Bato Detective Agency

The Bato Detective Agency (, Bato Tantei Jimusho), formerly known as the Bato Family (, Bato-gumi), is an organization featured in the Lost Judgment add-on, The Kaito Files.
== History ==
=== Background ===
Prior to the dissolution of the Tojo Clan in 2019, the Bato Family was a subsidiary of the yakuza organization which, due to their incredible skill for information gathering, referred to themselves as "Tojo R&D".
After the Clan's disbanding, what remained of the Bato Family rebranded as the "Bato Detective Agency" and they put their talents for surveillance and info brokerage to use in a mostly legal business. Despite operating as a legitimate detective agency most of the time, the Bato Detective Agency does still employ a lot of dirty tactics from their yakuza days to serve their clients, such as roughing up or kidnapping people to extract information from them. They also sometimes directly extort people with the information they acquire or cheat their clients by taking bribes from their surveillance targets to keep what they uncovered secret. Despite their shady dealings, the Agency's members can be very committed to helping clients they sympathize with or respect (such as Mikiko Sadamoto) and their business apparently has a customer satisfaction rate of 80%, at least according to their chief of operations.
=== The Kaito Files - 2022 ===
In early 2022, the Bato Detective Agency were anonymously contacted by Mikiko Sadamoto with a job that required their brand of shady tactics: She wanted them to protect her son, Jun Sadamoto, from his own father and her husband, Kyoya Sadamoto, and his thugs from the Crimson Lotus gang. Mikiko instructed them to do anything necessary to keep Jun safe from her husband, even kidnap him and hold him captive. Mikiko feared her husband would try to harm Jun to get to her because she knew the truth about his responsibility for the arson that killed her sister and parents. Since Mikiko did not trust the Bato Agency, she did not disclose her identity to them in the request, but the shady detectives did not mind, because the money offered was too good to turn down.
The Bato Agency's Chief Consultant, Masao Igarashi, sent one of his top men, Shiro Senda, to lure Jun to their offices. Senda approached Jun in the streets of Kamurocho and initially tried to coax him into coming willingly by offering him free video games, but Jun saw through his efforts and, believing him to be either a pervert or an extortionist, escaped from the investigator. Frustrated by Senda's failure, Igarashi took over the task himself and eventually tracked Jun down to outside Millennium Tower. Unfortunately for the shady detectives, Jun had since teamed up with Masaharu Kaito of the rival Yagami Detective Agency, on an investigation to track down Jun's mother. Senda ended up getting into a fight with Kaito and, while the rival detective was distracted, Igarashi took Jun hostage at knifepoint and fled.
Igarashi took Jun to one of the Bato Agency's hideouts in the abandoned KJ Art building and instructed Senda and the newly recruited former Omi Alliance yakuza, Fudo Oshikiri, to protect the kid. Unfortunately for the Bato men, Kaito tracked down their hideaway and broke in to rescue Jun, beating Oshikiri in a fight to do so. After Oshikiri is beaten, Senda draws a gun to kill Kaito, but a newly freed Jun jumps out a window and parkours down the side of the building, prompting Senda to abandon Kaito and chase after the fleeing kid. Unable to catch him, Senda and a few of his thugs set-up an ambush in the Yagami Detective Agency's office. However, Kaito realized they were lying in wait because he smelled Senda's cigarettes from outside the office door and called the police on them. When the cops arrived, Senda and his men were forced to jump out the office's second-story windows and then limp away to avoid being arrested.
Soon after, Mikiko approached the Bato Agency in person and explained to them her plight: Her husband had murdered her parents and sister to gain access to their vast inheritance and, when she discovered this, he tried to have her killed. He failed but she became amnesiac from her injuries and had spent the past few years in the care of Yasutaka Shirakaba, the doctor who'd found her after her attack. With his help, she faked her death and gradually recovered her memories, after which she started plotting to kill all those involved in her family's murder. Impressed by her tenacity and strength, the normally unscrupulous members of the Bato Agency decided to aid her in her mission, no matter the cost.
To that effect, Senda started helping Mikiko keep tabs on Shusuke Kenmochi, one of the Crimson Lotus' leaders, in the hopes of eventually catching him unguarded and killing him. Mikiko and Senda eventually managed to find Kenmochi in said state when he went into the Red Brick Hotel with one of his favorite sex workers. Unfortunately for the pair, Kenmochi had noticed they were following him and attacked them when they tried to spring their trap, taking Mikiko captive. As luck would have it, Kaito had also been tailing Kenmochi at the time and witnessed this, so he sprang into action and defeated Kenmochi in a fight, rescuing Mikiko.
Kaito would then meet with Mikiko and her Bato allies in their office, where she would explain everything that she'd been plotting and the Bato Agency's role in it. After hearing her tale, Kaito agreed to help in exposing the Crimson Lotus' role in her family's deaths, but refused to aid in any murders. Refusing to give up on her quest for revenge, Mikiko snuck out of the office to continue her pursuit, while Igarashi and Senda distracted Kaito to keep him from stopping her.
After Mikiko had successfully gotten away, Igarashi and Senda agreed to accompany Kaito to the annual reunion of Kyoya Sadamoto's old university club, Rhizome, where he and his Crimson Lotus cronies would all be gathered the following night. However, they made it clear to Kaito that they were only going with him to protect Mikiko and that they would not interfere with her plot to murder her husband and his thugs.
At the annual reunion, held in the Hotel Grand Blu Marino in Isezaki Ijincho, Igarashi and Senda helped Kaito fight his way past Crimson Lotus member Nishio and his goons and then make their way up to the Hotel's roof, where Mikiko intended to confront Kyoya. When the trio saw more Crimson Lotus goons coming after them outside the elevator leading to the roof, the Bato men told Kaito to head up without them while they held back the thugs. In the ensuing confrontation, Kyoya Sadamoto would poison all his Crimson Lotus allies to eliminate any ties to his criminal past, but Kenmochi would end up strangling him to death before succumbing to the poison, so Mikiko did not end up having to kill her husband to take her revenge. 
After liberating herself and her son from her murderous husband, Mikiko's contract with the Bato Detective Agency ended, with her being very satisfied with their service.
== Notable Members ==
* Masao Igarashi - Chief Consultant (Formerly Captain)
* Shiro Senda - Detective (Formerly Lieutenant)
* Fudo Oshikiri - Contractor
Category:Tojo Clan Subsidiaries
Category:Yakuza Organizations
Category:Detective Agencies