(PS: Almost 300,000 characters, and the rating still won't show up... sigh, Alice has already gone numb.)
A deafening cannon blast erupted outside the hotel, and a heavy solid cannonball instantly tore through the side wall of the hotel's second floor.
Bricks, wood splinters, and glass rained down in a torrential shower.
"..."
Yet amid that devastating explosion and the crowd's desperate screams...
An utterly incongruous yet unmistakably clear sound, brimming with ferocity, burst from the enormous breach on the second floor at an astonishing volume.
The melody was stirring, surging, filled with power and destruction. It was "Bury the Light," which Kirishima Bupai had painfully spent 400 Points to renew.
"I am the storm that is approaching...!" (I am that approaching storm!)
"Provoking!!! Black clouds in isolation!!!" (Awakening the dark clouds within their cage!)
"I am reclaimer of my name...!" (I will reclaim my true name!)
Accompanied by the echoes of the explosion and the drifting smoke and dust, the furious music swept through the entire hotel in an utterly absurd yet overwhelmingly oppressive fashion.
The defiance, destruction, and awakened power in the lyrics resonated eerily with the chaos and despair at the scene.
Captain Nezumi and his Marines, who had been preparing to enjoy the pirates "clearing the place out," along with the vicious-looking pirates outside, were all dumbfounded.
Their vicious grins froze, and they even forgot to lower their raised weapons.
The terrified crowd in the lobby temporarily forgot to scream as well, staring slack-jawed at the enormous breach on the second floor, where rubble and dust were still falling.
As the dust slowly settled amid the stirring melody, a figure gradually became clear at the edge of the second-floor breach, against a backdrop of drifting dust and lingering gunpowder smoke.
Kirishima Bupai sat with his back