Where Thou Art, That Is Home (Hetalia Fanfic, Part 2)

Chapter 158~!

No sooner had the light died away that Vale let out a piercing, toe-curling scream. Ivan was at her side before the noise had even died in her throat, which is when Alfred ran to her aid.

"Don't touch her!" a commanding, Oriental voice boomed, and eyes of many shades turned to see Yao who stood with a hand out toward Ivan, Vale, and Alfred. The two men backed up, but Ivan refused to go far. Meanwhile Vale writhed on the floor, tears building and streaming down her face.

"She's going to pass out in a minute, aru. Then she'll wake up," Yao explained, taking control of the noise in the room which, except for him and Vale's cries, was deathly quiet. "Touch her now and her mind short circuits."

"God..." Alfred muttered, Rayn standing at his side by then and pulling on his arm to put more distance between him and his daughter. "Why does it hurt her?"

"That's universes of information being stored into her brain right now," Yao answered grimly. "You can't disrupt it. She might never recover if you even touch her."

That was cause enough to make Ivan and Alfred back up even farther. My grip around Matthew tightened slightly, and it didn't go unnoticed. He looked down at me.

"It's o-okay, Alice," he reassured me. "I-I'm sure we can leave soon."

He was stuttering. He only stuttered those days when he was emotionally upset.

Well, Kadi did just kind of die right before our eyes.

Nations deal with death constantly. Sometimes our human friends grow old and leave while we stay as young as ever, or we see death surround us on all sides in battle. 

Yet, to watch Kadi disappear and know that we would never see her again was something completely new to us all. Nations very rarely winked out of existence, so to lose one of our own was so... so... foreign.

I looked over at France, who had a comforting arm slung over the shoulders of Spain. That's right, Kadi's land was also partially theirs. What did that entail for the Basque people? Were they just Spaniards or Frenchmen now?

No, the bonds of ancestry were stronger than that. Something would be worked out for the people's wellbeing, even if it took time and nonexistent patience.

Now, everyone was sort of milling about aimlessly; without a purpose for being there any longer, they had no idea what to do. "What do we do now, eh?" Matthew asked me.

I didn't want to respond, because I knew what was coming so very, very soon. 

"I feel like something's going to happen," I said in a low, strained voice.

It wasn't a lie. 

"How long is she going to be like this?" Alfred asked Yao as Vale's previously convulsing body lay still at last on the cold white floor. 

"I... don't know. All Kadi told me was to not let anyone touch her until the Scribe woke up, aru," Yao answered as he tightened his ponytail and let it fall in its place on one shoulder.

So, we waited. It wasn't a terribly long wait, but the time spent sitting around was tedious. No one wanted to talk very much after Kadi's death, and I personally was too wrapped up in my own thoughts to make much idle chatter.

Though, maybe it would have been a good thing to do. Talking to my friends and family... would be nice to put some good last memories of them in their heads--

'No, no, no!' I yelled at myself angrily in my head. 'Shut up! You're going to see them again, but not if you keep up that shitty attitude about this, Alice!'