The world was burning gray.
An evil cackle lingered across the sky, like tongues of fire lashing out.
The earth had become a wasteland, with ruined buildings and broken flyovers raising clouds of dust.
The tips of someone's fingers touched the ground, then.
A shiver ran down the entire earth, cracks originating from those fingers.
In the next moment, everything decayed, along with the people buried under the debris.
A shout filled with rage challenged the destruction, the sound of successive explosions deafening the ears.
Someone somewhere snapped fingers.
A massive mushroom cloud burned the vision.
That cloud of ash and fire became a fist — as large as the sky itself, glowing with seven-colored lights.
Another fist, larger, crueler, and viler, came from the other side.
And as the two fists matched, a sigh washed over the land… a sigh of helplessness against the inevitable fate.
…
Reijirou Saionji, the 47-year-old tycoon, chairman of the Saionji Group, didn't wake up with a start, but with a frown on his face.
Before he noticed anything, he felt a stinging pain in his head, forcing him to put his fingers against his temples and massage them.
With that done, he looked around.
He was seated outside in the garden with a newspaper in his lap, the umbrella over his head shading him from the afternoon sun.
It was still late winter, with a chill in the air.
As this was a rare day with some free time on his schedule, Reijirou had come out to get some fresh air, donning a thick fur.
However, at some point in time, while reading the newspaper, he must have dozed off.
Making sure that this wasn't a dream as well, and noticing several details to confirm his lucidity, Reijirou finally allowed himself to indulge in the dream.
No.
That wasn't a common dream.
Reijirou Saionji possessed the Quirk — Soothsayer.
Not all dreams were prophecies, but Reijirou had learned to differentiate them from the ones that were.
Lately, the number of the former was rising higher and higher, challenging his expertise in this area, though.
Ever since Luke had gone to UA, his Quirk had been giving him fewer and fewer prophecies.
To him, it felt like his Quirk was saying that with Luke gone, its work was done.
Reijirou still experienced prophetic dreams, but they weren't as groundbreaking as finding a 9-year-old Luke at an orphanage.
The visit of an uninvited guest.
The call from the head of a foreign government.
The raids of militias and civil uprisings in warring countries.
The Soothsayer's reach was increasing, covering the entire globe.
Reijirou did his part, meddling where he could and leaving the rest to the capable hands that could intervene on his behalf.
But, despite the substantial rise in reach, the potency of Soothsayer seemed to have gone down.
This dream squashed that conclusion, though.
Reijirou picked up his tablet off the table next to him and calmly began typing his entire dream. From sound to smell, from colors to different frames, he made sure he wrote everything down. With practice, he had already trained his memory to recall even the tiniest detail that lingered in the back of his mind.
As soon as he finished detailing the dream, the tycoon allowed himself to act like an ordinary man by not ignoring his body's reactions.
Sweat had drenched his back.
His heart was booming against his chest.
The tips of his fingers were throbbing, and his hand was shaking.
The fur coat he had, combined with the hot cup of tea, should have kept the cold at bay, but now his teeth were chattering as well.
And that's how Misaki Saionji, his wife, found him when she walked in to call him back.
As she saw her husband shaking, Misaki forgot that she could walk, her breath misting with a broken rhythm.
Misaki Saionji had the Quirk — Future Sketch.
She could sketch an event that would happen in the next 24 hours, but mostly it revolved around her. Not only that, but it was also almost impossible to interpret her sketches. Only Luke had shown the singular capacity to interpret her sketches with an uncanny accuracy.
However, as those sketches were never substantial, his going to the UA hadn't affected her much.
Contrarily, Misaki preferred him away from her and her husband.
If it were in her hands, then she would have made sure that Luke would not even see Rikuya and Aina's faces until he became 18 years old. Because, as per the deal between her and the boy, Luke would leave the Saionji family, then.
Misaki suddenly took a deep breath.
These weren't the thoughts she should be having now, she knew.
However, it had been a long time since she had seen her husband like this… The last time it had happened, he had brought Luke home.
Slowly, she stepped toward him and put her hand on his shoulder. "Bad dream?"
Reijirou shook his head.
It had puzzled him for months.
With so much happening in the world, why wasn't he getting prophecies?
USJ incident, Hosu City incident, UA School Festival's debacle, I-Island's crisis, and then, recently, the USA's grim affair.
Even if not all of them were linked to Luke directly, they were still a sign of the world's worsening situation. If the world worsened, then how could he remain unaffected? So, it had made little sense to Reijirou that he was not receiving any dreams regarding these events.
I'd thought I was getting old, Reijirou realized, gripping Misaki's hand for warmth. … That my Quirk was aging with me. But…
Now.
He wished it had been the case.
Reijirou looked over his shoulder and met his wife's eyes, and again shook his head.
"… Not a bad dream," he said, lacking any smile to comfort her. "… It was a nightmare."
Misaki gasped.
"… Call Sand," The Chairman of the Saionji Group said, standing up. "Arrange a meeting with the Japanese Government and Hero Public Safety Commission. Also…"
Reijirou looked down at the words he had typed.
"… Let's bring All Might to the table as well."
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