Stone Age Angel (Senku X Reader)

Prolouge Pt. 2

3rd POV
     "An angel...?"
     The girl flinched and backed away from the boy. This was the first time she was meeting another human being without the protection of her father. Before she could run away, something locked itself at her ankle and pulled her by the leg into the air. Her high pitched scream rang through the forest as she shut her eyes, seeing the beautiful world she was just admiring flip upside down before her very eyes. When she felt herself stop swaying in the air, she assessed her current situation.
     She was a good two and a half meters above ground level and the army knife and her bag had left her grasp as she was dragged into the air. Her left ankle was tied so tightly by the rope, she was afraid her blood circulation might be cut off and her foot would just separate from her body. Her hanging position wasn't doing much help for her judgement as all the blood rushed to her brain.
     "Hey, are you okay?!" The boy from earlier yelled as he watched her worriedly. "I'll go get my old man real quick so just hang on!"
     The child laughed lowly. As if there was anything else she could do except hang.

     No more than five minutes later, she heard the sound of footsteps again. The young boy ran breathlessly towards the girl who remained upside down along with an adult. She assumed he was the boy's father considering their similarities in appearance. The man assessed the situation and told the boy to calm down. He then turned to the girl.
     "Young lady, what's your name?" He asked with a bright smile as he approached the tree the rope was tied to, trying to untie it as quickly as possible. The girl noticed he was trying to get her to calm down, although she was considerably relaxed in the first place.
     "My name is (Name) Hallstein, sir." She answered politely, showing her calmness, contradictory to the norm for most kids her age. "If you don't mind me asking, may I also ask for your name?"
     The boy's father was taken aback. He had never come across a child who was so composed in the face of danger other than his own child. He laughed. "The name's Byakuya, Ishigami Byakuya. That over there is my son, Ishigami Senku."
     "Then, Mr. Byakuya, I would suggest you look for my army knife around that tree over there," she pointed at the tree she was previously standing at. "It should prove useful to get me out of this predicament."
     Senku glanced around and found the knife half buried under the snow and passed it to his father, who stared at the knife for a while before proceeding to cut the rope. Unfortunately, he forgot to take into account the landing impact of the girl from two and a half meters and panicked when the rope gave way before cutting through completely and (Name) felt the pull of gravity dragging her down to the ground. Her eyes shut and braced for impact...
     A small "oof" was heard as she felt herself land on something lumpy. She then realised Senku had used his body to cushion her fall. Her brain could not comprehend why he did so. She could have broken his spine if she landed wrongly on him. Although, no such thing happened. She pushed herself off the ground, brushing the snow from her coat and holding her hand out for Senku.
     "Thank you," she said to Senku and his father. "I don't know what I would do if I were to be stuck up there til my father came to find me."
     "What do ya mean? Your father at work or something?" Senku asked.
     (Name) simply shook her head. "My father won't come find me unless I don't come home before sunset. So I would have been left hanging there for quite a long time."
     Byakuya assessed the young girl before him with a serious look on his face. He realised this and switched to a cheerful smile. "Why don't you come over to our place, an apology for my son getting you in such a predicament. You can invite your father too if you want."
     "Ah... no, I don't think my father would be able to come, but I'll accept the offer nonetheless. Thank you very much!" She smiled brightly at the man.
     For a second, Senku felt his heart twinge at the sight of her smile. Her smile was as radiant and innocent as her mental intellect, a child-like smile.

     The Ishigami duo led the young (Name) to their abode that was surprisingly a few houses down the street from hers. Of course, she felt her father wouldn't be pleased if she revealed this so subdued the want to share the information with her newly found acquaintances. As they entered, (Name) felt a difference in the atmosphere compared to her own home. It was more lively and warm. Byakuya made his way over to the kitchen with a light skip in his steps.
"Ah, Senku, while waiting for me to make something, why don't you show (Name) your room?" Byakuya said as he peeked out from the kitchen door way, already armed with a spatula and donning a bright pink apron.
Senku grumbled as he led (Name) upstairs to his bedroom. (Name) inspected every corner of the room, piled with textbooks, a few contraptions and a computer on the desk. The young girl remembered reading that computers had access to the "internet" which served as an encyclopaedia of sorts, showing information for just about anything in the world.
"Your computer," she pointed, "do you mind if I use it for a bit?"
"Sure, just don't delete any of my homework," he said, fidgeting with one of his projects on the floor. The girl nodded and hopped onto the device, searching the one thing she had in mind.
"Lillian".
And then came pages of results all about the same person: the rising star, Lillian. The more she read the more she found out about her birth mother. She was from America, born and raised. Her mother grew up in poverty with an alcoholic father and no mother, but she was comforted by music and a friend who supported her. When (Name) tried to find out more about her mother's friend, no results came, but a small rumour they were a male and they had an intimate relationship with each other. After bearing no further results, (Name) moved on to listening to one of her mother's songs. She jolted when the music blared from the computer loudly. Senku, just as shocked as she was, rushed to turn down the volume.
"Jeez, that gave me a scare... Is that Lillian you're watching?" (Name) nodded her head. "She's getting popular nowadays, people think she's going to be one of the biggest stars of our generation. Well, not that I care."
The girl was motionless, eyes glued to the screen, sparkling in awe. "...like her..." she muttered, turning to Senku, a bright smile bringing light to her face. "I want to be like her!"
"That's some ambition you got there, kiddo!" Byakuya laughed, suddenly appearing behind the two children, ruffling the young girl's silver hair. "Food's ready, come down and get it!"
Senku took the young girl by the wrist, cheeks dusted lightly in pink as he led her to the dining table, laid with three plates of French toast, topped with a thick layer of homemade cheese sauce and garnish, and a few pieces of bacon. The father-son duo dug right into the food while (Name) was calculating the nutritional figures of the meal before bringing herself to take a small bite. Needless to say, she was overwhelmed by the flavour, never in her life had she tasted anything so rich and she continued to eat, believing it would be wasteful not to eat the food prepared. Truthfully, she nearly threw up, and Byakuya noticed.
     "You alright there, kiddo? You're looking a bit pale..." he paused. "Wait... Are you allergic to bread? Eggs? Milk???" The horror that crossed the adult's mind as he panicked how he would explain to the hospital's doctor that he fed a child he met for the first time that day and nearly killed her. Much less, how he would explain to her parents.
     "N-No, it is quite delicious. It's just... so full of flavour, I feel sick..." the colour drained from her face as she felt herself getting sick in the stomach. "A-Apologies, I should go now..."
She dashed for the front door without another word and towards the house she had been trying to escape her whole life, practically hurling herself over the toilet before her stomach emptied every bite she swallowed. Her father who was still at the dining table at the time, swiftly squatted by her side, rubbing her back, despite all the questions surging to his mind. A chime from the front door caught his attention as he glanced back at his daughter before going to the front door. He was rather surprised to see a middle-aged man and a child with hair looking like leeks, although he couldn't say much considering his hair white hair colour was usually associated with a type of disorder(?).
"How may I help you?" He asked, only opening the door as far as the door chain would allow him.
"Ah, nice to meet you, my name is Ishigami Byakuya, this is my son, Senku." Byakuya bowed respectively, Senku imitating his father. "We're here to apologise for getting your daughter sick," he explained, "I wasn't aware she wasn't able to eat food with strong tastes. I'm willing to pay for any medical costs."
"No, it's fine. I wasn't aware either..." the girl's father made a mental note of this. "I'm sure she will be fine after a few hours."
"Would it be alright to see her once, to make sure she is well?" Byakuya requested. "Senku here's a bit worried for his first friend, you see."
The man contemplated for a bit before agreeing, opening the door and letting them in. By then, (Name) had managed to clean herself up and was resting, sitting wobbly at the dining table. Senku wasted no time and ran to her side, and held her steady, the girl responding by leaning into his support. The two father's felt something striking their paternal instincts but decided it would be best to leave them be.

Over the next few months, the two households grew closer to the point that the Hallsteins would regularly have lunch with the Ishigami's every week. The fathers had even began calling each other by their first name, it was also the moment when (Name) heard her father's name for the first time. "Eden". It was also brought up as a topic in their father's conversations how the young girl wanted to become a singer like Lillian. However, the three didn't fail to notice the grim look on Eden's face and the topic was never approached again, however, he gave her permission to pursue any ambition she desired as it so happened to be part of another of his experiments. This started the young girl's journey, participating in multiple specialties available to her across the board, sometimes missing out on school days. But her father didn't care unless it interfered with the data he would receive from the experiments.

     Halfway through the first school year of primary school, the elderly home room teacher of (Name) and Senku's class asked them to share their future aspirations with their classmates. The two were inseparable, as it was obvious to Senku that she was the only one who understood his curiosity in the world as she did the same with her activities in different industries.
     "I'm going to space!" Senku declared to the class, (Name) smiling at him, feeling slight pride in her friend's ambition.
     "An astronaut, then! A wonderful dream to pursue when you're all grown up." Their homeroom teacher said.
     "No, I'm gonna go now."
     The class erupted in gasps and murmurs. It took quite a while for the teacher to get everyone to settle down.
     "And now, (Name) Hallstein, if you will." The teacher gestured for the girl to stand up.
     "I'm going to make my name known across the world, and make it to the big stage with Lillian Weinberg. That's all." She sat down calmly as the class rioted with loud exclamations and whispers.
     'What's wrong with this generation's children? They don't even act like children anymore!' The teacher thought before struggling to calm down the children yet again.

     That same day, during lunch, Senku and (Name) were seated together, eating opposite each other, not a word being spoken. But they were perfectly fine with it being that way.
     "So... I'm guessing I'll be helping you with your journey to space?" The girl noted as she slurped from her juice box, specially made by her father due to her inability to consume flavourful substances.
     "You ten billion percent sure are, where else am I gonna find my assistant that can sync with me so well?" He smirked. "Although I have no idea how I'm gonna do it yet."
     "I have read a few books about astrology but not any that explain how to get to space."
     "Well, it's a good start!"

     When the pair returned to their respective homes, they buried themselves deep into books, absorbing every last detail into memory. Then it reached the point when their research had finalised and it was time to experiment. Although they had the option to ask (Name)'s father for some equipment, he told them the equipment in the lab downstairs was to be used exclusively for his work. That being said, the experiments on (Name) never stopped, and the number of chemicals that were swirling in her body grew abundant. However, recently, her father had stopped most of his experiments. He never said much about it. All that is known is that one of his projects, enhanced human intelligence had succeeded and (Name) was the living evidence of such. The other, to create a jack-of-all-trades human, was also nearing completion as the young girl had also been inhumanly proficient in every talent she had been mastering.
     From the last time (Name) had set foot in the lab downstairs, she noticed the previously messy board of papers next to the door was nearly all wiped off except for a few sheets. One of them, from what she could tell, was the one her father was currently working on, enhanced human senses. By far, it was the most painful as it required her to endure the severe pain of her sensory system undergoing change. She didn't go to school for a week after the first injection. The others appeared to be pending as it was not in Eden's range of expertise in science.
     The last one was different from the other requests from his sponsors. Firstly, it didn't have the usual contact info at the bottom of the paper, it was left blank. Secondly, was the fact that the material was not paper, but cloth. Thirdly, it wasn't in her father's handwriting. As much as (Name) would like to know what it says, the font was so horrible that she was unable to decipher it. What she did know was that it was an important experiment to her father, on a personal level.
     But on the topic of the prodigal children and their research, they were unable to obtain lab equipments to further their research. However, Byakuya, being the loving father he was, sold his car in exchange for a whole lab as a Christmas present for the two. And thus, they began their experiments.