After softly closing the door behind himself, Murayama released a heavy sigh and allowed his hands to run through his hair. He surely would love to go back to his quarters, take a long shower and then go to sleep – even as a soldier, abstaining himself from sleep for almost 48 hours would considerably drain his strength and brain capacity. And that was something that he couldn’t afford at the moment, with so many unanswered questions and possible problematic mysteries happening inside of the military base which he could only call home.

Dropping his hands to the side of his body while heaving another sigh, Murayama turned around on his heels. As he did so, however, his heart almost leapt out of his chest through his mouth at the mysterious shadow intently looking over in his direction. “Jesus fucking Christ...!”

“...”

“What are you doing here, M0?” asked Murayama, his heart thundering inside of his ribcage as he tried to calm himself down from one more huge scare performed by M0. “Wait... How are you here? You’re supposed to be locked in the main building of area 51 righ—“

Out of nowhere, M0’s body was placed right in front of Murayama, one of his legs motioning forward to kick the soldier’s and break his balance. An alarm immediately resounded deep inside of his brain and Murayama quickly went for the handgun strapped on his waist while taking a hold of M0’s clothes, which caused the two of them to stumble down onto the floor. As he was about to point the handgun directly towards M0’s head, his wrist was swiftly gripped and his hand was pushed against the floor over their heads, the weapon flying out of his grasp at the impact.

“What do you think you’re do— Mmhm!” started yelling Murayama, his free hand tightly closing around one of M0’s scrawny upper arms. However, his admonishments were swallowed when a pair of soft lips came crashing against his. Gently, M0 gave a tentative nibble to his lower lip, cruelly biting down on it afterwards and tearing the sensitive flesh with his front teeth. “Ngh...!”

As if to apologize for the previous aggressiveness, M0 slowly lapped his tongue over the open wound, gently cleaning the blood dripping out of the cut before he gave a quick suckle at the tore flesh and the warm red liquid oozing out.

“Ngh!!” Murayama’s eyes opened wide in shock at what was happening. He readily gripped even more strongly at M0’s arm and gave a quick upward push to the arm being restricted above his head, putting as much strength in his motions as he could. Luckily, Murayama was able to invert their position and roll their bodies around on the floor with said motions. The moment M0’s back hit the floor and he stood above his laid down body, Murayama hissed at him, his breathing rhythm just slightly affected by the kiss and the incomprehension of what the heck was happening. “What exactly do you think you’re doing, M0!?”

“...” With his eyes unmoving from Murayama’s, M0 slowly licked his lips and cleaned the blood smudging his mouth. “One and a half... No, maybe close to two years old... Almost 40%...”

“Huh?” interjected Murayama, a deep frown on his features at the first words he was hearing M0 say since he mysteriously managed to escape the locked room where the targets were supposedly being kept.

“How much do you trust your superiors and the Japanese military organization?” asked M0, tilting his head against the floor as he remained completely motionless underneath Murayama. When he saw the frown on the soldier’s face get even more accentuated, a small smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. “You’re no longer only human. Your human side barely reaches 60%. And your squad members are most likely the same, though probably with different values.”

“...What?”

-.-

“YES!!” yelled M5 all of a sudden, his body jumping upward from the sitting position he had always been in. He lunged his arms high in the air and strongly closed his hands into two fists, as he continued to happily scream. “Just... Yes!!!”

“Eh~” softly mumbled M3, settling his elbow on top of one of his knees as he rested his chin on the back of his hand, an amused and extremely pleased glint of his eyes. “Things couldn’t get more interesting than this...”

“Hmph!” M4 quickly adjusted his glasses and turned his head away from the soldiers that were observing their actions with completely flabbergasted expressions, not understanding in the least what was happening. The hint of a pleased smile remained on his lips.

“As long as I still get my food...” said M2, giving a quick shrug with his shoulders as he continuously munched on his thumb.

“...” Slowly, M1 released Kinjou’s arm, who had been continuously kept against the wall with a half aggressive arm lock. Then he disappeared from behind Kinjou, only to pop up all of a sudden in front of the closed door.

The soldiers didn’t even have time to blink before the door was ripped out of its hinges and thrown to the other side of the room. M1 disappeared from sight and from that room.

-.-

“What do you mean, we’re no longer only humans?” asked Murayama, a deep frown on his brows as he intently glared down at M0 from his above position.

“Your blood is a mixture of human blood and super soldier blood,” explained M0, a completely passive expression on his face. “That’s why you smell weird to me. You’re not human, but you’re also not super soldiers like we are. You’re currently on top of the thin line that separates the two sides, not being one while not entirely being the other either.”

“There’s no way that’s possible!” roared Murayama, his hands tightly closing around M0’s small shoulders to make sure that he wouldn’t try anything else any time soon. “I’ve never been experimented on in my whole life. I’ve never participated in drug trials or medical studies either. My parents are also ordinary humans. The rest of my squad is the same as me too!”

“That’s why I asked you how much do you trust your superiors and the Japanese military organization,” calmly said M0. “Do you think that there aren’t methods to transform a human into a more basic version of super soldiers without them even noticing what is happening to them?”

“...!”

“I’m happy to know that you now understand what you are,” continued M0, a soft smile on his lips as he stared straight at Murayama’s eyes. “Denying what you are is not good, but never knowing what you truly are is even worse. And... part of me is happy to know that, after all, I myself am not all that different from you five, even if only in a small physical sense.”

“...” Murayama closely observed the pleased expression on M0’s features, his brain still trying to process the shocking news - news which he was still deeply trying to deny with all of his being. “What proofs do you have to say we’re not fully human?”

“If you don’t believe my words, then you can do a simple blood analysis by comparing a sample of your blood with mine or any of the other Ms,” shortly explained M0, giving a quick shrug with his restrained shoulders. “You’ll quickly discover the similarities still masked in your DNA makeup if you pay close attention to it and know where you should look at.”

“And how exactly did you figure out what we... are?” asked further Murayama, a soft suspicious glint in his eyes being added to his frown.

“When I tasted your blood, I knew right away what you are,” explained M0. “My brain was going around and around as I tried to figure out what was the exact truth but I couldn’t reach any concrete conclusion. That’s why I had to taste the blood of one of you to get the answers that I was seeking. I was thinking of using Ikusaki-kun as the test subject but... I think M1 would kill him if I did so. I apologize if it hurt.”

“So it’s okay for me to be killed by M1, but not Ikusaki?” grudgingly mumbled Murayama, a pained tinge of jealousy hitting the insides of his chest. It really irked him the fact that he had not been the first choice, but the second one – one meant to protect another member of his squad but not meant to take any security measures when it came to his own life.

“M1 won’t ever try to kill you, Murayama-san,” said M0, chuckling softly at the displeasure written all over Murayama’s facial expression. “You’re the one closest to hold the same title as him. So, in his own way, he respects you. He’s just... um... sulking?”

“He’s got a quite evil and deadly way of sulking, then,” sighed Murayama, releasing M0’s shoulders and motioning his upper body to a sitting position on top of his body. He then rotated his body around and settled himself on the floor, sitting beside M0 as he continued laid down on the floor – though his semblance seemed much more relaxed now than when he was being pinned down.

“Everybody has their own ways of expressing displeasure and anger towards a situation,” pointed out M0, his eyes staring into the ceiling. “I can’t say much for humans but... M5 says that I’m scarier than M1 when I’m angry.”

“Pfft...! Yeah, right,” laughed off Murayama, rolling his eyes around at M0’s words and the completely expressionless demeanour present on his features as he said them. “I don’t think there’s anything in this world scarier than the way he glares daggers at others with his glowing red eyes.”

“You’re mistaken, Murayama-san,” interrupted M0, closing his eyes momentarily. “There are things far scarier than M1 in this world. I’m one of them... I’m far scarier, far deadlier, and far dirtier than any of the other Ms. Not that it matters. I have M1 and... I share with him everything that I am.”

“...M0?” called Murayama, fully turning his head towards him. He found the floor empty, however. When he quickly skirted his surroundings with his eyes in search for M0’s location, he found him in front of the door opposite to the one where he had come out from a couple of minutes ago. The door that would enable M0 an escape from that restricted area of the main office of Tokyo military base.

“There’s one last thing that I want to relay to you before I return to my own,” said M0, his back turned towards Murayama. “Two other super soldiers are staying in this military base. One of them isn’t an M and both of them weren’t taken out of the lab last night. Were you aware of that?”

“...No... We only found out that super soldiers exist last night when we received the full report on what exactly our mission consisted of,” answered Murayama, all of his previous suspicions and unanswered questions returning at full blast to his brain.

“I see,” acknowledged M0, motioning his hand forward to the knob of the door – which he now fully understood how to open without resorting to any form of damage to the entrance – but his movements came to a halt when Murayama’s voice resounded once again.

“M0, can you keep the fact that my squad isn’t fully human a secret for now?” requested Murayama, a serious demeanour on his face as he looked straight at M0’s back.

“That would be impossible,” answered M0, peering over his shoulder at Murayama. “All of the Ms have heard this conversation. It’s no longer a secret.”

“Then keep this information only between the Ms and me,” added Murayama, his gaze tightening just the slightest to form thin slits. “If you tell them to keep it a secret, then they will comply with your choice of keeping it as such, won’t they?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” acknowledged M0, disappearing from Murayama’s sight as soon as his sentence was finished. Murayama could have sworn that he didn’t even hear or see the door opening and closing to provide an escape route.

“...This is turning out to be an even more troublesome mess than I thought it would be...” mumbled Murayama, dropping his hands down to the floor and taking a deep breath, his eyes staring away to the ceiling. He snorted, “What do you mean, we’re not fully human? Way to ruin someone’s life...”

Silence settled itself on the room, only a soft muffled thud echoing through its emptiness when Murayama’s body slumped down on the floor, his hands tightly pressed against his face as he released a deep and exasperated sigh.

“Fuck... I must be more tired than I thought...” groaned Murayama, softly bumping the back of his head against the naked, cold floor. “Because otherwise, there’s no way that an 18 years old brat who probably doesn’t even know what a boner is has just made me pop up one...”