Korea tripped on the final stair and stumbled into the wall. "Sorry! I'm not used to running properly."
"Don't bother apologising, just keep moving!" China grabbed his brother's arm and pulled him along, snapping out "Did you see which way they brought you?"
"I don't know! I was stuck in a box when I came here, and every time I was brought outside I was fighting for my life!"
"Don't cry again, we don't have time! Okay, okay, plan B ..." China stopped, turned, took several steps back, and aimed a running jump kick at the wall. The plaster cracked with the first blow, the brickwork showed on the second.
"Uh, I don't think that's an outside wall," Korea said.
"Not my point. The point-" crack "- is the noise."
The fourth and final crack coincided with Korea's scream as three armed men rounded the corner, guns trained on the escapees. China's smile glittered like a knife.
"C'mon, little brother."
They pounced.
The humans didn't run. Japan would be proud, China reflected as a man's arm snapped in his hands. He was always stubborn that way. He took the gun and threw it to Korea, who pumped three bullets into another man's chest. The third got off a lucky shot, which took out China's right eye and blew a hole through the back of his skull.
China looked up from his hand-to-hand opponent, blood dripping onto his chest, and said through his mangled mouth, "Yeah, that's not gonna work." With a shake of his head, the blast wound started to close up. The gunman dropped his weapon and took a stumbling step back, and Korea flew at him. China watched the carnage, vaguely unnerved. He'd seen Korea in battle before, but he usually didn't fly into such a rage or kill so messily. Possibly understandable. He had been hungry.
"Okay, that's enough, we don't have time," he said, and Korea looked up, disappointed. China was still too preoccupied to notice Balhae's eyes. He pressed the surviving - barely - victim face-down against the floor and wrenched his broken arm up. "Now I'm going to let you up, and either you're going to lead us out of this shithole, or I'm going to kill you. Understand?"
"Kill me and you won't get ten yards alive," the man spat, his cheek bruising from where China had slammed his head down.
Balhae kicked him, and swallowed what she had been chewing. "You'll still be dead."
The man flinched and pressed himself further down, as if trying to make the floor swallow him, and choked out "Fine."
China held the man's broken arm in an iron grip with his left hand and kept his stolen gun in his right. Korea took the dropped gun and the scalpel from China. The corridors seemed endless.
A tiny sound alerted Korea, and they spun around to see more armed personnel rounding the corner behind them. They knew enough not to simply duck or jump back; instead, they dived down and forwards, moving under the bullet spray, still feeling the projectiles slice ruts in their skin.
"Fuck! Damn, I miss Spirit, it's worse than losing an eye," Korea muttered, emptying his own gun into the nearest opponents.
China realised their guide was dead. With no time to react, he dropped the body and dived straight into the new fight, gun blazing. In seconds both of them were out of bullets, but by now they had come within reach of their opponents. Once again they took them down, took the guns, and ran.
Step by step and turn by turn, the family made their way through the building, healing themselves as they went. It would take its toll on them once they stopped, but for now fear and anger kept them going. They left trails of blood everywhere they went, and nothing could stop them, and as they went they laughed.
Finally they found the outside door, and between them they tore the locks out barehanded, tearing off fingernails and skinning knuckles in the process. The door burst open and they fell out, blinking in the daylight, dried blood - too much of it their own - sticky and cracking on their skin. They fled across the courtyard under fire and managed to break through the gate lock, clasped hands and continued running.
"I can't do this, I don't know where we are!" Korea gasped, trying to keep his grip on China's wrist with a sweating hand.
"I do. Hold on tight ..."
The humans following them saw them run, then a blur, and then nothing.
The nations' special travelling method wasn't quite teleportation, but it was close enough. From their perspective, it felt like taking one enormous leap, mid-run. It could only be done outdoors and un-enclosed, hence why they had been forced to break open the gate first, and performing it while so severely injured would magnify their exhaustion, but they had no choice, and it got them home.
They landed, hands still clasped, in the patch of garden outside the house China shared with Dragon, laughing and crying with relief. No human could follow them here.
China's hands were torn down to the bone in places, nails split and broken off, and he had no energy left to heal. He managed to open the door by gripping the handle between his wrists, his strength sapping enough from the adrenaline plunge that he barely managed it.
Dragon turned and stared in shock at the two near-dead nations bursting into the house, filthy from head to foot and barely holding their bodies in one piece.
"Hey, boss," China said, forcing a grin. "We're gonna have a guest over for lunch."
Both he and the Koreas wobbled their way to the bed and collapsed. Dragon peered into the room, but backed away, knowing they'd talk to him when they were ready.
China fell asleep rapidly. Korea lay quietly in his brother's arms, in that odd empty state that comes after having cried oneself out.
You feeling any better?
"Not much, and I don't think either of us will be for a long time." Korea sighed. "Life isn't very fair, is it?"
After a long silence, North took over their vocal chords, and spoke softly and sadly. "South, we got out alive. So did China. And now we're here, safe, and we're together. If life is unfair, that's okay for the moment. Today it's unfair in our favour."