to the world. I believed him."
"He's not wrong."
"My fans told me that my music was a ray of hope in their lives. That my music made all the bad things in the world go away."
"Music can achieve wonderful things." Byron nodded.
"But what did it achieve until now? What have I achieved until now? All the world's evils are still here. Pirates still run rampant. People die. The world isn't a fair and happy place. My music changed nothing." Uta whispered. "All it did was let them forget."
"Sometimes forgetting tragedy can be a great blessing in and of itself."
"But it doesn't undo it. It doesn't undo what I've done."
"No. No, it doesn't." Byron agreed. "Nothing ever does."
"Aren't you going to tell me not to blame myself?"
"No."
"Because it would be hypocritical of you?"
"Yes."
"You were a child." Uta stated. Byron didn't ask how she'd known. He didn't have to.
"So were you."
The two fell silent again, enveloped in lunar light and music, Uta sinking into her thoughts as she hummed along and Byron letting her. Gently massaging her increasingly erratic melody back into place, at least as much as he was able. Shifting away from playing for memories long dead to a concert for the living.
"Hey, Byron?"
"Hmmm?"
"Do you think there's anything that can make up for the past?"
"I don't know, but I can certainly try."
"By making lives happy? Many more than we've ruined?"
"That's one option."
"What about creating a world where only good things exist? Where everyone can be happy forever?"
"That's ambitious of you."
"But what if I could do it?"
"I probably wouldn't want to live there."
"WHY NOT?"
"Uta, would the residents of your world have the potential to be happy forever or would they be happy forever?"
"…"
"All emotions have their place in this world. Happiness cannot exist without its opposite to give it value. Forcing people to be happy, especially in a singular manner, isn't the answer."
"Nobody wants to experience sadness."
"And yet, no one can be truly happy without it."
"You're wrong."
"Perhaps." Byron easily acquiesced. "But would the ones you propose to do this for…agree with you?"
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"Yes, they would." Uta answered confidently. "In fact, my fans came up with the idea in the first place. Many of them told me that they wished they could listen to my singing forever."
"Ah, there's the culprit."
"Don't talk about my fans that way! You don't even know them."
"You're right on that front. I don't know them. However, I do know that they wouldn't want to be trapped by your devil fruit. Like you've already done to me."
"You knew?" Uta asked, pointing a surprised finger in his direction.
"That you ate the Sing-Sing Fruit? I guessed after what you did to Judy. After all, it and its abilities are the subject of many legends amongst musicians. Thank you for letting him go by the way."
"He's harmless. You on the other hand know too much."
"Enough to do something like this in any case." Byron replied, hammering out a sequence of base chords to throw up a wall of shields to stop a lance from reaching him. A short riff later and Uta's freshly summoned soldier was reduced into little motes of light. "You on the other hand don't know enough. About neither the world outside nor the one of your own creation."
Uta's response was to whistle, harsh and unforgiving, more soldiers materializing to replace the one she'd just lost. Soldiers who flew this way and that, seeking an opening in Byron's wall of shields, while attempting to dodge the anti-air barrage of sixteenth notes. Yet for every one Byron shot down, another two joined the fray.
"This is my world!" Uta sang in a crystal-clear soprano that shattered Byron's piano. "My world, my rules."
"Based on music and governed by song." Byron's answer was a dulcet tenor, replacing the lost instrument with a harpsichord.
And so, it continued. Uta pounding Byron's defense while he tried to repair them as fast as they were being battered down. He wasn't entirely successful, because this was Uta's home ground. Here, she had free rein to create and enact change as she pleased. On the other hand, Byron was limited to borrowing the strands composing this world via the occasional harmony to mould them into the desire object or to dissolve Uta's attacks by injecting a dissonant note into her constructs. As such, he was slowly but surely pushed onto his backfoot. Though when it came to the verbal battle, things looked slightly different.
"Life is like a melody with its ups and downs, its allegros and adagios with a host of major and minor keys. Beautifully varied and unique in its own way. We may prefer some parts over others, but it's only in its entirety that it truly shines."
"I'm only going to remove the dissonant notes, the things that don't belong!"
"Imperfection too is part of music. All of the little things, perhaps temporarily grating to one's ears are keys which make each song unique and different from the rest. If we begin cutting a little here, pruning a little there, where do we stop? Do we adjust the score until it is perfect?"
"Yes!"
"What will we be left with, I wonder? A single melody shared by every life, holding within it only the monotone ideal of the composer? Would it have any resemblance to the original at all?"
"I wouldn't be changing them! They'll still be able to think and dream and do anything they want to. I'd just be improving their environment to make everything better. No more hunger, no more sickness, no more death! Just my fans and I having fun forever. Things would be perfect!"
"How do we even define perfection? There are a billion different people upon this world, with a billion different lives and a billion different dreams. Who's to say that perfection for one isn't disaster for another?"
"Yes, other things can bring happiness too but so does my music! If they're already happy, why would they need anything else?"
"Happiness comes in many shapes and forms. There's joy in eating a delicious meal and in watching a loved one enjoy the food we've made. The anticipation of a coming book release and the lingering memory after reading the final page. The exhilaration of adventure, the familiarity of my home, the nervosity of a first date, the comfort of a fifty-year jubilee."
"…" In lieu of responding, Uta began singing in a raspier tone. In the face of the hurricane of notes, Byron's shields began to chip and crack and splinter at an ever-increasing pace.
"The relief of overcoming tribulations, the sense of accomplishment after completing a difficult task. The hope for a plentiful harvest, the thankfulness for rain after a long drought. The expectancy for a new life growing in a mother's womb and the satisfaction of a life well lived. And so many more."
"…" Cuts began opening up on Byron's skin, blood dripping down his arms held protectively over his face. And yet, his voice held melodious and true, singing as if he were talking, talking as if he were singing and tenaciously holding on.
"Can your world harmonize all of that, recreate it in full or at least mimic it in part? Bring together thousands, millions, billions of different tunes as one while maintaining the individual characteristics that made them unique? Unless you're a god, that's impossible."
"It is possible! Aren't you creating music just like you would outside? My world can be just as real as the one we'll leave behind!"
"You can't simulate that which you've never known. Can't create what you've never experienced. The taste of my mother's stew, the scent of my father's coat, the first note of a piano you've never met. The lives they may have lived, the love they may have shared, the adventures they may have had…are all things your plan will snatch away."
"I just have to make sure they have such a fun time that they won't miss any of that!"
"Uta. What about the people you cannot reach? You'd be splitting families apart. In essence, by creating the divide between your world and the old which none can cross, those on one side of that divide will be dead to those on the other. No amount of fun and games can replace a loved one lost."
"I-I wouldn't be killing them. They'd still be alive outside!"
"Would that really make a difference? They'd no longer exist in the world you create. How is that different from death?" The storm began to taper off, expended and exhausted as Byron went for the throat. "Would that be any less final than what happened to Elegia?"
"Ah…" At that Uta collapsed to her knees, all sounds coming from her direction abruptly being cut off with a choked sob.
"Do you truly believe that that is what your fans desire?"
"…no."
"In that case, what are you doing this for? To make your fans happy…or to soothe your own guilty conscience?"
"…I just wanted to fix things. Make things right. Do something good for once with this stupid power."
"You still can."
"How? You just spent so long telling me I was wrong, so tell me how, Byron! How can I make things right if I'm not supposed to fix the world?" Uta wailed, looking as lost as she sounded.
"By doing the same thing you've been doing so far. We may not be living in a world where everyone is always happy, but we do live in one where everyone has the potential to be. One, in which you've seen for yourself how much of help and comfort your music can provide."
"Ah."
"However, in order to do so, you have to forgive yourself. After all, how are your songs supposed to make others happy, when the singer herself is wallowing in her own guilt and misery?" Byron asked, carefully taking a step towards Uta, who looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes.
"B-but…but…"
"Uta. What happened was a tragedy, but please don't let the past ruin what the future could bring. You deserve better than that." Byron pleaded, closing the last remaining steps to kneel in front of the young diva. At that, the girl broke down into a fresh flood of tears, her body wracked by the sobs she so desperately tried to suppress. The world shattered into a million pieces as the first light of dawn began peeking over the horizon.
"We all deserve better than that."
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