Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Most people didn’t know this, but the world was always on the brink of an apocalyptic event.

Meteors, volcanoes, rising ocean levels, robot uprisings. All of that was set to happen at some point or another. Except it never did. Because Saiki Kusuo happened to quite enjoy living on Earth, despite all its… Earth-ness. So he went to great pains to keep it as such.

Not that the pains were that great, to be fair. He was a psychic of exceptional strength, capable of sending a meteor right back from where it came from with just a simple touch. And if he wasn’t strong enough to deal with a certain thing at the moment, he could always reverse time around everything he touched to buy them all time to figure it out.

Except this time, that wouldn’t be an option.

For one, light in general was pretty hard to touch, and this green light was probably no different. So reverting it back in time would be difficult. And for another, it was hard to do much of anything when he was stone.

Legitimate, actual stone.

He had been in class when it happened. Hairo was giving them all another rousing, beautiful speech, that almost made it look like the sun was rising up behind him, pouring in through the windows. Except the light wasn’t yellow; it was green.

It was only Saiki’s much higher than average ability to process information that allowed him to watch, in slow motion, as his classmates were slowly transformed into stone, as if he had dropped his glasses and looked at them wrong. But this wasn’t some mistake he made. This was a brand-new variable.

Saiki may have brushed this off to another psychic making a bombastic entrance to the series, but something was wrong. It was too quiet.

Telepathically searching the areas in front of them, wherever the green light could have already touched, revealed that no one was having any thoughts at all. It was complete dead air, and there wasn’t any germanium in sight.

This was a bit out there for a dramatic entrance, wasn’t it?

In the next millisecond, he teleported around. Not far, just here and there, making sure to stay out of the range of the green light, which he found to be quickly covering the Earth, spreading out from one point somewhere on the opposite side of the Earth, but didn’t want to risk going into now.

Everywhere he went that was just on the edge of the green light’s advance, the story was the same. People frozen in shock, and then freezing forever. Or maybe not forever. It looked a lot like his own petrification, after all. It could most likely fade in another twenty four hours, just like his did. Or maybe because of the scale, it would last a little longer.

To prepare for that possibility, he went back to his school, and carefully arranged all his friends in one classroom, making sure their statues were not as such that they would be broken if this petrification lasted months or years.

He went to do the same with his parents – thankfully, both home. Kusuke was currently back at Oxford giving a presentation, and likely had already been frozen, how sad.

He came back to the classroom, and it could not have been more than two seconds, really, so if the worst didn’t come to pass, no one would even suspect anything had happened.

Just for paranoia’s sake, he did a quick headcount one last time.

And came one person short.

That didn’t make sense.

Even Toritsuka was here, and Saiki had seriously debated that choice.

Then he looked out of the window, and his heart sank as he watched Kaido, stuck in dilated time as he waved at the wall of green light from the courtyard, his mind buzzing with the thought: ‘Finally, Dark Reunion has sought to challenge me!’

That idiot. Kusuo teleported down to grab him, but was a few milliseconds too slow. The green light was already upon them.

Being turned to stone wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience that he cared to repeat. As this would only be a one-time thing, Kusuo’s brain set to cataloguing every part of it, as every cell in his body, starting from the surface of his skin, turned into rock, cooling down and becoming far heavier than a regular human body’s.

When it reached his head, he expected his thoughts to go blank, the same way everyone else’s had gone, except for brief moments of panic that spiked right before the petrification struck. But that wasn’t the case.

He was able to think, even after stone cooled around and through him, freezing him entirely in place. He couldn’t see, hear, or feel anything, not even with his psychic abilities. Some property in the rock must block that. But he could ­still think, like some kind of brain in a jar, existing nothing beyond that.

And for what reason?

None, from what he could fathom. Must be some flaw in this method of petrification, because his own was much more thorough.

His assumption was that he would be in here for twenty four hours, if this method was like his own. But if there was already a clear difference in the processes, then that time limit could be anywhere.

At first, Kusuo tried to count the seconds. Being an advanced psychic as himself, he didn’t need to focus much on it. But around the time when he hit three billion seconds, he figured that he had lost time as some point, and wasn’t accurately counting.

Anytime he stopped thinking for a second, he felt a curious sensation tugging at him, dulling his mind as if trying to tempt him into sleeping.

He had a feeling if he were to sleep now, then he would never wake back up. It was a level of control he didn’t feel comfortable giving up, even in this stone prison.

As such, he turned his thoughts elsewhere. Thought about all the foodstuffs he would like to eat after this. What sort of desserts might be on sale for him to buy on the way back home after this disaster. Times of disaster always led to panic and massive discounts on food. He could have a proper hoard after all this was done.

He wiled the days away, until finally, after who knew how long, he heard a sound that wasn’t his own thoughts.

A crack.

Sensation slowly began to bleed into his body, muscles tingling slightly from the neglect. More and more sounds were filtering in, and as the crackling increased, he felt the urge to blink, brushing away the gritty debris built over his eyes to allow the light to stream in.

Saiki took a breath, looking around at the forest he was in now. This looked like one of Kusuke’s games. Why he didn’t just kill Saiki when he was in statue form was beyond him.

He activated his telekinesis as he stood, brushing off all the rock that he was still coated in easily.

Then it occurred to him that the statues scattered around him, many of them half buried in the ground, or covered in moss, were of his friends. Kusuke didn’t care at all about them. Could barely pick them out of a lineup. He wouldn’t have bothered with all that.

So… likely not Kusuke’s doing.

He would have to figure out what this was soon. Find humanity again, because all the thoughts he was getting in this area were purely animal ones.

Kusuo looked down at himself, wrinkling his nose in distaste as he found his uniform missing – none of the statues had been petrified with the clothes, really. Shoddy work.

The issue was solved temporarily with a transformation, looking like his preferred self, now with clothes layered on top. But the issue of clothes led to other problems as well. His inhibitors and glasses were gone, as were his ultra-thin gloves.

This was… very bad.

He needed the inhibitor devices on his head to have any semblance of control over his powers. One begrudging thing that he could credit Kusuke with was that without them he would be a danger to himself and the entire world.

They were designed to be the most indestructible things on Earth. Bar from being manually removed, there was nothing that could separate them from Kusuo, or anything that could damage them. How long could it have been that they had simply decayed away?

Experimentally, he reached over to prod one of the statues, where his psychometry kicked in without having to be activated. Information flooded him, relaying to him events that had happened around this statue for years, decades, centuries.

It got to the point where he couldn’t wind back far enough to the day the statue was petrified. But it had certainly been more than a few thousand years.

The effect really was more enhanced than his own. He just hadn’t been expecting it to be this much. That would explain why all the buildings were gone. Civilization was sure to have crumbled in the time humanity was frozen.

Now that he had broken out, the others were likely to follow soon. Some were likely to be already active, judging by the human consciousnesses he could feel a good distance away. It had been awhile since he had used his telepathy without his inhibitors. His range had increased to stretch a fair bit beyond Japan. But not enough to pick up more than three clusters of people.

He considered paying them both a visit, but without the various things he used to curb the strength of his powers, going closer would be putting them in danger.

Good grief, someone else could figure out how to rebuild society. It seemed like too much effort to him. He’d just wait around for more competent folks to wake up and do the job for him.

Saiki Kusuo just laid out on a hillside and subsisted off replacing rocks and leaves with fruit and seared fish that he had likely stolen from those faraway villages.

Senku had just broken out of the stone, and already he set out to experiment this strange new ‘petrification’ phenomenon.

More specifically, how the de-petrification worked.

He already had a running theory about active thought requiring energy that was being gained by breaking down the rock. But there had to be outside factors to it beyond just thought. Something about his surroundings might have had a role in breaking it down, but finding out exactly what it was would take effort.

Currently, the main suspect was the trail of nitric acid that had seeped out of the cave. He had to run more experiments on that, but he distinctly remembered running a qualitative analysis on the sparrow wings, back when this was just a curious incident and not an apocalyptic threat, and finding that there was some nitrate ion diffusion in the stone.

For now, he was taking the brute force attempt, carefully dripping nitric acid on each and every statue in range. That was ten different statues. Gathering enough nitric acid for all of them had taken a lot of time and patience. But it seemed that all was for nothing.

He looked hopefully at the arrangement of statues, people from all walks of life, who could have been doing anything, their faces all twisted in shock and horror from where they had first seen the Petrification Wave, but now looking out at different directions.

Nothing moved. Not a sound was made.

He groaned and made to go back to the drawing board.

Dousing random people really wasn’t an efficient use of resources. He likely needed someone who had managed to beat the alluring unconsciousness the stone tried to pull you into, so that the breakdown of the rock could happen on both sides, and finding someone who most certainly was awake would be a challenge.

Senku should go and find Taiju. That big oaf would definitely still be kicking in there. No way was he going to give up on telling Yuzuriha about his feelings. Guess love had a use after all.

Finding him would be an issue. Maybe if Senku searched the area he woke up in, but the nearby river implied that he might have been washed here downstream at some point over the millennia.

Still, he hefted himself up and readied for the search. No point to begin than the present-

Crack.

He turned back around to look at the row of statues.

Out of all of them, exactly one had a brand new crack, right down its forehead. Strangely, this one seemed to have a look of glee on its face, unlike the shock and horror everyone else had. Maybe he hadn’t seen the Wave?

Or maybe he was just a crazy guy. The thought was exhilarating.

More cracks were quick to follow, fingers twitching slightly as life came back to the statue, chunks of rock tumbling off to reveal a high school aged boy, with blue hair, black eyes, and pale skin.

His first course of action once freed was to laugh hysterically and point at the sky. “You thought you could take me out like that, Dark Reunion? Think again!”

Then he yelped and automatically covered his forearms with his hands. “And I’m naked. Oh, fucking hell.”

Confusion flickered through him as he traced a hand over his arms, and then looked around him, finally noticing Senku.

“Yo,” he waved, holding up the container he had kept the nitric acid in. “I helped you get out. Were you thinking in there?”

“About the awesome and bloody revenge I was going to enact on the organization that tried to wrong me,” the boy replied, squinting at him. “You with them, or are you on my side?”

“No idea what you’re talking about,” Senku replied, trying to decide whether he needed to take this seriously. “Who are you, exactly?”

The boy puffed his chest up, jabbing a thumb at himself, “The name’s Kaidou Shun, but I’m probably better known as the Jet Black Wings,” he looked around at the statues he was lined up with, and shook his head in disappointment. “This was likely an attack by Dark Reunion, an organization I used to work for, before I realized their nefarious doings. So sad that other people had to get caught up in it.”

Riiiiiight. So the answer to that was no.

“Call me Senku. And considering this was a worldwide attack, I wouldn’t expect you to have been targeted specifically,” Senku informed him. The boy looked relieved to hear that, despite putting up a front of being excited at the prospect just seconds ago.

“Oh, alright then! I’m guessing you broke out a while ago, if you had the time to make clothes?” he angled his head to look at Senku’s homemade leather tunic.

“A couple weeks, nothing major,” Senku replied. “I made shelter and pots and stuff. Think you can pull your weight around here?”

“Sure!” Kaidou agreed cheerily. “I had a bit of a survivalist phase. Pottery and water collection and all that fun stuff.”

That was good to hear. Senku hadn’t actually known what he was doing when it came to that. He was just working off prior understanding of how science worked to figure it out, and a foraging course he took for fun while in Canada on another research trip.

He took Kaidou back to his base, on the way picking up vines and leaves to give him something to wear. Catching another deer might be on the itinerary, because the guy kept rubbing at his arms and looking at them weirdly, so sleeves might be in order.

When they got to the shelter he had built, suspended in a tree to escape predators, Senku found it being ransacked by monkeys, and swore under his breath, rushing forward and grabbing one of his spears to whack at them.

They had learned the hard way what it felt like to be hit by one of those, and generally gave a wide berth when he started swinging it around, fleeing the shelter quickly.

“Some of the berries can be saved,” he decided, looking through the pots of it, “But the water is most likely contaminated.”

“There’s a river in that direction, right?” Kaidou said, pointing a few degrees north from where they had come. Senku nodded. “Well then, I’ll go refill it.”

“Thanks, man,” Senku sighed. “I started revival tests early because I can’t do this all myself. It’ll be so much easier with two of us. Especially since I can barely lift a twig-”

He was struck silent when he realized that Kaidou was trembling with the force of lifting up the single pot of water.

Ah. This guy was worse than him.

“We’re going to need more help, I think,” Kaidou wheezed, putting the pot heavily down, making Senku cringe. The pot was delicate and took a lot of time to make.

“Well, your revival at least tells me one thing,” Senku decided to look at the brighter side. “It’s ten billion percent possible to revive my top pick for a partner in a ‘surviving in the stone age’ game.”

As soon as the supplies were arranged to support two people, they would embark on the mission to find and revive Ooki Taiju.

It took a week to get to that point, and three days longer to find Taiju in the end, along with an additional whole day with plenty of breaks taken in between to drag the statue back to the nitric acid cave, and place him directly under the drip.

“And this is the only weakness of the stone?” Kaidou asked, looking at a blot of nitric acid that had fallen on his finger. “Bat guano?”

“Basically, yeah. But it’s a little more involved than that. We’re just lucky we don’t have to make it from scratch, because the materials of making that happen aren’t even a millimeter within our grasp.”

“Do you think we can revive my friends after this?” Kaidou asked uncertainly. “Cause, like, I know some real powerhouses. Nendou, Hairo, Aren, they’re all crazy strong.”

Saiki really didn’t want to revive people just because they were strong, but at the beginning stages of their civilization, it looked like that would have to be the case.

“You think that any of them would have remained thinking through all those centuries?” he asked, genuine in his question.

Kaidou thought on that. “Hairo, definitely. He wouldn’t give up like that. Nendou, I wanna say no, but he does freaky stuff all the time, even though it shouldn’t be possible. Aren… honestly, who knows with that guy. Really prone to depressive angsty phases. Might have gone to sleep at some point.”

He was frowning now, the mortality of the situation finally dawning on him.

“Well, whatever,” Senku tried to distract him. “Once we figure out a more potent version of the revival fluid, we’ll be able to depetrify them whether they’re still conscious or not.”

Kaidou seemed relieved at that, going back to curing the deerskin he was using to make his jacket with further gusto.

Taiju was revived, and the next leg of their work could begin in gusto.

Kaidou went back to the site where his statue had been taken from, guided by Senku, and after searching intently, they were able to find the statues of his classmates nearly a kilometer out.

“They’re all here!” Kaidou said excitedly, doing a quick headcount. “Aren, Aiura, Yumehara, Nendou, Toritsuka, Hairo, Satou even, what the heck? He’s not even in our class!” his face twisted in worry, then. “Not Saiki or Teruhashi, though.”

“Count your miracles, them all being here and undamaged is statistically unlikely enough,” Senku told him roughly.

So the matter was forcibly dropped. Not to be acknowledged again.

Until sometime in deep winter, when Taiju went a little further afield to catch an animal he had seen burrowing for the winter, and instead was met with-

“A person!” he yelled, pointing right at the stranger who was lying amongst the snow, sticking out with his bright pink hair and very normal clothes.

The person turned his head away so Taiju never saw his face except for the green-tinted glasses in his side-profile, but when he spoke, his voice was clear as day.

“Yare, yare, you’re one of those guys popping up nearby, huh? You need to tone it down, you’re a serious noise problem.”

“Oh, sorry!” he said in a stage whisper. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I just- what’re you doing here? How did you break out of the stone?”

“The rock broke around me eventually. It was bound to happen sooner or later. You should know that; you’re standing here, too.”

Ah, so he had found another source of the miracle fluid.

“Can you tell me where your cave is?” he asked.

“… Excuse me?”

“Yeah! Your cave! The one where the miracle fluid that revived you came from!”

“I have no earthly idea what you’re talking about.”

Maybe he hadn’t realized that that was what it was. Fair enough, Taiju also hadn’t put the pieces on that together until Senku told him.

“You must have an awesome setup if you made clothes like that! Wanna come back with me? You could teach us how you did that.”

Still, the stranger wasn’t looking at him. It was getting a little weird, honestly.

“No, I don’t really want to spend time with other people right now. Go away, please,” his voice was blunt and insistent. Taiju respected his wishes and ran all the way back to the base, where he spilled the entire story to Senku.

“You’re joking,” was the scientist’s response, not even looking up from the fibers he was parsing to make more rope. “A random guy, just out there in the snow. Dressed in modern clothing. That didn’t happen.”

“I mean, it’s possible,” Kaidou at least gave him the benefit of the doubt.

“He’s started going crazy is what’s possible,” Senku replied. “I figured the social isolation wouldn’t be much of a problem because having two people to interact with would be better than none, but it seems to be taking a toll on him. Soft sciences like psychology was never my thing, so that assumption was flawed.”

“I’m not going crazy, Senku!” Taiju insisted, “There seriously was a guy!”

Kaidou snapped his fingers. “In dreams, you can always tell when things aren’t real because you shouldn’t be able to count things or remember specific details. Describe what this guy looked like, and maybe we can figure out if he was actually a figment of your imagination.”

“Your imagination gets away from you way too quickly, too,” Senku told him drily.

But Taiju was already talking. “So, he looked like he was our age, you know? Short, pink hair, and… normal clothes? That’s the best I can describe it. He had normal clothes, pants and shirt and shoes. Wore green sunglasses, even! Had a very dull voice, sounded kinda annoyed when he asked me to leave.”

Kaidou frowned, “You know, that almost reminds me of this friend I have.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, he’s like. Super normal and dull. No offense to him, I know he’s probably got some personality hidden underneath all that. He’s easy to pick out from a crowd with the bright pink hair, though.”

“You think that this could be him?” Taiju asked excitedly.

Kaidou laughed him off. “No way. Saiki really wouldn’t be able to survive on his own. And he keeps to himself – acts a bit rude about it sometimes, but I can tell he’s just shy – but he wouldn’t give up a promise of food and shelter and protection just to avoid some measly social interaction. ”

“Ah,” Taiju drooped, and the matter was left to simmer.

Meanwhile, Kusuo – as much as he would like to – was not staying idle.

He couldn’t afford to, as more and more people would begin to break out, though the timing for it seemed to be slightly more scattered than his own petrification’s exact twenty-four hours to the second time limit. Soon, his powers would become a danger again, and the thoughts of all these people would start to pile on.

His first action was to use his pyrokinesis to melt down various minerals and recreate his tinted glasses. His second was to find some germanium. The process of searching for it was theoretically easy, as he could teleport anywhere in the world, access his X-Ray vision to look through the ground, and find the ores he needed.

Finding it was more difficult, as he had to repeat this process over and over again, until he was finally able to find a chunk of precious argyrodite, and melted the stone down until only the metal was left, which he then molded into a lumpy version of his own original germanium ring.

It was a relief to even hold it in his hand, as it immediately wiped out the bombardment of thoughts he was experiencing.

But it did nothing to help with his strength, nor the memories that struck him anytime his hands brushed against anything. All of those would have to be figured out on their own time. It was perhaps unfortunate that he didn’t know the working principle behind the inhibitors, as his most important aid, but the gloves he was pretty certain he could make.

Maybe he would have to go find Kusuke to fix that part, once he had the gloves prepared . If he could be trusted to so much as touch a person without them accidentally exploding.

The new group that had been revived, closer to here than the other t hree , was working on some kind of formula to break the stone. Kaidou was with them, and if Kusuo had realized that before, he might have wiped Taiju’s memory of it clean. Except that guy was a little hard to read, the same way Nendou was.

Maybe Saiki could take some hints from them on how to revive Kusuke, without having to risk destroying the statue.

He slipped the germanium ring off, hovering it just nanometers off his skin, to tap into the minds of the group nearby, see how they were coming along.

Huh. There was another two of them already. They were growing faster than expected.

He settled in to observe from afar.

Tsukasa stood at the foot of the tunnel-ridden mountain he had already decided would become his base, casting glances over his shoulder at where Taiju, Kaidou, and Yuzuriha were hesitantly following.

They would never make amends after he had killed Senku, he knew. But there was also nowhere for them to go. Except for maybe that girl he had left pinned under that tree.

Senku’s first mistake had been resurrecting someone he did not know. For that reason, Tsukasa would be picking out people he recognized from his own circles of the martial arts world. He might not always trust them implicitly, but they would be aware of his reputation and its veracity, and that would be enough to make them fall in line.

Once he ran out of statues that he could recognize, then he would recruit one of the reporters that he had come to know in his career, but that wouldn’t come until later.

For now, he already had a few statues cataloged and ready for revival. There was Asagiri Gen, that he had found at the precarious edge of a cliff, which he had singled out to be put in charge of confirming Senku’s death.

It hadn’t escaped him that the memorial Taiju and Yuzuriha had marked for him was not a grave, nor had any sign of a body been presented. These people were sharp, and he would have to be sharper .

Another misstep of Senku’s was conveniently digging up one of Tsukasa’s ideal candidates for revival, and as such saving Tsukasa the trouble of having to dig him up.

Hairo Kineshi was an interesting person, is the best way to explain him. He wasn’t in martial arts, but rather in provincial-level tennis. He was immensely supportive, however, and had shown up to cheer for one of his teammates when he had participated in a local tournament.

He had a charisma that drew people to him, and with more than a dozen people already revived, and a lot more planned, they needed someone to motivate the group and keep them working towards the same goal. A sheepdog for the masses, if you will.

Hairo had looked unsure about this plan when Tsukasa had first introduced him to it – of course, leaving out the parts about murder, because Hairo was really not a person who would support that. Instead, Tsukasa portrayed the situation as it was; desperate, scary, and something they had to think practically about and revive only those who could assimilate easily to the group and conditions.

“Once we’ve figured out a steady way to produce food, then we can bring more people back, right?” Hairo checked, “And the revival fluid you’re making can be scaled up in production too?”

It probably could be, and Senku would have known how, but they couldn’t dwell on such things now.

“We’ll see about increasing food production sustainably,” he said, though he certainly didn’t think that it would happen any time soon. “As for the revival fluid, that cave and the rate it produces the nitric acid is truly how much of a supply we have.”

“Oh,” Hairo looked downcast, but only for a brief second, before he was bouncing back with increased determination. “Then all we have to do is find and revive a scientist that does know how!”

They were going in circles like this. Tsukasa may have underestimated the tenacity of this guy and his loyalty to return to the previous status quo.

But Hairo clearly had no idea how much time and effort it would take to gather, hunt, and grow food to sustain even their small population. And that could be used to postpone the eventual confrontation they would have to have.

“In the future, when we know there’s enough to go around for everyone,” he promised, knowing that the world was never built for that to be possible.

Yet Hairo smiled and accepted that.

Senku was making his way to the village that Kohaku insisted that she hailed from.

“We’re kind of the only people for miles, who haven’t been cast out of the village for crimes or heresy,” she explained.

Senku side-eyed her. “You guys got a lot of heresy going on?”

She shrugged. “Well, not much at all. I don’t think anyone cares much really. Except for the people who’re obsessed with that statue. They tend to sequester themselves away and go weird, so we don’t talk about it.”

“You’re saying… there’s a cult somewhere in the woods,” Senku surmised.

“Yeah, they worship this statue of a girl they insist is like standing in the presence of god,” Kohaku confirmed casually. “Just avoid them, it’s generally fine.”

Chapter Text

Around forty people, already used to doing hard labor. It was a larger workforce than Senku had even been expecting when venturing out here.

The question remained: Just what did he have to do to get their favor? As it stood now, he wasn’t even being allowed to step onto the island they all inhabited.

“They’re just being overly cautious,” Chrome – the resource gatherer Senku had miraculously found, along with his treasure trove of plants and minerals – said, not looking at all concerned by the distrust levied at Senku. “They don’t really think you’re a cult member. All of those would never part ways with their statue.”

Right…

“Well, like it or not, but the things I’ve told you about,” – Chrome’s eyes lit up at the mention of the modern miracles Senku had regaled him with – “are going to remain ancient history until we get more working hands on deck. Science can do lots of good, I just need to find a way to convince them of that. We don’t have time to hesitate.”

Chrome bit his lip in thought. “ How much good? ” he asked, then elaborated. “Ruri – she’s Kohaku’s sister. And my friend. And also has been sick for a very long time. It’s been getting worse lately, though. A lot worse. I don’t think-”

His voice broke, and Senku found himself staring at the shelf Chrome was gripping onto, his knuckles white and hands still shaking slightly. “Do you think science can even help her fight her illness off?”

It was hard to say. She could have any number of things, caused by a variety of unknown factors. Allergens, bacteria, viruses were only a small number of the possible things at play here.

He had Chrome and Kohaku give him a detailed list of her symptoms, daily life, and diet. Carefully ruled out everything else, as she was exhibiting no responses to allergens, and while the symptoms lined up with a classic illness, it had gone on too long to be viral. Either Ruri should have died by this point, or gotten better.

Bacteria, then. Which called for antibiotics. Which boiled down to two main routes.

Penicillin or sulfa. High-risk-high-reward or the safe and assured method? It wasn’t even a question. Luck was rarely ever on his side, so no matter how long the road went, it was better to aim for the one with the guaranteed result.

He fetched a suitably sized tree branch and began scratching out the image in his head on the ground. “This is going to be our roadmap, all the way from where we’re at now, to achieving antibiotics!”

“Is that… lightning?” Chrome squinted at the square for electricity.

“And why is there a skull next to that bottle over there?” Kohaku pressed.

“You guys are thinking too much about this; it’ll make sense when the time comes,” Senku assured them.

“Ohh wait, I recognize what these are meant to be!” Kohaku said, pointing at the same square Chrome had been looking at. The one for electricity, with a little illustration of the Benjamin Franklin demonstration. “That’s a kite, isn’t it?”

Senku raised an eyebrow. “You have that here?”

Kites required paper, at minimum. He hadn’t seen any being used or made around the village.

Kohaku shook her head. “Ruri told us about them in one of her stories.”

Right. The same reason they knew what gorillas were despite having never seen one. It all came back to Ruri. Or maybe the priestess tradition they had in this village.

“She’s a lot more interesting than I thought,” Senku decided, cracking his knuckles. “Let’s get this done, so I can see where she got her info from.”

Kohaku laughed at that, while Chrome fumed in the background.

“What?” Senku looked between them.

Kohaku waved him off and didn’t reply.

The four major groups of humans Saiki had identified were solitary communities. Never intermingling. Until finally, one of them did.

He left behind the newly depetrified group that had built up in what had once been Tokyo, and instead moved to the much larger group that had proper settlements and everything. It was the one Saiki had noted to be intelligent.

Had to be incredibly so, if he managed to fake his own death even from a psychic. Saiki had been thrown for a loop when he had felt the guy’s metronomic presence gutter out like a candle. Then spark back up almost twenty minutes later.

Sure, all of them were going to figure out how to rebuild society. But that one he had to keep a close eye on.

Approaching humans – telepathically, he still most definitely didn’t have the control to do that in person yet – was a tricky thing, as he didn’t want to accidentally rupture their minds when searching for certain memories or bits of internal monologue.

That was why Saiki was compelled to keep his distance initially. Just scraping off the surface thoughts to see what was happening.

Lots of shock and surprise and gleeful thoughts ringed around the edges of the base of the community the scientist had run off to. Stray images of a woman at various stages of her life, illness plaguing her every step of the way. The structured, staircase-like thought patterns of the scientist guy provided a running monologue, of which Saiki was very disappointed that he got to hear only snatches of.

He would sometimes wander by the areas where they had been doing experiments after the fact, though, and then use his psychometry to gather what they were doing in precise detail.

Making glass items, creating magnets, fetching sulfuric acid. This guy knew what he was doing, at least. What did they call him in all these memories? Senku. Yeah.

Saiki wondered if he could seek him out to use that skill to his own advantage.

After the minor upset with Senku’s supposed death, the faction of depetrified people had steadily begun to grow in numbers. It was an unprecedented population boom, and why, exactly? The fear and agitation he had picked up from the group was only increasing by the day. Something was going to have to give.

Saiki was really hoping they’d figure it out themselves, but if that was out of the question, he needed to at least be capable of stepping in.

Not that he cared if anyone got hurt, a s long as it didn’t doom all humanity to never bring back air conditioning or coffee jelly.

But he would like to be able to walk around without destroying anything he touched with the slightest provocation. His inhibitors needed to be rebuilt, and Saiki didn’t have the knowledge or ability to figure out how.

Senku, on the other hand, clearly knew a lot about the internal workings of the human body and what was needed to keep it functioning. Everything about him and the processes he employed to reinvent antibiotics screamed mad scientist. Saiki was familiar with the type, having grown up around Kusuke .

One thing he had learnt from that highly aggravating childhood was that those types of people could be quite useful at times. So Saiki decided to take a risk.

They’d been having class, Kuboyasu remembered with ice-cold certainty.

Math specifically. The teacher was running a bit late, some fight had broken out, and Hairo had stepped up as class president and made a speech about unity in the face of arduous situations. Kuboyasu hadn’t entirely paid attention, as he was trying to explain quadratic equations to Kaidou before the teacher arrived and started the test scheduled for today.

She never did come back. Not before the green light did. Aren could still feel his blood boiling at the memory of how powerless he was to defend himself against the light, filtering over his skin and turning it to stone.

His first instinct, upon seeing his arm lying on the desk – numb, unresponsive, and a marbled dark gray – was to foolishly reach forward and try to feel it with his other hand, as the light continued its slow procession forward. It was stuck in that strange state before he could even feel his other hand and ascertain what happened to it.

And then he could feel nothing. Hear nothing. See nothing.

The complete lack of stimulation from every direction floored him. What had happened? Was he… dead? That would certainly explain the thick cloud of exhaustion that was pulling at him.

He could’ve raged against it, if he had any particular target to turn that rage towards. But the only culprit he could think to point towards was that damn light. Which only left him confused and grappling with what had been done to him.

Kuboyasu was too shaken by what happened to pay much thought to forcing himself to remain awake. After a long – maybe minutes, maybe days, he wasn’t sure – time, he eventually made peace with the fact that he was not going to be getting out of this bind anytime soon.

Nothingness wrapped around him like a comfort, subsuming him.

A crack, in some corner of the existence he had entirely forgotten about, pulled him back into the blinding world of sound and pain and textures.

Kuboyasu blinked, control over his body returning to him in starts and stops. The gaps of light that had begun pouring through the darkness widened. He sat up, and rock crumbled off him from the motion.

People were gathered around him, he noted. Some wide open space with blue skies stretching above and wind blowing unimpeded.

Ah, he saw what this was.

“Bold move, grabbing me from school in the middle of the day,” he smirked. “Which gang are you guys with? Just so that I know who to send my thanks to after I beat you all into the ground.”

Chuckles rang through the crowd. Kuboyasu gritted his teeth. They thought they had the upper hand, did they? Trying to throw him off his game by drugging him and taking him out into the woods. Stealing his uniform and replacing it with… what was he wearing? It felt like animal skin, almost.

Out of the indistinct crowd, one man stepped forward. Taller and noticeably bulkier than the others, Kuboyasu squared up defensively.

“I think you’ve misunderstood. This isn’t any type of gang,” the man said, his voice smoother than Kuboyasu had been expecting. Getting some real mob boss vibes from this one. “We have found ourselves in a very unbelievable situation though, so I can see how your mind jumped to that.”

“Kuboyasu! Dude!! It’s chill, no worries!” Hairo’s voice jumped out to him from the corner of the group surrounding him. With his bright red hair, even Kuboyasu with his shitty eyesight couldn’t mistake him for anyone else.

With others, Kuboyasu would be suspicious no matter what they said. But Hairo was sincere to the point of ludicrousness. He wouldn’t side with these guys if they were trying to stake out gang territory.

He relaxed his stance, and angled a look at the guy unmistakably in charge. “What’s going on here, exactly?”

Guy In Charge, Kuboyasu found out, was named Shishio Tsukasa. He was on TV all the time, Kuboyasu realized after he squinted a little to take in his face. The Strongest Primate Highschooler.

Now, he just went by Tsukasa. Most people now had dropped family names entirely. Because the world had apparently ended thirty seven hundred years ago, when humanity had been petrified in one fell swoop. These were the basics explained to him by Tsukasa before he moved on to attending to the other pressing concerns that came with leading a burgeoning civilization, leaving Kuboyasu to be filled in by the actual person who knew what was going on, to direct all his questions towards.

“How do you know it was everyone, though?” Kuboyasu pressed. “People could have survived. Otherwise, who would’ve kept time?”

Minami tapped her chin as she thought up an answer. “See, if people had survived, they would have spread here by this point, wouldn’t they? This isn’t exactly an inhospitable land. Plus, there’s that whole thing with the swallows that acted as a small-scale version of what happened to us.”

It only would be small-scale if they didn’t put as much stock in the lives of swallows as they did in humans’. Kuboyasu couldn’t argue that point, because this was his first time even hearing of such an event. “What ‘thing with the swallows’?”

“Doesn’t anyone read the news?” she threw her hands up. Likely not the first time she’d had to explain this. “Nearly a week before the Petrification Wave hit, stone statues of swallows started being discovered, all on the same day, all over the world, following the flight and habitation patterns of the regular bird. It’s only logical to think that they were real swallows simultaneously petrified everywhere,” she drooped then, “It was really interesting at the time. I had appointments lined up with birdwatchers and this scientist conference discussing the matter over in the States, but then… yeah. Guess we figured out what was up the hard way.”

“Sorry,” Kuboyasu said, opting for sympathy.

“It would’ve definitely gotten me that promotion I was working towards,” she sniffled loudly, but quickly recovered. “Ah, well! Guess we don’t have to work those miserable jobs at all, so that hardly matters now.”

Kuboyasu nodded, unsure how he felt about that. He didn’t have to worry about job prospects here, which was a relief, and he was plenty strong enough to deal with the workload. But there also weren’t any motorbikes here. Or paper and pencils and other things to draw with. The extent cooking had gone to from what he could tell was simply cured and smoked meats over a fire with whatever vegetation could be foraged. No signs of looking to progress further than that anytime soon.

Oh, and there weren’t any eyeglasses here, either. He kind of needed those.

“We got a timeline to start cultivating the land?” Kuboyasu asked. “Any milestones we want to hit, like making glass? I think you just need to heat up metal for that, right? Are we going to revive anyone who knows how to do that stuff?”

Minami stilled. He couldn’t quite make out her expression, but her body language suggested that it wasn’t good.

“Well, you know,” she said weakly. “We’re taking it slow. Making sure that nothing we invent can be used to hurt others disproportionately. And we can’t just go around reviving whoever, or else we might free someone who’s totally bad news!”

Kuboyasu looked around at the people they were passing by. Around the size of his class at PK Academy , but all of them extremely buff. And talking amongst each other.

Competition was thick in the air; he wouldn’t exactly call it a welcoming environment. But they all seemed to recognize each other and know them fairly well. Even the ones he had noticed were newly revived.

“Noticed you have a lot of people from the same circle here,” he noted. “Isn’t that an ethics violation, if people deemed worthy of revival are selected based off the people they have as friends? Now everyone here are just sporty jocks.”

Minami’s face pinked. “Well, it’s not fully like that. I’m the one who’s sourcing the people. As a former journalist, I know all sorts. These are just the ones we thought were most likely to survive the rough environment of the stone world,” she brightened a little and then waved in the distance at a blur of yellow and off-white. “But there’s exceptions. Like Ukyo!”

Ukyo waved politely, in the narrow slice of distance where Kuboyasu could see enough to make out that Ukyo was a scrawny young man who didn’t fit in with the hyper-buff physiques of almost everyone else.

“I see,” Kuboyasu nodded in understanding.

“Well, I’ve gotta go, so take care, Aren,” Minami patted him on the shoulder. “Find your blue-haired friend; he’s been asking about you.”

“Call me Kuboyasu!” he corrected her.

“Aren!” Kaidou said, jumping into his field of vision as a sharp shock of blue and red. “I heard my name and took that as my cue to make my much-awaited entrance!”

Kuboyasu stared at him, stunned. “They revived you, too, Shun?” he asked. Unless Hairo vouched for him, he didn’t see these people jumping to revive Kaidou.

Kaidou laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Not exactly? I knew this whole scheme was created by Dark Reunion to catch me unawares, so I forced myself awake during the whole thing. Until I woke up myself using the nitric acid stuff that’s like a weaker form of the revival fluid most of you guys are using.”

“I see…” Kuboyasu couldn’t look away from him, and the bright red gloves he had somehow managed to fashion even under these circumstances. Granted, that Ukyo dude had a bright yellow tunic and hat, so maybe this wasn’t unthinkable.

Kaidou waved a hand over Kuboyasu’s eyes. “You good? Damn, I forgot you wore glasses, otherwise I totally wouldn’t have asked them to wake you up. At least not now. I don’t think we’re getting glasses anytime soon.”

“I don’t think we are, either,” Kuboyasu begrudgingly agreed. “But I can manage it. I’d rather be here than stuck as a statue.”

Not very far away, Tsukasa was considering the words he had heard Kuboyasu exchanging with Minami.

He had her handle talking to newcomers so that they would feel more at ease to ask questions, allowing him to gauge their true intentions without worry of them filtering out of fear of his reputation.

Kuboyasu had voiced an insightful opinion. It wasn’t fair to cite people from their own circles. But they also needed to make sure that the people being picked were trustworthy. That was why Minami had been contacted. But if there was another person who could give a second opinion… he cast a look around the army of statues he had already amassed.

Who would know and be able to connect with a lot of people from varying backgrounds? He’d have to ask amongst the others.

There was a major disturbance upstream somewhere. Senku was able to tell from the broken twigs and soil clumps washed down at an abnormal rate, interfering with their attempts to gather iron sand.

“Should I take a look?” Suika asked, jumping from toe to toe.

Senku stood up and stretched his arms. “I’ll come with you, just in case.”

Kohaku snorted. “ There’s very little you can protect her from, ” she angled her head back to look upstream. Senku doubted she was going to see much, but then her eyes narrowed and body curled in on itself.

“That’s not a bear,” she said finally. “Appears to be a human. Lying on the riverbank. Or what used to be one,” Chrome made a questioning noise and she quickly clarified. “There’s a crater around him.”

Strange. They hadn’t heard anything. Especially hadn’t seen anything either. But when the four of them crept up the river to investigate, the found a teenager with hot pink hair and eyes closed tight, lying in a crater on his back.

“Why’s he dressed like that?” Suika asked. Because the guy really was dressed weird. Or how it would have been perfectly normal to be dressed like, thirty seven hundred years ago.

Hot pink hair, normal modern clothes. Why did that description sound familiar? He should really stop doubting the big oaf.

The guy moved slightly, head turning towards Senku. His eyes never opened. All the grass in the area followed the motion of his head, as if stuck in a magnetic field.

He didn’t move his mouth. But Senku had no trouble hearing him.

“Ishigami Senku? I need you to do brain surgery on me.”

Well. That did sound exhilarating.

Chapter Text

“Someone well-connected? Hmmm, Hinata-chan from my track team was a budding socialite — she always knew the right people to make stuff happen. But who knows where we can find her now?”

“Man, in my village, the one to go to for gossip was Shiro-san down the block. That guy must have wire-tapped every building in a five-mile radius with how much he knew! But- uh- good luck finding him. With everyone being statues and all.”

“In the police force, I knew this guy who had a crazy knack for faces. Great track record on that guy. Lost so many bets with him on which of the suspects was the real perp. I had to rig it to give myself a fighting chance – what? No, that’s not illegal at all! Unethical? Listen, I don’t know who you think you are to be throwing accusations around, but consider this a dead lead now!”

“I was on good terms with some of the personnel in the intelligence department, yeah. But with everything moved around so much, I have no idea where they could be. Frighteningly likely that they’re at the bottom of the ocean now, given that we were all in the Navy…”

Tsukasa’s face was pinched as Minami relayed all this information back to him. “Can anyone pinpoint someone who knows a wide network of people, can trace the general location of most of them, and is also possible to be found?”

Minami was quiet. So far, she had been caught between her goal to help Tsukasa realize his vision and her reticence to essentially replace herself. But for this question, she had no guilt; she really didn’t know anyone who could fulfill those requirements. Maybe this was where it would end. Maybe they could move on from this attempt-

“Yo! An awesome judge of character, you say?” an irritating voice shouted, and Kaidou Shun rushed over to insert himself into the conversation. He was one of the few that Minami had never met before this, aside from the craftswoman and the musclebound guy on the foraging team.

Not only had she not vetted all three of them, but they had been here far before she had been revived. Tsukasa had history with them that would lead him to taking their input into account, even if he suspected the craftswoman and foraging guy to harbor some notions that would incite conflict within their budding society.

She tensed herself, not keen to hear what Kaidou’s suggestion would be.

“I know this guy from my school, and he’s scary perceptive. We’re talking him being able to tell if someone’s harboring ill intent or not from several feet away. Can read people like a book, knows things that are impossible! He’s a real-life psychic.”

A bit hard on the sell, no? Minami was ready to dismiss the tall tale out of hand, but to her horror, she found that Tsukasa looked intrigued. “And a lot of people from your school ended up closely grouped together, no?” he checked unnecessarily, already aware of the answer.

Oh, she got it now . It wasn’t just that Tsukasa was going to go along with these highly exaggerated claims. It was that out of all the candidates offered, this one was their best shot of even showing up at the starting line.

The other two were approached to offer their opinions on one Toritsuka Reita. Hairo stated that he found the boy a bit peculiar, but with plenty of potential if he was willing to buckle down and get himself properly motivated (a note he made about every person he knew). Kuboyasu didn’t hold his breath in a similar manner.

“He’s definitely a con-man that convinced the rest of the school that he was a psychic for social currency,” he said, resting his chin on his hand. “But he only managed it using his uncanny sense of exactly what kind of person someone is. If you’re looking for someone to sniff out people that will integrate well with us… that guy really was the best for it.”

Dammit, Tsukasa would definitely be considering it. He was no stranger to recruiting skeevy, false guys into his crusade to maintain the purity of th is Stone World. Even worse, Minami herself was starting to get curious about this intuition that bordered on extrasensory perception.

Speaking of the skeevy, false guys within Tsukasa’s army, the most prominent of that archetype was currently making his way through the forests of Hakone.

After examining the falsified scene of panicked retreat left behind at the treehouse, observing the three supposed survivors from the original group to break into the stone world, and then visiting the scene of the death, he had steeled his nerves and ventured into the forest while the Empire of Might bloomed into Tsukasa’s image. Best to get out of there as fast as possible; he wasn’t too fond of the sneering, vicious looks in the newer revivees.

The scene where Tsukasa had downed the tree over the interloping woman was greatly disturbed. The tree itself was tipped over, and there was no corpse pinned under it. Maybe she was just that strong — Tsukasa had noted her raw strength in that encounter — but he doubted it. If that was the case, then there wouldn’t be rope marks and burns into the bark of the fallen tree and other trees around them. Another party was present to lend assistance, creating an intricate pulley system to lift the tree off the girl. Someone with scientific knowledge, not just because of the pulleys, but because of the soapy residue he found over the burns where the rope had cut in.

Realistically, how many people could really be alive in the Stone World, let alone a science-minded individual that had rushed to her from the direct the first Stone Worlders had run from Tsukasa?

Gen licked his lips. He’d made several appearances on detective gimmick shows, where he was put within a fake crime scene to figure out the details of what occurred. This was even better than that.

He prowled through the forest, watching the ground for human footprints and the trees and shrubbery below 175 centimeters for any disturbances left as he walked.

As he progressed deeper in, plenty of leads for him to follow popped out. Whether or not Senku was wandering around out here, there were definitely more people than the girl Tsukasa had encountered. It was subtle, hard to notice unless you learned to pick apart aged footprints and different widths of people that tore apart the bushes as they walked past it. But then he hit jackpot.

More accurately: he smelt smoke.

His stomach was aching – perhaps he should have stocked up on more food when he left – so he followed his nose and beelined for the fire set up somewhere in this forest until he was close enough to hear the sizzle of cooking fat and see the group of people huddled around a collection of hide tents and tending to a cured deer on the fire .

Gen lingered out of range of these people’s senses, watching carefully.

The cloth they were wearing was various shades of blue and green, definitely hand-dyed. Their wearers were hunter-gatherer types, judging by their spears and plant-fiber baskets. A tall, muscular man with blond hair and a smug aura was bleeding out a deer. Another man with darker hair was sorting through baskets of herbs and plants. Either they had been here for a while, or some amongst the group had a background in foraging and butchery.

Interesting. But none of them match the description of Ishigami Senku, nor did they have any devices or inventions to make things easier that Ishigami Senku would have certainly been able to make. No signs of wheeled carts or pulley systems that would be sure to become mainstays if he stayed there. But then how did these people get here?

Maybe they somehow managed to stay awake enough through the stone to break out? That would mean a source of nitric acid, which Senku would definitely be after. And Tsukasa would not want that.

The slim, tall man with brown hair tending to the deer meat speared onto spokes now moved the final spoke off the fire and scraped it onto a clay plate. “Okay, it’s done!”

A raucous cheer went off, but no one made a move to help themselves . Instead, they all craned their heads around, gazes drifting to the ground and then towards the epicenter of their little living, where a statue stood . A cloth was draped over its shoulders and looped over its head, so the features weren’t distinct, but it looked like a rather beautiful woman . The mysterious allure, combined with the way that they looked at it , and the fact that there was no log or sitting area near it, the statue almost had a reverent air around it.

Another man – this one short and stocky – finally broke the calm and rushed forward to pluck food onto another plate, this one a special lacquer one with bright colors painted into it. It took him several minutes to arrange it in an aesthetically pleasing manner, and then with great care he picked up the plate by the tips of his fingers. Unwilling to make more contact than necessary with it.

The crowd – if Gen was being generous, he counted eight people here – parted easily to make way for him as he crossed the distance between the firepit and the statue. He bowed at the knee. Placed it down in front of her. Clasped his hands together.

“I hope you enjoy the meal, God’s Angel.”

Everyone repeated it in a trance-like state.

Okay, so this was a cult.

Gen backed away. Thought his options over.

Everything he knew about Ishigami Senku said that he would have more self-respect than to throw his lot in with a cult. And there wasn’t the reported woman amongst these numbers. There had to be more to it.

The bushes were rustling some distance away. Stride matching up with a person’s. No, not just one. Another following close behind. Gen circled around to spy on these newcomers. More than eight people in this forest, then.

He found two young men, a blond one marching forward and beating shrubs back with a spear in a determined quest. The other – taller and more well-built, and with a similar spear – followed behind, looking unimpressed.

“Come on, give up on this, Ginro,” he told the one taking point.

“No! Enough is enough! I’m going into the forest and seeing that statue woman!” Ginro yelled, the brief moment of distraction almost getting him whacked in the face by a bush. “Maybe I wanna bask in the light of God’s Angel! Bet it’s better than all the boring, tiring work you’re making me do back home!”

The guy gritted his teeth around a groan, “Hard work is good for you, and there isn’t going to be any less hard work out there. You’re just going to become weird and dazed and totally out of it like everyone else who goes into that section of the forest.”

Huh. Were there some sort of hallucinogenic or opiate plants in the area? He doubted that a statue could have that effect.

“Lalalala I can’t hear you, it’s being drowned out by the sound of her calling me! I think we’re getting close!”

Well, Ginro was right about that. He had good intuition.

“Right, I’ve entertained enough of this,” his companion tucked his spear into a loop of rope on his back and bodily picked up Ginro and turned around. Marching right back from where they had come from. Likely the place where Ginro had complained about being forced to work too much.

All Gen had to do was follow them – very convenient.

He didn’t know what he was expecting when he tailed them to their base. But he hadn’t been expecting a fully established village, with a ring of straw and wooden huts, a few towers, and even two suspension bridges.

Yes, they certainly had been here for a long time.

Despite there being more than five times the number of people here than in the group out in the forest, wriggling his way into this community would be harder. It was placed on two pillars of rock jutting out from the sea, unreachable by foot except through the singular suspension bridge connecting it to actual land.

But maybe he didn’t need to go that route. The two he was following didn’t head straight for the village like he thought they would. Instead, they swerved to get to a lone house on stilts kept not far from the main village.

Maybe a supply shed or guard’s outpost? On close inspection, it seemed to be the former. There was another hut constructed near the foot of the house on stilts, with many glass items visible through the windows. Two different types of kilns were not far from there, either, and two giant bronze discs were set up as some kind of contraption he didn’t understand.

Gen hovered out of sight, watching carefully as the stern man unceremoniously dumped Ginro onto the ground.

“Ah, Kinro, you brought him back,” a blond woman said, leaning up against the hut. “Should’ve just left him to rot.”

“Nah, I’m not done with him yet,” a third man said, coming out from the hut. “I still need those two to pump out more electricity for me.”

… Electricity?

G en had had some suspicion that this was the right place, given by the glassware alone, but this only confirmed them. He examined his new suspect carefully.

Green-to-white gradient hair, check; symmetrical cracks between his eyes and reaching upwards, check; a hundred and seventy one centimeters tall, also check. He hadn’t even switched out his clothes. Which was a little disgusting now that he thought about it. He hoped that when he got back, Yuzuriha would still have stockpiled fabric to make him a second outfit.

Assuming that he’d be back…

Target acquired, as all the fancy spy movies would say, so how should he proceed with this? Gen was supposed to be reporting Senku’s continued survival to Tsukasa, but he wasn’t set on doing that just yet. He’d known Senku was smart from the get-go. His style was a lot more appealing than anything Tsukasa had to offer. Switching over was a plan he’d been considering ever since he saw that date carved into the tree. It almost felt like fate, in a way.

Not that he would be admitting all that to him just yet. That would umiliating-hay! No, it was better to play coy. Make them haggle for his attention. Establish himself as the one with leverage in this situation; the one they had to impress.

The woman paused from where she was viciously heckling Ginro. Snapped her head towards where Gen was crouched. They made deliberate eye contact.

Gen’d been found out.

He stood tall and braced himself. She was obviously the strongest fighter in the group. Fast too, as she closed the distance between them within seconds, spear stolen from Kinro now pointed at his neck.

“My, this is a bad first impression, I must say!” he laughed, making the pitch high and quavery.

“You were watching us,” she said, pure venom. Gen wasn’t faking the chill going up his spine.

He played it cool, “I was just trying to gather my wits after seeing so many people for the first time. Now I’m embarrassed!”

“Haven’t been amongst people for a while, huh?” Senku said, finally having caught up to them. His eyes were alight, fiery in their delight. “Why’s that?”

Gen cupped his face with his hands – making sure to draw attention to the cracks on his face. “I broke out of the stone recently! Been wandering around, searching for others like me, and heard tell of the incredible things being produced here . It’s practically the Stone World, and you’ve got electricity. That’s truly genius . I had to have a look. ”

The smile on Senku’s face grew. Yes. Good. Flattery could get you everywhere, no matter what people tried to say.

“Funny, we haven’t exactly been talking about the electricity thing out in the open until just today. Gossip mill in this world made of fifty-odd people must be fucking insane.”

Dammit . So he could play ball.

T hey looked at each other, calculating.

Senku broke first, picking at his ear. “Okay, I’m not doing the fucking Death Note routine with you. You haven’t gone running to Tsukasa, so you’re obviously looking to make a deal. Make your demands quickly; I’ve got ramen, electricity, antibiotics, and neurosurgery equipment on my plate already.”

Just like that? This guy was a blunt hammer. Terrible match-up for Gen. Or perhaps a good one. This would certainly save a lot of time…

“You certainly have big dreams,” Gen sneered, falling back into the smug, superior persona he’d been cooking up for this interaction. “But I’m afraid I’m going to need to see some proof of what you can do before I decide you’re worth it. Wouldn’t want to be fooled by the myths that surround you, after all.”

You couldn’t deny one thing: Toritsuka Reita sure produced results .

“This one’s got a real righteous stick up his ass. He’ll be super annoying, but exactly the golden-boy-next-door type you’re looking for,” he said about a statue.

Upon revival, the boy was revealed to have been a class president before the Petrification.

“Grade-A survivalist freak over there.”

She turned out to be a doomsday prepper. Highly upset that her hoard had depleted before she got to use it, but picked herself up quickly and took up foragery.

“This one’s alright. Will fit in great with the rest of the people here. Got similar backgrounds and stuff.”

He really did integrate easily into the group, matching everyone’s competitiveness and bonding with them over having done kendo until middle school, after which he phased it out in favor of baseball.

They listened when Toritsuka made a claim, because he was never wrong. When he said someone was a good revivee pick, they always turned out to be exactly that.

“Not this one — looks the part, I know, but will fold like a stack of cards in this environment. Real wuss.”

They passed over the statue without a second thought.

“What’s your secret, Toritsuka?” Minami demanded point-blank nearly a week into his reign of terror — they only revived people once or twice a day, so the proof took a while to be confirmed.

Toritsuka stuck his nose into the air. “I’ve told you I’m a psychic m edium, haven’t I? I’m evaluating them based on their spirit guardians, and the parts of their souls that haven’t gone dormant. ”

She looked at him befuddled. “I get that you were trying to make it big before, but you know there’s no TV anymore, right?”

Kaido and Kuboyasu watched the interaction from afar.

“… He’s talking to her. Like a normal human person,” Kaido noted, a queasiness building in his stomach. “You’re seeing this too, right? Not even a single perverted comment?”

“On the first day of his revival, Nikki tied a rock to a rope. Then looped the other end around his neck. And through them both into the river,” Kuboyasu said. “Or at least, that’s what I heard. He’s useful, but everyone with eyes could tell it was justified. They weren’t going to argue against that.”

He could see Nikki hovering over Minami’s shoulder now, unsubtly flexing.

Toritsuka let out a loud laugh, completely out-of-place for the conversation, and walked away. Clearly terrified.

Well, th at was one problem taken care of.

Chapter Text

Gen looked at the light bulb Senku had created, perfecting that initial bamboo filament into something that could last longer than a few minutes. More than the invention itself, it was striking to see how quickly they were able to take a hypothetical and turn it into a finished product.

“It’s not bad,” he mulled over.

“You guys recreated fluorescent lights back at your Empire?” Senku snorted, powering down the bulb and letting the brothers take a break.

“Well, no…” Gen admitted. “But it’s boring. Fire already exists – why do we need lightbulbs?” Senku looked offended, but Gen cut him off before he could start ranting. “I’m just saying that the only person I’m looking out for is me. Weighing the advantages of Tsukusa’s Empire and your Kingdom, I don’t really care much either way. Both of you promise hard labor, both of you have small quality of life improvements. The way I am, I could live an easy life in the Empire and be able to offload the work to others. What luxuries can you prepare for me?”

Senku didn’t look impressed. “I’m not groveling for your help, Mentalist. Spit out what you want and we can skip the coy banter.”

Not even the threat of Gen selling him out to the man who had already killed him once put the guy on the back foot. He’d be an absolute menace to cold read during a performance.

“Fine. It’s like I said before. A bottle of cola would be nice. Consider it a starting fee. We can discuss regular bribes after.”

Senku nodded, not even looking the slightest bit worried about how he was going to conjure up a bottle of soda in the stone world. “Yeah, sure. If I don’t have self-righteous muscleheads at my door before sunrise. You can collect it when the Empire falls. Won’t be too far into the spring.”

Plenty of time for them to fuck him over, but Gen knew they wouldn’t back out. Senku was almost worryingly honest. In fact, Gen could already see an open position for a manipulator in the Kingdom of Science, once this little operation began growing.

They shook on it.

Gen went to give Kohaku a handshake too, but she sniffed and moved away. More’s the pity.

Well, he’d soon prove his loyalty to them and further cement it in the future. No point in pushing the matter when it was so fragile.

Thus he embarked on the journey back, this time steering clear of the settlement built around that statue.

Senku watched as liquid dripped into the flask set up at the end of the small distillery. With Kaseki’s help, he’d been able to make a much more stable condenser instead of the one he and Taiju had used. This one had no risk of falling apart from getting too hot or getting impurities mixed into the liquid.

All of these factors were crucial for what they were going to be using this alcohol for.

“Disinfection?” Suika asked, looking at it from the other side of the table. “Isn’t that what we do with soap?”

“Yup. But cleaning alcohol works a lot better when it comes to killing bacteria. It’s not something that’s necessary all the time, but we need it when dealing with open wounds,” he explained, watching the measurements on the side of the flask.

“What open wounds? Is someone hurt?!”

“The guy out in the forest,” Senku reminded her, though he could see the confusion. It wasn’t like the boy had any apparent wounds. Not at the moment, at least. “He’s got something going on with his head that he wants me to fix. So when we cut it open, we need everything to be as clean as possible.”

Suika looked horrified but not too confused. Amputations and surgeries were still attempted here most likely. He didn’t know the survival rate of it, but he imagined it wasn’t very high.

Right now he was just stocking up on the cleaning alcohol. It would be a while until he had enough of it to even consider surgery – it would be so much easier if they already had the stash that would come from winning the Grand Bout. But who knew how much time they had before the guy’s mind turned inside out from the constant stimuli and accidentally killed everyone in the area.

The question really became how they were supposed to ease the stimuli to begin with. Apparently, according to Saiki he had had some sort of gear placed into his head yet were designed to be easily removable that tamped down on his abilities.

Senku hadn’t seen the full scope of these supposed abilities, or even a fraction of them, as the boy insisted that he didn’t have enough of a handle on it until his training wheels were back on. Senku would have almost thought the guy was fucking with him, but he was talking to Senku through his mind. He did vanish from where he appeared in the woods without walking away. His clothes were actually made as if from a modern clothing shop. And if he didn’t need this, then he wouldn’t be consenting to have Senku carve his head up.

Well, that wasn’t exactly how it was gonna go. It was more of a drill situation. Two pinprick holes in the sides of his head along the coronal suture , to be specific.

From Saiki’s descriptions, it seemed that the inhibitors were some sort of pins that went through the bone, into the brain, and had some sort of electrical functionality of their own, though they were mostly powered by the brainwaves themselves.

Senku’s current hypothesis: the pins were diverting electrical impulses from certain parts of the brain that had the most control over his powers. He could piece together a vague understanding of how it would work in theory, but he would need comprehensive scans of Saiki’s brain and far more refined equipment to make it properly. All he had right now were a couple prototype resistors that weren’t fit for anything.

His plan was to create a tiny transformer. Or a pair of them, depending on what worked. If they copied the same working principle that the pins had been based on, they would weaken the electrical impulses sent into that section of the brain before letting those impulses get to it.

“Yes, that sounds acceptable,” Saiki agreed the second Senku had laid it out for him.

“Don’t just agree with off the bat. I’m telling you right now that it’s a very risky idea,” Senku picked at his ear. “You gotta know a lot about your own brain and be prepared for the risks. I’d honestly suggest that you wait until an MRI is reinvented but that’s a good five years out.”

“No matter. I can mostly likely reproduce an image of my brain. My brother took many different scans of my brain during our childhood and continued this trend to a lesser extent as we grew up. I remember them all.”

The brother. Upon being introduced to Saiki, Senku had very quickly picked up on his familial relation to Saiki Kusuke. Senku was familiar with his work in aerospace engineering, though he knew Kusuke was also well-known in psychology spaces. Explained some things, at least.

There was a light POOF not far from them, and Senku turned towards it.

In the rocks of the riverbank, a sprawling picture of an MRI of a brain had been etched in by scratches several centimeters deep . It was huge, nearly the size of the arena-like area on the temple island Ruri stayed in. Dotted alongside the MRI photo were snapshot pictures of a pair of kids and some kind of contraption that involved a colander being strapped to wires.

A flash of irritation burst through his mind, foreign and burning. Senku blinked it off and looked back at Saiki, who was staring sullenly at the sky.

“I want my powers under control.”

“Fuck, I get it,” Senku rolled his eyes. Then unfolded an animal pelt to take some notes.

Tsukasa looked out at this new, pure world from the mountain that served as his base.

His little society of depetrified humans was blossoming. Minami’s choices had been healthy, hearty people who were fit to survive in this world, but her early choices had personalities that chafed against each other and caused conflict. Toritsuka’s help had resulted in picking out people who integrated well with the people already revived and balancing that out. Now, they were in an era of peace and stability.

Senku had been confirmed dead months ago, so that particular thorn in his side had been picked out.

But as one worry had been put to rest, another had arisen. From the very same investigation, Gen had found a primitive civilization of people far off near a coast.

This new society was several generations removed from modern people. Tsukasa had realized that when he had fought that woman who believed the mountain was sentient. Gen, having gotten a closer look, was able to report that there was little to no scientific progress there, with boats and fabric-weaving being the extent of their knowledge. They didn’t even have soap.

It was a charming thought; a society truly untouched by the evils of warfare and greediness of the previous world. He would have to be careful about making contact. They likely wouldn’t take kindly to another civilization forming out of nowhere. Being humans as they were, this would be perceived as the threat to their society it was. Then the world would fall into endless fighting between their factions all over again.

For now, he would be holding back to see the village’s actions. If they had even realized that they existed.

“How long do you think it will take?” he asked the people whose opinions he trusted the most on this matter.

Ukyo ran a hand over the strap of his quiver, deep in thought. “If the woman you pointed out was as strong as you said, they would probably notice her disappearance. They’re extremely reliant on manpower; they won’t be able to afford having the rest be picked off one by one.”

“So they’ll try to strike before that happens,” Hyouga built off that. “A final standoff where we must quell all opposition.”

“Let’s not put negotiations off the table just yet,” Minami said, voice quavering as she tried to balance out the scales. “I mean, they have more experience about the plants and wildlife that are safe to consume in the area. Not to mention their fishing and construction expertise. We could trade services between us on an equal playing field.”

Tsukasa turned towards Gen, who had yet to say anything. “How likely are they to cooperate?”

“Negotiations would be their preferred option,” Gen counseled, not even blinking. “But they really aren’t pushovers. If you meet them with violence, they’ll respond with violence.”

“But they won’t be able to match us,” Hyouga challenged. “Everyone we have has modern skill and training on their side. And if we revive people at a faster rate, we can outnumber them too.”

“Human loss is still regrettable in all cases,” Tsukasa interrupted, cutting the argument close. He appreciated Hyouga for being the rare weapons expert in their group, but he found him a bit overzealous at times. “We must take appropriate caution and not lower our guards, but approach calmly.”

“That’s a reasonable strategy,” Ukyo agreed. “We don’t have the resources to spend on a war like this, either. One bad weather spell could wipe us out.”

Hyouga knew one-on-one combat on the ground, but Ukyo would know about the logistics of military movement. In this case, Tsukasa would hold his opinion in higher regard.

“We have some time until it comes to a head,” Tsukasa noted. “The real question is how much time before they decide to strike.”

Minami leaned over to Gen. “You were there. What was the on-ground sentiment?”

Gen shrugged, “Who knows how the future will unfold? Humans are irrational and hard to read.”

His voice was airy as always. Tsukasa could never pick out when he was being truthful. Possibly because Gen was never invested in anything he said.

The tactical meeting convened soon after. Tsukasa saw them out from the cave he occupied and – he hated to say it like this – held court. Looked once more upon the vista of tents and stone weapons and bonfires. The army of statues, sorted out between the revival queue and the ones that had been disregarded by Toritsuka.

So far, the boy’s instincts had never been wrong. But people, no matter how skilled, had agendas. Hyouga had to be reigned in and corrected. Gen’s words had to be analyzed. Yuzuriha and Taiju’s movements had to be monitored. Nobody was allowed to have free, unchecked reign.

“Minami,” he held her back. “I need someone who might be able to match Toritsuka’s predictive abilities.”

Minami scoffed, “A ‘psychic’? He’s still going on about that. Most people who sell themselves like that don’t have even a shred of insight to back it up. It’ll be hard to find anyone in my contact list with that sincere talent that I can find.”

“Just try and see if you can make it happen,” Tsukasa commanded. Minami was the closest to being trustworthy to him.

“Alright, I found someone!” Minami said, voice quavering as she dragged a statue into the room with her. Set it upright in front of Tsukasa and flourished towards it. “I present to you; Aiura Mikoto!”

When Tsukasa simply stared blankly, she elaborated. “She’s a famous soothsayer. I interviewed her in the modern world. There’s a lot of psychics I’ve covered – the magazine I worked for loved that type. But she’s the best I’ve ever seen. I don’t believe psychics exist, but if you’re looking for people with an unbelievable intuition… Mikoto’s one of them. I can’t believe how lucky I was to find her among the statues dug up.”

Tsukasa considered the statue. A young woman of moderate stature and little muscle mass. If she became a problem, he would have no issue removing her.

“Fine. I trust you,” he decided, waving his hand. “If you feel like she’s a suitable pick, you’re at liberty to revive her.”

Minami’s face flushed. “Oh, wow, that’s- that’s high praise, Tsukasa!”

That was why Tsukasa trusted her more than most. Fear could be a powerful way to keep someone subservient, but admiration far outpaced it in the long term.

And thus, Aiura Mikoto was awoken.

Tsukasa watched her as she calmly brushed the fragments of stone off her arms, looking more annoyed than anything. “This explains that weird blip I was seeing. Thirty seven hundred and eighteen years, huh? Crazy. I thought we’d have, like, sentient robots already.”

Those were her first words. Incredible how she knew all that. Tsukasa wouldn’t consider himself to be superstitious enough to believe anyone who claimed to be a psychic but these two really had a talent unmatched by the charlatans that sought out the fort.

“Mikoto, I think you’ll fit in well here,” he greeted. “I’m-”

“Tsukasa,” she interrupted with a grin. “I know, I’ve seen you on TV. That power? Super impressive.”

She dug her foot into the dirt, kicking it up and examining the marks left behind it. “Yikes, you’ve been getting through a lot. Total death aura surrounding you. Freaky as.”

Minami cringed. Tsukasa’s face remained statuesque.

“And?” he prompted.

She shrugged. “Just an observation. No need to get this defensive,” then she snapped her fingers. “I know! You want me for my fortune-telling, yeah? I’ll give you a little show, if you want.”

Mikoto giddily marched out towards the center of Tsukasa’s Empire, shouting randomly at people, “You should try not to eat figs; I don’t know if you’re allergic or if it’s a choking hazard but avoid them — aw, you’re gonna find love soon, that’s so sweet! — Wow, you’ve got a sincere aura, I really like you, Nikocchi!”

If nothing came of her ‘fortune-telling’ then she would at least be good for the team’s morale. They had just about enough manpower to support a couple people who weren’t as strong as the standard he held.

But that was under the presumption that the skill she was revived for was nonexistent, which was proving to not be the case. Chihiro really was allergic to figs. Two members of the Empire tentatively confessed to each other. And Nikki… well, she masked it, but she was more earnest than most of the people he had gathered. As loathed as he was to admit that he had perhaps not managed to gather the most sincere people here.

It didn’t matter what their character was, Tsukasa was here to keep them all in line – with a little intervention here and there.

“Oh, hey!” Mikoto said cheerily, rushing up to yet another person – Hairo, this time. “Should’ve recognized that blinding aura from miles away! Crazy seeing you after all these years, Hairo.”

Mikoto’s most provable talent was truly her ability to glean people’s true natures. She was even more effective than Gen in that regard, though she couldn’t use that information to manipulate like he could. Just as predicted, the exuberant Hairo burst out to wave at her.

…They knew each other?

As they excitedly reunited, Hairo pulled over Kaido and Kuboyasu, who she was also apparently familiar with. Turns out they were classmates in the old world. Minami wouldn’t have known something like that. And if these guys were classmates, then that also meant…

“Aiura, who would have guessed you’d be revived, too?” Toritsuka marched up to her.

Not good. He’d specifically revived her to be an opponent to Toritsuka. If they colluded against him-

The two sized each other up. Then stuck their noses up.

“Who had the bad taste to wake this guy up before me?” Mikoto complained.

Toritsuka puffed his chest out, “But they brought me out first, so what’s the point of having you here?”

Great, they wouldn’t be colluding anytime soon.

“Looking good, Hiiro! Woah, you caught that all by yourself, Akashi?! Ren, you’ve got a great eye for seasoning, how do you think we should cook this?” Hairo darted from person to person, exchanging friendly punches and comments.

They were the only people left in this stone world, barring the village rumored to be out there somewhere. Their spirits had to be kept high so that they could find it in themselves to continue. Things were already so strained, it wouldn’t do to make things worse.

Now if only some people could understand that…

“The hell do you mean I have a weak spirit? That’s slander!”

“I know a coward when I see one. Your posturing does nothing to hide it!”

Hairo wouldn’t say that Aiura was normally a difficult person to get along with. But there were certain types that rubbed her the wrong way, and there was no peace to be had after that. It just so happened that one such person was Uei Yo.

He didn’t like to make snap judgments about people – in any team, everyone had a place! – but, uh. Yo was a somewhat abrasive type. He seemed like he was being nice, but with an underlying pressure that scared a lot of people. Maybe that was just his communication style? It certainly didn’t mix well with Aiura’s headstrong personality.

The two were still going at it: “You’re just not the leader type, all bark and no bite. Why’re people letting you muscle in on power?”

“As a former police officer, I have expertise to bring to the table that nobody else has!”

“Oh, please, you were former before the Petrification Event. I see some real disgrace in your aura.”

What made it worse was that Aiura was well-liked within the group, which only worsened the disdain everyone held for Yo. Already, the whispers were beginning to swirl.

“If Mikoto-chan doesn’t like him, then he’s probably got something sketchy going on…”

“He acts so important, but I guess he’s not all that-”

“Never realized how much importance he puts on his ‘policeman’ reputation. That’s kinda cringey.”

Yikes. Poor guy.

Hairo elbowed his way through the gathered crowd. “Hey, hey, let’s cool it down a little, shall we? I’m sure Aiura-chan doesn’t mean it-”

“The hell I didn’t!”

“-because you’ve got a lot more to offer than just playing cop all over again!”

Yo looked startled. “Wait, I, what?”

Hairo nodded. “Yeah! The stone world is our chance to grow beyond whatever box we’ve been put in. Aiura’s got her own way of pointing these things out, but maybe you’re feeling out of place!”

“No- I- Power-” his face contorted. “I like to lead! You should let me lead, that’s where I belong!”

“Sure. If that’s what you actually feel like doing!” Hairo agreed gamely, slinging an arm over Yo’s shoulder. “We’re all in this together, so we depend on each other! What team do you think you can apply yourself best with? I can find somewhere to fit you where you and Aiura don’t have to go head-to-head.”

Gozan raised a hand, eager to contribute. “We can always use more people with on-field experience in the offense team if you’d want us to include someone, Hairo!”

“That sounds awesome! How’d you like that?” Hairo grinned at Yo.

For some reason, the man didn’t look satisfied by this easy solution. Instead, he was looking at Hairo with especially narrowed eyes.

“I don’t need your dumb charity, Replacement,” he pouted, kicking the ground as he walked away.

Replacement?

“Say, what was Yo doing before I got here?” he asked Kyoichiru, stopping him from between the otherwise dispersing crowd.

Kyoichiru looked at him for a moment, then shrugged. “I’m not sure? I think he was doing stuff with guarding the mountain base. Nothing to do with what you’re doing. He was just mouthing off, man.”

“Oh, that’s good to hear!” Hairo perked up immediately.

The sound of breaking rock came from a spot not far from them. When Hairo turned to look, he found Hyoga standing in front of a pile of shards that might have been a statue once.

Hairo frowned. He didn’t know much about Hyoga – it seemed that most people didn’t either. According to Minami, he was from a somewhat elusive training dojo dedicated to a specific type of spear technique. Other than that, the only thing the people here knew about him was that he was utterly ruthless. Breaking statues was tantamount to murder, but Hyoga never even flinched. Granted, Tsukasa didn’t either, but Hairo at least got some sense that the man was trying to do right by the community gathered here. Hyoga showed his compatriots the same level of care he did to the statues.

He was about to step forward, say something, stop the man from continuing with this. An arm clad in yellow reached forward and blocked him.

“Now isn’t a good time to press the issue,” Ukyo advised, tilting his head around to gesture to the area at large. “All of these people are depending on the authority figures to present a united front, and whether you like it or not, that includes you now.”

Hairo blinked. Really? He hadn’t gotten that impression. It wasn’t like he was being included in special meetings with Tsukasa like Gen, Hyoga, Ukyo, and Minami were.

“It’s more of an unofficial stage for you right now – as much as things can get official around here,” Ukyo explained, adjusting the brim of his hat. “But if you freak out now, there’s a high chance chaos will break out. So just… don’t.”

Sure. Okay.

Beside him, Aiura had her arms crossed and was clearly unimpressed. If Yo made her turn up her nose, the look she aimed at Hyoga was venomous. And unlike with Yo, Hairo didn’t really feel like jumping into a fight between them. Unless there was a possibility that Aiura might be skewered.

Chapter Text

Hyoga’s pride refused to be snubbed by some charlatan people had given too much credence to. He understood that Tsukasa’s naive dreams would lead to some nonsensical decisions being made, but the revival of psychics was truly a step too far.

It certainly didn’t help that the two were levying heavy suspicions towards him. Granted, everyone had at one point taken shots at his presence there. He was too unlike the mushy-brained buffoons Tsukasa seemed so intent on polluting this purified stone world with. But unfortunately, the same way he had to put up with Tsukasa’s agenda, he would have to play along with this brutish society. For now.

Something would have to be done to make sure they remembered why Hyoga was near the top of the food chain. Hunting fearsome prey was out; he refused to stomach another lion. Beating them to the ground was also, unfortunately, non-viable – Tsukasa couldn’t think of him as a threat to their own society . Which left only one solution. Luckily, one that was already a loose thread they needed to tie up.

“We should send a group out to scout the village Gen reported,” Hyoga suggested to Tsukasa. “You’ve been putting it off, but we can’t wait that much longer. You’ve already thrown the first stone. As the months pass, they will recover from the shock of finding more people and retaliate full force.”

Tsukasa considered the idea carefully, always quick to take in suggestions from the people around him. Always so easy to manipulate, if you knew exactly the types of things he hated.

Annoyingly, it seemed that Saiki’s inhibitors weren’t the scientist’s top priority.

In case he applied to much force, he wasn’t taking the risk of looking into people’s minds thoroughly, or attempting any major astral projection. From the discussions he had picked out from the hailstorm of thoughts and voices that were barraging his head, he was able to discern that this team of scientists had a lot more projects going on.

Saiki had no doubt that if Senku put his mind to it and focused, he would have likely created a finished version already. Nearly two months had passed since he had approached them, but all they had to show for it were theories and design ideas.

He was also hearing about electricity and glass and ramen, but he didn’t care for any of it. Maybe if this guy managed to create a dessert, Saiki would sit up and pay attention. Otherwise, all he wanted was his inhibitors.

Upsettingly, in the other project, lives were on the line. Saiki could probably fix whatever illness the woman had if he had his inhibitors to let him handle the situation delicately, but he supposed it was to this budding society’s advantage if they learn how to deal with these things themselves instead of realizing they could just have Saiki handle it all. Good grief, he could imagine all the ceaseless requests already. It was a good that he was planning on wiping their minds once he got what he wanted.

After today, he hoped that his request would be moved to the top of the priority list. Amidst the cacophony, the nearest minds had aligned and overlapped over a certain idea. The Grand Bout . He got the gist of what it was about. When he tried to hone in somewhat on the scientist’s group, he caught thoughts of how this was supposed to be the linchpin of this antibiotic project.

He could stand to wait just slightly longer.

The plan was accepted. With Gen acting as the guide, Hyouga took a half-dozen grunts out through the forest. Them, and a particular person he had taken the pains to revive right before setting out.

Revival fluid was lying around too freely. Tsukasa seemed convinced that none of the others would be able to figure out how to make it from just the raw ingredients. Hyouga had pilfered a few doses himself, and he knew Minami had too. Whether the others had too, he wasn’t sure. Ukyo seemed like a schemer, with how suspiciously quiet he was. Gen on the other hand… was hard to pin down. The type of person he wouldn’t have bothered reviving, but whose skills Hyoga was willing to take advantage of now that he was here.

Once Hyoga had overthrown Tsukasa and picked out truly proper individuals, he had no doubt he would be able to pin down the bat with some shallow incentive. Such as not killing him. That seemed to be a good enough reason for him to be sticking to Tsukasa’s Empire.

“It’s not ar-fay from here!” Gen called, walking three steps ahead of the pack. His head was craned back to look at them, not even watching the path as he walked.

True to his words, they could hear people talking and moving around. The smell of smoke and cooking meat was obvious. Hyoga heard one of the grunts’ stomach rumble and fought the urge to stab him right there. At least the fool didn’t let his hunger betray his caution, all of them approaching the area Gen had led them to with raised weapons.

Inside the clearing clearly made by chopping down an impressive amount of wood, they were met with a collection of tents, fences, and weapons. The clothes had more elaborate dyes and experienced stitching, the weapons were less crude, but the people who inhabited it looked just as mushy-brained as the lot Hyoga was being forced to share air with.

“They’re total easy pickings,” one of said lot snickered. “We should attack them right now and be done with it! They’re almost twice as many of us, but these primitives have probably never seen a dumbbell in their life. It’ll be almost too easy.”

What disappointing thought processes. But at least a tiny spark had passed in that mushy brain. Hyoga fixed Gen with a look. “You said there were around forty.”

Gen laughed. “That’s true! Would you believe me if I said that this wasn’t where I was intending to go? The village is across from here. Maybe this is some sort of camp they set up since I left?”

Hyoga wanted to rip out that silver tongue and feed it to him. He hoped that got across in his tone when he said, “Alright, Gen. Let’s get to the actual destination, shall we? Or do you think this is the main population of the village’s fighter-worthy men?”

Gen tilted his head, sizing up the inhabitants of the clearing. Then he shrugged, “Nope. The actual village guards aren’t here, nor is their strongest fighter. Compared to all them, these guys are middle-of-the-road.”

Hyoga turned his attention back to the mushy-brained grunts he had to herd like wild animals. “Let’s see what their actual fighting force is like before you all tire yourself out over these small fry.”

None of them responded. Just kept on staring into space. He’d known that they had nothing between their ears but he’d assumed they had at least had ears. Hyoga made to repeat himself – an allowance which would not happen a third time, but then one of the dolts murmured something in the midst of his daze.

“She’s… pretty.”

A woman? These near-sighted children with ridiculous priorities!

But then again… he hadn’t seen a woman in that camp.

Looking through it again, he could confirm no woman. No living, flesh-and-blood woman. But there was a statue of a young woman with conventionally attractive features in the middle of the camp. Was that what they were referring to?

Hormone-ridden muscleheads, the lot of them.

“It’s just a statue,” he informed them roughly. “Move along.”

One of the grunts turned to him in outrage. “That’s- how dare you refer to the Goddess like that!”

This one had some nerve.

All the other grunts on the search party were reacting in the same manner. He’d almost commend the proper synchronicity of this rebellion if the reasoning behind it wasn’t the most obviously aggravating thing he had experienced. All of this over a statue. Tsukasa should be ashamed of allowing these neanderthals to continue to draw air.

“Ah, more people who have seen the light of this precious angel!” it seemed that people from within the camp had finally caught onto the intruders. And somehow didn’t recognize that the eight of them didn’t belong to their forty-something strong village.

Hyoga’s immediate thought was some treacherous fudging of numbers on Gen’s side. Then he saw the infatuated, borderline drugged haze in the welcoming campers’ eyes – the same haze that was overtaking his useless crew – and realized that perhaps they were just mushy-brained idiots who had fallen for… well, this couldn’t even be described as a trap. After all-

“It’s just a statue,” he maintained to the approaching fools. “You all are granting it undue importance.”

A gasp of outrage, and the people’s formerly embarrassingly cheerful expressions melted. One of them stepped forward, spear at the ready, “If you can’t understand just by standing in her presence, you’re beyond saving!”

Was there some very specific strain of hallucinogenic mushrooms in the area? Whatever was pulling them all under this grand delusion had seeped into the minds of Hyoga’s grunts too. Now he was encircled from all directions by hostile forces.

Now, Hyouga had no doubt that he could defeat these fifteen people by himself. His kudayari would far outpace any rudimentary skills they all had. But sometimes – as in the case here – he found that simply culling them wasn’t enough. He had to cut their philosophical beliefs at the knees.

He swept attackers away without breaking a sweat. A few he maimed, others he simply slammed into trees.

“This is no godly being,” he grandstanded, walking sedately through the crowd. Someone attempted to stop him with a knife – he plunged his kudayari through their shoulder and stepped over their body, right into their flimsy excuse of a camp. “This is a mere petrified human – flawed and weak as most of them are.”

He could tell just by looking that she met none of the standards he sought for in people worth reviving. A fragile weakling that was a strain on hard-working society.

It seemed that these primitives were too enraptured by their idolatry to see the truth. All of them lunged for him at once, even the ones he had already crippled. That was fine by him; with his kudayari, this entire force stood no chance against him.

Hyouga had been waiting for a good opportunity to break some bones.

It was obvious to even the most amateur of mentalists that Hyouga had simply been looking forward to an opportunity to work off some of his barely restrained aggression. He barely ever let down his guard, but with a melee fight like this, enough of his attention would be grabbed for Gen to slip out of his periphery and do his work.

Since he had made his way back from the stone world village and to the Empire of Might, he had been mulling over how to use the forces he had at his disposal. Sooner or later, he would have to employ his skills to prove his worth to the Kingdom of Science, rather than just being the spy they couldn’t afford to lose the favor of. In the inevitable Stone Wars, it would be on him to size up the enemy and arrange their own manpower to be the most effective they could.

As of now, Tsukasa had almost fifty people in his army. More were sure to follow. The village’s sparse thirty-odd population stood no chance. In the months he had to think over the matter, Gen had surmised that more numbers were necessary. First method for that was recruiting members of the Empire of Might with the promise of processed food, medicine, and other modern amenities. Second method was to engage with the cult hiding out in the woods.

They were a loose thread in this war, and having them on the Kingdom of Science’s side would even things out a bit. The real problem he had to tackle was on how to manage that.

The only bargaining chip he could place on them was their obsession with the petrified woman. If the Kingdom of Science were to hold her statue hostage… that wouldn’t end well.

But there was another, more tenuous, plan he had built up in his mind. And while the brawnier folks duked it out, Gen circled around them and went to the woman herself.

It was a risky plan. Who knew if the enchantment would hold once she was truly revealed? Still, he decided to test his luck and withdraw a small dose of the revival fluid from the variety of hidden pockets kept within his layers. Grabbed one of the blue leather tunics hung out to dry and wrapped her up in it. Then unstoppered the bottle and tipped it over her head.

For a second, only the sound of battle raged in his ears. Then,

Crack… the first spot gave way, and the cascading effect began all over the statue. Everyone froze as the woman began to move for the first time in thirty seven hundred years.

Large, blue eyes blinked, sending thin rock falling from over her eyelids. As further movement started, more and more began to flake off. For a moment, Gen felt like he was caught in a riptide from the very sight of her. As the woman took stock of the situation, her face paled and she looked around in confusion, “What’s happening?!”

“You’re afe-say,” Gen rushed to assure her, shaking himself out of the trance. “Well, mostly. It’s a long story, but you’ll be okay.”

Hyouga, completely unbothered, turned to the shocked devotees with no small amount of smugness , “You see? She’s no ‘goddess’ or ‘angel’. Just another human.”

Their faces were dumbstruck, clearly reeling from this development . Gen nervously wondered if this was going to disillusion them from her. Casting his gaze around, he was relieved to find that their expressions weren’t changing to grief or disappointment. If anything, their infatuation was… increasing?

No time like the present to test that theory out.

“Safe except that man with the ear-spay,” he warned her, gesturing towards the others Hyouga had already stabbed, some who had managed to stay upright, others who were slumped against trees or lying on the ground, clutching severe wounds. “He’s… not exactly in the most peaceful state of mind.”

The woman bit her lip, looking caught between thoughts as she stared at the fighters. Gen was going to bet money she had never seen a fight this bad before – he certainly hadn’t. Not until the stone world.

“Please,” she begged, eyes shiny with tears. “Please leave us alone!”

A commendable effort, if not completely lost on Hyouga. But for the others, it was like a battle cry like no other. (Well, maybe not like no other – Hairo had demonstrated similar levels of being able to motivate people.) They lunged forward with renewed fervor, only to be batted away like gnats by Hyouga.

Good news; she definitely had command over them, and was probably going to be amenable to Gen’s prodding. Bad news; Hyouga was likely going to slaughter all of them here, including Gen.

The most the small army managed against him was having Hyouga take a couple steps back during the fight, but that was nothing. Two people had been skewered through the chest already and were spluttering on the ground. They wouldn’t last long like this…

Gen crunched the numbers. Began thinking of escape routes out of this without leading Hyouga straight to the village.

A bright light flashed in his face, burning into his eyes and leaving only dark spots behind.

His first thought was that Senku had made a flash bomb or something and miraculously come to his rescue. But there wasn’t any maniacal cackling while he was still rubbing at his eyes, so he crossed that out. There also weren’t any sounds of screams or blows being thrown, so the flash had at least brought the fighting to a stop. Inexplicably, he smelled something charred, coming from the opposite direction of the fire.

Once Gen’s vision had cleared enough, he found in front of him the collapsed form of… Hyouga?

The spearman was lying prone on the ground, wheezing heavily. His clothes and the ground around him were covered in blackened soot, and he looked almost burned. Thunder rumbled overhead. Gen looked up to stare at the sky, inexplicably overcast only in this section of the forest. In the area towards the village, it was completely clear.

No way. It couldn’t actually be that-

Had Hyouga just been hit by lightning ?

The odds of that had to be less than a billionth of a percent!

But he could think of no other explanation for why Hyouga was no flat on the ground, unmoving. For a moment, Gen thought the man was dead. What were they supposed to tell Tsukasa? This would surely bring the deadline for the Stone Wars terrifying close.

Hyouga’s fingers twitched around his spear, which had split from the strike. Gen had never thought he’d be relieved to see the man move.

A rustle of leaves and flash of bright pink. A small, young woman dropped from the trees and kneeled down in front of Hyouga, looking him over.

Gen startled. A secret operator? It seemed that Hyouga really hadn’t trusted him. Damn, that was disappointing.

“Hyoga-sama, might I suggest a retreat?” the woman asked, voice cool and professional as she helped him up.

Hyouga held a majority of his own weight as he stumbled upwards, surprisingly put together for someone who had apparently just been electrocuted. He gave all of them a death glare . “Your lives are forfeit from this moment on.”

“That’s really not necessary,” the woman noted, pouting slightly. “What did we even do? I don’t understand what’s happening here.”

This only increased Hyouga’s ire. “ Your head will be on a pike when we next meet,” he vowed, retreating with Homura back to the Empire of Might.

Great. One problem dealt with. Now this one to sort out.

“Hello, miss! I’m Asagiri Gen,” he introduced himself cheerily. “What’s your name? How much do you remember?”

“I’m Teruhashi Kokomi, it’s very nice to meet you,” she said gracefully, and he could recognize that it was a carefully rehearsed introduction, ingrained until it was second nature. Good on her for being able to keep her wits about in this impossible situation. Or maybe the sheer insanity of it hadn’t caught onto her yet. “I- I remember being in school. It feels like just a few minutes ago? Then there was this green light, and I looked down at my hand, and it was turning to stone. Then I woke up in this camp, surrounded by you people,” she gave the crowd a megawatt smile, “Nice to meet all of you, by the way, I greatly appreciate how you stepped up to help me!”

All of them swooned. There was an unbeatable natural charisma about her that made Gen jealous. But this was good. This was exactly the outcome they were hoping for.

“G-goddess, you’ve awakened!” one of the people still coherent enough for it simpered, falling to his knees. “We always knew you would!”

Teruhashi beamed gracefully, “Aw, you’re so sweet!”

She ran a hand over her clothes with a disturbed expression and turned her gaze over the scene. Gen observed carefully as she looked from the leather tents to the stone weapons to the rough wood fence, until her eyes finally fixed on the battlefield, where six people had fallen to the ground entirely, and all were boasting some level of severe injury.

He saw the horror seep into her eyes, where she was otherwise almost angelic in her calmness. “These poor people! We need to get them to a hospital!”

“…Hos-pi-tal?” a heavily muscled, blond man sounded the word out.

“Ah-hah, there’s something I forgot to mention perhaps,” Gen hovered over to Teruhashi, trying to keep his voice low to not freak out the others. “Everyone in the entire world saw that light and became petrified, just like you. It’s been thirty seven hundred years since then, we’re living in the technological equivalent of the stone orld-way, and hospitals no longer exist.”

She looked horrified. Her loyal cult bristled in response to her grief, but Teruhashi still smiled through it and put a hand up to stop them, “No, no, I had to learn at some point, didn’t I? Thank you for being up front about it. But what about these injured people? Surely there’s something we can do to help!”

“It would be an honor to fall for the sake of protecting you, God’s Angel!” the casualty closest to her croaked.

This was going to work out great. And Gen had just the solution.

“Actually, I do know someone who can help!” he volunteered. “There’s a village over by that coast. A scientist lives there who treated my own injuries a while back. He’ll be sure to help.”

The cult members from the village shifted uneasily. One of them confessed, “We… might have lost all goodwill with them when we began to worship you, Teruhashi-hime.”

“Don’t orry-way, they’ll help if I vouch for you,” Gen promised, looking over the injured. And the dead. “Can you move them to the village? I’ll lead the great Teruhashi-hime before, so we can explain the whole situation.”

They turned to Teruhashi, who nodded. “Yes, that seems to be for the best. You know the way, right?”

“I don’t,” Morito admitted – and it was good, they’d gotten the squad Hyouga had led out here to switch sides on a dime. Gen wondered how effective it would be if they just had Teruhashi walk out to the Empire of Might and suggest a ceasefire.

“We’ll show you,” a short, stocky man said easily.

On the walk over, Gen explained the whole deal to Teruhashi – (assumed) worldwide petrification, thirty seven hundred year gap, unexplained stone world humans, Senku, Tsukasa, revival fluid, Stone Wars.

It was so refreshing to have someone else look as confused as he felt the entire time. But she got over it without much further reaction, settling into a light laugh. “That’s very overwhelming. So, what’s going on in the village? Looks like a… party of some kind going on at the island in the back?” she squinted at the two islands visible from the incline they were coming down.

“Ah, I’m not really sure?” Gen shrugged. He tried to think of some event that might be happening around this time. “Maybe the Grand Bout? It’s an event to decide who will marry the village priestess.”

When they got to Chrome’s hut, they found that the other denizens of the Kingdom of Science were already there, working hard as always. “It’s been a while, everyone! Not over at the Bout? I thought with Ruri being there, you’d be interested in…”

Senku didn’t look up from where he was pouring wine into a distillation apparatus. “It’s already over.”

“…Huh?”

“Yeah, apparently the big threat from the last event turned over to the forest cult before we got here. And so did most of the people who were major threats. In the end, most of the participants were from our side, so rigging it was easy.”

Gen looked around, doing a head count. “Ah. I see Chrome-chan got lucky.”

“Yeah,” Kohaku grinned. Her happiness was real, but she was distracted, gaze fixed on Teruhashi with the ferocity of a lioness. “Say, Gen, who’s your friend?”

Teruhashi laughed sheepishly and brought a hand up to wave at her. “I’m sorry about the kerfuffle in the forest! I hadn’t realized that… I could have such an effect on people.”

The only thing she had said so far that Gen could identify as a lie. This girl knew her power.

Everyone blinked. Senku straightened up to look at her, cogs whirring in his head until he came to a conclusion.

There came the maniacal laughter. “Ten billion points to you, Mentalist!” he marched up to Teruhashi. “We could use that insane hypnotism on our side. Want to join the Kingdom of Science?”

She twirled her hair, giving him doe eyes. Woah. Gen felt a little dizzy, even caught in just the periphery of that look. “Well, I’m not really sure, none of this feels real even-”

“If you want a bribe, just say it.”

Unluckily for her, Senku was a heartless monster impervious to such things.

Chapter Text

Kaido kept his head low as he sat down at the fire pit his schoolmates from PK had grabbed for themselves.

It used to be frequented by a lot more people but apparently they were too unbearable for anyone to spend time with. Kaido resented that, but right now if it gave him the excuse to not have to socialize or make much eye contact with anyone else…

“Hey, Taiju, Yuzuriha, come sit with us!” Hairo waved boisterously, nearly dropping the meat he’d speared on a stick. Taiju waved back, but Yuzuriha looked uncertain.

Aiura elbowed Hairo roughly, “Their fortunes aren’t drawing them towards us. I sense there’s somewhere they’re needed more right now.”

“Oh?” Toritsuka waggled his eyebrows.

“Not like that,” she sneered.

Yuzuriha chuckled under her breath. “She’s- she’s right, actually. I was planning to make clothes right after having dinner, so… off I go!”

“I’ll stay, though!” Taiju agreed, grinning at all of them. “It’d be great to meet Kaido’s other friends! I feel like we haven’t got the chance to know each other, with everything that’s gone down.”

There was a lot of laughter and playful arguments, but Kaido felt kilometers away from it all.

Kuboyasu bumped his knee against Kaido’s, keeping his voice low when he asked, “You doing okay? Did something happen?”

Kaido shrugged, eyes fixed on the fire. “Did you know Hana found her father’s statue?”

Kuboyasu grimaced. “I didn’t. Was it broken?”

“Recently.”

Everyone had a good view of Tsukasa. He provided food and safety and a sense of comfort. Everyone felt respected and valued by him. His philosophy of peace and communing with nature was very appealing, even with certain caveats and bounds put in place. If they had seen Tsukasa before Hakone, the way Yuzuriha and Taiju and Kaido – and Senku, too – had, they wouldn’t be singing even half the same tune.

But maybe they had an inkling of what lay under the surface. After all, no one talked about the broken statues and how Tsukasa was clearly responsible.

Kaido wasn’t good at geography even before, so he had no idea where his family could reasonably be. But he didn’t want his mom to end up like that. She’d only ever looked out for him.

What was he even doing? Kaido was the Jet Black Wings! Dark Reunion was the final boss of this petrification, but first he had to deal with this current evil. So why couldn’t he force himself to move? Why hadn’t he vanquished Tsukasa already?

It seemed their short exchange was overheard. Then, to make sure no one was left out of it, Taiju gasped. “WHAT? SOMEONE DESTROYED HANA’S DAD’S STATUE????”

All except Taiju and Hairo plugged their ears.

Hairo seemed unaffected by the volume, more struck by the words themselves. “That’s- that’s horrible. Tantamount to murder, even. Who can be so cruel? Even if we believe they don’t have the ability to survive in the world as it is, their potential to be freed eventually shouldn’t be squandered like that!”

Everyone’s eyes watered from the strength and intonation of his speech. Hairo always made it seem like the air was warming up around him simply when he spoke with that level of self-righteousness.

Kuboyasu nudged Kaido with his knee again. There was a gleam in his eye when he nodded towards Hairo. Something clicked in Kaido’s mind.

Oh. There was a sneaky plan to be worked out here.

Conspiracies were normally the work of Dark Reunion, but he could resort to such tactics himself, once in a while.

“Thank you for the tea,” the revered Teruhashi murmured as she delicately sipped at the cup she had been brought.

Gen beamed at her, “It was my pleasure! Just sit here, rest your feet, and enjoy our little Kingdom. I’d give you a grand tour but I’m afraid I’ve been away for some time, things have greatly developed here,” they hadn’t really. But if he implied that they were progressing at a far faster rate, then she would be more impressed.

Even though she had gotten noticeably frostier around Senku (to Gen’s careful gaze; everyone else maintained their image of her being the perfect angel), he was still their best bet in introducing her to the Kingdom of Science. Being brand new to the stone world meant that it hadn’t hit her how hard life truly was here. Seeing D-grade ramen and a barely functional light bulb wouldn’t be as effective for her as it would be to someone who had been living in caves and wearing badly tanned deerskin for the last several months. They needed Senku’s passion for these projects to sway her.

Unfortunately, he currently had other, bigger problems to deal with. Namely; finishing the antibiotics, administering them to Ruri, and also helping the injured coming in from Hyouga’s attack. Lots of medical stuff happening all at the same time, none of which Gen was going to be a part of if he could help it. So tea it was.

Kohaku was rushing around, helping carry the people who needed the support. Pails of boiled water were set up near the fires, trying to flush the wounds as best as possible.

“Suika brought wraps!” the helpful girl bounced up, arms laden with rolls of some thin skin. Maybe Gen should feel bad that the child was doing more than him.

Two people were missing from the number of (former?) cultists. No one talked about it just yet, but Gen could imagine that they’d been laid to rest somewhere along the way between the cult site and to the Kingdom of Science. The ones who could be saved were now the top priority. Teruhashi’s eyes were downcast when she looked over all of them, clearly counting them all out.

“Okay, sulfa drug’s done!” Senku announced, coming out of the lab with a carefully-folded leaf Gen could only imagine held the precious antibiotic. “I made extras in case the others need it, but this dose needs to get to Ruri.”

“I’ll go,” Kohaku said, crossing the distance from the fire pit to the lab at record pace. “Then I’ll drag Chrome on the way back.”

The hopeful gleam in her eyes was one of a marathon runner seeing the finish line.

Senku handed it off to her, and then got to work carefully cleaning people’s wounds with distilled alcohol. The initial flurry of activity and panic – and blood, horrifying amounts of blood – had died down to reveal a situation quite under their control.

Suika hovered, watching everyone clean out and bandage wounds, fashioning slings and splints where necessary. “But Senku, don’t we need that alcohol for the surgery?”

“Oh, is someone else injured here?” Teruhashi asked, eyes glistening with concern. Wow…

Technically speaking, Gen hadn’t been included into the secret that Suika had carelessly mentioned. Not that he was certain that it was a secret to begin with. It seemed very like Senku to just forget that there was a strange boy with modern clothes and tinted glasses lying in a crater in the middle of the woods. Sometimes. Other times he vanished with no explanation.

“There’s a lot of little maladies in the village,” he decided to spin it around. “Cut off from modern medicine as we are, even something as simple as near-sightedness can go untreated for a long time. With pneumonia and infections and food poisoning, there’s a lot of things we need to cure and procedures we need to be prepared for!”

She nodded slowly. He couldn’t tell if she’d been convinced just yet, but he let the matter rest.

Afterwards, when the antibiotics started taking effect on Ruri and all the injured cultists were patched up, Gen took Senku aside and carefully explained the circumstances of his arrival.

“Hit by lightning,” Senku repeated with an intense look of skepticism.

“That’s what happened, uly-tray!” Gen held his hands up. “If I was lying, I’d make it far more believable.”

Senku tilted his head in acknowledgment.

“Well, the one in ten billion odds don’t change the other facts of the matter. Hyouga was attacked and lost everyone on his team to the Kingdom of Science–”

“To Teruhashi, for accuracy’s sake.”

“–And Tsukasa’s going to be on our asses soon to retaliate,” Senku stroked his chin. “We need to get started on our arsenal for the Stone Wars.”

Yikes. What was the hope that maybe it wouldn’t require too much back-breaking labor on Gen’s end?

“If gunpowder’s going to be too much ouble-tray to make, what else do you have in mind?” he ventured to ask.

“Well, information warfare is key,” Senku listed. “We’re aiming to take victory with as little casualties as possible, so our best chance is to overwhelm them with advancements that would far outpace them. Which means…” he cracked his knuckles. “I need to get started with that weirdo in the forest’s headband.”

A… headband?

Surely it wasn’t exactly how it sounded.

“I’ve already got the gold wire in production,” Senku thought aloud, “Say, mentalist, you’ve got nimble hands. How good will you be at coiling a couple thousand loops of wire?”

Gen regretted even thinking that.

“Doesn’t seem fair to me that you can just break statues without even knowing what kind of person they were-”

“-how long can we go without doctors? We barely know how to make soap!”

“There’s not enough food for winter. Back… before, I pickled and made preserves, but we don’t have any glass to store it in-”

“We should be doing farming and stuff, right? If we want to bring more people back. Tsukasa’s saying all this stuff about it being harmful to nature but the newcomers are going to need food.”

“Haven’t you heard? Apparently he’s not planning on waking that many people up.”

“I think this is all bullshit. No way we’re the only people awake in the entire world. We already know about that primitive village out past Hakone. Bet there’s way more people in just Japan even!”

Despite Ukyo’s hopes that he could curb dissent and keep bodies from piling up, it seemed that the seeds of rebellion were already being cast.

The three who had been present when Tsukasa had killed the scientist Senku were always going to need careful monitoring, but for the most part, they had seemed happy enough with huddling up with a small group of friends and doing along with the rest of the group. Tsukasa had assigned them a guard and called it a day. After all, the leader of their tiny civilization was slightly more preoccupied with managing others who might be out for his throne. Toritsuka and Aiura might have been cleared for revival by him, but he certainly didn’t trust them.

There was something to the idea. Aiura with her extrovertedness and charisma, and Toritsuka with his… (Ukyo was going to say guyfailure charm to be polite) had the ability to sway opinion. Everyone here was dealing with the whiplash of an impossible scenario. They were in a world devoid of any human advancement for nearly four thousand years, following a green wave coming over the horizon straight out of an apocalypse movie. Of course they had easily fallen to superstition.

“Mikoto-chan says there’s something rotten here. She’s never been wrong yet…”

“Toritsuka found the statue of my soccer team’s goalie. He’s a legit psychic medium!”

“So you think he’s right when he says that that Ishigami Senku kid isn’t dead?”

“Why do we even need Tsukasa to protect us if the psychics can simply revive people who aren’t going to mesh well with us?”

Ukyo should probably be reporting these transgressions. But he was waiting to see where this would go. Rumors and whispers were impossible to quell, and his self-assigned task was only to stop bloodshed. They wouldn’t try anything, no matter how much they disliked this. The dissent was still only on the outskirts; Tsukasa’s natural charisma still won over most people. Even the ones who were considering rebellion didn’t really hate him. Unable to speak openly, the exact numbers on who agreed would be left unknown.

Furthermore, Tsukasa was also incomparably strong. A simple, wild riot would be put down easily and they were all aware of it. An insurrection would require unity, cooperation, and planning. It would need someone to rally behind.

On that end, Ukyo could already feel the tides of opinion shifting to concentrate around another revivee. This one also coincidentally from PK Academy.

“After Yuzuriha taught us how spinning and weaving works, Hairo’s been making so many blankets. It’s inspiring how hard he works!”

“You know, I think he’s right – we can farm enough to sustain more people than just us. If we just try and work together and- and- you know. It’s way more cool the way he says it.”

“He’s always there to listen and lend a hand. It’s really sweet!”

“You know he wasn’t in media circuits or major tournaments Before. He doesn’t have any PR training; he’s just Like That.”

“Do you think he ever gets tired of smiling all the time? He’s just- just so alive in this world. It’s kinda impossible to think he exists.”

Yeah. Tsukasa had underestimated what a threat Hairo was to his iron grip on the stone world. Not that Hairo was going to do anything about it. The dissenters and the unifying structure would never come together. Until Kuboyasu and Kaido started scheming.

Ukyo had heard them brainstorming methods to wrap Hairo into the rumors of being against Tsukasa’s rule. They were reasonably quiet about it, but Ukyo had good ears. He was still trying to figure out how he felt about that, and whether he should encourage the behavior or not when Hyouga returned from his scout mission to the village.

Where there had been nine embarking on the journey (officially eight; Ukyo had heard the ninth following from the treetops), only two returned.

That and the fact that the other one was the hidden girl Hyouga hadn’t cleared by Tsukasa meant that things had gone very wrong.

Ukyo watched from his post near the entrance of Tsukasa’s cave as Hyouga stalked in. His back was straight and stance strong, but Ukyo could hear the slight wheezing under his breath, and saw the glimpse of a burn on the man’s body.

“They turned traitor,” Hyouga informed Tsukasa coldly. “Gen was in on it beforehand. He planned it quite properly – worked out bribes from the Kingdom of Science for all of them.”

“And what made you retreat?” Tsukasa asked. “Surely they could not outmatch you by strength.”

Hyouga’s ego refused to take that lying down. “Of course not. I put down a few when they tried to threaten my life. But it wasn’t strength alone. These stone world savages have already developed scientific weapons. Some form of high-voltage electric weapon forced me to retreat.”

Something strange shifted on Tsukasa’s face. “Senku survived after all; nobody else could have done that,” then his gaze darkened. “We must put this down immediately.”

The regular cronies filed out, leaving the planning to the four that now were the top of the Empire of Might.

Ukyo was still filing through the details of that exchange. The situation had changed drastically now, and the details that stuck out to him were:

1) There was a confirmed opposition to the Empire of Might; 2) the Kingdom of Science had progressed to the point of electricity, holy shit; 3) they had proven themselves willing to work with people from the Empire of Might – Hyouga had said he’d killed a couple people, while making it sound like the turncoats had simply been convinced through nonviolent means. 4) If things went down this route, further bloodshed was inevitable.

The first people he ran into after he had gotten out of the impromptu War Council were Nikki and Hana. He looked around for a second, then noted to them. “There’s talk going around of there being modern amenities in the Kingdom of Science, did you know?”

“Seriously?” Nikki asked, eyes wide from shock.

“Sure,” he smiled. “You should ask Taiju and the others what they think Senku could have cooked up in the last six months. See if the rumors are true.”

Hairo was a good rallying point, and the issue of things like soap and proper food would make people flock against Tsukasa. The Kingdom of Science and the members of the Empire that had run away to it proved that one could successfully stand against Tsukasa. At the very least, the Empire members could refuse to fight the Kingdom of Science, postponing the outbreak of violent conflict.

Ukyo hoped that he wasn’t being too much of an optimist right now. This could very well blow up in their faces.

Things were falling into place well. They had a huge boost in manpower now that just more than a dozen people had been added to the Kingdom of Science’s muscle force. Chrome was chief now, meaning he could grant all of them citizenship and access to the village’s surplus resources. The village Senku had found out was named Ishigami Village.

No, it hadn’t occurred to him to ask whether this village had a name. It was the only known human community for kilometers around – they seemed convinced that there weren’t people outside from them here. Why would it have a name?

Ruri was cured. Like completing a questline, that achievement unlocked lore that he would have loved to think of the full implications of. If it wasn’t likely to drop his productivity by ten billion percent. Tsukasa’s counterstrike would be upon them soon and they needed to get their most high-potential ally on the field.

“You better make me handcream after this,” Gen whined, collapsed in a heap on the ground.

“It wasn’t like it was back-breaking or anything, you damn mentalist,” Senku rolled his eyes, turning the arc of metal around to examine the quality. “But sure, why not, I’ll check in with you after I make sure it works.”

He wove through the crowd of people taking up the Kingdom of Science’s main stomping grounds, went around the glass forge, passed the ramen stall, and began the exhausting trek up the riverbank.

Thankfully, Saiki was there. Still doing his limp, ragdoll impression. But he knew when the guy noticed him. It wasn’t hard to when the spike of awareness zapped through Senku’s head.

“Alright, we’re never going to be dealing with that again!” Senku held up a set of resistors and bulky circuitry that he had turned into a large, arcing shape. There were two nodes at points on the inside, shaped slightly like needles. “It’s not as slim as what you’re describing, but I think it’ll do what we’re trying to make it do.”

Saiki’s expression didn’t change, lying in his crater and voice echoing loudly in Senku’s mind. “Great. Set it in, then.”

“Sure, I’ll get to it. I gotta know first; what are the chances that this will kill you?”

“Extremely low. I’d put it at 0.00001%.”

“Confident. What about permanent injury?”

“Zero. If I’m alive, I can restore myself.”

Damn, he really needed to see what this guy could do when he wasn’t on the edge of misfiring and short-circuiting the brains of everyone within range. Which was the entire planet, if the guy wasn’t exaggerating.

“Right. Here comes the next tricky part,” Senku picked at his ear, “We’re gonna need to find a bone drill to get past your skull and not destroy your brain in the process. I’ve been hoarding the medical alcohol, but it’s not really going to help with the surgery itself.”

Saiki blinked, slow and sedate. “I can handle that. Give me two hours.”

“Eh? The hell are you gonna do?”

“Transform into myself but with holes in my head where the band has to be implanted.”

“You could do that this whole fucking time?!” Senku came very close to throwing the inhibitor band. Which would’ve been bad, because he spent a whole week on this thing alone. He’d been spending so much time working through the logistics of drilling a hole into someone’s head in the stone world without structural damage.

“Yup.”

This asshole had to know what he was doing. And Senku couldn’t deny that it wasn’t a fascinating prospect. “I’m gonna sit here. And observe this ‘transformation’. Does it always take exactly two hours? Is the rate of the transformation’s progression variable? I need to gather data on this.”

Instead of coherent words, the next transmission was a sharp, wiggling sensation in the back of his head. Like a tug-of-war rope falling slack. What the hell was he supposed to make of that? But there was no other argument, so Senku was choosing to interpret that as agreement.

So he sat down and got ready to wait.

Pop. The air was displaced sharply as the claimed-psychic’s hair shifted drastically, scalp exposed in two patches. A circular cavity was in each patch that went deep. Blood was beginning to seep out as Senku looked at it.

A fax machine sound blared in his skull, quieting after a few seconds. “Ah. Right.”

His powers were uninhibited. Previous data points were irrelevant in this state.

Also Senku needed to grab the bandages and sanitize the nodes properly because he hadn’t expected to need it right this second.

“Right,” he leaned closer once the preparations were made. “If it hurts, try not to explode the minds of everyone within the vicinity.”

“If it hurts that much, then the world will end,” Saiki informed him, eyes barely visible from the glare of the light on his green-lensed glasses.

Now or never, Senku plugged it on.

Chapter Text

It was… quiet.

Saiki blinked. Felt unafraid to use his arms to sit himself up. And when he did so, the earth didn’t buckle under his grip. Looking around, he saw only the world in front of him, instead of through everything for miles out.

And, as stated before, it was quiet. Not close to silent, he supposed, but nothing compared to the cacophony that had bombarded the inside of his mind for the past several years. He no longer had to wrestle to keep track of his thoughts like this.

“So, did it work?” the scientist he had sought out for the job asked, resting his chin on his hand.

“Yes,” he said truthfully, flexing his hand out. “I suppose I should thank you.”

Senku laughed, “No shit? I didn’t really think that would work! It was just a glorified series of coiled wires.”

“No matter how unrefined, it did the trick,” Saiki promised. It wasn’t as strong as the ones Kusuke had given him, but it came close considering the situation.

“This wasn’t a freebie,” Senku warned. “I’m gonna work you to the bone for your end of the deal.”

“There’s no task you can set me that can achieve that,” Saiki told him bluntly.

A villainous smile spread over Senku’s face. This guy reminded Saiki of someone very troublesome, but he’d play along. As long as most of the heavylifting of reestablishing society could be left off his shoulders.

“I’m gonna need a scale for what kind of things you can do down the line, but right now I’ve got one task for you.”

Saiki cut him off, already knowing where this was going. “Tsukasa?”

“Ten billion points to you. Let’s talk strategy back at the Kingdom of Science.”

They headed towards the cliffs, where Saiki had felt the worst of the human presence in his mind. Instead of going directly for the village, they veered away to a small clearing with a hut, a shed, and several contraptions. And people. Around twenty of them, but way too many after being isolated for so long.

Being able to parse through their thoughts efficiently and without worry of damaging anyone, Saiki was able to get a good understanding of the situation. A lot of these guys were new to each other – some of them had newly jumped ship from Tsukasa, some had left this village and were returning after a long time, some were allies of Senku for several months now, and then there was-

“Saiki?!” a gasp cut through the crowd. Teruhashi Kokomi, the one and only, swept through the clearing, tearful eyes fixed on him.

Why was she here. Who unfroze her. How had he not noticed her until now. This really wasn’t what he wanted to deal with right now.

A second passed between them without him reacting.

Wow, he just doesn’t change. This has been happening worryingly more and more, Teruhashi’s thoughts said, icy cold in their anxiousness. She went in for round two with more gusto, “Oh, what are the chances of us two classmates meeting in this stone world?”

“Class… mates?” a beefy man with blond hair asked. Magma, his inner monologue told Saiki.

“It’s part of this thing called an ‘e-du-ca-tion’ system,” headband-wearing Chrome explained.

Senku, for his part, paused from where he was picking at his ear and blinked at Saiki and Teruhashi. “Come again? You guys went to school together?”

“You could say that,” Saiki said noncommittally

Teruhashi beamed. “Aw, don’t be like that. Saiki-kun and I were in the same class at PK Academy!”

He felt the spark of recognition in Senku’s mind. “PK Academy? You guys know Kaido Shun by any chance?”

“Yeah, he and Saiki-kun were friends, I think?” Teruhashi tapped her index finger on her chin as she struggled to remember.

“We were not.”

“What’s appenging-hay here?” the self-appointed mentalist’s eyes were turning into spirals. An exaggeration of his mental state, but there was a hint of truth to his confusion. “What does Kaido have to do with any of this? Where did this guy even come from?”

“I don’t understand any of what’s happening,” Kohaku crossed her arms. “Most I can figure is that these two know someone that Senku also knows.”

Confusion and irritation was starting to crop up in the crowd around them.

“Aren’t you going to at least introduce us to our new ally, Senku-chan?” Gen asked. “Or, well, I’m assuming he’s an ally. You wouldn’t let an enemy into the heart of our kingdom, would you?”

He was clearly performing for the crowd there. Senku grinned maniacally as he gestured towards Saiki, at least not making any move to touch him, unlike Teruhashi’s few attempts.

“This is the secret trump card I was working on against Tsukasa. If all goes according to plan, at least,” his quick stream of consciousness was hard to keep up with, and the steady counting that overlaid it muddied the thoughts. This was why it was nanoseconds before he said the damning words that Saiki realized what was about to be said. “You see, this guy’s a psy-”

Saiki slipped into super-speed then, to avoid abject disaster. He turned invisible, and in the same instant, floated over the pipe used to blow glass, powered it with his memory alteration, and slammed it against the back of the scientist’s head. He went down like a bag of bricks.

Had Saiki overdone it? He really hadn’t had time to recalibrate himself to the new inhibitors. Oh, well.

A small trick of mind control on everyone and he convinced them all to think that individuals with a notable lack of connections or identity were completely normal presences which needed no further explanation. There. That should clear the mess up.

He retreated behind a tree, took a breath, and the rest of the world jolted into action.

“Senku!”

“Did anyone see what happened?”

“I’ll go grab the ammonia carbonate!” Chrome offered. No need. Senku was already reviving.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, I don’t-” Senku was saying, sitting up and looking around blearily. “Everything’s a bit. Huh.”

Crisis averted. Identity secure. This was the inevitable conclusion of their alliance, really. Scientists like this were always hellbent on sharing their discoveries with the world.

Still, Saiki had made a deal, even if the other party didn’t remember.

To honor it, he teleported himself to the location of the Tsukasa Empire.

“Okay, listen up!” Taiju declared, frustration shining in his eyes.

All fifty-strong people on the side of the Empire of Might’s splinter faction gathered closely to hear what he had to say.

“Tsukasa breaking statues is… bad!”

Silence. Aiura had really thought he was going to say something profound. Apparently her fortunes could be wrong from time to time.

“I mean, yeah, isn’t that obvious?” Nikki asked, a bead of sweat going down her forehead.

But Hairo patted Taiju strongly on the shoulder, nodding. “But he’s right, isn’t he? We know he’s wrong, so why are we letting him get away with it? Why are we following him?”

It had taken less than a month after Hyouga had returned for the news to spread around that the Kingdom of Science had something which could bribe modern-timers.

When people came to the few who had known Senku, to see if this was possible, they all backed up the claims and suppositions. Kaido brought the rumors to entirely new heights with his impassioned exaggerations. Aiura had been taken aside by her former classmates and Yuzuriha, and been asked if she could put in a good work. The answer was a quite obvious ‘yes’. It wasn’t that she couldn’t pull off leather, but some variation in fabric would be appreciated. She then roped Toritsuka into it too, who simply wasn’t built to survive off hard labor.

They got to work slipping in more obvious comments against Tsukasa, spurring the pendulum of public favor away from him. And straight towards Hairo.

“Now he’s going to have us fight people who have it better than us. Why should we just go along with it?!” Hairo demanded now, around the fire.

“But how are we going to fight him?” someone asked, voice quavering at the very idea. That was a good point. Hairo was strong and had a magnetic personality, but didn’t stand a chance against Tsukasa.

Hairo stroked his chin. “How about… we just leave?”

“Ehh?????”

“I mean. He needs us to fight other people. And killing flesh-and-blood people is just too much for him, sometimes. So we just pack up our stuff and head for Hakone. There’s fifty of us here – pretty much everyone from the Empire of Might. He doesn’t have the means to capture us.”

Well, when he put it like that… it could work. Maybe.

But this plan left the door open for casualties. Hairo, especially. Tsukasa was sure to go for the head of this insurrection, to break people’s spirits. There had to be another workaround.

As if answering her plea for a miracle, she felt an aura prickle over her, accompanied with no physical presence. It reminded her almost of…

“Yo. Aiura.”

She jolted and almost detracted the quickly escalating confidence of the group with her excitement, “Saiki! I knew you’d have gotten out.”

“That’s unimportant. Right now, I need to clear up this thing with Tsukasa.”

“I’ll help however I can, just say the word!” she vowed. Thirty seven hundred years later, the Psy-Kickers were back in business!

“Good grief, don’t go getting ideas,” he’d clearly gotten into her internal monologue. What was even the point of her thinking thoughts extra loud, then? “None at all. I’m telling you this to clear a debt. Been listening to Tsukasa’s thoughts for a while, and he keeps bringing up his little sister Mirai. Can you find her?”

Shouldn’t be too hard with her fortune-telling. But how were they supposed to revive her?

“I’ll handle getting the revival fluid. Just find her and figure it out from there.”

Hmm… well, if he said so.

She began snapping a twig between her hands, scattering the tiny pieces onto the ground.

“Hm, Mikoto, are you spinning another fortune?” Yuzuriha noted, leaning in to watch her.

Aiura nodded, smiling at her. “I’ve got one more card we can play.”

There was an alcohol distillery in the hill that was the Empire of Might’s base. In the cave beside it was stored the revival fluid in carefully accounted for pots. They were inspected every day – by Tsukasa personally after the uprising had kicked off – to make sure no one was pilfering it for themselves.

He knew tensions were high. Had heard the rumblings of dissent behind his back. The hammer had to be brought down hard – and soon. In this society that didn’t know a lick of science, manpower and revival fluid were their only weapons. Tsukasa had the upper hand in both, and would like to keep it that way.

Except when he removed the wooden plank covering the cave entrance, he found the pot at the front missing entirely. In its place were bowls that had steam spewing out of them. It didn’t smell of anything poisonous, just…

Hyouga poked his head over from where he was standing behind Tsukasa. Even he startled at the sight. “Is tha-that ramen?!”

It wasn’t so much that Senku had made it – or perhaps the caveman village already had rediscovered it – but the fact that it had somehow gotten into their revival fluid vault, still fresh and steaming hot. Was this some sort of power play against him? Had the uprising been orchestrated by them? He hadn’t expected any direct hand, given that there was no scientific backing for the fervor, just pure superstition and rumors, but of course, Gen could be tricky with these things…

The sound of footsteps thudding on rock several meters away wasn’t subtle. Tsukasa brandished his spear at the incoming offender.

It was Taiju, headstrong and forthcoming. Of course he would favor a frontal assault over a sneaky ambush, if he had to go for an attack at all.

There was something on his back, bundled up in orange fabric. A weapon of science?

Tsukasa made to strike him down before he could close the distance by his own volition. He hesitated at the last moment, giving Taiju time to place the thing on his back on the ground.

A person. She stumbled slightly, trying to pull her hair out of her face. “Taiju-san, you move way too fast, I’m all dizzy!” she complained even as she laughed.

Tsukasa felt like he couldn’t breathe. It was like the world itself stopped around him.

In the old world, he had done the media circuit, sold his soul for wild acclaim. All for the desperate hope that she may recover from the state that all doctors assured him was complete brain death. He had stared into the mirror every day, watching as he got taller, gained more muscle, grew out his hair. Wondered if she would even recognize who she was when she woke up again.

Because she would wake up again.

She had to.

She was all he had.

In the stone world, he thought he would have to finally give up on that dream. Accept that this world was not one in which she would survive in. That it was cruel to even consider waking her up here, when she was sure to die immediately without modern life support equipment.

And yet-

And yet-

Mirai narrowed her eyes as she considered him. Her voice was soft when she hesitantly asked, “…Tsukasa-nii?”

He broke into a sob and hugged her close. It was just the two of them, as it always had been for them.

There was a lot more mournful flashbacking after that, but Saiki got too bored to keep up with it after that.

It was interesting the first time, very emotionally moving, but the repetition dragging it out and killing the mood. This reunion wasn’t nearly as interesting as he’d thought it would be when he decided to hang around invisibly. Best to just leave-

No, wait. In the background of the embracing siblings, a devious betrayal was being played out. Hyouga had taken up his spear, and his thoughts pointed his target right at Tsukasa.

Saiki almost let the fight play out, just so that there could be some action to this dull, confrontation-less war. But, then again, if someone got irreparably hurt…

He stepped into Hyouga’s line of sight, pulled down his glasses, and turned visible for just a millisecond. The man was petrified mid-motion, center of gravity just so that he fell forwards.

The other three people present flinched, confusion coming off them in waves when they looked at the statue. Tsukasa cocked his head towards Saiki’s position for a brief moment, but focused back on Hyouga soon after.

“What… was that?” he didn’t believe that it was the Kingdom of Science’s doing, but he was clearly trying to gauge Taiju’s reaction for some reason.

The brawny guy screamed in horror. “I don’t know at all! Was he really turned to stone?!”

Tsukasa cautiously used the intact spear Hyouga still had clutched between his stone hands and used that to shake the statue a little. “Appears to be.”

“I didn’t see any green light, though! How’s this possible?!” Taiju whipped his head around. He was almost as difficult to read as Nendou, but Saiki could make out scant images of the horizon outlined in green in his mind.

Everyone in the vicinity waited with bated breath, just in case someone else got petrified. Finally, they realized that no one else was getting petrified there.

“He was hostile to all parties, anyways,” Tsukasa decided, promptly deciding not to care.

“We should… probably depetrify him though, right?” Taiju wondered. “I mean, this feels like some kind of death sentence…”

Mirai frowned. “You can’t bring him back! That scary guy just tried to kill Nii-san!”

“Maybe after there’s the infrastructure to give him a proper sentence,” Tsukasa suggested. “Just keep him like this and take it for the good fortune it is.”

Taiju nodded hesitantly. It took him several more minutes to realize what the implication was. “WAIT, YOU’RE GOING TO ENCOURAGE MORE REBUILDING?”

It wasn’t that simple. But there was a lot going on in Tsukasa’s mind. It was all boring stuff, either purely sentimental factors or dry logistics that Saiki had (to borrow someone else’s vernacular) not a millimeter of interest in. But Saiki still listened as the man laid it out in clear, measured sentences.

“I refuse to allow weapons. I refuse to let the world be corrupted again,” he maintained, then looked down at Mirai. “But the others are right about the expected food shortages during the winter. Now that we have people who aren’t capable of simply muscling through that, some small safeguards might not be the worst idea.”

“Wow, you’ve gotten so thoughtful,” Mirai grabbed his hand and beamed up at him. Saiki watched impassively as Tsukasa’s heart melted. “How long has it been since I fell asleep?”

The waterworks were starting now. It was really sweet, actually. Saiki should reinvent popcorn. “Thousands of years. I never expected to see you awake again. Did they treat you well?”

Mirai nodded quickly, “Everyone was really nice. Yuzuriha-san made me my dress!”

“How did they even find you?”

The man’s inner monolog informed Saiki that he hadn’t ever spoken about Mirai to the cameras. No one would have thought to look for her, let alone even know what her general location in the modern world might have been. There was a really interesting memory about a ‘mentalist battle’ that he would’ve loved to get into, but sadly now wasn’t the time for subplots down memory lane. Later though…

Memories were the only place he’d ever see a game show again, after all.

“Aiura and Toritsuka helped us find her,” Taiju explained back in the real world. Great, his name was nowhere in there. “Not sure where they got the revival fluid, but they had that, too.”

“To use her as… a bargaining chip?” Tsukasa wrapped an arm protectively around Mirai.

She darted her head back and forth. “What do you mean ‘bargaining chip’?”

Taiju looked horrified. “No, of course not! We just thought you’d be so grateful for this nice thing we did that you’d understand what we meant by the idea that science stands to help everyone and come help us!”

He was effectively describing a bargaining chip. Or perhaps a bribe would be more accurate?

Still, Tsukasa was in a tough position. His strongest lieutenant had just attempted to stab him in the back. Most of the regular revivees had turned on him in favor of Hairo and his wish for safe rebuilding. Aiura and Toritsuka had somehow continued to exceed expectations with their so-called ESP. To some extent, even he had to relent to the Kingdom of Science’s goal of procuring stable amounts of food and other items necessary for sustaining humans properly. With Mirai back, he couldn’t take any risks regarding illness.

All avenues of power were closing in front of him. The Empire would never be stable after this.

“Alright. Consider this me surrendering,” he took the loss with grace.

Calling these the ‘Stone Wars’ was a bit dramatic, if you asked Saiki. Still, it wasn’t like he could critique it for being an unsatisfying conclusion when he was the one smoothing over the best bits. Maybe down the line they could make a recovery from this anticlimactic resolution and have a real war?