As soon as the six targets’ feet touched the ground of the landing strip, they found themselves greeted by a human chain of soldiers, automatic rifles in their hands fully loaded and ready to fire at the smallest order from the group of older soldiers right behind them – apparently the ones that detained the highest positions in the hierarchy of that military base, the way they were surrounded by a second wall constituted of soldiers.

“Nice~ Things are getting good right from the start,” said M3, an excited expression on his features as his eyes scanned their surroundings. “Are all guests to your base greeted like this?”

“No, but all potentially deadly ‘guests’ are,” answered Kinjou, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose as a mischievous smirk appeared on his features. “But you don’t have to worry about getting a bullet stuck up in your ass for as long as you six stay well behaved. Though I can’t guarantee anything if you start acting all weird and scare the shit out of one of them.”

“And by weird, he means turning on the switch of your ‘light bulbs’,” added Mizusaki with a sing-song voice, his index finger pointing at his own eyes to fully exemplify what he meant by those words. “I’m used to it now but it was really creepy when I saw it the first couple of times.”

“I’m sure you want to give a good first impression to the top dogs of this base too, right?” asked Murayama, giving a pointed look to M1, the one that could be said to detain a position equivalent to his own. “So just stay quiet and only move to breathe while we deal with them.”

“I can see right away that the group we sent has been greatly reduced, Murayama,” said Nakatani Shuukyuu, the head general of Tokyo Military Base and only one step below the Minister of Defense when it came to governmental hierarchy. A soft smile could be found in his features as he passed in between two soldiers and walked towards Murayama. “The only thing about such a fact that makes me sigh in relief is that it was simply desertion and not death that made us suffer such a huge loss.”

“Yes, so am I, Sir,” acknowledged Murayama, giving a short nod with his head. He lifted his right hand and stretched his thumb, pointing back towards the group of targets that were likewise surrounded by a human wall made up of the two squads that had escorted them for nearly a full day now. “Has any decision regarding them been made?”

“No,” shortly answered Nakatani, shaking his head just the slightest. “We were waiting for your arrival so we could hear your and your squad’s intake on what happened during your mission. Every single detail of it, if possible.”

“My squad only?” asked Murayama, an eyebrow getting slightly perked up at hearing those words. “What about Kinjou’s?”

“Later on, we’ll also question them about certain things, but your squad has the priority in that regard,” explained Nakatani, putting on another soft smile in his features. When he switched his gaze from his subordinate to the small group of unknown males surrounded by the two squads, his smile widened a fraction for short seconds before he returned to the conversation with the commander. “We’d like you to take them to the main building of section 51 before you take your squad with you to the main office so we can talk with you one by one in private. Do you think more escorts will be necessary or are your and Kinjou’s squad enough to take on this last task?”

“We’ve been keeping an eye on them for long enough to know how to deal with them, for the most part,” said Murayama, releasing a soft sigh. “I think we can keep doing it for a couple more hours without having any blood spilt.”

“Perfect,” acknowledged Nakatani, nodding his head in agreement. “I'll be waiting for you five in the meeting room, then. Please don’t make me wait for very long, for I believe that time is an essential factor in regards to... these targets, in particular.”

“Yes, Sir!” readily saluted Murayama, the heels of his feet pressed tight against one another as he took the tips of his right hand’s fingers to his forehead, his body as straight as an arrow. He quickly turned around towards his squad and Kinjou’s as Nakatani returned to near the council members, all of them featuring unchanged serious demeanours on their faces. “You’ve heard our head general! Let’s take all six of them to the said location. Miue, Ikusaki, Eki and Mizusaki, you four will afterwards come with me to go have a quick talk, or so I hope, with Nakatani-san.”

“Yes, Sir!” acknowledged the four soldiers in unison, giving a quick nod with their heads. The five soldiers of the other squad simply nodded their heads with a sharp movement.

All of them quickly unstrapped their handguns from the correspondent holsters and readied themselves to shoot the targets at the smallest indications that something was about to go wrong and bloody. The human cord of soldiers was perforated to allow the two distinct groups – the capturers and the prisoners – to pass through, tension clear in the air.

“Gao~!” taunted M5, motioning his hands up in the air to form claws with his fingers and biting into the air with imaginary fangs as he passed by a completely pale soldier. The soldier immediately teetered in fear while taking a couple of quick steps backwards, his rifle pointed towards him.

“Murayama told you to behave, didn’t he!?” roared Miue, giving a quick kick to M5’s rear and breaking his balance just the slightest. The soldiers gave a collective gasp at the sight of such. “Stop giving them reasons to shoot you, you fucking idiot!”

When M5 turned his body around as quick as lightning, the soldiers readily withdrew their bodies even further away from the walking group, their grips tightening around the rifles.

“Sorry, Senpai~” apologized M5, a bright grin on his lips as he walked backwards in a leisure, almost child-like, manner. “They were so pathetic that I couldn’t help but tease them a little bit.”

“Because they truly are pathetic,” added M3, stretching his arms over his head and cracking his fingers. “I can smell their fear contaminating the whole area. Aren’t you supposed to be soldiers? I’ve been counting the seconds that’ll take some of them to piss themselves, to be honest.”

“That would be such a disgusting sight,” grumbled M4, twisting his nose around in disgust.

“Are we going to get food in area 51? Are we?” anxiously asked M2, lightly scratching his naked stomach with his fingers. “I’m hungry. I get annoyed when I’m hungry. I don’t want to be annoyed right now. So I can’t get hungry. I want food!”

“Please hold on for a little bit longer, M2,” softly said M0, a momentary soft smile on his thin lips. “It won’t take long until you get to eat as much as you want.”

“Really? Yay~” cheerfully acknowledged M2, a small trickle of saliva starting to overflow from the corner of his mouth again as he began fantasising about the next human treats that he would get to eat.

“M0,” softly called M1, his head motioning sideways to shorten the distance between his lips and M0’s ear. He then whispered, “I’ll leave how you go about it up to you but whichever approach you choose, someone will end up being killed by my hands. So choose wisely.”

“M1...” sighed M0, turning his face towards M1 while with a slight glint of disapproval in his eyes. “I already said that I—“

“Woof!” All of a sudden, a gigantic animalistic roar spread through the street the targets and the two squads where crossing as they motioned towards the assigned area.

“Argh, who the fuck let him run around free?” grumbled Ikusaki, rolling his eyes around in annoyance as he saw a certain someone running towards them as if a bullet released from a pistol.

“Woof! Woof!” barked once again a humongous German Shepherd, its tongue sticking out from in between two sets of large and pointy white fangs as it furiously ran towards the group. “Woof!”

“Aww~ Look who came to greet us ‘welcome back’,” amusingly said Mizusaki, snickering softly as he sideways glanced to Ikusaki. He knew how annoyed Ikusaki would get every time the squad’s military working dog was around - though he still hadn’t managed to figure out where that annoyance came from.

The squad was already expecting for their military working dog to jump at one of their members. However, surprise of all surprises, the body being heavily pinned to the ground wasn’t any of theirs, but M0’s, the paws of the gigantic dog pressed tight against his chest as its slippery tongue ran across the entirety of his pale features.

“Woof,” softly whined the dog, showering M0 afterwards with even more licks and soft, playful rubs of its muzzle on his face. M0’s hands softly closed on top of its torso, his fingers lightly patting its fur.

“Ahahaha!” softly laughed M0, moving his head around against the floor to try to escape that wet and warm strip running around his face. “T-That tickles. Whatever you are, p-please stop. Ahahaha.”

It seems that M0 is unconditionally loved by both super soldiers and animals, sighed Murayama in the back of his head, a soft smile on his lips as he observed the cute show being displayed right before his eyes.

“Shinigami, sit!” commanded Murayama, giving a quick clap with his hands to grab the attention of the military working dog.

Those words, however, changed completely the atmosphere around them.

“Grrrrr!” growled M1 in a nearly animalistic fashion, his arms ripping M0 from underneath the large dog and immediately wrapping around his body as they remained in a low position on the ground. His grey eyes threateningly shone crimson red in the daylight, the scariest glare ever displayed deep within them.

But it didn’t end there. The other four targets quickly positioned themselves in front of M0 and M1, all of their eyes featuring their characteristic red glow as they almost bored holes through the group of soldiers with the intensity of their glares, bodies fully ready to attack any of them at any moment.

“Hey, hey! Calm down, okay?” tried to soothe down Murayama, taking a step backwards at the same time as the other soldiers while lifting his hands in the air to show that he had absolutely no ill intentions towards M0, for whatever reason they might have come to think that he did so. “I was only telling Shinigami, our dog, to get out of on top of M0.”

“Say that name one more time and I’ll kill you!” warned M1, his eyes shining even more intensely as he protectively held M0 against his chest. “I’ll kill anyone who says that name out loud again!”

“Huh...?” interjected Murayama, an eyebrow getting slightly arched on his brows as he got completely lost on what was happening right now. “You mean Shiniga—“

“Be. Quiet. Now!” hissed M1, spewing those words with such venom and wrath that Murayama had the feeling that him alone could end up causing all of those inside of the military base to be killed in a matter of seconds.

Murayama had absolutely no idea what exactly about that name had angered M1 so much and forced the other four to act outright protective towards him and M0, but it was something that he would not repeat in the near future for as long as he wasn’t aware of the reason behind it.

Maybe, to them, a Shinigami - a grim reaper - had a special meaning or it could be some sort of alias to some sort of matter related to the lab or ‘The Union’. It could even be as simple as the usual, human, meaning of Shinigami. It was weird, however, that it didn’t seem to have affected M0 in the slightest, who simply remained in M1’s embrace without saying or doing anything.

“Okay, fine. We won’t say that name again while around you and we’ll try to keep... ah, our dog away from you to avoid this type of situation from happening once again,” conceded Murayama, releasing a soft sigh. “Can we resume with our, the soldiers, task or are you going to kill us? Decide quickly because I far prefer to die than to make our general wait for longer than necessary. Our paycheck and days off depend on our performance during missions, you know?”

“M1,” softly called M0, shaking his head in denial just the slightest when M1 looked over in his direction. “It’s okay. Don’t worry.”

“It’s not okay!” readily said M1, his glowing red orbs softening their furious intensity a little bit. “How can it be okay when they just said that terrible name!? Tsk! Putting such a stupid name on that thing is surely something that only disgusting humans would think of!”

The large German Shepherd growled softly as if it had been offended by M1’s words, as if it knew who those words were being directed at.

“Please calm down, M1. It’s just a name and it’s not even meant in such a sense,” pointed out M0, his semblance completely calm and passive in contrast with the other five targets. “You obviously won’t kill anyone because of such a small matter, right?”

“If that’s what you want me to do, then I will,” readily answered M1, hugging M0 with an extremely tight embrace. “I don’t want you around anyone, human or animal, that could feature or house such a disgusting name.”

“Are you sure you want to put it like that?” asked M0, ruefully smiling at M1 - who simply opened his mouth to answer but with absolutely no sound attached to said movement. “Let’s just forget about this incident, okay?”

“Nn,” shortly acknowledged M1 at the same time as he gave a small nod with his head, his facial expression nearly resembling that of a broken-hearted man.

“We can continue now, Murayama-san,” announced M0, motioning up from the ground at the same time as M1. The ready-for-battle stances of the other four quickly reverted to leisure ones.

“O-Okay...” acknowledged Murayama, his grip on his handgun softening just a fraction as he remained deeply suspicious over the targets’ behaviour.

It seemed that M0 had spared their lives, as well as countless others, yet again.