Disclaimer: The author of this fanwork does not own Fullmetal Alchemist. Fullmetal Alchemist is copyright Hiromu Arakawa, Studio BONES, Funimation, and any number of other companies. No profit is made from this work.
Last Warning: This fic contains SPOILERS for the end of the Fullmetal Alchemist series. If you have not seen beyond episode 42, turn back now. You have been warned.
"Only to the extent that someone is living out this self transcendence of human existence is he truly human or does he become his true self. He becomes so, not by concerning himself with his self's actualization, but by forgetting himself and giving himself, overlooking himself and focusing outward." -Viktor Frankl
Transcendence
Nonono...
It wasn't supposed to be Brother. Brother was invincible. He was strong, he had always been there, it wasn't supposed to be him lying there, it couldn't be it couldn't be. He was imagining things. Envy's insane laughter...the smell of blood and death...the tentative, shaking voice of Wrath...Rose's screaming...he had to be imagining it all...
He barely registered Gluttony. It didn't matter. Brother was bleeding on polished floor, his heart torn to pieces...his own along with it. Brother was bleeding, dying, leaving him...oh God they'd come so far, he couldn't be left behind now. And what was worse was that he couldn't follow.
But I can do something about it.
Clap. Gluttony pulled away, acid saliva hissing as it hit the floor, unable to be held in a partially-deconstructed mouth. Al pushed himself up, gasping for air he didn't need...Dante came at him, lecturing about how he shouldn't waste the stone...
"Stay back!"
I'm the Philosopher's Stone...I can bring him back...his soul and mind are still in the Gate...
"I just have to bring him back. Like he did for me."
It was his turn to save his brother, just like Ed had done for him, four years ago. Equivalent exchange.
If Alphonse had been capable of tears at the moment when the energy of the transmutation washed over him and the body lying there on the floor, he would have shed them. If he had a throat to scream raw and scratchy, he would have cried out the unfairness of it all to anyone who would listen. If he had the ability to feel the crackle of energy raising fine hairs on his arms as the blood-red circles traced themselves in the air around them, he would have shivered. If he had been made of vulnerable flesh instead of thick steel plate and pure alchemical power, he would have been afraid when Envy—his lost brother—leaped at him with bloodlust in his eyes.
As it stood, he was none of that, and all of it, at the same time. He was the lives that had gone into the Stone, he was a scared little boy caught in a vicious rebound that tore his body apart. But most of all, he was a brother, and he knew what he had to do...but it didn't mean that it would be easy, for either of them.
The Gate didn't relinquish his brother's soul without a fight, and the limbs he had lost were doubly hard to get back. But Alphonse had made a promise, just as his brother had, to restore themselves to their original bodies. Al could make sure his brother would have his life back, and he would do it. Skin and bone knitted back together, guided by the power of the Philosopher's Stone. The soul was guided back to its resting place, all in a matter of moments it seems like forever.
Al whispered his last words before he slipped into darkness, the power he bore exhausted, and the Gate reclaiming the prize it had lost years ago. He had taken his brother's place, it was over, Ed was alive...and he was gone, as he was meant to be.
"I'll miss you..."
