Vai stared at Takumo with a certain somber expression while he took a deep breath. "So, um, we were both living together outside of one of those urban areas on the upper levels of the underground. We couldn't really afford to live in the city, so we just stuck around to the outskirts of it," Takumo began, nervously scanning the curious octolings leaning into him as he spoke. Yuta was silent, standing behind Takumo and barely pressing against him, presumably to comfort him. "I guess we were um, easy targets, for people from the Metro, because I was born to a pair of quiet escapees from some time ago. They must've known about me," he trailed off. The silence was deafening. Takumo inhaled and exhaled deeply once more.

"They originally planned to take just me, but when they found out that there was someone living with me, they um, compensated," his voice trailed off again. Yuta's gaze fell to the floor. "They didn't want anyone to know about octolings escaping. They didn't want anyone to know about octolings, really. They especially didn't want anyone finding out about how things are in the Deepsea Metro," Yuta elaborated for the ensnared trio sitting before them. "So they took me too," he finally said, making eye contact with Vai again.

"How does Vai link back to all of this?" Krahn blurted, staring at them dumbfounded. Yuta's gaze flicked over to meet Krahn's, and his eyes narrowed. He looked like he wanted to say something particularly nasty, but he was cut off by his partner. "She doesn't! She doesn't at all!" Takumo suddenly cried, toppling forward onto his knees with his face pressed into the floor. "I just heard the other lab girls messing with me and Yuta talking about you and how smart you were and stuff," he sobbed, his voice muffled by the hard floor. His voice hitched as he cried out. "I didn't know! I'm so sorry," his pained voice evoked discomfort in the three silent octolings, even if they didn't want to admit it.

"We both were upset about being captured and um, tampered with, to put it lightly," Yuta said coldly, glaring daggers at Vai. "She didn't do it, Yuta! We know that now!" Takumo suddenly shot up and spun around to face his partner. "How do we really know that, Takumo?" Yuta snapped, venom dripping from the words. "They were just talking! She looks clueless!" Takumo whined out. He planted his face into Yuta's chest. Yuta's gaze fell to Takumo. He exhaled softly and wrapped his arms around him, slowly closing his eyes and resting his chin on top of Takumo's head.

"I'm sorry, Vai Venci. I think I…Misjudged you," Yuta said slowly, his eyes still closed. Vai still sat in shock, just staring at them. "T-that's okay, you just didn't know any better," she stammered quietly, glancing off to the side and avoiding eye contact. Silence rained upon them.

Yuta cleared his throat, inviting a change of subject. When no one answered to this prompt, Yuta took it upon himself to continue to elaborate. "As we already mentioned earlier, they messed around with our DNA and our chemical makeup just to see what would happen. To them, we were the lucky ones that lived. We were told that every single morning; that we were lucky," Yuta started, taking a seat on one of the benches in front of the trio of octolings sitting on the floor before him.

"We were taken from our home very very early in the morning, before dawn had broken the horizon. We had no way to know that they were coming, and that was their intention. They didn't need any more inklings knowing about octolings escaping, so they worked hard to wipe them out," he paused for a moment before continuing with his explanation.

"Sadly, their methods are working well. There were many others like us that were captured and used as test subjects for various things. I made friends with an escapee named Whethan who was forced into an exclusively cannibalistic diet. The Octarian scientists thought it would be interesting to find out what effects that would have on him. Turns out, eating your own kind drives you mad after just a week or so. I still think about him," he stopped again, staring at the ground.

"Takumo and I were DNA experimentation material. The scientists there wanted to see if injecting extracted DNA from other species had an effect on cephalopods like us, and of course they did. There was another one for DNA testing that was supposed to be a jellyfish, but he didn't make it. We were…The lucky ones," Yuta finally said after a long pause. Once more, silence rained upon the crowd. The air was tense and the atmosphere was heavy.

Everyone's attention suddenly snapped to the door of the train cart sliding open and Mano's toned silhouette appearing within its frame. Mano stared at his three friends sitting down in front of the two strangers, but he said nothing. His expression refused to give his thoughts away. "Hey, are you alright?" Krahn asked him gently, attempting to make steady eye contact with him. Mano stared at the wall. "Yeah," he answered after a long moment of pained silence.

"Okay, well, we need to get the hell out of here. Who's with me?" Krahn announced to all of the creatures in the cart, grinning widely as he usually did. Vai and Nora smiled at him as a response. Takumo turned his head and faced Krahn with a sniffle. "We don't have to follow you around or anything, but, um,"

"Aw, of course you can!" Krahn cut him off abruptly. "Welcome aboard!" he called proudly. Vai and Nora clapped their hands and laughed together, prompting a shy giggle from Takumo and a slight smile from Yuta. Mano was still silent, despite the change in atmosphere. No one asked him what the matter was, and he preferred it that way. He was excited to be on the move once more.