A/N: This is the last chapter I wrote in a spur of inspiration last week. Now I'm going on a hiatus due my matriculation examinations(really big tests here in Finland by the end of high school). They are in March but I need to start preparing for them now already. If I have a chance I might write some more but it's unlikely that I'll get anything finished.

After this chapter, please don't kill me if you don't like the turn of events. But do tell me what do you think. I'd be really happy about it and it would give me power to read for my exams.

But now to the chapter itself, I have rambled enough!

13. My ghost, my shadow

Akseli dried his hair on the fluffy towel of the hotel and dressed into a blue t-shirt and grey shorts. Every movement he made caused him to wince in pain. Not only he had a headache but also his chest was sore from the CPR he had received not even and hour ago. He could only hope that none of his ribs were broken. His mother had said that they'd go to see a doctor as soon as they got home.

The boy was halfway to the door of the bathroom when he happened to glance in the mirror. To Akseli's horror, he couldn't see his reflection there. His assumed spot was completely empty. But the reflection itself wasn't. There was a boy there, sitting on the edge of the bathtub and observing him disinterestedly via the mirror. Their eyes were glued together.

Slowly Akseli turned to look at the bathtub behind him but there was no one. He even walked to the tub and checked inside it too before looking back. The boy was still sitting there, smiling faintly, like it was a foreign expression on his face, but Akseli himself was still missing.

"Kuka…(Who…)" Akseli began slowly, not quite comprehending the situation.

"Sprechen Sie Deutsch.(Speak German.)" The other boy told him with a calm, quiet but firm voice. Even though Akseli had studied German only one autumn, he could understand the other perfectly. With slow measured steps they both approached the mirror from their sides of the room.

"W-Wer sind Sie?(W-Who are you?)" Akseli managed to ask quite quietly. He didn't want his family coming bursting through the door.

"I'm what's left of the Holy Roman Empire. The non-corporeal part." The strange boy answered in German. Now when they were face to face, Akseli could see they were very similar. Almost identical. Except that the other's boy's eyes were deeper and darker blue than Akseli's who had the same greyish blue eye color than Elsa. And the other boy's hair was a bit longer. Then there were his clothes. He had a black coat to his hips with a leather belt and dark breeches tucked into boots. Around his neck he had some sort of a scarf or tie, white it was anyways. He had also a black hat with gold trimming but wasn't wearing it at the moment.

"How are you… Why are you here?" Akseli asked. For some reason his usually a bit awkward German came fluently now.

"I've been here with you all the time, just not awake." The other boy shrugged.

"All the time… But that doesn't explain why now."

"You almost died, I've almost died. Thus the connection between us two opened and I woke up."

"Who are you?"

"Just a ghost."

"And I'm supposed to believe that? How can I be sure that this isn't just some twisted dream or that I'm hallusinating."

"I can't prove that… You just have to believe it because I won't or even can't leave you alone." The boy looked to the side. Akseli frowned.

"…What are you?" He finally asked.

"I'm the personification of Holy Roman Empire. I'm the lost memories of Germany. And I'm you, Akseli Ahola." By the last declaration Holy Rome turned back to look at Akseli, his blue eye boring into the boy's.

"Me?" Akseli squeaked. "How so?"

"We are the same more or less. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to see me and I wouldn't even be with you."

"When you say personification…"

"I represent the people of mine, staying alive as long as my country does."

"But you died. You said it yourself. And I've never even heard of you."

"Yes, my empire is no more but the lands and the descendants of my people still exist. They are what Germany is now. My physical body grew up to be him but my memories came to you two centuries later."

"So you're telling me… that you are a nation?" Akseli confirmed. His headache was gone now but his head was still spinning a bit as he tried to understand all the information he got. "That countries all over the world are represented by… people like you?"

"Yes. We don't die, we age only if our nation grows stronger." Holy Rome nodded.

"Can you prove it?"

"Yes. Tonight. I'm going to show you my memories that you have." The stranger smiled in a bit sinister way and disappeared from the mirror, leaving Akseli staring his own half-frightened reflection.

That night Akseli slept deeply but restlessly. The ghost indeed showed him those memories. Actually he showed everything. All those centuries. All the battles he participated in. The times he spent at Austria's house. His brother Teutonic Knights who later became Prussia. A jumble of emotions was thrown at the boy. And finally the battle in the Thirty Years War where France killed the younger nation before Prussia could reach him. The spirit clung on other people of his and followed them until the year 1806 when the sixth of August the last emperor of Holy Roman Empire abdicated thus ending the nation for good. And after that was only darkness.

Akseli shot up on his bed. The hotel room was dark and the only sounds there where the air conditioning, Elsa sleeping soundly in the nearby bed and their father's snoring in the other part of the apartementos. It took a while for the boy to calm down and when he did, he headed to the bathroom to wash his face from the cold sweat that lingered on his forehead.

Tha boy looked up to the mirror and wasn't surprised at all to see Holy Rome leaning against the wall on the other side.

"You believe me now?" The ex-nation asked.

"Y-Yes… I just… It's still hard to understand." Akseli looked down at his hand. On his palms he had small crescent shaped marks from his nails. He had even drawn blood.

"We have time."

"And I have no other choices."

"I don't have either."

"Who are you?"

"You can call me… Heinrich. I fits doesn't it? Akseli Henri Ahola, born August 6th 1998?"

Akseli didn't answer. He kept staring at his bloodied hands. He could almost imagine himself holding a sword in them. And for some reason he knew this wouldn't be the last time he saw those marks.

A/N: Okay, here this was. I really hope you liked it. Now I'm off to the fields of hard studying.(As if...)

Please be gentle with Akseli, this won't be easy for him. Not at all. First he drowned and then finds out that a dead empire lives inside his head. By the way I drew a picture what HRE should be like. He has an appearance of a ten-year-old boy now not the five-seven what he is in the series.

Something like this: tsukiko75014. /art/ APH-HRE-again-399381691

Just take the spaces away.

The next chapter - when I'm to write it - will be the next part of 'Halves' i.e. it will feature Chelsea and her brothers again! This time with England.