Bird's Dr. Stone Sideblog

Blood Under The Moon

Mirai’s revival has everyone in high spirits, and as they spend the day preparing to return back to the Empire of Might, Sora notes that some of the villagers and revived are chatting amongst themselves rather amicably. A sign there won’t be much bad blood to deal with in the future, she hopes.

She’s doing the inventory for the cooking equipment when Kohaku walks up.

“Have you guys seen Ginro?” She asks, crossing her arms. “He was supposed to help take down tents, but I can’t find him. Figures he’d be slacking off…”

“I heard him going down to the stream a moment ago,” Ukyo offers. “Maybe he went to wash up like Mirai-chan, Tsukasa, and Hyoga did? We’re all kind of dusty from digging.”

Kohaku opens her mouth to respond, but Chrome suddenly interrupts. 

“Sora…we’re missing some dynamite.”

Sora snaps to attention, a chill running up her spine. “Are you sure?”

Chrome’s face is grave. “Ten billion percent. Five sticks are unaccounted for.”

Ukyo frowns. “If anyone stole some, I should have heard them. It would take someone truly stealthy to get past me.”

He pulls the brim of his hat down in thought. “As far as I know, there’s only one person who could pull that off.”

Suddenly, the sound of an explosion erupts from behind them. An enormous cloud of smoke rises in the distance, and everyone’s mouths fall open in horror.

“WHAT?!”

“Was that an accident?” Chrome gasps. Ukyo shakes his head frantically.

“No! This doesn’t feel right!”

“Where did it come from?” Kohaku squints into the distance. Sora pales, every muscle in her body going taut.

“The miracle cave…”

Down by the stream, Mirai and Tsukasa raise their heads at the muffled boom in the distance. Beside them, Hyoga tilts his head and hums. None of them notice the startled flash of blonde from the bushes a little ways away.  

“What was that?” Mirai asks. Tsukasa frowns. 

“I’ll get a closer look,” he says, walking away from his sister and Hyoga. 

Suddenly, Sora, Ukyo, and Chrome appear over the hill, sprinting towards them. Sora cups a hand around her mouth, pure panic in her eyes. 

“TSUKASA, MIRAI! GET AWAY FROM TH-”

Mirai and Tsukasa raise their heads. In that split second, the world moves in slow motion. 

Hyoga’s spear hurtles towards the little girl, and in her mind’s eye Sora can see the blade connecting, the ground staining crimson, and the limp body of a girl whose only crime was daring to be what Shishio Tsukasa loved most in the world. 

But there’s no horrible sound of blade meeting flesh, no red splashed across the grass. 

Ginro tackles Mirai to the ground, the point slicing off a few of his blond strands as they hit the dirt. Without anything to stop his momentum, Hyoga flies forward, straight off the edge of the riverbank. He disappears with a loud grunt as Sora and Tsukasa reach them.

“Ginro, Mirai, are you alright!?” Sora gasps. Ginro sits up, Mirai quivering and hanging onto his arm like a lifeline. 

He looks up at Sora anxiously. “I think s-“

Suddenly, a hand shoots up and grabs Mirai’s ankle. She screams in terror as she’s dragged over the edge, Ginro shrieking as he’s taken with her. 

Sora lunges forward, grasping Ginro’s hand. She’s dragged to the very edge of the cliff, crying out as the weight of three people threatens to tear her arm out of its socket. Mirai is still screaming, tears streaming down her face as she clutches Ginro’s waist, his other arm wrapped around her. Hyoga has one hand grasping her leg, a sharp glint in his wide open eyes. 

Just as Tsukasa reaches for Sora, Hyoga stabs his spear clear through the earth around her knees. The soil crumbles and Sora feels herself falling with the echo of Mirai’s screams and Tsukasa’s anguished yell around her.

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Sora hits the water, hard. All she can hear is the roar of the current as she fights for air, lungs burning. 

Her nose and mouth manage to breach the surface but it’s all she can do to cough out a mouthful of water before she gets pulled under again, careening down the river at lightning speed. 

Suddenly, she feels something grab the back of her robe. With a choking yell she kicks out at her captor, only to realize it’s not Hyoga. 

Ginro pulls her up to the surface, Mirai on his back as he kicks insistently towards the riverbank. Sora gasps and coughs, her muscles screaming at her.

“Hold on!” Ginro shouts, and Sora wheezes back in response. She stops flailing—Ginro is clearly the better swimmer. The weight alone makes it agonizingly slow, and they’re still being pushed along by the current. 

“How did you…get there…so fast?” Sora asks. Ginro takes a minute to answer.

“I was avoiding work when I heard Hyoga tell Mirai she should wash up. I thought it was odd that he chose to join them since Tsukasa would be fine on his own, so I followed them.” 

He lets out a pained laugh. “I wish I could say it was entirely because I was suspicious of him. But I also thought Kohaku would be less mad at me for slacking off if I was investigating a potential enemy.” 

Sora coughs up more water. “Never…nevermind that. Thanks to you, Mirai is alive. That’s…what’s important.” 

Ginro doesn’t answer, but Sora thinks his movements are more confident after that. 

After a long while, they wash up at a shallow bank, and all three collapse onto the sandy dirt coughing and shaking. The sun is low in the sky now, long shadows cast across the ground. 

Sora rolls onto her back and feels her chest heaving as she tries to regain her breath. Beside her, Ginro sits up and lets Mirai slip off his back before checking her over for further injuries.

“You’re okay, you didn’t swallow too much,” he murmurs to her, patting her back as she coughs. “You did a good job holding onto me, you hear?” Ginro turns his head. “Are you alright, Sora?”

“Could be better,” Sora calls. “But I’m fine. How’s Mirai?”

“She’ll be okay once we get her dry,” Ginro says. “Kids fall in water all the time at home—Chrome used to do it almost regularly. We’re all taught how to swim and recognize signs of drowning from an early age.” 

“Makes sense,” Sora exhales. Suddenly, she forces herself up despite the pain in her muscles. “Shit! We have to get back before-“

SPLOSH!

Hyoga leaps out of the water and lands in front of them. Ginro yells and shoves Mirai towards Sora before bolting to his feet and spreading his arms wide between the girls and the looming figure before them. 

“I had hoped to dispatch Tsukasa-kun by now so we could have this conversation alone, Sora-kun,” Hyoga says as if he hasn’t just swum a good kilometer and a half downstream in frigid water, “What a shame. We’ll have to make this quick.”

“Stay back!” Ginro yells, voice shaking. “I won’t let you lay a finger on them!” 

“Now now, Ginro-kun,” Hyoga chides. “The adults are talking.”

“Doesn’t feel like much of a talk with you pointing that fucking spear at us,” Sora snaps, arms tightening around a shivering Mirai. She blinks. “Uh, don’t tell your brother I said that, kid.” 

“Oh but you will listen,” Hyoga says with deadly calm. “Though perhaps I need to…motivate you a bit.”

The blade of the spear spins towards Ginro with lightning speed. With a strangled yell, Ginro ducks to the side and grabs the weapon just under the blade, as if trying to push it away. 

Except Hyoga simply pulls the spear back, throwing Ginro to the ground just before the point buries itself in his chest with a sickening sound. 

Mirai screams and digs her nails into Sora’s dress, and Sora feels her stomach twist into a pretzel. A dark stain blossoms across Ginro’s shirt as he gasps in pain, hands desperately grappling at the spear pinning him to the ground. 

Hyoga pulls the spear up, Ginro stuck on the end like a skewered piece of meat. Grabbing the boy by the back of his shirt, he yanks him off with a horrible squelching noise. Crimson pours out of the open wound, and Sora quickly turns Mirai’s face away. The girl whines and hiccups into Sora’s shoulder, tiny frame shaking like a leaf. 

Sora’s eyes dart around the scene—Hyoga blocks their path and the only opening she can think of is the river behind them, but diving back into the cold rushing water would just spell a different, less oxygenated doom. And she can’t just leave Ginro, but Mirai—

Hyoga swings his arm back and tosses Ginro’s body away from him with a tremendous force, straight towards a large rock. An anguished shout rips out of Sora’s throat—she might be able to stitch up the wound, but a head injury?

“GINR—“

FWUMP!

Ginro’s limp form is cradled in Tsukasa’s arms, red trickling down the larger boy’s shirt as he levels Hyoga with the coldest expression that Sora has ever seen. He gently sets Ginro on the grass before standing up to his full height, muscles rippling in the light of the rising moon. 

Mirai gasps, raising her head from Sora’s shoulder. “Nii-san!” 

“Tsukasa-kun.” Hyoga sighs. “You’re interrupting.”

“Sorry for taking so long Mirai, Sora.” Tsukasa rumbles. He drops his center of gravity, eyes on Hyoga’s scarlet painted spear. “No one else is getting hurt tonight except him.”

“Apologies, but you’re in no position to attack,” Hyoga says matter-of-factly, angling the spearpoint towards Sora and Mirai. “One step forward and they’ll join Ginro-kun faster than you can blink.”

Sora glances at Ginro. His chest is still moving, thank goodness, but there’s not much time left before he succumbs to blood loss. 

“The others are right behind me,” Tsukasa says. “You’ll be surrounded.”

“Then they’ll watch as you surrender to me over their corpses,” Hyoga shrugs. “At the very least it would be polite of you to let me finish what I was about to say to Sora-kun.” 

Tsukasa’s eyes narrow ever so slightly. His lips press together in a thin, tense line. 

Sora takes a deep breath. “Alright Hyoga,” she says slowly. “You wanna talk? Let’s talk.”

“Excellent.” Hyoga keeps his spear aimed at the girls as he begins. 

“Tsukasa-kun and I both agree that the petrification phenomenon from thousands of years ago was a trial of humanity…what one might call a purge.”

“This again? Seriously, you two need to quit it with the unfounded theories,” Sora groans. “We barely have any scientific evidence for how it happened, much less why, so that little fairytale is honestly laughable at this point.”

“Let’s not waste time on lip-service, Sora-kun,” Hyoga says. “I know you of all people will understand this. We know for certain that the earth can’t support a population of seven billion people. In that case, who should be allowed to live?”

He tilts his head towards Tsukasa. “Tsukasa-kun desires a paradise where no one can take from one another, where no one can exploit another person.” Tsukasa narrows his eyes, but Hyoga continues. “A sweet sentiment, but one that I am entirely uninterested in.”

Hyoga’s eyes widen with a fierceness that seems to stab right through Sora. His voice begins to shake with a gravely undertone, one that causes Mirai to shrink back with a squeak. “Because if we allow the brainless, incompetent masses to remain, the process of sustaining them inevitably leads to them taking from us! In other words, what we need is a trial.” 

Hyoga throws back his arms against the light of the moon, encircling his head like a halo. An angel of death. “In this world, only those who excel should be allowed to live!”

Sora’s eyes widen. Tsukasa looks legitimately confused, and Mirai’s still staring at her brother. 

“Well?” Hyoga puffs out his chest. “What do you think, Sora-kun? Wouldn’t you agree?”

Sora blinks.

She opens her mouth. 

“…What do I think?” 

The icy hiss that slips past her gritted teeth startles Mirai and Tsukasa. It’s nothing like the irritable fire from earlier.

“I think,” Sora murmurs slowly with a frosty expression. “That I. Am so. Fucking. Tired. Of people. Like. You.”

“People like me?” Hyoga tilts his head. “Whatever do you mean by that?”

“People,” Sora says, her face remaining smooth and impassive. “Who think they’re sooo special.” She spits out the last word like venom. 

Hyoga huffs. “Are you implying I am not exceptional? That my strength is a lie? Do you deny your own extraordinary intellect? We are the very definition of special, Sora-kun.” 

Sora doesn’t flinch. “Being strong or knowledgeable doesn’t make us special compared to everyone else. No matter what we do, we will never be anything more than human beings, plain and simple.”

“You can’t possibly believe we are the same as mere commoners?” Hyoga sounds incredulous.

“We ARE commoners, idiot,” Sora scoffs, a spark of fire finding its way back into her voice. “Always have been. But apparently you’ve forgotten that.”

Hyoga throws his arm out. “You’re being illogical, Sora-kun! Our skills are worth far more than any ordinary person’s entire life!” 

Sora scowls. “Newsflash, the worth of a person’s life isn’t measured by what they can do or how useful they are!” She points accusingly at Hyoga. “If you were injured and couldn’t use your spear anymore, you would still be a person. A fucking awful person, but a person nonetheless, and here’s the thing—you would still deserve to live. And the people who would grow your food, build your shelter, tend to your wounds? All ordinary people. All commoners. Just. Like. You!” 

“You…SHUT UP!” Hyoga lunges, and Sora curses herself for letting her temper get the better of her. 

She drops to the ground with a shout, shielding Mirai with her body. Tsukasa moves just as fast, grabbing the edge of Hyoga’s cape and yanking him backwards.

“HRRK!” Hyoga brings a hand to his throat and snaps the cord holding the cape together, hitting the dirt with his shoulder and grabbing Tsukasa’s leg. Tsukasa grunts as he’s dragged to the ground, one arm shooting outwards to keep him from completely losing balance.

Tsukasa flexes his arm and pushes himself up in an instant, but Hyoga turns and stabs his spear at his chest. Tsukasa quickly steps out of the way and grabs the spear, snapping it like a twig. He slams Hyoga onto the grass, pinning his shoulders down. 

“Sora, get Mirai out of here!” Tsukasa shouts, but Sora’s already a step ahead of him. As soon as Hyoga had turned away from them, she quickly jumped up and started running, Mirai’s hand clutched in her own. But they’ve barely moved ten meters when Sora sees Ginro again, chest covered in blood and barely breathing, and she nearly stops short.

“Mirai, run up the river to camp!” She yells, pushing the girl away from her and turning sharply towards Ginro. “Don’t look back!” 

Mirai unfortunately pauses as Sora lets go of her hand, eyes darting between her and the two young men locked in a grapple on the ground.

“Nii-san?” 

Instinctively, Tsukasa looks up at his sister. It’s a mistake.

“Mir-“

The point of Hyoga’s broken spear buries itself in Tsukasa’s right eye, and he lets out a gasp of pain. 

“TSUKASA!”

“NII-SAN!”

Hyoga kicks upwards and Tsukasa goes flying back, blood splattering in an arc across the ground as he lands with a heavy thud. Hyoga flips up onto his feet, eyes alight with a crazed gleam. 

His head snaps to the side, staring directly at Mirai. She’s frozen in place, staring at her brother’s form as he starts to push himself up with a groan. Halfway between her and Ginro, Sora’s stomach drops. 

“MIRAI, RUN!” 

Mirai yelps and turns away, but before she even takes a step Hyoga snatches the back of her dress and she’s caught in a grapple, his arm pinning her shoulders to his chest and the snapped end of the spear at her neck. 

“FUCK!” Sora grits her teeth, tracking Hyoga’s gaze. Mirai whimpers in the man’s grip, tiny hands grabbing at his arm.

“Shhh,” Hyoga murmurs, “wouldn’t want to stain the pretty dress Yuzuriha-kun made for you.”

“Mirai…” Tsukasa has a hand over his injured eye, blood spilling out between his fingers. He’s in a low crouch, remaining eye fixed firmly on his little sister in Hyoga’s grip. 

“One step closer and I’ll slit her throat,” Hyoga says, a manic edge in his voice. 

“You signed your life away the moment you laid your hands on her,” Tsukasa growls. Hyoga lets out an awful, wheezing laugh.

“Oh, isn't that rich? The strongest primate high schooler, and I’ve brought him down to his knees over a child who should have died long ago!” 

His eyes meet Sora’s and she freezes up. “You didn’t answer my question earlier, Sora-kun. Will you rule this new world with me?”

Sora’s eyes narrow, and her hands ball into fists. 

“Oh, and by the way…” Hyoga grasps Mirai’s wrist in the hand that isn’t holding the blade. She squeaks in pain as he holds it up. “You will say yes. Until you do, I will break her fingers one by one. Then I shall move onto the legs. You have no choice in the matter.”

“You BASTARD!” Tsukasa shouts, sweat beading on his brow and chest heaving with anger. But he hasn’t moved an inch. Sora inhales deeply, slowly. 

“…Okay.”

“Hmm?”

She extends her hand outward. “Deal. You win.” 

“Sora?!” Tsukasa’s voice is confused, pained. Sora doesn’t look at him, only meeting Hyoga’s stare with her own, crimson eyes into gray, calm and collected. 

“Ahh, you truly are wise, Sora-kun,” Hyoga hums. He doesn’t let go of Mirai as he approaches Sora. The little girl stumbles as the bloodstained blade brushes against her skin, tears welling up in her eyes. 

When they reach her, Hyoga has to let go of Mirai’s wrist to extend his hand and meet Sora’s. She internally grimaces at the contact. 

Sora takes a deep breath. “Hey, have you ever stuck your dick in a light socket?”

Hyoga blinks. “Wha-“ Sora tightens her grip, and with her other hand punches him square in the groin. 

A hundred thousand volts of electricity course through Hyoga’s body as soon as she makes contact. The man screams in agony before falling to the ground with his hair sticking up like a big white pom pom as Sora grabs Mirai’s arm and flings her away from him. 

Before Hyoga can so much as twitch, Sora dashes to Ginro’s side. Mirai runs to Tsukasa, who meets her in a single bound and folds his little sister into the arm not covering his injured eye as she wails. 

Sora puts her ear to Ginro’s mouth. “He’s still breathing,” she exhales. “Tsukasa, give me your shirt.”

Tsukasa complies and tears the leather into strips as if it were tissue paper. He ties one strip around his bleeding eye and kneels at Ginro’s other side. Working quickly, they wrap him up as Mirai looks over her brother’s shoulder tearfully. Ginro barely moves the entire time.

“How did you…what did you do?” Tsukasa asks, staring at Hyoga with his good eye. Sora lets out a choked laugh.

“Oh, simple.” she says, pulling down her collar with one hand. A series of small disks is stuck to a piece of plastic wrapped around her chest. “I took the cell phone’s wound up filament coil, hooked it up to some manganese batteries, and tada! A high voltage transformer. Figured it might come in handy if one of your guys tried anything funny on the way to find Mirai.”

“Did you have to say that last thing to him?” Tsukasa grimaces. Sora shrugs.

“I panicked. Don’t repeat everything you hear, okay Mirai?”

Mirai nods, clutching Tsukasa’s arm tight. With the makeshift bandages secure, Tsukasa takes Ginro’s limp form into his arms and stands up, just as they start to hear the shouts of their companions coming from upstream.

“SORAAAA!!!” Taiju yells, and Sora’s shoulders deflate in relief at the sight of him. She takes one step forward and collapses into his strong, steady embrace, knees shaking. A moment later Yuzuriha is there too, fresh tear tracks on her face.

“Thank goodness, we were so worried!” She reaches into the bag at her side and pulls out a dry pelt, throwing it around Sora. 

“Ahaaaa…” Sora wheezes, all the bruises from tumbling downriver suddenly making themselves known. “Ow.” 

Kohaku steps forward. “We caught Homura, but—ah!” Her eyes widen at the sight of Hyoga’s body on the ground and Ginro in Tsukasa’s arms. “Is he—!?”

“GINRO!” Kinro runs up to Tsukasa, eyes scanning Ginro’s prone body and gritting his teeth in anger. “What—?!”

“Everyone shut up RIGHT NOW,” Sora gasps, using Taiju’s arm as a crutch. “Kinro, Kohaku, take Ginro to a private room back at the Empire of Might and put him on an elevated table. Chrome, bring me all our chemicals and lab equipment, plus some clean water. Kaseki, I need the smallest, sharpest knives we have. Yuzuriha, clean rags, needles, and string. Ukyo, ask around the revived for anyone with type O-negative blood, we’ll need a generous donation. Nikki, take care of Hyoga and Homura. Tsukasa, leave Mirai with Gen and then go talk to Kokuyo, you need immediate attention for that eye and I don’t have time.”

Everyone stares at Sora as she rattles off the orders in a single breath, barely blinking as she speaks. Finally, she inhales sharply. 

“And Taiju?”

“Yeah?” Taiju tilts his head worriedly.

“Carry me back. It’s gonna be a long night and I can’t waste what little energy I have.”

Taiju nods, hefting Sora into his arms with ease. She raises her head tiredly and glances around the assembled group. 

“MOVE IT!” she shouts, and everyone startles, hurrying off to their tasks. Sora slumps against Taiju’s shoulder as he starts jogging back, his body heat seeping into her cold frame as she sighs.

“It’ll be okay, Sora,” Taiju says reassuringly. “We’re all together now. It’ll be okay.”

“I know,” Sora murmurs, too soft for anyone else to hear.

“It has to be.”

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