Emil hadn't moved from where he was when Egil had run out of the room. He'd sat in exactly the same place, poking the broken shards of the mirror mournfully and whispering under his breath. Lukas had taught him some spells. He could perform some of those spells - the only reason Arthur and Vladimir had let him into their group - but he knew that none of them would be useful now.

"Matthias?" he asked the glass. "Are you there?" He picked up a spider-webbed shard and stirred one of the small pools of blood with it daintily as though mixing sugar into a full teacup. "Are you? Please, don't you leave me too. There's only Berwald left now."

The mess didn't reply, just stayed at blood stained, shattered glass, which had once been a mirror, and their only way of making sure no one was killed.

Great plan that had turned out to be.

"You're still here?" Emil turned to the door where Egil stood, leaning against the frame, frowning in what could be confusion. "I would've thought you'd have left long ago."

Emil didn't answer, just slowly stood up, dropping the shard he'd been using before into the pile beneath him.

Egil's frown deepened. "What? I'm just saying, I mean, it's just a bit weird for you to be still sat here over a broken mirror."

"I wouldn't expect you to understand" Emil hissed. "What are you doing here anyway? You didn't just come back to make sure I'd left, did you?"

"Of course not" Egil laughed. "I knew you'd still be here anyway. You're all soppy you lot are. Someone dies, and you sit for hours, days, weeks thinking about it. They're dead. They're gone. There's no use beating about the bush. Just forget it already. They're not coming back."

"And you didn't come back to give me a life lesson either" Emil snapped.

"Of course not" Egil smirked. "I came to introduce you to my family. They've been looking forwards to meeting you." He stepped back from the door a little and gestured for whoever was outside.

Emil paled.

***

"Thirty minutes, thirty minutes..." Kyung Soo haltered in his frantic muttering and turned to glare at Leon. "Why did you only set it to thirty minutes?"

"I don't know?" Leon huffed, shrugging. "It seemed like a long time when I was setting it. It only seems like a short period now that you keep on mentioning it."

"Anyway, we'll be out before then" Yong Soo grinned. "We'll save everyone, and it'll all be fine."

"Right" Kyung Soo said, glancing around. "And what if we get found by some counterparts and have to fight? What then?"

"We run" Leon shrugged. "I'm assuming it never occurred to people that you could run before fighting counterparts, because no one seems to be doing anything like it. But it's what we'll do if we by chance run into anyone. We just need to make sure that everyone we know of is out as soon as possible."

"How many do we have to pull out?" Kyung Soo asked as they reached a turn in the corridors.

"I think about twenty-five of us went in" Leon said, peering around the corner both ways, and then moving forwards again.

"Great" Kyung Soo sighed. "We just have to round up, save and get twenty-two nations out of here, alive, in thirty minutes."

"You said alive" Yong Soo said, raising an eyebrow. "What other state would they be for us to bring them out? No offence to the dead, but we may as well leave them here. Leave them in their final resting place, and make sure that more of us get out than stay. If some are dead, that is."

"Which some will be" Leon's shoulders sank. "This was never going to be easy in the first place. Elizaveta warned us all about what could happen because of it, and we all just sort of, ignored her. I mean, look at what we did. We killed three counterparts. We all slipped up a little in those fights ourselves. What if everyone did that at least once, but they weren't so lucky as to get back to their feet as fast? It's almost impossible for everyone to survive at this point. There's just no way that could happen in my opinion - to go into battle and leave with no casualties."

"True" Yong Soo mused, glancing around himself a little. "But, there can't be that many, can there? I mean, we're not going to die easily."

"And what makes you think that lot will be willing to die easily?" Kyung Soo asked. "They'll be just as reluctant to it."

Leon nodded, and for a moment after that, no one spoke, they just continued walking down the empty corridors.

"How big actually is this place?" Yong Soo huffed. "I swear it's huge."

"It didn't look this big from the outside" Kyung Soo agreed. "Maybe it's just... got lots of corridors? I mean, none of them are all that long, so maybe that's it?"

Leon shrugged. "Whatever it is, I say we're better off splitting up here."

"Um..." Yong Soo carefully raised his hand. "As a watcher of horror movies, where the intelligent one says 'let's split up', and then everyone is attacked individually, I do not agree with this proposal."

"What? And you think we're going to get around here quicker together?" Leon asked. "It'd take too long. We wouldn't be able to do it before the bomb goes off, which is in about... twenty five minutes now."

"I propose to split" Kyung Soo said, turning on his heel and walking back down the way they'd come. "I'll see you both outside after we've all safe, okay? That's not an option. That's a request. If you're not there, I'll bring in military action."

"Yeah right" Yong Soo rolled his eyes. "Like you would."

"That" Kyung Soo pointed at him. "Is not the point." He continued down the corridor.

"Fine then" Yong Soo shouted after him, grinning. "The same applies for you."

"Got it" Kyung Soo called, giving a backwards thumbs up and disappearing around a corner.

"I'll go this way then" Leon said, gesturing over his shoulder.

"Okay" Yong Soo nodded and ran off in the opposite direction. "Annyeong, zaijian, sayonara, au revoir, goodbye! See you outside, later..."

"Or military action" Leon smirked. "Zaijian."

As both turned from the corridor, a door close to where they were standing swung open and Oliver tumbled out, vision fully restored.

"How dare they plant a bomb" he muttered, slamming the door behind him and glancing around in every direction. "How dare they." He sighed and massaged his temple for a second before starting down one of the corridors. "Well, I guess I should follow their lead and get everyone out, shouldn't I?"

***

Leon hurtled through the building, opening every door he could as he went, not caring who was there or even if it wasn't someone he wanted to see. None of that mattered at the moment. He passed a window on his way, one of the few he'd seen, and as he did, he peered out. From here, he could see part of the forest they'd hidden in before attacking, and could see a figure leaning heavily against the bark of one of the trees. He stopped, watching as they stood up, sat down, stood up again on repeat. Not thinking of the time, he would've probably stood there all day, wondering about the character outside. Instead, he took a step forwards to peer closer, hoping to identify them. As he did, he heard footsteps, fast ones, and turned just in time to duck out of the way of someone. They whipped around to glare at him, and then halted, breathing out a sigh of relief.

"It's just you."

They looked a lot like Antonio, to the point where Leon was almost certain it was him, but as long as he could remember, Antonio's hair had never quite been long enough to tie up, and there was a long, shaven part towards the front, although, when Leon looked closer at it, the skin underneath had been sliced and peeled away revealing blood stained bone. There was another figure draped over their shoulders, whom Leon took a moment to pinpoint as Matthew. Leon recognised them, although not to the extent of ever speaking to them before, so waited awkwardly, not speaking, although he didn't have to.

"I'm sorry... who are you?"

Leon extended a hand. "Leon, Hong Kong."

The other tucked their sword under their arm and gripped the hand. "Joao, Portugal."

Leon nodded to Matthew. "What happened to him?"

Joao's shoulders sank. "I couldn't protect him" he said mournfully. "Arthur's going to kill me."

"He may not get the chance to if we don't find him first" Leon said, suddenly remembering the whole point of being here. "This whole place is going to blow in just over twenty minutes."

"You're joking, right?" Joao raised an eyebrow. "Come on, we've all had a hard day."

Leon stared at him with disbelief. "I don't have time for this" he groaned. "There's no time. Why would I joke about something like this? Look, just trust me, alright? All I need you to do, is get outside, with Matthew, and stay outside."

"Okay, okay" Joao held up his hands. "Sorry, but you can't blame me for being a bit disbelieving, right?" Leon didn't answer, and he sighed. "Are you seriously planning on rounding us all up by yourself."

"No" Leon cried. "Of course not. I have help."

"Yeah?" Joao's eyebrow rose again. "From who?"

"Kyung Soo and Yong Soo" Leon said defiantly.

"Okay then" Joao shrugged. "So the three of you are going to round everyone up?"

"Yes" Leon said, realising as he said the word how stupid it seemed. Why had he only set the bomb to half an hour? It was a ridiculously short amount of time, but it had somehow only now dawned on him.

"Right" Joao turned back down the corridor he'd come up. "I'm going to leave Matthew with Antonio - he's outside. Then, I'll come back inside and help you round everyone up, yeah?"

Leon nodded, glancing down at his watch. "We have nineteen and a half minutes."

"Good" Joao gave him a thumbs up and started walking before stopping and turning again. "Just out of interest, how is it that you know of this bomb?"

"I..." Leon trailed off. "Set it myself."

Joao gave him a slightly displeased look. "Congratulations. Any other deaths will be your fault."

"But it'll get everyone out of harms way" Leon protested. "Get everyone back to where we can all technically be safe, and get rid of the counterparts at the same time."

"I guess there's some reasoning" Joao shrugged. "I'll be back in a few minutes. Don't wait, you go."

"Okay" Leon said, not moving.

Joao stared at him. "Why are you still standing there?" he made an ushering movement with his hands. "Go, go, go. You don't get people out of a building by standing there."

"Right" Leon started running away from him, glancing over his shoulder as he got to another turn and watching as Joao limped down the corridor towards the door. "Right." Leon clapped his hands together and opened a door, not even doubly checking for anyone in it, he slammed it shut and ran to the next. "Why are there so many doors?" he muttered angrily, closing another with such vigour, that he was surprised the entire building didn't collapse around him. He'd gone through another two corridors and checked over a hundred rooms before he found anything.

The door was completely normal, although it wasn't completely shut like the others were, which at the time, didn't bother him. He simply pushed the door a little, glanced round it for a second, and then closed it behind him. It was only when he moved on to the next door that he froze and back tracked to where he'd been, opening the door again. At a brief look around, there didn't seem to be anything amiss - the red splash up the wall almost seemed like a work of art, or something that was supposed to be there.

Nothing seemed out of place.

It was because of this that it took him so long to figure out that the red on the wall wasn't supposed to be there. It was also because of this that it took him so long to figure out that the rest of the room was coated in a fine layer of the stuff, and a body was carefully thrown into the centre of the mess, face down.

Leon stood staring for a second before taking a slow, ginger step towards it and crouching down next to it.

"Hello?" he muttered, not expecting a response, so not being disappointed when he didn't get one. He reached across them, grabbing their shoulder and pulling it around so he could see their face, and when he did, he nearly dropped them. Emil's eyes were screwed tightly shut, mouth half open and a deep looking cut tracing it's way across his face and through part of his lip. He was paler than normal with a fine spray of red across white, but that wasn't the part that shocked Leon most. The part that made him most scared was the mess of the rest of him.

Just below the elbow, his left arm was missing, an item which Leon located a few metres away from him. His body was covered in thousands of long, thin, bloody marks, one of which seemed to have caught an artery, or something of that sort.

"E... Emil?" Leon stuttered, staring at the mess then leaning across to pick up Emil's wrist to hold it. As he clutched at it, he became aware of a dull throb. In disbelief, he pressed two fingers to the wrist, then another two up to Emil's neck. "My God" he muttered, eyes widening as he felt the unmistakeable throb of a pulse. 

Anneyeong - goodbye (Korean)
Zaijian - goodbye (Traditional Chinese)
Sayonara - goodbye (Japanese)
Au revoir - goodbye (French)

Yeah... I'm not even going to try and explain why this is so late, just apologise, because this is definitely over late! I think I'm going to try and get updates out on Sundays instead of Fridays from now on to give myself chance to write them over the weekend instead of just over the week!!!
Again, I'm so, so, so sorry it's ultra late!! Also, I actually didn't kill a character?!?!?!!?!?!
MiddleEarth4eva