This is some deep shit.

Warning: Violence, gore, fight scene, references to NiChu, references to post-war Japan, character death.

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

"Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things."

—Dogen

Pieces

Kiku forced himself to sit just below the hatch that led into the bunker. He peered up at the locks, just waiting for them turn. His katana, bloody and worn, lay across his lap. He felt their eyes on it as they passed him, going to huddle together in the furthest corner of the bunker, but he had to have it out, had to be ready. Outside, he could hear explosions, some so close they shook the bunker and made the women whimper and the children cry. With every rumble Kiku's wounds echoed in pulsing aches. Surely the tunnels should be nothing by now; surely the bunker was buried beneath rubble, inaccessible, inescapable. Kiku could have led the captives from one deathtrap to another, and yet he still listened for that rhythmic tapping, for that 'Farmer in the Dell.'

A flicker of movement in the corner of his eye made him whip his head around. There Lidia stood, all four foot nine of her, bouncing her infant in her arms as she stared down at him. "I forgot to tell you. Thank you. For saving us."

"It was no trouble," Kiku said and wished that it truly had been no trouble.

"What is your name, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Kiku."

The girl shifted the child from one shoulder to another. Her blond hair was blackened with soot, burned crisp at the edges, her skin littered with smears of ash and glowing red with burns. Yet she still looked so pure. Like she didn't belong there. "Thank you, Kiku. I could never thank you enough."

It's too soon to thank me, Kiku thought, mind going back to the possibility of their being buried alive. He managed a soft smile and said, "What is her name?"

Lidia was confused for a moment and then followed Kiku's eyes to the baby. She returned the smile. "Evelyn. It was my mother's name."

Kiku's heart sank. "Your mother died?" Not beneath the rubble. Please, not in the explosion. He didn't want to be responsible for another death, having already lost both Danny and Matthew.

A shadow seemed to fall across Lidia's face. "Yeah, um, a while ago. I'm just… glad she didn't have to see this. And my brother, I…" Something caught in her throat and she cleared it, eyes darting downward. In her arms, Evelyn burbled.

It took only a second, and Kiku was once again thrown back, head cracking off the wall. He was made blind and deaf once again, the situation so horribly familiar it would have seemed surreal if everything in him didn't explode into pain. His head throbbed, feeling unnaturally heavy as he lifted it, vision still swimming with white. All too late he realized he was pushing his hand into the blade of his katana and snatched it back, nearly toppling over from lack of support. Rock tumbled over him, bruising and cruel, and dust clogged his lungs, making his eyes water. Somewhere there was a flash of heat, and Kiku scrambled to get away, smashing his nose on a wall in the process. Blood poured down his front and trickled down the back of his throat, but that hardly mattered. Everything hurt, and all Kiku could think was Not again, not again.

The bunker was old and outdated, and Kiku wouldn't put it past the Overlord to have developed weapons of mass destruction far more powerful than those made before the Uprising began. He cursed his ignorance—how had he even imagined that there was anywhere safe to hide?

Clouds of dust dissipated, bits of sky carving paths through it. Kiku squinted up at the gray expanse he was met with, bordered by crumbling walls, streams of soil and vegetation pouring into the crater that was the bunker, the bright orange of flame exploding in size, reaching up to the colorless outside. Kiku sat there for a moment, trying to piece together what had just happened. All he could feel and hear was the colossal pounding of his heart.

After a few minutes of contemplation, Kiku braced his hands against the ground, gathering his legs under him. It took much effort—and much sliding on the dust and rubble—before Kiku finally managed to stagger to his feet. He was barely standing for two seconds before he was forced to cling to a bit of debris for support. His hand brushed over something metallic and he peered upward to see that it was the hatch, leaning against a portion of the wall that was still standing upright. Kiku had been pressed into a corner by the blast while everything had crumbled around him. If the hatch hadn't been dislodged or if it had been just an inch off Kiku would either have been blown into a million pieces or crushed flat. He gasped in astonishment, but the more he surveyed the rest of the destruction the less he was grateful to have survived.

The hands again. The hands sticking out from beneath rock. Blood smeared on blank gray, everything white noise. The captives that Kiku had thought he'd saved were gone, not a survivor in sight. Poor Lidia and Evelyn had all but disappeared in the carnage, Evelyn with her round, accusatory eyes.

For a few minutes Kiku walked through the destruction. Liberated, the tunnel was filled with light, dust motes flickering with it here and there among the haze. It was strangely beautiful, and Kiku immediately found himself looking away. The display was almost mocking.

His eyes instead moved across the sky that peered in from above. It was distinctly empty, devoid of anything but flecks of snow. He let the bits of chill touch his face, soothe his hurts. His tired eyes slipped shut.

"Kiku, what are you doing out here?"

Kiku's eyes snapped open and instead of being met with gray sky, Yao's critical face filled his vision. Kiku didn't say anything, didn't move. He watched a bit of snow land on Yao's cheek and noted how easily it blended into his skin.

Yao gave a sigh, one that Kiku knew very well. For some reason Yao troubled himself with tending to Kiku every second of every day. Kiku couldn't understand why he even bothered if it was so frustrating a task for him.

Yao crouched down and looked him in the eyes—as if that was something that fazed him. "It's cold and you will get very sick if you stay out here too long." Another sigh. A shake of the head. "Ai-ya, what were you even looking at? All of the birds have flown south. The sky is empty."

No it isn't, Kiku thought almost angrily. There's always something in everything or else the world would be hollow. Can you not see the snow? But Kiku would never tell Yao that. Kiku was young and little and Yao would never listen to what he had to say. That had already been proven.

Yao rolled his eyes at Kiku's consistent staring and perpetual silence. "Whatever it was you were doing, I think it is best to save it for another day. Come, I have a fire going and supper is—oh, good gracious, what is this?"

Kiku followed the length of Yao's arm as it extended down to his leg. Yao cupped the tiny appendage in his large hand and scrutinized what appeared to be blood smeared on a stocking.

"You are bleeding!" he said. "What did I say about coming out here when it's this cold? You walk through some thorny bushes, get hurt, and you don't even feel it." He continued on in Chinese, chastising and sighing and examining all under his breath, and Kiku wondered if the man knew he hated when he did that. He had been through many winters and similar accidents. The fact that he had survived long enough for Yao to find him and suddenly make it his responsibility to care for him was certainly not enough to constitute constant hen-pecking and chiding. Kiku merely stood there and lifted his eyes to sky again, allowing Yao to study him and mumble to himself unhindered for as long as he pleased.

"Ai-yaaa, zhè háizi. Wǒ bù lǐjiě tā," Yao continued, shaking his head. He finally peered up, eyes ever so strict. "We need to dress that and get you warm. Let's go home."

Apparently, Kiku wasn't even capable of walking on his own, so Yao saw it fit to scoop him up in his arms and carry him. From afar, Yao would have resembled a woodsman carrying a bundle of furs. Kiku's eyes remained on the sky.

Heat licked at Kiku's cheeks and his eyes flung open, his vision immediately filling with bright oranges and yellows. A plane had dropped a shell on their little bunker and now fire was eating everything Kiku had once been foolish enough to call safe.

Kiku knew he should stay, search around in the rubble for people who may still have the capacity for life. But every time he so much as glanced at what was left of the bunker, the pile of rocks and metal and soot that now served as a mass grave, he felt sick to his stomach thinking about getting any closer. About seeing what was behind those crushed hands and bloody, grasping fingers. About seeing the extent of his mistake. Kiku swallowed the bile rising to his throat and peered up.

He was in a pit, surrounded on all sides by broken cement and swelling flame. The hatch had massacred the iron rungs beneath it, usually used to gain access to the upper system of tunnels. Kiku's eyes darted from one jagged ridge to another, his skin prickling with the growing proximity of the fire. Panic flew down to his feet from his hammering heart, lifting them, pushing them forward until he was staring up a near vertical incline of crags, hissing pipes, bent steel rods, and charred cement. His stomach turned over at the thought of climbing it, and yet he could feel blisters forming on his back as the fire extended burning fingers to caress him.

Rock bit into the pulsing wound on Kiku's palm, but he pressed on, clawing and scrabbling and leaving smears of blood in his wake. Columns of orange danced at the corner of his vision, pushing him, driving him, upupup. Nails split and cracked, feet stumbled, hands were rubbed raw, fire wreathed Kiku's ankles in sweltering heat. Many times he was forced to pause and get his bearings, having run out of every handhold he could find. He was more flustered than he had ever been, the flames melting the snow even before it could fall on his cheeks. Twice he nearly fell, saving himself the first incident by cramming his sore fingers into rocky groves, the second by skinning the underside of an arm in his effort to hang on.

Kiku gritted his teeth, a scream clawing at his throat as he turned his head up and realized he could no longer see the sky. He was trapped beneath a slab of concrete and twisted metal, wedged between cold stone and searing flame. Kiku could barely look down without squeezing his eyelids shut. The heat was enough to melt his eyes and the tears that manifested quickly became dry, sticky trails on his cheeks. He only knew one of his pant legs had caught fire when he smelled the material burning. The smoke it produced stung his already sore eyes, gathered beneath the outcrop and trapped him in perpetual haze. His lungs ached and his throat itched. Kiku longed to turn his whole body inside out to rid him of the irritation, of the constant ache. When he felt his skin on his leg wicked away by the grasping fire, Kiku froze, eyes screwed shut amid the smoke, lungs dormant of their own accord. For just a moment, Kiku was at ease, clinging to the debris, blackened and gaunt, hump-backed and plastered. A beetle caught beneath a lighter.

He should have died in that explosion. If not the first, then the second. Retribution was gnawing at his heels and he need only wait for it to swallow him entirely.

Yao kicked open the door to their little hut and stepped over the threshold, kicking it back shut. Kiku lamented the loss of the sky while Yao grumbled to himself, laying him on the threadbare rug before the hearth and marching off to fetch the dressings. Kiku wriggled out of the bundle of furs Yao had so grudgingly wrapped him in, pulling his knees up to his chest as he watched the flames lick at the bottom of a hanging pot. He didn't need to stretch out to feel the heat; he closed his eyes and he was instantly ensconced.

A low rumble of Chinese told Kiku that Yao had returned, now milling around in front of him, unrolling the cloth. He extended a hand and articulate fingers enveloped Kiku's little leg, forcing it to elongate and shattering the warmth.

"Ai-ya," Yao huffed as he dipped the cloth in a poultice and dabbed at Kiku's scratch. "Why do you insist on staying here anyway? There are warmer places, with proper stoves. You could be in a palace with insulated walls and hearths that fill an entire room. Yet, here we are, wasting away in a hovel of mud and straw, the nearest village at least two days away by cart. So irrational and stubborn, honestly, zhè háizi."

Kiku merely watched him with blank eyes. It amused him how professional Yao tried to act even as he buzzed around like a frazzled fly. It also amused him how Yao could still not see the reason why Kiku chose to remain where he was instead of where Yao preferred him to be. He loved the open air and the trees and the banks of snow so cloudlike it was as if the world had been turned on its head. He liked the sound of snowmelt in the mornings, liked watching a mass of birds swell in a dark, harmonious mass against the pale horizon. He liked to go out during the summer and dip his feet into the water, giggling as the little fish sucked on his toes while he watched the sun make its wide arc across the sky to disappear in a splash of pink and gold and deep red behind the treetops. And he could never understand why Yao would feel the need to rush through the woods, shouting his name until he stumbled across him, chastising Kiku as he scooped him up and confined him to the hut where only the window let him know he and Yao weren't the only ones alive. Something about mosquitoes and brigands and wild animals and chills and somehow not being able to find his way home.

Something like the situation they were in at the moment.

"Okay," Yao said, tightening the knot so that the cloth clung firmly to Kiku's leg. Almost too firmly. "I think you will live." He pointed a stern finger at him. "But much more and you just may not." He snatched up the furs and bundled Kiku in them once again. He hummed in satisfaction when he could only see Kiku's face among the hair. "Good. Now stay where you are for once and rest."

Kiku barely blinked and Yao sighed, swiveling around to retrieve the boiling pot above the hearth. When Kiku shook the furs off of him and attempted to clamber out, Yao turned and spilled their boiling supper over Kiku's stocking-clad feet.

Kiku squeaked in pain and tears wet his eyes as he scrambled away. He was quickly grabbed, however, by hands so strong he barely recognized them.

"Oh my God, oh God, oh God," Yao rattled off as he clutched Kiku to him, nearly crushing the younger's nose against his shoulder in the process. He rushed over to the door, flinging it open and dropping to his knees in the snow. He tugged off the soiled stockings with speed that impressed even Kiku and plunged the boy's raw toes into the snow. Kiku let out a little sigh of relief but was just as soon wriggling with discomfort as the cold made his whole foot ache. Yao snatched him back up and cradled him close, rocking.

"I'm sorry, Kiku," Yao blubbered pathetically and Kiku wished he would let go of him, would not hold him so tightly. It made Kiku feel extremely uncomfortable. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

It seemed like Yao was the one compromised instead of Kiku, and they remained outside for a few more minutes before Yao found his senses and shuttled Kiku back inside again. "Are you hurt?" he kept asking as he sat Kiku on the end of their cot and examined his feet as if expecting them to suddenly fall off. "Does it burn? Don't cry. I'm sorry. I was… stupid. It won't happen again, I promise." He wasted no time in caring for Kiku's reddened feet which had suffered barely a few blisters. Throughout Yao's breathing gradually slowed, though his fingers remained uncharacteristically fast and jumpy. He didn't look at Kiku, as if doing so would make him feel guilty all over again.

When Yao was finished, he stood and said, "I will make us some new supper. You just stay there and don't get up." He seemed almost hesitant to leave Kiku alone, but he eventually left to tend to the hearth and the mess across the floor.

In the end, they didn't have any supper. Kiku had fallen asleep and woke in the middle of the night to see Yao passed out on the dirt floor. Kiku swung his feet over the side of the cot and they ached when they touched the floor. But the coolness of it soothed his hurts. He made his way over and stood over the older man. He looked exhausted. Hair stuck out of his normally well-maintained ponytail, his eyes were sunken, and he looked very pale.

You didn't have to worry about me to the point that you collapsed, you know, Kiku wanted to tell him, but all he could do right then was throw the furs over him and crawl down beneath the warmth himself. He took one of Yao's hands in his own, the fingers icy. Why do you take care of me? Why do you bother when I'm an annoyance to you?

Why don't you just leave me with my hut and my snow and my sky?

Yao's only answer was a sigh, shivers rolling through him with the arrival of the warmth. Kiku merely watched Yao's breath mist before him, his eyes move beneath his lids.

Maybe I will understand when we are older. When we are both no longer children.

Kiku's fingers had begun to slip but now they left deep trails in the rock. He tried to open his eyes and found that he couldn't open them, not with all the burning heat compressing him. He tried to take a breath and found that he couldn't breathe. Smoke had invaded his lungs and all he could breathe was smoke, smoke, choking, dying…

The fire eating him externally was nothing compared to the fire that sparked within him. All at once his muscles exploded to life and his brain was back to whirring again, his heart back to vigorously pumping. Suddenly, he wasn't a beetle anymore. He was a human being with responsibilities and cares and people who relied on him. He was older now. He should know better than to just give up.

Fire danced up the material on his leg, scorching the skin below, but Kiku took his chances and wrenched his hands from the rock, making a desperate grope upward even as he was tipping backward. His heart made one terrible bid to escape from his throat before his hands became splayed atop the outcrop, arms wrapped around, scraping as he clawed his way up inch-by-inch. His arms strained to pull his entire body even half the distance, and for a moment Kiku feared he would be burned alive. But that fear propelled him onward, upupup until, miraculously, he was using his last burst of energy to tug his upper half across the grating surface. His legs were soon free and as much as he wanted to run until he could no longer see the crumbled buildings, the cratered streets, smell the smoke and blood and death, in the end he only managed to push himself a couple feet away from the pit that was now the bunker. He lay on his back and tried to focus on the gray, snowy sky rather than the fire that was sending tendrils out to him, barely brushing him and yet undeniably consuming.

The blast had demolished the bunker as well as a good portion of the tunnels above it. The sky was hedged by jagged arcs of damaged passageways and not an inch of ground was bare of debris. Fire danced up here too, Kiku soon saw, but the pipes that had burst were spilling their flammable contents into the pit more so than above, gushing down to be eagerly snapped up by the flames. Kiku's ears were still useless, but his eyesight had improved to the point that he could conclude that no one was around. He lay there as several imperceptible minutes ticked by, his body relaxing until all of him was one giant pulse to the tune of his heartbeat. With every passing flutter came more and more pain, a sting that shot up his legs and made his raw-rubbed hands clench at his sides. Blood oozed out warmly from between his fingers.

As his hearing slowly returned he could perceive the low rumble of plane engines that before existed as only vibrations through the fractured ground, resounding in his bones and turning them to jelly. What he had first taken for clouds he now identified as streams of jet exhaust, crisscrossing, polluting that which was once untouchable beauty.

I need to fix it, he thought and the next thing he knew he was on his stomach, arms outstretched, crawling. He dragged himself through the wreckage—the dirt, the rock, the dust, the ash, everything—feeling more a part of the destruction than something living, breathing. And the more he crawled, the more he lost that state of awareness, of physical being, the more he accepted it. But by the time he reached what was left of one of the tunnel mouths, gaping, veined with cracks and pocked with craters, and could hear voices, rising and falling with the rhythm of the rocking explosions, he no longer felt so worthless, like he should have died like everyone else around him had. He wasn't that beetle over the lighter anymore.

I am Honda Kiku, he reminded himself. He dug what was left of his nails into the gritty, curving wall of the tunnel, lifting himself. I am Japan, one of the oldest countries in the world. And I am proud of such a title. He ground his teeth as he struggled to keep his feet from slipping over the littered floor. I have left my imprint, no matter what happens. He walked until daylight faded behind him, replaced by the flickering fluorescence of the surviving lights. Everything was dark before him, but that was okay. It couldn't stay dark forever. I have loved being Japan. Every second, whether good or bad, everything. And while in the past I have been constrained, whether politically, economically, or by any of the other myriad obstacles, this will be my choice.

I'll fix this if it kills me.

Light yawned ahead of him, extending fingers along the walls until they reached Kiku's own. And he grabbed them, let them pull him, outoutout. Daylight.

And smoke and blood and death. A defense had gone off at a crossroads within the tunnel system, blown a gaping hole to the outside. Kiku stepped into the opening, gazing up even as soldiers, Resisters and Organization troops alike, came and went, shooting, cursing, screaming, dying. All Kiku was concerned with, however, was to get outside. Get outside and to HQ to kill the bastard that thought he was so grand as to control the world. Kiku had swallowed that bitter pill once. But he'd be more satisfied if the Overlord instead swallowed his own teeth.

He dropped his gaze, ducked his head, made to shuttle off down one of the intact tunnels surrounding him when a blast by his ear sent him stumbling off course. He squeezed tears from his eyes as his hand went flying up to his ear. He pulled it away. More blood was smeared on it than before. His eardrum was in agony, its high-pitched scream pounding through his skull. Before he could turn around to verify the cause, a weight pushed him to the ground, face inches from the bullet that had almost halved his head. He felt cruel fingers digging into him, pulling, pushing, trying to pin him. Kiku wrenched his hand loose and it shot down to his side only to be met with nothing.

He had left his katana to melt in the burning chasm that was the bunker.

One second a cool metal barrel was pressed to the back of his head and the next the barrel and the weight were gone, leaving Kiku to dart to his feet. His eyes jumped from one shadowy form to another, watching them disappear one-by-one down the passageways. It took a moment for the Resisters to gather what was happening, that their quarry had left. They made to follow, and Kiku did as well, but it was a moment too late.

The explosion had opened the tunnels up to the dangers outside, dangers too big for those inside. And like an ant nest exposed, the dangers came raining down on them. Insecticide in the form of poison gas.

Kiku barely heard the jet roar away. He had covered his face and attempted to escape into one of the tunnels before the chemicals could reach him. But the gas was quick to fall and swirl and clog every space it could reach. Kiku couldn't identify it. All he knew was that it was red, made his eyes burn, and made every inhale more and more devoid of air. He stopped where he was and dug inside his vest. Fingers found the straps of his gas mask and he pulled it on, soon finding that it was punctured and cracked and completely useless. Mentally cursing, he threw it aside and tried to stop himself from hyperventilating. A few rapid breaths and his lungs would swell shut for good.

Fix it, fix it, Kiku thought, screwing his eyes shut and running, tripping, righting himself until he found a wall. He followed it with his hands as it arched away and deeper into the tunnels. He groped his way along and suddenly there was nothing else to grope. Seeing his chance, he raced down the passage, not quite sure if it was a passage, an opening, a hallucination, but still running. He eventually escaped the gas, though it still clung to him, giving him a coat of red grit. His muscles screamed for air as his legs pumped on, his lungs squeezing, squeezing everything out, and everything was soon not enough. He forced himself to stop and crouch, mouth opening, throat expanding, but unable to rasp in enough of oxygen. Air, air everywhere, and not a drop to breathe.

He decided that if he was going to die, he might as well have a last look at the world. He peeled his eyelids open, lashes sticky with the grit of the chemical, and saw…

Nothing.

He blinked. Again, nothing. Another blink. More nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Black. But this was a black blacker than black. This was emptiness.

I'm blind, Kiku concluded and yet his body didn't acknowledge what his mind was telling it, lifting his hands to his face to examine the remnants of the chemical.

His hands were bloody and smeared with soot. They were scarred and wrinkled and… not his. He stared, not quite knowing what to make of these stranger's hands. They had to be a stranger's, didn't they?

Pebbles crunching beneath boot soles made him redirect his gaze upward. Then he was staring at another stranger. His skin was sallow, his cheeks were gaunt, his hair was shorn and unkempt, his clothes were ragged. But his eyes. His eyes were something Kiku knew and had forgotten.

The man stopped no less than six feet away from him. His eyes became heavy, enough for them to fall away and examine the ground. Kiku longed for those eyes. He would spend the day puzzling them out—a much better activity than going over the broken pieces that were his country.

"I don't think I will ever be able to forgive you for what you did," Yao said, and his voice sounded different. It didn't sound overconfident or chiding or strict. It was fractured and halting, almost sickly. And that hurt Kiku more than even the words that came along with that voice. Yao cleared his throat, an action that soon morphed into a cough. Kiku felt one itching at his own throat, but he swallowed it. He couldn't cough. Not when Yao was standing before him, haggard and frail. He didn't deserve to cough.

"I don't think I can forgive you," Yao said and those heavy eyes lifted to Kiku's own, held up only by the dark, puffy skin beneath. They were bloodshot and wide and exceedingly wet. Yet, still, they were the same ones Kiku had known since that meeting in the woods. "But in spite of everything, I also don't think I will be able to hate you. Something in me… simply won't allow it." Yao's brow furrowed, almost in confusion. Perhaps frustration. "You can stand here and lament all you've lost for centuries if you want. But that's not what I want for you. I want you to prosper, Japan. I want everything for you, and I'm angry at myself for wanting that. I should be furious. I should want to kill you, but I don't. I can't hurt you. I don't know why, but I can't. And I hope that you will one day lose your blindness and see that by hurting me you only hurt yourself. Maybe one day you will see for the both of us just why that is."

I know. Kiku went from a crouch to his knees to lying on his stomach. His cheek pressed against the grime and cold of the floor. You knew long before me. Why else would you have come?

He lay there and rasped, the tube he was breathing through growing smaller and smaller until it wasn't even worth it to breathe. It wasn't worth having his eyes open either if he could not see, so he closed them. He imagined he was a little boy again, curling up next to Yao under the furs and feeling his warmth, not quite knowing what to think of it, not acknowledging that it would become anything significant, even though Kiku had remained awake the entire night, watching Yao until the sun came up and the man awoke. Kiku didn't know why he had done such a thing, but now he did know, just like he had known when he started putting the pieces of himself back together not so long ago.

I discovered I was missing a piece. And that piece was you.

It was curious how wetness rolled down his cheeks even after his heart stopped beating.

Translations:

zhè háizi-this child

Wǒ bù lǐjiě tā-I don't understand him

A Word From the Writer: Wow, this was kinda... unintentionally full of some pretty emotional stuff. I guess I just wanted to show that Japan isn't as emotionless as he appears. And I found that I like ending chapters with one profound sentence. Yup, that's pretty much a fancy way of saying "Japan is dead." And right after he acknowledged a bunch of shit between him and China too. So sad.

I had fun including the little flashbacks in China's POV so I decided to express their relationship by including some here. The last flashback is set in post-WWII Japan just because feels. I know it's a little late for posting (jeez almost three days over) but I've been busy and I really wanted to make everyone's chapter special. So I took the time to make Japan's chapter special... then killed him. Still don't know if anyone else is going to live yet, but here's your first taste of how badly things could go.

As for the next post... eh, I dunno. I'm definitely gonna keep posting till I finish this behemoth but I'm bogged down by so many fucking projects I swear teachers wanna kill me before I have the chance to GET OUT OF THIS FUCKING SCHOOL. *sigh* And on top of that next week my family is coming over (both sides converging. It's gonna be messy) and ten people will be staying at my house so fat chance of me posting anything till after the first week of June. Though if I find the time I may stock up on some POVs to post when I get the time. Until then, yeah, unpredictable.

Next are Germany and Canada! (will they live?).