"What do you think, man?" Taiju said, looking over at the scientist who was still sitting. "Who are we gonna bring back first?"
Senku had to think. "Well, we're gonna revive everybody sooner or later, so it doesn't matter all the much who we start with. If the doc didn't wake up by the time we got this revival fluid made, I would have suggested her since she will help keep us from getting sick. But here she is, awake and bickering."
That earned Senku a punch to the arm.
Senku chuckled, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his left arm. "Although I suppose it would suck if we happened to wake up a murderer first."
Taiju didn't think about that. "I get ya."
Senku stood up, and came to his decision. "I don't particularly feel like choosing, who we revive first. Is there anyone you can think of, doc?"
The first people who came to (Y/n)'s mind would be one of her parents, or both if they were able to. With one parent being a physician and another being a doctor, they would come in handy the most. The problem? Her father wasn't in the country when the green light hit, so he was out of the question. As for her mom, she worked at a hospital the day they turned into stone. She doesn't know where the hospital would be standing if it came to right now, and who knows if her mom is still even in one piece. Heck, for all (Y/n) knows, she might be at the bottom of a lake or something.
Did she want to revive her parents? Yes, she does. But does she really want to revive them? No. No she doesn't. Living a life where her parents aren't constantly quizzing her and keeping a watchful eye on her was starting to become the norm for her, even if she's been awake for only a year. That probably was the best year of her life. If her parents can stay asleep for 3,700 years, what's a few more years?
"No." She shook her head.
"Not even your parents?" Senku asked, surprised they weren't the first people that came out of her mouth.
"Mom was working at a hospital when we turned into stone, and dad was overseas," She shrugged her shoulders. "Dad is out of the question since he was in Brazil, and the hospital most likely crushed my mom or buried her, and we don't have the right equipment to dig her up, and we don't even know if a broken body can be revived, with or without all the pieces."
She made a good point. Senku then turned to the brown haired man. "So, Taiju. It's all on you, my friend."
Taiju was surprised the decision was being left up to him, but he smiled. "I appreciate that, pal. I know who I'll pick. I mean, it's obvious."
"Your girlfriend?" (Y/n) teased.
"She's not my girlfriend!" Taiju yelled, face as red as a tomato.
"Not yet."
Standing in front of Yusuriha's statue, Senku held the miracle fluid while (Y/n) stood next to Taiju, who was in between the geniuses.
"Alright, I'm ready," Taiju was determined to see the girl he loved. "It's go time! Let's pour that miracle water. It's gonna turn her back to normal again, right?
"If it worked on a living bird, why would it not work on a living person?" The physician asked.
"I believe that it will." Senku said. "I tied it on a piece of broken stone and it turned into a hunk of dead flesh." Senku had this sinister look on his face, one that could scare the pants off professional scaring actors.
(Y/n) pictured Senku pouring the fluid onto the stone, staring at it with a face she did not know how to describe. The flesh? It was blurred out. Now she was definitely not going to bring her parents back if they were in pieces."
"Try and have a little respect for the dead, would ya?!" Taiju yelled at the string bean. "
"You are a masochist, I swear." The girl sighed.
"I did make the effort to put them back together first, obviously," Senku was so nonchalant about the topic. "But it seems that once someone has died, reviving them is not an option. I value their sacrifice. Perhaps you should pray for them."
"Uh, right!" Taiju did just that. "Rest in peace, Rest In Peace, Rest In Peace, Rest In Peace..."
"You would sacrifice one of us in the name of science without hesitation," The girl deadpanned at her friend. "Maybe even faster than the velocity of a proton."
Senku only chuckled, leaving the answer up to whoever wanted to interpret his chuckle.
Moving on.
The two boys started climbing up the tree to reach Yuzuriha, who wasn't exactly on ground level.
As Senku moved the jar of fluid towards the petrified girl, something dawned on Taiju.
"Hold on, Senku! She's naked! Don't look at her!" And what did the meathead do? He poked Senku's open eyes, causing the red eyed boy to fall backwards.
"We gotta wait! We can't wake her up like this!" Taiju yelled.
Senku rubbed his eyes, obviously in pain. "I know it's tough, but would it kill you to try and use some logic for once? I think the stone world's kind of a special situation. There's absolutely no one around to give a damn if your butt's showing, or even if your dick's hanging out."
"Yuzuriha does not have a dick!" And off the rails this conversation went. "How would you feel if you or someone else saw (Y/n) naked?! She's our best friend and I know you don't want some random boys to see her without clothes! Heck, even we shouldn't see her naked! The only people who should be seeing someone without any clothes are doctors, a person's parents, or a person's spouse!"
"I already saw her naked you idiot!" Senku yelled back. "She woke up and followed the river to me, and I saw her! Do you honestly think I cared!? She was awake! If anything, I'd rather it was one of us who saw he naked than some creep!"
"If anyone heard this conversation out of context, they would question a lot of stuff..." The physician was half paying attention to the conversation. She will admit, she was a little embarrassed about Senku seeing her naked, but the focus of that moment was more on survival and staying healthy while avoiding injuries than if Senku saw her body. Besides, it's not like she could control what happened and lead up to the event of their first meeting over 3,700 years.
"How dare you!" Taiju yelled. "You're not her spouse, her doctor, or her parents! You should not have seen her naked! That's rude!"
"You're missing the point, you idiot!" Senku yelled back.
Taiju lifted Yuzuriha over his head like she weighed nothing, the conversation now going back on track. "We need to take her back to camp and get some clothes on her first."
"Ok," The screaming match ended. "But how heavy's that statue, anyway?"
"You'd better not be calling her fat!"
Nevermind. The screaming match may have only been put on hold.
"Way to completely miss the point again," Senku stood up. "What I mean is, wouldn't it be like ten billion times more efficient to just wake her up and have her walk there with us? I can't deal with all this illogical thinking."
"You may find it illogical," (Y/n) gently took Senku's chin into her hand so she could examine his eyes. His eyes were wide open when Taiju poked him, so she was checking to make sure there was no damage. "But other people find it logical. It's illogically logical. You never know how Taiju feels until you meet someone who can make you have those illogical thoughts about another person. Don't judge him, alright?"
Senku simply rolled his eyes, letting (Y/n) examine him. "Whatever you say, Miss-expert-on-love."
"Compared to you, I am an expert." She smiled.
A sudden roar snapped the two out of their conversation. Looking in the direction the sound came from, the two stood still.
"Hey, wait, you big oaf!" Senku called his friend.
"Huh?" Taiju asked, turning around.
The three waited in fear to know what was there, before a lion showed itself, making them run the other direction.
"Why is there a lion walking around Japan!?" Taiju yelled, still carrying the girl above his head.
"Why do you think!?" Senku yelled back.
"They're descendants from a zoo animal!" (Y/n) yelled, jumping over a tree rot that would have brought her down and made her lion chow. "The door must've been open when the doorkeeper was turned to stone! Without humans to contain them, all the herbivores were on the menu."
"Plus once they got out into the city, I'm sure ain't was a pet buffet!" Senku yelled again. "So that means, they're literally the king of beasts! The stone world is brutal, and we can't let ourselves forget: humans aren't at the top of the food chain anymore!"
The three jumped off a cliff and fell through the trees, luckily they were caught by vines near the bottom. But those vines broke, and now here they are, with Taiju on his stomach, Senku on his butt, and (Y/n) on her side.Groaning in pain, they slowly sat up when another roar was heard and they started to run again.
"Why haven't the lions actually attacked us yet?" Taiju asked.
Senku chuckled. "They probably haven't seen bipeds before. I bet we look creepy as hell to them, running on two legs."
"Yeah, we are the only humans in the world." Taiju said.
"We definitely spooked 'em." Senku ran behind the other two, since he had the least stamina out of them. That, and Taiju is just a naturally fast runner with (Y/n) knowing she only had to outrun Senku instead of the lions. "But they'll go in for the kill soon. Even if we get super lucky and make it back to camp in time, all we've got to fight them with are spears. Unfortunately, this was game over from the very beginning."
"I don't have the right equipment to perform surgery, and I really would not prefer to have my friends as my first patients," (Y/n) joked, trying to make light of their current predicament. "So if we get lucky and fight them off, avoid dismemberment please."
Taiju stopped and turned around, throwing Yuzuriha right at Senku, who barely managed to catch her. Taiju stood in front of where the lions would be, his arms out in front of him while Senku was on his knees, (Y/n) trying to pick Yuzuriha up from Senku so he could stand.
"You and (Y/n) dying now is not an option!" Taiju yelled, his back towards his friends. "Your big, science-filled brain is humanity's last hope! (Y/n)'s doctor stuff filled brain is the only thing that will keep you healthy and everyone else healthy once everyone is brought back! Even if I gotta eat lion food, I'll save ya!"
"No way!" Senku yelled.
"I knew you were a meathead, but not that big of a meathead," (Y/n) sighed, lifting Yuzuriha from Senku to at least get him to stand up. "Use some logic for once dumb dumb. Senku is the brains, you're the brawn, and I'm the first aid. If humanity is going to come back and live on, we're going to need you too."
"If we're gonna make a run for it, it's imperative we do it together!" Senku did not want to lose his childhood friend. The thought of losing Taiju was not an acceptable conclusion to any dangerous situation.
"Yeah, I got it!" Taiju ran over and took Yuzuriha out of (Y/n)'s arms and started to make a run for it again.
"You pull something like this again, I'll wrap you up in bandages to the point you can't even move," (Y/n) threatened. "So stop acting like you'd actually hit one of those lions. You never hit anyone when we were little kids."
"You may be an athlete, and strong as an ox, but you're not a fighter!" Senku called him out.
"Hey, if we can't outrun them, I thought of something we can do instead!" A sudden memory of who he saw came to Taiju's head. "I found this guy earlier. He was called 'the strongest primate high-schooler'. Shishio Tsukasa."
Recognizing him, (Y/n) said nothing.
"Sorry about this," Taiju set Yuzuriha down and leaned her against a tree. "But right now, we need somebody who can fight to help us. If we can make our way through this in one piece, I promise, we'll wake you up real-"
"Don't waste your breath," Senku took the jar of the revival fluid from one of his little punches, holding a stone axe in his hand just in case. "Let's just pour it on him." And so he did.
The sounds of roars were too close, so close that the lion and the lioness surrounded them and looked to be only 4 feet away.
"Crap!" Taiju did not expect them to be this close. "We're surrounded!"
"This is it!" Senku held up the axe.
The sound of cracking stone caught their ears, with the stone cracking in a downward spiral, and a brown eye opened to look at what was before him.
"I'm sorry," Taiju walked over. "I know this isn't what you wanna wake up to after sleeping a few thousand years."
"What's the situation?" His voice was deep, deeper than what (Y/n) remembered.
"Senku looked over, his eyes already wide with fear before he looked ahead. "Your whole body is covered in stone. There are lions from your nine o'clock to your two."
"Yeah, ok." And out of the stone he was, breaking free.
(Y/n) covered her eyes a little, keeping Tsukasa's naked form out of her view. He was just as strong as she remembered, killing the male lion with one punch and scaring the lioness away with a simple glare.
He walked over to the dead predator, looking down at it. "You can fill me in on all the details later, but I owe you. So I'll make you this promise. As long as we're together, the three of you will not be in danger again." He turned to face the other three. "From now on, I'll take care of all the fighting."
"Yeah!" Taiju yelled, making (Y/n) cover her ears, since she was the one who was standing closest to him. "You hear that, Senku? We had brains, brawn, and first aid, but now we've also got brute force on the team!"
(Y/n) went back to covering her eyes so she didn't have to see Tsukasa's butt facing her.
Senku chuckled. "I suppose we make a perfect team now. But I have a nagging feeling that the new guy may be a little too strong."
"How could that be a bad thing?" Taiju asked. "Like, don't we need that kinda help?"
"What if it turns out he's actually some evil, homicidal, sex-crazed, wannabe tyrant?"
"I can confirm that he is not any of those titles you've given him," (Y/n) kept her hand over her eyes, the other one just resting by her side. "So you shouldn't worry too much."
"Do you know him?" Taiju asked.
Well this was something Senku has not heard about before. (Y/n) knowing someone with a title of 'the strongest high-school primate' was definitely a shocker to him.
"I met him a long time ago," She confirmed the boy's suspicions. "He came to our hospital one day. For what reason that is, I could not tell you. I met him when I was on my way to drop off some documents to the front desk for my mom, and I just so happened to meet him there. He looked injured, so I took him to a room and patched him up myself. It was only tiny cuts and small bruises, but still."
"You know everyone, don't you?" Senku asked.
"In a way, yes." The physician shrugged her shoulders.
"Anyways," Senku changed the topic back to Tsukasa and not the past. "Dude's so overpowered, he just killed a lion with his bare hands. In a world where guns haven't been invented, he's ten billion percent unstoppable."
In Taiju's mind, he imagined a naked Tsukasa being waited on hand and foot by beautiful women with Yuzuriha being taken away by his beauty. He shook his head, getting the thought out. "Oh, no way! We can't let that happen."
"Hey, guys," Tsukasa cut the conversation short. "You have anything I could use to butcher this with? A knife, or at least something sharp if that's all we've got."
"Are you thinking about eating that thing?" Taiju asked. "That's nasty!"
"Lion is edible, but the meat is tough and it reeks of ammonia. The taste is bad too." (Y/n) remembered what Senku told her about lion meat when he traveled to Africa.
"When the hell did you eat a lion?!" Taiju asked.
"Ask him," (Y/n) pointed to her friend. "He only told me."
"When I was in Africa doing research on Ebola." Senku said, like it was the most common thing in the world.
"What kind of high-school kid are you?!" Taiju yelled at his red eyed friend.
"A weird one." (Y/n) answered.
"Although it was attacking us, I took this noble creature's life," Tsukasa crouched down next to the lion, petting it softly." So... I wanna give back to the circle of life by putting all of it to use. I owe it that much."
Taiju yelled again, earning a kick in the back of the leg from (Y/n).
"That's so cool!" Taiju was too positive for his own good. How 'bout that, Senku? We just woke up a legendary warrior and he's like, actually a solid dude, too!"
(Y/n) took the stone knife from Senku and brought it over to the long haired man, handing him the handle part so he wouldn't cut himself. "Hello again, Tsukasa."
"Dr. (L/n)." He greeted.
"I'm not a doctor yet," She sighed softly. He was the second person to refer as as a doctor or call her a doc, Senku being the first. "At least it is good to see that you are still healthy after so long, and in one piece."
"I still appreciate the treatment from all those years ago," Tsukasa said, skinning the lion, with (Y/n)'s back facing the butchering. "You were just like a doctor."
"I might as well be," The girl said, looking over to her two childhood friends who were talking to one another. "It seems I'm the closest one who can take care of injuries and diseases."
"Well," Tsukasa said, turning his head to look at her. "It looks like I'll be in your care once more."
"Oh yay," The sarcasm was obvious, along with the small amused smile that creeped up on the physician's face. "Another one to keep alive. You three just love making my life harder."
Back at camp, Tsukasa was styling some snazzy lion skin and coat clothes that would keep him better protected from small scrapes, something (Y/n) was happy about so her medical supplies were not going to be as needed.
"Interesting," Tsukasa looked at the camp. "The three of you built this?"
"Sure did." Senku walked over to the ladder.
Taiju set Yuzuriha down against the tree. "Just hang in there a little while longer, okay? But I promise, we'll get you fixed up. We just need miracle water."
(Y/n) climbed up the ladder as well and started gathering whatever she could use to make Yuzuriha something presentable to wear, with Senku helping her find what she needed.
"You've got a laboratory?" Tsukasa asked before he joined Senku and (Y/n) up in the tree house. "Anyway, I'm Shishio Tsukasa. Just call me Tsukasa." The brown haired man held his hand out towards Senku, a common gesture to mean he wanted to shake his hand in greeting.
Senku wasn't even facing him. "I suppose family names don't really mean much in this world. I'm Senku, the brainy one behind our scientific advancements. Taiju, the simple one, handles all of the grunt work. And I suppose you already know (Y/n), the annoying one. She handles all of our medical equipment and keeps us healthy, since getting sick is an immediate game over for us without modern day medicine."
Senku earned himself a kick in the butt.
Taiju took his hand instead, a smile on his usual cheery face. "I'm Taiju, the simple one. It's true. Senku does do most of the thinking around here, but that doesn't mean (Y/n) doesn't either. She just focuses on keeping us healthy instead of what Senku focuses on."
"What have you been surviving on?" Tsukasa asked.
"Mostly wild greens and mushrooms," (Y/n) said, sorting through a basket of some plants she had collected that can come in handy for any treatments. "Once in a while, Taiju would bring back a rabbit for meat."
"You cried, didn't you?" Tsukasa asked.
"I did not," (Y/n) huffed. "Just because you saw me cry when a rabbit died in a video does not mean I cry when it happens in real life."
"She totally did." Senku threw her under the bus.
"I swear I'm going to shove poison ivy down both of your throats."
Taiju turned the conversation away from a possible murder. "Lately I've been dreaming about eating so much meat my belly explodes."
"Well, you three won't have to survive on just that anymore," And here goes one of his noble speeches, something has heard a few times, a few times too many. "I'm here now."
For the rest of the day, Tsukasa had collected fowl, boar meat, fish, anything that had some meat on its bones.
"I'lll take on all the fighting and the hunting." Tsukasa said.
"Oh wow!" Taiju cheered, watching Tsukasa collect all of the meat. "This is awesome!"
About 7 fish were on one spear, at least 4 birds in one hand, and a large tower of dead boar stood behind Tsukasa. (Y/n) had her eyes covered when facing him, since the man was naked at the moment.
"Now that you guys have me on your side, you won't have to just dream about filling your bellies." When Tsukasa looked at them, there was something in his eyes (Y/n) could not explain. Maybe it was protectiveness? Hope? Kindness? She just couldn't put her finger on it.
The fish were currently hung by their eyes over a fire, the smoke rising up and cooking them.
"Ah, I get it," Taiju said. "So if we just go ahead and cook the food, we won't need a fridge to keep it in."
"He's not cooking it to preserve it," (Y/n) sat across from Senku as she poked the fire, making sure it stayed alive. "Senku is using the aldehydes in the smoke to kill microbes."
"In words that your feeble brain can understand," Senku had to step in, knowing (Y/n) will use words that were way too big for Taiju's tiny brain. "I'm smoking them."
"With me, (Y/n), and Senku working together, we should have plenty of preserved food." Tsukasa said, standing behind Senku and next to Taiju.
Senku stood up and cracked his neck. "We can take the first step towards civilization now."
"So we're still on step zero!?" Taiju asked, surprised to see that all the progress they had made didn't even come close to step one.
Tsukasa walked over towards a rock, and punched it. The stone cracked in two pieces, like it wasn't even a stone to begin with, like it was a paper mache ball. Beneath the rock, there was a person, a young girl. The oldest of the four picked her up, and turned towards the other three. "Sorry if I startled you," He set the statue down against one of the larger pieces of stone. "Just noticed this person buried under that rock."
"I said he was a solid dude, didn't I?" Taiju asked.
The first aid of the group walked over and took Tsukasa's hand into hers. She noticed how big his hands were when they were her much smaller ones. She examined his knuckles, and saw that he was not injured, not even a scratch. That surprised her a little.
"Are you done checking up on me, doc?" Tsukasa asked, not pulling his hand away. Seeing her slightly puzzled face when she noticed the size difference in their hands was something he found amusing.
"Yes." She let go, and walked back over to Senku.
Senku simply chuckled. "It's like having a superhero on our team, huh?" He rhetorically asked.
When the sun was setting, there were more fishbones and heads than (Y/n) could count. They all had quite a lot to eat.
"My belly's so full!" Taiju said happily. His stomach is distended. How great is that?
If you were to look at who was sitting near who from a bird's eye view, Tsukasa and Senku sat next to each other, with Taiju on the other side of Senku and the pile of bones, with (Y/n) sitting next to Taiju.
"I'm surprised you could eat that much," (Y/n) said, finishing her second second piece of meat. "Considering that we had to barely scrape by with little to no meat in our diet and have a limited amount of greens we can eat, our stomachs relaxed and haven't expanded in a good while. Our stomachs would have been static, and with how much we consumed, I'm surprised you don't have a stomach ache or threw up yet."
"I don't get it." Taiju said.
"Think of our stomach like a rubber band," The physician said, handing her half-eaten piece of meat to Tsukasa, who happily accepted. "When we don't eat, our stomach relaxes. When a rubber band is not being stretched, it relaxes. When we don't have our stomach expand due to little to no food, our stomach becomes static. When a rubber band is no longer being stretched over a good while, it becomes harder for it to stretch. It's the same way with our stomachs. For a year, we didn't eat like this, so our stomachs didn't expand as much as when we could eat like this."
Taiju understood what she meant. Maybe. Maybe? Maybe.
Senku finished his fish. "Ok. It's time to take a fun little pop quiz."
"Oh no." (Y/n) said.
"For a technological civilization, what's the most important component to have?" He sounded like a professor. No wonder (Y/n) calls him 'professor Senku'. "Right answer will get you ten billion points."
Taiju had a serious thinking face on, one that creeped (Y/n) out a little. He looked constipated. "Well, it's gotta be... something that's techy, but what exactly? Smartphones!"
Senku was smiling, which was not a good sign.
"Oh sure!" He forced his voice to sound cheery. "Yeah! Smartphones would be great, wouldn't they?" His smile fell. "We're not jumping billions of years into the future, dummy!"
"Maybe, iron?" Tsukasa asked, holding a half bitten fish.
"Iron's pretty important, but not at this stage," Senku gave him credit. There's something far more crucial. (Y/n), do the honors please."
"Calcium carbonate." She said it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Of course!" Taiju really did live up to being the simple one. "Once again, I have no idea what you're saying!"
"Do you mean lime?" Tsukasa asked the physician.
"Yes," She answered. "They use it to mark athletic fields."
"Cool!" Taiju yelled, pointing at his once again, forced smile, green haired friend. "So we're gonna have to find a gym storage locker and grab some whatever-that-was carbonate?"
"Oh, sure!" And once again, the fake cheery voice made its debut. "Yeah! Let's just head to the gym! Don't be such an idiot! You think we'll find one after 3,700 years?"
"Is them screaming normal?" Tsukasa asked.
"It would be weird if it was not normal." That was the only answer (Y/n) was going to give him.
"C'mon, Taiju, think," Senku said, no longer in a yelling match with his friend. He grabbed a random shell that was laying on the sand, and brought it up to get a better look at it. "You know those shells that you've been using to shave your big, oafish face? If we pulverize them into a powder, we'll have plenty of calcium carbonate in no time."
And off the meathead went, yelling the entire time while gathering as many seashells as he could fit in the basket on his back.
The next day, there were about 3 baskets full of seashells, all varying in different colors and patterns. Taiju used a hammer and started smashing the shells that were placed onto a stone table. There were more bags of the powdered shells than there were seashells.
"Calcium carbonate is quite a fascinating thing," (Y/n) smiled, gently picking up a small handful of the powder. "Senku, please list off the uses there are."
"Check it out!" Senku said excitedly. "There are four super useful things you can do with it. First is agriculture. We can use it to blow away the hydrogen ions in the soil, and that'll be a major upgrade for the farmland. Second, construction. Heat it up and mix it with some sand and you have mortar." When it came to making the mortar, Taiju stood at the top of a giant clay pipe and poured the lime down the pipe, with Senku at the bottom keeping the flame lit. Both were coughing like hell though, so (Y/n) would switch out with one of them when it became too much. "Mortar's a little less sophisticated cement. We can use it to build houses and furnaces."
They used the mortar to reinforce the walls of their treehouse, though (Y/n) was a little worried about the weight on the not so strong wood that was holding up a part of the treehouse.
"Third is hygiene," (Y/n) said. This part was her favorite. "If we gather calcium carbonate from seaweed and blend it with oil, the reaction makes soap. This is good for me, because I need to make sure you three are nice and healthy. We could have used the fat from animals, but we don't have something I need so that was futile."
"This world is brutal," Senku said, a small bar of soap in hand as the fire kept them all warm. "Getting sick means game over, that's why we have (Y/n) here, to prolong our life. But a little chunk that gets rid of harmful germs is a life saver for (Y/n) and us, since she's our only doctor."
"I gotta hand it to you, Senku," Tsuasa stood above Senku on his right, looking down at the smaller male who was making some suds with the soap. (Y/n) was on Senku's left, sitting next to him and keeping the fire strong."You're pretty amazing."
"Hm?" The red eyed man looked up.
"I mean, you freed me during a lion attack," Tsukasa explained. "But you stayed calm and spoke clearly. I've never met anyone like you before. You truly have my respect."
Senku started scooping some of the lime into a small bowl, his back towards the fire and Tsukasa. "For at least the last ten billion years or so, almost without exception, a man who praises another to his face is either flirting or scheming." He turned his head to look at Tsukasa, a sharp glare in his eyes. "So what are you getting at?"
Right now was not the time for (Y/n) to tease her green haired friend. As much as she would love to do that and say Senku was finally getting some experience in the dating world, this situation did not call for childish bickering.
"It's not like that," Tsukasa smiled. "I'm really not doing either one of those. I was just thinking if there's anybody who could rebuild modern civilization from scratch, it's you, and (Y/n) too. Yeah, that's all I was trying to say."
Looking at her friend, (Y/n) could see his face did not show any emotions, before her attention was turned to Taiju.
Taiju set down some firewood. "So this is the kinda stuff you gotta do to build a civilization, huh?"
"That's right," (Y/n) nodded, standing up from the fire pit and walked over to her brown haired friend, checking his palms to make sure he hadn't gotten anything stuck under his skin or cuts that were bleeding. "One step at a time. It's a very long journey, a long and slow one, but each step helps us get closer."
"Hey, so what was that fourth thing?" Taiju asked. "You said there were four uses for the seashells, but you and (Y/n) only told us about three."
Senku looked up at Taiju with the same neutral face, before he smiled. "No, there're only three. I said three earlier, right (Y/n)?"
She only nodded, wrapping a small bandage around one of Taiju's fingers. He was bleeding due to a cut, so she was going to help the blood clot and heal on its own to make a scab.
"Oh." Taiju could've sworn he heard Senku say four. "Did you? Man, my memory is all screwed up."
In the tree house, with the sun set and the fire out, Taiju and Tsukasa laid on the floor. Taiju was snoring loudly while Tsukasa was wide awake. He was suspecting (Y/n) and Senku to be hiding something.
Outside the tree house, Senku was making a weapon that no normal person should be able to stop. As for (Y/n), she was gathering all of the plants she found and started storing them away in a little backpack Senku made her.
"Are you sure lying to him was a good idea?" She whispered, low enough to not wake Taiju. "If he finds out we did, is it possible he'll get angry with us?"
"If he does, then we use this," Senku showed her the crossbow that was almost finished. "I'm ten billion percent sure he won't be able to stop an arrow shot from this thing. Do you have all your equipment together in case we have to go?"
"Yeah," She did a quick count, and started putting away her bone needles, ones that she was hoping to only use for making clothes, and never for a person. "The only thing I need is whatever spare soap bars you can make."
"Alright," Senku nodded. "You should go to sleep. It's late, and we need energy for tomorrow."
"You sure you don't need me for anything else?" The physician asked, storing her backpack somewhere that wouldn't easily be spotted if you were to just look around.
"Yeah," Senku looked over at her, giving her a reassuring smile, but (Y/n) was not buying it. "Go get some sleep."
"Alright," She started climbing the ladder. "Goodnight Senku."
"Goodnight."
"Shells! Shells! Shells! Shells!" It was bright and early, the sun was coming up on the horizon, and Taiju was collecting as many shells as he could find that washed up on shore overnight.
As for the other three, Tsukasa was ankle deep in the ocean, with Senku sitting on a rock and (Y/n) finishing up the stitching on Yuzuriha's dress. She would have liked to make pants for her friend, but she didn't have enough skins to make one, so a dress would have to suffice.
"We have so much freedom in this stone world," Tsukasa said to the other two, facing a statue that was in the water with his spear in hand. "Nobody is around to claim that shells are their personal property. Or the ocean. Or the land."
Senku's eyes were closed, listening to Tsuaksa speak as the sound of crashing waves kept him calm. (Y/n) leaned on Senku's right, nose to the grind as she focused, but still listened.
"A long time ago, there was a poor boy whose little sister was going through surgery," Tsukasa started narrating. "He collected seashells to make a necklace for her, and help her feel better. His sister loved The Little Mermaid. But along came an older man who owned the fishing rights to that part of the beach. He reeked of booze." Tsukasa walked over to an older man's statue that stood in the water. "The boy thought he was collecting shells, but the man, the man accused him of stealing the shells, and beat him so badly he was almost unrecognizable, He was never able to make his sister feel like the little mermaid."
(Y/n) tried to think back to any patients her mother or father told her about. It was so long ago, and for all (Y/n) knew the boy who Tuskasa is mentioning could be an adult now. But she does not remember any of her parents mentioning a young boy coming into the hospital all beat up. She hoped that boy is alright now.
Tsukasa looked down at a pink seashell that was in his hand, before he crushed it and punched the older man's statue, breaking it cleanly. The head rolled over and the face was up, making Senku and (Y/n) look at the decapitated man.
(Y/n) grabbed onto Senku's sleeve. She's seen a lot of detailed pictures of injuries from her parents, and has seen them in real life when she would go to her mothers hospital, but not once has she ever seen mutilation or decapitation. This was not something she was ready to see.
Senku was oddly calm, not saying a word and just looked down at the head. "You do know what you just did, don't you? That may have looked like a statue, but we both know you just killed a man."
"Of course I know," Tsukasa said in a calm voice, turning around to look at the other two. "Tell me something, Senku. Are you planning to bring back all the greedy, black-hearted adults who ruined the world we came from? Sure, they'll be overly grateful to you right after you help them out, but as soon as civilization returns, the rich and powerful will say things like, 'this used to be my property, so you'd better start paying me rent'. Next, they'll try to collect taxes. They'll rob the young people like us of our future all over again. We simply can't bring that kind of world back." He started walking towards them. "We live in the stone world now. A paradise that hasn't been ruined by greed. I think we should only revive the young and pure-hearted, and make sure that we keep this world natural and not owned by anyone." Tsukasa placed his hand on another older man's head. "This is our chance to purify humanity. Don't you agree with me, Senku?"
(Y/n) looked to her friend, wanting to hear what he had to say.
Just as Tsukasa raised his fist to break that statue too, he was stopped when (Y/n)'s hand was placed on his shoulder. She looked up at him, with a glare in her eyes.
"No, I don't," Senku stood up, and walked over to him slowly. "That speech didn't move me one millimeter. I'm the kind of guy who absolutely loves technology. I get excited by space and mechs and Doraemon and stuff like that. (Y/n) and I are going to use the awesome power of science and biology to rescue every last person."
Tsukasa looked down at (Y/n), wanting to hear what she had to say.
"Sorry Tsukasa," The doctor said, letting him go as his fist lowered. "But as a doctor, my job is to save and protect lives, everyone's lives. I can't let you take anyone else's while I'm here."
The atmosphere was thick and silent, neither side saying a thing.