Dr. STONE IF: The World Where Tsukasa Shishio Got the Petrification Cure
When the green light of petrification swallowed the world in 2019, high school genius Senku Ishigami made a promise to his best friend Taiju: someday, he'd wake him up.
3,700 years later, that promise becomes a desperate, solitary war for survival.
Civilization is dust. The cities of man have become forests of stone and vine, patrolled by feral beasts that once were pets. Armed with nothing but a half-ruined notebook of scientific notes, a stone axe, and the sheer force of his own intellect, S
Dr. STONE IF: The World Where Tsukasa Shishio Got the Petrification Cure - The Scientist in the Cage —Shishiou Tsukasa, His Ideals and Madness—
Cold.
The feel of concrete against his cheek was what dragged him back to consciousness first.
Senku opened his eyes a sliver. His vision swam, and cracks spiderwebbed across the ceiling above him. The air stank of mold, and the reek of rusted iron stung his nose.
(...I'm alive.)
He tried to move, and a chain clanked.
Both wrists. Both ankles. Cold iron shackles pinned his limbs to the floor.
And then—his left hand.
His ring finger burned like fire.
No—burning didn't even cover it. A spike of agony, as if the bone were trying to tear through the skin from the inside, stabbed into his brain with every pulse.
"...You bastard."
Just speaking nearly split his throat open.
Senku turned his head slowly and looked at his left hand.
The ring finger was bent at an impossible angle. From the second knuckle down, it was clearly wrong. Swollen, the skin mottled purple-black.
(It's broken. And deliberately—not a single clean snap, but slow, drawn out to make me feel every second of it.)
That was Tsukasa's way.
Enduring the pain of the broken finger, Senku scanned his surroundings.
A dim room. Bare concrete walls. Iron bars over the window. Moonlight cast the shadow of those bars across the floor.
A high-rise. A fairly high floor.
(The Tokyo Ruins... Tsukasa's empire headquarters, huh.)
The ruins of Shinjuku. The old high-rises, repurposed as Tsukasa's castle.
Senku moved only his eyes, toward the corner of the room.
Two stone statues stood there.
A large young man, frozen in gray stone mid-lunge, as if throwing himself in front of something to shield it.
Behind him, a statue of a girl with a bow drawn.
"...Taiju... Kohaku..."
Tsukasa had arranged them there like a display.
(He turned my friends back to stone right in front of me. Then he lined their statues up next to my cage.)
Rage flared in Senku's chest.
But this was no time to be swept away by emotion.
Senku touched the broken ring finger gently with his right hand.
Agony.
His vision burst white.
"...gh—ah...!"
A sound that wasn't quite a voice escaped him.
(No good. At this rate the finger will necrotize. I have to splint it.)
Senku bit through the hem of his shirt with his teeth.
A ragged strip of cloth.
He wrapped it around the broken ring finger and the pinky beside it.
"Ngh... ugh...!"
Gritting his teeth, he cinched the cloth tight.
Tears welled up. But this was no time to cry.
(I need a splint. But in this cage, anything I can use...?)
Senku crawled along the floor, searching the cage.
He reached a hand through the gaps in the iron bars.
His fingertips brushed something.
A small piece of wood. Probably debris from the crumbling ceiling.
Senku picked it up, pressed it against the cloth, and bound it tight again.
"...There. That's at least a little better."
The pain was unchanged. But the splint at least suppressed the sickening grind of bone shifting out of place.
Senku steadied his breathing and set his mind to work.
(Get the situation straight. I'm captured. The notebook is burned. The medicine is taken.)
(But I haven't lost everything.)
Senku pressed a hand to his chest.
The inner pocket.
His fingertips met something small and hard.
(...It's there.)
Slowly, Senku drew it out.
A tiny glass vial.
Inside, a transparent liquid remained—just barely.
(The spare petrification cure. The instant the notebook went up, I hid it in my inner pocket on reflex.)
(The amount is minuscule. Enough for two people at most.)
Senku clenched the vial.
(This is my last trump card.)
That was when it happened.
Footsteps echoed from the corridor.
Slow, but certain, drawing closer.
Heavy footsteps that made the floor tremble faintly with each step.
Senku slipped the vial back into his inner pocket in a flash.
Beyond the iron bars, a massive shadow loomed.
Shishiou Tsukasa.
Nearly a hundred and ninety centimeters of sculpted muscle.
Broad shoulders, a thick chest, arms like logs.
The sheer pressure radiating from him froze the air inside the cage.
Tsukasa looked down at Senku, expressionless.
"So you're awake, scientist."
Senku stayed seated on the floor and looked up at him.
"...Thanks to you. Hell of a welcome you've got here."
Senku lifted the broken finger deliberately, making sure Tsukasa saw it.
Tsukasa's expression didn't flicker.
"Your science is a poison that rots people. I had to pluck it out before it could spread."
"Poison, huh. You woke up from petrification thanks to that poison, and that's the thanks I get?"
Tsukasa gripped the iron bars of the cage.
The metal groaned.
"That's exactly why I'm giving you a choice. Prove your worth as a scientist and submit to me. Or die here."
Tsukasa's voice was quiet.
Quiet—almost too quiet.
Senku looked into his eyes.
Cold eyes. But somewhere deep inside them, something was burning.
"Submit, huh."
Senku rose slowly to his feet.
The chains clanked.
"Science isn't a tool to flatter a king. Science is the power that lets humans live as humans."
Senku's voice didn't tremble.
"...I see."
Tsukasa unlocked the cage.
Giii...
With a rusted screech, the barred door swung open.
Tsukasa stepped inside.
One step.
Two steps.
He came to a stop right in front of Senku—and seized Senku's right hand.
"...gh!"
A grip like a vise.
Bone creaked.
Tsukasa began to bend Senku's right pinky, slowly.
"A shame. Your mind is genuinely valuable. But poison is poison. I can't afford to drink it."
Crack.
The sound of bone breaking.
"Gah—aaaaaah...!!"
A scream tore from Senku's throat.
But he strangled it down.
Gritting his teeth, he transmuted the pain into anger.
"...You get off on breaking fingers? Lousy taste."
Breaking out in a cold sweat, Senku glared at Tsukasa.
Tsukasa released his hand.
"Pain brings a man back to his senses. Now you should be able to see reality a little more clearly."
"I've seen reality all along. Yours included."
Clutching his broken pinky with his left hand, Senku spoke.
"Hey, Tsukasa. Why do you hate adults that much?"
At Senku's question, Tsukasa's movement stopped for an instant.
"You said you'd build a paradise for the young. That adults are rotten, so you'd purge them. But that logic doesn't hold up. Not every adult is rotten. And plenty of kids rot too."
Senku looked Tsukasa straight in the eye.
"Your hatred isn't about logic. It's something more personal. Am I wrong?"
Tsukasa said nothing.
A long silence.
Deep down the corridor, the wind moaned.
At last, Tsukasa opened his mouth, slowly.
"...Before the petrification, I was a fighter."
Senku listened in silence.
"I was undefeated. I never lost to anyone. I stood at the top. But the view from that summit was the worst thing I'd ever seen."
Tsukasa's voice dropped slightly.
"Athletes destroying their bodies with drugs. Adults buying wins with money. Association men forcing fixed matches. Behind all that strength, people were rotting. I saw it from closer than anyone."
Tsukasa's fist clenched with a grinding sound.
"The stronger I got, the more the rotten adults swarmed to use me. They tried to turn my fists into money. They tried to devour my life."
A dark flame kindled in Tsukasa's eyes.
"So when I woke from the petrification, I decided. I will never let that world exist again. I won't let rotten adults defile the future. I'll build a pure world for the young alone. That is my justice."
Tsukasa's words were heavy, and utterly sincere.
He meant it.
This man genuinely believed in his insane ideal.
Enduring the pain of his broken fingers, Senku looked at him.
"...I see. Your ideal is just an excuse for you to stay king."
At Senku's words, Tsukasa's brow twitched.
"Purge the rotten adults, build a world for the young alone. But the one who makes the rules of that world is you. The one who decides who's righteous and who's rotten is you. In other words, you think you're the most righteous. You think you ought to be king of the world."
"That's not it."
"Yes it is. You believe you're absolutely right. And you force that righteousness on others with brute force. That makes you no different from the rotten adults you hate."
Senku's words drove deep into Tsukasa's heart.
For the first time, Tsukasa's expression wavered.
Only for an instant.
But sure enough, that perfect coldness vanished from his face.
(Now.)
Senku pulled the vial from his inner pocket.
And poured its contents straight into the keyhole of the cage.
Shhhhhhh...
The sound of liquid eating through metal.
The strong acid in the petrification cure rapidly corroded the inside of the rusted lock.
"What are you—!"
Tsukasa reached for Senku.
But he was too late.
Clank.
The cage door swung open from the inside.
Still chained, Senku slipped past Tsukasa's side.
"Sorry, Tsukasa. I can't live in your paradise. I'm going to save humanity with science."
Senku broke into a run down the corridor.
The chains on his limbs clattered.
The vibration of running sent fresh agony through his broken fingers.
But he didn't stop.
"Wait, scientist!!"
Tsukasa's roar echoed down the corridor.
Senku ran with everything he had.
The door to the next room.
It was open.
Senku dove inside.
There stood the statues of Taiju and Kohaku.
Senku let the last drop remaining in the vial fall onto the surface of Taiju's statue.
Crack.
A fissure split the stone.
Crack, crack, crack...!
The cracks spread across the entire statue in an instant.
Shatter!!
The stone shell burst apart.
"...Senku!?"
Taiju's eyes went wide.
"Taiju! No time! Kohaku too!"
Senku thrust the vial into Taiju's hands.
"Use this to bring Kohaku back! One drop is enough!"
"Got it!"
Taiju took the vial and poured the remaining liquid over Kohaku's statue.
Crack, crack, crack...!
Shatter!!
"...Huh? Me...?"
Kohaku's eyes opened.
"Kohaku! Thank god!"
Taiju grabbed her hand.
"Taiju... Senku... What's going on?"
Kohaku looked around, bewildered.
"Explanations later! Right now we're getting out of here!"
Senku pulled them both along.
"The emergency stairs! We head for the harbor! I've got a plan!"
The three of them ran down the corridor.
That was when it happened.
"Intruders!! The prisoners are escaping!!"
An alarm blared.
Kiiin... kiiin...
The shrill wail echoed through the entire building.
"Damn it! They found us!"
Senku gritted his teeth.
"Run! Don't stop!"
The three of them sprinted through the crumbling corridor.
Down the stairs.
Fifth floor.
Fourth floor.
Third floor.
Footsteps closed in from behind.
The shouts of soldiers.
"Freeze right there!!"
"Taiju! On your right!"
"You got it!"
Taiju hoisted a fallen slab of concrete one-handed.
And hurled it at the pursuers behind them.
DogaAaAan!!
The concrete block smashed the floor and blocked the pursuers' path.
"Whoa! Taiju, you're crazy strong!"
"Heh, leave it to me!"
The three of them raced down to the ground floor.
The main entrance.
Almost there.
Just a little farther and they'd be outside.
That was when it happened.
Doooon!!!
The main entrance doors blew inward.
The iron doors crumpled and rolled across the floor.
Beyond them stood—
Shishiou Tsukasa.
Killing intent pouring off every inch of him.
"Running away, scientist?"
Tsukasa's voice rang out, quiet but heavy.
"Prove it here—that your science can truly save people."
Tsukasa clenched his fist.
"You three against me alone. A duel. Win, and you go free."
Cold sweat ran down Senku's face.
(Even with all three of us, the scientific probability of beating him is exactly zero.)
But—
"Bring it on!!"
Taiju raised his fists.
"I'm in too. I can't die until I've saved my sister."
Kohaku drew her short blade.
Senku looked at their backs.
(These two... they're serious.)
Inside Senku's head, the structure of this abandoned building and every scrap of material left in it were being calculated at high speed.
(There's no way we win. But we don't need to win. We just need to get away.)
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