Half an hour after the verbal agreement, most of the soldiers had departed from the clandestine lab with hopes to survive and not receive a heavy punishment when back in the base. They left behind the 8th and 10th squad, as well as four Humvees and one motorcycle – the other vehicles were now far away in the dusty road as the deserters ran away seeking safety from the killing machines in human shape.

“Kinjou, Murayama, the last humvee with the soldiers has left,” announced Kuwabayashi as he stepped inside of the main hall. He stopped near the two soldiers, who were in front of a table working on the ‘contracts’. “We have enough space to take all of us back to the airport. Miue is talking on the phone to arrange an airplane to take us all back to the base. We were also left with quite a big amount of weaponry, as a safekeeping measure from our fellow soldiers who ran with their fucking tails between their legs.”

“Right,” acknowledged Murayama with a nod. He picked up the two pieces of paper and inwardly read them one more time. Then he raised his eyes from the pages and looked to Kinjou. “Are you sure that there’s absolutely no way of disobeying the contract without breaking the rules, Kinjou?”

“Positive,” answered Kinjou, a sly smirk on his features. “I never got to finish my law degree but these contracts are completely bulletproof. I don’t know how smart that crazy lunatic is but they won’t be able to find a single way of breaching the contract without one of them getting killed while at it.”

“Okay, let’s do this, then,” nodded Murayama in agreement. He released a heavy sigh and started walking towards where the Ms had settled themselves. They remained leisurely sat down on top of the pillar while being guarded by the other soldiers. On their way there, Miue joined them while putting a small encrypted communication device back on his lower back pouch. “How did it go, Miue?”

“The base is going to prepare a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III to take us and those six over there back to the base. Once we get back there, they will welcome us with safe methods to keep them well restrained, just so we can avoid any shit from going around,” started explaining Miue, walking beside his commander. As they got closer to the targets, one of his hands was readily lowered on top of his holster. “They also said that we would get a worthy reward for the success of the mission up until now, even with the loss of all of the lab workers. But if you ask me, the biggest reward would be getting back there with all of my body parts intact.”

“Ditto,” acknowledged Kuwabayashi as he eyed the six males. They seemed far too relaxed for someone who was being kept in place with rifles and handguns. “Maybe this ‘contract’ will keep them in check? But I guess we have to thank M0 for it.”

“True,” said Murayama while giving a quick nod. They resumed their walk to the broken pillar and stopped near the cord of soldiers that was surrounding the six targets. “I’ve finished the two contracts.”

The Ms looked over to the soldier, completely unfazed at those words. For some reason, Murayama had a strong feeling that they already knew what had been written in those papers.

“I will read the contracts out loud so that everyone can object about anything if they feel the need,” started Murayama, putting the two sheets of paper high in the air. “I’ll start with the contract for us, soldiers, to sign. ‘We hereby declare that we have accepted the contract signed between Murayama Yamase and the Ms, and will act accordingly to it until it has been successfully completed.’ It’s quite simple and basic but we’re not lawyers. I take it that this is enough for everyone?”

“Yes, sir!” acknowledged the soldiers in unison.

“Do you also agree with it?” asked Murayama, this time directing his words to the Ms.

“Yes, I think that is within our agreement on the matter,” answered M1 after having taken a glance to M0, who was sitting in between his legs and was being wrapped around the waist by his arms. “You may proceed.”

Murayama felt a vein suddenly pop out in his forehead at M1’s words but simply cleared his throat to suppress his anger and continued. “This is the second contract, which will be done between you six and me, indirectly speaking with the soldiers that are currently here and will escort you to our base.”

“Oh, nice~ It’s almost like we are those people that sometimes show up in the box thingy with images inside~” cheerfully announced M5, a happy grin on his face. “I think they are called ‘idols’ or something~”

Murayama cleared his throat once again to catch M5’s attention and continued. “This is the contract on itself. It’s quite simple too. ‘We hereby declare that these two parties will form a mutual agreement between themselves where: party A is not allowed to take any type of hostile actions against any soldier that signed the contract before mentioned or those inside of the facilities they are directed towards; they are not allowed to make any attempt to run away during the transfer process. Party B of the contract is allowed to take any type of measure to stop any violent action, including killing the contractors under party A; they aren’t allowed to take any type of hostile actions against party A if they aren’t related to any breach of the contract. This contract will end when party A has been successfully delivered and secured in the military base.’ This is it. Does everyone agree with it?”

“Yes, sir!” acknowledged the soldiers in unison once again.

“Do you agree with it?” asked Murayama while glancing at the targets.

“…” M1 exchanged a quick glance with M0, who gave a soft nod with his head. Then he looked to the soldiers, a sudden smirk popping up in his features. “We agree with it.”

Murayama closely observed the smirk in M1’s face. Had he found some sort of crack in the supposedly bulletproof contract? Or was that simply his condescending way of looking down on them because he knew that, if the contract wasn’t to be issued, they could easily wipe them out in a few seconds? Murayama took a deep breath and started walking in the targets’ direction, stopping in front of M1 and M0.

“Here,” said Murayama, motioning the papers and a pen to M1. “You can read them to certify yourself that I didn’t lie to you if you want.”

“That won’t be necessary since I would know if you had lied,” answered M1 with a quick shrug of his shoulders. He took one of his arms from around M0’s waist and motioned his bloodied hand in the pen’s direction.

“Ah… Maybe it would be better if you got a little bit cleaner before signing the contracts,” suddenly suggested Murayama, quickly withdrawing the contract back to himself while twisting his nose at the blood-covered bodies of the Ms. “We probably have some spare clothes lying around inside of the Humvees so you can take those… whatever it is that you call those things you’re wearing off and get changed to clean sets of clothes.”

“I don’t see any problem in wearing this,” confessed M1 while looking down to his bloodied white cell clothes. He then looked over to M0’s body. They were all covered in blood and other body fluids… but that was a usual occurrence to all of them since they were little children.

“Oh no, we insist,” intervened Kuwabayashi, his expression slightly twisted with disgust. “I don’t think I would be able to take a 6-hour ride in a humvee while you are wearing clothes straight out of a horror movie. And they are from the very last scenes of the really gory ones…”

M1 tilted his head for brief seconds and then looked right back to M0. He cupped M0’s face and gave a long lick to the blood smearing his cheek, cleaning that area of his body with it.

“Ack…!” Kumakawa Umiko readily motioned her hands to her mouth, dropping her rifle to the floor in the process, as she tried to not throw up at what she had just seen M1 doing.

All soldiers remained frozen in place when they saw M0 turn his head backwards, to face M1 better, and he did the exact same thing to him, his pink tongue almost erotically licking M1’s blood-smeared jawline.

“O-Okay, that’s not how you clean blood!” stuttered Murayama, averting looking at M1 and M0. “Y-You’re not animals, as far as I know, so get cleaned in the same way that human beings do.”

M1 and M0 looked at each other and then back to the soldier, both of them tilting their heads to the left at the same time. Murayama felt the most accentuated and desperate need to facepalm himself of his entire life when he understood that they clearly didn’t understand what he was talking about.

I feel like I just became the father of a group of children raised in the forest by wild animals, inwardly sighed Murayama. “Ikusaki, Mizusaki, can you go search the humvees for anything that they can use to change into and get cleaned? We have some bottles of water that can be spared so bring a few with you too.”

“R-R-R-Rig… Right…” stutteringly acknowledged Ikusaki, a blush as red as a tomato in his features. He gave a quick tap to Mizusaki’s arm to break him out of his flabbergasted self and both of them ran off so as to complete the mission they were given. However, they were both more than glad to go outside of the building into the cold of the night and tame down their blushes.

Releasing the one-hundredth heavy sigh of that night, Murayama looked back to the group of Ms. “For the time being, take those clothes off. You at least know how to do that, right?”

“Don’t take us for fools,” fumed M4 as he adjusted his glasses and jumped down from the pillar to the floor.

The rest of the targets soon did the same, M3 giving a yawn so big that the bottom of his stomach could almost be spotted. His upper body was already on the naked so he motioned his hands down and ripped his white pants out of his body in a single motion, getting completely peeled off of all of his clothes.

M5 and M2 were about to do the same thing when a shout resounded through the whole main hall.

“W-Wait a damn moment!” yelled Miue, a dark red blush still present in his cheeks. He lowered his rifle and then fully put it on the floor, walking towards the Ms afterwards. “Please spare me of your fucking perversions! You over there! The annoyingly sparkling blondie! Turn around.”

“Eh? Me?” asked M5, pointing at himself with his finger. When he saw Miue nodding his head in acknowledgement, he tilted his head slightly and then did as he was told.

“I’m so going to regret doing this but fuck it…” grumbled Miue as he got closer to M5, the one nearest to him and one of the Ms in the corner of the almost line-like position they were in. He stopped behind him and motioned his hands forward, his nose twisting in disgust at the prospect of touching the bloodied clothes. “You move a single inch and one of the soldiers over there will put a new hole in your head.”

“You still think we’re going to kill you, Miue Satoshi?” asked M5 while rolling his eyes around.

“Okay, that’s seriously getting on my nerves! How the hell do you guys know our names?” asked Miue, dropping one of his hands back to his holster.

“That’s because we had access to your military files before you came to the lab,” answered M1 while ripping M0’s full-body clothes with his hands.

“Why would you have access to something like that?” asked Murayama as he also motioned to near one of the targets, M2. He had finally understood why Miue had gotten closer to the targets – they had zippers in the back of their upper clothes. “Turn around.”

“Did you think that we didn’t know that you were coming?” asked back M1, ripping his own clothes and then once again sticking closer to the already naked M0.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” suspiciously asked Kinjou, narrowing his eyes as he closely observed the group.

“Ah, geez~ You sure are slow, aren’t you? After all this, you still haven’t realized it?” exasperatedly said M5, getting slightly annoyed at all these questions that seemed completely pointless to answer this late in the game. He also ripped his clothes in frustration, Miue readily taking a few steps back behind him. “You are here because we invited you here. The one who gave you soldiers the information and location of this torturers’ den is the only ‘worker’ of this thing that is still alive and it was us who gave her that information. She said she could take us out of here and showed us your files beforehand so that none of you would get killed while we were completing our first mission together! Is that easy enough for your underdeveloped brains to understand or should I use an easier explanation?”

“M5, you’re saying too much,” warned M1, a small glare in his eyes as he peered sideways to M5.

“I’m sorry…” apologized M5, his face readily down-casted to the floor as he played around with his fingers.

“Why would you do something like that?” asked Murayama with a completely surprised expression on his face as he tiptoed slightly and grabbed the zipper near M2’s neck area. He reluctantly pulled the bloodied piece of metal down, his body shuddering at the moist sensation on his fingertips.

“Do you think we enjoy being closed for days inside of cells, without access to water, food or anything else, some of us under the threat of being blown up by bombs if we move a single muscle, only be forced to complete several tests and missions when we’re allowed to go outside?” asked back M4, the only one that was ripping his clothes in a slightly more civilized way.

“Right…” acknowledged Murayama, letting M2 take the rest of his clothes off by himself as he wiped his bloodied fingers on his pants.

Murayama was starting to realize that maybe they weren’t truly monsters. They were messed up, insane and with a quite sadistic streak, but it almost seemed that they were forced to become that way. They weren’t born mass murder machines… they were transformed into mass murder machines.

“Hey, Yasuhisa! Can you give me a hand with the— Woah!” started Ikusaki, carrying on his arms a pile of clothes, topped with a few water bottles. But he suddenly went face down to the floor, scattering all of the things he was transporting.

“A-Are you okay, Shouichi?” asked Eki right away, running in Ikusaki’s direction to help him out.

“Shit, I think my foot got caught up on a damned rock or something…“ cursed Ikusaki as he motioned his body up. When he sat down on the floor and looked over to what his feet had gotten stuck on, he saw that it had been in one of the bracelets that M0 had previously worn. Ikusaki motioned his hand towards it and tried to lift it but the metal circle refused to move from the floor. “What the…!? This weighs more than that annoying dog!”

“70 kg,” suddenly said M0, looking over to Ikusaki while snuggling against M1. “That’s the weight of one of those.”

“Why would they put these things on you!?” asked Ikusaki almost in the form of an annoyed bark.

“I don’t know,” answered M0, peering up to M1 with a questioning gaze. “They put them on me as soon as I reached the stage that you address as ‘infant’.”