Disclaimer: This story contains strong language, violence and realistic depictions of war crimes. In some cases, the war crimes will have been committed by major characters. While many sympathetic military characters in the manga and anime are guilty of comparable crimes, I understand that it might be more difficult to read if the crimes closely resemble real life atrocities. If any of the above might be a problem, I recommend you stop reading now.
N.B. I have tried to make the story easy to read for those without significant knowledge of the period but I am quite fond of using foreign language terms rather than their English translations (which I feel sound clunky) so if there are any terms that you don't understand, I have added a small glossary at the bottom.
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Prologue: Kirovsk and Vienna
Kirovsk, USSR - 3rd November 1935
The rifle discharged with a sharp crack, filling the air with the distinctive whiff of cordite. The girl's shoulder rolled slightly as the rifle bucked and her pale hands became even more so as they tightened their grip on the stock. Her father nudged the offending fingers with his own gloved hands.
"Loosen up."
The girl nodded stiffly at his admonishment and her grip lessened slightly. She was still peering through the rifle sights when her father dug out his binoculars. After a moment, he found the tiny paper target pinned to a tree six hundred yards away.
"Too high. Remember not to hold your breath too long or you'll get shaky."
The girl did not show any acknowledgement of her father's words as she flicked the spent cartridge out of the firing chamber with a practiced twist of the rifle's bolt. The greying man shot her an annoyed look and was opening his mouth when the rifle fired again with an ear-splitting crack. The man snorted slightly at the girl's impatience but dutifully raised his binoculars once more.
"More to the left and down."
The girl did not move except to work the rifle's bolt action again. The casing made a faint hiss as it fell onto the packed snow. This time she paused for a long moment before firing, the little puffs of condensation rising from beneath her scarf disappearing as she slowed her breathing. The rifle cracked again.
"Better, better."
The girl was already patting her pockets for another handful of cartridges. Her father shook his head.
"That is enough."
Her pale hand came out of her pocket, the shining brass of the rifle rounds glinting in the fading sunlight. Before she could begin loading them however, the man placed a hand over the open firing chamber.
"That is enough, Riza."
She rolled onto her side to look up at him, her brown eyes indignant for a moment. He looked back, his gaze firm. The argument died in her throat and her gaze dropped.
"All right, father."
They cleared up the makeshift nest in silence. The empty casings were picked up and the thick matt they had been lying on to protect themselves from the snow covered ground was rolled up and tucked under his arm while she took it upon herself to carry the rifle. They walked back in comfortable silence, following the retreating upper tip of the sun as it sank below the distant mountains. By the time they reached their house, the last vestiges of red were being chased from the sky by the encroaching night.
The house was a comfortable two story affair, built as a hunting lodge for a nobleman under the Tsar. While the rich furnishings and stuffed animals had been stripped of the place, it remained a welcome relief from the bitter cold. The girl's father immediately busied himself with the stove, stoking the smouldering flames with an iron poker before feeding it with thin sticks from a basket in the corner. The girl seated herself at the table and began systematically disassembling the rifle. By the time the stove was hot enough to begin cooking, she had almost finished cleaning each component with a stained rag and a can of noxious gun oil.
"Father?"
The man turned around, a heavy saucepan filled with stew in his hand.
"Yes, Riza?"
"May I read?"
He put the saucepan back on the stove and walked over to the table. After a quick inspection of the disassembled rifle, he nodded and the girl immediately stood and walked out of the kitchen. She returned a minute later with a copy of Jack London's Iron Heel and an English dictionary. After a few minutes, her father sat down at the table across from her and offered her a bowl of stew. The girl ate slowly, looking up from the novel only to check a word in the dictionary. Her father watched, a frown playing at the edges of his thin mouth.
"Why are you reading it in English?"
The girl did not look up.
"All the Russian translations have to go through the censors at the Goskomizdat."
Her father's gaze darkened.
"You should be more careful about such things. I don't want to see you arrested for something as stupid as a novel."
For the first time since she had finished cleaning the rifle, her brown eyes left the page. She almost whispered her next words.
"It isn't stupid."
Her father snorted and an indignant red flush began to colour the girl's pale cheeks.
"It's stupid to me and I will probably be arrested as well for buying them for you."
The girl simply nodded, successfully fighting down her desire to argue. She knew that her father was joking in his odd way. There was no way that he would be arrested for something as small as foreign language books. Her father had been a prominent strategist for the military, a very valuable one. His works on armoured warfare in particular were practically standard reading in the officer academies and he could count at least two of the five Marshalls of the Soviet Union, the highest ranked generals in the entire USSR, among his personal friends. It was because of his work for them that she was able to live comfortably and read all the books she wanted, even if they were not available to the public. But at the same time, she was not blind. When they had lived in Moscow, they had constantly been followed. At first, her father had laughed it off and said it was just his superiors keeping an eye on him in case he went and got himself hurt without their permission but slowly he had become more wary of their omnipresent watchers. So he had pulled a few strings with his friends in the Army and secured himself a house in the wilds near the Finnish border. It was also that time when he had started to teach her how to shoot with rifle and pistol.
"Please, father."
The greying man stood.
"Listen, Riza."
Something in his voice made the girl look up. He sounded... exhausted. She was about to ask if anything was wrong but he cut her off.
"You need to understand... Someday, you won't be able to rely on our name to protect you. I know that you think it is harmless now but when I am gone and you are no longer under the protection of the military, who knows what might happen. The place thatman is trying to create... it is a dangerous place for people like you, Riza."
"People like me?"
Rather than answer, he came around the table and pulled his daughter into an awkward embrace. She stiffened slightly, unused to such shows of affection, but eventually relented and uncertainly wrapped her thin arms around his broad chest. He leaned over and kissed the top of her head, muffling his words in her golden blonde hair so that she could barely hear them.
"Just be careful, lastochka."
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Vienna, Greater German Reich - 12th March 1938
The Captain preened slightly in the mirror then slumped slightly and began desperately trying to get his hair out of his eyes. After a final abortive attempt, he turned to his bursche.
"How do I look?"
Alphonse Elric looked over his master's uniform with a critical eye, straightening any barely perceptible creases in his grey uniform like a mother might a child on his first day of school. After straightening a few medals and repositioning the man's tall peaked cap, he appeared satisfied.
"Suitably dashing, sir."
"Maybe I should..."
The Captain was cut off by a loud rapping on the door of the hotel room. Alphonse hurried over to open the door and was immediately faced with the nonchalant figure of Lieutenant Jean Havoc. Unlike the Captain's formal dress, the Lieutenant's uniform was in a state of utter disarray. The Captain turned to the newcomer, his expression one of great annoyance.
"Havoc! You look like an utter disgrace."
The Lieutenant shrugged, his eyes glinting.
"I wouldn't bother too much with clothes considering the first thing I am going to do when we get down is to find a pretty little thing to tear them off again."
The Captain let out a bark of mocking laughter at that and Havoc became suddenly defensive.
"What are you laughing about? Those Austrian girls were throwing themselves at us when we drove in. My engineers are still pulling flowers out of my panzer's exhaust!"
"Correction, Havoc. They were throwing themselves at me and you just happened to be in the way."
The half-French Lieutenant shook his head perhaps a tad more violently than was necessary.
"No! It was..."
The Captain disappeared deeper into the hotel room searching for his other glove. As Havoc slumped theatrically against the doorpost in mock despair, another person appeared in the doorway, his stocky silhouette contrasting with Havoc's lanky one.
"Hey Al? Is the Captain ready yet?"
The sixteen-year-old manservant nodded as he folded away some discarded clothes. Upon hearing his other subordinate's voice, the Captain himself called out from the washroom.
"Can you not wait for a moment? Mein Gott!"
Al sighed and whispered apologetically to the newly arrived Lieutenant.
"Sorry about this, Lieutenant Breda. He's been in a foul mood all afternoon..."
"Of course I am in a foul mood! I am surrounded by lazy, incompetent subordinates, I have a six hour meeting with General Archer tomorrow morning and I can't find my bloody left glove!"
The Captain stormed out of the washroom, a violent scowl on his face. As he walked past Alphonse, the boy noticed something white poking out of the man's jacket pocket. With a single practiced motion, the boy pulled it out and dropped it on the ground. The Captain continued, the boy's deception going unnoticed. As he reached the doorway, he turned to see Alphonse coming back to his feet with the missing glove held triumphantly in his hand.
"Sir? I found your glove. It was... um... under the bed."
"Ah... Thank you, Alphonse. At least one of my men is capable."
Havoc and Breda both rolled their eyes behind the Captain's back and the boy had to hide a smile at their antics. Oblivious, the Captain turned once more and strode out the door, his two Lieutenants falling in behind him.
They had been quartered in the faded opulence of the Hotel Marie Leopoldina, the nicer housing being used up by dignitaries in the Civil Service or the SS. Still, it was reasonably comfortable and the locals had festooned the place with flags and paper streamers in honour of the unification. In the lobby, a huge swastika made from flowers and black silk dominated the back wall while men in the grey uniform of the Wehrmacht were tiny islands in crowds of celebrating locals. Faced with such festivity, the Captain's severe expression softened slightly. Breda caught the man's eye and laughed.
"Come on Captain! If you keep this up, you might be picked up for being detrimental to morale."
The Captain snorted but the scowl was beginning to be replaced by a faint smile.
"It is nice, isn't it Lieutenant? To see our people smile. Germany has not had much reason to smile in recent times."
The two Lieutenants nodded. Navigating the crush of bodies was not easy, especially when their uniforms attracted the attention of the public but eventually they managed to escape the lobby and stumble into the bright afternoon sun. The three wandered around aimlessly for a while, trying to follow the crowd towards the nearest beer hall. After a while, they got caught up in a great rush towards what looked to be the very street they had driven their panzers the previous morning. Lines of stern faced police officers and Wehrmacht troopers stood on the curb to keep the road clear. Amid the crowd, someone shouted above the babble:
"It's the Führer!"
"What!"
The three Wehrmacht officers pushed their way towards the front of the crowd just in time to see a convoy of beetle black Mercedes Benz automobiles approaching down the road, red swastika flags flying from their bonnets. The crowd's roar became almost deafening as the cars came near and a chant began to form.
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!"
Flags were flying from every surface, every hand was raised in salute. The chant was now loud enough to block out all noise except for itself, all thoughts except for screaming devotion.
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!"
In an open car, a dark haired moustachioed man saluted the roaring crowd, thoughts of conquest foremost on his mind.
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German Terms
Wehrmacht - Nazi German Armed Forces
SS/Schutzstaffel - Nazi German State Security, main perpetrator of Nazi atrocities
Panzer - German word for tank (in this story, it will usually refer to the Panzerkampfwagen IV)
Bursche - German word for the personal valet to a commissioned officer (known in Britain as a Soldier-Servant or a Batman)
Ein Volk, ein Reich, einFührer - "one people, one nation, one leader", motto of Nazi Germany
Russian Terms
NKVD - Soviet Secret Police, similar (although not quite the same) to the Nazi SS
Goskomizdat - Soviet Department responsible for censorship of literature
lastochka - Russian pet name meaning "little swallow"