The sound of cold wind reaches his ears trailing faint whispers of voices long gone, caressing his long hair and kissing his cheeks as a mother does with her babe. His eyes are closed, arms spread and fingers feeling for the currents, the cushion of air that guides him when his body fails him and his wings cannot carry him further. The weightlessness brings him a comfort the land fails to conjure, a peace he craves when land life becomes overwhelming.

The air should be rife with warmth, yet he feels chilled to the bone.

"You see, Senkū? The wind is with you; one with your being. It takes you where you need to go even when you're confused."

A smile loosely knits itself together on his face, his feathers shivering with delight as he soars higher than ever before.

"Let yourself loose—feel yourself break free of restraint when you ride the currents. They'll guide you to where you'll need to go so long as you trust them."

"Can you ride them too, Pops?"

A chuckle rings throughout the skies as a shadow hovers above his smaller frame, smoky-gray wings fluttering at the edge of his vision with cloudy trails from the fog, a phantasm streaking above.

"Of course, I can! Your old man can do more than barrel rolls and corkscrew dives!"

Excitement runs deep in his veins as the wind shifts in tandem with their beating hearts and his eyes open to meet the skies. A large hand grips his own smaller one, a reassuring squeeze as the soar, higher and higher until they breach the cloud barrier, their wings carrying them high where even the clouds barely kiss their toes. The sun warms them, warding off the chill that threatens to gather on his body. Byakuya shifts, spreading his wings wide as if to greet the world and simultaneously present it to Senkū.

Senkū's eyes widen at the sheer marvel his eyes see. The view is gorgeous, clouds obscuring the world beneath to make way for a golden cloudy corridor, not a shadow present to mar the spectacle. The sun awaits them ahead with its brilliance paving the way with glistening gold and Senkū feels as if he's becoming one with the skies.

Byakuya approaches from behind, a hand reaching for him with a grin.

"Let's go to the stars, Senkū. There's so much more to see."

Grinning, he flutters closer feeling lighter than air. He looks at Byakuya and smiles at him, ruby eyes shining bright with love and joy. He gently reaches out to take the man's hand and when he grasps it, the hands abruptly turn to claws and dig into the fragile skin of his own as soon as one fingertip brushes the skin of the man's palm. Byakuya's warm face abruptly dissolves into dust, his eyes hollowing out and replaced with glowing yellow irises and a deep, jagged maw with rows of bloodied fangs and fur growing from his face.

Senkū stares into Not-Byakuya with horror, hand flinching back when the broken, bloody, jagged maw flaps in an attempt to snap its teeth at him. He beats his wings to get away when lightning blocks his way, only a few meters away and shocking him with the small feelers it leaves behind. His wings lock up, his body stiffens, and a painful hot haze sweeps through his system as he screams when he begins losing altitude.

Not-Byakuya lets out a rumbling growl, thunder erupting around them as the sun surrenders to the darkness, its brilliance seeping away as the cold returns with a vengeance and frost gathers on his body.

"Do not kiss goodbye to what no longer walks."

Senkū struggles to fly, tears in his eyes as he screams to the heavens. His wings are limp, they refuse to move, not the slightest twitch even as the clouds are breached and the land below gravitates closer to him. He closes his eyes and impacts to ground, pain rippling through his body. He whimpers and opens his eyes, recoiling when he's face to face with a massive lion lying across from him.

Faded yellow eyes bore into his own, no trace of life left in those marbled orbs.

Pain and fear shake his core as awareness claws itself out of its ditch. From the mute silence that encompasses his senses to the gradual climb of hypersensitivity, the sounds of chirping and the rustle of grass comes slowly at first, fuzzy and muffled. Feeling comes forth, just as slow and equally as torturous when pain blooms and spreads like a fungus across his body. The overwhelming heat accompanying it reaches a high peak, ravaging his senses.

A strained sound that could pass off as a dying cow reaches his ears. Is there a cow nearby? Do they still exist in this time? He isn't sure.

Wait, no, that's him imitating a dying cow. He can feel the vibrations in his throat every time that groan comes around.

His hand twitches, chest expanding from the inflation of his lungs taking in precious oxygen. His brain jumpstarts and his eyes snap open, gasping, ignoring the way the bright sun above nearly blinds him with its radiance.

And comes face to face with a giant feline's fangs mere inches from his face, putrid air rushing through the pink nose. He almost gags when it washes over his face.

Why is this thing on him?

Ruby eyes constrict with shock as memories of the previous night's events come to the forefront and that spurs him to fight against the heavy weight pinning him down to the ground, whimpering when pain nearly stops him.

He struggles as the weight slowly moves to the side, arms shaking when the little energy he has drains quickly. Slumping, he takes large breaths before resuming. His back flares with pain, his wings shivering and curling from the pain of both the desperate movements and the pressure from the lion's weight. He pushes himself, choking on his groans and whimpers when the massive thing's head finally moves enough for him to wiggle himself out, crying out when his leg brushes against its forearm.

Smacking the lion's paw away and dragging himself to the rack of spears that fell in his struggles, he blanches when he sees the bite wound in his calf, dry and fresh blood painting the skin around the area, the flesh around it paler than it should be.

"Damn it," he curses, eyes narrowing as he prods the skin around the wound. He hisses and twitches as he prods around the gastrocnemius muscle, then to the front where the teeth dug deep into the skin to graze the tibia. Both areas are red, swollen, tender to the touch and Senkū swears that it'll be his crap luck damning his soul if he gets infected with Pasteurella Multocida in the coming days.

He stares at the damage and slowly resigns himself to the fact that luck isn't his best quality in this world and improvement would be a pipe dream at best. At worst, it's receiving every punishment imaginable in a pachinko game without protective gear.

But that's the least of his worries.

The lion bit down on an important part, but not the most delicate and necessary parts. If it were his knee or his Achilles tendon he'd have trouble walking for the entirety of his life. Biting into the gastrocnemius would prove difficult with flexing his toes and allowing him to bend his knee and it makes it harder to move forward, but with it damaged walking will be difficult for a few weeks, if not months, and without the injury he's already struggled with so much in just a week. How will he fare with a leg wound and making sure he survives the next few months alone?

Senkū closes his eyes and slumps on the grass, breathing harshly through his nose.

His situation is just getting worse and it's only been a week—he's justified to feel the way he does, sue him.

Looking back at the lion, Senkū shivers from the remnants of his dream, the images haunting his conscious thought even after waking. His wings ache just thinking about the fall and the impact he went through in the dream.

The massive creature lies near motionless in the grass, it's wide maw twitching, blood painting it's teeth and muzzle, but it's eyes remain open, slightly unfocused and gazing at him with a far-off expression. Its tongue lolls to the side and its whiskers faintly twitch from the gentle breeze.

It's still alive but not for very long. Senkū can see as such from the way its glazing eyes lose more of the bright yellow color, how it tries to move its jaw and paws to presumably stand and walk away to heal with its pride.

But Senkū knows better. Its life is slowly draining away despite the creature's best efforts in fighting off the inevitable.

Looking down, blood soaks into the green underneath it and around him both.

Confusion spirals in his mind. Why is there so much blood? The only wound he's received is from the bite wound in his leg, now spilling just a trickle of the fluid to feed the soil. His eyes stare at the animal before lowering to his clothes and flinches when a deep, set-in stain of dark brown and faint red clings to the leather. It's crusted over with a terrible scent, seeping deep into the stitching and turning it black. His arms and thighs also bear the stains, flaking off when his skin pulls and relaxes.

Gritting his teeth, Senkū slowly maneuvers his body to all fours so he can stand. Using the tree as a crutch he approaches the dying lion, hesitant and unsure. He questions whether what he is about to do is a good idea at all. His wings twitch and he shuffles closer with teeth digging into his lip, his breath freezing in his chest when he's close enough to see his dagger embedded deep into the lion's chest cavity, blood gushing from the entry wound.

The lion itself is mere moments away from letting go. It breathes heavily, a sickeningly audible gurgle sloshes in its lungs with each exhale. It alerts him to the fact the lion has internal bleeding—a damaged lung or stomach, he thinks, that could be the final nail to the coffin.

What twists his gut is the way the lion looks resigned to its fate, its glossy eyes sluggishly tracking his every move as he creeps closer.

Senkū grimaces, eyes stinging as he lowers himself near the animal's crown, a shaking hand placing itself on its brow with gentle fingers.

The lion rumbles a gurgling moan at him and Senkū can't find it in him to flinch or scowl at it.

"I'm sorry," he whispers to it. Caressing the soft fur of its forehead, Senkū smooths over its mane and limp ears in an attempt to soothe its pain knowing it won't help it physically. "I'm sorry I did this," his voice cracks.

He shouldn't cry for a predator that intended to kill him for a quick meal. Should be angry or petty, or maybe even vengeful enough to kill it in cold blood, but this lion was only following instincts. Sure, he'd probably have a harder time calming down and not jump at every noise and movement around his camp for an uncertain length of time in the future, but here, right next to a majestic beast desperately clinging to life, Senkū doesn't have a single bone in his body that despises or resents the animal.

He feels remorse, and perhaps a good percentage identifying itself as grief. Because for all his aloofness and blunt, snarky remarks he's never thought of the possibility he'd take another life in such a horrible manner. Deer do not count as he mercifully ends their lives quickly and painless, giving them a moment to thank them for providing for him.

"I'm sorry."

The lion takes one last shuddering gasp, its eyes never leaving his own as the light fades away. Its tongue ceases to move, its whiskers still, and the muscles go limp.

There's no sign of life remaining.

Smoothing a hand over the rough pelt, he fights back the urge to flinch away and regurgitate what little he has left churning in his stomach.

The animal is gone,

Well past late afternoon, Senkū stares at the fire as meat cooks on sticks over the flames. In his hands, his fingers fidget with the pelt he'd skinned from the lion, the fur free of blood. His own clothes still have blood staining the front and he makes plans to trap more deer to make another one if he can't completely rid the material of the stain. Thankfully, the rest of the blood dried and flaked away after a minute of rubbing his hands over his limbs. He can't say the same for the blood congealed in the grass, the spot where the lion once passed on but a day of rain should hopefully drain it into the soil.

Senkū thanks the lion for its bounty but a pit digs in his chest as he skinned and cut away at its body. The skeleton that was left over was buried beneath his tree, a stone in the rough shape of a gravestone sitting over it. The surface bears no name and Senkū hopes it won't haunt him.

In this world, he has no choice but to make use of any resources at his disposal. Refusal to exploit them in his state is foolish if he intends to brave the winter in meager deerskin pelts and hide bags. If he had plenty of furs at his disposal he'd make a nest, but luxuries like those are far from his reach as of right now. A sleeping bag is his only option, even if it isn't the best.

Sighing, he reaches back to check his wings, wincing when his fingers ghost over the delicate appendages. They ache fiercely after a prolonged amount of time getting squashed by the lion. His leg, on the other hand, is a little swollen and red but he feels relief when fever or any other strange symptom hasn't emerged during the night. His head feels like it's stuffed with cotton and he has a bit of a cough though, so he might have a cold. It was raining when he was attacked so it's not too far fetched if he somehow got himself sick.

The fire crackles when Senkū takes a stick, biting into the meat slowly and absently. The boy barely notices the flavor as he chews. Getting up, he warily takes in his surroundings before slowly attempting to take a step. Pain flares up as he puts weight on his leg.

"Damn it," he curses, sitting down to pick up a long branch he'd found earlier he props himself up and uses it as a makeshift crutch. It'll have to do until his leg heals.

Around the treeline torches light up the perimeter to deter further attacks and illuminate possible threats to give him a head start in escaping. The big fire near the hut might be overkill but he won't leave possibilities to happen while he can stop them. One lion attack is enough for a lifetime.

Stumbling around, he focuses on his surroundings, listening intently for any noise that would tip him off to another animal. If another shows up he'll die and that would prove disastrous to his plans in reviving humanity. He scans his surroundings a little longer before he heads back up to his hut at a faster pace, leaving the bonfire and snagging the rest of the meat before struggling up the ladder with his eyes watching his back. It's getting darker and spending another hour in the open sends a shiver up his spine.

When morning breaches the darkness, Senkū groans as he cracks his back and neck on his way to the spot where he broke free of his petrified state. His leg feels marginally better than it did yesterday but each step feels like knives are piercing the fragile flesh while his wings feel stiff and sore. The mystery behind the petrification still weighs heavy in his mind and a closer look without the threat of animals nearby gives him the motivation to leave the safety of his hut to put two and two together. Of course, with an injured leg he'll be limping around at a slower pace and it's frustrating when he feels he's slowing his progress even further when he inevitably trips and falls with a rather undignified yelp.

"Oh, this is 10 billion percent inconvenient," he groans, looking up at the sky. He carefully gets back up and looks down at the cause of his trip and stares at a stone hand peeking from the ground.

He stares at it for a long time, enough that he can relate to a confused Labrador puppy when someone smacks their lips together to make kissy noises.

Taiju leaps before a fearful Yuzuriha with his arms and wings spread and facing the beam of light with fierce determination to protect the girl.

His wings are the shield and his hands, fingers slightly bent, a stopping force, screaming as his flesh turns to stone with eyes burning bright.

Senkū's eyes snap open wide.

"Taiju…" he whispers, almost too soft in the wind.

His eyes water as he hastily hobbles his way back to camp to grab the shovel and return with sweat beading his face, a desperate longing forming a pit in his chest.

He settles the shovel into the soil and begins to dig, careful not to hit Taiju as the earth opens beneath him. Beads of sweat form and trail down his temples with every heave, exposing more of Taiju's statue. With his fingers he brushes away the dirt that sits in the statue's mouth, eyes, and ears, feeling discomfort that the boy would have to pick that out after he breaks out of his stone shell.

Leaning back, he gazes at Taiju's face for the first time in a while, set in stubborn determination to protect Yuzuriha from the Green Light, eyes blazing even when frozen in stone. Just gazing at him like this makes him want to cry but he'd feel silly for wanting such a thing. Once Taiju's abdomen is uncovered Senkū sits down to breathe, leg throbbing from standing so long and arms shaking from digging.

Staring at Taiju for what seems like ages, Senkū pokes him. The silence around him is deafening.

Then he pokes him again.

And again.

Until he feels like letting out a hysterical fit of laughter and a sob at the same time since his acceptance of this new world's reality, isolation eating away at him when normally he'd love to be left alone to craft some new invention or experiment with rare compounds only famous scientists could get their hands on. Yet here, in the new age of stone, death in many forms is a threat now and he's the only one alive walking with nature surrounded by petrified humans at almost every turn.

He debates whether he should worry for his sanity if he admits poking a petrified Taiju to be morbidly amusing.

"Even though I've seen that ugly mug of yours 10 billion times before, it's been a while, huh?" He chuckles as he weaves his fingers through his tall locks. "More like 3,719 years to be exact. Once you wake up we can find Yuzuriha and plan our route to humanity's revival together. After I manage to build the lab."

The statue doesn't respond to him. How can it? It's a teenage boy turned to stone and unless he's been awake every second since the Green Light hit his consciousness is possibly suppressed.

Frantically digging the rest of the boy out of the ground, he pretends he isn't digging out a very-much naked teenager and averts his eyes as he brushes away worms and dirt from crevasses and places-that-shall-not-be-named for Taiju's sake, not that he'd remember any of this if his conscious thought is in a sleep-like state.

Then he sits and thinks more on the phenomenon that enveloped the earth. Why were only sparrows and humans affected by this beam? Is this an unknown branch of science miles ahead of modern human technology only targeting specific organisms? If it trapped every single human individual on earth then how did he get out of his petrified state?

"I pushed myself to break out every spring. Was the shell deteriorating as time passed," he asks himself aloud. It doesn't seem very plausible, concerning the fact that the statues have shown a considerable amount of wear over the course of nearly four millennia and nothing organic has been exposed. "No, it doesn't make much sense since the exterior surface would have broken down first rather than break apart like a second skin. Many of the statues I examined either are whole or missing pieces, usually an arm or leg. Some are so broken there isn't a chance to put them all together again but the inside bears no flesh, just stone all the way through. So why am I the only one that broke out with living cells from a fragile shell of stone? Did I turn back into flesh through some convoluted process?"

Questions. So many hideously frustrating questions. Senkū feels like pulling his hair as they pile up in a mess in his head.

But the excitement bubbling in his heart of this new unexplored branch of scientific advancement is enough to pull him out of it, spur him to get up and limp back to the hole he dug where the carefully nestled petrification fragments that fell from his body reside.

Didn't those fragments start from his head, specifically around his eyes? It's the only supporting theory he has where an outside factor influenced the breakdown, but there's a missing piece that doesn't quite fit in yet. What that is, he doesn't know.

Settling on his legs and cradling an arm around his middle, the other reaches up to prop his chin. He looks forlornly at Taiju and sighs, dropping his arm and tucking his chin to his chest.

The desire to have Taiju at his side grows the longer Senkū stares at him and he has to chastise that little voice niggling at him from the recesses of his mind to quiet down so he can think without his emotions going out of whack. It's 10 billion percent more distracting than foraging for rare mushrooms.

A small weight settles on his shoulder and Senkū blinks when he finds a small bat looking back at him, squeaking and chirping before taking off into the trees above. Confusion takes the place of bewilderment.

"Bats?"

Another flies by and Senkū tracks its movements back to a cave uphill. He must've missed it in the last few days since he was preoccupied in getting his camp started and he wants to hit himself for it.

Giving Taiju another longing stare, he grimaces as he gently stands up to limp his way up the hill to investigate.

Entering the cave, Senkū at first feels apprehension. He hasn't a clue as to what might await him further inside the dim, murky depths of the cave and he's sure on any other given day he'd be ignoring it without a doubt. But he forces himself to enter, forcing himself to remain calm and take in his surroundings. The further he goes he hears it. The repetitive drop of liquid ahead, accompanied by a putrid odor assaulting his nose. He pinches his nose, squinting as he ventures further, mindful of his leg.

No predators linger in the shadows, nothing scurries past him on the rocky floor. Above though, bats sleep on the cave's ceiling, and a mound underneath them forms a pile of feces. Guano, he corrects himself.

Then it clicks.

"This is nitric acid!"

Exhilaration fills his chest as he puts the puzzle together. If this is what he thinks it may be, he has to experiment. Has to test out the theory forming in his mind.

The back of my head is still petrified. If I forcefully rip a piece stuck in my hair and douse it with the acid, perhaps something will happen.

Ripping part of his petrified hair, he holds it underneath the dripping liquid and waits a few seconds. In three seconds, the rock cracks apart.

Joy is the primary emotion that nestles deep in his chest as he stares at the success that changes everything.

Making clay pots is a hassle even before he started building plans for his camp.

They're shoddy, amateur embarrassments that could give potters an aneurysm and Senkū can't dredge up the feeling of inadequacy when pottery isn't his forte. They're lopsided for sure, and their balance isn't impressive on their own but he finds that they can still hold liquid, and water is a precious resource he can't afford to gather every single day. That just adds more threats to his life than he needs.

So when he gathers enough nitric acid he decides to use it on Taiju, wincing as his wings twitch and creak from his excitement. But when he pours it on the statue nothing happens. No cracks form and Taiju remains stone cold. He frowns, excitement dimming to confusion.

Senkū makes a face most people would consider Yakuza-material, but then that's just how his twisted sense of humor works. Taiju would appreciate it.

Waiting a little longer and frowning when nothing happens, he wonders if he's missing something, or does pouring nitric acid speed up the process of de-petrification?

So many questions. So many frustrations build up.

He spends a few days setting up his laboratory with reinforced ceiling bristles and shelves from the smaller branches he couldn't use for the walls. His clay pots populate the space within and the few sparrow statues he found while foraging for mushrooms take their place on the shelves. A round cut of a tree's trunk was brought in the first day he completed his lab and he uses that as a makeshift table.

By the fourth day, Senkū has several pots full of nitric acid at his disposal and a deerskin robe specifically tailored to Taiju's body size hanging from a rack. Getting the measurements were easy once he covered the teen's crotch.

Senkū growls as he crafts more pots, sweating as he hobbles from hut to cave and back on his injured leg. He spots one of the petrified sparrows he keeps in the safety of his hut and brings it out, pouring the acid on it and waiting. Nothing happens.

Pouring the acid on the sparrows proved to be useless. Drenching human statues with the stuff also prove fruitless no matter how much he pours or how long he waits. No cracks or fragmenting stone pieces greet him. It's only when he's working himself up to a migraine when he realizes why he's set apart from anyone else in their petrified states.

He was thinking the entire time he was trapped, so it's only logical that the calories he was burning from all the brain activity might have something to do with de-petrifying. The human brain consumes 400 kilocalories every day. Calculating the amount of kilocalories times the days he's been awake throughout his imprisonment equates to 2 terajoules. But the energy required for that has to come from somewhere. It's a basic rule, E=mc2. Energy equals mass relative to the speed of light, a principle foundation of science founded by Albert Einstein, a man Senkū admires greatly.

The next piece of the puzzle is in place. Now he has to make more theories as to where the energy for all that thinking came from. It may have been from consuming the stone to keep functioning but how and why? Thinking back to the breakdowns that threatened to consume his consciousness he assumes the wide majority of humanity simply lost against it and now lie dormant in their statuesque states, possibly in a state similar to a deep sleep.

The next few days are filled with experiments, hypotheses, and healing. His leg steadily gets better even if the bone-deep puncture wounds still throb like a vice clamping down. The sparrows also grow in number as more and more of their petrified selves are found around the perimeter of his hut down to the river. He grinds them down, bathes them in flames, and tried pouring more nitric acid in the hopes they'd break free. They never did.

Oh, if only he could get his hands on some industrial-strength etching solution, he'd be set. Nital, perhaps, might work instead of raw nitric acid and to his misfortune he'll require alcohol.

Nothing around his camp is capable of producing wine, let alone alcohol. He groans and palms his face. He's tired and with only two-and-a-half weeks under his belt he feels like his limbs want to fall off. Every day he collects more sparrow statues, using anything he has to help free them and put an end to a curse that drove humanity's progress to the ground. Nothing works and it frustrates him as he works himself to the bone, ignoring the painful throbbing of his leg and the twitches of his wings expressing his frustrations. He's so frustrated that by the fourth week he mutilates his thumb just to write Einstein's equation of special relativity on the left breast of his deerskin, wanting to remember the foundations that make science what it is. An absolute rule.

The moment is then ruined when his stomach makes a gweee noise and he lightly flushes, feeling silly about the intensity of his inner declaration.

Now comes his newest dilemma: how is he dragging Taiju to the cave all by himself? The sparrows can wait a little longer but he's afraid of leaving Taiju's unprotected statue in the middle of the clearing where anything can break him apart at any given moment. Making a split second decision, he hauls out of the hut and promptly gets drenched. His hair sags in his face and he feels the first twinges of an ache gripping his wings. His leg protests the sudden move and even more when he climbs down the ladder, speeding off to grab Taiju as the rain intensifies.

He breathes harshly as he comes to a stop at the pit, climbing in and grabbing Taiju's arms. His face heats up as he struggles to maneuver the statue so that he can push it up the small incline.

Senkū groans and growls as he pushes against the statue, willing it to obey and shift upwards. His noodle arms shake as he applies more force, wanting to get out of the rain before his cold gets even worse.

An hour later he's dragging Taiju's heavy statue to the cave, choking on a scream as the weight presses on his wings and his leg feels like it's giving up on him.

"I-It's the only way. I can't drag you with just my arms, I'd break them with your weight you big oaf," he tries to snicker but it comes out as a whimpering gurgle.

If only he had another person to help him he wouldn't need to hurt himself, however he's the only one free.

He tries not to make the thought haunt him as he sets Taiju underneath the dripping guano, urging the teen to wake up as he breathes, body shaking from exertion.

The time he spends with the statue is full of begging, pleas for him to wake up, and when Senkū leaves the cave, it's feeling like another loss is being tossed his way.

Weeks pass by as Senkū diligently continues his experiments, collecting more sparrow statues he comes across and amassing a large collection in his lab. The monkeys visit him on the sixth week since de-petrification to drop off fruit and plants, some of which he's surprised to discover are safe and contain healing properties which he applies to his leg, the flesh scabbed over and slowly knitting back together.

He finds it partially unnerving that they sit and watch him investigate their offerings before scampering off once he returns to his hut.

During June, the approaching 95° weather alleviates the aches in his wings and brings with it opportunity in the form of breeding season, and he's able to harvest a vast amount of eggs to add to his diet as he forages for herbs and fungi. The extra protein they contain is beneficial for his health. He's also begun to notice small changes in his muscle mass from working on so many labor-intensive projects but the trade-off is an almost constant burning in his limbs and the fatigue that makes passing out all the easier.

His leg heals at a steady pace with Senkū carefully tending to the bite wound and regularly changing the bandages until the scabs start disappearing.

A scar takes the scab's place by late July, but the muscles don't completely mend until August. By then, he's prepared weapons and remedies, has a large store of long-lasting food and mushrooms to help him through the fall and enough deerskin leathers to form a nest complete with the feathers he's molted simply from the stress of the last few months put together. He put some aside to add to a spare leather coat with fur trimming to stay warm when the snow hits. The same with Taiju, once the idiot wakes up.

On September 12th, he finds he has nothing to occupy his mind, ignoring how the seconds continue to add up at the back of his mind like an ancient mantra. He finds himself in a clearing a small distance from his camp where the trees leave a few acres of open land. The sky is wide open with a few bare clouds, the sun shining brightly even as wind picks up. Senkū takes in a breath of fresh air and closes his eyes, mentally preparing himself for a very illogical decision that can end up poorly.

He crouches, brows pinching tightly as he breathes out. His nerves high and hands shaking. This part is hard, and he dreads the incoming onslaught that would no doubt render him helpless, but the itch he has for the sky is too much, too urgent, enough to drive him insane from the months of being denied his place among the clouds. It hurts, his heart hurts. He wants to so desperately fly again yet he can't even lift off even a foot off the damn ground.

It's 10 billion percent more agony and loss than frustration. So he stands in this clearing ignoring the chirping of birds and the squeaking of squirrels.

He tenses his muscles and shuts his eyes tight, clenching his fists and jaws as he counts down from 5 seconds down to 1, and as a hawk flies overhead with a piercing shriek he snaps his ruby eyes open and forces his wings to open.

Quicker than he's prepared for, pain like no other rips through his back muscles and the tender ligaments of his wings, vision blurring to bright white as the feeling of searing hot knives stab mercilessly at his nerves. He doesn't even get the chance to scream, the sound lodged painfully in his throat, gurgling as his vision darkens and his body drops like a puppet cut loose of its strings.

His wings only managed to open at 4 inches.

When he wakes, it's evening with a waxing crescent moon above, giving little light around the world. He lets the tears run down his cheeks, a hopeless agony sweeping through his body as his wings shiver from the aftershock of his flying attempt. The pain was excruciating, too much for him to handle; now he lies curled on his side gazing at the moon with pleading eyes. He resigns himself, there isn't anything he can do to fix his wings.

So he gets up, gasping from exhaustion and pain, limping his way back to camp before it truly becomes dark.

The stars are what guide him; nature his audience. Yet even though life beyond the atmosphere would not bear witness to his struggles, he fights with every blood cell in his being to survive this new, alien world where humanity takes one step forward after losing thousands in turn.

It's almost poetic, he thinks dazedly. How there's only one soul in a sea of stones, weathering tribulations ahead of sickness alone. He'd chuckle if it would spare him the pain.

Tucking himself away in the safe seclusion of his hut, Senkū curls in his nest under the warm lion pelt as tears continue running down his face, skin jumping with every step and snapping of branches in the distance.

You better wake up, you big oaf. Yuzuriha is out there waiting for your loud ass to save her.

And I guess I miss you, too. As illogical as that may seem…