"Oh, come on! None of that matters!" Siegfried was guilty for exactly 0.01 seconds before his infuriatingly bright, confident smile returned. "This is your lifelong dream, Kira!
"Now that your dream is right in front of you, are you really just going to give up?! Are you really going to let your dream leave you behind?!"
Shigure Kira stared blankly at the suddenly dead-serious Siegfried.
She couldn't believe it. How could someone exist in this world who could spout such painfully cheesy lines so naturally and confidently?
Siegfried seemed completely immersed in his roleplay.
"Kira!" His sudden shout made Kira's heart skip a beat.
"This is your dream, isn't it?! This is your pursuit! To become an idol! To stand on the world's biggest stage! To have everyone cheer for you, applaud you!
"Isn't this what you've wanted your entire life?!"
"I..." Kira's breath hitched, her fists instinctively clenching.
Siegfried took a sudden step forward. In his sharp, azure eyes, the raging fires of pure Shōnen Anime Protagonist Energy were burning brightly!
He reached out a hand and clamped it heavily onto Kira's trembling shoulder. The grip was so firm it felt as if he were trying to physically inject his own courage into her veins.
"I know what you're afraid of...
"You're afraid your voice isn't perfect! You're afraid your high notes aren't smooth enough! You're afraid those so-called music critics will judge you with their hyper-critical eyes!"
Siegfried's voice suddenly rose in volume, echoing in the cramped waiting room, vibrating the bottles and jars on the vanity table.
This time, he grabbed Kira's shoulders with both hands, forcing her to look up and meet his gaze.
"Kira! Look at me! Look into my eyes!"
He stared deeply into her eyes, observing the hazy mist of unshed tears gathering within them.
"In this devastated, post-apocalyptic world, perfection is the absolute cheapest commodity! Only authenticity—only the desperate, reckless scream bursting from the deepest depths of your soul—can pierce through the dark night of despair!
"Listen to me, Kira!
"Forget all those rigid, inflexible techniques! Throw away that dull, lifeless sense of pitch!
"What you need to do right now is burn your lung capacity to absolute ash on that stage! Use your vocal cords as a sharp blade to tear through the darkness!
"Even if the entire world covers its ears, as long as a single person stops to listen to your song, you are the undisputed protagonist of this stage!"
"Siegfried..." Kira felt her entire body trembling slightly.
A gentle tear rolled down from the corner of her eye, making Kira feel a profound sense of absurdity welling up from within her heart.
Is this... a tear?
Am I actually crying?!
"Go! Kira!"
Siegfried took a deep breath. In that moment, he seemed to radiate a blinding, heroic light from his back.
"Let that microphone be your weapon! Let that stage be your battlefield! Use your voice to tell the world—
"—That Shigure Kira is the World's Number One Idol!"
The air in the room seemed to freeze. The waiting room was dead silent. Only Siegfried's soul-piercing roar echoed in their ears.
Shub grinned, her shark teeth gleaming under the lights.
Cecilia smiled warmly, tears of encouragement shimmering in her eyes.
Salome looked somewhat helpless, yet she said nothing, merely smiling at Kira.
Even Cheng Lixue, who had just recently been kidnapped by Siegfried and forced into the band, felt her fingers trembling slightly against her bass strings, seemingly swept up in the passionate atmosphere.
Bathed in the dust-motes dancing under the lights, everyone gazed at Shigure Kira. In this moment, she truly felt like the absolute protagonist of the world, the protagonist of the stage, standing under the spotlight of everyone's expectations.
"Everyone..."
Shigure Kira lowered her head, her ash-blue bangs obscuring her expression.
Her shoulders hitched slightly.
A crystal-clear tear slid down her cheek and dropped onto the floor.
"Kira..." Cecilia stepped forward, preparing to comfort her.
The very next second.
Shigure Kira suddenly whipped her head up. The face that should have been a tragic portrait of a weeping maiden was instead contorted with savage, murderous intent.
"BATTLEFIELD MY ASS!!!"
WHAM!
A devastating uppercut carrying thousands of pounds of force landed precisely, ruthlessly, and without a shred of mercy onto Siegfried's resolute, supportive face, completely obliterating the beautiful, touching atmosphere.
"AWOOOOOO—!!!"
Accompanied by a crisp, miserable wail, Siegfried spun backward through the air like a violently whipped top. He slammed heavily into a storage cabinet with a massive crash, then slid down to the floor like a puddle of useless mud, two thick streams of cartoonish tears streaming from his eyes.
"Dream my ass! Shōnen energy my ass!!"
Veins throbbed visibly on Kira's forehead. Fists clenched, she unleashed a barrage of long-suppressed verbal abuse onto the crumpled Siegfried.
"What 'scream from the soul'?! What 'tear through the darkness'?! You're making it sound like I'm about to go solo a Herrscher!
She pointed a trembling finger at Siegfried, her voice shrill and sharp with absolute fury.
"When it comes down to it, this is entirely your fault, you idiot Captain! Secretly registering us using my name!
"And you had the nerve to say it was a surprise... Surprise my foot! This is a nightmare! This is a literal terrorist attack!!"
"I just... wanted to help your dream come true..." Lying on the floor and clutching the rapidly swelling bump on his face, Siegfried looked as wronged as a two-hundred-pound toddler. Yet, he still managed to offer Kira a fawning, apologetic smile.
"Besides, wasn't that speech incredibly moving? Didn't you feel your soul trembling?"
"Moving?! I'm so moved I want to bury you alive!"
Kira took a deep breath, her chest heaving violently.
She had absolutely had it with him!
What on earth did Cecilia see in this completely unreliable idiot?!
She paced furiously in tight circles, the sharp clack-clack-clack of her high heels echoing angrily against the floor. Every step looked like she desperately wanted to stomp directly on Siegfried's face, making him shrink his neck back in terror.
"And the rest of you!"
Kira whipped her head around, her gaze sweeping over the remaining "accomplices" like a sharp blade.
Shub instinctively began whistling, trying to hide her shark-tooth grin behind her massive electric guitar.
Cecilia maintained her gentle smile, attempting to bluff her way through using mid-tier acting skills.
Salome guiltily closed her eyes, hiding behind her keyboard and playing dead like an ostrich.
Cheng Lixue: "..."
The Snowwolf Squad should just disband.
These guys...
Shigure Kira began grinding her teeth.
If they weren't about to go on stage, she genuinely wanted to walk over and bite every single one of these idiots who had gone along with Siegfried's chaotic nonsense.
The nonsense was one thing... Kira knew perfectly well how bad her singing was. She had just been talking big before.
Even if Siegfried had signed her up, she figured she would just make a fool of herself in the auditions and it would be over. She would bite Siegfried once or twice, then complain to Cecilia and have her punish him severely.
But she genuinely never expected... This bastard Siegfried had actually spent two weeks cramming music theory, and then led the entire squad to drag her—an absolute, tone-deaf disaster—forcibly through multiple rounds of brutal auditions, all the way to the live finals!
Are you kidding me?! Is this how you waste your natural talents?!