The one who fired the opening shot was the Demon King Totto Musica.
It swung its long arms in a wide arc, as if to sweep away the five people standing there along with the burning streets of Elegia.
By then, though, everyone had already grasped the situation. Every face had shifted into the expression of warriors, and they dodged the attack with ease.
Uta alone showed some stiffness in her movements, unlike the others who'd undergone rigorous combat training. But more than making up for that, she brimmed with the power that came from being in Uta World.
The rest hardly needed mentioning.
Swords raised, fists clenched, weapons at the ready, each of them turned eyes toward me that were every bit as dependable and powerful as during the matches we'd fought until now, if not more so.
Tot Musica sensed this and was satisfied. With the opening salvo out of the way, it decided to begin fighting in earnest.
Whether the others picked up on that intent was unclear, but,
"Alright... let's go, everyone!"
"""Roger!"""
Sue and the others entered a genuine combat stance.
No passive waiting to intercept. They kicked off the ground all at once and launched forward.
***
"...Having said that, I still don't really get the full situation, you know? Anyway... today's match is a real battle, right?"
"It's that thing! Mama's Picture Stories have it all the time, don't they? Where guys fight and punch each other and end up becoming friends! Same deal!"
"The male-to-female ratio on our team right now is zero to five, though... well, somehow that still feels right, so I suppose 'tis fine."
"If we're wrong, we'll correct course as we go. Oh, that's right, Uta-chan, if this is a real battle, let's call in the two outside! Can you relay the summons through your main body?"
"Got it!"
The instant Uta-chan answered, Leona charged in as if claiming the honor of first strike.
Targeting Leona, Tot Musica lashed out with its keyboard arm, same as the earlier sweeping attack. This time, though, the trajectory was a hammering downward strike with a clenched fist.
But there was no way Leona would get hit by such a sluggish attack at this point. She kicked off the air and dodged effortlessly, then used the arm as a stepping stone, sprinting across it to close the distance in one burst.
The other arm came swatting down at her like crushing a mosquito, but she evaded that too and slipped into its guard. At the same moment, she activated her Cat-Cat Fruit powers and transformed into Beast Form: the shape of a great lion.
Then, spinning her body with tremendous force, she hurtled straight at Tot Musica's face.
"Lion: Iron Body Cannonball!!"
Thanks to the Nemean Lion's trait of possessing a superalloy body harder than steel at all times, combined with further hardening through Iron Body, this was a simple yet devastatingly powerful technique: a full-body charge.
The catastrophic boom that rang out, like two large trucks in a head-on collision, shook everything.
Tot Musica reeled back hard from that first hit, but it didn't seem to have taken much real damage. The wound itself didn't look that bad.
It recovered immediately, wrenched its mouth open wide, and lunged at Leona right in front of it, biting down as if to chomp her in half or maybe swallow her whole.
But Leona was already gone from that spot, having circled around to the side of its face.
From there, a dropkick flew straight at the jaw it had left wide open.
And this time, Alice's kick joined in from the same position.
Both were solid hits infused with Armament Haki. Even from two small fighters, the force behind them could easily send a small building flying.
Tot Musica staggered again. The two of them used the opening to pull out of its attack range.
Swooping in to take their place was Suzu. Both swords drawn and raised high.
Perhaps being a Demon King meant it was immune to concussions, because even while off-balance, Tot Musica moved to intercept. Bracing itself with one arm to keep from falling, the three skulls floating at its chest surged toward Suzu like battering rams.
"Kurozumi Two-Sword Style..."
But Suzu created a path of mud beneath her feet and glided across it at high speed, weaving past them all. Then, seizing the opening, she dove at its now-unguarded throat and brought both blades down in a single devastating slash.
"Flying Serpent: Lion's Bloom!!"
Both swords swept almost simultaneously, tearing across Tot Musica's throat.
The two Haki-infused slashes carried enough force to sever the neck entirely, but given the sheer scale of the thing, they cut halfway through and stopped.
...But that was no problem.
Slash!!
I was positioned on the exact opposite side, and my matching cut finished the job, taking the head clean off.
An absurdly massive head, bigger than a decent-sized mansion, severed and tumbling through the air.
If this ended things, it would be, to put it bluntly, a total anticlimax, but...
"...Yeah, no way it's that easy."
Those eyes rolled toward me.
The eyes on the severed head glared in my direction.
There was no hatred in them, nothing of the sort. If anything, they said, 'That's it, keep it coming,' or 'Now that's more like it.'
As if to confirm that, the severed head reattached instantly.
Not only that, its entire body began to tremble, and then it transformed from the only form of Tot Musica we knew into what was clearly a second form. Legs sprouted, the red face turned blue, and its hair changed to yellow... gold? Its mobility seemed to have increased, though a lot of the changes looked like a mere makeover...
Even so, the new legs were no joke. It used them to close the distance, and despite those arms being all wobbly and bent, it could still move just fine. It thrust an arm forward.
Both Suzu and I dodged easily, but immediately after, Tot Musica fired a beam from its mouth, chasing after Suzu.
"Ngh...!"
Suzu instantly dissolved her body into mud and scattered to evade.
In that opening, Alice, who had circled above its head, dove in and slammed a crushing stomp onto the crown of its skull.
The impact forced its mouth shut mid-beam, causing a backfire. The rows of sharp fangs blew apart from the inside, dealing real damage.
But even that only made it flinch slightly without stopping, and now it turned not toward Alice, who had just attacked it, but toward...
Leona, who had circled behind it, readying a follow-up strike.
Knowing she'd been spotted, Leona charged in anyway. But before her attack could land, Tot Musica's hand stretched and whipped around, catching her.
"Nrgh?! Why you...!"
The size difference was simply too great; even straining with all her strength, she couldn't break free.
Whether it intended to crush her in its grip, hurl her somewhere, or toss her into its mouth...
Without waiting to figure out its intent, I was already moving. With Floating Cloud in hand, I slashed off the arm restraining Leona.
It regenerated almost immediately, but in the split second its grip loosened, Leona broke free.
And at that same moment, Tot Musica lurched backward violently.
As if something had slammed into its back at incredible speed.
No, something actually had. Uta-chan.
Before anyone noticed, Uta-chan had donned a set of gleaming golden heavy armor and was wielding an enormous, weighty-looking lance, which she had driven deep into Tot Musica's back.
Wings sprouted from her back, too. Clearly, she had come rocketing in at tremendous speed and run it through.
The lance itself looked far too large for her slender arms to swing, let alone hold, but within Uta World, she as the Ability User was a being approaching true omnipotence. This extreme power-up was entirely unsurprising.
Pulling the lance free and soaring upward, Uta-chan dodged the sweeping follow-up from Tot Musica's other arm by darting through the air in every direction.
While evading, she generated note-shaped light projectiles around herself and sent them flooding toward Tot Musica.
Tot Musica dispatched its chest skulls to whirl around and intercept, swatting some aside, but it was impossible to shoot down every single projectile tracing complex trajectories. They pounded into its body in a carpet-bombing barrage.
Kept off-balance like that, with all its attention focused on Uta-chan, Tot Musica failed to notice two more fighters gathering their strength and taking aim.
BOOM!!
Without warning, cracks spread through empty space like a spiderweb.
The shockwave rippling outward staggered Tot Musica.
Wondering what had happened, it looked down at its feet and found someone unfamiliar who definitely hadn't been there before.
...Well, of course, it was Snow. I'd asked Uta-chan to call her in.
And on the opposite side, having also just entered this world, was Iris, winding up with her prized Black Blade raised high.
The blade was wreathed in wildly blazing flames... actually, that was probably Ifijar, the Flame Homie, dwelling directly inside it.
The blade of flame stretched and grew to dozens of meters in length, and Iris swung it like a normal sword, delivering slash after continuous slash.
A massive-scale chain attack that would put even a certain Trans-Am Raiser to shame. In the blink of an eye, Tot Musica's entire body was carved apart and simultaneously set ablaze.
From the opposite side, Snow joined the pincer attack, launching wind blades and lightning strikes from her naginata.
Even in the midst of that hellish wave of coordinated attacks, Tot Musica's eyes remained the same as before.
If anything, they were glowing brighter, as if getting more and more fired up... and, oh, here we go again.
Its entire body blazed with light, and once more, Tot Musica drastically changed form.
Arms now numbered four, the mouth gaped even wider, the skulls at its chest had multiplied to five, and enormous black wings had sprouted from its back. Even more monstrous than before.
Naturally, the arm I had severed earlier had also regenerated.
In this state, Tot Musica (Third form) let loose a roar that shook all of Elegia.
Immediately after, it extended all four arms at a speed that belied its massive frame, simultaneously attacking me, Uta-chan, Snow, and Iris.
Dodging was easy enough in itself, but its speed had clearly increased beyond even the second form. The moment its hands struck the ground, an earthquake erupted that didn't merely feel like it shook all of Elegia but actually did, making the power gap obvious.
"As expected of the Final Form... it's no joke."
"Yeah... hm? Mom, how do you know that's its Final Form?"
"Huh? ...Good question, actually... It just kind of popped into my head."
...'Could it be because of the Sheet Music inside me?'
That was created by a past Paper Girl, and it's the wedge sealing Tot Musica away. In other words, it's essentially a part of Tot Musica itself.
Just as Tot Musica had read all sorts of stories from within me, maybe I could access Tot Musica's information in return.
...Though at that point, it seemed almost unnecessary.
Without realizing it, a whole flood of information had already been pouring into my head through those things that "just popped up." I only noticed that fact belatedly.
And thanks to that, something became clear.
If that was its Final Form, it meant one thing: defeating it here would end this.
Originally, Tot Musica would manifest in both the real world and Uta World, wreaking destruction in both. To defeat it, you'd need to attack the same spot simultaneously in both worlds.
But in this world, that condition didn't seem to apply.
The reason for that original requirement was apparently that Tot Musica "half-resurrects" in each world. Half in Uta World, the domain of the Sing-Sing Fruit, and half in the real world where the Sheet Music exists.
No matter how much you destroyed one half, since it was only "half," as long as the other half survived, Tot Musica could trace back to it and regenerate. That was how it worked.
But for this battle, none of that mattered. Our job was the match with Tot Musica, and our goal was to win.
And through this fight, to give Tot Musica the answer, or something like an answer, that it was seeking.
...Though most likely, Tot Musica would find that answer on its own through the battle itself.
So we didn't need to destroy it.
'...Come to think of it, maybe the reason I could vaguely sense its feelings and understand the meaning of this fight was also because we're connected through the Sheet Music.'
The four arms windmilling in a frenzied barrage.
A beam from its mouth so absurdly thick it made Pacifista blasts look like toys. Every so often it scattered into a wide spread, raining down like a deluge.
The five skulls flying around, ramming into us, biting at us.
Fire and ice breath spewing from the mouths of the two crocodiles on its hat.
Its keyboard arms detaching at the midpoint and flying at us as Rocket Punches.
Note-shaped light projectiles launched just like Uta-chan's, and then those notes transforming into soldiers that swarmed in to attack.
Wings that should have been ordinary aside from their size deforming into wing-arms with the function of additional limbs, thrashing at us.
The five skulls breaking off independently to become mobile turrets firing beams from their eyes.
Using two stretching arms to spin and slam down in a massive mountain-drop.
Drills erupting from its entire body in an omnidirectional assault, cracking the ground apart and destroying our footing at the same time.
Then the moon suddenly blazed bright, and the wings transformed into enormous cannons that fired twin ultra-thick beams stretching to the horizon.
Its right hand grabbed something, then turned blazing red as it roared and screamed: God Finger.
From somewhere it produced a hammer and slammed it into the ground with all its might, and everything turned to light... though apparently the stage counted as immune to hit detection, because everything reverted to normal right after.
We fought through all of that, a relentless stream of attacks clearly intended to kill or worse.
...Actually, several of those attacks in the middle were absolutely begging for a retort. The ones it clearly read from my head and copied.
Case in point: right now, it closed its eyes, then snapped them open, and from those eyes came layers upon layers of absurdly powerful beams... wait, I haven't even written that one yet in this world.
Then in rapid succession, it turned its palm toward us, and a crimson-black energy wave blasted out, making the surrounding ground and buildings boil as if... Stop! Stop it! I haven't written that one either... actually, that's one I was planning to write soon, still in the planning stages! Even my daughters don't know about it! Absolutely no spoilers!
...Whether my thoughts got through or not, Tot Musica blinked in surprise with an obvious "Oh, sorry" look and immediately stopped that attack. Good to see it was obedient about that, at least.
Oh, and of course, we weren't just taking hits the whole time. We were fighting back hard, actually pushing Tot Musica back.
"Six King Gun!!"
"Kurozumi Two-Sword Style: Secret Art... Rattlesnake!!"
"Imitation... Cross: Over!!"
"Us too..."
"Imitation..."
""Hagoku!!""
A technique Leona had recently unlocked after mastering Rokushiki.
Suzu's sword technique, charging into the enemy with missile-like force and carving it apart.
My own technique, which Alice had stolen after I showed it to her a few times during dream training sessions. (Without Conqueror's Haki Coating, of course.)
Snow and Iris swinging their weapons in unison, each adding their own powers to unleash a massive shockwave.
Each and every one of those attacks blocked Tot Musica's offense, shattered it, carved wounds into its body.
Arms were sliced off, blown apart; deep gashes were scored into its torso; its head was dented by crushing blows. And still, neither side stopped.
Then, at the end of that ferocious battle...
"Let's go, Alice!"
"OK, Mom!"
Covered by everyone else, threading through gaps in the storm of attacks, Alice and I burst forward and dove into Tot Musica's guard. There, we unleashed a Combination Technique we'd come up with on a whim during training not long ago.
""One Sword Style... Polyphony...""
""Double Cross!!""
Two simultaneous Cross: Overs fired in perfect sync, carving a double "X" into the opponent's body. One strike... or rather, two times two for four.
The impact blew away its remaining arms, overwhelmed its defenses, and left its front completely exposed.
"This... is the end!!"
Uta-chan, pouring every ounce of her power into the gleaming lance in her hands, let loose a shout from the depths of her soul and shot forward like a meteor.
Tot Musica opened its maw wide to intercept, lunging to devour her, but she didn't care. She charged straight in at full speed, plunging into its mouth and through...
And pierced clean through Tot Musica's head.
To be continued...