Fullmetal Alchemist: Testament of the Brothers of Sin

by Lacan Shinn

Edward Elric gave up his dreams to defeat Dante. But then he opened the Gate for Alphonse, and returned without him after the Thule Society invaded to unwittingly provide their true presumed dead half brother with the key to mass produce the Philosopher's Stone to transmute a perfect God. The price for cherishing Al was to condemn both worlds. Crossover with the BUSO RENKIN Manga.

9. A Fractured Nightmare

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CHAPTER 8:

A FRACTURED NIGHTMARE

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Al couldn't see anything through the tears drowning out all existence and reality and the world and awareness and perception and registering and vision but Tokiko's fatally wounded body lying on the grass in front of the now unconscious Chitose, crimson flooding over her front and pouring down her sides and from beneath her back from all four horrific wounds, the second two, he knew, which had wholly gone through both of her lungs before passing out her back.

Brother's naked automail arm shone in the blindingly incandescent Sun, the light reflecting and glimmering off its polished surface and gouging and scouring Al's sin in participating in the human transmutation to try to resurrect Mom, and the price Brother had paid because he had, blinding incandescent brilliant irrefutably and undeniably clear and clean into the uttermost reaches of an unending and not unending abyssal chasm with a foundation further below the yawning maw of the abyss that was his soul than all distance and fathoms and space and time could never measure and never define and never describe and never think and never feel and never comprehend and never know and never be

"Do you have any clue how many people Scar has killed to create the Philosopher's Stone? Of all the soldiers that invaded Lior? Seven thousand of them didn't make it home. But don't fret. They're all right in here. Oh, I bet you didn't realize all the souls of the Ishbalans that were sealed inside Scar's arm are inside you now. Isn't that great? So now that you're fully aware of just how valuable you are to us, I suggest that you live!"

There are so many moments when I should have died. Time after time after time. But I survived. Why was I their choice when so many others have died?

The little girl's hand extended at an unnatural angle broken and shattered from beneath the rubble of the obliterated and shattered collapsed house sanguine pooling out from her shattered crushed and snapped broken body beneath the large fragmented stones and dripping down in steady, inexorable drops onto the tan stuffed bear lying on its back with a dark pink ribbon tied lovingly around its neck that had once tickled and caressed the girl gently as she'd giggled and held it close and warm while it had held her close and warm through the terrors of the night and the harsh unrelenting light of day and now it lay unmoving on the cobblestones before the house staring up with beads of onyx obsidian as eyes of night at a sky raining death and metal and ebony despair and a conflagration and inferno of ruin while the owner that had once laughed and giggled and cuddled and snuggled it close with smiles and grins and tears of joy and euphoria lay broken below the rubble with her broken hand all that was left of her that was even a little bit whole

"As long as we're alive, we can't keep living as our own dreams are all that matter. Okay?"

There are so many moments when I should have died. Time after time after time. But I survived. Why was I their choice when so many others have died?

He'd just known Tokiko for hours, but she could have been Brother or Winry.

Or the daughter that they'd never had the chance to have.

But two weeks after Dad had died because Al had performed human transmutation and lay unmoving on the stone cathedral floor and let Brother die and Brother who Al had forced through the Gate because he'd performed human transmutation and let him die had almost murdered or terribly wounded Rose and her son once again and the people of Lior, and then Al had caused the Thule Society to sack Central and murder countless people in them by opening the Gate.

Brother's naked automail arm shone in the blindingly incandescent Sun, the light reflecting and glimmering off its polished surface and gouging and scouring Al's sin in participating in the human transmutation to try to resurrect Mom, and the price Brother had paid because he had, blinding incandescent brilliant irrefutably and undeniably clear and clean into the uttermost reaches of an unending and not unending abyssal chasm with a foundation further below the yawning maw of the abyss that was his soul than all distance and fathoms and space and time could never measure and never define and never describe and never think and never feel and never comprehend and never know and never be

"Do you have any clue how many people Scar has killed to create the Philosopher's Stone? Of all the soldiers that invaded Lior? Seven thousand of them didn't make it home. But don't fret. They're all right in here. Oh, I bet you didn't realize all the souls of the Ishbalans that were sealed inside Scar's arm are inside you now. Isn't that great? So now that you're fully aware of just how valuable you are to us, I suggest that you live!"

There are so many moments when I should have died. Time after time after time. But I survived. Why was I their choice when so many others have died?

The little girl's hand extended at an unnatural angle broken and shattered from beneath the rubble of the obliterated and shattered collapsed house sanguine pooling out from her shattered crushed and snapped broken body beneath the large fragmented stones and dripping down in steady, inexorable drops onto the tan stuffed bear lying on its back with a dark pink ribbon tied lovingly around its neck that had once tickled and caressed the girl gently as she'd giggled and held it close and warm while it had held her close and warm through the terrors of the night and the harsh unrelenting light of day and now it lay unmoving on the cobblestones before the house staring up with beads of onyx obsidian as eyes of night at a sky raining death and metal and ebony despair and a conflagration and inferno of ruin while the owner that had once laughed and giggled and cuddled and snuggled it close with smiles and grins and tears of joy and euphoria lay broken below the rubble with her broken hand all that was left of her that was even a little bit whole

"As long as we're alive, we can't keep living as our own dreams are all that matter. Okay?"

B–

Envy's stone arm erupted through Brother's midsection and out his back in a spray of crimson more sanguine brighter and more fierce than the most horrible phantasm born of the most demented and deranged and insane and crazy and lunatic and psychotic and horrific and terrible feverish hallucinated nightmare.

"No!"

Al had no idea whose voice that was, or who it was scrambling to his feet with the smaller hexagon that was no longer a radar, sprinting over to Tokiko lying on the leaf and grass strewn ground of the forest with her blades coming apart and recombining into a kakugane at her side while ruby pooled below her and on her front and down her sides or maybe it was Brother lying on the golden stone floor of the cathedral while sanguine pooled on his torso and below him he didn't know he couldn't tell he wasn'twas didn'tdid notdid knownot know whowhatwherewhenhowwhyhappeninggoingontakingplaceoccuring whoBrotherTokikoheshetheymeeveryonenoanyoneoneanyeverythingthingwhowaswasn't was

"But we've read accounts by now of how Alphonse Elric first traveled this world in a suit of armor after the Munich Putsch, and the Great Warrior Chief's Buso Renkin is one of the minority that combine with others, and it's a gigantic suit of armor around the size of an average apartment building.

"We can't take the risk that Al will be able to do the same thing."

It was happening againalwaysforeverneverwverywheneverywhereforalltimeforallspaceforallinfinitynotinfinitynotinfinitiesofinfinitiesinfinitelynotinfinitelythevoidoverandovereternallyrecurringeverywhenalwaysneverforever

BrotherTokiko was dying because of himhewasn'talwayswasabominationabyssalanathemadeathpainheneverwouldbeneverhadbeen itwashisfaultresponsibilityhehewouldn'tbewasn'tneverwashadmurderedBrotherheritwashappeningagainhe'dalwaysforevernevereverywhereeverywhenforallspaceforalltimemurderedBrothertheIshbalanstheAmestriansoldiersinLiorBrother

Tokiko had told him what the underground passage below Newton Apple Academy for Girls had looked like, she'd told him how many miles they had left to travel to reach Yokohama and it so Al knew its approximate location, the people there had possessed one incomplete Philosopher's Stone so they might possess one or more others, or at least one or more kakugane and if Tokiko had injured herself as badly as she had after all Al had told her two kakugane must have been enough to heal those wounds enough for her to survive so one or more might keep her alive through her two even more deadly wounds, Al had been fighting as armor for years, he might be able to combine his Buso Renkin with others, the kakugane had just recently stopped being the Hermes Drive, Buso Renkin responded to choices and motivations and survival impulses, and BrotherTokiko was not going to die this time

Al placed the kakugane on top of Tokiko's forehead away from her nose and mouth, and then he picked up Tokiko's kakugane and put it on her less blood covered stomach.

After this, he clapped his hands together, and placed them on top of the kakugane, calling upon every last fiber of determination to not let Tokiko die as Brother had

Light blue coursed out from it in currents and his head shrieked with pain briefly, and then he was kneeling in an octagonal brown stone passage, although the kakugane that he was holding was still a kakugane.

He couldn't breathe.

Had he made it?

Was this passage itself a Buso Renkin?

There was an octagonal substance at the end of the corridor that appeared to be a doorway, and Al was on his feet, but before he could sprint towards it it opened up like the petals of a flower retracting into a wall and a young girl with long blonde hair wearing what appeared to be a school uniform ran through it and it closed shut in the reverse way that it had opened behind her.

"Who are you?" the girl asked him, angry wariness in her tone.

"You have two kakugane.

"Are you two Alchemist Warriors?"

"That doesn't matter," Al said so quickly that he could barely breathe through the words.

"This girl is named Tokiko, and she's dying.

"Do you have any kakugane or prototype Philosopher's Stones?"

The girl's eyes flew wide, and now she glared at Al with so much undiluted hate that she could have been another member of Scar's family.

And there was a hatred and despair and rage and bitterness in her eyes that Al had never seen in anyone's eyes before, not even Rose's or Scar's or Martel's or Brother's, but that chilled him with sick insides inverting and warping and distorting and twisting labyrinthine switchbacks of frost icier than the coldest vacuum of space and the endless void.

"You are with the Alchemist Army," she hissed lethally through clenched teeth.

"In that case, forget it."

Al's heart stopped, or maybe it had never beaten maybe he'd never gotten his body back or even had a body or soul or mind maybe he'd never been born maybe he'd never been conceived maybe his soul had never been born of the Gate

"You're here to try to stop us from protecting father, aren't you?

"You turned my father into a prototype Stone who siphoned energy from every single living being around him against his will every instant of his life and left my mother in a catatonic coma with a broken body for seven years, then his closest loved ones and friends among you and the rest of you hunted him down to try to murder him merely because he didn't want to die, and then his closest loved ones and friends among you and the rest of you turned me into a Homunculus and sent me to battle him to try to convince my father to stop fighting back because he was determined to live so you could murder him, and then you abandoned my mother to live as nothing but a crippled literal unmoving brain who can't survive out of an alchemically crafted tank for almost a century and who is now about to die of old age."

Al was fully and totally and utterly and wholly and absolutely and completely crystalline clear and clean microscopic pinpoint sharp clear aware of what was going on again through new desperate tears that were obfuscating everything and anything and spilling down his face over a vision now coated with a black haze, for he was too horrified past and beyond all potential or not possible or possible or not potential self or being or awareness or knowledge or thought or feeling or perception or belief or registering or memory or dream or hallucination or nightmare or fever or derangement or craziness or delusion or nightmare or dementia or psychosis or insanity or existence at everything that the girl had just said to once more and again and once again be able to not know who Brother was and who this girl was and who Tokiko was and who Victor was and what the Truth was and what existence was and what reality was and what his home Earth was and what this Earth was and what his home planet was and what this world was and what his home world was and what this planet was and what Amestris was and what Japan was and what his house was and what Gensai City was and what Winry's home was and what this tunnel and the chamber that Victor's daughter had just emerged from was foreverneverneverforever for unendingly recurring eternities that were and weren't infinities that could always and never be

"And now you're here to try to prevent us from saving him, and to keep my mother from witnessing him, with what senses the tank and her Buso Renkin can give her, as a human and at least a little happy once more, one last time before she dies, aren't you?

"If so, you can take your friend, or girlfriend, or adopted sister, or blood sister, and rot into corroded poison over the course of around a century the same way that we did.

"Or you can die right here as painfully as Dad and Mom and I have lived for around a century.

"But you're not getting past me to our research ward, and I'm not lifting a finger for this Tokiko.

"But you should know that we both have kakugane, and if as you have two, four should be enough to save her.

"So you can thrash and throw yourself and toss yourself and whip yourself and cast yourself and writhe and squirm in helpless powerlessness as she dies with salvation dangling right in front of her, so you know what it's like for us to abandon and betray you the same ways that you did us."

After what the girl who could be no one else but Victor's daughter had just said, that was one of the very last things on Al's mind.

But at least Tokiko had hope now, although there was no way that they could ask Victor's family for the white kakugane, even if it could somehow neutralize an imperfect Philosopher's Stone, so this was a dead end as far as protecting Kazuki was concerned.

What the Alchemist Army had done to this family was unimaginably unendingly immeasurably worse than even the most atrocious of Dante's sins.

Even Dante and her Homunculi hadn't turned a little girl into a monstrous victim and then forced her to fight a father who was an even worse monstrous victim when the two of them still loved each other.

Dante and her Homunculi had been willing to use most of the people of Amestris and their life and death and torment and souls and bodies and minds and families and loved ones and friends and homes and hearths and safety and security and sanctuary and refuge and tears and laughter and joy and warmth and kindness and hollow shells and hatred and sadness and anger and loneliness and abandonment and betrayal and suffering and pain and love and care and cherishing and protection and soundness and harm and torture and absolute zero frigid frozen cold ice as laboratory specimens and experimentation equipment, and lied to most of the Amestrian military and the Amestrian people and turned them against each other and one another lethally and painfully while lying that it was for the benefit of others or their own, or convinced them to stop caring about the people who they loved and cared for and then used them willingly against each other and one another, but even they hadn't been willing to use people against each other and one another, to murder and torture each other and one another, when they still loved each other and one another with full knowledge of what they were saying and doing.

As soon as Tokiko was okay, Al was going to find a toilet somewhere, and retch violently into it forever for the rest of his life until he had dry heaved so long and so excruciatingly agonizingly that he fell into a coma and then continue to dry heave every instant when he woke up until he fell unconscious once more and when he woke up once more continue to dry heave every instant until he fell into another coma and eat and drink for no other reason than to continue to retch violently and then dry heave and fall into a coma and wake up to retch violently and fall into a coma until he needed to eat and drink again to continually and repeatedly retch violently and fall into a coma once more and do so every instant of every moment of every second of every minute of every half hour of every hour of every day and night of every twenty-four hours of every week of every month of every year of every decade of every half a century of a century if he lived that long so he could live a full life doing so until he died and was uncreated from all making

Al made his voice as understanding and reassuring and soothing and kind as he believed that he could risk without hurting the girl even more.

"You don't need to worry," Al spoke.

"I'm not an Alchemist Warrior, I'm an alchemist from Shamballa, a world on the other side of the Gate that powers all alchemy that you might or might not know about."

The girl's eyes went wide slightly, but in ways that told Al that she did know about Shamballa, and that she also now knew who he was.

Al's heart stopped once more with breathless hope.

"Yes, I'm Alphonse Elric.

"And my Brother, Edward, and Tokiko, and another friend of ours named Kazuki, and I myself; are on the run from the Alchemist Army as well because they see Shamballa, and us, as as potentially dangerous as you, because Kazuki is just like Victor, and because we're trying to locate another alchemist and a Homunculus who are trying to turn Victor into an even worse laboratory specimen and potential mass murderer."

The girl went white in intermingled terror and horror and hatred and fury.

"Whether you can prove the last two parts, which I extremely highly doubt that you can, we're still not going to assist you in healing Tokiko.

"A paradise where there is no death or war or famine or plague or poverty or suffering or pain, where everyone lives in everlasting joy and bliss.

"Spare me such infantile fairy tales.

"Mom and I read about you soon after the Munich Putsch, but you can't be from Shamballa.

"There never has been, never can be, and forever never will be, a paradise, or a place named Shamballa, for as long as all the never beginning and forever unending observable and unobservable universe and imaginary time unravel."

Al had no idea what the observable universe, the unobservable universe, and imaginary time were, but he extremely highly doubted that it was relevant to the current discussion.

"I didn't say that Shamballa is a paradise," Al spoke back.

"We suffer and laugh just as much as you."

"Then you know why we won't save Tokiko, or trust you," the girl responded.

"So go back to that cesspool, if it even exists."

What Al needed to say next meant that he wouldn't just lose his body, and, although he couldn't believe that the black haze in front of his eyes would vanish for as long as he remained alive before he was unmade although he couldn't believe that the black haze in front of his eyes would vanish for as long as he remained alive before he was unmade, sensation this time; but even his mobility; until someone found a way to give him a new body.

But if there had been anything left in him that could have cared about losing his body a second time, what this girl had said had erased it eternally.

"In that case, Homunculi need to eat humans or they'll feel as though they're starving, right?" he questioned.

"I'll do this whether or not you heal Tokiko if that's what it takes to convince you to trust me when I say that I just want to give you back your dad, and your mom his husband before she passes away, and to stop him from suffering. If you want me to do the following to convince you to trust me, I'll think of something else to do for you to convince you to save Tokiko before she runs out of time."

She was still breathing, if laboriously, and once she stopped, she had approximately ten minutes before she suffered irreversible brain damage from oxygen deprivation, so it wasn't too late for her yet.

"If this is what I need to do for you and your mom to convince you to trust me, and to trust that I just want to give you back your dad, and your mom his husband before she passes away, you can do whatever you did to your mom and turn me into an unmoving cripple who is nothing but a brain in a vat. And, so you no longer need to kill humans who you don't want to hurt so you stop feeling as though you're starving, you keep using my kakugane and your two kakugane to heal my body so you can eat as much of it as possible without hurting it too much to heal it as many times as you want, for as long as you want."

The girl's mouth opened a little, and her eyes a little as well.

"And I'll even pay attention to you doing it as much as I can while I'm just a brain to show you that I'm not the tiniest bit scared or revolted by what your dad has become, and how he lives; what your mom has become, and how she lives; and what you have become, and how you live," Al finished.

"How dare you mock us by saying that," the girl hissed, but there was now a very slight uncertainty in her voice, and a very, very desperate and terrified, denying and disbelieving hope, in it.

"We haven't just never met before, if you're not lying to us, you're from an entirely different universe and space time and planet and world and Earth than ours.

"Why would you care about what happens to us?

"And I found a way to clone my mother's brain to give her more mental pathways to think with while researching how to protect my father.

"I don't eat living humans.

"I just use a similar principle to develop brains of my mother to eat."

Al's stomach heaved sickeningly.

Maybe he did need to keep an afterlife, so he could retch violently and dry heave for all eternal eternity.

This girl ate her own mother to stay alive without being ceaselessly tortured by imaginary starvation and dehydration and malnutrition?

That did it.

Al clapped his hands and placed them on his kakugane, calling upon his determination to fight for this girl who was by an incomprehensibly measureless amount the worst victim of alchemy's horrors who he'd met in his whole life as well now, and this time, he saw it shift into a simple unremarkable silver ordinarily sized shield with two corners at the top that tapered to a point at the bottom.

But he didn't care at all that his Buso Renkin wasn't armor.

The girl blinked, and her face became very wary once again.

Without any delay or hesitation, Al lifted up the point of the shield with his right hand and dug it down through the top layers of flesh of his left arm below the shoulder, but not deeply enough to risk losing enough blood from what he was going to do that he might bleed to death.

He ignored the searing debilitating pain detonating out from it and sliced a long line down it almost to his hand, tearing off a thick, wide, long ribbon of flesh.

The girl's mouth went slack and her eyes opened unseeing and wide and she stared at him, transfixed, as she realized what he had just done, and why.

He dropped the Buso Renkin and picked the strip of flesh off of his arm, ignoring the further pain screaming through him, and tossed it gently to the girl.

Reflexively, in denial and disbelief, she stretched out numb hands as though moving in a dream and fumbled to catch it, almost dropping it a number of times before she took it in a steady hold.

"Even when I close my eyes, for as long as I'm alive, there's two whole worlds out there, outside of myself and my dreams," Al answered.

"If you're willing to trust me now, I promise you, and your mom, that I'll stay with the two of you for as long as you want, and unless you want to put my brain in a tank, I'll keep healing myself with the kakugane and cutting off new strips of my arms or legs each time that you need to eat, so you'll never need to eat your mother again.

"And, if your mom is willing to talk to me, and about this, I'll make her the same promise personally."

The girl looked down at the ribbon of skin for a few seconds.

Then a few tears pushed forwards into her eyes and fell onto her face, and she looked up.

Her voice was a broken, cracked whisper of a vacuum emptier than a lacuna of almost completely forsaken, ruined, erased, desperate and

"I believe you, so I won't ask you to stick yourself in a tank.

"Tokiko probably doesn't have much time, and this tunnel is my Buso Renkin, the Underground Searchlight, so we'll need to take her into our lab for me to return it to a kakugane."

The girl clearly wanted to ask if Al knew precisely how Victor was doing now, but she didn't bring it up.

"Mom will talk to you.

"I've never been able to figure out why, but she's still willing to trust alchemists.

"I never told Mom why I'm a Homunculus, though; I wouldn't have told you if I hadn't believed that you were a threat to Dad and Mom and that there was a small chance that knowing that would convince you to leave us in peace.

"So can you please not tell her what I told you?"

Al nodded firmly, understanding as well how incredibly vulnerable this girl felt with him because she knew, now that she didn't see him as an enemy.

"I promise that your secret is safe with me," he told her, as sincerely and reassuringly and kindly and gently as he could think of doing.

The girl went stiff and glared at him, but there was much less fury and even anger in it now, and no hate.

"And throw your naïve idealism and oblivious kindness back out the way you came, if you would," she said, her voice again wary and angry, but in much quieter ways.

"My name is Victoria.

"Victoria Powered.

"Follow me."

She pushed the strip of skin quickly into one of her pockets, and then she walked quickly up to Tokiko and picked her and her kakugane up carefully. Then she turned and headed for the octagonal doorway, moving as though she couldn't tell whether one of the last things she wanted to do was stay with him or move the tiniest millimeter out of his presence, and it opened the same way that it had before as she neared it.

Al rose quickly, transmuted his Buso Renkin back into a kakugane in more cascading blue white, and then he followed her, ignoring the throbbing and lancing tongues of crackling fire in his left arm as he did and suppressing the urge to throw himself unrestrainedly into the agony and drown in it.

He'd figure out how to heal his arm later.

No one else was doing it for him.

He walked through the hatchway into an octagonal chamber with the whole ceiling, floor, and walls pure white.

He put an approving smile on his face at the sight of all the brains floating in the vats on shelves rising up each wall, and he kept it there until Victoria looked back at him to see if he was in the chamber.

Victoria scowled, but then she looked uncomfortably away from him and lowered Tokiko carefully to the floor, and then she replaced Tokiko's kakugane on her stomach.

The hatchway and the tunnel past it disconnected into pieces and reformed into a kakugane in her hands, leaving nothing but white where it had once been.

"Believe it or not, Mom, this is Alphonse Elric from Shamballa, and his friend needs both our kakuganes to complement the healing processes of their two."

Al forced himself not to even start at all as the glass of all of the tanks vibrated, and a woman's voice spoke from all of the brains, sounding middle aged rather than old.

Its soothing, reassuring tones reminded him so much of Mom and Gracia that it brought new tears, of longing now, to his eyes.

Victoria's face shifted slightly.

"I'm fine with that," she said.

A drawer slid open in the farthest wall, revealing a fourth kakugane.

Victoria sprinted over to it and picked it up, and Al was kneeling at Tokiko's side and placing his own kakugane on her forehead while Victoria placed her two on Tokiko's stomach.

Al couldn't breathe, and he was certain that his heart couldn't beat.

Several seconds path, and then Tokiko's breathing became less laborious.

Al's legs and knees gave out as everything inside him faded from existence, and he fell to his knees bonelessly, his vision vanishing behind his tears once more.

"You're going to need to take her to a regular doctor in a few hours once she's stabilized, but for now, she should be out of danger," the woman said, her voice even more soothing and reassuring now, as well as sounding filled with certainty that Tokiko would survive her wounds and recover, and every solitary last single thing that was and wasn't himself and Al wanted to just fall into the exhausted night rising up around him and dream of Mom forever as new tears of longing came to his eyes and fell down his face.

But Victoria and her mom, and Victor, now needed him a lot more than Tokiko, so that wasn't an option.

Neither of them were asking if he knew precisely how Victor was at this time, so Alphonse knew better than to tell them, in the event that it would hurt them too much to know now if they weren't ready to find out.

"You can move your arm closer to Tokiko's and let the transmutation mend your arm a little, or at least clot or scab it," Victoria told him.

"That won't redirect the energy of the transmutation enough to risk her life, and we have no medical supplies here, and we have no spare uniforms for me to bind your injury with.

"And though I can tell you're not hurt badly enough to bleed to death, if one or both of us agitates a wound like that badly enough it might become more dangerous to you, so it's most likely safer to just let it bleed than jostle you enough to make a tourniquet from your clothes.

"So if you don't participate in the transmutation, your arm is going to sting like heck."

"I'm not chancing it," Al spoke back.

Victoria sighed with exasperation and rolled her eyes.

"So you're Alphonse Elric," the woman greeted him in warm, welcoming tones that caused even more tears to emerge.

"It's a pleasure to meet you.

"My name is Alexandria.

"Alexandria Powered.

"If you're still here, and thirteen, I assume that the Gate held you prisoner for all this time and released you near Victor so his Stone could devour your soul."

Al blinked in surprise that she knew what the Gate was.

He'd already been numb for hours to the knowledge that Brother might have been a prisoner of the Gate for around eighty years.

And Alphonse felt nothing at hearing another skilled and experienced alchemist believe that the Gate had held him captive once more, and for around eighty years, and that it hadn't sent him through time.

"What happened to Hohenheim?

"At my behest, Victoria met with him after we first heard about the mysterious origins of the uranium bomb from another world and Edward's appearance in Munich, and connected him to the Edward from England, and realized who he and you were, and that you two were from the same world."

Al somehow had enough strength left to start slightly.

Then Victoria had had specific reasons to distrust Brother, Dad, and him.

"I'd hoped that your world knew more about alchemy than ours, and that he would be able to tell me how to return Victor to an ordinary human.

"But, though he told us a small amount about the Gate and the greater ease with which alchemy could be researched and performed on your Earth; and a little about you, Edward, your mother, and himself, as well as a small number of things about his history that you might or might not know and I won't speak of until you're feeling better in case you don't; he refused to tell us anything that might give Victor his humanity back.

"He also warned us to stop researching the Philosopher's Stone, though he refused to say why, other than that, if we continued to pursue it, Victor might end up suffering even worse, as well as the rest of the world.

"He told us that he would travel to Japan and try to find Victor and give him back his humanity himself, however, and ask careful questions to a friend of his, General Haushofer, about his time in Japan to attempt to discover what had happened to him when he lost his initial battles with the Alchemist Army.

"So Victoria returned here with hope, but then we stopped hearing about him, and he never arrived, so I at last believed that something had gone wrong, and Victoria believed that he'd betrayed us as the Alchemist Army had."

New tears pushed forward into his eyes for a completely different reason now.

Then everything that Victoria, Victor, Alexandria, Tokiko, Kazuki, Chouno, and everyone who they knew had gone through was directly his fault.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice a cracked, empty whisper that couldn't even break now.

"It's my fault that this didn't end around eight decades ago.

"Dad didn't help the three of you because he found a way to return Brother home, and reunite the two of us, that required him to give his life to do so."

Victoria's face became a mask for a number of seconds, but then she gave Al a tentative, guarded, but genuine smile.

"And he never told Brother about Victor, or the two of you, most likely because he didn't want Brother to get involved when he was having enough problems being stuck in the world," Al spoke.

"Otherwise he'd have done something himself, or I would have, before the Gate grabbed us."

Neither Victoria nor Alexandria said anything for several seconds.

Then Victoria sighed with heavy resignation.

"I don't like using my humanoid Homunculus' limited shape shifting abilities, but you clearly need to know that we're as okay with you now as you are of us, so I'll alter myself to your age and stay that way as long as you're with us," she spoke in resignation, but no anger or irritation or annoyance.

Al gave Victoria a genuine, heartfelt, encouraging smile.

She scowled.

But then she shifted and grew taller and larger, until she was indistinguishable from any other thirteen year old girl.

"And I'm truly and very sorry to hear about your dad," Victoria said, her voice now an adolescent's but now uncomfortable and possessing sincerity of her own.

"I'm proud of you, Victoria," Alexandria said.

But, although the warm approval in her voice reminded Al so much of Mom that it caused his heart to ache and twist a small bit, but no new tears of longing pushed into his eyes to add to the tears of self hatred still spilling over.

"I'd transmute a new body for myself as a similar gesture, but I lack the ability to," Alexandria said.

"But Victoria's right.

"If you convinced her to actually see you as a potential friend after everything that alchemists have done to our family, then I have no doubts that you're worthy of her regard, and thus mine.

"However, I don't know what you do and don't know about what happened to Victor, and it's hard for me to speak by making the glass vibrate and I don't want to give you additional reasons to feel guilty that I can avoid giving you."

Alphonse kept the new surge of self hatred from appearing on his face, or in his body language.

He wanted to ask Alexandria if she was willing to discuss what he'd told Victoria he'd promise her about, but he clearly didn't have the time to.

Another way in which he'd let someone, and a victim of the horrors of alchemy, suffer.

"So, as I don't have access to my Buso Renkin, through which I can communicate with less trouble, I'll just tell you two last things, and then let Victoria talk to you uninterrupted.

"First, I'm almost certain that we've at last developed a means to restore Victor's humanity. And if he's survived this long, whether he's still so injured that he's hiding, or he's back on his feet and capable of fending for himself on his own once more, he was the most renowned Alchemist Warrior of his day before he became the Stone, so he's more than capable of staying hidden or defending himself, whichever is necessary.

"So you shouldn't need to worry about him as much as you currently are for more than around three months, at most; or about how many problems he'll cause the Alchemist Army, other alchemists, and the general populace due to what he's willing to do with his vendettas in his current state."

That meant little, given that they'd need to abandon Kazuki in order to let Victor escape his nightmare.

Al had no idea what substances were involved in stopping the soul drain chain reaction transmutation, but he extremely highly doubted that they were easy to replicate.

"The Alchemist Army has its flaws, but they are not responsible for my husband's current condition, and I'd prefer that you not hold them responsible for sins that they didn't commit.

"I was the one who developed the prototype Stones, in the hopes that they would be used for medicinal purposes and defensive warfare against Homunculi and other unscrupulous alchemists, and I was the one who implanted it in Victor's heart when it was mortally wounded during a battle against Homunculi."

Which meant that it was Al's fault, and Al's responsibility, that Dad hadn't been able to free Victoria, Victor, and Alexandria from a nightmare that her and his very own mom and wife had brought about, for around eight decades.

Was there any single horror that he hadn't inflicted upon one or more people yet by now?

"That said, I'll talk to you with the Rurio Head in a few hours, Victoria.

"Until then, I hope that you enjoy the company of your new acquaintance."

"He's a naïve lunatic," Victoria said, turning her head away from Alexandria and raising her chin, but there was no true anger in her voice as she said it.

"And don't hold your breath that I'm going to try to make friends with him."

Al sighed heavily in relief.

Victoria started.

"So what's your problem?" she queried in true irritation, but though she tried to keep herself from sounding as though it was mostly for his sake, she failed.

"If you'd been in Japan for long, the Alchemist Army would have found out about it, and we'd have heard about it, so you can't have known Tokiko for long.

"And you sound far too upset for this to be just about her, however close you two are."

What did it matter how close they were when someone; someone who could have been Brother or Winry, or their daughter; had almost just died to protect him once again?

And when Tokiko had inflicted her first two injuries, and the ones that had weakened her enough that Chitose could deliver the other two, herself, in order to acquire a kakugane for him?

But Victoria was one of the very last people he could let worry about him, so as much as he didn't want to talk about this, he had no choice but to answer.

"For starters, for the issues more directly related to you, did Dad tell you about someone named Viator?" he asked.

"If you honestly believe that I'm going to fault you for something your dad and his late ex did over four centuries ago, you really are a nutcase."

"I don't need any further proof of that," Alphonse responded.

Victoria's mouth opened slightly, and then she tilted her face up and rolled her eyes with a deep, heavy sigh.

"But that's not one of the primary reasons that I'm so upset.

"I'm upset because he wasn't actually dead then, and he provided the Wales guilds with the means of making progress with alchemic research so it would reach the point where, among other things that I don't know that might or might not be even worse, Alexandria would transmute Victor, and perhaps Kazuki.

"He wanted someone to become what Victor became, and every last research letter and substance transmuted by alchemy on this whole planet was written and converted specifically so that would happen."

Victoria snarled.

"Why am I not surprised?" she asked with a deep, cutting, sarcastic bitterness.

"Dad was supposed to be one of the end results of all of this planet's alchemic research from the start, yet when it happened, he became its greatest reject until Kazuki."

Then she blinked, and this time, when her eyes widened, genuine concern and worry passed over Victoria's face for the first time.

"And Viator is still alive on your Earth, isn't he?"

Al opened his mouth to tell her that that was right, but the words wouldn't come.

"Close your mouth before you bite off your tongue," Victoria said, but there was barely any annoyance or anger or exasperation or irritation in her voice now, just a tired understanding of her own.

"Good grief, what the heck is so appealing about the Philosopher's Stone?

"I get that Victor has seven more stages to progress through before his black kakugane is fully advanced,"

Al cringed at what that could mean for Tokiko and Kazuki.

"but other than the increasingly improved durability, and potency and range of his Buso Renkin's transmutations, if that's all that the Philosopher's Stone can do to improve someone's body, mind, and soul; considering the cost involved with the energy drain, why is the Stone seen as such a big deal?

"Mom's developing something she calls a white kakugane out of the last prototype that she has left that she believes will neutralize Victor's black kakugane; based on the results of a test type for it meant to contain its reactions that must be the kakugane the Alchemist Warrior, who I now assume was Tokiko, retrieved from us around two months ago."

Alphonse was very wary of the concept of one Stone being altered to cancel out another, but he had no choice but to trust that Alexandria knew how to avoid making the same mistake twice, especially with this many additional neural pathways to increase her mental acuity.

And that further confirmed that this was a dead end for Kazuki, because there were no other imperfect Stones left to alter to cancel out Kazuki's.

"Because at least imperfect Stones are limited by the limitations of the flow of energy on this world," Al answered. "Viator most likely doesn't want to transmute with an imperfect Stone, or even a complete one, on this Earth.

"But on my Earth, where alchemy isn't as restricted, it can break a precept that we call the Law of Equivalent Exchange, where matter, or even souls, need to be sacrificed in order for a transmutation to be successful.

"The true Philosopher's Stone can get around that, at the cost of more and more of itself, while the imperfect Stones can move a small amount in that direction."

Victoria clenched one hand into a tight fist at the concept of a Stone much worse than Victor's, but in a way that said that she'd at least learned how lethal a true Stone could be from Dad.

"Hohenheim just told me something that he believed that the true Stone could accomplish as evidence that we should stop researching it.

"He said that seven real Stones can be utilized to create the points of a very small but sizeable number of extremely advanced transmutation circles, in order to enable real Stones to accomplish even more harmful transmutations than they can if you have just one."

Al felt his jaw drop, and he couldn't breathe, while his heart started hammering furiously in his chest so swiftly that he was certain that it would rocket out of the inside of his body.

His stomach heaved violently, and if Al wasn't gradually becoming numb once more, he might have thrown up this time.

There was no way.

Did Viator know about this, and was he researching it?

Al was no longer sure that Brother could end Viator's research, if he was researching transmutation circles drawn from true Philosopher's Stones.

This made it far more important that he find a way to open the Gate.

And were there regular transmutation circles with six points that used true Stones, or even imperfect Stones, of one degree of purity or another, as well?

And what kinds of transmutations could break the Law of Equivalent Exchange so indescribably unfathomably horrifically that even the true Philosopher's Stone couldn't perform them?

Yet, to Al's denying shock and astonishment, even still he felt a tiny amount lighter that he was learning more about Dad and his research.

"Your dad wouldn't tell me what any of these circles could accomplish, but he did say that they could be drawn inside human bodies in order to enable the transmutations to be performed on human bodies the same way that transmutations can with a single true Stone," Victoria was going on.

Alphonse cringed violently.

Dante must not have known that seven Stones could be used as the points of a transmutation circle, or she would have been researching it, and Brother would have told him over the last two weeks when he'd filled Al in on everything that he'd missed during the final confrontations with Dante and her Homunculi.

"Not on the outside, though, or the transmutation won't work on a human.

"According to him, the circle needs to be inside the human body, so the small to large number of true Stones can be as one with the person as Dad's Stone is.

"Yes, this is possible, even though he told me that a true Stone is around the size of a person's forearm and a little wider in diameter.

"If it's turned into part of one of these points, the formulae inherent in the matrices of these circles alter the Stone's size enough that seven of them can fit inside a human body at the same time as long as they're part of the matrix."

"Did Dad say anything at all about what these circles transmute?" Al asked.

"And whether there are regular six pointed circles that use whole Stones, or incomplete Stones?

"Regrettably, no," Victoria said.

"All he said was that he discovered that they existed, in theory, when, for reasons that he refused to tell us, he was researching whether or not what he'd previously believed to be eternal life was a valid law of alchemy.

"And that his discovery of these circles and what they can potentially transmute, and similar circles created through means that he refused to discuss even a little; were as much reasons that he lost interest in researching the Stone, as was his discovery that true eternal life isn't possible."

Al wasn't even sure now that there was such a thing as a heartbeat, or breathing.

What could be transmuted that was so incommunicably horrific and terrible that it would partially convince someone who had previously wanted to live forever, and who had been willing to directly sacrifice two cities and started who knew how many wars to create a complete Stone, to give up on alchemy's anathema and return to living a life of warmth and kindness?

"And before you ask, yes, Hohenheim warned us about researching the Gate as well," Victoria was continuing.

"I'm actually worried about Kazuki as much as Dad for a different reason, and it's the evidence that your dad gave us not to research the Gate.

"Hohenheim also said that alchemists who have passed through the Gate see what he calls, and what you might already know, something known as the Truth, information about how the laws of the cosmos work and thus how alchemy functions. And that knowledge becomes one with their bodies, minds, and souls and alters them into living transmutation circles themselves.

"According to your father, shortly before Viator's death; one of the central theories that Viator was researching was his discovery that four of these living transmutation circles as the points on the side, one unique living transmutation circle possessed by an alchemist whose soul is was at least partially separate from his or her mind and body at the time that he or she saw the Truth at the top of the circle, and one unique living transmutation circle possessed by an alchemist whose soul is or was at least partially bound to an incomplete Stone at the time he or she sees the Truth at the bottom of the circle; can actually be turned into the six points of a transmutation circle that can somehow transmute seven complete Philosopher's Stones with a single transmutation."

Al raised his head and face, even though he extremely highly doubted that he would be aware at all of what he was seeing if he could see through so many tears in his eyes and spilling down and streaking his face that all of his existence and existence were now just water, in order that his tears wouldn't fall off his face as soon and they'd have a slightly greater chance of sticking to it, while smiling with broken near euphoria and ecstasy and practical gibbering hysteria.

Brother's naked automail arm shone in the blindingly incandescent Sun, the light reflecting and glimmering off its polished surface and gouging and scouring Al's sin in participating in the human transmutation to try to resurrect Mom, and the price Brother had paid because he had, blinding incandescent brilliant irrefutably and undeniably clear and clean into the uttermost reaches of an unending and not unending abyssal chasm with a foundation further below the yawning maw of the abyss that was his soul than all distance and fathoms and space and time could never measure and never define and never describe and never think and never feel and never comprehend and never know and never be

"Do you have any clue how many people Scar has killed to create the Philosopher's Stone? Of all the soldiers that invaded Lior? Seven thousand of them didn't make it home. But don't fret. They're all right in here. Oh, I bet you didn't realize all the souls of the Ishbalans that were sealed inside Scar's arm are inside you now. Isn't that great? So now that you're fully aware of just how valuable you are to us, I suggest that you live!"

There are so many moments when I should have died. Time after time after time. But I survived. Why was I their choice when so many others have died?

The little girl's hand extended at an unnatural angle broken and shattered from beneath the rubble of the obliterated and shattered collapsed house sanguine pooling out from her shattered crushed and snapped broken body beneath the large fragmented stones and dripping down in steady, inexorable drops onto the tan stuffed bear lying on its back with a dark pink ribbon tied lovingly around its neck that had once tickled and caressed the girl gently as she'd giggled and held it close and warm while it had held her close and warm through the terrors of the night and the harsh unrelenting light of day and now it lay unmoving on the cobblestones before the house staring up with beads of onyx obsidian as eyes of night at a sky raining death and metal and ebony despair and a conflagration and inferno of ruin while the owner that had once laughed and giggled and cuddled and snuggled it close with smiles and grins and tears of joy and euphoria lay broken below the rubble with her broken hand all that was left of her that was even a little bit whole

"As long as we're alive, we can't keep living as our own dreams are all that matter. Okay?"

"He's dead?"

"That's right, he said he would pace for every human that follows. Now to kill off each one until only Homunculi remain!"

"But they can't die. That's ridiculous, you wouldn't let that happen. He couldn't!"

"That's reality for you. All the effort he gave got him one thing in return."

Brother's naked automail arm shone in the blindingly incandescent Sun, the light reflecting and glimmering off its polished surface and gouging and scouring Al's sin in participating in the human transmutation to try to resurrect Mom, and the price Brother had paid because he had, blinding incandescent brilliant irrefutably and undeniably clear and clean into the uttermost reaches of an unending and not unending abyssal chasm with a foundation further below the yawning maw of the abyss that was his soul than all distance and fathoms and space and time could never measure and never define and never describe and never think and never feel and never comprehend and never know and never be

"Do you have any clue how many people Scar has killed to create the Philosopher's Stone? Of all the soldiers that invaded Lior? Seven thousand of them didn't make it home. But don't fret. They're all right in here. Oh, I bet you didn't realize all the souls of the Ishbalans that were sealed inside Scar's arm are inside you now. Isn't that great? So now that you're fully aware of just how valuable you are to us, I suggest that you live!"

There are so many moments when I should have died. Time after time after time. But I survived. Why was I their choice when so many others have died?

The little girl's hand extended at an unnatural angle broken and shattered from beneath the rubble of the obliterated and shattered collapsed house sanguine pooling out from her shattered crushed and snapped broken body beneath the large fragmented stones and dripping down in steady, inexorable drops onto the tan stuffed bear lying on its back with a dark pink ribbon tied lovingly around its neck that had once tickled and caressed the girl gently as she'd giggled and held it close and warm while it had held her close and warm through the terrors of the night and the harsh unrelenting light of day and now it lay unmoving on the cobblestones before the house staring up with beads of onyx obsidian as eyes of night at a sky raining death and metal and ebony despair and a conflagration and inferno of ruin while the owner that had once laughed and giggled and cuddled and snuggled it close with smiles and grins and tears of joy and euphoria lay broken below the rubble with her broken hand all that was left of her that was even a little bit whole

"As long as we're alive, we can't keep living as our own dreams are all that matter. Okay?"

"He's dead?"

"That's right, he said he would pace for every human that follows. Now to kill off each one until only Homunculi remain!"

"But they can't die. That's ridiculous, you wouldn't let that happen. He couldn't!"

"That's reality for you. All the effort he gave got him one thing in return."

Brother's naked automail arm shone in the blindingly incandescent Sun, the light reflecting and glimmering off its polished surface and gouging and scouring Al's sin in participating in the human transmutation to try to resurrect Mom, and the price Brother had paid because he had, blinding incandescent brilliant irrefutably and undeniably clear and clean into the uttermost reaches of an unending and not unending abyssal chasm with a foundation further below the yawning maw of the abyss that was his soul than all distance and fathoms and space and time could never measure and never define and never describe and never think and never feel and never comprehend and never know and never be

"Do you have any clue how many people Scar has killed to create the Philosopher's Stone? Of all the soldiers that invaded Lior? Seven thousand of them didn't make it home. But don't fret. They're all right in here. Oh, I bet you didn't realize all the souls of the Ishbalans that were sealed inside Scar's arm are inside you now. Isn't that great? So now that you're fully aware of just how valuable you are to us, I suggest that you live!"

There are so many moments when I should have died. Time after time after time. But I survived. Why was I their choice when so many others have died?

The little girl's hand extended at an unnatural angle broken and shattered from beneath the rubble of the obliterated and shattered collapsed house sanguine pooling out from her shattered crushed and snapped broken body beneath the large fragmented stones and dripping down in steady, inexorable drops onto the tan stuffed bear lying on its back with a dark pink ribbon tied lovingly around its neck that had once tickled and caressed the girl gently as she'd giggled and held it close and warm while it had held her close and warm through the terrors of the night and the harsh unrelenting light of day and now it lay unmoving on the cobblestones before the house staring up with beads of onyx obsidian as eyes of night at a sky raining death and metal and ebony despair and a conflagration and inferno of ruin while the owner that had once laughed and giggled and cuddled and snuggled it close with smiles and grins and tears of joy and euphoria lay broken below the rubble with her broken hand all that was left of her that was even a little bit whole

"As long as we're alive, we can't keep living as our own dreams are all that matter. Okay?"

"He's dead?"

"That's right, he said he would pace for every human that follows. Now to kill off each one until only Homunculi remain!"

"But they can't die. That's ridiculous, you wouldn't let that happen. He couldn't!"

"That's reality for you. All the effort he gave got him one thing in return."

Brother's naked automail arm shone in the blindingly incandescent Sun, the light reflecting and glimmering off its polished surface and gouging and scouring Al's sin in participating in the human transmutation to try to resurrect Mom, and the price Brother had paid because he had, blinding incandescent brilliant irrefutably and undeniably clear and clean into the uttermost reaches of an unending and not unending abyssal chasm with a foundation further below the yawning maw of the abyss that was his soul than all distance and fathoms and space and time could never measure and never define and never describe and never think and never feel and never comprehend and never know and never be

"Do you have any clue how many people Scar has killed to create the Philosopher's Stone? Of all the soldiers that invaded Lior? Seven thousand of them didn't make it home. But don't fret. They're all right in here. Oh, I bet you didn't realize all the souls of the Ishbalans that were sealed inside Scar's arm are inside you now. Isn't that great? So now that you're fully aware of just how valuable you are to us, I suggest that you live!"

There are so many moments when I should have died. Time after time after time. But I survived. Why was I their choice when so many others have died?

The little girl's hand extended at an unnatural angle broken and shattered from beneath the rubble of the obliterated and shattered collapsed house sanguine pooling out from her shattered crushed and snapped broken body beneath the large fragmented stones and dripping down in steady, inexorable drops onto the tan stuffed bear lying on its back with a dark pink ribbon tied lovingly around its neck that had once tickled and caressed the girl gently as she'd giggled and held it close and warm while it had held her close and warm through the terrors of the night and the harsh unrelenting light of day and now it lay unmoving on the cobblestones before the house staring up with beads of onyx obsidian as eyes of night at a sky raining death and metal and ebony despair and a conflagration and inferno of ruin while the owner that had once laughed and giggled and cuddled and snuggled it close with smiles and grins and tears of joy and euphoria lay broken below the rubble with her broken hand all that was left of her that was even a little bit whole

"As long as we're alive, we can't keep living as our own dreams are all that matter. Okay?"

"He's dead?"

"That's right, he said he would pace for every human that follows. Now to kill off each one until only Homunculi remain!"

"But they can't die. That's ridiculous, you wouldn't let that happen. He couldn't!"

"That's reality for you. All the effort he gave got him one thing in return."

Brother's naked automail arm shone in the blindingly incandescent Sun, the light reflecting and glimmering off its polished surface and gouging and scouring Al's sin in participating in the human transmutation to try to resurrect Mom, and the price Brother had paid because he had, blinding incandescent brilliant irrefutably and undeniably clear and clean into the uttermost reaches of an unending and not unending abyssal chasm with a foundation further below the yawning maw of the abyss that was his soul than all distance and fathoms and space and time could never measure and never define and never describe and never think and never feel and never comprehend and never know and never be

"Do you have any clue how many people Scar has killed to create the Philosopher's Stone? Of all the soldiers that invaded Lior? Seven thousand of them didn't make it home. But don't fret. They're all right in here. Oh, I bet you didn't realize all the souls of the Ishbalans that were sealed inside Scar's arm are inside you now. Isn't that great? So now that you're fully aware of just how valuable you are to us, I suggest that you live!"

There are so many moments when I should have died. Time after time after time. But I survived. Why was I their choice when so many others have died?

The little girl's hand extended at an unnatural angle broken and shattered from beneath the rubble of the obliterated and shattered collapsed house sanguine pooling out from her shattered crushed and snapped broken body beneath the large fragmented stones and dripping down in steady, inexorable drops onto the tan stuffed bear lying on its back with a dark pink ribbon tied lovingly around its neck that had once tickled and caressed the girl gently as she'd giggled and held it close and warm while it had held her close and warm through the terrors of the night and the harsh unrelenting light of day and now it lay unmoving on the cobblestones before the house staring up with beads of onyx obsidian as eyes of night at a sky raining death and metal and ebony despair and a conflagration and inferno of ruin while the owner that had once laughed and giggled and cuddled and snuggled it close with smiles and grins and tears of joy and euphoria lay broken below the rubble with her broken hand all that was left of her that was even a little bit whole

"As long as we're alive, we can't keep living as our own dreams are all that matter. Okay?"

"He's dead?"

"That's right, he said he would pace for every human that follows. Now to kill off each one until only Homunculi remain!"

"But they can't die. That's ridiculous, you wouldn't let that happen. He couldn't!"

"That's reality for you. All the effort he gave got him one thing in return."

Brother's naked automail arm shone in the blindingly incandescent Sun, the light reflecting and glimmering off its polished surface and gouging and scouring Al's sin in participating in the human transmutation to try to resurrect Mom, and the price Brother had paid because he had, blinding incandescent brilliant irrefutably and undeniably clear and clean into the uttermost reaches of an unending and not unending abyssal chasm with a foundation further below the yawning maw of the abyss that was his soul than all distance and fathoms and space and time could never measure and never define and never describe and never think and never feel and never comprehend and never know and never be

"Do you have any clue how many people Scar has killed to create the Philosopher's Stone? Of all the soldiers that invaded Lior? Seven thousand of them didn't make it home. But don't fret. They're all right in here. Oh, I bet you didn't realize all the souls of the Ishbalans that were sealed inside Scar's arm are inside you now. Isn't that great? So now that you're fully aware of just how valuable you are to us, I suggest that you live!"

There are so many moments when I should have died. Time after time after time. But I survived. Why was I their choice when so many others have died?

The little girl's hand extended at an unnatural angle broken and shattered from beneath the rubble of the obliterated and shattered collapsed house sanguine pooling out from her shattered crushed and snapped broken body beneath the large fragmented stones and dripping down in steady, inexorable drops onto the tan stuffed bear lying on its back with a dark pink ribbon tied lovingly around its neck that had once tickled and caressed the girl gently as she'd giggled and held it close and warm while it had held her close and warm through the terrors of the night and the harsh unrelenting light of day and now it lay unmoving on the cobblestones before the house staring up with beads of onyx obsidian as eyes of night at a sky raining death and metal and ebony despair and a conflagration and inferno of ruin while the owner that had once laughed and giggled and cuddled and snuggled it close with smiles and grins and tears of joy and euphoria lay broken below the rubble with her broken hand all that was left of her that was even a little bit whole

"As long as we're alive, we can't keep living as our own dreams are all that matter. Okay?"

"He's dead?"

"That's right, he said he would pace for every human that follows. Now to kill off each one until only Homunculi remain!"

"But they can't die. That's ridiculous, you wouldn't let that happen. He couldn't!"

"That's reality for you. All the effort he gave got him one thing in return."

For the younger brother who Brother loved immeasurably more than anyone or anything else to erase and obliterate and eradicate and exterminate and devastate and annihilate and destroy and detonate and murder and decompose and terminate and kill and commit genocide against anything and everything that Brother had fought for even more totally and completely and utterly and fully and wholly and entirely and absolutely than Envy had by murdering Brother through emotional and mental torture and then trying to slaughter every single human in Amestris, if not the entire world, who Brother had fought so hard and striven so long to protect

Kazuki would never have been sent through the Gate if Alphonse hadn't tried to perform human transmutation on Mom or lived for his dreams of regaining his original body and bringing Brother home, or opened the Gate for the Thule Society or destroyed the side of the Gate on this Earth

And because Alphonse had assisted Brother in the human transmutation of Mom and attached part of his soul to another suit of armor in Lior about two weeks ago in order to endeavor to bring Brother home Alphonse himself could be used as not just one of the more commonplace and relatively easier to obtain points of one of these seven pointed transmutation circles for transmuting seven complete Philosopher's Stones at the same time but one of the hardest to obtain points of any number of transmutation circles that could fashion seven true Philosopher's Stones at once from up to around one million three hundred sixty thousand human souls

Al was aware that he'd drawn his knees up to his chest in a fetal position and his arms were wrapped around them and he was now rocking back and forth

"Nina was just seven and she'd loved to play with us and laugh and grin and smile and giggle for months while running through the caresses of the breeze with her arms spread wide with her family dog white and furry and loving and prancing and capering and dancing Alexander under the cerulean skies bounding at her side and she didn't have a mom any more she wouldn't eat she wouldn't drink she committed suicide it was her very own husband who fused her mom with an animal and turned her into a Chimera and then he did the same thing to Nina and he fused her with Alexander and then Scar murdered Nina hours after it happened to keep her from suffering any longer or becoming a laboratory specimen and she was nothing but pools of blood on a wall and there was nothing that I could do the fusion was too complete Brother and I couldn't separate her and Alexander we didn't even know that Scar could transmute we didn't even know that he was going to murder Nina by decomposing her into nothing but blood all I could do after it was all over was try my hardest to care for as many cats as I could after it happened particularly homeless or stray cats but I just kept abandoning dogs because I couldn't face them I couldn't get anywhere near them we hadn't even known that Tucker was going to transmute her"

The thin, very, very young, practically literally gibbering, practically literally hysterical, keening words spiraled up out of his mouth

"Marta was a little bit happier as a part snake and part human Chimera because she had friends who loved her and who she loved and one of them was even a Homunculus a human in worse condition than her Greed but then Dante and the other Homunculi and the State Alchemist Kimbley who caused Scar to become so hateful that he murdered Nina because Kimbley had murdered his big brother and then Archer and the other soldiers murdered all of the Chimeras they gunned them down without any mercy or stabbed them or devoured them whole and Greed tricked Brother into murdering him with his own hands and that broke Brother because he'd never wanted to murder anyone he'd never wanted to hurt anyone why didn't anyone else understand that why did they keep wanting him to live as human artillery and he'd already murdered Majhal and it was an accident and we wouldn't have even visited Majhal if not for what we'd done or gotten tied up with Greed and Marta and it was all my fault that Brother had become a murderer it's always been my fault always had been never hadn't been a single time or forever always and eternally will be and Marta was the only Chimera who survived it and she became as empty of everything but hate and despair and grief and torment as Scar had and again the fusion was too complete so Brother and I couldn't separate her and the snake but then Marta found out that Führer King Bradley was a Homunculus and tried to protect Brother and he beat her and she tried to hide safety inside of my armor horrified and terrified and still grieving Greed and her friends and engulfed by as much hate as Scar and in horrific emotional and mental agony and Pride stabbed her through the head while she was right there with me in front of me and I still couldn't do anything

"Scar's big brother lost his fiancé and Scar was in love with her too and all his big brother could do was research the alchemy that Scar's culture didn't trust and hated and fail to bring her back as a Homunculus who suffered even more than Nina and Marta and Greed even though she at least knew a way to become a human but it would have taken the true Philosopher's Stone and she hadn't been human in the first place so she became a serial mass murderer to research it and worked with Dante to trick the person who had loved the woman who she'd been based on and the big brother of the other Ishbalan who loved her into becoming a serial mass murderer himself of his own people while researching the Stone and further driving Scar away so Scar's big brother broke and he might have even discovered that the Homunculus he created who had been meant to be his dead fiancé had been involved in deceiving him into becoming a serial mass murderer of his own people so he died to protect Scar from Kimbley and Scar had nothing left but hate and despair and his belief that his big brother had abandoned him and betrayed him and all of their people and forced a lot of them to die and suffer so he became a serial mass murderer himself and tried to transmute the Stone and murdered a lot of State Alchemists and soldiers and almost Brother repeatedly and then he died to protect me from Kimbley when it should have been me I'd broken up his battle with Kimbley to try to stop him from avenging his Brother I'd dropped my guard for Kimbley I was the one who murdered Scar I should have been the one to die then why did he protect me why does everyone always choose me why don't they just let me die

"Tokiko is like Brother and Winry she could be their daughter if they one day get married and she just wants to protect the people who she loves and her friends and live in a warmer kinder reality and then she hurt herself to get me a kakugane and almost died for me it almost happened again all over again and it please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please tell me that I'm just seeing her as a potential close friend or I'm just starting to develop a crush on her or I'm just starting to fall in love with her please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please tell me that I'm not starting to see her as a possible surrogate sister

"And Hughes and Rose and Dad and Mom and Brother

"Hughes and Rose

"Hughes

"Rose

"Dad and Mom and Brother

"Mom and Brother

"Dad

"Mom

"Brother

"Brother"

A voice that Al somehow knew was his own was singing the same song that Viator had written and Atlas had gouged and scoured and etched and inscribed indelibly and irrefutably blasted and scraped and washed and cleansed blinding incandescent brilliant resplendent effulgent radiant shining glowing clear into the foundations of everything more profound than his soul and mind and heart and brain and body

.

How can I repay you, brother mine?

How can I expect you to forgive?

Clinging to the past, I shed our blood

And shattered your chance to live

.

Though I knew the laws, I paid no heed

How can I return your wasted breath?

What I did not know has cost you dear

For there is no cure for death

.

Beautiful mother, soft and sweet

Once you were gone, we were not complete

Back through the years, we reached for you

Alas, 'twas not meant to be

.

And how can I make amends

For all that I took from you?

I led you with hopeless dreams

My brother, I was a fool

.

Don't cry for the past now, brother mine

Neither you nor I are free from blame

Nothing can erase the things we did

For the path we took was the same

.

How can I expect to call you wrong?

How can you be blamed for what we've done?

Both of us were fools in our desires

And we flew too close to the Sun

.

Beautiful mother, soft and sweet

Once you were gone, we were not complete

Back through the years, we reached for you

Alas, 'twas not meant to be

.

My dreams made me blind and mute

I longed to return to that time

I followed without a word

My brother, the fault is mine

.

And where do we go from here

And how to forget and forgive?

What's gone is forever lost

Now all we can do is live

.

"Which part or parts of his body did Ed lose to protect you from the Gate?" Victoria's voice cut through the tears drowning out everything that was and wasn't him and existence and the void.

"If you're completely okay with it.

"And it will enable you to move forward from whatever he lost to protect you even the smallest amount by enabling you to feel that you're sacrificing yourself for someone as Ed did for you, and giving something back to him and your Mom and Dad and your other loved ones and friends and other people and the two worlds outside of yourself and your dreams, and you're able to be there for, or at least try to support, another victim of the Stone and human transmutation and alchemy.

"And as long as your definition of supposedly moving forward doesn't involve accepting this offer to hurt yourself; as long as you're in a good enough condition for me to do it.

"I'll eat a little of that part of your body each time that I need to eat."

All of his existence and reality and history and every solitary potential and not potential future, and all reality and history and existence and every single possible and not possible future that could perhaps be or not be, became unmoving suspended crystalline clarity more refined sharp than the thinnest subatomic particle.

Tears were in Victoria's own eyes now, and a number were falling down her own face.

Her voice was quiet and empathetic and understanding and sympathetic and reassuring and knowing and kind and assuring now.

"You're clearly uncomfortable with people caring too much for you after everything that you've been through, however, so I'll do as you'd prefer, and I'll actively force myself to feel and think and talk and act as uncomfortable and embarrassed about what I'm about to say as I can."

Victoria then crossed her arms against her stomach and turned her face slightly away from him, and then she scowled and forced as much redness as she could into her cheeks.

When she went on, her voice was wary and angrily defensive once more, but it hadn't lost any of what it had now gained, although Victoria was now masking all of it a lot.

"So be it, I'll be your friend."

For some insane reason, Al actually felt the most minutely infinitesimal, microscopically minuscule lighter and more reassured and less pained and calmer to hear that.

"And, although I have no interest whatsoever in romantic relationships and no intentions of trying to become that close to anyone, I know friendships have their own ways of developing on their own regardless of what we want them to become, so if you're still here after a few months and we've been able to become very good friends, and you're too terrified that you're seeing me as a surrogate sister, go ahead and ask me out on a date."

Al would never do that to Victoria, or Tokiko, or anyone, but he knew better than to say that.

"But do not ask me not to try as hard as I can to be the best friend to you that I can."

For an even more insane reason, that didn't cause Al to hate himself anywhere close to as much as it should, or feel anywhere close to as guilty as he should.

"Not after everything that you just said.

"You said that you like to care for homeless cats and stray cats?

"As far as I'm concerned, you're the homeless person and the stray."

"And yes, Mom and I have pieced together enough about how the Gate works to know that, given what you just told me, Ed must have lost at least something major to protect you from the Gate.

"I'm not saying that what I went through is the tiniest bit close to what you went through, so can you please not take it that way?

"But after I almost murdered Dad; and then for about a century by now I ruined his life and turned it into a living nightmare even more than it had already been murdered, and I turned him into a serial mass murderer, and if I refuse to hurt Mom herself or murder or hurt other people I'll end up feeling like I'm starving to death and dehydrating, can you honestly believe that I'm not going to try as hard as I can to be the best friend to you that I can feel or think of being when you've been through most of the things that I have?

"If you believe that, your studies of alchemy are nothing more than bad science.

"So, first and foremost, Homunculi don't need to eat as often as natural humans, so if you want to be in as good a condition as possible to see me eat the skin from your arm that you gave me, get some sleep, and rest.

"I'll look after Tokiko, and it will be easier to get me to a regular doctor when she's stable enough for me to do so, as I have a false identity in the Newton Apple Academy for Girls and Yokohana."

Al wanted to argue about this, but he knew that Victoria was right.

"You particularly need to get some sleep as you somehow teleported here while your Buso Renkin was still a kakugane, and from my experience with Buso Renkin, you'll most likely need to sleep for a few days to recover from that, particularly after what you just did to your arm.

"Even with four kakugane available.

"Otherwise you could risk moving enough to bandage your arm with your clothes.

"Once you fall asleep, there's a good chance that you might not even wake up a single time for a few days."

That meant that, if Al fell asleep, he wouldn't be there for Tokiko, but Victoria and Alexandria needed him, too, so he'd just need to trust them with her.

"I'll eat the skin from your arm then, and; if you're okay with it and your injury on your left arm has mended enough for me to do that, a small amount of whatever part of your body that Ed gave up for you."

Then Victoria's tone lost its anger and wariness, but none of its defensiveness or anything else, and she turned so her face was almost out of view and forced much more heat into her cheeks.

"So I hope that that will give you more pleasant dreams, and something to look forward to to live for.

"But, even more than that, you need to know that my Underground Searchlight is a Buso Renkin of the Underground Shelter, and I can change its location underground at will.

"So from now on, you can not just consider this laboratory your home, I myself can create a home for you, any time, anywhere."

Al was so exhausted of even fatigue and he ached everywhere and anywhere literally all throughout the inside of his body and brain and heart and mind and soul and literally all over the surface of his body and brain and heart and mind and soul and he was so dizzy and he was so faint that the night clawed with cascading coruscating coursing dagger contorted and distorted and warped serrated knife lances at the bottoms and backs and sides and top of his awareness and perception.

"So can you please get some sleep, and sooner, not later?"

Al wanted to do nothing more at this time, this very instant.

"If you're willing to, do you want to sleep in the Underground Searchlight when Tokiko doesn't need my kakugane?"

Al was almost too exhausted to open his mouth.

"You'd feel better if an alchemist didn't, and if you had four available to mend my arm sooner.

"But–"

"Don't thank me.

"I'm not trying to give you a home and a friend to obtain anything out of it."

Al wanted to sleep even more than he could put into emotions or thoughts or words or other sounds or facial expressions or body language or movement now.

So he just said, "Okay."

Careful not to strain his injured arm, he lay on his back and curled into a comfortable position.

As soon as the pain and discomfort had relatively lessened, he didn't even know nothing and everything.

.

"I'm giving her back because I don't want her to die! So, please, promise me that you will give her a life without war, and there will be no mobile suits or knives or anything else to do with death! Take her back to a world with kindness, a world with warmth!"-Shinn Asuka

"You have… my word. Stella."-Neo Roanoke

"Neo."-Stella Loussier

"Perhaps a 'thank you' would be more appropriate."-Neo Roanoke

"Sorry, I didn't return her to be thanked! But, remember what I said!"-Shinn Asuka

"I understand. Goodbye."-Neo Roanoke

"Stella gave this to me. She's really fond of it. So, um…"-Shinn Asuka

"Shinn?"-Stella Loussier

"Don't forget about me, Stella. Don't you forget about me."-Shinn Asuka

GUNDAM SEED DESTINY:

Phase 30: A FLEETING DREAM