Chapter 26: Concordat

Al left his torch behind for Vorrina to have, and he hurried up to Ed from the small cell room.

"Ed! Where are you going? We can't just leave her there, can we?"

"She said she wanted to be left there. There's nothing I can do against a person who wants to stay behind." Edward did not look at his brother as he walked back down the narrow hall to the large cavern.

"What are we going to do now? We aren't going to kill Vorrina's last hope of family, are we?"

"That isn't a last hope for family," Edward whispered. "That's a last hope for insanity."

"But brother, we weren't so different ourselves—"

"Stop, Al. I know we weren't, but that was a long time ago. And I'm trying to fix it as soon as possible, aren't I?"

Al said nothing.

Ed turned away. "Now let's go find Don and Hashimoto and get out of here. I'm pretty sure the rest of those freaks aren't here at the moment otherwise we'd already've been confronted."

Al wanted to stop his brother and reply back to his retort, but he could and did not.

When they reached the long, looming cavern again, they walked slower across it to the other side where Hashimoto and Don had gone through. Just when they thought they were going to have to go and find the two, they emerged out of the dark halls unharmed, but instead tight faces.

"What happened to you two?" Edward asked.

Don frowned at him. "I could ask you the same thing." Edward then wondered if his expression was tight as well from everything Vorrina had said and reminded him of. Ed looked to Al trying to make his face "normal" by putting it in a bored position.

"Do I look different?" he asked.

"No," Al answered. "Just a little distressed." Ed looked startled for a second until he realized Al was just joking with him.

"Alright, alright, let's go." Edward said, turning around.

"Wait, aren't you curious as to if we found anything?" Don asked.

"No." Ed walked away. He only turned back around on his heel just as he touched the railing of the stairs leading back to wood manufacturing building.

"Well then I guess we'll tell you upstairs," Hashimoto said, nudging everyone to the steps next to Ed. "Let's not talk here."

They opened the bunker door on the floor of the first level, and it banged to the side as they stalked out, spreading the dust everywhere. It was almost night; the last red rays of the sun glimmered through the cracks surrounding the front entrance door, and no sounds were to be heard but the different rhythms of their steps.

"Looks like we're alone," Edward stated. He turned back to the rest of the crowd. "So, what did you find down there?"

"Actually," Hashimoto began. "We found the whole Kalki organization."

Edward thought he hadn't heard right. "What?" He looked between Don and Hashimoto. "I thought—why didn't you tell us? We could've taken them. We're going back down there right—"

"No!" Hashimoto said. "I'm not finished. The point is they didn't harm us when they saw us. There were two paths in our way—"

"There was for us too. Big deal," Edward interjected.

Hashimoto just gave him a glare before he kept going. "So I went down one, and Don went down the other. I found nothing but a small cell room,"—Alphonse looked to the ceiling when he was reminded of Vorrina, and tried to hold back telling Don she was still alive at that moment. "But Don said he actually came to another larger room where all of the Kalki were hiding. Here, you tell them the rest." Hashimoto pushed Don a little forward since he did not seem like he was listening—he was watching the rays of sun dancing on the walls instead.

"So I came to another large room," Don said. "But not quite as large as the one under here. And there were all of the remaining Kalki members. They all greeted me with happiness when they saw me, but after all our exchanges of 'hello' were over they told me to get out before Ebla came back and made me stay here. I asked them why that would be such a bad thing, and they told me it meant I was probably on the death-role to be eaten by him. Then Hashimoto came in, so we left after they informed him of Ebla's whereabouts too."

"It took you that long to get back from just saying hello to everybody you knew?" Edward asked unbelievingly.

"Well, give or take a couple—"

"So what did you guys find? Anything?" Hashimoto interrupted.

"Yeah, well, actually we—"

"We found someone who was thought to be dead chained to the wall," Edward settled for Al. Don immediately looked livelier.

"What?"

"Yes, you heard me right, but just listen—"

"I have to go to her." Don rushed back to the open bunker. Edward grabbed for his arm and caught it.

"No, you dumbass, don't go back down. You don't know when Ebla is going to get back—"

"I don't care. I need to see her again." Don pulled backward on Ed's automail, but barely got anywhere. They were almost the same size, Don being just slightly taller.

"Please…" Don hid his face from view. "Please just let me see her. I need to know she's safe."

Edward tried not to let his manner get to him. "No way! Ebla will be back at any moment, and there's no way she's coming with you because she's crazy!"

"What do you mean?" Don asked quietly.

"I mean she thinks her so-called father would want her to stay chained to the wall while bleeding to death."

"What? She's bleeding? Hurry and take me to her." Don tugged harder, so hard Ed's shoulder started hurting.

"Ow…" Ed struggled with his grip, but soon found it better just to let him go. "Fine, go. I don't care if you're killed by Ebla, or Shadow, or whoever! Just go if that's what you think is right." He let go of Don's arm.

"No need to be mean, brother," Al said softly as Don crouched under the shadows leading down the stairs.

"I wasn't being mean. I was just stating the truth. Just like with Vorrina…"

"What about with Nayru, too?"

Ed stopped as he stared blankly into the ground. As the rest of Don's brown coat disappeared he still did not answer. The cellar door was snapped shut by Hashimoto who looked to the two brothers as if asking, "What now?" At long last Edward answered, "I don't know what you're talking about," and walked back over to the front door. A swishing noise was heard. Al gasped; Ed stopped.

"Up here." He quickly transmuted a platform up to the second level again, and Hashimoto followed. "Hurry up, Al!" Edward ordered.

"I can only draw transmutation circles as fast as I can draw them!" Al yelled back just as he lifted himself up. The three sprang out of the window, and Ebla came under the door. Edward watched the vile creature shift its eyes around the whole area—apparently missing them—and then slunk down to the basement. It looked bigger than when it had left the building.

"Okay," Edward heaved. "Now what?"

"I don't know…" Hashimoto said looking to the two of them. This was the first time he'd ever been left alone with both of them. It was quite strange; he didn't say anything.

"What about Don?" Al asked them. "We aren't just going to leave him down there with Vorrina, are we?" Hashimoto looked to Edward for his answer.

"Yeah, what else were we going to do? Now there're even less of us to face Ebla, and it sounded to me like both of them wanted to left alone. Maybe we should just leave them and the whole Kalki be. They don't really seem to need our help, and we were told not to get involved either."

"But brother, what are we going to tell the military when we get back to headquarters with him?" Al inclined over to Hashimoto. Edward looked over to him as well.

"Yeah, what are we going to do?" He paused. "I don't think they'd let you walk around East Headquarters if they knew who you were…" Then Ed remembered. "Oh yeah, we did promise you that if you helped us you could go do whatever you wanted. If you want to leave, go. We'll settle things here by ourselves." Alphonse watched for Hashimoto's answer too.

Hashimoto smiled. "Actually… there's nowhere for me to go now that all of my research in Menouthis was terminated a long time ago. And I sure don't want to go back to Aerugo without a job. Not like they would let me either. I think I'll stay with you two, unless, of course you don't want me to."

Ed raised his eyebrows. "Wow, really? Okay, I guess you're staying with us, then. We could always use another henchman." Ed grinned wickedly, and turned to look around the corner of the building.

"He's joking," Al told Hashimoto, though he wasn't too sure of that statement himself.

"There's no one coming," Ed said. "Let's go. Time to finally leave this place…"

And they tromped back on the same path through the forest they had come here to, not saying anything to each other.

"How much longer am I going to have to wait?" I asked the woman going through various papers at the information desk. She looked up from the top of her glasses to scrutinize me.

"I don't know," she told me in a raspy voice that told me she had been working over-time. "Major General Hakuro is a busy man, so I'm not sure when he'll have time to see you as you requested." She placed the papers she was stapling on the corner of her desk and moved to get some others. A military official with a couple stars on his blue uniform walked in from the hallway.

"Ah, hello, Lois." The man smiled heartily at the woman but she didn't see it until she had found the papers that were his and handed them to him.

"Hi, here are your reports, sir. I finished editing them as fast as I could but I already have so much." He took them without taking his eyes off her.

"That's fine. Take all the time you need."

The woman broke off their eye connection and kept organizing her papers as though he weren't there. The man didn't say anything more, but then turned to me.

"And who's this? Been a naughty girl, have you?" He eyed my cuffs with an odd sort of pleasure. "What are you doing here?" he asked, as though forgetting he ever posed his first question.

"She was brought here because she was found in 'uncanny' areas of East City where the Fullmetal Alchemist and his followers were supposed to be last seen. But she was the only one found." The man looked back at her.

"Why wasn't she just questioned?" he asked.

"Because she was seen with the Fullmetal Alchemist, who is under high supervision right now for going against orders. But the kid ran off to who-knows-where, and we haven't seen him since. If you were listening to the briefing this morning instead of looking at other women's butts you'd know that." The man made a choking noise.

"Alright, you've made your point. So who is she waiting for now?"

"Major General Hakuro."

"Wha? Him? What did she do to have an audience with a Major General?" He couldn't believe his ears—I hate it when people talked like I wasn't there, my parents did it to me all the time. But I never say much, so that's probably why…

"Apparently the Fullmetal Alchemist went against something really important." The woman shrugged. "I've never seen them act this way with anyone else. Not even when Colonel Mustang was found sleeping during the alert conference on when someone disobeys the military."

"Hm…" He looked at me again. "I'm curious as to what your little friend did, girl," he said. "What's your name, anyway?"

The woman he'd been talking to behind him stood up and snapped to a salute.

"Sir!"

Another man appeared from the hall just across the hallway the other man had come from. As soon as he saw him, the man conversing saluted as well.

"Major, sir! I was just asking this girl a few questions." He looked nervous.

"At ease, you two. No need to get all worked up over my arrival." He turned to the woman. "I was summoned here. Was it for this girl?" He asked this with his back turned; he didn't even look at me.

"Yes, sir. I'm not sure what exactly is going on, but—"

"No need for you to. Carry on with your work, I'll take her."

"Yes, sir." The two of them bowed as the Major General heaved me up by one arm, and escorted me out of the nook area. We didn't walk that far, only down the hall a little ways. There was almost no one in this wing of East HQ. The office he led me to was the last one down the hall where there was a large window, but it was not his. The sign on the door read, "Visitor's Office". Did he not work in the East? Where was he from, then?

General Hakuro sat me down in one of the three chairs in front of the visitor's desk in the cramped room. He gave me a stare, but talked before his eyes could pierce through me for long.

"To my knowledge you are the Fullmetal Alchemist's assistant, the Water Alchemist, correct?" he asked in a very business-like manner as he leaned back on his room's small black chair, hands folded.

"Yes." I knotted my hands together as well.

Hakuro picked up the clipboard on his desk. "Nayru… Elric?" he inquired. I blinked; why did it have Elric afterwards? And how did the military know my 'name' if I was from a different world? Did Mustang pick it up and tell them?

"Um, I'm not sure why you have 'Elric' down on there," I said, puzzled.

"Ah," Hakuro leaned forward again and grabbed a pen from the coffee cup placed on his desk top. "Little mistake there. What is your real last name, then?"

I knew I shouldn't have said anything. I decided to try and play it tough.

"Why do you need to know? It doesn't matter. Just tell me what you want."

"Actually it does matter. The military must be informed of your whereabouts. And as far as I can see," he peaked at me over the top of the clipboard. "You don't have a birth record…" He waited. "Why not?" I shifted a little in my seat, and my eyes locked on the back of the clipboard where the Amestrian lion was branded in blue ink.

"Because you don't…" I said absently. The lion's claws began to move, and I realized what was happening.

'No. Please don't. Not now, please,' I begged myself in my head, but there was nothing I could do. The blue lion then sprang up from the intertwined diamonds holding him there, and they fell down on the back of the clipboard. As they went farther down they grew smaller, and smaller, and when they did reach the bottom, they shattered into bits of ink on the wood. The back part of the lion's body became two legs like any other lion as he leapt to the top, and almost off of the back.

It whispered something to me on the very wisps of its razor fangs. 'You need to hurry up.' Somehow I understood it though I knew it wasn't speaking English. The words sounded as though I'd heard or seen them somewhere before…

'I know,' I assured the lion as everything else melted away. Even General Hakuro's standing-up figure became clouded, and then completely disappeared. Now not even the clipboard was still there, only the lion.

'Then why aren't you going now?' it continued.

"I said I'm trying. Now leave me alone," I said.

'You have to go before it's too late. Before I decide not to grant you your wish.'

"I know! I'm trying! I'm working as fast as I possibly can! Please, just give me more time!"

'Amestris doesn't have more time…' the lion declared with much settlement. It swung its tail it had just materialized back and forth, but I did not take my eyes from its face. 'You have to hurry before it's too late…'

"Stop…" I moaned. "Just stop. I can't take it anymore."

'I'm only telling you what you need to do in order to get what I pledged. If you don't do it, you don't get it.'

"I said I know, now please, stop."

'You have to hurry…' Its voice faded, but echoed louder in my mind. 'You have to hurry…' it kept hissing. Over, and over, and over, none stop, no matter what I did. I covered my ears.

"I KNOW!" I screamed. Only then did I realize I had been talking aloud for quite a while. "I KNOW! STOP! JUST STOP! JUST—"

General Hakuro's hands were on my shoulders and shaking me.

"STOP! STOP! STOP!" I kept screaming.

'You have to hurry… before it's too late…'

"Hey, girl, pull yourself together. I was just saying—" He only just then understood I hadn't have been yelling at him.

"Just stop…" I kept saying, shaking. I lowered my head. "I know I have to hurry… or I won't get what I wish…"

I crashed. What just happened to me?

"W-w-wha…" I took a deep breath. The Major General gawked. He took himself aback with a look I didn't like.

"Y-you have…" He shook his head. "I have to report this." Without another word he fled out the back door, knocking over towering stacks of paper as he did, and I was left alone in the office.