There is a trigger warning regarding abuse and violence.

AN: This story will be in three parts, and I can hopefully say that this will be the darkest of the three, and perhaps the longest.

All characters belong to Hiromu Arakawa, and the plot is my own work.

This part jumps around a bit so please bear with me.

Read with care and at your own risk. Thank you for reading!

Requiem

. A hymn, composition, or service for the dead.

The shrieks of shoes moving across wooden floors was not uncommon in the humid cabin. A white vest and dark sets eyes that cut and tore each other could also be found here.

Bony hands twitched in deep-set pockets and a loose tank top that sheltered pallid, beaten skin moved across the floor like a shadow. Thinned legs carried his violent body through the threshold of the grizzled room. His charcoal hair was greasy from neglect as were his palms. There was a distinct odor emitting from his body, like withered roses. He smelled sickly but the sight of his sharpened features and muscular body would deny the weakness in his scent.

The smirk that he'd been blessed with arrived on his lips as he saw her by the window. He stood like ice and observed her kindred spirit body gently wilt through deep brown eyes that bled at the glass. His eyes moved from her frail but once-sturdy body to the window itself and beyond. There was a soft snowfall that eased from the clouds to sleep on the gravel and decaying rocks outside. There was a feeble movement and the sharp eyes were again on the woman before him. He flicked his eyes over her, a fading memory of her old stance haunting him for moments until bitter and prideful dominance overcame him and he remembered who'd changed her. He remembered that he had killed the beauty she'd once been.

The sullen and sleepless bruises beneath her eyes were evidence of permanent habits. She'd caught the insomnia that he'd acquired as a young boy and he often awoke to the sound of her tears forming puddles in the sheets. Her arms were wrapped around her knees, a one-sided hug, a source of comfort in the cold. The body that used to attract was now beaten and old, riches to rags, muscle to bone. Under the torn tee-shirt there were scars that would never quite heal. They raked from her throat to her shoulders. Some were higher, some where lower. Some even dared to trace her outer thigh. The prominent ones encircled her wrists and ankles, and the deepest were around her waist. No longer was she untouched but she was ravaged. She was plagued by the scars and the burns and the morphed skin he had gifted to her when he didn't please her just right. In the moment of the snow, she wore nothing but a shirt and under garments. There was no need for modesty. Years of blatant dismissal of privacy had proved that to her. She was silent to the exception of a breath every few moments, or the wiggle of her toes to keep the blood-flowing. She was curled into a ball to shield herself from the world, from him. Short blonde hair and brown eyes used to brave the walls of sanity but now her bangs were hanging and her vision was cloudy with desolate and non-existent hope. There was none left.

He smiled.

There were several long strides back into the other rooms of the cabin. It was humid and compact. It enraged him but he kept that secret to himself. Besides, how could he trust the Hawk's Eye anyways?

He carefully untucked his hand and cradled a mug in his palm. He smiled in his deliverance of the luke-warm coffee to the bedside, his heart beating quicker at the sound of the porcelain hitting the floorboards. She didn't even blink at the sound. He narrowed his eyes with immediate suspicion as he leaned in close, the clouds of her tiredness encasing his blade-like alertness. He pressed his thin lips to her forehead, below her hairline, and let her warmth fade into his frozen state. There was a raw emotion like affection coming from him when he pulled away, but it is unlike anything humans have encountered before. He was not Greed with the hunger for possession. He was not Lust with passion for her. He was not Gluttony for the indulgence in his hunger, but something new and equally sinful. She was his key and with her he'd get exactly what he needed.

"Come to the study when you're ready to begin." he said, his voice piercing the solid air between them. Only then did she partake in human action. Her eyelids wavered in a gentle hesitation that pleased him each time he saw it. Her eyes avoided him as he strode out of the room, a thin shadow with his hands in his pockets. He left her silent like always, and as he sat in his study with his notebook in hand, he could hear the mug being lifted from the ground and the liquid spilling cross her lips as if to reply, "As long as you keep your promise Solf," and in his head he silently whispered a "yes".

There was a time several years earlier when that same smirk was across his lips. Cold as the northern fort and deeper than the ridges in Riza's skin. It's still dark in the past, but a war has just ended. He was a hero. He wiped the enemies away. She did the same.

It was a common factor in their uncivilized and soldier-like way of living.

His hands were still tattooed with circles and grams he'd learned so long ago. They laid in his pockets as he stepped forward, time stopping as he reached his target spot with a comfortable ease that one shouldn't have had in the presence of a tied-up woman. Her hands and legs were bound with ropes, and a dirtied cloth cut into the sides of her mouth. Her military uniform was dirty with blood and saliva and it pleased him to see her this way. To see such a powerful bird of prey broken like this.

He didn't speak but there was a chuff of amusement as the sickness in his eyes yielded to even deeper evils of a demon's heart. He squats, his knees bent and muscles tight from constant standing. He tilts his head slowly, only now allowing himself the pleasure of looking into her eyes. There was terror in them. But there was courage. With time it would be gone.

He kissed her under her jaw and she whipped her head back with a cry from the back of her throat. It was broken and angry. There was a flame lit in her eyes now. He narrowed his own at her sudden rebirth into bravery.

"Were you on your way to see Mustang when I caught you, Riza?" he let her name rest on his tongue for a long time, drawing out every letter and syllable. He watched her squirm. In a flick of the wrist the cloth was gone from her mouth and her jaw was limp and her tongue dry. Somehow she summoned the content to spit in his eyes with a failing curse word on her lips. He smirked the evil smirk and didn't bother to wipe his face before tying the band around her head again. She howled in anger but there wasn't a coherent word.

He let his hand dive towards her and yank the fabric of her upper uniform part upwards to expose her fleshy side. There was panic in her eyes as his cold hand laid across her hip and he felt the warmth of her blood. He wanted to hear the destruction. He yearned for the explosion. His eyes closed as his palm tingled. Transmutation.

There was a scream. He was satisfied with his work.

She'd been moved to the cabin but the fight had not left her yet. Some people were born for battle and she was one of them. Her wrists had just begun to bear the marks that would stay with her for the rest of her life. She was laid across a wooden table, her back bear and her dirty uniform from weeks before still clinging to her body, sealed with the sweat of anger and anxiety. Kimblee stands beside her, arms crossed against his arrogant chest. The smirk is gone. Thoughts take it's place. She's trembling and he can see it. He can see it in the goosebumps on her back. He can see it in the way her arms were tensing, and he could see it by the way her shins shook in pain. She'd been lying like this for hours.

He overlooked the large patch of infected-pink skin on her side. It was the place that he started on his path to destroying her essence. He wanted the old Riza Hawkeye gone from this body. But the array on her back was what he wanted the most. If only he could have what Mustang had. Kimblee sought the flames. He sought the sounds that came with it. He sought the power it brought him.

He wants to burn the world into submission. He wants her to be submissive. She fights with all her strength though. His eye catches and there is a spark of intelligence in his mind. He flees to the nearest open space and bites into his flesh, drawing blood and refusing the temptation to lap it up with his own tongue. He touches his finger to it and draws a circle and several shapes to mirror the array. He leans over to tear a piece of cloth from his shirt and tosses it in the middle. He places his fingers to the sides of the circle. He closes his eyes.

He feels heat and he hears a crackle.

There are eyes on him.

There are tears flowing from them.

Only a week after he knows how to break her. He knows a name that will eradicate the hope for good. He's in the doorway with a frown. He asks her if she ever wants to leave. She scoffs. He realizes that he's never seen her sleep. For a moment he almost pities her.

"Roy Mustang is dead."

Her eyes grow wide but they remain at their steady location at the window. Her legs raise and her arms encircle them. Before long there is a shuffle and her face is buried in her knees and he can hear her sniffling.

Submission.

The smirk returns.

"I will only allow myself to live without escape attempts or trouble as long as you promise to kill me once you're research is complete." she says, slowly raising her chin. He feels intimidated. He's never felt this before with her. Riza Hawkeye is still alive, but she didn't know it.

"I promise."

There is a pause and the room grows dark as the sun falls. He turns and leaves her in the darkness.

On the day of the snow all those years later Kimblee still had not made a breakthrough. No matter how hard he tried, there was no out for him. Each word inscribed to Riza's body was a puzzle, and he cursed the Flame Alchemist daily as he searched for a way to decode the array. He took a moment of rest to stare down at her once again. Her eyes were closed and her cheek was pressed up against the table. She had become thin and square, a doppelganger to her past self. The patch from the first day is still there. It still gives him pleasure. There are most scars, more dents and breaks in her skin and body. He feels pride for them. He feels joy.

He looks from her ankles to her neck, letting his victories sink in.

He returns to looking at her tattoo. He will crack this code.

The smirk is now a smile.

Kimblee was regularly out of the cabin. He locked the doors from the outside and he had no fear that as long as he kept telling her that he'd keep her promise that she'd stay.

It was cold in the Eastern city. There was a dark-haired military officer standing with a cigarette. Kimblee moves beside him with a smug look. Mustang doesn't even look his way.

Kimblee asks if the Flame has a plan for the country.

Roy bluntly remarks that, "No one man can change this hell-hole. It's too late for me to begin to try." They stand and Kimblee allows himself to feel excitement. He asks about the blonde sniper and he senses Roy grow tense. The smoking officer tosses the cigarette into the street and turns away. Kimblee stands to watch the smoking paper smother itself into ash.

"What a shame she thinks you're dead." he chuckles to himself. He turns the opposite way into the wind.