~Author's Note~

UPDATE, AUGUST 2011: This chapter has been rewritten for you, the readers', pleasure! More info about this will be found in chapter 11 when it's posted! Thank you! 8D

WOW! LIKE WOW! I'M ALIVE! *shot* OMG seriously, I'm so sorry for being so freaking late with this chapter! ;A; I have no excuses...except that the combination of laziness and school is DEADLY! Anyways, I'm really sorry if the writing is very crappy or if the characters acts a little off at some points - since I didn't work with this for such a long time I still feel a bit rusty! (=A=) But I hope you'll like this chapter anyways! :D So, stop reading this now and read the chapter instead! Oh, and character-scribble at the end of the chapter! ^w^ Ho-hay!

Chapter 10:

With a deep sigh Alfred kicked on a small rock in front of him and watched how it flew through the air only to end up hitting an empty water barrel. With a hollow sound it bounced against the barrel and returned down onto the dry ground again. He walked up to the stone and kicked it again, but this time it disappeared out of his sight when it flew in under a wagon. When Alfred saw this he groaned and walked past the wagon with his hands stuffed into the pockets on his pants, although he wasn't sure of where he was heading. The street before him was completely empty of people, probably because everyone else was rebuilding the storages on the other side of town, and even though he had offered to help them Elizabeta had insisted on that he didn't have to work; he was their guest after all. So instead he had been walking around town aimlessly for almost an hour, already bored to death after just a short while. Most of all he wanted to look for Arthur in order to make up with him, but since he had no idea where he had gone to and without a vehicle to use it felt kind of impossible, and this irritated Alfred to no end.

"Talk about being a complete failure as a hero…" he thought and angrily kicked on another rock that was unfortunate enough to appear in front of him. When Vash had told them that Arthur already had left Alfred wanted to go searching after him right away, but instead Elizabeta had claimed that it would be too dangerous to search after him; some of Predateli's ants or flies could still be close to the village after the attack, and it wouldn't be long until it got dark anyways. Instead she had forced him to stay for the night, promising that she would help him search outside the village in the afternoon the next day. Realising that he probably didn't have any better option than this he agreed, although it was far away from wholeheartedly. From that moment on he had felt like he was in some kind of trance; he hadn't even noticed at first that Roderich had returned home an hour later to report about the damaged storages, and while Elizabeta had tried to convince the noble man to put on some white-coloured cat ears he had been sitting by the window staring outside, almost expecting to see Arthur suddenly showing up in the distance. But the sun had slowly but steadily disappeared behind the horizon, day had turned into evening, evening had turned into night. And no Arthur. Not even the luxurious three-course dinner Roderich made managed to cure him from his new "spacing out"-disease, and when he later lied in the soft guest bed with nothing else but silence surrounding him it was even worse; every time he closed his eyes he could see the sandy-blond man's upset face, and sometimes it was almost like he could hear the words from their fight echo in his head. He tried all night to replace those pictures in his head with stuff he loved, like hamburgers, American football and epic movies with lots and lots of explosions in them, but it was no use; Arthur's flustered face quickly returned every time.

Sure, it wasn't like he had never been in a fight before. It was quite the opposite; his cheerful and naïve personality had often clashed together with many different people before, but the difference was that he had always been able to make up with them almost right away. To be fighting with someone for more than a day wasn't something he was really used to, and it confused him. But on the other hand, it was not like he had met someone like Arthur before…He shook his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts and looked up, even though he continued to walk. The sky above him was cloudy and a bit gray, and the chilly wind felt cold against his cheeks.

"Seems like the weather is kinda depressed today as well…" he thought to himself and lowered his gaze, only to all of a sudden be met by a mess of red hair.

BUMP.

Alfred fell to the ground with a loud thud, and he could hear a similar sound in front of him, as if the thing he had walked right into had fallen as well. However, just when he was about to get up again he heard a familiar male voice yelling in panic.

"I-I'm sorry! P-please don't hurt me! I didn't mean to walk into you, so pleeeease don't hurt-!" The voice silenced, and when Alfred sat up he stared straight into a pair of auburn-coloured eyes belonging to a red-haired man all dressed in white. "Wait a minute…aren't you the one from yesterday?" the man asked, gazing at him curiously.

"What's going on here?" a harsh voice echoed through the air before Alfred had a chance to answer. A tall and muscular man with blond slicked back hair that he had never seen before appeared behind the red-haired man and stared at Alfred with an intimidating glare. He almost looked like someone important from the military since he was dressed in a dark green-coloured uniform together with a black officer's hat.

"Ah! Ludwig, Ludwig!" the red-haired man exclaimed while getting up again and started to tug at the taller man's sleeve while pointing at Alfred, who was still sitting on the ground. "This is the brave gunman that saved me from the ants that I told you about! You know, the one who was using ordinary bullets!" When the muscular man heard this his blue-coloured eyes instantly softened and he reached out his hand towards Alfred.

"Is that so?" he asked and helped the youngster to get up on his feet again. "I'm sorry for my rude behaviour. Oh, and thank you for saving Feliciano yesterday. The two of us were fighting against the ants together, but as soon as I took my eyes off of him he ran away…" The man shot an irritated glance at the red-haired man now standing next to him who started to chirp "sorry, sorry~!" when he met his gaze.

"Naaah, its fine! Heroes are supposed to save people in need after all!" Alfred grinned and straightened his back proudly. Even though he felt a little depressed because of what had happened between him and Arthur he couldn't help but feel happy over the fact that he really HAD saved someone in distress, and he had done it all by himself. Just like a real hero!

"Eeeeh, so you're a hero? ! That's so cool!" the red-haired man exclaimed excitedly while clapping his hands. The taller man on the other hand looked less impressed.

"I understand." he said simply and added after a short moment of silence: "To be completely honest I don't recognize your face at all…Could you perhaps be the minimized human that Francis told us about yesterday?"

"That would be me, yes!" Alfred beamed while flashing one of his usual thumb-ups towards the two men. "I'm Alfred F. Jones!"

"I see. My name is Ludwig-!"

"And I'm Feliciano Vargas!" the red-haired man cut him off and shook Alfred's hand eagerly while bouncing up and down. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Hero, nice to meet you! I'll make you some delicious pasta as a special thank you-gift for saving me! Oh, and this is Ludwig!" He released Alfred's hand and pointed at the muscular blonde instead. "I know that he looks all macho and mean, but he's actually reeeally nice! He always protects me against the ants, and he can bake delicious cakes! Oh yeah, and he got some really weird hobbies like-!"

"EHUM EHUM! ! !" Ludwig coughed loudly, his face suddenly looking as red as a tomato, and used his arms to headlock Feliciano, who immediately started to cry for forgiveness. "A-anyways, just tell me if you're in need of any help and I'll see what I can do." Ludwig said with his head turned towards Alfred. The colour of his face quickly returned to normal again, but he still kept the headlock on the struggling and weeping Feliciano.

"Thanks, but I'm fine! I was just walking around-!" Alfred started, but stopped when he remembered the reason to why he was strolling in the first place. "…Wait, forget what I just said! Um…I actually AM in need of some help right now…kinda…" He threw a glance down at the ground while scratching the back of his head. "Do you maybe know where Arthur went yesterday? I've got to find him, but I have no idea where he is at the moment…" The muscular blond closed his eyes for a moment, looking like he was deep in thought.

"Hmm…actually I haven't seen him at all for a long time now, so unfortunately I have no idea where he is…"

"Oh, but I might know!" Feliciano exclaimed in the middle of his sobbing, earning a curious look from Alfred. Ludwig on the other hand seemed to be a little more doubtful, but even so he finally released the man from the headlock as a sign for him to carry on. After giving Ludwig a thankful smile Feliciano continued: "I saw him leave on his ship yesterday, and he looked reeeeally upset; all flustered, you know?" Alfred felt how the sting of guilt returned, but he immediately decided on ignoring it. "Anyways, I happen to know that whenever Arthur is very upset he always goes to Kiku's house. I don't know what he's doing over there or why he even goes there in the first place, but he usually stays there until he has calmed down. So, if I'm not mistaken, he should be over there right now!"

"Kiku's house, huh…?" Alfred repeated thoughtfully. It was not like he had any idea of who this Kiku-guy that everyone seemed to know was or where he lived, but it was always a start. Besides, he didn't have any other clues at the moment, and it seemed like a better idea to start looking instead of just walking around randomly while waiting for Elizabeta. "How do I get there?" he asked.

"Oh, it's easy~! Just go east until you find a reeeeally fat spruce, and voilá! You're there! It won't take more than ten minutes if you use a Kantro-ship!" Feliciano chirped with a big smile.

"…Well…I kinda…don't have a ship…" Alfred said while squirming, feeling a little embarrassed. To not have a Kantro-ship seemed to be the same as not owning a car if you lived in a suburb; you were completely stranded, whether you liked it or not.

"Then I'll take you there right away. You helped Feliciano yesterday, so I have to repay you." Ludwig immediately offered, but when the red-haired man heard this he tossed his head to the side and stared at Ludwig with a face filled with shock.

"But Ludwiiiig!" he whimpered and tugged at the taller man's sleeve. "You promised me that we would make pasta together for lunch today! You promised, you promised!" He kept tugging more and more at the sleeve, causing Ludwig to lean away a little with an uncomfortable expression.

"W-we can still do that later, right?" he said to calm him down, but the otherwise confident tone in his voice had changed into a more insecure one. On top of that his cheeks appeared to be a bit more pink-coloured than before.

"But later we're going to help out the others with the storages again! If we don't eat now we won't be able to have any lunch at all today!" Feliciano objected while tears started to form in his eyes.

"B-but…! I…h-him…but…!" Ludwig looked back and forth between Alfred and Feliciano, looking like he was at lost for words. With a gentle nudge he pushed away Feliciano, who had started to sob again, and with his now-free hand he pinched the bridge of his nose with his eyes closed. He remained like this for a few seconds before he suddenly opened his eyes again, straightened his back and started to march away with firm steps. "Followme." he said without looking back. "I know someone that can take you there."

OxOxO

They hadn't been walking for long before they heard some loud and hearty laughter echo through the air, and when Ludwig increased speed towards the direction it came from Alfred and Feliciano had to run in order to keep up with him. After a sharp turn between two houses the group suddenly found themselves standing in front of an enormous wagon filled with wheat, and when they came closer they could see how the grain was rustling around, like if something or someone was hiding in it. Ludwig stepped up to the wagon, and at that moment another cheerful laughter, which was obviously coming from the pile of wheat, rang through the air.

"Brüder." Ludwig said and knocked on the wagon's wheel. The voices immediately silenced, and the rustling stopped completely. "Brüder, I know you're there. Come down." Silence. "Gilbert…" Ludwig hissed, obviously irritated, but he was met by nothing more than silence. Then suddenly he grabbed the wagon's wheels, and with an almost inhumane strength he overturned it.

"WOOAAAH!" three different voices screamed in unison as it fell, and all of its content spread out on the ground. Ludwig quickly marched over to the other side of the wagon with Alfred and Feliciano following him, and they were met by an almost comical sight; there sat Gilbert, Francis and Antonio surrounded by wheat and playing cards, their hairs and clothes filled with the yellow grain.

"Ow ow ow…What the hell are you doing, West? !" Gilbert yelled angrily and spit out a piece of wheat. "That fucking hurt!"

"I think the question is what YOU people are doing when everyone's supposed to help out with re-building the storages?" Ludwig said venomously with his arms crossed and glared at trio.

"We're playing cards!" Antonio grinned and started to pick up the cards from the ground, but when he looked up and saw Ludwig's intimidating stare his smile got even wider. "Oh, you want to join? We can all play poker or something!"

"Ve~, that sounds like fun! I want to join!"

"Me too, me too! I'm the master of poker after all; no one can defeat me when I get serious!" Alfred shouted excitedly and beamed when he thought about the tough poker-duels he had had against his brother through the years.

"Oh, really~? Maybe you wouldn't mind if we decided on playing some strip-poker then?" Francis said slyly and wiggled his eyebrows, earning a slap in his head from Gilbert.

"…Mein Gott, I'm surrounded by morons…" Ludwig sighed deeply and rubbed on his temples, slowly counting to five. "No, we're NOT going to play poker or any other kind of card games! Brüder, I have something I need you to take care of-!"

"Aww West, stop being such a chillin villain!" Gilbert whined while brushing off his clothes. "We were just having some fun while Francis is here! Is that so bad?"

"If you want to die from starvation then that's fine." Ludwig snorted.

"Gilbert won't die; if he gets hungry he can always eat that bird on his hat!" Antonio said jokingly and gesticulated towards Gilbert's head. Alfred turned his head towards the albino, and he couldn't help but laugh; on the top of Gilbert's tri-cornered hat sat a small yellow bird that looked a lot likePierre. It blinked a few times when it met Alfred's gaze and picked softly on the hat.

"Are you still going on about that? I already told you guys numerous times that I don't have a freaking bird on my hat!" Gilbert retorted angrily and started to fumble and grapple at the headgear from all angles, trying to prove his point. However, when he was just about to touch the bird it swiftly jumped away and flew to another spot on the hat that Gilbert had already examined. "See? No bird!"

"…But it IS right there! You just missed it!" Alfred said and pointed towards the bird that was fluttering cheerfully with its small wings because of all the attention it was given.

"No, it's nothing there! Seriously, you people are only trying to mess with my head!" Gilbert rose up to his feet and with a cocky smile on his lips he continued: "But you know what? You won't succeed, because I am too AWESOME to be tricked like that! HAHAHAHA-!"

"GILBERT BEILSCHMIDT!" Ludwig suddenly growled, grabbed the albino's cloak and pulled him up face-to-face, almost making the small bird fall of the hat because of the unexpected move. "Listen to what I have to say!" he snarled angrily, staring straight into Gilbert's red eyes.

"T-take it easy, West! I'm listening, I'm listening!" Gilbert quickly exclaimed and waved with his hands in defeat.

"Good." Ludwig muttered and turned around towards Alfred and Feliciano, still holding the albino's cloak in a firm grip. "Alfred, this is my brother Gilbert, and he's going to take you to Kiku's house right away. I hope you don't mind."

"What? ! I can't fly now, I've got a hangover!" Gilbert objected with a pout.

"You've been flying before while having a hangover!"

"…But this one is really bad! I swear!" The albino started to groan loudly as he placed his hand on his forehead and looked at Ludwig with sad puppy eyes, trying to look as sick as possible. "You wouldn't force your poor brother to work when he's feeling this bad, right…?" he said with a hoarse voice.

"If you have enough strength to climb onto a wagon and play cards games with your friends I won't feel any pity for you." Ludwig said stiffly before finally releasing Gilbert's cloak and looked at Francis and Antonio instead. "And you two; stop slacking and get to work if you want something to eat tonight!"

"And I don't even live here in the first place…fine fine, I'll help out." Francis muttered while getting up on his feet, removing the last piece of grain from his costume. Shortly thereafter Antonio rose up from the ground as well to give Francis a friendly pat on his back.

"Aww, don't be like that Francis; it'll be fun! We can build a special tomato-storage together with Lovino, and we can name it…"El Paraíso del Tomate"! Yes, that'll be perfect!" The tanned man laughed out loud before turning his eyes towards Feliciano, who was still standing next to Alfred. "Hey, Feli! Your brother is by the storages right now, isn't he?" Feliciano nodded.

"Sí, sí! The two of us worked together with saving as much spaghetti as we could all morning before I and Ludwig decided on taking a break, so he should still be over there!"

"Gracías! Let's go then, Francis! To the storages!" And so Antonio took Francis's hand and walked away towards the storages while humming on a cheerful melody, even though his blond company didn't exactly look as excited as him. When they were almost out of sight Feliciano looked at Alfred.

"Ve~, I'm so happy that we were able to help you with finding a ride, Mr Hero! That means that we can go and make pasta now, right, Ludwig?" he said happily and threw himself onto Ludwig's arm. The muscular blond jumped slightly by the sudden move, and once again his cheeks quickly turned a bit pink.

"Y-yeah, of course." he mumbled quietly. When Feliciano heard this he bounced up and down again in excitement, and while still holding Ludwig's arm he started to walk away, pulling the taller man along with him. Ludwig followed him with tottering steps, but when the two men passed by Alfred he could see that Ludwig was now wearing small smile on his lips.

"Wait, what? ! Oi, you're giving us all of these orders and you're not even gonna work yourself? ! That's just unawesome! Not cool! Lame!" Gilbert shouted after them, but stopped when Ludwig suddenly turned his head around with a threatening glare now decorating his face instead of the soft smile.

"We've been working since sunrise while the three of you have been hiding, so I don't want to hear such nonsense! Oh, and if you try to escape from helping out with the storages after you've taken Alfred to Kiku's house I'll personally feed you to one of Predateli's ants!"

"P-please calm down, Ludwig, you know that shouting isn't good for the throat…" Feliciano said and whispered something to Ludwig that seemed to calm him down a bit. After giving the blond a wide smile Feliciano turned his head towards Alfred instead and waved with his free hand. "Ciao, Mr. Hero! I hope you'll find Mr. Arthur soon!" he shouted before he started to walk away and disappeared in the distance, dragging the taller man along with him.

OxOxO

"I swear that I'm gonna make those stupid ants pay for forcing me to work like this! If they dare to show up in front of me ever again I'm gonna kick their asses so hard that they won't even remember who they're working for anymore!" Gilbert complained as he and Alfred passed by tree after tree in rapid speed, and with an irritated snort he pushed forward the handlebar on his black and white-coloured Kantro-ship with the silhouette of an eagle on the front, making it go even faster. "Someone as awesome as me shouldn't have to do unawesome stuff like this! It has to be against the law somehow!"

"I know exactly how you feel, dude! Mattie always tries to boss me around when I want to take it easy…not that he ever succeeds with it, but it's still annoying when he complains!" Alfred said and rolled his eyes, forgetting about that Gilbert couldn't see that. "Brothers can sure be annoying, right?"

"How true that is! I mean, it's not like the food will witter straight away if we just want to take it easy for a day or two! Stupid West…" With an abrupt jerk he pushed the handlebar even more forward and it almost caused Alfred to lose his balance, especially because of the high speed. Compared to Arthur Gilbert was driving like an insane Formula 1-driver that didn't understand what "brakes" were.

"By the way, why do you call him "West"? Is that his full name? Ludwig West?" Alfred asked, but he couldn't help but snigger when he thought about how weird that name sounded.

"What? No, no, that's not it! You see, he lives on the west side of the village while I live on the east side. So, I call him "West"! Ah, sometimes I'm so clever that I amaze myself, niyoniyoniyo~!" The albino proudly held his head on high, and after a satisfied sigh he continued: "Anyways, why are we going to Kiku's place in the first place? Do you need more bullets?"

"Well…I do, but that's not why I'm going there." Alfred looked down on his precious, but for the moment useless since the bullets to it still remained in the bag lying outside Arthur's house, gun that he had attached to the belt on his pants with the help of some thin ropes. "Feliciano said that Arthur might be there, and since I don't have any other clues I thought that I might as well start over there!"

"Heeeeh, really? But wow, I didn't think that you were THAT eager to find Artie-boy…" Gilbert glanced back at the blond with a teasing smile and raised eyebrows. "Do you really want to make out with him that much?"

"…Huh? No, no, no, nooooo, that's not it; I want to make up with him, not make out!" Alfred quickly explained.

"Oh, suuuuuuure! So you mean that all of that lovely dovely tension between the two of you while you were fighting didn't exist? I'm sure that even Antonio would be able to notice it, and he never even bothers with trying to read the atmosphere!"

"…"Lovely dovely tension?" What's that? Something you can eat?" Alfred asked confusedly and tried to remember if he had ever seen or eaten any kind of food that was named like that.

"No, stupid!" Gilbert snapped and sighed. "Fine, I'll put it in a different way then; you find him attractive, don't you?"

"…Attractive? With those fuzzy eyebrows? No way, dude!" Alfred started to laugh thinking about Arthur's caterpillars to eyebrows and the thought of finding them "attractive" when suddenly the picture of the half-naked smiling Arthur that he had seen at Elizabeta's house appeared in his mind. His laughing ended abruptly, and he could feel how his cheeks started to burn. Damn it, why did he have to start thinking about that right now? ! He quickly tried to replace the picture with something else, and when he closed his eyes and saw how a huge lovely hamburger floated in front of him instead he felt how his cheeks quickly cooled down. With a pleased smile, even though the thought of a tasty burger made him a little hungry, he opened up his eyes again…only to be met by a pair of red ones accompanied by a huge teasing grin.

"I saaaaw that; you were bluuuuushiiiiiing! Ahahaha, seems like the awesome Love-Doctor Gilbert is right once again-! ...Oh look, we're here! About time!" Right in front of them stood a really tall and, as Feliciano had put it, fat spruce that seemed to be a lot thicker than the other spruces in the forest. Gilbert pulled the lever by his foot and pressed the handlebar forward that caused the ship to dive a bit before he straightened it up again and flew in under the spruce's lowest branches. The albino increased speed again, skilfully avoiding all of the vegetation that came in their way, until he finally landed the ship in front of a round and big one-storey house standing by the thick tree trunk.

"There, just go through that door and you'll be in Kiku's house. Now get off now so I can go home already!" Gilbert said nonchalantly and nudged on Alfred with his elbow. Alfred obeyed and jumped off the ship, but when he turned around again towards Gilbert he noticed that the small yellow bird still sat on the albino's headgear with its head tilted. How it had managed to remain on the hat after that crazy ride surprised him to no end. "Anyways, I wish you good luck with Artie-boy! Don't just start to make out as if there were no tomorrow!" Gilbert winked teasingly towards him before slamming his hand onto the stone slab, causing the ship to rise up into the air, and flew away at an insane speed.

"MAKE UP!" Alfred screamed after him and pouted. He didn't understand why Gilbert had said such strange things; why would he want to make out with Arthur in the first place? That would just be…weird…! He shook his head in order to clear his mind, ignoring the fact that his face felt a bit hot at the thought of kissing Arthur, and instead he glanced down on his gun. After giving it a small pat he took a deep breath and walked up to the wooden door to the round house. He knocked on it a couple of times, but when no one opened he decided on taking the liberty to invite himself inside. He turned the small doorknob, and fortunately it wasn't locked but opened up with a "click".

"Hellooooo? Anyone here?" Alfred yelled as he entered the house, closing the door behind him. It sure was a strange-looking room that he found himself in; long scrolls with weird signs on them covered the walls, and below them stood display cases with different types of weapons inside; everything from guns to long thin swords. An impressed whistle left Alfred's mouth – he had never seen so many weapons in real life before – and he walked over to one of the display cases to take a closer look at a sword with an extremely thick blade. However, since he was too busy admiring the beautiful weapon he didn't notice that someone else entered the room, and neither did he notice that the person slowly moved towards him. So, it wasn't weird that he took a leap backwards while shouting "iiep!" in surprise when he turned around again; his nose had been just a few centimetres away from the edge of a katana. On the other end of the weapon stood a small, slim man with short black hair dressed in a grey-coloured yukata and a black coat. He stared at Alfred with a grim look on his face for a few seconds, acting like he was ready to fight, until he all of a sudden blinked in surprise a couple of times, and his solemn face was replaced by a confused and astonished one instead.

"W-who are you? !"

~End of Chapter 10~

Character-scribbles: Elizabeta! 8D [Remove spaces!]

yfrog . com / 5cphelizabetap

So yeah, I drew it in Paint this time...and I might continue with it =w= Scribbling in Paint is fuuuun~!

Ehum, anyways...I'm really excited about writing the next chapter (because of some yummy scenes, hum hum~! *shot*), but I have noooo idea how long it'll take to finish...besides, I have to start animating on my project for school as well D: (La Rana, we have to stop being so lazy and actually get going!) But yeah, I will TRY to present it to you as fast as possible! \(O7O)/ Thank you~!

Awesome people review fanfics AND get to eat Feliciano's delicious pasta. Are you awesome?