I actually didn't update in like 2 months. Wow. Sorry about that, school started and I just couldn't find the motivation to update, let alone work on stuff. I'm also just more actice on a Discord tbh. Anyway, here's the chapter. Hope ya enjoy!

Also, author can't be bothered to say gun names.

WARNING: THIS CHAPTER HAS STRANGULATION, AND A WAR HAPPENS, SO JUST...YOU KNOW, PREPARE FOR THAT. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

Belgrade pulled out a set of keys and used one to unlock Legionary Romania's front door. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. "România? Tu aici? (Romania? You here?)" He called out.

The sound of something hitting the floor with a loud thud accompanied by a groan answered him. Belgrade rolled his eyes and went in the direction the thud came, finding himself in the country's kitchen. Romania was sat on the ground rubbing his head. "Hei, Belgrad. (Hey, Belgrade.)" He greeted the capital.

"Buna ziua, (Hello,)" Belgrade looked over his countryhuman. "arați obosit. (you look tired.)"

"Vă mulțumim că ați subliniat evidentul. (Thanks for pointing out the obvious.)" Romania muttered and stood up. "De ce esti aici? (Why are you here?)"

Belgrade shrugged sarcastically. "Nu știu, probabil pentru a vă reaminti să invadați Bulgaria. (I don't know, probably to remind you to invade Bulgaria.)"

Romania perked up, realization dawning on his face. "...Când a fost planificată invazia să se întâmple? (...When was the invasion planned to happen?)"

"Acum trei saptamani. (Three weeks ago.)"

The house was soon filled with a flurry of curse words shouted in Romanian. Belgrade soon left with the orders to begin that overdue invasion. Romania, on the other hand, scrambled to get dressed and sprinted down the road, still trying to put his shoes on.

This time, Romania intended to be in the fighting. No doubt Bulgaria would be fighting with her soldiers as well, so it was only logical Romania would join his. After all, it is very difficult for humans to take down a countryhuman. Not impossible, but close enough.

Romania uttered curse words under his breath as he sprinted down the road. He got some weird stares and glances from his people as he did so. Soon, the soldiers stationed along the Bulgarian border will begin to invade. No doubt that by time he got there they will have already begun fighting, but he didn't want to be too late to the battlefield.

"Bulgaria only broke free of you kinda recently," Fascist Italy's words from a couple weeks ago echoed in his head, "It shouldn't be too difficult for you to re-invade."

"Maybe so," Romania had sighed. "But still, she could possibly be getting help from a more powerful country."

"I highly doubt that yet, but I'll be willing to help if you so desire it."

~

Romania's country soon declared war on the Bulgarians. Since they had already been at war with the Allies, Bulgaria joined them, causing them to be called in. Romania knew this would happen; why wouldn't it?

Anyway, Romania eventually arrived at the battlefield. He took a quick glance around before beginning to assist in the fighting.

~

Weeks, maybe even a month pass by and the Romanian's have already broken the Bulgarian defence. "Wow, this was a lot easier than I expecte-" Romania yelled out in pain as a bullet lodged itself in his arm. He fell down and gripped the wound, watching the blood pool out. "Who the frick!-" He hissed and looked around.

Up on a hill was Bulgaria, glaring daggers into his soul. Romania returned the gesture and stood up. The Bulgarian nation quickly pointed a gun at him. Romania jumped behind a tank to avoid the gunfire. "Alright, you female dog..." Romania growled.

Once the sound of gunshots hitting the tank stopped, he peaked out and shot a gun of his own. He saw Bulgaria quickly get down, only stopping when he could no longer see her. Not willing to let her potentially get away, he climbed and hopped into the tank.

~

Romania - now out of the tank - was in hot pursuit of Bulgaria. Both of them had used up all their ammo when they first stumbled upon each other. Romania got some good shots in, but Bulgaria did, too. Both ran with a heavy limp and various back, chest, and stomach injuries from either each other or Mother Nature hating them, Romania had an aching arm and a leg that felt like it was ready to fall off, while Bulgaria struggled with similar wounds and a pounding headache from being slammed to the ground. Even so, they both managed to ignore these pains; maybe it's the adrenaline.

"You can't run forever, Bulgaria!" Romania shouted, panting.

"Y-Yeah...but neither can you!" She yelled back.

"We'll see about that..." Romania grinned to himself.

This chase of cat and mouse continued to what felt like hours but was only a few minutes. Bulgaria began to slow down, and seeing this, Romania put on a burst of speed to catch up.

Suddenly, she spun around clutching a dagger and bolted towards Romania. This caught him off guard, causing him to stumble and fall to the ground. The female nation took advantage of this and jumped on him, stabbing his shoulder.

Romania screamed in pain and managed to kick her off him, the dagger being pulled out in the process. He rolled over, clutching his shoulder and gasping in pain. From the corner of his eye, he saw Bulgaria get up and raise the dagger once more. "Say hi to Ottoman Empire for me." She hissed before bringing it down, aiming for his neck.

Romania rolled away in the nick of time and jumped onto his feet. His shoulder wound burned unapologetically, and stifling a hiss of pain he rushed to Bulgaria and slammed into her. Upon landing on the ground, the two lay there winded before coming back to their senses. Bulgaria, realizing the dagger was no longer in her hand, hopped up and swung around to face Romania, who was struggling to stand up. She glanced around, but the dagger was gone, so she decided to just finish the fight then and there. "Hey, province stealer!"

Romania turned to her and was immediately tackled back to the ground. He attempted to kick her off of him again but this time Bulgaria got on his chest. Romania tried pushing her off of him, only for her to wrap her hands around his neck and squeeze.

Panic kicked in. Romania began to try to wriggle free and clawed at Bulgaria's hands, which were locked tight around his neck. His legs flailed. Dirt and mud was kicked up and flown into the air, landing on both countryhumans.

He couldn't get free. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't shout, yell, or cry. He's getting a headache. His strength is leaving him. Tears welled up and fell from Romania's eyes. His vision was blurring.

Is this really how he'll go? Strangled to death by his enemy. No doubt that her nation already surrendered, yet here they were, fighting to kill each other - well, with how it's looking she's gonna kill him.

Romania's right hand fell to the ground. His fingers touched something hard.

He moved fast and without thinking (not that he could very well). Grabbing whatever it was in a firm hold, he brought it up and hit Bulgaria with it. He heard her yell out and felt her fall off of him.

He rolled to his side and proceeded to cough and gasp for air. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he did so. Being able to breathe never felt so good. Romania gently wrapped his fingers around his neck. He held them there, taking deep breaths.

Once the ringing in his nonexistent ears stopped, he turned to see what happened with Bulgaria since she hadn't attacked him in this heavily vulnerable state. His eyes widened when he saw that the dagger - that was thought to have been flung away - was what he had grabbed and hit her with. Actually, not hit. Stabbed.

The blade of the dagger was lodged in her neck, just above the collarbone. She was holding the handle; not trying to pull it out, just holding it. She cast Romania a glare of pure hatred (with some flicks of pain in there, too) before falling to the ground.

Romania stared at her. He waited for her to move, the slightest twitch of a finger, but he saw none. "Um...Bulgaria-?" He flinched at the hoarseness of his voice. He cleared his throat, swallowed some spit, and tried again. "Bulgaria, you okay?"

No response. No movement, either. "Bulgaria?" He asked again, and again he heard and saw nothing.

"If she's still alive, and survives that, that'll be a miracle."

~~

"You look a mess." Third Reich commented as soon as Romania stepped into the room.

"Thanks for pointing it out, genius." Romania rolled his eyes.

"Are you okay, Romania? You look like you're still recovering." Italy stood up and made his way over to the other Latin nation.

Romania sighed. "Uh, yeah, I'm still recovering. But I'm well enough to kinda get back into the swing of things."

"What happened to Bulgaria?" Reich asked.

"She's still healing." Romania gulped as his mind went back to his almost-death. He shook his head.

"Here, sit down." Italy pulled out a chair and guided the shorter country to have a seat.

Reich got up and walked around the table and sat beside his exhausted friend. "Can't believe we almost lost you there." He murmered, half to himself and half to the other two.

"Aw, does the war-loving German care about little ole me?" Romania smiled.

Reich responded by softly elbowing the Romanian's arm, a soft smile on his face. Romania chuckled.

"Romania." Romania turned to Italy, "You...You should've been more careful out there. Especially when you came into close contact with her."

"Hey, it's not my fault." Romania half-whined half-sighed. "You said it'll be easy to handle her!"

Italy couldn't take his eyes off the countless bandages on his friend. "I said her country should be easy to handle, not her herself."

Romania groaned and slumped over the table. Reich set a hand on his back and cast a glance at Italy. "Well, regardless of how reckless you were," a generous Romanian glare was given to Reich, "we're glad you're okay. Or, you'll be okay. One of the two." The German shrugged.

"It may not seem like it but we care for you quite a bit." Italy murmered to himself, but the others heard it. They decided not to comment on it.

Romania softly hummed. "How does this sound, in any future battles I'll be more careful, and this time actually have something on me to defend or fight with when in close quarters combat; sound good?"

"Yes," Italy nodded softly, "that sounds good." Reich hummed in agreement and did a thumbs up.

"Alright, now that that's settled." Reich gently pulled Romania to his feet and took him out the room. Italy followed behind, the clicking of his boots being reminder he's still there. Romania was very confused as to where his friends were taking him, but decided to ask questions once they were there; and if they didn't already answer them.

It was a minute or two of a walk, but they eventually entered a room with a bed in the corner and a few chairs and tables on the other side, two chairs having being moved from their original tables to be beside the bed. Some nails were nailed into the wall, but they weren't holding anything up, apart from some remnants of torn fabric, meaning something had been torn down a bit ago.

"What is this?" Romania asked.

"Work room I shoved a bed in." Reich smirked and slightly pushed the smaller country to the bed. "My parents used to come here to work on documents and such. My siblings and I started coming here to do the same thing as practice before we took over our parents' nations. Then World War One happened and this place was kinda abandoned. As you can see, I've started using it again. It still could use some patching up, though, especially the walls."

Romania stood in front of the bed before looking at Italy and Reich. "You know I can go home and rest, right? You didn't have to do all this."

"Oh, this was nothing." Italy chuckled. "Please, rest here. Reich and I want to keep you company."

"But you can keep me company in my country."

"Here is easier for us. I for one won't have to travel all the way through Germany and Slovakia just to get here since Yugoslavia doesn't allow me to travel through her country; Greece and Turkey, too."

"...My sister will be worried-"

"We'll let Besserabia know we've abducted you." Reich interrupted.

Romania tried to come up with more questions but found his mind blank. "Are we done..?" Reich tilted his head. Romania sighed and got into the bed, complaining slightly when Italy tucked him in, muttering that he wasn't a child.

Reich and Italy sat down on the chairs next to the bed and chatted softly to each other and Romania. Not much time passed before drowsiness began to envelope the nation in the bed. He closed his eyes and listened to his friend's conversation, though what it exactly was about was lost to him. Something about resources and materials.

Italy began to softly stroke Romania's side. That, combined with the gentle murmering lulled Romania into a peaceful sleep - one he hasn't had in weeks.

Again, sorry for not updating for so long. I, like many authors on this app, ha started school again, so that's contributed a fair bit. It's also just me not knowing how to write stuff (I have a list in order of events that happened in the game, what I'm doing is trying to make it a story which is fairly difficult at times. For example, in the screenshot I used to make this chapter I didn't mention anything about my Chinese volunteers being sent back since it wouldn't fit the chapter I was writing. Oh well, just pretend I did or think that they're still helping over in China for some reason).

Of course, that "SLOW UPDATES" is in the title for a reason. Hopefully the next chapter won't take so long to come out but we'll see.