Kiki's Saga Chapter 14 Who is who?

Lyra was still standing in front of Greed. Although now Greed sounded very angry and pretty shocked. " Hey! Where the hell did you get those?" Greed spat accusingly. Lyra didn't even flinch at his tone. "-and what did Dante tell you?" Simply answering the question, Lyra turned her head towards Dante's severed body. " Lady Dante is over there." Greed stopped quaking long enough to look over at Dante's carcaus. The music that was playing was starting to get annoying now. Kiki couldn't make herself move to meet Greed. Something in her animal instincts told her that doing anything would be a very bad idea. Offcourse, her instincts were also telling her to run away with her tail between her legs, but her human instincts wouldn't have that.

Obviously Greed didn't kill Dante. His face said it all. Then, was it Lyra? Would Dante's assistant kill her over something trivial? Or did Dante make the first move and all Lyra could do was defend? If Lyra had been defending herself, then why was Dante's body in two pieces? These questions kept zooming around in Kiki's head as she watched the scene below.

' No.' Kiki thought. ' If Lyra defended herself against Dante an old woman, then why would she be this calm. And why would Lyra cut her in half to defend?

Greed, still staring at Dante's lifeless shell, said, " What's going on here?" Then, as Lyra walked towards the stairs it hit her. Shell. Shell?

A shell that holds the soul and mind, the human body. It sounded crazy, but with alchemist's, it was always crazy. Offcourse! Lyra wasn't Lyra at all! Lyra was a teenager who was eager to help and did as she was told. She was also a very opinionated individual.

Dante, on the other hand was a lonely old woman who sticks her chin up and looks down on the world from her hill. Lyra wasn't Lyra at all.

Lyra, was Dante.

Dante must've done alchemy on the poor girl and split from her old form to place herself comfortably in Lyra's young teenage body. One question still remained for the puzzle to be complete. Why?

Why would Dante be jumping into another body? Kiki was putting the pieces together instantly. Now that she was figuring things out, things just started to put themselves into place. Thanks to something that Greed said a while ago, Kiki was able to place another piece on the board.

The day that Greed explained his goal to Alphonse when he was chained up and before all hell broke loose. She remembered the whole thing from just listening from the door. Greed had been his usual arrogant self. "-in other words completely unaffected by weaknesses like hunger, fatigue, and old age. You could call that eternal life. Couldn't you?"

Eternal life. That's what Greed called an undying person stuck in a time warp. The difference here was that Dante being an old lady, made herself stuck. Kiki imagined when Dante figured out how to jump bodies. How old was the woman really? She shuddered at the thought of the many lives she must've took to serve her purposes.

What a sick woman. Or...was she really even a woman? Or did she jump from a man to a womans body?

Eww.

Kiki was suddenly brought out of her daydream. More like a nightmare. She was snapped out of it when she saw Lyra/Dante's hands clap.

Before Kiki could even react, a wave of nausea and agony spread through Kiki as the blue glow of alchemy filled the room. Kiki could only see the blue glow through her closed eyelids. Tears, sweat, and blood sprouted out from her as Kiki tried so hard not to scream in intense pain. This alchemy was so much stronger than any other that Kiki had ever felt. Picking out words through the agony was difficult due to the ringing. From what she could decipher, Greed was firing questions at Dante/Lyra. It sounded like he was in pain just like Kiki.

" -are you! -could you know? -make that array! -just-damn kid?"

The pain kept spreading and increasing like wildfire. It became more and more unbearable and with each second she stayed, voices started to enter her mind. Help me! My daughter! Wheres my daughter! Don't hurt me! Help us! Save us! Wer'e hurting! You have to do something! Do something! Help us! DO ANYTHING! Kiki tried to breath, but it came out in gasps.

In slow motion she was able to crawl towards the door she had come in by. When she reached the other side of the door, she cried out in pain. " Anybody! Anyone!" She cried out for Greed, for her mother, her friends, anyone that could help her. No one came to shush her or tell her to calm down. There was no comforting words to soothe her in her painful moment. Noboby could or would end her misery.

Then, finally, the pain started to lessen with her breaths. Kiki was soon able to stop screaming and only moaned in the aftershock. Her muscles screamed in protest as she tried to move, but at least the torture had ended. Kiki layed there for a second and whimpered like an injured puppy. Slowly her blurred vision became clear and she could see, along with her drool, a pair of feet. Covered by high heels that looked like they were from the sixteen hundreds. She also saw the hem of a dress.

" Interesting." came a calm voice that Kiki recognized. Only later did Kiki acknowledge the fact that the creepy music had stopped. Completely scared out of her wits, she raised her head, ignoring the neck pops and cracks it made.

There, staring down on her was Dante with her arms at her sides. She was wearing an amused smile that sent chills up Kiki's spine.

" I'm surprised by you. Not only are you brave enough to come for Greed, but your body itself amazes me." She began to walk around Kiki's form to a record player in the far corner. As Kiki was deciding what her options were, Dante's fingers traced the lines on the record.

" It seems that you can feel the affects of alchemy. Not in the general sense." she laughed. Kiki tried to prop herself on her elbows and only barely succeeded.

" What?" Kiki asked.

Dante looked at Kiki and smiled.

" As you should know, there is something called, The other side of the gate. It's a lot like this one, only there is no alchemy there." Dante began to walk again, only this time to the bookshelf.

" The people there, they die, like us. Their lives, on the other hand, are transformed into energy that people here use for alchemy. Yes, it's true. Everytime an alchemist's uses alchemy they are taking and using lives." Kiki almost couldn't believe what she was hearing. The pain was lessening as she waited. Dante continued on.

" It seems that your body can feel those lives. The number of lives used is just too much for your body to simply ignore. Hmm. Lab 5 really did one on you didn't they?"

Kiki laughed. " Lab 5? I came from Lab 7! I was the only human to survive the operation from human to chimera!"

Dante's face scrunched a little in annoyance. Then it relaxed into a plastered smile once more.

" Well, this is interesting. So you are my escaped experiment. I was wondering where you ran off to. Pride told me of the destruction you caused down in Central."

Kiki gasped. " What, but George, he-"

" Works in the military yes. Pride believed he'd be a good little pawn to do our bidding. George helped Bradley quite a lot." she closed her eyes. Kiki's mouth was gaping open. Fuhrer King Bradley. Pride. It all made sense. " W-why me? What did you want with me?"

Dante laughed.

" Well to become my new Greed ofcourse! My first Greed has been very naughty you know. So I prepared for a new and better one. You...my dear would be my first homunculus to be half animal and one who can use alchemy. You would be my best yet. A very valueable prize indeed."

So I know that it has been forever since I uploaded a chapter and I am sincerely sorry for that. I have had exams to study for and a lot of other hectic stuff. So cut me some slack, well, here it is and I hope you like it cause this is the fourth to last chapter! Three more left! As they say in talk shows. Stay tuned! - Luna Blyeth