Readers,

This may be the last update I post until I get a new computer. That, or I'll steal my Gramma's computer for another night. B )

KK, if someone from my school could contact Dakota and have him PM me, that'd be great. For those of you who don't understand this, don't worry about it. Ah, so you guys should check out my Soul Eater story. Hooray for rambling~~~!

Ah, so last chapter ended with poor Mari Summers collapsing due to her terminal illness and impending death. This chapter is where things REALLY start to twist, starting with Mari waking up.

Enjoy,

Otto-Chan.

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"Ugh. . ." I moaned. My chest hurt a lot, and I was resting against a hard wall. Still in the basement? I wondered. My head felt like it was going to explode, and the second I opened my eyes, the light made my head pound. I felt nauseous for a second before retching forward, and throwing up blood.

"Mari?" A familiar voice asked. Xenzik sat near me, but I couldn't open my eyes to look at her without getting nauseous again. "Nngh. . .?" I whimpered, unable to speak. I lifted a shaky hand to feel for her, and she grabbed it tightly.

"Don't worry, we're all here." She assured. I decided to open my eyes again, and saw everyone staring at me. Some with concern, some with confusion. Aja was the only one with her back turned, but I knew it was just because she couldn't bring herself to face me like this.

"Wha-?" I started to ask before Xenzik shushed me.

"You collapsed." She told me. I glared at her, putting a lot of effort into it.

"I. . . I already knew that. . ." I started to stand, using the wall for support. I assumed Xenzik would try to stop me, but she didn't. She must've caught on after awhile that I didn't EVER want help. After all, this was like the fifth time this had happened while we were living together. But it had never been quite this bad before.

Zik helped me steady myself as soon as I stood, then looked at me seriously. "Has it already been three months?" She asked.

I nodded weakly, too tired to actually speak.

"It was exactly three minutes ago." Aja said, not nearly as sarcastic and bitchy as usual.

"Damn. . ." I muttered to myself. "So sometime today, huh?" I looked around at everyone. Italy, Germany, Japan, Prussia, America, Britain, France, Russia, china, and Canada. Every nation from the HetaOni game, save for my favorite couple, were here staring at me. That bugged the crap out of me to say the least. I noticed that Prussia, Frog, and America wouldn't meet my eyes.

I looked back at Xenzik, a little confused. She recognized the pathetically weak look in my eyes, and nodded. "I told them." She admitted. Japan stood up and looked at me, a little hurt.

"Why didn't you tell us, Mari-san?" He asked. "If you had this disease, we would have understood. We would have tried to protect you!" I stared at him for a moment, shocked that he'd raised his voice that much. Then I got angry, and I couldn't help but yell back at him.

"See?" I started quietly. "That's exactly why I didn't tell you. The only thing worse than being ignored by your family, abused by your psychotic uncle, or being used as a slave, is being babied over something that I'm going to die of no matter what! All I want is to be able to do what everyone else does without constantly being coddled! Do you get that!?" Japan winced as I leaned forward, screaming with balled fists close to my chest.

"It's pretty fucking simple!" I continued to shout at him, despite the pain rising in my chest. "I'm going to die of this disease pretty damn soon, so I might as well do my part in keeping everyone alive!"

Britain looked confused. "What do you mean?" He asked. "A country can't be killed unless their entire population is wiped out."

"No!" I shouted, dropping down on one knee to suppress the pain. "Anyone can die in this God damned house! I. . ." Finally at a loss for words, I dropped down into a fetal position and pushed myself into a corner. "I-I can't. . . I can't do this, Xenzik. . ." I choked out the words. "We can't escape this house. The Oni brought us here, and there's no way we can get back without him sending us ba-."

"We'll make it." I lifted my head up to see Prussia next to me, smiling sadly. I could tell it took a lot of effort to act even sort of happy.

I smiled back, unable to resist it, and noticed Xenzik looking at me in worry. "Mari?" She asked.

"Yeah?"

"What's my name?"

The entire room went dead silent. Everyone looked at me, and I looked back at Xenzik, utterly confused. "Xenzik." I answered.

"My full name."

"Xenzik." I answered again. "You never accepted your family's name."

Xenzik nodded, but didn't look satisfied at all. "Where are we?"

Another silence. "The basement." I replied. "Still next to the cell." My answer earned me a room full of shocked and worried faces. "What?"

"Mari." Xenzik put a hand on my shoulder. "We're in Germany's safe room."

Shocked, I looked around once more. This time I saw beds, one of which I was laying on, chairs, a table, and I knew that the bathroom and kitchen were behind me. Not only that, but there were twelve countries instead of just ten. Spain and Romano stood side by side near the back of the group. Aja wasn't there, but I wasn't too concerned at the moment. "What the-?"

"You were hallucinating." China told me. "That was most likely from the fatigue you endured." I glared at him pointedly and got out of the bed.

"Where are you going?" Xenzik asked. "You need your rest!"

"Be quiet!" I snapped, walking over towards the chairs, then I stopped in my tracks when I saw Aja, who'd just walked out of the bathroom with dripping blue hair. "What the fuck?"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Aja yelled at the top of her lungs. "It was finally quiet around here!"

I just kind of stared at her for a minute. "Am I hallucinating again?" Aja scowled at me with a face that made her look like she'd just eaten something sour. That and the blue hair didn't mix.

"Dumbass!" She yelled at me. "I dyed my hair! I didn't have a chance to do it before we left."

Everyone stared at Aja for a REALLY long time, before Romano made a comment. "You look like a total idiot." He'd barely gotten the words out of his mouth before I started trying to strangle him. Everyone laughed, including Spain, as his little Roma was choking. Then I remembered that I LOVED Romano, and started hugging him.

"Does anyone know what's happening?" Japan asked, uber confuzzled. "Why did she try to kill Romano, then hug him?"

"This is the beautiful flower that blossoms when a fangirl meets her idol~!" Aja mused, clinging to Russia.

"She's our version of Russia." Xenzik explained, hugging a slightly transparent Canada. "I'm mostly like Spain, and Mari's our Ottoman Empire." At the mention of the Ottoman Empire, Romano squealed and ran away.

I straightened up and shook my head. "Roma's not my idol." I told them. "I've always liked the Ottoman Empire best~! Ah, and I have a soft spot for Sweden and Finland as a couple. Oh, but the absolute best!"

Aja perked up. "The most perfect of all couples!"

Even Xenzik squealed a bit. "The cutest two characters in the history of Hetalia!"

"SPAMANO!" The tree of us shouted together.

"Spamano?" France wondered.

"Spain and Romano~!" I told them.

The two men stood next to each other. Romano was ghost white, while Spain looked slightly surprised. The rest of the group started laughing like a bunch of drunks, but Spamano just kind of stood there for the rest of the time.

"Why is that an okay thing!?" Romano screeched, obviously embarrassed.

"You have to admit, it's kind of cute." Ivy pointed out. Romano took offence to that for some odd reason.

"You damn fucking bi-!" The small half-nation was cut off as Aja slammed her pipe into his face, sending him flying across the room. "Ack! What the hell was that for!?"

"Don't EVER insult one of my friends, you damn bastard!"

Smiling at the two bickering, I walked back over to the bed and climbed on.

"You're not gonna join in?" Prussia asked, startling me.

"Nah." I told him. "Let 'em fight for awhile. Aja doesn't seem very herself today, so I'm glad that she has some way to get everything out of her system. When it gets like this. . ." I trailed off, not really wanting to finish my sentence.

Prussia nodded like he understood, leading me to confirm my suspicions about Aja and Xenzik telling him about their past. "Hey, you know." I started, grabbing his attention. "I showed you weakness earlier."

He raised an eyebrow and cracked a crooked smile. "Oh?" I punched him roughly in the arm and we both laughed, although I'm not quite sure why. After that, we just kind of stared at each other for a minute before Prussia turned to walk away. "W-wait! Prussia!" I called.

The former nation swiveled his head to look at me over his shoulder. "My bag." I told him. "There's. . . Something in there. Red and black, crappily sewn together. Could you grab it for me?" Prussia smiled.

"Yeah, sure." He said, reaching into my bag. "Wait. This can't be yours. No way it is!"

"Shut up!" I yelled at him, grabbing the ratty old stuffed bear out of his hands, and holding it close. "You bet it's mine! The one thing I brought with me from the manor!" Prussia smiled again and took one of my hands.

"You know, you're kind of adorable, sometimes." He told me, and kissed my hand. Blushing furiously, I pulled my hand away and pulled the blanket up over my nose.

"You don't know what you're talking about!" I smacked him on the head with the teddy bear. "How in God's name am I adorable? Besides! What if I decided to take that in a totally different way from how you meant it? What if I thought you had a crush on me? What if I kissed you back? What i-?"

Prussia cut me off by kissing me on the mouth, leaving my absolutely speechless. "Wow." He seemed genuinely surprised. "You're pretty easy to shut up." That earned him a punch in the face. "Ack! Hey, I meant that in a good way!"

"HOW THE HELL IS THERE A GOOD WAY TO SAY THAT!?" I shouted, kicking him in the face.

When he finally got up, he was laughing. "Haha! I meant that you got embarrassed too easily!"

"Well that isn't how it sounded, you zekalı!"

"What?"

"It's Turkish for 'fucking idiot', you fucking idiot!

I do not deny nor confirm arguing with Prussia for three hours straight after this.

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Well, I really hope this wasn't too short for you guys. I have other things I need to do, too, so you'll have to live with this bit of fluff for the time being. Ah, so the bear is actually a bear I have. I named it red bear, and I still sleep with it near me. My mom used to call it my security blanket, because I couldn't do anything without it when I was a little kid! ^.^

U

Uh, so that bit about Mari being Otto, Aja being Russia, and Xenzik being Spain is true. The thing about Spamano is a love that Aja and I share, except that I'll always have a special place for SuFin. Other characters that we've dubbed are Vixue (As Estonia), Ivy (Italy), Lin (China), Ami (Canada. I was mad at this friend, and that's one of the reasons that she was in this at all. She was really just in here to die.), and, uh. . . That might be it.

URRRRRGGHHHH! Okay, I really need to contact Dakota, so somebody from our school, have him PM me, or give me some way to contact him through PM! He wanted to make an appearance in this, so he has to act NOW.

Peace, my dears,

Otto-Chan