Disclaimer: No, Tomatoes and Turtles do not own Axis Powers Hetalia or the idea of the fanfiction at all. Hetalia belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya. The original concept was inspired by a prompt from Hetalia kink meme (though there is a major difference between that and our fanfic) and premise of the fanfic belongs to Alowl. All we did was take her idea (with permission, of course) and ran in the opposite direction. However, the prologue and the first two chapters are based scenes from her original story.

From this point onward, expect some OOC from a few of the characters, because we're headed to original territory here. Hope you still enjoy it nevertheless!

Chapter Three: Decimated

As soon as Matthew turned away from the door that led to where his former freezing family lay, a vindictive smile began to grow on his face.

Finally.

Finally, the pain in his side known as the Kirkland family was gone, along with the blasted Order to act like a pathetic weakling and the Illusion that made him look the part. When he saw their faces twisting in fury at the moment when his Master first reunited them, he could barely keep the ruse up. It was lucky that he did, because if he disobeyed the Order, he would have been hit with the most excruciating pain anyone could ever experience.

Now he could hear the sounds of his older brother trying to break the door down, yelling his name like he cared. Matthew scowled at the thought. They hadn't changed at all since they threw him away, that family of his. He still didn't know why his Master came up with the idea to pretend that he was still their prisoner. The only reaction their botched reunion got out of him was mild amazement at the nerve they had to pretend that they still gave a damn about him.

For extra measure, he added more power into the freezing spell to speed up the killing process. Good riddance, he thought.

The Ice Mage left the castle, his face curling in distaste at the use of fire around him. He walked past the usual scenes of carnage – the slaughter, the pillaging, the crackling of that accursed fire – with bitter memories of his so-called family. They only showed concern now because he was still alive and with the North. If he had died back then, they wouldn't have bothered.

Nobody ever did.

His thoughts were interrupted by a searing pain which pulsated throughout his body. It was Master's "special" way of calling him back. He supposed he was slowly improving his tolerance towards the pain, seeing as he only fell to one knee instead of collapsing like all those times before. Once most of the pain subsided, he silently made his way back to the ruins of the formerly grand palace of his memories.

"Pet," his Master called in the language of the North. Matthew immediately moved in front of the Lord of the Wild Hunt and knelt on one knee, head bowed.

"You called, Master?" he quietly responded in the same tongue. The man nodded, signalling the mage to stand by his side. The boy quickly obliged, as he knew that Master didn't like to be kept waiting.

"I did. I simply felt that you needed to know the news that was recently given to me." The Northern Master handed his mage two pieces of tattered cloth. Matthew quickly recognized the former high quality fabrics as the royal robes that his father and brother wore earlier that day.

"Master?"

His Master grinned as he answered his pet's…curiosity. "While you were on your walk, an explosion was heard from the room you killed your loving family in."

The mage's eyes widened in realization. "It seems that as your foolish family failed to realize that there were easier means of escape and blew themselves up in their attempt to escape. This," he pointed to the tattered scraps of cloth in his hand, "was all that my guard found of them."

The young general was beside himself in rage. He couldn't believe that he of all people didn't have the pleasure of killing them! He tried his best not to direct the glare at his Master. It was his fault, after all - that stupid plan was his idea. If Matthew had any form of control of the situation in any form, he would have killed them his way. But now it was too late to complete his goal, seeing as they went ahead and blown themselves up!

He stiffly bowed to his Master in dismissal and walked away, leaving a frozen trail behind him.

"Matthew!" Alfred yelled as he rammed his fist into the frozen door.

He kept doing this for several times, despite the fact that he wasn't in good condition to begin with, each time getting weaker as the coldness sapped his energy. In all his years, he'd never felt despondent enough to the point of feeling physically ill (with the exception of when he was told that Matthew was dead) until now.

He brooded over why any of this was happening. He wondered about what they did to his brother for all these years. He hated the "Master" who made a slave out of Matthew. He hated himself for not being able to do anything to stop it. He hated his father for giving Matthew away even more than before; he fumed as he glared at the back of the older blonde's head.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Arthur didn't answer and continued to walk along the wall, tapping certain areas as he murmured to himself. He seemed to have recovered quickly from his bout of regret, Alfred observed. It made him more than irritated to see that Arthur was handling the situation well, despite everything that had happened. The Westerian King shook his head and stood on a velvet clothed chair and tapped the ceiling. He jumped off the chair and softly cursed as he began to pace.

"Quit leaving me out of the dark again, old man!"

"Be quiet, I'm thinking of a way out!" Arthur snapped as he continued pacing.

While the king was doing who knows what, Alfred was trying to tend to his shoulder, since Arthur was interrupted in the process of trying to remove it earlier. The temperature was dropping quickly and he felt himself getting weaker as he his teeth involuntarily chattered and used all of his dwindling strength to pull the arrow out, letting out a muffled shout of pain. He glowered at his father, who hadn't noticed anything in his pacing. After forcibly removing the arrow, Alfred ripped a piece of cloth out of his clothes to tightly wrap around the wound.

That was when he tried to look for escape routes. He tried to use his fire spells, but he was too weak to summon anything. He was getting too weak to take down any walls and they were on the second floor. It didn't matter if they risked it anyway, seeing as jumping out of the window would draw attention to them, he thought as he looked out the window.

Alfred looked at the older man yet again as he continued to pace, occasionally rubbing his arms for warmth. He knew that Arthur was planning to do something, and was angered that he hadn't done anything yet. It was that anger that was keeping him from falling unconscious. "Whatever you're planning, hurry it up, Arthur!"

"Shut up, you irritating brat!" Arthur yelled back.

He suddenly stopped pacing and his emerald green eyes glinted as an idea came to his mind. Taking his wand out of his sleeve, Arthur quickly made his way to the center of the room, crouched down to set the tip of his wand on the floor and quickly began to chant. The frost covered wooden floor around him glowed a ruby red as an elaborate magic circle began to form.

When the king stepped away from the circle, Alfred could see changing numbers in the center surrounded by various ancient runes – a countdown. He shot a questioning look to the man who he used to see as his father, who ignored it and swiftly ran to the window. He placed his wand on the glass and began another chant, a smaller magic circle drawing itself on the window.

It seemed like whatever Arthur was planning was taking forever, and Alfred was more than anxious to get out. He didn't even know why he relied on him in the first place. As the Fire Prince forced himself against the frozen door repeatedly with his uninjured shoulder, he realized that if he stopped moving, the frost would begin to settle on his boots. The incentive made him more panicked as he tried to ram himself against the door faster. From the corner of his eye, Alfred saw Arthur grab the chair he was standing on earlier. Alfred watched him bring the chair in the direction of the window.

Alfred yelled at Arthur when he realized what the king was trying to do. "Stop! Idiot, you're going to get us noticed!"

The Westerian King continued to make his way to the window and hurled the chair at it. Alfred covered his ears, expecting to hear the telltale shattering of glass. However, much to his surprise, he heard absolutely nothing. That was when the younger blonde realized that Arthur placed a silencing spell on the window earlier. He was about to jump from the window when Arthur stopped him, effectively leaving a cut on his hand from the abrupt stop.

"Now what?" he snarled, glaring at the older blond. One set of his fingers tapped with irritation on the window frame while the other set was being tended to by his mouth.

"Give me your coat," Arthur curtly ordered, in the middle of removing his red robe to reveal a white long sleeved cotton shirt and silk black trousers.

"What?" The fire prodigy's tone was disbelieving.

"Just shut up and do as I say!" the king growled with the same amount of impatience he had earlier.

"But –"

"We're running out of time! Just do it!"

At the very reasonable point, Alfred relented and quickly shed his midnight blue coat before running to the broken window. He then grabbed the window frame and swung himself out of the room and into a pile of bushes down below, with Arthur following suit. The fire prince didn't even get a chance to get up as the king dragged him up and pulled his arm as they were about to run away. But just as Arthur did so, Alfred felt a sharp pain in his left ankle and fell to one knee, which scraped on the earthy floor.

"What's wrong now?" the king groaned.

The prince tried to stand on the injured ankle and felt the splitting pain again. He sat on the floor and tried to bring his injured leg closer. He rolled up his pant leg and saw that his ankle was swollen and bent in an awkward position. Every time he tried to move it, the pain would cut through again. The king silently cursed as he looked like he made up his mind.

"Get on my back," he ordered as he crouched down facing away from the prince. Alfred was about to refuse as he tried to get up on his own. Instead, he replied with a gasp of pain.

"Do you want to live or not?!"

Grudgingly, the prince relented and got onto the king's back. As soon as Alfred was safely on his back, Arthur quickly stood up and ran from the palace as fast as his feet could carry him.

"What the hell was that all about?" he asked Arthur.

Arthur opened his mouth to answer when they heard an explosion from behind them. While the duo was still fleeing, Alfred turned his head back and his eyes widened in shock as he saw the room that they were previously trapped in being licked by flames and clouds of black smoke protruding out of said windowpane.

"You put a delayed bomb spell in the room?!"

"Obviously," the king snapped, not facing his son.

"What for?" Arthur didn't respond, still avoiding eye contact with his son. The grip on Alfred's legs grew somewhat tighter. "Damn it, Arthur! Why don't you ever tell me –?"

"I faked our deaths, alright?" he quietly explained. Seeing as the king wouldn't speak further on the subject and that they really couldn't argue about it now, Alfred let the issue go for the moment. Arthur didn't talk again until they stopped at the top of a hill at the edge of the palace grounds and he gently set Alfred onto the ground.

But by the time he wanted to say something, Alfred was already brooding again. He glared at the burning castle as he tried to disregard the emerald-eyed gaze boring into the back of his head. His home was burning because of him. The palace held memories of a happier time – when he and Matthew played hide and seek in the gardens, or the times he saw his brother sleeping in a pile of books, cuddling his toy bear.

One of the only places that Alfred last saw his brother happy was slowly being destroyed before him. The more his thoughts pestered him, the angrier he was at his father. He was remembering what happened earlier – about his brother, and how Arthur was the cause of everything.

"Alfred?" the voice was timid, something Arthur hadn't been in a long time.

"Well, I hope you're happy," Alfred frostily responded. With the adrenalin still in his system, he had the newfound energy to be angry at his father. He shuffled closer to the palace and thrust a finger in its direction. "This is what happens when you make stupid decisions. Not only did you delay the inevitable, you also abandoned Matthew, your son, my twin brother – to those Northern bastards!"

"I've told you a million times that it was the only option at the time!" Arthur was never one to back down from a fight.

"Don't you dare give me that crap!" the prince roared back. "You saw him back there! You know exactly what he's gone through because of you!"

"Any other option would have ended in a worse situation, you fool! Sacrificing your brother was the best option!" Arthur cried, desperation coloring his tone.

If Alfred hadn't been injured and if he hadn't had as much self control as he thought he did, nothing would have stopped him from hurting Arthur.

"You're wrong!" Alfred shook his head and his clenched fists were starting to draw blood. "There were better ways to fend off the North – ways that didn't involve tearing our family apart!"

When Arthur didn't fight back, everything became silent again – with the exception of the crackling fire in the distance. The king glanced at his son, who was glaring at the fire again and was now brooding about the fact that he couldn't go back to put out the fire because of his injury. Besides, he was told that it would alert the invaders of their escape. A few minutes later, Alfred turned back to glance at the older blond. He had a look of grief on his face as he watched their home go up in flames. When he noticed his son looking at him, he quickly wiped the tears from his eyes.

"I don't care if you believe me or not, but I'm all too aware of how much of this is my fault. I know that you'll never forgive me as long as you live. I know I won't," his tone turned bitter in self loathing.

"But even so," his look of calm strengthened into a look of resolve. "I swear I will fix this. I will do everything in my power to save him."

"Yeah, whatever," he briskly replied. The Fire Prince, ever the pessimist when it came to the promises the king made, didn't believe his declaration. Arthur was never one to keep promises.

The sour moment worsened when they heard a larger explosion coming from the palace. The fire was spreading to the surrounding kingdom. They could hear the screams of men, women and children, the sounds of slaughter, the sounds of chaos soon after. Alfred was about to run to the kingdom to save as many as he could – only to be stopped by his injuries, that screamed out in pain, and Arthur, who quickly grabbed his wrist and shook his head in resignation. He bit his lip as a particularly loud scream could be heard.

The prince's glare intensified at him as he managed to get his hand out of the king's grip. He limped past him and sat on the ground not facing him, thinking about Arthur's earlier declaration, trying to ignore the sounds of terror. He would have relished at the thought that Arthur would always live with this scene for the rest of his life if it didn't do the same for him. A sneer threatened to form on his face.

"…So you're going to fix all of this, huh?"