"I need another flat stone over here," Chrome called. His voice was low and tired sounding.
Wordlessly, Taiju handed him a large stone and walked away. Chrome firmly placed it above the grave he had finished digging. Then he put his hands together and prayed over the body buried below.
Rows and rows of fresh graves were beside and above him, marked with name-carved stones. Thanks to the girl none of them knew, she could inform them of the names of most of the deceased Tsukasa Empire bodies, since she herself had been a part of the Empire.
The girl couldn't speak Japanese. Senku's assumption had been right- she was American. Her bright green eyes and blond hair had made that the most obvious, but her accent in speaking the tiny bit of Japanese she knew was prevalently eastern. Unable to understand most of what she said, they didn't know her name.
Senku knew some English, but was too busy figuring out what they still had from before and such to help translate what he could. Everyone else was too bad at the language to be of any help.
As they buried the bodies, nearly all of them cried. Chrome and Ruri wept bitterly over the graves of the villagers they had known for so long. The bodies of Kaseki the craftsman, Kinro, Ginro, Magma, their parents, and even more heartbreakingly, Suika, were found. What confused them was that they could not find Kohaku's or Gen's bodies.
Gen hadn't been spotted during the battle, but Ruri was sure Kohaku had died in front of her. This made them hopeful that Gen was alive, but doubt clouded anything positive at the moment.
After nearly a year in the Empire, Taiju and Yuzuriha and gotten somewhat close to the many now-deceased people who had been with them. The burial was also bitter for them.
"Suika..," Ruri wept, "...not Suika..!" Chrome tried to comfort her through his own sobbing, but the effort was worthless. "She was too young! She was too young..!"
At a distance, Ukyo the archer lay on a patch of grass. Senku had gotten the bleeding of his wounds to stop, and while the wounds were fatal, he had genuine hope that he would survive.
"...this isn't right..," Ukyo coughed as Senku checked him over.
"Dang right about that," Senku mumbled.
"I refused to join Tsukasa on his rampage because he intended bloodshed," Ukyo said, "But...but...I came along to try to prevent casualties. Instead, I got caught up in the chaos of war." His hand went to his tightly bandaged chest. Then he formed a fist over his heart, clutching at the bandages. "I'll kill him."
Senku raised a brow. "What was that?"
Ukyo's eyes glinted with a furious glare that burned into Senku's eyes and stamped his soul.
"Tsukasa."
"Eh?"
"I will kill him. I hate him."
"Wasn't it you who just told me you despised bloodshed and murder?" Senku said.
"I do despise it," Ukyo said darkly, "But it'll be my last act on this god-forsaken stone world." He suddenly gritted his teeth and held his wound tighter in pain. After a while, he relaxed and went to sleep.
"Don't be a fool acting on emotionally-charged whims," Senku sighed. He glanced warily at Tsukasa, who he had forced himself to bring closer so he could keep an eye on him. His legs were both broken, somehow, so he was unable to walk.
Senku left the man and returned to the nearly completed cemetery. Located at the base of the hill where the ancestors of Ishigami Village were buried, it made a mountain of graves. It was like a monument.
"Did you finish counting and identifying everyone?" Senku asked.
Taiju gave him a slow nod. Everyone's faces were tear stained and red, some still crying. Senku's expression softened further and he gave them a faint smirk and a quiet, "Good work."
He walked through them and stood at the head of the cemetery. His hands balled up into fists and he closed his eyes.
"Kaseki...Suika...Kinro...Ginro...Magma...Kohaku...Gen..." His fists trembled as he clenched them tighter, his knuckles turning white. "You did well in your places in the Kingdom of Science."
Taiju, Yuzuriha, and Ruri came alongside him as he spoke softly under his breath. Ruri started silently crying again as he talked.
"You will not be forgotten, nor your work discredited. The generations oncoming will never be clueless of your names and your significance in the advancement of science. Always, forever, for as long as mankind walks this earth...you will be remembered and praised, like Einstein or Newton, or Eddison or Copericus or..."
He stopped short, his voice quivering. Taiju put a firm hand on his shoulder while holding back more tears of his own. Senku's shoulders sagged and he didn't say anything else.
"After thorough assessment, it would seem we are back to ground zero," Senku announced to the group the next day.
"Ground zero?" Chrome gasped, "As in, we've lost everything we've slaved over for so long?! All of the manpower we gathered just went down the drain?!"
"Pretty much," Senku replied, rubbing his ear with his pinkie finger. "Thankfully, a lot of what you've collected were rocks and they couldn't burn or shatter them, but they seemed to understand that they were materials and disposed of them somehow."
"A-are you sure?!" Chrome asked.
"It would seem so," Senku answered.
"NOOOOOOO!" Chrome shouted. He fell to his knees and began pulling in handfuls of sand and dirt towards himself. "Maybe there's still stuff in crumbles on the ground and-!"
Senku ignored him and continued talking to the rest of them.
"Since we've already built a lot, it won't be too hard to rebuild it. Or rather, it'll be a pain in the neck to rebuild, but we no longer need to waist time on trial by error and looking for materials, since we know where to find them."
"What's our first goal, since there's hardly anyone around anymore?" Yuzuriha asked.
"Reviving people to help us, of course," Senku said, "We have the cave in our possession now, so reviving people will be a cinch. Time is the only obnoxious part, but we can live with that."
"And after that?" Ruri murmured.
"Once we have a good amount of people back, we can work on rebuilding the Kingdom of Science. While we wait for that, we can do what we were doing before Tsukasa had first intervened- simply surviving."
"That's something we can all do fairly well," Yuzuriha said. "Since most of our clothing turned into torn rags, I can make everyone some new clothes."
"We don't even need to spell out the rest," Taiju agreed with a nod.
"You know the whole shebang," Senku said, "You can all get started; I'll get to the cave and begin the collecting process of the nitric acid. The vineyards of Ishigami Village are still flourishing, so start harvesting grapes and producing juice for wine."
"Affirmative," Chrome said, suddenly back to normal, "But I do have a question..."
"Hm?"
"What are we gonna do with that...thing...over there?" Chrome pointed to the sleeping Tuskasa several yards away.
"Oh, him?" Senku said, "We do nothing. His legs are broken, so he won't be going anywhere. The only way he could hurt you is if you flaunt around him in his face; I ensured there was nothing around him that he could use to inflict damage."
"Whatever you say..," Chrome muttered.
Senku went off to get to the miracle cave, and the rest of them began their work. By nightfall, they had made plenty of grape juice and stored it way for fermentation. Since the vineyard had been relatively unscathed, the pots and jars there were also fine, so they at least had those.
"Where is Senku?" Ruri asked as they settled down for the night.
"He is taking quite a while..," Yuzuriha murmured.
As if on cue, Senku came walking into camp. His feet dragged at the ground and his hung head looked dark and shadowy. He was pulsing with black vibes!
"Eek!" the American girl squeaked, "S-scary!" Her accent made her pronunciation of the word pretty bad, but it was a good sign that she knew slightly more words than yes or no.
"W-what's wrong?!" Taiju asked.
"What's wrong..?" Senku muttered darkly, his voice eerily trembling, "What's wrong is that the miracle cave is ten-billion percent destroyed."
"EEEEEEEEEEEEH?!" everyone screamed in unison.
"W-whatdya mean, it's destroyed?!" Chrome freaked, "Don't we need the nitric acid in there for it?! Isn't that the only way we can get that stuff? Does that mean we can't revive the statues anymore?!"
"Who destroyed it?!" Yuzuriha gasped.
"This is bad!" Taiju exclaimed.
"That darn Tsukasa," Senku said, "Since they charged in on us like that, they must've been betting on winning, but once they realized their stupidly dumb mistake, Tsukasa probably ordered to destroy the cave to ultimately foil our plans."
"Is there any other way we could make the revival fluid?" Taiju asked desperately.
An even more unsettling frown appeared on Senku's face. "Oh, there is another way, but it's got ten-billion steps that all require stupidly advanced technology."
"Like what?!" Chrome demanded. "You've talked about making stuff that moves on its own and captures moments frozen in time and talks without being alive! Can't we make our own revival fluid somehow without the nitric acid?!"
Senku messaged the bridge of his nose and let out a troubled, shaky sigh. "I'm talking about artificially produced materials- using devices that take insanely refined materials that we would have to spend months- heck, even years, gathering and filtering. Even so, the proper-"
"AUGH!" Chrome shouted, pressing both hands on either sides of his head, "I get it! We can't make the revival fluid without the miracle cave! Dangitdangitdangitdangitdangit!"
"So...so...so how exactly are we going to revive the statues?" Yuzuriha asked, "If we can't revive the statues, then we can't repopulate the world...a-and for all we know...we're the only ones left." Her voice quivered more and more as she spoke. "The only ones left in the entire world...with no way to bring back a single statue..."
"YABE*!" Chrome screamed. "The world is ending! The population will dwindle as we slowly die out!"
"How awful..." Ruri said sadly.
Yuzuriha was both trembling and tearing up. Taiju stood beside her and put his arm around her, drawing her closer. The American stood behind them, having absolutely no understand of what had just been discussed. Only a puzzled look was on her face.
"N-nani..*?" she murmured in a disgustingly inaccurate accent.
Senku walked over to her and began speaking sloppily English. They watched as he explained the situation as bluntly as he could, and winced when she reacted properly to the bad news. Thankfully, she didn't cry.
Then, a little while after processing the information, she said something to him. The pureness of her English was stunning, but of course, that was because she spoke it as her native language. His eyes widened for a second, but he quickly resumed his original expression. With a slight grin.
"W-what did she say?" Ruri asked.
Senku chuckled wickedly. Everyone looked over at him, puzzled.
"The thought's always lingered at the back of my mind as a last-effort solution," he said, "But if we're unable to revive the statues and it's just us..."
"Wait, you aren't saying..," Taiju began slowly.
"You better believe it," Senku cackled, "If it's just us- the only people left alive on this earth- then there's only one thing left for us to do!"
The seven people surrounding him took a startled step backwards as he let out an unhinged, almost mad laugh. His green hair seemed to stand up higher and his eyes glinted red with feverish felicity. While they knew what he was going to say, the buildup was unbearable.
"We're gonna have to naturally reproduce!" he shouted, throwing his arms out wide. "Via natural childbirth!"
Don't worry, nothing descriptive and suggestive will follow the writing of Senku's declared solution. Pretty crazy solution, right?
*Yabe (yah-bay) is a phrase meaning "Oh, dang!" and such- commonly used by Chrome's character.
*Nani (nah-nee) means "what".
Thanks for reading and tune in for more chapters!