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

Chapter 160~!

I stepped into total blackness, and as soon as the door clicked shut behind me I felt a nearly irresistible urge to throw my weight against it and break out. Well, that's what my mind was telling me to do. My body was too weak, too fragile, to even take another step into the unknown void.

I closed my eyes, then opened them. Not a difference. 

My sword felt like solid lead in my hands. Was this the room, sapping my magic and, therefore, my strength as well? That was so... counterproductive. I wasn't going to win if that was true.

'It's all in your head, Alice. Stand up straight!' I ordered myself, and to my surprise I actually managed to reposition my grip on my sword and stop the shaking in my limbs.

The inky, soupy blackness I stood in disappeared all of a sudden. It was replaced with white that made my vulnerable eyes ache, and I had to close my eyes for a moment.

"So, you've finally arrived."

I didn't jump at the unexpected voice, but turned slowly toward where it had come from and opened my eyes. The light didn't hurt as much anymore. To my surprise, there was a solid black chair and an all-back figure perched on it.

No, that wasn't a comment concerning race. I mean this person was more like a silhouette than an actual being. It like... like... this person was formed out of pure shadow, or thick, black oil. I could define fingers and joints, but it was hard because this entity was just a mass of darkness.

Of Darkness. This was my opponent?

i gripped my sword a little tighter. "Yeah, I'm here."

A throaty chuckle emanated from the person, if it was even that. "My, my. I love hearing how speech patternts evolve over time. It's been some two hundred years since I was given the privilege to fight the Light champion."

 "So I've been told," I replied easily. "And I gotta say, you're not what I was expecting."

"What were you expecting?" the Darkness inquired curiously. "Some sort of scary monster?"

"I dunno, maybe?" I answered with a nonchalant shrug. "I wasn't sure what to think, other than how I didn't want to die."

This was probably just wishful thinking, but maybe if the Darkness was like this then maybe I wouldn't have much to worry about? 

No, no, that wasn't going to happen. I could tell, he was only wasting time at the moment. Or maybe I was the one stalling.

That comment made the Darkness chuckle darkly (Was that a pun I just made?). "Well, my track record would suggest that to be the outcome of this encounter, wouldn't it?"

"I guess so," I said, gripping my lethal sword a little tighter. "But i'm not going to lie down and die, I hope you realize."

"No, I realize it," the Darkness said as it rose and the chair disappeared like it was absorbed into its inky black body. "No matter how many of you I fight, your resolve follows the same pattern every single time. You won't surprise me, Vindicator. Or should I call you Little River?"

My eyebrows rose at that name. I hadn't heard anyone call me that in centuries! "How did you know that name?" I asked defensively.

"Oh, Alice. I've been with you for your entire life," the Darkness said in a creepy, mockingly soothing voice. "It's what I do. I alter outcomes to shape the world's events. Take your wedding ring, for example. You didn't think it slipped off your finger all by itself in that basement of that other world, did you?" An ominous laughter escaped its mouth, which it covered with one hand.