A short drabble-ish piece about Ed's final thoughts. Constructive criticism and compliments give me happy butterfly joys! ^.^

The Final, the Ultimate, and the Last

I look at the circle around me as I finish the markings on my face. This could be it; quite possibly my last transmutation.

The elaborate array around me reminded me of one long ago, the one that had started everything. If it hadn't been for that, I would never have begun my mission. I think of the faces, all the people who had been tangled in the web started that day. I shake my head at my own foolishness, that I had ever thought myself so powerful as to be able to raise the dead.

But, isn't that what I'm attempting now? I try to rationalize it to myself, to say I've learned and seen so much more. It's the same thing I've always been after, though, since the day my mother's cold lifeless hand fell from my own; the forbidden science of human transmutation.

There was nothing that could be offered in equivalent exchange for a human soul. That was why Al and I had sought out the Philosopher's Stone, before we found out it was powered by human lives.

As I think of my brother, I look down at my body, the same one he had given his whole being to recover, and then at the circle around me. The shape seems oddly fitting to me, it was the shape that had started this and the shape that would end it; a full circle.

My survival instinct is trying to stop me, reminding me of all the things I have yet to do, and to live for. I quiet that voice. I am at peace with death. My goal in life, since I was 11 years old, has been to restore my brother to as he should have been, as he would have been, in a world where I was not so prideful. For that, I have searched with him for something of myth and dying legend, and found it. For this I had become the Hero of the People, and the dog of the military. For that I had killed. And now, for that, I would die.

I don't know what I could possibly offer in exchange for my single wish. Who knows, maybe even the Philosopher's Stone, filled with the lives of millions, won't be enough. I can only hope that with this final action, I could wipe the slate clean of my sin. That maybe, just maybe, The Gate will accept my body, my knowledge, and my soul in exchange for my brother's.

Faintly, I recall Lust's final words: "Where did I come from? And where will I go when I die?" She had died at peace with the knowledge that she would finally know, finally see that mystery that had driven her every action, finally reach her ultimate goal. I suppose now I could too, knowing that I would finally reach mine.

I clapped my hands and closed my eyes."This is for you, Al," I whisper, and place my hands over the now familiar circle on my chest, for the final, the ultimate, and the last transmutation that I would ever perform.

I could see a blue ethereal light glowing through my eyelids. I sigh, and a small smile creeps onto my face. For the first time since my childhood, I feel at peace.

Then it is all gone. The suffering, the pain, and the toil, they are all gone.

This is the equivalent exchange for my sin.