Disclaimer : Don't own Hetalia

Chapter 2

"Mein Gott! Why is it so dark in here? The awesome me demands an answer!"

"Will you stop your incessant yelling, Gilbert? It's giving me a headache!"

"I wonder what Katarina must be doing…mi amor"—

"Antonio, tell Gilbert to shut up!"

"Antonio, tell diese verdammte frau to shut up!"

Antonio Fernandez did neither, but sighed in the fond memory of his fiery spirited and venom-tongued wife, and Elizabeta Héderváry and Gilbert Beilschmidt took to glaring at each other, even though it was pitch black in the box-like body of the van.

"Gilbert, stop, please. We've been locked in here for half an hour, and there's no way we're going to get an answer," Elizabeta pleaded, rubbing at her temples to try and soothe her headache, its presence partially contributed by Gilbert's yelling and cursing. Átkozott férfi couldn't keep his damned mouth shut—there was no use in yelling or hitting the sides of the van. They had all been called and told there was a short yet urgent errand to be done, after which they could join back in the fair. While driving back to the main house, all three of them had been stopped, dragged out of their vehicles and thrown into the back of the van—first Antonio, then Elizabeta, and finally, Gilbert. They'd been driving around for what Eliza estimated to be half an hour, during which Gilbert raised up a din, Antonio sighed about his pregnant wife's condition, and Eliza tried not to cry tears of frustration.

She was not going to lose her balance over some stupid abduction.

The van stopped suddenly. Gilbert lost his balance, pitched forward, and fell on his knees, howling so loudly Eliza wished he'd fallen on his face. Antonio stopped sighing and sat up straight, alert.

They sat quietly, trying to discern something of their surroundings in the silence that followed. The interiors were soundproof—Eliza realised that when there was no response to the din Gilbert was raising—and the silence just added to the growing frustration and fear Eliza was feeling.

Where the hell were they? And why them?

The doors opened suddenly, and the heat wave hit them without warning. Eliza cried out and fell back, while the other two protected both their eyes and their faces from the onslaughter of light and heat. They heard something heavy fall before them, and the sound of boots. They heard a light tap, probably on the roof of the van, and they were in motion again. They managed to see burning structures and fire, and the silhouette of a figure covered from top to toe in black, before the doors closed again.

The engine purred beneath them, but now, it wasn't just Eliza who was scared. Fear was a live thing in all three of them, accented by the charred wood smell they seemed to get from their new arrival. And there was the unknown object before them, which the figure had thrown in before stepping in. Eliza slowly crawled into Gilbert's lap, and they held onto each other tightly, not knowing what to do or expect.

"Move to the walls," a soft female murmur emerged from the figure. Antonio scrambled back; Gilbert and Eliza were already against the wall. They heard the soft click of boots, and heard her unlatching hooks. The figure dragged the shutter down, and all three of them covered their eyes at the sudden invasion of light.

"Quite the mess you've left behind," they heard a male voice say.

"Whatever you do, don't go back there," the female voice replied, by which time their eyes had adjusted to the light. The woman turned around, and they recognized the symbol of the House of Wheels on her coat immediately. She removed the cloth from over her head, and her wheatish blond hair shimmered in the sunlight. "I'm priestess Arlovskaya—the look in your eyes says you already know that. And this is Frederick—you know him as this town's clergy member." The man at the wheel raised two fingers in salute. "This has nothing to do with him—I simply brought you here at the behest of that man."

All of them looked at the object. It was a body wrapped in a black sheet that seemed to shimmer as light passed over it.

"Do not go near that body—stay far away from it, if you want to live." She turned around again to Frederick. "Is there any way we can get to a spot where these three will go unnoticed?"

"I can't say, priestess. I'll give it a couple of hours before missing complaints are filed—but given the state of the fair, I'm sure their absence won't be noted as quickly as it would normally. But why this sudden change of plans?"

"I didn't expect the dead man to host a demon inside him," Nat muttered, and turned her uniquely coloured blue eyes at the shimmering cloth.

"Ooh," Frederick cooed excitedly. "An exorcism?"

Nat nodded, but it was nothing to be excited about. She hadn't get gauged the demon's prowess, but if the demon could move even after half a dozen of her special bullets had hit, disregarding the fires, explosions and the other bullets, then she didn't look forward to having to exorcise such a demon. "Yes. Level three, probably."

Frederick laughed incredulously. "How did such a powerful demon go unnoticed?"

Because the man himself was a demon. But Nat had a bad feeling about letting them know who was wrapped in the incantation cloth—amongst many in that city, Johnny Doe was worshipped fervently. "Let us go." She turned around, and looked at the three people the demon had demanded her to summon.

Gilbert Beilschmidt. He was one of the numerous war-orphans Johnny Doe had adopted and rescued, and was one of Johnny Doe's biggest supporters. He had a huge stake in Jones Industries, acting as Doe's overseer for certain branches. The man had come from a bloodied field full of bodies to scores of men working under him, all because of Johnny Doe. She could just imagine the anger that would fill those peculiar crimson eyes if he realised that the very man who'd rescued him from death was now dead.

Elizabeta Héderváry. She was one of Johnny Doe's many secretaries, and from what Nat had found out, Elizabeta was one of the first set of children to roam the streets of the then newly formed Fitzgerald. She had worked extremely hard and had dedicated herself to becoming one of the people Johnny Doe depended on, and she had become his extension in the public face of his life.

Antonio Fernandez Carriedo. He was another war orphan, and Nat could see the scars in his eyes more clearly than she could in Gilbert's. He was another who showed staunch loyalty to Johnny Doe, having been given a name and a meaning for existence from the man.

And as she observed them, they observed her. She wore a large black coat, but it was not of leather. Her braid fell over her shoulder and hung down. Wisps of golden white locks framed her face, which was bleeding at places, the wounds muddy, her eyes dull with pain. But those brilliant and peculiar blue eyes had a quality which they all found foreign, alien, like a concept they had never experienced.

"What is that?" Tony asked, and all of them looked in the direction of his finger, at the mass wrapped in black.

"Something you should stay away from," she said, walking towards the wall opposite the doors. She slid down, her eyes on them. "I apologise for this treatment. I need to ask you a few questions, and you are free to leave after that."

Her speech was accented, and she enunciated each word clearly. All of them were drawn to her by some mysterious force, and even though they wanted to leave from the back of the van that very second, they couldn't stop staring at her.

The van swerved sharply, and all of them fell to the side. The wrapped mass rolled, hitting the side of the van, and rolled back. The black wrap fell off, revealing what was underneath.

Correction: who was underneath. And by the look on their faces, Natalia was happy they'd all fallen before – the shock on their faces, the absolute heart-stopping disbelief would've definitely brought them to their knees.

But she couldn't watch the three of them staring at the dead body of Alfred Jones Sr. – she had work to do.

"Whatever you do, do not say his name out loud," she whispered, and crawled to the body on her hands and knees. She sat next to the body, and turned to the three of them, shocked when she saw the tears flowing freely from Elizabeta's eyes. Even though the two men weren't crying, their eyes were filled with harrowing pain and sorrow.

Did they really love this demon so much?

Nat ignored the sorrow that she felt from them, the guilt that cut in deeper than all the wounds she had on her body, and turned the body over to its stomach. She pulled away the black sheet that covered the back, revealing his charred leather jacket, the burnt cloth framing an elaborate, magnificent purple lotus.

"Do you recognise"—the blaring of the traffic horns cut her off. With a grimace, she said loudly, "Do you recognise this?"

Eliza stopped crying, Antonio frowned, and Gilbert inched forward towards Nat. Frederick turned away from the wheel, and saw the tattoo. And he recognised.

"Hey, that's Johnny Doe!"

Nat quickly jumped away from the body, which began shaking and seizing violently. "You vyradak! Stop the car, now!"

"I'm on the highway – I can't" –

The body continued to shake and shudder violently. Nat pulled out a chain, at the end of which was a wheel with spokes, and began reciting incantations. But whatever she wanted to stop using those incantations wasn't going to be stopped.

Fred pulled out of the highway, and tried to go to the side – tried, because he realised that his actions were no longer in his control.

"I – I can't stop!" he cried out, but before any of them could react, his arms rolled the wheel to one side, and the van swerved violently. All of them were thrown to the side, and the car sped off in the direction they had come from.

Nat ignored the throbbing in her arm, which had broken her fall, and rose as quickly as she could, crawling to the body as the van sped dangerously. She drew on her memory, reciting every incantation she knew to bind the demon, but the demon could no longer be controlled – part of it was in the lifeless body, and the other was controlling Fred, sending the car hurtling in the direction where the body had been killed.

Nat cut off in the middle. "Stop him from driving back!"

Gilbert and Eliza just stared at her, shocked, but Antonio quickly jumped over to the front, and began wrestling with the partially possessed Fred for the wheel. The van tipped and swerved, and Nat had to wait until the end of a sutram to yell Gilbert and Eliza into action and get them to hold the body down.

But as they drew closer to the burning remains of the fair, Nat's powers grew weaker; rather, the demonic prowess of the spirit grew stronger. Fred began losing more and more of his self-control, and Nat could see his eyes slowly glazing over in the rearview mirror. And while Nat's incantations had previously subdued the struggling spirit within the body, they were proving ineffective now, and the seizing had started again.

"Get him off the wheel before he is completely possessed!" Nat yelled out, turning her gaze from Gilbert and Elizabeta struggling with the body to Antonio.

Gilbert raised his eyes off the body, and Nat's bag, which had fallen to the side, caught his eye. On and impulse, he let go of the body, scooped up the bag and swung it against the back of Fred's head, knocking him out cold.

Antonio quickly grabbed the wheel; Eliza couldn't hold down the body on her own, and it shook her off as soon as Gilbert got up. Nat turned to Gilbert. "Give me my bag!" she called out, and quickly caught it. "Get us moving in the opposite direction!" Nat ordered Antonio, and pulled out a gun with red trims. She turned to Elizabeta.

"You and the other man – go and stand with this in that corner. Both of you hold onto it." As she spoke, she yanked the handle of the gun, which rose until it was aligned with the barrel, and clicked into place. She handed it to Eliza. "Pull the trigger when I say so, and aim at the body," she said, and grabbed Eliza, holding her in place as the car swerved.

Antonio spun the car around, trying to control the steering wheel over the unconscious Fred. But the demon was intelligent enough to sense its freedom slipping away, and powerful enough to try and stop it. It completely retracted from Fred and occupied Doe. It mustered up the last of its powers to give itself one last chance to freedom, to escape from the binds Nat had tied it in.

Nat knew this, had anticipated it. She willed her mind to work faster than ever, and as the body rose, she stepped back, getting on her feet slowly.

"Santa Maria," Antonio whispered, and Eliza had the sense to tell him to concentrate on the road.

Nat chanted slowly but firmly, her tone steady even as the van moved over bumps and braked suddenly. The strength of the incantations damped down the effect of the demon, and being chained to a dead host didn't help it to give Nat a full dose of its power and strength.

"Get out of the body, vyradak," Nat taunted, suddenly cutting off in her incantations. "Or are you too weak to break ablihacyi, the bonds I've tied you with?"

The body began to heat up, and in its dead state, it couldn't stop the cells on the surface from singing off, attaining a dull red glow. And the more Nat taunted, the more the body burnt.

"In fact, I don't even have to try and stop you – you're so weak."

The body was burning now, and Nat needed him to retaliate before its anger burnt the vessel she'd bound it to. She didn't have to wait for long – the dull red glow concentrated to one region at his chest, and the energy possessed by the demon shot right towards her.

Nat pulled out a jar and drew a symbol on her chest with vermilion, nullifying the negative energy of the demon. She lunged at the body, and ignoring the acute heat at her fingertips, she drew a mirror image of the symbol on the body's chest, on the concentrated red glow, the point at which the demon was bound to the body.

The body stopped glowing and burning, and collapsed, the surface of the skin charred and smoking. Nat moved back, drained, her wounds aching more painfully than before, and her fingers were burnt now. She turned to Eliza. "What's his name?"

"Antonio."

"Tell him to drive to the address in that idyjot – Frederick's pocket, and to get there fast." She winced at the increasing pain starting from her chest.

Gilbert frowned, and sat down, while Eliza laid the transformed gun next to Nat. "What just happened? What did you do?"

Nat look at him, wincing through the pain. "I bound the demon in that body, and the demon's energy in my body."

"Is that…dangerous?" Eliza ventured.

Nat laughed, but it wasn't a near joyous one, and even Antonio in the front winced. "Dy. It is dangerous. The longer I keep this energy in my body, the more it will damage me. And then I'll be burnt, like that block of wood there," she said, pointing at Johnny Doe. The pain was getting worse, and wasn't to be ignored. "After that, the energy will go back to that body, and burn it, until there's nothing left of it. And that's when you need to worry."

Gilbert didn't like the half smile on Nat's lips. "Why?"

"Because, vas u niarvedanńi durań, the demon will not hesitate to possess you. And that will be fun, won't it?"

A/T: Well, it's been a year, almost, since I was here. I'd wanted to continue this almost immediately after the first chapter, but the time wasn't right. I know that waiting for your life to get less fucked up is like waiting for the sun to rise in the west, but...choices are choices.

I figured I'd do everyone a favour by keeping Author Thoughts in the end. Not that anyone complained with MFN (Check out My Friend Natalia if you haven't), but I found it a pace breaker personally while reading it. So, whoever wants to skip A/Ts, you can. There will be a glossary/appendix of sorts before the A/T, which will explain certain meanings or phrases, so make sure to go through that.

What a year it's been.

It's good to be back.

Aaaand I'm back in Manipal, the place where this story was conceived. Good to be back.

Hope you enjoyed.

R. K. Iris.