Izumi Curtis tried to placate herself as her eyes bored into an ordinary cup of tea. Well, ordinary for Central, bitter as motor oil, and all. Here in Dublith, you tended to get tea of the Southern Variety, with plenty of cream and sugar. It was a wonder, given most of the fluffy garbage Izumi had to choke down to keep functioning in polite society, that people there forgot to put in the teabag altogether. Not she. The cup before her was black and bitter as motor oil, and she lapped it up, and was grateful for the brazing sting, god damnit. These Dublithers didn't know the first thing about real Central Tea. Or, for that matter, real tea. The kind she had been raised on. The people back home knew how to brew, and didn't adulterate their tea with anything. To do so would have been sacrilege.

Curtis rubbed her head. What she had started as a desperate train of thought to rid her mind of her troubles had backfired, bringing Home right back into the picture. She'd sworn to herself never to think of it as that kind of a place ever again, not if her house was dropped back their by a freak weather Tornado, not if Cig suddenly got curious (which he never did, god bless him), not if the boys bugged her for help with their globetrotting. But her head was there now, in spirit, and there was nothing she could do to drag her idiot soul past the event horizon.

She drew her attention back to the catalyst of all this thought, what had caused her to brew some nice warm tea and watch it go undrinkable for half an hour. It was a letter, written with the finest quality ink, absent of a return address or full understanding of the Amestrian postal system. She flicked it upright in her hand. The ink was dry, but was so rich and deep it looked freshly applied. It was in her parent's tongue, the flowing script of her people. She really was fighting the urge to throw up. You didn't do this kind of thing, even in her homeland. Death threats were just... a foreign concept. You never knew if someone was coming. That was one of the myriad reasons why she and her mother had left.

Izumi swept over the paper again and again.

Uchiha Izumi (Or Hanettu Izumi, as I hear you call yourself now). You and I are the last surviving members of our clan. It must be rebuilt. You will meet me in the land of our birthright, or I will be forced to kill you for your dishonor.

She crumpled it up, resting her forehead in her hands. Her liver started to throb.

So, Dad's dead, she thought. Under most circumstances I would be kind of relieved. But God above, the whole damn clan... that meant Mikoto too. And, if she was to jump to conclusions, this person either wanted to screw her, or kill her. Flattering. Families were slaughtered all the time where she came from, but rarely entire clans, especially the bigguns. Izumi snorted briefly. This Uchiha hadn't done much research, if he didn't even know she went by Curtis now. The housewife snorted. She realized she hadn't read her native tongue in decades.

Stretching her back, she stood up to warm the tea over the stove. No use wasting anything. Izumi pondered her circumstances. She needed to approach this rationally. She and her husband could handle most of the honor-obsessed, yet backstabbing, and redundancies from that country. And if not, well, she had some insurance, that hopefully didn't need to be touched. Besides, the author of the note might have been bluffing. Curtis sighed. She decided it was better to be safe than sorry.

When Cig found out, he stood unblinking for a few seconds, and picked up the phone. He re-dialed when their contact's home number didn't pick up. That phone was never touched. The titanic butcher was put on hold at the new number, and then gave an authorization code, to Izumi's protest.

"You're not calling the military," Izumi began. Cig held up a finger. He took phone etiquette almost as seriously as he took flexing. Izumi threw up her hands and collapsed in a chair.

On the other end of the line, there was a "What." There was to be no question mark.

"Olivier? It's Cig. We have something that just might involve national security."

"And what is that, then?"

"Some foreigner wants my wife to bear children against her will, or kill her if she refuses."

A stretch of silence, and a sight through bared teeth. "I'll send some people over. Why couldn't you have just called the local base?"

Cig's shrugged to empty air. Izumi laughed, her mind nearly off the letter.

"A pleasure as always, Ms. Curtis. Don't at all think you're troubling us."

"I'm not sure your sister would agree," Izumi smiled up at Alex Louise, recently granted a third gold-on-blue star for his uniform. "She may have sent you as punishment, but I can stand you just fine." She laughed. "Cig is in the back, if you'd like to say hello. And I am sorry for all the hassle."

"I'm sure if she really wanted to get under someone's skin, she would have sent Brigadier General Mustang," Armstrong sighed. "Her tolerance seems to have strengthened by at least an Iota since she became full-on general."

"That's good," Commented Izumi. "Congrats on the promotion."

Armstrong nodded. "A thousand thank yous, Mrs. Curtis." He stood there briskly and for a short while, with two of his men, in the Curtis' Living room. They didn't seem quite sure where to take things.

"Can I offer you anything, misters...?"

"Oh, how rude of me," Alex actually blushed, gesturing to the officers. "This is First Lieutenant Koch, and Major Heckler. They are to accompany me as your escorts."

The men nodded. One, Koch, was brown-haired, scruffy, and stout; Heckler tall and dark with round sunglasses and killer cheekbones that threatened to shred his papery skin. "We'll take coffee, if you have it. Black," Koch mumbled.

"Nothing for me, thank you, Izumi," Alex added warmly.

Izumi nodded, noting the disdainful implications in the men's faces, and not bothering to smile. She slipped into the kitchen, returning with a modest tea tray, laden with the soldiers' orders. "Was it really necessary to send men for this whole thing?" she asked as they took their coffee. "I mean, I know my limitations, but I'm familiar with these kind of people. Cig is always fretting, and-"

"You know as well as I do the military will want to look into this. A high-profile citizen receiving death threats is nothing to ignore."

Curtis' nostrils flared. "Well, not exactly high-profile," Armstrong backtracked quickly. "We respect your desire for anonymity. But still." Curtis nodded. She wanted to send these three packing, especially the recent Colonel's new underlings, but she just couldn't say no to that bombastic dandy.

"Well, just try to stay well out of personal affairs," Izumi sat down. This time Heckler outright snorted into his drink, freezing at the housewife's glare. Alex noticed.

"This fine woman may not look like much, but she is to be granted a great deal of autonomy." The atmosphere of the room was tense for a split second, and then Izumi clapped her hands, not unlike the manner with which she transmuted matter.

"Well," the simple housewife announced, smiling. "What are our plans? At this rate I might as well be already dead."

Hours later, her optimism had faded. Armstrong's confusion about home sweet home didn't bode well.

"And you're saying there's an industry based around assassination?"

Izumi nodded slowly as the train shuddered through idyllic hills and rolling greenery. "That's the gist of it, yeah."

Armstrong bit his currently bare knuckles. "That is savage!"

Cig, who was taking up a seat and a half next to Izumi, turned to face the Colonies. His biceps twitched in a fashion that seemed to say, I'd prefer if you didn't refer to my wife's ancestral homeland as 'savage'.

"Erm, meaning no slander, Mrs. Curtis," Armstrong caught on, "But I can see why you... well, it sounds like quite the childhood." He shook his head. "Besides, I have no right to jump to conclusions after seeing firsthand what my country has been a part of." He glanced fitfully at his Heckler and Koch, in the next group of seats over.

"It's okay, Alex," she said distractedly, eyes fitfully scanning the window. The subtropical, rocky terrain of Southern Amestris was resolving into more lush pastures, as they left the border of the Hyacinth desert. Soon they would be in the vast farmland at the center of their continent. The Cretan border police hadn't given Armstrong a rough time, which was something of a miracle; consider the state of international affairs just a few years ago. Before Grumman's stint as Fuhrer, they would probably have had to make a beeline through Aerugo to the south. The train still sped through erratic tracks, to avoid the more resentful Cretan tribesmen.

Their destination was Agrippa, the Crown of the West, a location shrouded in veneration. Izumi had seen it when she had come to this continent. The culture shock had hung in the atmosphere like an electric blanket. She was sort of looking forward to returning there, and actually being able to understand that kind of chaos as an adult.

"So these Shinobi..." Armstrong twiddled his thumbs. "They sound rather similar to the Ning Ja of Xingese legend. Would you say there's some cultural similarity?"

"With Kakusu No Kuni?" Izumi tapped her fingers against the windowsill. "You could say that. They use Chopsticks," she snickered lightly. "I know there's a lot of exchange going on in the other side of the world these days."

"You do look similar. I had assumed you had Xingese Ancestry when we first met."

"No, Kakusuese, born and raised, purebred." Izumi made a half-hearted bastard child of a smirk and a scowl. "God knows I've tried to forget."

Armstrong tapped a coin nervously on the armrest in the silence that followed. He and Izumi's husband joined her gaze out the window. Cig looked as if he'd just thought of something. After a few minutes, he startled his wife and Armstrong with his voice: "Just how far west has Ed traveled?"

"He hasn't confided anything in me," the housewife admitted, no bitterness in her words. She shrugged. "I haven't really been keeping track of the Elrics. We'll see the fruits of their labor when they return home."

"What's this?" Armstrong's eyes lit up. "I've heard nothing from the Elric boys in quite some time. Are they on some sort of excursion?"

"You could say that," Izumi rubbed her temples. "I can't tell you much, but Ed supposed to be 'furthering his private research'."

"Hmm." Armstrong clutched his angular chin in what was supposed to look like comprehension. His face assumed a stance of dignified thought. "Now that he's not bound by the State, and has that... handicap, I assumed he would continue to pursue the quiet life. I suppose the spirit of adventure and discovery has not let the young lad. No, it still bites like a gadfly on a warm summer day. The ever present yearning to discover lies by our bed like a stuffed beast, or perhaps the accumulated dust of decades passed. Not a clean sleeve nor a feather duster will cleanse our nightstand, and we must go to the store to get a new duster, maybe one of those wool ones, they're quite expensive, but it's worth it when you see the difference..."

He trailed off. Cig whispered to Izumi while the titan Colonel mumbled theatrically on. "Are you sure we can get to Konohagakure in time?"

His wife's composure hardened. "Well, I'm not sure. If we can't, well, depending on the quality of their tracking ability... I guess us four can handle a single ninja, but I'm not sure if he has backup. Their culture was always the weirdest mix of underhandedness and honor. " Cig took note that ever since the letter had arrived, Izumi had invoked Kakusu No Kuni as "Them."

Armstrong finished his tirade. "...which is why Catherine won't be married off to any brick builder anytime soon, nosiree." He chuckled throatily. The Curtis' politely laughed with awkward respect.

In seat behind them, Heckler whispered through a mouthful of cashews, "Gonna be a long ride." Koch's lip muscles jerked, almost involuntary. It was indeed.

Konoha was lovely in the spring. Not to say it wasn't lovely any other damn time of the year. The village would be a Mecca for swarming, plump foreigners in curiously floral upper garments, at any point on the calendar; if only for the fact that the land of Kakusu no Kuni was regarded as a dimension unto itself, and given all the hard-to-reach privileges therein. Sure, the people borrowed modern fineries, trade and loanwords from both east and west as they pleased; but isolationism hadn't failed that land for 800 years, since the Kyoshians had settled, and the policy was only superficially dented by the technology present.

Basically, this meant Ed Elric's presence did not go unnoticed, as he had expected. He snorted inwardly as a child pointed to his gold ponytail. Blond hair was a novelty, but not a foreign concept to the Konoha folk; there was the Namikaze clan, after all. You just didn't see it in that shade; nor did you see it on the head of a wide-eyed, flush-skinned, long-nosed giant. Whispers from faces that held worried gazes bounced past Edward's keen ears; stuff about "Hokage" and "Genjutsu." Ed recognized "Jutsu", of course. It was what he was here about. But he would need to brush up on local vernacular regardless.

He decided to try the tactic of immersion. Edward pulled up at a random food stand, shelling out some coins. "Anata wa watashi ni kono ikura o eru koto ga dekimasu ka?" He pronounced terribly, a huge smile at the ready. The vendor gave him another one of those looks.

"Uh... Like a bowl and a half of the special," the Vendor mumbled in his native language, once he had puzzled out what Ed was trying to splutter at him.

"ICHI. BOHRU. NO TOKUBETSUNA." Ed shouted slowly, holding up one finger. The Vendor got the impression this towering man thought he was an idiot.

Ed watched as the man before him held up two fingers himself, and shelled over two ryoh. The Vendor nodded gravely, shuffling to the back. Edward leaned over the counter curiously to observe how the cook puttered about, shouting at someone in the building behind the stand. Then the foreigner leaned back, and got his fill of Konoha.

It wasn't as pretty as first impressions dictated, he realized. The real gorgeous spectacle he'd heard so much about had been in the surrounding forest. The city proper didn't look particularly wealthy, or unique, or vibrant. It must have once invoked a bit of a patchwork charm, but now sort of sagged in on itself. Konoha wasn't destitute, but it didn't make Ed want to write home about anything.

That's just what they want us to think, he suddenly realized. Elric was getting chills. That particular epiphany got him back into the spirit of the thing. If I'm going to catch a Shinobi, it won't be in a place with SHINOBI CAPITAL OF THE WORLD spraypainted on everything. I'll have to look between the lines.

Agrippa seemed to have shrunken since Izumi last walked its paved wonders. She guessed her own growth had managed to outpace that of the vibrant Urban center. It was still a destination with a certain grandeur, of course. Buildings were taller than in Amestris; there were more fast cars, more concentrated crowds. The architecture was an embellished, art-deco cavalcade of prosperity and commerce, layered upon years of earlier styles. A far cry from even the most proud buildings of the coldly industrial Central.

Nodens, the great land to which Agrippa was capital, had little concern with the east. She had backed up her occasional Ally Creta when need be, but Nodens and her colonies mostly kept to the affairs of the western capitalist powers. She had instigated several jabs at imperialism in Kakusu no Kuni, all failed due to the odd, pseudo-alchemical arts of the far west; and was still rivaling with Aerith to the north for control of the exotic oriental ports. She had bled the southern Herodia dry, but still was itching for expansion.

Feels like that Greed guy's kind of city, Izumi reflected as she stepped off the shabby looking train onto the Olympian station. A half-shrugging Atlas held up a bronze planet on the far side. Heckler and Koch apparently were taking care of everyone's luggage; until the Colonel, without so much as blinking an eye, heaved the entire load onto his shoulders, seeming to blush when it earned him whispers from the surrounding throng.

"This is quite a Venire," Alex commented, in an attempt to levy the absurdity. "Just think of how Amestris would look like now if we had not been landlocked during the great age of Mercantilism. Come now, onto customs."

They followed, and Izumi yawned. She did not sleep well on trains, especially if she had to wake up to the clamor of a station that was not unlike an boiling-over kettle. Stony faced, Curtis marched, visibly un-impressed.

Cig was a little more conceding. He whistles audibly at the high vaulted ceiling that greeted the party as they made their leave of the platform. Gold colored, granite-like stone sparkled down, every inch perfectly polished. The deep golden light stained hustling crowds, their breath mingling together into a uniform chatter, like the souls in a Red Stone. Waves of people crashed on the shore of Izumi's consciousness, and she suddenly really needed fresh air.

But international relations heeded no woman's comfort level. Black-and-gold uniformed men seemingly budded out of the crowd, and silently herded the company into a hallway, with only a moment's glance at Alex's armload.

They were evaluated for basic diseases, their luggage dissected, their papers carefully inspected. There was some minor panic over the cough blood, but they were able to prove it wasn't pathogenic. Izumi was hardly patient. She still had a terrible mood. The Agrippan soldiers flinched at her glance after she was through with them. Not that she noticed Every second lurched; forcing her further home, further along to introducing Cig to some inevitable secrets, while all along memories bubbled up.

"And your child?"

Uchiha Naomi clenches her fists invisibly on her lap. Izumi can feel the man's eyes on her bowed scalp. She is less adept at hiding tension.

"She will be put in the care of the state. I plan her to integrate fully, even if I am not able."

The strange man laughs. "How 'archetypal-mother' of you." Izumi wishes he would stop spouting nonsense words and let them on the boat, but she holds her tongue for once. 'Don't say anything,' Mikoto would say anyway, even though Izumi already knew. She was half glad she will never see her sister again. Are they even still sisters now? Not if this creepy state has anything to say about it, or whatever that "archetype" thing is.

Her mother finishes talking. Izumi can smell relief in the normally tense field of heat that Naomi left in the air. They stand up. Izumi realizes they would never see each other again after the voyage. She feels no desire to weep. Only the void.

"Izumi."

She snapped out of it. They were in an armored car, Cig's arm around her. He wouldn't care if I'd killed the emperor of Fourecks, Mrs. Curtis smiled to herself. It was her own baggage. She relaxed for the first time in hours. They would figure something out. At least they had common sense. More than I can say for Shinobi.