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CHAPTER 8:
THEORY OF THE EVERLASTING SPIRAL OF REINCARNATION
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Edward had just made it to the second intersection of hallways when Colonel Mustang walked from behind the corner to the right, Fuery, Breda, and an unfamiliar woman in an Amestrian military uniform with black hair in a ponytail at his left.
"Hold it, Fullmetal," Mustang said.
"The woman with me is First Lieutenant Rebecca Catalina, who I promoted to this rank to take the new Colonel Hawkeye's place.
"We're all coming with you as soon as Colonel Hawkeye readies the train, with the exception of Falman."
Countless emotions tumbled and tossed and whirled and swirled inside Edward at that.
Including thankfulness that, if he accepted, he'd at last get a chance to fight at the side of Colonel Mustang after finally, by reaching him when he'd been able to murder Envy from hatred and revenge, truly connecting with the person who had scouted him and given him the opportunity to successfully bring Al home; soul, body, and mind; from the Portal of the supposed Truth.
As well as old, familiar irritation, fury, annoyance, and defensiveness.
But this wasn't the time for any of that, one way or another.
"Falman sought Major General Armstrong's permission, and mine, to remain with the Briggs soldiers until matters here, for all intents and purposes, fully settle down."
"That's what you should be seeing to," Edward objected. "I understand a lot more than before now how wrong it was for me to turn away help from anyone but Al for all of these years, but even with that in mind, this time you can't come.
"This involves charlatanism that might be even worse than what the Dwarf in the Flask was researching."
Colonel Mustang started, Breda clenched his teeth, and Fuery fisted his hands.
"If that's so, then it's even more imperative that I accompany you.
"We didn't launch the coup to let another con artist interfere with the lives and well-being of the people of Amestris if it had succeeded.
"Particularly not while the chief proponent of the research that we waged the revolution to shut down, to stop that from happening, is still at large.
"Grumman will arrive in Central in less than two hours, but even though Bradley personally named him his successor and he might be inclined to endeavor to exploit this," Mustang's voice and face were a mask about how he felt about this, "Bradley did surrender unconditionally to us, and thus he gave the revolution legitimacy. So Grumman knows that if he attempts to make use of Bradley naming him his successor, we'll reveal to the public how he kept most of the revolutionaries out of Central so he could position them to restore order after the coup had been won or lost, and the people will refuse to accept the legitimacy of his administration and call for it to be passed to Major General Armstrong or myself.
"Lieutenant Ross wanted this exposed anyway, to enable one of us to attain the Führership while we have the chance, but Sergeant Brosh tried to negotiate with our forces at Radio Capital."
Edward gave Mustang a glare of fury at what he now knew Mustang and Major General Armstrong had done there.
"He found out that she's still alive, defected to our side, and he's determined to talk to her about this as soon as he has the chance."
Even after what Al had learned that he'd done to D
Hohenheim.
And Ed did not care that Hohenheim just had, at best, maybe a minority of months left to live.
At all.
He did not.
this sent a small amount of relief rushing through Edward.
"Sergeant Brosh remained loyal to the Bradley administration and Bradley's military until he discovered that a comrade in arms who he believed in was supporting them.
"We both know that he's going to use this example to prove to Lieutenant Ross that she should regain the rest of her faith in politicians, officers, and soldiers that she lost after Bradley's Amestris framed her."
Colonel Mustang smiled in a mixture of approval and irritation that he and Edward at last understood each other well, and could anticipate each other.
Edward smirked at Colonel Mustang in amusement and irritation of his own.
"Who do you think that you're talkin' to?" he asked Colonel Mustang arrogantly and smugly and dismissively and with superiority.
Colonel Mustang snorted.
"A small fry who has just learned to become a bigwig," Colonel Mustang responded.
Edward didn't just suppress the anger and irritation that rose at the insult to his height and size this time, he summoned it up and enhanced it.
"It takes one to know one," he shot back.
Breda snickered, and Colonel Mustang scowled at him.
Edward was about to end the faceoff, because this wasn't the time for this, but he started and smiled in pleased satisfaction when Mustang actually refrained from meeting Edward's eyes when he looked away from Breda.
A temporary ceasefire, then.
"Grumman would have had it coming, though," Lieutenant Catalina spoke up. "He gained his position without working for it that much, while leaving Colonel Mustang and people who Havoc was backing and myself, and Major General Armstrong and the Briggs soldiers, to the slaughter."
"As Major General Armstrong has gone to no great lengths to continually remind Grumman of over the phone," Fuery spoke up with surprisingly protective worry.
"I advise you to let it go, Lieutenant, and start moving forward.
"It doesn't matter how badly Grumman humiliated you."
Catalina clenched her teeth and snarled. "I told you, I'm not going to go out with you."
Edward suppressed the urge to cringe.
"No matter how kind you are to me, you're wasting your time."
Fuery's face became a mask.
Edward suppressed the urge to point out to Catalina that Fuery wasn't the kind of person who was kind to others to convince them to date him.
He was trying to reach Catalina's pain, and take it away, out of selfless concern.
But this wasn't the time for that.
Edward looked around to be sure that the hall was clear.
Most or all of the revolutionaries might know about the Philosopher's Stone by now, but he wasn't sure that it was a good idea to let the average revolutionary know about the secrets of the supposed Truth.
There was no one else in the hallway, though.
Breda nodded to Ed that he'd keep an eye out and warn them if they needed to stop talking for now, so Edward faced Mustang once more.
"Your responsibility to Amestris or not aside, Colonel, this involves further bad science researching the Truth, and the Portal of Truth," Edward pointed out.
"You haven't tried human transmutation yourself.
"You don't know what you're getting into.
"The Dwarf in the Flask just learned a small fragment of the theory. There's five other pieces to the formula that he hasn't fully learned, if at all, and I have no idea what completing a circle for researching the Truth will enable you to transmute."
Mustang's eyes widened, and then his face became determined and resolved and set and convicted in a way that told Edward that he believed that he knew the answer.
And, furthermore, that Edward himself did, but he was refusing to admit it to himself.
A violent, frozen chill crawled up Edward's spine.
What Truth was he averting his eyes from this time?
"Of course you do, Fullmetal," he responded.
"And that's another reason that you need me watching your back.
"This isn't something that you're in any condition to confront at this time.
"Now that you two have most of your bodies back, you should know better than almost anyone, save for Alphonse himself, what the final Truth that this circle will enable an alchemist to reconstruct as part of his or her soul, mind, and body, might include."
Blackness rose up to try to engulf Edward as his vision swam with dizziness, his legs vanished, and his existence and reality, and existence and reality, and his awareness of whether such concepts and the memories of them existed, or the concepts of concepts and reality and existence existed, tried to vanish.
But Edward stayed on his feet.
This was not the time.
And he'd just brought Al's soul home along with his body and mind, even though Al had been broken in different ways before he had, and doing so had let the Dwarf in the Flask continue his murderous and torturous research.
"It can't be done," Edward said.
"Even if the supposedly final Truth involves life and death themselves, it would just be a means of creating souls, minds, and bodies from scratch, or murdering them with appalling ease.
"Maybe there really is a way to truly break the Law of Equivalent Exchange and create and destroy life and death themselves, and not just redirect it with human souls.
"But people who are already dead are a different matter.
"Even though the crackpot we know, or one or more con artists who might be in Citrine, still haven't learned the entire Truth; the souls of the dead are beyond the reach of the supposed Truth and the supposed Portal of Truth, regular or the planet's Gateway of Truth.
"I learned this when I returned from Xerxes."
Could Ed be certain of that?
As he'd just learned, space and time might have existed before the universe had been born.
The souls of the dead might be beyond the reach of the Truth of this universe, but that didn't mean that they were beyond the reach of all six Truths, and all space and time.
What Mustang was talking about genuinely might be possible.
Edward didn't know whether he wanted to shriek and scream and giggle and howl with laughter.
If Mustang was right, the supposed Truth was unendingly infinitely and not endlessly finite more ruthless, relentless, unforgiving, cruel, brutal, and remorseless.
Alchemists, and people, were required to choose between sacrificing tens of millions of people's souls, or hundreds of millions of people's souls, or even well over a billion souls; and between letting people who had died stay dead.
That was completely and totally and fully and wholly and absolutely and utterly and measurelessly and unfathomably and fathomlessly and immeasurably and uncommunicably and indescribably and inexpressibly and incomprehensibly sick.
"Even if it is possible," Edward kept his voice mostly stable, but he couldn't justify trying to keep all of his horror and terror and self hatred and guilt and anguish and revulsion out of it, "It doesn't change anything.
"I can deal with the possibility.
"Killing or hurting someone so that you can resurrect someone is no different than killing or hurting someone to keep someone from dying or going through pain while alive. If you can bring people back to life, that just enlarges the battlefield, and the form of pains that we need to protect others from.
"If turns out that it is possible to resurrect the dead, and an alchemist discovers how to and publicizes this knowledge, it will incite global wars and massive sociopolitical upheaval between the proponents of the theory and its opponents. Even if the victors of the wars and unrest misguidedly believe that they should vote, of their own free will, for their governments to imprison them in Stones and spend their lives to do this as long as they can trust that their governments will free them from the Stones or bring them back from death sooner or later afterwards, tens of millions or more people will die and suffer before the wars and upheavals are over.
"If the discovery isn't publicized, it will just be another form of what the Dwarf in the Flask has done for around three and a half centuries by now, and what he's still trying to do. Sacrifice innumerable lives and souls against their will.
"Even if you're right, it's just another variation of the hardships and wars that I've learned by now how to overcome."
"You know better than that," Mustang responded.
"Because there's a possibility that I'm right, can you truly live with the concept of letting your mother stay dead, at this time, and thus abandon her to live in an afterlife separated from Alphonse and your father and you; knowing that, if there is a way to bring her back to life, she could regain that happiness?"
Edward clenched his teeth and fisted his hands, but he didn't do so tightly this time.
Mustang was right, so they needed to get moving.
"Fine then," he sighed heavily. "Thanks for the offer.
"Let's get going."
He didn't waste any time, and turned to continue down the hall.
Mustang moved into a brisk trot to catch up, and the others fell in behind him.
"You're welcome," Mustang said.
Edward pushed aside the everything and not everything and anything and nothing and every anything and not anything and every nothing and not nothing washing clean self hatred and terror and horror about the implications of the theory that Mustang had brought up, and he gave his all to focusing on what was important.
"Marcoh has a Philosopher's Stone," he said. "Did you call Havoc about it?"
"He's on his way to Central on the transcontinental railway through Aerugo from Xing," Mustang answered, and new relief filled Ed.
"And still holding onto a girlfriend who was just using him, and who didn't love him at all, while he's en route," Catalina snarled.
Edward blinked.
Why would Havoc have not gotten over the Dwarf in the Flask's sole daughter?
Fuery gave her an empathetic, sympathetic, understanding, and supportive look, but Breda sighed heavily.
"It looks like I finally have my chance to clue you in," he said.
"When Havoc found out that the woman he knew as Solaris had been trying to use him, that was when he truly fell in love with her."
Edward jolted violently at that.
Then he wanted to throw up once again as he realized what Breda was talking about.
So much for working together with Al and Winry and Granny and Colonel Mustang and Colonel Hawkeye, and the others, and others.
Catalina gave Breda look of disbelief.
He still didn't understand love and pain, or understanding and rejection.
"The supposed Solaris already had," Breda continued.
"She couldn't convince Havoc to betray his comrades by giving her information about what they were doing, no matter how hard she tried to maneuver him into telling her through his wish to connect romantically with someone. Havoc acts like a shallow flirt, but that's just one of his ways of trying to be cheerful. Havoc is as devoted to the people he cares about as the rest of us.
"The supposed Solaris was as devoted to the one she called Father as Havoc is to us. She recognized this, and recognized that she'd found a kindred spirit, though she partially denied it to herself because Havoc was supposedly a member of an inferior species, but then she discovered that he'd infiltrated Laboratory Number Zero, and she knew that she had no choice but to kill him or betray her father.
"So she stopped denying her growing feelings for Havoc and revealed the truth about how her siblings and she had been created as one of the few means left that she could still give love to Havoc.
"At this point, Havoc recognized that she did genuinely love him, so much that she was now doing what he'd refused to, and betraying the people who she loved for his sake, and that she was in the same situation that he was in a corrupt military, so he genuinely fell in love with her then."
Catalina snorted derisively.
"Then why did he back up Mustang in fighting her to the death?" Catalina questioned. "If you love someone, you try to convince that person to surrender.
"You don't combat her in mortal battle."
"Because Havoc knew that attempting to convince the supposed Solaris to surrender would almost certainly be futile, so he was determined to love her and protect her and care for her and connect with her in the sole way that he felt he had left.
"By bonding with her through combat, not compassion."
Catalina started, and her eyes widened.
"The woman who he'd believed was Solaris had a better solution, however.
"When Barry the Chopper attacked her, she just cut him down.
"She could have easily done so when she ambushed Havoc.
"She crippled him because she wanted to force him out of the military, and out of Amestris and in Xing before the nationwide transmutation circle was activated.
"Then, when her attempt to cripple Mustang as well, so he wouldn't be in any position to attempt to heal Havoc's injuries and keep him in the military, failed, she further betrayed the other Homunculi to attempt to murder Mustang even though he was a potential sacrifice, and died attempting to love and protect and cherish and bond with Havoc in less fatal means."
Catalina clenched her teeth as a large number of emotions passed over her face, including, as Edward had been afraid of, jealousy that confirmed that she was interested in Havoc romantically herself.
"What I don't know is if the Colonel was aware of this," Breda said, and he turned a questioning look in the Colonel's direction.
"I knew," Mustang confirmed. "Whose example do you think Havoc learned how to flirt with girls and women from, because I'd often pretend to do so as a means of disguising an exchange of information?"
Edward started, and then he blinked.
Good.
He'd been wrong about how inconsiderate and irresponsible Mustang was in those ways, too.
Breda grimaced. "I know that much," he responded. "But, at that time, you were too focused on avenging Hughes."
Mustang winced.
"I'll talk to Havoc about this when he arrives here," Catalina spoke. "Maybe I can help him start moving on."
Fuery sighed heavily.
"You know that he knows how you feel about him, and that will hurt him more than support him," he said. "You're trying harder than you need to to support him. You had no idea whatsoever that the Homunculi were about to accidentally fatally poisoned his mother when they fed cyanide into his Aunt's hospital injection."
Edward barely kept himself from stumbling as new horror and self hatred and guilt and agony tore through him.
What had been the point of learning to strive for others with all the messes that he'd already created anyway before he'd learned that lesson?
"When the h-ll did this happen!?" he shouted.
Mustang's face became a mask.
"You need to know this before we arrive in Citrine, so I'll tell you the whole story."
That meant that Sheska was part of this, as well.
Edward pushed all emotion away once more.
"Havoc didn't tell us this until Maes scouted Sheska and Havoc found out about this, but Sheska is Havoc's cousin under his paternal Aunt.
"When Sheska's eidetic memory was used against her to betray that I was investigating Maes' murder to the Homunculi, I had Havoc's mother, Focker, Gracia, and Elicia get her out of Central before they targeted her, and take her mother along with her.
"We were almost too late.
"When Focker found her outside the court martial office, on the run from an unknown assailant, her right leg was a stump similar to yours and Julia's, and when her injury was diagnosed, it appeared to have been inflicted by bite marks.
"We all know what that means.
"She refused to leave the country and travel to Xing, unlike Lieutenant Ross, partially because she believed that she might not be able to return to Central to back us up if she could think of a way to do so, later, due to needing to care for her mother. So she at least wanted to be in a position to do so from afar, if she could.
"So we moved both of them to a hospital in West City. When I told you that Sheska was hiding the records about Milos, I didn't have time to tell you that she was telling us how to do it over the phone."
Mustang was keeping his own guilt, over having not done as Al and Ed had advised and having not even written those records, fully out of his voice and face and body language.
"After Havoc's mother accompanied him to Xing, she went there to assist Sheska in caring for her mother at Havoc's behest, as one of his means of still watching our sides and watching our backs.
"But before Pride successfully abducted Julia from East City, Kimblee made an effort to do so himself, and on the way there, he stopped in West City and discovered that Sheska's mother was in a hospital there, though he wasn't able to learn where Sheska lived; we'd hid Sheska well.
"So he attempted to poison Sheska's mother to penalize Sheska for having investigated the Homunculi earlier, but because he couldn't directly assassinate her without having his travel to Lennara delayed, he trusted that the cyanide that he'd placed in an injection that Sheska's mother was due for would just be given to her.
"He didn't know that Havoc's mother was there, and that the injection was a new experimental one that Havoc's mother had told her sister in law that she'd test first to ensure that it was safe.
"The injection murdered her, not Sheska's mother.
"Breda, as you know, was in West City at that time.
"So he arranged for Sheska, who was now undergoing automail therapy, and Sheska's mother, to hide in East City; which was under slightly less watch than South City, due to its proximity to Dublith, and North City, due to its proximity to Briggs.
"Sheska was now determined to participate in the revolution, but when Missus Curtis and Sig told us what she'd gotten into in Citrine, we questioned her mother about it.
"Apparently, a few weeks ago, a number of Milosian Black Bat spies, most likely sent into Amestris to find out what had happened to Julia, were discovered there by Amestrian forces scouring the nation for you, and a battle broke out.
"The Black Bats were driven out of Citrine, but in the process, much of the town suffered collateral damage, and, though your friends Amy and Jude survived, Amy's foster parents were both murdered when their mansion was ravaged in the combat."
Edward's right leg bucked, he staggered, and he almost fell.
But he forced the vision of Nina's long brown hair falling down the front and sides of Alexander as she looked up at him, not understanding why he was so upset that she didn't look the same any longer because it wasn't preventing them from playing together.
Amy still had Jude.
She wasn't as bad off as Nina had become, and Edward was not going to let matters reach the point where she became another Al or Rose or Nina or Hughes or Sheska or Ross, or anyone else who he'd hurt before he'd become determined to start fighting to protect other people.
Julia was a different story.
Whoever had discovered Mustang's records was the person who was the most to blame, but Julia, and he himself, and Al, were responsible for her performing human transmutation; Julia because she'd done so and he and Al because they hadn't been able to convince her not to, and because they'd been unwilling to fully use physical force when she'd decided to.
And Ed knew that Julia was almost certainly right, and that they'd have almost certainly fully won the battle yesterday if she hadn't performed human transmutation.
Now that Edward knew that someone could be forced to perform human transmutation against his or her will, he knew that Mustang had almost certainly been intended to be the fifth sacrifice at the time they'd been separated from him.
Edward could now trust that Mustang would have refused to do so of his own free will, even if Hawkeye or Scar or anyone else had been threatened as blackmail, but then he'd have been forced to anyway.
And, now that Ed knew precisely how the Truth meted out its sentences, as Mustang's central dream was to create a better future for Amestris, he'd likely have been condemned the same way that Jude had, though he might not have lost all of his eyes in the process of losing his ability to see the better tomorrow that he was battling for.
Then the one who called himself Father wouldn't have revealed his theory until the time came to prove it, if at all as he saw them as insects, and even if he had, he'd most likely have restrained them with his protrusions first. So Al wouldn't have known to attempt the rebound and the one called Father wouldn't have been able to take Al's soul as a hostage through the lie that he'd used.
If things had gone differently, Julia wouldn't have been able to disable Pride, and someone else might have confronted Bradley the last time, but if May and Julia had been able to beat them, someone else could have.
So Pride and Bradley almost certainly wouldn't have stopped the revolutionaries from grinding away at the one called Father's Philosopher's Stone until it, and any sources of replenishment, were incapable of controlling the Truth; and the Dwarf in the Flask wouldn't have escaped, and he'd have been taken into custody, or condemned to the Portal of Truth.
If Julia discovered that she'd done even worse than this; and that it was her fault, as well, that a second pureblood Homunculus might have become very dangerous; and that this had given the ability of the Dwarf in the Flask, or Rosalie's Homunculus, or both; to research a theory that might cause so much death and torment that it made the one that they'd just disproven yesterday look like an everyday family squabble in comparison, she'd be measurelessly more erased.
And Al along with her.
Edward would deal with his own self hatred and guilt for having failed to stop Julia from performing human transmutation when all six Truths were where nowhere other than where they were supposed to be within the current of All Is One, When Is All.
He'd just called Al home.
He wasn't about to fall apart this soon after that.
No matter how bad things continued to get.
"Douglas," Mustang was continuing, "The Court Martial officer who tried to frame Ross, was sent to investigate this in the event that Sheska was involved in this, as West City was near Milos and a known enemy of Amestris', and Sheska might have discovered that Kimblee had been en route there and made contact with them then.
"I don't know any further details, but Amy herself somehow found out about this herself, and by two nights ago, she'd somehow discovered that we were about to launch a revolution and that Sheska was currently with Miles and Grumman.
"She called Miles, and told them about this, and that she'd unknowingly done something horrible to the person who was supposed to be Rosalie, who I now know is a pureblood Homunculus, because Jude had been about to attempt another human transmutation to try to resurrect both of her foster parents at the same time."
Edward clenched his teeth tightly together at the knowledge that a number of his worst fears had been confirmed, and as new self hatred and guilt surged up to consume him.
He could barely imagine what a rebound from what had been meant to be a human transmutation circle that had been meant to resurrect two humans at once could have done to a pureblood Homunculus who shouldn't have survived for long after the human transmutation that had created her, at least not outside a flask.
He should have told Jude the truth about Amy and Rosalie before he'd left their estate.
"Amy hadn't wanted him to hurt himself any more by trying to transmute two more humans, or create two more cripples who would live lives confined to beds out of sight of other people.
"So Amy pushed the pureblood Homunculus into the human transmutation circle right before he initiated it to feed too many ingredients to it and keep him from performing a human transmutation. This set off a rebound that hurt Jude a little, but he was able to contain the rebound enough that it didn't injure him that much.
"Amy refused to tell Sheska what she'd done to the pureblood Homunculus over a public line, to revolutionaries or not, but she said that if it got any worse, not just the pureblood Homunculus, but the rest of the people in Citrine, and perhaps other people outside, might be in danger."
Edward suppressed the urge to clench his teeth a second time at the knowledge that most or all of the rest of his worst fears had come true, too.
"She begged Sheska to hurry to Citrine before what she'd done to the pureblood Homunculus got any worse, so Sheska left the revolutionaries as soon as she could.
"We haven't heard back from her since."
Edward forced a smile that he could barely feel, though he could feel it slightly.
"Then we'll just need to see what we can do to fix that."
"We all will," Falman's voice called from behind.
Edward turned to see him running up to them with Marcoh's Philosopher's Stone in his left hand.
Edward forced another slightly genuine smile at the small amount of happiness that he could feel at what this most likely meant.
Catalina's eyes widened, and then she smiled herself, and Fuery looked at her concernedly.
"Don't tell me," the Colonel said, though there was as much pleasure in his voice as there was irritation. "Havoc decided to meet us at Citrine, and Major General Armstrong told you to bring the Stone to us so I could fix his legs and we could all fight as a squad once again."
"You got it," Falman said, grinning himself. "Once we join up with Hawkeye at the entrance and meet him in Citrine, the whole team will be back together."
And this was the first time that Edward, himself, would be fighting at their side.
Edward tried to force himself to feel happy about this.
He'd just told the Truth that he'd learned the value of bonds and dreams, and that he was going to live through them from now on, and not through his genius in alchemy.
For Al's sake, because Ed had begun living this way for Al, he needed to live happily as he'd become determined to do on at least one journey with Mustang and Hawkeye and other friends of his, before there was a greater potential for things to get a lot worse and he wouldn't be able to justify doing so.
At that, the happiness stopped being forced, and for the first time since he'd woken up to hear Al and Winry and Julia discuss Al's and Julia's shared guilt that they'd lost yesterday, and that the Dwarf in the Flask was now on his own journey as a mass murderer indescribably worse than Scar had been, Edward felt light.
And incommunicably more than that.
Before, the knowledge of what he'd done to Al, and his knowledge of how Al felt about what he'd supposedly done to Ed, had weighed on Ed's spirits during all of their travels.
But now, for the first time, he could go on a journey with loved ones and friends who he'd truly connected with without the burden of the sins that he'd inflicted on Al and that Al believed that he'd inflicted on Edward draining his energy away until he was exhausted and haggard of anything but empty, hollow agony and despair.
And, though he couldn't actually transmute, he still knew how alchemy worked, and he could still study it.
He was far from a liability to Mustang, Hawkeye, Havoc, Falman, Fuery, Breda, and their new comrade in arms Catalina.
He couldn't make winning plays any longer himself, but he could sure as h-ll still call them.
Major Armstrong, and maybe Major General Armstrong, would understand that metaphor.
So that was what Edward would do, from now on, with the same determination with which he'd cluelessly harnessed his genius to transmute.
Edward wondered if he should ask Major General Armstrong if she was willing to teach him how to battle with a real sword as soon as he returned.
The concept of wielding a true weapon, not just something he transmuted a lot from his automail arm, caused him to feel as sick as he'd felt when Hawkeye had given her gun to him after Winry had considered shooting Scar, but a sword was short range.
Guns were long range.
You couldn't see how badly you hurt someone when you shot someone as well as you did when you cut someone.
Maybe he'd be able to justify, and come to terms with, battling with a short range weapon.
Edward's stomach heaved violently.
Forget it.
A weapon was a weapon, long range or short range.
If he had no choice but to combat someone himself once again, he'd do it with his limited skills in martial arts under Teacher, and his later military training in hand to hand combat.
The reminder of why he'd refused to use a true weapon returned his feelings and thoughts and memories and perceptions to Al and Winry, sleeping together in Al's hospital bed with Winry holding Al close at her side.
He'd intended to tell Winry that he needed to leave, but she must have stayed up the entire time she'd been on the train to Central, so she'd fallen asleep before he'd opened his mouth to do so, and he'd needed to extricate himself from her own close embrace of him and just say goodbye to Julia.
"You know that, even with everything we disagreed about before, and still disagree about now, I trust you with Al and Winry, correct?" Edward, now back in all of his clothes rather than his hospital garb, including his cape, and having left the bathroom after having finished changing back into them; asked Julia as soon as he was fully on his feet and looking across the bed at her; avoiding looking too directly at her because he knew that she'd be uncomfortable if he did.
"I'm not leaving Al's side this time unless I have wholly no other option," Julia replied, a determined and resolved and set and fierce protectiveness in her voice that he hadn't even heard in Winry's when she was talking about Al and him.
"And, unless the Dwarf in the Flask travels in the direction of Milos, I doubt that they'll need me to return there any time soon.
"I already might have done everything that I can do for them.
"I spoke with Vatanen on the phone as soon as the battle was over. He knows what's going on, and he's going to put Milos on high alert for the Dwarf in the Flask to potentially assault it, and send Black Bats across the border as soon as he can to try to discover if he's headed in Milos' direction ahead of time.
"I recommend that you alert Colonel Mustang and Major General Armstrong about this, whether or not they'll be willing to cooperate with the Black Bats if any Amestrian soldiers run into them."
"I'll do that on the way out of here.
"Hang in there. Whatever our moral values and Truths, your legs aren't any weaker than anyone else's. Keep using them."
Julia just looked away from his gaze, and in the opposite direction of Al's face where he lay inside Winry's arm with his eyes closed and an expression of peace on his face that Edward knew was a polar opposite of how he felt inside.
Edward's insides twisted.
When he'd brought Al's body home to his soul, along with his mind, Al was supposed to have been smiling with the smiles that he hadn't been able to for years, because the pale imitation of the face that he did have as the helmet of his armor couldn't even light up with joy and delight and happiness and elation or any other uplifting emotions, it couldn't even move.
But if he could wait for Winry and he to fulfill their promise to each other for her to cry her tears of joy, he could wait for Al and he to fulfill their promises to each other.
"If Al wants to eat one of Winry's apple pies before I return home to both of them, and to Granny, can you please tell him that I'm very sorry that I'm not here to see him do it?"
"That's a sure thing," Julia said.
Edward wished that he could just stand here and bask at the sight of Al in his original, regular body, with his mind inside it and connecting his soul to it, at long last, after such a long journey through so many hardships; and all of the hardships that they'd needed to surmount to even start it, forever.
But Al had his body back, and Edward had part of his back, and he extremely highly doubted that he'd be able to figure out any way of regaining his left leg any time soon, though he'd begin looking for a means as soon as he could in the hopes that doing so would enable Al; and Winry; and Granny, who he knew must be taking what had happened terribly even though he hadn't met her in person yet to know for certain; and Julia, and the others, feel at least a small amount better.
Hughes' death would no longer have been futile if he focused almost completely on living for others' dreams now, rather than just Al's and his.
So he turned and ran for the door to the hall.
Edward pushed the remembrance away as they reached the front lobby to the hospital.
Hawkeye was standing, waiting for them inside the inner doors, and she opened one of them for them.
They were all together now, so it was time to move forward and truly begin living his new life.
Edward was the first person through the inner doors, and he turned to open one for Hawkeye, Mustang, and the others, and he smiled wryly as he did.
"It looks like you won't be leaving this small fry out of a mission this time."
"You're a little less than a millimeter taller now, so you qualify to accompany the rest of us for this mission," Mustang responded with an amused grin of his own.
"And you're even more decrepit, so I guess that that's why we're at last seeing eye to eye," Edward replied with an easy grin himself.
Mustang snorted as he passed through the door last, and Edward turned to follow.
"Let's move out!" Colonel Mustang commanded.
Edward shifted to stand in what was a genuine effort at Amestrian military politeness and propriety, and he attempted a genuine official Amestrian military salute of not just regard, but admiration for a Colonel who he was at last willing to admit to himself that he loved and wanted to protect and cherish and support and watch the sides and back of almost as much as Al.
Edward smiled once more.
"Yes, sir!"
.
"Thinking of you, wherever you are."-Sora
"We pray for our sorrows to end, and hope that our hearts will blend. Now I will step forward to realize this wish."-Sora and Kairi
"And who knows: Starting a new journey may not be so hard or maybe it has already begun. There are many worlds, but they share the same sky – one sky, one destiny."-Kairi
KINGDOM HEARTS II