Chapter Text
Darkness.
Not just any darkness, but one with no beginning or end, that offers neither comfort nor threat—only the suffocating presence of the absolute. Gen opens his eyes, or believes he opens them, because there are no eyelids to blink nor a retina to register any image. It is an impossible blink, a human reflex that crashes against a stone wall. His mind, little by little, begins to make headway like someone trying to emerge from a viscous bog, a thick substance that holds him fast and will not let go, that clings with invisible nails to every corner of his consciousness. He does not know how much time has passed since the petrification enclosed him. It could have been a fleeting instant, the blink of a breath, or an eternity that tore him apart without his noticing.
He is not like Senkū. He never has been and never will be. He cannot hold the relentless precision of numbers in his head; he cannot count seconds, minutes, years with the coldness of a human clock. His mind is different: it barely manages to retain fragments, scattered thoughts like fireflies that flicker for a second before going out. Sometimes, even, he gives in and falls into a deep stupor, as if he could actually sleep inside that mineral prison. Or at least that's how he interprets it, because in a space where time does not exist, even sleep is only an illusion.
The difference unsettles him. The first time they petrified him, the experience was different. He remembers that eternal confinement as a silent, serene void, where nothing spread clean and clear, like an undisturbed rest. Now, however, what he feels is fragmentary, like a thread of consciousness that is cut and knotted capriciously, as if an invisible hand were playing at unraveling it. Maybe it's the accumulated exhaustion's fault. It's not hard to arrive at that conclusion: Senkū, with his habit of exploiting him without respite, has wrung every ounce of energy from him and left him exhausted. That obsessive scientist, with his impossible plans and slave-driving schedule, hasn't even allowed him to rest in peace. He has dragged him along at such a frantic pace that not even petrification, which should be a refuge, offers him repose.
The only thing that remains firm is an immovable certainty: when Senkū wakes, he will know exactly what day, month, and year it is. Because Senkū always counts, because he never stops, because even when he bleeds, even when he staggers at death's door, he keeps calculating. That thought, absurd and comforting at once, draws a tired smile inside Gen—a smile invisible, buried in the rock.
"Go under the tower."
The words resonate in him like an echo burned into the deepest part of his memory. They were the last ones, the order entrusted to him when everything fell apart, and he cannot understand why. Why him? What twisted fate decided that a mentalist with thin arms and weak knees should bear something like that? Chrome would have been better, of course. Chrome, with his unbreakable energy, with that burning faith in science and in his leader, would have known how to react. Even anyone else… anyone but him. If only he had been able to drag Senkū a few meters, carry him to the foot of the tower, maybe everything would be different.
The memory pierces him like a knife: Senkū collapsing, covered in blood, his body broken by the shot, fighting to keep his eyes open until the last second. That image torments him; it is cruel and persistent. Yet, amid the pain, he clings to a desperate hope: petrification will have saved him, frozen him in that critical instant, preserved him on the very edge between life and death.
But then comes the idea that chokes him, the one that always returns like a snake coiled around his chest: what if there isn't enough fluid? What if, when the bottle breaks, everything is lost on the ground? He imagines himself alone, surrounded by a world of motionless stone, without Senkū, without anyone, with the burden of an impossible future resting on his fragile shoulders.
Silence becomes an enemy. Sometimes he thinks he hears something: a distant creak, a breath of air that caresses the rock, an echo of nonexistent footsteps, but he knows it's a lie. They are illusions, inventions of his mind to fool himself and not succumb to nothingness. In reality, only that remains: a mineral prison, endless, that traps him while his consciousness fades and ignites ever more weakly.
And yet he smiles. A crooked, bitter, invisible smile. Destiny, he thinks, never misses a chance to mock him. Even when the whole world freezes, irony finds a way to lodge itself in his heart.
However, there is a thought that pursues him, a promise he cannot abandon. If he wakes up, the first thing he will do is look for Senkū. Even if he trembles, even if he fails, even if it is useless, he will try. Because if he doesn't do it, no one else will.
That conviction stays with him one moment longer, like a solitary spark that refuses to die. Then, unable to prevent it, darkness covers him again, wrapping him in a new silence, and Gen sinks once more into nothingness.
Gen's body shakes violently when the stone that imprisons him begins to crack. First he hears the creak, a harsh, irregular sound, like dry branches breaking under an invisible weight. Then he feels the heat: a wave that runs through his arms and legs, that ignites in his chest like a blaze ripping him from lethargy. Cracks spread over his body like shining veins until, in a matter of seconds, the mineral shell explodes into pieces and falls around him. Gen collapses to his knees on the ground, his forehead nearly buried in the mossy stone. A rough cough shakes him as his lungs, rusted by years of confinement, strain to fill with real air.
He stays still while he pants a little with his head bowed, as if he fears any sudden movement might erase the miracle. The air is heavy, it burns, in some way it has a taste. The ground beneath his hands is not a memory but a real, tangible texture. Gradually he lifts his gaze and looks at his hands. They are free. The skin intact, with no traces of stone. He opens and closes them again and again, incredulous, as if expecting them to harden at any moment.
Cold drops hit his head. He blinks, looks up, and understands what happened. The bottle with the fluid has broken up there, at the top of the tower, and the liquid has trickled down to fall right on him. A brief, nervous laugh escapes his throat. It is a clumsy, improvised miracle, but enough to give him back life.
He makes an effort to stand. His legs tremble as if they do not belong to him, and he staggers toward the open. Crossing the threshold, the light strikes him full in the face and forces him to squint. Outside, an unrecognizable landscape greets him. The grass reaches above his waist, vines cover the remnants of the structure, and trees stand taller than he remembers. He grits his teeth. He does not need exact calculations to know: at least a couple of years have passed.
He smiles for a moment. He's alive. Against all odds, he breathes again, but the smile fades quickly. Silence crushes him. There are no voices, no laughter, no footsteps. Only the wind and the beat of his own heart.
"Senkū-chan…" he murmurs, barely audible.
He must find him. He doesn't remember exactly where he was left; his memory is lost in the chaos of the last instant. Still, he pushes through the tall grass, pushing it aside with clumsy swipes. He stumbles, spins unintentionally, stops in front of statues that tear him apart inside. Chrome, motionless, with a spark of amazement frozen on his face. Kaseki, hardened in a grimace of contained fury. Suika, petrified in an ambiguous expression of fear and determination. All trapped. All silent witnesses of the end.
Gen's heart leaps when he sees him.
Senkū is there.
Lying on the ground, turned into sculpture. His skin hardened into stone, his hair immobilized like rigid filaments. His clothes stained with the blood that spilled at the exact moment the shot hit him. It is a cruel picture, frozen in an eternal instant.
Gen approaches slowly, swallows, his steps unsteady.
"Senkū-chan…" he whispers, with a thread of voice that breaks when he says the name.
He raises his hand and rests it against the hardened cheek. The cold of the stone travels up his arm and hurts him more than any wound. He closes his eyes for a second, lowers his face, and then leans in to leave a quick kiss on the motionless lips. It is a fragile, desperate gesture, but in this silence it means everything.
"Wait a little longer, okay?" he whispers in a broken voice. "I'm going to depetrify you."
He lingers in front of him for a few seconds, trying to etch every line of that face trapped in stone into memory. Then he takes a deep breath, forces his hand away, and steps back. He knows what he has to do. He cannot afford to break.
He’s alone, but he won’t surrender.
His eyes lock onto the motionless figure, and though he wishes he could stay there forever, his mind begins to work, arranging memories within the chaos. The last bottle they had shattered right when Senkū collapsed, wounded. He remembers the mud exploding, the liquid spilling hopelessly. Suika had brought more, yes, but her fall smashed them all. Only one survived, and that was the one that saved him. There’s nothing left.
Or maybe…? He tries to think clearly, but his ideas get tangled. Did someone else have a bottle? Somewhere in the corners of his memory, he thinks he saw Luna and Chelsea stashing something, maybe a couple of spares. Yet the memory is hazy, stained by the disorder of the moment. He can’t place them, doesn’t know where they were when the petrification beam covered everything. If those bottles survived, finding them would be the only hope. But right now he’s dizzy, his legs heavy, each step threatening to make him collapse. Going too far is not a good idea.
He decides to limit himself to nearby areas. Through tall grass and the scattered remains of battle, he trudges forward, forcing a path. He soon finds familiar figures. François, immaculate even in stone, kneeling with a straight back and hands folded. Ukyo, bow still slung across his back, frozen in the calm that always defined him. Ginrō, caught in a grimace of panic, as though he had tried to flee at the last second. Matsukaze, rigid as a samurai statue, with the solemn bearing that characterizes him even now.
Gen pauses in front of each one, observing carefully, fixing their positions in his memory. One day he will need them—of that he is certain—but for now the search is fruitless. He looks around with despair. Not a single bottle, not a shard of clay, not even a drop of the precious fluid. Nothing.
A tired sigh escapes him. He is alone. He will have to accept reality and sketch out a plan. Chances are he won’t have company for quite some time, and if that’s the case, the first step is surviving the night. He can’t remain exposed, at the mercy of cold or wandering animals. He needs shelter, somewhere safe to breathe without flinching. The tower, he thinks immediately. At least there’s a structure to work with there. It won’t be perfect, but it’ll do to improvise a place to sleep.
He turns and starts walking back, dragging his feet through the grass. Just the thought of chopping and moving logs exhausts him. His body isn’t built for physical labor, and he knows it. Even so, he forces his mind to calculate. He needs an edge, a tool, anything that can serve as an improvised axe. A hard edge, a sharp rock, any object that could let him begin.
The fatigue strikes hard, a constant weight that won’t let go. It’s nothing new. He remembers it well: even before petrification he felt it. During the battle against Xeno and Stanley, his body reacted more slowly, his stamina shortening day by day. He had noticed it even in the days before, but ignored it—as always—with a smile and a flippant remark. He couldn’t afford to look weak in front of the others. Now, with no one left to cover for him, the fatigue falls on him like a slab, unmasked, relentless.
He stops by a tree, rests his hand against the rough trunk, and takes a deep breath. His lungs protest, but the air goes in. He closes his eyes for a moment and forces himself to focus.
“One step at a time,” he mutters to himself.
He’s alive. That’s something. Now he has to survive the day.
Gen staggers into the center of the camp, dragging his feet. The hot air dries his throat, and the silence clings to his skin like cold sweat. In front of him rises the tower: thick logs driven into the ground, still standing despite the abandonment. Their bases rest on a stone platform that barely rises a few meters from the earth, a sort of pedestal with three steps. Moss has claimed some cracks, and vines climb brazenly toward the wood.
Gen stops in front of the structure, tilts his head, and smiles wryly.
“How picturesque. A monument to Senkū-chan’s stubbornness.”
The stone steps seem solid, steady, and though they don’t fully protect him, they do offer a corner to lean against. He doesn’t have the strength to raise entire walls, but here there’s already a foundation, a ready-made base that only needs a disguise. He circles it slowly, testing the ground, until he finds a side half-covered in shade. That will be the place.
He moves away a little and begins gathering what he can find: dry branches, huge leaves blown by the wind, even grass pulled out by the roots. Not much, and not of great quality, but enough to improvise. The effort quickly leaves him breathless, so he takes long pauses, sitting on the steps with trembling hands resting on his knees.
When he finally has a small pile, he starts arranging it against the stone wall. First, longer branches set diagonally to form a sort of crooked skeleton, partly supported by the pedestal base. Then leaves and grasses woven into the gaps, like a badly sewn roof. The result is uneven, wobbly, but dense enough to cut the wind.
Gen steps back a few paces, arms crossed, and a dry laugh slips from his throat.
“A mediocre architect would give me zero stars, but at least I won’t be sleeping under the open sky.”
He returns to his improvised shelter and stuffs a handful of dry grass inside, spreading it across the floor like a mattress. He sits down carefully, testing the space. He fits just right, curled against the stone wall, sheltered under the flimsy roof of branches. The smell of damp earth and crushed leaves surrounds him. It’s not comfortable, not even remotely safe, but for the first time since waking he feels he has a corner to call his own.
He leans against the cold stone and sighs. Outside, the open sky stretches without barriers, and the crumbling walls around the camp offer only the illusion of a perimeter. Down here, pressed against the tower and its pedestal, he feels less small. Less vulnerable.
“It’s temporary,” he mutters lightly, like someone tossing out an excuse. He smiles weakly, though his eyes betray a deeper weariness. “Just for now.”
But as he settles into the dimness, as the wind brushes over the improvised roof and filters in only as soft gusts, he knows that “for now” could turn into much more. Even if he doesn’t admit it, that humble nook at the base of the tower will be the only thing that lets him survive the first night.
Night falls faster than Gen expected. The sky deepens into a dense blue, and the last orange glimmers die behind the mountains. The wind picks up, carrying with it the murmur of dry leaves and the crack of branches. Inside his improvised shelter, pressed against the tower’s stone base, Gen lies down on the grass mattress he spread out. He hugs himself, rubbing his arms with his palms to trick his body into warmth.
The space is narrow, but enclosed enough to give him the illusion of a protective roof. He rests his back against the stone, firm and cold, letting his head fall against it. He forces himself to smile, as if he were in a cheap hotel room, laughing at the absurdity of the comparison.
“Top-notch service. Even with a mold scent and uneven flooring,” he murmurs, almost as though expecting someone to laugh with him.
In truth, the silence gnaws at him. Too thick, too absolute. His thoughts run loose, each more unsettling than the last. He tries to convince himself he’s strong, that he’s been through worse, that this is temporary, but his mind betrays him: images of unmoving statues, of familiar faces cracked with stone, of the void left by Senkū’s voice—they flare behind his closed eyelids. He isn’t built to be alone for so long, and he knows it.
His breathing quickens. He runs a hand down his face and laughs again, nervously.
“It’s all just theater. Gen Asagiri doesn’t break that easily.”
The first crack pulls him from his thoughts. It doesn’t come from his shelter, but from the nearby forest. A harsh sound, like branches breaking under real weight, not from the wind. He opens his eyes and freezes, straining his ears. Silence returns, heavy—until a distant hoot replaces it, deep and guttural. The echo of a night bird… or something else?
He shrinks a little out of pure instinct and looks up, toward the gaps in his roof of branches. He sees nothing but the dark sky filtering through the leaves, yet the certainty that he is not completely alone weighs heavy on his chest. The shelter trembles faintly when a strong gust of wind rattles the branches. Part of the roof shifts, leaving an opening through which an icy draft seeps in.
Gen curses under his breath and hurries to fix it, but his hands are trembling too much. The branch gives way, falls to one side, and only with great effort does he manage to wedge it back against the stone. His breathing is uneven, and even that minimal effort leaves him drained. He leans back again, this time with his heart pounding hard, and tries to convince himself it doesn’t matter, that it’s just a “temporary” shelter, that tomorrow will be better.
The hooting repeats, closer now. This time it’s accompanied by a low rustle, like leaves being crushed under slow footsteps. Gen holds his breath, eyes wide open. Every fiber of his body tells him to run, but his legs won’t respond. He clings to the slab of stone behind him as if it were an impenetrable wall.
“Just… an animal. Nothing more,” he whispers with a trembling voice.
The steps—if that’s what they are—fade after endless seconds. The forest falls silent again, though the nerves on his skin hum like taut strings. Gen curls up on the grass, wrapping himself in his own arms, and finally manages to close his eyes. Fatigue drags him under, but even in sleep his body remains rigid, ready to leap at the slightest sound.
Dawn finds him awake before his time. In truth, he never really slept: only a couple of hours at most, restless, between jolts and the sound of wind slipping through the cracks of his makeshift shelter. When he opens his eyes, the grayish light of morning creeps over his face and wrings a groan from him. His body aches everywhere: his back stiff against the stone, his muscles tight from sleeping curled up.
He stays lying there a few more minutes, arms over his face, wishing it were all just a bad dream, but hunger claws at his stomach and forces him upright. His lips are dry, his throat scratchy. He barely drank any water the day before and, with the tension of the shelter and the crushing loneliness, he hadn’t thought of eating. Now his body is demanding payment.
He sighs, dragging the words out as though talking to himself could give him strength.
“Food first. Anything… fruit, roots, anything that won’t kill me. Meat…” he pauses bitterly and shakes his head. “No, I’m nowhere near being a hunter. Not yet.”
Then something comes to mind: the jars near François. Thinking of it, the image of the unmoving statue squeezes his chest, but it also gives him a point of direction. If he manages to get there, maybe he’ll find remnants of preserved food, and along the way he might stumble upon a tree heavy with fruit. No luxuries, no elegant dishes: just survival.
He gets up clumsily, stretching his numb legs. He looks at the tower and his shelter, as pitiful as it was the night before, and adds another task to the mental list that weighs on him like stone.
“Build something decent… because I can’t spend another night like this.”
But that’s not his only concern. He rubs his temples and lists aloud as though reciting a cursed spell: food, water, shelter, Chelsea and Luna, the fluid, moving statues, Kohaku, Tsukasa, Hyoga… Each name and each plan piles up, one on top of another, until the heap feels heavy enough to crush him. He sighs again, tired before even beginning.
Water is urgent. Without something to drink, food will mean little. He needs a method to purify it, even a basic one: boiling it, filtering it through cloth, anything that doesn’t require impossible materials. He promises himself he’ll think it through once his stomach is less empty.
He grants himself one last second of laziness, leaning once more against the stone base, but hunger drags him out of inertia. He can’t stay there, no matter how much he wants to. He forces himself to walk, shuffling his feet at first before pushing into the land.
As he moves away, he glances back at the tower etched against the sky. He thinks of the statues: all of them, scattered among weeds, exposed to time and nature’s cruelty. He wants to move them to safety, protect them from the roots that will eventually split them, but he has no idea how to do it without breaking himself in the process. Another weight on the list.
With a bitter laugh, he says aloud:
“Out of everyone, I was definitely the worst person to wake up first.”
The echo of his voice bounces off the stones, and for a moment, the loneliness feels more tangible than ever.
The sun is already slanting toward the horizon when Gen finishes gathering the last of the fruits he can find. Not many, and not sweet, but enough to trick the hunger gnawing at him since morning. He collects them clumsily, half-climbing low trunks and stretching his arms until nearly dislocating them to reach the most accessible clusters. More than once he slips and ends up sitting in the dirt, cursing under his breath, but in the end the small pile of fruit staring up at him from the ground feels like a modest but precious victory.
The campfire proves another torment. He spends hours rubbing sticks, testing sparks, cursing his lack of practice and barely recalling Senkū’s instructions. When he finally manages to coax the smoke into flame, he falls back laughing like a madman, eyes streaming from both the smoke and sheer relief. The fire isn’t big, but it’s enough to warm and give light. He guards it carefully, terrified that any lapse will snuff it out and condemn him to start over.
Then he remembers the water. His parched throat reminds him that, though the liquid looks crystalline, he can’t trust it as it is. He thinks of François and how quickly they would have solved something so simple; he thinks of Senkū and the thousand-and-one scientific explanations he would be spouting while throwing together an improvised filter. But Gen doesn’t have even half that ingenuity. He settles for the simplest thing: filling a glass jar he salvaged near the statues and setting it over the fire.
The container trembles as it heats, and Gen doesn’t take his eyes off it, terrified of the moment it might crack. The sound of the water boiling brings him both relief and anxiety: relief because it means he’ll survive one more day, anxiety because he knows this can’t be a permanent solution. Tomorrow—clay… or baked clay, something. He has to learn, he promises himself, in the same tone a magician swears their next trick without any idea how it’ll be done.
Meanwhile, his shelter takes shape. He can’t call it a house, not even a hut, but it’s no longer the miserable hole of the night before. He takes advantage of remnants of a foundation he recognizes among the rubble, dragging pieces of wood to the foot of the tower. With thinner branches he erects a frame, holds it in place with stones, and covers it with large leaves tied together into a makeshift roof. Each time the wind blows, the leaves creak with an unnerving sound, but the inside is wide enough to stretch out and sleep without his knees hitting the wall.
By evening, he allows himself to crawl inside and lie for a moment on the grass-covered floor. He closes his eyes and imagines a bed. It’s not real, but for an instant, the mental game works. His body begs him to sleep right there, yet his mind refuses to rest. Again and again, the same images: Chelsea and Luna petrified, with the fluid perhaps still among their belongings; Kohaku, Tsukasa, Hyoga scattered like pieces on an impossible board; the statues, all of them, exposed to the open air like abandoned museum relics.
He sits up, rubbing his face. The boiled water is ready, and after letting it cool, he drinks it slowly, careful not to crack the jar. The warm liquid tastes like the finest wine he’s ever had.
Then he thinks of Senkū.
The thought crashes down on him: it’s not enough to simply have him there, in the middle of the forest. He can’t leave him at the mercy of time, or worse, of some accident. If he nearly breaks himself just moving branches, what will happen to a statue under rain, wind, or the force of roots? No—he has to move him somewhere safe. Even if it costs every muscle he has.
He waits until the fire is nearly gone. Then he rises slowly, legs trembling, and sets out toward where he remembers seeing the stone figure. The sky deepens into dark orange and then blue, and the whole forest seems to watch him. He walks fast, trying to ignore the exhaustion, until at last he finds him.
There he is: Senkū, lying on the ground, petrified, the same confident expression frozen in stone. Gen stays still for a while, staring at him, as if he needs to gather his courage. Then he swallows hard and bends down to push.
The first tug barely shifts the statue a few inches. His muscles tense and burn across his arms and back, and he has to let go to catch his breath. He pants like he’s just run miles, but he tries again. And again. And again. Every foot gained feels like a victory; every pause, a half-defeat.
“Gen Asagiri…” he gasps out with a strained smile. “Professional statue mover. Limited bookings only.”
The joke falls flat in the empty air, but it gives him just enough spark to keep going. Inch by inch, he drags the figure through the dirt, finally managing to bring it up to the tower. He props it against the stone base, beneath the structure’s shadow.
He collapses beside it, sprawled on his back, arms outstretched like an actor who’s just finished his final scene. The sky is already full of stars glittering above the silhouette of the tower and the freshly built shelter. Gen’s breath comes in ragged gasps, but this time, his smile is genuine.
“I did it, Senkū-chan. Even if it’s just a little.”
The petrified scientist doesn’t reply, unmoving, eternal. But for Gen, having him there, only a few steps away, is enough. The fear of that first night still lingers, but the weight of loneliness feels a little lighter.
It takes him a long time to drag Senkū into the shelter. The space is cramped—barely an improvised hut with a roof of broad leaves and walls of branches tied together—but it’s enough to keep them both under cover. He eases him into a corner, laying him on the ground, then slumps down at his side, exhausted, breath still uneven.
He pulls out some fruit he’d gathered earlier in the afternoon. Not his idea of dinner, but chewing slowly while the last rays of sunlight slip through the leafy roof gives him the faint sense of normalcy he needs. He doesn’t light a fire tonight; he doesn’t want to risk a spark catching on the walls of his freshly built shelter. There’ll be time later to build something better—larger, safer. For now, he makes do with the fading light until it disappears.
The silence of night slowly closes in around him. Gen turns toward Senkū’s statue, still unmoving, his firm expression carved in stone. He studies his hardened features for a few seconds, as though searching for a sign that he’s listening.
“It’s been two days, Senkū-chan,” he says quietly, almost as if he doesn’t want to disturb the air. “Two days, and all I’ve got is this shoddy shelter and fruit that tastes like garbage.”
He laughs, but the sound is weak, cracked. Wiping his forehead, he lets out a sigh.
“Tomorrow I’ll head out. I’ll look for Chelsea and Luna… maybe one of them still has some fluid, and it won’t all be lost. And I’ll have to bring the others back, one by one, even if it wrecks my back. I don’t want the roots or the rain to take them.”
His gaze softens as it returns to the statue.
“I can’t do it all at once, I know. But at least I have this. A place to come back to at the end of the day… and you, right here.”
He stretches out his hand until his fingertips brush gently against the cold stone. It isn’t skin, it isn’t human warmth, but in that touch, he finds a strange kind of comfort.
“I know what you’d say,” he murmurs. “‘One step at a time, mentalist. Break the problem into parts and solve them piece by piece.’ Always so logical, so simple… and me, always circling around, always tired.”
He shifts onto his side to face Senkū, as though they were sharing their usual bed, even if all that lies between them now is rock.
“I’ll try. I can’t promise much, but… I’ll try.”
After that, he falls silent. Darkness closes in, the whisper of wind rustles through the leaves, and weariness overcomes fear. Slowly, his eyelids grow heavy, and sleep drags him under—with the fragile comfort of knowing that, even if everything else has stopped, Senkū is still there, close by.