"From what I can tell from our earlier conversation, Flame, Danner was related to someone in the Saffron Society. He obviously didn't have the physical attributes or the alchemical talent to be invited in, but he must have been told about them - perhaps nothing more than bedtime stories."
"What is the Saffron Society" Ed demanded. "What does it want from us?"
"I doubt they even know of you, Fullmetal Alchemist, because if they did you'd have long ago been spirited away. You are everything they could hope to achieve from the breeding program that has been practiced for 300 years. From Flame? The best they could hope for from him is to take his knowledge as an 'Honored One'."
"What's with these incredibly lame titles, anyway? 'Alchemy Marriage,' 'Honored One...' Don't they have any imagination?"
"The titles are just translations from the Cretan language. There's probably a better way to translate them but I am a native to Creta, and I haven't been able to learn any new Amestrian vocabulary for over ten years."
"Why not?" Asked Ed, perplexed.
"I was treated with experimental alchemy, and the inability to learn new things was one of its side-effects." Kimblee explained bitterly. Ed looked like he'd been slapped in the face. Kimblee had revealed in an earlier conversation with him that he'd once had brain damage that limited his potential, but to find out that this damage could make an Alchemist, who relied on his inquisitive nature, unable to learn not just alchemy but any new knowledge... He was terrified just imagining it. Kimblee's laughter shocked them both out of their horror.
"You should see the look on your faces! It's like you're about to be tortured!" His smile suddenly turned into a confused frown, as he realized that he didn't find their reactions funny at all. "The treatment took away all negative emotion as well, so I didn`t care about it at the time." Perceptive, and ever-so-tactful, Ed challenged the statement.
"At the time. That means you care about it now."
"The Saffron Society isn't after you yet," Kimblee concluded, distracting them (or possibly himself) from Ed`s line of questioning. "But that doesn't have anything to do with your array. Danner was at best an exile, but more likely an outsider with barely any information." He leaned closer to Ed,
"May I see your array?" Ed quickly hid his left wrist. Kimblee smiled menacingly. "It isn't anything you can hide from me, you know. I've already seen Flame's." Ed grasped his wrist with his automail hand. "Would it help if I showed mine to you, first?" Zolf asked.
"You have one?" both Ed and Roy asked incredulously.
"I believe I already told you that Danner had probably got the original from my files." He told Roy.
"I'd assumed it was from your notes," Roy shrugged.
"Before I was subjected to testing, my body was examined, and all distinguishing marks sketched on paper. This is what Danner probably saw." He unbuttoned his vest and lifted his shirts. Immediately forgetting his earlier defensiveness, Ed leaned toward him and closely examined the array on Zolf's sternum.
"No doubt about it, this is the one I saw on Danner's first victim." Ed proclaimed. "But according to the old man who had it, even after she died he wasn't able to leave his wife's body," He looked at Kimblee speculatively. Kimblee sighed, in order to explain this he'd have to reveal a large amount of personal history.
"You've already suspected that I was born into the Saffron Society, haven't you?" He didn't wait for their affirmation. "My sister, Fay, was the Golden child. Hair as yellow as the sun," he described, gesturing to Ed's own golden hair, "and her eyes an even brighter shade of gold. She was a perfect candidate for breeding, but she had no interest in developing her alchemy. My own physical characteristics were barely passable, any darker and I'd have been exiled. In Amestris I would have been considered elite for my skills even at that age, but in the Saffron Society I was nothing but average. The only thing that set me apart was my passion for learning, and my unique field of interest. Even that wouldn't have been enough if my uncle hadn't spoken on my behalf. I was bonded with Fay, the ideal breeding candidate, so that my own desirable personality might be passed on to the souls of her children."
"What?!" Ed demanded, jumping up on the couch. "ARE YOU SAYING THAT BY BEING BONDED TO THAT ASSHOLE, ANY KIDS I HAVE ARE GOING TO ACT LIKE HIM?!" Rather than reply to Ed,
"For the sake of everyone's sanity, I suggest you never have children," he told Roy dryly.
"Now, if I might continue... Alchemy marriage and a marriage of breeding are separate. The child stays with the mother and her soul-bonded husband, but each successive child is sired by the same biological father. She was betrothed to my cousin, and the though of that union drove me to abandon the Saffron society and Creta, seeking asylum in Amestris. I served as a simple soldier, then as State Alchemist, with Fay safely tucked out of sight in our home. However, when I was assigned to Ishval, the fuhrer personally offered to house her an hour's train ride away.
"It was the last I saw of her." Half formed memories began to flood his view. "The night our bond was cut, I could no longer feel what direction she was in." Explosions, death, destruction. Ishvalans begging him to spare their lives, his answer, said without emotion, 'she died, so can you.' "I demanded her body, for proper burial, but was denied; she was still alive, they told me." Letters, hand written by Fay and sent weekly. "Her letters continued to reach me, saying much the same as those that came before, and I realised I was deceived." Anger, hate. Countless struggles with his superiors. He was escorted to a hidden enclave for 'therapy.' "I began to question orders, demanded Fay be brought to me, and made as much of a nuisance of myself as I could. Eventually, I was given a redstone with her soul inside it." Gran's shit-eating grin: he knew who was in that stone, and chose that one specifically for me.
Roy's expression hardened into anger at Fay's fate. Ed's mouth formed a wordless denial, his eyes big with terror.
"Well," he offered, "at the time I'd already had my brain altered. All I experienced was the bliss of being near Fay once again. It was only for a few weeks, though. My redstone was lost in battle, and my connection with her soul is only perceptible when I am very near."
"I've spent years tracking her down, first to an Ishvalan alchemist, then to his brother, Scar. After the incident in Lior, I lost her trail." His keen eyes turned to the fullmetal alchemist. "I was intending on passing through Central without even getting off the train, when I felt her presence. It was barely more than a whisper, but the philosopher's stone must be somewhere in Central." Ed's face dropped, his small body shaking with emotion. Kimblee could tell it was affecting Roy through the bond, but with that man's facial expressions he couldn't tell just what emotion it was.
"I'm sorry," Ed's voice cracked. "We used it. It's gone." Kimblee was torn with rage,
"MY Only Sister!" He hissed, leaping upon the boy, and pressing his forearm to his throat. Mustang was shouting at him, but clouded by emotion as he was, he ignored the words. "Why?!" He demanded of the child. "Why did you destroy her?" Ed only made small gasping sounds, and Zolf admonished himself for nearly choking someone. He let go, pretending it was only to hear an answer, but his knuckles were white and he was shivering in shock.
"It was made into part of Al's soul! He used it to bring me back to life." Ed admitted shamefully. "It's my fault, I'm so sorry..." He sobbed. Alchemical energy was burning in Zolf's palms. He wanted to kill someone, but he didn't actually want to kill anyone. He thought of killing himself, before finally letting go of the energy.
"It's a fitting punishment," he admitted. "I've destroyed hundreds of lives with these hands, in pursuit of a life already extinguished. What did I expect to do once I found her?" He quieted to hopeless silence. Ed stared at Kimblee in sympathy for a long time, then his eyes flared with the stubborn resolve that had captured Roy's interest so many times.
"You said you felt her presence." He prompted. "That means she isn't gone. Maybe Al didn't use up all of the philosopher's stone. We'll help you get her back!"
"Well that didn't turn out the way I planned." Ed complained to his superior. After explaining what they'd found out that morning, Al had locked himself in the bathroom, and refused to even see Kimblee. Ed transmuted the door and dragged his brother out anyway.
"You turned me into a bomb!" Al pointed accusingly at Kimblee. "I'm not going to help a psycopath like you!" Kimblee's eyes had widened in shock.
"I can't say that I didn't, but I remember clearly the few who have survived..." So full of shame, he couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence. "...and I don't recognise you at all."
"Of course you wouldn't! I was a six foot tall suit of armor at the time!" Kimblee hummed, his eyes almost crossing as he detachedly thought back through his many kills. Finally his eyes widened in recognition.
"Ah! The empty armor from Lior." His entire body shook with the realization that he stood in front of one of the many people he'd wronged. Shocked with the intensity of it, it took some time to compose himself enough to explain. During that time, Alphonse crept behind his brother and stared suspiciously.
"Something happened to me after I nearly died, and since then I've felt overwhelming guilt over your death and the many others I've caused." He nodded to himself. "Since I tried to kill you, it's only fair to allow you to kill me." He held his palms up and out to the sides in a gesture of complete defenselessness. Al almost looked tempted, but his sweet nature eventually won over.
"I can't do that!" he cried in disgust. Shaking, he fell to his knees. "I can't kill you... But I can't help you either! It doesn't matter if you regret it now, you're still a murderer and I can't ever forgive you!" Beside Ed, Roy flinched. Though he kept it from his face, the bond betrayed his emotions. Ed jabbed him in the ribs as a way of reassuring him that Al didn't blame him for his part in the murder of Winry's parents.
"I understand that you can't forgive him," Roy interrupted. Ed could easily hear by Roy's inflection that when he said 'him' he meant 'me', and cursed his brother's cluelessness as the boy nodded agreement. "You don't have to help, but Fay's soul is trapped within yours. She has done no harm, and though you're not at fault for her present condition, the fact still remains that she and any other souls that still linger within you must be set free. Every time you use alchemy, might be destroying the souls who were inside the philosopher's stone. Therefore, I ask you to not use alchemy until we've found a way to free them." Al nodded briskly, glared at Kimblee, and shooed the murderer out of his apartment.
"I'm fine with that. Now get out, and don't come back! I've got a study date soon, and I don't need you peering over our shoulders!"
Roy and Zolf sat impatiently in the car while Ed grilled his brother about this 'date' he had, refusing to believe there would be any studying going on (though unlike most overprotective brothers, he was actually hoping there'd be something more than studying on Al's mind.)
"Was that your brother I saw, just now?" Kimberly LeFaye asked, as she let herself into Al's apartment with her own key.
"Yeah," Al offered shyly.
"I've met him before," she mused. "In London. His father did a speech on alchemical theory. That talk is what inspired me to study alchemy in a world that had none." Al laughed,
"Is London one of those places in that other world, then?" He asked. She laughed back, her golden eyes shining like suns.
"You still don't quite believe I come from a different world than you do. Go ahead and ask your brother about it sometime, he'll tell you."
"Considering my previous actions toward him," Kimblee reviewed in Roy's office, "that went pretty well." Roy barely looked up from his piles of paperwork, but bitterly realised the other man was taking Al's rejection better than he was. Furiously signing, he eyed his office door in fear of Hawkeye's return. Earlier, they'd returned to the office at the same time as his Lieutenant. He'd forgotten how much paperwork he'd left behind. They'd visited Al immediately after their conference with Kimblee, and even more had accumulated while they were out. There was now two full rounds of bullet holes in his walls, and one of the bullets had grazed his arm, putting a hole in the sleeve and oozing blood. He didn't have time to bind it, because SHE was coming back in an hour, guns reloaded and ready to motivate him if he didn't make enough progress. He knew he was in trouble, because Hawkeye never missed a shot - and never hit something she was meaning to miss. "Kimblee, either get your sorry ass over here and help me with this paperwork or get out! I don't have time to talk!" Edward scoffed as a reply and headed out of the office.
"See you later, Colonel Bastard. I've got my own crap to take care of."
"I'm a Brigadier General!" Roy shouted in exasperation without even looking up from his documents.
"Sure thing, Bastard."
Little did either of them know, this distraction caused Roy to unwittingly sign a request for the Fullmetal Alchemist, Hero of the People, to appear for a formal ceremony in West City.