"He didn't die on me, did he, doc?"

"Not to worry, it's just the healing process. His brain was shaken up pretty badly, to put it in non-medical terms. It is perfectly normal for a boy of such a young age to take his time recovering, sir."

"Phew.. don't do that to your old dad, Senku"


It felt a little chilly when he opened his eyes. Pitch-black darkness surrounded him, but something else was amiss, that much he realised almost immediately. The chemical stench of his hospital room. Gone, as if he'd never been there in the first place. But if he wasn't where could he possibly be? Irritation welled up, when his usually sharp mind refused to cooperate.

~Feels as if a train went in through one ear, left through the other and trashed what was between..~

He tried sitting up, a low growl in his throat, only to find he couldn't get past a few centimeters. Frowning he tried to focus, then finally took note of the weight on his chest, the warmth to his left and right, the deep sounds of calm breathing around him and - this was terrible - someone's really foul smelling breath. If he just could see.. The warmth on his right moved slightly, a few words were mumbled before whoever was there apparently drifted back to sleep.

It was enough to identify the person though.

~Yuzuriha..? Then.. the other..~, Senku's mind began catching up, dread building up in the pit of his stomach, as he slowly turned his head. His eyes only sluggishly adapting to the dim light, he thought he saw the silhouette of a spiky haired head. Promptly, and as if to confirm his suspicions, the head too uttered something similiarily undecryptable. The voice gave it away though; this was definitely, undoubtfully, one billion percent sure Taiju.

"Of all the..", Senku grumbled, letting himself sink down again, his back starting to complain. Relaxing, the images of his dream came to mind. In retrospective, none made sense at all. Then again, most dreams only made sense while you were asleep. The critical part of your brain just didn't work while you were dreaming. The whole scenario seemed so utterly ridiculous to him that he gave it a semi-amused snort.

Tsukasa coming for a sick call?

Right.

~Must've been feverish or something..~, he concluded, especially now that he slowly but surely came to his senses, his body felt incredibly sore, like the unwelcome feeling after a harsh cold or the flu. Yeah, more like the latter, he decided, closing his eyes once again, for he'd seen what he needed to. No use wasting more energy. He remembered how often his scrawny young self had been sick. He'd been prone to catching everything that went around, due to his lifestyle of spending most time indoors. How he'd been there, Byakuya, his dad. The man had spent every waking hour with him until he was better, telling stories, feeding him god-awful self-made broth he claimed would help one billion percent (which of course was a lie, but the intent counted; his young self had believed in the man's tall tales and the placebo effect was strong enough to make him better on general principles, he analyzed) and wiping his brow whenever a fever arose - which was almost every time, with his immune system, being too weak to prevent the infection in the first place, resorting to raising the body temperature to slow down the germs.

Bitter sweet memories, almost regrets. He'd spent too little time with the man and now it was too late. No science in the world could bring back the dead; even cloning would just create a twin that was biologically the same age as the source material, dying just as quickly too. Given he even had material in the first place, which was a definite no after 3700 years. It was one thing to preserve minerals and metals, but DNA didn't make it for long after death. He too would just disappear from the world, cell by cell, until his atoms were strewn across the world, mixed in with dirt, air molecules and part of bacteria. The information about the person he was would be gone, or at least scattered far and wide enough to call it gone.

Even the Medusa required a functioning cell structure, it couldn't create flesh from nothing or repair cells that had been ingested by the body's own intestinal bacteria.

Starting to think about that, time went flying.


The next time Senku noticed his surroundings again, it was because the two people sharing his bed began to wake. Or more, Yuzuriha woke, left in a hurry. Taiju kept sleeping like a rock; only moved enough that his arm made a wide arch and then -slap!- fell limp, right on the green-blonde scientist who bit back a curse and used his now free arm to move the muscled limb of the friend off him. With a little more space to spare, he also moved a little over, where the girl in their little circle had been moments before. Of course, Taiju didn't notice a thing, only mumbling in half-delirium.

Senku decided to try his luck - with his rational mind warning him of this very notion - and leave the bed. Sitting up worked just fine, swinging his legs slowly over the bed's edge didn't cause any black spots in his vision either, very well.

~Here we go..~

Pushing off the bed and up to his legs, he found them unexpectedly sturdy as he stood the first time for what felt like at least days. A few careful steps forwards worked nicely too, but were tiring as hell. Enough in fact to make him return to the bed before he'd make unpleasant acquaintance with the floor.

~Must've been out for longer then.. the muscles have atrophized..~

Sure enough, what once was stone world-hardened muscle beneath tight skin had turned into pudding. At least he still could walk at all. But what little endurance he'd had was gone for now. He didn't exactly look forward to it, but there'd have to be some serious workout if he wanted to live. A first; he'd deemed sports as quite the unneccessary effort back in the days before being petrified. Something to burn off excessive energy that you could use for something more productive, a scoff-worthy activity at best. But in this world, you needed to be able to get away from danger, given you couldn't fight it off. Him being no fighter to begin with and his only weapon being science which took longer than any danger would wait, he'd have to regain his endurance, and soon.

So he took another try and forced himself to remain on his feet, despite his stance being more shaky than he'd hoped it would be. Also, he felt incredibly hungry; kinda as if he'd eaten nothing but soup for weeks and was overdue for his next meal. Maybe some fresh air would help, he decided and slowly made his way to the door of the sickroom.

A fresh breeze indeed was what greeted him. That and a perfectly blinding white world that had him squint his eyes a little until they'd adapted to the brightness. Still he had to shield them against the glaring sun as he stepped outside - noticing just now he didn't wear any shoes which made itself quite known as his first step had been right into a half-melted little heap of half-frozen water, sending a shiver all the way from the cold sensation down below up to the tips of the last hair. They'd built the sickroom cabin a good deal outside the village, in case of an infectious disease that would spread otherwise. This too had the side-effect of giving the sick and injured the much needed peace and quiet to heal, but also made a quick trip to the village something that just wasn't gonna happen. Usually they'd stock up on some well-conserved foods to keep everyone inside fed without having to walk miles and miles for a meal, but a quick look at the storage chest confirmed its emptiness. He'd have to have a word with Chrome about it, but not now. Before his bare feet could get frostbitten, he returned inside, closing the door as he did, leaning against it for support as another wave of deeply-felt tiredness washed over him. Frustration added to the mix when he noticed the trembling going up from his underused leg-muscles.

~This will be a pain in the neck.. Damn, it already is!~

He spotted a chair that looked like it was knocked over in a hurry, so he made his way there, returned it to a proper position and sat down, breathing heavily from the effort. Leaning back against the chair, he found time to study the ceiling. No surprise he'd felt a little cold; the roof had some serious leaks there that would need fixing if the cabin wasn't meant to rot anytime soon. Proper insulation wasn't a given either with holes like this, putting anyone inside in danger - also everyone outside, since there'd be nothing to keep germs inside if polluted air got out 24/7. This wasn't such a problem with the door, with it being open for maybe a few seconds, rather than hours. A word with Chrome, he reaffirmed and stretched his legs, sinking on the chair. The now stretched leg muscles used their brief break to start a cramp that had their owner first hiss - and from the suddenness of it, almost bit his tongue in the process - which went on for a minute or two, after which Senku sighed in relief. Lack of potassium too, then. He'd need some fish soon, or this would happen every time he made a wrong move. Back in the modern days, one could just take a pill and be done with it. Getting your daily potassium fix by eating was a literal pain, all the more in mid-winter.

~.. Just how long was I out anyway?..~, the scientist mused, one hand lazily touching the bamboo-esque design and following one tube from back to front. It wasn't comfortable by any means, but better than a wooden log any day of the week. When had they replaced the crude logs with chairs?

Now that he was sitting - cramp-free and relaxed -, a deadbeat sleepiness joined his aching and sore muscles. When Yuzuriha finally returned, carrying a little bowl with something salty-smelling and steaming in it, she found him half slouched, eyes closed, too deep asleep to even take notice of her. While for a moment she'd flinched enough to almost drop the soup, she calmed down quickly. Living in this day and age had changed her, as had it changed everyone. She had become a lot more mature through the last few months; if not exactly in body, though very well in spirit. Thus she sighed, approached the sleeping blonde and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Senku-kun..", she spoke softly. The person in question muttered something similiar to 'not now.. don't you.. see.. that.. hrmlf..' but was obviously refusing to wake up, even made a less than half-assed motion with his hand in her direction, as if trying to shoo away a fly. The girl next to him frowned, sighed again, put the bowl down at a safe distance and tried again. A few gentle slaps on the cheek finally did the trick, had her patient open his eyes so suddenly she jumped back, only to have her movements followed by a dazed look in the same eyes.

"G-good morning, Senku-kun..", she almost whimpered, which he replied to with a hearty yawn, then proceeded to rub his eyes that stung profusely. When it was clear he wouldn't speak, she continued. "I brought breakfast..", she explained, pointing at the bowl, waiting for an aknowledgement, but the young scientist's mind seemed elsewhere right now. After a moment something seemed to click, his eyes focused and he looked up at her.

"Yuzuriha...", he finally noticed, which had her giggling. It was so not-him to be out of it and thus a truly precious moment.

"Breakfast", she repeated, fetching the bowl and giving it to him, seeing he was about alert enough to do the eating part himself. Not unlike a starved animal he proceeded to drink the fluids, savoring the taste as if he'd never eaten such a thing until the bowl was empty and his stomach full.

"Damn.. I really needed that..", his content sigh escaped his mouth before he could stop it, sending Yuzuriha into another giggling fit. By now, the third in their little circle had passed the first layer of sleep and slowly came to.

"Can you guys be any louder..?", Taiju moaned, his brain catching up seconds later, clearly visible by the wide eyed stare he gave the other male as he sat up quicker than either had seen another do. "Senku, you're up!"

"Obviously, you big oaf", said scientist replied, meant to be condescending - got to keep up an image - but having a playful tone to it. Taiju either didn't care or missed it altogether, as he suddenly jumped up and made way to hug his friend, who saw it coming, attempted to move from his seat and even did it, but less graceful than he'd planned to, resulting in Taiju throwing over the chair once again as he hit it in an exaggerated jump, Senku staggering away just in time and Yuzuriha looking between both, undecisive whose side to take. Either Senku, who was panting harder than his move should have caused him to, or Taiju, who groaned after having hit his head on the wall, a proud bump on said head. Finally she helped Taiju up, decided his thick head was just fine and rightened the chair before turning to Senku who was about to throw a tirade about he didn't like to be hugged by men, when Yuzuriha raised a hand, asking him to be silent.

"You know..", she said, suddenly sober, almost sad. ".. we were worried.."