Title: For Our Sins
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Rating: OT (older teen)
Summary: Essentially, everything an alchemist touches turns to gold; but the world tends to hide its eyes from the truth that what becomes gold must turn back to lead, eventually.
Warnings: In this fic some major parts of the anime are changed/removed, such as: the Philosophers' Stone was never created; during the movie, Al never helped Ed open the gate; three of the homunculi are still alive. The story's separated into sections according to point of view, place, and year. There will be some flashbacks later on, and several fight/blood scenes (that's why it's rated what it is). There are also a few spoilers from the last few episodes.
Author's notes: I wrote the entire first chapter while I was on vacation with my relatives, so it was all hand-written (which is why it's not as long as some of my other story chapters). It's my first Fullmetal Alchemist fanfiction, and as tough as it is, during this story, many scenes from the movie never actually took place (which is sad, because Alfons Heidrich is my favorite character). But, regardless, I hope the plot's original enough (it gets better), and please let me know in a review what you think!
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Chapter 1
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"Don't forget," he'd told himself, engraving it on proof that he was a state alchemist to remind him of why he'd become one. Don't forget. How could he possibly forget?
On the day that they'd began their journey, they'd burned their house. By having no attachments, nothing to return to, he thought it might make it easier to leave, without anything intentions of ever coming back.
He was wrong.
He'd discovered through his travels that the only thing he was living for had become his attachment to the world, and in every time he'd longed to leave it, he'd been unable to. His brother Al was his reason and his regret.
His greatest sin.
And so, when faced with the decision of his brother's life or his own, Ed had done the only thing he thought reasonable and the time. He'd saved his brother at the cost of himself.
It'd been two years since that day. He had adapted well to life on the other side of the gate, but when the opportunity to cross back over to his own world had arisen, he'd taken it without a second thought.
His brother was waiting for him somewhere, and he was determined to find him.
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Ed: Loir, 1916
The gate had deposited him just beyond the last place he wanted to be: the city of Loir where, just three years previous, he had near single-handedly been responsible for destroying the only form of faith the people put their trust in.
After all, even though alchemists can create gold from lead, it always turns back in the end. Ed thought that it must have been repentance for the sin of trying to bring his mother back to life, because any other justified reason may have driven him over the edge, or dangerously close to.
He'd been through a lot at only 17, but he never pitied himself because he knew his brother had it worse. Alphonse had always been his savior, his guidance, and just this once, Edward wanted to be his protector.
The city was in shambles.
Not that Edward hadn't expected that it would be as bad as he'd left it two years prior, but he hadn't counted on it being this much worse.
The buildings were all in ruin, toppled over in heaps of dust and rubble. There were no soldiers behind the crumbled walls as there had been when he'd last been there, but there were no people, either. The dusty ground was painted with blood, and there were bodies everywhere. Ed thought he heard the distant sound of a baby crying, a strangled scream that was so horribly choking that he had to cover his ears, but a moment later it was gone.
In a moment of insanity he began digging through the grey rubble that had once been the great church of Leto, jamming his hands in between larger chunks of stone and brick and throwing them aside desperately until his fingernails broke painfully back and his left hand cracked with blood. He buried his face in his hands, tears seeping in between his raw fingers, as he discovered that he'd dug up what was unmistakably the bloodied arm of a human baby.
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Al: Devil's Nest, 1916
"Has our sacrifice finally made it out of the gate?" a cracked, monotone voice whispered into the dark. Footsteps could be heard faintly and dim lights flickered, black shadows from the two figures in the room and the one approaching dancing in the faint glow.
"It appears so," another voice, a woman's, spoke up; she had a curtly tone and light brown hair, and was standing straight, one arm around the shoulders of the boy next to her in a motherly fashion.
"Good," the boy growled angrily, pulling away from the woman to face the young man who'd just entered, his dark green hair cascading around his half-naked torso, hands on his hips in a superior manner. The boy who'd approached him didn't seem to be intimidated by the man, who was only slightly taller than he was, and stood as straight as he could so they were nearly eye-to-eye. "It's been two years," he spat. "Where is he?"
"Be patient, Wrath," the woman said in a soothing voice, placing a gentle hand on the angry boy, Wrath's, shoulders. The boy slapped the hand away and glared up at the woman.
"Don't call me that!" he seethed. "And how am I supposed to be patient when I've been waiting this long and finally have my chance at revenge for what he's done to me?" He was breathing heavily with rage, his entire body shaking, at first trembling with what looked to be sobs, but as he pulled his face up a moment later it could be seen that hadn't been crying, but laughing.
The woman cautiously put her arms around him, and this time, he didn't fight her, but stepped back into her caring embrace. "Don't worry, you'll get your chance with him, just give it time."
"Yes," the boy said, finally beginning to calm down. "I will wait."
The lights sputtered incessantly for a moment before the entire room went dark.
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Ed: Loir, 1916
To make it to the road that would lead to Risembool, where Ed was sure he would find some clue about Al's whereabouts, he first had to walk through the ruined city of Loir. Tears stung at his eyes as he saw many faces he recognized from his first visit; his heart completely shattered when he saw that, not fat from the baby's body was the crumpled body of Rose, the only girl who'd given him her trust when the entire city had turned on him so many years ago, dark brown hair tangled with blood sticking up from the rubble of the old church.
She'd trusted him, given him her faith, the faith she so loved that kept her living, and what had he done? He'd destroyed it! He'd taken her reason for living, and entire city's reason for living, and ruined it for his own selfish needs. He'd failed when it mattered most.
What if he'd failed with Al too? What if he'd never even come back?
Ed gripped his hands into fists and turned his eyes from the gruesome scene before him, and continued walking, head down, trying not to think about it.
He was on his way home.
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he'd burned his house, but he couldn't burn his memories. As much as he didn't want t o remember, those first twelve years of his life had happened; he couldn't pretend they hadn't.
Don't forget.
The streets on his way back to his hometown were the same as he'd remember them: long, winding gravel roads lined with fences, behind which rose long stalks of grass and various strips of vegetation, grown by the farmers of the surrounding villages. He'd taken a short train ride beyond the city that had delivered him at a station not far off from Risembool.
If he'd expected a welcoming party, what he got was as far off from one as possible.
The streets were deserted. The houses on the way were all abandoned or torn down, with no signs of life from the rooms beyond. His house remained a charred mass of rubble, near a cemetery that seemed, somehow, strangely larger since his last visit. Winry wasn't out waiting for him, and neither was Al, or Ba-chan. He was worried for a moment that something may have happened to them but, after looking around for a minute, found exactly where they were.
Winry was in the middle of the cemetery, facing a grace that was unmistakably Pinako's. her dog stood faithfully by her side, a small bouquet of flowers in his mouth. The girl was in tears, kneeling beside the grave of her last surviving relative. When she saw Ed she looked up, a smile lighting up her face like she'd just seem an impossible miracle.
Maybe she had.
She ran to him, long blonde hair flying behind her, and wrapped her arms around his neck, body racked with sobs. Ed awkwardly patted her on the back with his human arm until she pulled away, holding him at arm's length with her hands on his shoulders.
"It's been so long," she said, her voice cracking as though she hadn't spoken in a while which, Ed thought, she probably hadn't. "Your hair, it's so long! You look great. I never thought you'd be back." She hugged him again, and this time he hugged her back. After a few minutes it was Ed's turn to pull away, and to ask her the question he was most unsure he wanted the answer to.
"Did… did Al come back?" he asked tentatively. Winry didn't need to answer – the look on her face said it all. She turned her head downward and spoke in a regretful tone, barely more than a whisper.
"I'm sorry, Ed," she said softly. "He hadn't been here. But… I'm sure he'd somewhere. You'll keep looking, right?" Ed wouldn't look her in the eye, which she knew meant he wasn't sure what to do. He wanted to find his brother, but part of him knew it was useless.
He changed the subject; "So… what happened here? Where is everybody?"
It was Winry's turn to avoid eye contact. "There was… a war," she said slowly, as though the words burned her as she said them. "The Ishvarlans became tired of being treated poorly and lashed out at the military in Loir. The fighting spread to us. Izumi tried to hold them back, but…" She silently gestured to a small rock that served as the gravestone of the Elric brothers' teacher. Ed was quiet for a moment as he thought of the bravest woman he'd ever known who, despite her illness (or perhaps because of it), had never been beaten in battle. It was tough news to take in.
"And Ba-chan?" he asked uncertainly, though he was sure he already knew the answer.
"She was visiting the neighbors when their house was raided…" She let the sentence fade away as it became silent once again.
"Listen, Ed," Winry said, using Ed's previous tactic of changing the subject, "you need new automail, and you might as well stay for a few extra days until you decide what to do next. Come on." She pulled him toward her house, which apart from a few bullet holes and burn marks on the outside, looked the same as it had two years ago.
It was everything else that had changed.
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Ed flexed his new automail, pumping his fists in the air to get the feel of the new mechanisms. When he'd been taken beyond the gate he'd been stripped of his strong metal arm and leg, and had relied on Hoenheim for their replacements. Now that he had new limbs, he was sure his quest for Al would be that much easier.
Al, his younger brother; he wasn't even sure he was alive, or had been resurrected at all. But the painful truth was that, without that goal, Ed had nothing to live for. He'd lived most of his life with only the dream of finding the Philosopher's Stone on his mind. When they hadn't succeeded in returning Al's soul to his body and had instead been separated for those two years, Ed's new goal became returning to his home and making sure his younger brother was alright. Without that dream, who was Ed?
He wasn't an alchemist anymore; he hadn't done alchemy at all in the two years he'd spent in Germany. He didn't have any dreams, any family, any home. He thought for a moment that he could stay with Winry and keep her company, but he knew he couldn't. Ed wasn't the type of person who could just sit around and wait for something to happen.
He'd find his brother, no matter what it took.
Footsteps from just outside his door broke his train of thought. "Winry?" Ed questioned, wondering why she was visiting him at such a time, so late at night. The sound stopped for a moment, and his door slowly creaked open.
"Hello, Fullmetal. It's been so long."
"Envy," Ed growled, seeing the green-haired man who's been responsible for his own death, the reason he and his brother had been separated and he had been sent to the other side of the gate. He took up a fighting stance, ready to use alchemist should he need to; "What do you want?"
"Relax, kid. I'm not here to fight. There's someone who wanted to meet you, and I was simply told to bring him here." A shadow appeared behind Envy, who stepped out of the way to allow the boy behind him to come face-to-face with Ed.
Ed had been ready for anything… but this.
"It's been a long time," the voice said menacingly as a boy with long blond hair and silver-brown eyes stepped out of the darkness, "… brother."
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End of Chapter 1
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