After wasting fifteen minutes explaining to all of the targets how to open a bottle of water without crushing it and spilling all of the liquid kept inside everywhere (and a lot of failed attempts at it), the two squads managed to successfully put the six Ms cleaning their bodies using pieces of fabric soaked in the water.

The second shared thought of the group of soldiers happened during the lesson: the Ms were pretty much hatchlings who knew nearly nothing of the world, with the exception of killing and destroying.

The soldiers kept them under close watch, always on alert to see if any of them took a step forward and used this remaining time where the contracts hadn’t been signed yet to kill them all and break free from the Japanese military’s grasp once again. However… they seemed to be having quite a lot of fun while cleaning themselves – M3 and M5 were arguing with each other over who had the biggest biceps; M4 was meticulously cleaning every single inch of his skin with the wet cloth, a satisfied expression on his face; M2 had to be reminded from time to time to not put the soaked fabric in his mouth and munch on it; M1 and M0 every now and then giggled to one another as they helped each other cleaning their bodies.

Truly a pack of newborn wolves, inwardly said Murayama, a soft smile starting to tug his lips upwards. Seeing as their bodies seemed much cleaner compared to the bloody mess they were before, Murayama made a sign with his head so that the clothes they had gathered could be distributed through the Ms.

“Here are the clothes for you to wear until you reach our military base,” said Murayama while putting two pairs of t-shirts and pants on M1’s hands, one set for him and another M0. M0 remained behind M1 as the exchange was being carried out, something that Murayama had noticed for a while now – M1 didn’t let anyone get closer than necessary to M0 under any circumstance if they weren’t also an M. “Try to keep these clean. We don’t have any others to spare.”

M1 didn’t say anything at those words and simply turned around, giving M0 his share of the clothes.

“There weren’t any clothes for your size so you’ll have to do with only a pair of pants that may be a little bit tight on you, M2,” explained Eki as he gave the military pants to M2.

“Why are you humans so tiny…?” grumbled M2 while grabbing the piece of clothing with a certain annoyance.

Ikusaki, Mizusaki and Miue also delivered clothes to M3, M4 and M5, respectively, taking a few steps back to let them fend off for themselves… which ended up being a mistake.

“Hmm~? Huh? Umm… Like this?” cheerfully mumbled M5 as he turned the t-shirt on his hands around while trying to figure out how it was supposed to be positioned in his upper body. He put an arm inside of the hole on the upper side and the fabric started to slide down his limb. “Eh… Not this way, I see…”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake…” groaned Miue while rolling his eyes around. He once again walked closer to M5 and yanked the t-shirt out of his hands, grabbing onto it upside down by the hems. “Put your arms up.”

All of the soldiers there groaned too, shortly after, as they observed the other targets going through the same confusion as M5.

M5 obediently put his arms up in the air and Miue tiptoed slightly, opening the t-shirt and sliding the two side holes into the arms, pushing the piece of clothing down afterwards. “Geez… Just how old are you, exactly…?”

“Oh, I know that one!” cheerfully said M5 as his head popped out from the hole he was before putting his arm on. “136 years old!!”

“…Huh?” interjected Miue with a completely lost expression on his face as he peered over to M5, an eyebrow slightly arched. With their appearance and body structure, it was impossible for them to have that age… right?

“Ah, wait… I answered with dog years,” corrected himself M5 while scratching the back of his head softly. Miue lowered his body after also taking hold of the pants and gave a quick tap with his hand to one of M5's legs, giving him a quick hand sign that told him that he should lift his foot from the floor. “Then… 88 years old?”

“That’s for cats,” corrected M4 this time, who had to bend his body forward as Mizusaki inserted the t-shirt on his head and helped him get dressed.

“Oh, right,” acknowledged M5. He lifted his other foot and let the soldier fully put the pants on him. He thought about it for brief seconds, making the calculations on his head. Then M5 suddenly clapped his hands together, as if he had just gotten the best and greatest idea of the century. “18 years old!!”

“All of you have that age?” asked Ikusaki, closely eyeing M3’s body while getting him dressed in his clothes. He didn’t look like an 18 years old male anywhere he looked at him. The only targets that actually seemed to have that age, or actually be younger than that age, were M1 and M0, who were being taught how to put the t-shirt on by Murayama, although without any touching involved.

“Yeah, in human age, all of us are 18 years old,” explained M3 while yawning loudly. He lazily rubbed the corners of his eyes while Ikusaki finished putting his pants on.

“So you have an age that isn’t used by us humans?” sarcastically asked Ikusaki while rolling his eyes around at the same time he gave the final adjustments to M3’s pants.

“We do,” answered M1 this time, helping M0 put his t-shirt on in the same way that Murayama had explained to them. “If we use that age, then chronologically speaking, the oldest one is M0 and the youngest is M5.”

“So your code names indicate which one is the oldest and the ones ‘born’ afterwards, huh…” commented Mizusaki, now helping M3 put his pants on. “Shouldn’t M0 then be called M1, since he’s the oldest one? Zero isn’t a number used to make chronologies.”

All of a sudden, the main hall was once again sent alight with a bloody crimson colouring, the eyes of all of the Ms, with the exception of M0, glowing in a quite threateningly way as they intently stared at Mizusaki.

“O-Okay… I guess I shouldn’t have said that…” stutteringly conceded Mizusaki as he gulped down hard and walked slightly further away from M3.

“M1,” called M0, giving a quick tug to the t-shirt that he had dressed. When M1 looked over in his direction, he shook his head softly and the red illuminating the room was swiftly turned off once again.

When the main hall returned to the same darkness as before, only the shine of the moon and the light of the humvees outside illuminating the necessary, all of the soldiers sighed in relief. It seemed it wouldn’t be at that moment that one of them would be killed by the Ms – most likely thanks to M0, yet again.

After a few more minutes went by, all six Ms were cleaned and clothed. Murayama cleared his throat loudly to gather the attention of everyone present. “Now that this little forced break to deal with other matters has ended, let’s move back to the contracts once again. M1, read the contracts by yourself and, if you truly approve of them like we soldiers do, sign the second one and let the other Ms sign it afterwards.”

“As I said, I don’t need to read them. I know that you didn’t lie when you read them out loud,” said M1 one more time, releasing a quick sigh. He took the two pieces of paper on his hands, given to him by Murayama, and readily moved to the last page, picking up the pen afterwards and writing his code name in the area designated for the contractors under Party A. He delivered the papers and the pen to M0, who was right beside him.

“Thank you,” acknowledged M0, picking up the contracts and readily signing them, also with his code name. He then passed the contract to M3, so on and so forth, until all of the targets had signed.

“Okay, next is our turn,” announced Murayama, once again receiving the two contracts and quickly signing the first page and then the second, delivering the first contract to Miue for him to also sign it. They quickly passed the contract among them until all 10 soldiers had put their names in the paper and, with it, had made their pledges to the contracts with the six Ms. “Very well, all of us are under a contract from here onwards until all of you are delivered to our higher-ups in the military base. You understand very well what will happen to you if you threaten us or misbehave in any way, right?”

“We do,” acknowledged M1, a smirk on his features as he looked over to the soldier. “Now we would appreciate it if we could move on from here. I believe we have some things to finish that can’t be done while we’re inside, isn’t that right?”

“…That’s true,” suspiciously answered Murayama, his eyes slightly narrowed as he closely observed M1. He could only wonder what exactly his twisted mind was planning right now to have said something like that. Murayama simply couldn’t help himself on thinking that everything that this M in particular said could have a hidden meaning – and that hidden meaning usually ended up with people dying, he had noticed too. “Kinjou, everything is ready to take them to the humvees, right?”

“Yeah, it is,” acknowledged Kinjou with a quick nod of his head. “From what Hisaka has said, we have enough space for everyone in the humvees, as long as one of us goes on the motorcycle. M2 is too big and he will easily use two-people worth of seat in the vehicles. I’ve already divided everyone through the four Humvees and the motorcycle, so all we have to do is board them and get the hell out of this illegal-lab-turned-slaughterhouse.”

“You heard the man! Let’s get out of here!” announced Murayama to everyone. He looked over to the group of Ms and gave them a quick jerk with his chin so they could start to move towards the doors. “You won’t need us to keep on pointing guns at you every single moment of this transfer, right?”

“No, it won’t be necessary,” acknowledged M1, once again holding M0’s hand as the six of them started to walk to the entrance of the lab by their own volution. He passed by Murayama, throwing him a quick glance, and then looked back to in front of him once again, a smirk on his lips. “We’ll stay well behaved due to being under contract. It doesn’t seem like we have any other choice on the matter, after all. Hehe…”

The group of soldiers and their targets walked towards the front outside area of the building, crossing the front glass doors that had been shattered with the previous explosion.

“M1,” suddenly called M0, giving a quick and soft squeeze to the hand he was holding. He slowly raised his free arm up and pointed to the sky with his index finger. “Is that what you called with the names ‘moon’ and ‘stars’?”

Every single soldier came to a halt and looked over in their direction, their mouths open ajar.

“It is, M0,” answered M1, softly smiling. He motioned his face closer to M0 and delivered a quick peck on his pale cheek, his smile widening even more afterwards. “What are your first thoughts about the moon and the stars?”

“Taking into consideration that the moon has a radius of 1,737 km…” started saying M0, his head slightly tilted while intently looking to the natural satellite in the sky. “It’s smaller than I thought it would be. The air outside is also much colder than I thought. M1, will the thing that you call with the name ‘sun’ be as bright as you told me… or will it be the same as the lights inside of the lab?”

“It’s much brighter than those lights,” explained M1, continuing to lovingly stare to M0 with a tender smile. “It will be so bright that you will get blind if you look at it directly. So please be careful when morning comes and don’t hurt your eyes by staring at it.”

“Okay,” acknowledged M0 with a soft nod of his head. The two of them continued walking, motioning over to the other companions who were closely observing them from further ahead, a satisfied expression on each of their faces.

The third and final thought that all soldiers shared that night, all at the same time, was: M0 had never stepped outside of that lab for 18 years, since the moment he opened his eyes as a newborn baby until this precise day.