Chapter 5. Shots.

One night. One very uneasy night, but a night nonetheless. They had managed. Francis had taught Arthur how to work his stupid computer contraption while he slept just in case Alfred did something in the middle of the night everyone would regret. But Alfred didn't move from the room they kept him in. In fact, he slept, fairly deeply, as if thinking that those around him were no threat to him. Everyone else, on the other hand, barely got sleep. Lovino was about ready to attack the man for what he had tried to do to his brother, but Ludwig was keeping him at bay, thankfully allowing Lovino to get all of his anger out on him.

Arthur decided to leave Feliciano, Lovino, and Ludwig at their hideout and take Francis and Antonio with him to bring Alfred into the town they lived in. There was hardly any space between towns at this rate, it was a wonder that people could tell them apart, they all looked the same. Every building, aside from height, as identical. Arthur was even sure that the insides were all equally dull as well. Luckily, this worked to their advantage, making it near impossible for Alfred to be able to discover where their location was.

He was proven right when Alfred walked out of their building and into the street and looked around subtly, making no note on his face or otherwise that he knew where he was. Arthur came to notice, at least in the short time that he had seen Alfred and the way he talked and carried himself, that he made incredibly small indications of his emotions. His normally cool façade was just that; a façade. Arthur could tell by the small twitches that it actually took a lot of effort for him to remain that way, but Alfred had also grown used to that.

They walked carefully, Francis behind Alfred and always keeping an eye on him, Arthur beside the man, and Antonio leading in the front. There was no destination in mind, just exploring the town. It was full of revolutionaries, though, to the soldiers that sometimes visited, they were completely loyal to the king, naturally. It was among the more lively of towns Arthur had been to in this country and he had grown rather fond of it and the inhabitants. Alfred, however, appeared to be on edge, even more so than the previous night, and confused, more than anything.

"What are you doing?" Alfred asked after a short while. Francis seemed to jump, apparently very engrossed in his job of pressing a button and Arthur sighed, thinking for a moment on the proper words to say in this situation.

"Sightseeing," Arthur shrugged as Antonio seemed to get distracted by a few women in the market that had just started. It was a long string of stalls that spread down an incredibly tiny street meant only for walking. There were very few roads meant for cars, none of them near a town as small and far from the capital as this one. The markets didn't happen often, as it usually took quite some time to make the wares that they offered. Arthur always enjoyed seeing if he could find anything that he would like, perhaps Alfred could find something that he'd like. That would be the day. "You can feel free to enjoy yourself, if you can."

Alfred's glare hardened slightly and Arthur smirked, realizing he had gotten under the man's skin just enough to be irritable. He couldn't allow the man to hate him, but just a little bickering would be fine. Francis and him were somehow friends after all these years, anyway.

"Doesn't seem very legal," Alfred noted as Arthur chose to leave Antonio behind while he attempted to flirt, though it was obvious he wasn't completely interested in any of the women around him. They passed by a few stands, some of them with simple crafts and others with…more creative wares. Alfred's interest seemed to linger on the stalls with weapons, whether that be because he wanted one or because it was, in all actuality, illegal, Arthur couldn't tell.

"You can feel free to tell a soldier, should you see one," Arthur hummed, passing by a woman that he knew fairly well that sold very good herbs that she collected from the small forest that seemed to act as a barrier with the neighboring country of Eltrack, the smallest country they had a border with. It was the only forest Arthur had ever seen, and completely off limits. He always wondered how a little, old woman managed to sneak so many trips into it, but she never revealed anything to him. He would stop by at her stall after a while, he had to keep track of Alfred as best as he could.

Luckily, the man understood very clearly what it meant if he acted too out of control, taking his movements slowly. But that just made Arthur more on edge. Alfred would definitely be planning and thinking of a way out of this situation. He would have to keep a very sharp eye on every one of his movements and anywhere he looked. Currently, he was taking particular interest in a gun at a stall, though he didn't stop walking to talk to the vendor. Arthur had no doubt that the boy had memorized what it looked like.

"I'm afraid I have found something to spark my interest," Francis sighed, carefully handing the little computer to Arthur, who glared at him. It wasn't part of the plan to separate. But Francis just shrugged with a sly grin as he slunk off into the small crowd around some kind of jewelry stand. Arthur knew it was a terrible idea to keep around a nobleman who couldn't resist anything that sparkled. "You know what to do!"

"Prat," Arthur muttered under his breath, but kept at least the corner of his eye on Alfred as he stopped walking. Alfred stopped accordingly. It was fine when the boy was assessing Francis, the man could be incredibly unpredictable and random, but Arthur was a trifle more boring, which put him in a bad spot. If Alfred were to guess any of his movements, he could probably get away. Arthur simply sighed heavily and continued walking, keeping the device secure in his hand furthest away from Alfred, who matched his pace once again. It really wasn't a good idea for them to be alone, but Arthur was left with no other option.

"A lot of people seem to know you," Alfred noticed as another group of vendors attempted a conversation, but Arthur simply waved at them and continued on his way. "Weird for a revolutionary."

"Yes, well, our group is a bit less undercover than yours," Arthur said. "We don't hide in the shadows our whole lives. We just make sure that the shadows around us block out the king and anyone connected to him."

"Why act now?" Alfred asked. Finally, they had passed all of the vendors and made it to the incredibly tiny square, maybe about 50 square feet. Many people bustled around it. Today was a relaxing day, one where not many people had to work, and so everyone was perfectly fine being social. Buildings closely surrounded the square, all of them the same, blank gray.

"A few factors," Arthur said. "One being that it took some time to build up the team you see now. Another being it took even longer to even discover small bits of information about your group."

"We'll have to be more careful," Alfred noted as Arthur stopped walking to lean against a cool wall. He looked up at the ever-gray sky and sighed. A part of him wondered if it was anything like this on the other side of that ocean he had heard so much about. "You shouldn't know anything about us at all."

"No matter how careful you are, someone always seems to be more careful than you," Arthur sighed. It was something he had noticed, generally, and an old saying his mentor from a while back had taught him. She was always so careful, yet her little saying was true all the way to the end.

And then the crowd stopped. Arthur hadn't heard it at first, but Alfred sure as hell did. After the crowd all stopped moving at once and Alfred was on high alert, that was when he truly heard it. A gunshot. Followed by screams.

"Shit," Arthur muttered, pulling out the small handgun he had stored in his pants just in case. He had guessed he would have had to use it on Alfred. He guessed he still might. Antonio and Francis were too far into the market to either hear anything or make it to them. Arthur would have to be extremely careful.

Before he could even make a move, there was another gunshot and a woman fell just a few feet in front of him and he got a glimpse at the man doing the firing. He inwardly groaned. It was a group of extremists, nothing dangerous or terrifying. The only problem would be that Arthur had no idea how many there were going to be. They always stood out with a bright red bandana over their heads or on their arms, and they always attacked in massive groups. They would kill mass amounts of people to attract attention that only came in the form of being arrested and killed. They had the same ideals as Arthur, the only problem was their methods of going about it. They also probably knew about the inhabitants of this town as well.

"Behind you," Alfred said and Arthur jumped when he felt the man's cold hands over his. Arthur reacted easily as Alfred didn't attempt to wrestle the gun from his hands, but rather pointed it behind Arthur and pulled the trigger for him. An extremist landed on the ground, his blood pooling on to the ground. Arthur was so in shock that, this time, he allowed Alfred to pull the gun from him. Arthur braced for a fight, but relaxed when he saw Alfred simply aim at another extremist through the crowd, hit him expertly in the head, and then toss the gun back to Arthur, who caught it dumbly.

He saw Alfred pick up the pistol from the corpse and glanced over at the body that Alfred had killed first. Arthur chuckled slightly when he realized that the gun in Alfred's hand was a slightly more advanced version than the one in the corpse's. He was picky, Arthur was going to give him that. He carefully watched where Alfred went, which happened to be the top of the shortest building in the square. He fired another shot, just thirty seconds after his last one, and another man fell.

Arthur sighed. He would have to be trustworthy here. He knew the radius that the device was capable of with shutting off his prosthetics, which was actually a fair distance, so he would just have to keep checking up on the man above him. Arthur carefully aimed at his next target, but sighed when Alfred managed to shoot him in the head first. He collapsed just as he was about to stab a woman in the back with a knife. Luckily, the pedestrians around them were smart enough to start running away and no one was stupid enough to come to the square, but there were still mass crowds stuck in the small alleyways. Arthur aimed at another radical, but that man fell with a shot to the chest, courtesy of Alfred.

Arthur glanced up at the man, who smirked slightly. Cheeky bastard.

Arthur aimed at the next one quickly and fired a shot, but a different bullet hit the man first, causing Arthur's bullet to hit a wall instead. The radicals were a small group now, meaning that either some of them were smart and left, or some were simply swept up in the crowd and were easily dealt with. Radicals were all but useless on their own.

"Not the riot you all seemed to plan, it seems," Arthur muttered at the five left in the square and attempted to fire, yet again, but Alfred had managed to make a shot that wound up hitting two in the head at once, both of them falling. The three radicals left decided to have two aim at Alfred and the last one keep Arthur busy. Arthur sighed and shot one of the people looking for Alfred and dodged the bullet that would have missed anyway, seeing as Alfred shot the man looking at Arthur. And then Arthur allowed Alfred to get the last kill before the assassin dropped back onto the ground.

Arthur looked at the man carefully, who obviously glanced to the pocket where the small computer was. Arthur didn't even know how fast his reflexes would be. Should Alfred try to run, Arthur had no idea if he would be fast enough to stop the man, but it didn't seem like that would be much of a problem in the first place.

"Now, what the hell made you think to do that?" Arthur asked suspiciously just as Antonio and Francis finally made it through the crowd. Alfred dropped the gun, ensuring that both of his hands could be seen by the other two.

"I do know how to do something without orders," Alfred said simply. "They were attempting to cause disorder and they were killing innocent people and would have killed more if I didn't help. What point would there be in not trying to stop them? This saves the king from being forced to worry about something so trivial, anyway."

Alfred was just full of surprises, wasn't he? Arthur let out a small sigh before stowing his gun and tossing the computer to Francis, who caught it with just a little bit of concern for dropping it. But what if Alfred knew that the town was full of revolutionaries? Would he have thought the same thing?

"Don't ditch me again, understood?" Arthur looked at them coldly and they nodded a little sadly. People were already peeking into the square to see if it was safe, some of them offering to help with the bodies and try to remove them, not like there was much room for them to go anywhere in the first place.

Matthew sighed heavily as he leaned back in one of the chairs in the kitchen. Gilbert sat beside him, surprisingly keeping the quiet atmosphere around them preserved. He could tell when Matthew just didn't want to talk, which was nice. He was rather introverted and sometimes it was nice to just stay in quiet. It was times like this when he missed Alfred, who could never sense the mood in a room before he ruined it.

Then Matthew heard the sound of the door opening all the way at the front of the little building, and he perked up slightly, looking at the door of the kitchen and just waiting for it to open. There would be news. Good or bad didn't matter as long as there was news. No news, in this case, was the worst news that could happen to him. Gilbert patted his back and Matthew didn't even so much as twitch.

Finally, the door to the kitchen slid open, fixed from Alfred's previous mishap, and Elizabeta and Roderich walked in. But they didn't look happy. Matthew sighed sadly.

"Anything?" Matthew asked as the two slumped on the other side of the table, though Roderich did ensure that his back was straight, as usual.

"I don't think we'll be able to find anything," Roderich sighed.

"You guys don't have to look, I get it," Matthew muttered.

"Oh, come on," Elizabeta said, a small tinge of happiness to her voice. "If it was going to be easy to find him, Alfred would have already gotten away and come right back here. At least this means we've got a good opponent, one we're definitely going to win again, alright, Mattie? And you can bet I'm going to keep looking for him. Even the king has soldiers going out to search for him whenever he can. It's not going to be easy, but we'll find him, I promise."

"Thanks," Matthew smiled sadly. "Al can be an idiot, but you're right about him. I know that, if he even is awake right now, he's working overtime to try to find some way out of this mess. We just have to be patient and look harder."

"There's a good leader," Gilbert chimed proudly and Matthew laughed slightly, looking over at him.

"Well, we don't have any mission for now, it's calm for the moment," Matthew said. "I'd say we should all rest up while we have the time."

"I definitely agree," Gilbert said. "A nap would be fucking awesome!"

"You better nap this time," Elizabeta huffed. "I heard you last time you were 'taking a nap' in your room."

"What the fuck do you think you heard?" Gilbert scoffed.

"I'm right next door to you," Elizabeta rolled her eyes. "Why do you think I know how well your relationship with Matthew is going?"

"I'm going to get some sleep," Matthew stood up, attempting desperately to ignore the furious red that appeared on his face. Elizabeta giggled and Roderich half-heartedly scolded her for her conduct while Gilbert tried to come up with some kind of retort, but simply wound up laughing. Kiku still wasn't back from searching and Matthew just hoped that he would be alright. He hoped everyone would be alright. It would be great to see all of the chairs filled at the table again.

Little bittersweet at the end, but I got a few jokes in there. And from Elizabeta, too! I'm proud. We also got to see that Alfred does have a sense of justice on his own, most likely instilled by the king, but he doesn't need instruction to act. He's doing his work while still being away and still finding a way out of this huge mess. And Arthur was surely surprised. I would be too if a trained killer used my gun to kill other people. But anyway, a few things happened here, hopefully a little more will happen next chapter. This is moving kind of slowly, but it's not like anything is really filler. I dunno, I guess I kinda like it. There will be more action later, I assure you. A lot of action.

Please review! It's awesome!