In humvee number two, the 6-hour long ride was being performed in total silence. The three soldiers boarding the vehicle kept a close watch on M3 as he continued completely motionless while on a sitting position - his eyes were closed and his arms had been crossed over his chest. None of them was exactly sure of what he was doing but they supposed he was sleeping. That suited their interests more than enough since it meant that no other door would be ripped out of its hinges.

Ikusaki every so often departed his eyes from the target to look to his right, the place where the door was missing, so he could certify himself that he was at a safe distance and would not end up falling off of the humvee and possibly get himself in a pretty bad shape, taking into consideration the vehicle’s speed. However, he couldn’t exactly move closer to M3, seeing as he had absolutely no idea if he would have the same reaction as M1 when it came to touching one of the Ms – he could very easily send him flying out of the humvee by pushing him off through the broken door and that would most likely guarantee him a one-way ticket to an early grave. Ikusaki was ready to die while performing a mission but it would be far too ridiculous to be killed in that sort of way.

“Ikusaki, be careful,” warned Kinjou, his eyes unmoving from the incoming shift on the road. “This part of the road is extremely bump—“

“Woah!” yelped Ikusaki when the tires of the humvee ran over a large rock and made the whole vehicle sway violently. His hands slipped out of their hold to the shoulders of the seat in front of him and his body started leaning over in the direction of the missing door. When his body was fully motioning over in the hole’s direction due to the momentum of the swaying, Ikusaki felt an unexpected tug to his upper clothes and his whole body was pulled back to the inside of the vehicle once again.

“No falling off of the ‘humvee’ or you soldier guys would have an excuse to kill us off by putting blame on me for it,” casually said M3, releasing the soldier’s jacket and then crossing his arms over his chest once again.

“W-Weren’t you supposed to be sleeping?” asked Ikusaki, his heart thundering against his ribcage due to that extremely close call. He didn’t want to feel thankful towards their target, seeing as he only stopped his fall to save his own skin, but he couldn’t help but feel less on guard not only towards M3 but also the other five (with, maybe, the exception of M1).

“M1 already informed Murayama Yamase about it, but we don’t sleep,” shortly answered M3 after releasing a large yawn.

“Weren’t you sleeping when we entered inside of your cell, though?” asked further Hisaka, an eyebrow slightly arched as he took a peek to the backseats by turning his upper body around. “You didn’t answer us at first and when you did, you sounded really grumpy. Like we just woke you up or some shit like that.”

“I wasn’t sleeping. We don’t need to sleep and I don’t remember the last time I did it,” answered M3 with a quick shrug of his shoulders. “I probably don’t do it since I was selected as one of the test subjects for those fucking assholes.”

“…”

“Hey,” called Ikusaki after all four occupants of the vehicle went through another extended wave of total silence. “What exactly did you guys meant with what you said earlier? About you not having been born in the same way as us.”

“…” M3 switched his dark blue eyes in the soldier’s direction and kept sideways glancing at him for a couple of seconds. Since M1 was disclosing information to the two soldiers inside of their correspondent humvee, not to mention that they would get to have access to all of the information that the only surviving ‘worker’ of the lab had been left in charge of, he figured that it wasn’t going to matter whether they got to know about it now or later on. “If you are asking if we were ‘given birth to’ by a ‘mother’ after procreating with a ‘father’, then yes, some of us were born that way.”

“Some?” repeated Kinjou, a frown appearing on his brows as he looked over to M3 by glancing to the rear mirror. “What do you mean by ‘some’? All humans need a mother and a father, or they wouldn’t exist. And they would obviously have to be given birth to too.”

“And we do know that you were once humans, just like us,” added Hisaka, his body shifting around against his seat so he could look to M3 in a less painful way. “You were brought to that lab and used in experiments to create super soldiers. Which was clearly what they obtained with you six.”

“That’s why I said that you’re really quick at taking conclusions,” grumbled M3, his eyes rolling around in annoyance. “Yeah, we have been used as test subjects since kids. I know I have a ‘father’ and a ‘mother’ but I don’t remember them at all. I also know that I was ‘given birth’ to by my so-called ‘mother’. The same happened to the other four. But one of us never had any of that.”

“Are you perhaps referring to M0?” asked Kinjou, starting to connect all of the dots about each one of their target’s codenames. “M1 said he was the oldest in your age, but not in terms of human age. Is M0 the original test subject of the experiments on super soldiers and all of you were later on modified to mimic or improve the results they obtained with him?”

“I don’t think either M1 or M0 would want me to touch that matter in particular,” answered M3, stretching his arms over his head while yawning once again. “They don’t think alike at all and are two, but at the same time, they are one.”

“Huh?” interjected all three soldiers in unison, completely lost on what exactly M3 was talking about.

“If you want to get any piece of information on M0, you’ll have to ask M1 for permission,” added M3, settling the back of his head on his seat and switching his eyes to the vehicle riding in front of the humvee he was boarding. “However, whatever it is that you find out if he lets you access those documents, it won’t change any of the things we have fixed. None of us will return to a lab and we will never allow M0 to be closed off ever again, especially now that he’s finally free. You will have to kill us and completely eliminate our corpses if you want to touch even a single hair in M0’s head with those fucking ideas in your fucking brains.”

“…!” Once again, all three soldiers shuddered at hearing those words, the inside of the humvee getting illuminated for brief seconds with a crimson red light.

“But no way in hell that would ever happen,” proceeded M3, the red light disappearing from his eyes when he closed them and crossed his arms over his chest once again. “It would take precisely 0.45 seconds for us to eliminate all of you and 13 minutes to completely destroy the base you are taking us to. Even if you might have the small chance of making a scratch on M5 or M4, you wouldn’t be able to get even a meter close to me without losing an arm or your head. The same can be said about M1 and M2. As such… M0 is forever free.”

“…Why do you care so much about M0 when you never talked with him before this night?” unconsciously blurted Ikusaki, his eyes unmoving from M3’s resting form.

“He’s my most important person,” answered M3, a soft grin appearing on his features even while maintaining his eyes closed. “He’s our most important person. He wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for us, but then again, we wouldn’t be here either if his ‘shadow’ hadn’t been cast on us and made us even brighter. Even if I only met him personally tonight, he’s the one person who I wouldn’t mind killing the whole world or die for. The others share the same opinion. M1 more than me, actually.”

Since Iru would even destroy the whole universe if that meant keeping Rei forever by his side.

“I think you humans have a name for it… Hmm…” started thinking M3 out loud, his throat releasing a soft humming sound while he searched around his brain for the correct word. “Oh! ‘Best friends’, I guess. M0 and I have been ‘best friends’ from the moment his ‘shadow’ touched me.”

“If you and M0 are best friends… then what exactly is M1 and M0’s relationship?” decided to ask Kinjou, finally voicing out the one million dollar question that has been occupying every soldiers’ mind since they saw the way the two of them behaved around each other.

“Hah! Are you stupid or what?” taunted M3 after a short laugh. He reopened his eyes and a sly smirk popped up in his features, his eyes displaying a glint that illuminated them without releasing their characteristic crimson red light. “I’ve been telling you about it right from the start. It’s more than obvious that they are one. It’s basic math. One plus zero can only ever be one. Even if they are two, they are still one. And nothing can ever change that… not even them.”