Title: Cause for Extinction
Summary: Like all great things, it started from his childhood.
Tezuka didn't often get new t-shirts-not that he minded, of course. He was a growing boy, he knew, and would sooner outgrow the t-shirt than the t-shirt would outlast him. That was what his mother told him, and when she told him this his father told him it probably wouldn't matter because he'd always be smaller than everyone in his class. Tezuka was more inclined to believe his mother, and when his father laughed and ruffled his hair, Tezuka stood there silently and vowed that he would be taller than his father.
It was a Monday afternoon when he came home from school, greeted his mother, and trotted up the steps to his bedroom. He opened the door as he slid the straps of his schoolbag off his shoulders. He paused just as his mother's voice drifted in from behind.
"It was too adorable not to buy," she said, by way of explanation, and slipped the round white hat off his head and pulled his bag from him. She hung them both on the hook by his desk.
Tezuka had no understanding of adorable, but thanked her in appreciation. His mother smiled and mentioned something about preparing snacks, leaving Tezuka alone in his room with a folded rectangle of melded cotton and polyester on his bed. It was mostly brown, plenty of shades darker than his hair. Tezuka picked it up with careful fingers, walked to his closet door, and set it neatly beneath the t-shirt pile comprised of exactly three more.
He settled down to finish his homework.
It was a Thursday afternoon when he came home from school with no homework in his bag. He had finished it all at school. His mother smiled when he told her, and ushered him up the steps to change out of his uniform.
Tezuka opened his closet door and picked up the shirt first on the pile. It was the new one from Monday, brown with splotches of green and orange and white. He unfolded it fully and studied the white bubble. He couldn't read English yet, but he could recognize the letters. It looked big and blocky and kind of obnoxious.
But his grandfather had told him that there were stories and lessons to be learned even in one tiny picture. Tezuka thought his grandfather was very wise.
The blob of green had sharp teeth and short arms and a long tail. It was a dinosaur, he concluded, a tyrannosaurus rex-he'd learned of them two months ago. By the dinosaur's feet was a patch of earth and a tiny orange blob of something he could not immediately place. It was a rodent, that was a given, but Tezuka could not determine if it was a coypu or a muskrat-Tezuka frowned, he needed to study more. The dinosaur had a fierce expression on it's face, and the rodent was running away.
Big rocks that looked as if they were on fire were heading towards the dinosaur. Tezuka knew of rain and snow and hail, but he had never heard of falling rocks-perhaps they were flying? Tezuka resolved to find out. Regardless, Tezuka found himself slightly awed.
He pulled the shirt on, smoothing it over his chest as he looked down at the upside-down amalgamation of rodent and dinosaur and rocks. His lips curved into a frown the longer he stared at the upside-down dinosaur.
When his grandfather came home that night, Tezuka told him he wanted to defeat dinosaurs with falling rocks.
It was, Tezuka decided, a very wise t-shirt.