After the ‘gore-slash-musical show’ was over, all six targets remained frozen in the same location, their eyes closed as if they were basking in the remnants of their bloodied lights.

Chaos immediately broke in the entire main hall, with soldiers entering into shock or simply let their bodies fall motionless to the floor out of hopelessness. Many started spilling on the floor the remnants of the food they had ingested on the way to the lab, the sickening smell of blood mixing with the acrid of vomit. A couple of soldiers ran out through the shattered glass doors and entered inside of the closest vehicle, immediately departing from there even if they would be addressed as deserters later on.

“Murayama-san, Miue-san, what should we do now?” asked Mizusaki, exchanging his gaze between the two older soldiers and the six unmoving targets. His finger was still on top of the trigger of his rifle even while he maintained it lowered. After what he had seen, he couldn’t help but be on his guard while in the presence of the Ms.

Murayama and Miue looked at each other and then back to the targets. Murayama released a sigh and then scratched the back of his head, even while holding onto his handgun. “I honestly don’t know. We were supposed to bring each one of them out of their floors in separate and put them on the humvees, each one of the cars departing from here as soon as they were safely secured inside of it. Then we would request for more cars so we could bring all of the lab workers with us to the airport, putting them on a separate airplane from the targets. But I don’t think that plan will work anymore. I don’t even know if we’ll have enough humvees for us alone.”

“The solution is quite simple,” suddenly spoke M1. The group of soldiers immediately looked over at him and saw all of the targets with their eyes open and looking over in their direction. “Just put us in those things you call ‘humvees’ and take us to wherever you want. If you take all six of us, of course. If one of us is to be left here or put on a different location, we will refuse your plan.”

“What makes you think that we will risk doing such a thing now?” asked Murayama, an eyebrow slightly arched on his brow. “We have permission to kill all of you, due to the violent actions you took against the lab workers. They were fundamental to the investigation but now they are all dead. Our priority was to take you with us, yes, but we also prioritize our lives over this mission that we were forced to take, even if we will be punished for disobeying our superiors later on. You are far too dangerous and, even after you, M1, guaranteed me that no one would die… Well, I think that the massacre that just happened comes to prove that you cannot keep your word on not hurting or killing anyone.”

“Oh, but I did keep my word,” corrected M1, a smirk appearing on his features. “None of yours was killed. Every soldier that has come with you is still alive.”

“…” Murayama gritted his teeth. He had been tricked by M1. And that trick had caused the death of all of their interrogatory witnesses.

“Besides, why do you need them?” asked M1, giving a quick shrug with his shoulders. He took a quick glance to the red sea of body parts and then looked right back to the soldiers. “If you have what they created, what do you need the creators for? All that you want and need to know is currently with the solemn ‘worker’ of this lab that is still alive. With that person and… right here.”

“…” When Murayama saw M1 point with his index finger to his own head, he deeply frowned. Was this another manipulation or game that the target was creating or, worse yet, some sort of perfidy to make them believe they will not kill anyone else only to make them bring them to their base and run amok there once again… or was that a serious request to a cease-fire on both sides? “Who is the person you speak of?”

The smirk on M1’s lips widened and the six Ms started to walk in their direction, M3 yawning like a lion and M5 cheerfully whistling the song they had previously sung together. The soldiers readily got on their guard at the movement and pointed their guns at them, but they almost seemed to take no notice on it whatsoever. M1 stopped in front of Murayama, his hand still wrapped around M0’s, who closely walked beside him. “Give and you shall receive, Murayama Yamase. That’s one of your philosophies, right? And by ‘your’, I mean ‘humans’.”

“…It is,” answered Murayama, gulping down hard. He straightened his back and put his handguns back on their holsters, intently peering to the target. “You are all soldiers and will do whatever you need to in order to accomplish your mission, right?”

“That’s correct,” shortly answered M1. He brought M0 closer to his body and tightened his grip on his small, bloodied hand. “If you protect your own, then we also do the same. We aren’t bound by the same restrictions that your type of soldiers is so we do anything to complete our mission. And our mission is to stay alive and together. No matter what.”

“Then all of you will sign a written agreement with us. Right here and right now,” announced Murayama, surprised gasps resounding all around him. A soft murmuring started between the soldiers. When he saw suspicion written all over M1’s eyes, he continued. “You want to protect each other and we want to protect ourselves and our country. That’s probably as far as our similarities go. So, as a show of willingness of cooperation between both of our sides, sign a paper that will state all the rules that you, the Ms, and us, the Japanese soldiers, cannot break. No matter what.”

“We cannot do that,” answered M1 almost instantly. “We do not possess a name like you do. So we cannot sign the ‘contract’ that you are proposing.”

“You’re human beings, even if you were modified to become super soldiers. You must have a name, the one wrote on your birth certificate,” pointed out Murayama, his frown growing more noteworthy. “Even if you are scientific experiments and are only addressed as Ms now, you had parents that gave birth and named you at some point.”

“You soldiers sure are quick to make assumptions,” suddenly spoke M3, leisurely picking on his ear.

“If you call us scientific experiments, what makes you believe that we were born with the same process that you were?” added M4 while adjusting his glasses.

“Okay, I will make this easier for you and let you sign it with your M codenames, then,” ended up consenting Murayama after releasing a sigh. “You have been exchanging letters with each other all along so I take it that all of you know how to write and read. I will write two contracts, one for us soldiers stating that they will give their agreement about me being the one representing and signing the contract with you six, and then the contract between you six and us soldiers, which will be signed by me and all of you. Is that good enough for everyone?”

“…kill them…” suddenly mumbled a weak female voice. Murayama and his squad, together with the Ms, looked over to the middle of the group of soldiers and saw a woman getting up on her feet while wiping a trickle of vomit from her mouth. “Have you gone insane, Murayama-san!? You want to make a deal with these monsters!? They’re obviously going to kill us!! Do you really think they are going to do what you say just because of a fucking piece of paper with their names on it!? We should kill all six of them! NOW, BEFORE THEY HAVE THE CHANCE OF DOING TO US WHAT THEY DID TO THEM!”

“She’s right… We have to kill them! They are too dangerous!”

“Execute them now!”

“Kill them! Kill them before they kill us!”

“Let’s hurry up and do it!!”

“Kill those beasts!”

The 10th squad members exchanged worried glances with each other, and soon the 8th squad, the other team that was tasked with the same mission as them, made of Kinjou Akira, the team leader, Hisaka Kato, the second-in-command, and their three subordinates, Kuwabayashi Utei, Kumakawa Umiko and James Kumakawa, joined them.

“What should we do about this, Murayama?” asked Kinjou as he observed the group of soldiers on the beginning stages of a riot against the targets. “If this continues, a second, this time unplanned, massacre will happen. And our guts will join the ones already on the floor.”

“Fuck…” cursed Murayama, hearing the yells of the other soldiers growing louder and more aggressive each second that passed.

“Could you please quiet down? You’re hurting my ears,” suddenly said a soft voice, almost imperceptible in the midst of all the screaming. Suddenly, the whole building shook and an extremely loud thud resounded through the main hall, shutting up every single soldier. They looked over to the pillar that had been thrown and the cloud of dust floating in the air around it – M0 stood before it. “I never met a human other than the workers of this lab so I don’t want to make quick judgments on your species. But you seem to be extremely stupid.”

“…” The eyes of the soldiers opened wide at those words, all of them at a lack of a rebuke.

“From what I understood, this ‘contract’ is something to which we will be bound to obey and cannot break, under the threat that we will be accordingly punished by it, right?” asked M0 to no one in particular as he tilted his head slightly to the left. “We want safety for ourselves just like you want it for your own lives. However, we already told you that we wanted to follow your plan, even if a ‘contract’ is not involved. Why are you creating unnecessary thrifts when the solution has already been given to you? Because if we wanted you dead, you would be dead by now. Have you thought about that when you started calling us monsters or beasts and preparing yourselves to ‘execute’ us? We have not acted hostile with any of you so why are you acting hostile with us?”

“Yeah? As far as I know, I already experienced suffocation and was pinned down to the floor since this mission has begun,” pointed out Ikusaki, a frown on his face.

“I apologize for that but when you suddenly shrieked, you scared me with your high pitched voice and I immediately thought you were going to attack me,” explained M0, focusing his gaze on the soldier in question. “I was only defending myself, something that you also did when you pointed your guns at me.”

“I-I didn’t shriek…” grumbled Ikusaki, a bashful expression on his face. When he heard Mizusaki snickering beside him while softly saying that he totally did, Ikusaki immediately glared at him. He then returned his gaze to M0. “But that doesn’t explain why M1 tried to suffocate me! I didn’t hurt or threaten him in any way.”

“You didn’t,” acknowledged M1, a slightly furious glare in his eyes as he looked to the soldier. “However, you said that you could hurt M0, which is far worse than hurting or threatening me.”

“Where’s the freaking logic of that!?” asked Ikusaki with an irked voice.

“If someone said that your most beloved person could get blown up, I believe you would get as upset as I did,” pointed out M1, peering over to M0 and softly smiling at him. He then gave a sideways glare to Ikusaki. “Unless you’re a worse monster than I am, that is.”

“Shouichi, whatever it is that happened downstairs, drop it for now,” whispered Eki while tugging at the back of Ikusaki’s clothes. “They are a family, of some sort. But M1 and M0 are apparently in a romantic relationship with one another, seeing as the first thing they did when they met was kiss.”

“W-What…?” gasped Ikusaki with a low voice, looking over to Eki with surprise written all over his face. “Aren’t they supposed to never having talked with each other before? How the heck did that happen?”

“How would I know?” answered Eki in a whisper, shrugging his shoulders.

“But nothing of what you’re saying guarantees that you won’t hurt us, M0,” added Murayama, crossing his arms over his chest while he looked to M0. This target seemed far easier to communicate with than M1 and he sounded much saner than any of the other five. He really had to wonder why the scientists had started to make a fuss with the prospect of releasing M0 but didn’t care at all about the others. “You could very well be deceiving us. Make us believe that you won’t kill us and then stab us in the back at the best moment possible. Which would probably be once we reached our military base.”

“Are you saying that we are building a Trojan horse?” asked M0, once again tilting his head as he closely observed Murayama.

“I-In a way, yes,” answered Murayama, trying to suppress the urge to roll his eyes at those words. M0 was saner but still a complete weirdo nevertheless.

“But we’re not,” simply answered M0.

“As I said, nothing that you say gives us any guarantees that you’re not scheming something in secret,” declared Murayama once again while sighing softly. It was a smart and developed conversation, but it somehow reminded him of what it was like to talk with a young child. M0 seemed to think in a quite naïve way, almost as if he wasn’t a mass murder machine but a newborn that knew no evil.

“A guarantee?” asked M0, his tilted head straightening all of a sudden. He looked over to his friends and kept them under his gaze for brief seconds, before looking at the soldier once again. “Then you can do the ‘contract’ that you were talking about. And you can put as one of the rules that if we take any type of hostile action against you, you have permission to kill us.”

“M0?” called M1, surprise written all over his face. All of their comrades were like that, actually. He was about to continue to talk when he saw M0 shaking his head.

“You remember what she told you, right? What she promised us?” said M0, directing his words to all of his fellow Ms. “We have completed our first mission together. They aren’t related to them in any way. So setting this rule shouldn’t matter at all to us since we don’t plan or have reasons to kill any of them.”

“That’s true but…” started M1 once again but he interrupted himself in the middle of it. He observed the serious demeanour on M0’s face and released a sigh. He peered over to the other four males and saw the same reluctant expression that he had on his own. Then M1 turned his face back to Murayama. “We’ll sign the paper. With the rule that M0 has allowed you to set. But be aware that we take the word ‘revenge’ very seriously.”

That was something that we got well aware of when you turned this room into a slaughterhouse, pointed out Murayama in the back of his mind. He nodded his head in agreement and then turned his back at the Ms, looking over to every soldier around him. “Those who are too scared to compromise with them, feel free to leave right now. However, you will be punished by the higher-ups in the exact same way as those who have already run away. Think about it and make your decision. I would only ask you to leave some vehicles outside because I sure as hell don’t want to camp out in the middle of this sea of blood.”

A couple of seconds later, soldiers started to abandon the building.