Operation Red Herring (Countryhumans Alternate History)

Chapter 22

Dear Japan,

How's everyone been? Anything interesting happening since I've been gone? Besides the usual fun y'all have in wars. Not that war is fun, of course! I mean-

Ugh, no. America crumpled up the letter, trying again.

Dear J. Empire,

Ni hao!

Wait, no. That was Chinese. Japan would kill her if she sent that.

What was the word for hello in Japanese that Japan had taught her? Ugh, she couldn't recall it. She crushed the letter, starting again.

Dear Japanese Empire,

I have a funny story: So, you know how I was supposed to capture London? Well guess what? I did that! Yay!

I also kind of kept going and-

"No." America muttered, cursing and scribbling out her writing. This was her fifth attempt at trying to write to Japan, trying to explain what exactly was happening (or why she had been gone for two weeks, even after London was captured). She had a phone at her disposal, but she was trying to actually think through what she said for once, something she thought would be easier if she wrote a letter instead. However, it seemed as if she was getting nowhere, given the growing pile of wasted paper next to her. She groaned, allowing herself to slump down in her seat. America looked out the window of the jeep, sighing. There really was no point in writing this anymore- she was on her way back to Germany already. Still, if she wrote the letter, she could blame her lack of correspondence on it getting lost in the mail, instead of having to admit that she had not bothered to contact any of her allies for over two weeks.

It's not like she hadn't tried! She was really busy... invading the rest of England.

That was a whole other issue: how was she supposed to explain that she had gone ahead with unapproved attacks and occupation? It wasn't really something one did by accident, and America knew for a fact that her actions were not accidents in the slightest.

She supposed it started with Britain, specifically him running off after daring to compare the two of them. The nerve of him to even suggest that they were on the same level was appalling in her mind. He had spent years being an abusive piece of sh*t not just to her, and had dragged her into not one, but two wars! But somehow she was just as bad as him for finally striking back? For no longer allowing him to get away with it? Not only that, but he had the nerve to imply that she was playing the victim in this situation? That she had made him out to be worse than he was? The notion was laughable. Or enraging. Both, if she was being completely honest. She remembered chasing him through the burning remains of London, screaming at him until her throat was scraped raw as reality and memories blurred together. Flames merged with battlefields and dark colonial hallways, the only constant being the man she felt the urge to maim.

Britain.

He was the one constant in every lowpoint in her life, and although she knew deep down that he was not responsible for every single one, she found herself angry at him for it all nonetheless.

So, after she had beaten the snot out of him, and he had scurried off like a cockroach, she had made it her mission to find him, to make him pay for daring to pretend that she was in the wrong. She was serious about finding him, and had fully intended to do so. This led America to lead the troops she had brought with her on a crusade across the English countryside, capturing any town or city they came across. Still, he evaded her. She had wanted to keep going, wanted to keep burning and conquering until she finally hunted him down, finally made him suffer a fraction of the pain she felt inside.