It was dark;
outside a beautiful almost purple night sky where upon millions and trillions of twinkling stars could be seen. Although at this moment in time, the three friends did not particularly care about that. Instead wishing that they could close their eyes and get some rest, but alas...
SNNOORRREEEEEE!1!1!1!
The moonlight illuminated the hut enough to be able to see the leek-haired guys' eyebrows twitch, dark circles under his eyes. A white haired girl held a tiny glare as she silently tsk'ed and turned around trying to cover her ears with her pillow.
Meanwhile a ginger was, mostly, unbothered by the snoring of their Oafy friend and instead trying to observe the bats flying in the night.
"...You know what Senku? Let's invent some earplugs tomorrow." The white-ette yawned out.
The three looked at each other and silently agreed. Turns out earplugs was important for a functioning modern society after all.
...
"GUYS! WAKE UP!"
The three all pulled their covers even further up.
"Murder is remarkably easier to get away with in a Stone Age world..." Senku mumbled.
"Come on guys!!" Taiju kept trying to motivate his sleep deprived buddies. "Senku, do we have the climate to grow coffee beans?"
Liv grumbled, voice barely awake yet.
"AIAIAGAHAI!!!" Zenny almost tripped down the latter again, being caught just last second by her best friend. "You know I would always tell to to look where you are walking... but"
"I'm sorry 🥺" Zenny cut in.
"... an emoji? ... never mind... let's just invent some glasses for you as soon as possible, so you can actually see stuff."
.
.
.
The four of them made it through the winter, everyday working hard on their de-petrification cure... and glasses. Sadly neither being successful.
Just the more reason to work even harder, like Senku said.
This changed on one faithful day though...
Get a container with nitric acid, fill it with wine, stir it around to even the texture and pour it on a petrified animal to see the results.
Nothing.
Use a smaller amount of acid, messure exactly how much you're using of each ingredient every time you pour in something... Experiment, work, this is the grueling hard work of science.
"Are we sure we aren't missing something?" The ginger grumbled, exhausted from all the trial and error. "I've already checked, Zenny. Give it time." The platinum blonde replied. Zenny sighed and sat down to rest. "Though it is taking an awful long time.." The blonde admitted. She looked over at her science partner hunched over his experiments "Senku, you agree we're doing it correctly, right?"
"I'm 10 billion percent sure this is how it's done. Now let me see.."
Suddenly a crash was heard behind them, startling all of them at once.
"SORRY!!!" Their burly buddyboy had knocked over some of the newly brewed formula and let it spill on a petrified feather. Senku got up in a hurry to assess the damage the big oaf had done, before realizing what just happened. "You big oaf! Hand me that!" He grinned and took the last remaining bits of formula and poured it onto a petrified dove.
Everyone watched in anticipation...
...
...
...
A little crack emerged;
Crack
Crack!
Swoooosh!!
the stone bristled and fell apart, letting the dove emerge and fly away.
The group was ecstatic. "WE DID IT!!!" Zenny jumped up and embraced Liv "We did! But how...?" She looked at Senku who immediately smirked and took a proud stance "Well if it wasn't for this big oaf here, I wouldn't have noticed. When he dropped the fluid it de-petrified parts of a feather it spilled upon.." He explained with much prowess, as if this had been part of the plan. Liv snickered "Good thing I got the idea to make extra formula in case we-"
"WE'RE COMING TO SAVE YOU YUZURIHA!"
The Oafy boy had already sprinted halfway out of their camp.
...
So the four did. Finding her statue, mangled with the big tree from their school yard from those many years ago. Just about to pour the fluid, a sudden sound interrupted them.
They turned around, "You have got to be kidding me." Liv pulled Zenny closer to her, shielding her friend from the big ferocious creatures approaching.
Senku and Taiju stepped in front of them, waving with some branches in a failed intimidation attempt. "What are lions doing in Japan?!?", Taiju questioned. "They must've escaped from the Zoo many years ago... so what we are looking at are the ancestors from many generations later..."
The four started slowly walking away, Taiju carrying Yuzuriha.
"Drop her! We need to run and drop all the extra weight!" Senku ordered. "No way! Yuzu isn't fat!!!"
"Come on Taiju, we will be back later.." Liv urged.
She quickly grabbed her friend's hand and started running with her clumsily following after her.
"Just my luck" Senku snarkily remarked before grabbing the container of revival fluid.
"COME ON, SENKU!!!" Taiju yelled at him to pick up pace, but the young boy's legs failed him. "Damn it-" Senku stumbled and before he knew it his friend stood in front of him, arms spread out ready to take a blow from the lions! The animals were steadily approaching, clearly keeping their distance observing the weird naked apes in front of them, buying them just enough time to make a plan of escape.
"Wait, guys!" They all looked as the ginger who piped up, "I might have an idea... I saw some really buff guy a bit further up the road. Maybe he can help, if we de-petrify him instead!"
"Oh yeah! I saw him too, I think he was on TV or something once for being the strongest high schooler." Taiju elaborated.
"Well,.. What are we waiting for, RUN!"
And so the group started bolting, Zenny in the front leading, Taiju with Yuzuriha, Liv ready to catch her friend in case she slipped, and Senku right beside her.
...
They managed to locate the buff dude, and just last minute too. The Lions were encroaching on them. And in a hurry Zenny poured the fluid from their bottle, "I'm sorry Yuzu!!"
Crack
CRACK
"What's the situation?" A male voice asked, Senku glanced at him. "Your entire body's covered in stone fragments and we've got lions incoming at nine and two o'clock."
"Okay." He responded, breaking free from the last layer of stone.
He jumped into action, throwing punches and successfully one-shotting the male lion in one hit. The rest of the lions fled, tails between their legs.
"WOOOOW" Zenny had been gaping in awe, and just now realized that the man in front of her was... completely... naked.
"AAA!" She jumped to Liv's side and covered her eyes.
The tenseness of the situation slowly faded away, letting everyone come to their senses and reclaim their feeling of safety. Liv crouched down to her little friend sitting on the ground in shock. Zen then spoke "Did he just.." Her eyes were strictly fixated on the silhouette of the tall highschooler in front of them "Save us?" Her gaze met Liv's who also seemed impressed, though not in the same regard as her ginger pal who was already nearly drooling over the new guy.
Such power was intimidating, she knew better than anyone that power like that could be dangerous in the wrong hands, so the question was if he was the right person to wield the power or not.
Slowly, Tsukasa turned his head to look at the other teenagers looking up at him, he smiled softly.
"That was impressive" Liv added, "Now how about you get... some clothes, while we tell you the full explanation."
The male hummed in agreement, "Take it nice and slow. And I can promise you one thing. You four will never be in danger again.
From now on...
I'll do the fighting!!"
Art by Zenny❤️