One Piece's Vice Captain 2

Chapter 376 The concert begins, the Persian cat disappears
It took the Thousand Sunny nearly two or three days to reach the venue of the concert - Elegia.

As we approached the island, we could see all kinds of merchant ships transporting fans from various islands.

For the first time, the long-abandoned island welcomed so many people. The well-informed vendors filled the slightly spacious areas with toys and snacks. From time to time, ribbons fell from the sky, and large and small, colorful balloons floated near the entrance. The brand-new buildings formed a huge contrast with the old collapsed houses not far away.

At the newly built port, there will be passenger ships that bring fans from all over the place. Judging from their clothes, most of them are ordinary people. But everyone's face is beaming with joy, happily looking forward to the opening of the concert.

Before the concert started, the venue was shrouded in fog, making it difficult to see the surroundings, but this mystery made everyone look forward to the appearance of the mysterious singer even more.

"This fog is an illusion, right?" Nami, who was originally looking forward to the concert, frowned as she looked at the fog around her. She couldn't help but become alert. "Does an ordinary concert need to use illusions to create momentum?"

"Has there ever been a war on this island? It's almost completely destroyed," Zoro looked at the ruins that could not even be hidden by the mist.

"Rumor has it that this island was destroyed by the Red Hair Pirates, and the reason is unclear." Robin squinted at the hazy buildings in the distance, "And it's really strange that the concert was held here."

Franky squatted down to look at the brand new floor tiles, and reached out to touch the joints of the tiles. "These floor tiles are made of high-quality materials, and they were laid less than a week ago. With this money, we can rent a better and more spacious venue for the meeting."

"The tickets are still free, and the food and drinks around here are all free too. The organizer is basically losing money." Robin also felt something was wrong. "And since I logged in, I haven't seen many security guards."

"Most of the audience are civilians. It will be troublesome if a fight breaks out." Jinbei looked at the ordinary people around him with smiles on their faces. He couldn't imagine that someone would let ordinary, unarmed people fall into a trap.

"You guys are overthinking it," An Ke, wearing an oversized sun hat, floated over on a ball of turquoise flames and reached out to grab a nearby cartoon shark balloon. "The common sense I have gained now is that 99% of places built with money are related to a shark."

The five people who were discussing with serious expressions were silent for a second, and then they relaxed and accepted this logic, "Indeed."

"The octopus balls over there are so delicious, and they're free~" Captain Straw Hat, who had been visiting the snack stand, came back and held up a box of freshly baked octopus balls like a treasure, "Let's try one~"

“It looks good,” Anke didn’t actually have much of an appetite, but she poked one with a bamboo skewer anyway.

"There are also marshmallows~", Chopper ran back holding two marshmallows, while Baozi followed behind with a string of grilled squid in his mouth.

"We got our commemorative badges back~", Usopp, Sanji and Brook who went to exchange souvenirs each brought back a few small round pendants, and also bought a lot of posters to be signed later.

Jinbei estimated the time and reminded, "It's almost time, let's check our tickets and enter."

"I'm ready!" Anke took out two red glow sticks and waited excitedly for someone to lead the way.

"You have to bend the glow stick to make it light up," Usopp reminded him, and the next second he was hit on the head by the glow stick.

"It's on~", a Persian cat happily shook the glowing light stick in its hand.

Usopp touched his head and suddenly asked, "How many light sticks did you bring?"

"That's all~", Nami found herself holding hundreds of glow sticks in her hands, which immediately scared the long-nosed guy away.

Nami smiled and untied the illusion. She put one hand on her waist and looked at Usopp who rushed into the crowd. "Really?"

"Leave such an honorable task to me!!", the blond chef with an inexplicable masochistic tendency offered his golden head, "Hit it as you like, little cutie!"

"Bang!" A green algae head picked up a stick and smashed it down, looking at the rotten wood with some regret, "I should have added some armament color earlier."

"###", Sanji, with a head full of sawdust, got angry, and the next second the umpteenth battle between swordsman and cook began.

The other companions ignored them as usual and started queuing up for ticket inspection.

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The island has been abandoned for many years, with collapsed buildings and weeds all over the center. Now a new venue has been built on the coast according to the terrain, with a T-shaped stage extending over the sea. The main stage is a beautiful crystal, and on both sides are long beams of light, now closed like a shell.

There were no tables or chairs at the venue, and the grass and hills were full of people. The Straw Hat Pirates' seats were VIP-level, on an isolated, open rock, and very close to the stage, so they could have a clear view of the stage.

Before the concert began, the hazy fog made it difficult to see the main stage, but the soft instrumental music made people look forward to the upcoming performance even more.

"Wow! Our position is like a super VIP!" Usopp looked at the wide field of vision and the clear stage in front of him in disbelief. "I can see every move of the people on the stage clearly!"

"Yes, I thought I had to stand on the grass with the others~" Nami looked at the grass that was some distance away from the reef, "So many people came to participate, it really deserves to be Uta's first concert~"

"Because I've only seen it in video Den Den Mushi before~~", Usopp even made a cheering banner and excitedly waved the banner with the three letters 'UTA' written on it, "I never thought I'd be able to see UTA in person in my lifetime, and in such a great place!!"

Robin came over and put the drink he was holding on the ground. "It's quite exciting, because she is the most popular person in the world today~"

"Is he such a great person?" It was the first time that Franky heard this name and he had never paid attention to the music industry before.

"Like I said before, her singing voice is so beautiful it's like it's from another dimension~" Brooke also spoke highly of her.

"U, T, A, U, T, A~~~", Sanji kept spinning in circles happily.

"There are fans everywhere. It seems he is really a big singer." Jinbei looked left and right. He even saw one or two mermaids in the nearby sea.

The Straw Hat Captain, who only had eyes for food, paid no attention to their conversation and was happily flipping the boneless meat on the grill.

"Cheer, cheer~", Anke, who was sitting on Apollo, waved the glow stick in her hand in a very professional manner, and Zeus and Prometheus also flew left and right to her rhythm.

"Ah, Ah~", Baozi also jumped around following her light stick. Zoro, who was not interested in these, yawned and prepared to drink some wine later when a certain Persian cat was not paying attention.

At this moment, the hazy light in the venue became dimmer, the relaxing music stopped, the audience's discussion became excited, and soon they became impatient to remain silent, with all their eyes focused on the stage, waiting for the most dazzling star to appear.

Usopp rushed to the front and reminded the captain who was still grilling, "Luffy, come here quickly, the concert is about to start~"

"Okay, it's done, it's done~" Luffy was about to reach out and pick up the deliciously roasted meat, but suddenly his face changed drastically and he turned around and stretched out his hand, "Encore!!"

"?" An Ke, who was sitting on the turquoise flame, looked at the hand reaching out to her in confusion.

At the same time, dreamy songs rang out every second, and gorgeous lights made the dim venue magically beautiful.

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The new era is the future before our eyes~
If I could change everything in the world~
………………

The hand that was stretched out hit nothing. There was no one on the back of the dozing Apollo, only two faintly glowing fluorescent sticks fell down.

The deafening accompaniment resounded throughout the entire venue, and the brisk and beautiful singing voice echoed loudly in everyone's ears. Fans immersed in the music listened intoxicatedly, cheering along with the rhythm from time to time.

Luffy gritted his teeth and looked at Apollo's empty back, then clenched his fists and shouted again amid the cheerful singing, "Encore?!"

Zoro was distracted by the music, and when he came to his senses, he found something wrong and tensed up. "Where did she go?"

"How come the little girl disappeared in just a few seconds? Did she sense some enemy?" Jinbei was no longer in the mood to continue enjoying the song as he saw Encore's glow stick dropped on the ground.

Sanji's attention was drawn quite a bit by the stage, and his heart sank when he noticed someone was missing, "No, the cutie usually says something to us before leaving."

The performance on the distant stage was still going on, but countless notes were visibly floating in front of everyone's eyes, and colorful patterns appeared and disappeared like magic.

Dozens of Den Den Mushi spread the splendor of the stage to the whole world through signal forwarding, allowing fans around the world who were unable to attend the event to enjoy Uta's first concert at the same time.

"A myriad of colors - dazzling!" Robin simply crossed his hands and grew hands with eyes all over the island. After checking every corner of the island, he shook his head solemnly, "Ms. Anke is not on this island, and the communication disk can't indicate her location."

Luffy took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. He used his Observation Haki to its maximum range and detected Yuan Hai, but still could not detect her breath.

In just a moment, he watched her disappear in front of him. Judging from her confused expression, she didn't leave without saying goodbye for any other reason.

Usopp and the others also noticed something was wrong, and they nervously looked at Luffy who was searching around with his eyes closed, hoping that he could find the Persian cat that suddenly disappeared.

Luffy opened his eyes and shook his head under the expectant gaze of his companions, "No, she is not here."
"Is it another enemy with strange abilities? But why is the target Anko?" Usopp slowly clenched his teeth, and gradually felt guilty.

If he hadn't gotten the ticket to the concert, could these inexplicable things have been avoided?
Sanji patted his shoulder thoughtfully and whispered, "Don't think too much. No matter what time it is, there will always be people targeting the little cutie. Especially now that she is seriously injured and has not recovered, it is a rare opportunity for those guys to take advantage of her."

"But if I hadn't come to this concert, Encore wouldn't have disappeared inexplicably." Usopp still blamed himself.

"The only ones who were wrong were those guys who inexplicably targeted Anko. We beat them all away when we found them." Luffy tried to relax, but his expression was still tense. "I didn't sense any hostility, and Anko didn't notice anything wrong at that time. If there really is an enemy, that guy's ability would be tricky."

"If even the little kid didn't notice something was wrong, then the enemy's ability may be beyond our imagination." Jinbei looked around at the audience who were still immersed in the concert, "Before we find out the enemy's true intentions, we should not act rashly."

Hearing this word, Zoro and the others all looked at the captain who always acted rashly.

"Yeah," surprisingly, Luffy just nodded solemnly, then stretched out his hand to grab the diagonal reef and flew out, "I'm going to check something."

"Well," Zoro tightened his grip on the hilt of the knife, becoming more alert and paying attention to the situation around him.

At this time, no one was in the mood to watch the concert, even though the mysterious singer's peerless voice was echoing in their ears.

The closed beams of light opened like a clam shell, and the bright sunlight outside spread down, making the originally gray venue extremely bright. Countless round bubbles with wings were floating, and the bubbles were playing the singing of Uta like a screen.

When someone touches the bubbles, the burst bubbles will turn into dolls or food and fall into their hands. The magical scene surprises many people.

Nami also noticed this, and after taking a closer look at the bubble that looked like a small TV, she reached out and touched it, and a teddy bear fell into her hand. After squeezing it, she handed it to Robin on the side, "Robin, this... is it real?"

Robin checked it and nodded hesitantly, "It should be true."

"Such a beautiful and lovely singer, I hope she is not my enemy." Sanji, holding a cigarette in his mouth, looked deeply at the screen of winged bubbles floating in front of him.

Although the battlefield is unpredictable and we all know that life and death are determined by fate, the girl has experienced too much hellish torture and I have witnessed with my own eyes the scene where she almost died. She has suffered enough.

So, even though it's just wishful thinking, I still hope to do my best to keep her away from harm.

"Woo..." Baozi, who found that his owner was missing, was no longer in the mood to play and squatted dejectedly at Zoro's feet.

"I'm sorry..." Apollo shrank behind Jinbei guiltily. Originally, he was responsible for carrying Encore, but he had no idea why she disappeared.

"Maybe we are just overthinking it. Let's wait for Luffy to confirm the situation first." Zoro looked at the reef not far away. If his feeling was correct, there should be a few familiar people on it.

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(End of this chapter)