Archive of Our Own ^beta

anesagi kaoru
hi tsumugi what in the fuck

okazaki rinto
One, Kaoru, I told you so, and two, Kaoru again, that kind of language threatens my job, imagine if Takanashi Otoharu saw that text, and three, Takanashi, what on God’s green earth possessed you to actually break into the lab???

takanashi tsumugi
curiosity mainly
i overheard you guys talking abt it, so. i wanted to check it out

okazaki rinto
Do you have any idea of how dangerous that is?

takanashi tsumugi
well, i definitely do now!!😃👍

anesagi kaoru
tbqh rinto u are probably overexaggerating the danger there as obviosuly doing it this way was faster and got more info + a reliable inside source versus whatever it is you’re doing in there

okazaki rinto
My sources are reliable, they’re just also nervous, and understandably so, after those pictures Takanashi sent!
Besides, I’m not sure how much we can trust any lab employees. Didn’t we already agree not to bring Utsugi in on this specifically because he’s an admin there?

anesagi kaoru
also because he’s fucking his boss. and i don’t trust hot men
and it sounds like this ogami approached tsumugi, not the other way around, and he doesn’t know anything abt us so atp it’s just tsumugi in danger if he can track her down
tsumugi, u didnt give ogami any personal information, right?

takanashi tsumugi
just my name, he said he’d be able to find me through that

anesagi kaoru
wdym your NAME

okazaki rinto
Hopefully just her given name, that’s harder to track down

takanashi tsumugi
both actually it seemed polite
plus Banri gave his full name too. so.

anesagi kaoru
u have no proof that he wasnt lying to u

okazaki rinto
If he “never leaves the lab” then there’s no danger to him giving his name since it doesn’t sound like there’s any real-world connections you can leverage against him, unlike you, who could be endangering yourself, your friends, and your family by providing him with your information. Didn’t your dad teach you better than this?

anesagi kaoru
did u at least get a picture of him? we could try and id him through that, see if hes lying or not

takanashi tsumugi
no just these files
which tbh i do think is enough proof that he’s trustworthy

anesagi kaoru
seriously??
there is hardly any danger from that. it would be so easy to claim that you photoshopped them or whatever. he needs to give you cold hard proof that he can be trusted

takanashi tsumugi
like what?

anesagi kaoru
well for one. do rintos sources know him
and two. does he know anything about yaotome gaku
ig for one rinto would have to do the asking since hes the only one who knows who his sources are

okazaki rinto
And since Takanashi didn’t send her information until after the showcase, I won’t be able to get in contact with them again for another month, at least. Unfortunately.

takanashi tsumugi
Banri said he’d text me later so i can ask abt Yaotome Gaku later
who is that btw? and who’s Utsugi, and what’s his connection to the lab?

okazaki rinto
Utsugi Shiro is my roommate, we started living together last year after my brother got married. He also works in the lab’s administration and is involved with one Tsukumo Ryo. A few months ago, we went out to Kaoru to celebrate getting her degree, and he got plastered and spilled everything he knew about the lab’s illegal activities after she mentioned that it was almost the four-year anniversary of Yaotome Gaku’s disappearance. Unfortunately, we were both also drunk and he was barely coherent, and when I tried to follow up in the morning he claimed he had no idea what I was talking about, so we’ve been trying to figure out what he meant, what is real, and what is going on inside that lab.
I’ve actually made good progress with my side of the investigation, but Kaoru is completely convinced that they had a hand in whatever happened to Yaotome-kun as well, and we haven’t been able to find any proof of that either way.

anesagi kaoru
wrong. my boss’s child support payments

takanashi tsumugi
i’ll definitely ask Banri about him! as soon as i hear back from him

anesagi kaoru
if u ever do before ur disappeared by the lab lol

takanashi tsumugi
🫡

Tsumugi ran her straw along the bottom of her plastic cup, trying to vacuum up the last few melted drops of Frappuchino almost in a bid to stay here longer, to avoid stepping out again into the world, heading home, lying to her dad about what she’d been doing today or confessing everything—and maybe putting him in danger too? But she might have already put him in danger, just by her break-in alone; but if he didn’t know that she’d done it, then he might be able to put off whoever came after them by virtue of not knowing what they were talking about and being personally offended that his daughter had been accused of breaking and entering when he’d already warned her off of that that building, specifically. She checked her phone again. Nothing new. Should she delete her texts with Anesagi and Okazaki, maybe? Who knew if the people at the lab would be able to get into her phone. Who knew what they would do if they found her—

Okay, she was panicking a little, maybe. Her shoulders were tight and her heart was racing and her breath was coming fast and hot; she had not been afraid breaking into the laboratory but she was absolutely terrified now. She opened her phone again, read over the files again. They were still horrifying, but there was beginning to be a blandness to it that she really didn’t like. She knew generally everything that was coming in them, she knew what had happened to the poor human experiment, she knew how he had ended. Eventually, a new text came in, one from a redacted phone number; arms heavy with dread, Tsumugi opened it.

B10000
This is Ogami Banri. We met earlier today at the Institution for Dedicated Organic Lifeforms in a secret room in the secret basement, and discussed some of the activities of the scientists who work there, as well as the possibility of you rescuing the surviving members of experimental group 1D0L15H-7.
Feel free to ask whatever questions you wish in order to confirm my identity.

takanashi tsumugi
is there any connection between Yaotome Gaku and the lab?

B10000
PROCESSING REQUEST…

takanashi tsumugi
sorry?

B10000
I’m reviewing the files right now.

takanashi tsumugi
thanks!

She took a screenshot of the text exchange and sent it to the group chat with Anesagi and Okazaki.

anesagi kaoru
so are we sure this ogami banri is an alive human being and not a computer

takanashi tsumugi
i mean, i met him in person and he seemed pretty alive to me

okazaki rinto
Maybe he just talks like that, he did say that he couldn’t leave the lab. He could just be a strange person.

anesagi kaoru
or. and hear me out. sentient computer program

okazaki rinto
Neither my sources nor Utsugi have said anything about artificial intelligence work in the lab, though?

anesagi kaoru
cant prove a negative. maybe they just didn’t mention it because it pales in comparison to growing kids in tanks and stealing their organs and all that jazz. u dont know this

okazaki rinto
I’ll just ask my sources next time, shall I? “Hello, friends, who is Ogami Banri and is he a computer program who is sentient and planning on destroying the lab in the courts and can somehow possess a human body. Yes, this is what I want to spend our limited time together discussing.” I’m sure that will go over just wonderfully.

anesagi kaoru
a man after my own heart

Tsumugi’s phone buzzed with a notification, and she switched back over to her texts with Banri.

B10000
“Yaotome Gaku” is the alias for experiment TR1GG3R-G, created on commission from Yaotome Sousuke and rented out to him as a child for the duration of his marriage. Upon the failure of that marriage, he was reclaimed by the scientists who built him for funding purposes. His memories were suppressed, though not destroyed; if necessary, he will be rented out to Yaotome Sousuke again, though it sounds like this would only be agreed to at a much higher price.
Would you like photographic evidence of his existence?

takanashi tsumugi
yes please!

Banri immediately sent several photographs and a video, all of the same silver-haired boy in a hospital gown. In some he was getting blood drawn; in some, he was leaning against a wall, a feeding tub in his stomach, talking to someone just outside the camera’s view; in the video, he was laying on an operating table in one of the rooms Tsumugi had been unable to enter earlier today, torso held open with metal clips, as a pair of scientists removed organ after organ from his body. Tsumugi watched in enthralled horror as even the boy’s heart and lungs were removed; though they were gone, the boy merely choked on his own blood and stared at the ceiling and did not die.

Tsumugi shoved her phone in her pocket and rushed to the Starbucks bathroom, locking the door behind her and emptying half-digested coffee and breakfast and stomach bile into the toilet. She thought about the video again, the way the blood had pooled beneath Yaotome Gaku and dripped to the floor, and gagged again; eventually, there was nothing left in her stomach to throw up, and Tsumugi flushed the toilet and cleaned her hands and rinsed her mouth and then sat directly on the bathroom floor, right up against the door, and put her head in her hands. 

Finally, she got up the courage to open her phone again, to respond to the texts she had received while she was busy throwing up. She thanked Banri for his information, and then went back to the groupchat, where Anesagi and Okazaki were bickering over the likelihood of Banri being a secret robot.

takanashi tsumugi
update yes Yaotome Gaku is definitely in the lab. he was always an experiment apparently. assuming this is the right Yaotome Gaku?
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and here’s the video i was sent, but be careful!!! if you’re not good with gore DO NOT WATCH IT!!!!!!

anesagi kaoru
fuck that thats my boy

takanashi tsumugi
and here is a direct screenshot of Banri’s text
[image.jpg]

okazaki rinto
My God.
Assuming that’s all real, that is good information. Especially that video.

takanashi tsumugi
mb but i really wish i did not watch that video

okazaki rinto
Feel free to have us screen anything else Ogami sends you.

takanashi tsumugi
thanks but i probably will look at it all anyway. since i did pretty much agree to help orchestrate a jailbreak

anesagi kaoru
GOOD we are getting gaku out first. asap. and then i am bombing their fucking houses.
one of the men in that video was kujo takamasa. one of my boss’s fucking business partners. i never would have dreamed that he would do that to gaku.
i am actually going to murder that man the next time i see him

okazaki rinto
Did you recognize anyone else in the video?

anesagi kaoru
no, which is lucky for them

okazaki rinto
That should be our next step, then. Does that sound good to you two?

takanashi tsumugi
yep!

anesagi kaoru
as long as it doesnt take too long i need to get gaku out of there yesterday