Chapter Four

"You bastard!"

Ludwig stared at the angry Italian on his porch, "Romano?" He asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. When he was awoken in the middle of the night by a furious pounding on his door, he wasn't expecting to see the livid older brother of his ally there. "What are you doing here?"

"Don't act dumb, potato bastard, you know what I'm here for!" Lovino stepped forward and jabbed a finger into Ludwig's chest, staring down the German. "You made il mio fratellino cry!" Taking advantage of the larger man's slightly disorientated state, he continued on, "I got home from the jerk Spain's house, and what do I find? Feliciano crying on the couch, and he hasn't even stopped yet. That was a good hour ago!" Ludwig felt his heart constrict painfully at the thought that he was the one behind Feliciano's tears. After that conversation, and what Feliciano said, Ludwig excused himself to his study to get away from those broken brown eyes, leaving Kiku to oversee training for the rest of the day. He couldn't bear the thought of not coming back, of dying on the battlefield and leaving his friend alone, but yet, he had to.

Sighing, Ludwig said, "I'm sorry. I don't want to see him cry too, but you understand, right Romano? Some things have to be done to protect the ones we care about." His sky blue eyes met Romano's green ones, and in that brief moment a silent understanding passed between them. The Italian's eyes softened in reluctant understanding, and he backed away, looking down at the ground. Ludwig thought that it was the end of their discussion, but to his surprise, Romano continued.

"Then… you'll understand when I say that I need to fight as well." He stated, the determination in his eyes leaving no room for discussion. "I've already spoken with the jerk Spain about it."

"Spain's letting you fight?"

"He trusts my abilities." Romano retaliated, more than a little hurt. "I'm not that useless, you know? And neither is Feliciano. I'm not saying that you should let him onto the battlefield, but you should have more faith in him."

"I do," Ludwig said hastily, "I just don't want him to get hurt." What was with everyone these days? They never actually spent much time with Feliciano like he had, but they all acted so mysterious, saying things about Feliciano but not caring to elaborate.

At this, Romano laughed darkly, "A little too late for that, isn't it?" Sending Ludwig a dark look that cut off whatever he was going to say, he pivoted on his heel and strode off the porch and into a waiting car, leaving behind a very confused and annoyed German.

The meeting room, simple yet elegant, was located in one of the many skyscrapers that lined Shanghai's skyline. The building itself was a business hub and saw it's fair shares of international meetings and conferences, so no one blinked an eye when around noontime a rather large number of foreigners began to arrive one by one. They took a lift up to the very top of the building where they filed into a meeting room and sat down at a long, polished table. One man was already there, dressed formally in a suit. "You're finally here, aru." He greeted them impatiently and took a seat.

"Thanks for hosting us," Arthur said as he put a notebook on the table before him. "And on such short notice too." As he said it, the mood of the room grew noticeably sombre as the nations were all reminded of why they had been called here. It had been ages since they last faced the prospect of a large war such as this one, and none of them wished to again. Perhaps today, they might be able to come to a solution to deal with the problem at hand, although the chances of that happening was slim.

"Alright," Alfred spoke up from his spot at the front, "since we're all here, I, the hero, will start the meeting!"

"You would even if you weren't." Arthur grumbled.

Unsurprisingly, Francis was the one that shot him a rather dirty look. "Try to be serious here, England. It's a meeting of utmost importance for grown-ups." And even though there was nothing wrong with his words, it was the mocking lilt that he spoke it with that indicated he wasn't being as serious as befitting of the situation.

"Listen here you bloody frog-!" Slamming a hand on the table, he pointed an accusatory finger at Francis, but whatever he wanted to say in retaliation was cut off when Ludwig, knowing all too well where this was going, grabbed his outstretched arm and pushed it down. The Brit stared at him in shock mingled with confusion, because no matter how raucous the meetings got, Ludwig had never succumbed to using physical force to calm them down before. Those sitting around the table were looking at him in some surprise as well, and perhaps a hint of fear. There was something off about him today.

"Listen," Ludwig said, standing up and walking over to the whiteboard at the front of the room. "We're on the brink of a large scale war, and you're all acting like you normally do!" He was, to put it simply, pissed.

"It's just Russia we're up against," Alfred protested mildly, "no matter how powerful it is, we can take him down easily if it is I who is leading the counterattack!"

"It's not just Russia!" The German exclaimed impatiently, grabbing a marker. He strode over to the middle of the board and wrote: 'Russia'. "You've forgotten his youngest sister," And beside it he drew an arrow and wrote 'Belarus' at the end. A subdued wave of agreement rippled through all those who were present. Hell would freeze over before Ivan's younger sister would turn against him. "And we don't know if the Baltics will be forced to fight with them." Ludwig added 'Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia' to the board and a question mark next to it.

"Poland wouldn't allow it," Arthur interjected.

"He's failed before," Ludwig countered, "so we can't be sure. I'd like to trust Estonia to be able to take care of himself, but like I said, it's better not to take chances."

Francis raised a hand, "What about Ukraine?"

"I don't think so, aru." Yao replied, "It's highly unlikely considering the relations that she has with us. Also, last I heard, her bosses forbid it, aru."

"So there we have it," Ludwig concluded, "the five of them against the rest of us."

"Question."

"Yes, Spain?"

The brown haired Spaniard stood up, "How many of us are there?" Seeing that Ludwig was about to speak, he quickly continued, "Some of the other countries might not want to take part in this."

Arthur coughed, "Bloody cowards."

Francis elbowed him and he shoved him back with a shoulder.

"Stop it, aru!" Yao cajoled, "Why not we take a break and have some sweets?"

"Not at this moment!" Ludwig yelled, exasperated. "Pay attention! Spain, please elaborate."

Nodding, Spain made his way around the table and took Ludwig's place at the front, clasping both hands behind his back. "In the past decades or so, we have grown a lot. Advanced technology and better communications- that kind of thing. My point is, many of our people see wars as a thing of the past, and they think that conflict can be settled by talking alone." Somebody snorted, probably Lovino, but he continued, "If we go to war, they won't be very happy. 'Why fight?' They'll ask, 'Why do you have to waste money and lives on war when you can talk it out?' As countries, I'm sure you all know that if we go against the wishes of our people, the end result won't be pretty."

"Oui," Francis chimed in, "the people are the sailors that keep us going. If the people do not want war, we are powerless against them."

"I'm sure they wouldn't mind," Alfred said too quickly, and Arthur reached over and smacked him from the back of his head. "Ow! What did you do that for?"

"Don't be so naïve." Arthur reprimanded. "We'll go back to our places and hold referendums then, and see how it turns out."

And with that the meeting was concluded, and everyone left to go their own ways. Wang Yao sat alone in the room, his back away from the window. Although many would describe him easily as one of the cheeriest nations there were, despite his past, now he felt like anything but. It was happening all over again, and even though the eldest country was used to it by now, he couldn't help but feel forlorn. War was never a good thing, and even though he wanted to talk it out with Ivan, he knew that this time it was unavoidable. But why? There had been no warnings, no signs, just a sudden and swift declaration of animosity. After having peace for so long, why would he just break it off? Didn't he always want friends? Why throw everything away? Yao sighed, rubbing his temples with his fingers, and stood up, ready to leave. That was when he noticed a pair of glimmering brown eyes staring at him intently from the doorway. The Chinese took a second glance, "Italy Veneziano?"

"Ciao, China." He greeted nervously, fidgeting in his spot. Even though WWII was a long time ago, the smaller nation seemed to still be wary around him. "Can I ask you something?"

It took almost a month for everyone to settle on a course of action. In the end, after the referendums were held, the countries that would be standing against Russia and his allies were: America, England, France, China, Taiwan, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain. That gave them an advantage numerically, but it didn't seem to ease their worries completely. Now, all of the participating countries were meeting yet again to decide on whether to go on the offensive or the defensive when Yao walked into the room late, his hand clutching a crumpled envelope.

"What is it, China?" Kiku asked, looking up from a map. "You look… shaken."

"I got this in the mail today, aru." He pulled out the letter, but when everybody clamoured to look at it he said, "I'll read it out, sit down." When there was silence, the nation cleared his throat and read, "Dearest Yao, we had fun under the Soviet Union, didn't we? Let's play again! Your friend, Ivan."

"That bastard used your human name," Lovino breathed from the side of the room. The chair beside him was empty, as it had been at the last meeting. Both Ludwig and he agreed that since Feliciano wasn't taking part in the war anyway, he'd be in a better state of mind at home. "Do you realise what this means?"

"He's… how do I put this nicely?" Francis murmured, "He's cracked."
"He cracked a long time ago, aru." Yao stated bluntly. "Only this time, he's forgotten his duties as a country. Russia- no, Ivan, isn't doing this for his people or for his home, he's not thinking about them right now. He's doing it for himself." The Chinese mans' gut constricted at his own words, the implications of the revelation sinking in. It wasn't very often that nations decided to forget about their people and do things on their own, but when they did the results were always terrible. He had known Ivan since the younger nation was barely up to his knees, and even though they had a rocky relationship since then, Yao still felt some sort of kinship for him from the time they spent under the Soviet Union. Even then, the boy was showing the first signs of madness, and Yao tried, he tried so hard to save him. In the end it wasn't enough, and after a long plateau of some form of stability it seemed that this was the point of inflexion where everything would begin to get worse.

"H-how?" England muttered, "The bloody git should know better than that!"

"Come on, it can't be that bad, right?" Alfred cried, "I'll just fix this and everything will go back to normal!" Heads swivelled one by one to stare at him, and for once in his life, he actually felt a little uncomfortable. This wasn't a world meeting that he was used to; a meeting where everyone seemed to agree with each other, a meeting where the countries actually got things done.

"America," Yao said stiffly, "what we're saying is that Russia might die."