The sound of a steady beeping filled the room, breaking the silence apart from the occasional scratch of a pencil on paper. Hansel wiped a few tears out of his eye as he continued to write. He wasn't crying - far from that - but his eyes keep tearing up due to a combination of pain from his stomach and maybe a few actual tears from the letter he had just received. To say the least, the Emperor was... displeased with him. Fuhrer Mustang had contacted him and alerted the Emperor to everything Hansel was up to. The letter must have only been mailed a short while ago and then sent over on the train. Hansel's green eyes tracked over the words he had written, mainly just groveling for forgiveness at the moment. He would get to why he intended to commit murder in a moment. It truly was an admirable reason. He just had to figure one out first that wasn't gold and glory.

A knocking at the door interrupted him from his thoughts. Hansel slid the letters under the covers of his bed and attempted in vain to push the bed tray that he had been using as a makeshift desk away. "Come in, I thought the bandages weren't due to be changed yet?" He really hated the changing of his bandages, everything from the removal of the fabric from his raw skin to the gory sight of the wound itself set him on edge despite the nurse's best attempts to be gentle.

"I wouldn't know about that," Elysia said as she walked in, checking behind her as she shut the door and grinned, looking like a wolf staring down a sheep. "But I do know how you can kill Pride."

"What?" He sat up far too quickly and his voice was a hoarse gasp as he spoke, "How do you know about that?"

Elysia's face was too open, her look of horror was evident as she took in the state that Hansel was in. Surely Pride wouldn't carry his game much further, this man was almost on his death bed. Her voice shook slightly, like an actor forgetting his lines on stage, "I'm the one who's been around him for the past fourteen years, I know when he's acting weird." She scratched her chin and coughed lightly, trying to cover-up her discomfort. "He even trusts me still, I can make sure that you kill him this time."

"The poison won't finish him off?"

Elysia scoffed openly at that, "You should have known that would only weaken him. You cut a metaphorical hole in his gas tank, now that he's running on empty; you need to finish him off."

Hansel narrowed his eyes, "And how do you suppose that I do that?" He gestured to the hospital room he was stuck in, "In case you can't tell, I'm bedridden. I won't be finishing off anyone or anything for awhile."

The girl's grin seemed false as she explained, "And there lies the beauty of this plan. His name isn't Pride for nothing - it's his hubris. All we have to do is lure him out, use those super flashlights of yours to burn him out - then behead him."

"A beheading? And how do you intend we do that?"

"His body falls to ash when it dies; there'll be no evidence, no body, and no mess."

"That's not my point," the man groaned, "I can't lift anything over ten pounds. There's no way I'm hacking through bone and tendon to sever a head."

"He... has a weak spot," she could still see Selim pinned to the wall, mouth open in a silent scream as he was paralyzed by a crossbow bolt in his head. "It's on his forehead, one shot in that could kill him."

Hansel hummed thoughtfully, crossing his arms, "Even if this is plausible, there's still one issue. How do I know that you're not lying to me? How can I be sure that this isn't a trap?"

Elysia released a sigh, "Good. This will only work if you are smart enough to pull it off." She grinned, "And it seems like you are, asking important questions like that."

Hansel glowed slightly, but then simmered down. "You avoided the question."

Elysia walked over to the window, barely even visible in the dim room, and pulled open the curtains to reveal a dismal view of a dirt-filled park. "See the big magpie in that tree?"

Hansel squinted at the tree, adjusting his glasses slightly. "Yes, what about it? Aren't magpies common in Central?"

Elysia shook her head, "Not in the inner city, just on the outskirts here."

"But I've seen them everywhere..."

"It's the same bird," she knocked on the glass, but the bird only turned its head and fixed one beady eye on them. "He's Pride's pet. The bird has been serving as his eyes since he is unable to use his shadows the way he used to."

"He's been tracking me?" Hansel growled, clenching the thin covers on his bed. "So that's how he found me."

"Another thing that could prove my trustworthiness, he has a stash of information under the floorboards in his room, but it has nothing of importance to you." Elysia added.

"But I checked the whole room before he found me! There were no loose boards!" Hansel's face darkened, a dangerous glint appearing in his eyes. "You're lying to me!"

Elysia jumped back as the man snagged the first thing he could reach - a small pen - and chucked it at her. "Think about it! Why would he use a loose board when his shadows can pry up any board?"

Hansel passed in his attacks, "Wait, what?"

"He's using the normal boards and prying them up carefully with the shadows. You would never know that anything is stored there."

The Xingese man narrowed his eyes, "So you said I need to burn him with the flashlight, and then shoot him?"

"I can tell him where you are and he'll come. Just tell me when to send him."

"Use his own pride against him?" Hansel chuckled, "This might just work." He didn't have anything to lose anyways.

Elysia tried to ignore the churning sensation in her gut as she walked out of the room, passing nurses and a doctor on her way to the exit. She felt like a black sheep in a flock of white-coated sheep, here she had just condemned a man to death while people worked constantly to prevent that from happening. She didn't know if she could do this.

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay! I got a little busy this week and I finally found some time to run through the edits on this and post it. As always, a huge thank you to everybody who has reviewed/favorited/followed this story and a round of applause for Undeadmonkey8 for doing a lovely beta-ing job. I would go through reviews if I had more time but for now, enjoy this chapter! The story is definitely coming to an end though, I only have a few more chapters to go.