Beyblade: Metal Fusion - Episode 15

The Mysterious Hyoma (謎の氷魔, Nazo no Hyōma) is the fifteenth episode of the Metal Fight Beyblade anime.

Synopsis
Kenta enters the B-Pit and tells Madoka, Benkei and Kyouya about a letter Ginga left them: in this note, Ginga thanks them for what they have done to him, but he has to leave for his village now; he apologizes for that. The four friends are not ready to just let him go: they take the train to follow him. Kyouya asks the manager at the train station if he saw Ginga, which leads them towards a vast forest. Some minutes later, they stopped by a small lake where Madoka bathed her feet. Somehow, in his innocent happiness, Kenta sprang his ankle... After a good walk where they had to go at Madoka's pace since she brought a big luggage with wheels and a grip, while Kenta simply brought a back-pack, they decided to take a break in order to eat. They laid out some sandwiches Madoka had prepared and ate them, especially Benkei, who did so with much vigor. Kenta and Benkei ended up fighting over the amount of sandwiches each person should be allowed and, in the midst of their dispute, a yellow monkey grabbed what was left of the sandwiches. Everybody soon stopped to realize they had no food left, and Kyouya directed their attention towards the theft, who was happily sitting on the high branch of a tree, where it was mostly inaccessible. Seeing as they had no other choice in the matter, they just decided to leave. Since it was made clearer to Kenta that they would have still had food if Benkei had not eaten so much, the group broke in half: Kenta and Madoka went one way, while the two others took their own path. Kenta also decides to mock Benkei's "BUURUU!!! Bull Upper!", his two indexes acting as small horns. At some point on their route, which appears to be the most hazardous of the two, Madoka and Kenta are walking carefully along the side of a mountain. Madoka however walks onto a weak formation of rocks and falls; the same thing soon happens to Kenta. Suddenly, a mysterious person jumped to their rescue and caught them in their fall; both are unconscious, and Madoka's luggage gets crushed under a big falling rock. The unknown individual talks to her to try and awake her, because Kenta is already conscious again. As her eyes open, she recalls what happened and is filled of joy from knowing that she survived such a fall. The other guy congratulates her, but tells her the news about her things, which saddens her a lot. Forgetting about that, Hyouma introduces himself happily. He even explains his name: 'hyou' means ice, and 'ma', demon. Interesting anecdote. Together, they enter the forest again and Hyouma offers them food after both Kenta and Madoka's stomachs grumbled. He secretly goes to the river and launches his Clay Aries into the water, somehow capturing a lot of fish that they all eat. After this meal, Madoka and Kenta try to get away, but Hyouma seems to insist on leading them somewhere: to persuade them, he asks them if they really want to go into a forest filled with bears and other dangerous animals, and obviously the two kids rush to his side. In a relatively short amount of time, they arrive to a clear area and Kenta and Madoka, exhausted from the walk, thank Hyouma, but they notice that he has completely disappeared. Dumbstruck, they continue on in hopes of finding Ginga, which Hyouma had been strangely curious about. On their side of the forest, Kyouya and Benkei end up in front of a tall rocky formation, which angers Benkei. He kicks at a branch that was on the ground, and it rebounds on the rocks towards a bush. Hearing some noise coming from that plant, Benkei fears that he has yet again hit a nest of bees but, to his relief, Hyouma reveals himself. Kyouya is extremely weary of him since he noticed that the mysterious person had been spying on them from the beginning. Unknown to them, he had also been the one to send the monkey to fetch the sandwiches; when it had accomplished its mission, Hyouma had patted it on the head. Still smiling though, Hyouma convinces them, or at least Benkei, to let him lead them. They end up stuck in front of a barrage of trunks. Since they seemingly cannot escalate the trunks, Benkei decides to launch his Dark Bull at the wood, effectively destroying everything and clearing their way. Hyouma is impressed by that beyblade and says Balance blades are nice, which makes Kyouya even more suspicious: if he knew about Balance beyblades, then that means he is a beyblader. Hyouma appears to slightly deny that and they just carry on. However, only a few feet into the passageway, a boar rushes towards Benkei, who runs to a tree and climbs high onto it. The boar keeps striking the trunk, hoping to make it fall to the ground with Benkei, who is completely scared of this threat. Having suddenly disappeared, Hyouma launches his Clay Aries at the boar and the tree, succeeding in chasing it away as well as making a clean cut into the wood. Hyouma then reappears, making Kyouya's suspicion increase considerably. Nonetheless, the group ends up meeting with Madoka and Kenta and, while Benkei and them readily agree to follow Hyouma into the forest, Kyouya reluctantly does so, if only to watch over the others as they are lead by this bizarre stranger. In what is left of the Dark Nebula Castle, Ryuuga trains for the Battle Bladers tournament: he is standing on a platform which is held over a sea of deadly spikes. Around him, four groups of beybladers launch their beyblades: each have colours specific to their group and all identically-coloured blades pertain to the same type; for example, Stamina blades are red. Ryuuga easily defeats them with his triple-dragon attack, but he wants more; he wants to demonstrate his overwhelming powers. Meanwhile, Daidouji had been eating casually on a higher level of the room, watching the match almost amusingly.

Characters

 * Gingka Hagane
 * Kyoya Tategami
 * Kenta Yumiya
 * Madoka Amano
 * Benkei Hanawa
 * Ryuga
 * Hokuto
 * Hyoma

Beyblades

 * Storm Pegasus 105RF
 * Rock Aries ED145B
 * Flame Sagittario C145S
 * Dark Bull H145SD
 * Lightning L-Drago 100HF
 * Minor Dark Nebula Beyblades

Trivia

 * The second prologue intro starts in this episode, and lasts to episode 23.