HetaOni: Time Marches On

Chapter 24: Once More

Italy clenched his fists, willing himself to turn around. This decision was one of the hardest things he's ever had to do. He wanted to escape now more than anything. Never before had they been so close. Never before had they been given a chance like this. And that was exactly why he wasn't about to let all of that go to waste.

"We'll go back," Italy informed them, his voice shaking, "But if we're going to do this we're going to do it right. We need to make some proper plans."

"That's, not such a bad idea," China cautiously agreed. It was hard for any of them to give up on escaping here this minute. But they'd given this decision to Italy. He'd kept them going for all this time; they trusted him to get them through this now. Besides, if they could plan this out the next world would have a better start.

"But let's see, what could we do? We don't have that much time to plan out anything elaborate," Japan pondered.

"Well what if we left notes or something to warn our future selves?" America asked.

"Do you mean like warnings about rooms around the mansion? ...I'm not sure they'd still be there when time reverses, or even if we have enough time for that," Japan tried to reason something compelling from America's suggestion, "Maybe if we leave notes to our future selves with the journal telling us not to go? Or to at least listen to Italy."

"Yeah I guess I hadn't thought it completely through," America apologized, then added, "...I'm not to sure leaving notes to our future selves would work that well either. Knowing me I'd probably think it was just a hoax and be even more convinced to go."

"That would definitely be troublesome," Japan agreed.

The panel above the stairs leading out suddenly moved, causing the edgy nations to jump.

Prussia led others down into the clock room. He was still laughing with France and Spain about their last battle, "We totally kicked that things ass! Kesesese!"

"True, with our strength put together like that nothing can stop us," France added.

"You're back!" Italy cheered happy to see them.

Romano walked up to Spain and punched him in the gut, "Next time don't take so long," He complained in a worried manner.

"Well, What's this?" England asked, "Shouldn't we be going yet?"

"Actually, because of our time limit, Italy has decided our best chances stand at going back in time," America clarified.

"Aww, but I was very much looking forward to seeing my sisters again," Russia responded, showing his disappointment.

"I'm sorry!" Italy apologized, "We can still..." He didn't know how to finish his thought. They had even less time now, was it even possible to make it through that tunnel in that amount of time?

"No. It's fine. We're with you. I just hope we can do a better job than our past selves at setting up another world. ...We won't have as much time as them," England worried.

"What can we do... Let's see notes... or?-" Canada mumbled to himself trying to think of something they can do.

"We've thought about that one," America said hearing Canada's thoughts, "It's no good. There's no way we can get to everywhere we need to in this house covered in time, and if they are addressed to us, we probably won't believe them at first.

"Well then what about the keys?" Canada asked, "We have the keys to just about every room in the house. If we tuck them in the journal we should be able to take them back with us."

"That's actually a pretty decent plan," China agreed, "With the keys, Italy would be able to lock us out of rooms that were potentially too dangerous. We'd also be able to escape through this exit as soon we realized the danger."