As the Stone Wars has reached its conclusion, everyone had gone back to their various shelters and slept for the night. Except for the one Mentalist, Asagiri Gen. He waited for everyone around him to sleep as he gently and silently moved out of their camp and walked into the forest. He was always so light and quiet in his footsteps anyway.

This whole war was just an insane whirlwind of events that occurred one after the other. Gen was honestly still trying to take all of it in. The struggle with the nitric acid, the bomb paper airplane, Hyoga... And when it all ended with Tsukasa being frozen.

He has never seen Senku like that.

Well, he hasn't met Senku for that long either. Just close to a year, and yet he felt that they've been friends for a long time. It was an odd feeling.

But it was a good one nonetheless.

Gen finally stopped as he saw the ruins of what was once the Miracle Cave. The cave that contained that asty-nay bat guano.

It was the cave that helped Senku break out.

And that means...

Gen brushed his fingers against the tree where he stood next to. He felt the carving that had survived the explosion. The very thing that brought all of this together.

It was the very thing that inspired Gen to tread through everything to meet Senku.

Funny, how fate worked. One moment he was at stage basking in the glow of the spotlights and the cheers of his glorious audience, then the next thing he knew he was a stone statue, along with seven billion people on earth. After being revived and nearly forced to side with a mad yet relatable man who only wanted to prevent the disaster that had befallen him to fall to anyone else, to meeting the very man who only wanted to save everyone and bring humanity back to its true former glory. Not the evils that his rescuer thought he would bring with it.

And now he's in a freezer, with a threat of death looming on top of him.

And the other, with tears and dark lines under his eyes and way more on his own two hands, taking that one small step forward to being the leader of all and move on.

A. D.
5738
4, 1

April 1, 5738 was the date that Ishigami Senku broke out of the stone prison, and since then has never stopped moving forward towards his goal.

April 1, 5738 was the date that Asagiri Gen saw carved into this very tree that changed his view of the Stone World, and just about everything really. The Mentalist has done things that even he, himself was shocked about. And it's all because of this carving.

It really wasn't the date that shocked him. It was the fact that someone, some insane fool stayed conscious for 3,718 years straight in order to count the passing seconds, and calculated the very date he broke out of the stone. And it wasn't some straightforward kind of calculations either…

He knew that whoever did it, wasn't an ordinary person.

He had to know them. He had to know this person and pick him apart to even understand the logic.

And that is what led him to finally meet Senku. Compared to a celebrity like Gen, Senku was just a high school brat that had an unyielding passion of Science and an indomitable spirit. He looked and definitely sounded like someone out of a Shonen jump manga.

He's never met anyone like him.

Slowly but surely, he not only allied with him, they became close friends, confidants…..

He was having so much fun, he had lost track of the moment that he had... fallen for Senku.

And because of that, he also met many new friends and allies in Ishigami Village.

He's never felt so damn happy in his life.

He's never felt so… at home.

And it was all because of this.

This carving.

Gen gently ran his fingers into the numbers and kanji as he reminiscenced all of those memories. He wouldn't have experienced any of them if it wasn't for this. This crude carving of the date. There are times where he has wondered, on what if he had never stumbled upon this carving. What if he was never revived even…

Then he remembered once more…. What had happened when he discovered this date…

That blinding light, that first cola, the village, the observatory, the cell phone, the record… the tank, the paper airplane, the nitroglycerin…

This war...

Senku...

Gen smiled as he brushed through the carving.

He would then forget about the what ifs.

Because it was this very thing that saved him, the village, and the world.

"You really are azy-cray aren't you, Senku-chan?"

AN: I quickly wrote this as I was inspired on April 1. (And after finally getting some well deserved rest...) But I always did wanted to write a fic about this and it finally came out! YAY! I hope you all like it!

Thank you for everyone in the DCST Discord server!