“I’m declaring this right here, right now,” started Atsumu, a dead serious expression on his face as he pointed his index finger towards Mitaru. “I’ll be the one killing this ‘it’.”

“Heh! Did you also catch M0’s enthusiasm or something?” snorted Mitaru, leisurely lifting his arms over his head as a stretch before the fun could begin. “There’s no way you can beat me. You can try, as many times as you want. But you will never do it, Atsumu.”

“You never know~,” said Atsumu with a sing-song voice, his eyes turning red for brief seconds. “Even if I’m to fail now, there’s no rule saying that ‘its’ can’t kill one another. So I have not one, but two opportunities to get you down on the dirt in one go. I guess this is what humans call ‘killing one bird with two stones’.”

“I don't think it goes that way...” sighed Azuma, slowly removing his glasses and neatly settling them above a nearby wall. Once he turned around to face the other Ms, his calm demeanour had turned up the murderous engine a fraction. “But those that aren’t ‘its’ do have the opportunity of a second life in this game. The same can’t be said about you, Mitaru, Iru.”

“One life will be more than enough to settle this game,” announced Iru, a nonchalant smirk tugging the corner of his lips upwards. “Unlike you, playing this game serves a great purpose for me.”

“Then I guess I’ll be the one taking you out,” said Tsugi, stopping just one step away from Iru and casting his massive shadow over the other super soldier’s smaller frame. “I have a concrete objective in mind too. You can solve your disagreements with M0 another time.”

The moment his declaration finished exiting his mouth, Tsugi lunged one of his hands forward and took hold of Iru’s clothes, readily lifting him off of the ground and launching him into the air as if a cannonball.

“Well… Start, I guess…” grumbled Miue, having lost the chance to announce the beginning of the game when Tsugi made his first move against Iru. He turned around on his heels and dashed out of the incoming war zone, returning to near the rest of his squad to observe the incoming matches from a safe distance.

“Maybe you’re the one who’s the most eager and excited out of all of us, Tsugi,” chuckled Iru, leisurely landing on his feet after having been thrown a few dozens of metres in the air. “Well, it’s of no importance. I’ll oblige you and take you head-on.”

In the blink of an eye, Iru closed in on Tsugi, appearing right in front of him with one of his fists lunging at full speed towards his torso. Tsugi easily blocked the blow with the palm of his hand, which closed around Iru’s fist as if a steel-jaw trap. It wasn’t enough to put a stop to Iru’s attacks, however. He twisted his arm clockwise while giving a small jump. The next moment, Iru’s knee was heavily hitting the side of Tsugi’s head. With his two feet back on the ground, Iru once again rotated his body, catching momentum a second time to knee the side of Tsugi’s torso with another Thai-style roundhouse kick.

The impact of the kick caused Tsugi’s large body to be pushed a good few metres sideways, his feet lifting a thick cloud of dirt as they clawed the floor to remain in a standing position. He wobbled for brief seconds but his body remained as much of a vertical pillar as usual.

“You truly are serious about this silly game,” sighed Iru, casually walking towards Tsugi. “But your priorities are misplaced, Tsugi. Food comes second to my ‘Beatrice’!”

The strike had been so fast that Murayama’s squad could hardly follow Iru’s movements. The only clear thing was that Iru had hit Tsugi’s chest with enough strength to break his massive stronghold and make him fall on his back on the ground. The crash against the floor had been as loud as a building being demolished and the ground underneath Tsugi’s body had gotten as cracked and crumbly as a broken porcelain plate.

“Tsk!” Tsugi clicked his tongue loudly, using his upper arms to roll his body against the cracked floor and get back once again. “It’s your win, I guess…”

“Obviously,” smugly scoffed Iru, a knowing smirk on his features as his grey eyes followed Tsugi’s movements of getting up from the floor. As Tsugi shook the dirt and dust off of his clothes, Iru turned his body slightly around, his eyes now focused on the next prey. “I take it your next, Azuma?”

“Are you sure you want to fight me next, Iru?” asked back Azuma, his eyes tightening into thin slits as he carefully observed the other super soldier. “Shouldn’t you be prioritising your bet against M0? You just fought Tsugi. If I’m next, you might get too tired to have a good match against him. He would get extremely angry with you if you used me and Tsugi as an excuse after losing to him.”

“Tired? This is nothing more than some warm-up exercises to me,” pointed out Iru, leisurely shrugging his shoulders. “Given the rules and circumstances of these matches, none of you is a challenge big enough to make me even break a sweat. If we had actual weapons, it would be a different story. You might have had a small chance of winning against me if you had your beloved rifles around, Azuma.”

“Yes, you might be right,” confessed Azuma, releasing a soft sigh afterwards. He lowered his body, casually sitting down on the floor. Then the unexpected happened. He dropped his body fully to the ground, his back touching its rough surface.

“What are you doing?” inquired Iru, suspiciously eyeing Azuma as he forfeited his match against him by killing and turning himself into an ‘it’ on his own free will.

“Your priority will always be M0,” started Azuma, getting up from the floor once again while cleaning his clothes of the little bits of dirt from the back of his clothes. “Hence I will make M0 my priority too. If I can’t win against you under these conditions, I just need to eliminate all chances of you having your match against him by turning him into an ‘it’ myself. I don’t need to win. Ruining your plans will suffice for the time being.”

“That’s a nice strategy you’ve got there,” acknowledged Iru, his suspicion turning into amusement. “But go ahead and tell me why do you think you’d be able to win against M0 under these circumstances if you know full well that you can’t even win against me?”

“It’s a one-sided gamble,” explained Azuma, momentarily taking a glance at the area where Mitaru and Atsumu were having their extremely noisy and messy one-on-one match. “I’ve put my trust on Mitaru winning against Atsumu. And I’ve put my trust that you would win against Tsugi. If Mitaru wins, everybody except M0 will become an ‘it’. Winning against some of us might have been possible for him but winning against all of us is an impossible task.”

“Sometimes I get under the misunderstanding that you actually hate my beloved ‘Beatrice’,” chuckled Iru, his smirk becoming more and more noteworthy on his lips. “But it seems you have unconsciously sided with him on our bet. My, what am I to do with you? I’m now in a quite complicated dilemma. Should I go win my bet right this moment and destroy your plan… or should I allow M0’s strategy to set off and sit back while he destroys you for me?”

Hey, Rei… Which one?