Ivan took his turn at the wheel while the twins cared for Belle in the back, and Arthur dozed off in the passenger seat. "How do you think she avoided Yao?" The Russian asked, trying to break the silence that had fallen over the entire vehicle. "Both of her brothers were taken fairly early on, so I assumed that she had been as well."

"Spain had been keeping her safe." Matthew replied, brushing a few strands of fair hair from the sleeping woman's face. "When we lost contact with him, we lost her as well. We thought the Chinese army had taken her too."

"Seems like no one knows what's going on anymore." Alfred sighed.

"We know what we are fighting, comrade." Ivan murmured, violet eyes hard as they watched the road. "And that's enough for now."

{}}{{}

When Belle woke up, it was already the next morning, and Arthur was taking another driving shift. Her head was resting on something sort of, actually, really comfy, which turned out to be Matthew's lap. Blushing, she quickly sat up, rubbing her neck and yawning. "Arthur?"

Emerald eyes shot up to the mirror, and the Brit smiled. "Morning."

"W-what happened?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing. You just showed up in front of us and passed out, how could you not have an explanation?" The words were sharp, but the tone was far from accusing. He'd probably been driving for quite awhile.

"I should wait until the others wake up before explaining…"

"I wouldn't count on that being anytime soon. The git's been out for twelve hours, and he's been known to sleep for days on end. Or a year, more recently. And those two look far to comfortable to get up anytime soon." He was now looking pointedly at Matthew, who was sleeping against Ivan's shoulder. They did both look comfortable. "So tell me how you ended up nearly getting run over by our little group?"

Her eyes darkened, and Belle looked out the window at the trees melting by. "When Spain was invaded by China, Antonio told me to run north, while he went to make sure Lovino was alright. I told him it was useless, what with the Chinese-Italian alliance still being fresh, but he was confident that they'd listen to him, and so he left."

Her frown grew deeper as she recalled it. "He left his own nation to burn at the hands of Yao's men, all for the sake of the children who all but abandoned him centuries ago."

"You can't really blame him. No one's thinking straight these days."

"I suppose. But the fact remains that as far as I know, the last thing Lovino did before going missing was to turn Antonio in. I found out a few days after I'd reached my homeland. The humans don't know much, but the rumours were that a high-ranking Spanish soldier was turned in by a Southern Italian, and that was the end of Spain as we know it.

"Anyway, I decided to start towards China, don't ask me why, and then I felt your presence in my lands. I didn't think I'd make it, but here I am."

"So you came to find us."

"That's right. I thought…" She stopped as several vehicles appeared on the horizon. "Arthur. What are those?" They were dark, and heavy looking. Like fast-moving tanks.

"Chinese military vehicles." The Brit was already shaking Alfred awake, mouth set in a grim line. "How the bloody hell did they know we'd left?"

"Whazzat?" Alfred let out a snort as he woke up, wiping a trail of drool from the corner of his mouth. "Artie, that wouldn't happen to be a few heavily-armed enemy vehicles rapidly approaching us, would they?"

"Yes, now for heaven's sake, make yourself useful! I didn't wake you up so you could complain!"

Yawning, Alfred undid his seatbelt, and scrambled to the back, where their weapons and Matthew's laptop were already prepared for their infiltration. "It's at times like these where I wish that bazookas were more portable." He muttered. "Those could've done some real damage."

Arthur watched the vehicles warily, trying to look for a possible escape route at the same time. "If they try to open fire, I'm going to drive us into the rye fields, okay?"

Belle nodded, even though it was more of a rhetorical question. "Should I wake the others?"

"Not unless they open fire on us, in which case, you won't have to."

"R-right." She turned back to look at Alfred, who was readying their meagre artillery in preparation for the inevitable assault.

As if sensing the tension hanging around the van, Ivan and Matthew woke up, and took one look at the Chinese military vehicles, and no further explanation was needed. The entire group fell silent. Arthur's grip on the wheel was tight enough to make his knuckles look like a sheet of paper. Alfred had his finger on the trigger of a machine gun, unsure of how much good it would be against armed vehicles. They were seconds away from the approaching enemy now. Closer. Closer.

And they passed.

Just like that. No confrontation, not even a sign that they were suspicious of the two black vans. Arthur let out a heavy sigh of relief.

Alfred on the other hand, was not so amused. "Bullshit! You can't honestly be so anticlimactic, can you? Damnit Yao! You can suck it! Taking away my totally amazing heroic showdown like that! I swear to God, when I get my hands on him, I'll wring his pathetic neck!"

"Get in line comrade." Ivan murmured, settling back down to a more relaxed position. "And get back in your seat too, before you get thrown through a window or something."

Grumbling, the American complied, but not before blinking in surprise. "Hey, when did pot-head's sister wake up?"

The other four in the van had to fight the urge to roll their eyes, and try not to laugh when he continued glaring at them, asking, 'what?'

They almost had to keep reminding themselves that they were heading off to kill someone they'd once considered an ally.

{}}+{{}

Thanks for reading~!

Woohoo! I'm not dead! But school exams are coming up in a couple weeks, so I won't have too much time to write, but I now have a good idea of where I'm going with this. Sorry this chapter's short, but it was either that or take another week to get this written, and there's a good possibility Norway would've died. However, this was kind of a boring chapter. It gets better from here, promise.

One of my friends questioned how the hell they could drive from France to China, to which I say: Do not question me! It's totally possible with the power of plot devices!

Thank you for your patience! Please review! (I'm not going to make any more threats I know who's going to die, and there is no longer anything that can be done to save them.)