Welp.
Here I am, with this strange brain-child of mind. (Not really that strange, I've seen a good deal like this, but oh well)
I am well aware that this belongs in the crossover section but I'm too lazy for that.
Goodness gracious, I really, really, really don't know where this story is gonna go, but I kinda like it.
Ah, anyway, enjoy.
L & D
Inko was always a strange child.
It made a mother worry.
Sakamichi Izumi had been specially aware of her youngest daughter ever since she came of the womb with eyes that stared straight into her soul.
Inko's eyes burned.
Everyone in the family could agree with that statement.
Izumi has thought maybe, just maybe, as Inko grew up, her fire would fizzle and die out; that her family could spoil her and she could be a normal little girl, and her eyes wouldn't send chills up their spins, but they were wrong.
Izumi could testify to that as she sat in front of her five year old's principal, with said five-year old covered in burns and bite marks. The woman buried her face into her hands and felt the compelling urge to cry.
This was the fifth time this month.
"Inko," she bemoaned through her fingers, "What happened?"
Her daughter watched her with a sharp gaze, and spoke very slowly, as if on purpose, for her sake: "The...boys...in class were making fun of me, 'cause I'm so small." She grinned feral—really, Izumi didn't know where she got that from—and stuck her chest out with pride. "I showed them mama! I'm a girl, but I can beat the snot out of 'em anyway."
Principal Suzuki was horrified.
"Inko-chan, what on earth is wrong with you?" Suzuki-sensei implored desperately, obviously astonished by the violence the girl just confessed to.
Izumi really tried to not think of the other incidents that had occurred recently. A year ago, a boy pushed Inko off the swings, she broke her right arm, and with her left, the little girl beat the boy (Yamamoto Fuu) bloody.
Inko turned to the woman, and slapped her tiny hand on the Principal's desk. "Look here, lady, I'm a girl, and why is it okay for me to be in trouble, and not those bastards who threw mud into my hair! Honestly, I punched them a little, that's all! They deserved it for being such bastards in the first place!"
Inko bared her teeth, and Izumi clapped her hands over her daughters mouth and apologized profusely.
Izumi was instructed to send Inko to psychotherapy.
It was not a good day.
Immediately upon arriving home, her daughter looked at her, at the recommendation in her hand, and snatched it away and tore it up.
"Mama, I'm fine." Inko tells her pleasantly, a bottle of water from the counter flying into her hand. "Really."
Izumi looks at her doubtfully.
(Troubled memories arise, of night terrors that started when Inko was three months old, of screaming, crying, of desperate pleas. The nights when Inko just screamed, these utterly heart tending screams, Izumi would have to go on a walk after they settled her and just sob. She had them less often now, but they are always terrifying when they occur. Izumi knows she needs to do something but she doesn't know what. She doesn't know—)
Inko turns, and casually, from over her shoulder, says "I think papa left the mail on kitchen table, mama." And Inko promptly leaves. Izumi knows that she's going to her room to read those ridiculous, mind-boggling books she enjoyed so much.
(That was way Inko got into so many fights. She was five years old, but a genius, a prodigy, and was in school with eight year old that felt threatened.)
On the top of the pile is a document that Izumi has never seen. It is in English, but has been translated between the lines. Izumi reads one sentence, then another, then one more, and it's like Heaven has suddenly blessed her.
The article is titled:
"Homeschooling: Watch Your Child Become Who They Were Meant To Be!"
Izumi pressed the article to her chest and sighs tearfully.
Just under it is an ad for a dojo down the street:
"Aikido: The Art of the Gentle Warrior"
Izumi brightened
Why didn't she think of that!
"My daughter, learning on her own, venting her anger, being perfectly amicable in public..." She almost swooned.
She heard the front door open:
"TADASHI!" She called, even before he got the chance to say 'Tadaima'. "LOOK AT THIS!"
Needless to say, a month later, Inko was learning to cook with her mother and studying General Physics at the same time.
Sakamichi Inko had endured five years of torture for this day to be blessed upon her.
Five years of being coddled and looked down upon accumulated to this great, treasured day when her mother had permitted her to be homeschooled, and also permitted her to join the dojo down the street.
Really, such a blessing.
(Except Into believed strongly in arranging her own miracles, so it wasn't a surprise at all, really. Two simple ads, and her mother felt like the smartest woman in the world, and Into got what she wanted. Manipulative, sure, but it was honestly for the safety of the common good.
Inko didn't belong in normal school. That was too civil, too domestic, too annoying for her to deal with. If she was going to make any progress at all, it wouldn't be the confines of some stuffy ass school.)
She grinned manically.
"So much to do." She said happily, leafing through a book on Organic Chemistry. She hummed, reaching a particularly interesting bit about Quirk Chemistry.
'There are no hard and fast rules to the chemistry, or atomic structure of all quirks. Many cases are specialized, but if one can reach the molecular anomaly, the precise source of the quirk, it is possible to ascertain the rules of of that particular quirk. Quirks, contrary to the popular believe, do not disobey the laws of science; they are a reflection of it, a manipulation of it, but will never outright reject the laws of nature…'
Inko grinned.
Theophratsus Paracelus
'I suppose it's only natural that he be in this world as well…' She brought the book up to the counter, promptly paid for it (ignoring the perplexed look of the cashier), and made her way back home. 'Hohenheim has been everywhere, poor bastard. Truth's bitch if there ever was one.'
Into was a sight to behold; a five year old on the train by herself always seemed to garter everyone's attention (it annoyed her to no end). The amount of people who asked her if she needed help, if she was lost, where her parents where, was honestly infuriating.
'Kill me now' she though longingly as she crossed the street, staring at the cars that where stopped, 'it'd be less painful than this.'
Inko trudged past the playground that preceded her house, and observed her two older brothers brawling in the sand pit. She was almost tempted to join, but decided reading was her first priority. She walked through the door, and called out a greeting that was returned by her mother.
Inko approached her door, painted with a red serpent's cross and grinned.
That night, Inko dreamed of another world.
"Mr. Al-Che-Mist, it seems you've finally returned."
Edward Elric had lived a good life.
After the Promised Day, it wasn't as if the world had suddenly become a place of rainbows and butterflies, but it was better. There were a few conflicts with Xing, with Drachma, but everything always got sort out in the end.
He had married Winry, and they had four beautiful, aggravating kids together. Al had married Mei, and they had seven kids (they really did scare Ed, honestly. He didn't know how he brother was still alive after having so many insane little humans running around his house).
When Ed died, he had been a decorated military veteran, a loving husband, a cherished father, and the grandfather of six.
He had lived a good life.
So the last way he had wanted it to end was back here. Back with Truth, of all the fucking places.
Edward sighed.
"It tends to happen when you die. You end up here. In hell."
Truth grinned that sickening smile, entirely too wide, entirely too knowing.
"Now, now, Mr. Al-Che-Mist, that was mean of you! I like you, I really do. It hurts me that you think otherwise!" Truth stood, and approached him.
Edward observed the blank figure carefully.
This wasn't going to end well, he just knew it, he had this fucking feeling that he was about to be dragged into something entirely ridiculous, and he was too old for this shit.
"That's why I need you to do me a favor."
"No way in hell." Edward was tempted to spit in Truth's face. "I died. I'm dead. I was 86 years old. I've lived enough. Leave me be, you omniscient bastard."
Truth grinned at him (it hadn't stopped grinning, really) and shook its head.
"I'm afraid you don't have a choice, Mr. Al-Che-Mist."
Edward glowered at it, but made no reply.
It was obvious to him that Truth was indeed going to send him to run its little errand whether he liked it or not. Edward knew first-hand that unless he had something to offer Truth, there was no way around his game.
And Edward had nothing he was willing to offer. Not his family, not his limbs (as if Truth wanted his wrinkled ass), not his had learned much in his 86 years, and finally, finally, he understood that sometimes it was better to be silent, better to roll with the punches.
"Fine." He sighed. "Fine. What is it?"
"There is a world that I need you to watch for me. Consider it an experiment of sorts, and you are the witness. Whether you influence events or not, it makes no difference to me. Actually! I think I would very much enjoy it if you changed things up a little. It's so dull over there; nothing like watching you struggle." Truth grinned (always, never not, always one step ahead), "Mr. Al-Che-Mist, you really are the only one who can give me a show worth watching."
Edward hated it. He hated Truth, that smug bitch, acknowledged the irony in it, and growled.
(He had always been bad at rolling with the punches.)
"That's it? What the hell kind of errand is that? It's completely useless, completely arbitrary! There's no purpose in sending me—"
"Oh, who knows, maybe that world needs you, Mr. Al-Che-Mist. Maybe I'm being generous and avoiding the destruction of that world by sending you off."
"Don't play with me. Your a bitch, and no the least bit generous. You take exactly what is given, exactly what is needed, no more, no less." Edward's eyes flash (burn), and Truth laughs at him and it is infuriating.
"I wish you luck, Mr. Al-Che-Mist. Make it entertaining, yes?"
"Truth, you cruel son of a bitch—!"
And he was gone, falling, falling into an abyss of white.
He could see Truth's smile the whole way down.
Fucking whore.
On July 4, Sakamichi Inko was born.
Nothing about her birth is notable. She was delivered normally, cried just as a newborn ought, and was named, examined, and sent home in all normalcy.
There was nothing special about the birth of Sakamichi Inko.
Nothing at all.
(The whole world was wrong. In another world, Sakamichi Inko's birth truly was inconsequential, truly was just as normal as normal could be, but in this one, she was a ticking atom bomb.)
Hey.
Hope you enjoyed.
Feel free to tell me how you liked it.
I know this prologue is kinda short, but hey, it's a prologue.
Usually my chapters are a good deal longer, but for now, this will do.
Over and out,
(stay healthy my duds)
L & D