Ria shielded her eyes slightly when Katsu's hand ignited, shining brighter than she'd ever seen him shine. She glanced back at the keypad and leant into them before breathing heavily onto the buttons. Nana just stared at her sister's strange actions.
“Two, five, six – and nooo! Come back,” she growled, huffing onto the keypad again, “six, seven and eight.” She sighed and pulled out a notepad, jotting down the numbers.
“Are those numbers the numbers used for the password? How did you work that out?” Nana asked, sounding sceptical.
“Well, the moisture from my breath sticks to all of the keys that aren't constantly touched – or haven't been touched recently, at least, due to the oil from the owner's fingers sticking to the keys,” she explained, writing down the letters, 'A, B, C', 'J, K, L', 'M, N, O', 'P, Q, R, S', and finally 'T, U, V', over the numbers respectively.
“What are you doing now?” Nana asked, reading over Ria's shoulder, feeling slightly proud of her sister.
“Well see... it's impossible to tell which order the keys were pressed in, but the keys have letters over them. I'm trying to work out a word using any of these letters, to work out the password. This is going to be really difficult,” she sighed. “I mean... I don't really know Azami-sensei that well. She doesn't really share much personal information and stuff like this could be the name of her first pet, her mother – anything.” She went back to staring at the letters, scrawling possible words that would use all of the letters.
After scrawling several words down, there seemed to be only one left, and for some reason, it was calling to her. Her face screwed up and her heart raced as she reached out a pushed the buttons. Six, five, Eight, Five, Eight, Seven, Two. She let out a sigh of breath that she hadn't realised she'd been holding and a very sick feeling swelled inside her churning stomach.
Nana stared at her little sister, most impressed as the door gave a click to communicate that it was open. “Wow Ria! You're a genius! How did you work that one out? What did it say?!” Nana asked, excitedly, but Ria's shoulders just hunched as she stayed where she was.
Nana's cheery expression suddenly turned to one of concern as she put her hand on her sister's shoulder, only for it to be shaken off. “...Ria?” she asked. “Are you okay? What... what did it spell out?”
“MK Ultra,” Ria choked out, her voice empty. Her throat dried up. Nana's brows furrowed in confusion.
“MK Ultra? A bit abstract, don't you think?”
“Apparently not for Azami-sensei...”
“What does it mean?”
“It was an illegal program, run by Konoha's top-most military scientists.” She glanced at Nana and pushed a hand on the door to open it before it locked itself again.
“What did they do?” she asked nervously, not sure she really wanted to know the answer.
“What didn't they do, would be a better question.” She pushed the door open. “Forcefully or secretly administered psycho-stimulative drugs – as well as trying other chemicals, isolation, hypnosis, removing natural human senses... rape...”
“Why? For what cause?” Nana asked, feeling a little disturbed that any government officials would do such a thing, but even more disturbed that her little sister had knowledge of these events. “When did this even happen?”
“They wanted to control humans. Make humans do things that they wouldn't ordinarily do. They tortured people. They put an end to it fifty years ago and destroyed all the files. No one talks about it, because it's wrong. It's frowned upon, and is a sensitive subject and... and I'm not sure I want to know why it's Azami-sensei's password to her secret underground hide-out.”
Nana's jaw dropped and she stared in shock, just staring into the dark room ahead of them. She wasn't sure she wanted to know, either.