Chapter 50 A Premonition

The Heimdall Agency is not only the second biggest agency in Japan, it's also the most selective when it comes to recruiting future members. Unlike the Midoriyama Agency which accepts anyone who's got potential and works with them to unleash the best in their abilities, the Heimdall Agency chooses those with pure raw talent and nurtures them to become top superheroes. That's why, when it comes to accepting new members, Heimdall Agency is the hardest one to get into but its members are the cream of the crop. Eye-Goddess makes sure that the standard of the Heimdall Agency would always remain at the top even though they're just the second-largest agency.

And because of that, Elimine found it hard to believe that the Eye-Goddess personally recruited her childhood friend, Satoshi even though it was Eye-Goddess's vow to not recruit a kid, much less a teenager, in her agency. What was even more surprising was that Eye-Goddess met with Satoshi herself when everyone in the Heimdall Agency received tons of recommendations beforehand before Eye-Goddess approves an audience. Even after all that, there's still a one in twenty chance of acceptance since Eye-Goddess is very particular when it comes to superpower. It was even believed that she doesn't accept identical superpowers because she has different views about the rivalry.

It didn't take long before the authorities arrived at the scene of the submarine and the smuggled 'goods' inside the crate. After talking briefly to the policemen and investigators, Merman and Flexor ushered Plume out of the way since they didn't want her to know anything about the incident. Even though they're aware that Plume is already nearing her twenties, they still didn't want her to know of the reality of the world even when superheroes deal with them all the time. Making sure that she didn't look back, they made their way out of the area and went to a nearby convenience store to buy some food. Pretty soon, the local news was already covering the crime but it only covered vague details about it.

Flexor and Merman, however, didn't know that Plume has incredibly good hearing aside from her superpower. That's the reason why she didn't ask about the incident. After all, she could hear the screams and sniffles of the people inside the crates and that's more than enough to explain everything to her.

"Wanna eat something?" Merman asked, nudging Plume by the shoulder. He noticed that Plume was deep in thought about something and he decided to distract her.

"No, I have to go somewhere." Plume responded and without further ado, she jumped upwards and accelerated, letting her wings carry her higher until she almost touched the clouds. She looked down and heaved a sigh of calmness before flying over the city of Tokyo. "Did she really— " She trailed off before shaking her head. For now, she opted to enjoy the night view of Tokyo from up above.

"But we wanted to hitch a ride!" Merman complained upon seeing Plume soar up the sky.

"I guess we're walking back to the agency then." Flexor sighed.

...

Ever since she mastered the art of flight (ever since she was a kid) she'd always fly over Tokyo and enjoy the view from up there. After having done that hundreds of times, she still couldn't get used to the tranquility of the sky. God willing, she'd have stayed right then and there, away from the noise and busyness of life. That's why flying up here was her form of relaxation, and she always does it when there was something on her mind, or when she's just tired of life overall.

Aside from her enhanced hearing, she could also see quite well, better than the average human. After all, she has eyes resembling that of birds. At night, as long as there's a little bit of light around, she'd be able to see the entire area clearly. This enabled her to see Heimdall Agency from up above— a building that's about twenty stories tall. Compared to the Midoriyama Agency, the Heimdall Agency is almost the same size as it, also rivaling the other in appearance.

Plume decided to stay in the sky for a few minutes before free-falling towards the Heimdall Agency. She'd always loved free-falling since the agency has a different entrance for her— well, it was just a simple tunnel that leads to the parking area of aircraft but Plume had called dibs on the entrance and she used it ever since. As she approached the tunnel, lights from its sides turned on one by one while she made her way through.

The entire hangar lit up as soon as she arrived and she walked down the path towards the entrance to the agency. To her surprise, the Eye-Goddess was right there by the entrance, standing completely still while looking straight ahead, arms crossed. A gentle smile spread across her face as her tensed body relaxed for a little before she took light steps towards Plume.

For one, Plume didn't know why Eye-Goddess was waiting for her and her first thought was to apologize since she had probably done something wrong. She started retracing all her memories since she got into Heimdall Agency, trying to figure out what she did wrong but she couldn't think up of anything. Somehow, the Eye-Goddess was intimidating her without cause, and it made her utterly nervous.

"As expected, I knew you'd return tonight." The Eye-Goddess gently spoke, now that she was right in front of Plume. "I've been waiting for five minutes though since I didn't want to miss your arrival."

"Pardo— er I mean, ma'am, why did you wait for me? Do you have something important to tell me?" Plume could tell that the Eye-Goddess was acting rather suspiciously but she couldn't tell her that directly so she just had to confirm if the Eye-Goddess is really going to talk to her about something.

"Yes, please come with me," Eye-Goddess said, turning around and heading back to the entrance of the agency where two burly men posted as guards opened the entrance for them and slightly bowed their heads in silence.

Quite frankly, Plume was caught off-guard since this was the first time the Eye-Goddess personally spoke to her and it was right when she wanted to ask her about something. This was a surreal moment for her so she couldn't really talk much. When she was flying through the tunnel that leads to the entrance, she had a lot of questions in mind but now that she was in the moment, she couldn't utter a single word. All that she could do was follow the Eye-Goddess as meekly and as quietly as she could, just like a puppy who knew that it's done something terrible.

"I presume you have a question to ask of me, don't you?" Eye-Goddess spoke with such a clear and tranquil tone that Plume almost choked on her saliva due to nervousness. "Well, why don't you ask me such a question to break the ice? I mean, I already knew what you're going to ask about me but I'd prefer hearing it from you personally."

Plume nodded her head and thought of a better way to ask her question. She was put under pressure, of course, since she didn't want Eye-Goddess to wait and she also didn't want to offend her by asking such a tactless question. In the end, she stuck with the simple version, hoping that that would be much satisfactory to her. "Um... did you recruit Satoshi personally for the Heimdall Agency? I heard it from Merman and Flexor and I was just curious."

A smile plastered on Eye-Goddess's face as soon as Plume asked her the question. "I see. In my vision, I heard you asking the same question but the wording and tone were quite... rude. But I guess you've had enough time to think things through that you've asked me it quite differently."

"And yes, I really am keen on recruiting Midoriyama Satoshi in our agency. You've seen how he fights, right? You really lost that match didn't you?" Eye-Goddess patted Plume on the shoulder, trying to console her a little bit since the discussion might've hit a sore spot.

Plume wasn't offended at all at the comment though and she just nodded her head. "Yes, he's a childhood friend of mine and he recently awakened his ability. Is it some sort of pet master or tamer superpower? I thought that those superpowers could only use animals. He could've gotten his familiars from other dimensions which made him pretty powerful."

"You're not wrong and you're not correct either. Satoshi has been given a gift that far surpasses your imagination. You probably haven't seen it but his superpower is something that could change the world in either a good or bad way. That's why I wanted to recruit him, to save him from the burden of putting the earth on his shoulder."

"What do you mean, ma'am?"

"You see, I've had a vision... and if things were to transpire the way it is seen... then Satoshi might either be humanity's hope, or humanity's downfall. I'm recruiting him in hopes that he'd be the former and not the latter."