Chapter 10

“Finally, we’re here.” I said as we arrived at the doors of the house.

It was a very nice two-story tall log cabin, but not like one of those hunting cabins that comes to mind when you hear log cabin. It was a very nice modern house that happened to be made of logs. A river flowed to the north side and there was a steep hillside to the south.

“Did you make sure we weren’t followed?” Asked Roku.

“We weren’t followed, but like you said earlier, they know we’re here, so we don’t have much time.” Mack replied.

It took us longer to arrive than we previously believed due to my injuries, but we arrived safely without running into any enemies. Mack was extra careful to watch our backs and make sure we weren’t followed, while I was extra careful to make sure no one raised any flags by saying dumb things like “It's quiet, too quiet.” or “Wow, looks like we really will arrive safely without running into any enemies!” With our combined efforts, our defense was impenetrable.

It had been a couple years since I had last been here, give or take. Diran and I finished our training here four years ago, but returned after we both completed our separate training in only a year. Things really have changed since then.

“Hey guys!!” A familiar voice shouted from the balcony.

“Diran!? You guys are here?” We shouted back in confusion.

Diran stood on the balcony waving to us.

“Yeah, we didn’t realize you guys had the same idea! We got here this morning and were about to start, then we detected what we thought were intruders, but he reassured us that it was just you! That old man is never wrong.” Diran said with a smile.

So, we split into two groups, fought multiple enemies which kicked our asses, almost died, multiple times, only to end up at the same place as them, which they no doubt arrived at with minimal difficulty.

I'm so done with this arc.

“So why are we here again? I missed the whole explanation earlier.” Mack asked as we started to walk inside.

“We need to use his powers.” I replied in a serious tone.

“Who’s powers?” Mack asked curiously.

“The strongest, wisest, smartest, man I know. A man who we owe our very lives to.” I said with an exaggerated dramatic tone.

Roku and I pushed open the metal doors revealing the inside of the house, and in the center of the room sat an old man. He had hair as white as the clouds, and wore a robe as black as the empty abyss of space. His hands rested on his chair; they were visibly scarred from the years of work he had put behind them. He wore the complexion of someone who carried an understanding of the world that only time and experience could bring.

“This is the wise old master who trained Diran and you, Lee?” Mack asked in awe.

Before I could answer I was interrupted by the old man.

“Hey dudes! Perfect timing. You got here just as I was leaving the shower!” He finished his sentence and took a long, loud, sip from his drink.

There in the living room sat him, Shai, and Useless, all sitting without a care in the world watching the TV.

While we were out there barely getting by without Diran’s help, those two were relaxing like it was a normal lazy Sunday. I really hate this arc.

“Glad you made it here safely, did you run into any trouble on the way?” Diran cheerfully asked.

“Nope! No trouble, especially no hotels in any deserts. No legal trouble either! None at all!” Roku gave me a wink and a thumbs up to finish the lie.

Can’t we get this over with already? I just wanna go home.

“I already know why you are here; the preparations are ready in the other room, Diran and Lee come with me. The rest of you stay here, make yourselves at home.” He said as he gestured around the room.

“So, this is the guy?” Roku asked doubtingly.

“Of course it is! Who’s heard of an old martial arts master that didn’t look like a bum? Well, besides maybe Gojo. But he isn’t really old I guess.” I responded.

“Um, Sir? Why can’t we come in? I think it would be, uh, helpful for us all to be on the same page.” Mack nervously asked.

Their impressions of him all seemed to differ. Mack sees him as the wise old man who trained the most powerful man alive...and me. Roku sees him as some old man we traveled a few days to see. But Diran and I look at him as if he was our own family, our very own Master Roshi…. His name also happened to be Master Toshi. Pure coincidence.

“Mack, was it?” He asked.

“Uh yes sir.” Mack replied.

“Well, you see...we have a very special job that only you can do, nobody else can do it because nobody else has what you have.” He said, seemingly exciting Mack.

“None of these guys can do it. It's going to be a tough, dangerous job, but I think you are up for it.” He said, his voice seemed to exude wisdom.

“R-Really?” Mack asked excitedly with a glowing smile.

“Yep, we need you on guard duty, you’re the only guy with long range attacks.” The old man said with a smirk.

“Oh.” Mack said, disheartened.

Diran and I followed him into the next room. The conditions of using the old man's second ability had been met. Candles lit the room and the shadows from their flames flowed rhythmically across the room like waves at the beach. Markings and sigils were all along the floor, with a circle at the center. I looked to the walls. Each wall held a giant mirror situated exactly in the middle, all of which pointed directly at the aforementioned circle.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

From how the room looked, I wouldn’t be surprised if some deformed monster emerged from the circle, or if we needed to perform some kind of blood sacrifice ritual. The room had that kind of weird ritualistic look to it.

“As you know, the first application of my ability lets me see into my near future, allowing me to know my opponents moves before they even know them.” Spoke the old man.

“This ability will not be useful to you, as it requires a lot of energy and requires me to follow the exact future I see, which becomes increasingly hard in my old age. And it does nothing to increase my physical stats, so it won’t help you in the fights ahead.” He explained.

“We know, and even if it did, we don’t want to disturb your peaceful life Master Toshi” Diran said.

“We were hesitant to get you involved in the first place, or at least my group was.” I responded.

“But you do need my second ability, don't you?” He replied with a smirk. He was used to both of our attitudes by now. Both Diran’s happy, earnest nature, and my careless attitude.

“My second ability lets me peer into the future of others, but it requires all these fancy preparations to be set up, takes a ton of energy, and the more power the person whose future I'm scanning has, the more time and energy I need to pour in. But, unlike my first ability, they won’t need to follow the future I see, their future is subject to change.” He paused.

“In your case, I’ll look into your future to see where you fight this guy and what his abilities are. I know you wouldn’t come here to use this power unless this guy was seriously dangerous, or you were seriously confused.” He added.

“It's both.” I interrupted.

“Huh?”

“In this case Master Toshi,” Diran paused for dramatic effect.

“It's both......He’s strong enough to take out Roku and Lee in one hit. He’s survived both of their strongest attacks without even a scratch.” Diran said dramatically.

“And we have no idea where he is and no clues as to how to get there.” I added.

“Then we’ll have to hurry, which one of you is going first?” He said with a tone of importance.

“I’ll go. Diran’s power far exceeds mine; it’ll be quicker if I go first.”

“Huh? What do you mean? We’ve always been equal.” Diran said, shocked.

“Come on man, I know you always say things like that to make me feel better, and I appreciate that, but now's not the time for niceties. I’m not trying to die anytime soon, I’ll go.”

I could tell that if Diran went, the enemies would show up and it would end up as a ‘hold them off until Diran arrives in the nick of time’ scenario. I had to avoid that at all costs, many side characters have died during those. Especially

Krillin's.

Diran stood with a saddened, conflicted look on his face. Maybe I was a bit too blunt, but I don’t care, it got my point across.

“Alright, I’ll do you first.” Toshi said.

I walked into the center of the circle while getting into place.

“Diran, can you leave the room while I’m using it?” I said with a wave of my hand, almost shooing him away.

“Sure thing.” Diran said with a disheartened tone of voice as he turned and left.

Toshi rubbed his hands together, at first slowly, but then faster, and faster. He was moving them at an increasingly fast rate, until you could almost see the heat generated by the speed and friction.

“Here we go.” He said just before he slammed his hands on the ground.

The sigils and symbols on the ground began to glow as the shadows of the candles began swirling around the room. I gazed into the mirror in front of me.

For no particular reason, I felt my eyes drawn to it.

The mirror seemed normal at first, simply reflecting the happenings of the room, but then it began to...distort. It began to get closer, the glass appearing to balloon outwards toward me. I looked around the room and all the mirrors had this effect about them, they all expanded toward me, and yet the reflections remained unchanged.

The glow of the symbols that were scattered along the floor and walls began to rise and change color, expanding in the same way as the mirrors, until they all divulged upon me at once. The candles extinguished as the room went black. I had lost consciousness.

***

When I came to, I was laying on the ground with Toshi right by my side, with both of us as short of breath as someone who had just ran a marathon.

“How’d it go?” I asked.

He sighed with a sad smile, as if he was looking at someone he felt extremely sorry for, or someone he pitied with his entire being. I didn’t like that smile, it made me uneasy for what was to come.

“I can’t say.” He said with the same pitying smile.

Huh? I thought.

“Huh?” I said.

“I can’t tell you what I saw.” He said.

“Why not?” I asked. I was expecting to hear something bad, like really bad. The look he was giving me is one you’d expect to hear bad news from, but I got a non-answer instead.

“I can’t say.” He replied, still holding that sad smile.

Something's up. He wouldn’t just not answer for no reason, there has to be a reason. If he saw something really bad, I would expect him to say something, even if it's a lie. Something has to be amiss.

“There’s a reason you can’t tell me, isn’t there?” I asked.

“Who could say?” He responded with a shrug.

The lack of an answer was an answer enough. There is a reason he can’t tell me what he’d seen, or if he could see anything. I’ve seen scenarios like this before. Think Subaru and ‘I can return by dea-’ for an example. Either he can’t say because of something he saw, he can’t say because by not saying it guides me in the correct direction, or some other option I can’t figure out.

“Send Diran in.” He said, interrupting my thought process.

“No, not yet, I need to figure this out first.” I said, as I took my thinking pose.

If he saw my future, why would he need Diran? He must have seen what we needed him to see, so he could just give us directions on what we need to do without telling us what he saw, he’s smart enough to do that. But if he can’t say what he saw in mine, then why can he say what he saw in Diran’s? Maybe, it's because he didn’t see mine at all?

“Just get Diran and then get ready. It’s just as you thought...this is going to be one of those ‘hold them off until the MC arrives’ scenarios.” Master Toshi said.

“Damn, I wanted to avoid that.” I sighed with disappointment.

Wait, for him to know that, that means he did see my future. I only realized everything in my life follows the plot of a battle Shonen a couple years ago, I never made those remarks when I lived with him. He’s being very specific in what he says and doesn’t say for a reason.

What he said confirms it, he did see my future, but he can’t say what he saw. It’s not that we aren’t supposed to follow that future, because he still wants to see Diran's. Even if what he saw turned out to be bad, he could just tell us so we could avoid it. If he’s already seen where Koun’s base is, why does he need to see Diran’s future?

Unless...

“Hey Toshi, are there any restrictions on your ability?” I asked.

“There is, but I can’t say what they are.” He responded.

That confirms it, it's his ability that is restricting him from saying something. The trigger must have been something he saw that made it so he couldn’t tell me, something he saw in my future. But what could he have seen that makes it where he can’t tell me?

“...Hey Toshi...I think I figured it out...why you can’t say what you saw,” I said with a gulp.

Not being able to tell me, needing to see Diran, giving me hints as to what it is, that sad smile. All of it pointed to one thing.

“Because you saw my,” I took a breath.

“Death.”

The only reply I got was that same sad smile and the faint glisten of tears in his eyes.

What Toshi saw was usually set in stone. When he sees someone else's future, It's the future that they are most likely going to reach. Even knowing about it usually wouldn’t change it, because that’s the future their decisions will most likely take them to. Unless they knew exactly what led them to that death, they wouldn’t be able to change it. Unless they themselves changed, those decisions would not change.

I am going to die, and there is nothing I can do to change it.