“I’m soooooooooo bored,” groaned Tsugi, his head left hanging backwards, eyes stuck to the now slightly cloudy sky, as he remained sprawled on the floor. “Humans are so quick at running away~ Now I have nothing to do, no food to eat and I’m so boreeeeed…”

“I believe that when you belong to a warring military world, boredom is the most welcomed emotion that one can experience,” pointed out Eki, sat down on the step of the small staircase that led to the entrance of the main auditorium – the place where all soldiers and employees of Tokyo military base were being ‘safeguarded’ throughout the Russian attack. Said attack was currently being taken care of by the newly arrived residents of the base as an offering of goodwill (or so it seemed to be the case to Eki).

“Still… Mitaru and Atsumu and Iru and M0 are all having fun with the Russians… Even Azuma is having fun with them…” continued grumbling Tsugi, a pout showing on his features. “It’s unfair that I’m the only one left behind while they’re having fun!”

“I don’t think they’re having all that much fun so you don’t have to worry about it,” said Eki, trying to distract Tsugi at the best of his abilities. “Besides, the quicker all of this ends, the quicker you can have lunch. How does that sound?”

“We can eat food today too!?” yelped Tsugi, quickly lifting his upper body to a sitting position, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets in surprise. “We ate all of that yesterday night. We’ll be able to eat again so soon?”

“M-Maybe not as much as last night but we get meals three times every day, with no exception,” explained Eki, a small awkward smile lightly tugging at the corner of his lips even though he felt a somewhat pained stab in his heart. How could he have forgotten that the daily schedule their targets had experienced their whole life was being fed when outside of their cells? And it probably was a single occurrence throughout the period they were ‘set free’. It was more than obvious that they weren’t expecting to be granted such a privilege again so soon. I should know that better than anyone…

“Ehh… That sounds nice… Three meals every day…” mumbled Tsugi, a small trickle of saliva slowly starting to escape through the corner of his mouth. “Then maybe I should let some Russian in here?”

“…What?” interjected Eki, his eyes opening slightly more in shock at the unexpected words that exited Tsugi’s mouth.

“Because fewer people means more food for a longer period of time, right?” said Tsugi, tilting his head to the left while he innocently glanced at Eki.

“That’s… true…” acknowledged Eki, still at a lack of words. Slowly, he gulped in dry. “But… do you know how to cook? Do you know where to find the supplies to cook? I know how to cook, but I don’t know where the suppliers are or how to contact them. I believe there are those inside that are the same as me, as well as others with the opposite function. They may not know how to cook but they can easily contact the suppliers and bring the necessary ingredients to those who can. That’s how our base works. If we don’t know how to do something, there'll be others around us that can. Having the people inside killed might mean that you'll never be able to eat the same food as yesterday ever again.”

“That’s stupid,” spewed Tsugi, a small frown creasing his features. “Wouldn’t that mean you can’t live without each other? That’s so stupid, especially considering that humans are so easily killed. Depending on each other to survive… No wonder you end up resorting to things like us to solve disputes between yourselves. Ahh… Now not only am I bored, but I’m also angry.”

“…we’re weak alone, what else can we do…?” softly whispered Eki, staring away into the distance. As his thoughts started floating to his own past experiences, his eye caught a sudden large shadow jumping in front of him. After blinking in surprise, he found Tsugi a good few meters away from the place where he was so leisurely sitting at, his long and thick arms grabbing into a nearby parked car. “Wait, what are you doing!?”

With the ease of a child picking up a small toy car from the floor, Tsugi lifted the vehicle with his hands and immediately catapulted it down the whole street with the speed of a cannonball trying to break the sound barrier. An explosion shook the entire area when the thrown car crashed against the approaching vehicles.

“Azuma, some vehicles are getting closer to the auditorium. Can you take them out?” asked Tsugi, seemingly to no one. A couple of seconds later, he clicked his tongue. “Are you going to stay there, Eki-sama, or do you need to come with me?”

“I think you already know the answer to that one,” said Eki, readily getting up and giving a short run towards the super soldier.

“You said the other day that you don’t want any more ‘supersonic speed travels' so I guess it'll have to be the human way…” grumbled Tsugi, lunging his hand towards the human soldier and grabbing him by the waist. He put him neatly under his arm at the same time as he started to run towards the direction where he had thrown the car – at a quite slow speed, in his opinion.

“Wai— I can walk or run on my own!” yelped Eki, tugging at Tsugi’s upper clothes to grab his attention and make a stance about how he was being handled. “Put me down!”

“I told you that I would protect you if you keep giving me food, right?” pointed out Tsugi, not even breaking a sweat as he quickly ran while carrying his large frame and the human soldier. “This is the easiest way of doing that and what Iru told me to do.”

“Haa…” Eki couldn’t help but sigh, despite the nerve-wracking situation he was under. “Didn’t you just say that depending on humans was stupid? Let me break it to you that, right now, you’re depending on me, a human, to get your food.”

“Hmm… Not really?” confessed Tsugi, lightly tilting his head to the right as he thought about what Eki was accusing him of. “I don’t need you to give me food or any other thing. You’re just the most convenient one around to do it. There’s nothing in this world that isn’t replaceable once lost. And if there is something we can’t bring ourselves to replace, then we just need to learn to live without it. Geez, Eki-sama, I’m a Mass Murder Machine. Why would I need to depend on those that I’m supposed to kill? That would be beyond stupid!”

“Hahaha… I guess so,” awkwardly acknowledged Eki as his body was slowly lowered back to the floor. In front of them were the remainders of the destroyed cars and the blazing flames still consuming the metal carcasses and the fuel being kept inside of them. Eki couldn’t help but half cover his face – partially because of the heat and light emanating from the fire but mainly out of shame of his own weaknesses, of his own dependences and lingering regrets.

“Geh… Mitaru, Atsumu…” groaned Tsugi, halting his movements halfway through his motions of grabbing the weapons he had armed himself with.

“We’re done with our assigned tasks so we decided to go take a look at how the rest were doing~” cheerfully said Atsumu, a large smile on his lips as he happily waltzed closer to Tsugi and his assigned human soldier. “Mitaru and I ended up wiping out some of yours on our way here, though~”

“I knew it! You really were stealing the Russians from me!” roared Tsugi, pointing at both Mitaru and Atsumu in an accusatory way. “No wonder I was feeling so bored with so many things going on around the base!”

“M0 stole quite a lot from me so I had to balance things a bit by stealing from someone else,” snorted Mitaru, crossing his arms over his chest as a smug smirk twisted the corner of his lips upwards.

“EH!? You bumped into M0!?” yelped Atsumu, his eyes open wide in surprise. “So lucky! I haven’t seen him since he went outside of the preparation room!!! Mitaru, don’t be such a cheapskate and share some of it with me!!!!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” dismissed Mitaru, looking the other way while secretly sticking his tongue out at the whining blonde.

“Yasuhisa, are you feeling okay?” asked Ikusaki, catching up with the group and readily running towards Eki. “You’re looking quite pale there. Did something happen?”

“Don’t worry, Shouichi, the colour of the flames just makes me look paler than usual,” reassured Eki while softly smiling at Ikusaki.

“That plus all the insanity suddenly kicked inside of our lives,” added Miue, the frown creasing his brows even more noteworthy than usual. “All of this would make anyone feel sick. So, what’s next, Atsumu? We’ve come to fetch Eki and Tsugi like you wanted and we also bumped into Ikusaki and Mitaru on our way here. Who’s the next brat we’re supposed to catch on our way to the conclusion of this whole mess?”

“About that, change of plans,” interrupted Mitaru all of a sudden, dropping one of his hands to the side of his body while the other gently massaged his neck. “When I bumped into M0 earlier, I got under the impression that he sniffed out some big prey lurking around the base.”

“Where?” readily asked Atsumu, the smile disappearing from his face to be substituted by a dead-serious demeanour. The same change also happened to Tsugi, whose body grew far tenser than before.

“Beats me,” said Mitaru, giving a quick shrug with his shoulders. “Iru must know, though, so we might as well go to where he is. Azuma will probably do the same, seeing as all three of us have cleared our positions and he no longer has any reason to keep on sniping this location.”

“Then let’s go regroup with Iru right this moment,” acknowledged Atsumu, throwing a quick glance at both Mitaru and Tsugi to also seek their confirmation. “I’m even more worried about M0 now…”

“Guys, sorry for interrupting your little squad talk,” sarcastically said Miue, taking a few steps forward and putting himself in between the trio. “But what the heck are you talking about? ‘Big prey’?”

“The Russians seem to have their own pet super soldier in the midst of them, whether they’re aware of it or not,” spewed Mitaru, almost as if those words tasted foul and disgusting inside of his mouth. “M0 probably went to pay the customary welcoming greetings to them.”

“Um… What exactly happens when two super soldiers on opposite sides of the battlefield bump into one another?” asked Ikusaki, even though he was already expecting a certain answer. It didn’t change how much he didn’t want to hear it, for more than one reason.

The three Ms once again exchanged glances in between themselves, both Mitaru and Tsugi giving a quick shrug to their shoulders and Atsumu neatly clearing his throat as he fully turned around to face the human soldiers.

“First rule!” announced Atsumu, showing his index finger to the soldiers. “One-on-one only. Second rule! No external interference. Third rule! One winner. That’s the first thing the buddy-buddy scientists hammered into our heads the moment they started experimenting on us. Having said that, the moment M0 finds the Russians’ pet super soldier, one of them will be killed.”

“WHAT!?”