The Day Before - 4

The next day, things proceeded the way they always had for the past year. Despite the feeling in the back of his head that something could happen, Soleil was going about his morning routine without any interruption.

He got ready the same way, took the same route to get breakfast and reach the train. The news report on the train only mentioned how it seemed there was some rain clouds rolling in despite the consistent weather beforehand.

And as he was going along the path from the tram station to make his way to Senba, simply drifting along through the crowd of students going about their normal routines alongside him, and even made it all the way to morning classes with no occurrences.

By the time the afternoon was rolling around, Soleil almost thought that gut feeling from the other day was perhaps going nowhere.

[Oh please, your gut feelings tend not to lie. You don't think you're going to get off that easily, do you?]

Soleil could only sigh. It was a voice only he heard, his very own despite his silence. But that voice was more sardonic, dryly mocking in the way it spoke. And with that voice lingering in his mind, Soleil tugged at his shirt's collar a bit, just enough to expose his right collarbone. Around there, near the base of his neck were traces of some kind of mark. Faded out and almost indistinct, but not something that could be regarded as some birthmark.

And said mark was slowly taking more solid shape, looking like a stylized, narrow flame with each passing moment.

[You know what that means, right?]

"Yeah… it means the Honkai around here is getting stronger. Too strong."

And then there was thunder.

Dark clouds overhead suddenly split open with flashes of lightning, the air booming as the wind began to pick up to a howling gale. All around there was a sudden panic from this change in the air, as if something had just washed over everybody in that very moment. People rushed from their desks and to the windows to view the sudden storm.

Instead of joining the students guffawing at the sudden storm, Soleil stood and quietly left the classroom, making his way to a quieter spot at the stair well. Drawing his phone, even as he drew it out, the screen had already changed, blaring red with an alert flashing across it.

[Large scale Honkai outbreak detected. Estimated odds of survival 0.000000001%.]

As he stepped out from the stairwell and proceeded down the hall, Soleil took note of how the sudden panic from earlier had suddenly vanished. Now the halls of the school were abruptly silent from all but the booming thunder outside. Making his way down to the ground floor, Soleil remained undisturbed.

"May not even need to use that escape route I had planned out just in case. Depends on how bad of an outbreak it is. Let's assume it covers the Academy City's general area. Should focus on getting to Nagazora to see if it's gone further…"

Muttering to himself the while, it was as Soleil was swapping his indoor shoes for his personal sneakers at the lockers that his attention was drawn to a noise besides the booming thunder. Moving back to the hallway, the sound was a rattling door, bulging a bit as something repeatedly slammed into it from within.

With a slight sigh, a small grimace came to Soleil's face. He turned away as the door continued to rattle and slam, intent to make his way to the front door even as it looked like the door was about to buckle inwards.

And then with a loud bang, the door was blown off of its frame, the hallway now rumbling with the sounds of low groaning. Soleil sighed again as he stopped, sliding his headphones down to his shoulders. Reaching into a back pocket, Soleil withdrew a pair of plated fingerless gloves, sliding the well worn articles onto his hands, flexing his fingers as he put the clasps into place.

And right as a groaning sound got all too close, he wheeled around. Light sparked at his palm, turning into a flash that formed into a technological baseball bat, which quickly burst with blue sparks of flames as Soleil swung it, hard. The ignited bat went smashing into the head of the figure that was lunging for him, slamming the figure to the ground.

As the ground was left coated in blood that was turning from red to a sickly purple, beneath Soleil's bat were the remains of another student. And yet, the body had gone chalk white, covered in the lines showing severe Honkai corruption throughout.

"Sorry… but you're already dead. Best I can do is put your body out of its misery. This is just what happens to people who can't adapt," Soleil raised the bat to his shoulder with a quick spin, looking back to see the front door was starting to be mobbed by people who were in a similar state to the corpse at his feet. And even more were shuffling out from the classrooms into the hallways.

And as the crowd gathered, Soleil went from a solemn expression to a self-assured smirk.

"Always did want a chance to break some school rules. Hehe… alright then. Can't be merciful if I wanna get outta here, but at least I can do my classmates a final favor. Haaa… really shoulda swiped a gun from Tesla alongside this bat. Whatever, I'll make do."

The next of the corrupted dead lunged, and Soleil's bat was quick to meet it, in time to another clap of thunder as the bat ignited again.

That afternoon was when it began: The event that would eventually be known as the Third Honkai Impact. The day Nagazora City was destroyed.

And it would be in that city, amid ruin and destruction, that fates would cross. Fates that perhaps would one day decide the fate of the world itself.

Perhaps that was what Soleil's dream had warned him about.