The helicopter landed on the rooftop helipad of the Kaiba Company's headquarters at 2 AM—despite the hour, the lights inside the building were still brightly lit.
Mokuba was unsurprisingly already waiting on the rooftop, with Kaiba Family's loyal bodyguard Izono standing straight behind him.
"Sorry to keep you working so late," Youyu jumped off the helicopter.
"It's no problem," Mokuba waved it off, "I'm glad to help you, Youyu."
As he spoke, he led Youyu inside the building. The automatic doors slid open after the smart lock verified their identities, and the two walked into the building, with Uncle Izono maintaining a certain distance behind them.
"President Haima isn't here again?"
Youyu felt that the president had been genuinely busier lately; several times he'd come to the company headquarters and found him absent.
"Out on a business trip again?"
"...No," Mokuba said, embarrassed, "My brother heard that Yugi was back, and he's been wanting to duel him ever since. For some reason, ever since my brother returned from Duel Academy, he's been constantly mentioning Yugi, seemingly more eager to duel him than before...
By the way, Youyu, do you know what's going on?"
"...No idea,"
Youyu, recalling the "Gandora the Dragon of Destruction" card he slipped to Judai before his duel with Manjome, just pretended to be oblivious and lied.
Considering the results, he thought his maneuver warranted a perfect score. Ever since that duel where Judai defeated Manjome, the president hadn't brought up dueling with him for a while. He figured the president's mind was now filled with Yugi, leaving no room for other things.
This maneuver was called shifting hate.
By sacrificing Yugi as a target, he gained some rare leisure time under the president's nose.
"Let's not talk about that now," Youyu got to the point, "What's going on with Hibiki Koyo?"
"Oh."
Mokuba handed him a pre-prepared tablet. Youyu took it, and it displayed a news report from back then.
The report said that Duel King Hibiki Koyo fell into a coma due to a sudden illness while on vacation in a foreign country and was rushed to a local hospital for emergency treatment. However, the details were vague and didn't explain the specifics clearly.
"That's the official story, but it's not the truth."
Mokuba flipped the screen to the next page for Youyu.
It was a photo of a paper document stamped with "Confidential." The signing agency was the government's special institution known as the "D Department" — a department specializing in supernatural phenomena duels, established after the Doma incident.
"Since its inception, the D Department has been trying to recruit top duelists from all over, hoping that those experts' powers could be used for their purposes. Their head, Fujino, contacts my brother every few days, often discussing Kaiba Group's cooperation with their department."
Mokuba apparently had little fondness for Fujino, as his tone expressed dissatisfaction when mentioning him.
He always felt that this person coveted something from the Kaiba Group, but he couldn't figure out what exactly...
"The terms they offered were indeed generous, and many duelists were willing to work for them," Mokuba said, "There are indications that Mr. Hibiki was inclined in that direction at the time.
Even though Mr. Hibiki declined the invitation to become an agent after winning the Duel King title, he maintained a cooperative relationship with the department.
Sometimes the D Department would encounter difficult issues, and during those times, they would invite Mr. Hibiki to help resolve them. However, Mr. Hibiki was not interested in the rewards; he simply wanted to be of help."
"Sounds like S.H.I.E.L.D. and Captain America," Youyu said.
"What?" Mokuba didn't understand.
"...Nothing, go on."
"Oh. So, back to Mr. Hibiki's final mission... This was supposed to be highly classified, but our group's insiders managed to obtain these."
Inserting someone into such a department wasn't easy, even for the nearly world-dominating Kaiba Group. Mokuba didn't know why, but the head Fujino had an unusually favorable attitude towards Kaiba Group, making many things easier.
Youyu continued flipping through, already browsing the document's main content.
"Archeology." Youyu raised an eyebrow, "Archeology again?"
In various animated and film works, archaeologists' status has become well-known, commonly referred to as "party-wipe engines." You never know when someone will dig up something catastrophic in some corner of the world...
"Yes, the matter started when an archeological team unearthed an object," Mokuba explained, "This confidential document only addresses the mission related to Mr. Hibiki. Since the task didn't require participants to know what the object was, it wasn't mentioned here.
But in any case, it was described as an extremely dangerous item that, upon exposure, horrified the entire archeological team.
Many people then judged that it was beyond their capacity to handle. Its malevolence was terrifying, and it should be handed over to more specialized individuals to deal with."
"So they contacted the government department," Youyu said.
"That's when the D Department got involved," Mokuba said, reaching out to flip another page on the screen in Youyu's hands.
"The mission description stated it was merely an escort mission. They needed to rush to the archeological site, take over the object from the archeological team, and transport it back to headquarters, as simple as that."
"Doesn't sound like a mission requiring a Duel King," Youyu said.
"That's exactly the problem," Mokuba said seriously, "The item described as 'terrifyingly evil' by the archeologists — whatever it was, they evidently thought it required a Duel King's presence for reassurance."
"So things didn't go as smoothly as they said?"
"It seems so," Mokuba said, "Their ship encountered an unexpected storm and tsunami at sea. From later analyses, it was classified as extreme and abnormal weather.
There were no indications they'd face a storm, and the storm with thunder and rain seemed to cover only the specific area of the transport ship."
Youyu flipped to the end of the document.
He looked up, "That's it?"
"Yeah, that's all there is," Mokuba shrugged helplessly, "Their ship braved the storm and returned to headquarters. But Mr. Hibiki vanished; he never came back from that mission.
But he was also the only person on that mission who went missing."
"So what happened during the storm?"
"I don't know. Even within the D Department, there are no recorded details... or we just didn't find them."
"What about the archeological team? They must know something."
"That's the strange part," Mokuba's expression turned grave, "Our people thoroughly investigated every member of that team and found that each of them met with accidents after the excavation."
"All met with accidents?" Youyu wondered.
"Yes. Some were in car accidents, others died from falling off horses," Mokuba explained, "Of the remaining, two went insane and were hospitalized, while others fell ill and are still bedridden in hospitals."
This was indeed bizarre.
It reminded Youyu of the anecdote in DM when the Egyptian God Tablets were excavated. Before Pegasus personally took over crafting the God Tablets, every designer who handled those tablets either died or went mad, with no good outcomes.
So what exactly did that archeological team unearth? And how did it relate to Hibiki's disappearance?
"But there is one person remaining from that team, neither mad nor dead," Mokuba brought up the relevant files, "Koizumi Keita, the team's leader.
Since the incident, he's retired early, but the Kaiba Group tracked down his current address. Maybe Youyu, you'd like to meet him?"
"Give me the address." Youyu said, "I'll go see him."