Sasaki Household.
Seiki.
It seems that Seiki couldn't trust his uncle to keep his mouth shut.
Not that that was a bad thing, not really. It wasn't like Mirai knew any of his secrets... but Seiki was still a little peeved. It hasn't even been two weeks since they've introduced themselves to All Might's former sidekick, and now there was yet another person that Seiki needed to get a read on. Someone that could be just as dangerous as Mirai, thanks to the nature of both their Quirks... if this second target was even a precog. But that was something that Seiki would figure out sooner or later, since he was going to give the woman in question an 'interview.'
Hikari Sasaki, Mirai's mother.
But before that 'interview' could happen, Seiki Yamazaki would have to survive a family dinner.
"Oh son, it's good to finally see you again!" Ms. Sasaki said with a sappy smile, before grabbing Mirai and pulling him into a nice, firm hug. "You should visit your Kaa-san more often, always slaving away at that hero job of yours. Don't you know how lonely this house gets...?" she whined, rocking back and forth as she tightly held Mirai against her chest, clearly trying to get a rise out of her son.
Hikari eventually released the poor man from her clutches, turning towards Narumi.
"Narumi, right? Oh look at you. You've got his eyes, and that damned yellow stripe of his..." she said with a longing sigh, most definitely reminiscing the past.
And then Hikari turned to face him.
"And you must be Seiki. You've got a few of his traits too, but I don't think Kousei was ever so well built... how old are you now, young man?"
"Eleven," Seiki answered honestly... mostly. Because yes, he was physically 11, but mentally? He didn't actually know the answer to that one. And while he saw a flash of something in her eyes at his words, as if she had recognized something... Seiki didn't dwell on it. Well, he could always just ask about it during her 'interview.'
"Eleven, hm?" she asked, almost as if she didn't believe it. To be fair, he certainly didn't look it. "Well! I'll have dinner ready in a few. Katsudon work for everyone?"
And when everyone nodded at that, Hikari Sasaki let them inside.
As far as first impressions went, Hikari was... nice. Despite lacking any blood relation, the woman reminded Seiki of his mom quite a bit... only a little less naïve, and a little more crass. But the way that she just exuded a fondness for him, despite having just met, Seiki couldn't help but feel 'safe.' Hikari also came off as wise beyond her years– not that Hikari even looked that old, only sporting a few wrinkles here and there, and not a single grey strand in her green-blue hair. She also liked to tease the hell out of Mirai, but it seemed to come from a place of love. Something Seiki could understand, given that he loved to tease his mom too.
With his mom being an orphan, and never looking into Hiroshi's side of the family after the bastard's... sudden departure, Seiki's never had grandparents. Part of him had always wondered what they'd be like, and well... Mrs. Sasaki fit the bill.
And then there was the fact that his mom was happy, really happy. Because after all these years, Narumi's finally found 'family.'
So of course, Seiki was happy too.
It wasn't long before they were sitting around the dinner table, and Narumi asked, "So what was Mirai like growing up?"
"Uh, Kaa-san, I don't think–"
"Christ, he was such a handful," she groaned in annoyance, in spite of the small smile gracing her lips. "Especially once his Quirk came in. 'Mom, don't do this, don't do that'... he read my future almost everyday, trying his darned best to keep me safe. Thanks to that, I've never had to worry about a random accident or villain springing out of nowhere, but it was annoying as hell, my own kid ordering me around like that."
"Seeing the future huh? How's that work, exactly?" Narumi asked curiously, before quickly backpedaling. "But uh, if you don't want to answer, I get it. I know that you keep its functions under wraps because you're a hero... not to mention that your hero-page didn't even have it listed..." she mumbled quietly.
"No, it's fine," Mirai assured her. "But I do have to ask that neither of you ever tell anyone else how it functions."
And all of the sudden, Seiki was much more invested in the conversation.
'Save2.'
"In essence, whenever I make eye contact with someone and touch their person, I can see the future that awaits them," Mirai explained. "It's quite useful for seeing crimes before they occur, and gathering information on villains before I confront them. I've prepared for a lot of raids over the years with it..."
And Seiki couldn't help but notice one tidbit.
"You see the future? Not 'a' future?" he prodded.
"Ah... yes. I don't know how my Quirk works exactly, no one does. But the future I see... it's absolute. There's nothing that I can do to change it," he said with a sigh. "But even so, I can still use it up to a certain point, and then I can use that information—"
"That's bullshit," Seiki cut him off. "The future isn't absolute."
"I'm sorry?" Mirai asked, nonplussed. His mom also gave him a look, something along the lines of 'this better be false time.' Seiki gave her a slight nod, and his mom just rolled her eyes at his antics, before leaning back in her chair.
Seiki clapped his hands together. "Okay. Let's say you see someone's future, right? And thanks to your Quirk, you see this person commit a crime... no, you see this person get arrested by you right as they try to commit said crime. Has that ever happened before? It has, right?"
"...Well, yes, but–"
"So what's stopping you from killing the villain immediately after you see this vision?"
Mirai's entire body stilled, before throwing Seiki a glare.
"Heroes do not kill."
"Yeah yeah, you're the good guys and all that, but this is a hypothetical. So what's stopping you from killing them?"
"It just... it just won't happen, because I don't see it—"
"No. It's you," Seiki explained. "Quirks are a part of us, and they always, always take their users into account. There's the minor adaptations that everyone shares, like better durability and stamina and all that, but everyone has specific ones, too. For example, I've got a photographic memory– it isn't perfect, but it definitely helps with the excess memories my Quirk gives me," Seiki rambled slightly, before taking a breath. "My point is, when your Quirk shows you a future... it's tailored to you. You see a future that follows the path you are most likely to take, so from your perspective, the future you see is absolute. You've never seen a future that didn't come true... because your Quirk does the legwork to get you the outcome you'd most likely want to achieve. But when you see something that you don't want to happen, that's because ultimately, you just can't bring yourself to prevent it. Not because the future is absolute, but because neither you nor your Quirk is infallible. No Quirk is."
'Not even mine,' Seiki added, but only in his mind.
"But," his uncle stuttered, sounding lost, "But why would I ever want—"
"And if it's not the future that you most likely want, then it's the future that you most likely expect. Or maybe even a mixture of the two."
There was a pause.
"That..." Mirai eventually started, only to stop one word in, before leaning back in his chair. Seiki could see the realization slowly dawn on him... immediately followed by yet another realization. "Wait, excess memories—?"
'Load2.'
"—In essence, whenever I make eye contact with someone and touch their person, I can see the future that awaits them," Mirai explained. "It's quite useful for seeing crimes before they occur, and gathering information on villains before I confront them. I've prepared for a lot of raids over the years with it..."
"Wow, that's so cool!" Narumi gushed. "Did you ever help All Might with it?"
Mirai stiffened slightly at that, before eventually answering, "Quite a few times," a small smile gracing his lips. "In fact, there was this one villain who could..."
'Seeing the future, huh? I wonder what mine's like,' Seiki thought, drowning out the surrounding the conversation as he went back to his katsudon.
But it'll always be just that. A thought.
Because if there's anything that Seiki fears, even more than the Titans around the world...
It's the true nature of his Quirk.
Because these futures that Mirai sees... what if Seiki has more than one? What if he has thousands of tapes, all of them burned off at the edges, burned off at the very moment he activates his Quirk? What if Seiki learns that he's abandoned his mother a countless number of times, and that he will abandon her countless more? That the Narumi Yamazaki sitting right across from him, that his mom, is just a fork of a fork of a fork... a fork of a mother that Seiki left behind the very moment that he awakened his Quirk. Seiki can never know, because that 'truth'... it could very well break him.
"—No, not those!" Mirai all but pleaded, sounding very distraught. Distraught enough to shake Seiki out of his musings.
Seiki looked up to see his mom walking in a circle, a photobook in her hands... and a very reluctant Mirai following a few steps behind her.
"C'mon, I really wanna see! What did baby Mirai look like!? Or toddler Mirai! Oh! Did you have a hall-monitor phase? You totally seem like the type—!"
"Hey, brat. Let's talk for a bit." Seiki nearly jumped out of his seat as Hikari spoke from his side. She hadn't snuck up on him, or anything like that— if she had, Konan would've rustled his clothes. No, with the table already cleared of everything, all except for his own plate...
'I must've been really lost in my own head, huh?'
"Sure..." he answered easily, following Hikari, his 'grandmother,' out of the room.
'I guess it's finally time for her interview,' he thought with slight amusement.
But when Seiki followed Hikari out her backdoor, the woman leaned off her back porch, and with a single word, threw him for a total loop.
"Cigarette?"
"Huh?" Seiki sputtered, caught completely off guard.
"I asked if you wanted a cigarette."
"I'm 11," Seiki reminded her, but didn't outright refute it. "Eh, why not." Taking the cigarette from her outstretched hand, Seiki held it in his mouth with two fingers, the way that you see them used in old-timey movies. 'Save2.'
"Let me light it for you," then she did just that, and Seiki inhaled... and immediately broke out into a coughing fit.
"Euk, euk...! Ugh," he groaned, pulling the cigarette away from his mouth.
"They've got a bit off kick to 'em," she chuckled slightly. "Everyone's first smoke is a doozy—"
'Load2.'
"—Let me light it for you," then she did just that, and Seiki inhaled... and exhaled, doing his best not to cough like an idiot.
"Eh, good enough," Hikari grumbled. "I was betting on you coughing like an idiot."
Seiki rolled his eyes, because of course she was. "So what's this about?"
Hikari just stood there for a while, looking off of her porch. There honestly wasn't much to look at, with only a few shrubs and a picket fence... but maybe he was just spoiled for good views, given the absolute monster of a manor that he lives in nowadays.
"Wanna know the first thing that Mirai ever saw with his Quirk?"
"What was it?" Seiki asked, more than a little curious.
"He saw Kousei leave," Hikari said with a sigh. "I knew it would happen eventually. Kousei and I never married, and despite supporting me through the first few years of Mirai's childhood... I knew that the man I loved didn't want to be tied down, not for anything," she said with a fond smile. "It was his Quirk, Feels Right. Every once in a while, when he was faced with a decision... he just knew what to do. Whether the outcome was good or bad, at least for him. And because of that, he wanted to explore the world, to see everything the world had to offer. I knew that. I knew that even after he knocked me up, so I expected him to leave eventually... and hey, he paid my rent— he even bought my house outright, so I wasn't all too mad. Even if I still miss him.
"But Mirai... he didn't understand. Brats never do. After all, they're brats!" she shouted, before chuckling again. "But it was a different kind of hell, seeing how it ate up at little Mirai's insides. Since it was the first future he ever saw, he thought it was his fault. And when he failed to prevent it... ugh, it was a whole mess," Hikari groaned. "Mirai didn't use his Quirk for months after that, but I eventually got him to use it again. And then the brat wouldn't stop using it," she said with a grin.
Then Hikari turned to look at him, right in the eyes. A look filled with understanding... an understanding that unnerved him.
"Quirk's are a curse sometimes," she said. "Especially the info-types. Sometimes you know more than you want to know, and you don't know what to do with the information you have. But you have to do something... because you're Quirk won't let you forget it."
"...What's your Quirk?" Seiki asked hesitantly.
"Hyper Intuition. My eyes, my ears, my nose, hell, even my tongue, they're all hyper-accurate, whatever the hell that means. Simply put, my brain pulls information from anything and everything that it can, and then it tells me what that information means. Works wonders on facial expressions," she sighed again. "So tell me... how bad is it?"
"How bad is what?"
"Don't make me spell it out boy," she growled. "The constant unease, the way you're always ready to defend yourself from an 'incoming attack.' And that's not even getting into the deep-seated trauma. You do a wonderful job of hiding it, but it's definitely there," she went on and on, before finally asking, "so just how bad is the future that you see?"
Seiki bit his lip. "I can't see the future," he answered truthfully.
But in his mind, he was moments away from Loading, from never interacting with Mirai or Hikari ever again.
"DON'T!" Hikari hollered, her voice shaking slightly. "Don't close yourself off like that. If you don't want to talk to me, that's fine. I understand. But please, please talk to someone. Even if it's just your mom, talk to her. She knows the truth of your Quirk, whatever it is, but you're still keeping things from her. Things that you need to tell someone. Anyone."
Seiki wanted to argue... but she was right. His mom knew his Quirk, but his worries, his fears... he has never confided those in anyone.
Because despite the absolute trust and love Seiki held for his mom, he didn't want her to know his fears.
Because if she knew that he was afraid, then she'd be afraid too.
But after securing himself in an ivory tower, and bottling everything up, a small part of him just wanted to... let it all out.
"First off, I don't see the future. I live it."
And with the floodgates open, Seiki told her everything. From how the very moment he awakened his Quirk, the HPSC swooped in. About how they bought off his father, about how they slowly broke his mother. How after being raised as a child soldier for nearly a decade... Seiki went back in time to the moment he awakened his Quirk, to escape that hellish future. Leaving a version of his mom behind, a version that he would continue to visit... until that version of his mom told him to stop. That he was just hurting himself by visiting a woman that didn't exist, and to spend more time with the woman who did.
He told her about Yuki-nee.
He told her his father hit his mother, so he killed his father.
And then he told her how he secured wealth, loyalty, and power, all to keep that future from ever happening again.
All so he could live his life how he wanted.
"I see, that's..." Hikari bit her lip. "That's pretty fucking bad, shit," she said, letting out a breath. "But at least you got away. That's... that's good.
"But now that I've got you here... I need to press the issue. You're still lying to me. You don't need to tell me the truth, but just know this... you really should tell someone," she sighed. "Hell, you could even tell me in one of those timelines that you never go back to. But you should get that last bit off your chest, at least once."
"I... I'm not lying," Seiki answered honestly, confused even.
And to the best of his knowledge, he really wasn't.
"Well, brat, you told me you did all this, to live the life you wanted," Hikari told him, "so why aren't you living it?"
"What?"
"You built your ivory tower, your little paradise filled with beautiful women—" Seiki let out a groan— "but you aren't enjoying it. You have a second lease, no, you have infinite leases on life! You can do whatever you want, but you let your fears get the best of you," Hikari lamented. "When's the last time you've spent the day with your mom?"
"We hang out all the time," Seiki immediately refuted, which was true.
He loved his mom. He'd never ignore her.
"What about Konan, Rinka, Azula or D'Vorah? I won't count Inque, since she's an outlier, or the... maids, but my point still stands."
"We, we hang out..." Seiki trailed off, biting his lip, "but we're not—"
"Not what? Friends? Yes, they're villains that you've recruited for your little security detail... but they're still people, people that you clearly care about. But you hold them at a distance... because you're afraid. Afraid of letting anyone else in," Hikari told him. "Afraid of another Yuki-nee."
Seiki shot her a scathing look, a bit of a bloodlust leaking out... but she looked unbothered. "Scary," Hikari muttered, going as far as to mock him.
"Fuck you," he muttered, which just earned him a laugh. "That's your advice? Make friends?"
"No... just, enjoy your life. Do what you want to do, even if it scares you," she corrected. "Your Quirk makes you an immortal, unkillable monster, which means that its easy for you to never take any risks. And I'm not telling you to take them, but don't let a little bit of fear stop you from enjoying your life, brat."
Seiki let out a small sigh. "You're not going to remember this, you know that right?"
"But you will."
"Thanks... grandma."
"Ugh. Please don't call me that, call me Kaa-san."
"Fine... Kaa-san."
And Hikari just smiled, glad that she was able to help the boy that reminded her of Mirai, of Kousei.
Even as her apparent time came to an end.
'Load1.'
*
Mirai.
"Cigarette?" Kaa-san asked, because of course she would do that.
"Now I've gotta know... why the cigarette?" Seiki asked, sounding genuinely curious. "I already know why you called me out here, I'm traumatized and all that jazz, but why offer me a cigarette of all things? If my mom finds out, she'll probably hate you."
"Well, they help me calm down," Kaa-san said, "and you looked like you desperately needed one. Or at least... you did."
"Thanks, Kaa-san," Seiki said.
"And what exactly are you thanking me for?" Kaa-san asked.
"For listening... no, for helping me, in the conversation that we never had."
Mirai didn't mean to listen in, he really didn't.
But when his Kaa-san dragged Seiki off, Mirai feared that she'd reveal something embarrassing. That was something she loved to do, after all. And if he was ever going to teach Seiki the ins and outs of being a hero... then Seiki could never find out about the new-school incident, or the hero-in-training incident. Especially not the pastry incident! The boy would never take Mirai seriously if he did. So yes, he was technically spying on his nephew, as well as his mom... but his intentions were never malicious, nor was he trying to learn something that he shouldn't. But now that he's heard those words— 'the conversation that we never had.' —leave his nephew's mouth...
Their lifestyle.
Their money.
Their security.
Before, Mirai hadn't bothered looking into it, but now... now he couldn't ignore the signs.
His nephew was a precog.
And by the looks of it, the boy was far more powerful than him.
*
*
*