Chapter Text
3700 years… in a way it was both a large amount of time, and a small amount of time.
When Senku had first broken out he hadn’t considered much of it, focusing on putting his all into his survival.
5 months later, free from petrification, Senku had come across another stranger in the loneliness of the stone word.
Something that should have been an impossibility.
The stranger had been shocked, panicking to themselves in fluent English bemoaning another schizophrenia episode.
Senku would have gone up to them right then and there, having been a little too desperate for human interaction after months of isolation from other humans on top of struggling to survive beyond just below the bare minimum.
However the stranger had disappeared too fast and to not get lost nor fail to do the upkeep he needed to survive daily - he found himself trialing back to his treehouse considering the strange mud tracks the person had left.
Perhaps humans were still around and evolved differently… 3700 years was plenty of time for certain evolutionary traits to take root.
Senku would find himself greeting the stranger a week later after a particularly bad stroke of luck with the weather - the rain pouring down harshly with cackling thunder.
The young genius had chosen to take shelter in a nearby cave instead of braving the storm; something that was quickly proven to be beyond an excellent idea with how heavy it poured.
It was a few hours into the storm when the stranger had come across his cave, dressed rather weird but effective for the weather.
The most interesting parts of the outfit were the shoes, with stone-like toe-covering and the posture of the feet suggesting they were toe-walking.
Otherwise they were dressed in a thin hooded cloak and loose baggy trousers, thick gloves and a scarf.
It was well crafted but strange in their appearance as if to try and cover as much skin as possible - which was reasonable given the horrid weather.
While they waited for the rain to clear up, Senku took the opportunity to observe them, the stranger having yet to take notice of Senku.
They quickly ditched the soaking wet garments leaving a thick jumper in view with cloth trousers as well - implying they had their hands on some kind of sheep or woolen animal.
At one point Senku had gone over to introduce himself, scaring the stranger badly.
After a short moment of some convincing
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“Seriously another hallucination? This is getting old”
“How do you know this is just a hallucination now?”
“And it talks too - this is getting ridiculous - and why the accent?”
“Hey now, i bet i can surprise you with a little something”
“And how- WAIT WHAT?”
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It went something along the lines of that- the stranger having believed him when Senku had gripped their hand (and taken notice of the one too many fingers on their hands)
The polydactyly stranger had switched to Japanese once they had started talking more - not the most fluent but they had spoken well enough for Senku to not immediately consider speaking in English anyway.
During the worst of the rain the two traded stories and information, Noah (the stranger) was a field medic with a degree in both biomedical sciences, paramedic science, psychology, biology and human biology. Apparently a close friend of Noah had come across a major academic success and offered to pay for the opportunity for Noah to pursue several degrees on top of the ones he had already done - something that the polydactyly had told his friend about.
Senku mentally documented the guy, anyone who wanted to help people pursue further education and knowledge was a win in his book.
Eventually Noah had dropped that he found himself in Japan a day before the petrification to meet an old University friend during his visit to meet some other medical health professionals, leaving him stranded here 3,700 years later.
Noah had been interesting to talk to, having a rather interesting range of knowledge.
Where Senku would be able to claim a good range of knowledge in science, Noah could claim a rather strange but wide variety of trivia and deep knowledge.
Apparently being a writer on the side as a hobby had helped to accumulate knowledge for such things - making Senku curious of their works if it included very specific ways to make clothes or clean a murder scene.
Senku himself had shared various titbits about himself as well as his plans for the current world: bringing back civilization to what it once could have been.
Noah had seemed almost fervently enthusiastic but doubtful of the idea - not that he could blame them as it did seem a rather impossible feat in their current situation.
The interesting thing was how Noah seemed to change the subject every time Senku geared it towards how Noah seemed to survive or how long they had been out of the stone - definitely longer than Senku himself had been.
Days later Noah would stop by bi-dayly, contributing to Senku’s food storage and materials for crafting.
The young genius in return taught the polydactyly of many things, including: pottery making, farming, and how to identify a few edible plants(thanks to Yuzuriha).
With Noah having his settlement so far away there was some talk about where to contribute to a shared base, however Senku had ended up arguing that leaving the current base for somewhere further would be far from a good idea due to the need to have reasonable access to the cave.
Noah had yet to be informed of how valuable the sustenance in the cave was, but Senku had dropped enough vague remarks for them to have a decent idea that the cave was at least important to the plans.
Otherwise, despite the company -Noah was definitely a strange person, constantly avoiding water like the plague (he eventually claimed to have aquagenic urticaria) as well as showcasing some other behaviors which Senku just credited to the new guy likely being autistic or somewhere on the neurodivergent spectrum.
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The day Taiju had also broken out the petrification had been a great day.
Taiju had been enthusiastic to see Senku and the enthusiasm was shared on some level as Senku had missed the oaf. With a third member who had inceridable strength and determination, the trio had become more successful at making the treehouse livable while allowing for senku to further his experiments.