A/N: Chapters are extremely short in this story, and updating is intermitent at best, since this is not my focus story. In any case, I hope you enjoy reading.
I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist.
ThE DeAd CAn Not Be BrOUght Back To LifE
Twisted Ways
Brother was dead.
No – he couldn't be! Ed was – he wasn't – no –
"Brother?" the word came unheeded, echoing through my hollow, metal body. He looked at me one last time, eyes wide, blood pouring from his stomach. Fell to the floor, limp body. No life.
Dead. Ed – dead. With dead eyes. Hauntingly dead eyes.
"Brother… No! You can't die!" He couldn't, couldn't. "It's supposed to be me!" He couldn't, he couldn't be dead.
"Brother can't die! It's ridiculous! He wouldn't let that happen! He couldn't!" He would never leave me like this. We were all that we had! He couldn't! It just wasn't possible.
Dante's cruel whispering words.
"That's reality for you." No. No! "All the effort he gave got him nothing in return. You can pay all you want. It's never enough."
Never enough…
I had never hated anybody more than I did that moment. Her words, taunting an insidious – what purpose did they serve? To hurt me? Damage me beyong repair? Make me her meak little toy, simply a key to fulfill her greatest wishes?
No. I wouldn't give up now. Not when there was still a chance –
I stood up, the stone activating inside me. Dante was telling me to stop, but I didn't. Couldn't. I would do anything for Brother.
"You can't make me do anything!" I snarled at her, rage bursted from the implacid mask that had been forced upon me by our sins. I had to get to him. My brother who had always taken care of me.
"Brother hasn't been dead for long." A desperate hope, a wild hope. It had to work. Ed couldn't die. "Look, there's still some color in his cheeks! His soul is probably still at the Gate. I just have to pull it back – the same way he did for me." It would work. It had to.
"Don't be a fool. You know what would happen to you –"
"Yeah, I do." And I did. It would be an end to my existence, the life Brother had given to me. "A lot of people died to make this stone, and I would've died too, if not for them. And it's time I gave my own share, and made my own choice."
"Alphonse…" Rose's whispering voice. She had been through so much because of us… I pushed the thought away.
"Goodbye, Rose." I clapped my hands together – "This is for you, Brother."
– and completed the transmutation.
"I'll miss you…"
And then it was all over.
-Death-
The true tragedy of this tale is not Alphonse's sacrifice. It was that it was all for nothing.
For the thing that he had created was not his Brother. It was only a monster with the body of the boy known as the Fullmetal Alchemist. A mockery of the true spirit and lively fire that was Edward Elric.
On that day, Alphonse had created a homunculus.