You guys created a vacuum tube to seal the medusa away, that way no one can activate it, as a safety precaution. This decision made Ryusui figure the secret of the device, that it can revive people from the dead as well.
"The instinct of a captain really is something!" you said, impressed.
"And don't you forget it!" he proudly snapped his fingers.
As far as your globetrotting mission is concerned, you needed to found one final city, in Indonesia, aka. Rubber City. They were a abondance of those rubber tree, the sap of which was the primary ingredient to make rubber. Got some rubber, revived people, built houses, city founded! This was way quicker than you expected. Now it's back to Japan! On the way there, Chrome and Suika came to you.

"Help us make a rocket!!!"
"Guys," you sighed. "I'm already busy with my own stuff, I can't."
"(Y/n) please!" Chrome leaned closer. "We're going to need your modern world knowledge! To help us create a return vessel in secret!"
"I can't help you, I'm sorry." you turned away. "Plus, don't you remember, Senku said we don't have time to make one."
He clenched his fist.
"Don't you want him and the others to come back?! This is the only way!" you pursued your lips. "If they don't wanna make themselves a way to return home, we gotta craft it ourselves! We're gonna need your input, you're from the modern world! You know more about rockets than we do, that's for sur-"
"I am not a rocket scientist Chrome!" you suddenly looked at him. "I'm a musician! There's nothing I can do! I'm not-!" you cut yourself off and turned away again when your voice cracked.
"(Y/n)-chan..." Suika said with a concerned look.

There was a moment of silence. Chrome has known you for long enough to be able to tell that it hurt you to say this. Out of everyone here, you were probably one of the people who suffered the most from this turn of events.
"...Alright." he finally said. "Then we'll do it ourselves!"
You huffed a smile and looked at him.
"You two, alone? You can barely do three digits multiplication, and Suika's a kid."
"Th-that doesn't mean anything!" she shook her head. "I'm still a scientist!"
"Exactly!" Chrome said. "We're people of science, whenever a thing seems impossible, we do it anyway!" he tapped his own chest with his fist. "That's how science works, we try again and again! This time, we just gotta work crazy bad and fast. We all gotta be there for the final victory toast! That's the true way to win! That's our happy ending!"
Your eyes widen slightly. His words hit you more than you thought they would, like you were reminded of the Kingdom of Science's whole philosophy. You looked down.
"Even if I wanted to, I still can't help you." you looked back at them. "But I know someone who can."

You told them to follow you, which they did, confused. The three of you went to Sai's workplace.
"Hey, remember when you told me about how, back in India, you'd teach math part-time to pay the bills?"
"Uh, ye-?"
"Well I hope your teaching skills are still sharp, 'cause these two need to learn math." you pointed at Chrome and Suika with your thumb. "Up to rocket science level, at least."
"What?!"
He was even more shocked when you guys explained your secret project.
"But, starting from square one..." his expression turned more serious. "It won't be easy."
"They're quick learners, trust me." you smiled. "Nothing they can't handle."

He looked at them.
"Are you two serious about this?"
"Damn right we are!!!" they said at the same time, mimicking your way of speaking whenever you'd be really hyped. "Mad serious!!!"
You couldn't help but laugh. Say smiled at their enthusiasm.
"Then get yourselves a desk." he rotated his black board to write on the other side. "We're starting right away!"
Chrome and Suika cheered with you.
"Now we got our own crafting project!" Chrome said. "Everyone is gonna be there to celebrate our victory against why-man, thanks to our round-trip rocket!"
You smiled, but to be completely honest, you were still skeptical.
'How will they alone be able to do what Senku and Xeno said was impossible...?'

Once you guys reached land again, you put agriculture back on track by setting up rice fields, which allowed François to make a bunch of new food. You cried when eating onigiris for the first time in 3,700 years, along with Ukyo.
"I'm...overcome." he said as you both softly sobbed. "I'm not even sure why. It's not like I constantly snacked on onigiris in the 21th century."
You sniffed and leaned back.
"It's called Proust's madeleine." you said, your voice wavering a little bit. "It's a taste, smell or sound that unlocks long-lost memories." you covered your eyes and leaned on him. "I'm having a flashback!"
He chuckled.
"Madeleine?" he asked.
"Yeah." you sniffed again, the two of you feeling better with this change of subject. "Marcel Proust, French philosopher. One day he was having tea with his mom and she got him a madeleine. He dipped it in his tea and ate it, and he also had a flashback of when he was a little kid and he ate that same thing. And he got all emotional because he forgot about that part of his childhood, like we are right now!"

"We're not emotional about our childhood though."
"We're like 3,720-something years old, anything below a hundred is technically our childhood."
He laughed.
"I don't think that's how it worked."
"Oh you're the age expert? You're crying over rice dude."
"So are you!"
You both laughed.

After that, you guys finally reached Japan. You fist dropped by Treasure Island and revived everyone there. There were people that you've never seen before, they were probably revived while you guys were gone.
"Ha! You must be the legendary Senku!" one of them held your boyfriend's head and moved it around. "Our kids told us plenty of tales about you and your girlfriend!"
You were giggling at first, the look on his face was priceless, but then you tensed up and blushed at 'girlfriend'.
"Where is she by the way?"
"Right there." he immediately pointed at you.
"Oh you motherfucker." you whispered to yourself as the father finally let go of him and went towards you, his new target.

As you were now being interrogated, Senku let out a small sigh before turning to Soyuz.
"So," he said. "how's Treasure Island's special mission coming along?"
"Well since we were petrified for so long, we're pretty behind schedule. The reinforcements and resources from the mainland are helping out."
"I see~." Gen smiled. "Someone's taken the role of island ruler like a fish to water!"
Soyuz blushed, flustered.
"True." you walked over, having escaped. "You even had a procedure to make sure no statue wouldn't break, that's awesome!"
He hid his red face, his reaction making you chuckle. Once he got over it, he looked towards the horizon with a graver expression.
"I'm more worried about Ruri and all of them over on the mainland. They had quite the population, but there's no telling how they've fared since getting petrified."
This formed a knot in your stomach. Japan does have a lot of earth-quakes and tsunamis, the fact that you all stayed in one piece as statues throughout those 3,700 years was a real miracle in and of itself. But who knows if the people back home had that same luck...

Nope, everyone's fine! They were protected by a stone wall. You let out a sigh of relief as emotional, tearful reunions happened before you.
"Were you worried?" Senku nudged you.
"Not gonna lie, yeah, I was." you smiled.
"Without this wall, a log or something might've smashed the statues, resulting in a nasty game over."
"Yeah, that was a nice move guys." you looked at Ruri and the others. "You must've worked really fast to make it."
She tilted her head.
"That wall doesn't look familiar."
"You mean your people didn't just built it, Senku?" her dad asked.
You and him looked at each-other, confused. Just then, Suika came back with her pet dog Chalk, and her pet pig Sagara, who have gotten a bit bigger over the years (you left like two years ago). Turned out they were the ones who built the stone wall, but in the meantime, they had their own lives going on, found themselves partners. Suika gave them a warm hug and watched them leave with teary eyes, you patted her head to comfort her.

"Damn." you looked at Chrome. "These two animals are faster than you dude."
"What do you mean?" he tilted his head.
"When's it gonna be your turn?"
"To...build a stone wall- I don't have time for that! You know this!"
You sighed, smiling, and patted his shoulder.
"Chrome, please never change."
He just sent you a weird look.
"I wish you would change the subject!"
You burst out laughing, he did too, proud of his own words.

Because Ishigami village is a fishing village, fish was added to the menu, and with the rice they now had, François was able to make sushi, which was an immediate success with everyone.
"Kukuku~!" Senku chuckled with a big happy smile. "Just the thing to draw out everyone's full power for the special mission ahead."
"Again with that special mission?" you looked at him, your mouth full. "What is it anyway?"
"Senku gave us some blueprints," Ruri explained. "so that while the rest of you circled the globe, those of us on the Japanese mainland could make headway on one project in particular."
You and the others were still confused.
"You always do this. Hiding things for the sake of a big reveal." you nudged Senku with a smile. "You drama queen."
"Kukuku~!"

After lunch, Ruri led you guys to this special project. You all went to a river and gasped when you saw the giant dam.
"Haha~!" Ryusui snapped his fingers. "This gives us our hydroelectric pant and all the power we need to refine the rocket's aluminum!"
"The structure's so simple, a kid could figure it out." Senku said. "All you gotta do is hold back the water with concrete. The types of dam constructed in 1,000 B.C. were still used in the 21th century."
"Chalk-Chan and Sagara-chan must have seen this stone wall and found inspiration." Gen smiled.
"Aww~ smart boys!" you chuckled.
"Ohoho~ ain't that clever!" Kaseki exclaimed, examining the dam. "Putting bamboo inside the stone!"
"Concrete reinforced, not with steel, but bamboo rebar." Senku added. "All the dam's gotta do is withstand the water pressure, and a bit of bamboo rebar in a few spots is enough for that."

"So that's what the Kingdom of Science was doing." you looked at the dam, then at him. "What about Treasure Island's mission though?"
His smile widen. Once again, you asked the exact question he wanted to hear.
"The parts and pieces were crafted around the world. We're bringing them together at Treasure Island, to take advantage of its location closer to the equator!"
Your eyes widen.
"Then-!"
Just then, you guys got a call from Amaryllis.
"Special mission complete!" she said. "The rocket's launch site is ready!"
"I knew it!" you exclaimed, making Senku chuckle.
"Our foe? The earthly Why-man all by his lonesome?!" Rye exclaimed in excitement. "We're ready to face that final frontier!"
"Backed by the power of every human on Earth!" Senku added.
"Woop woop~!" you cheered and clapped.

For the next steps of your moon mission, you revived a bunch of more people. They were welcomed with a nice meal made by François, and a little summary of what happened and what was going on, performed by you and Gen. It won them over and they were happy to help. Some even recognized Gen from his tv show and asked for his autograph.
"That reminds me." Ryu told you. "It's strange that, with your talent, you weren't famous in the modern world."
"Oh! True that!" Chelsea said. "Were you on any social media back then?! How come you never went viral?!"
"Funny story actually," you said. "I was on social media, but I only posted music stuff on tiktok. The thing was though, I made every and any kind of music, my content was so inconsistent that the algorithm hated me and I had like... twenty subscribers maybe? Senku would always like my videos though!" you pointed at him in the distance.
"I got'chu!" he pointed back, having heard what you say.

You gave him a thumb up and a wink. Rye laughed.
"Do not fret my dear (Y/n)-"
"It never bothered me honestly." you shrugged.
"Because this is all about to change!" he snapped his fingers. "I desire entertainment!"
"Honestly, same." you nodded.
"Besides, such a population growth demands a way to win the people over!"
"I understand you both all too well." Say smiled. "Without enjoyable diversions, life is hard, too hard. When I was drowning in math in the past, video games were what kept me going."
You and Ryu gave him a blank stare.

"That's one angle, sure." an evil-looking smirk formed on Ryu's face. "But he or she who controls the media effectively owns the world, am I wrong?! The old world had broadcast, tv, google, netflix, and now our new world has once again reached that stage!"
"You sure you two are brothers?!" Chelsea exclaimed, slightly panicked. "You couldn't be more different!"
"Oh? Oh?!" you leaned closer to him with wide unblinking eyes and a big smile. "I didn't know you were the biggest entertainer in the world Ryu! 'Cause last time I checked, I'm the best one here! And I wanna make my debut on the big screen! It sounds fun as hell!"
"Ah! (Y/n)'s at it too!"
He laughed.
"Of course, I could never forget. (Y/n) (L/n), the woman musician who held the whole American continent - the whole world even! - in the palm of her hand!"
"I sure did!" you happily huffed.
"But to reach the tv networks, you're going to need all the resources you need, just like I'll need your skills!" he extended a hand. "What do you say?!"
Your smile widen.

"Bring it in!" you both shook hands with firm grips, since you were both very hyped.
"Pleasure doing business with you!!!" you both exclaimed.
'The passionate business buddies are at it again!' Chelsea thought. 'I can just picture an explosion in the background as they shake hands!'
"Senku!" you pointed at him. "Recreate tv!"
"Way ahead of you." he casually said as he was putting the final touches on the blueprint.
You smiled and went to give him a peck on the lips. He smiled. Ryu, just as happy as you were, then gave him a smooch on the cheek, and Senku's face became devoid of color. You laughed.

Some time later, Senku and Kaseki brought out a big tv screen to show everyone. You sniffed, touched.
"It's...It's beautiful." you covered your mouth.
"We already had brawn tubes from when we made the radar." Senku explained with a satisfied grin. "By giving the scan lines vertical motion too, the afterimages can create pictures."
"It just so happen that the world's first television system was made in Japan." François added.
"Ha! So we're just repeating history here!" Ryu exclaimed as you let out an 'oh~'.
"Woo-hoo!" Yo cheered. "How many channels does this baby get?!"
Senku's expression suddenly became grave, the crowd became tense.
"Woopsie!" he scratched the back of his head with a goofy smile. "We've got no way to broadcast in this world yet!"
While everyone complained, you sighed.
"Obviously, you knew that while making it." Ukyo said.
"Then what did you make it for?" you asked. "If not for tv..."
"That's right." he smiled. "We won't be watching tv shows on this thing."
"We've got a boat scheduled to arrive today from North America to Japan." Ryu said. "And Sai, it's a delivery you've been dying for!"

You gasped, a spark in your eyes. Sai seemed to have gotten to the same conclusion as you, and those who were still confused were about to have their answer. Not long after that, a boat came, with Taiju on board. Him and Senku bumped fists.
"We've put together something pretty damn awesome!" he exclaimed.
Him and his delivery team brought these giant computer parts. Once put together, the computer was even bigger than a house! Chrome was on cloud nine.
"Baaaad!" he shouted. "How much wiring is in this thing?!"
"Probably like, 10,000 donuts, and a few hundred thousand magnets!"
"...And that means what exactly?!"
"A 16-bit, 60 khz CPU as the brain." Senku said. "For memory, we've got 129 core units with 512k ROM and 16k SRAM."
"Long sneeze but bless you." you said, making him laugh.
Sai got it however. He placed a hand on the computer and hung his head down, taking a deep, slightly shaky breath.
"In terms of computer power..." he softly said. "it's on par with the NES."

You quietly gasped and placed a hand on your heart, your eyebrows furrowed, knowing how much this meant to him. Sai didn't stay emotional for long though, he quickly got to work making a video game!
"Getting programs to run is kinda tricky." Senku explained to you and the others. "We feed in these punch cards so the computer can read the patterns of holes."
"These cards..." Gen looked at them. "will be the game programs?"
"How're we supposed to game with these things?" Yo asked.
"Like this probably."
You pointed at Sai, who with both hands was programing as fast as lightning. He looked so happy, you couldn't help but smile.
"Done!" he eventually said.

"What about music though?" you asked, a bit worried. "Can we...with the stuff we have, you said it was like a NES so..."
"Of course we can!" his face lit up.
You were happy too, but something was bothering you.
"So..." you looked at the giant computer. "How do I put music in this thing? Hell, how did people put music in video games in the first place?"
"Oh~!" Gen leaned closer. "Do I sense a lesson from Sai-chan and Senku-chan?"
The two young men smiled, then cleared their throats.

"Do you know why video games even have music?"
You frowned, confused at Senku's question.
"Because when they were first invented, they didn't even had sounds." he added.
"What do you mean? Pong had sounds."
"Actually, the first videos games came out in the 50's." Sai pointed out.
"Really?!" your eyes widen, now invested.
"Right." Senku nodded. "And before game consoles, there were arcade games. They were designed to grab people's attention, since arcades was full of them, they had to stand out: different hardware, different designs, and different music. Each arcade console had what's called an 'attract mode', a pre-recorded demonstration of the game playing on loop until someone actually played it."
"I see." Gen tapped his cheek. "Their goal was to create novelty so that people would put their quarter into their game."
"I'm all for context but, how did they create sound though?" you asked.

"Well, at first, for these early games, they'd make sound any way that they could." Sai explained. "For Pong, Allan Alcorn said that he was basically running out of parts, they wanted the roar of the crowd of thousands whenever you'd win a point, and a boo when you'd lose a point. But he didn't know how to make sounds like this, he didn't even had the parts for it. So he poked around the game's sink generator to find an appropriate frequency that he could send to the speakers to make a sound."
"How is that possible?" Yo asked. "Making a sound with just circuits!"
"That makes sense." you shrugged. "The way electric guitars work is by creating an electric current that has a certain frequency, that's what makes the note. Remember?"
"...no."
You sighed.

"And setting up those sounds was done in half a day," Sai continued. "because they were already in the machine. And as time went on, they upgraded to PSG! Programmable Sound Generators, sound chips designed for audio!" he exclaimed with a spark in his eyes.
"They were like cheap synthesizers," Senku said. "and very limited in what they could do. The early one could only produce one note at a time."
"But later on, they progressed and could play more! And they were still used for game consoles after that!"
"Oh, so every game cartridges had one."
"Nope!" they said as the same time. "It was in the console."
"But...wait." Taiju rubbed his temples, his brain running on maximum power for this one. "Since every music was unique to each arcade game... how can just one chip play for all these console games?!"
"You had to be creative." Senku smiled. "That why there are many different versions of the same game's theme depending on which console you play. Games' music were programed in a way that the console could play it."

You gulped.
"I'll do my best!" you huffed, determined. "So how so I program music on a PSG?"
"Oh we don't have one."
Your shoulder dropped as Gen slapped his hand on his forehead and Taiju and Yo groaned.
"Remember, this is a primitive computer." Senku pointed at it with his thumb. "And PSG chips are small like this." he made a space of about two centimeters between his index and his thumb. "We're not at the level yet, so we'll have to make do with what we have."
"And what *do* we have?" you asked.
He smiled and gestured you to follow him, you and the others did. You went around the computer for a bit until you arrived at a certain panel. On it was another, smaller screen. And on that screen was five colons, labeled 'channel 1', 'channel 2', 3, etc... and on the left was '00', '01', 2, 3, continuing all the way down to who knows when. And there were a bunch of others parameters that you didn't understand. You looked at Senku, knowing he was about to explain what the fuck this had to do with the matter at hands.

"A NES has only five sound channels, meaning you can only play five notes or sounds at a time, and only 2kb of audio ram."
"Two kilobytes?!" you exclaimed, shocked.
"What wrong with that?" Taiju asked, slightly panicked. "Kilos are a lot, aren't they?!"
"Okay, imagine you're on spotify and you download a, like, thee-minutes-long song, that's six *mega* bytes!"
"That's insane!" Gen exclaimed. "You're telling me a whole console can play all of these games' music with so little memory?!"
Senku nodded.
"How?!" you pressed.
"You gotta think outside of the box." he smiled. "Okay (Y/n), here's a challenge for you:" he faced you. "With all these limitations, what would you do to make music?"

Caught off guard, you just awkwardly stood there for a moment. Then you glanced at the screen and narrowed your eyes.
'Knowing him, he's giving me a chance to figure out what's this for.'
You took a deep breath and looked down, touching just your fingertips together and brought them to your mouth. You thought deeply, you were in the zone now.
'Like a cheap synthesizer...' you thought. 'And since the games compromises so that they could all play on the console's PSG...'
"Can you use samples?" you asked, without looking up.
"Yes." Sai nodded. "But in order to stay within the 2kb, they have to be really tiny."
You just hummed and thought some more, until finally, you looked at them.
"Wave sequencing."
Sai's faces lit up. Everybody else was still confused.
"Uh-hu, which is...?" Gen slowly nodded.
"It's a process that makes you take a bunch of tiny samples and play them in quick successions so that they make cool and unique music. Some synthesizers use that method." you explained.

"But the NES can't do all of that, not on its own." Senku said, still waiting for the right answer.
You thought for a moment.
"Then... I just have to do that myself. Putting those really tiny samples into each sound channel." you pointed at the screen. "And that's what it's for right? It's got the five sound channels."
He finally smiled and ruffled your hair.
"Ten billion points for you." he said before gently pulling your head closer to give your forehead a smooch.
You chuckled.
"I still have no idea what this is. Is it like a music program? I've never seen it before."
"It's a 'music tracker'!" Sai explained enthusiastically. "Where you can place each individual sound in this coding program, note by note!"

"Uh..." you noticed the computer keyboard. "How exactly?"
"By boiling down music into numbers." Senku explained.
Everyone was shocked, but you were the most shocked of all, speechless.
"Numbers...that make music?"
Senku's smile widen.
"Once again, a perfect fusion of art and science! Kukuku~!"
To show an example, he typed in a sequence of numbers and a few letters. They were a bit separated at some point.
"Each sound is played on a vertical timeline." he gestured to the numbers on the left. "And each column represents the note, octave, volume, and some simple effects like fade or echo." he said as he pointed at the different numbers.

"O-okay." you said, a bit overwhelmed. "And I'll have to do that for all of gaming music?"
"I can type them for you, don't worry!" Sai smiled.
"No! I wanna know how to do that, teach m- Actually, you're probably busy, I don't wanna put that on your plate too."
"Ah, right!" he scratched the back of his head, the two of you a bit embarrassed that you got ahead of yourselves there.
You and Chrome quickly glanced at each-other. Senku sighed, looking annoyed.
'Oh no! Has he figured us out?!' you both thought.
"Don't tell me you want *me* to teach you how music tracking works." he asked.
"Y-yeah, that's exactly it!" you said as Chrome and Sai sighed in unison.

You gently turned Senku away from the others and leaned closer to him.
"It'd be just like when we worked on the electric guitar together." you softly spoke. "You said it yourself, the perfect fusion of art and science, that's us right there." you gently intertwined your fingers together and tilted your head, looking at him with puppy dog eyes. "I know you love symbolic stuff like this."
He frowned slightly, but still squeezed your hand. He didn't say anything for a moment before sighing.
"Fine." he said under his breath.
Your face lit up, feeling sparks of joy in your chest, and you kissed him, he kissed you back. Meanwhile, Gen glanced at Chrome and Sai.

"Could it be~?" he said, a hand to his mouth. "Do you guys have some secret project as well~?"
"N-no!" Chrome violently shook his head while Sai looked away. "Why would we?! We're busy enough!"
"Sure~. Don't worry, I won't tell either Senku-chan or Xeno-chan."
"What are you talking about?! Pfff~ get outta here." he waved a hand.
Gen giggled with an innocent-looking smile. Truth was, he really hopped this secret return vessel project would succeed.

[I'll try to finish this story this summer 👌]