-Inside the giant skull.
Without natural lighting, the interior of the "mountain," which housed the Beasts Pirates' headquarters, felt like an Edo-period city that never slept.
Yet the place where Kaido received Sephiroth, despite having natural light, was an even more fitting example of a "city that never slept."
Red lanterns provided most of the illumination. The two-story wooden building had a tiled roof and projecting wooden lattice windows that admitted light while shielding the interior from view.
Inside, gold-leaf screens, lacquered furniture, and silk furnishings made the room lavish overall.
"Wororororo~"
The rough, booming laughter rattled Sephiroth's eardrums.
The towering, burly Kaido still wore his black hair loose over his shoulders, with purple clothing hanging at his waist and a purple fur cape draped over him.
His smile looked positively ill-intentioned.
"Hey, Great Angel~ Dressing like that in a place like this? You really don't know how to enjoy yourself! Ahahahahaha-"
Laughing and crying, with more than a hint of playing the fool, Kaido held an enormous bowl of sake, gulping it down as a sly smile crossed his face.
"...Mr. Kaido, let me top that up for you."
Reclining beside Kaido was a tall, voluptuous beauty, alluring and full of charm.
She wore an ornate blue-and-black kimono, her long golden hair arranged in a Katsuyama coiffure. She had green eyes, snow-white skin, two long red horns, pearl earrings, and a knife serving as a hairpin.
-Black Maria. One of the Tobi Roppo.
She commanded considerable respect among the courtesans and oversaw those on Onigashima. She also managed most of the Beasts Pirates' female members.
She even had her own pirate flag, and her subordinates called her "Big Sis."
Strictly speaking, she was both an officer of the Beasts Pirates and a "captain" under their banner.
However... her relationship