Chapter Text
As always, his hunter's instincts were correct; he had been following these people for some time. There were three of them. One was huge and strong, like a rock, while the other was a girl as delicate as a feather. All of them were bent over their fallen friend. I was a 16-year-old boy. His glassy eyes used to be red, but now they had taken on a dull, dirty shade. Blood had already drained from his young face, drying his lips and merging them with his skin.
They were both crying and screaming, trying to bring the guy back to life, but it was obvious that it was useless. The master of the forest, the eternal hunter, had been watching them long enough to figure it out. Further tracking of them has become not only useless, but also boring for him.
Right now, he was worried about the chief's daughter, a very big brat. Of all the inhabitants of the forest, they were the only ones who could react to the signal. The hunter didn’t suffer from amnesia yet, and, fortunately, he didn’t have rabies.
From the whole situation, the hairy kid was dangerous. The two brats were afraid of him because he’d killed the third one. This guy was a big-eyed beast, so he must’ve seen the three smoke signals.
He can ask her about her intentions later, but for now, she needs to be rescued from her own foolishness. You never know. Maybe the chef isn’t so angry with his youngest kid after all, and might even be very disappointed if she dies.
And of course, he found her in a fight with a kid with long hair. As the fight continued, she was also distracted by silly conversations about honor and punishment for murder. Young people's maximalism is a favorite topic among animals....
All this bravado, and then her dagger was caught between two fingers. The kid with long hair looked at her thoughtfully, but the observer counted in advance (his instincts do not fail) for all subsequent events for this calmness.
Removing the bow from his back, he fired without hesitating.
The kid's instincts saved him; he immediately jumped back when he heard the creek of the bow.
The girl looked right at him. Idiot. Thanks to her sharp eyesight, she successfully found his location; A very unfortunate event for the hunter.
There was no other option; He had to fire more. With a swing of his giant spear, the hairy brat shot down the projectiles, and then...
With a single powerful blow, he shattered the tree into pieces. It toppled with a loud groan, casting its shadow over the blond brat.
"IDIOT, BACK OFF!"
What the eyes fear, the hands do. As soon as he yelled out that phrase, he was already there. With a push, the girl flew to the side. Oh, how difficult it is to look after her... If there wouldn’t be consequences, he would watch her turn into a flat peace due to her own foolishness.
A tree fell on him, knocking the air out of his body and along with the mask off his face. He was now exposed to the elements, with only the clear sky above his eyes. Somewhere behind the treetops, a rainbow was hiding.
He was still alive. Of course he was alive, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to explain what had happened to Him. He only coughed because the tree had crushed his ribs. But in other case… It's pretty comfortable.
"Stanley!" The sky was closed by a scared head of the brat.
She fearfully examined his body and then sarcastically commented:
"And I thought that behind that stupid mask was a big and scary guy, not a pretty princess. I can’t even be mad at you anymore"
Stanley coughed.
"S’ alright… You’ll have plenty of time looking at it"
Her head stopped blocking his view, and he saw her concentrating on working on the tree. She tried to pick it up, but her efforts only caused the leaves to shake. It seems Stanley will have to stay here for a while…
"We need to think of how to get you out!" She looked at him again, "Think, you can use your free hand?"
Stanley's right hand definitely was free, but it was impossible for it to do anything useful; he couldn't even look into his belt pouch.
"Well, there is a thought. Listening?" His accidental assistant began to do what he asked her to do, "Stick your hand in m pouch… Not that one. Yeah, this one. Take the leave package ot of there. Yep, there it is. Open it and take one for me"
With great enthusiasm, the brat pulled out a package, opened it, and took out... Oh yes. Food from the gods!
"Tobacco... Seriously???" She angrily exclaimed.
"C’mon, you haven’t heard the best part yet; put it into my mouth and get me my flint"
"I see you’re not that worried about the tree on your ribs!" The little brat was indignant, but still shoved one of the cigarettes between his lips, "Smoke! Maybe, with the tobacco in your head you’ll be less of a pain in the ass!"
She took out a flint from the same place. Who would have thought that the friction between two stones could lead to the creation of such a useful tool? Only a genius could have come up with such an idea! A true genius, indeed!
When nicotine hit his system, he immediately knew what to do. What was this course of action? Well, it certainly wasn't banging on the tree with two toothpick sized daggers, like the girly was now doing.
"Yo..." He called her once, twice, "Maybe, you’ll listen to what I got to say?"
"I know, what you want to propose!" She exclaimed madly, "But I don’t need Him or his stupid help!"
"You’ll have to" Stanley answered indifferently, "You’ll gonna use all of your strength and get tired… And I will be slowly chocking to death… And I haven’t even started talking about the sunset coming. The wolf will have their night hunt. How wonderful…"
"Yep. Pretty that with your asshole attitude not even the tobacco will end you! You'll probably die old and disgusting!"
Stanley waited for her to get tired, and when the blows on the tree started to slow down, he finally started:
"Enough. You want to put up with me for the rest of your life, then stop with this pride" When she stopped completely, tocatch her breath, he continued, "Call Xeno"
As soon as she heard his name, she raised her dagger high above her head. However, before she could strike, someone else's scream stopped her:
"Hey, are you alright down there!?"
They both turned at the sound of the scream and saw a figure that was... Well, it was definitely a ghost, no doubt about it! He couldn't be standing there, because Stanley himself had looked into his glassy eyes a few minutes ago. But he was still alive. His sunburnt skin was pale, not because he was a walking corpse, but because it was naturally so unusual. Just like Xeno's, although they still differed in hair color.
"Alive after all " Stanley indifferently noted.
"Sorcerer!" The brat exclaimed after him.
The boy stood on the edge of the ravine for a few seconds, observing the scene below. He then jumped off and got there in a flash. With great attention, he inspected the trap from all angles, and only after that did he sit down, staring at Stanley:
"Will you make it till the sunset?"
Stanley carefully removed the tobacco from his lips and exhaled the smoke before taking another drag...
"I can"
"Good!" After confirming everything for himself, the boy took off and began to work on something.
The brat rushed after him to offer assistance.
"Wh-What are we doing? Can I help?"
"Yeah. Can you chop down those branches?"
"Will that do?"
"Yeah, perfect! Now we’ll place the bamboo…"
As soon as these wonder wheels were ready, Stanley recognized something familiar about their design.
"Is that… A lift, right?"
The kid turned to him with a flash of surprise.
"Wow. You know what a lift is? But actually it’s called the pulley system. With it help you can lift the heavy stuff which mass is way bigger tha-…"
"Yeah-yeah, I got it" Stanley interrupted his way familiar explanations, "Dunno all of the details, but I have a friend, wo has a familiar hobby"
Meanwhile, the kid climbed a taller tree to use it as a leverage. If Stanley remembered correctly (and if kiddo had done everything correctly), then the tree should now rise due to the pull of the wheels.
"Then I’m really thrilled to meet him!" With that, he jumped down with the rope holding the entire structure.
With a loud noise, the rope went taut, and the wheels slowly lifted the tree.
As soon as the weight was off his body, Stanley released a sigh of relief and immediately took a deep breath. Ah, fresh air. Tobacco...
"Incredible" The brat breathed out.
"Thank Archimedes with his engineer mind for!" The kid exclaimed proudly, stretching his hand to Stanley.
"No… I’m not talking about this Archi-guy. I’m talking about you" The girl objected in answer, "Your awesome strength lies in solving problems with your mind"
She smiled softly (Wow, she can do that).
"My name is Kohaku, and it seems, I’ve grown to really like you"
Two of them made faces at once, which caused Kohaku to have a fit of bewilderment.:
"What with the faces you two!?"
"To fall in love with some random guy, without even knowing his name… Damn, girl" The boy commented with disgust.
"Agreed" Stanley supported him, "So you’re Kohaku, huh..."
"You two have a death wish!? First, I wasn’t meaning that in a romantic way! And second, you know my name, stop being an asshole, Stanley!"
The boy shook his head in thought.
"Stanley?"
"Stanley, Stan, commander... Call me however you want, but make it non-graphical" Stanley introduced himself, inhaling the smoke.
"How bizarre..." The kid said thoughtfully, "You’re not an outlander?”
"We’ll leave the details for later. Now you two will start preparing the place to sleep" Stanley threw the tobacco in the grass and stomped it with his foot, "We already won’t make it to the village… It will be good if we’ll survive the night in one peace. And that will depend on how good you are at emergency camp making"
The kid’s performed quite professionally. The boy at least handled the brushwood with the expertise of a professional. When the wolves are hunting, one should be wary of the darkness that is their domain.
While they were sitting around the campfire, they were able to get to know each other better. The kid's name was Senku, and he called himself a scientist.
"Not a single idea what are talking about" Stanley admitted (He actually didn’t want to know)
"I’ve expected that. But you’ve told me about the friend who knows those things" He immediately went to the case (Stanley respects that).
"If you know the same as him" Stanley used the stick to push the log further in the campfire, "Then I’m sure that you’ll get along"
Then he thought about the rules that were set by the village and added:
"As long as you’re not crossing any boundaries, you’ll be alright"
"There's a village" Senku said, "How many of you there?"
Stanley smiled in response and threw more logs into the fire.
"You’ll see"