Dr. STONE IF: The World Where Tsukasa Shishio Got the Petrification Cure - In the Name of Paradise —The Light of Science Is Snuffed Out—

The cold late-autumn wind cut through the gaps in the ruins. Senku sat by a small fire in the corner of a collapsed department store's sixth floor—once the men's clothing section. Thin smoke curled up through a hole in the ceiling. It was dark outside already. Autumn nights ran cold. His fingertips were numb, and he could barely pinch the glass tube. "Almost there. Just a little more, and it's done." Laid out before Senku were copper tubing salvaged from a dismantled vending machine and chemicals scavenged from the emergency chemical extinguishers. He spread open a battered notebook and reread the chemical formulas on its yellowed pages, over and over. The writing had faded; the edges were crumbling. Even so, the complete recipe lived on inside Senku's head. One week had passed since they were driven from the village. Fleeing the scouts of Tsukasa's empire, the three of them had moved west, then north, through the outskirts of Yokohama. The pursuers had shown themselves several times, but Senku's gunpowder traps and Kohaku's bow had slowed the chase. And what they'd finally reached was this abandoned department store. The massive building that must once have overflowed with people now stood silent, nothing but the sound of wind echoing through it. "Senku, not yet? I'm starving!" Taiju rose from the makeshift bed he'd built by clearing away rubble. His huge frame cast a shadow in the faint light. The wound on his arm had healed completely. His recovery really was something else. "Don't rush me. Haste is forbidden in science. ...Right now, I'm just about to add the final drop." Senku carefully poured the liquid into a small clay vessel in his hands. A soft drip. The liquids mingled, and a wisp of steam rose. "Whoa...! It turned some crazy color!" "Yeah. The purity this time is nothing like the last batch. It dissolves only the stone shell without damaging the memories of the petrified human inside. Theoretically, the success rate is over ninety percent." Senku's voice lifted, just slightly. Taiju peered into Senku's face. "Ninety percent!? That's amazing! So we can save everyone now!" Taiju's voice echoed through the dark floor. Senku transferred the liquid into a small glass vial and gave a quiet nod. "Yeah. With this, I can bring you and Kohaku's sister... Ruri back from the stone. With the power of science." The moment she heard those words, Kohaku—who had been sitting silently beside Taiju, tending the fire all this time—snapped her head up. Her large amber eyes fixed on the little vial in Senku's hands. "...My sister. Really?" Kohaku's voice was trembling. Senku turned toward her. The campfire light flickered across her brown braid and wheat-colored skin. The old scar on her left arm surfaced in the shifting light and shadow. "Yeah. Kohaku, I will save your sister. No matter what. This is the first step toward that." At Senku's words, Kohaku bit down hard on her lip. Her big eyes welled up, moment by moment. "...Thank you, Senku. Thank you." Tears spilling down her face, Kohaku repeated it again and again. Taiju clapped her on the shoulder. "That's great, Kohaku! Senku's amazing! He always keeps his promises, no question!" "Yeah... yeah!" Her face a mess of tears, Kohaku nodded vigorously. Watching the two of them, Senku let the corner of his mouth soften, just a little. (Science changes my comrades' future. This feeling—nothing can replace it.) But inside his chest, a cold reality existed at the same time. (But the materials are at their limit. Making this one vial was the best I could do. Mass production is next to impossible with the equipment we have now.) Senku stared at the vial in his hands. Inside, the clear liquid swayed, reflecting the firelight. "...Well, it's too early to celebrate. Stabilizing this will take a bit more time. That's it for tonight." Senku carefully tucked the vial deep into his leather pouch. ――― The night deepened. By the time Taiju and Kohaku had begun to breathe in sleep, Senku sat alone by the fire, the battered notebook open in his hands. He turned the pages. Tucked between them was a small cloth bag. Inside was something like white powder. It was a sample Senku had secretly collected from Ruri's stone statue, sealed away in the shrine of Kohaku's village. Senku took a small amount of the powder onto his palm. Then he held his homemade magnifier—a piece of glass he'd ground and polished himself—to his eye and observed it closely. "...What is this?" Senku's eyes narrowed. An ordinary petrified sample had a random crystal structure. That was only natural, if the petrification was a natural phenomenon. But Ruri's sample was different. Within the white powder, he could see a regular pattern. The same shape repeating at fixed intervals. "A periodic lattice array... Not a structure that forms naturally. This is almost like..." Senku swallowed hard. Something stirred deep in his chest. (This crystal structure was made artificially. Someone deliberately produced this pattern.) Senku jotted a small note in the margin of the notebook with the tip of a charcoal stick. 'Petrification = artificial. Needs verification.' Staring at the words, Senku felt something cold run down his spine. The petrification phenomenon was not a natural disaster. Someone had caused it deliberately. That hypothesis had, for the first time, appeared before Senku backed by scientific evidence. ――― That was when it happened. Zah. A faint sound came from the floor below. Senku raised his head. (That sound just now...?) He strained his ears. Only the wind. Must have been his imagination. The instant he thought that— Zah, zah, zah. This time he heard it clearly. Multiple footsteps. And a considerable number of them. Senku rose quietly and approached the window by the wall. He gently shifted the remains of a curtain aside. And the moment he saw the road below, Senku's heart went ice-cold all at once. Under the moonlight, a swarm of black shadows was moving toward the department store from three directions. Not one or two. Ten, twenty... no, more. A rough count put it near fifty. Every one of them carried a weapon. "...Tsukasa's empire. The main force." Senku's voice came out hoarse. There was no escape route left. "Senku, what's wrong...?" Woken by the noise, Taiju spoke in a sleepy voice. "Wake up, Taiju. Kohaku too. ...It's the enemy." At Senku's voice, Taiju and Kohaku sprang up. "Enemy!? How many!?" "Fifty at least. And they're not just scouts. It's a fully armed main force." "Fifty...!?" Kohaku's face went pale. Taiju immediately stepped in front of Senku. "Senku, get back! I'll protect you!" Taiju grabbed a thick iron pipe nearby. Kohaku took up her bow and slung her quiver over her back. "I'll fight too. Senku, set up whatever traps you can. Anything that buys us time." "...Yeah. I've still got a few gunpowder balls left. But there are too many of them. Even fighting head-on, we've got no chance of winning." Senku's mind raced at full speed. (What do I do? How do the three of us break through this encirclement?) But no answer came. The gap in raw force was on a different order of magnitude. ――― GONN!! A roar echoed up from the first floor. The sound of the shutter being smashed from the outside. "UOOOOOOOH!!!" The soldiers' war cries rang through the entire building. "They're coming...!" Kohaku readied her bow. Taiju gripped the iron pipe. Senku clutched the flint for lighting the gunpowder balls in his sweating hand. ――― Thud. Heavy footsteps climbing the emergency stairs. Footsteps of a single person. Yet each step was heavy, as if it shook the whole building. The soldiers' war cries stopped dead. Silence. And breaking that silence, the footsteps drew closer to the sixth floor. Taiju swallowed hard. Kohaku's hands trembled faintly. Senku held his breath. (No way...) The worst name surfaced in Senku's mind. The footsteps stopped. Beyond the emergency exit door. Creeeak... The door swung slowly open. Standing there, backlit by the moonlight— Long black hair tied back, golden eyes glinting in the darkness. A large scar running down the left side of his face. A lean, muscular body standing just over six feet two. The sheer pressure of his presence seemed to compress the air around him just by standing there. Shishiou Tsukasa. The strongest primate stood before them. "...Found you, Ishigami Senku." A low voice that resonated to the pit of the stomach. Senku felt his breath stop. Taiju stepped forward. "Don't you touch Senku!!" Taiju swung the iron pipe overhead and charged at Tsukasa. A full-power strike. The sound of it cutting the air. But Tsukasa caught it with one hand. Gakin!! The clang of metal. The iron pipe stopped in Tsukasa's palm as if it were a twig. "What...!?" Taiju's face twisted in shock. Tsukasa's golden eyes looked down at Taiju, cold. "You've got brute strength, I'll give you that. But that's all." Tsukasa seized Taiju by the scruff of the neck with his other hand. And just like that, hurled him into the wall. Dogon!! Taiju's massive body slammed against the wall. "Gwah...!!" The wall cracked, fragments scattering. Taiju crumpled to the floor. "Taiju!!" Kohaku screamed. "You bastard...!" Kohaku drew her short blade and slashed at Tsukasa. The sharp movement of a hunter. But Tsukasa twisted her wrist up with effortless ease. "Ah...!" The blade fell from Kohaku's hand. Tsukasa picked it up and snapped it in his grip. Crack. Then he tore the bow from her back and broke it the same way. Crack. "Woman. You have no weapons left." Tsukasa tossed the broken bow to the floor. Kohaku clutched her wrist and dropped to her knees. "Kuh...!" Senku couldn't move. He hadn't even been given time to light a gunpowder ball. Before he knew it, Tsukasa's soldiers were pouring onto the floor. Senku was pinned to the ground. "Don't resist. It's pointless." Tsukasa snatched Senku's leather pouch. From it, he pulled the freshly completed petrification cure and the battered notebook. "Stop...! Give that back!" Senku shouted. Tsukasa held the vial up to the moonlight. "So this is the poison you made. A tool to turn humans back to stone." "Wrong! This is a medicine that saves people!" "Saves them? Don't make me laugh. With this drug, you're trying to revive the rotten adults. That's an act of dragging this world back to hell." Tsukasa held the battered notebook in his other hand. "Stop...! Anything but that...!" Senku's voice shook. Tsukasa pulled a lighter from his pocket. Click. A small flame wavered in the darkness. "This is a lump of wisdom that corrupts humanity. Burning it is the right answer." "Stoooop!!!" Senku's scream echoed across the floor. But Tsukasa's hand didn't stop. The flame touched the notebook. Fwoosh. The yellowed pages caught fire. The crystallization of knowledge Senku had spent so long writing down turned to ash before his eyes. "Ah... ahhh...!" Tears spilled from Senku's eyes. The notebook became black ash and scattered across the floor. Tsukasa ground the burnt ash under his boot. "With this, your poison and your wisdom are gone. All that's left is your life." Tsukasa had Taiju and Kohaku dragged before Senku. The two of them were forced upright by the soldiers. "Look closely, Senku. These are your comrades." Still pinned to the floor, Senku looked at their faces. Blood trickled from the corner of Taiju's mouth, but he was looking at Senku. "...Senku... run..." Kohaku, fighting back tears, was looking at Senku too. "...Senku... I'm sorry..." "Taiju... Kohaku...!" Senku tried to shout. But a soldier clamped a hand over his mouth. Tsukasa received a device from one of the soldiers. It was a small apparatus, as if something had been extracted from the vial of petrification cure. "I made this

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Episode 5

Name: Dr. STONE IF: The World Where Tsukasa Shishio Got the Petrification Cure
Author: Novelia

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