a/n: I do not own DTB or FMA, nor do I claim to. I only explore the characters and hope that I don't make them too OOC.
I hope that at least one person gets enjoyment out of this story. I know that I enjoyed writing it. Thanks for reading!
~Athena's Phoenix
In the darkness, one man stood alone. Jaw set, he stared stubbornly ahead, not looking to either side of the path he was walking. He halted abruptly, and the look in his eyes changed as his breath quickened. Before him, light sparked into existence, and the man reeled back. That single dancing flame...the moment that it neared him it would no longer be a candle to brighten a darkened room, but a raging inferno. He stumbled back from it, only to find that he was no longer on a path, but in a small room. And the glittering light reached out to him as his black eyes widened in fear.
In the darkness, one man stood alone. He ran down the ever invisible path stretching out before him, calling out to something just beyond his reach. He halted abruptly as he saw a figure approaching. Shrouded in black, it stopped only inches from him and leaned in close. The man's dark blue eyes locked onto the ruthless ones behind the smirking white mask of the figure, and he shuddered at what he saw there. He stumbled back from it, only to find that he was no longer on a path, but in an empty room. There was no figure before him, but a mirror.
It was too real to be a fantasy. So could this nightmare really be his reality? Many lives flashed before his eyes. The lives that he had taken. What monster was he that he could go on living after all that he had done? To go on living with a smile...what kind of hell would await him beyond the gate?
Where was he? Roy Mustang pushed himself up from the hard ground he found himself lying on, and looked around. Not much was there. It looked like the ruins of a city. Cracked and splintered sidewalks and pavement, and the shells of burnt out and demolished buildings. This could have easily been one of the many places destroyed by his hand. But it was not. He stood, brushing bits of gravel and dirt from his usually impeccable uniform. Needing to find out where he was, he started walking.
He passed many places that must have once been filled with people. Schools, markets, apartment complexes... The place seemed deserted, though. He wondered what could have happened to bring such a city to this state. Suddenly something made him freeze. It was a gut feeling that had been the reason that he survived many of the early conflicts in Ishbal, before he was given the stone. He dropped to the ground on one knee as a projectile soared over his shoulder from behind him. It lodged itself into the wall of a building, and he saw that it was an odd, pronged knife. He whirled around, and snapped his fingers.
Hei found himself lying on a rough slab of broken pavement. He got swiftly to his feet and looked around, surveying his surroundings. The empty ruins of a city met his gaze, the remains of a children's playground close by, and he pulled his mask from his face suddenly feeling claustrophobic. He braced himself against a cracked wall, staring down at the smirking mask in his hand. What had happened here? Was this Tokyo? And...was this his doing? He sighed, and, taking a deep breath, tried to think logically. He was dressed as the Black Reaper, with his various knives strapped to him, and his wire coiled neatly. He straightened, wanting to find out what had happened, and started walking.
Walking through the crumbling city, He came to the conclusion...that this wasn't Tokyo. For one thing, there was no Hells Gate looming in the distance, and the layout seemed wrong. However, no matter where this was, something terrible had happened here. Recently, too, judging from what remained of the structures. As he was approaching what might have once been an apartment complex, he saw movement. Hei dropped into a crouch, putting on his mask and pulling out a knife. The figure he had spotted approached, and he saw that it was a man in some kind of military dress. So it was a military that had caused this destruction... Hei couldn't let that go unpunished. Springing up, he threw his knife, but the man dropped down and dodged it with the instincts of an accomplished fighter. Hei threw his wire and pulled himself up just in time to avoid a burst of flames when the man snapped his fingers...so he was a contractor? That was a surprise...or was it, with this destruction?
Colonel Mustang saw his attacker launch himself away from the flames, pulling himself up into the building beside the alleyway where he had stood. Roy started toward the building after him; he'd be damned if he was going to let the first living person he saw get away from him, even if he did just try to kill him.
The inside of the one-time office building was in shambles, with holes in the walls and floors, sometimes extending through many levels. Carefully, Roy made his way to the sixth floor where his attacker had swung in through a hole in the side of the building. Just outside of the stairwell on the designated floor, he paused. Turning abruptly, he snapped his fingers to send flames dancing up the line that had been flung at him from above. The man in the white mask whipped the wire back to throw another, which Roy dodged, ducking, and then quickly stepped to the side when he saw another aimed toward his feet. The masked man dropped to the ground in front of him. Colonel Mustang eyed him warily, fingers poised. The man in black spoke.
"What have you done to this place?" he asked, his tone outwardly calm, but with a provocative undercurrent.
What...What had he done? So...it had been his doing after all. He had thought that it had looked like his handiwork, but as he hadn't remembered... He didn't even remember how he had gotten here, though, did he?
Hei dropped down from the rafters to land in front of his target. The military man tensed, cold black eyes narrowing as he looked at him. This place...
"What have you done to this place?" he ground out, looking the man in the eyes. However, what he saw there now...wasn't what he had expected. The pain caused by his question, that kind grief and guilt, he had felt it all before, and knew the burden of it. This man...with such emotion, he couldn't possibly be a contractor could he? Those feelings hadn't been there a moment ago... Stepping toward the man, he faltered. And stopped. Hei hadn't witnessed the destruction of this city, only woken to find himself in it. And yet he was so quick to assume that this was caused by the man in front of him...
"Tell me," he said, "What happened here?"
"I—I don't remember."
Hei sighed. It seemed...
"Then I apologize if you aren't to blame for this. But if you and whatever military you work for were behind this destruction, know that you are dealing with the Black Reaper."
"Black Reaper? That's quite the terrifying name. But I don't think that you're my enemy. As far as I know, Amestris isn't involved in any actual combat at the moment, although war does seem close..."
"Amestris?"
The two of them looked at each other, standing tensely. Then the colonel sat down slowly, leaning against an exposed support beam. Hei mimicked his movements, two yards away. And slowly, Hei removed his mask, as the colonel his gloves.
"Where are we?" Roy spoke first.
"I do not know that myself. I just know that I'm not where I remember being last."
"Well, we're in the same boat there." He paused. "Colonel Mustang, Flame Alchemist."
Catching on to what he was saying, Hei replied, "Contractor for the Syndicate, codename Hei. Known as the Black Reaper by most, BK-201 by the police."
"So."
"Yes."
Roy sighed, clasping his hands behind his head. This fellow didn't seem the talkative type.
"Where were you last?" he asked lazily. "I was on my way to the office to meet with Fullmetal. He's my loud-mouthed subordinate. Havoc was driving, and I was dozing in the back because I got hardly any sleep last night. Damn Scar and his killings. We always have to be on the lookout now..." He trailed off, raising an eyebrow at his companion.
Hei decided, why not? He was stranded somewhere with no idea where he was or how he got there. But he was hardly sure how to hold a real conversation anymore, rather than just an exchange of orders, or chatting while in a faked persona. The last time had been in South America...
"I was...on the roof of a building, I think. Huang told me to keep an eye on the merchandise that night—when was it even—even when he knew that I'd been kept up three nights in a row on missions. He should have had Mao do it, he's a cat. Cats are partially nocturnal, right?" Mustang shrugged.
"And I had been sitting there for hours, thinking about that incident with the Chinese mafia and the foreign affairs chief..." Gradually Hei felt his mask, the intangible but indefinitely more real mask of the Black Reaper fall away. And he was just Hei. More like Li Shengshun than the feared BK-201.
"So," he said, "What's that you were saying about killings. I could give you advice about catching your killer if you would like. I do have...some experience in that area, you could say."
Mustang smirked. Here he was talking to someone who was most likely a criminal himself, and he was going to tell him all about the Scar case.
"The man we call Scar...is an Ishbalan."
Hei winced when he looked at the other man's face. The guilt that was written there...was like when Hei had accused him of probably killing all the people in this city. So it seemed that this feeling...was one that was not foreign to him.
"Ishbalan? What happened with Ishbalans?"
"You...don't know? Honestly? I was surprised at how little Fullmetal knew, but I brushed it off 'cus he's just a kid. But someone with your look...I'd have thought that you would have known about the war."
And just like that, Hei understood. That feeling...it was the same one that Hei had felt for so long.
"How long ago?"
Mustang looked up into Hei's face and found that it was like looking into a mirror. He smirked. Pulling back on his mask to douse the pain, smothering it for just the moment.
"Seven years. Give or take."
"Five."
"It'll get better...Or at least that's what Hughes told me. For me... I've learned to live. To fight to make things better. To make up for what I've done..."
"Do you really believe that you can do that?"
"No. But that doesn't mean that I can't try, right?" Roy smiled. His trademark cocky grin, according to Fullmetal.
"You're good," Hei said, looking at him evenly.
"Good?"
"I don't know that I've ever seen a better actor...apart from myself."
Roy barked a laugh.
"You know," he said, "you're only the third person to see through that facade. And I don't even know you!" He paused. "No, that's not true, I suppose. Maybe...I do know you. How well do I know myself?"
"That...Is a good question," Hei replied, "But do you know, I'm beginning to think that this is just a dream."
"Really? That would be a shame if it were true. Here I am actually talking to someone, really talking, and to find out that it's really just to myself—"
"I suppose. But even it is just a dream; I'd like to do this just once." He stood. "I'M SORRY!" he yelled, and his voice echoed throughout the building. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry... I didn't want to... Who was I to judge? Who was I? Just a monster. Not even a contractor yet, was I? What excuse could I have to act so unfeeling? To stay with Xing? Just my selfish want to be with my sister. And what keeps me on the path that I walk now? To find her again. To know what happened to her and to the Gate. To know what happed to end Heaven's War. To be with my sister again..."
Roy stared as the man before him lost his composure completely. He had been so icily calm... But still, maybe just this once, even it was only a dream...
"I'M SORRY!" he howled alongside the other now murmuring his apologies. "I'm sorry! Hughes! I'm so sorry! I should have been there! I should have just picked up the damn phone! I should have protected you! I could have protected you... But I swear. Never again. Never will I fail those dear to me again! Riza, I'll stand by you, like you have always supported me! Ful—Edward! Al! I will never let you down. I promise!"
And in that instant, the masks clattered to the ground, disregarded, cracked, and trod upon. And the two of them stood alone in the near darkness, howling to the sky, before Hei stopped, and stared at the stars. And a cloud was blown aside to reveal the moon.
"Yin..."
And they stood near the hole in the side of the building, talking of the past, more that once shedding tears over things lost, and speaking of the future.
"I will do my best to become Führer, to make sure that no one will feel the way that I do now. At least not without a damn good reason."
"And I...will keep on living, which is more than I would have admitted to before I met you. That I want to keep on living...for myself, as well as Xing. I want to know what the world is before I go, which will probably be soon with the way things are headed."
"Then live. Live, and take off your mask to breath sometimes, even if it's around someone who you hardly know."
"I...I can do that."
Somehow, both of them knew that the moment was soon to end, and that this temporary peace would flow away into a different and indefinitely more painful life. But one that could be filled with joys as well, if they chose.
"Good luck, Alchemist."
"Good luck, Hei. And know that I say it like that because I don't for an instant believe that you're a contractor. You are much too...human for that."
Hei laughed.
"Farewell."
"Colonel, Colonel Mustang, wake up. We've arrived, and you know how the lieutenant is when we're late."
Roy jerked into an upright position. One did not want to face the wrath of Riza Hawkeye more than once in a lifetime, and unfortunately, he already had more than a few times. It was not an experience that he was eager to repeat.
Grumbling about lack of sleep, and midgets, and general discontentedness, Roy headed in for another day behind a desk and behind a mask. But he did not forget the contractor that he had met, and when he walked into the office that day, the only person left that could see behind his mask could see that he was carrying a lighter burden. Riza didn't know why that was, but she was glad for it.
Hei woke up just as the sun rose, and the first thing that he did was check the merchandise. Still there. He was just glad that Huang hadn't caught him sleeping. That would not have been a pleasant scenario.
Grumbling about obnoxious unit members, Hei stowed away his mask and coat, and exited the building as Li. Walking down the sidewalk, he ran into a familiar face. One that he had been thinking about as he fell asleep that night...
"Kirihara-san! Hey! Wait!"
"Li-kun?"
Hei remembered what Mustang had said about taking off his mask, and he decided to try, in real life this time. Had it really only been a dream? Somehow...he didn't think so.
"Li-kun, how are you doing? It's been a while."
"I'm all right, I suppose. I've been better, I've been worse. But how are you doing, I heard..."
a/n: Again, thanks for reading! Please review!