PLEASE READ AUTHOR'S NOTE FIRST. IMPORTANT INFORMATION BELOW!

AYYYYYYYYYY. IT'S FINALLY DONE! As usual, took me long enough, but it's done and I'm so excited about it!

...But first some housekeeping to get out of the way. *boos*

First of all, I made a formal apology in my profile, but to my followers, I'm so sorry about my unannounced hiatus. ^^' It wasn't nice of me to leave without a word, and if any of you are actually still around reading this, I can't thank you enough for sticking with little ol' me. For any newcomers, WELCOME! I am most glad to have you here and I sincerely hope you enjoy this little literary experiment.

Now for the important part: Though many of you already notice, I would like to make it clear that this is a sequel. The original story off which this was based is "Hetalia Kids," written by my nugget/main bitch/IRL best friend, Phoenixette101. This whole thing was her idea originally, from the main plotline to all the main characters. She has generously bequeathed the responsibility of writing this sequel onto me, and I couldn't be more honored. For returning fans of "Hetalia Kids," I hope you especially are pleased by this long-awaited follow-up. For anyone who is new, while this fic is designed to be able to stand on its own, it is still a sequel at its core. Therefore, if you enjoy this chapter, it is suggested that you read at least the first few chapters of the original "Hetalia Kids" in order to get the full idea.

And finally, a fair warning: Later chapters of this fic will heavily involve disturbing themes, including gore and violence against children. It is in no way as cute and fluffy as "Hetalia Kids" was. I will put trigger warnings before each chapter that involves these things. However, if you are put off by any of the things I just mentioned, I would just not bother with this fic at all, because the violence is an integral part of the plot.

With all that finally out of the way, please READ ON! (I promise the other author's notes won't be this long...)

"What's war like?"

The question dropped heavily onto Italy's shoulder and sat there like a eagle, its taloned feet clamped onto him. If he made a wrong move, the claws would sink only deeper.

No. That wasn't quite it.

The question fell on him like a bolt of lightning. And right now he was staring into the storm.

The photograph that had been dropped on the table in front of him bore the background of a roiling grey sky. The bellies of clouds distended with rain bore down oppressively on the dark figures in the picture's foreground. These people were donned in military uniform and standing on a beach, the landscape flat and bleak save for some metal structures twisting up like weeds from the ground. The fact that the image was blurred slightly, combined with its black-and-white tones, made the scene appear unreal in some way, an illustration as opposed to a genuine snapshot. Italy knew better.

He looked up from the grey-toned world on the coffee table and found the faces of his two children staring back at him in all their color.

"So? What is it?" Viktor's question was direct and unyielding. He was unusually earnest for a boy of nine, with eyes of a crystalline ice-blue to compliment his snowy complexion. He was straightforward with all those around him and expected just about everyone else to behave the same way. That standard included his parents.

Italy first retaliated with laughter. "Haha! War, bambino? You'll be learning about that in school soon enough anyway...you'll be just sick of it by the time that's all over, too!" Again, the flippant, flighty laugh sounded.

"We have started learning about it some, but-"

"And so BORING." The volley of blabber increased in velocity. "Like they go out of their ways to make it dull! It's all THIS general and THAT set of weapons..."

"But the photo-"

"Nothing to interest you two, I promise! But since you're here, I've got a little job for you! Why don't you help me pick out a nice color palette for the next painting I'll be doing? I was thinking of making a still-life, but then again maybe something more lively because it's just getting to look like spring around here now-"

"Mom."

There. A single syllable. The verbal deluge was brought to a halt. Now Italy stood helpless against the question that he had always known he would have to answer and had always hoped that he would never have to.

"...I...where did you find this picture?" Still he avoided answering, like a child, but he couldn't help it.

"Dad was keeping it in a little clear envelope in his drawer, and I found it when he told me to get out one of his ties-"

"And I found him!" chimed his daughter suddenly. She pointed enthusiastically to one of the black-clad sentinels in the image. "This is him, isn't it?"

"Yes..."

"And what about those giant spikes in the background?"

Viktor intervened self-righteously. "Those are anti-landing craft devices. I looked them up already. That's what they are, right, Mom?"

"Ludwig!"

Germany entered the room (rather reluctantly) at the call of his husband. "There's really no need to shout, is there?"

Before Italy could begin to respond, the photo was snatched from his line of vision, and the kids presented it to their father with enthusiasm. The children's chatterings tripped over one another, as each tried individually to explain to their father how they had discovered the image and asking their plethora of questions about it. Germany appeared deaf to it all as he stared down at the paper that had been thrust into his hand. His countenance, usually so unaffected, grew dismal; his tight, sharp square jaw sagged slightly as the corners of his mouth turned downward.

Well over a minute passed before he gathered himself enough to walk over to the couch and take a seat beside Italy. The kids gradually stopped their verbal barrage, and the room soaked up the heavy silence, as though the air itself were sensitive to the nation's quiet authority.

Moments passed. Then: "You know how old we both are...hundreds and hundreds of years between us. Why do you think we never had children up until the last few years."

Lexi blinked at Germany's question, then turned expectantly to Viktor. The boy, then, hesitantly ventured his guess. "Because...you wanted to wait until the right time to have us?"

"Well, yes...more specifically, we wanted to wait for a safe time to have you. That's about right, yes. When the peace accords were first signed, no one thought they would last for more than a year, but it's been thirty years and so far..." Germany turned to his husband with a slow, small smile, hesitant to tempt fate.

"So far, no nation in the world has officially declared war on another," Italy finished.

"So what's that got to do with us?"

"You see, up until ten years ago, no country ever had babies...well, not the regular way, at least. New nations just sort of, poof, popped up out of nowhere and old countries would take them in. You're different, you and your cousins and your friends."

"The first of your kind," Germany went on. "Everyone knows how a normal country feels when it's under attack, but there's no way of knowing how it could affect someone like y-"

"How does it feel?" Lexi blurted, unthinking.

Germany turned to stare at her pointedly. "...Painful. There've been days when I couldn't move, it was so horrible and painful, and there isn't ever a thing that can be done to stop it." His daughter looked down, sorry for having asked. "That's why we couldn't have had you around while there was still so much violence in the world. How could we risk having you hurt like we were in the past?"

Like most his age, Viktor felt the severity of his father's speech more than he understood the meaning. In an attempt to make the conversation less uncomfortable, he slowly slid the picture across the coffee table, back in the direction of his parents. "Alright...we know why there's no war right now. But how about back when this was taken? You don't look like you're in pain right here."

The blonde country sighed. "You really want to know about this one photograph, don't you?"

Encouraged, he nodded. "Yeah! We figured this must've been taken right before a battle or something. So did you win this one? Did you take out the enemy?"

Italy turned to look at the still, stony face of his lover, and was not for a moment fooled by it. (How could he be, after watching it for nearly a millenium?) He looked through the clear blue glass of the German's calm eyes and saw a mind in upheaval behind them. He saw memories clamber over one another for attention, crowding every crevice of his brain. He saw images too great to be contained by words. He knew that all these things were coursing through Germany's head, because they were going through his as well.

And in front of them was Viktor, awaiting nothing less than a candid answer. And in front of them was Lexi...sweet Lexi, with eyes and voice like honey. Innocence.

"Sit down," Germany finally murmured. "We'll tell you all you'll ever need to know."

"You think you're ready to learn about war?" Hungary asked her two expectant children. The twins looked right back. Youth met age, brimming curiosity met imminent regret. "Let's see it, then. Name me three famous generals from my land that you've learned about in school."

Zoltan began, "Szent I-"

"Szent István, Zrínyi Miklós, Count von Hotzëndorf." Rebeka's quick reply earned her a glare from her brother and the attention of her mom.

"Yes. Now why don't you name a few of the people who served under them?"

Rebeka opened her mouth and then, sheepishly, closed it when the right answer did not jump out.

"Mm-hmm." Hungary nodded knowingly. "People like us have always been in a unique position-people who represent nations, I mean. We've all seen both sides of a fight. Sometimes we've been counted as advisors and commanded troops alongside the greatest generals in history. Other times...well, in the end, a nation is just a group of people trying to live in the same place together, right? So other times, we'd fight like those regular people who were trying to live, and we'd be just another common soldier."

"And most often," Austria quietly added, "you wouldn't want to be the latter."

Zoltan leaned forward a bit. "Why?"

"War doesn't value individuals much, as you might've guessed. When a soldier died, if he was just another soldier, history didn't stop to remember his name. Well, sometimes war doesn't value countries much either. Like your mother said, nations are just people in the end...so if history can't even remember the death of one common person, how could it remember the deaths of a hundred? Or a thousand? Or a hundred thousand?"

"We've seen entire nations sacrificed and forgotten because someone in charge was too stubborn to back away from a fight." Hungary furrowed her brow at the hem of her skirt. "Just look at Holy Rome..."

"Who?"

Her head snapped up and her focus returned to her children. She laughed, or tried to-it was a patched-up sort of laugh, hastily thrown together and forced out into the unsmiling world before its time. "No, I guess you wouldn't have learned about Holy Rome yet. That's okay. The point is that everyone suffers in a war-and not just certain people or just the people doing the fighting, but everyone in every country involved."

Rebeka eyed the two doubtfully. "Why have it, then?"

"Any number of reasons." Austria was leaning back in his chair and had bent his neck to stare straight up at the ceiling, at such an angle so as to hide his eyes from his family. "Sometimes self-defense, sometimes to gain someone else's resources..."

"Sometimes honor," Hungary said.

The man never turned his gaze, but one could see the thin, straight line of his lips soften into a grin. "With you, dear, yes, it was usually about honor."

"Yes," Hungary chuckled-real, organic laughter this time. She turned back to the twins. "I have to admit...there were times when you'd have been impressed to see what your mother could do. I once took out ten men with just a dagger and never broke a sweat." As she talked, her expression brightened. Her green eyes mirrored the verdant fields across which she had ridden into battle as a youth. "They all were scared of me at one point or another-Romania, Austria, Italy...there was even a time during the fighting in 1848 that I took out two men at once just by-"

"You fought Dad?"

Reality returned to her consciousness with a vengeance. The vivid visions of fighting dissipated-steel faded from her thoughts like mist, the images of spilled blood drained away back into the deepest recesses of her mind. Flimsy memory gave way to what was solid and real. The children, for instance, were solid. The mistake that just been made, for instance, was real.

"We did," Hungary whispered. "Many, many times, in fact."

"That's impossible!" Rebeka insisted. "You guys wouldn't do that to each other, no matter how mad you got."

Hungary sighed. Austria kept his glanced turned away. "I didn't think you'd believe it," she said as she began to remove her blouse, "so I guess you'll have to see for yourself."

They were leech-like things, monstrous. The serpentine scars stretched down the man's small, tan back, each well over a foot in length and each colored a dull red like rust. They were unlike any injuries the boy had ever seen before, not quite like cuts and not quite like burns. Rather, in spite of his knowing that it could never be logical, he imagined the markings as great parasitic worms burrowed just beneath the surface of his skin, their bodies ruddy and engorged with the old blood in his veins. These scars, these foreign things, were now a part of his very self.

Kobey had read the stories of leeches being used in the infancy of medicine, how they were thought to purify the body and make it whole again. These old wounds, though, only served to mar and rend.

"No."

Japan turned around to face his son, hiding his beaten back from the boy. His expression remained neutral, but something turbulent had seeped into the calm darkness of his eyes. "What do you mean, 'no,' Kobey?"

"I-I mean I won't believe it," the eight-year-old croaked. "Dad wouldn't do that to you. You love each other! You're MARRIED."

The old man exhaled slowly. "This is why we didn't want to tell you until you were old enough to understand..."

"I can understand now! I-I just don't believe it." Desperately, he looked over Japan's shoulder to the man behind him. "Dad, that's not right, is it? You never did any of that?"

America's head was in his hands. His palms had pushed his glasses out of the way and now they were askew on his face and there appeared to be small water droplets suspended on the surface of the lenses. He did not look up.

Kobey turned back to Japan, distress and confusion visible on his young face. (Kobey was not accustomed to being confused.)

Japan slipped his button-down back on, concealing the damage beneath the clean white shirt. "Something you should know about countries, Kobey...we're not always in control of our destinies. We rarely are, in fact. We can be figures of pride or advisors or voices of the people or just mouthpieces of our leaders...but usually we aren't in control. We have to live with the whims of the world."

"But that doesn't mean we aren't responsible for what happens." America lifted his head suddenly. His watery blue eyes seemed almost prepared to overflow. Almost, because Kobey had never seen his father cry, and America was always able to beat back the tears. "Even if my boss made the final decision about dropping the bombs, I'm still to blame. Letting all those people die...that's not how a hero should act at all, EVER."

Japan turned a sympathetic glance toward his husband. "You did what you thought you needed to do. You just wanted to do what was best for your country, like I did."

"But...but how'd it ever get that far?" Kobey pressed. "How could you have ever hated each other so much, to...to hurt each other like that?"

America took in a shaky breath. "Our people hated, so we hated. It's really that easy. Almost like...we couldn't help feeling like that when everyone around us felt like that too. But actually, we could've helped it, and we should've. But we didn't. Do you know what I mean?"

The older nation shook his head. "Neither of us did what we should have. We didn't stop hating."

Kobey studied the two of his parents, squinting slightly, as though trying to determine whether they were a mirage. Their figures seemed real enough, but he now felt that they existed on a different plane, some reality foreign to him-like they were projections on a screen. Finally, he turned away, shutting his straining eyes. "...If you hated each other so much...why'd you ever decide to get married?"

America's signature smile began to cautiously re-emerge. "Well, 'cause we love each other. You're smart enough to figure that much out, little buddy."

"But how? How could you go from...from trying to kill each other...to this?"

The eight-year-old's eyes pleaded with the two men before him and for some time he was given no response."

"Change, Leon."

Said child looked up with a watery gaze. The simple, soft words of his father had floated down like two feathers to smash through the heavy iron silence. "W...what do you mean?"

England shrugged, a small grin beginning to bloom on his lips. "That's really all there is to it. The world's always changing, son-slowly, but always-and we've changed right along with it, as countries. As people."

France nodded. "There's one thing that we've had a lot more of than anyone else, and that thing is time. We've been around for a thousand years, the two of us. That's been plenty of time for us to change our minds and realize the mistakes we've made many times over. We've had centuries to change for the better, and we're luckier than almost anyone in that way."

In a strangled whisper, Leon questioned, "But how could you both change that much? How could anyone?"

England took in a weary breath. "You're so young, Leon. It's difficult to understand unless you've been raising hell as long as we have. But let's see if we can make it any easier..." With that last sentence, his eyes slowly trailed downward to rest upon the pendant that hung around Leon's neck. The boy clutched it instinctively, allowing the corners of the object to dig into his palm and remind him of its solid presence.

The cross of Jeanne d' Arc. The token of his father's savior. The token of his other father's victim. In fact, both of his parents, as he'd found out, were killers. They had both murdered and burned since the moment they could pick up a sword. The demise of a saint was merely a blip on the timeline of their crimes throughout history. There had been many deaths before hers and many more after.

"You know who owned that cross...and so you must know what she stood for, don't you?" the green-eyed country went on.

Leon shrugged, dejectedly scuffing his bare feet over the rough carpet. "She saved Daddy...she's a protector, and she represented loyalty...and I guess also purity, from what you guys have told me..." He glanced up at his parents, hoping that his rambling would eventually lead him to the right answer. They only continued to stare in expectation, and eventually he gave up.

After a few moments, France spoke. "Yes, you've got all that right. There's one thing you've forgotten, though."

"What's that?"

"Forgiveness."

Leon's eyes widened. "...Huh?"

England nodded sagely. "She didn't want revenge, not in her life or during her death. She didn't curse the people who hurt her...not even me."

"And so," France continued, reaching to wrap his arm around England's shoulder, "we thought after awhile, 'Wouldn't it disrespect her memory if we didn't forgive each other?'"

"So...that's it? You just got up one day and decided you wouldn't be mad anymore."

France chuckled. "Well, it wasn't quite so easy as that. It took us time to let go of our anger...hundreds of years, in fact. We finally realized it, though: We could never forgive on behalf of all the people who had died, but we could forgive the pain that we'd felt ourselves. And, of course, the rest is history."

"And so does it all make sense now?"

The children had no response to Germany's question. Their excitement had been subdued. Viktor stared at the knot in his shoelaces and concentrated on untangling his thoughts. Lexi, meanwhile, searched her parents' faces for answers.

"Can...can I ask just one more question?" The little girl's tone was timid.

"Of course, bambina." Italy's voice shook in spite of all his attempts to settle it. Thoughts raced and rattled in an endless loop around his head, spinning around the axis of some mental centrifuge, gaining speed and momentum with each rotation. They're still too young. We shouldn't have said it. They'll have nightmares now. They're still too young...

"That kind of war is never gonna happen again, is it?"

In spite of himself, Germany smiled. His gaze was unusually wistful as he leaned back in his seat. "You know...thirty years ago, I'd have said no. But I really am hopeful, honey. I think we may not see any fighting in the world in your lifetime. And even if we did, you'd know I'd be there in a second to keep the two of you safe."

Lexi smiled. "Yeah, I know..."

"Well, you'd have to do your part to help me and your daddy protect you, sweetie," Italy said with a laugh. "My plan is that we'd make this noodle, you and me...I mean, the biggest spaghetti noodle you've ever seen, and the strongest one, too! That way, if anyone came to start a fight, we'd get him all tied up with the noodle so he couldn't hurt anybody!"

"Hey!" Viktor jumped up as Lexi burst into giggles. "I wanna help protect you guys, too!"

"Of course, bambino! Couldn't do it without you!" The two young ones, entirely re-energized, continued to banter and scampered excitedly around the room. The familiar pattering of their bare feet reminded Italy of a gentle, comforting rainfall.

A/N: Every time you review, a kitten is born.