Chapter Text
“Seriously, quit laughing!” Yuzuriha pouts even as she smiles at Taiju while he guffaws at the ridiculousness of the two of them both bringing sparrow statues to the vet’s office. “Come on, let’s get to school before Fukumoto-sensei decides to hold us after hours again.”
“Sorry, sorry, you’re right,” Taiju manages to stifle the last few snickers as he and Yuzuriha take off towards Hirosue High. “Do you really think they’re just sculptures though?”
Yuzuriha holds up her stone sparrow. “I mean…I actually don’t really know. They really are so intricate and lifelike, and some of these details look like they’d be really difficult to carve. But then again, I can’t tell what type of stone this is.”
“Senku’ll probably know,” Taiju says. “He posted a picture of a sparrow he found outside his house on Instagram the other night too.”
“Oh yeah, I remember that,” Yuzuriha nods as the school gates come into view. “We really were so silly to jump to conclusions—I bet he’s got it all figured out by now, huh?”
Taiju grins. “Either that or he knows what to look up to find out!”
As they rush to the doors, both teenagers stop dead in their tracks as Senku himself raises an eyebrow at them from where he stands leaning against a pillar.
“Morning Senku!” Taiju says cheerfully as his best friend dodges his morning hug.
“Where the hell did you two run off to?” Senku frowns, crossing his arms. “We’re ten billion percent gonna get chewed out for being so late.”
“You could have gone inside without us,” Yuzuriha points out. Senku scoffs.
“Not like roll call is worth my time anyway.” He tilts his head curiously. “Oh hey, you guys found some of those sparrow statues. Nice, I needed more specimens.”
“Specimens?” Taiju asks. “You wanna experiment with them, Senku?”
Senku holds up a sparrow of his own. “Here’s something that’s real interesting. If you look on social media, the sparrows aren’t just here in Tokyo. They’re all over the entire world. Every continent, every city has been posting about the so-called sculptures for the past few days, as if they all appeared at once overnight.”
“So-called sculptures?” Yuzuriha repeats curiously. “What are you implying, Senku-kun?”
“Well that’s the thing,” Senku says, sticking his sparrow in his book bag. He pulls out his phone and taps on it, then turns it towards the other two. “Check this out. Here’s a map I compiled of all the stone sparrow related posts across the globe in the past 24 hours.”
The world map is littered with little blue dots. “Whoa,” Taiju says, “They really are everywhere! Except Antarctica.”
“Good observation, oaf,” Senku says. “Now, here’s a map of the global distribution for the species of sparrow the so-called sculptures look like.”
Taiju and Yuzuriha’s eyes widen. “They’re…the same,” Yuzuriha says. “Almost exactly.”
“Bingo,” Senku nods.
“What does that mean, then?” Taiju asks. “Whoever made these…wanted them to be found in all the places real sparrows were?”
Senku pulls his phone back and starts tapping at it. “Well—”
“HEY!”
The trio jump into the air as a woman with a severe expression leans out of an open window nearby. “Class has started already! Get inside before I—hold on.“ she squints for a moment, and then her eyes go wide. “Oh God, it’s you three again.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Yuzuriha asks, brow furrowed.
“As if you don’t know,” the school librarian groans, pressing her fingertips to her forehead.
“We didn’t do anything, Shinohara-sensei!” Taiju protests.
“Yet,” Senku amends.
Shinohara lets out an exasperated sigh. “Just. Whatever, just get to class and please, please don’t blow anything up along the way, okay?”
“We’ll do our best, Sensei,” Yuzuriha promises as Taiju nods empathically and Senku rolls his eyes. The three of them rush into the building, with Senku giving the others the usual nod to signify that they’ll resume the discussion later.
“Alright,” Senku says once lunchtime rolls around and the trio is finally alone on the roof. Technically they aren’t allowed up here, but it’s not like commercial locks can stop them, and this time Senku was insistent on it. “The information I’m about to share with you is kind of sensitive, so don’t go blabbing it to anyone, okay?”
“Of course!” Taiju yells, nearly knocking over his lunchbox. Senku gives him a look, and he blinks and lowers his voice. “Um, I mean, yeah I won’t tell.”
“I won’t either. What do you mean by sensitive though?” Yuzuriha asks, popping a piece of karaage in her mouth.
Senku shrugs through a mouthful of instant ramen. “Eh, just that it might be classified by the US government.”
His friends’ eyes widen, and they share a look. “Dr. X?” Taiju asks.
Senku nods. “Ordinarily he might not have bothered, but seeing as I helped him out with my analysis of the sparrow distribution, he gave me some interesting intel of his own.” He sets down his cup of noodles and pulls his sparrow statue from his bag. “According to Dr. X, scans revealed that a number of these statues were exhibiting tiny sparks of brain activity.”
His friends gasp. “So…they’re actually real sparrows?” Taiju asks, horror dawning on his face.
“Seems like it,” Senku nods.
“How awful,” Yuzuriha murmurs, looking at the sparrow in front of them with a heartbreaking expression. “What could have done this?”
“Is it some sort of new bird disease, you think?” Taiju asks. “That was my guess earlier!”
“If it is, it’s nothing like anything I’ve ever heard of before,” Senku says. “And there’s also the timing—the way it seemed to happen to all sparrows across the world in such a short time isn’t how disease usually works.”
“But it doesn’t kill them,” Yuzuriha says, “Does it? Can they still breathe somehow? Are they in pain?”
“Dr. X said the scans didn’t show any signs of pain or reactions to external stimulus,” Senku says, “It seems like some sort of…weird stasis. They’re not engaging in respiration, but they don’t seem to need to—the brain waves were present for several hours past what would be a reasonable time for suffocation.”
“Um…” Taiju glances at Yuzuriha.
“He said the sparrows aren’t reacting to anything, but they also don’t seem to need to breathe anymore,” she clarifies. Taiju nods, then frowns.
“That’s really weird,” he says. “But then…if they’re still alive, that means they could get back to normal, right?”
“Well, that’s the question isn’t it?” Senku says, tapping the sparrow. “First of all, not all the birds that the American scientists scanned showed the same kind of brain activity. The vast majority didn’t have any at all.”
“Not any…” Yuzuriha gasps.
“So…so they died?” Taiju’s lip begins to quiver and he looks down at the sparrow. “For real?”
“We can’t be sure of that,” Senku says. “For one, if we can’t explain the presence of brain waves, then we also can’t explain the lack of them, or apparent lack of them. Remember, this is something completely new. Maybe they are still exhibiting brain function but ordinary machines can’t pick up on it for some reason.”
He crosses his arms. “But the only way to get answers is to start experimenting. During club time, I’m going to run some tests to try and determine what kind of mineral this is, or at least some of its properties.” He looks at Taiju. “I’ll need you to help transport some of the machinery from the storage closet, as well as procuring as many specimens as possible—they’re not heavy individually, but they do add up.”
Taiju nods. “Right! You can count on me, Senku!”
Senku turns to Yuzuriha. “And I’ll need a second pair of steady hands to help with the procedures.”
She pulls out her phone. “Of course—I’ll just let the craft club president know that I’ll be out today.”
“Um.” Taiju blinks. “Wait, you meant like, today during club time?”
Senku raises an eyebrow. “Yeah. Why? Is there emergency baseball practice going on or something?”
“Uhhh…no.” Taiju shakes his head. “Today’s fine.”
“Cool.” Senku stands up. “So let’s get collecting!”
A few minutes after class time ends, a hushed murmur flutters throughout the chemistry lab as the science club members whisper to each other.
“Ishigami—”
“Three—”
“Do you think they—”
“Definitely up to something again—”
“Oh, hi Ishigami, Oki, Ogawa,” someone says suddenly, and the entire club shuts up as the trio file into the lab, all carrying copious amounts of complicated looking equipment and tools.
“Hey,” Senku says, setting down a box on his usual, very scuffed table.
“Hi!” Taiju grins. It’s not really unusual for him and Yuzuriha to show up at the science club to help out Senku from time to time. Taiju’s his pack mule, of course, while Yuzuriha is the only person in the school that Senku fully trusts as a lab assistant when working with delicate instruments and complicated instructions. His clubmates would be annoyed at being passed over like that, except that the experiments Senku calls Yuzuriha in for are usually a lot more…hazardous, than his usual fare.
As such, when the trio enters the room, a number of Senku’s clubmates look like they’re about ready to duck and cover or sprint for the door. Yuzuriha’s the only one to notice, though. “Don’t worry,” she says placatingly, “there won’t be any explosions today!”
This, unsurprisingly, doesn’t seem to calm the room down that much, but there’s really nothing that can be done, so everyone turns back to their own experiments and eventually settle back into (relative) normalcy.
“Alright,” Senku says as Yuzuriha finishes tying back her hair. “The stone sparrow material—let’s call it Mystery Mineral S—appears to be dense enough to sink in water, but not as dense as you’d expect from ordinary stones of its size. My hypothesis is that it might be porous, so one thing we can do is substitute it for porous zeolite in my usual plastic bottle cap gasoline procedure.”
He holds up a stone sparrow wing. “Since this one was already broken when we found it, let’s use it.”
“Poor little thing,” Taiju murmurs forlornly as Senku sets aside the rest of the sparrow. “It’s really dead for good, then…”
“Don’t waste tears on what’s already gone,” Senku says. “Remember, its death will help us learn more about this phenomenon, and eventually we might discover how to cure the others.”
Taiju nods. “I know, and that’s good but…it’s still sad.”
Senku sighs. “I swear, Big Oaf, you’d cry over a dead mosquito.”
He and Yuzuriha begin setting up the gasoline refining contraption. “So if this works, does that mean Mystery Mineral S is zeolite?” Yuzuriha asks.
“Zeolite is actually a group of several aluminosilicate minerals,” Senku says. “Basically—”
As he starts explaining, the words begin to blur together in Taiju’s mind and he finds himself just standing to the side while his friends putter about the table, Senku giving instructions and Yuzuriha following them to the letter. Occasionally Senku holds out a hand and Taiju gives him a beaker, but for the most part there’s not much for him to do now that the heavy lifting part is over.
Deciding that they could probably use some snacks and drinks while they’re working so hard, Taiju excuses himself to go to the vending machine, and as he selects Senku and Yuzuriha’s favorites he wonders if he could still confess his feelings to Yuzuriha after school today.
He’d have to ask Senku if they could have a moment alone before the three of them walk home together, but that’s not a problem. Taiju wants Senku to know, after all. Regardless of if Yuzuriha reciprocates Taiju’s feelings or not, it’ll still cause a change in their group dynamic, and Senku deserves to be prepared for that.
Would Senku be bothered if his friends started dating? Taiju suddenly wonders. He’s always nagging Taiju to confess and be done with it because he claims it annoys him to watch Taiju be all moony over Yuzuriha, but they’ve never really talked about what would happen if he did confess. Romance isn’t exactly something Senku cares to discuss, after all.
Taiju knows that there are some couples who seem like they’re each others’ entire world, whose friends complain about being blown off so they can spend time alone. He doesn’t ever want to do that to Senku—make him feel like just because Taiju’s dating someone it means he doesn’t want to hang around Senku anymore. And he knows Yuzuriha would feel the same.
The vending machine whirrs and drops the snacks. As he gathers them up, Taiju resolves to make it absolutely clear to Senku that no matter what, Taiju considers him his best friend in the whole world.
Suddenly, something outside the window catches his eye. “Huh?”
A little green pinprick of light has appeared on the horizon, and seems to be steadily growing. Fast. Taiju squints into the distance. What are those little gray things on the street?
His eyes widen, and the snacks fall to the floor as he runs to the science lab.
Senku cackles as he holds up a beaker of yellowish fluid. “And here we go—gasoline! Now to run a nuclear magnetic resonance test. Based on the carbon chain distribution, we can get a read on the depth of the pores and other physical properties!”
“And that’ll get us one step closer to figuring out what Mineral S might be!” Yuzuriha says.
“Kukuku!” Senku grins. “What secrets does the stone hold? Get excited, we’re about to find out!”
All of a sudden, the door slams open.
“STAY AWAKE!!”
The students yell in surprise as Taiju barges in, yelling at the top of his lungs. “STAY AWAKE!! DON’T FALL ASLEEP!!”
“Wh—Taiju?” Yuzuriha asks. Senku’s brow furrows.
“Awake?“
“Aaah!!” Someone points out the window and everyone gasps as they spot the green light rolling over the city towards them.
Senku and Yuzuriha’s eyes widen. “What—“ Yuzuriha murmurs.
Taiju jumps protectively between his two best friends and the window, throwing his arms out wide as green floods Senku’s vision. “DON’T FALL ASLEEP! DON’T LET THE STONE KILL YOU!! STAY AWAKE, STAY ALIVE!! STAY ALI—“
And suddenly.
All.
Is.
Quiet.