“You guys did great in the first part of the physical examination and you’ve gotten your reward for it,” acknowledged Miue, giving a quick nod with his head as he observed the Ms sat down on the pavement, some of them still munching and chewing the snacks they received for the indoor tests. When his eyes focused on M0 and the expressionless demeanour on his face as he stared right back at him, he awkwardly cleared his throat. “Y-You too, M0. Good job hanging in there and patiently waiting for the outdoor exercises.”

“So? How many of these ‘exercises’ do we still need to do?” asked Mitaru, aggressively riping a large chunk of the nikuman he was refuelling on. “Not that I’m complaining about some more action for us. I’ll gladly take it. It’s just, for a base on ‘holiday’, we sure have a large crowd all around us.”

“...told you so…” grumbled Mizusaki under his breath, a sour expression on him as he sideways glanced to the soldiers and staff members of the base gathered together in a considerably far away zone from the ‘examination grounds’.

“Yeah, well, this is their home so even if they’re on their day off, they can still stay around if they feel like it,” tried to explain Ikusaki, also not liking the attention the Ms were receiving throughout the last testing day. “They’re still keeping themselves out of your domain, if that’s any consolation.”

“I don’t feel like being gawked at as if a circus animal,” fussed Azuma, an extremely dissatisfied expression on his face. He was so bothered by the unexpected situation, actually, that his eyes had a slight red glow to them. “Make them go away or I’ll go away.”

“Azuma, leave them be,” ordered Iru, his ‘evil’ smirk stretching further and further. “The more humans around there is, the more of their lot I’ll be able to torment. There’s no better reward than the stench of human fear, as far as I’m concerned.”

“I always thought the best reward for you would be spending 24 hours straight with M0, without any disturbances or interruptions,” pointed out Murayama, his eyes focused on the report summaries Eki had delivered him a couple of minutes ago directly from Nakatani. “I guess I'll have to make some changes to our plans now.”

“M0’s not a reward, being together with him is a given and absolute daily event,” corrected Iru, a small frown popping out on his brows as he switched his gaze to the human commander. “But if you see it as a reward, go right ahead. I never expected any other thing out of a human.”

“There, there, Iru~” said Mizusaki, trying to calm down the angered super soldier. “Murayama-san was just teasing you a little bit so you would leave our fellow soldiers alone. And you, Azuma! Who cares if they’re gonna look at you as if a circus animal? Just blow their minds away in a way that no animal would ever be able to!”

“So you’re saying we should put on a show, huh~?” said Atsumu with a sing-song voice, a mischievous smirk twisting his lips upwards. “That’s more than fine by me. Humans are easily entertained and impressed.”

“For as long as I get my food afterwards, I don’t care,” mumbled Tsugi, sluggishly bitting into a lollipop.

“Well, about that…” started Eki with a certain hesitation, exchanging a quick glance with Murayama to receive his permission to continue speaking. “You’re actually eating too much. All of you are eating too much. As far as Nakatani-san is concerned, you’re something similar to an investment. The base is allowing your existence and your stay in our territory not for the goodness of our heart but because you might come in handy someday, even if just for the fact you won’t stand in the opposite side of the battlefield. Nakatani-san is willing to make some expenses to see that happening but even that has a limit. You’re being too expensive when it comes to our food supplies. So you need to tone it down a bit… or he’ll cut your food allowance completely and you’ll need to get it yourselves…”

“Eh…? No way! I don’t want that…” yelped Tsugi, the lollipop slipping from in between his lips and falling on the pavement. He slowly got up and cracked his neck. “Put on a show for the humans? Okay, got it. Let’s go. What are the next tests?”

“It’s good to see that some of you are getting so heated up but sadly there’s only one test left,” announced Murayama, returning the papers to Eki so he would deliver them back to the general. “Better yet, a game left? It’s time to have you exercise a bit by playing a game of tag.”

“Tag…?” repeated Atsumu, tilting his head to the left as he thought about that word and any possible ‘games’ associated with it. “Tag???”

“I’ll explain this time, Atsumu, so just listen,” sighed Murayama while putting both hands on his hips. He never really expected them to know of the game since it was more of a children kind of thing than something that appeared on the TV or in books. “The objective of the game is to catch all of the members of the opposite team. Out of the six of you, we’ll randomly select two of you to be ‘it’. The ‘it’ is sort of like a contagious disease, so to speak. In this version, at least. The two ‘its’ must catch the other players and make their backs touch the floor. When that happens, the player also becomes an ‘it’. But just like it happens in modern medicine, the players can also eliminate the ‘its’. The players can also hunt down the ‘it’ and if their back touches the floor, they’re eliminated from the game rather than become a normal player. You can use any methods at your disposal or anything you find inside of the examination grounds. No weapons allowed, though. The game ends when all players have been turned into ‘its’ or when all of the ‘its’ are eliminated. Any questions?”

“Is there any trick ‘rule’ in this game too?” suspiciously asked Azuma, sideways glancing at Murayama as he heard the explanation.

“No offence here but this is a game inspired in one usually played by children,” said Murayama, an eyebrow slightly arched at that question. “Where exactly could we have put a trick in it? We’ll even randomly choose the two ‘its’ to make it fair from our side. If you want to include your own rule of only one-on-one fights, that’s more than okay by me.”

“How will you choose the ‘its’?” asked Mitaru, an excited glint in his eyes. Finally… He could finally get some actual action, even if it was just a pretend-fight against the other Ms.

“We prepared these papers before we came to the examination grounds,” explained Miue this time, removing from his military uniform’s pocket a small plastic bag with six folded pieces of paper inside. “Each paper has the same size and colour. They were all folded in the same way. The only difference is that two of them have ‘it’ written in them. Each one of you will take one of them from the bag, with your eyes closed. The ones who get the ‘it’ paper will be the initial two ‘its’. No tricks in this bag either.”

“Hmph! Fine,” finally acknowledged Azuma, quickly adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose at the same time he used his other hand to remove one of the folded papers from the plastic bag. A blank paper.

“Oh, my turn!” excitedly declared Atsumu, closing his eyes and readily slipping his hand in the bag. A blank paper.

“Let’s see, let’s see,” said Mitaru, a mischievous smirk on his lips as he put his hand inside of the bag and took a folded paper too. An ‘it’ paper. “Hell yeah! Jackpot!”

“I’ll win my food…” mumbled Tsugi as he also removed a folded paper with his eyes closed. A blank paper.

“You first, my ‘Beatrice’,” offered Iru, making way for M0 to take one of the last two pieces of folded paper from the plastic bag.

“...” M0 silently nodded his head and closed his eyes, picking up one of the papers. It was a blank one.

“Which means Mitaru and Iru are the two ‘its’...” said Ikusaki, taking a step back from near the extremely excited Mitaru. “We tried to make it fair but the two scarier killing spree super soldiers were the ones who became the ‘it’...”

“Isn’t that fine?” pointed out Mitaru, his eyes starting to glow an intense shade of red. “It’ll make things more interesting. For me, at the very least. Hehehe.”

“Iru-kun,” suddenly called M0, stopping right in front of Iru and preventing any of the two from moving further into the examination grounds. “Let’s make another bet.”

“Eh?” exclaimed the soldier squad at the same time, all of them looking over to the two super soldiers.

“If I win, I want my name back,” said M0, his expressionless demeanour growing noticeable serious all of a sudden. “If you win, I won’t question your methods and instructions ever again.”

“Heh! You won’t question them only, huh…” snorted Iru, a pleased smirk on his features. “If you lose while with this wager on, it’ll mean you’ll throw away your name forever. Are you sure about it?”

“I’m allowed to go all out while outside… that’s what you said yesterday,” pointed out M0, his grey eyes flickering red for a fraction of a second. “Losing today was never an option, be it against you or any of the others.”

“If you’re that confident of your victory, then I’ll retribute your eagerness in the same way,” acknowledged Iru, his grey eyes also momentarily flickering red. “I won’t hold back, my ‘Beatrice’. I won’t hold back even if you beg me to.”

“Okay,” said M0, followed by a small nod of his head.

Side by side, Iru and M0 walked together with the other Ms further down the centre of the training grounds, leaving behind the flabbergasted human squad.

Eh…? What exactly just happened here?