⛧°。 ⋆༺♱༻⋆。 °⛧

While you mourned over Senku's 'death' you took a deep breath, summoning even more tears to your eyes. Your lower lip quivered slowly as you planned to make your performance the most realistic as you could, if not then it would be obviously suspicious.

Your performance was put to a halt, as you felt somebody's hands on your shoulder. Turning your head swiftly, making sure your eyes were still full of sadness. To your surprise, the male who knelt down before you to comfort you was none other than, Tsukasa.

His touch was warm.

The male you've initially been cautious of has faded as he proved to be affectionate towards you, he was right in front of you trying to comfort you. Too bad you weren't feeling any true sadness tho. Even so, this was so out of character for him. Perhaps, it was the effect of the charm? Or was it your current sorrowful presence that the male felt pity for you, either way it didn't matter right now.

You could see the concerned look in Tsukasa's eyes, the male was genuinely worried for you. You've haven't seen anybody look at you like that, it made you feel a warm feeling in your chest, a feeling that you haven't felt before.

" m/n, I'm planning to make a kingdom of my own. If you'd like, we both can rule it over. I know you're in a state of mourning so .. think it over, please. "

the male stood up, taking his leave. Tsukasa thought he put too much pressure on you, from the death of your beloved friend to him asking you to reign beside him, not as a friend but as something more entirely different.

Tsukasa turned his head away from you, this whole encounter with him made you feel pretty confused. You slowly scooted away from the male, wanting to be closer to Taiju & Yuzuriha. You assumed these were the effects of the charm, you just wish you knew more about it and how to use it more to your benefit. Possibly, if that robotic voice came back it could provide you with all of the answers you seeked for.

You sighed softly. Tsukasa suddenly turned back, looking at Taiju, his expression turned into a cautious one as he gasped. He held his spear close to him as he stood into a battle stance, luckily he didn't realize you moved away from Tsukasa. Well, you didn't really move a lot since you didn't want him to notice.

Yuzuriha kept weeping, not knowing of the situation that's about to spiral out.

Taiju put Senku's corpse down carefully as he stood up, Yuzuriha looked up at him. You were keeping close track of the males movements too, waiting for your cue to leave. Taiju took a-hold of a big rock, digging his fingers inside it so it wouldn't fall. Tsukasa stared at the male in shock, his eyebrows furrowing.

" what are you doing?" Yuzuriha asked, her tone was mournful as she wiped the tears off her face.

"It's fine, Yuzuriha. Don't worry, I'm still thinking clearly. Sorry, Yuzuriha. But I can only hope—-" taiju responded with a clear voice, but you could still hear the lingering sadness inside of it.

Yuzurihas eyes widened as a smile formed on her lips, a few more tears fell out. "No. It's okay, Taiju. After all, the four of us made each other a promise. It'll all work out. There's no doubt in my mind." Taiju thanked the female, she reassured him. The sadness they felt for their friend's death was now transformed into resolve & hope. Hope that their friend was still alive, somewhere inside of him, he was still there.

The male grunted, screaming as he clenched the rock and threw it at the sky towards Tsukasa. Hurriedly, you ran away while Tsukasa's attention was still focused on the rock heading towards him.

You ran towards Taiju as Yuzuriha threw the rest of the gunpowder towards Tsukasa, his pupils dilated in shock. The male kicked the bag of gunpowder with his foot, causing it to pour out and envelope Tsukasa's standing.

"goodbye, tsukasa!"

The rock fell to the ground, the impact of it caused sparks, therefore causing a huge explosion. The males shirt were covered in fire, ripping them off and throwing them away. Once the smoke of the blast cleared, his eyes wandered around the area, no sight of you, Taiju, or Yuzuriha. Tsukasa sighed, a frown forming on his face. The males chest tightened, clenching the spear he held, his expression quickly became a gloomy one from the result of your disappearance.

" so this is your answer, m/n."

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

Running as fast as you three could, you ran away from the mountain. Beads of sweat fell down your forehead as you were panting, Taiju kept reassuring himself saying that it'll all be okay with tears forming in his eyes, as he held his friend's corpse close to him. He clinged on the last stands of hope he had left, hoping that his friend was still alive.

The once blue sky was now covered in clouds, the sprinkle of water that you've felt before was now a downpour of rain. The rain poured down your body, as you three settled down In a remote place, away from the likes of Tsukasa. A tree covered your backs and the leaves somewhat acted as kind of shelter.

You saw how desperately Taiju was resolved to save his friend, all you could do was sit there with Yuzuriha as she weeped for the loss of her friend. Rain and sweat poured down from Taiju's forehead, he tried to perform a heart massage, not even knowing if it's affecting Senku. His eyes widened, he held the males body closer to him as he puckered up, preparing to do mouth to mouth.

"I don't think that's necessary, Taiju!" you blurted out, stopping the male since he was inches away from putting his lips on Senku's. Something about it made you weirdly uncomfortable for some reason, you couldn't exactly pinpoint of what it was tho.

"Ah, hold on a second! I think we need to keep his neck still!"

" because .." Yuzuriha's tears fell down her cheeks, as she turned her head towards Taiju. "that's where tsukasa hit him. I'd been caught, and Senku gave himself up for me." She lowered her head down from the last sentence, she felt like she was cause of Senku's death.

"Wait, you're saying he sacrificed himself? Senku wouldn't go the suicide route, he wouldn't sacrifice anyone. He would stake the whole game on the chance to save us all."

Taiju placed both of his hands on his forehead, trying to think of what the answer might've been. You were contemplating on whether you should blurt it out or not, obviously since you already knew the answer.

"His neck."

Yuzuriha replied faster than you could, what a shame. You recalled that this was a scene where Yuzuriha had a flashback from Senku cracking his neck, she's pretty sharp.

"Back at the hot spring, when I was caught, Senku was drawing attention to his neck. I think that's where he wanted Tsukasa to strike him."

"You're right.. that thing he was doing, it's not a habit he always had."

"But why would Senku draw your attention towards his neck, did he tell you, Yuzuriha?"

You asked the female, trying your best to look ignorant. A lighting strike hit, making this whole situation a bit more dramatic.

"Well .."

Yuzuriha seemed unsure, until Taiju lifted Senku's body towards him, wondering what Senku could've meant by always putting attention on his neck. Yuzuriha's eyes widened as she gasped, "look, there's a little bit of stone left on his neck!" Yuzuriha's hand flew to her mouth, another but small gasp came out as she noticed. "hold on, when we removed the stone that was left on your foot, didn't Senku tell us something?That when we de-petrified, cracks were filled in as part of the process."

"You're right, he did." You replied, Yuzuriha quickly went towards the bag containing the last of our miracle fluid, she got a bottle and put it towards you, signaling you to grab and to pour it on senku. In the original scene it was Taiju who did it, but in this moment it was you, how peculiar.

"It might work on Senku's neck too! There's a chance."

"Yeah, when he's de-petrified his neck might be fixed as well!"

"Right! let me pour it on him"

You quickly opened the seal and poured it on Senku's stone part of his neck as Taiju stabilized his nape, making sure that the stone part of it was drenched in the nitric acid.

Yuzuriha was folded her hands together, praying that luck would go their way and Senku would be revived. Taiju's eyes widened as the stone began to crack. Even after you already knew Senku would be revived, it still left you with an angsty feeling seeing his corpse in front of you.

" The petrifications gone! "

" WAKE UP, SENKU! I knew you'd live. I knew you weren't gonna let yourself be killed, not in a place like this! " Taiju cried out.

"Senku .. please, wake up."

You muttered, clenching your hands together. Rain fell, each drop chilling you. Despite knowing Senku will soon return to you, there's just no shaking off this uneasiness and doubt.

The three of you were waiting hopefully for Senku's return, another flash of thunder emerged near you. Taiju kept screaming at the male to come back, you noticed Senku's eyes started to regain their bright red color. As the storm passed away, all that remained was sprinkling from the clouds above.

"The storm. It's over."

Taiju commented as he stood up, his eyes gazed up at the sky noticing the clouds that once fogged the horizon were now cleared. You sat beside Senku, while Yuzuriha stood up as well holding her hands out as she expected water droplets to fall into her hands.

You looked up towards the sky, the bright yellow sunlight made your eyes squint. Unconsciously, you placed your hand on top of Senku's, giving the impression that you were holding his hand. Suddenly, you felt something grasp your hand, you yelped. Catching Yuzuriha's and Taiju's attention as you snatched your hand away, not knowing who grabbed it. Until, you realized it was Senku.

Senku chuckled, he found your reaction amusing. "That thunderstorm was providing some serious cover for us, so keep your voices down from here on out." He pushed himself up, he sat with one arm on his knee while the other one layed down as he smirked explaining on how if we do make enough noise to alert Tsukasa, we're basically all dead.

" senku !" You cried out, a big smile formed on your lips since you were finally in the males presence. You didn't know what was the reason for you to be acting like this. Was it because your sudden doubts about Senku's revival were gone, or was it because you were finally back in the company of your favorite character— no, person.

Perhaps it was both.

"Hey, m/n." Senku's gaze softened when he met yours. Both Taiju and Yuzuriha gasped, a huge smile, probably bigger than yours formed on Taiju's face. Senku stood up and laughed, "good luck on noticing the thing with my neck, I barely even gave you any real hints about it. Taiju, Yuzuriha, m/n, I believe that kind of thinking should snag you three 10 billion points." The male snickered as he placed two of his fingers on his nape, you as-well stood up.

CHAPTER END