“These are not the holidays I was hoping for...” groaned Mizusaki, softly banging his forehead against the massive conference table. “Damn it, did I accidentally raise a flag with what I said during our mission?”

“There’s little you can do about it now,” sighed Miue, eyeing the steadily increasing piles of paper on the table with disgust. All of that data came as a result of human experimentations… it was beyond revolting and definitely not his reading choice for 'vacation time'. “The general’s words and commands are absolute. With our ranking, there’s nothing we can do or say that'll make him change his mind. Especially since it was Nakatani-san’s own willing decision.”

“Miue-san’s right, Mizusaki,” agreed Eki, sitting down on one of the chairs after having placed another pile of folders on top of the table. “We might as well go along with it and keep on praying that it won’t get anyone killed.”

“That or cause more damage,” added Murayama, stepping inside of the room while accompanied by Ikusaki and Mitsu, all three of them carrying some more folders and documents. “I don’t want to hear any more news of parts and bits of our budget being switched to reparations and construction work.”

“Yeah, we’ll need it for food supplies,” grumbled Ikusaki, dropping the folders on top of the table with a muffled thud. “Is this all of them?”

“Yes, that's the entire content of the external hard drive, minus the audio and video files,” said Mitsu, smiling brightly at the five soldiers. “But I don’t think any of you would be interested in seeing A-chan being tortured or Iru killing scientists.”

“We appreciate that censoring, yes,” cringed Murayama, a small shudder going down his spine.

“Thought so,” said Mitsu, once again flashing a bright smile at the uncomfortable soldiers. She, however, grew as uncomfortable as them soon enough, her gaze falling to her feet. “Um… I… wanted to apologise to all of you. I’ve known you for such a long time and I’ve been lying to you all along. And I even did such an awful thing to you, Miue-san! It probably only sounds like excuses to you but I really was just trying to be reunited with my family. It wasn’t for any other reasons! I—“

“We know, Mitsu,” interrupted Murayama, gently patting Mitsu’s head. “We didn’t take any of it to heart. You did what you had to do for those you care about. Besides, you’re a perfect example that super soldiers can adapt themselves to live among humans. If anything, you’ll be a great influence to both the other Ms and us soldiers, since most feel extremely restless over their lack of control.”

“Murayama-san… Thank you very much...” said Mitsu, finally lifting her head once again and smiling at the soldier. “A-Anyway, Nakatani-san asked me to go check on them. Obviously, I also want to enjoy spending time with Mi-chan and M0 for the first time~”

“Ah! Mitaru is…!” interrupted Ikusaki all of a sudden, hastily turning around to look over in Mitsu’s direction.

“Oh, I know, I know~” dismissed Mitsu, waving her hand around. “That’s why he has been in such a bad mood. Mi-chan gets a bit sleep deprived and the rest of the world pays for it~ Forgive him for those moody responses, Ikusaki-kun. He didn’t mean them. For the most part…”

“Okay...” acknowledged Ikusaki with a certain hesitation. He only talked and interacted with Mitaru after he was released from his cell so he had no idea if all of those snarky and violent responses were his usual behaviour or not. They might as well trust Mitsu’s words for the time being and wait for Mitaru to wake up from his resting period to fully check it out.

“But Nakatani-san also asked me to provide you with all the support possible as you learn more about us,” continued Mitsu after that brief interruption. “The files in the external hard drive were written by scientists or those working alongside them. It's pretty much a bundle of scientific jargon in every single page. That’s not one of your expertise, is it…?”

“I didn’t even finish high school, don’t expect much out of me when it comes to detailed scientific jargon,” pointed out Mizusaki, leaning his elbow on top of the table and resting the side of his face on his closed hand. He sideways glanced at Ikusaki, a mischievous smirk on his lips. “Well, I probably understand it better than a certain someone. Isn’t that right, Ikusaki?”

“So Nakatani-san requested you to be the teacher instructing the human teachers,” said Murayama, putting his hand on top of Ikusaki’s shoulder to prevent him from barking back at Mizusaki. “We can start going through the papers on our own today while you go spend some time with them. We’ll just write down our questions and then go through them with you once you pop up here again.”

“Thank you for your kindness, Murayama-san,” said Mitsu, smiling brightly at the squad’s commander. “But I already agreed to do it. Even if you have accepted my apologies, I still feel responsible for my actions in my own way. After spending so many years among humans, I got a very good awareness of how betrayal and deceit are seen. I’ll visit them once you guys get too exhausted from all the studying.”

“We appreciate your help,” acknowledged Murayama with a soft nod of his head. He turned around on his heels and sat down in front of the conference table. “So, is it okay for us to start reading the documents right away or should we have a quick crash course on… anything before?”

“Hm… Yes, you probably could use a quick crash course on super soldiers,” said Mitsu, also waltzing over to the table and sitting down in a seat where she could be easily heard by all of the soldiers. “I know you’ve been interacting with them for a few days now but I also know they aren’t the most cooperative bunch. I can pretty much imagine all the things they told you confused you more than actually help.”

“Don’t even get us started on it…” groaned Miue, tiredly dropping his back against the backrest of his chair, Mizusaki, Ikusaki and Eki likewise looking dejected at that remark.

“Thought so,” chuckled Mitsu as she put her arms on top of the table and lightly started fiddling with the pile of documents in front of her. “Super soldiers are… well, to put it in very simple terms, humans whose bodies have been augmented in several different ways. There’s this common ‘scientific’ belief that humans only use 10% of their brain, right?”

“Yeah, I think I’ve heard that before,” acknowledged Ikusaki with a quick nod of his head.

“The good scientists know that saying such is both correct and incorrect at the same time,” continued Mitsu. “It’s not that humans only use 10% of their brains. The entire brain is used, depending on what kind of thing you’re doing. However, the 100% you use is nothing more than a little scrape of its true ability. If you were to use that 100% at its full potential, your body would automatically crash because it’s not designed to take so much all at once. Since it can’t deal with it, your brain, organs, the whole body itself, imposes limits on you.”

“So super soldiers are human beings whose limits have been erased?” asked Mizusaki, an eyebrow slightly arched as he heard the explanation.

“Again, yes and no,” answered Mitsu, although she gave an affirmative nod. “We had some of those limits augmented, not fully erased. For example, PS5’s head was cut off from his shoulders. His healing speed wasn’t as fast as to fully create him a new one, right? If we were to put this in values, let’s say humans can count until 10 before dropping dead from exhaustion. No offence.”

“None taken,” acknowledged Murayama, dismissing Mitsu’s worries with a quick movement of his hand.

“Super soldiers can count until 100, 200, some even to the closest number to the infinite but never achieving that infinite,” continued Mitsu. “We’re not gods or immortal, we’ll always have limitations on our bodies, even if they seem god-like in the eyes of humans.”

“So the bottom line is, super soldiers are humans with more flexibility when it comes to their body’s limits,” said Eki out loud as he inwardly rationalised the information.

“Yes, that’s a very good way of putting it!” acknowledged Mitsu with an energetic nod of her head.

“Can you give us a quick summary of their most noteworthy flexible limits?” requested Murayama.

“Everything your bodies can do,” answered Mitsu right away. “We can run faster, have more strength, the body’s healing is faster too and memorization ability is something similar to that of a computer. But since some have gone through different types of training and experimentations, we’re all a bit different deep down.”

“Atsumu and Azuma did mention that while they were telling me and Mizusaki about their functions,” said Miue, Mizusaki also nodding his head in acknowledgement.

“Yes, I guess each one of us has had a more well-defined specialization than other serials,” acknowledged Mitsu as she gave those words a quick thought. “I’m Mi-chan’s clone, in a roundabout way, but it’s not like I can do the same things he can. I was given another specialization, in my case related to my brain. They’re all very smart but my brain has been modified so that it resembles something like a human supercomputer. I can memorise anything I see, read and hear. Making calculations is easy-peasy, even those that usually require a supercomputer due to the large input of numbers. But that’s something that Mi-chan or Iru can’t do, at least in such a large scale. Much like I can’t go wild and get a group of human soldiers all chopped up in ten seconds.”

“Are all super soldiers created to form squads, like you guys?” asked Ikusaki this time. “PS5 was the only super soldier with the Russians and I highly doubt his squad was made up of humans.”

“No, super soldiers are usually created to operate on solo,” explained Mitsu. “As far as my research on it goes, there're three different levels to the creation of super soldiers.”

“Three different levels?” repeated Murayama, adjusting his sitting position just the slightest. “So you have a hierarchy within super soldiers?”

“Oh yes, we definitely do~” acknowledged Mitsu with a sing-song voice. “PS5 was a super soldier created to support the army. His full code name would have been ‘Private Soldier #5’, which means he was the 5th one of his serial line to be fully acknowledged as a PS super soldier. Much like in a regular army, private soldiers are at the bottom of the commanding hierarchy. The PS serials are above humans but they’re still relatively weak. Hence why they’re usually inserted in human squads to mutually provide support to one another.”

“Relatively weak?” scoffed Miue, rolling his eyes around. “PS5 and M0 completely minced that entire area!”

“But now that Mitsu is explaining it all, it only makes it even more obvious, doesn’t it?” pointed out Mizusaki, straightening his sitting position. He arched an eyebrow just the slightest when he noticed all of his squadmates looking over at him. “What, don’t tell me you still haven’t noticed it?”

“Noticed what?” asked Ikusaki, the frown returning to his features.

“The damage caused to that area was mainly M0’s doing,” said Mizusaki, lifting his hand slightly in the air and starting to use his fingers to count. “He was the one who killed the soldiers accompanying PS5, he destroyed PS5’s weapons, he was the one throwing PS5 around and destroying the buildings with said impacts. The biggest damage I saw PS5 doing was when he lifted that large piece of flooring and used it to shield himself from M0’s attack.”

“Now that you mention it…” acknowledged Murayama, giving those statements a short though. “Where would be M serial be inserted, in terms of that three-level hierarchy?”

“We’re ‘The Union’s’ ultimate weapon,” shortly answered Mitsu, a small smirk showing on her lips. “We’re placed at the top of the highest level in the hierarchy. We can operate in both solo and squad mode. We don’t need human support to finish our missions. We would be quite flawed if we did, as our purpose is to kill all humans. We’re 'Mass Murder Machines', our ultimate purpose is to eradicate all humans we see in front of us. Even those that have created us.”

“Then why were you created in the first place?” inquired Murayama once again, a deep frown on his features as he looked straight at Mitsu’s glowing red eyes.

“Excuse me?” interjected Mitsu, who blinked several times in utter incomprehension.

“You’re mass murder machines, whose purpose is to kill all humans, no distinction made whatsoever,” started Murayama. “But isn’t that ‘The Union’ committing suicide? If you kill all humans, even those that made you, then you’re the most flawed weapon that humankind has ever created.”

“...”

“Ah… Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that…” awkwardly apologised Murayama, softly massaging the back of his neck as he saw Mitsu grow completely silent, a complicated expression on her features.

“It’s okay…” softly breathed Mitsu, still extremely taken aback by those words. “I mean… What you just said is… true. It doesn’t make any sense. Why would ‘The Union’ create a weapon that would destroy all of humankind and leave no victorious side behind?”

“Maybe they want humans to go extinct and start society anew with super soldiers as the new human specimen?” pointed out Mizusaki, trying to lessen the tense atmosphere. “I mean, there are both male and female super soldiers, right?”

“That would be impossible as all super soldiers are sterile,” answered Mitsu in almost autopilot, her brain still closely analyzing all the data she possessed in it. “Accidentally or not, all super soldiers are unable to produce offsprings. Most likely accidentally, as the development of natural-born super soldiers was one of the research fields of our lab.”

“Somehow… Sorry about that…” apologised Mizusaki, feeling extremely bad over having brought that up.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry~” readily dismissed Mitsu after she understood why those apologies were being made. “I don’t think there’s any super soldier that feels bothered by that fact. I don’t even know if all of us are aware of it. Probably not since it’s not like the lab educates us on sex-related matters during our training and we’re also too busy with killing to give such topic a thought.”

“No hanky-panky for Iru and M0 then~” said Mizusaki with a sing-song voice, his eyes sideways glancing at Murayama. “Isn’t that good news, after all, Commander-dono?”

“I think you should just shut up at this point,” sighed Murayama, inwardly cursing at his own self. He couldn’t help but roll his eyes around when Mizusaki mimicked the closing of a zipper on his lips. “I think the conversation has derailed a little bit from its original purpose. Why don’t we take a quick break, maybe to get something to drink and snack on, and then resume with our ‘studies’?”

We really could use some caffeine and sugar to keep us running with all of this to read and digest…, inwardly sighed Murayama as he and the other soldiers grievously stared into the seemingly never-ending piles of documents.