Perfectly Balanced [ON-GOING]

Chapter Five: The Foreign Lioness

5. The Foreign Lioness

09-08-2022

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"The rain has let up! The sounds are gone, so we gotta be quiet now!" said Taiju.

"You're right!" Yuzuriha agreed as they both looked around frantically. "He's not on his way now, is he?"

You saw Senku stand up with his usual smirk. Happiness rose inside of you, and you couldn't help but tear up and cry with relief. The scientist patted your head, letting you know not to worry anymore, and so you wiped away your tears. He chuckled, "I'm impressed, realizing about my neck from that crappy hint I gave you. All of you receive ten billion points!"

"Senku!" Taiju and Yuzuriha cried out and turned around with shock as they had tears in their eyes.

Taiju immediately grabbed Senku and pulled him into an ecstatic bear hug, causing your friend to scream. He kicked Taiju off, causing him to flip backward.

"HAH?! WAS MY CERVICAL PLEXUS NOT ENOUGH?! ARE YOU GONNA CRUSH MY BODY THIS TIME?! WANNA DIE, PUNK?!" Senku scolded him in rage. He then calmed down after yelling and spoke, "I'm sure you all understand, so we don't need to thank each other for every little thing that happened. We can just leave it at this."

Your lips curled up into a small smile. "Yes, of course. Welcome back, Senku."

Yuzuriha wiped her tears, then began to tear the bag you all carried, turning it into a flag. The design on it looked like a rocket and stars. She attached it to a giant stick and tied it to Senku's back, acting as a splint.

"I thought the design looked like a little rocket, and we could use it as a science flag. Anyways, you need this for your neck," she said. "You need one too, (Y/N)-chan!"

"I don't need this! But I feel better already," Senku replied. "Professor Senku's life-risking self-experiment was a success! The restoration abilities of de-petrification are no joke!"

You replied in a soft voice, "It's okay, Yuzuriha. I don't need one."

Taiju cheerfully exclaimed, "Man, to think that even though petrification caused us so much trouble, that thanks to that, you'd be healed like this!"

You let out a small laugh. "It's like what you said about soap, Senku. In place of a doctor, we have this stone of life. Our Dr. Stone...how amusing."

He looked at you with wonder. You weren't wrong. Petrification was a curse and a blessing--two sides of the same coin. It was weird. When one was restored, everything else was too, as if everyone petrified was a scientific phenomenon and that this wasn't an attack.

Yuzuriha tried to put a statue back together as you all cleaned up. "I wonder...if your neck could be healed, then maybe these statues could."

"I tried with a few, but all that came back were corpses. With so much vital power..." Senku's eyes widened, then he whispered something to Yuzuriha. When she heard it, she began sweating bullets, and her eyes were wide with shock, but she nodded her head. "That is your mission. You got that?"

"Yeaaaaah..." she dragged on. "This sounds crazy, but I'll do it."

Taiju intercepted the conversation, "What's with the secrets? Come on, tell us!"

Yuzuriha replied, "Well...I thought that we should go back to Tsukasa."

"Huh?" You raised an eyebrow as you looked at her.

"Oh, yeah! Go back to Tsukasa--WAIT, WHAT!?" Taiju widened his eyes with shock. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her back and forth as he started rambling on, "He's dangerous! He killed Senku--well, technically, he's alive--but he believes he killed Senku! He almost killed (Y/N) too!"