China sat stroking Korea's sweaty hair. The division of his nation was hard on him. Korea wasn't yet officially split in the eyes of whatever deity controlled the embodied nations, and so Korea took all the pain of the deaths on both sides. This vicious war was making him ill, his normally dark skin pale and washed out with tears as he swayed in his armchair. Looking at Korea's convulsively clenching fists, Yao remembered another time he watched a brother of his in pain.
August 6th, 1945
It was near the end of World War II. Kiku had Yao chained in his own home, guards all around to prevent any hope of his escape. Although the Chinese had fought admirably, Japan had managed to hold Yao's nation even through Alfred and Arthur's assaults on his own. Japan paced in front of China, muttering to himself. In the haze of Japan's madness, China had never seen him do more than wince in the pain of this bloody war, barely hissing as entire Japanese regiments were taken out, as Japanese ships were destroyed. Yao shook and shuddered himself as fighting broke out yet again in Nanjing, and men fell in the hundreds.
China started out of his thoughts as he heard an agonized yell. Disbelievingly, he saw Kiku sink to his knees, shivering ripples travelling up his spine. As Yao watched on, Kiku's hands flew to his side, and he gagged for a moment before vomiting, blood dripping from his nose.
However, after a moment, Japan slowly climbed to his feet, sweat beaded on his forehead and eyes glazed to the distance. He murmured something unintelligible under his breath, and turned to face the messenger that ran in.
"Sir! Bombs! They bombed-"
"Hiroshima. Yes. But not firebombs?" came Kiku's shaky reply.
The messenger shook his head. "No, sir. Something new. It hit the factory. There's nothing left but a shadow of it. Half the city has disappeared."
Kiku's head fell, and a convulsion wracked his body as the fires and fallout claimed more victims.
China bowed his head at the recollection of that dark time. Although he hated Kiku then, it had still hurt to see his brother in that kind of pain. That same pain came again 3 days later, in Nagasaki. Japan's boss had been there to see it along with China. Kiku's reaction alone had unsettled Japan's boss enough to shake him out of his madness. Once he saw the destruction of the two cities, he couldn't call for peace fast enough.
Even with the peace called, Kiku hurt for years. To this very minute, almost 30 years later, Yao could see Japan wince as people died from the radiation sickness. His scars were terrible, nearly as bad as France and Germany's from Somme, and they kept growing and darkening.
Yao couldn't help but wonder at the cruelty of death as his back cramped due to a fire that was sweeping through Qingdao and Korea cried out in pain from the napalm killing dozens in his forests.
A.N.: I'm not trying to make any sort of statement here about World War 2, or the Korean War, or the Sino-Japanese War. I'm just saying, if the nations feel the pain of their citizens dying, Hiroshima and Nagasaki had to really suck for Kiku. Sorry about anything that isn't historically accurate. I tried.
