Hola, readers! I hope you're faring well in 2014. Iceland, here's the book.

Iceland: Right. You received another two reviews. To The Secret Trio, thank you for reviewing. It means a lot to us. Take your time guessing which one of us replaces Italy, but I'd point out that the main characters listed in the story summary is a giveaway. To AmericanFairy, neither one of us is allowed to reveal who replaces who until the time is right- in other words, the chapter after the one in which "Prussia" disappears- but I can tell you that your speculation does make sense. Denmark tends to be the first guy to go missing sometimes...

Okay, on with the story. We've got a lot of ground to cover for the HetaOni second chapter. Two battle scenes to deal with, whew!

Lithuania sat outside the door for an age, trying to listen for the Thing in case it could somehow open doors with severed hands. He'd eventually have to get rid of it if he wanted to get everyone out of this house, provided they hadn't already been killed. No, you can't think like that, Lithuania! They're still alive and you know it!

Estonia's key fell out of his pocket. He glared it for a moment. "It's all your fault," he scolded the tiny metal object. "You had to lead me to the one room with the Thing. You just had to."

The key said nothing. Of course, if it had answered back he would get a much bigger shock than the Thing gave him if that weren't obvious.

He just sat there, listening to the storm outside. What should he do now? The library had led him into a dead end. The only other unlocked room was the one where he found Estonia and that hadn't yielded anything useful either.

That left... the Thing.

He stuck Estonia's key back into its original pocket. I have to kill it once and for all, he remembered, bracing himself as he reopened the library door.

The Thing had disappeared. Without a trace. Even its bloodstains had seemingly evaporated.

"What the hell? Where did it go?" He sighed, sheathing his sword. Deciding to continue his search through the library, he walked towards the nearest bookshelf that hadn't been pushed over. "To think I put so much effort into mutilating that Thing only to have it escape, that sneaky monster..."

There was a soft klink under his foot. He lifted it to find another key.

"What's this?" He picked it up and studied it. It was made of rusty iron and marked with '4F'. "There are more floors in this house? How did I miss them? Oh well... at least this library wasn't that useless after all."

A very tired Baltic was spread-eagled on the top of the stairs on the fourth floor.

"I... hate... staircases," Lithuania gasped, lying on the floor without a care in the world. He took out his danish, ate half of it and rested for exactly three seconds before he remembered that Estonia couldn't wait forever before he began screaming his name.

There were two doors on the fourth floor, one to the left of the stairs and one on the right. The new key didn't even fit into the lock of the left door so he took a right.

"Yes! It opened!" he cheered up a little, pushing the door. It swung inwards into another room which appeared larger than the bedrooms he had seen on the second floor. A curtain similar to the one he had seen in Estonia's room hung in a corner. The adjacent corner was occupied by a lone bookshelf. In between the two objects was a rather familiar-looking wooden chair with red velvet cushions.

Lithuania was disappointed. He had climbed all the way up there, only to find this huge, mostly empty room. Well, at least there's a bookshelf I can search in here.

He strode past the curtain and chair, eyeing the latter and wondering where he had seen it before.

"Alright, bookshelf." He chose a single volume from the shelf and flicked through it. "Tell me all of your-"

There was a rustle.

Oh no, not again.

It came from behind the bookshelf.

Okay, I'll just put this book back and-

SQUEAK!

Lithuania let loose a high-pitched scream and scrambled away from the bookshelf. What on Earth was that?! At least it's not the Thing, he told himself, It probably can't kill you.

The creature behind the bookshelf started making weird, squishy noises. "It's stuck," he realised. "Maybe I should try to save it..."

Grabbing hold on one side of the shelf, he began pulling it away from the corner. The heavy bulk resisted for a moment before slowly sliding inch by inch towards him. Whatever was behind it before was squealing in delight.

"Right, now let's see what we have here..." He let go of the shelf and returned to the corner. There was a hole in the wall and it was occupied by something. A large, violet-eyed, squishy something.

"It's a mochi!" Lithuania poked the creature. "Oh, you're wearing a tiny beret. How cute! Are you stuck?"

The mochi wriggled around inside the hole. When it failed to dislodge itself, it began to cry.

"Don't cry," Lithuania told it, "I'll get you out of there."

He took hold of its soft, flexible body and tugged. Whatever the poor thing had done to get itself stuck in that hole had really trapped it deep inside. He'd probably need help to get it out.

"I know! Estonia owns a few mochis as pets," he recalled. "He should know how to rescue this one! I'll ask him to help out." He turned to the mochi and patted it fondly. "Don't worry, my friend knows all about weird creatures like you. I'll be back soon!"

A short and uninteresting chapter! Lithuania has also found the HetaOni NB8 mochi!

Iceland: Bonus points if you can guess which mochi we swapped it out for. Estonia objected a little to us shoving one of his pets into a hole in a wall and we had to promise we'd return it in one piece.

It's fine, I don't eat mochis. Anyway, announcement time! I will be occupied this whole week by level camp (we're going to the zoo, yay) so the next chapter might take a little longer to be updated. Until then, stay tuned!

Iceland: Remember to leave a review before you go.

That too.