Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia or any of its characters.

There will be violence, gore and mentions of death through-out this story – If there is anything else it will be added at the beginning of each chapter.

"The Future of Valhalla"

The sound of the harsh wind blowing through the corrugated tin sheeting that covered them echoed through the ruins that they camped in for the night. Lukas the eldest of the two lay there turning in his sleep, his once peaceful dreams now nightmares, plagued by the sounds of destruction and chaos. The small rough encampment baring very little safety but the silence is thick and the night cold is harsh. Cold... It's too cold. Lukas shot up from his sleep, franticly feeling at the space by the side of him. Empty. He sticks his blonde head out of the side of the corrugated sheeting, the sunlight filtering through the wreckage of the old school building they had chosen for the night. His panicked purple blue eyes began searching. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, His little brother, his only anchor in this wasteland was missing.

Lukas gathered the small amount of provisions and items they had, some food they had scavenged from a ruined house a few miles away, a water skin that he had made that was in bad repair and a hunting knife, it was his fathers. Moving the tin sheeting Lukas broke out into the school ruins, his hunting knife gripped firmly in his hand. From his years in this wasteland he knew to keep his weapon drawn at all times. His footfalls were echoing through the halls, the rubble making walking lightly harder and harder with every step. Small beads of sweat trickled from the back of Lukas' neck, pooling into the collar of the rough dirty shirt that hung from his lithe body. Not having his brother near him was making Lukas nervous, had he wandered off? Had he been taken? Please not taken, anything but taken. Lukas' mind flitted images past his eyes, an outstretched hand, the view from a door crack, two people searching… searching for him, him and his brother, a scream, a bloodcurdling scream and silence.

Lukas stopped, his breathing hitched, his vision blurred. "Not again, please no" Lukas' voice scratched out from his parched throat. His rough calloused hands pressed against the wall behind him and supported his weight as his knees buckled beneath him. Lukas leaned back against the wall and pressed his hands to his face "Now is not the time for this. Pull yourself together Lukas! He is out there; you are going to find him. He needs you." Lukas chastised himself. He pulled himself up shakily, breathing in the dusty air and pressed on through the ruins, his feet finding the floor at a quicker pace than before. The sun coming up faster made the dust swirls more visible in the air. Turning corner after corner the hunting knife pressed out in front, Lukas heard a crack… his foot is suspended in mid-air. Placing his leg down silently Lukas span in the direction of the noise, his breathing quickened, the hairs on his arm stood on end and the sweat on his neck chilled sending shivers through his spine.

A ruffle, a different direction, Lukas's head span, blonde hair sweeping over his face. Brushing the hair out of his face, he crouched moving through the rubble slowly, the knife in his hand, the horn handle digging into the palm of his hand, he turned a corner and held his breath. He would fight if he had to; he would fight till the ends of the barren land that is now the earth to protect his brother, his only family, the only thing he has left in this world. Lukas' eyes shifted to the movement on the floor, letting out the breath he had held. Too small to be human… or at least what passes for human these days, but not too small to be deadly. Knife poised, ready to strike. Lukas threw the blade expertly into the rubble pile at the movement. A high pitched shriek and the moving stopped.

Knowing the noise was loud enough to attract any attention Lukas waited, waited for any sign that he was not alone. No sign came; this meant a blessing but also meant his brother was still missing. Moving to the horn handle sticking through the scrap pile, Lukas picked it up, to find a large rat skewered on the tip. "Well at least we will be getting meat today" Lukas sighed removing the rat from his blade and wiping the blood onto its fur. Standing to full height once again Lukas tied the rat to his makeshift rope belt by its tail. He became focused once again on finding his younger brother.

The young blonde moved through the ruined classrooms with ease, the adrenaline from the altercation with the rat giving him an added boost to his stamina. The smoky and dusty rooms around him seemed to filter past with no sign of the young pale face he so desperately needed to see. Lukas on his search came to an almost intact room, hauntingly perfect, save for the scorch marks on the desks. Reading the walls he saw that this was a class of six to seven year olds… just a little younger than his brother was when it became just the two of them. The small children's painted handprints on the walls of the classroom spoke to him deep down. They reminded him of his brothers hands when he led him away when it was finally safe, the screams had stopped and the people had gone. There was nothing else he needed to do. "Find him Lukas… you have to."

Shaking off the cold feeling that the classroom had given him, Lukas adjusted his rat baring rope belt and rolled up the sleeves of his rough patched shirt. The room had made him more determined, he pushed his hair back out of his face with a rough blood stained hand. Lukas focused his eyes coldly on the path in front of him. This was a do or die situation, without his brother he had nothing to live for, he had no reason to be fighting any more, though he wouldn't give up. He would find his brother or find a body. Until then, the fight in him only became stronger.

Lukas had nearly searched the whole of this school building, with a terrifying lack of his brother. His strength waning slightly as the last of the adrenaline wore off, now, he was just scared, he was scared he would never find his brother, scared he had failed to protect him. Lukas pushed a door that was on one hinge out of the way with his foot, slowly turning the edge to see inside the room. It led outside. His heart leapt into his mouth, where was the other half of the building?! Had his brother been taken to the outside? Would he ever find him now that his search had lead him here? A flash of light caught his attention. Lukas lifted a hand to his face to block out the harsh rays of the sun that beat down on his pale face to see a scrap heap a short distance away. He felt for his water skin assessing how much water he had left, there wasn't a lot. With a nod of his head and a purse of his lips Lukas pushed onwards towards the pile of scrap, with a hope that his brother was near.

The morning sun moved higher in the sky as Lukas made his way to the scrap heap, the acrid land around him as dry and as parched as he was. Touching the scrap heap he paused, and placed his battered water skin to his lips letting the liquid trickle into his mouth. He needed to ration it if it was to last. Looking down at the rat at his hip "I know what I'm using your skin for" Lukas said to himself. With that he began to climb, reaching the top would give him a better sight of what lay beyond the pile of junk. Slipping once or twice Lukas reached the top, his hand in front of his face shielding the bright rays once again. His eyes focused on a dark figure with his back to him. Lukas crouched and tried not to slip, he squinted in the sunlight, and saw the light reflect off the pale hair of the figure on the heap below. That hair colour. Light almost like snow. His heart tripped over its beats and his shoulders sank. The energy in his body now failing. He heaved himself over the scrap pile and slid down to the boy below "Emil! If you ever disappear like that again I will skin you alive myself!" Lukas scolded the small young boy in front of him. Emil was a small boy of around 13 years old, his skin paler than his brothers, eyes a deeper shade of purplely blue and his thin lips pressed together in a line "I'm not a child any more I can find things too. I can help. Besides I put a note on the wall if you even bothered to look at what was in front of your eyes" Emil quipped with a slight frown.

Lukas rubbed his own face feeling the relief wash over him "Just don't ever do that to me again Bror, I thought you were…" Lukas trailed off. Emil looked down and shuffled his feet kicking some scrap away. "Sorry. But I did find something!" Emil said with a little more enthusiasm "Look!" the young boy pulled out an old assault rifle. "Bror, Where did you find this!?" Lukas exclaimed. Emil pointed to a section a little lower than where they were and added "The trigger needs fixing and I tried looking for ammo, but I couldn't find any" Lukas looked over the gun once more before looking at the sky. "We don't have very long… we can come back and look again but we need to move on from here, we can't stay there again. I caught us some dinner" He said holding up the rat. "We need to be gone by sundown"

Lukas wrapped a protective arm around his brother, Emil shrugged him off "Geroff" Lukas was relieved to have found him. Little did the pair know that someone somewhere near was searching for a small one too…