Chapter Text
From a very young age, Shishio Tsubaki had come to learn the world was not hers.
“No, you can’t play with us, you’re a girl!” they said. “No, you can’t push that boy down just because he pushed you!” they said. “No, seashells won’t be enough to bring her back,” they said. No, no, no, that’s all they ever said. She couldn’t do anything, couldn’t fight back. And even when she proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that she could, she could only do it in a certain way. “Tsubaki, fight this man!” and “Tsubaki, pose for that camera!”. Do this show, this interview, this tournament, please please please Tsubaki!
It was perfectly clear. No matter how strong she was, how hard she worked, her life was not her own. The world was already owned, and it would never be hers.
But then the world went away.
Tsubaki wasn’t sure how it happened. One moment, she was in a locker room, preparing herself for the next fight. She closed her eyes for just a second, and found she could not open them again. There was nothing; no sound, no smell, no light. She couldn’t even feel her own body anymore. The martial artist tried everything in her power to do… something, anything! But soon her consciousness faded, and there was only darkness.
….
CRACK!
The noise jolted her awake, if she had even been sleeping to begin with. The cracking grew louder; she felt the chill of fresh air, which brought the smell of spring with it. Finally the cracking rang out all around her head, and light flooded her eyes.
“Sorry! I know this isn’t what you wanna wake up to after sleeping a few thousand years!”
First, assess.
“What’s the situation?”
She could feel her body again, yet she still felt trapped by… something. There was growling all around her, a low and guttural sound that couldn’t be human. Her eyes adjusted to the light, revealing two men standing before her in a wooded area: a muscly brunette, the one who had initially spoken, and a thin, green-haired boy. The latter glanced her way when she spoke, crimson eyes carrying a million racing thoughts behind them. “Your body is covered in stone,” he said, calmly and straight to the point. “There are lions from your nine-o’clock to your two.”
Second, react.
“Okay.”
Tsubaki flexed and stretched, the stone shell shattering and falling away. Once she was on her feet, the martial artist flung the remaining stone fragments from her arms into the wall of lions. There were five in total: four lionesses and one male, the leader of the pride. The fragments managed to stun the lions (and the brunette that hadn’t ducked in time), but the male recovered more quickly than anticipated and pounced. Tsubaki met its charge head on. When the moment was right, she planted her feet, crouched low, and punched the lion mid lunge. A direct blow to the chest sent the beast flying into a tree with a great thud. The lionesses, now without their leader, balked and were sent away by one final glare.
Behind her the boys were already chatting away, but Tsubaki’s focus was on the lion. She had expected it to get back up and stalk away in shame, but it remained unmoving at the base of the tree. The martial artist crouched down beside it, checking it over. She placed a hand near its mouth to feel for breath. Nothing. The lion was dead.
She had killed a lion with a single punch.
“Hey,” she called to the two others with her. “Do either of you have something to butcher this with? A knife? Or a sharp stone, if that’s all we have.”
“Wait, you’re gonna eat that lion?!” the brunette shouted. “Can you even EAT lion?!”
“Sure you can, it’s not poisonous,” answered the green-haired boy. “But it’s tough as hell and reeks of ammonia.”
“When the hell did you eat lion?!”
“When I went to Africa to study Ebola.”
“WHAT KIND OF A HIGH SCHOOLER ARE YOU?!”
Tsubaki paid no heed to the boys’ squabbling, still petting the lion’s pelt as if it were a house cat. Even if it had been in self defense, the martial artist had still taken this creature’s life. The least she could do to honor it would be to make use of as much of it as possible. She said as much out loud, and was met with an overly loud declaration of “SHE’S GREAT!”. After the ringing in her ears died down, she found the green-haired boy smirking above her, a stone knife in hand. “That circle-of-life crap doesn’t move me one millimeter, but I agree with not wasting meat or resources.”
Tsubaki decided, as she took the knife, that this boy with red eyes was an interesting one.
The lion was too large to bring back to their campsite safely, so a fire was built right at that spot. The boys finally introduced themselves: the loud brunette was Taiju, and the thin greenette was Senku. The full situation was finally explained to Tsubaki as well. “It is March 27th of the year 5739, roughly 3700 years after whatever event turned us all to stone,” Senku said. “As you can see, nothing from our past civilization survived to the present day, leaving us to start over from scratch.”
Tsubaki hummed. “So you two intend to rebuild the old world.”
“Pretty much. Exhilarating, isn’t it?”
“Hmm.” This Senku was hard to get a read on: declaring such noble aspirations with a wicked smile upon his face. Tsubaki instead put her focus on the tasks at hand. The most immediate being making sure the lion meat did not burn over the fire. As she gave their makeshift spit a turn, the long-term goals began to bounce through her mind. Rebuilding civilization would have been a tall order for the entire population of Tokyo, but numbering just the three of them? Even if such a thing were humanly possible….
Was civilization as they knew it worth bringing back?
“And you thought I should be one of the first to help you achieve such a goal?”
“Well, not exactly,” Taiju answered. He seemed to have perpetually had a hand over his eyes for the past few hours now. “We wanted to bring back our friend Yuzuriha first, but then the lions came outta nowhere! Luckily I remembered where your statue was from before!”
“I see.” Tsubaki’s gaze fell on the statue propped up nearby: a young girl with a white headband stared unseeingly back. “So that means you’ve found a way to break someone out of the stone. How is it done?”
The instant Taiju opened his mouth, Senku was there to cover it up. “Sorry, but that’s a trade secret. Maybe try again later, when we know we can trust you.”
“S-Senku! You can’t say-!”
“It’s fine, Taiju. I take no offense. I realize it will take some time to earn your trust.” Intellectually she knew this was to be expected: Tsubaki was a stranger to them. She didn’t have the same relationship with these boys as they obviously had with each other. And yet she felt… disappointed by Senku’s distrust. Not for the first time that night, she found her gaze wandering to the thin boy’s eyes, crimson and still full of racing thoughts. Never had she seen such eyes before. “But I will promise you this now, Senku. As long as I’m here, you and Taiju will never be in danger again. From now on, I’ll be the one fighting.”
An unreadable stare was her only answer for a moment. Then Senku’s chuckle broke the silence, along with the sound of his neck cracking. “Big promises there, Tsubaki.”
“Hmm, and vowing to restore humanity to its former technological peak is such a small chore in comparison.”
That got a more genuine laugh out of the red-eyed boy. “Yeah, I think we’re gonna get along just fine.”
With that their gazes finally parted, and Tsubaki found her face to be warmer than usual. Most likely from being so close to the fire. Yes. No other reason. Suddenly desperate for a change in subject, she turned her attention to the other boy. “By the way, Taiju, is there a reason you’re covering your eyes?”
Taiju’s face (at least the part she could see) flushed a bright red. “It’s rude to look at a girl when she’s naked!”
Tsubaki glanced down at herself. The first thing she noticed was a long, jagged scar that hadn’t been there before: it traveled diagonally across her chest, starting from her left shoulder and crossing over her right breast. The second was that, yes, she wasn’t wearing any of the clothes she’d had on before the stone. Huh, she hadn’t even noticed.
“Like I said earlier, you big oaf, the Stone World is a special situation,” Senku sneered. “We’ve got more important things to worry about than whether or not your butt’s showing, or if someone’s tits or dick are hanging out.”
“Tsubaki doesn’t have a dick!”
“And just like earlier, YOU ARE MISSING THE POINT!”
“Besides, she’s a celebrity! That’s like a next level invasion of privacy!”
“I believe I have a solution for that.” The whole time the boys had been squabbling, Tsubaki had wandered over to where they had hung the lion’s pelt. She felt its underside; it was dry enough. With a grand sweep, she pulled the pelt off the branch and draped it over her shoulders. The lion skin’s front legs and paws covered her breasts just fine, but perhaps if she twisted them like a scarf… yes, that obscured her lower parts well enough too. “Is this better, Taiju?”
Taiju dared to take a peak. “Yeah! You actually look really cool!”
For a long moment, Senku’s eyes were once again unreadable. “She’s a regular Monster Hunter, isn’t she,” he finally added with a shrug.
Tsubaki smiled. Yes, she could see herself getting along with these two.
The hike to the boys’ camp was thankfully uneventful. The noon sun was shining down on them by the time they finally arrived. Although humble, the camp was surprisingly well built. A large tree house stood suspended in a zelkova tree at the center of the clearing. Beside the treehouse’s ladder were clay jars of various sizes and a rack full of stone-headed spears. But the most interesting thing Tsubaki saw was a small shed a little ways off, the word “laboratory” engraved into the wood above its door.
Taiju came forward, carrying the statue of the girl called Yuzuriha like it weighed nothing. He leaned the statue against the tree and offered it many reassurances. Senku paid the display no mind as he made a beeline for the lab shed. “I’ll see what I can scrounge up for clothing,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Until then, just make yourself comfortable. I’m sure I’ll have a job for you later.” And with that, he had disappeared behind the lab’s curtain door.
Tsubaki suddenly found herself with a surplus of energy with no place to use it. She wandered over to the jars and spears. The weaponry seemed to be in good condition, but it was hard to tell if that came from good maintenance or simply lack of use. One look into the jars revealed a sparse collection of mushrooms and other wildgreens. Was this all they had been eating up until this point? “Taiju, how has yours and Senku’s diet been recently?”
“Huh?” Taiju spun around in surprise. “Well, Senku sets up traps, and sometimes we catch a rabbit or a deer. But we mainly end up eating the stuff I forage. You know, mushrooms and stuff. But man, lately I’ve been dreaming about eating so much meat that my belly explodes!”
“Hmm. That won’t do.” Wildgreens were good and all, but without a steady source of protein, it was a miracle these boys had survived so long on their own. “You won’t be living like that anymore. I’ll be taking care of the hunting from now on.” Tsubaki offered Taiju a smile as she took up one of the spears. “I won’t be long.” And then she was off at an inhuman dash through the brush.
Tsubaki still found herself marveling at it all. That clearing, these woods, they had once been a part of a bustling city, and now no trace of it remained. The sun was allowed to shine through luscious trees onto a thriving forest floor. The chirping birds, the trickle of a stream, the roar of the wind through her hair as she ran. All of it was beautiful. An untainted paradise.
A herd of wild boars soon crossed her path. They noticed her immediately, and a stampede began. Racing to the front of the herd was child’s play for Tsubaki, as was stopping the two largest boars in their tracks. One swift blow with the spear to each of their necks, and the martial artist had secured her prey.
Senku’s eyes bugged out at the sight of her hefting the two boars back to camp. “What kinda cheat codes do you have?” he asked weakly. “And where’d you learn to hunt exactly?”
“I once participated in a tv special on wilderness survival,” she answered half-truthfully. Although Tsubaki had learned a great deal from her more experienced co-stars, the only reason she was brought onto the show was so they could film her wrestling a mountain gorilla. “And now that I’m here, you two won’t have to just dream about filling your bellies.”
Senku cracked his neck, muttering “a real Monster Hunter,” under his breath. He handed Tsubaki a knife, and the pair set about butchering the boars.
“We can use the meat and bones for food and tools, respectively,” Tsubaki commented. “But I assume you’ll also want to keep the fat, right?”
“Yep, I’ve got a project in mind for that stuff.” A smirk crossed the young scientist’s face. “Look at you, OP strength AND functional brain cells.”
She smiled, enjoying the praise. “It would’ve been difficult to remain the “Strongest Primate High-Schooler” if I had flunked out of high school. I always made sure to keep up with my studies.”
“Good. As enthusiastic as he is, it’s impossible to have an intellectual conversation with Taiju, and talking at monkeys and statues is just pathetic. Let’s hope you have what it takes to keep up with what I say.”
“I’ll try my best. Hmm.” Senku was still looking at her, expectantly. “You mean, right now?”
“Yep! So settle in and get excited!”
Senku launched into a lecture covering… well, anything and everything. From primitive survival hacks to “modern” day rockets. As promised, Tsubaki kept pace with the conversation to the best of her ability, even adding her own thoughts here and there. Though her knowledge dwindled on a topic or three, it was hard not to find it all fascinating. Not just the science, but the way the young scientist seemed to light up while talking. She was staring into his eyes again, taking note of how bright and alive they were. “Hey, you’re not getting sick on me, are you?”
Tsubaki snapped back into reality. “Sorry?”
“You’re spacing out, and your face is all red.”
Her face was uncomfortably warm, just as it had been last night. “It’s nothing, I’m fine,” she replied while glancing away, ignoring the skips in her heartbeat.
Soon enough they finished butchering the boars. While Senku struggled to lift the clay pot full of animal fat, Tsubaki hung the pelts on a twine rope hung between the tree and the lab. “By the way,” he said, “we didn’t have enough spare leather before, but with the boar pelts, I should be able to whip up some actual clothes for you.”
“Oh, that’s good. Do you need my-?”
“Measurements? No, I’ve got those already.”
“How did-?”
Senku’s face was deadpan. “You made it painfully difficult NOT to notice.”
There was no hiding her blush then. “… I see.” What she did next wasn’t so much ‘running away’ as it was a… tactical retreat. “I-I shall rest for a bit while you do that,” the martial artist stammered out before totally not scurrying up the treehouse ladder. In her embarrassment, Tsubaki failed to notice the flush on Senku’s own face.
It was only on the second day since her awakening that Tsubaki finally got a good look at her face. It was hard not to notice the crack-like scars around Senku and Taiju’s eyes. When she asked about them, she was given a lecture by the young scientist that ended up diverging from the original topic halfway through. The long and short of it was that the marks were the non-harmful after-effects of depetrification. Tsubaki had assumed the scar along her chest had been the only one she had. It wasn’t until she stumbled upon a small still pond that she discovered the diagonal lines crossing over her own eyes.
They’re not half bad, she thought to herself. I look quite fierce, in fact.
To celebrate her new-found look, both her scars and the red pelt dress Senku had finished for her, Tsubaki took to the tree tops and snatched several geese mid-flight by their necks. “I thought maybe we could use the feathers in pillows,” she told Senku as she plucked the birds later that night.
“They wouldn’t be as comfortable as down or memory foam,” he answered with a shrug, “but hey, it’s better than nothing.” The young scientist was busy across the fire, sorting through Taiju’s foraging basket. He pulled out a bright red white-spotted mushroom with a grimace. “Again with the Mario mushrooms. I told him these were poisonous at least three times already.”
“I have to ask,” Tsubaki began. “I mean no offense by this, but you don’t strike me as an ‘out-doors’ person. And yet you know so much about surviving in the wilderness. Why is that?”
Senku paused in his task to look up at her. “The answer’s simple really: learning how to survive in harsh environments is one of the core parts of astronaut training. It’s just as important as operating a rocket or getting your body used to zero gravity. Of course, all my knowledge regarding ‘roughing it’ was purely hypothetical until all of this.”
“Hmm. So an astronaut? That’s your dream?” She could see it: Senku clad in padded white and an oversized helmet, drifting hundreds of miles above the Earth, smirking as he reached for the stars beyond. It was such a shame, though, that such a thing would never come to pass now. “I’m sorry that all of this took your dream away from you.”
His laugh startled her. “Are you kidding me? This is the best thing I could’ve hoped for! Do you know how much red tape and committee decisions it took to even be considered for an astronaut program? Not only can I skip all of that, I can build the damn rocket myself!”
Building a rocket?! We’re just barely scraping by day after day! Surely we can’t reach space travel again, not in this lifetime. “How?” was all Tsubaki said aloud.
There was that gleam in his crimson eyes again. “You can accomplish anything through the diligent application of science. Step by tiny step, even if it takes years or decades.” She followed his gaze up to the night sky. “It’ll be slow as hell, and a real pain in the ass at times.” He raised his hand skyward. “But no matter what, I’m going to space.” He clenched his fist as if to grab the stars themselves.
And as Tsubaki watched on, she found that she believed him.
The next day saw Tsubaki at the beach, spearing fish by the dozen. It was a beautiful day: even in the chilly spring air, the sun felt warm on her skin, and the waves were gentle, only disturbed from their original course by her. She couldn’t remember the last time she had gone to the ocean of her own volition. Instead of posing for an endless number of cameras, she splashed and swam and skewered piranhas on her spear. It was the most fun Tsubaki had had on a beach since… well, forever.
Of course, it couldn’t be all great.
“Senku, how far along are we from shampoo?” the martial artist asked as she emerged. "Or at least conditioner?" She couldn’t see much of anything from behind her tangled mane, but she heard Taiju’s yelp as he averted his gaze from her nude form. Raking a hand through all the knots and tangles proved more than fruitless, only succeeding in tugging on her poor scalp. Not even the stone ringlets that had remained in and helped to separate her hair seemed all that useful anymore. Finally having enough, she stuck her spear in the ground and flipped her head down and up again. The action probably made her hair worse, but at the very least she could see again.
Senku glanced at her from the fire he was trying to start. “Shampoo as we know it requires sulfuric acid, which we don’t have, or any safe way to get it. Conditioner's a no go too at the moment.”
“I thought not.” Tsubaki passed him the spear full of fish, and gladly reciprocated his offered high five.
“On the bright side,” the young scientist added while cracking his neck. “With you and me working together, we should have no problem with food storage.” He set the fish spear on a rack over the fire, beginning the process of smoking them. “Which means we finally get to move on to Step One of this civilization game!”
“WHAT?!” Taiju, of course, shouted. He was still covering his eyes, which prompted Tsubaki to go and retrieve her dress. “You mean we’re still on Step Zero?!”
It was when she was bending down to pick up her dress that she saw it. Something was sticking out from under a boulder. As she got closer, Tsubaki saw what looked like a human foot. She heard Senku ask what was wrong, but her mind was already assessing the situation. The boulder was fairly eroded, and just one punch could… no, if that was what she thought it was under there, a punch straight down would risk damage. Instead, she dug her feet into the sand, spun around, and swung her leg full force into the boulder. The second her heel made contact, the rock split in half, and the top half rolled and bounced into the surf. It took little effort to lift and flip over the broken bottom half to reveal the statue of a young girl. “Apologies for startling you, boys.” She hefted the statue into her arms and moved it to a more stable location.
“Tsubaki’s really great, isn’t she?!”
“Keh. It’s like having a real-life superhero, isn't it?”
And oh how nice the praise felt.
Later on, when their bellies were all but bulging from their feast of fish, the topic returned to Senku’s Step One. “Pop quiz,” Senku announced with his mouth full. “What’s the first most important component for a technological civilization?”
While Tsubaki carefully turned the question over in her head, smoke was practically pouring out of Taiju’s ears. “First thing… it’s gotta be something tech-y… SMARTPHONES?!”
Tsubaki blanched. Actually blanched.
How? How does one’s mind immediately jump to one of the most advanced and complicated things?! I know Senku calls him a meathead, but… seriously?!
“Yeah, that’d be nice,” Senku said in a syrupy sweet voice. “I’d kill for a smartphone right about now.” Then his whole demeanor changed. “IF ONLY WE COULD WARP A FEW BILLION YEARS INTO THE FUTURE, BIG OAF! Your unbelievably stupid answer turned the already lily-white Tsubaki several shades paler!”
That knocked the martial artist out of her stupor. “Lily-white?”
Senku’s face was beat-red, and for the first time since she’d known him, the scientist was at a loss for words. “I- I said what I said!” He finally managed to spit out. “Now hurry up with your answer, you- you!” Tsubaki couldn’t help the laugh that suddenly escaped her. There was something so adorable about a flustered Senku. “S-shut up!”
“Apologies, Senku,” she managed once the laughs died down. “As to your question… would it be iron?”
“Iron’s good,” the young scientist answered, face still flushed but dying down, “but we’re still a way’s away from that milestone.” Now fully recovered, Senku’s signature smirk returned. “The correct answer is calcium carbonate!”
“Aha!” Taiju exclaimed. “As usual, I don’t have a clue!”
Calcium carbonate, Tsubaki thought. That does sound familiar. Does he mean…. “Lime?”
“Ding ding! Ten billion points to Lily-White! In terms you’ll understand, Taiju, it’s the stuff they use to mark up athletic fields.”
It was Tsubaki’s turn to blush now. “L-Lily-White?”
Who is ‘Lily-White’? Is that supposed to be me? Is he just going to call me that from now on? Is it an insult? A nickname?! Why do I even care what he calls me? Why is my heart beating so loud now?!
The conversation between the boys carried on. Something about “gym storage rooms” and “trimming beards”. Tsubaki was too busy spiralling to pay much attention. Then there were fingers snapping in front of her face. “Yo, Earth to Strongest Primate High-Schooler! Don’t go spacing out on me again.”
Right. This was no time to fall apart. Her face was still undoubtedly red, but Tsubaki composed herself. “Sorry, I got lost in thought. Hmm.”
“Forget about it,” Senku dismissed. “You and the Big Oaf are on seashell duty. That’s how we’re getting our calcium carbonate.” He stood and brushed off the sand. “I’ve got another project in mind, so I’ll meet you both back at camp.” The scientist made for the treeline….
“Wait.” Tsubaki grabbed his hand and pretended not to notice the way he flinched. “Why ‘Lily-White’?”
Senku’s expression was unreadable. “…Did that slip out?” He looked away. “I’m sorry, it’s just some dumb nickname. I won’t-.”
“No no, it’s okay! It’s just- no one’s ever given me a nickname before.” Titles, sure, but never nicknames. Nicknames felt more… intimate, somehow. Tsubaki suddenly had to look away too. “I… don’t mind it. If you keep using it, I mean.”
Why is this so difficult? It’s just a nickname!
“…Okay. Later, Lily-White.”
“…Until then, Senku.”
And with that, he was gone.
If Taiju noticed Tsubaki acting strangely, he thankfully didn’t say anything. The two worked side by side well into the evening, plucking shells out of the sand left and right. By the time the sun had disappeared behind the horizon, they had filled three woven baskets. “Awesome job, Tsubaki! You think this’ll be enough for Senku?”
“Well,” Tsubaki answered as she hefted one basket over her shoulder, “we know where to find more if it isn’t.”
Taiju effortlessly lifted up the two remaining baskets, and the pair set off back to camp.
“So, you’ve already got your nickname from Senku, huh?”
“Hmm. I suppose so.”
“That’s great! Though ‘Lily-White’ is much nicer sounding than ‘Big Oaf’. It’s very pretty!”
Tsubaki hummed in reply and they fell into silence for a bit. Then the curiosity got too much for her. “Hey, Taiju… How long have you known Senku?”
“Since elementary school. Why d’you ask?”
“I’m just curious, that’s all. You seem close, and yet he seems quite… harsh with you at times.”
Taiju gave her an impossibly bright grin. “That’s just Senku for you! He has kind of a weird love language, but trust me: he doesn’t waste time on things that don’t interest him. He wouldn’t be always lecturing me, or correcting me, or calling me ‘Big Oaf’, if he didn’t think of me as a friend. And he definitely wouldn’t have spent months waiting for me to revive.”
“…I see.” She rolled this new information around in her mind. Senku doesn’t waste time on things that don’t interest him. “So how did you two meet?”
“Oh, that’s a story! So Senku was always down by the riverbank after school. Everyday I would pass by him on my way home, and he’d always be doing these crazy experiments! I would ask him about it the next day, and ask him if we could be friends. But he would always tell me to go away! Then one day, he had this big machine, and a bunch of middle schoolers started kicking at it. Before I knew what I was doing, I charged in and stopped them!”
“You fought off a group of middle schoolers for a boy who didn’t even want to be your friend?” “Nope! I just took all the hits until they got bored and left, ha ha!”
That... is not all that surprising, actually.
“Afterwards, Senku dragged me back to his house and patched me up. He kept calling me a ‘Big Oaf’ the whole time. And we’ve been best friends ever since!”
“That’s… lovely.” I think?
“Yeah, that takes me back….” Another comfortable silence fell. Then, just as they were reaching the camp clearing, Taiju spoke up again. “You know, I’m actually kinda jealous of you.”
“Hmm? How so?”
“It took me two months to convince Senku that I wanted to be his friend for no other reason than I thought he was cool! And it took even longer for him to get used to Yuzuriha when she joined our friend group. But you! It’s like you both just clicked into place, and now you understand each other in a way I could never! Like it was meant to be!” Like it was meant to be. Of course, she showed none of it on her face, but it was difficult not to feel giddy at the thought. Thankfully, Taiju didn’t notice Tsubaki’s sudden silence. “Either way, I’m super glad we have you around! And I know Senku is too!” He gave her a hearty slap on the back that would’ve knocked someone else clean off their feet.
“Thank you, Taiju,” she replied, attempting not to recoil at the blow she just took. “And I’m glad I got to meet you both.” And she meant it. How lucky Senku was to have had a friend like Taiju, and for Taiju to have him. If she’d had friends like them in the world before, then maybe….
“We’re back, Senku!” Taiju announced.
There at the center of camp was Senku, head bent over a clay basin resting over the fire. Without looking back at them, he poured a bowl of… something into the steaming basin. As she approached, Tsubaki was suddenly overwhelmed by a powerful aroma. It was a soothing smell, with a hint of something sharp. “Senku, what is that?”
“This?” Senku chuckled. “Herbs for scent; salt to act as an abrasive scrub; soybean oil as our detangling agent; and of course hot water to actually do the washing.” The scientist lifted the basin, or at least tried to. “It’s nothing like… what we had… back then- shit!” Tsubaki caught the basin and scientist before either could drop. Senku looked up and offered a smile. Not one of his usual smirks, or even the wicked grin he would sometimes get when talking about experiments and such. This was something softer, kinder. Real. “But it’ll get the job done all the same. And you, Lily-White, get first dibs.”
She was handed the full weight of the basin. Steam rolled over her face, carrying the fresh scent of lavender and mint. “You… made me shampoo?”
“Well, it’s less shampoo, and more of a hair scrub.”
“But still….” He made this for me. One off-handed comment about shampoo, and he goes out of his way, putting off the main projects, for this. For me. She looked up from the basin and found crimson eyes looking back. Because Senku doesn’t waste time on things he wasn’t invested in.
“Thank you.”
Tsubaki finally had a name for it. Three days of blushing, skipping heartbeats, comfort and embarrassment. Three days of a feeling- no, a flurry of emotions she had never felt before. And all for this boy. Her first friend.
And, Tsubaki realized, she wanted him to be much more.
Senku watched as Tsubaki took the hair-scrub basin toward the river, until the lion pelt disappeared into the thicket.
“She’s real solid, isn’t she?!” Taiju proclaimed. “Just look at all the shells we got!”
No reaction.
15 seconds. 20. 25. There, that should put enough distance between us. Now then….
“Uh, Senku?” The young scientist trudged over to the lab shed. And bashed his head against the doorframe. Repeatedly.
“Stupid! Fucking! Adolescent! Male! HORMONES!”
“S-Senku, stop that!” Taiju hauled his friend away from the wall, but the shouting didn’t stop.
“Don’t try to stop me, Big Oaf! My brain needs to reboot! That’s the only way to get these feelings flushed out!”
“Feelings?! What are you talking about?!”
“It’s not enough that she’s ridiculously overpowered, or that she has a body that would make any JoJo character eat his heart out! No, she also has to be SMART! Smart and witty and caring and- and with big hair and gorgeous eyes! And don’t get me started on that damn smile! How is it that one person just gets to walk around being so effortlessly PERFECT?! I just- just- AUGH!”
For once, something seemed to click in Taiju’s brain. The revelation momentarily loosened his grip, and Senku took the opportunity to wriggle out of his friend’s grasp and faceplant into the doorframe once again. All was still for five seconds, then ten, then twenty. Finally, Taiju spoke up. “Senku? Do you… ‘like’ Tsubaki? Like… how I ‘like’ Yuzuriha?”
….
….
“…What gave that away?”
“W-well-.”
“That was rhetorical, you meathead.”
Senku turned around and slid down the wall. An angry red welt was forming on his forehead, but otherwise he was calm. Well, calmer than before. Taiju approached slowly and sat down next to him. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
No, he didn’t. But the odds of Taiju dropping the subject were ten billion to one, so they might as well get it over with while they still had privacy on their side. 180 seconds since departure. She’ll have just reached the river. The pain in the back of his neck became too much. He cracked it away. “Go ahead.”
“Well, first off, I’m really happy for you! But also a little confused? I mean, I always thought you were… um, what’s it called when someone isn’t interested in love stuff at all?”
“Aroace?”
“Yeah that! I thought you were that!”
Senku huffed. “So did I, and yet here we are.” He’d supposed demisexuality was always a probability for him, but that shouldn’t apply to a woman he’d known for barely 80 hours. Then again, it was rare that he felt so… symbiotic with someone so quickly after meeting them. The closest similar case Senku could think of was his menteeship with Dr. X, but the acclaimed NASA scientist was a decade his senior, not to mention married, so it wasn’t applicable.
“And to be honest?” Taiju continued. “I think you guys would make a great couple! You really seem to click with Tsubaki, you know? She even has a certified Senku nickname already!”
Lily-White, his brain unhelpfully supplied. Honestly, what the hell had he been thinking with that one? And just blurting it out too?!
360 seconds. Probably washing her hair now.
“And she’s a really solid lady!” She really was. “So what’s wrong with you liking her?”
For once in his life, Senku didn't have an immediate answer for him. Several things were wrong with this. Because they had just met days ago. Because they were in a post-apocalyptic environment, which was not the best time for a ‘will-they-won’t-they’ scenario. Because they were two of only three humans alive right now, and a relationship based on necessity would never be fair to either of them. Because once they started bringing more and more people back, Tsubaki could have anyone she wanted. Because once Tsubaki had options, why the hell would she settle for him? Because frail, twig-armed, unromantic, science-obsessed Senku would never be anyone’s first choice.
Huh. He’d never experienced these kinds of self-esteem issues until now. Funny how having a crush could affect one’s self image.
Beside him, Taiju was still waiting patiently for an answer. “Because nothing’s as illogical or prone to trouble as a romantic entanglement," is the one he gave him.
600 seconds since she left. Would she be on her way back now?
“Senku.” Taiju was unusually quiet. “For five years, you told me how illogical it was to hide my feelings from Yuzuriha. Now that you’re in my shoes, are you really about to do the same thing?”
…Well shit.
Senku finally looked up at him. “Well, what do ya know? You actually managed to say something smart, Big Oaf.”
That put a smile on said oaf’s face. “So?” He asked expectantly.
“…I’ll take it under consideration.”
“Haha! That’s the spirit!” And then what Taiju meant to be a light pat on the shoulder actually sent Senku faceplanting into the dirt.
“Now what’s all the ruckus?”
Senku looked up. It only took 720 seconds.
Tsubaki made her entrance from the treeline, hair wet and the now empty basin tucked under her arm. While still wild and thick, her mane was noticeably cleaner than before, less tangled, and had a bit of shine to it.
I want to run my fingers through it.
Nope, shut up brain!
“And what happened to your forehead, Senku? It’s all red!”
On reflex, Senku cracked his neck as an excuse to glance away. “Just boring boy talk, and someone got overzealous, as per the norm.”
“What’s an overzealous?!” Yeah, there was the Taiju he knew.
Tsubaki hummed. “Shall we eat then?” She brushed past him towards the fire, and Senku caught a whiff of lavender and mint.
Later that night, Senku couldn’t make his brain shut off and sleep. Tsubaki tossed and turned beside him, lost in some nightmare. He wondered if she was fighting even in her dreams; she was certainly making a lot of noise for it. Grunts and curses mostly, but from time to time a name popped up. ‘Mirai’. At some point, the martial artist started shedding tears.
Truth be told, there was something else that he was loath to admit even to himself, something worse than self-degradation. He saw it flickering in Tsubaki’s eyes when looking upon certain statues, or in the way she went stiff and quiet whenever they talked about their lives before the stone. Whatever that something was, it was angry, dangerous even. In the end, Senku couldn’t read her mind. He had this feeling in his gut that whatever she refused to tell him would come out in the worst way possible. And when that time came, he didn’t know how he was going to handle it.
Tsubaki let out something between a shout and a sob, and Senku’s hand instinctively shot out. It was just a light touch to her forehead, but she immediately stilled. The scientist brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear, and the resulting reaction was immediate relaxation. For once, she looked completely at peace. Stunning.
Maybe, he thought. Maybe I can find a way. Lily-White’s definitely worth the effort.
She had assessed the situation. Now Tsubaki’s problem was how to react. Should she even react? Going up to Senku and saying ‘I think I’m in love with you’ wasn’t a sustainable option. Tsubaki knew the scientist well enough by now to know ‘love’ wasn’t an easy topic for him. At best he’d brush her off, and at worst she’d receive a flat out rejection. And then what would happen to the group dynamic? With only the three of them, there was nowhere to run, and throwing complicated feelings into the mix could mean life or death in this stone world. So no, a confession right now wasn’t an option.
But this? This wasn’t sustainable either.
Tsubaki was grateful for the increase in workload over the last two weeks. Between crushing seashells, mixing mortar, refurbishing the treehouse, creating lye from animal fat, and setting blocks of soap, Senku’s Step One was being taken seriously. There was also a suddenly higher demand for food, now that it was clear pickling their perishables would be more important than ever. Everyone kept busy well enough, but it was in those quiet rests in between tasks that the air became charged with something else. No doubt Senku noticed it as well; the awkwardness, the tension, little moments between the two of them that seemed to stretch into eternity. Sooner or later, something would snap.
So she had to do something to ease the tension, or risk losing the first friend she had ever made.
Now was the perfect time: Taiju had gone back to the beach for more shells, and Senku was in a lull of his own. He was sat down by the fire, slowly shoveling the white powder of crushed shells into a small satchel. There was no doubt he’d noticed her presence, and therefore no use in delaying the conversation.
Alright, Tsubaki. No backing down, this needs to happen. Keep it short and simple; test the waters. And maybe, just maybe, this can go somewhere.
“I have to hand it to you, Senku,” she began. “You’re pretty amazing.”
Senku spared her a glance. “Eh? What brought this on all of a sudden?”
“Just… something that’s been on my mind for a while.” Play it cool, Shishio. “I mean, you freed me during a lion attack, and yet you were calm. You spoke and thought clearly.” He knows that part, dummy! Try telling him something he doesn’t know! “I’ve never met anyone like you before, and you truly have my respect.” Just get to the point! Say it! “I… admire you, Senku.” Close enough.
Of course, years in the spotlight made certain that none of this inner turmoil showed on her face, but Tsubaki had a feeling the scientist saw right through her. She could see the thoughts racing behind his eyes again, with no telling what they were about. “A girl that praises a guy to his face is either flirting or scheming.”
“I’ve found the same to be true vice versa.”
“So what are you getting at?”
“I just think that if anyone can restore modern civilization, it would be you. Yes. That’s all I wanted to say.”
….
….
WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SAYING, SHISHIO?! AUGH, why does this have to be so hard?!
Before any sort of recovery could be made, in walked Taiju. “Wow, who knew building a tech-y civilization would require so many shells, huh?!”
“Yeah, it’s gonna be hard and tedious as hell,” Senku replied, finishing up his task. As if the previous conversation had never happened. “But so long as we keep moving forward, we’ll achieve our goal no matter what.”
“By the way, Senku,” Taiju added after a hearty laugh, “what was that fourth thing? You said there were four uses for the shells, but you only told us three of them!”
He was right, Tsubaki realized. There was the soap and the mortar, of course, but Senku had also mentioned using it as some sort of fertilizer. That made three projects total, so what would the fourth be? It had only been for a moment, but Tsubaki felt Senku’s eyes flicker to her before returning to Taiju. “Nope, there’s only three.” He held up as many fingers. “Didn’t I say three?”
Taiju laughed it off and blamed his terrible memory, but she knew. Senku had said four. She was certain of it. He’s hiding something from me. Even after all this time, he doesn’t trust me. The realization stung, but she swallowed the hurt. Years of experience kept her face perfectly neutral. “I believe I’ll turn in early tonight.”
“But we haven’t eaten yet-.”
“I’m not hungry.” She said too quickly, struggling to keep her pace neutral as she left. No one went after her.
Well into that night, Tsubaki struggled to find sleep. Taiju snored away on the opposite wall. Senku had yet to retire. She tried everything: counting the strands of grass in the roof, fluffing her goose-feather pillow, telling herself stories, even humming songs. Her thoughts kept drifting to the scientist, and the twisting in her gut just from the absence of one number.
He’s afraid of me.
And why shouldn’t he be?
The first thing I did when I met him was end a life.
I’ve given him no reason to distrust me!
What if it’s not distrust?
What if he knows?
He knows and he doesn’t feel the same.
He’s afraid to tell me. He’s afraid of how I’ll take it.
But I would never hurt him.
Does he know that?
He has to!
She’d had enough of her own thoughts. In an angry huff, the fighter tossed her blankets aside and reached for her pelt cloak. Perhaps the fresh night air would ease her. However, the second Tsubaki stepped beyond the threshold, a small twang reached her ears. She peered over the platform’s edge, the wood creaking beneath her feet. There was Senku, messing around with the storage pots. “Yo, Lily-White,” he greeted, voice shaking.
In an instant, she was on the ground facing him. “What are you doing up at this hour?”
“Oh, you know.” The scientist adjusted his neck. “This and that. What are you doing up?”
“Hmm. Sleep eludes me.”
“Ah.” His gaze traveled everywhere except to her, and although he tried to hide it, his fidgeting was painfully obvious. “Have you tried reciting history lessons yet? Studies show that the tedium of-.”
“Senku. Do I scare you?” Senku looked away. He didn’t give her an answer. But perhaps that was answer enough. “I see.” She turned away, making it halfway to the treeline before she stopped again. “We… need to talk. If you agree, meet me on the beach.” With that, she left him standing there below the tree.
The beach was different at night. The sand felt cooler beneath her feet; the waves rolled more gently against the land; even the wind whistled a different tune than during the daytime. The stars were the most striking difference of all. Tsubaki sat and gazed at the blues and purples of distant nebulas, and the millions of white lights that decorated the night sky. She couldn’t tell how much time had passed before she heard his footsteps approach. Even when Senku sat down beside her, neither of them said a word for a long time.
Tsubaki took the first step. “There are more stars than there were before.”
“…They were always there,” Senku finally replied. “You just couldn’t see them from most locations on Earth. But now, no large cities means no more prominent, earth-bound sources of light, and therefore no more light pollution.”
“Hmm.”
….
….
“I… barely know you,” he admitted.
“And that scares you?”
“Are you kidding? It terrifies me! In science, there are always gonna be unknown variables, but at least I know they’ll be the same from when I start investigating them right up until I find an answer.” He put his head in his hands. “People are so… fickle and messy and complex! They’re never the same, even from moment to moment, and it stresses me out! Why can’t there be a simple solution?!” He ended his speech with his face buried in his palms.
“Believe me, I wish I had an answer for you.” It used to scare Tsubaki too, until she learned how to say exactly what a person wanted to hear.
“How did you manage it?” Senku asked, hands muffling his voice.
“Manage what?”
“People.”
Tsubaki laughed. “Barely.”
That got a chuckle from the scientist too.
Silence fell between them. He cracked his neck. She squeezed her fist. Tsubaki briefly wondered if it was worth heading back now. She was certainly calmer now, much more prepared for sleep. That was until Senku shifted his position and Tsubaki suddenly felt a hand atop of hers. She looked down with wide eyes, but the scientist was already pulling his hand away. “Sorry, sorry.”
“It’s fine, really.”
“No it’s not, it’s-!” He looked away, covering his reddening face. “Damn hormones,” he muttered under his breath, almost too low for her to hear.
Wait, is he-? Is this what he’s been so afraid of? Does he actually...?
She assessed the situation, and determined that this was her best opportunity. Shifting her body, heart pounding against her chest, Tsubaki faced the problem- faced him- head on. “Senku, do you have feelings for me?”
Senku balked, eyes wide and face going from a deep red to completely drained of color. “W-WHAT?! The hell are you-?”
“Because I have feelings for you!”
There, she’d said it. Her heartbeat had reached her ears, and she was red now too. And Senku just stared at her as if she’d grown a second head. The silence was agonizing. Finally, finally, he looked away. “No, you don’t.”
“…What?”
“It’s likely gratitude, from me having revived you in the first place. Or it could just be a basic protective instinct. That would also explain whatever emotional inconsistencies I’ve been having on my end, given our symbiotic relationship as guardian and dependent.”
“What are you talking about?”
The scientist stuck a pinkie finger in his ear. “Furthermore, we both underwent a few thousand years of involuntary sensory deprivation. Now we are two of the three only living humans on the planet, and one of them is already emotionally attached. It’s most likely that the more primitive part of our brains has confused touch-starvedness and a need for socialization for affection. There’s many explanations for whatever it is we’re feeling, but it isn’t ‘love’.”
Something caught in her throat. “And… how can you be so sure?”
“Trust me, Lily-White, once we really start digging into the revival process, you’ll have your pick of more suitable partners, and you’ll forget you ever had ‘feelings’ for a flea like me!” He said all this with a smile, but there was something heart-breaking behind it. Time slowed as Senku stood. Was he right? Could this just be something that she only wanted to believe was love? But then she remembered the conversations, the shampoo, the nickname. Hell, just the way she felt lighter and happier than she’d felt in ages. All of that was because of him. It had to mean something more than just ‘hormones’. It just had to!
“Wait!”
Tsubaki grabbed his hand before he could take a single step. He didn’t dare move as she stood. “Senku, look at me.” It took a few seconds, but he complied, and there were those eyes she so often found herself lost in. “Do you know how it is, being lonely in a room full of people? Back before the stone, I had hundreds of fans, thousands of admirers. But I couldn’t be close to any one of them. Do you want to know why? Because I knew the people that surrounded me only saw what they could get from me. A title, a face, a body.” With a sharp breath, she cupped his face. His eyes glowed in the starlight. “But you, Senku! You see all that I am, even the parts that may terrify you, and still you keep looking! You make me feel seen and loved!” Because Senku doesn’t waste time on things he’s not invested in. “So go ahead. Revive ten, a hundred, a thousand, TENS of thousands. Because even in that crowd of thousands… I will see you too.”
She was prepared for shock. For disbelief, or denial. She had even steeled herself for further rejection. However, Tsubaki had not been prepared for Senku to reach for her face, stand on his toes, and pull her into a kiss. For the second time in her life, the world went away. The sand, the waves, the breeze, the stars; none of it mattered anymore. Everything was soft lips and calloused hands and her heart beating out of her chest and sparks flying behind her eyes and Senku, Senku, Senku-!
In the end, the kiss lasted only five seconds.
“Sorry. Testing a hypothesis.”
Tsubaki rested a hand over his. “And?”
Senku’s smile was the most amazing thing in the world. “Yeah. It’s worth it.”
And so one kiss became two, then three, and so, so much more.
…
…
“…Well… I enjoyed that… far more than I thought I would.”
“Hmm.”
“…Did you, Tsubaki?”
“Hmm?”
“Enjoy… that?”
“Very much.”
“Okay, good…. Good.”
…
…
“By the way… thanks for not laughing.”
“There was never any reason to laugh, Love. Not that I saw.”
“…Well, actually, you laughed a little bit at one point when I was touching you and I said I might lose consciousness-“
“Senku.”
“-which you said was adorable! So I’ll just have to trust that you don’t think I’m an idiot, or some kind of sex-crazed animal-“
“Senku~.”
“-because honestly either would be fair assumptions, seeing how I’ve never lost control of myself due to overwhelming-.”
“Senku!”
Chu!
…
“You were great. More than great really.”
“…Oh. Really?”
“Yes. So stop overthinking it.”
“And here I thought you enjoyed my thinking.”
“Oh how I do. But now it’s time to stop thinking and just… enjoy the moment.”
“…Right.”
…
…
“The stars really are beautiful tonight.”
“Yeah. Beautiful.”
“You’re not even looking.”
“I know.”
…
Dawn came far too soon for Tsubaki’s liking. The only consolation was that she got to wake to the sound of her lover’s heartbeat. And wasn’t that a novel thought? Her lover! Slowly she lifted her head, and Senku stirred from his own sleep beneath her. “Five more minutes, Lily-White,” he mumbled.
“It’s time to get up, Love.” The scientist locked his arms around her. The martial artist let him believe he had her trapped. “Aren’t I crushing you?”
“Nope. In fact, you just earned yourself a new job: Stone World’s first self-heating weighted blanket.”
“Well then, I shall play to my talents. Later.” She pecked his lips. “But the sun has risen, and so must we with it.” And much to his chagrin, she pulled out of his grasp quite easily. Tsubaki at last sat up, and the lion pelt that had been guarding them against the chill morning air fell away. As she stretched, she felt a pleasant ache thrum throughout her body; it wasn’t too terribly different from the ones she got after a particularly good workout, she found.
I suppose it was technically a workout for both of us.
Senku was far more sluggish and stiff in his own stretches. “Keh, shoulda figured I’d end up worse for wear after having coitus with the Strongest Primate High-Schooler.”
Tsubaki grimaced. “No. You are not allowed to call it ‘coitus’.”
“What? It’s a perfectly scientific term.”
“Exactly! It sounds so… clinical.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So what would you call it?”
She gave him a coy smile. “Making love, of course.”
“Well that’s just stupid. You can’t ‘make’ love.”
“What’s actually stupid is that our first fight as a couple is what we call our sex.”
The banter continued as they continued to put themselves together, clothes and all. Tsubaki finished dressing herself with one final, dramatic flourish of her cloak; it successfully got a chuckle out of Senku. But then his smile faltered. “Is that what we are now? A couple?”
“…Do you want us to be?” “It- it’s not that I don’t, I just-… I’m still processing the fact that there even is an equation, let alone what the equation means.”
“Then let’s be that,” she said as she knelt down beside him. “An equation that we’ll solve together.” Tsubaki kissed him, and she knew then she would never grow tired of it.
“…Yeah. I can work with that,” Senku whispered almost reverently.
Tsubaki smiled as she stood. Senku did not follow her up. Instead, when she looked down at him, there was a look of intense concentration plastered across his face. “Love?”
“…Senku.exe has encountered an error while launching. Please stand by for system reboot.”
“Can’t stand up?”
“Can’t stand up.”
…Maybe our workout was a little too rough on him last night.
While Senku ‘rebooted’, Tsubaki waded into the surf, scanning for more shells. As Taiju had said, they would need a lot more of them in the coming days. Speaking of which…. “Are we telling Taiju about our new equation?”
“We kinda have to, especially if we’re bringing back Yuzuriha soon. Unlike the Big Oaf, she’s actually socially intuitive. She won’t be malicious about it if she tells him, but the probability of a Taiju freak-out will significantly decrease if we just come out with it ourselves.”
“So what is this Yuzuriha like?” she asked as she dropped two clam shells into the skirt of her dress.
“Diligent, good with crafts, and she has functional neurons to boot. I think you two would get along.”
She hoped so. Tsubaki collected a sand dollar and thought about what it would be like; just the four of them against the new world. Imagining a future with them, with him… a perfect paradise, natural and owned by no one. Hell, it was already paradise! In this world, no one could tell her what to do, what to say, who to love. The only thing missing-.
Tsubaki looked up.
The hand holding her skirt up went slack, and a dozen shells splashed back into the water.
“Something wrong?”
She couldn’t give him an answer.
There were times in the last few days where it had been in her periphery.
“Lily-White?”
She had tried so hard to avoid it.
Looking at the man’s frozen face now, his features etched in stone, she was flooded with memories of blood, liquor, and shells.
“Tsubaki, what’s wrong?”
There was still one shell in Tsubaki’s hand: a pink and white striped conkle, beautifully intact. “In this Stone World,” she said to no one in particular, “we are truly free. There’s no one around to claim shells as their property. Or the sea. Or the land.” The longer she stared at the shell, the more overwhelmed with memory she became.
“There once was a girl whose little sister was undergoing surgery.” She refused the news at first, refused to believe Mirai was gone when she was right there. “Both sisters loved the Little Mermaid, so the elder set out to collect shells for the younger.” She had smiled at her small collection. A necklace made from these would surely make her better. “Then along came the man who owned the fishing rights to that part of the beach, reeking of booze and fish guts.” She had smelled him before she saw him stumbling over to her, and had barely given him a ‘hello’ before the first punch made contact. “The girl thought she had been merely collecting shells.” Blow after blow she took, until she collapsed onto the sand. The man had threatened another beating if he saw her here again; she could barely make out the words over the ringing in her ears. “But the man accused her of stealing them, and beat her to the point she was unrecognizable.” Back to the hospital she stumbled hours later, clutching the one shell she had managed to salvage, only for it to completely crumble beside Mirai’s head. “She was never able to make her sister feel like the Little Mermaid.”
No little girl should have to suffer like they had.
The shell was crushed in her fist, and a single blow sent the bastard’s head rolling onto the beach.
“You know what you’re doing, don’t you? That may have looked like a statue, but you and I both know you just killed a man.”
Several emotions roiled in her gut: anger, guilt, satisfaction, justice, sadness, but most of all… clarity. Tsubaki knew what she had to do. The world may never be hers….
But she would be damned if it ever belonged to them again.
“Senku, do you plan on reviving everyone?” Tsubaki turned to Senku, still sitting on the shore, crimson eyes unreadable and yet full of thought. “Does that include the greedy, black-hearted adults that ruined the world?” The men and women who only saw what they could get from her. “They’ll be grateful to you at first, but sooner or later, they’ll start saying things like ‘this is my property’, ‘give me rent’, ‘give me taxes’.” ‘Tsubaki, fight this man’, ‘Tsubaki, pose for that camera’. “They’ll rob us of our future all over again!” Just as that bitter, sad woman robbed Mirai of hers.
“This is a Stone World,” Tsubaki continued, striding back towards the shore, toward him and those calculating eyes. “An untainted paradise. We will revive only the young and pure-hearted, and create a natural world owned by no one!” She approached the statue of a wrinkled old man, and wondered how many lives he had destroyed in his years. “This is our chance to purify humanity! Don’t you agree, Senku?”
She readied her blow.
Senku’s hand against her shoulder stopped her.
“No, I don’t. That speech didn’t move me one millimeter.” He smirked up at her. “I’m a technology-loving guy that gets excited about space and mechs and Doraemon and stuff like that.” Those crimson eyes that she so loved shone with defiance. “And I’m gonna use the power of science to save every. Last. Person.”
And just like that, Tsubaki’s paradise was no longer perfect.