Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Suika huffed as she carefully took the bottle into her hands and plugged the cork into it. This time she was confident it would work.

It was the smoothest run after all.

The clay pots she used didn’t have any foreboding cracks, and there weren’t any contaminants as far as she could tell. Even the grapes she used seemed to have fermented properly instead of just molding over for a fourth time.

She carefully pressed the plug in tighter while still being careful to not push it to the point of fracturing; this might finally be the batch to revive Senku after all.

She set the bottle to the side as she carefully put away all the equipment. It was important as the last time she had left it unaccompanied, a rogue bird or something had come through and knocked over the entire set-up. And as confident as Suika could be about her latest batch, she had just used up the last portion of alcohol, and there was no guarantee that the next batch would ferment properly either.

Though, she was quite proud that after 5 years of practice, her pottery skills had leveled up significantly. Of course, it was thanks to the spinny table that she had made for herself. Before leaving the village, she remembered some of the old ladies complaining about their master craftsman being whisked away.

“Oh dear, with Kaseki gone, we will have to be extra careful. No one else can make pots that last as long as his,” one of the ladies groused.

Senku and Gen were there, mostly off to the side doing whatever they did. They were attached to the hip, and were rarely seen without the other. But no one ever questioned it, so neither did Suika.

But this time, they were conspiring very obviously, and so she decided to pay more attention.

“Senku dear, whatever shall we do to elp-hay these poor, sweet old ladies.”

Senku just looked at him funny, similar to the expression he wore when Gen had asked Senku to make him a “soda fountain.”

She remembered that part easily because she was flabbergasted at the request. Once Ryusui had revived, he had commissioned himself a nice house in return for a hefty sum of Dragos. One of the parts of his new place was a water basin with a column in the middle that bloomed up to reveal another sink. The strangest part of it all was how the water managed to climb up the inside of the tube so it could fill the upper sink and then pour out from the sides to the main, lower basin.

Suika knew that Senku was pretty smart, but making a whole fountain out of soda seemed like an idea that would probably be difficult to execute well. She shivered at the image of all the bugs that would make themselves at home in the pool of sugary soda.

But the confused expression quickly changed to one of understanding as his posture relaxed and his eyes rolled

“We could probably just fashion up a treadle wheel.”

“Now what is a treadle wheel, Senku dear?”

Gen made sure to put emphasis when saying “Treadle wheel” aloud, sparking the curiosity of many of the villagers around them. If there was something that the villagers would get excited for, it was a new invention to streamline their daily lives. Many of the village’s top folks being hoisted across the seas would make it a lot harder to get by, so their ears were open.

“It’s a wheel they use to create pots. A relatively simple piece of technology that is actually quite easy to make. It’ll spin a disk around at an even pace only using your foot to do it.”

“How do we make it?”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Many of the older folks of the village offered their help, them knowing best the hardships that would occur from not having good vessels.

It made Suika wonder what would have been if Senku and the rest of the old-worlders hadn’t shown up. Kaseki had no real successor besides Yuzuriha. Yes, Chrome and Kaseki had become a good team, but they were only brought together by Senku.

It was a real good thing they were here.

Soon, a table-looking thing was constructed.

Yuzuriha had taken one look at it and absolutely exploded with excitement, cheekily asking if she could take it for a spin (Suika giggled at that, and Taiju roared with laughter along with her).

It had two wheel parts: one at the top, and one at the bottom. Both wheels were connected, but the bottom wheel was the one with more going on. There was a wooden beam that one of Yuzuriha’s feet simply rested on. The other one was atop another beam that was pulled and pushed by her foot. It had another, tinier beam attached in the middle with full range of motion. The other end of it was connected to the wheel below it. As the Big beam was pushed and pulled, the tiny beam moved with it, but not back and forth, but in a circle. Suika was a bit confused at the exact reason why it was able to do that, but it looked cool.

She was stuck sitting in front of the machine for a long time as Yuzuriha attempted to teach some of the other villagers. She was entranced by the mechanism, slowly engraving it into her head.

Suddenly, Senku approached the lesson.

“Looks like the treadle wheel is a success. How’s teaching?”

Yuzuriha turned to Senku with a big smile plastered on her face, but it looked heavily strained.

“Senku, the wheel might make it easier to create stuff out of clay, but it doesn’t make it a walk in the park. It still requires a lot of skill, y’know.”

Senku blinked a couple of times, clearly not expecting that response. But only for a couple of seconds, because then he returned to his normal, sarcastic self.

“Huh, is that so? I guess you have your work cut out for you. Of course, I expect that you’ll be able to handle it. After all, you’re a craftswoman with god-like talent, patience and repetition has to be a part of your repertoire.”

That smirk was going to get him in real trouble one day. Suika could tell by the veins popping out of Yuzuriha’s forehead.

“It fell.”

Yuzuriha’s fake smile dropped into something a little bit more genuine and encouraging as she turned briefly to explain why the clay kept collapsing to the poor villager who was sitting in between the two friends.

She straightened back up after giving a few pointers. Her eyes were closed, but based on her smile, she would likely be able to kill a man with just her stare.

“Know, Senku, I will have your head one day,” She said in her usual sing-songy voice. Ignore the murderous edge.

Senku, on the other hand, put his hand up to his chin and nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, that seems fair.”

She still remembers Gen’s outraged screech at how much respect (Could this really be counted as respect?) Yuzuriha was getting when he kept getting dragged into grueling manual labor without any warnings, praises, or apologies.

Gen’s remarks were ignored.

So when Suika was revived, one of her top priorities was to make the treadle wheel. Equipment, and therefore containers, were needed to do anything and everything.

Unfortunately, building the wheel was the easy part. Yuzuriha wasn’t lying when she said that using the wheel required a lot of skill. Good thing she had nothing but time to kill.

And after 5 years, she would like to consider herself a pretty good Pot-maker. Perhaps it was a bit cavalier to call herself an expert or a master at it, but she knew that Kaseki would likely be quite happy with her progress.

She turned back to collect more of the equipment she had made, her attention catching to the furnace she had made a couple years ago after she realized that 1) Senku had mentioned before that glass was a much better material than clay due to its non-reactive nature and ability to deal with higher temperatures (that second point being very important as Suika had lost track of how many of her clay pots has exploded due to the heat). And 2) There was no one here to tell her not to do it. It was very dangerous work, that much was clear with how no one besides Kaseki, Chrome, and Senku were allowed to go near the glass workspace. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

Too bad desperate times didn’t mean you could perform the desperate measures.

There was a whole pile of shiny blobs of all different colors sitting to the side of the furnace, because–it turns out–glass-making is a really difficult task.

She’d managed to start making hollow vesicles, but that was the extent of her handiwork. It didn’t help that she was also lacking a lot of the tools necessary to create the equipment. She had barely sourced a long metal tube to blow the glass with; she carefully cleaned a broken-off barrel of a gun to do so. There were other pieces of equipment she had to fashion for herself, like the scissor-things they used to cut into the melted glass, or the cooling area so that the glass wouldn’t shatter.

There were many occasions she would drop the melted goo and nearly burn herself right by the furnace, and she would have to avoid the area for a few hours because it cooled slowly with the hot fire right beside it. Suika wasn’t known for her cautiousness, but the idea of molten glass getting on her skin was definitely enough for her to exercise the most careful precautions.

Her skills in gardening, crafting, and surviving were, overall, a work in progress. But she was optimistic, and she knew that one day, she would surely create a proper dose of revival fluid!

After she had successfully put all the equipment away safely, she dusted off her hands and made her way back to the bottle she had set down earlier.

Only to realize, when she returned, that she had placed it next to 2 other bottles of similar shapes.

“Right. Great, wonderful, convenient.” She said with the same level of joy a fly might have when seeing a toad.

She blinked. Senku’s sarcasm was rubbing off on her and he wasn’t even here to do that.

She quietly cursed herself for not being more careful, as well as creating bottles that looked too similar to each other (though, that reprimand wasn’t taken too seriously as she was quite proud of her consistency).

Carefully, she took all 3 bottles into her arms and started making her way to Senku. Unfortunately, they had similar weights to them.

Luckily (Ha! That wasn’t a word she often used) She knew that the smell of the proper batch of nital would distinguish itself from the smell of whatever the other bottles had in them.

Bottle number 1, she fought with the cork–the habit of tightly inserting it applied to everything–but eventually got it to open. The inside sloshed as she got a strong whiff of the nitric acid she had just used. Her face pruned at the smell, but she simply corked it and tucked the bottle into her elbow.

Bottle number 2, she struggled to open the cork once again, but got it loose with a little bit of twisting and turning. She sniffed the inside, but there was no discernable smell, meaning it was likely just water. She drank the contents of the bottle and tucked it into her elbow as well after closing it.

Bottle number 3, using the process of elimination, was the bottle containing the nital, Suika deduced.

And most people would just walk over and open it when they got to Senku, because what else could bottle 3 be?

Unfortunately, a niggling voice in the back of Suika’s mind was asking whether her vision had glazed over a bottle, or if bottle 1 had actually been the revival fluid and she had been mistaken.

That made the alarm bells start to ring, and she immediately started frantically trying to open bottle number 3. She had stopped in her tracks to do so, about 30 or so meters away from the lineup of statues.

That’s when possibly the worst possible scenario occurred.

The strength Suika thought she would need to uncork the bottle was far more than necessary, meaning that when the cork came out instantly, both hands went flying in opposite directions.

Her hand slipped and lost its grasp on the bottle, and it was like the world had gone into slow motion. She could see the clay bottle flying through the air and she knew her body couldn’t react fast enough to save it, so she had to watch in horror as the bottle flew 3-4 meters, crashing at the base of a statue she had willingly paid little mind to since her revival.

For what felt like a minute, there was no reaction. No sound, no movement, and no breaths taken. She simply stood frozen in place, petrified.

And when she heard the cracks, she couldn’t help but squeal. She knew theoretically that the cracks would occur. But the only time she had witnessed the depetrification process, it had occurred with a low humming sound, not the sound of breaking clay.

It was jarring.

She remembered Kinro telling her that the sounds of Matsukaze’s depetrification were almost ominous, but to see (or “hear,” she supposes) it was to believe it.

Slowly, the stone layer shed itself from the form and she could make out the human underneath. The first thing that got her attention were his eyes. Eyes that were, terrifyingly, looking right at her.

He began to move, and she continued to not.

Rolling his shoulders, he began to stretch. It was only then that Suika realized that the person in front of her was only wearing a leaf skirt. At that, she let out a tiny shriek and covered her eyes.

She had spent the last 5 years alone. Except, those past 5 years had, uh, changed her.

Kohaku and some of the other older women of the village had always been very open about what would occur once she became a certain age. Bleeding that would typically occur once every lunar cycle, growth spurts, and potentially even attraction. It was often embarrassing and boring every time they mentioned it, but in hindsight, considering she had to start the process without anyone else’s support, she was glad that she didn’t go into it unprepared. Otherwise the week of bleeding would have been terrifying.

Unfortunately, the changes also made it incredibly awkward to look at the rest of the Kingdom of Science. A few years into petrification, many of their clothes were rotting away. She hadn’t minded it too much at first, making a mental note to try and recreate them later. But the barer they got, and the more she grew, the more awkward it got to look at them. Her eyes always focused anywhere else but the places most private. She had seen plenty of bare statues as a kid, but now, it was a lot more… uncomfortable. Especially because she knew them all.

That's why she had covered them all up with leaf skirts. They were temporary, until Suika could find the time and material to recreate their clothing. After all, she just knew the basics of sewing, nothing advanced like dyeing and tailoring.

Only last year did she manage to create something for Senku. And it was only after finally, finally finding a blue dye (and then having to painstakingly concentrate it like she did for the alcohol) was she able to create a dress reminiscent of Kohaku's old one a few weeks ago.

Their enemies received similar treatment with the plant garments. Although she didn’t particularly like them–what, with all the murder and all–, she still couldn’t bring herself to leave them bare.

Unfortunately, the sight of a real human in a leaf covering was a lot more scandalous than a statue for some unnameable reason.

So here she was.

In front of a nearly-naked man who had murdered–or had mortally wounded–nearly all her friends seven years ago. All alone. And very much about to cross into the other world.

In front of Stanley “Xeno’s ride back home” Snyder.

She wished she could run. Hide. Perhaps shriek in fear.

But no~.

her body chose this time of all times to stop cooperating with her brain.

Stanley took in his surroundings as the final stone flakes abandoned his skin. He seemed to understand the situation immediately and say something.Too bad her ears were out of order with nothing but the sound of her heartbeat ringing through them.

He eventually stopped moving his lips, realizing that he wasn’t about to get an answer. Instead, he started moving.

That’s when she blacked out.

…

Okay well-

It was more like she stopped taking in any sort of feedback from the outside world for a solid five seconds, but she hadn’t actually lost consciousness.

Although, she probably was about to lose consciousness, considering how she was about to get murdered and whatnot.

Yeah.

Yeah, what was it that Gen always said?

She slowly turned back at the only other human being alive and carefully observed.

Stanley Snyder was depetrified and in peak serial-killer condition. The worst threat to the Kingdom of Science was walking across their base where he had massacred the people she cared about.

‘Senku dear, you uly-tray have the worst luck.’

Would he say it in this context?

… Unfortunately, she could see it.

Chapter Text

Stanley was… not at all what Suika expected.

After regaining some semblance of reality, she immediately decided that she would need to tail the man. She wasn’t about to let an enemy of theirs just roam around freely, no matter how dangerous they might be. She was so close to reviving Senku, only for that particular attempt to end in a disaster. It’s okay, it was only a minor setback.

Well.

Okay, it was a bit of a major setback, but Suika wouldn’t let it stand in the way of her goal to revive Senku.

But the burn on her leg might.

Unfortunately, when her mishap with the third bottle occurred, she had also managed to break the other two bottles tucked under her arm. She hadn’t noticed it in the moment—considering her attention was focused on more American concerns—But once the initial shock wore off, she felt the burning sensation take over her right leg and nearly crumpled because of it.

She limped back over to all her essential belongings under a small canopy. There, she located a big jar of fresh water she had filled over the course of many rainy days. Slowly tipping the pot over her leg, she sighed blissfully in relief. She made sure a steady stream was flowing down her leg to get as much nitric acid off as effectively as possible. Sure the carefully collected drinking water was now soaked within the dry ground, but such was the cost of treating chemical burns. It was far from her first, and it was likely far from her last.

After draining a pot or two to make sure she had removed as much acid as possible, she took the waxy, broad leaves that helped seal them, and wrapped them around her leg instead. The string that had secured the waxy leaves in place atop the pot was then used to secure them onto her leg.

After making sure the bandaging sufficiently covered the area and wouldn’t move, she decided to resume her goal of tailing the only other man alive. Er, alive and kicking at least.

But most of what she saw confused her. When she found him again, he was analyzing her base of operations. She quietly observed him as he made his way around the field of nitric acid and the makeshift laboratory she had slowly fashioned over the past few years. He was awfully careful to not mess things up too, which she couldn’t help but nod in approval for.

And he saw her spying on him.

Multiple times, actually. And every time he flicked his gaze over to her, she would drop down to her knees and press her body into a ball—a relic of her childhood from when she could still fit into her watermelon. The feeling of an unbeatable impending doom would last for a good two seconds on average, which was way longer than the amount of time his attention was even on her.

Which was confusing. Suika’s memories weren’t crystal clear due to the passage of time corroding the details of it all. Her general unwillingness to think too much about what had occurred didn’t help either. And the nightmares were often warped versions of the event anyways, so they weren’t to be trusted either. So no, she didn’t recall much of what had happened on the night of the siege, but she did know that Stanley had brutally killed all of her friends. How she managed to make it out unscathed was a miracle in and of itself.

He was a force to reckon with, with terrifying abilities that went beyond Suika’s skill set, probably two times over. He proved it back then, and he proved it right now. When he disappeared. No, actually. Disappeared, as in she blinked her eyes, and he was gone. Gone. In the span of a blink.

“What the fuck?” The expletive was often unused, so it still felt unnatural in her mouth. But what could she do if it was the only phrase that fit the occasion? If there was anything more terrifying than a murderer in front of you, it was a murderer that wasn’t in front of you anymore.

She tentatively poked her head out of the bushes, attempting to get a wider view of the scenery, expecting to get jumpscared.

But nothing of the sort happened. It was quiet, as if it was any other day.

As if she was still alone.

But she wasn’t. No, she had to be vigilant. She wondered whether she should retreat back to her little hut in the air, but that would be too remote and too easy to corner her. Instead, she went against one of the walls, right beside a hut composed of the same fibers she created her little hut out of. It wasn’t furnished, only containing a  suspended board that could barely be called a bed in it, as well as some scraps and supplies that she would use frequently.

It was meant for Senku, for when she revived him.

It was a glorified storage room for now. A sad storage room that would be void of its rightful owner for a bit longer.

Carefully she propped herself up outside of it against the corner where the wall of stone met the wall of hay. Right above her, there was a tiny portion of the roof that jutted out and kept her covered from above. She took some of the scrap leather from the room and started sewing. It kept her hands and mind busy enough to keep from having a melt down. She couldn’t be acting like a child, she was almost as old as Kohaku now, and Kohaku would never cry in this situation.

The sun dimmed, and she started a tiny fire inside of a little pit. While gathering the material for the fire, she swung her head side-to-side to make sure she wouldn’t face an ambush, but it was difficult. Her glasses were far too low for them to be useful when she was on the go. At that moment, she really wished she had secured the lenses into something more portable and closer to her eyes, like Kinro’s.

But the sun kept getting lower, and the bugs of the night started to sing. No sight of Stanley yet, just the soft presence of the wind. It was cool, but not cold enough to cause her hands to tremble and her form to shiver. If only the morning hadn’t occurred, maybe she would have been able to appreciate the lovely ambience the night had decided to provide. It was frankly unfair. Most other nights left her clammy with sweat, or covered in heaps of leather blankets. It wasn’t often that the night was so kind. The soft crackle of the fire was a calming sound to focus on as she felt a heavy wave of exhaustion take over her eyes. They were only supposed to blink, but perhaps the multiple adrenaline rushes finally took their toll. She wondered how she had even managed to stay awake as soon as the lids of her eyes fluttered to a close.

It was a sweet release.

She should have done this hours ago, why hadn’t she?

Sleep was nice.

Nothing was nice.

— — —

Consciousness was an odd feeling to experience after enduring a complete lack of it for an extended period of time. That sounds like it makes no sense, and honestly, it shouldn't.

Suika found herself groaning as she moved from her place. It took a few seconds for her to figure out where she was at the moment. There was no hay beneath her body, no walls enclosing her surroundings. She wasn’t even laying down. Rather, she was curled up in a ball against rocks. It did a good job at explaining her aching muscles.

‘Why am I here?’ she thought to herself as she attempted to get her arms to move. Unfortunately, she was covered in a thick leather hide that she had sewed together a while ago. It was a lovely, warm piece. The only problem was that she was sure she hadn’t touched it last night. No, it should’ve just been in the tent beside her.

Suddenly, the answer to her question flashed in the form of a picture in her head.

Blond, purple lips, and a killer’s grace.

Suika clambered to get out of the leather encasing. Her hands and feet were bound, she couldn’t move, she was completely defenseless.

Her leg sent out flashes of pain as she was reminded of the injury from yesterday. It was all the more reason for her to get out of the leather wrapped around her.

Tumbling out of the hide, she promptly fell into the fire pit she dug the night before. It took her a few seconds to realize that, no, there was no fire in the pit. Not before she managed to jump a few feet in the air, expecting to feel burnt wood under her.

She was finally standing, taking in uneven breaths. But nothing. No heat from where she expected to get burned. No soldier lurking around the corner. No bullet set snugly in her chest.

She wanted to cry so much, and she didn't even fully know why. She should have been glad she was safe and alive, but the tension was unravelling her, and she couldn’t take it.

The fate of the world depended on her, and she was at the mercy of a man who didn’t blink at murder. There was no room for the luxury of breaking down.

Breathe in.

.  .  .  .

Hold.

.  .  .  .  .  .  .

Breathe out.

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

Again.

She wrapped her arms around her shoulders, digging her fingers into her flesh so she could ground herself to that feeling.

Gen often called himself a selfish man. Which was funny, because she often remembered him helping many people with their issues in his own, Gen-like way.

Herself included

Towards the end, Suika remembered being inconsolable at the realization that she was being sent away.

She was a liability to the rest of the group, that’s why they were sending her away. It felt similar to when she had been discovered on The Perseus, when Ryusui had gotten mad at her for stowing away. She had managed to make up for it then by helping Senku and the others retrieve the mobile lab, but the memory still made her cringe.

So while Francois was packing the necessities for such a trip, Suika went to the balcony and let her tears fall freely. The sobs were ugly and loud, but she had stopped caring about them. The world was complicated and scary, and as much as she trusted Senku, she had seen the bullet wounds that Hyoga and Tsukasa had acquired from their short interaction with Stanley and his crew. What if this was the last time she saw them?

Suika didn’t know when Gen came in, not until she felt a hand resting gently on her back.

She flinched, not expecting the touch, and it briefly stopped her from crying. But the water soon continued to flow because her tear ducts were still open, and she felt so, so helpless.

Gen kneeled down to her level and stayed there for a few seconds, not doing anything. Then he gently took her hands in his and made her look him in the eyes.

“Breathe, Suika. Breathe.”

She tried, she really did, but it was unnecessarily hard. She felt her chest hiccup and she just couldn't help drowning in her emotions. He had shown her how to breathe when her mind was askew so many times, and yet she still couldn’t do it herself.

It wasn’t the first time he found her crying hard. But, unbeknownst to the both of them, it would be his last.

His hands dropped hers. She was about to cry more and ask him not to leave, but the need to do that was quickly quelled with a firm grasp on her shoulders. It was grounding, and she was actually starting to feel the fog in her head clear up.

“Breathe with me, Suika.”

She looked at him, shaking and shivering in place. He took a breath. She took a breath. He kept his cheeks puffed to show her that he still had it held in, and she attempted to do the same, fighting the hiccups and violent jerks of her body that caused her to lose grip on that breath. Then, he let his breath out slowly, and she followed suite.

They did that same thing multiple times, until it wasn’t a struggle to hold her breath. Her body still shook, but she was coming down from the height of her emotions and felt a wave of exhaustion crash over her.

Unintentionally, and before she could stop and think about it, she let out a yawn. Gen froze up momentarily, and she saw a look of bewilderment on his face, right before he let out an amused laugh.

“We’ve got some time. Come, let’s go take a short nap, shall we?”

She simply took a hold of his outstretched hand and nodded. In the back of her mind, she knew that she should have been more embarrassed at the kiddie-treatment, but she was not particularly awake enough to care.

He made a little small talk, but she wasn’t particularly interested in listening for once. Instead, she wondered—for perhaps the hundredth time—why he claimed to be such a selfish person. All he ever did was help others, sometimes even risking his own neck in doing so.

‘Gen’s a big liar,’ she thought. But not in the way that made sense.

After reviving, she cried a lot. It was a new world, and she was on her lonesome. But she managed. More often than not, when she realized she needed to calm down, she would cross her arms so they gripped her shoulders, just so she could pretend it was Gen guiding her through.

But it wasn’t relevant to the now.

No, the now consisted of a mission.

That mission would be to:

1) Convince Stanley Snyder not to kill her.

2) Create a batch of revival fluid behind Stanley Snyder’s back

3) Revive Senku and figure out the rest after that.

Suika took a look at the sky. The sun was pretty high, meaning it was midday.

She snuck through her camp, trying to figure out whether there was an American soldier loitering around or not. But no, strangely enough. Combined with his disappearance the day before, as well as the complete lack of his presence right now, it was almost like he had never stepped foot in the place. Post-revival, that is.

Except, she had woken up underneath a leather blanket. She definitely didn’t have that on when she dozed off, that much was for sure.

(An oddly thoughtful thing to do, but that was neither here nor there. One kind act couldn’t reverse a dozen other bad ones.)

All of this meant that her attention had to be razor sharp. Her knees were slightly bent, ready for action. Her glasses were held firmly in place in an optimal position. She was in the bushes, ready for anything. Suika was well acquainted with sitting still for hours on end as well, so Stanley, if you want to play the waiting game, you’ve got one thing-

Brush.

Without a doubt, Suka had cleared a jumping record, because there was no way she hadn’t leaped her full height and then some. The sensation against her back caused her to do a 180 upon landing to see the cause of the sensation.

For many reasons, recognition was no issue. It was clearly Stanley Snyder. Except. He wasn’t wearing the leaves anymore. No, it was a longer garment made of some red-brown hide wrapped around his waist. On his shoulders he donned a cloak which had its sides pushed open by his crossed arms.

And to top it all off, he didn’t even look mad, or murderous, just mildly amused. She could tell that he didn’t consider her a threat to him. That thought was both infuriating and relieving.

Hey, wait.

The outfit was oddly reminiscent of Tsukasa. She had kept a lot of hide and leather in the tent with the bed, knowing she would eventually use it to create clothes for everyone else. She was actually quite close to finishing Tsukasa’s, considering it was relatively simple to recreate compared to the rest.

Yet now those nearly finished pieces were on a different, unintended recipient.

Recipient? No, thief.

Her anger flashed, but she knew better than to provoke him. Suika admired Kohaku a lot, but one characteristic she never afforded herself was Kohaku’s brash personality, the one that leapt into action at the slightest provocation. No, her speciality was far less combat oriented, so Suika couldn’t risk that level of brashness.

So she settled for a stern stare at the man, and he returned her gaze with an unreadable expression. They stood still, both evaluating the other. Waiting

Finally, Stanley grunted (which caused her to take notice of the little twig between his lips) and nodded his head to point behind her. She looked in the direction he showed to see the place she had originally been observing. It was the main fire pit. The remnants of it lasted the few years she was encased in stone, so she made sure to clean it up once she had the time. It had a lovely view. Not just of the surrounding fauna, but of her friends.

Most of them.

She never ended up finding Chelsea and Luna. Don’t get her wrong, she tried her damndest to try and find the two of them, but knowing Chelsea, they probably ended up finding some obscure place to hide. And after nearly falling off a cliff to try and see if they had snuck up there 2 years ago, she decided to stop. She rationalized it by saying that they were probably somewhere safe and hidden if they hadn’t been found by an explorer like Suika. Would this problem become far more prominent when Senku would revive? Without a doubt. But at least once everyone revives, there’ll be a much more qualified and effective search and rescue team that could find them.

For now though, there’ll be a gap in the line up where those two are supposed to be.

Suika turned back to face Stanley, only to find him making his way to the pit. When he got close, he whipped out two long sticks with a couple fishes skewered on them. They were likely behind him the whole time, just obscured by his cloak, but she still did a double take anyways.

Wait, not his cloak. Tsukasa’s cloak, not his!

Either way, he set both skewers against a log before pulling out a couple of stones and sparking them. There was already a fresh batch of tinder in the pit that she did not remember putting in earlier. Actually, she had stolen the tinder from the pit last night to spark the fire near the tent, so there shouldn’t have even been anything in the main pit. Unless he gathered some tinder while she was asleep. He crashed the rocks together a few times, the movement feeling practiced and fluid. It was hardly a surprise to see sparks erupt and cause the tinder to catch fire almost immediately. He was way too comfortable with what was supposed to be enemy territory.

She went closer. Her guard was still up, but she was now well aware that if he really wanted to do her in, she wouldn’t notice until the deed had already been done.That much was obvious from his little jumpscare at least.

It was also really hard to argue with the prospect of food after nearly a whole day without it.

She sat directly in front of him, but his focus wasn’t on her, it was on the task in front of him. One of the skewers was now roasting above the fire, settled on two Y shaped sticks for easy handling. Stanley eyed the different colors as the heat warped the images above the fire, similar to a mirage. The roasted skin, the smoky smell, the plump shape, it all made her mouth drool.

Unfortunately, in order to verbalize these thoughts, her stomach took charge and growled. Suikas’s eyes went wide in embarrassment. The sound cut through whatever hypnosis Stanley was trapped in, and his face shot up to look at her. Instinctually, her arms curled around her stomach and she slightly bent forward. Those efforts were for naught as another loud gurgle came from her traitor of a stomach.

She let her head fall in defeat. The sounds kept coming, and there was no way to stop them.

So. Embarrassing.

If Kohaku was here, she would at least make a proper—and hopefully threatening—impression on Stanley. All Suika had done so far was skitter around, sleep, get jumpscared, and have her body boldly declare her undying hunger to everything (and everyone?) around her. It was hopeless. She was probably labeled “Hungry-jumpy village girl” in his mind, no doubt.

While mourning the death of her pride, she felt a small poke against her shoulder. She raised her most-definitely-red face to find the source of the jab.

She found Stanley leaning over and extending his arm towards her. In its clutches was the skewer that no longer rested on the Y-sticks anymore. The fishes on it looked perfect, if not a bit burnt. But that was fine, she had long since developed a palate to handle the burnt flavor. It was necessary for whenever Francois wasn’t around.

His face was neutral, but expectant, obviously wondering why she hadn’t taken one of the fishes off the skewer. Her hands went forward to try and hold the fish, but she let go of it almost immediately, finding it way too hot to handle without some buffer to shield her hands. She looked back at him, trying to convey with just her eyes the heat of the food.

He deciphered her stare quick enough, and he retracted his arm. She thought he would try and find something to use to get the fish off the stick, or perhaps set it to the side to let it cool while he put the second skewer on. Yet what happened instead was he slid the fish off the stick with his bare hands, dug his nail into the middle, slid it down the length of the fish and started peeling the fish in half.

It was a… no, not even a technique, but some weird combination of magic and stupidity. The steam that erupted from the pink insides were hot, they had to be, but Stanley looked unperturbed, face as unreadable as ever.

He held his hand out with one of the sides placed upon his palm, stealing like a freshly plated delicacy made by Francois on Ryusui’s behest.

She was about to get up from her seat to reach for it, but he stood up first. His eyes were looking right at her bandaged leg, and she felt the need to tuck her leg away to hide the injury. She didn’t appreciate being treated as helpless.

In return, Suika stood up to take the fish, and Stanley squinted slightly in return. His arm stretched out towards her, and she bridged the gap with a pair of cautious hands. It was still hot, but a lot more manageable. Plopping back down onto her seat, she blew on the fish and started picking at the flesh. The flavor melted on her tongue, and she couldn’t stop the moan of satisfaction from leaving her mouth. Her lips curled into a smile automatically. She never understood Ganen and his disdain for fish. If there was a single food Suika had to choose to eat for the rest of her life, or maybe as her final meal, it would always be fish. But probably the variety from home. 5 years of accumulating a taste to the native variety in South America still had nothing on the nostalgia of eating fish from the sea where she was born.

‘Some salt would make this better,’ she thought to herself, but it was somewhere in the storage hut, and she was too lazy to try and find it. Besides, she had grown up eating fish without it, so it wasn’t like it was that big of a deal.

The both of them ate in peace, and Suika found herself feeling a bit more comfortable around the-

Oh right, the mass murderer.

The deep sense of discomfort wriggled around in her stomach, making its presence known once again. But it wasn’t as potent as before.

The silence wrapped around them like the wind, but remained unacknowledged. Their interactions had been wordless up till now, and she wasn’t going to be the one to change that. She had to hold her ground in at least one way. She wanted him to start the conversation.

Which was all well and good. Besides the fact that they didn’t speak for weeks.

Weeks. As in, Stanley had been revived for weeks and there still hadn’t been a word exchanged between them. It made her wonder whether he had forgotten to speak or something.

She also still couldn’t tell whether she was supposed to consider him a threat or not, so she was filing him under “Not a muder machine" for now. Which was great news! Well, as great a news as the moment where Gen managed to shift Moz’s goals from “Kill all these invaders!” to “Use ‘em for all they’re worth and then kill all these invaders!”

It was an improvement, but honestly by how much?

Suika looked at a faded yellow mark on her leg.

With the progression of time she no longer felt any pain from the burn wound. Throughout the recovery process, her wound flaunted an ugly rainbow of colors. She made sure to treat it with clean water twice a day and bound it daily with the waxy leaves to prevent a serious infection. She was sloppy when she first started getting the burns, but after getting a rather nasty infection, she made sure to only keep good habits when it came to treating the burns. Now, all that was left was a splotchy stain on her skin the size of her palm.

But, the recovery process had kept her home bound. Not of her own volition of course. It just caused her speed to significantly slow down.

Whenever she tried to tail Stanley in the beginning, he often managed to lose her within the span of 50 meters, usually less. He was well trained in evasive maneuvering, but she liked to try her luck at it anyways. On one occasion, she had managed to trail him for over 200 meters. It caused him to stop in his tracks, glare at her till she looked away, and then leave while her gaze was averted. Even upon arrival back to camp, he glared, muttering something about “risky bullshit” under his breath while looking directly at her. But that didn’t count as talking; it was more just passive-aggressively talking to himself.

After that, he just left when she was asleep, or was distracted with something else. Even if she attempted to keep her attention on him the entire time, he would somehow create a diversion to get her to look away long enough for him to leave.

She learned to just accept it after a bit. And besides, whenever he returned, he was often loaded with a bunch of game he had hunted. Suika had eaten more quarry in the past few weeks than she had since her revival thanks to Stanley’s freakishly good hunting skills.

So yeah, Stanley’s daily routine was a bust. All she knew was that he left in the morning and in the afternoon, only returning for meals, and often accompanied by the tiny (or, every once in a while, big) animals he had caught.

Suika, in the meantime–often once she had lost Stanley–, would stay at camp all day. When Stanley was around, she did menial little chores, like cleaning or sewing. But after a few days, once Stanley got into a routine that he didn’t stray from, Suika realized she had an opportunity to work on the revival fluid again. It was too risky to work around Stanley. If he found out she was working on a revival fluid, and managed to make a successful batch again, he would likely threaten her into giving it up so that he could use it on Xeno.

Actually, why hadn’t he already done that?

Nope nope nope, no need to think about that; psychopath logic won’t make any sense. Best just to thank her luck and move on.

There were still a few nitric acid plots left that would finish developing soon enough. It would be her last chance before the fall came. So Suika diligently worked to ferment a new batch of alcohol for the nital, practiced her glass blowing skills with as much discretion as possible, and made sure to take good notes of Stanley’s behavior. Those notes stayed carefully tucked under her bedding so that she could access it whenever it was necessary. He hadn’t made any attempts to climb up to her hut, so it was the safest place for now

It was an odd situation for sure, but it was reliable.

But that was her biggest mistake. Getting comfortable. That’s why she was thrown off kilter when he broke their routine.

It was just another morning. Stanley was out and about before she had gotten out of bed.

As usual.

She decided to check up on the glass containers she had let cool from yesterday.

As usual.

She went over all her notes, including those she took of Stanley, as well as a record of her trials and errors. The last batch of revival fluid had worked, so she needed to copy what she did then.

As usual

Then her stomach grumbled, and she was reminded of lunch. She expected Stanley to come back once the sun had reached its zenith.

But he didn’t. Weird.

She tried to ignore the familiar snake of dread coiled in her gut and returned to her usual daily activities.

Checking up on the nitric acid plots (then nearly dousing the whole thing with a pot of water she had carelessly bumped into).

As, uh, usual.

Glass blowing practice (and nearly burning her hand off by absentmindedly trying to touch the molten glass, before quickly pulling away as her rationale came back).

Um, as usual?

Distilling some alcohol (but causing an explosion of the clay pot instead, leading to the waste of perfectly good fermented alcohol)

As… oh who was she trying to convince.

She liked her routine. It made Stanley less of a threat. Where was he? It was time for their evening meal and he still wasn't back. There were only so many explanations that could justify his disappearance, none of which she wanted to think about.

So she called it an early night, before the anxiousness could prevent her from gaining a wink of sleep.

Perhaps she should have entertained the idea that Stanley was not just exceptionally strong and a skilled survivalist, but he also knew how to think ahead. Similar to Tsukasa.

The parallels in their skills were uncanny. But it wasn’t relevant.

No, what was important were the next three sensations.

First, the sensation of the sun blooming on her skin. It was warm and comforting, but also a signal for her body to start up. It was the morning.

Second, the sight outside her window, looking as blurry as it always did without her glasses. There was movement by some person clad in brownish clothes. He was back it seemed. Suika let her shoulders slump in relief, but they were quickly stiffened back up because she suddenly saw another blurry-

Third, a voice.

“So, she made this all by herself?”

It didn't ring any bells at first, not through her sleep-addled brain. But the more she focused on it, the more it came back to her. She dove for her watermelon rind at the foot of her bed and put it on. It only confirmed what she couldn’t get herself to believe. At the same time, the figure turned his head to face her, as if sensing her gaze on him through psychic means. White hair, a cross gashed upon his face, and a pair of cunning and calculated eyes.

He tilted his head after locking his eyes with her, letting out a small, approving grin.

“How elegant.”

Chapter Text

Peak physical condition was a necessity for a soldier. But it’s never been brute strength that has been Stanley’s primary asset. No, there would always be someone else who would have him beat in muscle mass. Instead, his sharp intuition and memory were the tools he used to rise up through the ranks. An equally calculative mind was how he earned his status beside Xeno rather than under him.

The last hues of daylight were slowly seeping past the horizon. Grunting in short bursts, Stanley finally made it down with the second statue.

He looked at the satchel slung over his shoulder, the one he’d found right beside the two statues. Quite frankly, it was a miracle there was even a dose left. Knowing the (formerly) pink-haired girl’s personality, he was surprised that she hadn’t tossed it in the air in a vain attempt to depetrify immediately.

But no, both statues were huddled on the ground together. It had been a pain to untangle them, but not impossible. The most difficult part of it all was making sure that the arms didn’t break off while angling the bodies away from each other. Carrying them down individually was the only way he could safely get them down. And getting even one down was a challenge of its own. The steep terrain especially made him second-guess if this was even worth it.

Unfortunately, their skills would be vital in this new world. The pink-haired girl had medical skills—as mediocre as they were—so keeping her was important in a world without any easy access to medicine. He only had a vague memory of the other girl, one that took place shortly before the first petrification. Roughly an hour before the green light decided to play Medusa in this fucked up live-action remake of the story of Perseus, Xeno had introduced that specific woman to him; a world-class navigator. Her skill would be invaluable once Xeno woke up.

That, and the two statues were only new additions to the ragtag team of kids. Their loyalties would be much easier to snap.

For now, though, the chill of the night was settling, and he needed to haul both statues back to base where a tiny girl was scheming.

The girl who revived him was a civilian as per his last memory. Technically, she hadn’t betrayed the soldiers, so he had no reason to kill her off. Yet.

His revival was clearly an accident that was never meant to occur. With how spooked and antsy she was, he doubted she would willingly help Stanley revive Xeno with the revival fluid she was brewing.

(Was she trying to hide that from him? She never worked on it in front of him, but there was always so much evidence of suspicious behavior by the time he’d return, it was glaringly obvious that she was up to something. She was not subtle at all.)

Regardless of how uncooperative she acted, he was morally bound to not harm her. Code demanded he treat all civilians and their property with dignity and respect. So she would be left alone.

It didn’t mean he wouldn’t keep a close eye on her progress. He might know jack-shit about science-y stuff, but making alcohol and nitric acid was something he had seen enough times (with a variety of low level and high level equipment) to recognize the signs of. He mostly stuck to messing with the alcohol content, making sure to take out half of it and replace it with water. Did the alcohol count as property?

Hm.

‘Can she brew her own alcohol? Do I have to abide by Brazilian law? What’s Brazilian law anyways? Can minors brew and possess alcohol? Is she a minor?’

Stanley scratched his neck when he first thought about the potential conflict in protocol. His face was scrunched up at the idea of having to figure out whether he was allowed to mess with her alcohol or not.

‘Ah, fuck it. I’ll leave this to a judge to decide. If I fucked up, I’ll deal with the consequences then.’

But he still needed to revive Xeno. Meaning that, because he was actively sabotaging the girl’s batch himself, his only option would be to somehow source a bottle of ready-made revival fluid. Which, in most other scenarios would be a pipe-dream.

Except, maybe not this time.

There was someone missing. Two people, actually.

While doing his initial observation, the gap in the line up didn’t go unnoticed. He knew exactly who was collaborating with the little science rebels, etching as many details as possible from their encounter with the motorcycles into the back of mind. He figured out pretty quickly who was missing from the line up.

Meaning there was a possibility the statues would have a bottle.

Was it a risk? Without a doubt. But with no higher command there to override his gambling nature—and with his intuition blaring louder than a Klaxon on base—, he would bet all his chips on the idea that there was still a bottle of revival fluid left.

So, after that, he spent his time trying to find the two statues. But the girl kept trying to chase after him. While she was limping from a leg injury that seemingly popped out of nowhere. So not only did she lack any sense of self-preservation, but she was also frustratingly clumsy.

He ended up having to resort to waking up before the sun decided to rear its ugly face just so she wouldn’t follow him and put the both of them in danger.

Maybe if she was able to understand him, this whole thing would be easier and he wouldn’t have to play babysitter.

It was clear from the day they met. The little writing he had seen around base was done in Japanese, and when she hadn’t responded to any of his questions, mostly just staring at him, he realized that the language barrier was tall and too much work to get around. On top of that, she also hadn’t tried to engage with him at all, which meant that their communication was deader than dead. If Xeno had been there, at least him and his shitty Japanese would’ve been able to suffice.

If that shitty Japanese was even Japanese at least.

A few months before petrification, he and Xeno had been on call. Most of it was Stanley listening—tuning out, truthfully—to Xeno talk about the molecular something-something of the micro blah-blah in the centro-

The point being, it was a typical call. Until he heard a voice in the background speaking in a foreign language. The tone was so bright and cheerful, such a contrast to his doctor’s personality.

“Who was that?” Stanley asked. It was probably the third thing he’d said in the past—he looked at his watch—48 minutes.

Xeno rambled a lot. Stanley didn’t mind.

Oddly enough, instead of hearing his usual matter-of-fact tone explain the situation, he was instead treated to an uncharacteristically childish groan.

“Do you remember the kid I’ve been corresponding with for the past few years? About the rockets? I thought it would probably be in my best interest if I learned Japanese. You know, to explain some of the concepts better.” Stanley nearly snorted. Bullshit at its finest. Xeno’s pride was as obnoxiously big as that forehead of his, but that was nothing new.

“Don’t laugh at me Stanley, I know what’s going on in your head right now. There are plenty of Japanese scientists I might collaborate with, it’s a pretty useful skill.” Stanley just rolled his eyes and raised his eyebrow knowing full well Xeno wouldn’t be able to see it. It was okay, the both of them knew Xeno was full of it.

After a pregnant pause, Xeno continued. “Either way, I decided to talk to the kid in Japanese, and he immediately laughed and told me to stick to English. Something about how it was more practical. He ended up telling his dad—an insufferably positive astronaut who I see almost daily—and his dad has horrifically taken on the role of my personal Japanese tutor.”

A smirk played on his face now. “Kid sounds like a mini-you.”

Another pained groan came from the phone. “He’s even worse, I swear it. He and his dad are universes apart—except for their shared ability to get under my skin.”

A noncommittal hum left his lips. “No one’s forcing you to keep helping him y’know. Just make something up. He’s only a teen, ain’t he?”

A humorless laugh came from the speakers in his phone. Stanley pressed his cheek further against the device, relaxing onto the support his arm gave his head. “If he was ‘only a teen’, do you really think I would have entertained him for this long?”

It was a pretty good rebuttal. Xeno was a man with impossible achievements and even more impossible standards. There had to be something extraordinary about this kid for Xeno to have invested so much time teaching him.

The whole memory was still crisp, feeling like it had only been yesterday since he had experienced it. Perhaps, a millenia or two dwelling over those types of memories only helped further reinforce them.

It brought the faintest of smiles onto his face. Putting a finger to his lips, he was immediately reminded of the absence of a particular vice. The faint smile soured into a deep frown.

He would get Xeno back. That was priority number one.

— — —

Back when she first got her glasses, Senku gave her the whole spiel on “Myopia”. Just basic stuff, something about the eye getting longer, how it wasn’t a sickness or disease, and also how, apparently, her eyesight would continue to get worse until she hit adulthood. She supposed her glass-making endeavors were partly selfish and not solely from her desire to create stable containers. That was a major part, sure, but she hoped a byproduct of the skill would be that she could whip up a new pair of glasses

And in her defense, it was pretty easy making blobby disks. Shaping them, on the other hand, was usually the part that screwed her up.

Either way, her Senku-prescribed glasses were sorely outdated, and that was why she was currently seeing Dr. Xeno walking around without his normal stony skin.

She needed an eye check-up ASAP.

Or, maybe she was just dreaming. That makes sense. Right? Her hyperactive brain was just playing tricks on her right now. This was all a nightmare.

Slowly, she backed up and laid back down on the straw bedding. Pulling the blanket to cover her body, she forced her eyes shut and attempted to just sleep her way back to reality.

Unfortunately, her ears kept picking up on Xeno’s velvety diction that made her want to tear her ears off.

Reality was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

She begrudgingly sat back up. It was the morning. Too early for any of this.

Her neck hurt a bit from not taking her watermelon rind off of her neck and sleeping on it, even if it was only for a little while.

She did her basic stretches, and cracked her bones. No point in starting her nightmare without being adequately limber enough to avoid the gunfire.

Ha! Avoid gunfire. If it was that easy, Kohaku would have been able to get back to base without so much as a graze on her arm. Instead, Suika found her laying down with dozens of holes in her outfit too clean to have been perforated by bugs.

At least the petrification saved her. Kind of. Technically Senku said it was the depetrification process that did the actual saving, but the outcome was the same, so who cares about the semantics of it all

Speaking of depetrification—and back to the main concern—what was Xeno doing alive?

There was no way.

How was it even possible? It wasn’t! She was the only one who knew how to make the revival formula. No?

She thought back to the first day. Had Stanley thoroughly investigated the ground in order to know what he could use and what he couldn’t? No, that didn’t make sense. She would have noticed if her equipment was used, or if her nitric acid field had been dug up or something. Right?

With no explanation of hers making any sense, she realized something as her stomach sank. There was no other choice; she would have to lean into her more investigative side and face the situation head on.

Slowly poking her head out, she saw the two men now sitting beside the fire pit. Xeno was chatting with some roasted animal in his hand, taking small bites every few words. And while she couldn’t see much else but Stanley’s back, she had a good feeling he was silently taking it all in while munching on his own food.

Maybe he just wasn’t a big chatterbox. Maybe that’s why he didn’t speak muck. Maybe.

Unfortunately, from this angle, there was no way to get out of her hut without being in full view of the two men. She honestly should have changed bases as soon as Stanley revived. But just as she was about to duck into her hut to try and think of another plan, Stanley whipped his head around to lock eyes with hers, as if he could feel her gaze or hear her thoughts. A shiver went down her spine. Uncanny. Or perhaps something much worse.

Xeno saw the dramatic swivel and followed Stanley’s gaze to find Suika. He put the food down on his lap. There was a leather scrap on it as he hadn’t changed out of his leaf skirt.

Not that it mattered. The leather clothes were for her friends anyways. Stanley shouldn’t have taken them in the first place, but she’s not rude enough to ask for them back. She was raised with manners.

… Well, Ruri did her best to raise Suika with manners. Everyone else… had other priorities.

Suika held her breath as she quickly flicked between the two gazes upon her. She wasn’t frozen like she had been in the beginning, but she didn’t move. She was curious to see what would happen.

Xeno dusted off his hands and then cupped them around his mouth. In a booming voice, he yelled, “You do have salt?” in some of the worst Japanese she had heard. 

And that was saying a lot.

When Senku first came into the village, it sounded like he either spoke like an outsider learning the language, or was speaking incomprehensible ye-olden-days jargon, no in between. But with his eccentric personality, no one really thought much of it. Did they have a hard time understanding him? Sure. But Senku was weird, so his way of speaking would obviously match. Besides, the important thing about him was that he was able to do miraculous and awe-inspiring things, like make Ramen.

Then Gen came in, and his words were even more difficult to understand. He mixed words around so often that it was like hearing a drunk man forget how to speak, except he did it on purpose. He managed to switch to the Ishigami Village way of speaking a few days in though, so Suika didn’t put too much thought into it.

But then more and more depetrified folks from the old world were introduced to the village, and they all spoke in that weird, nonsensical way.

Only then did it start to click. It was all the old-worlders who spoke in that same strange, old-timey way. Perhaps the nearly 4000 year gap had changed the way Japanese was spoken. Maybe Senku wasn’t actually speaking garbled nonsense, but stuff that only made sense to people who learned Japanese when he was a kid.

(She was right in a technical sense. Because for the most part, not even old-worlders understood what Senku said most of the time).

 When she brought up the theory to Senku, he snorted and put his hands on his hips. A smug smile—the only smile he ever gave anyone the pleasure of seeing—sat comfortably on his face. And maybe she was just seeing things, but the one that sat on his face then had just the slightest hint of approval too. “10 billion points to you Suika. I’m honestly surprised it hasn’t become a completely different language entirely.” He looked to the distance, catching his eyes on a familiar, purple-clad man. He frowned. “Which is why it’s a bit freaky as to how the mentalist picked it up that quick. He might be good at picking up new languages, but this goes a bit beyond what’s human.”

Suika wanted to point out how Senku’s freakish memory or Kohaku’s keen eyesight also fell into the realm of inhuman abilities, but ultimately decided against it.

Humans being weird wasn’t a new piece of information, and outliers should be expected within a population. But what made all the weird weird to Suika was how so many of the freakishly overpowered ones all came together in the same place. Like that Bermuda Triangle from one of Ruri’s stories.

Xeno and Stanley were just two new additions to the freakish bermuda triangle of overpowered people she had had the pleasure (perhaps displeasure in this case) of meeting.

She simply sighed, bringing herself back to reality.

Yeah, she had salt.

She begrudgingly climbed down the rungs. No point in trying to hide or sneak around.

Xeno had returned his attention to Stanley, attempting to talk to him. Unfortunately for him, Stanley’s attention was strictly on Suika. But, for the first time, she saw a curious look on his face rather than a suspicious one. It was unnerving, but she ignored it and walked into the storage hut.

For the most part, you could see everything in the room just from the doorway. The bed was against the corner on the back, right against the stone wall. It was high enough from the ground that anyone who craned their neck down a few inches would be able to see the cobwebs underneath it. The leather on top of it was also neatly organized and placed where a pillow would be. But. There was a tiny nook that was obscured by the leather and the bed, right in the stone wall. It wasn’t intentional, nor big enough to keep anything super important tucked away. It was just big enough for a couple of tiny things—like a hand-sized bottle—to sit snuggly between the stones.

There were a couple more things cramped up in the hole, but they were irrelevant. She quickly jammed her fingers into the gaps of the nook and fished the tiny salt bottle out of its hiding place, making sure to not jostle it against the rocks. Her handiwork was only decent, not invincible.

As she made her way out of the tent, she saw Stanley’s eyes fix onto hers for a second, before zapping down to the item in her hand. 

She got nearer to them, and as she got nearer, she uncorked the bottle so it would be ready for use. And then she hesitated. Besides laziness, there was another reason she never actually used the salt.

It was only a handful, and it was the only salt she had. After revival, the first thing she did was gather. A lot of gathering. Not a lot of stuff had survived unscathed, but of the things that were still intact and useful was a bottle of salt near where the cooking supplies used to be. Everything else was gone, but the salt was still tightly secured in the bottle.

Suika kept it. She assumed she would eventually use it, but the time never felt right. So the bottle stayed hidden away in the cavity of a wall. Perhaps it was best to give it to someone who would actually use it.

Shoving the bottle in front of Xeno, she saw him light up with glee. He quickly swiped it out of her hands to gently sprinkle onto the food in front of her.

“She had salt?”

Suika turned to Stanley, who looked like a kid that just learned 1 + 1 = 2.

“You didn’t try asking?” Xeno wore a smug smile on his face as he took the first bit of his salted meal.

Stanley snatched the salt bottle that rested beside Xeno. “I don’t speak Japanese, asshole,” he barked.

“He can’t either,” Suika muttered quietly. Stanley’s face whipped to her, eyes narrowed.

“You speak English?”

Suika shrugged.

“The entire time?”

She shrugged again.

Stanley looked back at Xeno. “Did you know this?”

Xeno, on the other hand, looked thoroughly offended. “My Japanese isn’t that bad.”

Stanley snorted. “I guess even having an astronaut as your tutor couldn’t save your shitty Japanese.” He looked to Suika again. “Back to you. You speak English?”

Suika nodded.

Xeno hijacked the topic, again.

“If my Japanese was so bad, how were you able to understand me, huh?”

Stanley rolled his eyes. “Wow, this is really getting to you. That Science brat really did a number to your ego, didn’t he?”

“He did not.” Xeno said just a bit too loudly.

Suika giggled, and Stanley sported a little smirk.

Xeno huffed and took a bite of his food. “And for your information, no, I didn’t know she could speak English. I’ve only ever heard her speak Japanese.”

Suika shrugged for an nth time. “There was no reason to speak to you directly, so…” she let her sentence trail off

Xeno looked thoughtful. A few seconds later, he responded. “I assume Senku or Gen must have taught you. Was it for tactical reasons, or was it purely for the sake of education?” He trailed off, mostly muttering to himself by the end of it.

Well…

“Kind of?”

Xeno perked up at the response.

“Gen helped a lot, but he wasn’t the main teacher.”

“Ah, so someone with an English background?”

Well…

“Sort of? Technically her Mom was from America, but she didn’t really teach her how to speak English for whatever reason, and so she had to learn through something else. Which is kinda slightly how she roped me and everyone else in? and then Gen kind of took control because he was, I think, the most fluent. But like, English wasn’t even the main point. I mean she also made merch and focused the group around-”

“What are you rambling on about?” Stanley, who was peacefully scarfing down his food after seasoning his meal, finally looked at her all annoyed. “Get to the point.”

“I, uh, learned from Nikki.” Stanley squinted his eyes and Xeno raised an eyebrow. “As a part of the Lillian Weinberg fanclub.”

Xeno blinked. Which, perhaps, out of context, that was a fair reaction.

Shortly after putting Tsukasa on ice, there was a lot of tension between the two sides. A lot of the folks who were a part of Tsukasa’s faction were pretty upset at being tricked into believing Lillian Weinberg was alive and kicking. There was a lot of diplomatic fluff pouring out of Gen’s mouth to try and soften the blow of the betrayal, but the lie still stung, especially to fans of the former pop-star.

From that, Nikki pitched a brilliant idea.

The only people who were blamed for the falsification of Lillian Weinberg were Senku and the Kingdom of Science. Nikki (and Ukyo too) somehow managed to avoid being branded as a member of the Kingdom of Science, meaning she had the best chance of changing people's perspectives without the action being seen as a way to placate the angry public.

And so, the Lillian Weinberg Fanclub was born. It was a group where Lillian Weinberg fans—and subsequently the Kingdom of Science’s biggest critics—could meet up and chat about the angelic singer. Suika hid while one of the first few meetings was occurring, just for curiosity’s sake. But, she was found pretty quickly after she accidentally sneezed. Though, instead of anyone getting mad at her, she was quickly added into the group. No one was going to be upset at a kid after all. The meeting ended up being a lot of fun, and the group encouraged her to come back for the next meeting.

Occurring twice a week, the meetings would often last an hour, usually after most of the work for the day was done, up until the sun had set. The meetings had first been about how cool Lillian was, and all her album concepts. They even made little pins with Lillian-related artwork, courtesy of Yuzuriha.

But then someone mentioned lyricism. Besides having the voice of an angel, Suika found that Lillian was apparently praised for her double entendres and clever wordplay by music critics back in the old world. But with English being no one’s first language, no more access to Google or Google translate (Google?), and Lillian’s southern accent to boot, discussing her lyrics was a bit of a hassle.

Which is why Gen came into the mix.

Officially, the original reason for creating the Lillian Weinberg Fanclub was to create a group for all the people who held the highest grudge to go somewhere and release their tension in a healthy manner. You know, so there wouldn’t be a civil war. Unofficially, It was meant to get them off of Gen’s back. Weeks of peace talk tended to be a bit exhausting, even for a first-rate mentalist.

But Gen had scammed Nikki into doing some of his work for him the other day. So for that reason, when talks about learning English came up, she pitched Gen’s name.

“I heard he’s really good with languages.” She said

Murmurs spread through the group

“Oh yeah, I heard he even performed in America.”

“According to Mira, he even represented Japan at a world summit.”

“My friend said he read his mind once, so maybe we won’t even have to ask!”

…Some of those statements sounded a bit too good to be true. There was a niggling feeling in her stomach that told her those statements had probably been distributed by her mentalist friend himself. The lies he spun were sometimes never amended. It led to funny situations occasionally—like the villagers thinking that Gen could spontaneously poof up flowers from his fingertips. Here, though, Gen might have just shot himself in the foot. So once the sun had set, and the last traces of color streaked the sky, the group set out to find Gen.

“I’m onored-hay to be receiving such an offer, but truly, my skills have been overexaggerated.” A humble, but slightly tight smile sat on the man’s face as he attempted to politely decline.

Nikki just wrapped an arm around Gen with an unsettlingly positive smile. “I heard it from Senku himself that you’ve got a knack for learning languages, and Senku almost never gives out compliments like that.” She looked back to the group. Before Gen could try and refute the statement. ”Did you know that he apparently picked up the villager dialect in a matter of days? Isn’t that right Suika?”

Suika nodded without much thought, only regretting it slightly when she caught Gen’s eyes looking right at her, face shifting from pleading to exasperation.

The group murmured in approval even more now.

“As much as I would love to-”

“Besides, this would make up for your little stint that tricked us all in the beginning.”

That got a flinch out of the Mentalist’s carefully crafted demeanor.

That got a few whispers from the group, the mood suddenly souring a bit. The wound had scabbed over, but it was still there, ready to be picked at by Nikki Hanada herself.

Safe to say, she won that round.

Gen had tried to ask Senku to bail him out of doing the work, but Senku just told him that since he had the time, Gen should use it productively. Because Senku had no pity for Gen.

So, in order to exact his revenge, Gen didn’t make it easy on the group. Technically, Suika could have easily left, but she was in too deep; her fellow fans were struggling, and she owed it to them to stay and learn English from the teacher from hell with them.

Gen was at least kind enough to keep the English relevant. He didn’t know quite as many songs as the rest of the group, but based off of the group’s collective regurgitation of the “lyrics”, Gen was able to decipher what was being said and taught them the meaning and layers of the lyrics.

Soon, word spread about the club and their weekly English classes. A few others joined, and the session went from just a normal Lillian Weinberg Fanclub meeting, to more of an English class that happened to have a heavy focus on Lillian Weinberg. It also ended up being shifted more to the day so that Gen could teach the class how to read and write as well.

It more than likely cut into the productivity levels of the group, but Senku was willing to deal with the repercussions just this once.

Ryusui’s revival only made it easier to practice. His English was on par with that of Gen, so sometimes Suika would go up to him and try and practice. Francois’s English was also pretty good, but they often stuck to Japanese for everyone else’s convenience.

(And also apparently they spoke a language called “French” with Gen. According to the mentalist apparently you need to practice a language often to keep up with it, especially if it’s not your native tongue).

So it wasn’t too bad. Besides, there were a few words here and there that she would recognize because the Ishigami Village dialect had either a similar copy of the word. When she mentioned it to Senku, he simply nodded with his eyes closed. “Lillian Weinberg’s influence stretches over millenia, it seems.” and just left it at that.

Cryptic, but pretty standard from someone like Senku.

“Lillian Weinberg, you say.” Xeno put a finger to his chin. Something about the scene looked off. Like he was missing something. “I suppose you’ll have to tell me more in detail.” He put his hands to his side to push himself up. His food was just about finished, the bones only carrying a little meat on them toward the top and bottom. The leather scrap he used as his plate was also put to the side, laying greasy and dirty. The wasted leather didn’t annoy Suika, no, not at all. “But for now, I’m going to need to see your glass-making skills.” He walked forward.

What?

“Yes, yes. And Stanley, for manual labor, who do you think we should revive first? These men served under you, so you  without a doubt have their capabilities noted down in your mind. Rank them in order of most to least effective for me, won’t you?” An affirmative grunt was heard in return.

What?

Xeno’s back was facing her now, but his attention was on his hand, which was bent up to the side and fiddling with something. That something that glinted in the sun. Suika readjusted her glasses and squinted. Sharp, pointy, and metallic. Actually, it looked like one of those spiky finger things he used to wear.

He tossed it up in the air a few inches and immediately caught it, pulling it close to his chest as he did a half turn to face the other two. The sun glared from behind him, and she almost couldn’t parse the twisted smile on his face. It was an awful lot like Senku’s, but it sparked none of the fuzzy and warm feelings she had come to associate with it.

“Now now, don’t just stand there, we’ve got people to revive.”

Stanley put something between his lips. “Don’t need to rush us. Not like we’re in a second Space Race.”

Xeno frowned, looking up. “Don’t be jumping any guns, Stanley. There’s still a lot we don’t know.”

Cryptic much? Maybe it was Xeno who taught Senku how to be so… different.

She put the thought away. She wasn’t the type to ask unnecessary questions.

Usually.

Okay, scratch that. That was a big lie. She was more curious than a Googler (She used that word correctly, right?), but her main focus at the moment was on how Xeno asked for her help. Obviously he only told her to do it so that she could help him in whatever scheme he was cooking up. And she could resist, sure, but her intuition told her that resistance wouldn’t get her very far. Best case scenario, they would just ignore her and keep her out of their work (which would be bad, because she would have no way to keep tabs on them). Worst case…

No. Her best bet would be to collaborate. That way she could get insight into their plans. It would probably take some time to gain their trust, considering Gen pulled what was essentially the same stunt, but this was her best option. And seeing how she didn’t have any other plan, this would give her some time to figure something out.

Reviving Senku was risky now. She tried to create another revival fluid batch for him because at the time, there was no Xeno. Stanley would gain more from Senku being alive than Senku being dead. Now, there’s no reason to keep him breathing. Xeno is back and Senku would just get in the way.

No, she would need to figure out something else.

“What do you need?” She asked. Both Xeno and Stanley looked at her with slightly varied faces of suspicion.

“Awfully eager aren’t we,” Xeno said, more statement than question.

Stanley and Xeno shared a look with each other. Maybe it was the glare of the sun, perhaps because they were from different continents, or maybe it was just because they were a breed of their own, but she couldn’t understand the look that passed between them. Long and stern. Eventually, they both gave a curt nod simultaneously.

Turning back to her, Xeno put on a smile and said, “Well first, I’ss need you to eat some food. After that, it’s just going to be a bunch of backbreaking labor. But you’re probably already used to that, no?”

Oh, Senku absolutely learned how to be evil from this man.