Foreword:

Hi there! You can call me Bizcooitz, or Biz for short. Nice to meet you! A little bit about myself: I'm a 25 year old married woman and loving cat mom to two boys by the names of Binx and Jojo! I love anime and video games! I also am a host and editor of a Let's Play channel called Pineapple Gaming. This will be my first (and maybe only) fanfiction that I'm writing on this website as an actual adult. I've loved FullMetal Alchemist for over a decade. I also seemed to have created an OC.

Now, I've put a lot of love, planning, and developing of this character over the past decade. I'm going to put a disclaimer here: This character is far from perfect. The way she fits into this story isn't perfect, either. In fact, I had to tweak a few things in the canon in order to make it work. Those are all the signs of a Mary-Sue, and I know that that's not gonna fly with a good number of you, which I totally get.

But if that's the case... just do us both a favor and stop here.

There are plenty of better fanfics to read on this website, I have no doubt. I'm doing my best to be brave and keep comments enabled because I DO want positive and constructive feedback, but if it gets to be too negative, I will disable it. I love my character and I'm sadly sensitive to too harsh of critics (Why am I here again? Lol). It's because I'm my own harshest critic that it took until now to even attempt to write and publish this. So again, I would greatly appreciate if you went into this with an open mind. I don't intend to alter Arakawa-san's world in a way that would tarnish it, and my rendition of it means a lot to me.

With all of that in mind guys, thank you SO MUCH for reading this far, and now that we're all prepared... buckle up!

I really do hope you enjoy The Wind Alchemist and her journey as much as I do. If you're interested, I have a bio for Manami on Charahub that includes pictures (they're a little outdated, but I'll be replacing them with new ones as soon as I finish them!) at bit. ly/windalchemist

-Bizcooitz

Chapter 1:

It was always the same dream… the reminder of what she had done, and everything that she had left behind.

Manami stood at the top of a hill, overlooking the village of Resembool. The tall grass swayed in the gentle breeze and the sky was a bright tangerine orange, a sign that the sun was setting. It was time to stop playing for the say and go home for dinner. She saw four children running down the hill ahead of her. Two of them were boys with blonde hair, while a girl with similarly blonde hair ran close behind them. She never saw their faces in these dreams, but she knew that those children were her closest friends. But the last child was a girl with matching brown hair as hers, except that this girl's hair was grown down to her tailbone. This was her sister. She could only watch as her sister stopped all of a sudden, reaching with both hands to grip her chest tightly before falling to the ground. This was the day that she revealed to be sick, with a plague that had no cure. The same plague that swept away so many people, especially in the south.

"Shiori!" She called her name and reached out. She never got to reach her before...

The scene around her changed. She was now in her sister's bedroom, looking down at her younger sister lying in her bed. She was too sick to get up and play like she used to. Manami lifted her hand to open her palm to see a silver locket. "Please take it back… I want you to have it…" Shiori whispered weakly. This had been a gift that Manami had made for her. She never really knew why she read those boys' alchemy books, it had started out with how they would always compete against each other at who would make the most impressive thing. She somehow got involved to where she once competed. This locket had won that challenge, and Manami decided to give it to Shiori. When she knew she wasn't going to make it, she had asked her older sister to take the locket back and keep it. This locket was the last thing Manami had made with alchemy… until…

The scene changed again. She was now at a cemetery, standing in front of Shiori's tombstone. She could hear her mother's sobs from behind her, but her eyes were glued to the tombstone. Shiori Kami, 1901-1907. Along with her mother's cries, she could hear the whispers of many people from behind.

"She was so young…"

"Only six years old…"

"That girl is an only child now…"

Manami blinked and found a piano in front of her instead of the tombstone. Her mother, who had taught her to play the piano, had requested that Manami play at Shiori's funeral. She didn't want to, but she didn't have the heart to say no, either. Every time she had this dream, Manami tried not to play, but her hands moved on their own. She hated it. That was the last time anyone had heard her play the piano. She shut her eyes tightly as her unwilling fingers gracefully played the keys to make a dark, melancholy tune.

When she opened her eyes, she was now in her basement. It was very dim in the room, the only source of light coming from a single candle. She had handwritten notes all around her. Notes that she had taken collectively from borrowing those boys' books a few at a time, and had carefully returned before they were noticed. It helped that the boys went to study in another town for a while. This was the night she was going to try to bring her sister back from the dead.

Every time she had this dream, it only sunk in more and more how ill-prepared she was for this. She could have done so many things differently. She could have studied into alchemy significantly more, to start. There were a lot of things she could have done. But she was a child, desperate to have her sister back again. Nothing else mattered. Like before, and despite resistance, her hands moved on their own to touch the circle she had drawn on the floor. The room illuminated a dark purple color and it suddenly felt like it was in the middle of a tornado. Manami heard the door swing open behind her, and two sets of footsteps came down to the basement.

"Manami!"

"What's going on?!"

She looked up to see her mother and father in front of her for a split second, before everything went white. She found herself in a white void. There was nothing here except for a giant door. But she knew that she wasn't alone.

"Hello."

Manami turned to see a… person? It seemed to be the silhouette of one at least. But, as usual, it didn't have a face. But this one didn't have… anything, really. The only thing she knew is that this "person" referred to itself as "Truth."

"I know how this goes. Just let me wake up already." Manami turned her head. The one known as Truth said nothing, but the giant doors opened behind her to release some black tendrils that wrapped around her to pull her inside. She didn't resist. She just wanted it to be over. She just closed her eyes.

She opened them to find herself back in her basement, more dark than it was before. The candle was out, but there was only a little bit of light coming from the open door at the top of the stairs. Manami shrunk a little, knowing that this was always the worst part of the dream. Her heart started to pound harshly in her chest, and her breathing got sharp and ragged. She couldn't close her eyes or look away this time, for this dream always forced her to look up and look the abomination that resulted from her sin. In the eyes.

Hiss…

She flinched at the small sound as she saw the monster, cast in shadow. Her eyes widened in terror as her eyesight focused and the monster became visible in the dim light. It had two heads! Manami quickly scurried backwards until her back hit the wall, noticing that the monster wasn't moving. It was lifeless. Now... she was really alone. Everything went black around her as many voices began to overlap.

"What a shame."

"How could you do this?"

"You murdered them."

"You killed me twice."

"You don't belong here."

"We never want to see you again."

""You killed us."

"You're a monster."

She screamed as hard as she could to drown them out.

"!" Manami's eyes flashed open as she jerked awake to the sound of the train whistle blaring. "Central City! Now arriving at Central City" She felt her head throb as her stop was announced and she went to bury her face in her shaky hand. She sighed heavily into her palm, still trying to calm herself from the haunting nightmare.

Manami was a young girl, having just turned fourteen a few months ago, with short brown hair that almost touched her shoulders. She had matching brown eyes as well. She usually wore a casual outfit of a blue tanktop under a dark grey-almost black cardigan that, for some reason, ended at her midriff. With that she wore dark jeans with black and white tennis shoes. Around her neck was the locket that she had once given her sister, but used alchemy to reinforce the chain with some titanium to where it would never break. She had just turned fourteen a few months ago. Unlike most children her age, she had committed a sin that had scarred her forever. She had burned her home to the ground and ran away in the same night, leaving everyone in Resembool to think that the entire Kami family had died in one night.

She left that all behind, in fear that if she were better off dead than to be seen as a monster by the ones she loved.

She wandered until she found someone to teach her an elemental alchemy that only she would live on to possess the knowledge of, and then found herself in Central enrolling to be a State Alchemist, under the command of Roy Mustang. For her elemental alchemical talent, she was deemed The Wind Alchemist. While getting accustomed to the military life, Manami met a man by the name of Maes Hughes, who initially let her stay at his estate with his family until she figured things out… but then the Hughes family enjoyed her company so much, they insisted that she stayed indefinitely.

A year later, Manami was given the unique assignment to be an escort to the Ambassador while traveling to Xing. There was some kind of affairs for the Ambassador and the Xingese Emperor to meet and discuss their countries' alliance. Still, it was a journey for Manami, and one that she needed. Getting away from Resembool and her past was one thing, but getting away from the entire country was like a breath of fresh air, as well as a learning experience.

But now she was home… well, as "home" as it could be, now she had a new life… with people that were as close to a "family" as she could get. People who valued her as much as she valued them.

"Manami!" She heard her name and excitedly looked out the window to see them. The Hughes family. Elicia held a bouquet of flowers and was held by Gracia as Maes stood beside her. He waved with one arm as the other was wrapped around Gracia's shoulders. Manami smiled and waved back through the window and went to grab her things.

These were the people who made it easier to distract herself from thinking about what— and who— she had left behind. But one day, all of that would be brought back to the surface.

And that would happen a lot sooner than she thought.