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Tsukasa's entire world — everything around him, his future, his past, his people — is saturated in a deep, viscous haze of black, lined with a subtle crimson hue that seeps further and further into his vision like fresh blood on white cloth.
Consciousness comes and goes at will. Sometimes, he'll awaken and catch a glimpse of someone entering or leaving his primitive shelter. Mirai's worried little face peering at him from the entrance, Taiju hauling in materials, Senku touching something up on the half-built cryosleep chamber. Glimpses of a present reality that's centered around him, yet he has no real part in creating. Glimpses that fade just as quickly as they come. They fade into darkness, then something slightly brighter, but still washed out by a grey shadow and a strong sense that the figures he sees in these visions are fragile, delicate in that they'll crumble to billions of tiny dust particles if he even lays his eyes on them wrong. This does nothing to help the shooting spikes of pain that ail both his physical, tangible midsection and something deep inside his chest. Inside his heart, crawling its way up to his throat and trying with all its strength to claw through in sobs that he isn't in the right condition to even make. He would argue that the emotional ache is worse than the stab wound.
"Tsukasa, how're you holding up?" Senku calls from his spot by the cooling structure.
Tsukasa can only manage a grunt in return.
"Don't push…"
Senku continues his sentence, but it gets lost in the haze. The darkness is all-encompassing.
Only briefly.
A figure sits in the distance. Tsukasa can't move any closer. It seems to drift toward him anyway… or possibly, he's being dragged toward it. It's a flimsy vision that wavers, yet it's potent enough that he can make out the shape to be a person. Definitely. A small person.
Mirai. A tiny baby. Floating in the void. Unaware, unassuming. Tsukasa watches carefully. He makes an attempt to reach out only to find that his arms are paralyzed. He thinks he can hear her crying. It sounds like she's underwater.
She morphs, growing up in darkness in a matter of seconds. Then, she disappears. The painful tension in his throat returns.
The haze becomes too thick again for him to see much of anything anymore, and he feels a flit of consciousness, a semblance of some kind of conversation happening outside his current plane, the color of the cave ceiling returning to his vision again. And it almost seems like it's teasing him, because he tries to climb out of this darkness, only to find himself falling back, the consciousness racing away from him. Free-falling. The sensation of the makeshift bed beneath him disappears entirely. He's at the whim of deluded gravity.
He never hits any surface, instead slowing to a stop in midair after falling for far too long. Ground forms beneath him. These senses are much more vivid than they were before — he can see a blue sky, smell the air as fresh as it was when he was first breaking out of the stone. Tsukasa isn't sure if he's naked. It feels like it, but he can't see his body. Only what's happening around him.
An entire pride of snarling lions. He's surrounded. When they all lunge, he flinches, but he can't feel anything. He can only watch them tear him apart limb from limb. Within a few short moments, they all have blood-stained mouths. Unforgiving and unapologetic eyes. Those of a natural apex predator, of course. They need this. This is how they survive. Blood pools on the ground around him. He watches as his leg appears out of thin air as soon as it's detached, mauled and devoured. His arm follows. And the others. He's certain by now he's seen every last bit of him mutilated.
The lions lose interest eventually and choose to turn to each other instead. They fight overtop of him. Or… whatever was left of him. Mercilessly. Mauling each other the way they just did to him. But they're warded off by a familiar shout. A loud one. If he still had ears, they'd be bleeding.
Big, determined brown eyes appear before him, and they're filled with tears that pour down Taiju's face in gallons' worth of streams.
"TSUKASAAAA!!! WE CAN'T LOSE YOU TOO!!!"
Lose me? Taiju, I'm still alive. Don't worry.
"YOU CAN'T DIE!! WE ALREADY LOST SENKU, WE CAN'T LOSE YOU TOO!!!"
Senku? What happened to him?
"You said you'd protect him, didn't you??"
A different voice this time. The… blonde girl from the primitive village. What was her name?
"I saw everything, long-haired man. You said you'd protect him." She is undoubtedly fuming. Her face is twisted like he's never seen anyone's face look before. Her sharp glare is enough to kill him now. "How could you?!"
What happened to him??
"You said you'd protect him!! How could you??!"
What HAPPENED to him???
Swift, as she usually is, she draws her blade, and Tsukasa can't tell, but he gets the sense that he's been beheaded. Taiju's sobs only grow louder.
"TSUKASAAAAAA!!!"
I can explain!! I promise!!
"I don't wanna hear whatever bullshit explanation you've got."
Tsukasa despises the lucid chill that runs through his body when Kohaku's voice melts into Senku's mid-sentence.
He turns his head to the left. Very slowly.
"You said you'd protect me. What's that all about?"
Wakefulness hits him like a truck. The urge to sit up shoots through his body, but a sharp, stupefying pain renders his motion nothing but a pointless flail. An aggressive twitch.
"Hey. Hey hey hey- what's the matter with you?? I told you to stay still!" Senku rushes to Tsukasa's side. Head still attached, apparently. Tsukasa sighs with relief. As much as he can sigh without it feeling like he's being stabbed again.
"Nightmare," Tsukasa manages. "You- your head was- chopped clean off."
"Jeez." The look that Senku gives him might be the most pitying he's ever seen Senku. "Killing me off even in your dreams."
"I didn't m-"
"No, I get it. If that's how you really feel. You still want the science man gone, even after he got your sister back for you. What a shame."
…What? No, I-
"Well, it was fun while it lasted, Tsukasa, but if you're still gonna fight me, I guess I'll just have to go and let you die."
Wakefulness hits him like a bus. The urge to sit up shoots through his body, but a sharp, stupefying pain renders his motion nothing but a pointless flail. Another aggressive twitch. More real this time. He can feel the air now.
"Tsukasa!! Snap out of it, will you??"
"I didn't mean to!! I didn't mean to-"
"Didn't mean to what??? Breathe, man. I know it hurts but you gotta slow your heart rate down or you'll straight up die before I can even finish making the freezer. Relax."
With the help of Senku's hand on his shoulder, Tsukasa breathes. The line between dream and reality is thinning. It takes the two of them a few minutes to calm the tremors running through his body.
Senku sighs. He looks down at Tsukasa, his eyes sort of droopy in comparison to their usual sharp, energized look. "You good?"
Tsukasa nods.
"Nightmare?"
He nods again.
"Mm. Can't blame you." Senku's eyes avoid Tsukasa. They stick to a wall. "Honestly…" he continues quietly. "I've been having nightmares, too. Gets in the way of my work. And it's your fault, primate."
Tsukasa swallows. There's that ache in his chest again. It must be visible on his face, because Senku bites his tongue like he's regretting not having done it before.
"Kidding. Don't sweat it."
When Senku's hand combs through his hair, stopping at the small stone fragments at the bottom of each section and returning to the top for another slow stroke, Tsukasa relaxes ever so slightly. There's still tension in… most of his body that he just can't shake yet. It can't possibly be good for his wound.
"I know you're probably having…" Senku pauses to mull over his words. "…a lot of feelings. But you have to prioritize your physical state right now, so you can't get all worked up. Tell me about your nightmare."
Breathing is difficult. Speaking coherently is harder. But Senku is close enough for his whispers to be audible.
"Senku," Tsukasa chokes between breaths, "you're- under a lot of stress, too. You don't- have to be my therapist- on top of…"
"Dude. I'm trying to help you. Let me help you. If it's awkward, pretend you're my kid or something. It's okay to have nightmares as a grown man."
"I think- that'd make it worse. And it's not-… I don't- mind that. I can handle it. Really."
"Stop playing tough guy."
"I'm not!! I just don't-… understand…"
Why…
Senku frowns. His fingertips brush Tsukasa's cheek. Out cold. How many times does he have to explain to Tsukasa that it's in the past already? That they're going to fix everything and that they've already started doing so? What kind of measurable antidote is there for guilt that runs through Tsukasa's blood at such a concentration that he can't even begin to imagine letting it go?
Why Senku cares so much… is a different question entirely. He could be the one letting it go. So why…
Time doesn't pass anymore the same way it did when he was fully conscious. Minutes feel like hours, and hours feel like seconds. Feelings and instincts are askew. And yet, he can stull fully feel that sense of dread when he starts to see colors again. They swirl for a bit, then eventually find their rightful places as the sky, the greenery, the dirt, and a new figure, all of which are just slightly off, whether it's in their coloring or in the way they move like physics doesn't exist to them. The ground randomly rippling or leaves hanging in midair. Of course, all of these details are difficult to take note of, what with how his vision is blurred. That haze is becoming too familiar. When he thinks of the moment he might start to find some comfort in it, he shivers.
The figure becomes the clearest thing in sight. It's Senku. And he's in Tsukasa's arms.
It's almost like Senku waits for Tsukasa to come to his senses enough before he speaks.
"Are you gonna crush me?"
What?
Senku looks up at Tsukasa. Entirely unfazed.
"I said, are you gonna crush me? Is that why you're holding me?"
No. I-…
"Or do you have a crush on me? Which is it?"
Well. That's in character for Senku, at least, Tsukasa decides.
Childish way to put it.
"Fine. You're in love with me. And that's cool and all, but I've got better things to do."
If Tsukasa really leans into his delirium, the bluntness is kind of endearing.
Both of us do. I'm busy trying to help my sister.
"That's certainly chivalrous, isn't it?" Senku's fingertips touch his cheek and stay there. He swears he can feel it. "You're so strong. And you do so much that you think is good. But you're wrong."
You're not good, either.
"I know. There's no such thing as good. So there's no bad, either. And neither of those concern me."
This is bizarre. You would not say that.
Senku tilts his head and frowns. He holds Tsukasa's face with both his hands. Firmly.
"Who's to say? Do you know me as well as you think you do? We spent so much time apart, after all."
But we spent so much time together.
"Over a year ago. What does that mean?"
Everything.
"What about right now? And our future?"
They're interrupted by a snarling sound. Another lion. Tsukasa jumps, but Senku looks as unfazed as ever.
"That's my lioness. She's nothing to be afraid of if you decide not to crush me. She protects me. Would you?"
I think I would give my life to you.
"You think. Well, that's not nearly as exhilarating as this."
The lioness stands on her hind legs. She pulls a gun out of a holster on her hip.
Hold on. What???
This time, all he can do is open his eyes. It's a clean interruption. Somewhere in his foggy mind, he's hoping his thoughts become muddled enough for him to forget that one.
He turns his head, not fully processing whatever light chooses to hit his retinas, mostly because there's not much of it. It's dark, both outside and in the naturally murky lighting of the cave. Senku still sits beside him. He's asleep. And sitting up, too. In a poor attempt to call out to him and wake him up, Tsukasa barely whispers his name. His thoughts are reduced from words to a vague sense of worry.
Tsukasa uses what little strength he has to squeeze Senku's hand. He's not sure how it got there. He's not in the headspace to try and remember if it was always there.
What matters is that it's there now.
Another vision of Mirai follows. Much clearer this time. Tsukasa feels calm and warmth.