Chapter Text
Ryuusui had never known the word “slow.”
He was born for motion airplanes, boardrooms, stock markets, and now, androids.
It had only been a month and a half since acquiring Senku, but his android had already pushed the company’s technology sector into places he never imagined. Plouton’s engine was upgraded. His staff's productivity had skyrocketed thanks to Senku’s restructuring of the internal systems. Even Francois, ever unshakable, had started asking for his input on optimizing supply chain logistics.
And now, finally, the pieces were aligning for something big.
Ryuusui stood in the sleek white lobby of HelixCo Technologies, where he was about to make a deal that would launch his new subsidiary, Nanami NeuroTech, into the future.
"Ha! Today," he muttered to Gen beside him, "we’re not just making money. We’re shaping the era."
"Charming as always," Gen replied. "Though I’m more curious about how this Xeno fellow will react to Senku."
"I want him to see what I see," Ryuusui said. “Brilliance wrapped in snark and titanium.”
Dr. Xeno greeted them in a sun-lit conference room high above the skyline. The man was tall, silver-haired, sharp-eyed—his presence radiated that of someone who had stopped sleeping sometime last decade.
He smiled politely at Ryuusui, but his eyes locked onto Senku the moment the android stepped into the room.
"And who might this be?" Xeno asked, arching an eyebrow.
"My android companion and currently my R&D director," Ryuusui said proudly.
Senku gave a two-finger salute. "Senku. Just Senku. I advise on rocket propulsion, materials science, and calling out idiocy."
Xeno laughed. Actually laughed.
“Well, aren’t you a fascinating piece of work.” He turned to Ryuusui. “Where did you find him? This build... it’s old, but the eyes, those aren’t standard AI optics.”
Ryuusui shrugged. “Let’s just say I got lucky. You two will get along.”
They more than got along.
The scheduled 45-minute meeting extended past three hours.
By minute ten, Senku and Xeno were shoulder-to-shoulder, scribbling equations on the smart glass wall. By minute thirty, they had moved on from propulsion systems to speculative time dilation models. By the end of hour one, they were arguing about the feasibility of wormhole stabilization and how tachyon decay could theoretically be reversed.
Ryuusui could barely keep up. Gen had already started filming the session for documentation or perhaps as blackmail.
“Remind me never to let those two into a lab unsupervised,” Gen whispered.
Ryuusui grinned, but there was something sharp in his chest he couldn’t explain. Watching Senku light up, talking, gesturing, teasing Xeno with that classic smirk, something inside him stirred.
Not envy. Not pride, either.
It felt like... awe.
When the meeting finally adjourned, Xeno walked Ryuusui to the elevator with a clipboard in hand, eyes still alight.
“Your android,” he said, voice serious now, “is unlike anything I’ve seen. His logic trees branch like a human's. His speech synthesis isn’t just natural—it evolves. He even made a correction to my cosmic string theory that I now have to go recheck.”
Ryuusui smirked. “He’s got a mouth on him.”
Xeno paused. “Are you aware of what this could mean?”
Ryuusui blinked. “Meaning?”
“The kind of learning and intuition he’s displaying... it's not common AI growth. It’s—” He glanced back toward where Senku had returned to doodling a rocket trajectory in the corner. “It’s like watching a person who used to be someone else.”
Ryuusui went still.
Xeno added with a shrug. "But it's still in theory. I remembered reading something like that; it was never proven, and, well, the scientist who did that crazy research has long since gone."
On the ride back to the estate, Senku sat up front beside the driver, rambling about fluid dynamics and new ways to redesign Plouton’s wings.
Ryuusui sat in the back, unusually quiet.
Gen nudged him gently. “So… how did your big science date go?”
Ryuusui smiled faintly. “Perfect. Everything’s working exactly how I planned.”
But his gaze lingered on Senku’s profile, on the way his eyes scanned the skyline like he was trying to remember something.
“…Exactly how I planned,” Ryuusui repeated, softer now.