"Say what, Dr. Nishina?!"

"It will be difficult to explain through a call, I'm sorry. If you have the time, I would like you to come to my lab here in my house so that I can show you what I've found."

"I understand. I would just confirm something on my end and we'll be there as soon as possible.

I will get in touch with you."

The phone hung up and his finger pointed to Kuroko, still masked in the presence of Detective Artecus.

"Bro, I can't thank you enough."

"No, you did the all the heavy lifting, Ginji. I just suggested it to you. I hardly did anything but wake this man up."

"Who is… Dr. Nishina?" the curious detective asked.

"Just a friend," the two existential coincidences said in unison.

With that, Juno decided not to press on the topic further.

"So, you heard that, right, Gin?"

They had only turned away from Gin for a moment, but once they looked back they had seen him leaning to the window with his being, apart from his face, finally visible to a brighter light.

Another knock has sounded from outside.

"It's Yuna."

Ginji took in a deep breath, looked at Gin for a second with the breath still trapped in him.

"Detective Juno, can I ask you to leave for a moment?"

"S-Sure…?"

With the detective opening the door came bolting Yuna Akanami inside.

Ignoring her, Ginji leaned towards Kuroko who had at that point removed his mask and hood.

"This is why I broke the door," he then whispered.

"Oh dear."

Without even looking at the two men, Yuna pulled the already broken door and let herself in. Not visible from the window as the other two did not want to meddle much, a white mask flew and banged loud to the window causing a small crack to the glass, and an audible, sharp slap resounded.

"Dude, he's cooked."

"Well, so are you," Kuroko retorted.

"You didn't have to rub it in… My face still hurts."

"We might have to think about using polycarbonate on our windows too…"

"Hush, I think I'm hearing something…"

…

"Remember what I told you a few years back?

I sure seem to have told you that you lose your ability to think rationally and make good judgment just as quick as you lose your way and jump to skin-deep reasoning.

Look… I'm not going to judge on what happened that night. What's done is done. But you… You had so much time even after all those times before you went on a rampage…

What the hell have you been doing up until now?!"

Just a few moments ago, the man had to shed tears of hope hearing the news that Hātori Nishina had shared, but they all shifted to ones of powerlessness as a slap on his face made him realize his shortcomings.

For the past few weeks since Rin began to slowly succumb to the disease, he had slowly turned distant towards his own family, although unconsciously. He feared losing the one most important to him, but instead of this fear turning into motivation, it became inaction. He, who was always seeking for a rainbow in the rain did little to nothing in aid towards finding a solution to the problem at his face.

Gin was confused and lost, not knowing what to do, or rather not wanting to know what to do. He unconsciously chose to be at a standstill while others try to push forward.

He understood Kuroko's frustrations with Yuna's full anger and disappointment thrown at him. He became self-aware; he wanted to say something back, but he knew his overflowing shame would prevent him, even if others would feel otherwise and look at him higher than how low he sees himself. The more he saw and thought that he is finally growing apart from his weaknesses, the faster he regresses.

"Say something, will you?!"

In the disappointing silence when Yuna sought an answer from him, he wiped his tears with his arm.

"I-I'm… very sorry… for everything…

Dr… Nishina said… h-he may have found… a solution…"

"Very sorry to interrupt you two, Ane Yuna, but what he's trying to say is, right before you came here, I got a call from Dr. Nishina telling us he might have found something, but things would make sense if he were to explain it personally.

Well, I say that, but I think it's best if that guy meets Ringo first. Don't you agree, Ane."

"She's… She can really be saved…?

H-How… how did he find something when none of the doctors trying to treat her hasn't…?"

"That's what we're also trying to find out.

Gin, if you don't get your ass out of here, the lesser time we'll have in saving Ringo. I know you're not in the right state of mind to be moving out and about right now, but like. I. Just. Said. We're running out of time the more we stay here."

He put down the heavy hands that slammed on his shoulders and stepped back. He took a short feel on the left side of his torso, and moved his feet around. It has been a while since he tried to diagnose his own body if it is ready or not.

"Let me… g-get… changed…"

~ ~ ~

Mykes Hospital.

In the past few days, Rin has spent more time asleep than awake in a day. But this time, it was with great timing that they caught her awake as they arrived.

As expected, Gin's hair was a head-turner among people as he traversed the hallway with wounds, a heavy jacket, a right eye which blue has not yet waned, but more than those, it was those eyes as though devoid of life that caught their attention the most.

He did not know how he should face his significant other with such a ragged appearance despite being all cleaned up after all the destruction he had done. To preserve the remaining life that is within Rin, they did not tell her of what had happened, thus making him more conflicted by an exponent. But more than anything, it was imperative that the two of them meet.

Yuna beforehand had asked the doctors to give them a little bit of space permitted as Rin's condition was somewhat stable at that point. It was then he met Rishou Kagetora for the first time in a while.

The doctor gave, or rather, he looked away with a gaze full of guilt, but Gin had only nodded without words, without emotions in his eyes. It is as his sister said—he couldn't solve a puzzle, so to speak, in that state of weakness and desperation.

The sliding door opened, and Rin's narrowing eyes immediately looked and observed Gin as he limped slightly while making his way to a seat next to her. From there, he took the frail hands from the hospital bed.

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It felt as though they share the same eyes—eyes rid of luster.

"H-Hey… sorry m-my voice is… kind of shot…"

She looked once more on his face, deeper at that, before giving a reply.

"I'm just happy you're here and well…"

As Gin was lost in the moment, all he could do was repeatedly caress her hand.

"Honestly, right now… I d-don't feel like I'm deserving of you… I ran away… again…

I f-feel like… I have a chance… so… I want… to apologize once… once ev-everything is fine again… This time… I-I won't let go of y-you…"

Rin's eyes widened slightly, guessing what was implied with those words. She wanted to express even a little happiness, but the disease had also given damage to her nerves. How cruel, for she can't even bend a smile anymore.

"I… I will stay strong… s-so you should… too… I promise I'll tell you… everything."

That was where their exchange ended. They only savored the silence they had even for a moment. He continued to hold her hand as he waited for her to return to sleep.

▪ ▪ ▪

"Thank you for coming on such a short notice. I didn't expect you to come immediately, but please make yourself comfortable."

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Dr. Nishina. I've heard things about you from Dr. Kagetora."

Dr. Kurt Snetr was entrusted to accompany them in Dr. Nishina's laboratory as Dr. Kagetora can't leave the hospital to monitor Rin along with other doctors. But the reason he was chosen was that he is a very competent doctor that could hold the image of Rishou Kagetora, if he was not the person that was hellbent on fame and money back then.

Dr. Nishina had however set up a private call with Dr. Kagetora in it. While he had said that it was hard to explain his suggestion via a call, it was because Ginji and the others were not versed with medical terms and what he had in mind was difficult to express in layman with only words and no visuals.

But before he was about to begin, Tenth had arrived to oversee what is going to be discussed, and greeted Gin with a hopeful tone and exchange embraces.

"I take it that all of you here are in agreement that Dr. Snetr is to know of this talk regardless of its severe confidentiality?"

All of them nodded, while Dr. Snetr was taken aback after hearing that this was a top-secret discussion and hesitated if he should have been there in the first place

"Mr. Satoshi, can you grab the folders on my desk and hand them over to Gin and Taketo first?"

And so he did. It was a stack of folders that was almost knee high, and Ginji placed them on the coffee table in front of where Gin and Tenth sat. Immediately, the two opened a random folder each and they immediately turned to Dr. Nishina as they fell to shock.

"H-How were you able to get this all, Hātori?!"

"It seems Dr. Kagetora had long since forgotten that he showed me these archives. He never asked to get it back so kept it safe for the time being.

I don't know how Mr. Satoshi got my contact, but he asked me for help if there's anything I could do to find a cure or a solution to BEF-1. I was honestly starting to feel very hopeless, but then I found these.

I would not have taken weeks reading them if I had my sight, but I am just glad it wasn't yet too late.

Suddenly, a memory of a press conference televised resurfaced.

"Of all the hundred children, are there survivors, Doctor?"

"N-None… All of the children died… was 'killed' by myself in the process. They may have graves… but they were originally burnt to ashes."

"Do you still have the data from the results of every tests that were made?"

"All of the copies, all of them… I have burnt them all. The only data found are what can be found as public data from the concluded research. The names and the identity of the victims have all been erased."

"So this is where we will see a potential solution to our problem… Can't say I like the thought, but it is what it is…" rather disappointed, Tenth let out as he facepalmed.

"C-Can I be oriented as to… what is going on…?" already confused as it is, Dr. Snetr sheepishly asked.

"Simply put…" Ginji started, "In this room, you are talking to three victims of the Medical Children Project."

As if probably in shock, it felt like the doctor took it as a joke.

"It's probably hard to believe so I will spell it out to you, Dr. Nishina," Ginji continued. "Dr. Kagetora announcing that all of 100 children from the project was a lie. Gin here was a survivor, and he was back then Code 027. Code 019… was originally Ringo, but she was not part of the project.

As for Tenth- I mean, Principal Juushiro and Dr. Nishina, they were part of an undisclosed project of the same name from years back. At that time, the children survived but was left blind apart from Principal Juushiro here."

"Please trust what he said, Dr. Snetr. It was to protect Gin, so it had to be done.

Anyway, can you see the thickest folder at the very bottom? If you can tell, that is the one file that has the most data, and the most important of them all in this case, as it was from the subject that has lasted the longest in the project.

Meaning, that is Gin's, or Code 027's data."

"Damn it all…" Ginji sighed. "So it's already established that Gin is basically an amalgamation of, well, drugs that have been used in him from back then.

Evidently, he had resisted a sleeping drug back on a school trip in high school, so anything probably goes. Well, he said himself that he is immune to foreign objects entering his constitution."

"And my word, the tranquilizer Ban Tobei injected to him was frankly strong… and illegal. But he was completely fine."

"From the data, there was more than a week where apparently he had rejected any kind of drug being tested on him and a few of them were released through fecal material. But there was one thing that stood out.

One of the doctors who seems to have retaliated due to stress had injected a bacterium in Gin that would cause a dangerous bacterial infection that could last a minimum of three weeks, but nothing happened. Said bacteria can cause rapid weight loss to its host and generally causes the patient to have an extremely weak body. There have been instances that patients that gets these bacteria have developed CVID years after they recovered from the infection.

It was not something as dangerous as BEF-1 that literally lives and consumes off the host's body itself, but there were six more instances where different bacteria placed in his young body as a result of that finding."

As an interruption, Gin raised his hand lightly.

"F-February… 24."

"On it, February 24…" Tenth quickly flipped through the leaves of the folder and found the date. "We have our match."

"I am surprised you still remembered them clearly, Gin."

"I c-can't forget… as much as I-I want to… Dr. Nishina…"

"Anyway, thank you for making the explanations faster. Beginning from that report, the doctors have found an entirely new type of bacteriophage, or a virus that kills bacteria in his body. It was a virus that developed in Gin, and a specific one that's only found inside him."

"Rather," Dr. Kagetora chimed in from the call, "We did not have any time to extract it as the children remaining were already so few at that point."

"Dr. Kagetora, as much as it makes sense, please refrain from pulling out the project's past any further. It doesn't sit well with me and Taketo.

Back to the issue at hand, the reports said that after a pre- and post-test, the bacteria would be dispelled in four minutes, and that is with the bacteria having spread throughout his body.

With this data, we could expedite a test before putting it to practical use, that is, if Gin himself consents to this. I'm going to put it straight—you may well be the cure… no, you have and you are the opportunity to save Ms. Akanami."

Perhaps it was a chance to right a wrong. Gin knew full well the burden that Rin had to carry with him, and it had caused her suffering as a result. Paying back a debt had never crossed his mind. If anything, he would be driven by his own selfishness to save the one she loved. He doesn't want her to die, obviously. He wanted to cherish her more than he had already. He wanted to keep her to himself and gave her a life she would be happy with.

It could have been a very simple choice, but he is aware that anyone but himself would have already answered without a second thought.

"I-I… have my conditions…

I want th-the fact that me… being a Child… must still be kept… in secret at all costs… Not for my sake, but f-for hers…

And I w-want to see… the process… of h-how… the cure is going to be… made. I… just can't trust… the doctors… to do it on their… own."

"I can think of a way to extract the virus from the top of my head like from you blood, but just to be sure, is there anything that you wouldn't want to happen?" Dr. Snetr interjected.

"My blood…"

The strain in his throat had cause him to let out heavy coughs, but as he cleared his throat, he found a voice that would clearly express his conviction.

"I would rather kill myself… if it means preventing my tainted blood… from going to Rin…"

Perhaps some of them would not understand his conviction, but he feared and hated what would happen if his blood were to course someone's body. As told earlier, he is a living amalgamation of substances that could very well be dangerous to anyone but him.

"I see. Then what I can say is that it is unavoidable to get a blood sample from you, but from there we can separate the virus and possibly let it propagate externally with the technology we have now. Afterwards, we would take a sample from Ms. Akanami that is saturated by the bacteria and we can observe how the virus will interact with the BEF.

With the top class doctors we have… it should take somewhere between three days to a week to synthesize a potential cure."

"It is an artificial virus, so we will be able to get away with it being a result of an experiment and never have 027's name mentioned at all. I could make arrangements for you to observe but I do not know to what extent.

Dr. Nishina, thank you for your help."

"Save that for later. And I will still be borrowing this archive for now. It could help me find a way to fulfill a dream."

"I… understand."

"Hātori?" the principal whispered, "For safekeeping, perhaps it would be a good idea to have a backup of this data in a highly encrypted space. I can arrange for it in such a way that it wouldn't be traced or located for maybe decades to count."

"You sound like you have an idea."

"I'll make sure it does not leave the surface of this earth."

"Then we'll leave that discussion for when things become well again."

"I still can't wrap around what has been discussed here…" Dr. Snetr weakly started, "And I very much feel ashamed of this history as a medical practitioner. If it puts you at ease, I wish of you to let me at least take away some of your distrust from us, Mr. Sakato. I don't think I would be able to comprehend what you went through as a subject of the program, but I will do my best to make you change the way you see us."

Still opting not to use much of his voice, Gin raised his roughened right hand to a gesture of a handshake, which the doctor accepted—now wearing a brighter expression on his face.

Young, passionate, and full of conviction. It didn't help in his self-loathing to have wished that all the doctors that Gin had encountered would be like Kurt Snetr. Even after all these years, he had found inside him that he still bore hatred to those that damaged him.

But he also kept in mind that the times are changing. He, and most importantly, Rin had received all the care in this trying time. The least he could do to pay for his inaction was to step up and do his part.

He thought, perhaps this is now the time to bear the responsibility to preserve the future she wanted to become real.