Authors note:
Speaking: "…"
Thinking: '…'
___
Hitoshi pov
The next moment, the purple-haired teen opened his eyes to find himself standing inside what appeared to be the foyer of an ice castle. Blue and white marble walls and floors, blue carpets, and white and silver lamps, torches, and chandeliers decorated the rooms.
"The Madam is waiting in the mouth of the dragon. If you would follow me," Elara explained, indicating the direction she wanted him to go. Accepting the offer, he followed her, eventually arriving at an elevator.
Taking the elevator, which had a view of the outside of the castle, one could see nothing more than a few snowy mountains before a distant and dense snowstorm cut off visibility.
When the elevator finally reached its destination, Hitoshi was already preparing himself to deal with an old lady with a bad temper. However, when the doors opened, he found no such person. Instead, he was greeted by a pretty young woman, no older than twenty-five.
She was sitting in a large hall, almost like a throne room. Though, rather than an actual throne room, it was just a massive office with a sizable work desk at the end. Sitting behind the table, with a good number of papers stacked on top, was a woman with long icy-blue hair and white eyes. She wore a white, long-sleeved turtleneck shirt and black sweatpants, with her feet kicked up on the table, revealing her bare feet, while drinking from what looked like a hot mug of coffee.
Turning her head, she finally noticed the new arrivals.
"Lady Eira, I have brought the Oni as you requested. May I assist you any further?" the violet-eyed maid asked politely.
Putting her mug down and standing up with a small jump, Eira made her way toward the two with a grin on her face.
"Thanks, Elara. You can start setting up the game table now. The others should be arriving soon. I'll take the kid from here," she boldly stated, continuing her barefoot walk across the icy floor before stopping directly in front of Hitoshi. Her being half a head taller made the scene a little comical.
Noticing the confused look on the boy's face, she asked, annoyed, "What? You look like you've never seen a woman before."
Now locking eyes with her, the purple-haired boy spoke up. "I'll be honest. When I heard you were a top hero fifty years ago, I thought I'd be meeting an old lady, not a young woman."
A vein could be seen popping on her forehead as she screamed out, "Who are you calling an old lady, you brat?! I'm only two thousand years old!" while releasing an astounding amount of awakened presence, rapidly cooling the air in the room.
Not wanting to freeze, Hitoshi reinforced his body with aura, withstanding the overwhelming display of power.
At that moment, the elevator door opened again as three people walked in, two men and one woman. One of them was instantly recognizable to the assassin: it was Hawks, Japan's No. 2 hero. The other two, however, were strangers to him.
The woman was fairly young, with long blonde hair and dark green eyes. The man, on the other hand, was on the older side, with short black hair, blue eyes, and a black mustache.
When the three arrived, their faces took on an expression of confusion.
‚Since Hawks is with them and they're here, they must be some of the other members of Aegis. Though, judging by their expressions, the ice queen must not have told them I'd be here,' the Oni deduced.
Before they could ask their questions, the blue-haired woman spoke up.
"Great, you're finally here! Now we can start the first game night in ages. Zephyr, Noctra, this is your first time again, righ... Hold on, where even is Noctra?"
Speaking up, Hawks, now called Zephyr, answered, "Dunno. She didn't answer any of my texts, and her house was empty. I figured you already abducted her." With a shrug, he put his hands back in his pockets.
"Well, she's strong enough to take care of herself, so I'm sure she'll call back eventually. But I'll put that on my list to do after this game. And before you ask about the boy, he's one of Midoriya's companions. He's here so I can decide if I want him at my school."
She turned around and walked away as she finished the sentence.
‚So, I'm assuming they know all of our identities if she's just casually saying that,' Hitoshi thought with a deadpan expression.
"Well then, Elara, we're ready. Hit us," the ice queen called out.
At first, nothing happened, but then the room suddenly began shaking.
"Why do you have to conduct this in such a brutish manner, my dear Eira? It is not becoming of a fine lady like yourself," the mustached man exhaled in a British accent.
"Mmm, I always like it when the room does that," the blonde woman said with an innocent smile.
Hawks, unlike the blonde and the old man, looked surprised at the action, as if this was his first time witnessing it.
As the room continued to shake, it didn't just spin, it also formed a dome of ice around them. When the ice finally began cracking, it shattered shortly after, revealing their new surroundings.
They were now inside a giant, marble-shaped room with four columns winding off the outside of the glass dome to support it.
For the first time, Hitoshi was finally able to see the castle they were in. It was a medieval fortress carved into a glacier, with a massive western dragon sculpture, easily over a kilometer high, perched on top of the mountain itself. The dome-shaped glass room, which had no doors, rested in the open mouth of the dragon.
"Where on earth are we?" Hitoshi questioned aloud, not expecting an answer.
"We're in the game room of the Eiswyrm Citadel. And if you mean where on earth, we're somewhere in the depths of Russia's largest snowstorm, spanning over 1,000 square kilometers,"Eira answered vaguely, with a proud smirk.
As she finished speaking, a circular hole opened in the floor, and a blue-and-white poker table rose from it, with Elara now in a dealer uniform standing behind it.
"Well then, before we start, Oni, have you ever played a game of poker before?" Eira asked expectantly, excitement in her voice.
"Poker? You mean that card game that got pretty much ruined because everyone kept cheating with their quirks?"
"Yes, that. Specifically, the Texas Hold'em version."
Hitoshi was about to say no, as he'd never even seen a poker deck used for anything but a show prop. However, a female voice in his head told him, ‚Say yes.'
Perplexed by the calm tone in which the princess of destruction made her request, he asked,
‚Why?'
‚Just trust me on this.'
‚Why would I ever trust you?'
‚Because back in the underworld, I was the undefeated grandmaster of this game, and I'm not going to let that streak end today, even if I'm in your body.'
She adamantly declared.
Shrugging, he thought, ‚Fine, I'll trust you this once. You know the consequences if you lie
to me.'
Receiving no further response, he finally spoke aloud.
"Yes, I know how to play."
"Great! Then you already know more than Zephyr."
"I'm standing right here, you know," Hawks deadpanned.
„Anyway, this is essentially that game, but instead of betting with chips, you bet your aura. So, I'll now ask you and all of the others to use their Spiritual Body Manifestation to make sure you're not cheating with Spirit Form," she firmly demanded as a swirl of white aura surrounded her.
When it dissipated, she stood there with a new look. Her hair was now completely white and tied into a long braid, while her eyes had turned into a shade of icy blue. Resting on her head was a pair of gold and blue pilot sunglasses. She now wore a white tank top with a white military jacket draped over her shoulders, along with black military-style pants.
The others soon followed suit. Hawks transformed into his white-winged form. The old man's hair and mustache turned dark gray, streaked with electric blue bolts. A monocle rested over his right eye, and he now wore a black and gold suit with a navy blue overcoat draped over his shoulders. The blonde woman's hair became a flowing auburn, adorned with vines, and her eyes shifted to a warm forest green. She now wore a green dress covered in leaves.
"Now it's your turn," Eira stated with a sophisticated air, placing a hand on his shoulder while wearing a creepy smile that clearly read: Do it or you die.
After feeling that awakened presence earlier, he had no desire to test her patience.
Giving in, he activated Spiritual Body Manifestation, his body enveloped in a black aura. When it dispersed, he now stood in an older form, his now black hair had grown to shoulder length, styled into a messy layered ponytail. His piercing purple eyes glowed subtly, and he now wore black formal pants, a black dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, revealing black vine tattoos running along his forearms. Over the shirt, he wore a purple vest and a matching purple tie.
Reaching into both pockets, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a metallic lighter with a purple Jack of Diamonds engraved on the side. He flicked the lighter open, igniting the cigarette with purple flames, and took a deep inhale before exhaling a puff of violet smoke.
Seeing the teen smoke so freely, Eira teased, "So you smoke too? You know that's illegal for minors. Where'd you even get those cigarettes?"
"Let's just say it's a habit I picked up from my master. Now, every time I transform into my Spiritual Body, it comes with the cigarettes and this lighter, along with a sort of familiar urge to smoke. This body doesn't take damage from it, so it's not harmful. And I can't even smoke in my physical body without puking, so I honestly don't want to. This body just... kind of does it. And besides, this isn't the worst crime I've committed," the black-haired man explained, exhaling another puff of smoke.
Eira smirked as she pulled out her own cigarette, prompting Hitoshi to offer her his ignited lighter asking „ need a light?". placing it between her lips before freezing it. "Don't need one," she stated as she puffed out cold air instead.
"Oh, and before I forget," she continued, "This is Zephyr, also known as Hawks." She gestured toward the winged man. "That's Caelum," she added, pointing at the mustached English gentleman. "And this is Ceres," she said, indicating the flower-adorned woman.
"Now," she grinned excitedly, taking a seat at the poker table. "Let's play some poker. If you do better than Zephyr, I'll let you into the school."she excitedly stated with a grin as she sat down on one of the chairs on the poker table.