Disclaimer: I don't own FullMetal Alchemist, or any of the characters used in this fic. They all belong to Hiromu Arakawa. I only own any of my original characters that I choose to include, as well as any of my own original plot ideas.
God Is Wearing Black
A/N: Set during the first anime's Ishbalan Extermination Campaign.
He didn't give a shit about them. Any of them. The soldiers above or below, his countrymen, who firmly believed that State Alchemists were fighting for their freedoms, the Ishbalans. Least of all those filthy dogs, with their dark skin and red eyes. Worthless bastards, every one of them. Useful only to carve a crest of blood into the desert sands.
The way they cowered as the Amestrian troops came marching through was beautiful. Each village was the same. Their leering eyes peering out of windows, through doors, and over shoulders. All fearful, all knowing they would die. All without any appreciation for the favors being done for them by the state.
In death, there was no worry. No fear, no hunger, no pain. Just a vast expanse of emptiness within which they would hover for eternity, ceasing to exist.
"It's pointless if you don't scream."
Truer words hadn't left his lips for the whole of this glorious war. Just laughter, and a hell of a lot of disrespect for those bastards who couldn't understand his art. These people wouldn't understand either.
One of them, a man who ought have died long before this, sat up, an arm around his aged wife. "I have no doubts that we will die here," he said, perhaps to the woman. "But we will rise to heaven, and Ishbala will condemn you for your sins."
They wouldn't allow a heretic like himself, one who would distort the world that their mythical Ishbala had given them, the pleasure of hearing them beg for their lives. It was always like this. If not terror, then outright defiance.
It was just a shame that breaking them couldn't present more of a challenge.
Even so, he just smiled. "You know, I almost wish that were true, old man. It'd be a hell of a game to go at it with your so-called 'god.' It's just too bad that he's not real."
He knelt beside them, the woman hiding beneath her cowl, his hand on theirs as they held each other tightly. Despite words and courage, they feared him. They didn't want to die.
"And if he was, he wouldn't save you." A flash, and a pair of matching whimpers, the back of the house gaping open to spew rubble. "He'd just come to the funeral."