It was another reasonably peaceful day but Senku Ishigami was absorbed in his tasks and assisting his fellow members of the Science Club.
The day was tedious and he was on the verge of doing something incredibly unreasonable. Who was he kidding, he'd never do that. It was just an irritating day. He was just happy to be in the science clubroom.
"< Ishigami. >" The calm voice made his shoulders tense in shock. He couldn't recognise the voice. It was obviously feminine. He pursed his lips in thought. It wasn't Yuzuriha. She didn't know basic English.
It couldn't have been any of the students who were already there either. They weren't fluent enough to make their tone sound foreign. The only fluent English speaking student he knew was in the science club was [Name].
"< [Name]? >" He turned to find his hypothesis correct. [Name] stood close to him with a small grin.
"< What do you need? >" He asked, returning his attention to the task at hand. He picked up a test tube and poured a solution into it.
"Nothing, really." [Name] replied in Japanese. "I just came to say goodbye." Senku stopped what he was doing and slowly turned his head to face the student behind him.
"What?"
"Yeah," She shrugged. "Family-related issues. I'm going home for some time. Maybe I'll be back before you graduate." She winked and nudged him with her elbow.
Senku didn't know how to respond. It was unexpected. [Name] wasn't born in Japan; she mentioned it when she was first introduced. From what he remembered, her only Japanese relative was her uncle.
Regardless, she did not mention much about her life back in her homeland. She never seemed homesick or emotional, especially when the topic was brought up. If anything, she was more than happy to live in Japan despite the social issues she faced.
"I see," Senku swallowed, unable to find anything to say. "Do you know when you'll be back– if you're going to return?"
"Not really." [Name] sighed, resting her chin on her palm. She shifted to face the window, allowing the sun to light up her skin. It was always a marvellous sight in everyone's eyes.
"It would be nice to discover it was some sort of late birthday surprise. Get it over and done with so I can get back to Japan and be with my uncle, you know?"
"I'm sure your family wouldn't use something that serious as an excuse to bring you home." Senku disagreed. "That would be ten billion percent unreasonable."
[Name] chuckled at the comment. Ten billion percent, he says. He was probably right. He was never wrong whenever he said that. She was going to miss that so much. She was going to miss many things:
Taiju helplessly fawning over Yuzuriha, while Senku silently judged in the background. Five years and he still couldn't admit his feelings.
Working with Senku and the Science Club after school was so stressful yet satisfactory. She was even lucky enough to help him and his adoptive father with their NASA related projects.
[Name] knew she wouldn't cry just by looking back to the good memories but she couldn't deny that it made her smile.
She rapidly blinked, feeling her eyes sting from staring at the sun for so long. "I should get going." She smiled. "I've got loads to pack before the flight."
Senku hummed and darted his eyes across the floor. "I– no. We - being myself and the big oaf - we enjoyed having you around. Regardless of it being short-lived." He looked up into [Name's] eyes and placed his hand on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.
"Have a safe trip home. I hope everything works out."
[Name] nodded and placed her hand on his and removed it as she stepped back. Her hand was as cold as ice. It always was.
"< Catch you on the flip side, genius. >" She said her final goodbyes to the rest of the club and left the lab. As she stepped out, she sent Senku a small salute.
Senku stared at the space where [Name] had stood. So that was it. She was gone. He shook his head dismissing all incoming thoughts and returned to working.
After an hour - including an extra fifteen minutes involving Taiju coming to pester him - he had finally finished with his project but for some reason, the satisfaction of completing his work wasn't the main thing occupying his thoughts. Taiju had also felt the same.
With [Name] gone, everything felt different.
Months went by and life went on. Senku was working on his newest project in peace, when it was only a matter of time before everything began to fall apart.
"Listen up, Senku!" Taiju screamed at the top of his lungs as the door slid open. The students in the lab leapt in shock and stopped what they were doing to see what was the issue. Senku internally sighed and glanced over his shoulder.
"I've decided today's the day that I'm going to tell Yuzuriha these feelings I've had inside of the last five years!" Taiju continued. The members of the Science Club gasped.
"Oh?" Senku simply hummed and pushed a glass tube into the machine he was working on. "Well, well... now that is something I'm quite interested in, indeed. I'll be cheering you on so long, my vocal cords might tear... from here in the science clubroom, that is."
"Oh, great!" Taiju exclaimed. "Thanks a ton, Senku!"
"Shut the hell up, already," Senku groaned in frustration. "As if I'd give you a millimetre of cheering, you great big oaf–"
"What?! Make up your mind!"
"Besides," Senku continued. "You haven't said anything for five whole years? How stupid are you? That's completely irrational. Illogical." He leaned on his desk with a grin tugging at his lips. "I'll give you a method so rational and sound, it'll knock you off your feet."
Taiju made a noise of surprise and curiosity blended. Senku reached for a test tube on the table and held it with a malevolent expression painted on his face.
"By having you release pheromones, you'll drive your ability to stimulate her to the extreme." He smirked. "In other words, it's a kind of love drug. If you drink this, it'll be ten billion percent in the bag!"
Taiju took the concoction, obviously taking time to consider drinking it. He let out a small grunt and poured it all into the sink, earning shocked gaps from his peers.
"Thank you Senku, but I'm sorry." He said. "I don't want to depend on this kind of underhanded trick."
He nodded to himself and marched out of the clubroom with pure determination oozing out of him.
"Hey," One of the club members said, watching Senku light a match. "That love drug you were talking about... is that for real?"
"As is something like that actually exists. That was just regular old gasoline." Senku rolled his eyes and threw the match over his shoulder. The burning object landed in the sink, making it burst into flames.
"I refined it from plastic water bottle caps. Think about the molecular structure of polyethene for a sec, morons. It's just hydrocarbons spliced off the gasoline. You can just tell by looking, can't you?"
'No, we can't...'
'How...?'
"Wait a second." Another student said. "If Taiju had drunk that, he could have died."
Senku softly chuckled and sauntered to the door. "It was a ten billion percent chance certainty that he wasn't going to drink it. That straight-arrow sincere idiot."
"Hold on, he's actually talking to her!" A club member gasped. Everyone sped out of the room and stood in the corridor for a better view.
"I've got a hundred Yen on him getting full-on dumped!"
"500 on him getting dumped."
"1 000 for me."
"I'll put 10 000 on him unexpectedly not getting dumped." Senku grinned.
"Seriously?!" The betting club members exclaimed.
On the lower ground, Taiju clenched his fists as his face grew redder and redder by the second. He obviously didn't notice the snickering viewers from above but he wouldn't have cared. It was an important moment between him and Yuzuriha.
'I've spent all this time afraid that I might end up losing you as a friend, Yuzuriha!' Drops of sweat fell down his face as his heart thumped against his chest. 'I've been so spineless, I can hardly face you! But today is the day!'
"Please listen to me, Yuzuriha!" Taiju said with his voice raised. "For these past five years, I've..."
Yuzuriha grew more flustered each second and the viewers' eyes widened as the confession played out. Senku's energy drink rested on his lower lip in response to his hand's movement stopping. A green light had caught their attention, drawing them away from what was happening below.
"What is that?!" Taiju yelled. "That light!" Everyone began to panic without hesitation. The students in the corridor began to run around, grabbing their possessions and holding them close. But it was of no use.
As the light drew closer, everyone stopped moving as if they were frozen. Senku looked down to where Taiju was. He stood in front of Yuzuriha with his arms spread protectively while she stared in shock. But something was off.
As his body began to stiffen, Senku realised it. They were getting petrified.
From that day onwards, society was frozen as time went on. The animals took back the land and lived peacefully as the planet returned to its natural state within hundreds, if not thousands of years.
For a time that long, nobody would have been able to stay awake but that wasn't the case. Many people around the globe had somehow mustered the energy to stay conscious.
'6, 7, 8... damn it. I nearly lost consciousness again.' Senku internally sighed. '800 000 second cycle is my limit. It's like having diarrhoea. If I keep this up any longer, I might just fall asleep willingly. 116 763 120 000 seconds so far. Narrow it down then you get around 3 702 years. Damn, leap years also count but I'm not going to bother myself with that.'
He momentarily stopped to make sure his calculations were correct.
'3 700 years since mankind was petrified. I can't see anything. I can't hear anything either. The only thing keeping me conscious is strong will counting and thinking in parallel.'
Thousands of years worth of counting would have driven anyone insane, even Senku. Maybe it was him simply thinking or his strong will to stay awake. He wanted answers but he knew he wouldn't get them. He wouldn't get them in his petrified state. He had to get out.
'If there's any good time to get out, it's now. Wake up.' It didn't work. Obviously. He had to push himself. 'Wake up you idiot, wake up!'
In a matter of seconds, his eyes snapped open as his body felt less stiff. He broke out.
"It broke!" He yelled in victory. With a satisfied sigh, he closed his eyes and allowed his body to take in his surroundings. He sat up and stared into the endless view of nature ahead of him.
"116 763 120 000 seconds," He muttered. "Roundabout 3 700 years have passed. I wonder if the big oaf woke up too."
He cracked his neck and sighed. The tedious task of counting for all those years was of good use, after all.
But that wasn't important at the moment. He needed food, shelter and clothing. It was going to be a long journey that could take several months for him to march through, especially adding the unforeseeable events that could result in him getting seriously injured or dying.
"Doesn't matter," Senku snickered, peeling off the rest of the stone shell. "I've got millions of years worth of human knowledge stored in my head. I'll ten billion percent be able to restart society from scratch!"
And that's where it began. Day Zero in the Stone World.