Hetalia – The Cold of War

Sequel to Hetalia - Of Magic and Might. SteamPunk AU.

Winter has come, and it has brought war with it. Arthur Kirkland has joined the fight against the Empire and travels up North to the cold allied Nordic Kingdom with the Resistance led by Ludwig Beilschmidt. The North holds many secrets for our heroes as the Capital begins rallying its own military assault. As old and new faces appear and as strange new powers awake, Arthur becomes unsure of who he can truly trust. When the world is in chaos, all bets are off.

Hello and welcome to Hetalia - The Cold of War. This is the sequel to Hetalia - Of Magic and Might, so if you haven't read that then go and check it out. Of course you don't have to, but you'll probably be extremely confused. But that's okay. It's okay to be confused sometimes.

And now, I proudly give you the second part of this epic tale.

Enjoy!

The Capital, The Winter Palace, Roderick Edelstein's Office

"The snow is beautiful is it not? My brother will be so pleased, it always reminded him of her" Natasha commented as she stood beside the wall length window and looked upon the sleeping city below. The glowing lights of the buildings looking like fireflies against the inky darkness of the night.

"He won't be pleased when he hears that we have no process to report on" Roderick grumbly remarked as he shuffled through the suspect files Natasha had brought into his now messy office. He hated this. Meaningless work that offered no chance of success. He and Natasha, along with their regular work load, had been struggling to complete their task that their glorious leader had set them for the past number of weeks. It was strenuous with no leads apart from the long list of suspects. In Roderick's opinion even the list was a long stretch, being made up of citizens who moved into the Capital in the last seven years. He wanted to be with Elizabeth, to wrap his arms around her soft body.

"You are such a sour puss Roderick. I would of thought your new bird had sweetened that bitter tongue of yours" Natasha teased as she traced the outline of a star constellation onto the condensation gathered on window from her warm breath.

"Do not call Elizabeth that. She deserves more then your undercutting mockery, Natasha" Roderick snapped in retaliation, his hands searching for the next set of files of look through. For the fourth time that night. Natasha laughed at Roderick's ploy, acting the knight in shining armour.

"So high strung. Well you certainly seem attached to her so I assume that she knows what your job and all the underhanded work it entails," Natasha made a humming noise briefly as if to portray herself thinking deeply "do you plan to wed her?" She asked seriously as she actually looked at Roderick in the eyes, something she usually avoided. Roderick paused for a second before lowering the file in his hands and returning Natasha's stare.

"I do. Though not until things have calmed down. Things would be too complicated if we did to now. Anyway, back to these gods-be-damned suspects. Next list; John Anderson, Andy Ackles, Robert Banners, Francis Bonnefoy, Estella Cantabella, Amy Fickle, Henry Hall, Harriet Hall, Iggy Ittle, David Kevin, Arthur Kirkland-" Roderick stuttered and narrowed his indigo eyes at the name. What was this? A wave of déjà slammed into Roderick. Kirkland? Kirkland? Where had he heard that name before? What was this?

"Roderick? Did you find something?," Natasha asked as she came over to where Roderick had set up the files. Roderick had one hand pinching the bridge of his nose under his glasses and his eyes crunched close in concentration. Natasha looked down at the list he has holding and frowned at the name he was getting frustrated over. Arthur Kirkland. "What's different with Arthur Kirkland?"

"I've heard the name Kirkland before. Let me see his file" Roderick spoke hurriedly with an impatient snap of his fingers, asking for Natasha to put the profile into his hand. Natasha with equal haste quickly found the file and handed it to Roderick, feeling the adrenaline rush of getting caught up in the excitement of a potential lead. Roderick grabbed the file and flicked it open, staring at the paper that gave a detailed description of the man. A profile picture was attached to the corner of the paper by a metal paper clip. Roderick stared at the picture with dawning realisation. He had seen this person before. The man in the photograph had short messy golden blonde hair and above his deep green eyes, were two distinctive unforgettably thick eyebrows. The same eyebrows from that day. Roderick choked on nothing and dropped the file, letting it sail to the floor. It was impossible, no…

Not impossible. Improbable.

Roderick with great difficulty released his pent up breath from his lungs and attempted to slow his racing heart beat. He wanted to deny it. He wanted to pray for it not to be true. And yet deep down he knew it was.

"Arthur Kirkland," Roderick said breathlessly, gulping down the suffocating lump in his throat. "I am without a doubt certain, that this man. Arthur Kirkland, is the one we are searching for" he whispered to the motionless Natasha.

"How can you be so sure? I personally interviewed this man and nothing incredibly odd was noted" Natasha inquired as she crossed her slender arms across her chest. She daren't give too much hope for fear of failure.

"Because the year after your brother came to the throne, he ordered me to conduct a man hunt for all sorcerers in the Isles. It would be roughly six years from now when I personally led a hunt after one of the most respected families in the sorcerers' community, the Kirkland's. It was the riskiest mission I had ever done and my greatest failure in the eyes of the Emperor. He had insisted that I brought all of them before him. He even gave me a previously captured sorcerer to assist in tracking. There had been four brothers, one of my men idiotically diverted from orders and killed one of them. Inside I was ballistic, his majesty had specially wanted all of them. I had tried to regain control of the situation, prevent any more needless deaths but the older brothers had already made their move. Before I understood what was happening they had pushed the youngest one through a teleportation gate and destroyed it, preventing me from following" Roderick explained, taking a deep breath in before he continued.

"It was terrible. I had lost two targets and the remaining brothers put up a violent struggle. The eldest was beginning to conjure a storm or something akin to it, when my men attacked in desperation. The eldest would have been impaled if his brother hadn't pushed him aside. Fortunately the spears blow wasn't fatal and luckily it caused its victim to collapse. The eldest one was furious and was about to attack when some kind of harpy came out of the sky, slammed his head against the ground and took off with its meal. It flew out of sight before we could shoot it down. Out of the four sorcerers, I had only successfully captured one.

It was a failure, Natasha. In the end I presented one sorcerer in chains and the corpse of the other. Be thankful you were not in attendance that day Natasha. Your brother's fury was terrifying, like a violent force of nature. I had never feared for my life more then I did that day"

Natasha sat down as her mind processed the amazing piece of history she had been told. Arthur Kirkland was the missing sorcerer they were looking for? The handsome British gentleman? She had sat right in front of him! She had him in her office! How could she of been such a fool?! She no longer doubted Roderick's logic, his story rung with undeniable truth and his reaction to the discovery was genuine.

"So we have our target. Now we just have to track him down" Natasha summarised as she kept her first class poker face on, while inside her heart was near launching out of her chest with anticipation and excitement. Wait until her brother heard! Roderick had also recovered his cool demeanour, his usual sly smile already back on his lips.

"Tracking him won't be too much of an issue. We'll just use the same sorcerer who tracked him down the last time. I think it's time to pay dear Vladimir a little visit"

Ooohh the cat is out of the bag, Mwhahahaha! Hmm so the Empire finally know who their target is. and not only that but we learn what happened after Arthur has pushed out the scenes and that Vlad is still alive! Despite there being not a lot of action, I wanted the first chapter to set up for future chapters to come. If I had to use one word to sum up this part I would use Revelations. We are coming to be doing a lot of exploring with these characters as they struggle to survive in the war. I am so hyped for what is to come and I hope you will be to :D

Small note: Aw look how romantic Roderick is, wanting to marry Elizabeth. What a sweet, charming relationship. It'd be shame... If anything happened to it *diabolically laughs*

Thank you for reading this chapter and I hope you enjoyed it. I am so pleased to continue this story into a sequel that people want to see happen. It is so amazing to see people actually enjoying your content and requesting to see more, you guys are the best (around, nothing's ever gonna get you down!).

If you are enjoying this sequel or the story in general, please be sure to leave a review to tell me your opinions, questions and predictions. I'm sure everyone is aware about the view counter problem that is currently happening on fanfiction. Unfortunately because of this I won't be able to tell how many people view this and will have no idea when to post the next chapter. It would help tremendously if you leave a review or a follow after reading the chapter to let me know you've read it and perhaps what you thought of it. I am sorry but this is the only way I can moderate views at the moment, so please be sure to help. I want to keep posting as along you want to read it :) Once again thank you for reading

Until next time folks!