Bird's Dr. Stone Sideblog

The Captain

“Alright, looks like everyone’s here,” Ukyo says. The entire population of both the Empire of Might and Ishigami Village are gathered in the Kingdom of Science camp.

“Perfect,” Sora nods. She, Kohaku, and Tsukasa are standing on a ledge above the crowd. Tsukasa’s dressings have been replaced with an eyepatch. 

Sora clears her throat. “Ahem! Your attention please!”

“We’ll start from the beginning to make sure everyone’s on the same page,” Tsukasa says. “Over three thousand seven hundred years ago, a mysterious light turned everyone in the world to stone.”

“Since we don’t know what it was, we have to assume that it may have been intentionally hostile,” Sora continues. 

“If that’s the case,” Kohaku says, “a second attack could destroy us all, and end humanity for good.”

Frightened murmurs rise up from the crowd. Sora raises a hand to silence them again.

“So before that can happen, we’re gonna find the origin of the petrifying light, which according to my dad’s record, is somewhere in South America.”

 Shouts of surprise and amazement from the revived, and murmurs of confusion from the villagers. “For those of you unaware,” Tsukasa says, “South America is a large landmass on the other side of the world.” 

Now the villagers are all shouting, some in clear confusion. “How are we supposed to go to the other side of the world?!” Suika squeaks. “Won’t we fall off?”

“Do not worry,” Kohaku says. “For we have a plan. We, the people of Ishigami village, and all the revived humans of the former Empire of Might, shall work together to build a great boat to carry us across the ocean!”

Once everyone realizes what’s been said, an enormous cheer rises from the crowd, particularly from the Ishigami villagers. 

“Ohhhhh!! Now this is something I actually know quite a bit about!” Kaseki exclaims.

“Kukuku, this project’s gonna require everyone to give it their all!” Sora laughs. “So get excited!”

----------

After a short design contest that Sora trounces easily (Gen sure has some strange ideas sometimes), and the shipbuilding is under way, Sora asks Tsukasa to bring someone to her and Kohaku. 

When they meet, he gestures to the woman at his left side “Sora, this is—“

“Hokutozai Minami,” Sora says, a sharp grin on her face. “The top reporter of the Mainichi Shimbun, one of the five leading newspapers in Japan. You’re known for your work on articles covering sports, business, and culture.”

Minami looks stunned. “No one’s ever done that to me before,” she says. “Usually I’m the one who knows more about the person I’m meeting. Who told you all that?”

“Gen.”

Minami sighs. “Of course.” She puts her hands on her hips. “So what can I do for you, Ishigami-san?”

“Just call me Sora. Anyway, since we’re planning on crossing the Pacific, we’ll need someone to captain the ship. An expert navigator, with the finest skills around! Can you find one?”

The reporter scoffs. “Who do you take me for?”

And so in a few days, Sora, Minami, and the newly expanded Power Team (consisting of Taiju, Kohaku, Magma, Tsukasa, Nikki, and Yo) set off to the location formerly known as the Nanami Maritime Academy.

“What do you think, Minami?” Sora asks as they line up several freshly excavated statues around their camp. “Anyone here you think could get us across the ocean?”

“All of the older ones are most likely teachers,” Minami says, walking down the line. “So they’ll have plenty of quality experience with 21st century watercraft. They might not be a perfect fit for a sailing ship, but it’ll be well worth it regardless. Plus, I met a few of them while visiting the academy for a story, so—“

She freezes. Sora follows her gaze to a statue of a muscular young man with hair that falls past his ears. 

“No way,” she quivers. “It’s him…Ryusui!”

“Ryusui?” Kohaku tilts her head. “You said something like that while we were traveling here, right?”

“Nonononono!” Minami throws her hands out wide in front of the statue. “No way! Anyone but him!”

“What’s the big deal?” Yo asks. “Who is this guy?”

“Whoever he is, he must be good,” Sora says. “So spill it, reporter. No point trying to hide it!”

Minami bites her lip and deflates. “His full name is Nanami Ryusui,” she says. “He’s the prodigal son of the Nanami family.”

“Nanami?” Nikki says. “Like Nanami Academy?”

Minami nods. “Nanami Academy is…or rather was owned by the Nanami Corporation, the biggest name in maritime trade. The company started as a small cargo shipping business in the Edo period, and grew until it was worth over two hundred trillion yen back in 2019.”

“Whoa! Two hundred trillion yen?!” Taiju gasps. “That’s so much money!”  

“Almost obscenely so,” Tsukasa says. “What did they even do with all that profit?”

“Okay, so he was a rich kid,” Sora shrugs. “And a student at his family’s maritime academy?”

Minami shakes her head. “Not exactly. Nanami Ryusui didn’t spend his childhood studying modern ships. Ever since he was young, he had a preference for model sailing vessels instead, and when he got older he started to build real ones that he captained himself as early as middle school.”

“A captain since middle school?!” Taiju exclaims. “He must be really good!”

Kohaku nods approvingly. “Even if the teachers are older, they won’t have as much practical experience with the style of boat we’re making,” she says. “I say we pick this guy!”

“Hold on now!” Minami protests. “Didn’t you hear what I said about the prodigal son? Ryusui may be the most skilled candidate here, but he’s a total playboy who nearly got disowned for spending so much of his family’s money on fine dining and parties! Anyone else would be easier to get along with than him!”

“You sound like you speak from personal experience,” Tsukasa says, turning to look at her with his working eye. Minami lets out a pitiful groan.

“Don’t make me think about it,” she says. “That interview was so annoying…”

“Hmm…” Sora puts a hand to her chin. “I don’t think annoying is enough to discount the fact that he’s probably the only person in Japan who knows how to properly operate a sailing ship,” she says. “Even a small advantage over that would be critical for us.”

“Sora, I wouldn’t dismiss Minami’s advice,” Tsukasa says. “People like this man…they’re the whole reason why the twenty-first century was such a mess, you realize that, right?”

“Well yeah, but only because they had the wealth to manipulate politicians that would help them avoid facing consequences,” Sora says. “What’s he gonna do to us, use our one telephone line to call the cops?”

Yo startles. “Eh?”

“He could refuse to cooperate,” Nikki points out. “And then we’d end up having to revive one of the old folks anyway.”

Sora walks up to Ryusui’s statue. He’s quite tall, and has a confident, boisterous look in his eyes. Prideful, even. 

Rich men do a lot of things for pride. 

“Maybe not,” she says. “Let’s take him and some of the others back and ask Gen what he thinks. Between the magician and Tsukasa, it might not be so difficult to get this Ryusui guy on board with our plans.”

“You’re sure about this, Sora?” Tsukasa asks.

“Gen’s better at profiling people than any of us, even Minami,” Sora says. “If anyone can convince this guy to help us, it’s him. But I’m not discounting the concerns about his character. If Gen thinks Minami’s right and he’s ten billion percent not a good fit for the team, we’ll just revive Minami’s choice from among the teachers.”

“I suppose that’s a wise enough plan,” Tsukasa hums. “But if we do revive him and he causes too much trouble…”

“It’ll be fine,” Sora shrugs. “We have two doses of revival fluid left, and if we’re really pressed to need more then we’ll figure it out then. Fingers crossed it doesn’t come to that though.”

“Why do I feel like that means something bad is going to happen now?” Kohaku mutters.

----------

“One of those rich playboy types huh? Oh come on, Sora-san, do you think I’m an amateur?” Gen laughs. “Those are the easiest people in the world to steer around if you know what you’re doing!”

“I’m still not convinced you realize what you’re getting into,” Minami says as Yuzuriha drapes some fresh clothes over Ryusui’s statue. “He’s…a lot.”

Sora shrugs. “Plenty of people have said that about me. If Gen’s confident he can handle him, then it’ll be fine.”

“I will also assist Gen in dealing with the newcomer,” Tsukasa says. “Should he attempt anything that threatens the well being of the settlement, he will answer to me.”

“See? We’ll be totally fine,” Sora says, dumping the revival fluid over Ryusui.

KRAK-KRAK

SNAP!

“HA HA!” The young man swings his arm through the air, dark petrification scars covering his fingertips. “I’m finally back! This world will be mine all over again!”

Everyone stares at him dumbfoundedly.

“See?” Minami quavers.

Ryusui’s eyes land on the group of people in front of him. “Ah! You must be the people who revived me from stone! You have my gratitude. Francois! Write my saviors a check for whatever amount they request!”

Silence. Ryusui hums thoughtfully.

“It appears the situation has changed. Let me guess. All of civilization has been destroyed, and Nanami Corp is no more. Am I correct?”

“Uh, yep,” Sora says, crossing her arms. “You catch on pretty quick huh?”

Ryusui turns to her and his eyes widen. “Oh! Where are my manners? I haven’t introduced myself!” He tilts his head. “Ah, but if you’ve chosen to revive me, perhaps you already know who I am?” 

“Nanami Ryusui-chan, correct?” Gen sidles up to greet the new arrival with a winning smile. “I’m Asagiri Gen. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Asagiri Gen? Hmm, I’ve definitely heard that name before…” Ryusui snaps his fingers. “Aha! I believe I attended one of your shows last year! It was quite engaging, I must say.”

“Oh, you flatter me,” Gen laughs. “But you know, it’s actually been a lot longer than a year, Ryusui-chan!”

“That is apparent,” Ryusui nods. He then turns to Tsukasa, who’s been staring at him with an unreadable expression. “Hey, aren’t you Shishio Tsukasa? The strongest primate high schooler?”

Tsukasa is silent for a moment. “…Yes.”

“What happened to your eye?”

Tsukasa says nothing.

“Ah, well you can tell me later,” Ryusui says. “And you!” He points to Minami, who yelps in surprise. “You’re from the Mainichi, right? I remember you interviewed me one time.”

“You…you remember that?” Minami blinks. 

“Of course! I’d never forget a lady’s face! Which is why I know I’ve definitely never met you before,” Ryusui says, turning to Sora. 

“Name’s Sora,” she says. “Nice to meet you.”

Ryusui bows before her, European style. “It is truly a pleasure to meet an enchanting lady such as yourself,” he says, eyes sparkling. “Would you like to accompany me for dinner tonight, Miss Sora?” 

She raises an eyebrow. “No.” 

“I thank you for the consideration,” Ryusui says with a still-gleaming grin. He looks between Sora, Gen, Tsukasa, and Minami curiously.

“Hmm…” Ryusui rubs his chin. “I have a new hypothesis I’d like you to confirm,” he says. He points to the empty bottle of revival fluid in Sora’s hands. “You revived me, which means it’s likely that you created the liquid that undoes the petrification, which suggests you were the very first to wake up. But you couldn’t do everything on your own, so you revived some people to help.” He points to Tsukasa. “You revived someone really strong to defend against wild animals and help build things.” He points to Gen. “Then, as you revived more people, you needed someone good with human psychology to manage everyone. This all makes sense.” He points to himself. “However, you must have revived me for a specialized job, because you revived her.” He points to Minami. “Someone whose connections means she’d be able to find very specific people. Am I correct?”

“…More or less,” Sora says. Gen looks rather impressed. “Any guesses as to that purpose we woke you up for?”

Ryusui grins.

“Why, sailing of course!”

----------

Ryusui is a whirlwind of energy like the Kingdom of Science has never seen. Before long, he’s set an ultimatum for his services as a captain—full rights to the oil field they’re trying to locate, which they’ll have to earn from him if they want to use it for the ship. 

“He’s fairly intelligent and knows what he’s talking about, I’ll give him that,” Tsukasa says to Sora and Gen the day after a big storm that Ryusui warned them about. “But this greed of his, the desire to control what should be freely shared resources…it alarms me.” 

“Honestly, I don’t think he’s being unreasonable,” Sora says. “He’s right that we’re asking him to take on a massive job, to be responsible for everyone’s safety on a potentially deadly voyage. Is it really unfair to ask for some sort of compensation in exchange for his services?”

“But complete control of any oil we dig up?!” Gen exclaims. “You realize he could ask for anything he wants for even a drop of the stuff!”

“See, I don’t think that’s his angle,” Sora says. “If he wanted us to just pamper him, he’d try to play that up as the cost for his navigation skills. Instead, he’s set up this situation with the oil to nudge us towards some other goal.”

“Regardless, I don’t like the look of it,” Tsukasa says. “I think we should revive someone else for the captaincy.” 

“Ryusui’s skills are clearly unmatched,” Sora argues. “He’s our best shot at getting to South America alive and in one piece, we can’t let our suspicions of him make us forget that. For the safety of our crew and for Ginro’s sake, we should try to stick with him.”

Tsukasa stares her down. “But his character, Sora. Do you really think we can trust the safety of our people with someone like him?”

 “He’s not outright malicious or anything, and he wouldn’t mess up the job on purpose! Right, Gen?” 

Gen shrinks back under their stares. “Well…ah…” he clears his throat. “Now, you see—“

Suddenly, there’s a knocking on one of the tent posts. Sora pulls the flap back to see a very nervous looking Minami shuffling back and forth on her feet.

“What’s up?” Sora asks.  

 “You um…you might not like this,” Minami winces.

----------

Sora, Gen, and Tsukasa stare blankly at the sight in front of them. Ryusui is sat at a table painting ink onto a wooden block and stamping it on pieces of paper laid out in front of him. Surrounding his chair are thick stacks of stamped papers tied into bundles with twine.

“Er, Ryusui-chan?” Gen ventures. “What’s all this?”

 Ryusui grins. “I call them dragos!” he holds up one of the sheets for them to see. It’s got an image of a dragon printed on it with the number 100 next to a smaller dragon-like symbol. “The exclusive currency developed by Ryusui Corp!”

“Not that I’m critiquing your design,” Sora says, turning a freshly stamped paper over in her hands, “but if each bill counts for a hundred, why didn’t you just remake the yen?”

“Yen are so last millenium,” Ryusui says. “I’m helping to usher in a whole new era of economic prosperity, and what better symbol to represent that than the mighty dragon?”

BAM!

Everyone stares at Tsukasa, whose hand has landed on the table with a deafening sound. 

“You…” his shoulders shake imperceptibly. “Do you have any idea the horror you will unleash if you distribute these to the people?”

He raises his head, remaining eye smoldering with disgust. “Money is the root of every evil in this world. People amass it for the sake of their own egos, and hold it over the heads of sick and starving children without so much as a look in their direction. Men do horrible things just for a taste of the power it wields. If you even have a shred of humanity in you, you’ll destroy these here and now.”

Ryusui blinks up at Tsukasa. “Well now, that’s not my intention at all,” he says simply. “No, I must insist on continuing.”

“Then you forfeit your place here.” Tsukasa raises his hand—

“Wait, Tsukasa!”

Sora’s shoved herself bodily between him and Ryusui, arms thrown out wide. “Give him a chance to explain!”

“And why should I?” Tsukasa asks.

“Because he’s a person!” Sora shouts. “Maybe you don’t agree with what he’s doing, and maybe it is a horrible idea and will tear apart everything we’ve worked so hard for, but he’s not some monster you can just get rid of whenever you want! This isn’t a problem for your fists to solve, damn it!”

Tsukasa’s eye meet hers, and the two stare each other down with an intensity that causes Gen to step back a little. Ryusui merely tilts his head curiously. 

“…Fine.” Tsukasa crosses his arms and looks at Ryusui. “Explain yourself.”

Ryusui sets down the woodblock stamp and laces his hands together in front of himself. “To motivate you, of course.”

“Motivate?” Gen asks.

Ryusui holds up one of the bills. “I’ll be selling the oil for a hundred drago per milliliter. But I’ll also be handing out dragos in exchange for goods and services provided by the people of this settlement.”

“Okay…” Sora says. “But what would they do with the money? They’ve got no use for oil.”

“Precisely!” Ryusui grins. “Which means they will give you dragos in exchange for goods and services that you create with science!” 

“Huh…I’m starting to get the idea,” Gen says. “You’re setting this up because you want Sora-san to be motivated to make more things for people to enjoy, the kind of things they might not necessarily need, but will want, especially the things they miss from modern civilization.”

“Quite astute of you, Gen,” Ryusui nods. “Additionally, once you’re able to revive more people a currency will be extremely helpful for negotiating trade. Barter economies are all well and good, but as a society grows having a standardized unit of value makes transactions far simpler.”

Tsukasa stares at him. “And you’re not doing this because you wish to control people through money?”

“Control people? You seem to have a poor impression of who I am,” Ryusui smiles. “I simply desire everything in the world, and I desire for everyone else to fulfill their desires as well! Money is but a tool to achieve this, a vehicle to inspire innovation and indulgence in enjoyable things!” 

Tsukasa looks taken aback at Ryusui’s open admission. “And…what about things like food, water, and medicine? What price would you put on those?”

Ryusui hums. “Well, luxury food items can be quite difficult to procure,” he says. “Some ingredients may require considerable labor to harvest, and the skill involved in cooking them should also be compensated fairly. Water and medicine though? Those aren’t desires, those are just things people use for survival, so there’s no point in putting a price on them. That’d be like selling air or sunlight—simply ridiculous! No, I’m talking about things that are meant to be enjoyed.” 

Tsukasa’s brow creases, and Sora can almost see the cogs turning in his brain. “Things to be…enjoyed.”

Ryusui smirks up at Tsukasa. “Tell me, good man. What sort of thing do you find enjoyable? What would you splurge on back in the 21st century, if you had all your everyday expenses taken care of? A fancy restaurant? A new video game? A high quality suit?”

Tsukasa stares blankly at him. “I…” he frowns and puts a hand on his chin, face scrunched up in thought. 

Gen hums. “I do miss the days when I’d treat myself by going out to my favorite restaurant,” he muses. “Ooh, and visiting the spa! That was always ice-nay, but I only really had the time for it every few months or so. What about you, Sora-san?”

Sora thinks about it for a bit. “I saved up my allowance for a while to get a PS4,” she says, smiling. “I remember being so excited when I was finally able to play Monster Hunter on it.”

“Tsukasa-chan? You’ve been ruminating for quite some ime-tay,” Gen says.

Tsukasa finally looks up at them. He opens his mouth, appears to hesitate, then says, “…Philip B. Russian Amber Imperial.”

“What?” Sora blinks. 

Tsukasa turns away from her slightly. “It‘s…a luxury brand shampoo,” he murmurs.

Sora and Gen stare at him for a moment.  

“You see?” Ryusui says. “Money is power, but it’s really the power to bring people what they desire! I want everyone to experience that kind of joy! By the way Sora, I saw your plans for a steam powered vehicle earlier, and I was wondering if you could make one that’s styled after a Ferrari?”   

Sora, Gen, and Tsukasa all look at each other. This guy sure is weird, huh? 

----------

“Alright, so maybe he’s mostly harmless,” Tsukasa says when they’ve left Ryusui to his little minting operation, “but if he ever tries to set himself up as a dictator using wealth to put people down—“

“Yeah yeah you’ll leer over him until he stops or whatever,” Sora says. “You do you, man.”

“But you know,” she grins toothily, “now that he’s introduced money, all we really have to do is exploit it for all its worth!”

Tsukasa stares blankly at her. “And what exactly do you mean by that?”

“You’ll see-ee!” Sora sings. Tsukasa raises an eyebrow. 

“I’m going to go check on Mirai,” he says. “But don’t think we’ve ended this conversation, Sora.”

As soon as he’s out of earshot, Sora turns to Gen.

“Luxury brand shamp—”

“I KNOW, ight-ray??!”