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Everybody froze in silence, staring at the door- and by it, to Prussia's laying figure.
The deadly arrow split into tiny stars, which separated from the Prussian's skull and levitated in the air- before like shiny soap bubble they popped and vanished to nothing. However, Prussia remained laying motionless...
He did not heal, he did not move.
The oh so powerful country- had died in the spot as soon as his head had been pierced through hy the arrow, which was not an enchanted weapon - although, it seemed nearly as powerful as one...
The Russian Empire's face lost its colours in dread, his eyes hold true fear. When muffled but erieely frigid steps could be heared approaching, he took a shaky step back and reached for his enchanted pistol on his belt. In his feverish trepidation he tried to put away the glass rose too, while slowly neared the other side of the throne room and the escape door. But due to his panicked acts and sensing his rushing intentions and mostly his uncontrol- the glass rose shone up darker and its spikes sharpened and grown in size
"AAAh S-shit--!!" yelped the sweating Empire painfully when the rose stung deep into his palm and flesh.
Everybody paled as they watched the rose falling out of the Russian's bleeding hand and neared the marble floor.
Austria, Slovenia and Croatia simultanously shouted the desparate 'Noooo'-s, knowing what had happened last time with them...
The Russian reached out in horror, trying to catch it with all his power, but the rose fell to the ground just before he could have caught it, and with a soft dim light- it shattered to pieces.
He stared at the broken pieces terrified, then up at the now - rampagous portal.
AH yelped when he was pulled out of his chair by the force of the portal- which portal just grew and strengthened, pulling towards itself everybody in the room.
"NOO DAAAD!!" cried Austria who was still chained to the chair. Nevertheless, it did not stopped the portal from dragging him towards it even with the chair.
The Russian grabbed the nearest column to hold himself and stared at the widening portal and then at the door, where the steps and terrifying aura of something approaching - loomed over the room and send shiver up his spine.
He had other stuffs with him, which he could have used to close portals in emergency, but he had no time for it... Whoever had shot that arrow- had killed one of the strongest living countries in their world...
"Fuck it...." he cursed under his breath, seeing the Monarchy sliding towards the portal.
It was a game over for his plan...
"Moscow!!" he shouted ready to escape, but the city was at the other side of the table, gripping its edge, before slipping and being dragged to the portal.
The capital tried to grab into anything, but it was no use- the portal pulled and pulled him- before his figure got covered by dark mist and disappeared in the dark void...
The Russian gathered up his remaining power and summoned his wings- attempting to fly to the escape door. He hold into the colums as he neared it,fighting against the so tremendous power of the Portal. Hardly being able to open the door- he left the room and everybody while he could, not glacing back for once...
AH desparately hold into the column, but he was so weak... His hand slipped and he slid on the floor towards the black void.
"Nooooo!" shouted Austria while he himself was near to slip into the portal too with his chair and chains, however- he was grabbed from behind.
"Gotcha!!" grinned Croatia while Slovenia pulled out his penknife, with which they had probably got rid of their chains too.
With a klick sound Slovenia got off him the chains and they bent to the ornate columns then, so they were somewhat shielded from the pull of the portal, though, its power was still radiating on them too.
As the power of the portal increased- their human faces changed, the colour of their flags appeared on their faces again and they looked no more like an avarage human.
"We have to help!" exclaimed Austria as he saw Austria-Hungary weakly holding into the last column, meters away from the portal.
But they could not move or else- they would have fallen into the portal too, and then probably never come back here and not being able to help AH either....
The Monarchy gritted his teeth, his flags wavered and he felt himself tortured from the portal's magic.
'If you dare to cross the portal again- you will collapse and die...' he heard Russian's low voice in his head.
The panic hit him even more and his grip loosened on the column... He could only hold it with now with one hand. He tried to move his wings but just couldn't- the portal was too strong and he was too weak...
He looked up at Austria, who from the upper side of the room, from partly safe place stared at him with teary eyes and despairingly. He was hold there by Slovenia, or he would have jumped away from the shield of the column.
AH's eyes filled with tears. What the poor country had to wittness, because of him...
He wanted the best for him and for Hungary... He wanted to become a good father, who could have taught them for love and care. He wanted to at least try...
But he could never justify the cruel acts of his - but truly just Habsburg's wicked past and show that maybe just maybe... he is not like him...
But what did he want to prove really? That he is just as a unique personae like everybody..?
Though anyway- it was now too late for anything...
Within him now- will die Habsburg and Kingdom too, and he will finally be able to pay the price for their dark past...
He showed Austria a reassuring smile, and shook his head seeing Austria's aatempt to get away from the safety column.
At least he would know- even if he himself had no more hope to survive- that Austria will be okay and safe. He had been a terrible parent, the worst that the world had ever witnessed, but as his last good intention now- he could save Austria by not letting him any closer...
He lowered his gaze as he frowned from the pain and the pull. The portal just widened and the dark mist had started to engulf him too- his legs and wings-- his vision...
The black void allured his gaze and he had to stare into the black void- which darkness just as neared him - the black mist cleared to him and showed lights, showed distant cities and humans from above, showed the rushing cars and roads, and showed the peaceful sceneries too....
Deep into the portal peeking, he stared in wonderment and passing feeling. No matter how he tried couldn't move his gaze from the portal and from flashing sceneries in it. His eyes turned intensively glowing gold but not from his own will but from the vision he should have never seen, from the portal he should have never neared...
Like rivers- his golden tears were falling, covering his whole cheeks till his chin like a sparkling and golden mirror like stream. His eyes sparkles fiery in golden and so did his never stopping tears.
The view of the portal gradually faded- or he had thought so, but he screamed from the pain in his head and eyes but couldn't tore his gaze away from the vision...
And after a swiftly passing second-
he couldn't see now anything...
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"Fuck this, fuck this...." chanted the Russian Empire, checking the twentieth window if it was open, but all of them were locked and netted with steel. He could not fly out of the castle but had to escape on the hallways...
His hands trembled so much, but he hurriedly picked out his phone.
With his shaking finger he somehow manage to click on a name in his contact list, to call the only and last alive person he cared so much about in his live.
"Pick up, pick up that fucking phone up, Petersburg..." he repeated but nobody answered the phone...
He quietly growled and threw his phone away. He will escape from here and will find him...
He stared out the garden and night through the window lattice, and with omnious dread watched as a great group of ravens sat on every bare trees in silent stillness.
He shivered and stepped away from the window.
Shaking in his inside- he ran to the door and carefully opened it. When saw that the hallway was empty - he stepped out and as silently as he could he searched the way out.
His breathes were rugged and his vision wavered from panic.
He quietly got away on three hallways and could see now where the hallways were leading and became familiar. His confidence arose, and he smirked triumphatly.
He was ready to change his steps to a run, before he heared a click sound from behind. From the sound- goosebumps rose on his arms and back, his legs froze in motion.
"Where do you think you goin'? " snickered a slightly doubled boy voice.
The Russian's heart beated in his ears as he slowly turned back, caotiously with every motion of his.
His face morfed to horrified, seeing who was the one who stood before, and how he looked like...
He had glowing gold eyes, sharp tooths and an abnormally huge smile, a smile that sent chills down his spine.
"Wonder how am I alive, Russian?" Hungary asked with a dark grin, and morfed voice, which seemed as if he was speaking in a deep cave.
He had the enchanted glimmering rifle in his hand, but not in a shooting position, but holding it leasurely as if it was just a stick.
He tossed away the rifle to the Russian's leg, letting it slide to his frozen figure on the marble floor.
The Russian stared at the rifle confused, not recognising it right then...
"Maybe this is more familiar to you?" chirped Hungary and hold out a necklace like thing- on its end a little bird pin tied on.
The Russian Empire paled, his eyes dilated as he stared at the slightly bloodied but well know, and so dear golden bird pin.
"You..." he growled. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?!" he roared his eyes turning glowing white in a split second, and ice daggers shot out of his plams towards Hungary.
But the Hungarian just snickered and his body and the whole area surrounding the Russian turned into a huge fog. The Russian shot everywhere his ice dagger but could see nothing in the so dense fog, just hearing Hungary's quiet and echoing laughs.
"Come here you little shit!!" he shouted in fury. "What did you do to my city ?!"
"Ohh, well... " he heared Hungary's echoing voice from every direction, but could see him nowhere. "How should I say? He died before my eyes." he said lowly.
"No-nonono, YOU LYING!!" exclaimed the Russian and spun around 360˚, his palms shining up white and sending ice in every direction, but they have never reached anything... He ran here and there, but seemed- as if he was no more in the hallway but in a misty void...
"Hah, well you can assume, but why don't you see it yourself then how I remember in my memories - and decide what is the covered reality - and what is just a lie..." chuckeled Hungary's voice, and the grey mist formed, and slowly drew out a half laying figure on the ground.
The Russian was ready to fire ice on the figure, but the vision cleared, and he froze in his step, staring at Saint Petersburg...
His shoulder was shot and wounded and his mouth was bleeding. His legs were also broken, one is more than the other. He seemingly stared at Russian terrified, his eyes reflecting his fear of death.
The Russian ran to him in a moment's notice- and bent down to Petersburg to help him, but his hands got through his body- as if he was just a ghost...
Petersburg stared before himself and at something in the mist ahead, slowly crawling backwards in fear.
"Haha, I remember his face so well-" whispered Hungary's voice in great entertainment. "That instense fear in his eyes- and that deep- deep sadness and loneliness... "
The Russian breaths quickened, and he desparately tried to touch the vision of the city but just couldn't.
"He thought...-" whispered Hungary's voice now in the Russian ears who spun back but found nobody just the endless fog and ether. "-that you have never loved him truly..." his echoing voice continued.
"T-that's not true...!" stuttered the Russian. "He knows I do!! I always did..." he whispered the last shakily. "It is not true what you said...." he chanted distantly.
"Oh is it a lie you think then?" snickered Hungary. "You had truly let him down, Russian... You gave up on him when he needed you the most." he whispered. "He was like a colourful songbird you cruelly locked away in a narrow, small cage and put up on the shelf to be covered by the dust of the oblivion of time, abadoned like an object... until his last chirp and heartbroken song dies out..."
To Petersburg's laying figure a person stepped out from the mist. The person's face couldn't be seen clearly, just his glowing golden eyes and his sinister demonic grin. The person lifted the weapon towards Petersburg.
The Russian instictually stepped before the dying city, but it was no use- the person shot the bullet, it killed the city's vision and both of them vanished to mist.
The Russian stared at Petersburg's former place and collapsed on his knees.
He heared clapping steps behind him, but he had no power to look back.
"He was heartbroken and lonely, Russian. He gave his heart to you, and you betrayed him." he whispered in his ears. "You handled him like your every other cities... mercilessly and passively, ohh coldhearted Prince..."
The Russian's lips trembled and he stared into the void, into the nothing.
The vision of Hungary walked before the Russian Empire and looked at him with a huge smile.
"He couldn't bear it anymore- thinking you loved the Monarchy but not him, knowing he could never have a chance in anything against Austria-Hungary. He loathed the Monarchy so much, but never said a word about it just to let you be happy... He begged me to fire with the gun and kill him, Russian, he begged me to give him finally peace." he grinned.
The Russian's eyes shone up white and he reached out to grab with his glowing hands the boy neck, but it vanished away like smoke, just the laughs, those demonic laughs remained...
"But I... I did everything for him..." he whispered with a broken look, and lowered his gaze.
"Hmm, you think so?" asked back mockingly the nothingness, and the mist seemed to swirl like smoke and shone up.
"Why don't you tell him about it then?" He asked darkly before his voice vanished into the ether.
Behind the Russian tinkled footfalls could be heared on the surface of the misty void.
"Russian..." whispered a soft voice.
Slowly to the voice turning, his heart in fever was burning - soon, he saw Petersburg standing more stately and beautifully than ever before...
He had his colourful dress on, his hair was long and curly and tied up leisurely, majestic and colourful earrings hanged down to his shoulders. His eyes were greener than ever and his beautiful white eyelashes looked as if fresh snow had fallen on them. On his ring-finger was shining a marvellous ring, the ring the Russian had wanted to give him...
"You have got bored of me... You have chained your heart to the Monarchy.... and forgotten me..." said Petersburg's vision, tilting his head to the side slightly.
The Russian jumped up and his eyes glowed no more but returned to normal finally, his palms did not shone from the sparkling white ice. He let his guard off completely, dropping every defense....
"No!! How can you say something like this?" he exclaimed and touched the city's vision- which this time he could feel and hold. He locked the city in an embrace softly. "I have never fogotten you, Petersburg! I just needed time t-to... I needed the Monarchy's money and power..." he breathed out. "I did everything just for you... so that we can be together... I could have given you everything you desire then, we would have been the wealthiest in this world..." he whispered and burried his head in the city's neck, taking in his alluring orhid parfume scent and enjoying his so warm aura.
"And do you think, Russian-" whispered the city as he hold the Russian close, his right hand on his back while with his left hand he reassuringly caressed the Russian's hair. "-that what I desired all my life- was money and power? Do you think, I desired the blood that paints your heart and conscience- so crimson red and dark...?" asked the city calmly.
The Russian gone silent, and just hold the city in unbroken silence.
Hungary quietly watched as the Russian stood before him surrounded by sparkling stars and completely zoned out, his eyes no more glowing, but teary, and his hands are no more a threat to shot ice daggers towards him- but limp by his sides. Russian spoke into the air and motioned with his hands as if he was crazed and mad, seeing things that had been never there...
He had broken him...
Hungary put down from his back the bow and hold before himself. In his right hand- from stars and stardust- a sparkling arrow formed. He aimed with the arrow, though he did not fired instantly.
Something got in his vision- in a dark area, in the shadow of the flowerpot on the hallways- as if something would have moved. His grin widened and he formed another arrow on his hand.
He knew everything and felt every dirty memory of every resident of the castle that the walls hold - he knew every wicked act that happened here... So did he know, what those shadows were, or more precisely - who they had been...
He peeked at the painfully and too brightly shining white lamp above the Russian.
He glanced at the swirling shadows with a smile, before put both of the arrows on the bow.
With deadly precision- he fired at the enchanted lamp, making the area around the Russian and him dark, and miliseconds after - shooting at the Empire with the other bow.
The Russian stumbled and fell backwards- the arrow piercing through his chest and heart...
The shadows in the hallways seemed to darken and giving out vicious blue sparks before charging at the dying Russian Empire in the darkness. The shadows surrounded his laying figure before they slowly melt and lingered into his body.
Hungary lifted his hand, and the arrow splitted into a cloud of stars, disappeared from the Russian's body and returned into his palm.
The Russian's limbs twitched and in the tantalizing pain he ripped off his uniform from his burning chest. His hands and legs- moved and snapped in anomalous motions, though- his screams slowly silenced.
His irises changed, and gradually glowed up in a beautiful iceblue colour.
On his bare chest burning, smouldering lines formed as if somebody was craving on his skin with a blanzing ironbar - drawing out a motif of an eagle with a crown. Drawing a blazon...
The Russian Empire slowly stopped shaking, and after a while- his breaths got steady and with eery calmness, he quietly got up.
He stared at Hungary with his glowing iceblue eyes, shadows forming around his fist.
Hungary just grinned and nodded as a kind of greeting, then spun back and hurriedly led him back to the throne room, shooting out every enchanted white lamp in the way....
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The book has two more chapters left,but in the end, if you loved and interested in any of the characters and the AU, I gladly write additional chapters about them.
(f.e.: backstories or following events, or literally anything )
But if not- thats okay too then it is shortly a goodbye :3
Analgetik13 Thank you for the art! It is really special and I love the detail of that scarf and matching hat😉💖❤️✨️