Chapter Text
A sixteen year old boy with long white gravity-defying light hair sat in a chair behind his computer. Above his normal clothes a regularly-worn lab coat was comfortably nesting, clicking right in place, as if it's always intended to be there. Calculated red eyes carefully examining some weird bird sculpture. Too realistic, too precise to be something less than a masterpiece or a real thing. And he had dozens of those (not only of birds, but of other street animals too) on one of the biggest shelves, which all are filled to the brim with all sorts of scientific equipment, books and other stuff the boy had.
When he took a pen to write down something new he noticed, a slight ping from a notification on the screen disturbed the quiet.
“Huh? Something related to petrification again?” Senku realised what this specific notification ping he had set was, now turning to look it up. He and some other anonymous users (most also probably from somewhere around here) in a little forum united to solve this weird mystery - random pets, street animals and birds in Chigai (the city he’s from) started turning to stone about two years ago as for now. No one came even close to deciphering as for why (even a couple of dug-up videos of random street cameras capturing the moment didn’t help the matter that much), but the micro community helped with gathering new info for the experiments and the small investigation he did at least.
When he clicked on a notification, it instantly showed him something- Something gut-wrenchingly scary.
There was a picture (clearly taken from afar, cause for sure no one was allowed anywhere near) of a statue in a random alley, surrounded by the police.
It was human.
With its clothes still looking perfectly fine on it, as if it was a real person. It looked scarily real, despite it being stone on the inside, as it's seen from a crack on the head. This lost piece laid by the victim’s feet.
And of course it is a real human! It was only a matter of time when it was going to start happening to humans too… Senku always knew that deep down.
The comments said the police were still checking if it’s an existing person or not, but some enthusiasts already broke into the database and pointed out that it almost certainly was a man Senku didn’t know who disappeared about a year ago.
It was all very exhilarating and all (and of course scary af), but Senku definitely had a thing he had to do now.
The guy took a bag with his change clothes, now taking another, more crispy (since he barely wore it) lab coat with him. The one with many pockets - a very durable one too. It’s his costume after all. Debating whether to take his full-on roller skates or simply special designed shoes with built-in rollers, he took the latter. Chigai is a large city, and Senku is definitely not an athletic person, unlike some of his friends and family who go out and play heroes almost every day - he himself does that only on special occasions, like this one. So, anything that helps him get anywhere faster is always welcomed. Right now stealth mattered more than speed though, so shoes it is.
After walk-skimming through a couple blocks, he was by the house of his extended family. The many Ishigamis live almost everywhere throughout the city, but his cousins and uncle were the closest ones.
“Chrome, are you still up?” He loudly asked, opening a door into one of the garages near the building, which is his cousin’s laboratory.
It’s even bigger than his one, hence why he likes to do some of the larger scale experiments here (unless it’s something potentially explosive, in which case the two usually call Taiju and go outside, of course). Filled with even more equipment than he had (actually some of this were his old things), and it definitely had a lot more chemistry stuff and random rocks that Chrome himself collected.
He wanted to be either a doctor or a chemist once he grew up, so it wasn’t a surprise. Senku himself thought to be closer to an astrophysicist if anything. Going to space one day was most likely to be from his own doing. Senku doesn’t want to rely on NASA, like his old man.
“Yeah?” Fourteen-year-old in question shouted through the sounds of something falling and then he hurriedly tried to pick it all up.
Senku just chuckled at that, leaning on the empty part of the wall. The guy was interrupted by a buzz in his wrist - a smart watch connected to his phone (that he leaves at home when planning to go somewhere as the Scientist), it’s the best tool for multiple purposes, so having it with him would never hurt. Let alone it’s a communication device too.
“What’s up, big oaf?” He asked out loud, when his best friend’s name appeared on the screen.
“Oi, Senku! Me and Yuzuriha plan on going on a patrol in a moment. Can we come so that she can drop her body at your’s?” The man from his watch asked, which meant that they wanted to go out to their vigilante duty, and Yuzuriha wanted to leave her body somewhere safe, before sharing Taiju’s one as they do on their patrols. The girl’s power allows her to hop between people, sharing their bodies, so her own one is mostly a liability in action.
“Nah, Byakuya's in space, as you remember, and me and Chrome are also going to go out in a moment, so I left it locked.” Senku denied, shaking his head, even though his friend didn’t see it. Of course they have key duplicates to the apartment, but it’s still unwise to leave Yuzuriha’s body unsupervised, which is exactly why they called Senku in the first place.
“Aw, bummer. What about this cool thingie you two were talking about earlier at school today?”
“Oh, yeah, I’ve already designed it and left some instructions in the mail, Yuzuriha must have already got it. Come to old man Kaseki tomorrow, he’ll probably decide on how exactly to make it work while constructing.” The young scientist waved it away, already forgetting what exactly was that Yuzuriha wanted from him this time.
Something to do with ropes, if he remembers correctly. Senku designed the automatic thrower, which should help Taiju capture criminals, so that he wouldn’t have to take in all their attacks while trying to put on some handkerchiefs or whatever. Unwise strategy in the first place, if you ask Senku, but whatever works for them. As everyone in their group, they go by trial and error.
“He’s not an old man!” Chrome chimed in, still on the task of gathering things he knocked out from the floor.
“The man’s 60 - he’s old.” Senku picked at his ear, stating the facts.
“He’s 59!”
“Doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.” The guy brushed him off. Astronomically - it’s just one turn Earth does around the sun.
“Okay, well, good luck with your plans or something then.” Taiju snickered from the watch.
“You too.” Senku chimed, resetting the call. They’ll probably figure it all out. Yuzuriha’s parents are very supportive of it all anyway, unlike Taiju’s caretakers (whom the boy didn’t bother with information about his escapades), so she may as well just leave her body at home. They might be busy today though, hence why they asked Senku this time, but he hoped for the best.
It’s not really Senku’s business anyway.
“Okay, so-” Chrome finally collected himself (and all the things from the boxes he accidentally knocked off). “I was just about to close for the day and go up home.” He gestured in the direction to his back with his thumb. ”Something happened?”
“Mhm. Let’s go investigate, partner. There’s a very interesting case.” Senku grinned, taking out his costume as a sign for Chrome to do the same.
“So where exactly are we going, Scientist?” The young boy asked, when they were approaching the destination point the man in question had set on his map in the watch.
“A crime scene, Sorcerer” He answered, also using the boy’s alias that he was so sure on being exactly that.
“O-o-o! What happened this time?”
“First incident of petrification of a human.” Senku said, looking up.
“What-” Chrome yelped, surprised.
“Sh-h-h.” The older guy put a hand over the boy’s mask, shushing him down. “We’re close, they might hear you.”
“Who ‘they’?” The boy whispered, after nodding in understanding.
“The police of course! They’ve just found it. Now shush, we’re gonna use this ladder in the alley.” Senku ordered, now finally spotting a way to approach the situation in hand.
Once the two were already up the roof and could see the closed street, they couldn’t shake the excitement off.
Senku rolled a gear near one of his ears to adjust the zoom in his solid helmet mask, that made him look rather robot-like. The setting allowed him to perfectly see the occupied zone. While he simply did that, Chrome, who insisted on having this stupid big wizard hat in his costume, didn’t have any technologies like his older cousin had in the mask, because all his one did - supported the hat in question. So the boy had to use some plain binoculars.
“Sick! It’s the actual crime scene. We’ve never gone up close to one while there still was a real investigation going on.” He chimed.
“Our investigations are no worse than any of the ‘real ones’. We just focus on the more important scientific elements of it.” Senku was a bit offended by it. “Besides, we did solve a couple of the crimes before, if you forgot already, given your attention span.” He smirked, while examining the scene.
“Hey! My attention span is perfectly fine when it comes to the important things!” Now it was the other boy’s turn to take offense. “Besides, these exciting things we did I could never forget!” He chined, always romanticizing everything about science. Well, Senku is also way more emotional about it all than any of the adult scientists he's met, so he's not the one to judge.
And well, there were a lot of things to be excited about anyway. The two weren’t exactly vigilantes, or mercenaries alike - leave that to big oaf and his almost girlfriend, or the spearmen brothers.
They were the inventors. Designing up some gadgets and whatnot for their friends and family, putting up to use their knowledge in various areas.
Sometimes even the men behind the chair, though not really Chrome, he’s still rather bad at it. There were some nights when Senku hadn’t slept, spent on the computer, communicating with either Taiju or Kinro, sometimes both, if the day was especially busy. He knows a thing or two about coding and hacking too - uncle Jasper taught them quite some things, and Senku is always a fast learner.
But, most of all, the two were investigators. They solved mysteries already, most of the time coming from different intentions at first. And also using science most of the time.
They’re a perfect mix of two worlds - supernatural and scientific. They themselves are a perfect indication of it, with Senku not having any powers, just like his adopted father, and with the prodigy of a boy Chrome was, getting his power at a very young age, even before the Ishigami’s adoption. The scientists were both adopted into the family, so both shared the traits of not being related by blood to anyone here, and very gifted too, hence why the two bonded so quickly.
And they also were a natural team.
Senku routinely gave his observations for Chrome to take in the notebook. None of the little details escapes his eye, while the man studied everything from a safe distance, saying aloud all the findings, while also closely listening to what the police were talking about on the radio.
“Okay, it’s about the time to head home - we won’t gather anything new from here. It would've been so great to see the statue up close to compare it though…” Senku sighed, stretching after finally untensing. “Go put the bug somewhere in the wall close - I’ll be guiding you from here.” He asked from his partner, giving him a small noise-recording device.
The small operation went smoothly, so he easily skimmed through the stairs of the fire escape ladder the two used, at the same time putting the sounds from the bug on record.
“So what do you think will happen next?” Chrome asked, when the boys were heading back to his garage.
“Well, the police certainly won’t declare the appearance of a new villain just with one victim, there’s definitely a crime there though. And certainly not a fresh one too.” Senku hummed.
“Yeah, these birds you were so interested in started appearing back two years ago. Right when… The incident happened, right..? Do you think they’re connected?” The boy clearly was uncomfortable at the thought. Senku wasn't surprised - none of the Ishigamis liked to talk about it. He himself wasn’t the exception.
“I don’t know, Sorcerer.” The guy sighed. Looking up at the dimmed sky. “There’s surely something way deeper going on… You can only guess what.” He only said
“To the lab it is then!” His cousin smiled (Senku couldn’t see it through his mask, but he surely felt that).
“Yeah.” He smirked himself.
They’ve listened to further negotiations of police and detectives they could hear through the bug on their way, while noting the most interesting details (nothing much, most of the things they’ve already gathered themselves).
It's a very complicated case, at least at first glance, since there’s too many unknown parts. It won't be easy to begin to understand exactly what's going on.
So he and Chrome will surely spend long hours in their investigations, experiments and arguments in the lab.
The police might get the criminal in charge themselves, but would they be able to release victims from stone on their own? That’s the scientists’ job! The ones like Senku and Chrome.
And they will solve the mystery of this Medusa, that the petrifier was officially named.
Why Sorcerer? Partly, because of the two he’s the one with a power, partly because he wanted to oppose his cousin and partly because of what happened when they were little.
One day, Senku wasn't impressed by the great rainbow bridge very young Chrome set up with his ‘magic’. Come on, even fireworks don’t work on impressing him, let alone some burning fire.
“For those who didn't study science, the world seems full of ‘magic’.” He yawned, picking at his ear.
“Yeah? Well then the world seems to be full of science, if you don't study sorcery.” The other boy deadpanned, sparking a laugh from his cousin.
They've become rivals from there, constantly trying to one up each other, to do something greater than the other. Which soon enough made boys partners then - there's way more the two could make together, as opposed to just on their own.
How does Senku put down his hair to get into his mask that covers the man’s whole head? I dunno, it’s kinda up for interpretation, to be honest. I imagine that he sprays a bit of water on it for them to naturally fall and then slips into the thing before they dry. The other way I imagine it to work, is that the mask has a very similar design to robo-senku from the original show, but not completely copying Senku’s hair, as in canon, but rather making a crown-like shape. So, partly, once dried up, his hair just takes up these sections.