Chapter 16

America's POV

I held the newspaper tightly in my hand as I read the article. I chuckled lightly, though I felt no humor, and saw as Mother glanced over at me. I folded the paper in my lap and then looked over at her, meeting her curios gaze.

"The Alliance has grown," I told her, he eyes became worried. "It seems we are close to being out numbered."

"What are your plans?" she asked. I smiled at her, and then let my eyes slide over to Italy who was sitting in the corner tied up in chains. His face was same as normal, lifeless and blank; he stared at the ground not fully there. Ever since he disobeyed my orders I haven't exactly come around to trusting him, or even taking him out of my sight.

"Well it seems, what with Italy being useless, and having lost Ukraine, we need to make our empire stronger, so we can face this growing alliance. After what has happened, I think we should focus on building our army, after all, without the servants they could easily kill me like a normal nation." I told her.

"So you will be targeting members of the alliance then," she asked. I smiled.

"Not yet, I am not so stupid to make that mistake, yesterday I got a certain feeling, almost like a chill up my spine, I'm guessing that Canada has finally unleashed his true power. It would be foolish to face them head on while my defenses are still low, I have to first get close to them, target nations around them. Maybe even nations outside of those in the alliance that are simply supplying support." I told her.

"So will you use the Latin American countries then, have them fight your fight?" She asked skeptically, I smiled back at her. My eyes once again slipped to Italy.

"Italy has taught me something with his disobedient, training a servant is like training a dog, if they cannot obey by simply you telling them to do so, then you must beat obedience into them, however as much as you beat a dog, he shall still be a dog, and the same goes for servants, for awhile I have been treating these pawns as much more than they deserved, I can try as hard as I can to make them in to a knight or perhaps a bishop, but they will still be nothing more than a pawn. So rather than leave it the pawns I've decided to take a risk and use my king."

"So when will you be leaving?" Mother asked. I lowered my eyes to the paper, my cornflower eyes tracing over and over the article.

"Tonight."

Canada's POV

I could hardly catch my breath as I ran through the halls, tripping and knocking to the things, nothing else mattered right then other than the swift weapon I held in my hands. I ran in to the meeting room, only faintly away of the voices that were speaking, everyone stared at me as I crashed in to the table, knocking the sword under, I steady myself, having some difficulty as I used to my still wounded arms to raise me to a standing position, everyone stared at me like I lost all of my marbles.

"Calm down you git, you are gonna tear your stitches!" England shouted at me helping me to my feet. "What's got you all frazzled like this?"

"T-th-the…the…sw…," I began to say, I gasped trying to get the words out, but the air just wasn't there.

"Breath," France said as he patted my back.

I looked around as everyone stared at me, waiting as I caught my breath; I only briefly noticed that there were more people her than when I went to sleep. I looked back and forth, from one face for another before I realized I had no idea what to tell, I had no idea of how to explain what I had just learned and the miracle that had been bestowed upon us. I looked helplessly at my empty hands, before pushing England and France's hands off of me and diving under the table to look for the Sword, maybe words weren't my best way of telling them, but showing them would definitely get my point across. I heard as everyone stood up from their seats shouting as I crawled around under the table.

"Matthew what in the queen's good name do you think you are doing, a man your age should not be crawling around underneath tables like a child! And further more you are in no condition to be moving around like this!" England shouted. I ignored him, I knew it flew underneath here; I just need to find it! I felt as my hand landed on something, hard, cold and smooth. It was the sword!

"Yes, I found it!" I shouted sitting up too fast for the thought to process in my mind. I slammed my head against the bottom of the table, causing me to feel a little dizzy. I rubbed my hand against my head for a moment but then turned to go crawl out the way I had came, when suddenly I felt a steel hand grip the back of my shirt, then effortlessly pull me out, I wasn't surprised to see that that steel hand happened to belong to Russia.

"I found him, da," Russia said smiling the same way he always did. He held me up by the collar of my shirt, as if I were nothing more than a ragdoll, my feet didn't even touch the floor.

"Alright, thank you Russia now put him down," France said. Russia smile, but complied.

"Matthew what the bloody hell had gotten into you?" England asked startled by my weird behavior. I looked at each of their faces, still at a loss of words at how to start, so I held up the sword. The reactions I got from them were not the one I was expecting. Everyone took a step back and let out a startled gasp, even Russia, I looked around and China glared at me.

"W-where d-did y-you get that Mathieu," France asked his face looked truly frightened. I placed the sword on the table in front of me and raised my hands in surrender.

"It's not what you think," I said the words coming out of my mouth before I could really think them through. Of course the first thing out of my mouth had to be the single guiltiest sentence in the English language. It was clear on everyone's face that they did not believe me, nor were they exactly willing to hear me out. Russia looked as if the only thing that was stopping him from killing me was the hard decision of how to so in the up most painful way, however England was nice enough to at least give me a moment to explain.

"Alright, if this isn't the sword that we all think it is, then why don't you tell us what it really is," England said motioning for Russia to step back away from me. He stared in disbelief at England but did as he said and went to join Belarus and Ukraine who stood on the other side of the table.

"This sword isn't the same thing as the one that America has. It doesn't kill people; in fact it might be the one thing that we need to win this battle. This sword is the key to turning everyone back to normal! This sword can restore souls!" I said, everyone gasped as they heard my words and their eyes seemed glue to where it sat on the table, everyone began to whisper to themselves as to if what I was telling them was really true or not. However China was not so convinced by my words.

"How do we know that he is not lying to us, aru? He could still be working with America. This could be their plan to kill us all, aru." China shouted.

"Da, I agree, why should we believe him? He is just as much a murderer as America. Just look what he did to my sister," Russia said gesturing to Ukraine. I tried to not let his word get to me, though they were true, I would always regret what happened to Ukraine, though it was not me wielding the sword, I still could not save her in time. Then an idea came to my head, what if I could save her now, if I used the sword on her, right now, then I could fix everything, I could prove to them that the sword was real.

"I can prove it," I said. I waited for someone to say something, but they were all silent waiting for me to do something. "Ukraine, come here," I said, she took a few steps towards me before Russia grabbed her arms pulling her back. Ukraine tried and tried to get free of him but he was stronger than him, though she certainly did put up a fight.

"No," Russia said. "No, you will not ruin my sister further, you have already done too much to her, and I will not let you do anymore." Russia glared at me as he tried to pull Ukraine back to him.

"I know I have already done terrible thing to her, but I can fix her, I can bring her back to the way she was, that's what this sword does, it restores souls in the soulless. Please just trust me, I only want to help her," I told him, pleading.

"Why should I trust you," Russia argued. "You're the one who made her like this, you and your brother! My sister used to be such a nice and loving girl, and you took advantage of that! She used to love you and in return you did this to her! Now she can't think for her own, now she can't think for her own, she no longer is the loving woman who raised me and Belarus, and you know what I will never forgive you for doing this. I would much rather that she was dead than to see her like this! So why should I stand here and pretend that I don't want to rip your limbs off with my bare hands, why should I pretend to tolerate you?" Russia shouted, his smile was gone and his eyes looked pained and hurt. I could tell that losing his sister was very hard for him. She really had done so much for him. His words hit me hard. He was right. What right did I have to involve myself with her? After everything I did to her, I had no right to love her or to even care for her, I'm sure if she could feel anything she must hate me. But I still wouldn't let that stop me, even if she did hate me, even if she couldn't stand me, I would do one more thing for her. I would bring her back. Then we would go our separate way. It pained me to do it, but I would no longer allow her to be hurt because of my situations. I would leave her alone.

"I promise you, Russia, I don't want to hurt her," I told him. "That is the last thing that I want to do. I know I have allowed her to get involved in things where she really shouldn't have, and because of that she is like this, so I'll tell you this. If I use this sword on her, and it hurts her instead of helping her, I want you to kill me, in the most painful way you can think of."

"Mathieu!" France shouted shocked.

Russia smiled. "I'll enjoy that," he said.

"Then at least let me try to make it right, I know this will not make up for the things I have done in the past, but at least allow me to try and help her," I pleaded.

Russia took a moment to consider it and then finally answered. "Alright, I will let you try, but if you do anything, anything that is suspicious I will not hesitate in killing you."

I smiled back at him. "I won't try to stop you."