KABOOM.

Warning: Violence, fight scene, weapons, gore, death, hint to child sexual abuse.

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN HETALIA. I have fun manipulating their characters, though

"Get beyond love and grief: exist for the good of Man."

—Miyamoto Musashi

Shepherd

Shh, shh.

The sound of his boots as he marched back and forth, back and forth. A soldier passed him, and he nearly winced at the harsh contrast between both their strides. Did they know? Could they hear that he didn't belong?

Kiku had no problem keeping a blank face; he had trained himself to do so since a young age when those wanting and willing to control him hid behind smiling faces, kind gestures, and elaborate promises. He couldn't say much in the way of the Organization regarding the first two, but the promise was there, and it was never a good promise if the other party did not possess the voice to oppose it. He had thought the world had learned that by now.

Once, Kiku had longed for every generation to be just as long lived as he had been so as to know what was right and what was wrong based on what history had already laid out as examples. But then Kiku reminded himself that even he hadn't been able to use what he had learned after hundreds of years of living and experience to counter the catastrophe that had already taken place. History may give lessons, but each was far smaller and less threatening than those that lay in store for the future. There was no possible way for one to have the wisdom to resolve those, not until they stood on the doorstep, and even then one had only so much time to respond before the threatening visitor broke down the door. And every time, the lesson came with a stronger weapon; earlier its feet, then an ax, then a battering ram, and now…

Kiku thought back to the bunker, how much safer it seemed than pacing the tunnels, even as they discussed the plan.

"Kiku and Uncle Matt will form Team Delta," Red continued. Her finger found a tunnel marked 'D' before sliding in the intended direction of their travel. "You will infiltrate the tunnels from the west and move to the Expansion Center where you will meet Team Charlie to free the Women's Sector and any hostages you find. Feliciano and I will be there to lead everyone you release out of the tunnels to safety and our forces will take hostages of our own in case worse comes to worse and we need to bargain with the Overlord." Even as she said it, Kiku could see her confidence wane, reflected in the eyes of those watching. They all knew that the Overlord could care less about his own men when he had more waiting to be turned out into combat who were just as skilled as those captured. Bargaining chips were all but useless, but it didn't hurt to have them. The question of if they would be worth the trouble to have should be the primary concern.

"So," Red went on, clearing her throat as if trying to clear the murky atmosphere. "You know the drill. Todd and Danny will do their best to decommission the defenses, and Danny will be assigned to your team. Make sure you keep him in your sights. We can't turn off the defenses with even one of them dead. After the fighting begins, listen for Todd in your earpiece. He'll tell you where to go."

… And now it was using explosives.

Even though Red had looked on both he and Matthew with expectation, Kiku recognized something more in her gaze when it had been directed to him. You know what it will take, she seemed to say, don't make me lose respect for you. Kiku had known it even before she had looked at him in such a way. Matthew, although possessing his own brand of knowledge and skill, was still very young. Just as Yao with Alfred, Kiku was being charged with ultimate responsibility for whatever happened with his part of the plan. He would be the voice of reason over the passion of youth. As much weight as that put on him, Kiku was grateful that he hadn't been paired with Alfred. He didn't think he would have been able to convince him of anything if there was a catch in their plan. Yao had the authority to demand at least some acknowledgement from Alfred.

He's troubled, Kiku thought, recalling the way Yao's face had taken on a brooding expression after all of his suggestions were shot down by Red. He will make his own way once everything begins. If there was anything Kiku knew about Yao, it was that he may protest little in favor of listening, but in the end he would do whatever he thought best no matter what anyone said. Whether such a decision on Yao's part would benefit the plan or ruin it, Kiku couldn't tell. Yao could take care of himself, the past had proved that, but Kiku's thoughts went back to the man's chewed lips, to the blood dripping down onto a porcelain-white hand, and his confidence in Yao's abilities wavered just a bit.

Don't think you can do it all on your own, he silently begged as another soldier walked by him without so much as a glance in his direction. Please just come back to me whole.

He fought to keep his hand from slipping down to his waist, where the hilt of his katana jutted out, hidden black against the black of his shirt, the sheath having been slid down one of his pant legs to draw the greedy eyes behind the cameras away from him. Shh, shh. He had been taught to walk like this, as silent as a whisper, disguising a secret just as shocking.

On his forty-fourth pace back across the tunnel, he was met with the soft sound of faraway gunfire, as if it were bundled in layers of muffling fabric. He didn't know whether that was his cue or not; it could be just the start of the training drill. But then he heard the sound of dozens of feet moving as one gigantic entity toward the exits of the tunnels. Doom, doom, their boots seemed to be saying. Doom, doom, doom, doom. The tunnels made them echo until it seemed as if a whole army was on the move.

Once Kiku was among them, moving in formation, he saw a glint of metal out of the corner of his eye and his hand refused to keep from his katana any longer. He pulled it from its sheath and swept it out to the side until the blade hit flesh. He didn't even need to look to know that he had hit two Organization men in their bellies, slicing through fabric where the vest did not extend and through their soft insides. Kiku didn't wait to hear their dying wheezes, liquefied with blood. One tug and he had his katana back and ready, bringing it down in an arc onto another soldier's shoulder, the man's severed arm hitting the floor with a wet thud just after the bodies of his previous victims. The man with one arm staggered, trying to regain his balance, but Kiku kicked him over to have at another soldier behind him. This one was staring at him, no, through him, as if he were not entirely there. The almost inhuman eyes scared and angered him all at once, and Kiku quickly drove his blade through the man's throat, slicing through flesh, muscle, and tendon as though they were butter. Blood poured out, jetting onto Kiku's face and arms as the man's head hit the floor, crack, and rolled off between the legs of comrades and traitors alike, eyes still open, glazed, and watching, now fit for his equally dead face.

Swish, sigh, jab, slice. Kiku's face may be blank but his eyes were aflame. Sigh, slice, jab, swish, shh, shh. No one saw him coming, he was so quick. No one heard his approach, he was so quiet. Only Death could do a better job.

He had been so focused on killing as many soldiers as he could that he hadn't realized he had reached the convergence of the tunnels until he heard gunfire, this closer than of that outside, and he stopped for the first time in several minutes to see Matthew squeezing off rounds into the fray. His personal guard surrounded him, and, Kiku realized, his own had only just then caught up to him, heaving and tired.

"You should save your ammo," Kiku reminded as he met the Canadian.

Matthew didn't even look at him, concentrating. "I lost my knife," he replied as if he expected it to happen. Kiku just watched, having come out of his combative haze, trying to remember how many he had killed and how. It seemed so far away, like a dream. He had long learned to distance himself from the guilt and horror of killing, but having gone so long without being in such a scenario and so being forced to swallow such emotions was making him ill. The fire in his veins, however, only burned all the more.

Kiku allowed his guard to kill off some of those trying to come at him; he figured they needed to feel as if they had done their job some way instead of just chasing him around and trying to keep him under tabs. His eyes narrowed as the remainder of the Organization force ran off into the tunnels as if a part of one huge pack obeying a gathering howl.

They are too numb to feel fear. Why do they retreat?

Matthew had lowered his rifle and his eyes seemed to be asking the same question. "They've run off." He wiped at his brow, smearing blood across his skin. It was only then that Kiku noticed the Canadian's hands were drenched with it.

"Are you hurt?"

Matthew stared at him in confusion before following Kiku's gaze to his hands and then he met his eyes again. "Not mine. Someone else's."

He's leaving something out. But before Kiku had the chance to interrogate him further, Danny was running up to them, plump and panting, covered in sweat.

"H-hey, guys, we—" He wheezed and coughed, hunched over and hands on his knees. "We need to g-get moving."

"Yeah, we'd better," Matthew agreed. He slung his rifle over his back, bloody fingers pulling gently at the black bandana still wrapped around his arm. Kiku watched, something clicking in his mind. "So, I guess we could split up…?"

"No," Kiku answered firmly, and Matthew stared at him with a sort of… impudence Kiku had never seen him exhibit. I know what you want to do, Kiku thought. But I will make you see sense. It was obvious that Matthew wanted to set out on his own, and it was just as equally as obvious that he would end up with more blood on his hands if he did so, most likely his own. "We stay together to protect Dan."

Matthew was opposed to the idea; that much was obvious in his eyes. But the Canadian followed Kiku nonetheless as he led the way into one of the tunnels that fed deep into the system. Danny was running with great difficulty, almost loping, fingers poised to his earpiece, awaiting Todd's orders. There was a pop of static and then—

"I'm in, I repeat, I'm in! Defenses are set to go off…"

Kiku listened for their names, turned when appropriate. Shocks from the explosions nearby rocked the tunnels, sending debris showering onto their heads. His feet changed direction with ease, never sliding or slipping. The others had trouble keeping up, and it was all too late that he realized they were far behind him.

He was on his way back as Danny stopped to disable another defense before he heard their names called again. "Matthew, Kiku, pick up the pace and go left."

They did—only to nearly run smack into a whole group of people heading in the exact opposite direction. Kiku skidded to a halt, halfway through unsheathing his katana, when his eyes were met with those of a little girl, no more than a year old, teary and wide. She clung to whom he took as her older sister who appeared just as frightened. There were at least twenty of them, all made up of women and children, going frantic at the sight of their black, black uniforms and the blood that splotched them.

"Please, we're just lost!" one woman shouted, on the verge of tears. "W-we were scared and ran off… but if you take us back, we'll stay!"

"We're not going to hurt you," Matthew assured. "We're part of the Resistance."

The women stared for a few moments in wonder, but then fear filled them again.

"P-please, take us back. Don't tell the Overlord, please!"

"We are not trying to trick you," Kiku told them, but before he could explain further his vision exploded into white and his ears stopped working save for a high-pitched ring that pierced his hearing. His legs took to running by instinct, but soon after he was sent flying, hitting all of those who hadn't managed to get away fast enough like bowling pins. He rolled for an imperceptible distance and time, over and over until he thought he would retch if his lungs had the chance to function. Then came the heat, burning, burning, as if his skin was being peeled from his muscle. But the rolling waves of suffocating smoke and fire kept him pinned, unable to move or escape. The floor began to shake, like someone had picked the tunnel up and was tossing it around like a toy. He felt something smash down beside him, blind and deaf and helpless as a newborn kitten, and then he felt another and another…

"Ah!" Hearing his voice was bittersweet as a slab of what he perceived was concrete crushed his thigh before rolling off. He finally had the ability to cover his head with his arms as debris big and small began a consistent assault on his body, piling up until he thought surely he would be buried. He slowly regained full function of his eardrums, still ringing in agony, and all the world seemed to be was the constant rumble and crack of falling stone.

And then it just… stopped.

Kiku lay there for half a minute, gasping for breath, tortured by the jackhammer pounding of his skull, and he suddenly wished that he had remained deaf for just a little longer. Every sound felt like a knife to his head.

And then came the one he thought would kill him: "Kiku? Kiku, do you copy?"

Kiku groaned, squeezing tears from his eyes as he willed his quivering arm to lift fingers to his earpiece. "… H-hai."

"Where's Matthew? I can't see him on the map."

Kiku winced again and struggled to his knees from below the small pile of rock strewn over him, shaking violently. He coughed at the dust and ash that he was met with, his blurry vision slowly returning to normal. What he saw made his heart throw itself at his ribs.

"Kiku? Kiku?"

"The tunnel collapsed." It had. All that was left was a pile of rubble that seemed to go on forever, reaching up to the gray sky outside. All around him people were strewn, whether still people or just bodies he couldn't tell. All that he could confirm was that those caught halfway beneath the pile, those who had arms or legs or heads jutting out from the crushing rocks, were most definitely dead. Kiku didn't know whether he should have been glad not to see Matthew among them or scared that he didn't see him at all. "There is a pile of rubble," he reported, everything in him aching. "I-I can't see him. I lost him." Danny was gone as well, but he didn't want to voice that. Then he would be saying that he had failed.

Silence pervaded the channel for a tense moment, and meanwhile Kiku groped at the cracked wall, nails digging into grime and soot as he struggled to stand. He looked down and saw a young girl with her head split open like a melon, and before he knew it he was retching all over her.

Todd continued with his orders. They had, after all, been instructed to go on with the plan should anything as devastating as this happen. Dizzy and sore, Kiku examined the pile again, saw the blood fanned out from rocks crushing skulls like they were nothing, brain matter and all sorts of other bodily fluids covering the floor. He limped toward the wreckage until he could see a glint of metal and then he knew: Matthew's rifle had been smashed in two beneath the rubble and so had its owner.

Kiku felt sick to his stomach and would have thrown up if he hadn't done so already. He could taste the bile, felt it burning his throat, and he deserved every bit of it. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You were safer going off on your own instead of staying with me. Tears sprung to his eyes, but he wiped them away with the filthy heel of his hand, forcing his body to turn around and keep going. Whatever it takes, whatever happens, keep going, Red's voice echoed in his head, as if they were all still standing around the table in the bunker, whole and ready.

I'm sorry.

He nearly screamed as a hand flashed out to grab his ankle. He peered down to see the girl he had seen earlier, still holding her baby sister tightly in her arms. The infant was deathly silent, but seemed unharmed apart from some burns, bruising, and smears of ash. The older girl's wet eyes locked onto Kiku's like beacons. "P-please, help." Her voice was hoarse, scratchy, like an old woman's, her skinny, grabbing fingers just as similar.

As much as it pained him, Kiku bent down and lifted her up, baby and all. She held tight to the poor thing, so much so that Kiku wondered if the infant could even breathe. But as soon as he let her lean on him, the baby started to cry.

Others seemed to stir at the sound, as if realizing they were still alive, pushing themselves up with groans and gasps. They all appeared different; arm twisted, broken, burns to one side of the face, a whole leg blackened with soot, but their cries were nearly the same. Smoke-scratched voices grieved, hands grabbing at those that hadn't risen with them, holding what remained of them and sobbing. Others stumbled to the massive rock pile, half breaking down into inconsolable tears while others dug frantically through the rubble with fearful whimpers.

"Anyone who is still alive, leave with me!" Kiku shouted as best he could, sounding like a completely different person. At first all he received were swimming stares, but then sense came to them all, and they began to shuffle toward him obediently. Kiku realized that they were still unconvinced that he was a Resister. It made him sick to think that Organization soldiers would still threaten to kill them after witnessing such tragedy. To do so wasn't even human.

"Follow me," he instructed, his legs burning as he led them through the tunnel and into another that was significantly more intact. The girl with her baby sister and many more that had survived did as they were told, some falling only to get back up again even though they had no desire to move at all ever again.

"Here." Kiku's voice was empty as he directed them to a familiar side door. Somehow he had found the bunker, and as much as he knew he needed to stick to his mission, he also knew that leaving these people—the people whose injuries and sorrow had been his doing—to their own devices was something only the monster men of the Organization would do. He held the door open for them weakly, having it nearly slip from his fingers and close on a woman helping her daughter inside. The two did nothing to avoid it, didn't even flinch, as if they had been expecting to be sliced in half by the heavy door. Bile rose in Kiku's throat again as he caught it, pulled it back.

"Th-thank you, sir," the girl holding her sister said. She seemed to be the only one who believed that he was not a threat.

Kiku nodded, barely able to produce a smile. "You're welcome. What is your name?" Maybe if Kiku called her by her name, the others would be more willing to trust him.

"Lidia."

Kiku extended a hand, the girl taking it as she hoisted herself up over the threshold. "Lidia, you were very brave." Praise might work as well. "You saved your sister."

Lidia frowned and looked down at the baby in her arms in confusion and then back up at Kiku, smiling as if she suddenly knew him and his cause. "She's not my sister. She's my daughter."

No translations

A Word From the Writer: Wow, all right so I can rest! Yay! So anyway, now we get to see some stuff leading up to Canada's possible death. And we got a little MANada going on that I'm gonna expand upon in his POV. You'll see why. So are you getting the vibe that the Expansion Program is just an outlet for pedophiles and rapists? Good, that's the point. I'll just leave you with that disturbing little note to build up some desire to see this Organization crumble.

Now... to do my research paper. And probably procrastinate some more. It's a growing affliction. XD