At the cave, Taiju's statue lay, with the liquid from the ceiling drip down on him, near his eyes a crack had formed and broke a hole, revealing his eye, he gasped and screamed while grunting to break free from the stone " I'm finally free! I can move my body again!" He yelled out, he then looked down at his hand, at the fragments of stone that has broken off And picked up a piece "Pieces of stone?" He murmured

As he walked out of the cave, he saw his surroundings, people trapped in stone, and his eyes widened " oh no...So like everyone went through all that, too?.....It's horrible....how long have we been like this?..." he continued walking

"I'm sorry, I really wish I could do more to help you "he prayed for a statue of a girl who was broken ' what would yuna say in a situation like this when your lost in a forest?...'

Flash back

Of yuna's knowledge

" when your lost in a jungle, or maybe stranded at sea, water is the first thing you should find, you won't last long when your body's water falls by 10%, you'll dehydrated and your organs will start to fall apart so make finding water your top priority" she says

Flashback

'Find Water...thanks yuna' he smiled at the thought, he then cane across the river and drank from the it 'As long as the landscape hasn't changed too much I should be able to follow the river....'

'That will lead me to the tree... And to her..' He ripped the vines from a tree with leaves to cover his lower half, and walked in the direction he believed the tree she would be one, a memory came to him

Flashback

"Woah, something just fell over there" two girls going to school looked and saw a bird, but a statue of one "Is that a bird statue, there is so much detail, I mean check out those wings!" They held their phones taking a picture, while using the camera lens to see more of its detail "It looks so real!"

"I think maybe it is real "taiju said startling the two " A friend of mine just found one of these. I saw the I saw the picture he posted of it "he says as he picked it up "you poor little thing... What happened? Is it like some kind of disease that makes your skin hard up?" He decided to take it to the vet, unfortunately it wasn't open yet so he looked at the times it would be open

"Well, of course the vet office wouldn't be open for school hours" he turned startled to see yuzuriha "didn't really think this through huh?" She says

'Crap it's her!' He stiffened "Not to mention that obviously a statue or something and not a real bird, but you still brought it to the vet. You're so silly it's embarrassing." She looked at him, the more she spoke, the embarrassment increased 'Of course the moment I do something stupid like this, my crush is out of nowhere! just my luck!' He then wondered and asked " uh? Why're you here?" He asked confused, she lifted in her hand a bird statue as well

"Well, because I am a big'ol dummy too, I found this little guy am wanted to see if I could help him "she smiled, which shocked him that she did the same thing "great minds huh?" She says, he stated in awe before laughing "Hey! Don't laugh at me! You did the exact same thing!" She pouted " we are both going to be late for school!"

"Yeah! Whoops!" However both still laughed together

Flash back end

As he walked to the clearing, his eyes I ended as soon as he pushed a branch aside "yuzuriha... " he started walking towards the big camphor tree "I could never forget that face... Not even out of thousands of years... I knew you were still alive... I never lost hope... And now" he stopped in front of it, there she was, the same place, frozen in stone, but the tree was now much bigger, massive even, He smiled brightly, fistpumped "I'm really proud of you! And you're incredible too tree! You kept her safe for this entire time! Like you hold onto her. Thank you!" His smile then disappeared and frowned Slightly

"Sorry, but I just couldn't protect you" kneeling down before her "in fact when you really think about it, you were the one protecting me. I was able to stay alive because of you, it's the truth" even over time, he stayed awake, fighting agasit the darkness "you were my light shining in the darkness, for hundreds even thousands of years." his smile came back "And now I can finally say it. I started back then but never got to finish, so what I was going to tell you that day... Is that... That I..." slowly the smile disappeared again and he started crying

"I've loved you...for hundreds...and thousands of years." As the wind blew by, he slowly stood back up, with a serious look on his face, somehow so fast, standing next to her with his and At the side of her head "I swear on my life, I'll save you! Don't know how, but I'll find a way, okay so just wait-" he then noticed a message on the tree " Follow the river downstream, big oaf?" He read

He ran to where the message said, gasping and panting from running, he found someone standing on a tree branch above him

"Well look who's finally awake, good morning big oaf," Senku said staring down at his classmate, smirking.

"AHH SENKU!! YOU'RE ALIVE!?!"Taiju was about to hug Senku, but to his dismay instead of receiving a hug, he got a kick to the face."DON'T YOU DARE HUG ME WHILE YOU'RE BUTT NAKED!! HANDS OFF, I'M NOT JOKING!!"

After he had calmed down

"It's October 5th in the year 5738, you really slept in for a hell of a long time. We've been up diligently working our tails off for the last 6 months," senku stated calmly.

"Hold on so it's been like-" Raising his hands up Taiju began desperately trying to do the math with his fingers."It has been 3700 years."

"How do you know what day it is? You got some kinda calendar or what?" He always knew his best friend was smart but to what extent could someone know that

"Eh, I figured it out by counting. It was the logical thing to do. Follow me."Walking closer to Senku he obeyed. "So, you said that you've been awake for 6 months right? What have you been doing all this time?" The brunette questioned. "You'll see when we get there."

Arriving at the destination Senku did the pleasure of showing Taiju around.

Taiju was amazed at how much Senku had done in just half a year, if he were to have been unpetrified first he was sure without Senku he'd probably be dead."senku, you're telling me....you did this all on your own..." taiju asked, looking to his friends shelter he'd created

"Well, sort of. I did say 'we', didn't I?" Senku asked rhetorically. "Yeah, so-" taiju stopped mid sentence as he saw two wolfs sleeping in the shade by the shelter one smaller, and one slightly bigger" senku! You tamed wolfs?!!" He exclaimed " no, big oaf" senku deadpanned " then who-AHH!" He exclaimed when another appeared in front of them

The person on the wolf, that's sort of what they'll see, but without the spear, just holding onto the wolf, standing in front of them

He stopped when he noticed the person on its back wearing the mask " who is this?" He asked " wow taiju, I'd figured you'd know someone who's good with animals back in school" they said with a familiar voice, his eyes widened with a gasped and his smile brightened when they removed the mask, revealing yuna's face " good to have you back" she smirked " YUNA! YOU'RE ALIVE, TOO!!" he once again screamed, about to hug her, but senku stomped his face, while standing in front of her  " your naked you big oaf!" He reminded, getting him off, while yuna and the wolf looked at them confused

Cracking the joint in his neck Senku proceeded and said, "Until now we've been lacking manpower, thanks to yuna and the wolfs, hunting has become slightly easier, with the animals they find; but. If I'm going to rebuild civilization, I'll need a muskily meathead to do the grunt work. In other words, we've been waiting for you Taiju I was 10 billion percent sure you were still alive, you were so hell-bent on confessing your love and for a guy as stubborn as you even a few thousand you wouldn't stop that from making that happened. You arent that weak." 

All Taiju could do was nod in agreement, with a serious look in his eyes "Yeah, of course, I'm not." That night, senku lit the fire, with the rope and stick he used the first time, while yuna cooked the meat she and the wolfs brought "Alright, Senku, you and yuna can handle all the brainy stuff and you can leave the heavy lifting to me, no problem, and the wolfs guarding us as we go." As for taiju, he chopped up wood for the fire, and the wolfs guarded the group from vicious predators

'It took humanity over 2 million years to crawl out of the stone age and into the modern age, we need to do that in a sprint' senku thought ' I swear I'm going to take back the world. Threw science ill figure out what happened to us and how we broke free'

Taiju's eyes filled with determination 'I swear I'm going to save Yuzuriha!!'

As well as yuna' and I'll keep us going till we reach our goal!'

'We maybe a couple of high school kids but we're going to rebuild civilization from the ground up.' He thought "We will be like Adem and Eve, together we'll bring life back to this stone world, this is exhilaration, get excited." He grinned widely

Time skip

Taiju Racing back to the group, with a basket of food he'd collected with the help of sora, hunting for meat of course

Taiju set down his basket full of what he deemed 'edible'. Senku looked impressed while San examines the baskets mushrooms and edible plants

"That's definitely a plus-sized halt Taiju, do you have a really life cheat code for stamina?" However taiju's prideful face falls and gacks with wide eyes, as he looked towards yuna separating the items in the basket into another

. "Amanita Virosa, toxic, Shemeji, safe, Amanita Muscaria, toxic, if it looks like something that belongs in a Mario game pass it up" she says, sora and fangs smell the mushroom in her hand and start growling,"Next, mugwort, that's edible, wolfsbane" she gives the boy a blank look "are you trying to poison us taiju?"

After settling down, Senku began to start a fire. Taking a bunch of mushrooms san started skewering it with some sticks, the group, along with the wolfs started eating. "Oh man! what the heck did you season this with yuna?" Taiji asked loving the taste, Looking up at her as she finished the food she had and answered, "Just some salt that I pulled out of the seawater, a little pinch of It will make almost anything almost palatable. We can use it for picking food as well." She says while sprinkling some out of a small clay jar " so you did listen to one of my lessons" senku smirked "One of primitive man's greatest discoveries I'd say" he says, sprinkling salt from the jar into his skewed food

Taiju grinned "Thank you guys, this is perfect, I may not know all the stuff you guys do, but I'm going to bust my butt working for us."

" oh, speaking of work, I need to grab more vines for rope " yuna gets up " you can come with sora, tepo, fang, stay here" tepo let out a cute bark, but fang seemed to whine " don't worry, you've got us" senku says with a reassuring smirk, fang just huffs, turning away, which irritates senku a bit " you never gonna warm up to me are you...atleast someone likes me" he says petting the littlest pup who loved getting a belly rub

" I'll come too, so I can find more stuff for us" taiju says getting up, and grabbing the Basket, with a war cry " Time to check out the other dirction!" He yelled While yuna and sora run after him, sora excitedly howling "wait for us!" She laughed while senku waved still eating, as for fang and tepo, falls down bored and tepo goes back to eating with senku

The three go began is search for more food and vines, then stop as taiju examined the tree in front of him while. The other two . "Whoa, are these grapes? There only one way to find out~" he sang " get in my belly~"Detaching the grapes from its vine, he opened his mouth and ate the purple fruit, Qweezing at the taste Taiju backed up coughing and covering his mouth with one hand, while catching the twos attention

" what happened?" Yuna laughed at his expression " don't eat those!" His voice muffled, pointing at the berry's, she laughed and sora huffed and puffed happily

When he was done consuming the grapes he looked up, only to be met with a statue he had known. "I've seen that guy on tv, he's called the strongest primate highschooler, Shishio Tsukasa. Guess he couldn't fight it either."

" I guess...." yuna says sadly

Looking away something else had caught Taiju's attention, a cave. Being the interested spirit he was, he decided to go check it out " yo! Wait up!" Yuna and sora follow after him

When he arrived inside he saw the jar with liquid in it "WHOA, ME YUNA SENKU HAVENT BEEN HERE YET SO THAT MEANS SOMEONE ELSE SURVIVED! I gotta know who they are!" He smiled

" urr...taiju..." yuna sweat dropped

"It was me, idiot." Sighing Taiju looked down in disappointment. " ah! no way! Are we seriously the only ones here? Like the last humans still alive?"

"We'll have to get more. I mean the three of us alone just two dudes and a girl, can't restart humanity is you catch my drift," Senku said giving Taiju this weird knowing look.

Looking away in embarrassment Taiju and yuna nodded, it would be awkward " yeah got it..." they said, It was true, there would be no possible way for them to start humanity alone. "Besides, why after 3700 years did we break free from out of our petrified condition."

"The stone rotted away?" Taiju asked

"Well something like that, say this strange mineral had corroded, can you chalk up the timing to mear random coincidence? 6 months apart is a relative blip on the radar there's a reason why we reanimated so close together, we drifted up near here, what makes sense is this cave factored in somehow, see that stuff trickling from overhead?" All attention went to the cave ceiling where the liquid dripped down into the pot "That's our miracle fluid made from bat guano. Good old nitric acid."

"No way, that's crazy! What is that!?!" Dragging Taiju out of the cave, they took the miracle fluid they'd collected over time.

" I did anticipate that question, but I'm not going to waste my breath explains it to you" senku said, When they reach what they had to call home, Senku took one of the swallows pouring the miracle fluid on it. "Let me guess when you pour some of that miracle fluid on that the stone breaks and the bird wakes up." Taiju says

"How I wish it were so straight forward." When the stone from the bird didn't break off both Senku, yuna and Taiju sighed in defeat, while the wolfs whine, they walk into the shed below the house "We've been working like a madman and woman working on this project, using every last method I could think of." Taiji gasps surprised when he sees the other Stone swallows on the shelves "Over and over, again and again, it's like something from a fantasy world. Is it all mineral, are there living cells underneath? I don't have the laboratory to get an in-depth analysis." Senku says placing the stone bird on the shelf

"So basically what you're telling me is there are things even science can't explain" Taiju said, which senku chuckled

"There we go, that tired old cliche, truth is it never quite stands up to the scientific method. Science is often a slow process. Some liquor might speed things up though." After hearing that Taiji perked up as senku explained "Combined with the nitric acid it could make something nice and potent, we could make what's commonly known as Nital, which is an industrial-strength batching agent." Taiju's eyes widened "What did you say we needed?" While both teens looked confused at him

"Huh, I said we could make Nital. It gets into the ferrite grain boundary-."

"No, don't confuse me with some kinda science talk, I mean the part about liquor" Taiju held a bundle of grapes he and yuna came across when out ".Wine comes from grapes yeah? and that is a type of alcohol, isn't it?" Senku smirked while yuna looked impressed " Not bad you big oaf."

And with that their little journey to create wine began, with the grapes while the other two carried big clay pots full of grapes, both yuna and Senku squished own at one time, but groaned at how much time it took, Taiju instead, place his down, the two deadpanned when their friend started war crying while stomping on them, while the wolfs tilt their heads curiously " hm. Yeah, well let you handle all the neck down work from here on out. It's just the logical choice" he says while yuna giggles

When Taiju was finally finished he cleaned off his feet and went to Senku curious as to what he was supposed to do next. 'Making Wine is an extremely simple process, crush your grapes offruit, put it in a container, and stir it every day until it's ready to go.' The two watched as Taiju stirred the wine in the jar, with all his energy and strength

'Heh, if we tried this back at our time, we'd get arrested for not having a license.' The two smiled walking away to the next task on the list

Timeskip

"It's been 3 weeks, that should do the trick." Senku says as Taiju pouted the wine through a basket with a clay pot underneath, so any of the leftover grapes stayed in the basket while the liquid seeped through into the pot

"I've thought of something, underage drinking a crime too" Taiju Reminded, senku chucked lifting his wine "Not a problem, after all, we're a little over 3700 years old."

" oh yeah, that's right" Taiju laughs " does that matter in this case..." yuna question, All three at the same time, They took a sip took a sip, Surprisingly Senku and yuna didn't spit it out, instead Taiju spat it out and coughed then gasping and panting " not bad. Way better than expected. Bet it's ten billion tones worse than what was on the market, though" senku remarked

" that was so easy" Taiju says astonished " just stomping grapes and waiting around?" Senku places his cup down, his hand hovering over to his forehead

"One step at a time my friend" he cracks his neck "though I hate to say it, our pace will slow down, this will be a course in distilling wine for dummies. Our goal is to acquire some brandy." Stepping out of the hut Senku, yuna and Taiju "Distilling huh, no idea what that." Taiju jumped from the shelter to the ground while the other two climbed down

"I knew you'd say that..." senku sighed

"it's heating, cooling, and dripping, that'll concentrate the alcohol." Yuna says " not bad wolf girl" senku smirked; the three and the wolfs were now surround a fire, with a huge clay pot, filled with the alcohol

"Don't worry, people back in ancient Mesopotamia were doing this with clay pots in 3000 BC, and if they can do it so can we. Now get excited Taiju-" " uh senku-" yuna was, he thought he was full of pride, only to be faced with his creations malfunction, the pot had sprung a leak, to the point the hole think crumbled and he got soaked in the hot wine

" uhh...you okay?" Yuna asked " yeah...just fine" he wheezed, the groaned when sora and fang Started licking him " down! Stop! Sit! Off mangy mutts! Yuna get then off!" However, she and taiju were too busy laughing while tepo barked happily

Time skip

Yuna washed His clothes, of the night she started cooking dinner while senku made another pot, and taiju Smiling at the expression his friend made, since his pride from making the pot disappeared, Right Thursdays, in and out of the lab they went, senku working on the clay pot, taiju Helping yuna And the wolfs hunting, coming back with the wood for the fire and other stuff, that he had chopped

And other days, senku worker in the lab with yuna as his assistant, Eventually winter came, the snow started to pile, with a shovel yuna dug a path for the lab walkway, and where the fire rested, but the rest by the fire watching the alcohol drip into the pot

Taiju Even grown a beard without noticing, also paying visits to yuzuriha, brushing the snow offer of her head, he then stroked his beard and realise he needed a shave

Yuna Went to find the two and saw them by the lake, she saw senku holding two Large clams, she started running over in a panic as he started pinching them off of taiju's face, which was painful, He laughed at his friends face, all puffed and red, Holding in the tears, yuna coming over him pointing at her knife, Indicated she could've shaved the hairs off with her knife, But he continued laughing

Then spring came, the three sat in the lab, still testing one then stone sparrows, which resulted in failure, however progress was being made, after a whole year, a feather had broken free from the petrification

Timeskip 

After a bunch of trial and error their hard work finally paid off, Senku finally made it, it only took about a few months, even so the group was  still on step 1 on creating civilisation, Taking one of the swallows from their hut Senku placed it down on the ground. 

"Listen up big oaf, wolfs girl, lesson 1, it's not that there are things science can't explain, none the least, there are rules behind everything that happened, science is just the name for the steady pain-in-the-ass effort that goes into finding out what they are."  'Finally' yuna thought, who knew this day would have actually come to reality, when Senku had poured the miracle fluid on the bird, no longer than 1

minute  had past and it had been set free, taiju was yelling at their success as the wolfs howl with him, while yuna sighed in relief, as did Senku, sitting down "I've been experimenting for a year now, it actually didn't take as long as I imagined. Slow and steady wins the race. I'm gonna beat fantasy with science as my only weapon" he then smirked

To be continued

[There should be a GIF or video here. Update the app now to see it.]