11. The Bombing Chapter
…in which Russia takes a walk
The first bomb caused another one to explode. It was followed by yet another plus a series of explosions lit the forest behind Russia's back. They were not big explosions; not enough to make a fire break out in the forest. Russia wondered about it a bit because the series, which were longer than he had thought, should have been enough to do the trick together, but there weren't any. It was better for him however, so he didn't bother too much with it; just tossing it aside like he normally did with complicated things that worked anyway even if done the easier way.
Trees shattered behind him, leaves burned a while before the fire died out. The noise was loud, but Russia listened to the last of it, like trying to learn something from the intervals of echoes and new explosions. He counted fourteen bombs before it was silent again. The last ones came from pretty far away: they had been set to explode in a queue where one explosion triggered all the others. Russia congratulated himself for finding that out and calculating a safe spot to stand.
When it was completely silent, he walked closer to see the results. There was smoke, burned moss and hay, shattered pieces of wood, and a strong, bitter taste in the air. He walked to the now mostly destroyed area, the ground crunching under his feet. The smell was actually pleasant now that it was slowly mixing with the fresh air and the thickest smoke was fading. Russia looked sadly at one of the smaller trees that had fallen in two, the other end still standing burned on the ground.
"So sad how many young lives must end in war," he said casually, and, walking a few steps past the said young life, continued as casually. "Don't you agree?"
His conversation partner huffed, irritated. "Isn't this nice? First you ruin my masterpiece before it even is done, then remain unhurt by doing that like you'd be mocking it, and lastly, oh how kind, you easily noticed me. Am I that obvious?"
Russia smiled, humming shortly. "You should really ask permission before using someone else's bombs. That wire system was new to me though…hey, come here will you?"
The other sighed, stepping into his line of sight from behind a tree. "Even if I asked for your permission, you would hear it and if you heard, you wouldn't give it. Why would I bother? And the system is new to you, because I invented it."
"That doesn't mean you can use my inventions behind my back," Russia lectured and gave almost a gentle look to the messy-haired man. "How many bombs have you set to these forests?"
The foreign nation leant on the tree he had been hiding behind. "Enough to prevent you from escaping."
"And enough to prevent us from getting encircled?"
"That's an unavoidable side-effect."
"What if someone besides us and our opponent would get bombed?" Russia asked, raising his eyebrows.
The other enemy nation didn't hesitate a second when giving an answer. "That too would be an unavoidable side-effect." They were silent for a while before the man continued. "Did you perhaps mean those two who have been helping for a while now?"
Russia raised his eyebrow. "Oh, you know? You don't sound like you care, though."
"I don't," the war-maniac admitted. "It just makes things more interesting."
Russia hummed in thought for a while and then gave the foreigner another gentle look. "Was it your doing that blew our second-in-command up?"
Now the man looked surprised. "Was he your second-in-command? Oh dear, that's interesting…"
"Well, was it?" Russia asked again.
The nation was silent for a moment, before he answered matter of factly. "I'm surprised you set that one off. There aren't many bombs around there yet." He smiled shortly. "I found it more interesting here where all the action was."
Russia crouched down briefly to pick up a strong-looking fallen branch to his hand. "That's not nice, you know. Our poor little commander has enough to do as it is."
"I was here from the very beginning," the man answered. "You stop ignoring people on daily basis, because that's not nice."
"No," Russia corrected and straightened the gun on his back. "I meant England."
"Oh?" the nation said, raising his eyebrows. "I see. What do you need that for?" He eyed the branch, sounding mostly interested.
Russia hummed. "I was planning to beat you up with it," he said playfully.
"You have noticed you have a rifle, haven't you?" the other noted.
"This is a sub machine gun," Russia corrected lightheartedly. "A PPSh-41. Brings back so many memories; I haven't used one for decades. But it doesn't live up to the purpose now. Too neat." Russia raised his branch. "Actually I would have liked a water pipe more…"
His enemy didn't move. "And if I used my gun?"
"You wouldn't," Russia answered self-confidently. "That's not nice."
The nation smiled. Stepping away from the tree, he crouched down and picked up a branch of his own. "It might not."
.*** *** ***
A while earlier…
Germany woke up when his attempt to change his sleeping position ended with an uncomfortable ache in his shoulder, courtesy of a root sticking up from the dirt. He made an opposing sound and reluctantly shook sleep off his head, sitting up. Switzerland was sitting by the fire and gave him a short, indifferent look, while Germany tried to catch the situation with his still sleepy eyes.
Germany counted the people nearby and frowned. "Where's Russia?"
Switzerland shrugged. "Who knows. Said he's going to be back in a moment and wondered off. I'm not interested."
Germany hummed in thought and stretched his neck and arms. He would definitely like to sleep a little more tonight. But first…
"Aren't you going to sleep?" he asked Switzerland. "I can watch the fire, if you want."
Switzerland shook his head. "You're more tired than me," he said truthfully. "I can manage without sleeping."
Germany raised his eyebrows slightly to the softer voice Switzerland shared rarely with anyone other than Liechtenstein. "It's easier to hit the target when your eyes aren't fuzzy for lack of sleep," he then pointed out, despite being happy about the answer inwardly.
Now the sharpshooter snorted and looked a bit offended, but kept his voice down for the sake of sleeping Japan and Poland. "I could hit these uneducated fries, eyes covered in a snowstorm, from a mile away, tired or not."
Germany sighed and leaned his back to the dirt wall again. "Of course, that's how it was again. How rude of me," he said tiredly and quickly started to drift off to the sleep again.
Both he and Switzerland, as well as Poland and Japan, however, jerked up the next second when distant, but yet clear string of explosive sounds ran through the forest.
.*** *** ***
Present
Russia's stick could take the first hit against the other branch, but snapped in two when they second time clashed together. Hadn't he said he would have liked his water pipe? Russia didn't waste a second to close in, but the man managed to block Russia's hit with his arm. At some point their branches had stuck together.
For a second neither of them moved.
The next thing Russia's opponent noticed was that his branch was also in two pieces and Russia's branch was closing to his temple.
From behind.
Russia watched how his opponent ducked away to avoid his hit and turned around; swinging his wooden weapon in a circle to make sure Russia wasn't too close. Russia stepped away to avoid getting hit and stopped. His opponent did the same. The other stole a side glance to their snapped branches, raising his eyebrows slightly, though it was difficult to see in the dark. Thankfully the moonlight reached the ground well.
Their fight resumed without the change of weapons. The uneven terrain had them both staggering. It wasn't once either of them took distance to get away from a difficult base. After a while Russia could be sure that while the other was definitely quicker than him, he was physically more powerful and sturdy. They were also both skilled enough to avoid getting hit seriously.
Finally, they stopped to take a breath.
The remains of the branches they had long since abandoned. There they stood apart from each other, neither saying a word. Their fight had brought them to the burned circle one of the bombs had created.
Russia looked around, partly to see where he had the best footing to fight, partly because there had been one thing he had wanted to ask for a while. His opponent charged forwards, having decided it was time to continue. Russia blocked his hits and the other way round again. The fight continued.
The continuous pace they kept up then suddenly broke, when the foreigner tripped on the remains of a small tree, almost falling over. Russia tried to use the risen opportunity to finish the fighting, but unfortunately, the foreigner didn't have any intention to be defeated.
The next moment, Russia noticed he was staring into the barrel of a gun.
When the handgun banged, Russia was already on the side of it and holding his opponent's wrist.
The local nation leant against Russia, immediately finding his way to the submachine gun hanging on his back. Had it been anyone else, Russia would have just knocked him out. But just anyone couldn't have found the gun's safety and get around all the things that kept the rifle safely unused. This wasn't just anyone, but a war-maniac nation who had numerous years of firsthand knowledge about guns. And besides, Russia didn't have a free hand to hit him: the other was still holding the wrist and keeping the handgun away from him, the other was locked against his body by his opponent.
Russia leant forward and took a step backwards. His opponent lost his balance and the string of fire from the sub machine gun went past his head without hitting him whatsoever as Russia threw his opponent away from him.
Both guns fell to the ground. The nations stumbled onto the ground as well, but they stood up quickly to prevent the opponent from getting hold of the guns. As their fist fight went on once more, the guns were soon out of their reach.
Both were out of breath.
The foreign nation huffed and suddenly jumped backwards, retreating quickly a good distance before Russia could register what he was up to. When their distance was ten meters already, he understood what was going on and retreated quickly to go out a range of a hand grenade.
An explosion shook the night once more.
The foreign nation had ducked to cover in time and when he was sure it was safe again, he lifted himself up to see if he had hit his opponent.
"RGD-5 hand grenades are effective up to fifteen meters," Russia lectured casually coming in sight as well from behind bigger tree. He smiled. "However, only up to three meters from the site of detonation the explosion is lethal and the time it takes to explode can be up to thirteen seconds. You probably knew that I also knew this, so you must have taken the pin out shortly before throwing but so that it's still safe for you. Meaning, I had about four to six seconds before the explosion. It was easy for me to take cover." Russia smiled again and leant on the tree, enjoying the bothered face the other was making, which meant he had hit the spot.
His opponent sighed. "You're really depressing. But yes, maybe that was a bit desperate. How did you know I had a long fuse and not a shorter one?"
"Simply because I managed to get away in time. Those things aren't meant to be used in one-on-one combat, you know," Russia said, tilting his head. "I don't have hand grenades and you used guns too. So you're not being nice. "
"And I prefer being intelligent, not nice," the local answered. "Not long after our fight started I knew I would have a slim chance of beating you in a close combat as it is. I like my life."
"Pity," Russia said, sounding like he meant it. "I could live without it."
For a moment it was silent. Russia watched peacefully as the other searched something with hand behind his back. Their eyes never wandered off each other's forms that weren't so clear now that there was distance between them.
Then Russia decided to spoke up and ask the thing that had been bothering him. "Hey."
The other shifted. "What?"
"Why are you using such small explosives? You all. If you used more effective weapons against me now, or us in general..."
The question hung in the air and was met by a moment of silence. Finally, the foreigner spoke. "Your allies haven't told you so much I see. Well, whatever. Outsiders like you can't probably understand. But to ease your interest let's put it simply." The foreign nation started walking closer and looked Russia under his eyebrows. "This land wouldn't allow it."
"Eh?" Russia managed to say, but he couldn't ask for clarification, because his opponent ran forwards and pulled an army knife from the back of his belt.
Russia decided the foreign nation had given up even trying to be nice. Soon he could feel himself being cornered. The other was quite skilled with the knife and managed to stop his attempts to turn the weapon against him.
After a few wrong moves blood ran down his jaw and forearm.
Russia made a silent decision: it was time to end this and stop that knife.
Now.
The short blade stained with blood.
Russia blinked, wincing slightly. His opponent startled and stared at Russia's hand that was now squeezing his fingers after Russia had stick his palm straight through the tip of the knife.
"Caught you," Russia chirped shortly and raised his fist.
This time his hit landed.
The downside was they both fell over. Russia couldn't later name which one of them it was who tripped first. Next moment they wrestled trying to get either away from or on the top of the other. The knife dropped beside them at some point. The conclusion was that Russia, who holding his knee on the foreign nation's stomach, was readying a fist full of bad temper to bunch at the other again. He didn't get that far when his eyes widened. His opponent held up another hand grenade in front of his face.
The pin was missing.
Russia started backwards and stumbled up to his feet to get away, but he was stopped when something tightened around his neck: the man on the ground smiled, holding Russia's scarf and throwing the hand grenade a bit upwards, away from his hand, though it didn't serve any deeper purpose.
In about three seconds they would both be dead.
Not so good, Russia thought.Oh my, oh my…
Two seconds.
Russia made a last attempt to detach the scarf and get away.
He failed.
Germany will get angry, he thought. I wonder if my sisters will miss me.
One second.
In that second, to their surprise, their fight was interrupted. Switzerland jumped over a fallen tree trunk and hit the hand grenade with a rifle end.
Zero.
The grenade flew away between trees and exploded further away from them, making Switzerland and Russia duck down to the ground. When Russia's opponent got over his surprise, Switzerland was already standing on his hand and pointing a rifle at his face and glaring. Russia was facing Germany.
"WHAT?" Germany raged, holding fistful of Russia's scarf and coat in his hand and raising the bigger nation up. "Do you think you're doing?"
Russia smiled innocently. "Taking a walk?"
Germany's eyes widened and he gave up trying to conceal his rage. "You have got to be kidding me!"
.*** *** ***
The nations gathered to the front yard of the Home. Everyone was buzzing and whispering with the person next to them. Some more people, also a few of the injured, came from the hut to close the loose circle around their prisoner of war.
"How's England?" Germany asked Seychelles who came from the main door last, closing it behind her.
"Alive," Seychelles answered, sighing. "He has seen better days. He lost so much blood that for an instant I thought we would run out of donations."
Germany frowned, grunting and glanced to the closed door, thinking if he should go see. "Is Finland okay?"
"He's still sleeping," Seychelles said and tried smiling. "He has had a bit of a rough day."
Germany hummed and turned to look at their prisoner. He decided to stay outside. "Well then, let's begin." He stepped forwards and entered the circle of nations. The campfire was illuminating the yard as the sun was only about to rise. "A moment ago Russia kindly got himself into trouble."
Russia laughed a bit, sounding innocently proud of himself. Then he winced when Hungary tightened the bandage around his hand not so carefully.
"But thanks to that," Germany continued. "We now have a prisoner who will kindly answer a few questions."
"Only a few?" the foreigner repeated, amused. "Oh, so you're doing better than I thought?" He shifted, trying to make himself more comfortable on the ground. His hands had been tied behind his back.
"Be quiet if you're not asked to talk," Germany said strictly and turned at their prisoner. "If I remember correctly, you are the other of the two nations that came to us approximately four days ago, declaring to us this ridiculous war. You possess no considerable military force but you would have brains to use one, but since you rarely do, we were instructed not to worry about you. But I can see we have been a bit wrong there."
"That can hardly be my fault," the foreigner defended.
Germany came closer and stood before the prisoner. "Listen now," he said. "Let me make a few things clear. One: I'm very angry right now. Two: None of the nations around you is unarmed. Three: No, you can't have a lawyer. And four." He crouched down before the tied man and lowered his voice. "I'm pretty sure Russia wouldn't be at all bothered to play with you a bit more if I asked him to."
The foreign nation's eyebrow twitched and he gave a timid smile. "Yes. I understand. It's my fault. My apologies."
"Russia," Germany called, rising up. Their prisoner turned a bit white.
"Yes?" Russia asked, seemingly excited. "Can I play with him?"
"Unfortunately you have to save that for later," Germany answered. Russia looked very disappointed, but Germany continued. "Tell me exactly what were you doing between the time Switzerland saw you leaving and we came to save you from the hand grenade. And add a reason why you went alone."
Russia thought for a moment. "As I said, I was taking a walk and–"
"Could you this once be serious?" Germany shouted, cutting that explanation short.
Russia smiled. "I went alone because everyone seemed tired; poor things. And I wasn't even sure I'd find something." Russia told them the summary of his adventure, starting from the conversation he and Germany had earlier when coming to the line. He skipped mostly the part of the fight, but Germany looked satisfied.
"I see," he said and looked back to the prisoner who had sat silently still all the time. Germany (ignoring America, who was extremely jealous of Russia right now and making a show of it) gave Russia's story a short think before talking again. "Finally something explains why our opponent hasn't encircled us yet. Your bombs prevented him from doing that safely. So he wasn't just a proud tactical idiot who only charges straight forwards without a proper plan."
"Uh, no," the foreigner interrupted. "He's exactly like that. Tactical idiot is actually very descriptive," he said, and then added, "but of course his army personnel are cleverer."
"It is true that we are not fighting against the worst opponent I could imagine," China said, raising a finger. "Like a special operation unit or air force or something. But I still think they are underestimating us."
"Fools," Korea said and grinned widely.
"True, he was surprised when you put up a fight," their prisoner admitted. "I expected you to, since I saw your allies around here."
"You don't seem bothered with that," Germany noted, noticing the same thing Russia had earlier.
The foreigner smiled briefly. "No. A one-sided battle is not something I would enjoy. I came here in the first place just to see how good you are in real life, so that's more than fine. I must say I'm surprised, I didn't think you would have this good teamwork."
"Situation calls," Austria answered.
"That matter aside," Germany said, taking the lead again. "If you've been using bombs to prevent us from escaping, it makes one more thing very clear." He stepped before the prisoner again and this time the look in his eyes was very dark. "You set the bomb that blew England up, didn't you?" He grabbed the other by collar and yanked the small foreigner effortlessly up. "Didn't you?"
The foreigner looked back to Germany's furious eyes keeping a straight, tense face. He didn't try to struggle against Germany's grip. The nations silently waited for an answer.
Finally the nation came to some conclusion for his answer and gave it in a simple manner. "Yes."
Germany raised his fist up to hit, but stopped himself. He breathed through his teeth a couple of times, before he spoke again. "Preventing the encircling really helped us," Germany said lowly. "Up until the last evening, it was the most welcome thing for days. Since we are not planning to run away, it didn't bother us. But now…well?" he asked and tightened his grip from the collar. "Have you learnt our strength?"
The foreigner nodded. "I have."
"Russia aside, he had fun anyway," Germany continued and let go of the prisoner who staggered and fell over to the ground. "How are you planning making up…for England?"
The prisoner sat up. "I am your enemy. Making up for what I have done before this is over doesn't really belong to the war code I know."
"This is no war," Germany answered and turned away. "This is just stupidity." He walked back to the circle of nations, who had been watching the scene.
"Why didn't you punch him?" America asked, clenching his teeth. Denmark was holding him back from going to do it himself. "If you can't, I can do it for you. Can I?"
Germany didn't look at him and spoke only after exiting the circle. "Denmark."
"Hm?" Denmark turned his head to look after him.
"From this point on," Germany said and turned to look back at the Nordic. "You'll work as my second-in-command."
Denmark looked genuinely surprised, but when the information was starting to sink to his brain, he smiled. "At yer service, commander," he grinned.
"I'm tired," Germany said, sounding like he really was and opened the hut door. "I must rest for a moment before everything starts again. I'll leave this to you." The hut door closed behind him.
"Well then," Denmark started, immediately internalizing his new task. He shoved America away and grabbed his axe, stepping to the circle. "Mister Bomber jerk."
Denmark walked to the man who sat on the ground, looking at the axe restlessly. Russia and Switzerland joined him, and the three of them stood before the prisoner.
Denmark set the other end of the axe to the ground and grinned. Russia raised his healthy hand to his scarf, tucking it slowly down so it wouldn't get in a way this time. Switzerland removed his gun's safety. They all gave the sitting man a glare, which combined into an atmosphere which made their prisoner sweat.
"Ye're going to repay what ye've done, aren't ye?" Denmark asked, sounding not at all friendly.
A/N: Hello again, and thank you so much for remembering me after all that time I made you wait. It made me really happy. I hope you like this chapter, because to be totally honest: I don't. Not much, at least, but it has it's moments as well. It is just the first time in my life I've written a one-in-one fighting scene with no magical type of powers so I'm being critical with myself.
And to your wonderful reviews I always appreciate and cherish:
First to all of you: Thank you, I'm happy to be back. I feel bad for leaving you for such a long time. I'll keep this up with all my might as long as my imagination doesn't betray me.
NighttimeFirefly: Somehow, you make me want to comment your review, but I don't know what to say. So I'll just say: thank you for supporting me.
Loud Mucker Complex: *is being tackled* Capslock is just fine if you feel you need it. =D If it helps you, England lost his eye in this fic before you mentioned you wanted him to suffer. But I like his eyes as well. And I like making cliffhangers. XD I think my readers have noticed that. And thank you, I'm sorry about that as well.
And to my beta-reader: Wings, thank you again. Don't worry about the delay, you're wonderful. And don't get yourself sick in the heat.