Chapter Text
Cheers and chatter echo around as the village celebrates together. In Ishigami Village, a new chief was appointed and everyone was in high spirits.
“Thanks for the offer, but I’m strictly a cola man.” Gen chuckled nervously as he turned down two of the village men offering him alcohol.
“Never heard of it.” One of the men said.
Gen perked up, a slight, calculated smirk played across his face. “I wouldn’t be able to talk business if I got drunk. And now that the village is gathered, I’ve got a message to deliver.”
“Oh yeah?” Steps shuffled in the dirt behind him as Senku stepped off the bridge. “Let’s hear it then mentalist, what have you got?”
Nearby, Chrome, Suika, and Kohaku perked up and turned towards their two newly acquainted foreigners. Kaseki sat nearby the three, not moving drastically as they have, but shifted ever-so-slightly to listen. Senku calmly stepped closer to the mentalist, his composure calm and neutral.
“I can take a guess. The Tsukasa Empire?” Red eyes staring patiently for an answer.
“Heh.” Gen grinned, hair covering the look he had for Senku to see. Turning his head to stare at the new chief, Gen bared his teeth with a manic smile. “He’s coming. And he’s bringing an army.”
The four villagers listening in all gasped. Senku just let out a dry laugh, long bangs shaking a bit with the movement. “Sounds like we’ll finally get the chance to show them what the Kingdom of Science is made of.” The scientist's smile grew as he looked up with a determined excitement. “Are you guys ready? Get excited.”
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It hurts, it hurts too much. Blood soaked the ground as he struggled to get up and wobble towards the two chimera officers, Heinkel and Darius, to free them from the rubble on top of them. Using alchemy, Ed frees the two before practically collapsing, clutching at the metal rebar piercing through the left side of his abdomen. Muffled voices sounded around him of the two men, unable to focus. Golden eyes became glazed as he began to lose consciousness. Soon the air around him and the men that caught him became dense as a giant eye formed below them. Both of the men were terrified, or at least from what Ed could tell in the state he was in. Why… His breathing ragged as he flinched in both shock and pain as long black tendriled hands grabbed at him, ripping him apart piece by piece. Why is that bastard god grabbing me, and how?! There’s no transmutation circle.
Golden eyes flicked at the two men before looking back at himself, more confusion filling him. It’s only grabbing me. Within seconds, the two soldiers watched as the famed Fullmetal Alchemist disappeared, leaving behind only a pool of blood and the piece of rebar that clattered to the floor.
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“Oh poor ~little alchemist~,” Truth sneered ruthlessly.
Ed gasped, trembling as he still felt light headed and his wound now free of the steel rod, he could feel his blood beginning to pour out of his body. Taking in a lot of effort, Ed wheezed out a sentence. “W-w-why d-did you -Gasp- grab m-me you s-sick bastard-d? A-and h-h-how?”
“Oh my, I can’t have you dying on me quite yet ~little alchemist~, I’ll do you a favor and heal your most critical injury, such as your organs and only take a few years off your lifespan. But you’ll have to close up the wound yourself after I send you away.” The white being waved its hand and Ed felt his insides burn as Truth healed his major injuries instantly just as it said.
“Grr- you damn bastard!” He growled, loose messy gold blonde hair that slipped from his braid partially covered his face as he glared at the being in front of him.
“Don’t worry, you won’t bleed out and die anymore, at least not right away.” It chuckled at the alchemist's display of anger. “Now, back to our little chat. I dragged you here since it seemed you were not gonna make it and if you die now, it would truly be a pain for me to deal with the aftermath. So I thought I would bring you here before you lose consciousness completely.”
Ed glared at it, huffing as he struggled to get up on his knees. He was about to say something when Truth spoke again.
“It seems in this timeline, you weren’t going to stay conscious long enough to help yourself like you should have. So I decided to step in, using quite a bit of energy to grab you without a circle.”
Ed’s eyes widened. “W-what?… this timeline?” He winced, a surge of pain racked his body. He shook as he went into a coughing fit, spitting up blood that splattered on the white floor.
“Hmmm… it seems you’re not quite well enough to go back. And I can’t keep you here in this space for much longer.” Truth's joyful grin dropped, frowning as it went into deep thought. “Although, I could just send you somewhere to heal up and recover. Ah, and I know just the dimension to send you to. It’s just far enough that time moves faster there than here in Amestris. Wouldn’t that just be fun?” Truth gave him a mocking smile.
Ed wanted to bite back, wanted to yell and scream at it, but a wave of nausea hit him hard.
“Whether you would like to or not, I’m going to send you there for you to recover in the meantime. And whether you want to help certain individuals there is up to you.” It continued to face towards him. “Your main task is to recover physically. Once done, all you have to do is make a human transmutation circle and activate it, allowing me to grab you. And as a sort of parting gift, I’ll give you some information. Four months is equal to a single day here in Amestris. And despite the abundance of alchemic energy there, I’d best be careful if I were you dear alchemist. Your recovery speed will be a lot slower there despite the plethora of energy. Now, good luck ~little alchemist~, and have fun.” Truth waved its hand once more. The Gate behind Ed opened up as tiny black hands grabbed him, dragging him inside as his vision finally blurred and he finally lost consciousness.
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Senku gasped as he stared through the bamboo telescope in awe. “You made a telescope… no, you made a whole observatory.” Red eyes gleamed as memories of Byakuya flooded him.
“Ha-ho! January fourth is Stone Day.” Kaseki cheered gleefully.
“Today’s your birthday, isn’t it Senku?” Kohaku asked, leaning in excitedly. “This is your gift.”
“And everybody chipped in to help make it for you!” Suika chipped in.
Senku gazed out of the observatory opening, looking down at the villagers below.
“I mean, I just kinda remembered that you can put two lenses in a tube and fashion a telescope. I admit it’s half-assed, but whatever.” Gen shrugged, recalling when the villagers offered their help to assemble the whole observatory together. “The whole village worked really hard to put this together.” The mentalist made sure to emphasize really. “But I trust you can handle all the fine tuning yourself.”
A small smile crept onto Senku’s face as he continued to gaze out at everyone.
“Uh oh, what’s wrong Senku? Are you actually moved by all of this? Even you are allowed to cry, you know. You don’t have to hold it in. So, go on. Go, cry.” Ginro butt in, ruining the moment the others were watching.
“Why do you always gotta be like this Ginro?” Kinro groaned.
Senku scoffed, a huge grin plastered on his face as he went back to gazing through the makeshift telescope, brushing his white and green bangs out of his face. “Excellent job everybody. This is extremely practical. We can use it on our watchtower to keep an eye on Tsukasa.”
“Um, yeah. That’s true.” Kohaku said blandly.
“Good to see you can still keep your emotions in check.” Gen sighed heavily.
Senku laughed gently, bringing a hand up to the telescope, smile fading. “I’m not the type of guy to bring up his own birthday. That’s not my style.” He looked up, his expression neutral as he gazed at the stars. “How did you know it was today?” He took a moment, then remembered the conversation him and Gen had a few days ago about how old each of them were. “Ah, you baited me with that question. Still, it would be impossible for you to figure it out if you didn’t know when I revived.”
Gen smirked, eyes creasing a bit. “Do you not remember? You wrote down the date you broke out of the stone.” Senku gave a small gasp as he turned towards the mentalist. “Right by the entrance to the miracle cave. It was probably the first thing you did.” Gen paused. “Come to think of it, ever since the beginning, even before I met you… let me put it this way. I was a big fan. No matter what side we’re on. And I’m not the only one, the whole village agrees. You might think that’s kinda lame to say though.”
Senku’s eyes lingered on his companion for a moment longer then gave a light chuckle. “Yeah, just a little bit.”
“Called it.” Gen cheerfully chirped.
“Hey Senku, can I see what the telescope can do?” Suika scurried up next to Senku, hopping in place, breaking the silence that had followed Gen’s comment.
“Sure.” Senku lit up, excited to show the young child the wonders of a telescope in the stone world. Grabbing a box for her to stand up on in order to gaze through the instrument. “Alright, I’m gonna head down while you look at that, we need to prepare on what to do next.”
Senku and some of the others went down from the laboratory, meeting the other villagers outside while listening to Suika observe the area through the telescope.
“Woah, you can see super far away!” She exclaimed as she watched a pair of deer eating grass through the snow. She then gasped and straightened up more. “The sun's coming up really soon you guys!” She yelled for everyone to hear.
“Careful not to look at it through the telescope.” Senku yelled back, a prideful smile plastered on his face.
“If those are the right type of stones, they should start to glow.” Kohaku said with anticipation, scanning the rocks piled inside of the basket. The sun began to peak at the horizon, UV light radiating across the land causing the piles of rocks in the basket to glow a bright blue.
Everyone gasped in surprise and awe.
“Oh wow, it looks like a mountain of jewels!” Ruri exclaimed with eyes shining with wonder.
“Yeah, of course it does. Because it is a mountain of jewels. Hahahaha! And this treasure horde here has our ultra rare metal inside it.”
“Hah, call them whatever you want. They are just kinda heavy rocks to me.” Magma scorned with no real bite to his tone. “I hope they’re worth the fuss.”
“They’ll definitely be worth it when they help us beat Tsukasa.” Gen reassured the man with a confident tone.
“These’ll help us win the battle? I get it. They're weapons! They’ve got enough weight to ‘em to really hurt somebody.” Kokuyo confidently held one of the rocks believing he was correct.
“Sorry father, I don’t think that-”
“Cut him some slack, the older generation doesn’t understand something’s.” Kohaku cut off her sister using a pitying tone towards their father. Kokuyo gasped loudly, turning towards his daughters in disbelief and shock.
“Look, we’re up against Tsukasa’s army which is gonna be crazy ong-stray. But if we stick to the plan and make cell phones with these rocks, we’ll have a massive advantage in the information war.” Gen chipped in.
“Yeah, I know. But how much longer is it gonna take to make these cell phones?”
“That’s a good question, because once spring comes, their army is gonna storm into the village!” Ginro yelped, fear laced in his voice.
“Eh, we’re not far from our goal.” Senku said nonchalantly. “To explain things simply, the vacuum tubes are the heart of the cell phone, plastic is the skeleton, the microphones the vocal cords, and the gold wires are the veins. All we’ve gotta do is put those four parts together and we’ll have ourselves a cell phone.”
Everyone gasped in excitement, all clearly surprised at how close they were to being finished with making a cell phone.
“It’s been a marathon of a science project, but we’re getting close to the finish line. Hehehehe. Now it’s time for us to make our final sprint to the end!” Senku proclaimed for everyone to hear as the crowd got excited.
“Alright,” Senku bent down to pick up one of the rocks that was glowing, “the first hang we gotta do is make filaments, which are essentially for vacuum tubes.” His eyes gleamed with excitement as he stared at the blue glow. “And they’ll be made out of Tungsten. The most heat resistant metal in the known universe, waiting inside this blue light.”
“Here’s another question, how exactly are we gonna get it out of the stone?” Kohaku questioned as she stared at the pile of rocks.
“Yeah, well, that is gonna be pretty tough to pull off.” The scientist began to explain when a sudden banging sound began. They look over to see Magma and Mantle using hammers to smash at the rocks. Chrome, Suika, and Kohaku screamed at the sight.
“What the hell are you doing?! Are you crazy?!” Chrome shouted, eyes wide with fear.
“Huh? We’re getting the stuff out of these rocks, man.” Magma stated with no urgency or care as he continued smashing them. “We smash them up first, it’ll be easy.”
“That totally works for me.”Senku stated, rubbing his pinky against the top of his ear. “We’ll be turning it into powder anyway.”
“You guys hear that? What’d I tell you?” Magma boasted with pride at Senku’s approval.
The others bickered to the blonde brute as the former chief watched in awe. “Well this is strange. This isn’t like him at all. I’ve actually never seen him offer to help before.” The man’s voice filled with astonishment as Senku turned his gaze to the man. “Did something happen down in that cave?”
Senku flashbacked to him and Magma being trapped in the mica pit. His promise to continue to show the man more awesome stuff with the power of science lingered with him as he smiled genuinely. “Huh, I wonder what it was.”
“Hey Senku! Somebody! We need help!" Shovel’s voice rang out in a desperate plea beyond some trees. Senku snapped towards the sound as Kohaku rushed past him and the former chief in a blur of speed with Ginro trailing behind. Within a moment of hesitation, Senku followed as fast as he could, reaching the rest of the group within a few minutes, gasping heavily, his breath visible in the winter air. He froze, red eyes wide with shock at what he saw. Shovel and Ganen were both holding a person, carefully dragging the person with them as Kohaku and Ginro went on the defense, holding their weapons. What shocked Senku was both the person’s looks and clothing. He could immediately tell that this person wasn’t with Tsukasa as the clothing was too nice, too modern actually. The way the clothes were sewn, despite being torn and tattered in places, was too well made. The red coat is long and flowing, most likely made with cotton and dyed red, black shirt with a white at the top trailing to the bottom of the helm, black pants with a metal buckle belt, and even combat boots with red rubber soles which shouldn’t be a thing right now in the now primitive world. But how the person looked was definitely intriguing as well. Very long, bright golden hair tied in a messy braid. And despite the person's head being lolled to the side being partially covered by hair, he saw soft, young facial features making it a bit difficult to tell if they were a girl or a boy along with their height being at what looks like 5’1”.
“Ergh- Cough-Cough!” They groaned, spitting up blood onto the stark white snow, causing the kids propping him up to be startled and Senku to panic as he rushed forward, disregarding the others warning him. I have to help, my gut is telling me I have to. His thoughts raced as he looked over the short figure.
“What happened?” Red eyes narrowed as he scanned for injuries and went to lift their black shirt. He immediately began to freak out as he saw the wound in his abdomen. “Holy shit, this is bad. We need to hurry to the village now!” Kohaku and Ginro nervously let down their weapons and help the two children carry the injured blonde.
“Well, we were looking through the telescope after Suika left when a sudden flash of light was caught in the corner of the lens,” Ganen began to ramble, worriedly gazing down at the person they held, “I know we should have alerted you all, but we suddenly saw this person stumble around before falling. Me and Shovel wanted to help, so we ran out and found them lying in the snow bleeding.”
“Yeah, we were afraid he needed help and he looks like our age.” Shovel stammered as she trailed behind Senku, letting the guards of the village carry the injured teen.
Senku whipped his head towards the girl. “He?”
“Um, yeah. He muttered something earlier when we first picked him up. I couldn’t understand what he said, but his voice was definitely lower in tone than the other girls.” Shovel confirmed.
“Alright,” Senku’s eyes sharpened, causing his brows to crease, shifting the cracks above him a bit. “Let’s get him in the science shed to treat him. We need to hurry since the wound is in his abdomen, meaning we don’t have much time till he bleeds out.”
With haste, they made it back to the village within a few minutes. Kokuyo waited cautiously with Magma and Mantle holding their hammers, ready to attack. Kinro strutted over, spear pointed upwards as his body tensed, ready to attack.
“We need help now!” Senku yelled, voice cracked and scratchy. “So drop your weapons and help us already! Hurry it up!”
The villagers went into action, listening to their chief as they got to work hauling the boy up.
“Ugh, he’s heavier than he looks.” Ginro complained as he, Senku and Chrome pulled the newcomer up steps and into the shed.
“Quit complaining and just pull him up.” Kohaku snapped at the young village guard.
“Ergh!” With the last step, the three hauled him into the room and scrambled to prep an area.
“Chrome, go get the acetanilide and powder that we used for Kinro a while back. Ginro, hurry and get clean water and bandages. Go now!” Senku instructed the two hastily. He began to take off the boy's jacket, but froze as he reached for the right shoulder. His eyes went wide. “W-what the?!” His brain tried to make sense of what he was looking at as he blanked out.
“Woah, why is that arm shiny?” Ginro asked with eyes wide with fascination.
“Is that metal? That’s so bad! Senku, how do you think it works?” Chrome felt his excitement bubble over as stars twinkled in his eyes.
He removed the rest of the jacket sleeve, revealing the entire arm. Is that… is that really metal? Taking off the boy’s shirt, he got a full view of the shoulder as well. Metal plates meeting skin with bolts seemingly drilled in with scars surrounding the base. He ran a hand over where the metal met the skin under the black tank top shirt, feeling the boy shudder.
The boy suddenly jolted awake, with lightning fast speed he grabbed Senku’s wrist with his left hand, bright pure molten gold eyes glaring at him with a mixture of pain and fear. “What the hell are you doing?!” His voice was raspy and hoarse. Golden eyes sharpened at him. “Get off me! And stop touching my- ergh! Fuck!” He tried to curl up but Senku stopped him in fear of worsening his injuries.
His accent! It’s German! Did he break out from the stone as well? Senku raised his hands up. No, he can’t be, not with this advance of technology. But first, I have to calm him down. “Woah, hey, calm down, you're injured and we’re trying to help.” He gestured towards Chrome and Ginro, bringing attention to the supplies. “Now please, stay still and let us help you.”
The blonde stared back at the green and white haired scientist for a moment longer, his breathing ragged. As he finally relaxed, his eyes showed a hint of calm before glazing over as his hand let go of Senku.
“Hey! Wait, don’t fall asleep!” Senku slapped the boy's cheek, only to get a groan as a response. “Damnit, give me the medicine and get some thread and a needle to sew up his injuries! Get Kohaku as well!” Senku got up and took the water and bandages from Ginro.
Chrome dropped the medicine into Senku’s grasp and bolted out the opening. With haste, Senku began examining the wound, turning him on his side to check for more to find another hole on the other side. Shit, it looks like he got impaled, but his organs look intact. How did he get this injury? How are his organs still intact? This injury makes no sense! He started to clean the wound on his back, adding the powder mixture to stop the bleeding. As he continued to apply it to the front, he heard shuffling at the entrance.
“I got the materials, Senku!” Chrome yelled, crawling back inside with Kohaku coming up behind.
“Good, now I need Ginro, Kohaku, and you to help hold him down. I’m going to give him some acetanilide to ease the pain, but we’ll still need to hold him down in case he struggles.” Senku lifted the boy's head and poured acetanilide in his mouth, making sure he didn’t choke on the medicine. Setting his head down, he moved on, preparing the needle and thread to sew the wounds shut. I really wish Yuzuhira was here to do this.
“Sure thing!” Chrome said, going onto the boy’s right side, examining the arm before gently pinning it down, still marveling at the intricate machinery. Ginro nodded and kneeled on the boy's left side arm and held it down.
“Okay!” Kohaku immediately went to hold his legs and froze. “Huh?”
Senku perked up at her, a worried expression creeping onto his face. “What’s wrong Kohaku? Is his leg injured as well?”
“Um, I’m not sure, but his left leg doesn’t exactly feel like a leg. It’s too hard.”
Red eyes went wide. “No way, it can’t be.” He hurriedly knelt next to Kohaku and rolled up the pant sleeve, revealing a metal leg.
“So bad! His leg is just like his arm!” Chrome exclaimed loudly.
Senku grit his teeth. This kind of technology should not be possible, yet here it is… I have so many questions, but if I want answers to them, I need to save this kid. “Just ignore it for now Kohaku, make sure he won’t thrash too much. While the medicine will help dull his pain, it won’t completely numb it. I’ll be as fast as I can, so hang on tight.” He gazed up to his companions nodding as a response. “Alright, let’s begin.”