NEW AND IMPROVED VERSION OF THIS CHAPTER YAY!
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Hetalia, awesome though that would be.
WARNING: This chapter is bloody. Not as bloody as things will get in later chapters, but it is quite violent and I go into a bit of detail (but not much).


Canada knew his brother wouldn't be able to do anything, but he called his name anyway, "AMERI –"

BANG

The violet-eyed man fell backwards, and blood spread from the small, circular wound in his forehead. Somehow, even in his drunken state, Cuba had aimed perfectly; Canada would only have moments to live. Cuba turned to leave, and was faced by an enraged America.

The tall nation's pupils had gone red, irises black, and he was surrounded by red white and blue light. "I told you to stay away from my brother."

"What? How did you – what?"

America's eyes narrowed "I told you I would destroy you."

Cuba's eyes widened and his skin paled. "P-please, America. D-don't hurt me."

The taller nation's face twisted into a snarl. "Too late for that." He moved one arm, and scarlet light whipped out, throwing Cuba against the far wall. He then dropped down on his knees next to his brother, and red and blue faded from his aura. He pressed two fingers against Canada's neck to check his pulse and bit his lip, rage having been replaced by fear and worry.

Thank God, he's still alive. "Canada, can you hear me?"

The northern nation's eyes slowly turned towards America, dulled and close to lifeless. "A-Am –"

"Shh, don't speak. I can heal you, but it'll take a few minutes. Just focus on staying alive." He pooled white light in his hand and gently lowered it over Canada's wound. Brain damage wasn't his specialty, and he was afraid he would do something wrong. But he managed. "Canada, are you okay?"

Canada sat up slowly and blinked. "Y-yeah. I'm fine." Before America could say anything more, Canada threw his arms around the other man's shoulders.

"Hey, it's okay Canada," America murmured. "It's okay, you're okay."

"I th-thought he h-h-had k-killed me…"

"Well you're still alive, and I'm here now. You're safe." He knew better than anyone that his presence wasn't always a good thing, but he also knew that the words comforted his brother, and that was what mattered. However, he could feel a far-too-familiar rage lurking in the back of his mind. It was a rage that threatened to take over and he neither wanted nor needed Canada to see that. He knew that if his brother saw him under its control, the violet-eyed nation would fear and hate him forever, and that prospect scared him more than the rage itself.

Hoping he could hold off the rage, he gently pried his brother off of him."Are you sure you feel all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Canada looked carefully into America's eyes, which seemed to be clouded with something he couldn't quite describe. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good," America lied as he stood up. He looked over at the open door – Cuba had taken his chance to flee. "Well, if you're sure you're fine, I'm gonna go deal with something. But if you want me to stay…" The temptation to rip Cuba to shreds grew stronger by the moment, and he was struggling to not give in to that murderous wrath.

"No, no, I'm fine, go on ahead."

America nodded and began to walk toward the door.

"Wait!" Canada called, and America turned back to look at him.

"Yeah?"

"Don't get hurt."

America floundered for a brief moment before giving a soft smile. "I won't. I promise." With that, America walked out.
The moment he was outside, America fully took down his mental barrier and allowed the creeping rage to take over. He welcomed it and invited it to consume him. Under it's control, he could exact his revenge much more thoroughly...

His aura flared with the same power it had always had, but red turned the color of drying blood, white darkened to black, and blue paled to a shade akin to ice. Some would see this and would understand what they saw: An America who had been twisted almost beyond recognition.

Well, that was one way to think of it…

America strode calmly, deliberately. His movements had a chill ease and grace to them. "Oh Cuba~" he crooned. "Come out, come out wherever you are~" He stopped walking and listened carefully to his surroundings. There he is. The poor fool actually thinks he can escape. Such a shame.

Cuba was no more than a hundred yards away. It would be quite easy to catch up to him, but there was simply no fun in that. America disappeared, and reappeared right in front of the island nation.

Cuba's eyes widened and he stumbled backwards.

So undignified. "I told you that if you hurt my brother I'd destroy you." He stepped closer to the shorter man, now wearing a twisted grin. "Do you really think I'd break a promise like that?"

Cuba turned and tried to run, but blood red light followed and wrapped around him and pulled him back. America raised a finger, and he was lifted to eye level with the blond nation and began to panic.

"Shut up, you pathetic waste of a life. You brought this upon yourself."

"W-what are you g-gonna do to me?"

America smirked and began to walk, pulling his captive alongside him. "I've been thinking about that myself. There are so many ways for me to get back at you. Some of them would be quite fun, but alas, I don't want to take too much time killing you."

Cuba shuddered. He didn't want to know what America meant by 'fun', and he couldn't imagine why the man was going so far with this. As far as he had ever seen, America was a hero-obsessed, immature and rather vain goofball with a huge military. This - this was plain scary.

America ignored Cuba and went on. "I could do my old favorite," he mused.

"O-old f-f-favorite?"

The blond nation clawed his fingers and spikes of his aura drove into Cuba's arms and legs.

The islander screamed in pain. One of the spikes had gone through a tendon and he couldn't move the lower part of his right arm. Another had gone almost straight through his left thigh, cracking bone.

In turn, America smirked. Pathetic. Absolutely no tolerance for pain. He relaxed his hand, and the spikes pulled out. "I could also slowly crush you to dust."

As demonstration, he slowly curled his hand into a fist, and his aura contracted in on Cuba's body.

"Hey! S-stop!" Cuba coughed. The American's aura was constricting his chest and he couldn't fill his lungs all the way. When he exhaled, the red light got tighter around him and made it even harder to get the air he needed. "L-let me go."

"Oh, that's not gonna happen." But he relaxed his hand and Cuba again could breathe normally. "He walked on before giving a sick grin. "I've decided."

Cuba trembled as the street around them faded to black, and then brightened to a completely different scene. The two nations now stood in the middle of a desert. America put the islander down and retracted his aura to a glow around his body.

"Are y-you letting me g-g-go?" Cuba asked even though he feared the answer.

America laughed and gestured around the arid land. "Where would you run to? There's not a single other person in any direction for over a hundred miles!"

Before Cuba could respond, he kicked the smaller man in the chest, and he fell into the sand. Then he pushed Cuba down by the shoulder so he stood over him and Cuba was forced to lay on his back.

Cuba begged for mercy, no longer caring about his own pride, he just wanted to survive this. His pleas fell on deaf ears. America pooled black light around one hand and formed it into a thin knife. Mouth twisted into a cruel smile, he went and one knee and - still holding Cuba down with one foot - thrust the blade into Cuba's stomach.

Cuba screamed again. The hot sand that was only beginning to cool from the day dug into the wounds on his arms and legs, making the pain even worse. He tried desperately to move away, to get the knife out, but America held him in place. "You don't want to move too much, there. That knife'll nick something important if it moves more than about a half-inch." He formed another knife, this one narrower, and slowly slipped it in between two of Cuba's lower ribs.
The deliberation of America's movements was torture in and of itself. It was one thing for an entire blade to hit him all at once, but the feeling of the cold metal slowly piercing through layers of his flesh was agony.

"Stop!" Cuba shouted again. "Please, I g-get the point! I won't hurt your brother again!"

"It's too late for that." America put one finger against the metal blade of one of the knives and sent a brief but strong electric current into the pale steel. The current shot through Cuba's torso into the other knife, sending the islander into heavy spasms. As he twitched, the knives shifted and made his torture all the more excruciating. Even after the electrocution ended, Cuba trembled from pain and fear. "P-please l-l-let me g-go," he begged.

America rolled his eyes "That is never going to happen. Give up now and quit wasting your breath." He took the knives and wrenched them out, purposely widening the wounds.

"GYAAAAAHHH!" The wounds in Cuba's chest burned. They had been widened savagely, and the newly torn flesh stung from the dry desert air. I th-th-thought if the knives m-moved, they'd hit something important."

America grinned a sick grin. "Surely you don't have so little faith in me," he cooed, running the side of one of the blades down the side of Cuba's face and leaving a trail of blood on the island nation's skin. "I do know my way around the process of killing a man."

America pulled Cuba up by the collar, and the island nation cringed, terrified to meet the blond's eyes. "Pl-please… just let m-me g-g-go."

"I told you to quit asking that," America growled. "This has only just begun."

Again, their surroundings changed, and they now stood on a small island in the middle of a dreary swamp. Before Cuba could ask what would happen to him now, America seized him and threw him into the murky water. Cuba panicked for a moment, flailing in the dark water. His wounds stung and burned, and when he tried to open his eyes he couldn't see more than a few inches. He managed to calm himself long enough to get close to the surface, but he was pushed back under by the American.

Now his lungs burned. He desperately needed air and he was beginning to struggle to move his arms and legs. Just when his vision began to tunnel, he was finally allowed to the surface, to blessed looked up to see America smirking down at him with his arms crossed over his chest. The man's pupils were still an inhuman red. "Wh-what was th-that for? Wh-where even a-are we? Where w-were we in that d-d-desert?"
America tilted his head to the side and pursed his lips, deciding whether or not to tell. The innocent gesture was grotesquely out of place and sent a chill

down Cuba's spine, even though the water and air were equally lukewarm. Eventually, the blond shrugged as if to say it didn't matter if he did or didn't tell. "We were just in the Mojave Desert, now we're in the Everglades."

A sense of dread overwhelmed him as he realized America was purposely choosing places where no one could hear him scream. This is just another place where I'm doomed. "Why won't you l-let me go?"

America smirked. "Because," he said, curling a strand of his aura around Cuba's neck. "I haven't had a chance to have fun like this for decades."
In that moment, the shorter nation understood that this America enjoyed torture. He wasn't just doing this as revenge for the shooting of his brother, he was doing this because it was fun to him. The blue-eyed blond was no longer the hero he usually made himself out to be, but a proud sadist. He's gonna kill me. I'm gonna die.

Without warning, America pushed Cuba back into the water, and held him there, again only allowing him back to the surface when his vision began to blur. He continued torturing him in this manner for what felt to Cuba like hours. The longer he was held beneath the surface, the less he struggled, the less effort he made to preserve his own life.

Hopeless for escape, he simply waited to black out. He had lost his will to live, to survive. America pulled him to land with a smirk. "Don't tell me you've given up," he sneered.

Cuba didn't respond.

"What's wrong, Cuba? Cat got your tongue?"

Again, no response.

America shrugged. "Fine then. I know how to break your silence." He grabbed the other man by the shoulder, and the two nations overlooked a rich jungle and the sea. "Welcome to Hawaii."

Cuba gazed out in wonder at the view – he knew it would probably be the last good thing he ever saw and wanted to engrave it in his mind. Then America forcibly turned him around and he saw where he was: the rim of an active volcano. His eyes widened and he tried to back away, but his blond tormenter held him in place.

"Enjoy the view?" the blue-eyed man asked with a smirk.

"N-n-no."

"Oh? Why ever not?" The American shifted his hold so he held Cuba by the back of the collar. "Perhaps you should get a bit closer…"

"Wait, wh-AAAGH!" Cuba screamed in terror as America pushed him forward over the magma, then pulled him back.

"Scared?"

"Y-y-yes."

America leaned in and spoke directly into Cuba's ear. "You brought this upon yourself, Cuba," he said.

"W-what? No I didn't. Y-you're the one who b-brought me here!"

"Maybe so, but you are the reason I did. I told you that if you hurt my brother, I'd destroy you. And what did you do? You shot him. This is all your fault; I'm doing nothing more than keeping a promise."

"Please, let me go!"

America smiled a cruel smile. He would enjoy listening to Cuba's dying screams. "Say your last words, Cu –"Just as he was about to throw the Cuban into the lava, America's voice cut out, and he froze and seemed to go into a trance.

"A-America? W-what are you d-d-doing?"

America didn't respond. His entire body had gone rigid and he stared wordlessly ahead. Of its own accord, his aura flared in its current hues, then went back to its normal colors, then back to its twisted form. It went to red white and blue long enough for America to snap out of his trance and push Cuba away from the edge before he went rigid again.

Cuba realized this was his chance to escape, and began backing away from the American, wary that the man's psychopathy would take over again.
America moved slowly away from the rim of the volcano. His movements were slow and jerky as he struggled to regain control over his body. His aura fluctuated rapidly, now in size and brightness as well as color. This continued for several minutes before it stabilized in its normal colors, and then faded entirely.

America crumpled to his hands and knees, pale and shaky, breathing heavily.

Worried America had gone even more insane, Cuba backed further away from the mage.

"Wait," he coughed out. "If you get lost in that forest, you'll never be seen again."

Cuba narrowed his eyes. "Why should I do what you say?"

America coughed and sat back on his knees, and looked over at Cuba with exhaustion in his eyes, whose coloring was human again. "My thoughts exactly," he rasped. "I'm sorry you had to see that," he said, almost inaudibly.

He flared his aura around his hand and sighed at the pale, weak glow. He dispelled the light and muttered, "And of course my aura's almost completely drained." The blond man scowled at the ground, angry with himself.

You idiot! you let yourself totally lose it! that Thing won't be controlled until you control it, dammit! Do you want that Thing set on the world?

No! Of course not! You know I hate it just as much as you do!

Then what was all that? You can get revenge without letting It lose!

Look, it was a mistake. I let my guard down because I was angry and It took control of me, I couldn't do any-

You let It take control, you bastard! You can't let yourself get angry, you know It feeds on anger!

Yeah, well, he shot my brother!

He's my brother too! The reason you're the face is because you don't get angry! You're the face because you don't let things get to you, so that Thing can't get any power!

Yeah, well, I can only take so much for so long!

Slowly, painfully, America pushed himself up to his feet. Without a word, he walked stiffly to the rim of the volcano, suddenly looking his three-hundred-plus years.

"What are you doing?" Cuba asked warily.

America flared his aura almost imperceptibly as he looked down into the lava. "If I try to recharge off of myself, it will take several hours if not days to regain enough energy to get both of us to our respective homes. Absorbing energy from the volcano will reduce the time to three hours at the very most."

"Oh." Cuba didn't completely understand what America was talking about, but he didn't want to say anything at risk of the taller nation snapping again. I wonder what even got into him.

An hour passed, and America's aura was at a quarter of its normal size and strength. Another hour and it was at two-thirds. "Okay, this should do." He turned on his heel and walked over to Cuba, who had – against his better judgment – been dozing off against a tree.

"Do I finally get to go home?"

"Yeah. Get up."

Cuba did so, America took him by the shoulder and they soon stood outside the islander's house. Wordless, he walked inside and slammed the door. America looked regretfully at the door before disappearing himself.

"America!" Canada exclaimed when his brother reappeared in his living room. "Hey, are you okay?" he asked, seeing that his brother was very pale and a little shaky in the knees and hands.

"Wha? Yeah, I'm, I'm finnng…" The tall nation's works grew more sluggish by the second before his eyes rolled back and he collapsed. His head landed right in the middle of the bloodstain on the carpet.

"America!" Canada instantly dropped down next to his brother. "America, are you okay?" He put his fingers to America's neck, and was relieved to find the blue-eyed blond's pulse to be normal. Well, his heart and lungs seem to be working right… it's probably not too bad. He's teleported at least three times today; maybe he's just worn out.

Canada shrugged and stood. With a slight grunt, he picked his brother up and laid him on the couch; it was too creepy to see him lying there in the middle of a giant bloodstain. I certainly hope it's not too bad, he thought as he watched the slow rise and fall of America's chest.


La di dah~ Well that was FUN!
Bluh... I am not satisfied with this one. Something is just... not right about it.
On another note, I can already sense that the next chapter will be rather lengthy, so I'm just warning you that it may take a number of weeks to get it out.
aknsfoaifnawl;ingfawo;infwal;ngfwo;iernaw;ihgawo;ingfaw;gnwoera;wjgfnsjkl;fnaskmvnask;jdfn;awlrhwouirbgt this.
I am tired.
And Isabelle is back on Facebook.
Goodnight/morning/afternoon/whatever.

Go to school next day after post this chapter. Find a new review.


HetaPastaH3ro 11/6/12 . chapter 10

Didn't feel like logging in but this was an amazing chapter. But, I wonder was that Canada's voice that shocked America out of his rage? America had every right to be severly pissed off though, and he did warn Cuba.
Nyeeee thank you :) I honestly thought this chapter didn't have enough shock factor and I'm planning to edit it, but I guess not everyone agrees. And - hmm, how do I phrase this... - when America showed up at Canada's house, he wasn't in full blackout rage mode, he was just emmensely pissed and worried. Then after he was satisfied that Canada was safe, he allowed himself to go total psycho-rage mode. That's basically what was happening in his head there. And then at the volcano his normal personality was all like "'AY YOU! AINCHU S'POSED TO BE IN THE BACKA MY HEAD?" Because America talks like Swoozie. And I just developed a headcannon that America talks like that when he's drunk.
YAY REVIEEEEEEWWWWWWWWSSS!