With The Wind, a hetalia - axis powers fanfic

Disclaimer: Axis Powers Hetalia is not mine—imagine being able to butcher the Chinese language in such a way...something I would never be able to accomplish in a thousand years O_o

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."

- Shakespeare

gray skies

So the world could be gray.

Or was it white?

White, then—although it was gray, it was white, and the color of the dead. Truly, Yao did not care, but he merely thought. He could only do that, aside from observing and stumbling. And perhaps he was weeping. He could not tell—his mind was disoriented, as if someone had struck his mind—his very sanity—with something hard, something that hurt. All that remained was the dullness, the numbness, of his throbbing head, his burning heart.

It couldn't have happened.

Then why was the world at its end?

falling seas

China was old. It was sometimes hard to remember, for time was time, and age was but a label. All he knew was that he did not have the energy that flourished within him—it was but the heart of the tiger that led him on now; and he was tired. So tired. And yet a whole nation was before him, so he could hold aloft the lamp to guide them. The duty of a nation.

He had seen worse than the Sichuan earthquake.

Yet the silent wailing and the cries were another deep scar.

Why did it have to hurt so much?

The tears came and left little damp marks on the ground. They looked almost refreshing on the dry ruins about him.

dying youth

It had been a day since the hellish event, and Yao still shook with a silent sea of tears. The children. They had taken the worst, the young ones. The children. Yao choked back the rage and guilt—corruption again. He could remember older days when his officials had nearly killed him—and now they were injuring him, so much he felt like a flame about to truly combust. Why could he not have built those schools better?—why did he not make them stronger?

Why was he so helpless?

He stood watching the soldier lay out the dusty, rainbow backpacks of the children. There were no backs to put them on now. Those backs were crumpled, slumped—lifeless. From now on, always lifeless and lifeless and still. They had once been like the divine fruit, plump and rosy and alive. The scarlet laughs and young joy.

Once.

He glanced over to the high school, where a nameless girl was jammed between two halves of a falling building. She had almost gotten out. The sight was terrifying and painful—what had that girl been thinking before? Desperation, and the light of day?—and a last, surprising pain crushing her back, snapping away her life?

A soldier came by, carrying a bleary old woman. She was so gray.

apocalypse

Yao's eyes widened. He couldn't help it—he felt so frail, so flimsy; he could not even control his actions. The earthquake was hellfire, and it left him buckling under the pressure; if only he could just sleep. But if he could not, if his people needed him, he could only look like what he was—haggard, a veteran in the war against time and space. This was an endless war, and he had lost this battle. Why did he always lose these kinds of battles?

Lost battles seemed to truly enjoy haunting him, but now he could almost appreciate it.

After all, he could only breathe—despite all that had happened, his brother still cared.

"Kiku."

And he suddenly wanted to hold the figure in front of him—he suddenly wanted to hug someone, to know that they were there...just this once, someone to lean against and release, just for a moment, just for a moment.... Just for a real flesh figure, solid and warm. Was that too much to ask for?—a simple request from a suffering aged man?

He restrained.

The petit man bowed. "I will send troops, if you want. I will send help—money, supplies."

And then he saw her.

You too? Yao wanted to say.

"Yao da ge," said Taiwan. She was blushing—she looked so young, yet so much like the flowering woman she was becoming. Yet her eyes, noticeably, flickered about, looking horrified at the destruction, the echoes of chaos. Her eyes had a hard, glittering quality. Gems and pools.

Yao's mouth opened to a slit, just a bit. Taiwan, he wanted to say. Taiwan. Kiku. The two nations who had declared themselves independent from their older brother—and they still cared. They still cared enough not to forget him—and they were here—the blasé face of Japan and the young-girl face of Taiwan—they were to be imprinted in his mind, engraved as on a plaque.

There was a slight silence; that Taiwan broke—"I'll send supplies. Da ge, how are you feeling?" Her hand twitched, as if to hold his hand.

But another one slipped into his left, and other was reluctantly set on his right. Yao should have flinched, but all he did was look—left, right. And another on his shoulder. The heat of flesh was surprising and even welcome.

A childish face and a childish voice, looking at him with nothing sort of a sort of clear and yet corrupted love, but a fierce and terrible one. "China-kun."

Another one, almost pouting, but like an opium dream. There was a bow of the head in acknowledgement.

And turn—there was his youngest boy. So he did not hate him? "Da ge."

For a moment, they looked like a family, all of them together. An axis, a solar system connected by one sun.

flowing water

"I'm moving on." Yao sat atop Song Shan, at the edge, feeling the wind caress his tired body. He spoke it to everyone and no one—he spoke it to himself and the world. The wind carried it, he could feel it catch his words and drag it across the world. Then, louder, "I'm moving on!

"I have lived thousands of years, and I will live for thousands more! My people have died, but I will mourn them. I will only fall when the whole world falls..." He broke off, feeling a part of his shattered heart crumple and then mend. Then the familiar weight shifted back to his heart.

He would never forget the people who died.

He would sometimes visit that little infant in the collapsed building, with her dead parents over her.

He would visit that girl who was buried and lived on her own blood for hours.

And no more.

He was not to be heartless—but two was enough. But he mourned for them. The world had ended that day, one year ago, and the world was still turning. Neither made sense, and neither of them were obligated to.

Whispers enveloped him—you should be there, he thought, a little wistfully; mourn them in Sichuan, not in this province, not miles away from it.

His mind flickered to the soldiers there, the hardworking men carrying bodies and bodies—dead and alive.

It was so raw.

the wolf and the moon

China stood up, straight and tall, his back erect.

The other nations looked at him, some surprised, others pitying. A hushing blanket was dropped on top of them.

The veteran smiled.

"You lao ni men la."

PT: Hmph. I figured, "About time I write about the Sichuan earthquake." It had quite an impact on me—I felt bad, to put it simply. My mom was absolutely crazy—looking at the web photos of the aftermath and on the newspaper, watching CCTV's stuff. There was a lot of stuff, and it didn't help that I was writing a lot behind her. I teared up. Many nations offered words of support, supplies, and troops. I found it rather touching that Japan and Taiwan helped out, really. And yes, there was a two-year old—she was found in her collapsed house, her parents dead on top of her—evidently they had thrown themselves over her to save her life. And there's the famous photo of children's backpacks, dusty, laid out, with a soldier behind them. On a newspaper, I saw a girl, a high school student—she was jammed between two thin halves of a building, top and bottom. Apparently she was trying to get out of the building, and almost succeeded. She was out, technically, but her back and upper thighs were still between the halves, and they crushed her. The last line is intentionally Chinese; Yao is just basically saying that he's grateful. Song Shan—Song Mountain—is part of the Shaolin Temple area, the monastery. I climbed it once, it's in Henan. Yeah.