Following Bell's visit that morning, Solaris wasn't comfortable having Eiji stay in her room. It was against her good judgment to trust that his room was safe, but he hadn't had Bell drop in on him, at least. With strict instructions to call for her if anyone else came into the room, she headed back into her own room to take what little she'd need there.
He sat on the floor, writing in his notebook about everything he'd noticed and suspected in the forest. He looked up, tense, when he heard the door open, but relaxed slightly when he saw her.
"What do you remember about the Tokugawa clan?" he asked, writing out a note.
She raised an eyebrow. "Why the sudden interest in Japanese history?"
He gave a one-sided shrug. "They're descended from the Minamoto, right?"
"So they say," she replied. "Tokugawa Ieyasu was originally Matsudaira Motoyasu, and his clan claimed descent from the Minamoto."
He nodded, not offering anything else, so she asked, "Is it important?"
"Maybe," he replied. "By the way, you can take the bed. I'll be fine on the floor."
"You have a shoulder sprain and bruised ribs," she said flatly. "We'll share." When he hesitated, she mocked, "I thought you weren't interested in that."
"That isn't the problem," he replied, his voice cold as he glared at her. Still, he held up his note, reading in Japanese, "I don't know who's listening."
Solaris took the note, then held it up to a candle to burn it. As the fire destroyed it, she said, "Then there shouldn't be any problem. Unless you snore."
"Snoring's not a problem either," he argued as he climbed up. "Nightmares might be."
"If you do bother me, then you can take the floor. Happy?" she said, blowing out the candle.
It should have been hard sleeping with the enemy in his bed, but somehow, Eiji closed his eyes and fell to sleep. But it didn't mean his dreams were peaceful.
He'd just turned nineteen when he arrived in North Africa. The first week was fine, and he befriended a lot of the children in the school he was helping with—one little girl in particular. But it was impossible to ignore the war as it came to the village. Roadside bombs killing people—he tried to run in and rescue survivors, but other people had to tear him away before a second blast could kill him. Human kindness itself was becoming a weakness—anyone who tried to help was killed in secondary explosions, and he had to watch them die, afraid to go in and help anyone else. He watched rocket attacks, felt buildings shake as he took cover, realized that nowhere was safe because everything would be destroyed.
He'd lived a privileged life before that—youngest son of a prominent Tokyo politician. He'd never known what it was like to be hungry. But money he thought was supposed to go toward food was redirected to soldiers, who cut off their supply routes, and just as a famine was about to set in. When food stores were low, he started rationing things out, cutting his own shares smaller, trying to keep the weakest people alive, above their protests. When they started dying, he was almost out of food himself. He watched others around him die of malnutrition, injuries, and illnesses that should have been easily treated—would have been, if the world was the way he'd thought it was when he first set out on his travels. They called it an attempt at genocide, later. Civil war. All sorts of international legal jargon that was supposed to mean something, but didn't when you couldn't do anything about it. In the moment, it was something far worse than words could describe. One by one, he watched the children he'd met die.
The girl had just watched her parents die. He'd tried to protect her, wanted to desperately. But she cried in the middle of the road, too weak to escape as the next rocket struck. He reached for her, surrounded by rubble he was too weak to climb over. He never made it. Neither did she.
He opened his eyes, his heart racing. Solaris was still asleep next to him—his nightmares hadn't woken her.
Carefully, he sat up, wiping the cold sweat from his face. He was still shaking. He took a breath, held it, then exhaled, and did so until he was steady enough to climb out of bed. Making his way in the dark, he found the wash basin and poured out some water to wash his face. The sensation of cold water and the way it soaked into his bracelet and slipped underneath Ankh's Medal to his wrist helped bring him back to the present. Already, he was beginning to think that he might have to wrap something else between the Medal and his wrist so it wouldn't cut into him.
He dipped his towel into the water and put it on his shoulder, and tried to relax. He doubted he was going to fall asleep again. Better to wait it out until dawn.
He sat in the chair by the bed and rested his head against the wall. He could rest for now. No sleep, no dreams, no nightmares.
He never noticed how Solaris quietly watched him, never taking her eyes off him as he defied his own expectations and fell back to sleep.
The sun hadn't yet risen, but several of the villagers had gathered together in the town church, their young children still asleep in their arms.
"What are we going to do?" asked a mother. "The King can't possibly be fooled forever."
"We should try leaving for another village," a father insisted. "Eventually make our way out of the kingdom."
"It's too risky," another argued.
"But if we stay here, we'll die," another insisted.
One woman looked at Gerhild, who sat with her head lowered and hands clasped in prayer. "This is on you. If you hadn't gotten the King involved when that Yummy attacked..."
"The King still would have gotten our children one way or another," a man reasoned. "We all agreed to this. To prevent any more deaths."
"Maybe," Gerhild murmured, "maybe we should take a chance on the traveler, Eiji. The one who rescued everyone."
"This is dangerous enough," another man protested. "We can't risk bringing in an outsider who doesn't even speak our language."
"He's staying at the castle," someone else pointed out. "Obviously, he's close to the King."
"He's more worried about the children than anything," she argued. "He volunteered to help find them without knowing anything about what was going on. He risked his life to protect them from attack. He organized the children for rescue and even insisted on handing over one of the babies first when the King was trying to help him."
"No," the fourth man said. "We will avoid any more risks. Whatever a man he may be, he is in the castle now. If we are to protect these children and our own, we must avoid any additional risks to their secrecy."
"Then what will happen when the King realizes what we've done?" another woman asked.
Nobody answered, but Gerhild felt the unspoken truth. If and when the truth came out, she would have to be sacrificed to protect as many people as possible. It was a risk she'd long ago accepted.
Hands. There were hands against Eiji's arms, gently holding them down. He opened his eyes, and there was Solaris standing in front of him, carefully pressing his arms to his sides.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
She let go and backed up. "I wasn't sure if you'd take a swing at me if I woke you up. This was safer."
"Didn't know I fell asleep," he admitted, getting up.
As he started to get his bearings, Solaris held out a note. It read, "Did you find the Driver?"
He shook his head and unwrapped his bracelet to see his wrist was raw and red right where the Medal was. Just as he'd thought, it was beginning to rub too hard against his skin. With some regret, he tore up his spare underwear and tied it around his wrist before tucking in the Medal and re-wrapping the leather.
"I want to check out the village again," he said quietly as he tied his bracelet. "Something was bothering me the other day."
Solaris was burning the note. Quietly, she warned, "Tell me later."
Someone knocked on the door just as Eiji finished his last knot. He froze, but Solaris finished disposing of the ashes and warned him, "I'll get it."
She readied her knife behind the door just in case it was a threat. While Eiji was unnerved by the sight of the blade again, he was tensed and ready to run. Slowly, she opened the door, only to see a familiar homunculus on the other side, ringing her bell.
"Bell," she said, her voice clipped.
"Hi!" she greeted, setting down her bell. "You weren't in your room last night, so this seemed like the best place to look!"
Eiji had met the Bells before and had found them unsettling then. The fact that they had kept such close tabs on Solaris was even more troubling.
"He had an eventful day yesterday, and I decided to watch him closely through the night," Solaris answered smoothly. "He's not good at admitting if he's been hurt. But he seems well enough now."
"Master Gara would like to see you in his tower," Bell said. "As soon as you're both ready, I'll take you."
"Thank you," she replied before closing the door. After a few minutes, she whispered, "You're going to have to change your plans for today. I managed to convince Gara we wanted to observe his work."
"He's supposed to fight me one day," he whispered back.
"Then try to keep a low profile for once."
He looked at the door, almost hopefully. Still, no DenLiner coming to rescue him. "How are we not changing time?"
"I don't know," she admitted. "Which means two things—either anything we do is meaningless..."
"Or it needs us in order to happen," he answered, trying to fight back a shiver.
Solaris was silent for a moment, then handed him his shawl. "We'll just have to keep figuring it out as we go."
Once they were completely cleaned up and dressed, they opened the door to see Bell still waiting. Signaling for them to stay quiet, she led them to a roaring fireplace in the great hall. Despite his overall discomfort and distrust of her, Eiji almost burst out shouting when he watched Bell walk straight toward the flames. But once she did, he could see that the flames were being reflected by a series of mirrors—the fire was real, but not as close to her as it appeared, creating a narrow passageway. They followed her through, up a tall, spiraling staircase leading to a door, which opened suddenly to reveal Gara's lab.
It was just the way Eiji remembered it from the brief time he'd fought there, except the bottomless pit was not yet there. Gara sat by his devices on a chair very similar to a throne, with various chemicals all around him.
"These..." Eiji realized. "These are used to make Core Medals, right?"
"Correct," Gara answered, not looking up from a beaker.
He started to take out his notebook to write everything down, but Bell handed him a pair of leather gloves.
"Master Gara would like you to retrieve a specimen from its tank so he can take a sample," she said.
"Uh, okay," he answered, putting on the gloves.
He wasn't sure what kind of specimen it might be, or why he'd need gloves to handle it. But then, Gara warned, "Be sure it doesn't bite you," and he saw exactly why.
It was a snake. Of course it was a snake—and a cobra at that. Eiji forgot himself and jumped back with a scream, and Solaris ran over and clamped her hand over his mouth.
"Get a hold of yourself," she hissed. "It's just a snake!"
He was frozen in place, his breathing rapid and shallow. His words muffled by her hand, he choked out, "I'm sorry, I just really...really hate snakes!"
"The sample?" Gara insisted, paying no attention to Eiji's increasing panic. "I do not want this emulsion to separate. It took all day yesterday to prepare."
"Of course," Solaris insisted, reaching into the tank barehanded and pulling out the cobra, holding its mouth closed so it couldn't bite.
Handing her a knife, Bell said, "He needs a skin sample without blood."
Solaris placed the snake in Eiji's hands and growled, "Do not move. Or the snake is the last thing you're going to need to worry about."
Don't move. Don't let go. The words repeated in his mind like a mantra as he stood frozen, clamping the cobra's mouth closed and holding it out for Solaris to scrape skin cells from. If he moved, she would miss and draw blood, ruining the experiment somehow. If he let go, the cobra would get free and bite someone. But if he kept holding it, it kept trying to squirm in his hands, and despite his gloves, he could imagine he felt the snake's scales against his skin, cold and rough—no, it wasn't his imagination anymore. It was too long for him to hold completely, and its tail started to coil around his ankle, reaching underneath his pant leg. He looked at Solaris in panic, but she only said, "Almost there," and expected him to stay completely still. Gara didn't seem to have any more interest in him at all, with his inability to explain how he'd gained a broken Core Medal and his apparent incompetence with laboratory animals.
"That should be enough," he finally said. "Bring it to me."
Solaris walked over with a length of skin, while Eiji's arms began to shake as he held the cobra. His injured shoulder was aching, but the sensation of snakeskin against his ankle was his main concern, along with the venomous fangs still held at bay with one of his hands.
"Bell, remove the specimen from him," Gara instructed. "It was difficult to transport here, and I do not need him killing it by mistake."
Eiji couldn't believe it. Here he was staving off a panic attack, and Gara was worried about the snake? But Bell came over and unwound the cobra from his ankle and took it from him, placing it back into the tank. He finally got himself to move, and he backed away as quickly as he could. Solaris finally took him and sat him down for a bit, giving him a chance to control his breathing, forcing himself to breathe more deeply and evenly.
"On top of everything else, you're afraid of snakes?" she whispered angrily. He managed to nod, and she groaned. "Just write."
That he could still manage. He took out his notebook and pen as she turned back to Gara and said, "I apologize for my apprentice. I think he'll do better taking notes than participating right now."
"Very well," Gara replied, placing the skin in the beaker. The contents slowly started to take an orange color. Eiji watched the reaction and started writing everything he observed. "This experiment is nearing its end anyway."
"What will the end result be?" Solaris asked politely.
"A set of three Core Medals," he answered, swirling around the contents of the beaker.
Eiji stopped writing for a moment in shock. A cobra. How hadn't he seen this before? They were the orange Medals—the ones Gara had created just before the King had gone out of control.
"Only three?" Solaris asked, surprised.
"There is no reason to reduce their power by spreading it out among ten Medals, then removing one to create a Greeed," Gara insisted. "It is a waste of resources and energy. Better to use little of the sample, only to distill its power, than to collect an overabundance of specimens just to create desire."
"Create desire?" Eiji repeated.
"By killing them," Bell answered brightly. "In rendering the specimens to their essence, the desire to live helps spark the Greeed's creation."
A horrible pit opened in Eiji's stomach, but he wrote it down all the same. Covering his reaction, Solaris mused, "That may have been where our country went wrong. We may not have collected a large enough sample."
"My fellow masters believe that the more specimens, the better," Gara criticized. "So they've eliminated the bugs, birds, cats, fish, and large animals from this kingdom. The Greeed they created cannot be controlled. Then attempting to use the remains of long-dead animals failed to generate enough desire to create a Greeed. Their focus should be on the Medals and the power within, not on the Greeed."
He felt sick. That explained why he couldn't find any bugs or birds in the forest—local extinction, thanks to the alchemists wiping them out for their experiments. That was why the village had shortages of fruit and honey—and meat and other foods too, he was willing to bet.
That was why the other villages and towns had been attacked—to raid their food supplies. It was likely the people there died from starvation, if not from direct attack. The knight had been there to fight back against it, but he'd probably been wounded by Ankh.
But why had he warned Eiji about the alchemists specifically, rather than about the King? If anything, the King would have been the person the rest of the people in the kingdom would be afraid of, not his alchemists. And what was their interest in him?
He wrote in the words "local extinction event" and underlined them several times. When he made it home—if he made it home—he would have to warn Kougami about the consequences of creating Core Medals the way the other alchemists did.
For now, he wrote down everything Gara told them about his method. Kougami would one day create new Core Medals—Miharu's possession by Poseidon was proof of that. But as long as Eiji was alive, he was going to ease the burden on the future Rider, on Ankh's revival, and on Kougami—because no matter what they wanted, they would never want to sink to these kinds of levels to get it.
He was so intent on writing that he never noticed the way the cobra kept its eyes fixed on him, as if spying on his every move.
It was late in the day when Bell finally escorted them out of the secret passage. Gara had not been able to complete the Medals, but he'd gotten far enough and Eiji had gotten enough notes that he felt better about what was going on, if still deeply troubled by the timeline and by the consequences of their creation.
Bell stopped short just before the mirrored corridor. In the reflections, they could see people bustling about the great hall, setting up banquet tables. When it was finally clear, Bell quickly ushered them through.
Everything was decorated in gold—gold plates and bowls for presenting the food, linen on the table embroidered with gold thread, and the servants dressed in pale clothing with similar gold embroidery.
"This...this was never announced," Bell said, sounding scared and human for the first time since Solaris had met her.
"What's going on?" Eiji asked.
"A royal banquet," the King declared, walking up to them. "My people have not had the chance to properly thank you for all of the work you did protecting them and their children. I have invited them all here to celebrate."
"Everyone?" Solaris repeated, unable to hide her shock.
"It will be a tight fit, but we will manage," the King insisted. "The food is being prepared as we speak, and my knights will provide transportation for the villagers. In the meantime, baths are ready in your rooms, along with new clothes for the banquet. You both will be sitting with me this evening."
"Thank you, Your Majesty," Solaris replied with a bow, and Eiji hesitantly did the same, regretting that he'd earned the King's respect and trust.
Bell led them over toward their rooms, and as soon as they were out of earshot, Solaris warned, "I want you to remove every single servant from my apprentice's room. If he needs any help with bathing, you take care of it."
"What?" Eiji asked.
"I'll do that now," Bell agreed, speeding up to get to Eiji's room first.
Solaris looked at him seriously and whispered, "The King is up to something. I may not trust Bell, but I trust him even less. She at least can keep anyone else away from you."
He glanced at his bracelet. That was one secret Gara knew, and at least now, the King wouldn't hear of it. "Okay."
"Tomorrow, we're finding that thing," she insisted obliquely. "We can't risk staying here much longer."
He nodded, then walked to his room while Solaris watched over him. The tub was full of hot water, scented with herbs again. Bell helped him remove his clothes and got him into the water, washing him quickly and vigorously. He couldn't help but feel like the King meant for the vagabond to be washed off of him completely.
His new clothes were a pair of longer undergarments called braies, belted to his waist and tucked into gold-colored hose. A white silk tunic went underneath a pale wool gown called a cotehardie, shot through with gold thread. A leather belt with a gold buckle went around him, and with all of the white and gold, he couldn't help but feel like a prized lamb brought out for the slaughter.
As Bell brought him out, Solaris was already ready, dressed in a richly golden sleeveless surcoat over a white linen tunic, belted with a jeweled girdle. In place of a hat, a gold circlet was around her head. Overall, she looked more impressive, but...
"I don't like what you're wearing," she said, looking critically at his ominous colors.
The sense of creeping doom had not gone away, and this only justified it. Eiji nodded in agreement.
They walked out, to see the townspeople gathered around the table, the children already seated. Eiji caught sight of Gerhild, who gave him a momentary look of alarm before averting her gaze. It only made his sense of dread worse. Following along, they took their places at the head of the table and bowed as the King stood, sitting only when he did.
"Before we eat, a toast," the King declared. "To our protectors, these wonderful travelers!"
Everyone lifted their cups, with the parents instructing the children what to do. Servants had even taken the babies and brought animal horns that seemed to act as baby bottles. Eiji noticed that while his goblet was gold on the outside, the inside was glass—which didn't add up to him. Why would the cup need to be glass on the inside, but not on the outside? The drink looked like red wine, but he just felt apprehensive. And was it his imagination, or were the masked alchemists watching him?
He had no choice but to drain his cup. If it was wine, it was heavily spiced, and for some reason, it burned on its way down. Solaris gave him a look of concern, but he managed a smile, even if he didn't feel it. Down the table, he noticed some of the children complaining about their drinks, with their parents shushing them. Gerhild was watching them carefully and caught his gaze before looking away again.
A servant came by and refilled his goblet. Maybe it took a bit to get used to, but it didn't burn as much as he sipped more carefully—the taste seemed different, more mild. Still, he hoped there wouldn't be any more toasts to come.
The alchemists stopped watching him and began to eat their meal.
The feast was long—too long. It was uncomfortable for everyone there, they were constantly being watched, the babies kept crying, the children kept complaining they wanted to go home, and it didn't help Eiji in the least when he started to feel sick to his stomach.
He felt terrible. So terrible that he didn't even bother to take off as much as his shoes before climbing into bed. Solaris couldn't help but feel a little worried as he curled up tight and fell asleep immediately.
His dreams made no sense. He was eighteen again, fresh out of high school and ready to travel the world and do good, saving everyone he possibly could. His father wasn't on board with the plan and argued with him.
"What good can you do just wandering the planet?" he asked, appearing as the King. "You have no power. Power is the key to everything."
This wasn't the conversation, and Eiji looked to his mother for help, but he only saw Solaris, who insisted, "The world doesn't matter. You are what's important. We need you."
No. No, this wasn't it at all. His parents had only agreed when he convinced them that it would look good for them if their youngest son was involved in charity work.
He was at the Hikawa Shrine now, with his older half-sister. But Rei was missing, replaced by Gerhild, who warned in fluent Japanese, "You have to leave now, before it's too late."
He saw Ankh with his back turned to him. He reached out to him, calling his name. But without turning around, Ankh insisted, "Don't worry about me—you need to save yourself."
He woke up suddenly, his stomach churning and his mouth filling with saliva—he was about to throw up. He found the chamber pot by the bed and knelt over it, vomiting helplessly.
A candle lit suddenly—Solaris. She walked over to the pitcher on the wash stand and got him a cup of water. He couldn't even take it; he was still throwing up and shaking. She put a hand against his head, and it felt cold to him.
"You're burning up," she said. "How could you possibly get this sick so fast?"
"I don't know," he said, half-sobbing as he tried to keep from vomiting again. "I think...it might have been at dinner. Something about the wine didn't taste right."
She held the candle over the chamber pot. Suspended in the liquid were blobs of silver sludge.
"I'm packing your things," she warned. "We're leaving now."
She took his shawl and bundled it up with all of his belongings before tying it up and slinging it over her shoulder. Then she shifted into her Mutamit form and cut a window through the stone with her sword before taking Eiji under one arm and leaping out.
Title from the first opening narration in the English dub of the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist anime. Throwaway reference to Sailor Mars in Eiji's dreams.
