Bang —!
Because the scene was far too awkward, Hoshino instinctively slammed the principal's office door shut with force. Standing outside, she paused to think for a brief moment.
Then she lifted her foot and kicked the closed door open again.
"Chang Wei, you still say you don't know martial arts!" (Reference to the Chinese movie Hail the Judge)
["Hm?"]
"No, wait — Kaiba Man, you still say you're not Seto Kaiba!"
Because of the Dwarf King's half-confirmed explanation earlier, Hoshino had briefly thought that Kaiba Man might really not be Seto Kaiba, but some kind of Duel Spirit-like existence.
But this turned out to be perfect. Hoshino had just caught him red-handed during the outfit change. Not only did the voice sound the same, but under that chuunibyou Blue-Eyes White Dragon mask, it was definitely Kaiba's infuriatingly punchable and perpetually indebted face.
When they locked eyes again, Kaiba Man, now wearing the Blue-Eyes White Dragon mask, didn't seem nearly as worked up as Hoshino.
"I do not know what you are talking about. I am not Seto Kaiba, and I do not wish to keep repeating myself."
["Aibo, this guy has already started blatantly lying with his eyes open. Go at him!"]
"There's no need for me to waste effort arguing with him. As long as I just rip off that tastefully awful mask…"
Saying that, Hoshino was no longer planning to keep talking and moved to act immediately. However, she quickly discovered that even on tiptoe, she still fell just a little short.
"This guy is seriously tall for no reason at all. Lower your head!"
"…"
"Bastard, what are you doing?"
A familiar, unmistakable voice carrying Kaiba's distinctive tone came from somewhere else — but what confused Hoshino was that the speaker was not the Kaiba Man standing with his head held high right in front of her.
"Enough nonsense. This is the Duel Academy chairman's office, Hoshino!"
Seto Kaiba had been sitting in the office chair the whole time. The reason Hoshino hadn't noticed him right away was ultimately because the impact of Kaiba Man had been too strong; her attention had been completely drawn away.
"┌(.Д.)┐This is… Shadow Clone Jutsu?!"
["This is way too complicated, Aibo. Should we tactically retreat again?"]
Hoshino said firmly, "No retreat. This time, I have to get to the bottom of the truth. And why did Wangba say that Kaiba knows more about the Ice King than she does?"
She had too many questions stuffed in her head, and for a moment she didn't know which one to ask first.
"Hoshino, since you've come here now, does that mean you've already come to understand the hidden truth of this world?" Kaiba Man asked before Hoshino could speak.
"The truth of the world? So Kaiba, you knew from the beginning?"
"No. I only learned the truth recently," Kaiba replied from behind the desk.
"The one who already knew the truth was I, Kaiba Man, not Seto Kaiba," Kaiba Man added.
Hoshino's mind was having trouble keeping up. Caught between Seto Kaiba and Kaiba Man, she looked a little lost.
"What is even going on here? Kaiba Seto this, Kaiba Man that — what's the deal with you two? And what about Mokuba? Isn't he surprised his brother has somehow split into two?!"
"Mokuba is not here," Kaiba Man answered. "Given the current situation, it is not convenient for others to see."
"Not even your own little brother?"
"No," Kaiba Man said, shaking his head.
"ヽ(`Д´)ﾉ Damn it, I really did trick you into admitting it. You already acknowledged Mokuba as your little brother, and you're still pretending to be Kaiba Man?"
Like in a werewolf game, Hoshino's sudden ambush caught both Kaibas completely off guard.
Grabbing the pendant on Kaiba Man's chest, Hoshino demanded, "And I already noticed this. The photo inside that pendant should be of you and Mokuba, right? If you can't explain this properly today, I won't let you off the hook!"
Hoshino opened the pendant on Kaiba Man's chest, only to freeze.
The photo hidden inside was not, as she had guessed, a picture of the brothers together, but a blurry image whose figure couldn't be made out at all.
The reason it was so unclear was because the photo was far too old, like an image that had gone through hundreds of years and had its ink fade away. She could only barely make out something that looked like a girl.
"Why did you replace the photo? Weren't you always treating a photo of the two brothers as your treasure?"
"Because I am not Seto Kaiba…" Kaiba Man answered calmly.
"Hmph. Stop being unreasonable, Hoshino."
With a cold snort, Kaiba, who had been sitting at the desk all along, stood up and took his place beside Kaiba Man.
"You came here about the Ice King, didn't you?"
"Ice King — so it really is!" Hoshino recalled. "Wangba said you know the Wyrm-Type Ice King better than she does. What's going on here?"
"No, I do not have any information regarding the Ice King," Kaiba denied.
"But Wangba told me to come ask you directly!"
"Hm? The Dwarf King mentioned me by name?" Kaiba confirmed.
"Well, not exactly by name. Wangba said, 'that person who keeps going "hmph" all the time, like the whole world owes him money.' But with that description, aside from you, Kaiba, there shouldn't be anyone else…"
Hoshino suddenly realized something: there actually was someone else. If the person the Dwarf King had meant wasn't Seto Kaiba, but this "Kaiba Man" instead…
What mattered most was that, unlike Seto Kaiba, Kaiba Man had given off an air of mystery from the very beginning, as though he knew many hidden truths.
Including how he had defeated the Seven Stars at the hot spring inn earlier, and how he had predicted the arrival of the Nine Kings and the priestess (trash).
"Masaka, you're the one who…"
Kaiba Man nodded. "Although I cannot answer your other questions, I do indeed possess information on how to break the Ice King."
"Perfect. I came to hear him talk about that too," Seto Kaiba added.
"I was called here too!" Eve raised her hand to signal.
"…" Looking at Eve sitting on the office sofa, a question mark seemed to rise above Hoshino's head. "Eve, when exactly did you get here?"
"W-What's with that, Hoshino? I've been sitting here from the very beginning! You didn't notice me the whole time, did you?"
It wasn't just that she'd failed to notice her. Hoshino hadn't sensed even the slightest trace of Eve's presence. Her sense of presence was so low that she blended perfectly into the background, like a throw pillow left on the sofa.
["Aibo, could this be the legendary EX Presence Concealment?!"]
"Eve might actually have the potential to become an Assassin, just like Okita."
Pouting slightly, Eve complained, "I don't know what you're talking about, Hoshino, but somehow that feels very rude."
"We shouldn't waste any time. Since everyone's here, let's set out now," Kaiba Man said as he turned and pushed open the office door.
"Set out where?"
"To the Ice Continent. We're going to defeat the Ice King!"
True to his thunderous style, half an hour earlier Hoshino had only intended to come here to learn about the Ice King and prepare the next deck and battle plan.
But half an hour later, Hoshino was sitting politely aboard the familiar Blue-Eyes White Dragon fighter jet.
This time, however, because Seto Kaiba and Kaiba Man were both piloting the plane separately, Hoshino and Eve no longer needed to squeeze into the same seat.
"Kaiba?" Hoshino asked again while the two of them were alone.
"What is it?"
"There's no way you don't know what Kaiba Man is. With your personality, if someone suddenly appeared who looked exactly like you and used a Blue-Eyes White Dragon deck, you absolutely wouldn't just leave it alone."
"I know. I understand everything about 'that person.' But it isn't yet time for me to explain it to you."
"Is there some reason you have to hide it from me?" Hoshino frowned unhappily.
"Yes."
Without any further explanation, the conversation between Kaiba and Hoshino came to an abrupt end, leaving only the roar of the plane engines echoing in the high sky.
Above the Ice Continent —
A kingdom covered in ice and snow; from above, all one could see was a vast expanse of silver-white.
"So it really is a kingdom of ice. It's all frozen white surfaces. It's practically like the Norse Lostbelt," Hoshino said as she pressed close to the window to look at the scenery.
"— Moshi moshi, can you hear me, Hoshino?"
Eve's proud voice came through the plane's communication device. "This is Priestess Eve's command tower. We're already very close to the destination~"
"A pathetic priestess like you is calling herself a command tower?"
"Of course. After all, I am the Star Relic Miko. And this time, we came to the Ice Kingdom to search for the Star Relic that exists here."
After using the map presented by the effect of Star Relic – Star Cup to confirm that a Star Relic existed on the Ice Continent, Eve, the priestess who had obtained the Star Cup, could put her sensing abilities to use.
"Wait, weren't we supposed to deal with the Ice King? How did this turn into searching for a Star Relic?" Hoshino asked in confusion.
"You idiot, Hoshino. If we don't obtain the Star Relic, how are we supposed to defeat the Wyrm-Type Ice King?" Eve replied.
If they couldn't awaken the Synchro deck by borrowing the power of the Star Relic, then without being able to Synchro Summon the Wyrm-class Heroic Spirit First Emperor, Hoshino would have absolutely no chance against the Ice King.
"That may be true, but how do you know that?" Hoshino asked suspiciously.
The fact that her Wyrm-Type Heroic Spirit monster was only the First Emperor shouldn't have been known by anyone except Hoshino — certainly not Eve.
"(°Д°) Uh, Kaiba Man told me," Eve instantly betrayed her teammate.
"Kaiba Man?" Hoshino glanced toward Kaiba in the pilot seat and muttered, "What exactly else does that guy know? It feels like he's seen right through everything."
…
"Prepare for landing. Because the temperature is very low, be careful when opening the hatch."
Probably because of the Ice Kingdom's harsh weather and rugged frozen terrain, which made it a very poor place for flying —
After Eve sensed the location of the Star Relic, Kaiba still circled low in the air for quite some time before finally finding an ice surface a fair distance from the destination and managing a rough landing.
"!!"
However, the moment Hoshino stepped out of the hatch, she immediately realized just how serious this situation was, and just how dangerous the pale, hidden crisis beneath the Ice Kingdom truly was.
"It's cold!!"
"Of course it's cold. Even if the temperature isn't particularly low, as long as there's ice, it has to be below zero degrees Celsius."
Kaiba said that it was only natural for it to be cold, but Hoshino couldn't see any sign that he himself was affected at all as the freezing wind blew in and stirred his flowing coat.
"There should be my spare coat in the cargo compartment. Hoshino, take it and wear it. If you collapse before the real Duel even starts, then coming all the way here will have been meaningless."
"If you knew it would be meaningless, then you should have waited until I was ready before setting out! But a spare coat? Fine, better than freezing for no reason."
Hoshino carefully searched through the storage compartment Kaiba had mentioned. Inside the small space were rows upon rows of luxurious-looking canned foods, so luxurious that one could tell just from the packaging.
"Wagyu beef cans, caviar cans, truffle cans? Are these rich-guy emergency rations for real?"
Grabbing one can after another and tossing them aside, Hoshino finally made it over the mountain of canned food built with money and found Kaiba's matching white coat.
"I really don't get how you're not cold at all, Kaiba. Did you build some kind of high-tech insulation into this coat?"
Although it was slightly ill-fitting, the moment Hoshino put on the white coat, the biting cold was instantly cut off.
Glancing at the hem of the coat dragging near the ground, Kaiba muttered, "Hoshino, have you gotten shorter again?"
"…What? Your coat is just too long. Don't casually insult people like that."
"I remember that in Egypt, it wasn't this long."
"Egypt? Did I wear a coat in Egypt?" Hoshino tilted her head.
["Ahem, Aibo, I was the one wearing it then. The situation was probably about the same as now~"]
"It's cold!!"
Just as Hoshino had barely escaped the freezing crisis of the Ice Kingdom, Eve, who had jumped down from the plane, let out a cry of misery.
"Take off your coat and give it to me!"
"Bear with it!" Kaiba Man refused coldly.
"Then why does Hoshino get clothes to wear? That's blatant double standards!" Eve protested.
"Duel Spirits do not fear the cold. Feeling cold is just your psychological effect."
"Eve is not a Duel Spirit. I already said I am the Miko, and that is completely different, okay?"
["Eve's base card is just a vanilla with 2100 DEF and a big butt. At that point, how is she still not a Duel Spirit?"]
With no choice, they found a blanket in the storage compartment and draped it over Eve. Once everyone was fully prepared, the four of them set out toward the direction where the Star Relic had been sensed.
"Kaiba Man, what kind of abnormal existence is the Ice King exactly?"
Before coming to the Ice Kingdom, Hoshino had even wondered whether the Ice King might be like King Utgarda, with the entire Ice Continent as its true body.
After all, according to the Dwarf King's description, the remaining three Kings couldn't be judged by common sense. The Ice King would naturally be no exception.
"Abnormal?" Kaiba Man thought for a moment before answering. "If I speak only of appearance, then Hoshino, you should be extremely familiar with her. But let me warn you in advance: you absolutely must not be deceived by her appearance."
"Her?"