“Okay, guys. Now that Mitaru has woken up and has joined your group once again, there are a few things that I need to talk with you,” started Murayama, standing in front of the dining table. It had been a total chore to quiet them down once Mitaru arrived at their living quarters so the soldiers had to bait them into cooperation by presenting them with something to focus on. As such, lunchtime arrived earlier to the Ms that day. “If there’s anything you don’t fully understand, just ask Mitsu for an easier explanation.”

“You can count on me, Murayama-san!” acknowledged Mitsu, jokingly saluting at the commander before taking a bite to a meatball. It seemed Tsugi’s adventure through Western Cuisine had been more than successful.

“Perfect, because I’ll need your help for the first point of conversation,” said Murayama, giving a sharp nod with his head. He received a metallic briefcase from Miue and placed it on top of a free section of the dining table. He then readily opened it and revealed its contents to the hungry super soldiers. “It took a while but it coincidentally was finished this morning, a couple of hours before Mitaru woke up. As you know, one of the conditions Nakatani-san issued was that we have the right to keep you under surveillance for as long as you’re living in Tokyo military base. However, we have a limited number of cameras placed inside the base and if you were to use your supersonic speed, none of us would be able to follow after you. We could lose your trace any moment you decide to run away.”

“So you want to put an electronic tag on us to always know where we are?” inquired Iru, finishing the soldier’s sentence before he could even utter the obvious, taking into consideration the black wristwatch-like devices inside of the briefcase. “We’re not criminals. It would go against your constitution and laws to monitor us in such ways. Unless you think of us as dogs and of those devices as identification chips.”

“Knowing your location is not the only functions of these devices…” sighed Murayama, his shoulders slumping down just the slightest. How exactly could Iru be able to twist his words in such ways that it seemed they were treating them as if pets? “Mitsu, could you…? You helped Sakinaka making these so it’s better if you explain from here on.”

“If I were to put it very simply, these electronic devices are something similar to a cellphone,” explained Mitsu after having given an affirmative wink at the commander. “They constantly register your location, yes, but they also serve as communication devices. Humans don’t have the same hearing capabilities as us. If any of you wanted to relay a message to them, you would have to go all the way to their location to do it. This saves you, and them, obviously, from the trouble of doing that. With the press of a button, you can be connected with their cell phones and the other way around too.”

“...”

“You don’t need to be so suspicious,” reassured Mitsu, seeing how most of the super soldiers were sideways glancing at the briefcase’s content as if they were about to explode. “Like Murayama-san said, I helped Kanna-chan building these. She’s sort of a specialised engineer when it comes to developing military technology. These bracelets are nothing like the ones the scientists forced on M0, don’t worry. There’s absolutely no bomb in any of them, nor can they cause physical pain in any form or shape. They’re just a simplified mixture of GPS and cell phones.”

“Well, if Mitsurin says so…” acknowledged Atsumu with a certain hesitation, still glancing at the black bracelets with suspicion on his eyes.

“Then, Mitsu, I’ll leave you in charge of teaching them how to use the communication functions in the device,” said Murayama, giving an affirmative nod at Mitsu when she gave him a thumbs up. “The second matter I want to talk to you about is… we need to get some testing made.”

“Huh?” hissed Iru, Mitaru, Atsumu and Azuma at the same time, their eyes readily changing to a threatening red glow.

“I knew they were going to misunderstand…” grumbled Murayama under his breath, a small shudder crawling up his spine. He cleared his throat and continued, “I don’t mean testing in the sense of doing further genetic modifications on you. I meant it in the sense of confirming what we’ve read so far. According to Miue, Atsumu, you said you only believe in what you’ve seen with your own eyes. We’re not exactly like that but we’re no freaking scientists here either, okay? No matter how many reports we read, no matter how much Mitsu tells us and explains to us about what is written in them, it’s a bit hard to visualise in real life what is written on those papers. It’ll be the exact same thing that happens when we humans go to school. The teachers will test the students to see if they have the correct knowledge of the subject.”

“I believe we’ve done plenty of that ‘testing’ when we stopped the Russian attack,” pointed out Iru, the frown and glare not disappearing from his features in the least. He scootched his chair closer to M0’s and leaned his body slightly sideways. “What more do you need other than seeing us in actual combat?”

“No soldier performs at 100% during actual combat,” argued back Murayama. “There are too many variants and unexpected shifts and changes to be able to accurately pinpoint the skills of a soldier during those moments. A soldier can suck during military training but be an ace on the battlefield. The other way around too. We can do our best performance, unfortunately, when we’re in a controlled environment and without the crushing pressure that we can be killed at any moment.”

“Death doesn’t fucking scare us,” scoffed Mitaru, rolling his eyes around at those words.

“Also, while you were indeed working as a group, you operated in an individual basis,” added Murayama, inwardly rolling his eyes around at Mitaru’s immediate response. “We want to see more of what you can do, without involving human lives in it. Obviously, we’ll be basing ourselves in the data inside of the external hard drive. But we also want to see how you deal with other ‘normal things’. So the testing would be made in three parts: intellectual testing, fighting input and a field trip to ‘human civilization’.”

“Trains…” said M0, readily lowering his chopsticks back to his plate and fully focusing on what was being said.

“Yeah, trains,” awkwardly acknowledged Murayama, feeling that M0 was completely missing the point there… while not missing it in the least.

“Iru-kun, let’s do it,” requested M0, turning his body slightly to more easily face Iru. He tilted his head cutely and begged at him with his grey eyes alone. “Please?”

“Yamase, stop baiting my Beatrice with the prospect of human technology in terms of mobility,” grumbled Iru, despite not finding in himself enough strength to resist M0’s ‘attack’ and having gently cradled him against his chest in a bone-crushing hug. “The ‘puppy eyes’ that Shinobu mentioned a couple of days ago will not work on me.”

“I think they’ve worked pretty well already,” snorted Mizusaki, doing his best to not break down laughing right there and then at how Iru was holding onto M0. “Besides, what’s the problem with a little bit of this kind of testing? I’m sure plenty of you would appreciate a bit of action after such a long break from it. Mitaru, Atsumu, don’t you guys want to have a little 1-on-1 tournament against your buddies and see who’s really on top?”

“...!” Mitaru dropped his chopsticks and let his mouth hang wide open, a little bit of the food he was chewing at slipping from its insides. Atsumu simply stood up from his seat, his eyes sparkling in enthusiasm.

“Azuma, don’t you missing playing around with guns and riffles and get some target shooting done?” continued Mizusaki, catching from the corner of his eyes how Azuma immediately looked the other way (and didn’t deny any of what was being said). “Tsugi, there’s more food in Tokyo than you could eat in a single day. The diversity is also much bigger than what is currently available in our base~”

“I wan’ gho oh dat phid tripe,” mumbled Tsugi, his voice muffled and disfigured with all the food he was chewing at that moment.

“It seems you’re the only one out now, Iru,” pointed out Murayama, a knowing smirk on his lips as he smuggling glanced over in his direction. “If you don’t want to cooperate, then you can stay here by yourself. We’ll still have plenty of fun even if you’re not there. Right, M0?”

“I want to ride the train,” acknowledged M0, softly nodding his head against Iru’s chest. “And visit a bookstore… And see the bay and the boats… And see more furry animals and underwater creatures… I want you to see them too, Iru-kun.”

“When is the first test?” grudgingly asked Iru, although he was lovingly squeezing M0 into a hug as if he was the rarest and most precious thing in the world.

To him, M0 was the only precious thing in the world.