Russia pulled out his cell and dialed the number for Ladonia.

"What are you doing?" England asked.

"He did say to call him when we found the book. I thought we should figure this out as quickly as possible, da?" Russia explained.

"Just..." England sighed; he hated that the micronations were being involved in this, "make sure you put him on speaker phone."

Russia set the phone in the center of the table, next to the, thus far unopen, book. "Tell me you've got something good," Ladonia got straight to the point.

"Da, we found that book," Russia grinned.

Ladonia perked up, suddenly very curious, "Well come on! What does it say?"

Canada opened the book and started reading through it's contents. He summarized as he read, "It seems to be almost like a journal, or some sort of record of someone's experience here."

"That sounds about right... But what else does it say?!" Ladonia asked impatiently.

"Sorry, I'll try and read faster," Canada read over it's details more briefly, "Well, most of it seems to be about things we already knew... such as what the 'Oni' is, and the general layout of this place... Oh, but here's something," Canda paused for a moment to read this section more in depth, "Those tunnels we found should supposedly lead to another building next to the mansion... I mean there's no guarantee that won't be locked either, but it sounds like another exit."

"The tunnels then?" America asked, "Don't we still need the key for that?"

"Yes, but..." Canada quickly hurried over to the area with the loose floorboards, where they had discovered that safety deposit box, "We found this awhile ago. The key should be in here, if we can get it open."

"What? What are you trying to open?" Ladonia asked, frustrated at not being able to see inside.

"A safe box we found earlier," England explained, "In one of the pasts in which we've been here, Germany hid the key inside it for our future selves to discover. Only problem is, now we can't remember the passcode."

"Actually," China pulled out the color code and numbers from the piano, "We might have a clue. There were a lot of 'extra' numbers left on the piano, maybe the code is somehow derived from them? If the code was remembered, even subconsciously, then perhaps these numbers aren't just meaningless."

"Send me the numbers, I can run them through an analysis and see if I can narrow down a possible code," Ladonia suggested.

"You can do that?" Spain asked.

"Of course! What do you take me for? You think I can't even do something simple like crack a little code?!" Ladonia argued, feeling defensive over his strengths. He was known for his adept knowledge of the computer, and computer programming, It was beyond frustrating to hear someone hadn't acknowledged at least that.

"That isn't what I-" Spain tried to explain, that he was simply surprised, not doubting, but decided to drop it, "Anyway, the numbers were '235147283695', and the safe needs four numbers."

There was a moment of silence as Ladonia typed away on his keyboard, "...Well with that, I can determine there are no more than 144, 4-number combinations."

"..That's still an awful lot..." Spain commented, failing to see how this narrowed anything down.

"Well I'm not done yet," Ladonia complained, "You said they were left over? From another code I assume? What numbers have you already used?"

Canada returned to reading over the book so that he'd be able to explain discuss it with everyone, when they inevitably returned to it.

"Yes, it was for another of these safes, the combination was, 5294," England explained, "but something else, there were more clues leading to us deciphering that code: the piano it was found on, the correct numbers had keys corresponding with different notes we heard, and to completely decipher it we were given a color code to follow of, Yellow, Red, Green, Blue... But the colors on the piano were more hazardous. coinciding with each number they were laid out, green, red, blue, red, blue, yellow, red, blue, green, yellow, green, yellow."

"..." Ladonia thought through the process.

"Ladonia?" France asked, as they waited for a response.

"...Two possible solutions," Ladonia stated confidently.

"W-What? But just a moment ago you said 144!" Italy reminded him with shock.

"Yeah? and now there are only two. That's how 'narrowing it down' works," Ladonia explained gruffly, "It's simple, following those leads I can first narrow it down to only 27 combinations, and from there, we can eliminate all but two if we ignore duplicates, which we can do because four-digit code safes from this era were designed not to have repeating numbers."

"That's incredible..." China commented.

"So what is it then?" England asked, somewhat impatiently.

"7138, or 6138, take your pick," Ladonia stated satisfied.

"Just give one of them a try," Prussia suggested, joining in as he curiously awaited the opening of the safe.

Spain now had control of the box, and typed in the first code, 7138. There was a clicking sound as the safe unlocked. "Ah, seriously?"

Everyone crowded in excitedly as they got the first material piece of an exit, they'd had in a while. "Good job Ladonia, now we might finally be getting somewhere," England thanked Ladonia.

Spain pulled the silver key out of the box and passed it around for the rest of the group to look at.

"Ha! yeah of course," Ladonia boasted, "These things are my specialty. I can crack any code! You know safes like these were often designed with their original codes engraved into the bottom? Their owners had to take them in, and pay a fine in order to get the numbers changed!-" Ladonia rambled on.

Curiously, Spain lifted up the box while he listened to the story. From the look on his face England could already tell, "You're joking right?"

Spain turned the small box around so the others could see the bottom as well, the numbers "7138" were engraved in a small corner.

"Seriously?! We just had to look at the bottom of the box this whole time?! That's so uncool man!" America complained.

Canada suddenly interrupted, having been, until this point, been engrossed in another section of the book. "S-Sorry to interrupt! It's just, I found something rather serious in this book..."

The attention returned to the book once more, and Spain pocketed the key.

"What is it?" Russia asked.

"There's a note here about the 'Oni' and it's relation to the clocks," Canada elaborated, "Apparently, in addition to the clocks we've broken to recover our memories of the past, there are also clocks, somewhere, that are tying us to this place... and if we can't break them, we won't be able to escape."

"What? Are you for real?" America worried.

"Don't worry about those clocks. Those would be the ones, all of us out here have been taking care of. I've finally tracked the last one, and Austria... and who ever else he's with, are going to take it down," Ladonia calmed their fears. It was hard for him to give up that last clock, especially after he was already forced to stay behind where it was boring... but he also understood there was a danger here, and statistically speaking, it was a smarter move to send someone more experienced out to take care of it.

"Well that's certainly a relief," England sighed, glad not only that there wasn't more they were going to have to hunt down, but that the kids weren't trying to hunt them down anymore.

"Uh... there's more..." Canada apologized, "That clock Italy, and England, have used to go back in time is also wrapped up in this. In order to escape, that clock needs to be broken, and the Journal destroyed as well. Every time it's been reset it was to save each of us. The proof of that, is that no matter what, we all always ended up here. It's recorded our existence... and death, as a part of the mansion. If we tried to leave without breaking it first, we would only wind up back inside, as if it had reset... However, if we do break it, we would also be destroying the only sure way we have of resetting time."

"Can't England use his magic like he has before?" China asked.

"While I hate to admit it... After everything that's happened, my power has greatly diminished, I may still have enough to take out a couple of these beasts yet... but the power to reverse to time, takes a great deal more than that I'm afraid..." England admitted.

"So relying on England's power is out of the question," America confirmed, "That leaves us with a choice between starting over, and risking losing someone without the option of going back."

"That seems pretty simple," France pointed out, "We face those same risks every time no matter what, the danger would only grow if we went back, and we have to start all over."

"I'm afraid there's more to it still..." Canada added apologetically, "The lock and the journal must both be destroyed, but the clock has an extra condition placed on it. If we break the clock we would only have the amount of time between when the clock was stopped and midnight. If we broke it right now we'd only have-"

"Four hours and twenty eight minutes," Ladonia finished, not wanting to be left out.

"Well that certainly changes things..." France sighed.

"What happens if we don't get out in that time frame?" Romano asked.

"Time will revert on it's own, the clock will disappear for good, and not one of us will be able to remember the past," Canada summarized.

"Then the real danger to breaking the clock is the time limit," England restated the problem.

"Then why don't we wait until after midnight tonight to make our escape?" China suggested, "We'd be more rested to face the challenges that await, and it'd give us more time."

"Well we'd still only get until noon then, but that's at least twelve hours," Canada agreed.

"That's a good idea, it'd be nice to have a -" America was cut off by a sound from directly outside the room.

Crraaasshhhh!

Sensing there would be some sort of a fight, Russia ended the call, and pocketed his phone.

"What was that?" China asked.

Italy's eyes grew wide with fright, "Germany!" He shouted rushing out of the room to check on the noise.

He could hear the others following but, Italy was faster, and thus made it out of the room before the rest of them. He opened the door to the bedroom from which their hideout had been created. A pale grey creature loomed over the room, locking it's soulless eyes on Italy, as it's beaten body vanished and it let out a wild screech.

Italy's eyes then darted to the bookshelf against the wall, Germany had fallen against. Blood smeared down several books and pooled around the shelf his head lay propped against. Germany appeared to be unconscious. To add to his injuries, his arm look twisted and bruised, his shoulder as well, maybe more.

Italy rushed over to his side, just as the others began to file into the room. "Hang on Germany!" Italy cried as he lifted Germany's head off the shelf.

Germany coughed, causing him to feel dizzy and experience spots of blackouts.

"Is he alright?" Prussia asked, sliding in from a sprint. His eyes were wide with concern and he seemed quite shaken.

He's alright, but he needs bandages, his head is bleeding a-and his arm," Italy suddenly noticed the more obvious stab wounds to Germany's stomach, "Oh god..."

America, France, Spain, and Prussia moved into position to carry him.

"We ran out of bandages a while ago..." Japan remembered. Japan looked shaken as well, even after everything they'd been though, he didn't know how to react. This situation was terrifying, but he was more stunned that sad, or scared.

"T-Then we can use the bedsheets!" Italy thought quickly running back into the safe room to pull them off one of the beds.

Germany was laid down on one of the closest beds, his head, still bleeding, quickly seeped onto the pillow. Italy made quick work of tearing strips of fabric off and handing them to China to wrap Germany's wounds.

After Germany has been bandaged up, the group converged around his bedside to talk.

"We have roughly three hours until this midnight. Is our plan still to leave after it turns 12?" America asked.

"Well we can't leave now, with Germany like this!" Prussia argued.

"So then do we wait even longer? Every minute we spend here, we are in danger," China asked.

"Let's all try and get some sleep. We've been up for a long time, and starting tomorrow morning, whether we leave after midnight, or after noon, we'll be running for our lives," Canada suggested.

"Agreed."

NEXT: Switzerland