The Sacrifice

June 23rd, 1921
Munich, Germany

The Philosopher's Stone. Those who possess it, no longer bound by the Law of Conservation in alchemy, don't have to sacrifice something of equal value in order to gain something. We sought after it, and finally obtained it.

Even so, there was a price to pay. If we learned nothing else from this journey, it is that no one can gain something for nothing. People cannot gain anything without sacrificing something. You must present something of equal value to gain something in return. That is the principle of equivalent exchange in alchemy. We believed that was the truth of the world back then, Al and I.

That was what we believed. But Dante said that there was no such thing as the Law of Conservation. Our father…Hohenheim…also said the same thing. And now that I have been through the Gate and back, and through once more, I am beginning to understand. Neither alchemy nor the world follows the Law of Conservation. But to gain something, to change something, sacrifices must still be made. The difference is that what you gain is not always equal in value to what you sacrifice. Sometimes you gain more than you expect or deserve. Other times, the price is so high that you wonder if you've really gained anything at all.

I have been having dreams. Every one of them starts out the same way: I stand in front of the Gate as the doors are just about to shut. Each time, I try to catch them before they close, and each time, I fail. I am left trying to pry them open, like Envy did right before Al transmuted my body, but they don't open as easily for me as they did for Father's homunculus. Desperate, I clap my hands together to form a transmutation circle with my own body and then place them flat against the cast-iron doors, ready to blow the Gate apart, ready to do whatever it takes to get back to Al. But instead of feeling the reaction begin to take place in the cold metal, I begin to sink into the doors. My hands are swallowed up first, then my arms, then the rest of me, until I have become part of the Gate itself.

Then I see Al. He is as innocent and baby-faced as he was four years ago, before any of this happened. But the people around him—Winry, Sensei, and even Rose—look no different from when I last saw them, except for an air of unspoken sorrow that had not been there before. I try to speak, reach out, but it's as if no one can hear me or see me. There are times, though, when I think Al knows I'm there, watching him from the mirror, from a puddle in the ground after the rain, or from the surface of the lake where we used to fish when we were young.

"Nii-san," he would say, his large gray eyes lighting up with recognition and hope.

"Al," I say, and reach my hand out to him, the one I lost in order to bring him back. He stares at my automail arm like he has never seen it before, and then his face fades from view, and I find myself back in the bedroom in my father's house in Germany.

If those dreams are real…is the Gate letting me have glimpses of my world? By becoming part of the Gate, if only in a dream, am I able to see things I would otherwise not be able to see? Even Father, the great Hohenheim of Light, did not know the answer to that question.

But I believe it is so. In those dreams, Al does not seem to remember anything that happened after we transmuted our mother. His face is not lined with the scars and worry of the past few years, like mine is. Everyone around him is careful not to say much about me to him, and I wonder if they've told him anything at all. It is how Father said it would be: when I bound Al's body and soul together, the sacrifice was the memory of the four years we spent together that brought us closer than we have ever been before. The tears we shed, the hardships we endured together with the military, the homunculi, and finally, Dante—it's as if none of it had ever happened. Maybe it's better this way, with me, rather than him, shouldering the burden of remembering. The older brother protecting the younger—that's how it should be.

What am I saying? This isn't how it should be. Scar wasn't supposed to succeed in sacrificing hundreds of lives to make the Philosopher's Stone. Al wasn't supposed to be the Philosopher's Stone. We were supposed to get our bodies back, but we weren't supposed to be separated like this. The reason we kept on struggling to survive was for each other, so what's the point of being alive if we can only live on apart? What's the point, if I am nothing more than the ghost of a memory to him? I don't care if I never get my arm and leg back, so long as I can be with Al again. We have paid a heavy price for our sin...and still do, even now. Everything has its price, but it seems that sometimes you can never pay enough.

...Will it ever be enough?