“What exactly is the meaning of this?” asked Nakatani, his voice rougher and harsher than it usually sounded – now it was something akin to be called the voice of the highest seated general of the Japanese army. “The Russian attack was successfully contained, yes. There were also no victims on our side. But now I have two whole areas in need to be reconstructed from scratch, countless streets to be cleaned from corpses, blood and organs, one of the super soldiers on our side in a comatose state and two other currently missing. Do you have any explanation to offer, Murayama?”

Shit, shit, shit!, inwardly cursed Murayama, his external demeanour as calm and professional as always. “Sir, I believe that when dealing with Russian soldiers, we always need to expect quite a lot of damages, as their firepower was never on the low side. I confess that maybe it wasn’t within our calculations to suffer damage on such a large scale, but we also weren’t expecting the Russian squads to have a super soldier in their midst. If it weren’t for M0’s swift approach in eliminating their super soldier, you wouldn’t need to worry about damage costs in the least since you would be dead, together with the rest of us. That’s something we need to take into consideration.”

“Fair enough,” acknowledged Nakatani with a dry clearing of his throat. “And regarding the other issues?”

“It was an all-out fight against the Russians, you surely didn’t expect them to be eliminated in a non-messy way, Sir,” pointed out Murayama, trying to be as polite as possible while making the obvious be noted. He then turned his body slightly to the left and gestured at Mitaru, currently laid down on the biggest sofa available. “As for Mitaru’s case, he’s currently in what they address as ‘resting period’. Azuma has explained it to be something similar to our sleep, but in a slightly more augmented way due to their biologically altered bodies and augmented constitutions. He’s not in any danger and if we leave him be, he’ll wake up on his own in a matter of days.”

“I take it that’s an explanation that can also be found inside of the external hard drive in Mitsu’s possession?” inquired Nakatani, crossing his hands behind his back as he walked closer to the sofa where Mitaru could be found ‘sleeping’, not even his ribcage making any movement.

“According to what they said, yes,” acknowledged Murayama with a sharp nod of his head. “As for the disappearance of two of them, Iru… and… M0………………….”

“Murayama?” called Nakatani, when the squad’s commander stopped talking out of the blue. When he looked over in his direction and saw him completely frozen, he looked in the same direction that he and the other members of his squad were looking at. “…!”

“W-What the fuck happened to you two!?” yelped Miue, his face as red as a tomato as he stared completely flabbergasted to Iru’s and M0’s current appearances – both of their bloodstained clothes were ripped apart beyond repair, nearly falling off of their bodies as they leisurely walked inside of that division of the house side by side. The big portions of their skin showing from in between the rips and holes in their clothes were covered in dust and dirt, just as well as their hair. To put it in simpler terms, they were a complete mess.

“Iru-kun started ripping my clothes all of a sudden so I did the same thing to him,” explained M0, sideways pointing at Iru.

“Maybe it would have been better to leave the reasons as a mystery,” sighed Eki, throwing a quick glance at his squad members – both Ikusaki and Miue were blushing as if virgin maidens seeing half-naked men for the first time, Mizusaki was nearing another laughing attack and Murayama simply silently facepalmed himself. He didn’t even dare to look over in the general’s direction.

“Anyway,” said Nakatani after having loudly cleared his throat. “It’s good that the two of you have arrived. If you could move to the same room as the rest of your friends until I finish my conversation with my soldiers, I would appreciate it.”

“If you’re seeking to have a private conversation with your soldiers, it’s not a wall or a door that will stop us from hearing it,” pointed out Iru at the same time as he released M0’s hand, who immediately made a beeline in Mitaru’s direction, sitting near the edge of the same sofa as him. “Not to mention, I believe that would be a behaviour that you usually call ‘rude’ or ‘impolite’.”

“Suit yourselves, then,” sighed Nakatani, returning his eyes to his soldiers. “I’ve talked with Mitsu before coming here and I’ve instructed her to print every single file inside of the external hard drive. She’ll be coming here somewhere in the morning tomorrow to deliver you the files so be sure to have a good night of rest.”

“Um… Excuse me, Sir, but… Deliver them to us?” hesitantly asked Murayama, both his chest and brain being assaulted by a sudden grieving sensation. It seemed that the worst-case scenario was about to be made official.

“Murayama, your squad is the one most familiarised with the six of them. The other way around too, of course. Leaving other soldiers in charge of them would be a risk that I’m not about to make,” explained Nakatani, once again crossing his hands behind his back. “That’s why I’m appointing your squad as their caretakers for these first few months. Consider it as a paid holiday, as you’ll be excused from going out on other missions. Everyone that was involved in taking them out of the lab will also be appointed as your backup, so that includes all of the members of Kinjou’s squad and both En and Tou. As for how you go about your duty as their caretakers, I’ll leave that up to you. I believe that the fact that none of you has been killed by them yet is proof enough that the way you’re dealing with them is the most appropriate.”

“W-Wait, Sir…!” yelped Murayama, his composed demeanour finally crumbling into pieces as he took a step forward in the general’s direction. “You can’t be—“

“I’m totally serious about it,” interrupted Nakatani. “After privately talking with all of you, also Kinjou’s squad, I was left at an impasse over what to do with them. However, after the audit was hastily concluded, I came to realise that Miue’s approach towards M5, or Atsumu, in this case, was something that maybe could also be applied to the other five. I’m not ordering you to take care of them for the rest of your lives. I’m simply aiming for you to become something akin to their teachers and instructors as they get used to living outside of the lab. Again, I leave how you do it entirely up to you. You’ll all be living in the same base either way so you might as well move into the area that now belongs to them too. Any more questions?”

Plenty of them but you wouldn’t hear any of it, would you?, inwardly cursed Murayama, straightening his body to a more professional stance once again. “No, Sir…”

“Perfect,” acknowledged Nakatani with a sharp nod of his head and a small upturn of the corner of his lips. “I’ll be returning to my quarters now. I need to start the whole lengthy process of reconstructions.”

Having said that, the five members of the squad saluted the general as he turned around on his heels and walked towards the front door. Nakatani, however, came to a halt just as he was about to cross the door.

“I forgot to say this earlier due to all of the haste with the sudden attack but… Welcome to Tokyo military base, Ms.”