Blue

by Ravenclawsome

The world isn't the same as it was before. The streets flow red with the blood of many, but Italy, surprisingly, is alive, although desperately wounded. He feels as if there's something out there that he needs to find, but he can't quite figure out just what it is. Will he find it? And if he does, will it be as it was before? Rated T for violence. May change to M later on.

Italy staggered down the street, clutching the few objects that hadn't been incinerated to steady him as slipped in the thick river of blood and oil-filled water that filled his path. Is some of it my blood? He wondered dazedly. It would certainly explain why he kept having to wipe his eyes free of the, thick, burning liquid that kept filling them. And as for his arm… He risked a quick peek at it, and had to grab a hold of the lamppost that rose out of the debris beside him with his other one to keep from retching up whatever was left in his empty stomach. He vaguely remembered a hunk of fiery metal screaming out of the sky and a faint sting as it hit him, but surely that hadn't reduced it to the mangled, roast mass of bone and muscle that it was now?

All around him, slowly, cautiously, people crawled out of the twisted remains of the once-proud buildings of his city. Some carried with them broken mementoes, things they had once held so dear to them, but most others had nothing but heavy packs of grief, pain, and shattered hope. Did I have anything that I loved? Italy thought, his clouded, numbed mind struggling to focus on the wretched scene taking part across the street from him, one in which a howling, desperately injured woman, stumbling out of the nearly demolished house, tried to drag with her the hopelessly twisted form of a child. As he watched, a fire bloomed as the house began to collapse, and with a heart-wrenching cry, she collapsed, cradling the little one in her arm as she waited, sobbing, for the flames to catch up to them. Bile rose in his throat, and he ripped his eyes away to stare at the sky, the sky that was stained with dirt and smoke, so different from its usual clear blue.

Blue...

The first clear thoughts (or were they simply memories?) since his world had exploded in a bright spectrum of colours raced through his mind. A flash of blue eyes, twinkling with rare warmth. Blonde hair, slicked back and shining in the hot noonday sun, and the arms, arms that had always carried the strength he'd admired for so long, flexing with raw power as they warded him from harm. A companion. A friend. Something that he loved, someone that he had to find.

Germany.