Chapter 16

**Kohaku** (コハク, *****Kohaku*****) is the sixteenth chapter of the *Dr. Stone* manga.

## Summary

Senku has set out with the intent of finding out who are the people that lit the smoke signals in response to their fire.

As Tsukasa makes his way back to the Miracle Cave, he starts perceiving hints of being followed. Eventually he decides to call them out loud. From the vegetation then emerges Kohaku, calmly walking towards him, her hands out front holding a large bundle of flowers that covers them. As she has neared enough, she breaks the flower bouquet revealing her holding two knives, and swiftly attacks him.

Tsukasa easily deflects every attack from her, but is still amazed by her skill. She angrily calls him out on taking a woman hostage and murdering whom she perceived to be a "gentleman sorcerer". Kohaku's powerful senses are demonstrated in her observing this from far away without being detected by the other parties.

From her speech and the fact that Tsukasa somehow never came across her in the old world, despite being such a skilled fighter, leads him to conclude that she is not a depetrified modern human, but someone who was born in the stone world.

Picturing Kohaku's early life after being born into a tribal environment, Tsukasa remarks that they must be a pure primitive people, and that his best priority is to rush to the miracle cave, just letting them be; however he first has to get his attacker off his back.

With one hit, he sends her flying, and as she drops to the ground, he chops a tree that falls on her, causing a loud noise that leads Senku into the scene, as Tsukasa has departed.

As Senku shows up, he finds her still alive pinned under the fallen tree, and rapidly inquires on her status, proposing options to free her depending on how endangered her life is.

After a moment of quiet, Kohaku lets him know that she is in no danger, as he has no broken bones or damaged organs. Over the hours that followed, from her restrained position she witnesses how Senku painstakingly goes on a crafting spree while telling her of what he intends to do. At the culmination of this, Senku's made a pulley system, and she is astounded as with his mere weight, Senku's lifted the massive log like a feather.

She explains as she is freed, that her awe is not from his vast knowledge nor the ingenuity of Archimedes, but Senku's dilligence and conviction. She introduces herself, telling that she's become very fond of him. Senku seems very repulsed by this prospect.

## Characters in Order of Appearance

* Senku Ishigami
* Tsukasa Shishio
* Kohaku *(Debut)*
* Taiju Oki *(Mentioned)*
* Yuzuriha Ogawa *(Mentioned)*

## Chapter Notes

* Kohaku and Tsukasa meet.
	+ They fight, because Kohaku saw him kill Senku.
	+ Tsukasa ends the fight by trapping her under a tree.
* Senku finds Kohaku stuck under a tree.
	+ Senku frees her using a set of pulleys.

## Trivia

* Just upon finding Kohaku trapped, Senku is seen trying to move the tree by using his staff as a lever. While not his invention, the lever is also highly associated with Archimedes, who went on record in the third century BC stating *"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world"*.