“The request number 35 is strawberry parfait with chocolate dressing and a waffle cookie~” happily announced M2, his eyes unmoving from the cell phone being carefully held in his hands. The screen featured one more episode of a pastry cooking show that he had been attentively watching for two hours now.

“Y-Yes,” awkwardly acknowledged Eki, writing down the target’s request on the driver’s, James, cell phone so that none of the never-ending requests would be forgotten amid their large quantity. He had received information from the first humvee that all of the targets possessed a far superior memorization ability compared to regular humans and Eki didn’t want to put that in question if it was to bring about trouble later on.

Releasing a soft sigh, Eki looked outside of the window, to the wing mirror on his side, and intently observed the large body of the target - he was all crouched down on the back seat, his stomach laid down on the cushioned seat which had been previously used to carry their weapons. It still did, if they were to look at it from a different point of view, but those weapons had been exchanged for a far deadlier one three hours previously. His legs waved slightly in the air as he fixedly stared to the screen that partially illuminated his features. It had been a bit troublesome to explain from scratch how to use the video viewing application, seeing as M2 hadn’t had any previous interactions with cell phones or a touch screen, but he quickly learned how to work with it and had been using it all by himself for a while now, jumping from video to video as soon as they ended.

“…” Turning his body around so he could look over to M2 directly after silently observing him for a couple of minutes through the mirror, Eki decided that he should use the chance when the target was in a good mood to inquire him about some questions that had been bugging him. “M2, do you mind if I ask you something?”

“Hmm~” hummed M2 in acknowledgement, not paying all that much attention to the two soldiers and solemnly focusing on the curious and fascinating recipes being prepared on the little device’s screen.

“What exactly is that thing that you have written on your back?” asked Eki, an eyebrow slightly arched as he intently gazed to the weird-looking black mark tattooed in the middle of M2’s lower back, very close to his coccyx. “I noticed that some of the other Ms also have something similar in their bodies when you were all getting cleaned up and dressed.”

“Ah… Those are our serial numbers. Or code names, whatever you want to call them,” explained M2. “It’s the proof that we have been acknowledged as perfect, full-fledged super soldiers. All super soldiers have their serial number marked somewhere in their bodies, though it changes on location and type depending on what kind of super soldier they are.”

“So there are more of you out there?” asked James, peering over to the target by using the rear-view mirror as a medium.

“Do you think that you humans aren’t greedy enough to want to have more of something if it benefits them in some way?” pointed out M2, taking a glance to the front side of the vehicle and then returning it to the cell phone. “There are dozens of us out there, some already sold off and placed in several organizations, others infiltrated in this or that country’s army. Though most of us are usually kept locked inside of the labs until the scientists deem that we are ready to be released.”

“…”

It seemed that the current situation was far worse than what they had initially thought and Murayama, too, would reach that conclusion once he heard of this. If there were a lot more of clandestine labs creating so-called ‘super soldiers’, then it was extremely urgent to take them down the soonest possible, to prevent them from releasing more of the mass destruction human weapons. While trying to completely annihilate the secret organization, ‘The Union’, responsible for their existence in the first place, of course.

If any of the rebel armies or anti-governmental groups has, for some sort of twisted fate, gotten a hold of any of these human weapons, they would surely be able to cause severe damage to the Japanese army or any of its allies. Not to mention, be able to completely and very easily wipe out an entire area occupied by civilians only.

If the military doesn’t stop this the soonest it can, then Japan really will be dyed in red for all eternity, inwardly voiced Eki, feeling anger bottling up inside of the pits of his stomach. Though he might have lived most of his life in Germany, Japan was still his birth country and it had been to protect it and its people during the most crucial moments of this world-spread war that he and Ikusaki had accepted to return to Japan, alongside Murayama, to form their current squad.

Releasing a soft sigh, Eki returned his gaze to M2’s relaxed semblance, who was once again chewing and munching at an empty package of one of the energy bars while closely watching the cooking show – it seemed that munching on plastic wraps was a vice that this target had acquired after years and years of isolation on such a messed up containment cell, deprived of normal food (or any type of food, even).

“Ah… Now that I think about it,” suddenly said Eki after taking another glance to the tattoo in M2’s back. “I don’t remember seeing any serial number on M0 and M5’s was placed on his right upper arm, not on his lower back like the rest of you.”

“That’s because M5 wasn’t initially supposed to be M5,” explained M2 after having taken the plastic wrap out of his mouth, a thin thread of drool breaking in two when he removed it from there.

“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?” inquired James, a surprised look on his face even though he was frowning.

“The code name ‘M5’ was supposed to go to someone else, to another of us that has achieved the title of ‘super soldier’,” started explaining M2. “But some annoying things happened and M5 was selected to become M5. That’s why he came from a different lab from us. His serial number was placed in a different place because he was on what’s called a ‘probation period’ for a couple of months before officially becoming M5. Though it’s more than obvious that he didn’t enjoy it when something was stolen from him for the first time ever, instead of him doing the stealing.”

“Ah…” hesitantly acknowledged Eki, not fully understanding what the target was talking about. He gave a quick glance to James and saw him shrugging his shoulders, silently informing him that he was just as lost as him. “Then… What about M0? M1 said that chronologically speaking, he’s the oldest out of all of you. Why doesn’t he have any serial number on him then?”

“He has a serial number on his body, like all of us,” answered M2, fully departing his eyes from the device on his hands for the first time in hours and looking over in Eki’s direction. “His serial number is in the back of his neck.”

“Why the different location?” asked James, raising his eyes from the road to take a peek to the backseat through the rear-view mirror once again.

“The skin in the back of one’s neck doesn’t stretch and expand as much as the skin in other parts of the body while growing up,” explained M2, a shadow of anger appearing in his usually uninterested eyes. “M0 was declared as M0 as soon as he was ‘born’, whether he would really gain that title once he grew up or not.”

“Why as soon as he was born?” asked further Eki, the frown on his face darkening even more. “You have been used in experiments since children, yes, but I haven’t heard anything about you having being born inside of the lab.”

“Well… They are a different case from the rest of us. After all, M1 and M0 were—“ continued explaining M2 but he came to a sudden and unexpected halt to his own words without any reason to. “I’m sorry. I’ll shut up now.”

“Um… M2?” called Eki, now definitely lost in his last exchange of words. However, M2 didn’t answer him back and simply silently returned to look to the cell phone’s screen, where the cooking show was once again playing.

The target known as M2 didn’t say any more words throughout the remaining hours of travel back to the airport, not even to make more requests on the new dishes that he had learned through the cooking shows… or even to complain about the lack of energy bars or anything edible.