01x01 - Stone World

[bunniefuu]

That day, everyone in the
world turned to stone.

Listen up, Senku!

I've made up my mind.

I'm going to confess the feelings I've had
for Yuzuriha for the past five years!

Yeah?

Well, that sure does sound interesting.

I'll be cheering for you so hard
that my vocal cords snap.

From here in this science lab.

You will?

Thanks, Senku!

Shut up. I'm not cheering one
millimeter for you, you big oaf.

What?

Make up your mind!

And you haven't said anything for five years?

How illogical can you be, idiot?

I've got something for you
that's logical as hell.

A drug that'll stimulate your
pheromone output to the max.

A love potion, if you will.

Take this, and you're set,
ten billion percent.

Thanks, Senku, but sorry.

I can't rely on cheap tricks.

Seriously, Senku?

A love potion?

Like those even exist.

It's just gasoline.

I refined it from plastic bottle caps.

Think about the molecular structure
of polyethylene, moron.

It's just a long gasoline molecule
with a few hydrocarbons chopped off.

You can tell by looking at it.

Uh, no, I can't.

No way.

So... wouldn't Taiju-kun
have d*ed if he drank it?

I was ten billion percent
sure he wouldn't drink it.

Not that strait-laced idiot.

Yuzuriha!

Sorry to keep you waiting.

So, what's up, Taiju-kun?

What did you want to tell me?

A hundred yen says he gets rejected.

Three hundred yen says he gets rejected hard.

Five hundred yen says he
gets rejected at full power.

Ten thousand yen says he actually doesn't.

Seriously?

I was afraid that by telling her how I feel,
she wouldn't even be my friend anymore.

I've been a coward all this time.

Hear me out, Yuzuriha.

But today's the day.

For the past five years, I've...

What's that light?

Yuzuriha!

Hang on to that camphor tree!

I don't know, but...

What's going on? It's so dark.

I can't move.

I can't speak... Someone help!

What's happening?

Help... Help!

Help me...

Mom, Dad...

Am I... going... to die?

I'm not dead!

I have to stay focused, or it'll suck me in.

Wake up, damn it!

Yuzuriha will be all right.

I'm sure she's safe.

I can't go down a coward.

I'm going to confess to Yuzuriha!

I'm going to survive by willpower alone!

Whether it's for weeks or months...

I'll tell her, no matter what!

How many decades has it been?

Centuries?

Millennia?

Well, I'm not giving up.

I'm gonna tell Yuzuriha.

I'll survive, even if it kills me!

I broke out!

I broke free! Finally!

Stone fragments?

I see.

So it did happen to everyone.

Just how much time has gone by?

I'm sorry.

This is all I can do for you right now.

As long as the terrain
hasn't changed too much,

I should be able to follow the river back.

Back to that camphor tree...

Hey, something fell down.

A stone carving of a bird?

Whoever made this is amazing.
Look at the detail on the wings.

It looks so real.

Maybe it is real.

My friend said he saw one
like that somewhere else.

He posted a photo of it.

Poor thing...

It might be, like, a bird disease
that makes its skin harden.

Weekdays

Weekends, Holidays

Hours of

Operation

Animal Advocacy Week

No vet's office is going to be open
before school hours even start.

You never think things through, do you?

Yuzuriha!

Besides, there's no way that
carving could be a real bird.

And you brought it to a vet?

You're so silly.

I'm embarrassed for you.

Of all the people to just happen to run into
me when I'm in the middle of being a dolt...

Wait... Run into me?

Yup, and here's another embarrassing
kid who didn't think things through.

Imagine that!

Shuei Animal Hospital

Come on, stop laughing.

You did the same thing.

We're gonna be late for school now.

Yeah, you're right!

Yuzuriha.

I'd never mistake you.

Even after thousands of years.

You've been alive all this time.

Good job staying alive!

Well done, camphor tree!

This whole time, you kept Yuzuriha

from washing away and breaking apart!

I'm sorry I couldn't protect you.

Actually, you were the one who
was protecting me, Yuzuriha.

It's because of you that I was
able to stay alive all this time,

alone in that hopeless darkness,

for hundreds of years... thousands of years...

All right, I can finally say it.

Let me finish saying what I
was about to say that day.

The rest of what I was saying
on that day so long ago...

I've loved you...

for hundreds of years...

thousands of years...

I'm going to save you, Yuzuriha.

I have no idea how yet,

but I will—

Follow the river downstream, big oaf

"Follow the river downstream, big oaf."

So you're finally awake, you big oaf.

You're alive, Senku?

Don't hug me while you're buck naked!

I'll k*ll you!

Today is October 5th, 5738.

You slept in for a hell of a long time.

I've been up and working for
over six months already.

So it's been...

A good 3,700 years.

How can you tell exactly what day it is?

I just counted.

How else would I know?

Four, five, six, seven, eight...

Damn, I almost lost consciousness again.

I peak every 800,000 seconds or so.

I guess it's like when you have diarrhea.

Think and count at the same time.

Use your brain in parallel.

116,427,065,530 seconds.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven...

In that darkness?

The entire time?

Even if I could have awakened
by sheer willpower,

if I'd woken up naked in the winter,

trying to find food would have
been an instant game over.

Starting in the spring
is a must for survival.

An accurate account of the time was
information that I absolutely needed.

All right, we're here.

Time to stop blabbering and get to work.

Senku, did you...

Did you build this from scratch?

I don't have enough manpower.

Just producing the bare minimum
to keep myself alive takes all day.

In order to rebuild civilization,
I need a big, muscle-bound meathead.

I've been waiting for you
this whole time, Taiju.

I was ten billion percent
certain that you were alive.

There's no way a guy who was so
intent on confessing to Yuzuriha

would give in after just
a few thousand years.

You aren't that weak.

Yeah.

Of course I'm not.

I'm counting on you to do
all the brainy stuff, Senku.

You can count on me to do the heavy lifting!

Humanity spent two million years getting
from the stone age to the modern age.

We're going to sprint all
the way back to the top.

I'm going to take the world back.

And I'll figure out the science behind
the petrification and our revival.

I'm going to save Yuzuriha.

The two of us high school brats

are going to build a
civilization out of nothing.

We're going to become the Adam
and Eve of this stone world.

This is exhilarating.

At least it's a huge haul, I guess.

What kind of cheat gave you that stamina?

Amanita virosa: poisonous.

Buna shimeji: edible.

Amanita muscaria: poisonous.

You can't tell this one's bad?
It looks like it's right out of Mario.

Next.

Mugwort: edible.

Monkshood.

Who is there to k*ll, you moron?

Yum!

How did you season this?

It's just salt that I pulled from seawater.

Humans can enjoy just about
anything with a pinch of salt.

It's important for pickling, too.

You could say it's primitive
man's greatest discovery.

Thanks, Senku, for everything!

I'm going to make up for
the thinking I can't do

with brute force and diligence!

Time to scavenge the other side!

Hey, they're wild.

Are these edible?

Thinking won't help.

Eating some will!

I've seen him on TV before.

He's the "strongest primate high-schooler,"

Shishio Tsukasa.

It happened to him, too?

Look!

Someone besides me and Senku has survived!

Who left this here?

I did, idiot.

It was you?

Are we the only humans left in the world?

We'll get more humans.

That's a top priority.

What future does humanity have
with just us two dudes trudging on?

That's true.

Besides, why exactly were we freed from
our petrification after 3,700 years?

The rock rotted?

Yeah.

Supposing this weird mineral was corroded,

isn't it suspicious that the two of us
got out at almost the same time?

Only six months apart after 3,700 years.

There's a logical explanation
behind every coincidence.

You and I both washed up near this cave.

Look at that stuff dripping from up there.

It's the miracle liquid made from bat guano...

Nitric acid.

What? Nitric acid?

What's that?

I knew you'd say that, you big oaf.

I'm not gonna waste time
even explaining the gist of it.

So you're saying this something-or-other acid
corrodes the stone and revives them?

If only it were so simple.

I've been trying like a madman,

using every method available to me.

So many times... So many dozens of times...

This is all in the realm of fantasy.

Is it mineral? Is it cellular?

I don't even have the equipment
to find out anymore.

So there are things in this world
that even science can't explain?

Here we go again with that tired cliché.

That's why you hypothesize
and experiment over and over.

Science is a slow process.

If only I had liquor, though...

With the alcohol in liquor,

Ethanol

Nitric acid

I could combine the nitric acid
and ethanol to make nital.

It's literally an industrial-strength
etching agent.

What did you just say, Senku?

Huh? I said nital.

It gets into the ferrite grain boundary and—

Not that! I don't understand the brainy stuff.

But "If only I had liquor"?

Couldn't we make wine out of grapes?

Not bad, you big oaf!

Laboratory

Okay, you can do all the
grunt work from now on.

That makes more sense.

Laboratory

Making wine couldn't be easier.

Crush grapes and raisins and
stuff, put it in a container,

and just mix it every day until it's done.

Though it would have been a crime

to make liquor without a
license back in our day.

Three weeks...

That should do it.

You know, Senku, this would count
as underage drinking, though.

Not a problem.

We're well over 3,700 years old.

Oh, you're right!

It's better than I thought it'd be.

Though it's about ten billion times
worse than what's on the market.

I never knew it was so easy
to make with just grapes.

One step at a time.

Things are about to get a
little more tedious, though.

Distilling Wine for Dummies,

starting with brandy.

Distilling, huh?

No idea what that means!

I knew you'd say that.

Heat it, cool it, drip it.

That concentrates the alcohol.

Don't worry. People in the
Mesopotamian Civilization

were doing it in 3000 B.C. using clay pots.

There's nothing you can't do if you try.

This is exhilarating.

Let me teach you, big oaf...

It's not that there are things
that science can't explain.

You look for the rules behind those things.

Science is just the name for the steady,

pain-in-the-ass effort
that goes into doing it.

One year since I started experimenting...

It didn't take as long as I thought.

It's a slow but steady effort.

I'm going to b*at fantasy with science.

This is exhilarating.

This is a work of fiction, but the plants,
animals, and production methods described are based on reality.
Foraging and making things on your own accord is extremely dangerous
and, in some cases, illegal. Please do not imitate without expertise.