Kay guys sorry about the previous chapter. Your regularly scheduled hijinx will ensue.
Several notes:
I realized that because the main characters of this fic are Sora and Prussia, FFN lists it as "Sora/ Prussia". THERE WILL BE NONE OF THAT. That would be the worst pairing ever. Now, Riku/ Prussia, that I could get behind... but I sure as hell ain't writing it.
On chronology: I am not obeying the proper chronology of either fandom for purposes of the plot working. Thus, Sora has visited the Land of Dragons but all of the Org is still alive. As for Hetalia, I'm mostly working with established chronological order, but way sped up. By the end of this fic, the USSR will have fallen, which would technically mean 50 years had passed. Sora is not that old.
November is fast approaching, which as you know means NaNoWriMo. Which means I'm going to have a shitload of original writing to do. Which means this fic will not update nearly as often. It's a shame, because the next chapter is super-exciting. I'll try to post it for you guys sometime in the middle of November, but don't hold your breath – my novel is a harsh mistress. After November I'll resume focusing on this fic.
It has come to my attention that I forgot to put Jiminy Cricket in here. Um... HE WAS STEPPED ON BY A GERMAN. IT WAS VERY TRAGIC EVERYONE CRIED FOR DAYS. There, that's taken care of now.
Okay that took way too long. It's storytime!
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Sora had gotten used to walking the distances the nations walked, and so he and his friends needed only to skip merrily through mountains for less than an hour before they had crossed the Alps. He wondered whether he could figure out how to do this in other worlds; it made traveling way easier. He also wondered if he should have tried to take home one of those mountain goats, because they were seriously adorable.
Upon climbing down from the mountains (actually, about half of that was sliding down on his butt, which was not as fun as it seemed it should be), the weather suddenly became sunny and balmy, with a lovely sea breeze blowing in. Sora noticed a human port city nearby, probably full of bustling crowds and and pretty girls and delicious food and boys in sailor suits. This place did make him feel like sitting back and taking a vacation, but heroism didn't allow for fun times like that. So he set off for what looked like a nation's home on the horizon, a lovely little country house.
Sora wiped his snowy shoes on the doormat (which declared CIAO BELLA!) before knocking at the green wood door. He waited a couple seconds, but there was no response. He tried pressing the doorbell, and he could hear it make a rooster sound within the house, but there was still no answer. Sora banged on the door a bit harder, frustrated. It swung open, completely unlocked.
After regaining his balance, as the sudden opening of the door had thrown him for a loop, Sora peered around inside. There was no one in sight, but there was a delightful aroma of tomato sauce coming from the kitchen. Surely the nation that lived here would have enough to share just a taste. Sora stepped inside.
"DEATH FROM ABOVE!"
"What the-" was all Sora had time to say before he had the wind knocked out of him. The younger Italy boy had him pinned by the shoulders, and though Sora tried to shove him off, the guy was heavier than he looked.
"I did it!" Italy shouted. "See, when you want the advantage in a fight, you have to lull the enemy into security and then catch 'em by surprise! I learned that from Japan! And then when you've got them you've got to never let go until they're good and dead! I learned that from Germany! They'd be so proud!"
Goofy cleared his throat and Italy looked up. "You know, there are three of us and only one of you," Donald pointed out, wand raised.
"Basic math is good for you," Goofy added, brandishing his shield.
Italy made a small "eep" noise and sprang back, allowing Sora to get up and draw his Keyblade. Seeing the weapon, Italy fell back and grabbed a white flag from his pocket. He used both hands to wave it frantically. "I'm sorry!" he cried. "I didn't mean to! I was only joking! I don't wanna fight anymore! I'll be good, I promise!" Sora couldn't tell if he was actually weeping in earnest.
"Hey, hey, calm down," he told the crying nation. He put away his Keyblade. "We're not gonna hurt you. You just startled us is all."
"Oh, okay." Italy sniffled and wiped his nose. "Well, I guess that means we can be friends – wait. Aren't you the magic Allied soldier? With the talking dog?" He looked at Goofy. "That dog did talk! You're him, aren't you!"
"Yeah, but -"
Italy dove under a table. "I told you I surrendered! Waah! Stop bullying me!"
"Hey! Wait wait wait!" Sora waved his hands. "I'm not here to attack you. I'm here to apologize."
Italy peeked out. "Apologize? But all you Allies are so mean! You beat up Germany!"
"Yeah, but it was... an accident." Sora scratched the back of his head.
"Germany is not the kind of guy you beat by accident. Maybe you could beat me by accident," Italy admitted, "but not Germany."
"No, no, let me explain. You see, I thought you guys were Heartless."
"Heartless?" Italy looked aghast. "We do too have hearts!"
"No, wait, those are a different thing – Can I like sit down and talk to you about this? It's a long story."
"No," said Italy, and Sora was about to be upset when he continued with "You can do better than that! You can sit down and have lunch with me and tell me all about it! I just made ravioli!"
Sora and company, who hadn't eaten since that chocolate bar, gladly agreed. Though the kitchen was a total wreck, the food looked absolutely delicious. Italy went all out with the meal, serving buttery garlic bread and a salad and wine, which he was astonished to see Sora refuse. The meal was completely fantabulous, and Sora had to force himself to take breaks to talk between shoveling mushroom-filled pasta into his mouth. Italy listened with rapt attention to Sora's story of how Destiny Islands had been destroyed by Heartless and how he had become a Keyblade master to save other worlds from the Darkness. He told a little bit about each of the worlds he had visited, with Donald and Goofy interjecting with helpful comments, and Italy contributed cheers and gasps of shock at the appropriate times in the story. When Sora was finished, Italy applauded. "That was the best fairy tale ever! I love fairy tales!"
"Thanks," said Sora with a blush. "So yeah, when I saw that there was darkness in this world, I came down to help and I landed on France's side. When I saw his soldiers being attacked I assumed the attackers were Heartless. But... if you Axis guys are people, that must mean you use human soldiers, right?"
Italy nodded.
"Then... that means I was killing people the whole time." Sora looked down and drew sad little circles in his sauce with his fork.
There were a few seconds of silence before Italy said, "Hey! Don't feel so bad!"
Sora looked up at him. "But -"
"Look, it's war. Everybody kills people in war, and we all know it's a bad thing to do, but we do it anyway, 'cause we have to. So don't worry so much. I don't hold it against you."
"Yeah, thanks..." Sora licked pensively at his fork. It still upset him, but he didn't know what to do about it, and he didn't want to have such a downer of a conversation with such a cheery guy. He decided to change the subject. "So how did you guys end up having a war anyway?"
"Well, let's see..." Italy leaned back and thought. "It started when we had World War One over some little countries I forget about. After that all the Allies were being really mean to Germany and saying he started the whole thing when he didn't and taking away all his stuff and making him pay all this money and generally being nasty and awful. And also they said they would give me presents if I helped them win but they didn't give me any presents so I decided to not be their friend anymore. So then Germany was really upset and he tried to take over the world, and I helped him because we're best best friends and friends do that for each other and he didn't really have any other friends. And Japan showed up one day and was like 'hey can I take over China will that help' and we were like 'sure okay' and that was all good. And so that was that." He pondered for a second. "Only it wasn't all good because then we started losing and Germany started beating up his own people and America threw some bombs at Japan. And I kinda got sad."
"Wait one second," said Sora. "Germany was upset so he tried to take over the world? He didn't try to talk about his feelings or anything first?"
Italy looked a bit ashamed for his friend. "Yeah, he does stuff like that. Sometimes he gets really angry about things and sometimes he gets all these big ideas because he's really smart and it turns out badly. But deep down he's really nice, it's just that nobody understands him except me, because I'm his best friend. And Japan isn't mean either. He's shy but he really likes nature and does water colors and he invented these really good seaweed rolls so he can't be a bad guy. None of us are bad guys."
That statement really upset Sora, though he wasn't about to say it. He had always thought of bad guys as people who hurt other people, and good guys as people who didn't. But he hadn't seen wars like this before, or killers who were so damn nice. Sora was torn between avoiding thinking about it and actually comprehending his actions. "Yeah, I felt really sorry for you guys at the settlement," he decided to admit.
"Oh! The settlement!" Italy looked to have forgotten. "I ran away, didn't I? Oh my god, poor Germany! How is he? I left him all alone and best friends aren't supposed to do that but I was really really scared... Oh, they were really mad at him, they probably did horrible things to him... And Japan!" Tears began to well up in Italy's eyes. "I've never seen any of us be that hurt by a bomb. No one thought anyone would ever do something like that. We were supposed to never ever use those weapons ever and- and- Is Japan okay? And Germany? What happened to him? And – wait, was there anyone else?" Italy counted on his fingers. "Germany, Japan, me, my brother, and... Oh! Germany's brother! You know, he seemed pretty okay. He's kinda indestructible, that guy. He'll be fine." Italy waved a hand dismissively.
"Umm," said Sora, not sure if he should tell. He looked sidelong at his friends.
"He's dead," said Goofy, whose honesty got the better of him. "They shot him."
Italy stared uncomprehendingly. "Who the what now?"
"Prussia. He's gone. He was executed," Sora told him.
Italy blinked a few times, then began bawling. "Poor Prussia! I didn't even know we could die! I wasn't thinking about him because he never liked me and was always mean to me but I shouldn't say that because you should only say nice things about dead people and poor Germany! His brother! And – and Prussia is dead? Dead!" From there on out it seemed he was trying to say things but they kept getting choked up in his tears, so he just sat back and wailed and cried.
Sora and friends sat around awkwardly. Goofy looked especially ashamed. Donald nibbled at some bread crumbs. Sora checked his watch. After maybe five straight minutes of tears with no signs of stopping, Donald slammed his hands down on the table and said, "Wait here. I'll fix this." He stormed out of the house.
Sora and Goofy stared after him for a few minutes. Italy did not seem to notice he had gone, preoccupied as he was. He had an astounding voice, being able to carry on that long. Finally Donald returned, face scratched up and feathers falling out, carrying a scrawny orange tabby cat. He threw it on the table in front of Italy. "Look! A kitty!" he shouted.
Italy stopped crying and looked. "Kitty!" he exclaimed. "Kitty kitty cat!" He plucked up the cat, which mewled questioningly, and flipped it over for a belly rub. "Catty catty kitty cat!" All tears seem to have been forgotten.
Donald looked smug. "Wow," Goofy commented.
Sora rubbed the back of his spiky head. Well, Italy seemed happy enough for the moment, but Sora wasn't. Having seen how much Italy cared about his friends, he felt even worse now that he had apologized and tried to make up for it. Just saying sorry wasn't going to cut it, but he didn't know what would. "Uh, so, is there anything I can do to help you guys?"
"Huh?" Italy looked up from the cat. "Hey, did you see this kitty? It's a really cute kitty." He held up the cat, which meowed.
"Yeah, that's a great cat. So, anyway-"
"Oh! I came up with a plan!" proclaimed Italy, index finger in the air. "It's a really good plan."
No offense to Italy, but Sora wasn't sure this guy came up with the greatest plans. But he would listen anyway. "What is it?"
"What we should do is we should go on a quest to liberate Germany and Japan, and then the three of us can be best friends again, and we can go on a picnic together and it'll be just like old times!"
"That – actually, that sounds great!" It did. If he had put the Axis in prison, it was the least he could do to break them out again. It seemed like they had learned their lessons already.
"Okay, awesome! Here, let me call my brother and see if he wants to help us out." Italy went to the phone sitting on the counter and spun a number in. "They invented a phone with buttons," Italy whispered to Sora as it dialed, "but I like spinning the thingy so I kept this one." There was a muffled greeting from the phone. "Hey South!" Italy said. "How ya doing? Okay so the magic key kid who was on the Allies' side came over to say sorry and we ate some ravioli and we decided that we were gonna go on an epic quest to save Germany and Japan. You wanna come?"
A torrent of something that sounded like curses screamed from the phone. Italy winced and held the receiver away from him. "I think he said he doesn't wanna go," said Italy. Sora would have to agree.
"Well," said Sora, "is there anything you want to get here, or should we head out now?"
"Nope! We can get Germany first, right?"
"Sure thing!"
"Yay! Let's do it!" Italy put his hand out. Sora tried to shake it or fistbump or something, but when he put his hand up Italy threw his in the air and shouted "Axis Powers!"
Sora sat there with his hand out for a second before realizing what Italy had been attempting. "Um, I think you need more than two people for that."
"Let's try with us this time," Goofy suggested. This time, all four of them put their hands in, threw them back, and shouted "Axis Powers!" That having been settled, they set out.
