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I am Saitama - Chapter 26: The Last Prediction
🕑 Added 2025-08-03 20:40:00 +0000 UTCIn the heart of A-City, beneath the quiet hum of power lines and the whisper of dusty wind through alleyways, a momentous glimpse into the future was beginning to unfold. The lights flickered briefly in a modest, incense-scented room lined with tapestries and aged scrolls. There, seated before an ancient crystal orb that pulsed with a dull inner glow, was the greatest seer the world had ever known:
Lady Shibabawa.
Her frail frame was hunched over, covered in thick velvet robes of dark purple and black, embroidered with moons and stars. Her pearl necklace clinked lightly with every shallow breath, and her long, yellowed fingernails tapped erratically on the polished wooden table. Her features—sunken cheeks, impossibly thin eyebrows, and deeply creased skin—betrayed a lifetime spent carrying the burden of foresight.
Her cloudy eyes widened as the orb suddenly shimmered to life, casting an eerie light across the darkened room. Her breath caught in her throat.
“Ungh…wha-what’s this…?” she muttered, her voice raspy and weak. Her frail body began trembling, not from the cold, but from something far more primal: fear.
The orb rippled with colors she had no name for, shapes moving within it that made no sense to the human eye. Lady Shibabawa gripped the sides of the table, her bones creaking audibly. Her heart pounded in her chest as her mind was pulled through space and time, forced to witness fragments of a future not meant to be known.
Eyes…he didn’t have any. He was like a void with no light. All the cities crumbled before him. And his presence—watching and waiting.
“It’s… it’s coming,” she whispered, her voice quaking. “Finally it’s coming… A storm of calamities… one after another, like dominos falling in a cosmic game…”
A single bead of sweat slid down her forehead as her back arched with a jolt of pain. The images in the sphere intensified—monsters swarming from cracks in the earth, heroes screaming, explosions that devoured entire districts, and then… silence.
Her voice rose into a shrill cry. “The end is neaaaar!”
Startled, the guard assigned to watch over her—a mid-level Hero Association employee named Itagaki—looked up from his phone and rushed toward the trembling woman. He wasn’t used to much excitement on his post; his job was mostly ceremonial. Escorting a blind old woman back and forth, making sure she didn’t trip. Today, though, felt different.
“Lady Shibabawa?! Are you alright?” he asked, his voice filled with concern.
“No, you fool!” she snapped, her tone bordering on hysterical. Her eyes, though still milky and unfocused, seemed to stare through him, as if she were looking past the world entirely. “Can’t you see it?! The end is near—and he will end us all!!”
Itagaki froze. He had seen her shaken before. He had witnessed her predict disasters that came true down to the minute. But never had he seen her like this—utterly consumed by panic.
“Lady Shibabawa, please calm yourself!” he pleaded. “What are you talking about, miss? Please help me understand!”
“There’s nothing to understand!” she screamed. Her hands shot into the air as though grasping for something. “He is coming! He is observing us even now—the one who grants power to those who seek it! The one with no face, nor heart—only hunger! A being from beyond the veil of reality itself!!”
Her body was wracked with another wave of trembling. Her skin had turned ghostly pale, and her breath came in short, desperate gasps.
“EARTH IS IN DANGER!! The veil is thinning! And HE who is known by—”
Before she could finish, her body jerked violently, her eyes rolling back as her head slammed against the back of her chair. The crystal orb pulsed one last time, then dimmed.
A sepulchral silence came next.
“Lady Shibabawa!” Itagaki cried, rushing to catch her. But she was already limp.
“Shit!” he hissed, fumbling for his phone. His fingers trembled as he dialed. “This is Unit 06 at Lady Shibabawa’s residence—get an ambulance down here immediately! I think she’s had a stroke!”
He leaned down and checked her pulse. It was there—but faint, erratic.
As he waited, glancing between her fragile form and the orb that now lay still, his mind raced. He had no idea what kind of nightmare the old woman had just seen. But one thing was certain:
She had never been wrong before.
(A few minutes later…)
In the quiet, heavily secured confines of Hero Association HQ, the atmosphere in Sitch's office was usually tense—but professional. Today, however, something heavier hung in the air.
After the secret meeting with the executives that happened earlier, where he informed them of the possible menace of outer space, he returned to his usual work after the end of the meeting.
Now, Sitch was in the middle of a routine conversation with two of the Association’s high-ranking executives—Jinzuren, head of public relations and long-term risk assessment, and Sekingar, the uptight yet reliable head of Hero Logistics. Their conversation revolved around recruitment numbers for Class A and infrastructure recovery in J-City after the last monster incursion.
That was when Sitch's phone rang.
He frowned, glancing at the caller ID. Without a word, he answered.
“Sitch here.”
A pause.
“Yes... I see.”
Another pause, this one was longer.
“Alright. Thanks for the notice. I’ll take care of the rest.”
He hung up, setting the phone down with deliberate calmness. But his expression had changed—he was now far more serious, his brow furrowed, his usual composed tone replaced by a more quieter and tighter one.
“What happened?” asked Jinzuren, picking up on the shift in atmosphere immediately.
“Is everything alright?” Sekingar added, straightening in his seat.
Sitch looked between them with steady eyes.
“Lady Shibabawa is dead.”
The room seemed to freeze.
“What?!” Jinzuren nearly stood up in shock.
“What happened?!” Sekingar echoed, voice louder than intended.
“Apparently… she suffered a stroke. The medics arrived as fast as they could, but it was already too late. The damage was irreversible.”
Jinzuren shook his head, exhaling. “That’s… that’s a shame. She was a good asset for the Association.”
Sekingar turned sharply toward him, raising an eyebrow at the clinical phrasing. He said nothing, but the glance was clear: Really?
Jinzuren met it briefly, but didn’t backpedal.
“I agree,” Sekingar added carefully. “Regardless of utility, she was one of the oldest active contributors we had. May she rest in peace. Has her family been informed?”
“Yes. While she didn’t have children of her own, her late sister’s descendants were contacted. They're on their way to handle the arrangements.”
There was a brief silence.
“…However, there’s something odd,” Sitch added.
Both men immediately turned to him, their attention sharpened.
“What do you mean, sir?” asked Jinzuren.
“Sir, I mean… I don’t like it either,” Sekingar admitted, “but Lady Shibabawa was elderly. A stroke doesn’t sound too unlikely.”
Sitch nodded slowly, but his eyes remained fixed on his desk. He was quiet for several seconds, clearly weighing his words. Then, finally:
“Before dying, Lady Shibabawa was performing a prediction.”
That sentence hung in the room like a storm cloud.
“The only witness was an Association employee—Itagaki. He’s been assigned as her caretaker for the last three years. I’ve dealt with him personally on multiple occasions. He’s not prone to exaggeration or superstition. What he described to me… I believe he was telling the truth.”
“What exactly did she predict?” Sekingar asked, leaning forward slightly.
“She didn’t leave a formal record. No scroll or voice message. It happened all too fast.” Sitch rubbed his temples. “But according to Itagaki, she was in a trance. The orb activated on its own and she began muttering about a storm of calamities… a series of disasters, far worse than anything we’ve faced so far. She claimed ‘the end is near’—repeatedly.”
Jinzuren blinked. “She predicted the end of the world?”
Sitch looked up at him.
“She said he is coming.”
“He?” Sekingar’s eyes narrowed.
“She didn't name him. She called him ‘the one who grants power to those who seek it,’ and ‘the one with no face.’ She said he was observing us… that he was already here. Waiting.”
Jinzuren's brow creased. “Could she have meant… the spaceship that is going towards Earth? Or maybe some kind of divine or interdimensional threat?”
“I don’t know,” Sitch said grimly. “But she was terrified. Her last words—according to Itagaki—were: ‘Earth is in danger.’ And then she collapsed.”
For a long moment, no one spoke.
“…Has this been recorded?” Sekingar asked. “The orb?”
“No. It didn’t leave any trace of what she saw. It’s inert now. We tried running scans—nothing. Itagaki said it pulsed just once after she died, then went completely dark.”
Jinzuren ran a hand through his hair, muttering. “Great. We lose our top forecaster, get a cryptic doomsday warning, and have no documentation of the event. That’s going to go over well with the board…”
Sitch didn’t respond. He turned slowly toward the far window, gazing at the skyline of A-City. Thunderclouds were starting to gather in the distance.
“She was never wrong before,” he murmured, almost to himself.
Sekingar crossed his arms. “What do we do?”
Sitch turned back to them.
“For now, keep this information contained. Only executives and S-Class heroes will be informed. No leaks to the press, no internal memos. If the public gets wind of an ‘apocalypse prophecy,’ we’ll have mass panic before we even confirm if it’s real.”
“And if it is real?” Jinzuren asked, his voice quiet now.
Sitch gave him a flat, tired look.
“Then we start preparing… and hope it’s not already too late.”
The room was silent for a moment. The hum of the air conditioning and the distant murmur of the city were the only sounds.
“…We need to call a meeting,” Sitch finally said, turning to Sekingar. “S-Class only. No one else. I want everyone gathered in the secure conference chamber—soundproof, surveillance-proof. The full twenty seats.”
“That’s going to raise eyebrows,” Sekingar said, already pulling out a tablet and typing rapidly. “We haven’t had a full S-Class assembly in over three years. And some of them will resist. Metal Knight doesn’t attend unless it’s ‘strategically beneficial.’ Blast is unreachable. Tatsumaki hates being summoned like a schoolgirl. And Drive Knight—well, he tends to vanish when it’s inconvenient.”
“Reach out anyway. Tell them this isn’t a request—it’s mandatory,” Sitch replied. “I’ll personally sign the order. Anyone who refuses to attend will answer directly to me.”
Jinzuren rubbed his chin. “What’s the cover story? We can’t just say ‘Come to HQ, world’s ending.’”
“We’ll say it’s a threat-level revision conference. That we’ve obtained new intel requiring reclassification of potential extinction-level scenarios. That’s technically not a lie.”
Sekingar glanced up from the tablet. “Should we include the newer S-Class recruits? Like One Punch Man or Demon Cyborg?”
“All of them,” Sitch confirmed. “And especially One Punch Man.”
Sekingar raised a brow. "Are you sure sir? I know he is one of our best assets but he doesn't seem to trust how the Association operate and do things."
“He’s Rank 5,” Sitch replied, “and climbing fast. He was Jinzuren’s recommendation, and since he joined, he’s resolved every threat he’s been assigned to—easily. You saw the footage from that Deep Sea King incident. I don’t care how much he trust us—if the world really is ending, I want him in that room.”
Sekingar nodded. “Understood. I’ll send the encrypted invites through the Omega Line. Estimated time for full attendance… probably twenty-four hours, if we’re lucky.”
“Good. Book the meeting for tomorrow evening at 1200 hours. That gives us time to verify the details of Shibabawa’s last words, review global satellite scans, and sweep for anything that might already be on the move.”
“What if we find something?” Jinzuren asked. “Some sign that this 'he' already arrived?”
Sitch looked grim.
“Then we throw out every protocol we have… and pray the heroes we’ve counted on all these years are enough.”
