It's unfortunate, it really is.
Being a shaman, having the ability to tell the future...
It all sounds great, being able to see ahead of time what would happen, right?
Who wouldn't want that ability?
Yasuhiro Hagakure wouldn't.
Though his family was plenty loving, Hagakure had always felt a bit out of place. As if there was something setting him apart from his family. His mother would sew all day, creating clothing to put in the shop that the family ran ('Hagakure Handmades") while his father supervised the store. His bad smoking habit had turned away many a customer, but he couldn't drop it.
"Papa?" Yasuhiro asked one day after PM kindergarten had ended. "What is it, my boy?"
"Mama says she's afraid you're gonna get lung cancer. What's that?"
"Oh, that silly woman! Don't mind that, it's nothing to be worried about, son. I'm fit as a fiddle!"
"...Papa, remember that ball you gave me?"
"Yes, what about it?" Yasuhiro's father said, picking him up and holding him close.
"I saw something in it."
The elder Hagakure was taken aback. "You did?! That's- that's fantastic! What did you see?"
It was only now that he noticed his son was crying.
"I-I saw... a white room... and you were on th-the bed... and me and Mama were next to you... and... and..." Yasuhiro bit back his tears, screaming, "And then th-they unplugged it...!"
This was definitely not what Eiji had been expecting his son to say. "…Yasuhiro… are you sure that was what you saw…?" He asked hesitantly, and Yasuhiro nodded, burying his face into his father's chest. "Well, it's all okay… it doesn't mean anything. I'm fine, see?"
Those words haunted him for a long time after that.
When his father had burnt the house down by falling asleep with a cigarette still lit in his mouth, "I'm fine, see?"
When he was taken to the hospital after a sudden coughing attack, "I'm fine, see?"
When he had been diagnosed with lung cancer, "I'm fine, see?"
His last words, "I'm… fine… see…?"
There wasn't even time to have reacted properly; the events were like an automatic gun, one after another after another. Within a year, his father had gone from smiling and waving him off as he took the bus to school to lying feebly in a hospital bed waiting to die. And Yasuhiro had seen all of it coming.
For many weeks after his father died, Yasuhiro's mother would not speak. Not even to him, who brought her presents from school every day. He was so wrapped up in showering her in presents, he flunked kindergarten. When his mother read the letter the school had sent, she had locked herself away for a few days before taking him to sign up for kindergarten again.
When he saw his new classmates, he had his next vision, this time of the tall, lanky, black-haired kid who looked ready to pick a fight with anyone who insulted his Hot Wheels. In this vision, he saw things he didn't understand, mostly just flashing lights, motorcycles, and two figures in the middle of the street, one holding the other and feverishly talking. "DAIYA!" One screamed, and the vision ended. Yasuhiro found himself holding his mother's hand still, staring at the boy.
Sure enough, his name was Daiya, and he had a baby brother named Mondo whom he was very proud of. Halfway through the year, Daiya lost his interest in Hot Wheels cars and moved to motorcycles, which startled Yasuhiro out of his mind. They'd managed to get closer over the course of the semester, and one lunch period, Yasuhiro blurted out, "Daiya, you're gonna die."
His mother was called and he was sent to therapy for the rest of the year along with being moved to a different class than Daiya.
He was in kindergarten for two more years after that.
At the beginning of his final year of kindergarten, he met Mondo Oowada, the younger of the Oowada brothers. He was quick to anger and unruly, but it wasn't too hard to get on his good side if you knew how to play your cards. Somehow, he and the bizarre looking kid, Kiyotaka Ishimaru, had made friends, despite their completely opposite personalities. Once again, a vision struck him, during class in the fall. This time, the force of the onslaught was so powerful he fainted.
They were all much older now, and they seemed to be in a school? It wasn't like his school, though, it looked more… sophisticated. He decided it was a high school, as the two figures in front of him seemed to be around high-school age. They had a striking resemblance to the two, down to the color of their eyes and their stances. Admittedly, the taller, who he assumed to be Mondo, wore his hair much differently than now, and the Kiyotaka-like one seemed much more obedient and, if it was possible, even more oblivious. A boy walked into the room where they were, and Yasuhiro suddenly took notice of the other students.
A girl with drills for hair bossing around a chubby nerd sat at one table, the largest, and two girls (?) sat at another table, discussing sports, donuts, and protein. In the distance, he could see a very frightening schoolgirl wielding scissors chasing around a blonde-haired boy, their path barely missing a seemly shy girl who looked uncomfortable with her position in their line of sight. Sitting by herself was a lilac-haired girl who seemed to be lost in thought, and next to her sat…
Yasuhiro himself?! No, that wasn't possible, this boy was much older than him, and he was much too care-free to be Yasuhiro. "Naegi-cchi!" He called out to the new arrival, waving his hand. Naegi, as he was apparently named, returned the wave and moved to talk to Mondo and Kiyotaka.
"So, who won your sauna battle?" Naegi asked, and before Yasuhiro even had time to contemplate what a sauna battle was, Mondo let out a hearty laugh. "It doesn't matter who won, all that matters is that we both tried our hardest!" Kiyotaka nodded eagerly, extending his arms and doing some sort of routine. "Forget—Forget—Forget Beam!" Mondo laughed and slung his arm around Kiyotaka. "Nice one, Kyoudai!"
To Yasuhiro's relief, the vision ended, but only to be interrupted by another. He would have rather stayed in the other vision when he laid eyes on the sight before him. Kiyotaka screamed, tears flowing freely from his eyes and clawing at the bars that encased the stage before them. On it was a large cage, with something inside it spinning around so fast it made his eyes hurt. "KYOUDAI!" He screamed, rattling against the bars with such force that a few of his members looked up from their focuses on the ground to see what was going on. The atmosphere was so tense and sad that he felt like he was suffocating, and the vision faded away slowly until he found himself lying in the nurse's office at school.
Of course, the student they had sent with him had to be Kiyotaka. Splendid.
Knowledged from the events of the second year of kindergarten with Daiya, he didn't say anything about his visions to anyone.
In 8th grade, things got to the point where he couldn't take it anymore.
Instead of having dreams at night, all he had was visions. None of them even centered around the one that looked like himself, but people who seemed to be his classmates. There seemed to be a dark theme to them, as in each, someone would end up crying. At first, he had thought it a coincidence, but after a month of consecutive dreams like these, he crossed off the theory. He'd met over 20 students, each of them with a special talent. No talent was repeated. He'd discovered everyone's talent besides the lilac-haired girl's and his own, which irritated him to no end. Mondo was a SHSL Biker Gang Leader, Kiyotaka a SHSL Hall Monitor, the meek girl from before (who was named Chihiro) a SHSL Programmer, and the girl who's gender he'd been confused about, named Sakura, was a SHSL Martial Artist. They were the best in their fields, handpicked by the school's staff.
That was another thing that angered him. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find the name of the school anywhere, or any information about this bear that seemed to run the whole thing. It was simply impossible to solve the same mysteries these kids were going through.
Sometimes, though, his dreams would be of a happier time in the same school, where they all hung out and went to class together. He liked those dreams, and honestly, having them was the only reason that he hadn't told anyone yet. Recently, though, they'd gotten rarer and rarer, before being completely lost among the horrible visions.
He would seek out help the next day… he planned, anyways. His night was interrupted by a loud crash and the sound of skidding tires, causing his eyes to fly open and him to jump out of bed and look through the window, to a scene very familiar to him.
There were Daiya and Mondo, Mondo cradling his older brother in his arms as cars whooshed past them. He witnessed the entire scene, exactly like his vision had told it, before shutting the curtains. He decided he would talk to Mondo the following day at school.
Mondo didn't go to school until exam week, when Yasuhiro finally managed to catch him.
"The hell d'you want, spikehead?!" Mondo hissed.
"I know about what happened with Daiya."
It took Mondo no less than 5 minutes to process what Yasuhiro was telling him. "You're telling me… you fucking knew what was going to happen to my bro… AND YOU DIDN'T FUCKING DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT?!" Mondo began to yell, clasping his hands around Yasuhiro's neck and shaking him violently. "YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Yasuhiro was so surprised by the sudden attack that he forgot what he had planned to say and instead replied, "Kiyotaka really likes you, you know. He thinks of you as his brother and I think maybe a little more."
Mondo stopped shaking him, and loosened his grip slightly. "The hell did you just say?"
"You're a Super High School Level Biker Gang Leader and Kiyotaka is a Super High School Level Hall Monitor."
"Stop fucking blabbering and tell me why you didn't fucking do anything to stop m—my bro!"
"I couldn't. Fate is fate, I should know. I predicted my own father's death."
Mondo let go of Yasuhiro.
"…truce." Mondo muttered before walking away.
They didn't speak again until the moment they both stepped into Hope's Peak with their classmates.
Yasuhiro couldn't help feeling like he was missing something. It felt like his privacy had been broken into at the very core, like his most precious items torn away from him. None of the other students felt it, as far as he knew, which made him even more frustrated. Now and then he'd get visions of moments he felt were so real it almost hurt. Living at Hope's Peak with his classmates was great, though, and he couldn't ask for anything else.
Right?
Five others and he stood at the door leading to the outside world. He had survived the School Life of Mutual Killing, and now they would finally be able to get their memories back, if the mastermind hadn't lied. He felt what he could only describe as awesome.
When he got his memories back, he felt anything but. The grief washed over him like an ocean. He'd basically known the entire future, but it had been all taken away from him. He felt guiltier than a murderer, no pun intended. If he had been able to remember, he could have saved those who were lost.
Yasuhiro Hagakure wished he wasn't a SHSL Shaman.