Behind the Strips
Chapter 1
-August, 2006-
A click here. A flick there. Pull this lever, now twist this one, then squeeze and— A roaring blast fired from the cannon-sized gun. The ground shook and trembled. The burst propelled a cloud of dust and grass back at them. Worst of all, the explosion was loud, too loud. Japan quickly ripped his headset off and rubbed his ears. "Ow…" he muttered to himself. He looked back up at his computer monitor and waited for the dust to settle. He fidgeted with the volume while he waited and placed the headset around his neck for later. When he placed his fingers back on the keyboard, the on-screen field was clear again. He glanced around the field, looking for the change he had expected, but saw nothing. He turned his camera to face America's character. America was looking off in the direction he had fired, his supersized gun resting on his shoulder. Of course, he was grinning as always, looking quite proud of his work. Japan turned back to the mountain at which America had aimed. "Pardon me, but I am not sure what your new weapon is supposed to do. What are we looking at?" Japan asked, putting his headset back on.
"It hasn't hit the target yet! Or, that part of the program hasn't started running yet. I need to work out a few bugs to speed it up, but I wanted you to see it while you were logged in—oh! There! There! Look!" America yelled, pointing at the mountain.
Japan turned to see a large red splat hit and run down the side of the mountain, followed by another, and another. The missiles of red paint splattered the peak until it was covered completely, the cliff dripping with excess paint runoff. "You…painted the mountain red."
"Yeah! Isn't it awesome? I modified my gun so it can be used as a long range paint gun too!" America laughed. "I finally painted a mountain red!" he cheered. Japan couldn't help but smile. At least it was only a computer generated mountain and not Mt. Fuji.
Japan and America were playing Fantasia, an RPG the two had co-created. It was nice that the game offered them a way to hang out together on days like these when they weren't working, even though they lived an ocean apart. The game also provided a project that could keep them as busy as they wanted to be. Lately, Japan wanted to be as busy as possible. His mental filter had been acting up recently and giving him a headache. As a nation, he, like every other nation, could tune in to the thoughts and emotions of their citizens. Some called it being able to read minds, while the older nations said they were omniscient. Sometimes nations had to directly focus on a person to learn their thoughts. Other times the thoughts of their citizens came to them so rapidly, it was difficult to filter them out and think for themselves. Japan, more often than not, had the latter problem. He found that concentrating on a task and keeping himself busy blocked out the excess noise. However the moment he stopped, the thoughts started pouring in.
But what if he doesn't feel the same way I do about him?
If I buy potatoes, we could have nikujaga for dinner.
I can't show this grade to Mom!
Japan shook his head to try and clear his mind. "America," he said, hoping the man could distract him again from his encroaching headache.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. So what do you think? Isn't it totally awesome?" America asked.
"Ah, I suppose, although it isn't very practical."
"Oh, but look, it totally could be! Like, say we ever need to redesign the texture on the mountains. All we gotta do is fire the paint off! It'd be way quicker than writing up code! Here, look, I was thinking I'd paint that mountain white and that one over there blue, and I bet I could program it to scatter spray a big red dot on that mountain—see that big one there? That one could be yours. And if I can figure that out, then downsizing it to make white and blue polka dots shouldn't be too difficult, although I think stars would be out of the question."
"Why would we need to paint the mountains to look like our flags?"
"Why not! Mountains are boring just being all gray or brown like that. We should decorate them! That's why I carve faces into my mountains out west." Suddenly America's eyes widened. "Oh! Dude! I should make a virtual Mt. Rushmore." America's character sat down and pulled the gun into his lap to start tinkering. He began rattling off numbers and code as though Japan knew he was talking about, but Japan always let America take care of programming the guns. He preferred designing other aspects, such as the mechanics for casting. As he watched America play with his weapon, the thoughts began to pick up again.
Maybe I should get a job so I can buy all this manga.
I'll ask her, "Would you like to get something to eat?" No, that won't do.
Japan shook his head and rubbed at his forehead.
This job is exhausting. I just want to go home already.
Perhaps Japan should be calmer. Formal, serious, even bordering on stoic.
What?
I'll draw Japan with flat eyes then. Soulless eyes like this would reflect that calmness. Next to Germany and Italy's antics, he probably won't be popular anyway, so such a design should be fine.
What was this? Japan suddenly had the urge to tell the man that he is quite popular, or at least not unpopular. But what in the world was this man talking about? He analyzed it over and over in his head but could make no sense of it. Finally, Japan decided there was no other way. He removed his headset and leaned back in his chair. America would be fine by himself for a moment.
Japan closed his eyes, held his forehead, and focused on the earlier thoughts. Quickly, his mind connected with his citizen's. He could see through the man's eyes, hear through his ears, felt a pen in his grip, and of course the thoughts running clearly around in his head.
Quickly observing the room, Japan could tell the man sat at a table with a pen in his hand and a sketch pad in front of him. The paper was covered with numerous sketches and the occasional note. Japan stared at the notes and knew that were he not in tune with the man's mind, he would not be able to read the handwriting. On the left of the paper was the word "Italy", on the right was "Germany," and at the bottom, "Japan." Various sketches covered the page. The doodles on the left seemed to be completely different people, while those on the right and at the bottom were more focused to one design. Japan watched the hand shade in a pair of eyes on a profile that quite resembled himself. That should do it, the man thought. Japan, Germany, and…Italy still doesn't look right. The man started to absent-mindlessly redraw and shade the different faces on the left side of the page. Well, I almost have character designs. As for the plot, it'll definitely focus on World War II, but what part? The beginning preparations wouldn't be too intense, so…perhaps the first scene could be them all meeting. Although since they're both in Europe, Germany and Italy would have known each other before meeting Japan. How should I have them meet? I could start with that.
They met in World War I when Germany found Italy hiding in a box of tomatoes, Japan thought. He knew that story. Italy had told him many times. The man however seemed very confused. How old is Germany? When would they have met? Did they just meet or would they have known each other for centuries? Japan felt the man stand up from his chair. I'll have to do some research.
Japan felt frustrated. He still could not figure out what the man was up to. This was just confusing and there was only one way he was going to get any clear answers. He took a deep breath and plunged deeper into the man's mind.
Rapid, chaotic noise reverberated all around him. Screeching. Howling. Static waves. Kettle whistling. Records scratching backwards. All of it beating against his skin and bones, thrumming at his skull. Burning lights flashed around him like a Disco Pogo rave, disturbing images haunting the edges of his vision. The very core of his mind, carved open and raw. Japan grasped blindly and clawed his way out.
Japan lunged forward in his chair and gasped for air as though he had been held underwater. That man's mind was terrifying. It was like a rabid alpaca farm in there. But he found what he was looking for.
It was a webcomic. The man was a beginning artist creating a manga about World War II. But what Japan now understood chilled him to the bone. The story wasn't about soldiers or leaders or even the soldiers' families back home. It was about the countries themselves. Living, breathing, personifications of nations. The man had dreamed up something that, unknown to him, actually existed. No one knew that the countries actually walked around and lived amongst their citizens. Only their bosses knew. And this man was going to make a comic about it and publish it and spill each government's most protected secret to the Internet.
Japan leaned forward and rubbed his eyes open to see America's face covering his entire computer monitor. He could hear America yelling from the headset on the floor, "HEY JAPAN! ARE YOU OKAY OVER THERE?" Japan picked up his equipment from the floor and reentered the world of Fantasia.
"Hey, there you are! Did you go AFK? You know you should tell people before you do that!" said America.
"Oh, yes, I had to take care of something for a moment," said Japan. America frowned. "Didn't it go well? You look like you're shaking."
Japan looked down at his hands clutching the controller. They were still trembling from digging through the man's mind, and the motion control was making his whole character shake. "It went fine. It was just a bit unnerving," said Japan. America gave a light smile and tilted his head in a confused manner. "I don't really have time to explain. I have to go take care of something."
"Huh? Hey wait! Where are you going?" America yelled. Japan's hand froze just as he was about to click log off. Where was he going? Where did this citizen even live? "Actually, I am not sure. I will have to check. Excuse me just a moment."
Japan closed his eyes and recalled the feeling of that man to focus in on his thoughts again. He could see the man walking through a city, but it was certainly not one of his own. Japan noticed a poster on a bus as it passed. "New York," Japan said. "He's in America."
"Hm?"
Japan opened his eyes and realized America's character was still standing beside him, and had clearly heard him speak aloud to himself.
"Ah, one of my citizens," Japan told him. "I need to deal with him, but he is apparently living in New York." America's face lit up. "So you're coming over to visit?" America asked.
"Yes, I suppose so. Although it is for business—"
"Japan's coming to visit! Yahoo!" America cheered and jumped up and down, narrowly missing beaming Japan in the head with his gun. "I'll fly over and pick you up!"
"Oh, no, thank you but I would rather leave right away than wait for you to arrive. I will take the earliest plane to New York," said Japan.
"Alright, then I'll pick you up at the airport! In the meantime, who are we tracking down? I could find out where they live while you're on the plane."
"His name is Himaruya Hidekaz."
A/N:
Would you believe this is my first published fanfic? It took me so long just to write this first chapter, but I'm hoping it will go faster once I'm in the meat of the story. I'll try to write the next chapter as soon as I can. In the meantime, some constructive criticism and reviews would be wonderful and would help in the writing process for the next chapter! If you have any questions, feel free to ask! Since I still haven't quite worked out the system for messaging here on ffnet, I'll also mention I'm available on tumblr as elikaruna as well.
The timeline for Himaruya creating Hetalia in this fic is mostly made up. As none of his early strips have dates on them, and I couldn't get any real answers from anyone, I had to take an educated guess. If anyone has a chronology for when the strips were posted, I would love to see it so I can make this as accurate as I can!
Thank you for reading!