warnings: falling/breaking a bone ⢠minor blood ⢠near-hypothermia ⢠unwaveringly sarcastic senku </3
notes: hihihi i did a thing :3 lmk if you like it pretty pls! itâs an oc x canon story (though the oc is hardly in this chapter lol, trust the process.) okie thatâs all! enjoy the story <3
âKILL ME NOWâŚâ Senku Ishigami sighed, the words solely stemming from his exhaustion.
Itâd been precisely twenty eight days since he broke out from his stone prison and he was already physically spent.
âWhereâs the big oaf when you need him, huh?â the boy panted, talking to himself (as he had been since he woke up) and put his palm out.
A loud clap of thunder sounded moments before, and it didnât take a rocket scientist to know a huge storm was about to hit.
Which was ironic timing, given the fifteen-year-old was in the middle of gathering wood for his future treehouse. You know, a house that would shelter him from storms like this one?
Oh well. It was just water, right?
Sure the impending rain was dropping the early spring temps, but he had just acquired clothes the day before, so he should be alright.
As the sky began to play its part in the water cycle, Senku payed no mind to the small drops on his shoulders. Instead, he continued looking for specific trees that fit the requirements for housing. No termites, no preexisting bird or wasp nests, etc etc.
He wandered a ways from his camp, adding up the best candidates that heâd chop down tomorrow, when the rain hopefully eases up. His poor noodle-arms shivered at the thought of such brutal manual labor, but he steeled himself in the end.
Another clap of thunder bellowed, along with lightning three seconds later, making Senku look up ever so slightly.
He mean-mugged the droplets hitting his face for a fraction of a second, before dropping his head and chuckling.
âHeh heh heh, logic says I donât get to be mad when Iâm the one who chose to wake up so close to the rainy season.â
He spoke with little regard for his lack of company; at least, thatâs what he kept assuring himself.
Worrying about things like being alone for the rest of your life was a complete waste of time. He had real work to do, and right now? That work consisted of going back to his camp and staying under his small tent of branches and leaves, remaining as dry as possible.
âEnough recon,â he sighed and cracked his neck. âTime to go home.â
It was only a five minute walk back, but as Senku turned around to head in that direction, a rustling in the bushes from behind caused the scientist to freeze.
âWas it the wind?â his mind immediately raced. âNo, the wind currents are mostly blowing through the treetops, and that noise ten billion percent came from the ground.â
Something about the shuffling bushes made every instinct in his body go on high alert.
He had to get to higher ground. Now.
Darting his smart head to the left, he saw a tree that even a stick like him could climb. For once it seemed the unlucky boy caught a break, who wouldâve thought?
Using his newly crafted stone-world shoes, he stepped on branch after branch, pulling himself up onto one about three meters off the forestâs floor.
And right as he was about to breathe heavily from the physical exertion, a sight below made his breath catch (and die) in his throat.
A wolf. No, a terrifying looking wolf, leisurely stalked across the ground like he owned the land.
Senku shuddered at the thought of coming face to face with a predator like that. It wasnât like he was a fast runner like Taiju, or a full blown animal whisperer like that pipsqueak he babysat.
No, all the youngest Ishigami had was his knowledge, and he knew to just let the wild animal pass on by and theyâd all live happily ever after.
Sweat collected on the teenâs temple, despite the lowering temperatures and increasing rain. It was tense watching the wolf skulk around where the human had been standing, probably picking up on the foreign scent.
The rain continued to fall, and though Senku wasnât soaked yet, if that dumb dog didnât hurry up sniff-vestigating the dirt, the cold boy no doubt would be.
Finally, after what felt like another 3700 years, the wolf moved on and disappeared into the forest where itâd came from.
Senku waited another sixty seconds in the noisy rain before releasing the tightly controlled breath heâd been holding, sighing in relief when the predator left.
The boy leaned forward until both cheek and stomach were slumped against the tree branch.
âHow exhilarating and very not exciting,â he muttered.
What can he say? He didnât want to be dog chow after only just beginning his mission of reviving humanity. Canât blame a guy for that.
He was just trying to survive, after all!
Although, sometimes in fast paced decisions to retain survival, we make mistakes. We may underestimate things, overlook details, or miscalculate them entirely.
Thatâs why when Senku glanced down at the bridge of his nose from the sudden feeling of something walking on it, his stomach dropped after his crossed eyes focused on the critter.
And as it would seem, poor unfortunate Ishigami had made a critical screw up the second he added his additional weight to a termite weakened branch.
Turns out, this wasnât his lucky day after all.
And he realized it a millisecond too late.
The unforgiving, plot-convenient branch snapped.
Senku couldnât even think in the irritatingly short time it took to fall three meters, but his subconscious was highly intelligent on its own.
His knee was going to hit the ground first, and a broken bone at this height was feasible, especially given his bad luck.
A comminuted patella fracture in the stone age would be game over for Senku, so if he was going to break anythingâit had to be a clean break. There was no other way about it.
Shifting his leg into a bend, he knew that if the impact is localized and the knee is flexed when it hits, it ups the chances of a clean transverse fracture significantly.
Healing time? Around three months at best.
Pain level? To be determined.
Gravity? Fully functioning.
Senku braced his head as he crashed into the wet, rocky ground; the branch loudly crashed down beneath him.
What welcomed him was only the hard earth, a sharp crack, and blinding pain. Yeah, none of that was too great.
All in all, the fall lasted less than a second and wasnât as fear inducing as a roller coaster, but the nerd had been right about guessing the Hell he just unwillingly signed up for.
A pained gasp left his shocked mouth. Good grief heâd never been in more pain in his lifeâand thatâs saying something considering the boy has had rockets blow up in his face.
He instinctually coughed out a disbelieving laugh, unable to accept the reality of what just happened.
Stone world: 1, Senku: 0.
Closing his watering red eyes, the analyst forced his mind to ignore ignore ignore the physical pain and focus on what his options from here on out was.
He needed more information.
âOHââ he bit his tongue to end the profanities before they began. He wouldnât want his little wolf friend coming back to investigate the sounds.
Senku huffed. Analysis conclusion: he couldnât move one millimeter.
"Fantastic," he muttered dryly, voice completely hoarse.
His whole world took a swan dive within seconds and sucker-punched him in the face. Or more accurately, the knee.
Senku blinked up at the darkening gray sky through the rainstorm. His face twisted in a grimace that was one part humor and two parts agony.
"Perfect. Torrential downpour, no shelter, probably hypothermic in under an hour, given the sun setting five minutes ago...â
Both Senkuâs muttering and breathing came in shallow gasps as he tried to shift again, a fresh spike of anguish tearing through his body.
"Of course it's the knee. Could've been an ankle sprain or a dislocated shoulder. But no, gotta go all out with a mobility crisis."
Senku did some core work, doing his best to sit up and make use of the quickly fading light. He needed to check for any visible damage.
âBlood,â he confirmed with his eyebrows knit tight.
He expected a hit like that against the ground was going to bust his skin open, but the sight made him uneasy. This was bad. Infection was astronomically high now.
âWow,â Senku exhaled flopping back down from the pulsing pain. âIt really hit the most inconvenient point of the entire human skeleton.â
Once again, he was smarting off to no one but himself.
âReal intelligent design, nature. Gold star,â he sardonically exhaled, passive aggression at an all time high.
The rain only worsened, further dampening his mood and drenching him to the core. It felt like a shower head had been set on the high-pressure mode and left to attack his entire body.
"Atmospheric pressureâs definitely dropped by about ten hectopascals in the last hour. Meaning lucky me gets the apocalypse-level rain early this year. Hooray,â he deadpanned up at the sky.
The boy could feel his humor slipping with each second the torturous suffering lingered. He had to move and find a way to seek shelter. He had to think, logically.
His scientific clarity would only last so long, and Senku wasnât sure how much more he could tolerate before he succumbs to the pain and passes out.
He had to hold out. For his old man, for Taiju and Yuzuriha, for the rugrat, and for all of humanity.
"Okay, okay,â he calmed down slightly, channeling the adrenaline surge to keep his concentration.
âAssess damage again. Mobility: still zero. Pain: solid 9.6. Hypothermia onset,â he paused, feeling the brisk April winds be ruthless as they chilled his soaked self even more.
âSoon.. R-really soon.â
That was all he could bring himself to say out loud. But Senku knew the facts like the back of his hand.
Being drenched and lying in a puddle removes body heat thirty times faster than dry air. Even 10â15°C rain can strip heat rapidly, and the ground will conduct heat away from his body.
Heâd be mildly hypothermic in half an hour, then moderately hypothermic in an hour and a half.
And if he stays here overnightâŚ
Severe hypothermia is very likely. Itâll be potentially life-threatening come sunrise.
Senku wasnât one to just take death lying down (though that seemed to be exactly what he was doing.) Time was crucial, he knew that.
But for the very literal life of him, he couldnât get his leg to move.
It took about twenty painstaking minutes, but Senku crawled himself under a thicker nearby tree, and leaned against the trunk.
His chances of getting struck by lightning were higher now, but soaking on the forest floorâs most coveted puddle was zapping his body heat like crazy.
Shivering had started a while ago, and his drenched clothes clinging to his skin wasnât doing him any favors, like he earlier assumed it would. Granted, he thought he would get lightly sprinkled on at most, before crawling under his primitive tent; not, well, this.
In the next ten minutes, he did all he could do to doctor the open wound. The work was slow, meticulous, and the dark had almost fully set in, making it stupidly hard to see. Still, he grit his teeth and managed to wrap it in a non-muddy piece of leather.
The adrenaline that had been briefly dulling the pain begun to wear off at the half hour mark, meaning the cold that had been pricking and biting, was now razor sharp and viciously gnawing.
And that was it, that was the bestâand allâhe could do. Whatever happened next was out of his numbed hands.
That realization hit him harder than heâd ever admit to the nonexistent people around him.
His thinking started to slow for the first time in eons.
Before he even realized it, another weak, bemused laugh echoed from his freezing lungs.
âMan⌠really thought⌠I had more than a month of survival in meâŚâ he chuckled slowly, looking down at the fingers he canât feel anymore.
A grin still hung from his lips as he tilted his head back against the tree. Senku didnât know why it stayed there. That was just who he was.
Maybe it lingered from his hatred of getting visibly upset when things got toughâwhiners are wieners and all that. Maybe he just didnât want to frown and let himself have a pity party, because then that meant he really had given up.
The boy shrugged. Whatever. It was inconsequential and a waste of brainpower to think about.
âSorry, Ko. Didnât keepâkeep my promise,â he shivered and looked up to the tree dropping big raindrops onto his fallen hair.
He mumbled out a laugh. âI kn-know. Pretty douche move on my part.â
âSenku-pai Senku-pai Senku-pai!â Ishigami remembered her accented words from the day the light struck. The ten-year-old little girl bombarded his eardrums, right after the big oaf left the science lab too.
Oh how he longed for a quiet afternoon with his gadgets and gizmos. But he understood that lovable chaos was part of having friends sometimes.
Unfortunatelyâshe entered with that extraordinarily dumb nickname she refused to let wither and die.
Then again, even if she had, people like his dad would never let him live it down.
âDude, why are you at my school? Shouldnât you be in class?â he deadpanned at the short and choppy-haired kid.
She grinned so brightly, he was sure whatever her news was had to be exhilarating.
âMom picked me up because I finished my last class early and now sheâs picking dad up from your teacherâs lounge, and I ran up here because,â she heavily panted, catching her breath with a deep inhale. âItâs the best day ever!â
The lab coat clad boy raised an eyebrow, unimpressed as of yet, but still slightly intrigued.
The child didnât miss a beat.
âWEâRE GETTING A PUPPY!â
Back then, Senku just blinked, staring into her flowery aura with a look that didnât match her excitement one millimeter.
Frankly, he had no problem babysitting the kid for extra money. It came in exceptionally handy for the times Byakuya would ground him from using his beloved NASA credit card. (And said groundings almost always occurred after Senkuâs failed machines would blow up in public parks. That costed the astronaut a small fortune every time.)
But when that kid pops up in his school life, well, she better be ready to work or he didnât have time to converse.
He felt bad about that now.
Senku was always telling himself that science is about trial and error, and that being patient was a strong suit of his.
But back then, heâd been so wrapped up in making that stupid gasoline concoction, he didnât glance at the young girl another time.
âWowww, thatâs ten billion percent amazing Yoko. Iâll create a personalized collar just for your new mutt,â were the sarcastic words he cringed at currently.
Yoko, as he called her, was so excited she hadnât noticed the mocking tone of his sentence, only smiling bigger and locking her inky black eyes onto the back of his head.
âReally? You promise?!â
He scoffed, she was so much like Taiju he swore they were secretly related. But while Senku was lightly amused, he was hardly focused on her.
So he shrugged and continued tinkering on the machine atop his work counter.
âSure. Why not,â he blankly stated.
A loud âYay!â sounded from her, followed by a biggg hug (she only reached his elbows) from behind the genius.
He chuckled briefly, patting her head once, maybe twice before going back to his project.
âUh huh. Now scram, I have to go watch two oblivious idiots confess their love for each other and try to not throw up in my mouth.â
Again, present day Senku winced at his outwardly harsh sounding words. Had he always been so condescending?
His head felt heavy, unable to cross reference that question with other memories and get a conclusive answer. But he did remember that by the time he turned around, the happy go lucky girl had bolted from the room.
Not even ten minutes later was when the petrification beam struck.
It was bone chilling to think about.
Or maybe it wasnât the memories of his long-gone everyday life, and just the literal bone chilling temperatures around him.
He could hear his slowed labored breathing by now. It was so noisy, so disruptive. Was he actually getting agitated by his ownâwait a sec.
Senku suddenly realized that noise was not coming from inside him, it was coming from beside him.
The fair-skinned boy turned a few shades paler.
He slowly turned his hazy eyes to look towards the left, and standing there, was none other than the exact wolf he had been hiding from.
âStay still, make yourself big. Or is that for bears? Ugh, headâs too scrambled right now.â
His brain had gotten their breathing mixed up, which was just great. He was getting foggier by the second.
This really had to be his own personal Hell for being so cold to the people close to him. Sure they all knew of his care for them, despite him hardly ever saying it.. but still.
âSo⌠You my karmic justice or something?â Senku blandly asked the wolf, talking to the canine like heâd been talking to the monkeys ever since he woke up.
The wolf stared at him from about a centimeter away, sizing him up. He looked into Senkuâs eyes for half a moment before moving on to sniffing the boy.
The black and white predator seemed less and less threatening, and more plain curious, which of course made the jumpy scientist laugh bitterly.
âWell jeez Mutt,â he spoke quietly while returning his heavy head to the bark behind him. âIf I wouldâve known you werenât gonna tear my throat out I wouldnât have climbed that damned tree.â
The wolf sniffed the kidâs injured knee, getting some blood on his snout, before jerking his head up and hightailing it out of there, leaving nothing but a bewildered Senku in his wake.
The know-it-all blinked a few times, sluggish and uneven. He stayed silent and stared into the pitch black darkness the animal ran into.
âSo, Iâm hallucinating now. How fun.â
Senku wasnât sure how much time elapsed before he sighed and closed his eyes. Itâs probably been close to an hour since he got his injury.
The boy sat there with his unmoving leg, critical thinking skills all but scrambled from the hypothermia. His indelibly human self wasnât able to string together any MacGyver-level plans to save his own skin.
Senku kept drifting on and off; it gave him dĂŠjĂ vu from when heâd been trapped in the stone and almost lost consciousness then. At least back in that prison, it never turned him into a popsicle.
Ishigami wouldâve laughed hard if heâd been aware enough to realize he was actually better off petrified.
But the absurdity of it all was lost in translation. And for better or for worse, that wasnât the only thing that was absurd.
A wild animal leaving him completely unharmed seemed a little far fetched for the ever unlucky brat.
There were footsteps, and they were arriving fast and abruptly.
Senku's dimming eyes were half-lidded, but used all the strength they had as he traced the dark blur slicing through the sheets of rain. His glitching brain tried to process it fast: four legs, black and white fur, blue eyes.
The wolf. Of course. Seemed he was back with reinforcements. Senku could only think how that was accurate; nature was efficient like that.
"Figures," he slurred, breath fogging in the freezing mist. "Guess Iâll be.. dog chow.. after all."
But then arrived another shape. One that didnât run like an animal in the slightest.
Boots skidded into his tunneling vision, caked in mud. Something upright, a figure, covered in a heavy rain coat. A scarf obscured the bottom half of their face, but with those wide eyes, darker than nightâit was clear.
Senku blinked harder than he had any other time in his life. He desperately tried to get those spots in his eyesight to disappear, that way he could confirm or deny one of his biggest questions: was he really alone?
âNope,â the boy shut down that theory immediately. He still knew that in life or death situations, the brain can trick you into thinking youâve been saved, when really, youâre just as stuck as you were moments ago.
âDefinitely hallucinating now.â
The girlâwhether she was a mind trick, alien, or ghostâdropped to her knees beside him. Her hands flew to his face, trying to get him to look at her, but his eyes stopped being able to see, so he simply closed them. That seemed logical enough.
He was able to feel how much heat they were radiating on his face though, it immediately fought with the cold waging war against him.
She said.. something? Her mouth moved quickly, according to the warm breath on his cheek. It was definitely urgent, whatever it was. Senku couldnât even tell if the words were in Japanese or not. It was just his brain slipping into a catatonic mode, unable to process any words from any language.
Senku couldnât even tell if the words were in Japanese or not. Or was it just his brain slipping into a catatonic mode, unable to process any words from any language?
Oh well, he supposed that didnât matter. His mind had long since begun to fizz out, like static over a weak, dying S.O.S. signal.
âGuess this all had to happen someday,â he thought numbly.
And just like that, he short-circuited.
The uncaring universe set off an E.M.P. inside his head. Every half formed plan and semi-helpful equation had been abandoned in the blackout.
The mysterious newcomer whispered curses under her breath at the development, using her fingers to open his eyelid and check dilation to make sure he was only asleep.
That was the case, and after checking his slowing pulse, the young woman knew there was only one thing to do.
The rain still dropped from the sky like someone was standing up in the clouds with a pressure washer.
She pulled the damp scarf down from her mouth, revealing a sharp jawline and shock-parted lips.
Two eyes burned like Polaris did every night, raking over the passed out boy.
Her voice hesitantly came out, low and shaken. All the same, it was filled with the resolve of a person who knew the pain of losing someone.
âWell...Guess I canât leave your sodding self out here to freeze, right mate?â
Two gloved hands pulled on Senkuâs arms as she leaned down. With a grunt of effort, she hoisted his torso up and over her shoulder, keeping hold of his good leg while the other hung limp.
Finally, the worldâs best wolf made sure his person was ready, before running ahead, leading the way back home through the trees.
The girl with jet-black irises fearlessly turned toward the shadows of the well-known (to her) forest. They had to get to him safe, warm, shelter ASAP.
The raging storm muffled each splash they made on their run, and sometimes, they even got spoiled when a bolt of lightning lit their pathway.
It was only a ten minute walk, and an even quicker sprint.
She could do this. She could ignore the burning pain in her limbs, sheâd do it happily for himâthat geek-and-a-half that made such an impression on her worldview growing up.
Itâd been so long, her eyes definitely teared up at some point, but the thunderstorm kindly took the initiative and washed it away.
After six hard years in the stone world, she is not a little girl anymore.
But on the bright side, itâd been a while since Yoko Yoshikawa acquired a new friend.
When her warmly lit cabin came into view, she couldnât forget the words permanently burned into her skull, from the very first time a smirking thirteen-year-old Senku said them to her.
âThis is exhilaratingâget excited!â
when people like @bloodchapell @annarobszombies @umikawa and so many more post super duper cool dr stone stories, iâm like⌠well dang i wanna post super duper cool dr stone stories too, and so, iâm trying to!
ANYWAYS YâALL HELPED INSPIRE MY BRAIN WITH YOUR PRETTY WORDS SO TY AND YAYYY, CHAPTER ONEâS DONE RAHHHH đŁď¸
i donât currently have a pinterest board/spotify playlist for yoko yet, but hopefully i will soon!
also itâs probably obvious that the title is a play on snow white (who yâknow, is great with woodland creatures) but i still wanted to point it out hehehe
well, i hope you liked this chapter, in the next one youâll really get to meet yoko (and the wolf!)
alright thatâs all i got for you today, stay safe, stay street, and i'll catch you later đ
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