Sorry it took so long guys this chapter was hard to write.

Chapter 23

Germany stood up alongside Italy and ran over to the window. The scream they had just heard…it was coming from outside.

Quickly, catching his attention Germany wiped the dew off of the glass in a circular motion as Feli came over he looked out too forgetting about the others that were still outside.

"What's going on?!..." Germany asked as Italy looked horrified.

"Oh my God! We forgot about Prussia and France! No...Why is only Prussia there? What's happening!? Wh-why is France in the water now? What just happened?! What's going on!" We need to help them!" Italy yelled all scatterbrained at what he was witnessing.

"Germany let's go! W-we have to help them! Come on!" Italy uttered grabbing one of Germany's arms and tugged him towards the front door. "I mean that's your brother after all!" Italy cried, pleading now that the German would just help him out because he knew that he was too weak to do it on his own. But then he realized why Germany looked at him so strangely as if Ludwig was in a far off space just staring at him. That's right he doesn't know that, Feli noted trying to get ahold of things. Germany doesn't remember that, that Prussia is his older brother…

"He's my br..other...?" Germany acknowledged looking over at the crying helpless Italian.

"Yes, he is! The albino one is your other brother, and he's having a lot of trouble it seems. We need to go and help him!" and for the first time in a while, Germany really wanted to believe and help the Italian, he felt like he could trust him, somehow. Germany never was a trusting person but he set that aside for the time being. There was something strange about this Italian; something he just couldn't get ahold of.

"Ok, come on." Ludwig decided as he opened the front door and the both of them ran out.

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Russia opened the door of the study in a quiet stealthy mode. The door lightly creaked open and in the middle of the room stood a chair. On that said chair was Switzerland tied and bound to it. He was tied with curtains and rope, both of which looked pretty sturdy. The time for interrogation was soon. Russia walked up to the stirring and fidgeting man with cloth around his mouth.

"Hello there." Russia replied in his creepy childlike voice to the twitching movements of the Swiss Nation as he slowly shut the door at an antagonizing pace, making it slowly creak. Finally, the door shut on the small dark room leaving only the light from the window.

"Now tell me Vash…" Russia started when he heard the door snap shut and he began walking over to Vash's mouth and ripped off the cloth, "Why are you doing this to us? What did we ever do to you?" Ivan asked him calmly, hitting his pipe down gently on his hands in a chilling manor, almost creepy-like, while taking paces around him.

"Ptth, like I'd ever tell you! Now let me go! You and your friends are intruding in MY house!" He yelled and struggled but all was no use in the end.

"Haha…do you really think that you could just walk away so easily? You must be stupider than you look." Ivan acknowledged as he pulled up a chair from the corner and set it down right in front of Vash's.

"Let's talk…" Ivan continued as his eyes stared directly into Vash's colored orbs. "There are many things I wish to discuss with you."

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"PRUSSIA! FRANCE!" Italy screamed as he slammed open the door and started running for the water, noticing that the ice blocks on the lake were now more scattered than ever before. All he could see was Prussia on hands and knees slumped over, he seemed to be crying…but they were so far away and Italy couldn't tell for sure. France seemed to be missing? "Wait…what's going on?"

GILBERT! CAN YOU HEAR ME!?" Felicanio screamed, cupping his hands together by his mouth to project his voice. Yet again, there was silence. A small mutter could be heard yelling back, from the slumped over body of the Prussian man, but neither Italy nor Germany could make out what it was supposed to say.

"No…what are we going to do? He doesn't seem to hear us and he's too far away for us to reach! I know we could….no maybe not, well let's jump across the water and…. No not that either, we'd slip and fall…" Feliciano babbled on and on listing all sorts of crazy ideas they could do to help him. Ludwig though, thought and thought before finally turning around and walking around the house.

"What are you doing?...Lud…?" The Italian curiously asked as he saw Germany scanning the house up and down.

"Well this is a lake right? So, Vash has to have some sort of boat right?" Ludwig answered back lifting up a large board leaning against the side of the house.

"Oh! I get it oh ok l-let me help look too!" Italy cheerily expressed as he ran around to the other side of the house.

After a few minutes or so later Italy found a small shed. He walked over to it and pulled on the doors. No budge though… There was a chain and lock around the handles…

"There must be a key…but we have no time for that! There has to be something inside here that we can use…I know…I'll get Germany! That's what I'll do!" Italy proclaimed as he ran over to find Germany.

Ludwig was on the other side of the house scanning practically everywhere for something…anything…that he could use to float on. That's when he heard it though...The sound of Italy's voice calling out his name…" "GERMANY, GERMANY!" There was something about that voice was very familiar all of a sudden. Yes, that's right! He has defiantly heard his name being called by this voice before…

As Italy came around the corner and the voice was recognized as his Germany stared at him, gaping.

"Germany there you are! Hey, I found this shed on the other side of the house and I need you to open it for me-" Feli began but was taken aback by the look Ludwig was giving him. "H-hey, a-are you ok? Germany…?"

"Yeah…I am Feli danke. I think…..I think I just remembered something about you." Germany stated as he looked at the Italian.

"Wha- about me! R-really?" Felicanio cheerfully answered back with a little jump.

"Ja, I remember you a little better now…It's still a tad bit fuzzy but you…we trained together didn't we?" Ludwig reminisced as Italy smiled with glee.

"Yes! We did train together! And you were always pushing me so hard. It was me, you, and Kiku! We would always get sidetracked though…well mainly me, but we-we still had fun!" The Italian laughed, a nice little chuckle slightly showing on his face.

"I-I kind of remember that…you had a cat one time and I remember that you kept playing with it and you wouldn't listen to me…I got so mad at you I made you run 10 extra laps…haha." Germany shared with Italy with a slight chuckle and that's when Feliciano just remembered about the shed.

"Oh! Yes that's right haha, but you see Germany I-I need your help! I'd love to stay and chat, but the reason I came over here was because I need your help opening a locked door to a shed. I think I may have found where a boat could be!" Italy exclaimed excitedly. "Well come on!" Italy took Germany's hand and ran as fast as he could back to the shed and Germany examined it cautiously…

Germany went to the door and rammed his shoulder into it, causing no effect. Again, he tried but all that was being accomplished was Germany resulting in failure. Finally, Ludwig went back to the side of the house and searched along the snow for anything he could use to break the chains. After a few minutes of scavenging though the snow, the German found himself a broken piece of metal about the size of a baseball bat and began thrusting it at the chains. A loud clank was heard when the somewhat rusted chain snapped in half, and in proceeded Germany and Italy into the shed.

It was a very small shed, with no lights so the door to the outside was their only source of light. Inside, they saw shelves of old books and a table with a chair to it and finally in the back hanging up on the rack was a canoe, big enough for about 3 people, depending on the sizes. There was also a smaller canoe laying against the wall but when Germany walked over to that one he noticed that there were holes in the bottom, as though mice or some small animal got into it. Nothing looked wrong with the one hanging up though, in fact it was decently in tack, a few scratches here and there but nothing too bad. Germany went over to the boat and lifted it off the rack with little trouble and brought it down slowly to inspect it further.

"This on should do." Germany said as he ran one of his hands down the smooth wooden surface feeling for any cracks or holes yet finding none. Next to it was a paddles as well.

"Good, I'm glad. Now let's go get your brother and France!" Feliciano replied back.

"Yep, just an ordinary boat nothing too bad with it." Germany concluded as he proceeded in carrying it and the paddle outside of the shed while Italy jumped in front of him to open the door.

They both walked over to the lake and set down the canoe nice and easy. Both men tumbled into the boat as Italy pushed off with the paddle. They started rowing, not the best since they only had one paddle but good enough where they were at least going somewhere. Italy was in the back rowing as Germany in the front pushed aside blocks of ices as best he could. It was hard and they were going at an antagonizingly slow pace but still, it was better than nothing.

They finally got close enough to Gilbert were they could see that something was wrong. France was gone?! But where could he be?

"s…..somethings wrong…" Italy whispered, voice crackling.

"Really? What's wrong…"

"T-there should be two people here…where is Francis!?" Italy yelled out fear spreading across his face.

"Wait…really there's supposed to be two?" Germany asked concerned for the worst.

"Yeah…" Italy announced, and now that they were getting closer, Italy called out to Prussia.

"Hey Prussia were on our way!" but the Prussian did not respond, he simple just looked down and now Italy knew that something was terribly wrong, especially when they saw France in the water, still heaved up on the ice. Prussia sat crying, his body heaving up and down breathing roughly. He slowly turned to look at the two coming and noticed his brother.

I-is that…he sniffed…is that Ludwig?

"Ludwig?" Gilbert whispered out, finally coming to see that it was him and he was not hallucinating it!

"LUDWIG!" Gilbert screamed, more tears running down his face. "Y-YOUR ALIVE! I-I'm so glad…" Prussia said as he whipped tears from his face with his good hand.

They finally got to each other, Prussia looking up now, happiness slowly spreading across his face, and Ludwig and Feliciano stopped the canoe right at the edge of the Ice block.

"Prussia! What's wrong with Francis…h-he's not moving…" Italy asked scared beyond belief for the worse possible answer. But that answer soon came when all Prussia did was look up and say

"He's dead Italy…"