35. Yearning.
T: Vague cliff hanger this chapter and a great deal of exposition, thus the plot suffers a little!! Other than this the warnings and disclaimer remain the same.
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He leaves Al burred in a vast pile of text books that he had acquired, earlier that day, from the local library.
Despite how very genuine his brother's words had been the night previous he cannot quite squish the apprehension that has built in his stomach or the compulsion to run back to assure himself that the other is still within the room.
The walk to Dante's house invokes within his heart a series of unpleasant memories and a faint ache in his right leg that he knows is purely psychosomatic.
There is a strange woman tending the garden and, instantly on edge, he says,
"I had thought to find this house empty still."
The woman regards him a long moment and then enquires,
"Are you Edward Elric?"
"That is correct."
"Are you aware that you are a wanted man?"
"I'm aware of that fact, yes."
"Then might I ask why you have come here of all places?"
"I had had a want to look through Dante's research notes."
"Are you fighting the homunculus?" The question is unexpected and the woman smiles a strained smile before informing him, "My name is Izumi Curtis."
"You are the one who attacked a military hospital?"
"That is correct."
"It's been a while since I saw the incident report but weren't you trying to stage a rescue?"
"That is also correct. They took a child…my son…hostage, claimed that he was a 'risk' and that they needed to keep him locked away in that place in order to research him. I was not going to let them treat him like a laboratory rat, no matter what he was and so I broke him free."
Something in the phrasing of her words stirs a thought in his mind and he enquires,
"Is the one you call your 'son' a soulless replica of that child?"
"So you have seen him have you?"
"Yes." There is a moment of silence and then she tells him,
"After I was married I yearned for a child, my every thought was consumed by the desire to carry a life within me and to hold that life in my arms. When I fell pregnant I was overjoyed and I planned diligently for the life my child would lead, painted its bedroom and picked out two potential names. He was still born and as I held his cold body I knew that I could not let him go…knew that I would pay whatever toll I had to in order to bring him back to life. "
"So you transmuted his body?"
"Yes, but what came back was not human and so I offered it back."
"To what?"
"The gate."
He knows that terminology well and, shivering slightly, he enquires,
"So how did he come back into you life?"
"I visited the place where I performed that transmutation every year to remind myself of what I had done, of what it had cost me and what it had given me." She places her bare hands together then and, striking them to the floor, transmutes a small patch of rosemary.
"You can perform alchemy without a circle?"
"That is correct."
"And the 'toll' you spoke of?"
"Some of my insides have been taken from me which means that I am constantly medicated, that I cough up blood and, most painful of all, that I shall never be able to mother another child."
"That's terrible."
"Perhaps." She smiles the same empty smile and then says, "One day I came to that place and I found a boy there, he looked a little like me and was of the same age as my son would have been. I thought that perhaps he had come back, that it'd all been worth something and so I took him home. For a while everything was fine then someone stole him away and when I found him again he had changed…had become something other than what he had once been."
"The others must have found him during that time and given him the nutrients he needed in order to make him a true homunculus."
"You seem to know a great deal about this, Edward Elric."
"That is true and yet I need to learn more if I ever hope to truly defeat them."
"Is that why you came here?"
"Yes."
"Then let us see what we can find, shall we?"
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He has spent an hour working his way through the books that his brother had left him and, having come no closer to a solution, he decides to take a slightly more 'hands on' approach.
Pulling the number for 'shou-chan' from his pocket he procures the nearest telephone and then phones the number in order to arrange a meeting between them.
The meeting point is an abandoned warehouse and, as he steps into the space, he is met with a hunched figure he recognises well from the final terrible moments within the 5th laboratory.
"Shou Tucker."
"Alphonse Elric." The creature shifts and, catching sight of the thing within its arms, he enquires,
"Is that your daughter?"
"Your brother has told you everything then."
"That is correct."
"That being the case I am surprised that you asked for this meeting."
"You hold knowledge that I wish to learn of."
"Knowledge that deals with the stone?"
"That is correct."
"Can you not ask your brother for such information?"
"Oniichan has given up the stone."
"How odd, he seemed so very driven before."
"The priorities within our lives have changed."
The other remains silent a moment and then he says "follow me," as he opens a trapdoor and steps down into the darkness.
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T: So I decided to include Izumi after all! It made sense for Ed to have someone tell him about Wrath and who better to do such a thing than the child's mother? My Izumi is a little bitterer than anime Izumi mainly because she's had to suffer alone with her sin rather than sharing it with the boys! Next chapter Friday at the latest, until then why not review?