-1Comfort
The Ishvalan didn't even scream as the bullet hit him out of nowhere. He simply collapsed with a soft grunt, leaving his comrades just enough time to notice his death before they too, were shot and fell to the ground. They did scream, but those wails were never heard by their killer.
Hawkeye didn't need to hear. Not hearing their last words was the only thing that made it possible for her to continue her work.
And this was her work. Shooting down civilians who tried desperately to defend their homes. She was a hit man. No, she corrected herself. Not a hit man. A soldier. A protector of the country, a warrior, defending the inhabitants of Amnestris. Yet if it was her job to protect those people, why was she killing them?
Her eyes scanned the land spread out beneath her with little interest. She wasn't looking at the corpses, or the blown up streets, or the marching soldiers. She was looking for new targets. They weren't difficult to spot from her position in the ruined tower.
Bang.
A woman stalking through the streets, carefully avoiding the platoon of soldiers a block further fell.
Bang.
A man encouraging his companions was cut-off mid-sentence.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Companion one, two and three hit the ground before they could start running.
Bang.
A boy chocked in his own blood.
Bang.
A young woman with burn marks covering her torso was put out of her misery with a bullet to the head.
Bang.
The Ishvalan that charged with a jagged dagger in his hands never succeeded in his last desperate assault on the two unarmed soldiers in front of him.
She froze as she recognized one of them.
So he was stuck in this hell-hole too.
"Phwew! That really was a close call" Hughes laughed nervously, turning his back to the corpse, back to camp. Mustang tore his gaze from the expanding red puddle at his feet and followed his friend, a weak smile tugging at his lips. "I told you the guy who talks happily about home gets killed next. This was just a warning."
"Shut up. At least I have something good to look forward to...I don't know why else I'd keep moving forward."
"So, what's your job for today?" Roy asked casually, choosing to avoid the dangerous topic of 'purpose' and 'happiness', and get back to the order of the day.
"The usual. Clear the southern quarter of the Kanda district. You?"
"Exterminate the centre of region 7."
"See you at camp afterwards?"
"Sure."
They turned there backs to one another, each going there separate path to bring about more destruction.
Maes hadn't failed to notice Roy's smile hadn't reached his eyes.
Roy hadn't missed how Maes had held on to his letter like a lifeline.
"Major Mustang!" The sergeant's voice called out as soon as Roy rounded the corner to his team. The guy seemed unfamiliar. Was he new?
He couldn't tell.
Maybe he was a replacement for the guy they lost yesterday. Or the chick the day before.
Maybe Roy just never took notice of him. The Flame Alchemist didn't take notice of anything but targets.
"Sir? Are you ready? We have located several targets in the C-16 block. Shall we fire to drive them together?"
"I'm ready."
The sergeant nodded, put off by Mustang's cold eyes. Soon he had other matters to think of, as he and the other riflemen fired round after round to force the Ishvalans inside the apartment complex.
Snap.
C-16 burst into flames.
Snap.
A woman with child that ran, her clothes on fire, suddenly had more to worry about than the flames consuming her scarf.
Snap.
The man still standing on the second floor screamed in agony as blood boiled and skin turned to charcoal.
Snap.
The man plummeting down from a window in an attempt to escape the flames died before he hit the ground.
Snap.
The moans of the survivors, half-buried in the debris, were silenced.
Roy raised his hand, fingers strained against each other, ready to snap once more. Nothing moved, except for the wisps of smoke drifting from the black-burnt corpses. He lowered his hand, wiping the grease of his face. Behind him, the sergeant retched, hands covering his nose and mouth in a futile attempt to ban the smell and taste of burnt flesh.
"Get up, Sergeant." The Flame Alchemist commanded. He hadn't even noticed the stench. He couldn't even remember what other smells could be drifting on the wind but the scent of blood, fire and death.
"We still have a long day ahead."
"Yo! Thanks for before. You were the one who shot that, right?" Hughes' clear voice rang through the camp, directed at the figure huddled close to the fire.
"Yes," came the hardly audible reply. Getting up, the hood fell back, and their saviour proved to be a young, blonde woman, her hair short and her amber eyes dead.
"It's been a while, Mr. Mustang," she said. "Or should I say, Major Mustang?"
Roy stood petrified. She couldn't be here. Not her too. She should've been wiser than following him down here.
"Have you begun to remember?" He snorted inwardly at the irony of those words.
"How could I forget..."
Roy and Hughes joined the girl, taking up a place close to the fire. Both Riza and Hughes stared into it, silently, letting the abstract patterns of the flames guide their thoughts to happier places. Roy pointedly turned his head from the light. He had seen enough fire for a lifetime. Instead, he silently observed the young woman he had grown so fond of during the harsh years of training with Master Hawkeye. Her eyes used to be sparkling with life, even when she would scold him in her father's stead, which had happened often. Now those eyes were burnt out and empty, echoes of the blasted land behind their backs. Even his saving grace, the one who had always kept him on track, was now covered in blood, sporting a killer's eyes.
Two other soldiers gathered around the fire. One was supporting the other, but he wasn't hurt; merely trembling so violently his legs couldn't support his own weight. No questions were asked; the battlefield is no place for comfort.
The fair-haired soldier collapsed in a trembling heap of misery as soon as his companion let him go, his face buried in his hands. His companion set down next to him, staring into the flames, waiting for the other to regain his self-control.
"Kill me," the blonde whispered.
"I'm not killing you."
"Kill me!" He demanded, grabbing his friend by the collar, his face all anger and agony, the fresh tear marks there for all to see.
"No. Sarah would never forgive me if I did. She's still waiting for you. So is your son." The calm reply came. His companion didn't even attempt to get out of the blonde's chocking grip.
"...I can't face them." The blonde crumpled, his hands falling aimlessly down his sides. "They're better of without me. How could I stand him calling me a hero, when I've shot kids his age?"
His companion kept silent.
"Why are we killing those kids anyway. We are soldiers, right? Not murders...Why are soldiers, who should be protecting the citizens, killing them instead?"
The question went unanswered.
Roy turned away from the newcomers. It was the one mystery everybody wanted to figure out, but nobody could. And now they just refused to think of it. Ishvalans weren't people. They were targets. This war didn't have a purpose. But they were here, so they had to fight if they wanted to live.
That was all.
Don't ask questions about such a simple truth.
Don't ask.
Don't ask.
I don't want to think about it.
"Because that is the task given to us."
A clear voice rang over the camping site. Roy recoiled at the sound of the voice. Something was wrong with it, something he couldn't place.
"Am I wrong?" the owner of the voice turned to them, a young man with long black hair tied back in a ponytail. Kimblee, Roy remembered. Major Solf Kimblee, a fellow alchemist.
"Are you saying we should accept this? Accept this brutal slaughter?" He replied gruffly. There was something really odd about Kimblee, making his hairs stand on end.
"You can't accept it as your job? Everyone else?" Kimblee looked around at the crowd gathered.
"If we could, we wouldn't be having this conversation, no?" Came the dark reply from the blonde's companion.
Kimblee furrowed his eyebrows ever so slightly. "How very interesting. For example, the young lady there," he said, pointing at Riza. She started at the sudden contact with the outside world, slowly meeting the man's eyes with a lethargic look.
"Hmm. 'I'm doing this unwillingly.' That's the kind of face you're wearing."
Riza hesitated, her hands unconsciously gripping her sniper gun a little tighter in a twisted attempt at finding comfort.
"That's right." She answered, eyes on the dust at her feet. "Killing isn't enjoyable..."
"Is that so?" Kimblee cut in, staring at Riza with a hint of triumph in his smile. Everyone was silent, waiting for him to continue. Something clicked in Roy's mind. He finally could place what was 'wrong' about the man. Even in a situation like this, blowing people up on a daily basis, abusing alchemy, a skill for the people, to such an extent, surrounded by soldiers, murderers, dripping with the blood of innocents on this harsh, dusty battlefield, his voice was clear, his eyes shone, his movements were collected. In nothing even the slightest sign of discomfort was evident. He's a monster! Roy thought, eyes widening in disgust. Then the awful realization, that he could not let this man continue. Whatever he was going to say, it would crush Riza's already feeble remnant of sanity.
"When you defeat your opponent, can you honestly say that you don't think 'Yes! I hit him!', and hold pride in those skills, that you don't have even a little moment when you feel a sense of achievement in your work? Miss Sniper."
Riza's eyes widened in shock, as she stared at the horrible truth thrown in her face.
"Don't say anymore than that!" Mustang lashed out at the Major, grabbing him roughly at the collar, his angry scowl only inches from those curious bright eyes.
He saved Riza, right then and there. Even as he thought he had failed protecting her from the merciless rationality of Kimblee, she realized it; she had no reply to his questions. He was right. Yet he was also wrong. But what was right or wrong in a world dyed with blood? What was mercy? What was justice? She tensed as she repeated those questions over and over in her head, bowed down in agony.
No answers came.
They never did.
Outside of the maddening turmoil that was her mind, Kimblee continued without her noticing.
"You're the ones I don't understand," he said. "To seek justice in a special place like a battlefield is what's strange. Is it heretical to kill with alchemy? Is it better to kill with a gun? Or is it that you were prepared to kill one or two, but can't bear to kill thousands?" He pointed at his uniform, strangely comfortable despite Mustang's firm grip. "When you wore this of your own will, weren't you already prepared? If you don't like it, you shouldn't have worn it in the first place. You moved forward on this path on your own, why are you playing the victim now? If you're going to take pity on yourself, don't kill people in the first place. Don't avert your eyes from death. Look forward. Look the people you're killing in the face," Kimblee continued, staring up at Mustang with cold eyes. Roy still held his collar firmly, towering above him, yet it was clear to all who held the upper hand in the situation. The blue fabric jerked irregularly at Kimblee's throat as Roy's hands trembled.
"And don't forget them," Kimblee's voice sank to a whisper, but no one failed to hear a single word.
"Don't forget.
Don't forget.
They won't forget you either."
Mustang's hand slipped off Kimblee's collar, the small lion signet pinned to it glittering triumphantly in the fire light.
"Oops, it's time," Kimblee got up to the sound of a bell ringing somewhere, casually adjusting his collar. "I've got work to do." He left the campsite in a flurry, leaving his fellow soldiers in a black daze from his words. Hughes got up. "I should go too. We're starting in section 18. Bye, Roy." He turned, seemingly untouched by Kimblee's words. Roy had seen his pokerface often enough to recognize it.
"Hughes."
"Why are you fighting?"
Hughes turned to face him, mask shattered.
"It's simple. 'I don't want to die'." He stated, sadness shadowing his face. "That's all. The reason's always simple, Roy." And he walked away.
Roy stood there silently. I wish it were simple as that, Maes. I honestly do.
Roy rolled his shoulders after he had let his jacket slide off of his arms. It seemed to get heavier with every passing day. He moved his hands down to grab the hem of his shirt and pull it over his head, but a soft shuffling of feet made him change the movement to grabbing the gun at his belt, while whirling around to face the intruder. There was no time to reach for his gloves on his bunk.
"It's only me."
Riza didn't waver as the gun was pointed to her head, and Roy quickly slipped it back in it's holster, staring at the slender apparition in his tent.
"Don't startle me like that, Cadet Hawkeye." He said sternly. Then his shoulders dropped, unable to keep up the Flame Alchemist's mask in front of her.
"You wanna sit down?"
She merely nodded, and gently sat down on the bed, the only place to sit besides the dirt on the ground. The mattress bulged as Roy seated himself next to her.
No word was spoken, no eye contact was made. It hurt to much, reminding each other of days filled with summer sun and hope, dreams of a better world. She took up the gloves lying there in between them, tracing the blood red threat stitching the transmutation circle on the once virginal white fabric.
"I was afraid of my father,"
Her voice sounded off, detached. It was from a different era, reminiscing the times they spent together before Mustang entered the military academy.
"Because the sight of him, absorbed in his work, was as if he was possessed by something. Yet still, I believed my father's words when he said that this great power would bring happiness to the people." She paused, breath catching in her throat. Even at her father's funeral, she had been less close to her breaking point, Roy noted. She was right; what happiness had been born from this alchemy? How many people had smiled because of it? Only a dying man's chuckle, he thought bitterly.
"- - I believed that," Riza continued, voice almost breaking in a sob. He closed his eyes in shame and self-loathing, not wanting her to continue. She'd voice the same questions that racked his brain and stole his sleep. Only it'd sound a hundred times worse coming from her mouth.
"I believed that alchemy would give people dreams and hopes, and that the military would protect this country's future." She looked up, facing Roy, but he didn't meet her eyes.
"Please tell me, Major. Why are soldiers, who ought to protect citizens, killing them instead? Why is alchemy, which ought to bring happiness to the people, being used for murder?"
He looked at her then, face filled with pain. He saw the same pain reflected in hers; she was no where near crying. No, the grief drawing premature lines in her face, the sorrow diluting her once sparkling gaze, the wounds on her soul from the tormenting doubt and self-questioning ran too deep to be relieved by tears.
They kept staring at each other, waiting for either one to give an answer, provide a solution. All Roy could think of was embracing her, holding her until she was comforted like a child would when a parent hugged it after a bad dream. You're safe now, he'd say, it was all just a nightmare. We'll wake in our own chamber in your father's house. Or maybe even in each other's room. It's just a nightmare. He'd loved to tell her that, whispering it in her golden hair, just like he'd sneaked many messages to her before all of this. Those messages had been more light-hearted in nature.
His hands were already reaching out to her, eager to feel her warmth and to have someone to cling on to, even as she needed him to cling to just as badly.
But he couldn't.
He couldn't touch her, not with those hands covered in blood.
Instead, he just wrapped his arms around himself, screwing his eyes shut.
"...Father would be so disappointed. I failed to protect his work. I failed to protect the world from it."
Roy's eyes snapped open, staring at her in shock. She had locked eyes with the grizzled canvas again, not noticing what she'd said. He knew she meant it solely applying to herself. But it also meant that he had failed to meet her expectations. He had failed her.
That hurt.
"...You want me to stop using them?" He said hoarsely, eying the gloves in her hand. She slowly turned to face him, confused.
"That would be insubordination, Major Mustang. In a war like this, they'd shoot you for it." She replied bluntly.
"I know. But if I failed you, if you wanted me to, I'd never use Flame Alchemy again. Your secret would be safe again."
Silence greeted him. He should have been anxious for her reply, praying she'd say 'Of course you didn't fail me! How could you say something like that?' but now, he didn't care anymore. It was time to be judged, and if anyone in this life would ever have a right to decide his right or wrong, it'd be her.
"Could you tell me about your dream once more, Major?" She finally spoke.
He stared at her for several seconds, then looked up at the uninspiring ceiling of his tent, digging up his old dream, something he held dear and clinged on to like other soldiers held on to fumbled pictures of their loved ones.
"I'd build a good world. I'd work hard and long, make every sacrifice necessary, crawl out of this hell-hole and step by step, guide Amnestris to greatness. It can't be paradise; our neighbouring countries have always eyed us hungrily, waiting for a change to strike, so we'd need a strong military to protect the people. But it would be used only for that, with a democratic government checking it's movements, no longer a single man holding all the power. State Alchemists wouldn't exist anymore; alchemy would return to being a skill used for the good of the people. Maybe I'd found a research centre though; one that searches for new ways of using alchemy and science to improve this country. People would be happy, they would be free. The trust between the army and the people would be rebuilt, as would Ishval. I would create this nation with my own hands, standing on the top. One man can only do so much, I've learned here. But if I can protect those dear to me, and they can protect their loved ones, even us puny humans should be able to live happily."
He went silent, the vision of such a future slowly being wiped out by returning reality.
Riza turned to look him in the face again. Something had changed in her eyes. There was a spark in there. Nothing big, nothing to rule out the pain of war, but it was enough.
"It's still a wonderful dream." She said softly. "'Please don't give up on it." A hint of her old firmness seeped back in her voice.
A weary smile tugged his lips only a hint upwards, but those murderer's eyes finally disappeared from his features, and he looked more like his old self than he had done for months.
I won't, he said to himself. How could I ever give up on that goal? It's the only excuse I have for taking my next breath. Even if it means I have to live through all this, I will not give up, I swear to God I won't.
They got up slowly, standing face to face.
"With your leave, Sir."
"Be on your way, Cadet."
She snapped a salute, and turned around, pushing past the flap of the tent.
"Riza," He called after her, all his affection laid in that simple word.
She turned, slightly put off by his use of her first name. Then her eyes softened just a bit. "Good night, Roy." And she disappeared in the dark.
Thank you, for keeping faith in me.
Thank you, for giving me hope.
Roy kicked off his boots and sat on his bed again, still feeling the warmth she had left him. He placed the gloves next to his bed, but for once, didn't recoil at the touch of what had become part of the Flame Alchemist's murder attire.
Just one night, he would sleep soundly, dreaming of those days long gone.
Just one night.
Tomorrow, he'd have to put his mask back on.
Tomorrow, the Flame Alchemist would march to war.