“Shit… Now, out of all times?” cursed Murayama, loudly clicking his tongue. His voice almost couldn’t be heard by his own ears due to the loud alarm still ringing inside of the auditorium. He threw a quick glance at the seven super soldiers, quietly standing in the centre of the round stage area, and started to redirect his gaze back to his squad members. “Mizusa—“

“I’m already on it,” acknowledged Mizusaki before their commander could even finish saying his name, his cell phone already out in the open as he fiddled with the information channels he had exclusive access to.

“Miue, Eki, Ikusaki,” called Murayama next after nodding at Mizusaki in acknowledgement.

“Who do you think we are?” said Miue, a deep frown on his brows as he took his handgun from the holster, both Ikusaki and Eki already jumping over the small wooden railing in between the front seats and the central stage.

“Okay, what have you assholes done this time?” barked Ikusaki, his handgun in front of his body as he cautiously walked over to the group. A deep frown also showed in his features. “Out with it!”

“Eh~ We’re innocent~” said Atsumu, a taunting smirk stretching the corner of his lips as he tilted his head in a thinking manner. “We haven’t done anything at all~”

“Liar,” growled Miue, walking over to near the two younger squad members together with Murayama. “You, Mitaru, Iru and… M0 were unsupervised for a while. Mitsu’s the same, too. Who knows what kind of shit you were up to during that time!?”

“Kanna-chan can vouch for my innocence since I was with her pretty much the whole day and night,” announced Mitsu, winking her eye at the sitting area of the auditorium where the female soldier and her companions had been observing from. “And as you can easily guess, I hadn’t seen any of them for a long time. My only contact with them since they were taken out of the lab was the message that Acchan sent me last night.”

“That still doesn’t give any alibi to the other four,” pointed out Murayama, also on his guard even though his handgun remained inside of its holster. “I think we all know you well enough by now to easily link this sudden attack to your messed up ploys and evil schemes.”

“Why would we purposely attack or lead an attack to our new home?” argued back M0, Iru neatly adjusting the headphones over his ears as he sought to know if they were still needed or not. “We knew they were coming, though.”

“Why didn’t you saying anything then!?” admonished Murayama, rolling his eyes around as he tiredly slapped his hand on his face. “Knowing of an incoming attack and not doing anything about it is the same as helping the perpetrators of the attack!”

“You didn’t ask,” shortly answered M0 and Iru at the same time, the former expressionlessly looking at Murayama while the latter simply mischievously smirked at the squad while hugging M0 from behind.

“My only regret right now is that we don’t have the luxury of wasting time smacking the shit out of you, as Miue really would like to put it,” sighed Murayama, inwardly counting very slowly to calm down his anger towards the nasty and manipulative ways of the super soldiers. “However, expect to experience future repercussions because of this little stunt that you’re pulling. We’re not as forgiving as to let our own get hurt because of stupid shit like this. You’re the same, right?”

“That’s so self-contradictory coming from you humans, when this war is more in between your kind than against ours,” scoffed Azuma, a disgusted look on his face as he looked over to the squad. “We’re a product of your nasty ways and yet you still dare to blame us for a death threat which we had no direct involvement at? You can’t get any more hypocritical than this.”

“Yeah, he’s right, Murayama-san,” said Mizusaki out of the blue, slowly walking to meet with the group while his eyes remained stuck to the screen of his cell phone. “The ones attacking us are a bunch of squads, from what I can gather, from Russia.”

“Russia?” repeated Nakatani, who had moved out of his upper seat in the auditorium and was now giving a short run towards the soldiers and super soldiers. “Russia was attacked yesterday and all international travelling was halted. And as far as I know, there haven’t been any Russian troops in Japanese territory for months now. They shouldn’t be here, much less attacking us.”

“Sakhalin is just 40km away from Hokkaido,” suddenly spoke Mitsu, her work mode activated when the playful demeanour on her face changed to that of a serious and business-like woman – the usual Mitsu that everyone in the military base was acquainted with. “With the appropriate sailing equipment, they could have easily travelled until one of the ports or beaches of Niigata or Ishikawa in a couple of hours. The rest of the travel would be made on the road, probably by using civilian vehicles or some sort of coverage to mask the tracking of their movements.”

“Because of the de facto maritime boundaries with Russia, they have the authorization to sail in the seas so, of course, we wouldn’t really pay all that much attention to a Russian ship, whichever type it would be,” acknowledged Nakatani, softly nodding his head at Mitsu’s explanation.

“It still doesn’t justify an attack from them to us, though,” pointed out Miue, twisting his nose just the slightest as he really wasn’t liking where this was going. “They were attacked, yes, but it doesn’t have anything to do with us. We’ve been well behaved in the last couple of months.”

“Technically, you haven’t,” sighed Mitsu, throwing a quick glance at her friends. Atsumu was leisurely shrugging his shoulders at her and Mitaru didn’t display any reaction other than a stifled yawn. “The plane that went to get them from the lab and then came back here to Tokyo was flying despite the warnings sent. Yes, the satellites weren’t working properly because of the bombs, but that only makes it even worse. You know how paranoid the higher-ups and the government can get after a bomb attack. They might have caught the airplane flying in Tokyo’s direction and due to its size, they may have misunderstood it as the aircraft that could have held the bombs before the attack. It’s your fault for proceeding with the ‘shipment’ even with all the alerts hitting up the communication devices.”

“We didn’t have any other choice than to do it,” tried to reason out Nakatani, a small dissatisfied frown showing on his features. “If we didn’t carry out the infiltration and elimination of the lab when we did, we would lose our chance to make a move and who knows when the next chance would have arisen. You should know that better than anyone, Mitsu, if you aided them with their plans all along.”

“Choices aren’t a closed road,” softly spoke M0, his head slightly tilted as he observed the three-way conversation. “All choices have two ends, several diversions and hidden roads. You make up your mind, act according to it and then solve any problem that those actions bring forward. You call us machines but those were the words that we have been told to act upon. We make our own decisions and then put them in motion. If something goes wrong and any unexpected additions are made to our plans, we shift them around according to our needs and goals. Isn’t that the best procedure when it comes to surviving? Isn’t that always the key to solve problems and setbacks?”

“Ahh~ As expected of M0~” squealed Mitsu, slapping her hands against her cheeks and wiggling her body around as she looked over at M0 with lovestruck eyes.

“But the only choice we have right now is to fight,” said Murayama, a suspicious frown on his features as he looked to M0 and all the other super soldiers. “Of course we can choose to stay put and be killed but like hell we would let them have their way! War is kill or be killed and if we are killed, then Japan is bye-bye. I guess that’s a type of responsibility that you aren’t acquainted with.”

“We are,” shortly acknowledged M0 with a small nod of his head. “For us, failure means death. If we lose or aren’t able to bring results forward, then we are thrown away and killed. It’s not the war that it’s kill or be killed. Living is. And death can be applied in more than one way. Just like fighting can. You simply need to see everything around you as a choice.”

“…” Silently, Murayama exchanged a long glance with the older general, both of them potentially thinking the same way after having heard M0’s words.

After the punching incident between Miue and Atsumu, M0 had said that he had been the one to kill all of the super soldiers that had been deemed as failures by the labs. As they were doing their short introductions to the general and the other soldiers, he had also been the only one to not have ridiculous amounts of human deaths on his hands but the number had been tilted to super soldier kills, which none of the other Ms had displayed. Their lives had been moulded to withstand war from the very beginning but maybe it had been a far crueller world than what regular soldiers were used to.

War was never kind but to mercilessly kill simply because of the label of failure, to kill those exactly like him because they didn’t meet the expectations of the scientists and whoever was responsible for it… should be akin to daily torture to one’s mind.

M5 and M1 hate humans down to the core, M4 and M2 simply view us as things that can quench their desires and M3 sees us as stepping stones in his path, inwardly said Murayama, his eyes turning into thin slits as he closely observed the group. They all seem crazy with their words and actions but, deep down, they hold reason and logic to what they do. M0 sounds like the sanest of them all when speaking but… I have the feeling I was wrong when I concluded that M1 is the most dangerous and unstable of them all. 18 years old locked in a basement, 18 years killing those of the same kind for absurd reasons, 18 years being tested and used to become a mass murder machi—

“I’m 18 years old in human age and 18 years and 5 months in super soldier age.”

“…Eh…?” softly interjected Murayama, his mouth slowly starting to go wide open as he reached yet another discrepancy in the things that M0 said.

“This may be unbecoming of us since we haven’t officially settled down anything and all we have is a verbal agreement,” started Nakatani, turning his body slightly around so he could directly face the group of super soldiers. “But won’t you provide us with some aid to get rid of this threat?”

“We protect our family and our own,” said Iru, a knowing smirk of his lips as he heard those words coming out of the prideful mouth of the man that he had been arguing with not even ten minutes ago. “We certainly wouldn’t like to have our new home destroyed before we can even step inside of it, now would we? Blood and guts don’t seem all that appealing for decoration in these circumstances.”

“Agreed~” acknowledged Tsugi, sluggishly nodding his head at Iru’s words while nibbling at the tip of his thumb.

“Then—“

“But we have our conditions to do it,” interrupted Iru as the general was about to speak once again. “One, don’t interfere in the fighting. Two, provide us with the necessary equipment. Three, let us do it our way.”

“…” A deep frown creasing his brows, Nakatani remained silent as he simply looked over to the group of newcomers to the military base, his squad quietly waiting for his decision to be made on the matter. He sighed. “Very well. But we will impose our conditions too. No bloodbaths, no losses on our side and this squad will accompany you, even if they don’t take any actions themselves.”

“Heh… Agreed,” acknowledged Iru, once again displaying his condescending smirk on his features as he looked over to the squad standing near them. “Shall we get back to work, then, my ‘Beatrice’?”

M0 softly nodded his head as Iru gently kissed his cheek, his demeanour as expressionless and void of emotion as usual.

“Nfufufu~” started laughing Atsumu, his eyes brightly glowing red as a nasty smirk started tugging at the corner of his lips. “I guess Russians can make up for the Japanese dea—“

Out of the blue, a large hole appeared in one of the walls of the auditorium, the stone and cement that constituted the hard surface piled up on the floor and continuously crumbling down in small chunks.

“Why is it that you can never keep your mouth shut, Atsumu-kun?” asked M0, his grey eyes glowing red as he straightened his body back to a leisure standing position after having strongly gut-punched Atsumu into oblivion.

“Nooo! Don’t get angry at me again, M0!!” sobbed Atsumu as he walked out of the hole in the wall as if nothing had happened, only his white clothes slightly smeared with dust. “I’ll be a good boy so don’t stop talking to me!!!”

“I’m not angry but please be mindful of what you say,” sighed M0, his eyes not tearing away from Atsumu as he returned to near them with a tear-stained face. “The humans may misunderstand your words.”

“Yay~! So you’re not angry at me~!” cheerfully yelped Atsumu, quickly glueing himself to M0 through the means of a bone-shattering hug. A small smirk on his lips, he softly whispered in M0’s ear. “It would be a misunderstanding because you won, Rei-chan. If it had been Iru’s win, they would have been killed before the Russians could even make the alarm resound. But you know Iru better than anyone. Right… Rei-chan?”

I do… Of course, I do.