Taking a Duce (A Benito Mussolini SI)

May 8, 1942
The Kremlin
Moscow, USSR

Same damn room. Same grim Stalinist wallpaper. Same old cigar smoke from the ashtray that looked like it had seen more war than I had. We'd been here for a week, circling around the same geopolitical dance like vultures over a half-eaten corpse. Northern Europe was no longer the powder keg everyone feared—it had become a smoldering ruin, under our control or otherwise neutralized. Now their attention had turned elsewhere.

Japan. Of course. Bloody Japan. Land of neon dreams and future heartbreaks. When I close my eyes, I don't see rice paddies—I see Shibuya Crossing, blinking lights, and some bunny-eared waitress saying "Okaerinasai, goshujin-sama." I always wanted to see a maid cafe. But I also miss microwaves. I miss watching trashy anime at 2 a.m. while eating Cup Noodles. What the hell am I doing in 1942? Ohh right, I died.

And these jackasses—Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin—were now yapping about the Pacific War like it was some noble crusade. Me? I wasn't here to play global savior. I was here to watch history implode from the front row.

I leaned back, let the chair creak dramatically, and spoke before anyone could start their sanctimonious blather.

"I'll make my position clear once again before we begin," I said, voice smooth but firm, eyes locked on Roosevelt like he was a mildly disappointing school principal. "Italy has zero interest in fighting Japan. None. No territorial disputes, no grudges, no assets in the Pacific besides a useless little outpost we'd be happy to donate to the Nation of Your Choosing. Honestly, take it. Light it on fire if you want. We're not declaring war. We're not sending troops. But hey—we'll happily sell you whatever materials you need."

Churchill frowned like someone had pissed in his tea. Roosevelt's fake smile twitched at the edges. Stalin, inscrutable bastard that he was, just puffed his pipe.

"Should I remind you, Mr. Roosevelt," I continued, "it was my intelligence that warned you about Pearl Harbor. Your precious little navy, saved by good ol' Benito. We've done our part. If I were you, I'd stop sulking and get serious about your nuclear weapons project—drop 10 nukes on Tokyo and call it a day."

That landed like a brick in a porcelain shop. Time to begin the cold war.

Roosevelt and Churchill both went pale, like I'd conjured the end of the world with my tongue. Stalin squinted at me like I was speaking Martian.

"Nuclear... weapons?" Roosevelt echoed, like a man trying to sound calm while internally screaming. "Mr. Mussolini, what are you talking about?"

I smirked and leaned in slightly, just enough to make them uncomfortable.

"Oh, come now," I said, waving my hand as if brushing away the ridiculousness of their faux confusion. "We've got our own OVRA agents in the U.S.—shout out to the Italian-American community, truly patriotic folks." A lie, of course, but damn if it didn't sound good. "We know all about your Manhattan Project. The uranium, the German scientists that fled to the US —same ones we recently picked off for ourselves by the way. With the equipment we've… appropriated from Germany, our own nuclear program is in the early stages. Nothing explosive—yet—but the groundwork is being laid. I think I could nuke Amsterdam within the decade."

Churchill blinked rapidly. Roosevelt's mouth tightened. Stalin leaned forward, intrigued now, like a cat that just noticed the mouse had a knife.

"If we're serious about ending this war quickly, I say we join forces—create a joint atomic development initiative. Imagine it: the unified power of the Global Federation of Free Alliances harnessed into a single, glorious project. A gesture of unity. A symbol of progress."

I paused for dramatic effect, smiling with the kind of smug self-satisfaction that only comes from knowing too much and giving too little.

"We could call it The Roosevelt Project. Neat, right?"

The silence that followed was glorious.

In my head, I could hear the faint, ghostly echoes of 1980s Spanish pop—Luis Miguel crooning "Perdóname" like he knew exactly how I felt: exiled from a world of synthesizers and sodium lights, trapped in this goddamned sepia-toned meat grinder of history.

They thought I was crazy. They were right.

But I was also right.

And in this world, that was far more dangerous.

The silence dragged on just long enough to become deliciously uncomfortable.

Roosevelt was visibly shaken now, gripping the table edge like it might save him from falling into the abyss. His eyes darted between me and Stalin. Churchill, red-faced and puffy, looked like a man who'd just swallowed a pint of vinegar. Only Stalin remained calm—calm and curious. That glint in his eye... the man might've been a paranoid psychopath, but he smelled opportunity like a shark smells blood.

"You... you're bluffing," Roosevelt finally said, voice tight, brittle. "There's no way you—Italy—could possibly—"

"Oh, Frankie," I cut in, smiling like a cat who'd just shat in FDR's hat. "You keep underestimating us. And we keep surprising you."

With a casual flourish, I reached into my briefcase—the same leather-bound thing that had once carried my copy of Neuromancer back in the day—and pulled out a folder. Thick. Labeled Progetto Sapienza. The Soviets leaned in. Roosevelt leaned back.

I dropped it in front of Stalin like I was laying down four aces at a poker table. Then another folder—schematics, diagrams, blueprints marked with German insignias—carefully 'liberated' from Reich labs during our little stunt, Operation Sapienza.

"Here," I said coolly. "Enjoy. Designs for a nuclear bomb, preliminary notes on fusion, and some early missile delivery systems. We grabbed these from the Germans a few months ago during our noble crusade . Operation Sapienza—it was a little Italian-Jewish masterpiece. We infiltrated and stormed their Black Forest and Peenemunde facilities, siphoned the data, and vanished like ghosts in the night. Very cinematic."

Stalin raised his brows slightly, took the folder, and opened it like it was Christmas morning. His aides scrambled to grab the rest.

Churchill looked like he was about to have a stroke. "You're sharing sensitive weapon designs with the Soviets?!"

I gave him a look.

"You think this is about national pride, Winston?" I asked. "This is about survival. This is about building a new Non-British balance of power. We can't afford to hoard this kind of knowledge anymore—not when the genie's halfway out of the bottle. I'm proposing a joint nuclear effort. Italy, the United States, the United Kingdom, and yes—the Soviet Union."

Roosevelt looked pale. "You're going to start another arms race before the war's even over."

I started to laugh. A cackle, even Stalin seemed stunned for a moment. Then I got deadly serious and stared deep into Roosevelt's eyes. "So what if I did?"

I'm just giving everyone a head start. Let them spend billions building bombs, engineering reactors, recruiting defectors. Meanwhile, Italy gets to ride shotgun without burning through our own economy. If I play this right, we save decades of R&D money. Let them carry the burden. We just show up for the victory parade.

And more importantly? This move—this absolute nuke of a diplomatic play—sets the board for the Cold War to be even colder. MAD, baby. Mutually Assured Destruction. I was born in the shadow of it. Now I get to help invent it.

I stood, pushing my chair back with a heavy scrape, and raised my hand dramatically.

"This, gentlemen, is the path to peace," I declared. "Not peace through goodwill. That's a fantasy. Not peace through diplomacy—those die with the men who sign them. No—this is peace through parity. Through terror. Through the knowledge that if you strike first, you die second. Peace through Mutually Assured Destruction."

Dead silence.

Churchill looked aghast. Roosevelt rubbed his temples like he was physically ill. Stalin, to his credit, was grinning now—grinning in that terrifying way of his, as if he'd just discovered his enemies' house had no locks.

"Comrade Mussolini..." he said, voice low and pleased, "tell me more about this Operation Sapienza."

I sat back down, lit a cigarette, and smiled.

"Oh, Joe," I said. "You're gonna love this story."

Stalin leaned forward, eyes gleaming like he'd just sniffed a barrel of fresh paranoia and power.

"Tell me everything," he said softly.

Roosevelt looked like he wanted to stop me. Churchill looked like he wanted to throttle me. But I was already in freefall, and I wasn't pulling the chute.

I exhaled smoke from my cigarette, savoring it like it was oxygen from 2025. I missed Juul pods. I missed Spotify. I missed microwave popcorn and city pop echoing through my AirPods while doomscrolling in bed. But most of all—I missed being irrelevant. Instead, I was now the deranged architect of global atomic apocalypse.

"Operation Sapienza," I began, "started in January this year. While you two"—I nodded toward Churchill and Roosevelt—"were still landing troops in Europe and Scandinavia, I was planning the biggest intellectual heist in human history."

They said nothing. Stalin's smile widened.

"I knew Germany was investing heavy into nuclear research. But Germany, being Germany, was arrogant. Sloppy. They put all their eggs in the Black Forest basket—Thorheim Laboratories, Obersalzberg facilities, the Göttingen network, Peenemunde. So we sent in our finest: Italian OVRA agents, Jewish Lehi as muscle to back them up—men and women who had lost everything to the Nazis and wanted payback in equations and sabotage."

I lit another cigarette with the smoldering end of the last one. Stalin flipped through pages with the focus of a man devouring sacred scripture.

"We snatched it all. Scientists, blueprints, uranium samples, prototypes. We didn't even leave them a note. Took half their physics department. I personally debriefed the lead researcher while eating carbonara and listening to Hip to be Square in my thoughts."

"Hip to be Square?" Churchill barked.

I ignored him.

"Now we've got our own team in the Italy—call it the Sapienza Institute. It's underground, literally. They're reverse-engineering everything and making terrifying progress. But more importantly, I have the leverage. So what do I do?"

I leaned in close now, palms flat on the table.

"I sell the future."

Roosevelt's voice trembled. "You're handing over the power to end the world."

"No," I said, shaking my head. "I'm distributing it. Equally. Because when everyone has a gun to everyone else's head, no one dares pull the trigger."

Stalin nodded. He got it. He lived that logic. A twisted she'll of a man like myself, no wonder I got along with him.

"And let's be honest, boys. You're both going to build your own nukes anyway. At least this way, Italy isn't left behind. We cooperate, we share resources, scientists, data. Compete quietly. Mutually assured survival via terror. Everyone gets a seat at the table and the world doesn't go up like a Roman candle. Or better yet—if it does, we all go together."

I glanced at Roosevelt. The blood had drained from his face.

"I'm giving you a chance here," I added. "A Confederation of Peace through Terror. Like NATO, but with better aesthetics and more trench coats."

Churchill stood. "This is insanity."

"No, Winston," I said slowly. "This is the future. I'm just a humble schoolteacher turned architect."

Internally, I felt nothing—I'd just rolled the dice on humanity's fate and didn't care if it landed on snake eyes. But it was also genius. A shared nuclear program meant Italy didn't need to bankrupt itself. Let the US and USSR foot the bill. Let them panic and race. I'd take the data. I'd take the tech. I'd even take the credit.

And if the Cold War started a few years early? If the world tiptoed on a razor's edge while everyone prayed no one sneezed?

Well... welcome to the future, boys.

Stalin finally spoke, voice low, dangerous, delighted.

"You are a snake, Mussolini."

I grinned. "I'm a futurist."

May 9, 1942
The Kremlin—Private Meeting Room
Moscow, USSR

I leaned back in my chair, arms folded across my chest, eyes scanning Stalin as he sat across from me, still the ever-calm, calculating presence he was known for. But there was something in the way his eyes flickered for just a moment when I spoke about Asia. Something... hungry. This man knew opportunity when he saw it. But what he didn't know was how to accelerate it. That was where I came in. I'd been through my share of strategic nightmares in the past few years—especially now that I was here, playing this farcical game—but this? This was different. It had the promise of chaos. And chaos, in its purest form, was the only thing that ever truly made things move.

I couldn't help but feel that familiar buzz in my head, the low hum of it, like a synthesizer riff from some obscure city pop song that had been burned into my brain. An entire genre of music—an entire era—just echoing in the back of my mind, like some forgotten dream. I needed that. I craved it. But here I was, deep in the mud of world politics, surrounded by men who thought they understood power and strategy, but none of them saw the play as clearly as I did.

Stalin wasn't stupid. He was no fool. But his reach needed to be extended. He had to realize that Asia, like Europe, needed to be broken—split into pieces, turned into a powder keg, ready to explode into his hands. Luckily for me, he was now inclined to listen to me.

"Comrade Stalin," I said, leaning forward, "here." I handed him a document. He took it and his translator began yapping away.

"I hope that after my warnings about Germany when I came here in 1940 you'll be inclined to listen to me more. Inside are documents. Documents showing Mao cooperating with the Americans, Japanese, plans for Chinese hegemony in east Asia, a threat to your sphere, a rival."

Lies, lies, and damned lies. But I needed it. I knew some cold war history. Sino-soviet split? Not on my watch, 3 way cold war, 3 camps, all tied up. And hey, no Mao, no great leap forward, tens of millions of lives saved. Maybe it'll be enough to ease my guilty conscience. I doubted it.

"You need to move on Asia. You need to do it now. The sooner you can get your hands on the Chinese, the better. We're both in agreement here, aren't we? The Chinese, divided, weak—easy pickings for a man of your talents."

He raised an eyebrow. That wasn't a sign of agreement—yet. Stalin's not the type to give you what you want right away. He had his own designs, his own pace. But this? This was bigger than some paranoid purge or military strategy. I had to sell him on speed. Three way cold war, I needed the soviets to be strong.

"You shouldn't dither on this, Josef. Your time is running out," I said with a sharp, sarcastic bite to my tone. "Take China—split it. You know what I'm talking about. Partition it. Let the local warlords rip each other apart while you expand your reach. Mao? Kill him, too ambitious, too dangerous, just like Chiang. You can't afford a strong nationalist leader there if you plan to fully dominate Asia my friend, can I call you friend? He's a nuisance—a thorn in your side, but he won't be a problem if you nip him in the bud."

Stalin's face remained impassive, but I knew he was listening. The thought of a fragmented China, an empire ripe for Soviet domination, was undoubtedly appealing to him. The more chaos, the more power he could seize. And the more room I had to play middle man between America and Russia.

I shifted in my seat, folding my arms tighter. "And India." I thanked god for all the briefs my OVRA agents gave me on the region. "You'll need to set that place on fire, just like China. Stir the pot, comrade. Stir it so that the British and Americans can't handle it. I'm already backing a few rebels but I'm too far away to properly back them unlike the Lehi. It's why I proposed that India be in your sphere, like we talked about. I'll give some support to the fight. But you need to go all in. Keep them divided. Gandhi? Jinnah? Nehru? They're symbols—just symbols. Weak men, sure. But their influence is enough to make your life a living hell in the future. You need to kill those symbols, Stalin. Assassinate them. Make it clean. Make it quick. Pin the Blame on Muslim or Hindu extremists, set india on fire. And as india and china burn, as Japan bleeds the Americans and British, we can move in on our spheres. Africa, the middle east, Asia southeast Asia, ours for the taking. Scandinavia and Europe was just a setback. Churchill and FDR think they've won, this was just the first act."

I couldn't help but feel that thrill again—the rush of it, like the guitar solo to a lost 80s hit. Everything I said, I meant. This was the move. This would shake the foundation of everything. "This will send Britain and America scrambling to put out fires they'd never expected. Britain is an overstretched empire in it's dying breath, and America is an empire still half asleep and mobilizing. The moment is upon us. They will not be unprepared for what we will unleash."

Stalin looked like he was mulling it over, his thick brows furrowed, his mind working through the possibilities. But the clock was ticking. I couldn't let him waste too much time. He needed to understand the urgency. And that's when I said it.

"And once India is burning. Once China is in the midst of collapse. Britain and America will be stretched so thin they won't be able to hold on to their colonies, let alone fight a war versus Japan. Its our time, Josef. The only question is, will you take the opportunity?"

Stalin finally spoke, his deep voice cutting through the haze. "Why? This is not the same Mussolini saying death to communism after his son was captured."

I leaned in, now fully enjoying the game. "Oh, yes. That's the beauty of it, my dear comrade. It's simple. If either of us tries to oppose the combined might of the UK and the US we would be crushed under their weight. Sure we might get some of what we want. But once the war ends we'd get hemmed in. But together, if we coordinate our efforts we can both get what we want. Think of it, as an alliance of convenience. I know you don't trust me, frankly I don't trust you. But I trust in your greed, in your lust for power and glory because I lust for it as well. Now then, will you make a deal with the devil standing in front of you and seize what you want? I thought you were a man of action Stalin, weren't you the one that had Trotsky killed? What's killing one man compared to the millions we'll conquer."

I could feel the tension in the air. This was the moment. That was the pitch. I was going to sell him on this, and damn it, I was going to make sure everyone knew who had been the mastermind behind this grand strategy. Sure, my mind kept slipping back to thoughts of city lights, neon signs, the weight of a good 80s track playing on repeat. The hunger for the future gnawed at me. But in this room, I wasn't just the confused man who missed the soundtracks of his life. I was Mussolini, making the most crucial decision of my life.

I could practically see the pieces falling into place. The firestorm of Asia. The burning of India. And in the end, the real reward: a new, shattered world that I controlled.

Stalin stared at me for a moment longer, before he nodded slowly, his lips curling in a semblance of agreement. "We'll move soon enough. But you are correct, Mussolini. A divided world... is a world in our grasp."

I couldn't help but grin.

This was the play, and the world would burn for it. I'd won. And all it cost was plunging the world into a three way nuclear tango. But I wasn't done yet, just needed to wrap this up in a neat bow. And that bow consisted of Kurdish corpses.

I lean back and pull another folder, I then slide the folder across the table. It's a thick one. Heavy. The paper inside still smells of smoke and blood, like the truth was branded into it with fire. Stalin doesn't touch it yet. He just stares at it, like it might bite him. I almost want it to.

"Take a look," I say, half-whisper, half-command. "It's all there. The death marches. The camps. The trains packed with Kurds. The gas. The shallow graves in the Armenian highlands. All thanks to my little war in Anatolia." I lean back, eyes flicking to the Soviet flag on the wall—blood red and totalitarian. The guilt was there, but I acknowledged it, it is what it is. "They thought no one would notice. But I did."

He doesn't flinch. But his fingers twitch once before he opens the folder.

And there it is. Grainy photos. Eyewitness accounts. Turkish officer testimonies my OVRA boys tortured out of him like juice from a lemon. Pages and pages of bureaucratic Turkish evil. The kind you need a cold soul and a desk to carry out.

"Genocide," I say, spitting the word like it's ash on my tongue. "Pan-Turkist lunacy. Carried out by the Young Officers. Türkeş. Atsız. All of them. They tried to outdo Hitler in brutality."

Stalin's eyes narrow. This time he does flinch. His knuckles go white around a page with a list of dead children and the words 'Kurdish relocation complete' stamped in Turkish.

I light a cigarette. It looks cool. I miss home. I miss music videos. I miss compassion. I miss Japan's trashy pop songs about heartbreak that made my girlfriend cry like a fool despite not being fluent in Japanese. I am a fool. A fool in a dictator's skin.

"Once the war with Japan is done, or before if you want." I blow smoke toward the ceiling. "You can use these documents as an excuse to move into Turkey. Turkey will be yours. But I need you to do me a favor. I need you to give my little global federation justification and legitimacy." I jab a finger at the folder. "Genocide. Mass murder. Ethnic cleansing. It writes itself. A humanitarian mission. The great Soviet and Italian liberators, come to stop a fascist bloodbath. A joint Italian Soviet intervention."

I chuckle. A dry, broken sound. "Of course, the irony being that we are no better than the Turks. But history won't remember it that way. Not if we write it first. And of course once it's all done you can pull turkey into your sphere."

Stalin looks at me like he's reading a puzzle he already solved. "And you?"

"I get nothing out of Turkey. I'm not greedy. I have my backyard—Africa, the Middle East, the Maghreb, Egypt. Except that I become a hero alongside you in Turkey, we both win, my global federation destroys whatever legitimacy the British and Americans stupid little Atlantic charter has and we gain moral legitimacy."

A pause. He studies me again. Like he's trying to figure out if I'm insane or just brilliant. The answer is yes to both, specially the former. Stalin nods once, slowly. The way a glacier nods. Deliberate. Cold. I know that look. He'll do it.

"I've already seen the future, Josef," I say softly. "But if we join forces for now, we can make things the way we want it to be."

And in the silence that follows, I hear it again—Junko Yagami's voice drifting through my mind like a ghost:
"Tasogare no Bay City…"
Twilight in Bay City. Neon lights on wet pavement.

God I missed Sofie.

May 25, 1942
Palazzo Venezia
Rome, Italy

Dinner was a delirious spectacle—three courses of decadence, drowned in wine and lacquered with opera. I barely tasted a thing. I haven't truly tasted anything since 2023. Since five guys. Since Bonchon's fried chicken. Since Sofie. Since the scent of Pantene Pro-V in her damp black hair as she leaned on me in DC while walking home from a day at the museum. All of that—gone. Now I dealt with foie gras, veal, and the stench of history dying in real time.

My puppets—no, my unwitting slaves—sat around the long mahogany table like actors on the final night of a doomed play. Louis Napoléon of France, still playing emperor in a suit three sizes too tight. Franco, smelling faintly of incense and gunpowder. Horthy, old-world charm and new-world insecurity. Kvaternik, my Croat lapdog, more manageable than that insufferable fanatic Pavelić. Vërlaci of Albania, Saadeh of Syria with those big dreamy pan-Syrian eyes, Pangalos of Greece wheezing through every syllable, Tsar Boris III, King Michael I, Avraham Stern—the fire-eyed ghost of Zion—and Figl of Austria, that spineless pragmatist. And even Imam Yahya from Yemen, in robes that whispered across the marble like a threat.

It was my Legion of Doom. My Axis of Style. My neofascist fever dream with an Italo-disco beat.

I finished my glass of Chianti, snapped my fingers like I was directing a scene from American Psycho if it were dubbed in Japanese with Tatsuro Yamashita playing in the background.

From the shadows, my aides emerged—silent, black-suited specters—and handed each man two folders. One red. One blue. The colors of destiny. The colors of madness.

"Open the blue folder," I instructed coolly, my voice like ice under pressure. The translators murmured the order in a dozen accents.

They opened them. Pages rustled like a paper hurricane.

Franco was first to speak, because of course he was. "What is this?"

"That," I said, pouring myself another glass, "is the future. Missiles that fly across continents without a pilot. Bombs so vast they can erase a city in a blink. We stole it all from the Germans while they were too busy shooting Jews to notice."

I let it hang.

I smiled. Not because it was funny. But because it hurt. Because this wasn't my world. This wasn't home.

"And of course," I went on, slow and deliberate, "these aren't gifts. They're investments. The price… is in the red folder. And if you take it, the nukes are all yours to use."

Rustling again. Eyes widened. Palms sweated.

"The Mare Nostrum Economic and Security Framework?" Louis Napoléon asked, puzzled, as if he had just stumbled upon the final level of a game he didn't know he was playing.

I nodded. "My masterpiece," I thought. "My Economics major finally paying off. Poli-sci minor too, God rest my GPA."

The folder contained the blueprint of a new world—a synthetic beast cobbled from the bones of the EU, NATO, the WTO, and whatever twisted dreams I half-remembered from late nights watching documentaries while half-drunk during peace corps service.

"This," I announced, rising to my feet with theatrical flair, "is our future. Bound by war, yes—but we must go further. We must become an empire of systems. Unified, interlocked, indivisible. Capital, labor, steel, uranium—all flowing freely between us. Like blood."

I paced the room now, drunk on the music in my head—Miami Sound Machine's Conga pounding in rhythm with my heartbeat.

"The Soviets are building their own bombs. So are the Americans. If we don't bind ourselves now, we will be swallowed—devoured—by their ambitions."

I looked at each of them, let the silence do the damage. I imagined them replaced by holograms, anime filters, neon lights flickering behind their heads.

"But together?" I hissed. "Together, we exceed them. Together, we crush them."

I slammed my hand on the table. "We create a common market. Free movement of capital, workers, services. Unified scientific and military research. Nuclear collaboration. A joint command structure. If one is attacked, all respond. If one falls behind, all advance to pull them forward."

I took a breath. I could feel the world tearing at the seams behind my eyes.

"I know what you're thinking," I added with a smile, as if I were pitching a startup in Silicon Valley. "This sounds impossible. Too complicated. Too modern."

I leaned forward. "That's because it is. Welcome to modernity, gentlemen. I've seen the future, and either we adapt, or we die."

Silence again.

I sat down, suddenly tired.

Outside, the eternal Roman night continued. The air buzzed with ghosts. Somewhere, in my head, Laura Branigan's Self Control started playing.

And all I could think about… was how much I missed air-conditioning.

The air was thick now—perfumed with cigar smoke, fear, ambition. The kind of atmosphere where dreams either bloom or rot.

Franco looked skeptical, his thick fingers twitching like he was resisting the urge to reach for a pistol or a rosary. "A single market between Spain and Jews? Albanians and Austrians? Greeks and Syrians? You're mad."

I leaned back in my chair, fingers steepled like a villain in an 80s anime. "Yes. I am mad. Mad enough to know that the current order is already dead. We are the worms eating its corpse—and we may as well feast together."

Kvaternik glanced up. "What about tariffs?"

"Gone," I said. "Phased out over five years. Uniform import-export regulations across all member states. We'll create a shared customs union with centralized border enforcement. Call it 'MareCom' or some other soulless technocratic acronym. It doesn't matter. The illusion of structure is enough to keep the bureaucrats happy."

Vërlaci nodded slowly. "And labor?"

"Free movement," I said. "Any worker from any member state can live and work in another. Think of it—Spaniards building railroads in Syria. Greeks running Croatian shipyards. Yemenis engineering Austrian turbines. A symphony of labor. A marketplace of blood and steel." Italian economic dominance, all these other nations were either too destroyed by war or too economically weak to resist.

Boris III stroked his mustache. "That will provoke unrest."

"Yes," I said, grinning. "It will. And when it does, we will crush it. Together. Unified police and intelligence services. Cross-border paramilitary teams. Interpol, another soulless acronym for us to use."

Figl cleared his throat meekly. "And the currency?"

"Phase One: national currencies tied to a shared index—call it the Aquila Standard, based on a basket of commodities: gold, oil, uranium, and wheat. Phase Two: a unified currency. A new lira, or a new name entirely—Solidus, like the old Roman currency." I looked into the distance like I could already see it minted and gleaming, spinning in slow motion to the sound of Take on Me.

"But who controls it?" asked Stern, eyes narrowing. "Who sets interest rates? Who decides inflation targets?"

Ah, the Israeli ghost speaks. I met his gaze. "A central bank. Rotating presidency. Based in Rome for optics. Staffed by technocrats loyal to the vision, not to any single nation. Quiet, clean men with cold eyes and no souls. Like the ECB, but with balls." Lies, OVRA would be all over them, dancing to my tune while they thought they were free.

There were murmurs now—nervous, curious, intrigued. They were hooked. You could see it in the way their fingers touched their folders again, like addicts stroking the last cigarette in the pack.

"And the military?" Pangalos wheezed. "We share doctrine, but what about command?"

"Unified Strategic Command headquartered in Rome. Each member contributes a minimum 5% of GDP to defense. Centralized logistics. Interoperable equipment. Shared bases. Cross-training. Intelligence fusion. You attack one, you attack all." NATO but with a fascist aesthetic.

Franco sneered. "You expect Spain to hand over its autonomy?"

"No," I replied, sipping from my glass. "I expect you to pretend you are, while getting rich, strong, and indispensable. Sovereignty is the sugar pill. Integration is the medicine."

Stern leaned forward, fingers pressed together. "What about Palestine?"

"Yours," I said. "You'll have your Israel like we agreed to don't worry—backed by the might of this new order. But only if you stay useful, and only if you keep the Soviets, Americans and British out of the middle east along with Syria over there. And no atrocities this time, I don't want to see Arabs expelled, or murdered en masse. Treat them as second class citizens, segregate them like the Americans do with the blacks. But I don't want bad PR. We're not Germany or Turkey."

He sat back. No smile. Just calculation. I respected that.

Across the table, Saadeh and Yahya exchanged glances, already calculating their own angles.

"Make no mistake," I said, standing again, pacing like a panther in a glass cage, "this is not about fairness. This is not about democracy. This is about survival. This is about power. We will be the heart of a new world economy. We will carve the future like a disco ball made of steel and napalm."

I paused dramatically. The silence was almost religious.

"All you have to do… is sign."

Outside, the sun was setting over Rome. Inside, something else was rising—something twisted and new.

And in the back of my mind, Ana Torroja was singing softly in Spanish about lost love.

It was Louis Napoléon who finally stood up.

Not Franco, not Pangalos, not the imam—no, the French pretender, with his waxy hands and long Bourbon face, had apparently had enough. He stood with the pomp of a man who'd once watched his ancestor lose an empire and decided, inexplicably, to try again.

"This is madness," he said coolly, eyes scanning the room for support. "You speak of markets and missiles, of unity and annihilation, but all I see is an Italian empire in disguise. Rome at the center of a black sun. I did not see my family's throne restored to become a satrap."

A few nods. Figl. Kvaternik. Even Franco gave a grunt, which was about as close to agreement as he ever got without shooting someone.

Napoléon went on: "If we sign this… this red folder, we become nothing but tributaries. You speak of unity, but all roads still lead to you."

I smiled. Not the gracious kind, but the type you learn in back rooms, the kind that smells like blood and glue and mother's perfume.

"What other choice do you have?" I said. "Do you think Britain or the US will let you keep Wallonia? Luxembourg? The Rhineland? Who will help you reconquer Africa?"

I stood up slowly. Chair scraping against the marble like a blade on bone.

"I don't need you to like this, Louis. I don't need you to understand it. I need you to sign."

The room stiffened.

"I have given you everything. You rule Paris only because I allowed it. You eat from my hand and then choke on the bones, crying tyranny? What a joke."

I turned to the others.

"Do you think this world will wait for us? Do you think the Americans will share their economy? The Soviets their science? Do you think Churchill dreams of treaties with men like us? No. They dream of our overthrow, of us becoming puppets to their stupid dreams of freedom, democracy, secularism and godlessness. They dream of our children shot in basements. We are the last kings of a dying age, and I offer you a lifeline."

I turned back to Napoléon.

"You speak of empires? Then speak of yours—your empire died whimpering at Waterloo. Mine marches from Anatolia to the Alps. Mine was carved with fire and salted with blood. I, am a monster, I have killed millions."

Napoléon clenched his fists. "You mistake fear for respect."

"No," I said coldly, stepping closer. "I command both."

There was a beat of silence. The kind that smells like metal.

"Leave if you must," I whispered. "Run back to your Parisian dollhouse. But know this—when the atom burns the sky, when the ice melts and the oil runs dry, you'll come crawling back. You all will. And when you do, I may not answer the door."

Napoléon sat back down.

Franco shifted in his seat and muttered, "So what's Phase Three?"

I grinned.

"Phase Three? Total domination. Africa was just a start. The Soviet union will collapse on its own weight. The Americans and British will be spent. Once it happens, we move in. The world is ours for the taking. We just need to take it."

And deep inside my head, Maria Takeuchi sang "Plastic Love" in a looping tape of echoing synth, while I watched the future bow its head in this smoke-filled room.

May 26, 1942
Palazzo Venezia, Rome
Hall of Constantine

The hall was dressed like a corpse ready for burial—marble polished, flags raised, and the Vatican choir humming something tragic in the rafters. A thousand-year empire, reborn under halogen lights and gilded eagles. I stood on the dais beneath a fresco of Constantine, staring down with mad, conquering eyes, and thought:

"This is it. The new Pax Romana. Or at least the trailer."

My boots clicked against the floor as I strode out, slow and deliberate, tailored black uniform cutting a silhouette of iron against red velvet banners. Every camera lens, every quivering hand from Reuters to The times, captured the moment like it mattered. I made sure of that. Image is god.

Before me sat the rulers, the warlords, the strongmen and ghost-puppets I had assembled. Franco—stoic, unreadable. Pangalos—already sweating. Saadeh—feigning detachment with a cigarette that trembled. Horthy, Kvaternik, Vërlaci, Figl. They were all here. They hadn't slept. I had. Dreamless, precise sleep. Like a machine on standby.

Each of them had a pen and two identical documents before them, one in Latin, one in their own tongue. The Mare Nostrum Economic and Security Framework.

My magnum opus. A malicious blend of Bretton Woods, the ECSC, NATO, and a little bit of Chicago School sadism—masquerading as harmony.

A translator read aloud in crisp, mechanical Latin:

"An agreement of mutual sovereignty, market integration, military alliance, and shared scientific advancement. In defense of civilization. In defiance of decay."

I stepped forward. Cleared my throat. The mic crackled.

"Gentlemen," I said. "We are not signing a treaty. We are not aligning for convenience. This is not a pact. This is a severance."

I let the echo ring.

"A severance from the Old World. From the Anglosphere. From America. From Marx and Mammon. From Versailles, from Wilson and Lenin and Roosevelt and every corpse that ever drew lines in blood and called it peace. This is our world now. Ours. And like the sea that binds us, it has no borders, only depth."

No applause. Only breath. Good.

I pointed to the papers. "Let us begin."

And one by one, they did. Theodoros Pangalos signed first—trembling hand, shaking glasses. Franco next, curt and resentful. Even Louis Napoléon, who had growled defiance the night before, scribbled his name like it was a resignation letter to history.

When it was done, I signed last. In red ink. A single, violent slash: B. Mussolini.

Then I turned to the press.

"Let it be known," I said, "that today, May 26th, 1942, the Mare Nostrum Economic and Security Framework is born."

Cameras flashed. Somewhere, a marching band erupted in the distance.

"We are now one market. One war engine. One voice. One trigger. If one of us is attacked, all of us respond. If one of us innovates, all of us rise. The seas are ours. The skies are ours. The future is ours."

A long pause.

"And God help whoever tries to stop us."

That night, as fireworks bloomed over the Tiber, I sat alone in my office with a glass of brandy, whispering along to Simple minds playing over and over again in my head.

"Dont you, forget about me…"

The world had just changed forever. And all I could think of… was Sofie's laugh back in a world that didn't exist.

---------

OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES (OSS)
Washington, D.C.
PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE — BENITO MUSSOLINI (ALIAS: IL DUCE)
Compiled: June 4, 1942
Classification: TOP SECRET
Prepared by: Dr. Samuel Worthington, Section X (Behavioral Intelligence & Enemy Personalities)

SUBJECT: Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini
DOB: July 29, 1883 (Subject claims to be 58)
CURRENT POSITION: Duce of Italy, Founder of the Mare Nostrum Economic and Security Framework
ALIAS KNOWN TO INTELLIGENCE: "The Mediterranean Napoleon," "The Architect," "The Phantom of Palazzo Venezia"
EVALUATOR'S SUMMARY:
Subject presents signs of profound psychological dissociation from conventional reality, operating in a constructed delusional framework that fuses messianic purpose with personal trauma. Highly intelligent, obsessively structured, and increasingly erratic in both ideology and presentation. He is not insane in the legal sense—rather, he is unmoored from the emotional framework that governs normative political behavior.

I. INTELLECTUAL PROFILE:
Subject possesses an unusually high capacity for abstraction and systems thinking. Evidence suggests extensive academic grounding in both economics and political theory, possibly at graduate-level Western institutions. Despite his fascist exterior, subject appears to draw heavily on liberal institutional design, evident in the recent Mare Nostrum proposal, which mirrors elements of the League of Nations, European Common Market, and American federalism.

He is fluent in multiple languages and demonstrates an uncanny ability to read his interlocutors, often shifting tone and rhetoric to align with cultural or historical tropes (e.g., invoking Roman imperial imagery with Greeks, Islamic unity with Yemenites, pan-Latin solidarity with Francoists).

His speeches blend technocratic detail with near-religious fervor. OSS operatives have compared his oratory and style to a cross between Franklin D. Roosevelt and a manic televangelist.

II. PSYCHOSEXUAL & PERSONAL BEHAVIOR:
Though publicly ascetic and stoic, multiple sources within his cabinet and staff indicate compulsive humming along to foreign music, especially what he refers to Japanese "City Pop" and ballads from the "80s". These musical episodes often occur late at night, alone, sometimes for hours. Handlers report melancholic behavior afterward, especially when songs reference lost love, technology, or family.

Subject occasionally references entities or objects that do not exist within the known world of 1942—examples include "smartphones," "Tokyo subways," and "Bluetooth speakers." We hypothesize these may be codewords or symptoms of a dissociative fugue state.

He maintains no known intimate relations save for his wife Rachele. Subject used to have a relationship with mistress Clara Petacci but seemingly broke it off after a particularly intense psychotic episode. Subject appears to be emotionally fixated on individuals not present in his current reality. He has been recorded whispering names like Anna, Lucia, and Sofie to himself. No corroboration has been found for these persons.

III. POLITICAL PSYCHODYNAMICS:
Mussolini is not merely a fascist ideologue—he is a meta-ideologue. He views ideologies as tools, not moral truths. Power is his only fixed axis. He is Machiavellian to the extreme, yet cloaks his machinations in elaborate philosophical justifications—often quoting Nietzsche, Marcus Aurelius, or obscure French sociologists.

His Mare Nostrum framework is not a dream of unity—it is a containment system, a web in which he places lesser rulers like insects to be fed upon as needed. He believes himself to be Europe's last great man, a final bulwark before "the machines and the accountants destroy the spirit."

IV. THREAT ASSESSMENT:
Subject is uniquely dangerous due to:

1. His ability to fuse disparate nationalist movements into a coherent bloc.

2. His deep understanding of economics, logistics, and statecraft.

3. His utter disregard for moral limits or historical precedent.

4. His obsession with nuclear weapons as both a deterrent and a ritualistic symbol of modern divinity.

We classify Mussolini as a Class A Strategic Threat, on par with Hitler but far more dangerous.

---

RECOMMENDED ACTIONS:

Increase psychological warfare campaigns targeting Mussolini's internal sense of displacement and longing.

Monitor all radio broadcasts from Italy for embedded code or irregular references.

Discredit Mussolini's intellectual consistency by leaking contradictory writings and exposing moral hypocrisy.

Establish a deep-cover operation to recruit psychiatric professionals in neutral Europe for a remote analysis cell (codename: Mirage).

Prepare for the possibility that Mussolini may not fear nuclear retaliation—and may even welcome it as a path to historical martyrdom.

"He does not seek to conquer the world. He seeks to rewrite it."
—Final note from Dr. Worthington

May 27, 1942
Palazzo Venezia
Rome, Italy

They followed me like wind-up dolls the next day, each one a caricature of faded empires and delusions of grandeur, trailing behind me through the marble guts of the Palazzo Venezia. The corridors smelled of polish, dust, and old ambition. My puppets—all of them—marched with their respective translators like parodies of diplomacy on parade.

There was Louis Napoléon, that pretty-faced revenant of French dreams, mouthing republican platitudes through monarchist teeth. Franco walked beside him, a Catholic hangman dipped in incense and the stench of Cordoban blood—he smelled like a mass grave at dusk. Horthy was a powdered antique with delusions of Versailles. Kvaternik, my docile Croatian mutt, licked my boots with his eyes, unlike that rabid Pavelić who always looked like he was five seconds from a psychotic break. Vërlaci of Albania was a walking irrelevance, Saadeh of Syria stood dreamy-eyed like he'd just stepped out of a fairytale, his irises drowning in Greater Syria. Pangalos wheezed like a deflated accordion—each breath a laborious threat. Tsar Boris III looked bored, King Michael I of Romania still smelled like his mother's perfume. Figl of Austria—the spineless whisper of a once-proud corpse. Stern of Zion, my favorite: blazing-eyed, messianic, furious. A ghost made flesh, always vibrating with divine vengeance. Even Imam Yahya from Yemen had come, silent in his flowing robes, moving like a curse through the air.

And me? I was dressed like I was headed to a Miami nightclub in 1986—only my soul was in ruins. I missed my family. I missed streaming Yurie Kokubu at 2 a.m., sobbing in the dark with my noise-canceling headphones on. I missed Uber Eats and watching my Sofie laugh over boba tea. I missed the way modern toilets flushed. The future was gone, and all I had left were ghosts and savages.

I stopped in front of the door. His door.

"What you're about to see," I said, turning slowly to face them, savoring the anticipation like a drag of expensive Colombian cocaine, "will remain classified for now. Now then—"

I knocked. Three times. Like a priest at a coffin. The door creaked open.

Inside were nurses—pale, trembling things in crisp white—tending to a ruined figure nestled in crisp linens like a broken idol. Medical equipment hissed softly like dying serpents.

"This," I said, gesturing with theatrical reverence, "is Adolf Hitler. Not dead. Not yet. Contrary to the comforting lies in the papers, he didn't die gloriously in Berlin. A Soviet shell injured him and turned his body into borscht. My OVRA men dragged what was left of him from the rubble of Germany and we've been keeping him... preserved. Sentient. Barely. He blinks once for yes, twice for no. That's the extent of the Third Reich now—a meat puppet on morphine."

I approached the bed. He was sleeping. I slapped him. Hard.

"Wake up, you bitch!" I shouted in German, the sound echoing off the fascist marble. His eyes shot open—panic, recognition, hatred—and I smiled like a man in love.

"Hey there, little buddy," I cooed, tousling his hair like I was his big brother and he was six. "Look who came to visit!"

I grabbed his limp arm and flopped it like a ventriloquist's dummy toward the crowd. "Hallo, ich bin Hitler," I said in my worst German accent, giving a cheerful wave. "Ich bin EIN Berliner!"

They stared. They all stared like I'd just pissed on the Virgin Mary during mass.

Franco's lip twitched. Stern was frozen, calculating. Pangalos looked like he might stroke out. Translators murmured my words like they were praying not to be damned. Good. Let them squirm.

"What's the matter?" I said, blinking innocently. "Too much for you? No one wants to have fun with Il Duce anymore? Come on, lighten up—it's just a joke. Jesus."

I turned back to Hitler and spoke with the intimacy of a lover, "You'll live just long enough to see your empire become a laughingstock. I'm going to turn your legacy into a punchline between two songs on a Tokyo night drive playlist."

I straightened and faced the others. "Anyway, I didn't drag you all here just to torment a vegetable, though that was a bonus."

My voice dropped, seductive now, electric. Like Luis Miguel's Ahora te puedes Marchar whispering through a cassette deck in a 1988 Firebird.

"I brought you here because we're going to reshape the world. Not the tired, grey fascism of gun salutes and cement monuments. No. Something more... vivid. Neon-colored. Sensual. Cruel. A modern day triumph."

They didn't get it. Of course they didn't. These men were stuck in the 19th century. I was a man of 2025, trapped in 1942, wearing a corpse's skin and dancing to a soundtrack no one else could hear.

Outside, Rome simmered. Inside, history twisted.

And in my head, Luis Miguel started playing, Oro de ley.

The silence was a living thing now—thick, electric, clinging to their faces like wet cobwebs. I let it stretch. Let it breathe. Let them sweat in it. And then, I smiled. Slowly. The way a man smiles when he's about to detonate history with a cigarette and a grin.

"October 31st," I said, voice low, sultry, reverent. "That's the date. Mark it down, tattoo it on your chest, carve it into the bones of your enemies."

They blinked. No one spoke. Even Hitler blinked once—yes. Yes, he remembered the date.

"The twentieth anniversary of the March on Rome. My personal Christmas. But this year…" I laughed, a sharp, glittering thing. "This year, we're not celebrating a march—we're celebrating a resurrection."

I spun slowly on my heel, like I was modeling haute couture fascism on a Milan catwalk.

"I will announce to the world the restoration of the Roman Empire. Not a mere Italy. Not a broken peninsula peddling olives and ghost stories—but the Empire. Caput Mundi. From the sands of Tripoli to the peaks of Albania. From Judea to the Dalmatian coast. And with this restoration... a cleansing. A reckoning."

My eyes fell on Stern. That ghost. That weapon. That future.

"We'll unveil our little surprise," I said, gesturing lazily at Hitler's twitching frame. "Show the world that the so-called Führer is nothing but a wheezing relic in a piss-stained bed, held up by tubes and drugs. The man who conquered Europe reduced to a breathing exhibit."

I turned to my collection of tyrants, puppets, ideologues, and parasites.

"There will be a trial. Here. Rome. Where justice once wore a crimson toga and lions purred beneath the floorboards."

I raised one hand, fingers spread like a conductor.

"You," I pointed at each of them, "will be the jury. I will be the judge. And Stern—"

He raised his eyes. Fire. Ice. Future.

"—you, my lion of Judah, will be the executioner if you want. Or have your boys in the Lehi do it, it makes no difference to me."

A few gasps. Some shuffled uneasily. Franco looked like he'd swallowed a toothpick. Pangalos mopped his forehead. Horthy opened his mouth, then closed it again like a fish.

"Just one thing," I added, eyes still locked on Stern. "Don't shoot him in the head."

I walked slowly back to Hitler's bedside, leaned down, and ruffled the little rascals, "That skull's mine."

I straightened and addressed the room again.

"I'm going to turn his skull into my personal golden drinking cup, just like Khan Krum of Bulgaria did with Emperor Nicephorus. Imagine it... rimmed in sapphires, polished like a Fabergé egg, filled with vintage Armenian brandy and ice cubes shaped like Reichsmarks."

Figl looked like he might faint. Stern simply nodded. Once. Slowly.

Outside, Rome breathed. Inside, madness crystallized.

And somewhere deep inside my fractured head, La Incondicional by Luis Miguel played on loop as I imagined sipping victory through the hollowed-out skull of Adolf Hitler, bathed in golden light and the applause of history.

And then it happened.

Franco crossed himself like I'd just pissed on the Virgin Mary. He muttered something about divine retribution, his fingers trembling against the rosary in his pocket. He looked at me like I was Lucifer in an Armani suit—and I smiled back like I knew I was.

Louis Napoléon—poor, perfumed bastard—looked like he was about to throw up foie gras. "Mon Dieu," he whispered, backing a step toward the door. "This is... barbarism."

"Barbarism?" I purred, tilting my head. "No, Louis. This is justice."

Horthy chuckled, brittle and broken, the laugh of a man trying not to drown. "Khan Krum... of course. Of course. You always did like your theatrics, Benito."

I leaned in toward him. "What can I say, I love a little drama Miklós."

Kvaternik didn't blink. He just smiled—thin-lipped and delighted. Pavelić would've called me insane. Kvaternik? He was probably imagining sipping plum rakija from Hitler's molar. I liked him more every hour.

Vërlaci tried to make a joke, something weak about Albanian skull cups and ancient warriors, but his voice cracked halfway through and died in the silence. He looked like a dried fig with a mustache.

Tsar Boris blinked rapidly, trying to process what the hell kind of political theater he was now trapped in. The Tsar of Bulgaria, staring at a 20th-century Caligula with a Pop soundtrack pounding in his brain.

Pangalos wheezed, then chuckled, then wheezed again. "You're mad," he croaked, and I could see the sweat gleaming like holy oil across his cheeks. "Completely... utterly mad."

I gave him a finger-gun. "Takes one to know one, General."

King Michael of Romania just stared, his face as pale as a communion wafer. I don't think he'd blinked since I said trial. Poor kid. He was born to be eaten alive.

Saadeh, eyes still dreamy, murmured, "In Greater Syria, the skull is sacred in poetry... but not like this." He looked disturbed. I winked at him. I liked disturbing prophets.

Stern? Stern didn't flinch. Not even once. The fire didn't flicker. His nod had been enough. But I caught the twitch at the corner of his mouth. Satisfaction. Purpose. He was ready to be the sword.

Figl of Austria turned away entirely, hand over his mouth. "This is obscene," he muttered, as though the very marble under his shoes might vomit. "You're unwell."

"Obscene?" I laughed. Loud. Too loud. "You think the Reich wasn't obscene, Figl? You think the holocaust was a polite misunderstanding? This is justice."

And finally—Imam Yahya, robed in silence and the scent of cardamom and old blood. He simply watched me, unreadable. Ancient. Like he'd seen empires rise and fall and understood that all men—mad or sane—end up the same: dust on a desert wind. He nodded once.

And all the while, in my head, "Take My Breath Away" by Berlin swelled and shimmered like an 80s hallucination. I imagined myself on a throne of broken flags, swirling brandy in a chalice of Nazi bone while neon lights glowed beneath the arches of the Colosseum.

I opened my arms like a televangelist mid-sermon.

"Gentlemen," I said. "You are standing at the crossroads of history. One path leads to cowardice. The other—to legend."

I turned back to Hitler, now blinking rapidly, confused, panicked.

"Don't worry, mein kleiner Dummkopf," I said softly, brushing a lock of his hair aside. "The whole world's going to see how you die."

I could see it all now—vivid, glorious, grotesque. The Restoration of Rome. The trial of the damned century. History itself dragged screaming into my courtroom, a place where I reigned not just as judge, but as the executioner's whisperer, the truth's last inquisitor. The whole world would watch. My minions—the loyal, the broken, the blood-soaked—would sit as jury, sharpening axes instead of pencils, verdicts already carved into marble long before the trial began.

But then—crack!—another thought shattered through my skull like a bullet made of lead and treachery. Restoring Rome? Crowning Victor Emmanuel? That simpering, useless mannequin? That walking wax figure in a dead king's coat? Why in God's flayed name would I hand it all over to him? What did he ever do for Italy? For me?

Nothing. Nothing but cast a long shadow while I scorched the earth for him. It was me. I signed the death warrants. I spilled the blood. I made Europe scream, and then sing. I butchered millions and forged the future in my own trembling, hands. I raised this corpse of a country to its feet, stitched muscle onto bone, jammed a broken crown into its skull and shouted, LIVE!

Why should he sit on the throne? Why should he be emperor? What divine right does he have that I haven't pissed on and rewritten in my own bile?

Then I saw it. Clearer than anything I'd ever known. Me—alone—in that sacred, stolen chair. The crown in my hands. The trumpets screaming like a hundred dying angels. And I… I place it on my own head. No hesitation. No trembling hands. Just inevitability.

A dynasty. Not of blood, but of will. A thousand years of me echoing through marble halls and burned-out cities. Statues of my face where the gods used to stand.

I closed my eyes and I felt it. Oh, mother of God, I felt it. It was holy. Blasphemously holy. The only logical conclusion to a life like mine. It wasn't ambition anymore—it was destiny. It was doom. And it wanted me back. I needed it.

So I guess there's only one thing left to do.

Looks like I'm staging another coup.

But first I had to plan. Plan how I was going to set the Mediterranean on fire.

May 27, 1942
Palazzo Venezia
Rome, Italy

We sat in that cursed chamber beneath the echo of Fascist chandeliers after my little grotesque display of Der Fuhrer, each of us orbiting the great mahogany war table like vultures circling a dying empire. The map of Eurasia and Africa was splayed before us, a once-proud world reduced to cartographic autopsy. Cities like scars. Borders like surgical incisions. Rivers like veins begging for a blade.

My fingers moved slowly over the Mediterranean, tracing the curve from Sicily to Palestine with the same tenderness the sax like on Midnight Girl by Toshiki Kadomatsu played—soft, sensual, doomed. The memory stung more than any war wound. I almost whispered her name. I almost wept.

I lit a cigarette, exhaled smoke like lost prayer, and let "Self Control" by Laura Branigan loop in my skull, that tragic disco scream that sounded like a cry for help—my cry. No one in the room noticed. Or maybe they were too afraid to ask.

I didn't look at Stern at first. Avraham was always composed, his sharp profile catching the lamp like a blade—his eyes were shards of shattered menorahs and ruptured commandments. He reminded me of the ghosts in my sleep, the ones who spoke Hebrew and bled gunpowder. Maybe I loved him. Maybe I hated him. Maybe he was me.

"Let's begin planning, gentlemen," I said finally, voice dry as desert bone. "This will be a coordinated effort between all of us. I think I'll call it… Operation Mare Nostrum."

The words felt delicious. Mythic. Imperial. I could already hear my future speech echoing off the broken columns of a resurrected Senate:

"ITALY-WILL BE REORGANIZED! INTO A NEW! ROMAN! EMPIRE! FOR A SAFE, AND SECURE, SOCIETY!"

Yeah, I stole that from Palpatine. Fight me. He was my favorite villain. Still is. I didn't just admire him. I understood him. The robes. The voice. The sinister sex appeal of authoritarian apocalypse. God, I missed movies.

"Avraham," I said slowly, as if invoking a demon or an old friend, "the coronation is set for October 31st." I grinned. "I want the skies over Palestine bleeding red as I proclaim the rebirth of Rome and you unleash the Lehi. Bombs. Chemical weapons. A chorus of screams and brass. You'll have all you need."

He said nothing. Just stared. He knew. He knew what I meant. This wasn't politics. This was prophecy. "Burn their barracks," I said. "Blow up their rail lines. Hit their convoys. Make the British remember fear—make them taste it. Like battery acid and tea leaves."

But then I leaned closer, eyes like razors. "Leave the Arabs out of it. No pogroms. No butchery. I don't need Saddeh calling me at 2AM crying about Pan-Syrian unity and dead kids in Haifa. This isn't Turkey. This isn't Germany. We bring fire, not genocide. Segregate them like the Americans do their blacks if you must. But no rivers of blood. Understand?"

He nodded, reluctantly. Stern had his own demons. So did I. I looked down at my hands—calloused, not trembling. Not anymore. I wasn't born for this but I adapted. I was just a guy who loved 80s Japanese pop and used to be a peace corps volunteer.

Then it hit me. "Maniac" came on in my head. Perfect timing. Flashdance. That electric madness. That synthwave of chaos. I almost laughed—out loud. Ran a hand through my thinning hair. God, I missed Sofie.

My eyes locked on Pangalos. That Greek bastard was already halfway to Olympus in his mind. "Start moving arms to the Cypriots," I told him. "You want Enosis? You'll get it. Cyprus is yours. Turn the island into a firework show. Every British soldier is Santa Claus, and this Christmas, they all get lead."

He grinned. Sick bastard. I knew what he really wanted—to cleanse it. To erase the Turks. I pretended not to see the bloodlust. Not my business. Not yet.

Then Franco. That corpse in a uniform. Still clutching monarchy like a child clings to a rotting teddy bear. "Blockade Gibraltar," I barked. "Slow. Subtle. Nothing loud yet. Land only. But get the mines ready. The moment London so much as blinks, I want that strait sealed tighter than the Kremlin."

Louis-Napoleon next. Still playing cosplay Bonaparte with his pomp and perfume. "I'm sending the OVRA into West Africa," I told him. "We'll start the fires—revolution, chaos, dreams of freedom. But I need your boys, Louis. Your Legion. Make the world remember that empire isn't dead. It's just... Under new management."

And now the madness was in full bloom. I was sweating wine and adrenaline. The room tilted sideways, and in the distance, I heard "Gloria." Laura again. Always Laura. Her voice turned to Sofie's in my mind, whispering through time. My daughter. My light. My ghost.

I poured another drink. Red like empire, sweet like blood.

Finally, Imam Yahya. Old as Sinai, sharp as prophecy. "Prepare for war," I told him. "The House of Saud is collapsing. You want the crescent? Take it. March into Mecca. Seize Medina. Crown yourself Caliph if you dare. The desert is yours."

I leaned in like a devil whispering temptation. "Make your pilgrimage a holy war. Turn the Hajj into conquest. Paint the dunes with the fire of God. I will make you Prophet reborn. Do it."

And then—just like that—it was over. They stood, saluted, left. All of them. I sat alone in the Palazzo, surrounded by ghosts, maps, and a growing silence.

I stared down at the world I was about to remake. It looked smaller now. As if recoiling in fear. As if shrinking beneath my gaze.

Then I heard it. Africa.
By Toto.

I poured myself another glass and whispered to no one, "God bless the rains down in Africa…"

And to myself, with a smile that could shatter mirrors:

"It's all happening. My empire."

Then I left, dinner with my family. Planning a coup.

May 27, 1942
Private Dining Room, Villa Torlonia
Rome, Italy

The dining room glowed amber, bathed under the golden light of a row of antique chandeliers, the kind that probably once hung in some aristocratic palace before being gutted and set on fire by the ravages of time—and possibly me. Outside, Rome was pulsing under a smoggy, still sky, like some exhausted giant gasping for air beneath the suffocating weight of war and prophecy. You could almost hear the groans of history echoing in the distance—though it was probably just the sound of another building collapsing under the weight of fascist ambition.

Inside, the clinking of silverware and the rich, almost oppressive aroma of veal marsala tried its best to mask the fact that the world outside was going to hell in a handbasket. For a moment, at least, we could pretend things were normal—normal as a dinner where everyone was either a political ally or a potential assassin.

At the head of the table sat me—Benito Mussolini. Not the one you remember from history books, no. That one's long gone, a relic of a less complicated time. No, I was a 2023 transplant—a warlord, surrealist dictator, city pop evangelist, and, who knows, maybe an emperor in the making. Or maybe a delusional madman. Honestly, it's all a blur at this point.

I sat there, feeling more than a little like the world's most confused guest at an incredibly high-stakes dinner party. "Singing in the Snow" by Mikiko Noda looped in my head, like a divine revelation wrapped in a soft, pastel-colored dream. Her soothing voice pirouetted behind my eyes as I buttered my bread. My hands, capable of signing death warrants with a flourish, now spread butter with tragic elegance.

Across from me, Ciano was nervously sipping his wine, eyes darting from me to the door like he was half-expecting a squad of soldiers to burst in at any moment. Edda watched him like a hawk—beautiful, suspicious, loyal to a fault. Romano was trying (and failing) to impress Bruno with his latest aircraft design, which, frankly, sounded more like a toddler's scribbles than an engineering marvel. Bruno, for his part, looked like he'd rather be anywhere else. A beach. A cave. A quiet little cottage in the Alps. Just... anywhere but here.

Vittorio, ever the daredevil, was regaling everyone with a ridiculous story about a crash over Milan, where he almost died—almost being the operative word, because, naturally, he lived to tell the tale. Anna Maria giggled—because apparently, near-death experiences were her idea of a good time. Rachele, in contrast, looked horrified as any good mother should when her children sat at a table that could double as a criminal conspiracy. Benito Albino, my son from my last marriage, sat rigid as a statue, eyes forward, like he'd been trained to attend royal dinners in his sleep.

Then there was Rachele. My wife. Her eyes burned into Benito Albino like lasers, and I could almost hear her internal monologue in the air: You don't belong here. You never did. Ah, family. The foundation of any great empire, built on love, trust, and endless passive-aggressive glances.

I carved into my meat, chewing thoughtfully, contemplating the absurd architecture of fate. Here they all were—my family, my blood, my burdens. This constellation of ghosts and memories orbiting around me while I, the madman with a synth-pop soundtrack in my head, plotted the extinction of monarchy between bites of roasted asparagus. But, strangely, I felt at peace. No politics. No conspiracy. Just a brief interlude of domestic bliss before I'd inevitably descend back into the hell of war, power struggles, and other such delightful matters.

So I let it happen. I leaned back, pushed the uneaten asparagus aside, and let the moment breathe. Shot the shit with my loyal servants. For a few minutes, I almost forgot what it was like to be human. Just a man at dinner, with a slightly unhinged taste in music and an uncomfortably large ego. Almost normal.

But of course, the calm couldn't last.

As dessert was cleared and wine was poured, I made my move. I wiped my mouth slowly, deliberately, like a man about to deliver a line that would make Shakespeare's ghost groan in envy. The silence that followed my gesture was louder than any speech I could've made.

"Ciano," I said, my voice cold, yet unreasonably calm. "I want you to gather the Council tomorrow."

His eyebrows furrowed. "Why?"

I leaned back in my chair, swirling my wine like I was sipping from the goblet of revolution itself. "Because I'm going to abolish the monarchy."

The room froze. Like, freeze-frame, cut-to-black style. People blinked. Forks stopped mid-air. Rachele gasped, clutching her pearls—or at least I imagined her doing so, even though she wasn't wearing pearls. Anna Maria blinked twice, trying to process it. Edda dropped her napkin. Good job, Edda, I thought. Really setting the scene here. Only Benito Albino, my son of destiny, didn't react. He was a soldier. A good one. And good soldiers know when to keep their mouths shut.

"I'm not going to crown Victor Emmanuel," I continued, almost casually, like I was ordering a pizza or asking for a pack of menthols. "I'm going to crown myself. Emperor of Rome."

The silence that followed could have suffocated a city. It was a silence so thick, you could have cut it with a knife. Rachele looked like I'd just confessed to marrying a goat. "Benito..." she whispered, her voice trembling with that unmistakable mix of horror and disbelief.

"I'm going to abolish the monarchy," I continued, my voice smooth, yet filled with an unsettling conviction. "Today. And I'm going to crown myself Emperor on October 31st—twenty years to the day since the March on Rome. It feels fitting, doesn't it?" I looked at Ciano. "And you, my dear heir, will be the next Emperor. Isn't that lovely? I'll have one of my brothers adopt you. You'll be Galeazzo Ciano Mussolini. The second ruler of the Mussolini dynasty. A dynasty that will last... well, let's say a thousand years. That sounds good, doesn't it?"

Ciano nodded slowly, as though I'd just asked him to dig his own grave with a golden spoon. I could practically see the wheels turning in his head—greed, fear, excitement all mingling into a fine cocktail of power lust. "Of course," he said, sounding more like he was reciting a line from a play than offering genuine agreement.

I turned to Benito Albino. "Go to the barracks tonight. I want two battalions ready by dawn. Quietly. Uniformed, armed, loyal. They'll be my backup for tomorrow."

He stood up immediately. "Yes, Father."

He sounded like he'd just been handed the title of Duke of Armageddon, and frankly, it suited him. He was born for this absurd little farce we were about to begin.

I stood too, placing my napkin down with the deliberate finality of a man signing an edict. As I walked out of the room with Ciano at my side, I couldn't help but laugh. Not a polite chuckle. No, this was a full-on, unhinged laugh, the kind you get when you realize you've just rewritten history with nothing but a fountain pen and a crown made of gold.

"I'll take one Empire," I muttered to myself, "extra crispy. Hold the House of Savoy."

Behind me, the voices swirled in protest, disbelief, and a growing sense of panic.

"He's lost his mind!" Rachele barked.

"Father… Emperor?" Anna Maria whispered, as though she'd just discovered I'd secretly become a wizard.

Edda was frozen, staring at me like I'd just sprouted wings.

Vittorio grinned. "He's really doing it."

Romano let out a nervous laugh.

Bruno didn't say a word, just stared at his plate like he was reading the entrails of a sacrificed goat.

And Benito Albino had already vanished, disappearing into the night to rally an empire with iron and silence.

I stepped into the hallway. Somewhere, far in the bowels of the Palazzo, a string quartet was rehearsing. But in my head, Running in the 80s was blasting, and I was running, too. Straight into a new empire. A neon-drenched, fire-fueled, gold-plated empire. A place where nothing was sacred, and everything was for the taking.

I was running into history.

And I was the one writing it.

May 28, 1942
Palazzo Venezia
Rome, Italy


I sat at the head of the Grand Council, perched like a vulture over carrion, though the carcass in question was not yet dead—merely twitching. Before me, the long, polished table shimmered beneath the chandelier's golden light, a grotesque altar of order built upon decades of blood, iron, and improvisation. I had always found it ironic that fascism—a movement born in chaos—had found its sanctuary in baroque splendor.


I adjusted my black tunic, let my fingers tap a rhythm on the mahogany, then folded them with quiet menace. I was not a conductor, not really. No, I was a butcher composing an opera. One with fewer violins and far more detonations and civilian casualties. My symphony would be carved into the marble of history with bayonets, written in the key of vengeance and crescendoing toward a crown.


I felt it in my bones. The moment had come.


I was a rabid dog chasing a car, and worse still—God help us all—I was about to catch it. And unlike the usual fools who never know what to do once they win, I had a very detailed itinerary.


Across from me, Count Galeazzo Ciano shifted uncomfortably, smoothing his cuffs like a man preparing for either dinner or a duel. His eyes scanned the room, flicking from face to face, searching for an ally in the sea of tension. But no lifeboats were coming. Only sharks.


I could read him like a dossier. A man torn between blood and ideology. Between his love for my daughter and his fear of my shadow. He sat on the edge of his chair, like a man on the edge of a high dive, trying to calculate whether the splash below would be triumph or tragedy.


Lucky for him, I wasn't asking him to jump. Not really. I just needed him to walk with me to the edge.


Then I struck.


I slammed both hands on the desk with thunderous intent. The echo bounced off the high ceilings like a cannon shot in a cathedral. Ciano flinched—I swear to God he flinched. Good. Let them flinch. Let them taste the overture.


"Gentlemen," I began, voice clipped and sharp as a sabre's edge, "today is a unique day. A historic one. And all of you—yes, all—will have the honor of playing a part in it."


I stood slowly, letting the silence marinate.


"Let me begin with a question. A simple one. What are your honest thoughts on His Majesty, Victor Emmanuel?"


The room buzzed to life with the usual cowardice masquerading as conversation. Murmurs, platitudes, hedging.
"A traditional figurehead."
"The King is a symbol."
"A respected institution."
"An old man doing his best..."


Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera.


When their noise died down, I leaned in, narrowing my eyes like a dagger poised to strike. "Shall I remind you," I said, each syllable a scalpel, "that the King nearly sabotaged our efforts in Greece? That he ordered the Greek royal family smuggled out—smuggled, gentlemen!—even after we installed our new government? He almost ruined everything!"


They knew. Of course they knew. I'd raved about it for months—thundered about it in speeches, cursed about it in cabinet meetings, even scrawled it into the margins of intelligence briefs. I had verbally wrestled the King back into his ceremonial cage like a lion tamer dragging an old beast back behind the curtain. But the beast still had claws.


"This year," I continued, "marks twenty years since the March on Rome. Since our blackshirts flooded the capital and forced the monarchy to kneel. Twenty years since the first sparks of this glorious fire we call Fascism. October 31st—the night it all began."


I let that anniversary hang in the air, thick with myth and menace.


"This October," I said, with measured force, "we will complete the cycle. We will announce the restoration of Rome. And an emperor shall be crowned."


A pause. The kind of silence that swallows breath. You could feel the tectonic plates of history shift.


"And that emperor," I said, my voice now barely more than a breath, "will be me."


The air froze. It was as if someone had unplugged the sun.


Some stared in horror. Others blinked rapidly, the way men do when trying to wake from a nightmare. A few, like Ciano, simply stopped breathing. The reactions were predictable—shock, skepticism, fear. The usual cocktail that mixes in the veins of cowards when destiny kicks in the door.


Di Stefani opened his mouth, but I raised a hand to silence him.


"What has the King ever done for Italy?" I asked, now pacing, each step a strike against the marble floor. "Did he fight in the trenches, side by side with peasants and patriots? Did he brawl with communists in the alleys, rebuild our broken army, unify our shattered economy? Did he expose the Holocaust to the world, or declare war on Nazism when every other coward was still dancing with the devil?"


"No!" I bellowed. I slammed the desk again. "We did. I did. With all of you. The monarchy is a dusty relic in a crumbling museum. Today, we do not simply bury it—we salt the earth."


At that moment, the great double doors creaked open.


Benito Albino entered, my son, my heir, my mirror. He wore his officer's uniform like a suit of destiny. Flanking him were two soldiers—silent, stone-faced. One carried slips of paper. The other, pens. Benito himself held a simple wooden box. It was placed at the center of the table like an unspoken coffin.


"We'll put it to a vote," I said. My voice was calm now. Surgical. "Take a slip. Write yes to abolish the monarchy. If the majority agrees, I give my word—the King and his family will be allowed to live in peace. Exile, not execution. If they cooperate."


I took a breath and let my voice drop to a whisper, intimate now.


"If the 'no's win… then charge me with treason. Drag me from this room and shoot me before sunset. Hell, let my own son pull the trigger. Let Ciano take my place as Duce. But I ask one thing—tell me who voted yes, and who voted no. I want to know which hands are clean, and which are bloody… before I die."


A pause.


"And tell the people what I did. Tell them I wanted the crown."


I stepped forward, tapped the box with the soft, theatrical flourish of a ringmaster welcoming his lions.


"Let's begin."


They came. One by one. Each step a confession. Each slip a small piece of fate dropped into that box like a coin tossed into Tartarus.


And I… I tied the blindfold.


I pulled it from my pocket like a condemned man putting on his own noose, his own laurel wreath of madness. There was something sacred about it. Something Roman. I stood tall—straight-backed, hands behind me. Stoic philosopher and overcaffeinated drama queen in equal measure. If I was to be executed, I would go out like Seneca—poised and quoting poetry.


Behind me, whispers began. First in hushed tones, then louder. The buzz of disbelief. The tremor of fragile men realizing the world had shifted without their permission.


"This is madness," Pricolo hissed. "He's lost it. He's actually lost it."


Madness?


No. This was clarity—pure, crystalline, and sharp as shattered ice. I understood Nietzsche at last. Staring into the abyss? No. The abyss had smiled back, handed me a blindfold, and asked me what song I wanted to die to.


And then—like a phantom lover—it came.


"You are love for me." Yurie Kokubu's voice slithered into my ears like silk. That damn city pop melody. Melancholy wrapped in satin. A memory of a world I never quite belonged to—DC, Sofie, friends and lovers long gone. The ghost of synth and longing dragged me halfway across time.


I chuckled.


Someone gasped.
"Is he… laughing?"
"Shut up, Graziani," someone muttered.


The voices blurred again—Ricci, De Bono, De Stefani—whispering, bartering, calculating. Half wanted me gone. The other half were praying I'd win so they wouldn't be next.


Then Mecano's "Hijo de la Luna" floated into my mind, a lullaby of divine punishment and maternal sorrow. A woman begged the moon for a child… and gave birth to a cursed soul. I hummed along softly.


Was Italy my cursed child?


Had I begged the heavens for glory and birthed a monster?


More murmurs. Chairs scraped. Someone cried about honor. Another asked about pensions. Pensions. The Roman Empire was hanging by a thread, and they were thinking of their pensions.


I nearly laughed again. I almost wept.


Then came "La Chica de Humo." Emmanuel's smoky whisper, the saxophone trailing like perfume. She was illusion. So was I. So was this empire. A fever dream wearing marble robes.


And in that fading daydream, I saw her—Sofie. The baby I found. My little girl who wasn't truly mine, yet was more mine than anything else ever had been. I saw her eyes, heard her coo as I explained the world to her like a broken bedtime story. Then came Romano. Anna Maria. Bruno. Vittorio. Edda. My Frankenstein family of stolen moments and awkward love.


What had I given them?


Power, yes. But peace?


Peace was a fairy tale for the dead.


A hand touched my shoulder.


Firm. Familiar.


Benito Albino.


He leaned close. Whispered like a priest.


"Papà… it's time."


My heart didn't flinch. It had stopped flinching long ago—somewhere between Take On Me and Africa.


"All right," I whispered. "Let's count the knives."


The room fell still.


And he began.


"One…"


And I stood, blindfolded, awaiting the verdict of men I had made gods.


A single word would follow.


And it would decide everything.

May 28, 1942
Pallazo Venezia
Rome, Italy

Benito Albino's voice cut through the silence like a scalpel through old parchment.

"One."

The word echoed louder than it had any right to. It wasn't just a number—it was a dagger slipped between the ribs of a dying monarchy. A single syllable that cleaved past centuries of tradition, loyalty, and all that pompous rot handed down from a line of inbred porcelain dolls pretending to be kings. "Yes."

"Two."

Another. Another nail in the coffin. The blindfold obscured their faces, but I could hear it—the tremor in their breath, the weight in the room. It was the sound of men realizing that history wasn't written in ink, but in betrayal. "Yes."

"Three."

Gone was the muttering, the hedging. Just counting now. Cold, clinical. My heartbeat matched my son's voice beat for beat. It was strange—he sounded older with every number, like this moment was reaching inside and aging him from the spine out. "Yes."

"Four... Five... Six..."

"Yes...yes...yes..."

A chair groaned. Someone crossed themselves. Another man lit a cigarette, the sulfur of the match flaring against the heavy air, and no one even pretended to care about decorum. The world was ending, after all. Or beginning. Same thing, different playlist.

"Seven. Eight. Nine..."

"Yes...yes...yes..."

Each "yes" was a chisel strike against marble, shaping the new Italy from the bloated corpse of the old one. The House of Savoy wasn't falling—it was dissolving in slow motion, like a sugar cube in bourbon. Beautiful. I almost smiled.

"Ten. Eleven."

"Yes...yes..."

I exhaled through my nose. Slow. Measured. The smirk bloomed under the blindfold like a weed through concrete.

"Twelve."

"Yes..."

It continued, more and more votes being counted. All yes'.

And then—nothing. Just the electric silence that comes after a fall and before the scream. The chamber held its breath.

Then my son spoke, quieter than before. Reverent. Like a priest pronouncing the final rites over a corpse that hadn't realized it was dead yet.

"Unanimous. All yes."

A pause. History catching its breath.

"The monarchy is abolished."

I broke my silence then.

But the silence that followed wasn't silence. It was thunder, trapped in a room full of frightened lungs. No one moved. No one spoke. Not until I did.

I raised my hand—deliberate, dramatic. Theater mattered in moments like this. Then I pulled the blindfold from my eyes. The light hit me like a memory—sharp, sudden, blinding. I blinked hard, and the world came back into view: the cathedral ceiling, once painted with saints, now yellowed with smoke. Portraits of kings looked down from the walls, their faces already irrelevant.

And the men. My men. My accomplices.

All of them staring at me like I'd just clawed my way out of a crypt.

I met their eyes, one by one, and smiled. That dry, cruel smile I'd perfected sometime around the second Yazoo record and the third pack of Marlboros in a single night.

Then I said, softly, amused:

"Just as planned."

The words dropped like a guillotine.

Ciano blinked as though slapped. Di Stefani slumped back like a man whose bladder had given out. Pricolo looked like he'd aged a decade in ten seconds, and even Graziani—stoic, marble-faced Graziani—trembled as his cigarette spilled a little ash onto his lapel.

I stepped forward slowly, hands behind my back, like a professor preparing to give the last lecture before the bombs fall.

"I thank you for your courage, gentlemen. History doesn't ask men to be brave. It merely records whether they were."

No one responded. Good. They understood now.

"Victor Emmanuel will be brought before us. His exile will be peaceful... assuming he accepts the outcome like a man. Should he resist..."

I let it hang, like a noose swaying in the wind. I didn't need to finish it. They knew.

Then I turned to Benito Albino. He stood beside the ballot box like a statue carved out of something harder than marble. His face—still so young—held no expression. Only the rigidity of duty.

"Well done, son. Now... onto the next step."

"Shall I go to the Quirinal?" he asked, plain as stone.

I glanced back at the council. They hadn't moved. Petrified. Statues of their former selves.

"Prepare yourselves. We have months ahead. In October, I shall wear the laurel. Not a crown. Crowns are for relics and fools. I will wear the wreath of Caesar. Of Augustus. Of divine rebirth."

Rome would rise—not with trumpets, but with thunder. Not with hymns, but with synthesizers and gunfire.

I turned to the window, the city sprawling beneath the falling night. The domes. The ruins. The bones of empires. My voice dropped to a whisper as I spoke to it—not to the men, not to the boy, but to the city itself.

"Ave ego Caesar."

Then I turned back, channeling my inner Palpatine now. I could practically hear the Imperial March swelling behind me, echoing off the marble.

"When the King learns of our treason... he will try to kill me. Along with the entire Grand Council."

I glanced at them. My band of traitors. My cabal of history-makers. They shrank into their chairs, no longer conspirators—just accessories to treason. I took a deep breath, I recalled Palpatine in revenge of the sith. I mumbled for a moment, I wanted to speak in his tone.

"Every single royalist..." I began. It was close enough, "and every member of the royal family...is now an enemy of the Republic."

The room tensed. Even my son's back straightened like a snapped rod. Good.

"We must move quickly. If they are not neutralized, we will have civil war without end."

I looked my son in the eyes. Not the eyes of a child. Not anymore.

"Go to the Quirinal. Take the troops. We will catch them off balance. If they resist…"

The silence swallowed my voice for a moment.

"Do what must be done. Do not hesitate. Show no mercy."

And then I let the madness loose.

"Once more!" I shouted, voice like a gunshot echoing in the room. "The Empire shall be restored!"

Then I dropped to a whisper, almost a confession.

"And we will have… peace."

Soundtrack for the first part of the chapter: https://youtu.be/h2n7j1iUHuk?si=AvkDlnU6uagxYjQ8

May 28, 1942
Rome, Italy
Private Diary of Lieutenant Mattias Berg

The fall of the monarchy was quiet. Unnaturally so. No shots fired in the night. No dramatic proclamations. Just silence—deep, suffocating silence. As if the Eternal City had become a tomb for the very idea of history.

We had been transferred back to Rome under the guise of rest and leave. Rest was a luxury reserved for the dead, and even then it came sparingly. They gave me a battlefield commission—Lieutenant. For "distinction" in combat, they said. For "bravery." Giustino would've laughed until he coughed blood. He would've said it was because I was one of the last men left from our original battalion. And he wouldn't have been wrong.

I didn't feel brave. I felt hollow.

They called us to muster the night before—our full battalion and another, men I recognized from the old campaigns in Thrace and Germany or maybe just their eyes. Everyone else looked too young or too scared or too drunk to realize what was happening. Benito Albino Mussolini—the Duce's oldest son—walked into our barracks without pretense. No entourage. No ceremony. Just the weight of his name and the cold sharpness in his voice. He told us to form up. No explanation. No time for questions. We obeyed. Of course we did. What else was there?

By midnight we stood outside the Palazzo Venezia, lined up in the darkness like forgotten statues. Nearly two thousand of us, tight columns under streetlamps that flickered like they were ashamed to look at us. The air was warm, sticky. Rome in late May always felt like it was rotting just beneath the marble. The kind of night where you couldn't quite breathe right. A bad omen if you believed in those things.

Whispers passed between us like disease. Some said the King had fled to the Vatican. Others said he was already dead. A few claimed the Blackshirts had stormed the palace in the night, slit every throat, and were now hunting monarchists door to door. I didn't speak. I just watched the clouds pass over the moon and tried not to think.

Early in the morning, Benito Albino appeared again. Dressed in full uniform, medals, jaw clenched like he was holding something back—rage, maybe, or excitement. He gave us our orders in less than ten words: "March to the Quirinal. Secure the palace."

That was it.

Lieutenant Colonel Minelli—my CO since Thrace—made the mistake of hesitating. He stepped forward and asked if there were legal orders, written confirmation, something to show the chain of command. Benito didn't blink. He merely stepped close enough to make Minelli flinch and told him, flatly, "Disobey, and I will hang you myself."

The colonel fell back into line without another word.

We marched in silence.

Rome was still asleep, or pretending to be. Curtains drawn. No pedestrians. No priests on the corners blessing the morning traffic. Just empty streets and shuttered windows. The Colosseum loomed in the distance as we passed the Forum, its ancient bones mocking us with their permanence. We were a new empire, forged in blood and fire—and we were already devouring ourselves.

Our boots struck the cobblestones in perfect rhythm. You could hear it echo off the walls like a funeral drum. Some of the younger conscripts were trembling, not from fear, but from not knowing what they should feel. The older ones, like me, didn't tremble anymore. We'd already gone numb.

Near the Piazza Venezia, the Blackshirts joined us. Hundreds of them, slipping out of alleyways and side streets like rats answering a silent whistle. They carried pistols, clubs, shotguns. Some had knives strapped to their thighs, others carried truncheons stained darker than leather. Their faces were hard, unreadable. Some were grinning. Those were the worst.

They didn't speak to us. They didn't need to. We were all tools now. Moving parts in a machine we didn't build and couldn't stop.

When the Quirinal Palace came into view, my breath caught in my throat. It sat atop its hill like a god's mausoleum, bathed in the red-gold light of dawn. The flag of the House of Savoy still flew above it—just barely. Torn. Frayed at the ends. But still there. Stubborn, like a ghost refusing to leave.

The gates were open. They always were.

No barricades. Just confused royal guard standing at attention, their faces pale. We waited for the order.

When it came a moment later, it was a whisper passed down the line like contraband: "Disarm the guards. Secure the throne room and the royal family. If they resist, shoot."

I stood in the second line, behind Corporal Massetti, to the left of young Ricci. Ricci was just a boy—sixteen, maybe. Looked younger. His helmet kept sliding down his forehead. He held his rifle like it might go off if he breathed wrong. Poor bastard hadn't even finished growing. The Army had chewed through his family—his father dead in libya, uncle dead in Thrace, his brother gunned down by Germans near Vienna. And now Ricci was marching on the palace, eyes wide and mouth dry, as if he were heading to school and forgot his notes.

I watched his hands tremble as we approached the final steps of the palace. I wanted to say something. Anything. A joke. A prayer. A lie.

But I said nothing.

Because we all knew better.

We weren't men anymore. Not really. We were mechanisms. Blades. Executions waiting to be spoken aloud.

And when the shooting started—sharp, clean, inevitable—it barely even startled us. A carabiniere refused to lower his weapon. Someone fired. Then someone else. And then the whole front column opened up like a wound. The guards fell fast. One reached for his pistol and got three rounds in the chest for his trouble. Blood sprayed the steps. Ricci screamed and fired blindly, his shot going wide. His hands were shaking so badly he dropped his rifle a moment later.

I stepped over a dying man on the palace steps. He looked up at me and tried to speak, but only blood came out. His eyes didn't plead. They accused.

Inside, the palace was too quiet. Velvet drapes. Polished floors. Paintings of monarchs staring down at us with disgust. I wanted to smash them. I wanted to run. I did neither.

We found the royal family in the royal chambers. There was no last stand. No final speech. Just a defeated man and his family whom we dragged out like movers taking out old furniture.

Someone raised the Fascist banner above the palace. I didn't see who.

When it was over, we filed back out, the royal family was stuffed into a truck at bayonet point. No cheers. No songs. Just the shuffling of boots, the stink of powder, and the eyes of men who had crossed a line that could never be uncrossed.

I lit a cigarette and watched Ricci throw up behind a statue of Saint Peter.

And in that moment, I knew the truth: the monarchy hadn't fallen that morning.

It had died a long time ago.

We just gave it a funeral.

And now we were its pallbearers.

Its grave-diggers.

Its executioners.

And we would carry that weight until the machine decided we were no longer useful—and turned its blade on us.

We dragged the royal family before the Duce. I was one of the unfortunate ones assigned to escort them along with Ricci. I was in the truck where the king, his wife, children and grandchildren were stuffed into.

They tried to speak, Ricci tried to say a few comfort them. "No harm will come to you." All I could think was how his breath reeked of vomit and even the king's face contorted in disgust.

We arrived in the pallazo Venezia a few minutes later. The royal family was dragged out and we took them inside. Benito Albino ordered us to follow him and the family was taken before the room where the grand council was gathered.

Mussolini sat at the head of the table. His face a blank slate as if he was thinking of something else. As the royal family was dragged before him I swore I could hear him humming some sort of song.

Mussolini looked at me and the king who I personally dragged before him. As if he was day dreaming and the dream was broken.

"Victor." He casually said. No respect, like the king was an insect before him. "I changed my mind. I was going to crown you Roman emperor, but I think the crown will look better on me, after all I am the one that's built up Italy. Now I'll be the symbol of a reborn Rome."

Roman emperor? New Rome? I felt like I was part of a poor historical play.

Duce pulled out a document, "you will sign this. Renounce your and your family's right to the throne of Italy. You will be granted an estate in the Italian countryside. I'm thinking of giving you the town if Montereggione to run as mayor, lovely little town. Good castle, walls, a small estate. Of course, my loyal blackshirts will be there for your protection. I think you know what happens to those that refuse me right? Remember the Greek royal family?" He smiled. The smile of a demon about to swallow up his prey.

The king shook, fear, rage, I didn't know, didn't care. He took the document and signed it. "Good." Mussolini said. "One more thing," he stood up. "A radio speech, you will praise my reign and say for the good of Italy you stepped aside."

Victor Emmanuel didn't say anything and only nodded. I felt sorry for the man for a moment.

"Take the king to the radio station. Send his family to Montereggione."

The radio station was an austere building nestled between the ministries, its windows shuttered, its walls lined with wires and microphones like veins and nerves of a mechanical beast. We brought the king in through the back, away from the press, the public, the curious eyes. Inside, the air was stale and metallic. The only sound was the steady tick of a wall clock, as if counting down to his last moment as monarch.

Victor Emmanuel sat alone in the recording room, framed by a velvet curtain behind him and a solitary lamp that cast harsh shadows across his aged face. His uniform was pressed, but his posture slouched with exhaustion. He had not spoken a word on the way over.

A technician handed him the script—typed, double-spaced, with Mussolini's edits scribbled in red ink. "Read it exactly," the man said. "No deviations."

The king scanned the page, his lips tightening. I could see the defiance rising in his chest like a tide—but then it ebbed. He nodded once, muttered, "Very well," and cleared his throat.

The red light above the microphone flicked on. The room went still. Somewhere, across Italy, millions of radios crackled to life.

"My fellow Italians," he began, his voice hoarse but steady. "It is with a heavy heart that I speak to you today. For many years, I have served as your king, your symbol of continuity and unity. I have led you through war and peace, through triumph and trial."

He paused. His fingers trembled slightly, but he went on.

"But now, in these times of national transformation, I have decided—for the good of Italy—to step aside. The needs of our great nation demand new leadership, a new symbol, one forged by iron and resolve."

There was a moment where I thought—perhaps prayed—he might go off-script, say something defiant, something human. But instead, he forced the words out with slow precision.

"I entrust the future of Italy to the leadership of Benito Mussolini, the architect of our modern state, the guardian of our destiny. I do so not under duress, but with full confidence that his vision will carry us forward into a new Roman age."

Another pause.

"I will retire with my family to the countryside, where I will continue to serve Italy in peace, away from the burdens of power. I thank you all for your loyalty over the years, and I pray for the continued glory of our beloved homeland."

He exhaled. The red light flicked off. Silence.

No applause. No emotion. Just the dull hum of equipment and the low murmur of footsteps outside the booth.

The technician gave a curt nod and turned away. The king removed the headphones slowly, as if peeling off the last layer of dignity. He didn't speak. He didn't look at anyone. He simply stood, straightened his coat, and walked out into the dark corridor alone.

Outside, I lit a cigarette. Ricci joined me, his eyes glassy, his face pale. "He sounded like a ghost," he whispered.

No, I thought. Not a ghost. A man buried alive.

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TOP SECRET – WAR CABINET MINUTES
10 Downing Street, London
29 May 1942
War Cabinet Meeting No. 1755

PRESENT:

Prime Minister – Mr. Winston Churchill

Foreign Secretary – Mr. Anthony Eden

Minister of Defence – Mr. Ernest Bevin

Chief of the Imperial General Staff – General Alan Brooke

First Sea Lord – Admiral Sir Dudley Pound

Chief of Air Staff – Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal

Minister of Information – Mr. Brendan Bracken

Cabinet Secretary – Sir Edward Bridges (Recording)

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AGENDA ITEM: Developments in Italy

Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill):
Gentlemen, you've no doubt heard the broadcast. Victor Emmanuel has, in effect, been dethroned—albeit with the trappings of civility. Mussolini has crowned himself Caesar in all but name. A curious irony, considering just two years ago he was a pariah. Now he's calling himself the symbol of a reborn Rome.

Foreign Secretary (Mr. Eden):
Yes, sir. The Foreign Office received a communiqué from our embassy in Rome confirming that the royal family has been relocated to Monteriggioni, under what they are calling "protective supervision." The King's statement on radio was clearly scripted under duress. The whole affair reeks of a palace coup, albeit a velvet one.

Minister of Defence (Mr. Bevin):
No doubt he intends to restore the Roman empire not just in name. He's already swallowed most of the Mediterranean into his sphere. He's only growing bolder.

General Brooke:
From a military standpoint, Italy has proven more dangerous than we dared hope. Their campaign against the Germans was efficient and brutal. Whatever one may say about Mussolini's ideology, his modernised army and officer corps—these "Scuole di Guerra Moderna"—are no joke. And it's only the beggining.

Churchill:
Indeed, I've read their reports. Cold-blooded but effective. He's reshaped his military along something approaching our own general staff structure. This isn't the amateurish Italy of 1939. He may be a romantic and a poseur, but he's no longer a fool.

Air Chief Marshal Portal:
Our airmen speak well of their coordination during the Ploiești raids and the South German thrust. There's discipline and intelligence there now. Almost unnerving.

Mr. Bracken (Minister of Information):
Public reaction here is mixed. The BBC is handling it carefully. We're portraying it as a coup in all but name. But the press is intrigued. The Times called it "a curious blend of Machiavelli and Caesar," and The Mirror suggested Mussolini might style himself "Emperor of the South."

Churchill:
And he might bloody well be able to. First mainland Europe, his so called global federation, recognition of Israel and now his organization of African freedom. The man has undermined us militarily, morally and diplomatically. And with Japan pressing down on Singapore and our eastern colonies; the soviets in Scandinavia. We cannot afford to stand against Italy alone now. We need the Americans.

Foreign Secretary: Not even mentioning that Italy somehow knew about our nuclear cooperation with the Americans.

Prime Minister (leaning back):
Don't even get me started on that. I want MI6 tracking every Italian, hell, every Jew in England. We need to know how they did it

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Meeting Adjourned: 10:41 AM