When Umeka woke up she was the only person in the so-called science hut. She rolled over, blinking in confusion; stunned that she slept until midday by the look of the bright sun. She scrambled up to the door and stood at the top looking out.

"Well hey, Princess Mononoke, glad you finally decided to join us," Senku called, waving at her from the middle of the yard.

She rolled her eyes but turned to climb down the ladder anyway. There were far more people out and about now that it was daytime. An old man stood with Senku, and Gen. The warriors were nowhere to be found and neither was the headband wearing boy called Chrome. The dogs were all awake, running and barking with children from the village. She smiled, "How long have they been playing?"

"Oh just the entire morning," Senku sighed, giving her a teasing grin, "thanks for that, they haven't done a millimeter of work."

"I'm just glad the dogs haven't eaten them."

Senku's eyes went wide and his mouth dropped slightly; his eyebrow twitching. Umeka couldn't hold it for long before she started giggling and Senku groaned and rolled his eyes, "Very funny."

She smiled, proud of her joke and how Gen was still laughing his face tucked behind his sleeve, "I don't think they'd be dangerous without being told, but I am surprised they want to play so much. They've never been around any humans but me."

"Well, you probably gave them crazy high expectations for humans. You probably increased the quality of their lives by ten billion percent. With that being their only human contact of course they're going to like any others."

"It's hard to believe," the old man spoke, his voice shaking in a pleasant elderly way, "someone so young could get big beasts like those to listen to them. Around the village, even little creatures like Suika's puppy are pretty rare!"

"Well," Senku spoke, a small smile breaking out on his face the way it did when he was going to say something smart, "the development of agriculture and the domestication of animals both happened around ten thousand years ago. It might not seem like it but those are the building blocks of civilization and the foundation of science."

Gen squinted, looking up above his head, "How is...that?"

"Something tells me he's glad you asked," the old man chimed.

Umeka smiled slightly, glancing back to where the dogs ran full force circling laughing kids and pushing their bodies in the dirt around them with their tales wagging like crazy.

"When people didn't have to fight for resources and spend every day wondering how they were going to shelter themselves and eat they were able to start thinking about other things. Domesticated animals provided food, protection, resources, and companionship and domesticated plants formed gardens that allowed for food storage and a more sustainable source of nutrients," Senku grinned at her, "that's why Umeka was so quick to do it even though she was young."

Umeka furrowed her eyebrows at him, "No it's not."

"H-huh?" Senku blinked, his head tilting in genuine confusion.

Though it had made her feel a little pouty in the face of him making a big claim, now she felt embarrassed, her cheeks puffing out, "I just...wanted to pet the dogs."

Senku stared for a moment, then busted out laughing, hand patting his side. She turned red, puffing up at him, which only made him laugh harder, "Sorry, sorry it was just such a simple reason," he said, wiping tears from his eyes and still trying to stifle a laugh, "of course, you were a kid so even if you were as crazy-smart as you must be you just wanted a pal."

Even though she'd wanted to fuss at him for laughing she couldn't help but smile a little since it seemed like he understood her. She rolled her eyes away from him, her face still burning with embarrassment.

Gen chuckled and looped his arm over her shoulders, "Would you mind telling us about what you brought then? We've been able to hold off opening the bags until you woke up but I don't think we can stand it any longer."

"Yes! I want to see more treasures from the past!" The old man chanted, pumping his fists.

"You know you could at least tell her your name first, gramps!" Gen fussed, leaving his arm over Umeka's shoulders as they walked.

"Oh! Right! My name is Kaseki!" He said proudly, his chest puffing out, "I'm a craftsman and a builder!"

She smiled a little, "You sound like my grandpa, he was a builder too. But just old stuff he wanted to make not for a job or anything."

"Old stuff you say? How do you mean?" The way Gen talked, it felt maybe a little put on but he focused all of his attention. Made it clear he was listening and remembering the things she said. It made her want to keep talking to him.

"Oh well. My grandpa was a folklorist-"

"What does that mean?!" Kaseki interrupted eyes seeming to glitter with interest.

"Shh! She's trying to tell us."

Umeka snickered patting Gen's hand for jumping in again, "It means he studied traditional things, I guess. Old stories and traditional ways of making things and why they were done that way. He was always telling me myths and showing me classical instruments and old school crafts."

"It's," Senku said, not looking up from a bag he was already rifling through, "a branch of anthropology. A lot of folklorists focus on myths, legends, and stories like she said. They work to preserve the lessons of culture as science moves forward and makes some things obsolete as tools for sharing knowledge."

"You...lost me."

"I've gotta be onesthay, you lost me this time too, Senku."

"Oh!" Umeka raised her hand, inexplicably, making Gen and Senku chuckle, "I think I know."

"Well go ahead then," Senku smirked, continuing to pour out a bag of tools and sift through them.

"Stories used to be used to share information when people didn't always know how to read or write or have paper and pens and stuff! So instead people would tell stories because they were easier to remember than just a list of facts! Lots of myths were made up to explain things like...big storms...or...uhm...uh...oh! Food! Why we eat certain things or why some stuff seems to grow better or worse in some places. Before people had science they kinda...made up a reason to help make sense of the world and to spread information and uh...how did grandpa…" she tapped her chin, "Oh! Make a 'cultural identity.' That's what grandpa told me. At least."

"Heh," Senku tilted his head back to look up at her, "ten billion points, Umeka. That's pretty much exactly it."

She grinned, swelling up with pride that made Gen giggle softly beside her.

"Sounds like the hundred tales!" Kaseki said.

"What's what?"

"That's because that's what they are," Senku sighed.

"What are they?"

"So the tales are myths! What's a myth?"

"Oh, a myth more specifically-"

"What!" Umeka interrupted, flushing when Kaseki and Senku jumped to look at her and mumbling the rest of her question, "Are the hundred tales…?"

Senku sputtered another laugh, "Right. You haven't been here the whole time. Gen?"

"Me?" Gen blinked, but then seeing Senku excitedly showing a tool to Kaseki and gesturing with it wildly, "oh okay we're losing them. The hundred tales were stories passed down from Senku's dad and the other astronauts who are the ancestors of this entire village. They made the stories trying to help their descendants live but also to get information to Senku because his dad had azycray faith in him, to put it simply."

Umeka stared at him, wide-eyed. Then blinked. Looked up at the sky. Then back to Gen, "Astronauts…?"

"Yes."

"...they just...came back?"

"Mhm."

"...whoa."

"I know right," Gen laughed, "It is pretty insane. I guess more insane if you weren't with us when we found out! That's why the village is called Ishigami Village. He's Ishigami Senku. Oh, and he's the chief."

"You are?" Umeka looked at Senku a little shocked but he was just fussing with her bag of tools.

"Yeah, that's not such a big deal though," he said, his voice dismissive of his position, "Are these what I think they are?" he smirked at her, almost mischievous.

"...," she grinned, plopped down in the dirt by him, "what do you think they are?"

"I think they're gonna blow the old man's mind," he said, turning the simple-looking block of wood over in his hand.

"Oh. Probably," Umeka grinned, barely able to withhold the giggle that was building as Kaseki leaned around like a little kid in an ice cream shop watching their scoops get placed on the cone.

"Come on then! Tell me!" He complained, trying to snatch the tool from Senku who twisted around to hold the block behind him keeping it from Kaseki.

"This...is a super crude all wooden kiwakanna, isn't it?" Senku said, raising an eyebrow, the smile on his face looking strangely proud.

"Yeah, it doesn't work very well because it's-"

"All wood."

"Right, but I wanted to try," she nodded, "I didn't ever keep much of the stuff that I tried that didn't work. But...I guess I just really wanted those to work so I kept them."

Senku grinned, "well it's good you did, we can make real blades for these, and between you knowing how they work and Kaseki being a crazy fast study we're going to have real Japanese wood joinery unlocked in no time."

"Wood...joinery?" Kaseki echoed, drool forming in the corner of his mouth.

"...Hi excuse me but," Gen said, squinting down his nose, "Why...bother?"

"Why bother!" Senku frowned at him, clutching the plane to his chest.

"I didn't know you were such a traditionalist," Gen teased making Senku roll his eyes.

"I don't think that's why," Umeka smiled, holding up her fingers and interlocking her knuckled as examples as she spoke, "Traditional Japanese carpentry was all about getting the wood to stick together without nails, screws, fancy tools, glue, or anything else. Just the wood."

"It's a crazy precise science," Senku said, lovingly looking over the tools, "created exactly for this climate. With Japan's humidity and fluctuating temperatures, nails and screws would rust and fall apart and glue fails even faster. Wood joinery basically gets stronger over time, that's why Japan had so many ancient temples in our day. And besides," suddenly a dark glint came into his eye, he loomed over the tools, "it'll cut out a whole line of production for fastening products meaning-"

"...that labor can go somewhere else," Gen sighed.

For the rest of the afternoon, the young girl explained her tools and shared the various dried meats and fruits she'd brought while they talked. Senku had, maybe too abruptly for Kaseki's tastes, dismissed some of her tools as things they meltdown and repurpose. Other times, like the carpentry planes he'd gotten so excited for, he'd hold them up as the new standard. The girl seemed to take it all in stride, unbothered when Senku tossed through her worn stone knives and simple awls.

"Okay!" Kaseki shouted, "be a little nicer with the stuff, Senku." He cradled an awl that had snapped on the ground.

Senku blinked, having enough shame to glance at Umeka who smiled at Kaseki.

"No it's okay," she said her thumb running a dull knife edge and then lightly tossing it over her shoulder, "some of this stuff is junk I shouldn't have brought," her eyes went unfocused, looking off into the distance, "I was just panicking."

"Of course they were useful to you but we have better ones here, we just don't need them, old man," Senku shrugged, returning to the planes to gather them up, Umeka following after him to help his noodle-armed self hold them all.

"No reason to keep them if you have something better! I would have tossed them if I had ever had metal anyway!" She grinned, rushing after Senku who was practically sprinting to the kiln. He immediately dropped, laying on his stomach as he happily drew.

He reached behind him without looking, grabbing Umeka's wrist and pulling her down beside him, "So if the metal goes...here," he said, drawing furiously, "this is the normal shape, right?"

"Mmm," she tilted her head, leaning in to look, "No...more like...I dunno like," she lifted up her hands, angling one from the other in front of her, "like that? Does that make sense?"

Senku stared for a moment, "Oh. Sure! So it goes...and then…"

Kaseki blinked, turning to Gen who gave a good-natured shrug, "No clue. But they look excited. I don't know a ton but I know enough to confidently say you're going to love it."

He nodded, walking over to the kids who were eagerly discussing the tools. Once he caught sighs of the drawing his heart raced, it was a very simple blade they needed to make, but that's why it was so exciting. Something so simple in design could make all the complicated shapes needed in a house. He couldn't wait to get his hands on it.

"What do you think, expert craftsman? You getting excited?" Senku chuckled, Umeka grinning over his shoulder.

"Beyond! Quit yapping and help me make this damn blade!"

Senku laughed but jumped up, explaining the mixtures of metal to Umeka who blinked in confusion, nodding without seeming to understand. It wasn't long until they'd poured metal in a cast and sat around waiting for it to cool enough that Kaseki could grind it down.

"So this is how your house was put together?" Kaseki asked.

"Oh!" Umeka laughed shortly, "No. Mine was more like...wood and plaster and rope. It was all I could do. Ugly but it worked. She laughed, tugging at the front of her shirt, an animal skin she'd wrapped around and tied, "pretty much everything I did or owned was just cause it would work."

"That one macrame chair you had hanging from your ceiling was a 'need,' huh?" Senku grinned.

"Well," she blushed, glancing away, "there was a while where I couldn't lay down. I think I probably poisoned myself, every time I laid down I'd vomit. So...haha...I made the chair so I could sit up and sleep. Those fancy looking knots are just the only way I knew to make it."

Senku frowned as she spoke, "Sounds like it was pretty bad."

"Oh yeah," she shrugged, trying to brush past the moment, "but what do you expect! I guess stuff that wasn't poisonous before learned to be poisonous. At least some things. I've never eaten anything I didn't recognize. I probably eat….mmm...I dunno. Less than fifty different things. Types of animals and plants and everything included."

"Smart," Senku laughed a little, "but sounds boring."

She shrugged quickly, "Better than getting sick like that again," she overplayed a shudder trying to joke but it was clear she didn't want to talk about it much longer.

"Hey!" Senku suddenly called, looking over the cast, well-timed as ever, "looks like it's cooled off."

"Give it!"

Umeka barely had to explain, once she showed him one smooth push from the plane on the wood a thin curl pulling off the board he understood. He flexed with excitement, clothes straining free, as Gen's hand shot around to over Umeka's eyes.

"Hey!" she said, trying to pull him free.

"Trust me," Gen sighed, "I'm doing you a favor, Umie."

"Umie?" she turned, blinking up to him.

"Like it? I thought you needed a cute nickname," he tapped his finger on her nose, "for such a cute girl."

She blushed, eyes wide with shock. Gen couldn't help but chuckle to himself. She wouldn't have had any real experience with flirting, having been so young when the petrification happened. Maybe a schoolyard crush, that would have been normal for her age but little boys are more direct, throwing things if they're mean or stating their feelings outright and giving gifts if they weren't. Based on this, and her strong reaction to compliments much less his obvious flirting, he could only assume she had no idea Tsukasa had feelings for her.

He wanted to know, though, how she felt. If she cared for him and was just scared, it might be risky having her around. She might change her mind and go rushing back to his side taking secrets with her as she went. If she didn't want to go back to him but liked him the coming fight might be difficult for her to help in, and it could be unfair to ask certain things of her. The last option that occurred to him was that she didn't like him at all, and then it wouldn't be any more difficult to fight him than anyone else. Provided, of course, Tsukasa didn't make a battlefield confession which didn't seem likely to Gen. In fact, if she didn't return his feelings it might be useful to them in the future, as long as everyone was okay with a little cruel manipulation of romantic feelings for personal gain. As far as Gen was concerned, that was fair game against someone who could rip a tree from its roots. All is fair in love and war, after all, and there's a reason romance had been used for centuries in spying and conflict; it works.

He grinned, sitting by her, "So Umie, can I ask you about Tsukasa?"

"Oh…" she blinked, watching Senku and Kaseki furiously playing with the new tools laughing like idiots, "s-sure?"

"What do you think of him?" honesty seemed like the best approach with her. Umeka grew up alone, so certain little tricks or outright deceptions would work on her better than the average person, that said, it also meant she grew up without certain social pressures. Some things people would have been taught to be ashamed of or cautious about sharing she might not have. Mostly, Gen got the sense that she had a very fine-tuned instinct since even without much human interaction she'd been using her basic knowledge and instinct alone to survive all those years.

"Uh…" she frowned, folding her arms in front of her. Closing off and protecting herself. She either had something she didn't want to share or-

"He's scary."

Or that, "How so?"

"He just...feels scary. Like…as soon as I met him I knew he could do whatever he wanted. And I was right. He killed a bear with a sword! I've seen him grab birds out of the sky and he brought me a whole tree one time for firewood. A whole tree! It had roots! I don't think I need to feel like I can beat everyone to feel comfortable here. I mean...individually maybe I could take you all if I had to fight but probably not everyone. But I still feel comfortable here. I never felt comfortable with Tsukasa," the corner of her mouth dropped, her eyes casting down sadly.

"Because it felt like you didn't have a choice, hmm?" He smiled, familiar with the sensation, though it seemed Tsukasa's charisma didn't work on Umeka the way it worked on most. It felt like a weird solidarity, like he'd felt when he found a good assistant for his shows in the past.

"Yeah!" she seemed excited to be understood, it had relieved some lingering guilt she must have been harboring from running.

Gen smiled, poking her nose again, "Okay that's all I wanted to ask, Umie. Thanks for answering me."

She smiled awkwardly, touching her nose. There was no way she knew how Tsukasa felt and even though Gen hoped it would help them one day, he worried that it might also be the source of a huge problem.

The rest of the night passed easily. Senku's hands were covered in small splitters from helping Kaseki. Even with the good tool and Kaseki's intense skills, Senku's own less deft hands had gotten damaged in the process. Not that it mattered. What mattered was that it was going to up their production time and the quality. It making Kaseki excited and seemingly helping Umeka feel like more a part of the group was just a nice side bonus.

He sighed, pulling his collar tighter, it was getting cold fast at night now, and sitting on the science hut roof without any cover wasn't helping. It probably wouldn't be long until he was breaking out the winter layer of his clothes.

"Senku?" Umeka spoke from beside him suddenly.

He flinched, yelping and nearly sliding off the straw roof but Umeka's hand shot out easily and grabbed him, helping him stay on, "Sorry! Sorry! I didn't mean to scare you I thought you noticed me."

"Heh. Try to remember you have that hunter sneak bonus, kay? I didn't hear a millimeter of straw shift out of place."

"Is that a lot?"

He blinked, "Oh. Hadn't learned measurements yet?"

"They tried but...you forget some things," she shrugged, "I remember centimeters! That's why my hair is long!"

"...explain that."

"My mom, oh well you saw her," he nodded as she spoke, "she had long hair. She liked that it was a tradition. She said it made us fancy," she laughed suddenly, waving her hand, "I think she was joking but it was fun to brush mom's hair and she'd do mine. She liked stories like grandpa so she'd tell me some then or teach me a song. I already had hair to here," she lifted the chord she kept free from the braid, the one that hung in front of her shoulder and she pinched the highest bead, "mom used to measure my hair to see how it was growing. She told me it grew twelve centimeters a year so-"

"You...did the math and...made a calendar with your hair," Senku cut in, his voice soft with shock. He chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief.

"I know it probably doesn't work super good, but I just wanted to know how many years it was and I didn't know what day it was when I woke up or anything so this was all I could do beyond count the days and get a rough idea of the months once-" she stalled, blushed when she realized what she was about to talk about.

Senku snickered, "don't worry, human biology doesn't bother me but you don't have to explain. I know what you mean."

Still, she glanced away awkwardly, a blush still spread over her face, then she noticed his paper, "What's that?"

"Ah. Well. I'm," he looked up, "trying to make a star chart. For navigation."

She leaned in quickly, her shoulder pressing against his. She didn't seem to notice or care, but it made Senku jump. It was a little stupid but he wasn't used to many people being that close to him. If she'd been looking at him he might have actually gotten flustered but instead, she was staring seriously at his crude map and then looking at the sky and then back at the map, her eyebrows furrowing more with each glance.

"Want to share with the class or?"

She blinked, "Oh. Uh. It's...wrong?"

"Excuse me."

"That's…" she pointed to a constellation just over the horizon, barely visible above the treeline, "Orion."

"No it's not," he leaned a little trying to peak through the trees, putting a hand on her far shoulder to steady himself, "See it's just a box there, there's not a star connecting the...what the arm? All the double Orinis stars that connect off of-" He paused, there was no way, "What makes you sure that's Orion?"

She raised an eyebrow at him pointing as she spoke, "That's Oushi. And that's Gyosha. Kujira. And I can't really see that one but I bet it's Futago. Those are all the constellations around Orion so that has to be Orion, right?"

Senku could barely contain himself, he grabbed her shoulders, shaking her, "Do you know what this means?!"

He could cry, he groaned loudly ignoring Gen and Chrome's protests, "Hey! Shut it! Stuff something in your ears! This sucks!"

"What's happening!" Umeka yelled, looking dizzied from his shaking.

"It happened! Betelguese finally went supernova while we were all stone…!" He groaned loudly in frustration, "It could have been another hundred thousand years but nooo it just had to happen," he turned glaring at the constellation, "While no one could see it! Damn!"

Umeka was staring at him when he turned back, still breathing hard from his little fit. Her mouth smiled but her eyes continued to stare in unblinking confusion, "Explain?"

He sighed heavily, leaning back against the roof, "You're right. First of all, so thanks. I wasn't even thinking about it but...the star that should be right...there. Died off. It was something everyone that watched the sky was getting excited about. It was gonna be brighter in the sky than the moon for weeks. I had noticed it was getting dimmer just before the petri-ray happened, I guess it was just closer than I'd thought."

"Oh so...you're just sad that you missed it," she smiled a little, "cause you're a big sky nerd, huh?"

He blinked at her, "Yeah. A real big one. What, can you recognize your own kind? You called them by their Japanese names, right? Oushi is Taurus, Gyosha is Auriga, Kujira is Cetus, and Futago, the twins...Gemini."

She smiled, leaning back beside him, "If you say so. Grandpa just taught me the Japanese names."

"Man. I can't wait to meet your, grandpa," Senku laughed.

Umeka was quiet for a moment and he turned, worried he'd upset her bringing up her family, especially someone she hadn't found but she was looking at him with a soft smile. He blinked, suddenly feeling awkward and she must have noticed because her smile broadened, "Guess you have to settle for me for now."

"I'll survive somehow," he sat forward again, scratching away at his paper making the corrections, "so would you say you know all of the stars, some of the stars, what are we working with here?"

"Senku," she called, still leaning back.

He looked over his shoulder, "Huh? What is it?"

"I definitely know them all but I'm only going to help on one condition," she grinned at his suddenly deadpanned expression.

"Yeah, yeah what silly thing do you want then? Are you gonna be like Gen and want a soda?" He teased, trying to suppress the concern she'd want something he couldn't easily provide.

"Hey!" Gen called from somewhere below them but they both ignored it.

"No," her grin widened, "I don't really care about anything like that. I just want you to let me tell you the stories while I point them out."

"...heh...a folklorist like your grandpa, huh?" He smiled, turning back to his paper, that wasn't too much to ask.

"I guess," she sat up, looking at the paper over his shoulder, "I just think maybe it would be fun and you look like you're always working."

"Well...sure but to be fair," he looked at her, awkwardly pulling back from how close they were, "I think the work is fun."

"Fine," she rolled her eyes, smiling and looking up into the stars making her eyes shine with the brightness of the night sky in a world with no other source of light, "then maybe it would just be nice to remember all the things people used to believe and we already know better than. Honor the past and-"

"Move toward the future."

She grinned, "Plus I get to show off the thing I'm smart about."

Senku snorted, "Yeah, you definitely haven't done that yet. Please keep struggling to prove your worth."

She laughed, elbowing him which nearly made him slip off the edge since he was unprepared, "Oh sorry!"

He rolled his eyes, "Yeah it's okay but let's keep our hands to ourselves, hmm? Now. The stars."

She grinned, looking back up and pointing as she leaned on his shoulder to make sure they were tracking the same things, "Hey wait a minute, you didn't actually agree to listen to the stories."

He turned, smiling at her suspicious expression, "I'll listen, promise," he offered his arm for a bump, a gesture he'd gotten so used to with the others he forgot she wouldn't know it. She paused for only a moment before reaching out and forcing her pinky through his, giving a little squeeze with her small finger.

"Good, then we can get started," she said, turning her face back to the sky as she let his hand go, her eyes searching for a good starting point the smile on her face a stark contrast to her fearful expression she wore just a day ago when she arrived.