---CHAPTER IV: Gunshots (Part 3)---

~Reader-chan's PoV~

I turned around to see who called me.

No one.

This feels oddly familiar...

I tried to think of what happening was similar to this, but I simply can't remember.

I then shake my head. "It must be just my imagination.. I mean all the battles and stuff.. Maybe... Yeah.. That's it."

I took a deep breath before opening the door to where Italy and Germany were.

I only saw Italy, but I knew Germany was probably inside the iron closet place er, whatever.

"Italy, Japan told me to tell you that there's going to be an emergency meeting." I said.

Italy perked up. "What? So everyone is here! Let's go back to the fireplace room, then!"

"Yeah... They said that some are missing, though. But we'll talk about it later." I told him.

I then turn to the closet door. "Uhm..? Germany? We need to go now, if you don't mind.."

"Understood." He replies from the other side.

Germany went out of the closet.

The burly man scratches the back of his hand. "Sorry for making you wait."

"Ve~ Are you okay now? Do you want to go in there again?
" Italy asks his friend.

Germany shook his head. "No, it's okay. And I probably won't come back here. Or rather, I hope I won't."

I smiled and spoke, "Really? That's good to hear. Now, let's hurry up. Japan told me that we can't take our time here and we need to talk to them as soon as possible."

"You haven't found my brother, have you...?" Germany asks me.

I shook my head. "N-No... but I... Actually, I have an explanation for that.."

Germany raises an eyebrow. "What?"

"I'll save that story for when we're all together." I tell him.

"I-It'll be okay!! Cheer up, Germany!" Italy says comfortingly.

I nodded. "Come on, they're waiting for us."

-----------------

==Fireplace room==

I opened the door to the fireplace room slowly and spoke, "We're back..."

"Ja. Sorry we took a while." Germany apologises.

Russia suddenly points to me. "Not to be rude, but...who's the girl and what's she doing here?"

Canada nods. "I've been wondering that, too."

They all turned to me and...well, of course..

I gave them an awkward wave.

"Oh..that's right. She's in the same situation as us." Japan said as he sat down.

I decided that I should introduce myself this time. "H-Hello.. My name is _____ _____, You can just call me (first name)."

Canada smiles. "Hello, _____. I'm Canada."

I fangirled inside.

"Nice to meet you." I told him. (>///<)/

Russia then spoke, "I'm Russia. Oh and...before anything else...Why did you go here of all places?"

Italy then gives me weird..or should I say suspicious smile. "Ve~ That's right...we forgot to ask you that question, too, bella."

As much as possible, I don't want to lie to them. I can't tell them that I don't really belong here. Well, I think..I don't.. I don't know... Ugh... I'll...just tell them what they're asking for...

After a short moment, I spoke up.

"A-Actually... I was on my way to my Aunt's house together with my parents. I fell asleep in the car and..when I woke up, I couldn't find my parents.. I saw this place and assumed that this was where they were...but I was wrong.. I tried to go back outside...but the door won't open anymore... "

"I see... so that's why I saw you at the front door.." Japan says.

I nod. "Yes.. but come to think of it...I never really confirmed whether my parents are here or not... I...don't think they are.... I hope..." I said, my voice getting softer and softer.

China then goes over and pats my shoulder to comfort me. "Poor thing, aru."

You may be being nice to me China, but I'm still bitter about you cutting me off earlier.

"A-Anyways... enough about me...err, uhm... I think you guys were supposed to have a meeting, right?" I asked.

"You're part of this meeting, too." Germany told me.

"O-Oh.. Thanks.." I smiled. At first I wasn't that comfortable because I was feeling out of place.. now, it's sort of nice to sorta belong..

Japan then stood up. "Alright.. Now, without further ado, I'll explain our situation.

First, as you know, I received a message from China saying that you had arrived here, and Italy thought it would be interesting and wanted to come as well.

So Germany, Italy, Prussia and I came here. First, I went to take a look around, but in the meantime, that monster you saw before appeared and attacked them."

"W-were you all right after that?" England asked.

Italy nodded. "Yeah, somehow. For better or worse, it seemed to be targeting me, and I'm good at running away, so I got to escape."

"You got away?! That's amazing..." China said.

I then decided to sit on the chair on the far right, near the not-yet-fully-forgiven China and the oh-so-gentleman England.

I was listening to the meeting...but out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Italy went by the fireplace.

"While I was in search of the others, I happened to bump into _____-chan. Then, both of us went to look for Prussia, and Italy.

Eventually, while we didn't know the true nature of that thing, we all got together again and spent the night in this room, with a sense of security because we had the key to it." Japan told them.

Russia raises an eyebrow. "The night..."

Canada spoke up softly. "Th-that really is odd... I mean, we?Oh, I'm sorry. Please, go on."

"We've run out of firewood. Can I burn this wooden box?" Italy asked.

Germany nods. "Yes, let's burn anything that can be used as fuel."

Japan then continues. "We decided that one of us should keep watch and Prussia kindly took up this duty, but maybe because of our sense of security, the four of us fell into a deep sleep..."

I decided that it was my turn to speak up, so I raised my hand. "U-Uh, well... not all of us."

Germany looked at me. "That's right. _____, you said something about what happened last night...

They all turned to me to listen.

I grew kinda nervous, but continued. "Well, it's kind of hard to explain...but I woke up last night. I heard Prussia shouting and so I decided to see what's going on...but the problem was... I wasn't able to move."

"What do you mean by that?" England asked.

"I don't know why, but I was paralysed. I wasn't able to get up from the bed, nor could I even talk. I could hear, though. I heard Prussia saying "No! I won't die yet!" and he stormed out of the room." I told them.

"He...He attacked the Thing on his own..?" Germany asked a glint of fear in his eyes.

I shook my head. "I'm still unsure of that...but after he went outside, I regained feeling back to my body and so I went to open the door. At first, it wouldn't open...but when I was able to... Prussia was nowhere to be found... and then... I don't know how it was possible...but I met England and China, who were outside and were standing in the hallway."

England and China nodded.

"I see... so that's why I heard her saying Prussia's name..." England said.

China snapped his fingers. "Oh...then she went back inside the room and tried to call for Japan, Germany and Italy..."

I nodded. "....But they weren't there anymore. I was so confused... so I decided to join China and England."

Germany then looked confused. "Wait...it doesn't make sense...and at the same time...it does make sense... Huh..."

"So..that's the reason why... Prussia and ______ were gone when we woke up...." Japan said.

I nodded. "Yeah..."

"You know, there were bloodstains in the hallway, so I followed the trail, but... eventually..." Japan told us.

"The trail ended..." Russia concluded.

"We tried looking for them, but we didn't want to lose anybody else, so Germany and I stood by. And then, Japan found you guys, right?" Italy asked.

Japan nodded. "Yes. And that's what happened to us. But...I thought for sure that America and France would be here, too?"

"Yeah, the six of us came here on America's suggestion and split up into two groups.

America, Russia and Canada looked around the first floor, while China, France and I went to check out the second floor. While France went inside a room somewhere, _____ here suddenly appeared." England explained.

"______ then went back to this room and we followed, but then she suddenly fainted." China said.

Canada looked at me with concerned eyes. "Wh-What? Are you okay now?"

"It's been happening recently...but I'm fine now, don't worry." I replied.

England then spoke, "So China and I brought _____ to this room and looked after her until she regained consciousness. When she woke up, she explained why she was here and then told us she was looking for Prussia. We didn't want to leave the lady alone, so of course we brought her along with us."

China nodded. "That's right, aru. So all three of us went to check out the upper floors. When we were in the middle of inspecting a room, we heard gunshots. We assumed it was America's so we decided to go back down to meet up with France and check out the situation.

When we finished looking and came down to the second floor, France didn't return. _____ wanted to check out the fireplace room again..in hopes that you guys might be back there, so I went inside the room with her. No one was in the room, but I found Japan's burnt clothes in the fireplace, and I wondered what had happened."

"We came back to the first floor and found Russia and Canada fighting that Thing. That bastard disappeared the first chance he got." England said.

Japan looked up. "Really? Um, I vaguely noticed it when I was fighting it, but that strange creature..."

"It resembles a friend of America's, doesn't it?" Germany stated.

China stood up. "That's right! I noticed it the moment I saw it! That's definitely it! Um... its name was..."

Germany was trying to remember, as well. "To... Tommy? Wasn't it?"

England agreed. "Yeah, that was definitely its name. They look identical. Don't you think this was America's doing?

He's the one who heard the rumour about this place and asked us to come here,after all..."

"I see!! So this is just a prank of America's that got too far! Well, in that case, there's nothing else to say! Let's just look for America!" Italy said in a relieved tone.

Then I noticed Canada suddenly looked like he wanted to say something. When our eyes met, I smiled at him and motioned him to say something if he had something to say. He smiled back and took a deep breath.

"...You're mistaken." He said in a voice a bit louder than usual.

England looked confused. "Huh?"

Everyone else then their attention to Canada.

I was also about to listen to him, when I felt my vision start to blur.