Hands of the Axis
Notes: Hey, I wrote this in my sophomore year of high school and this was back when I was still doing Ride like the Wind. So at the time I was really into the whole AU History thing. I have not finished this and I don't intend on doing so unless someone absolutely begs me to do so. I mean, I could find a way to make this end. But otherwise… I just posted this just because it was meant to be read by someone instead of sitting in a box.
I also happened to discover it when I was looking for stuff to submit to Deviant ART.
This is a World War II story. I always thought that was the most interesting war. World War I was also pretty cool… You know what I mean by that. The Cold War was too much "Mine is bigger" for me. Okay, I'll just shut up and move on, okay? Thanks to anyone who decided to venture into this insanity. (rereading what I have so far reminded me why I stopped writing it, I did all I could to improve my holes)
x-x-x
July 1940; London, England.
He hair was a disturbing shade of blue. That was all Kurama really remembered about his employer after their first meeting. He didn't know how she dyed it to get it to that color. In fact, it looked so natural that it was impossible to figure out what she did. Actually, the real question should be why she chose such a hideous shade of blue. At least she had a good smile, even when people gave her crazy looks. People sometimes asked her what she thought of Hitler's BS down in Germany and she still acted like it as all fine and dandy down there. (Well, it was Kurama mostly. Not that he should give a damn what Germany was doing. But he couldn't help but wonder what the hell the League of Nations was thinking by letting him do what he was doing.) She strongly believed that everything would work out in the end. She believed everything works out in the end. But hell, that shouldn't matter at the moment either.
"Why hello there!" the woman with the awful blue hair said as soon as Kurama walked through the door. It was a little too enthusiastic. She didn't even give him a chance to look at his surroundings.
"Um, hello. I'm here for a job. An employee must have mentioned it. I am Shuichi Minamino," Kurama explained.
"No… I was recommended a Kurama." She put her hands on her hips and she stared up at the ceiling thoughtfully. The way she scrunched up her face indicated she was really racking her brains for this one. That was a little disturbing in itself. "Let me think… My memory often… Kurama… Shuichi…"
"Well, my nickname was Kurama. People often forget that it is, you see. People use that name so much it might as well be."
"Oh… So you are!" That showed a little too much trust, considering that she didn't even think to ask for any proof that he was who he said he was. "How wonderful. Yes, that job is still available. Let me show you around the building. My name is Botan, by the way."
"Oh, hello, Botan." Apparently she didn't believe in being more professional.
"By the way, I have to ask about your name because I have a Japanese friend from California. Have you been to California? It's so lovely there. I absolutely wish I could just move over there. Is your name Japanese?"
Scatterbrained too. "I'm not Japanese, really. Someone in my family happened to move over here from Japan in I think it was 1864. My parents gave me a Japanese name on a whim, apparently. I am still English."
"It doesn't matter. I still love Japanese and English equally. Love knows no borders I always say. I love everyone."
Apparently so. Unless she was just trying to sound like a real humanitarian. He only answered with a simple and noncommittal, "Mm-hm."
She decided that talk time was over and she showed him around the small hotel. She then opened a closet, which housed a mop, a bucket, a broom, a dustpan and several other cleaning supplies.
"You'll be cleaning all the rooms. Pick up the messes and mop the floor. Then you'll make the beds. It sounds like a lot, but with the number of people that actually stay here, it's not really. Is this alright with you?"
Wait, he had a choice? That's a good question. "Yes."
"So I will be seeing you tomorrow?"
"Yes."
"Thank you so much. I was waiting for someone like you to come. Thank you again." She half shoved him out the front door, thus ending his big morning. He was starting sooner than he though but he needed the money to attend the university. Besides, no eighteen year old should go without a job. Not now that war had begun.
Just as he was walking away from the hotel, he came across a boy who looked like he couldn't be any older than thirteen. The boy held his hands up, obviously begging. He really didn't like meeting beggars. He always felt bad when he had to turn them down so he could save money for his mother's medication. Just when he was about to pass the boy, he tripped. Kurama jumped back to his feet, knowing that the boy had tripped him. He reached into his pocket to find that his wallet was gone.
Kurama turned around to run after the boy and ran into a man who looked like a palere version of the boy, his father obviously. "I'm terribly sorry, sir…"
The man cocked a brow without opening his shut eyes. "Is there something wrong?"
"A boy just stole my wallet. If you happened to see where he went…" Kurama paused, feeling he just said the stupidest thing. The man was blind. He tried his hardest to continue. "Well, my mother would die without her medications and if I don't get it back…"
The man turned around and shouted, "Shura!" Instantly the boy returned looking on the verge of tears, that look on the face of someone caught with their hands in the cookie jar. After a good swatting on the side of the head, the boy handed the wallet back. "There you are. It will never happen again." His calm tone darkened, "Will it Shura?"
The boy mumbled a sheepish "No" as he slumped his shoulders.
"His good-for-nothing mother taught him this. I'm getting him to break the habit." He tugged the boy away and they walked down the street.
Kurama felt conflicted.
x-x-x
Same Month, same year; Dresden, Germany.
She really couldn't remember the guy's damn name. There were too many that walked in and out of her door, most of them just to get whatever she was selling, and few of them also happened to be assholes with a lump in his pants. Guess which one this was.
"So I'll be coming back next week…" the man said, face a little too close to Mukuro's and his hand resting a little too high on her leg.
She tried really hard to hold back the impulse to tell him to get his nasty-ass hands off her. In fact it took all the restraint she had just to give him a good thrashing just for thinking of doing anything to her. Instead she gave him a half smile. She had to. "Yes, as always. And the same time as usual?"
"Yes. Would you mind if I stayed a little longer…" Oh, god, his hand moved even higher. Didn't his wife satisfy him enough? (Shit, people are fine with sharing these days too. Fucking Hitler.)
"Well, I'm usually busy on the weekends. So if you were to stay here, I might have trouble working with the others, you understand, don't you?" Actually she wasn't busy. This was the only prick who showed up on the weekends.
"I could come on a less busy day…"
"If it works into your schedule…"
"I can find a way. I'll figure it out. I'll call when I figure it out." He stood up, made to kiss her on the cheek until he realized the time. A close call. "I'm late. I'll call you later! Remember that I will!"
He ran out of the house. Mukuro rolled her eyes at the closed door. After exactly five minutes, she got up and locked the door, then put the chain on it just for good measure. The idiot forgot what I sold him. Not my problem as long as it stays forgotten. Next thing I'll know they'll start having me deal drugs and that's exactly what the fuhrer needs. A bunch of addicts.
She shook her head and walked to the window. She saw a couple of people walking hand in hand. The man looked up, realized with clear horror that they must have turned into the wrong street, and he lead the girl away, trying his best to make it look like they were calmly walking around. Those two are always getting lost. They must be runaways… Jesus. If they keep this up, they'll get taken away by the… Or are they looking for someone to take them in?
She became vaguely aware of the attic.
x-x-x
Same month, same year; San Francisco, United States.
Yusuke didn't know exactly how his family ended up in the United States. The only family he knew was his mother, his extremely young mother. He didn't even know his father. Hell, he didn't even know if his father was in Japan or if his mother happened to meet this guy in the US. Didn't matter. What did bother him at the moment was Keiko Yukimura. She was a girl that happened to live next door to him as long as he remembered and they were stuck in school with each other from almost the first day of he set foot in a classroom. And she nagged him for every little thing.
At the moment it was, "Yusuke-san, have you done your homework for tomorrow yet?"
"Yeah, sure," he wasn't going to deal with her. He's been dealing with her BS almost since he was out of the womb.
"Is that a yes or a no?" She was seeing right through him.
"Keiko, I can decide what I can and can't do. You're not my mom."
"You're wasting the school's time by not doing your work. You're just going to make yourself look like a fool. How would your mother feel about you just failing school?"
"Keiko, no one cares." He gulped down the last of his Coca-cola and started to toss the bottle in the air and catching it. "I'm just going to join the army when I'm out of school anyway. I got two years to think about it."
"You're so stupid. And quit throwing that around. That's glass, you know. What if it breaks? Then you'll be standing in a bunch of glass."
"You don't have to be smart to be in the army. You just have to know how to fight and how to survive. I've been through enough brawls to know the ups and downs of that kind of stuff. Besides that, at least I'm actually doing something that's worth my time anyway."
"Would they even let people like us join?"
"Why not? Aren't they letting… You know… Black people fight?"
"But they don't have a country that's against everyone else. People don't like Japan anymore."
"Tch, and Japan doesn't like us. I don't give a shit. I'm gonna go kill some Germans is what I'm gonna do."
"But… You know we're not in the war…"
"I'm shipping myself off to Britain then. Just watch me!"
x-x-x
Same month, same year; Stalingrad, Soviet Union.
Kazuma Kuwabara was in a real jam. Hell, when wasn't he? Work never paid him to get the rent paid and food on the table, let alone going out and enjoying himself every once in a while. even with his sister paying some of the bills, it wasn't enough. it never was enough. Still he had to work for his idol Josef Stalin, the Vozhd. He worked for almost nothing for the Vozhd. He cursed god, the one who doesn't exist because Stalin was always right. He killed his kitten to save up on extra spending because Stalin made it okay to do so.
He once thought Stalin was wrong. And that was with the Nazi-Soveit Pact. But he never said anything when that came and went. No. You can never say Stalin was wrong because he never was. In the Soviet Union, Stalin was always right. Unless you wanted to disappear that is. Besides, Kuwabara was delusional in thinking otherwise.
"Kazuma, you better get off your ass and get going to work. You better not be late to the factory either. The boss'll be pissed if you are," his sister Shizuru growled as she walked through the dining room. "Staring at the table won't make you get there faster and it won't get you changed into your uniform. Come on. Get going."
"Get off my back sis. I didn't get any sleep last night. I'm tired." He hurried into his bedroom and slipped on his raggedy work uniform. And he shoved his feet in his dirty shoes, he said over his shoulder, "See, look, sis. I'm going right now. I'll run to work if it means I;\'ll be early."
"You won't be early if you keep running your mouth like that. You're the one paying for the food this week, too. So remember that."
"Okay, okay. I'm leaving." He stepped out of the house, took the key from his pocket and locked the door twice, just to make sure he locked it. He groaned when he saw how grey it all was. He wouldn't have minded seeing all this darkness just disappear.
He remembered that in another year's time, he would finally be eighteen and he would finally be able to join the red army. That wouldn't be so bad. Getting shot up by Germans wouldn't be so bad. It can get any worse than sitting in a dark factory til god knows when as the boss looked down his nose at you. Watching. Waiting for you to crack. It'll be the gulags if you fail me, they think.
This is the world that they created. This is the culture of fear everyone must tolerate.
But still. Hell, Stalin was always right. Yeah, he was always right because he said he was.
End of chapter one.
Information: World War II started September 1939 with Hitler's invasion of Poland, thus breaking the Hitler-Stalin pact/Nazi Soviet pact which would have divided Poland between the two. In 1940, the US has yet to enter the war. Not much else to address.
I am not a racist. So if you pick out that line…
Thanks for your time so far.