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CHAPTER 12:
PHASES OF SACRIFICES
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Ouka stood with her back against the Saint Germaine Hospital lobby door and the crutches that she'd just been given yesterday under both armpits, listening in to the nurses discussing the battle that she knew had taken place between Kazuki and the remaining League of Extraordinary Elects yesterday, and a new surge of irritation that she still hadn't learned any further details other than that the Warrior Traitor's recovery had been successful; and, as Shusui and she had anticipated would very likely happen from the instant Moonface had returned from the warehouses with what was left of Papillon's nearly dead flawed Homunculus body, Papillon had obtained his fill of Doctor Butterfly treating him as inferior to the other humanoid Homunculi and assassinated his great-great-grandfather.
Papillon hadn't once confronted Shusui or Shinyo, or her, about how aware he must have been that Doctor Butterfly had ordered all three familiars to spy on him and the progress of his research as soon as Moonface had discovered evidence that Koushaku had found Doctor Butterfly's research and was successfully deciphering it; and he'd kept his increasing irritation and rage at how Doctor Butterfly had repeatedly sidelined him and looked down upon him.
But Shusui and Ouka had learned how Koushaku's immediate family had treated him, and both Hayasaka twins were as familiar with Papillon at what it meant for your family, and society in general, to turn their backs on you.
To Shusui and Ouka, after Papillon had slaughtered Jiro, the Chouno family guards, and his father, the outcome of discovering that the great-great-grandfather who had enabled Chouno to survive his illness and become a humanoid Homunculus, however flawed, had been all but inevitable.
Shusui had even wondered if they should try to increase their standing in the League by alerting Doctor Butterfuly about what his disregard of Papillon would most likely result in, but Ouka had believed that might cause them to lose far more standing than gain any, so she'd advised Shusui against it.
Ouka suppressed a small surge of worry about what condition Papillon was in due to the wounds that she'd heard that he'd taken assassinating the last member of his family who had abandoned him and betrayed him.
Papillon was clearly as fond of Kazuki as Shusui and she were, but unlike the two of them, he still refused to admit it to himself, and he still saw Kazuki as an enemy.
And that meant that, as much as Shusui and she sympathized with what Papillon's family and society had put him through, he was an enemy of Shusui's and hers.
"Busujima just sent the Re-Extermination Squad the latest report about her discussions with her grandparents in Munich about her late grand uncle, Alphonse Heiderich," one of the doctors commented.
Ouka blinked.
Why had an Alchemist Warrior from Japan been sent to Munich, and what was the Re-Extermination Squad?
"Her maternal grandparents at last told her the truth," the doctor went on.
"Alphonse Heiderich did know Edward Elric, and perhaps Alphonse, and he was involved with the Thule Society and the Munich Putsch and the supposed dragon that we were afraid was a Homunculus."
Ouka's brow furrowed.
The Munich Putsch?
That had been in Nineteen Twenty-Two.
What did that have to do with the League's efforts to heal the Warrior Traitor's wounds?
The Warrior Traitor had met Doctor Butterfly between fifteen two twenty years prior to the Munich Putsch. It was possible that Doctor Butterfly had still had mercenaries working for the Chouno family searching for the reason that the Warrior Traitor had betrayed the other Alchemist Warriors at that time, but if they'd met a Homunculus in Munich then, Doctor Butterfly would have made contact with him and, whether he'd refused to join the LXE or not, Ouka would have known about it.
But the name 'Edward Elric' was familiar.
But from where?
Then Ouka's eyes widened as the name 'Edward Elric' recalled a conversation that Shusui and she had had with Shinyo from the depths of her memories.
"Alchemist Warriors have discovered that Koushaku is researching the Homunculi, yet Doctor Butterfly doesn't want us to reveal that we're familiars and back him up in keeping them from halting it?" Shusui questioned as they stood in the empty laboratory with an angry frown on his face and a warped rage and hatred in his eyes that Ouka still hadn't gotten used to, and that still caused her stomach to twist uncomfortably.
"You know what Koushaku's family and the other classmates have put him through," Shusui went on. "Doctor Butterfly specifically left that research in the warehouse against the chance that one of his descendants might plumb its depths and the Warrior Traitor's learning, and Doctor Butterfly's own, might leave their mark on the Chouno bloodline.
"Unlike with his immediate family, Koushaku has lived up to everything Doctor Butterfly longed to find in one of his offspring.
"It's bad enough that Doctor Butterfly is refusing to reveal that he's still alive to Koushaku and tell him how proud he is of his great-great-grandson, but now he's telling us not to even back him up when his research into curing himself is in danger?
"That's even worse than our real parents leaving us for dead, and my father's ex raising us while holding us captive.
"At least our foster Mom really loved us, even though she held us prisoner, and our real parents didn't know that we were starving.
"Doctor Butterfly is actively abandoning Koushaku to die.
"The two people who Koushaku actually believed cared about him, his girlfriend and his sole friend, betrayed him and Koushaku murdered them by using them as vessels for a rose type Homunculus and a frog type Homunculus.
"And now the last person who is in a position to give Koushaku the acceptance that he wants is betraying him and abandoning him in even worse ways than his immediate family, because Koushaku isn't even letting Doctor Butterfly down.
"If Doctor Butterfly doesn't have a very good reason for leaving Koushaku to die, I'm going to cut you down right here and plant information that Koushaku can find so he learns about the LXE, and then Ouka is going to hack the network to make it look like you're the one who was careless enough to leave that information where Koushaku could find it, and I disposed of you accordingly."
Shinyo brushed off the right shoulder of his Gensai Academy uniform unconcernedly, and gestured at the empty flask near the edge of the experimentation ward.
"There's your answer," he replied.
Shusui clenched his teeth tightly at the knowledge of what that meant.
Ouka's stomach churned and twisted sickly.
"If things develop as Doctor Butterfly believes that they will, Koushaku will hold off the Alchemist Warriors long enough to become a humanoid Homunculus, and pay the price shortly afterwards for assuming that he could live as one for any length of time without a kakugane, and we'll thus be able to successfully test the restoration flask.
"And you won't so much as call Sword Samurai X to your hand.
"You know full well that, if Doctor Butterfly discovers what happened, you two will be devoured on the spot, and Ouka before you so you fully suffer the penalty for your treachery.
"Or you before Ouka if she shoots me rather than you cutting me down.
"So do me a favor and dispense with the needless posturing, or I'll find a way to have you removed from the student council and put you in your place at Gensai as well."
Shusui scowled blackly at Shinyo's implication that they cared at all about social status after it had nearly caused them to starve to death as children, and it had caused their foster mother to die of malnourishment.
"You've become so wrapped up in asserting that you're a person of your own, and not just a servant who should be required by your family and society to mediate between your younger sister and older brother or anyone else who you're caught between, that you still refuse to accept that we're not like you," Ouka spoke up on Shusui's behalf.
She reached over and took his hand and squeezed it with tight, firm reassurance.
Shusui gave Ouka a grateful smile.
"Status means nothing to us, as it does to you.
"I'll say it as many times as necessary until it gets through to you.
"You want everyone around you to stop seeing you as a virtual butler and to stop trying to force you to do their bidding.
"We don't care what anyone around us thinks about us.
"We just want the rest of the world to leave us alone."
"My late great grandmother, Dietlinde, knew a family who believed the same things that you did shortly before she died during the Munich Putsch.
"They were named the Elrics, and their names were Hohenheim Elric, his son Edward Elric, and his younger brother Alphonse Elric.
"Hohenheim held himself apart from society, and Edward did until he reunited with his younger brother around the time of the Munich Putsch and they began traveling with a group of roma and people stopped hearing about them, and, as a result, Hohenheim died during the Munich Putsch.
"If you and Shusui don't start caring about what other people think of you, the same thing will happen to both of you, whether you're Homunculi at the time, or still familiars.
"If you don't live your life in accordance with how the rest of reality functions, the world will roll right over you as though you hadn't even gotten in its way."
At last.
If none of the doctors or nurses here had anything else to say that Ouka could learn anything from, she had a place to start hacking.
"Have you heard anything back from the Re-Extermination Squad about whether Tateyama turned the table upon the attempt by the deserters to draw her into a trap?" a female nurse questioned.
"Hiwatari called in three hours ago," a male nurse answered.
"Tateyama attempted to kill Muto, and she was forced to try to kill Tsumura and not just arrest her, but Sakimori hasn't yet informed us whether or not she was successful at striking down one or both of them."
Ouka lost the ability to breathe and almost the ability to feel or think along with it, and the hallway around her felt as though it had distorted into the room that their foster mother had locked Shusui and she inside and they'd almost starved to death and dehydrated within.
Ouka needed to suppress the urge to rip herself away from the door behind her, which might have caused her to pass out because she'd just been permitted to start using crutches so she'd be able to join discussions about the operation against the LXE more easily.
Kazuki had been able to outwit Shusui's Reverse Do when unleashed by his Sword Samurai X, so if the Alchemist Warriors didn't have any evidence that, whatever the reasons were that he and Tokiko had deserted the Alchemist Warriors, they'd paid for it with their lives or freedom, that meant that they were most likely still alive.
But winning a struggle against Homunculi and familiars, even ones serving an Alchemist Warrior who had become a Homunculus and was determined to reign over all Homunculi as their King, was one matter.
Surviving being hunted down by worldwide organization who had been hunting down Homunculi for almost half a century, and who had developed the kakugane and the Buso Renkin in order to do so, was a different thing entirely.
Kazuki was in in even more horrible danger now than when Shusui had stabbed him, and this time Ouka didn't have Angel Gozen to transfer whatever wounds his body took to her own body.
If she didn't say or do something, and find out more about what had happened yesterday, kakugane for a heart or not, he very likely would die.
And Tokiko as well, and even though she'd tried to murder Shusui and Ouka when they were no longer much of a threat to Kazuki or her, Tokiko meant far too much to Kazuki for Ouka to be willing to let her be arrested or die herself.
Ouka extremely highly doubted that Shusui and she were in any danger, or Bravo would never have allowed Shusui to leave or treated her injuries in the first place, so she at least didn't need to worry about the confines and locked door of their room in the apartment building devouring Shusui and dragging him back down into the darkness once again.
But, although Ouka hadn't reserved her belief that Shusui needed to become less dependent on her, and vice versa, it was as though the chains and locks and walls and ceiling and floor and the flies swarming over Mom's decaying flesh and the smell of her rotting skin and body were once again closing around her, and asphyxiating her until she couldn't breathe and all that she knew was weakness and a hollow empty ache in her heart and mind and insides and stomach and broken lost hopeless tears that nothing would be able to fill up or dry for the rest of her life.
And now Kazuki as well.
Almost before she was aware that she'd decided to move, her left crutch was out and she was staggering away from the door, struggling to breathe deeply enough to retain enough energy to keep moving as she clenched her teeth against the agony ripping up from her still newly mended injury in her midsection and the knifing clawing dizziness searing up around her perception to try to drag her down into darkness.
She moved her right crutch forward and continued on, and she kept pushing the anguish screaming out all throughout her and the daggers ripping into her brain away even as it grew worse, even as whatever food her body had been able to acquire kept threatening to leave her insides.
The nearest public computer room was miles and kilometers surpassing measurement far away and it took eons to reach them as the night clawed at her and she struggled to drag another breath and expel it through the agony, before she dragged another breath through the agony and then another.
But somehow, mere minutes passed before she was inside the nearest computer room with the door closed behind her and she was sitting at a computer station, trying to regain all the breath that she'd lost, her fingers flying over the computer's keyboard incomparably faster than they had in months as she hacked her way back into the League of the Back of the Earth's Crust Website and it requested her Identification and Passcode.
She typed in 'Suzuki' underscore 'Shinyo' in the Identification, and then 'GreatSerpent' in the Passcode, and clicked the portable Mouse's right button.
The familiar Files appeared before her, and a few minutes later, the Folder, 'The European Side of My Family' was displayed in the archive where Shinyo had kept his own specialized research safe from the LXE in plain sight, but that Ouka had long since confirmed was nothing but shadow coding meant to conceal the genuine research hidden behind what revealed to be the actual research in the Folder.
Within less than a minute, Ouka had opened the Folder and revealed its true contents, a single document named, 'The Theory of Adam Kadmon.'
Ouka opened it and read it silently.
"I request your forgiveness for jumping the gun, Enlightened Sage."
Ouka's eyes widened as something sick contorted her heart and stomach, and squeezed them both violently.
Shinyo had been an agent for another alchemist research team who had been playing the LXE for its own purposes?
Just what had Shusui and Kazuki, and she herself, truly gotten into, by becoming alchemists and associating themselves with the Chounos and the LXE?
But Ouka didn't know how much time she had before someone found her, and what would happen if she was discovered in the LXE Network, so she couldn't take too much time worrying about Shusui and Kazuki.
"I don't know when the reverse transmutation circle will be in place, and I'll be able to send the results of my research to you and the rest of the Brethren of Trismegistus," Ouka continued reading.
"But as time should have flowed the way that you believed that it would relative to our own by now, and I'll need to take my position at Gensai for the attack later today and I have no guarantee that I won't be taken into custody by the Alchemist Army afterwards, I believe that it's best for me to record my research findings at this time, in the event that you need to recover them yourself when travel through the Gate from your side of it becomes possible for a minority of weeks at will.
"The worldwide experiment was a success."
Worldwide experiment?
Something sick and terrified and icy and frozen rose inside Ouka.
The Warrior Traitor had desired to become the King of all Homunculi on the surface of the Earth, and he'd engaged the Alchemist Warriors all over the planet around a century ago in a running one-person battle going back and forth all over all seven continents.
But his dreams, and that conflict, were a far cry from a worldwide experiment.
Just how profoundly did the dark world of alchemy plummet?
But Shusui and Kazuki needed Ouka to read on, so she did.
"Soon after you left Wales, the guilds made the breakthroughs into phase distortions in the ways that you believed that they would, although they made as little progress with the research into the Philosopher's Stone as you'd anticipated would take place, they successfully developed the Homunculi, and then the kakugane and Buso Renkin to oppose them."
Ouka's eyes flew wide.
Every facet of alchemic research that had been successful in the near half a millennium since its first breakthroughs had been put in place for the purposes of proving a single theory, alchemic or otherwise?
There was no way.
Her heart and insides squeezed so tightly now in such unyielding vises that she could barely breathe even sitting down, and pain blossomed in molten and silvery aches out from her midsection, but Ouka continued reading.
"Both fields of research took the directions that you'd hoped.
"The chain reaction human transmutations to alter the Homunculus embryos into Homunculi with the humans who they infected as the materials, with the bodies of the humans involved in the chain reactions as the Equivalent Exchange for performing the human transmutations, have transmuted a large number of Homunculi in many of the countries on Earth for the last near five centuries, and by studying these Homunculi.
"Our research into Adam Kadmon has thus been bolstered by the results of nearly five hundred years of human transmutations, and human transmutations involving matter that had undergone phase transitions, to advance our studies from."
The biological composition of Homunculi involved substances that had undergone phase transitions; or what science fiction that kept writing bad science insisted on calling phase shifts, phase distortions, phase transfers, and other inaccurate scientific terms?
Kakugane and Buso Renkin might be similar.
As it took matter that had undergone a phase transition to affect other matter that had undergone a phase transition in a significant way, it was so obvious the reason of why Homunculi were particularly vulnerable to kakugane and Buso Renkin that that explained why Ouka had never figured it out.
Most alchemists must have figured it out as soon as other science had identified what phase transitions were, and had just seen no reason to go into specifics about it, as the theories of Homunculi, kakugane, and Buso Renkin were unbelievable enough.
"The research into kakugane and Buso Renkin have also provided us with nearly five hundred years of studies into how phase transitions interact with the photons that are among the few other forms of energy and matter that can change the positions of substances that have undergone phase transitions in a meaningful way, and thus our research into the stages of our studies beyond Adam Kadmon has also developed in the ways that you wished."
Ouka forced herself to smile in satisfaction at having been right about kakugane and Buso Renkin, because she needed a reason to cheer herself up to make it easier to continue to read.
"And, as you had hoped, research into the Stone made enough headway through both the Homunculi, and the kakugane and Buso Renkin. Thus, when Silver Steiner taught Huskisson alchemy and the Gate threw out the trace materials in Eighteen Ninety-Nine when he performed human transmutation; Victor Powered, the Warrior Traitor; became the first incomplete Philosopher's Stone with the ability to catalyze the transmutations that brush against the boundaries of the Law of Equivalent Exchange that we have wished for incomplete Stones to be able to achieve without using up too much of the red stone in the process."
Ouka's mouth opened.
She'd known that Papillon had regenerated in the flask faster than Doctor Butterfly had anticipated, so the Warrior Traitor, whose name was apparently Victor, was an unusual kind of Homunculus, but Victor had apparently been the substance that Doctor Butterfly had taught Shusui and her that much of alchemy's studies, both successful and unsuccessful, had endeavored to develop since it had begun around three millennia ago?
"The other two imperfect Stones were also developed, providing us with two more sets that can become the protons for which we have hoped as well as the neutrons, the most vital component of the substance. The neutrons have since been developed, while I believe that the protons will have been transmuted before four more months are over.
"Events proceeded as you'd anticipated then, and the Suzukis returned to Japan to keep an eye on the proceedings until one or both of the other two prototypes were altered and the Alchemist Army dispatched an Alchemist Warrior to the Newton Apple Academy for Girls in Yokohama to recover one of them. By then, I'd successfully identified a suitable second carrier of the second imperfect Stone we require to serve as the neutrons for the first carrier's electrons.
"I now attend the Gensai Academy in Gensai City, Japan; while feigning service to an alchemist research team, named the League of Extraordinary Elects; that an alchemist who Victor is using to enable him to recover from his initial defeat, Bakushaku Chouno, who calls himself Doctor Butterfly, has created.
"And the natural selection of One Is All, All Is One, appears to be favoring us at this time.
"Bakushaku has a great-great-grandchild, named Koushaku Chouno. He used to attend the same school and made the breakthroughs that Victor enabled his ancestor to achieve on his own, albeit with the studies that Victor gave Bakushaku the means of completing.
"I needed but to leak information about Koushaku's research to the Alchemist Army and thus ensure that the Alchemist Warrior with the second imperfect Stone, the one most available to investigate that research, was then assigned here to investigate it before returning that Stone to the Alchemist Army's Japanese headquarters.
"That Alchemist Warrior, by name Tokiko Tsumura, thus gave the second carrier; a student named Kazuki Muto who previously had no knowledge of the research that we have been performing for nearly half a millennia now, the second Stone; and he is thus capable of becoming the neutrons for the first one."
Ouka couldn't tell whether reality existed anywhere outside of the words now hovering on the computer screen in front of her, and emblazoning themselves forever into the foundations of her being.
Not wanting to continue reading, as though feeling and thinking and knowing and perceiving what little that she could in a demented delirious feverish nightmare, Ouka continued to move unwilling eyes down the letters and spaces and punctuation marks and words drifting amidst the ethereal phantasm before her.
"Furthermore, by this time, my family has exhumed Dietlinde's grave, as well as the graves of all of the other members of the Thule Society who passed through the Gate and saw the Truth and then returned, and the traces left of the Homunculi who merged with their armor when they did. I have now recovered all of the corpses from the throng of living circles who returned to this side of the Gate, and all of the traces of Homunculi still combined with their lasting remains; as you should have recovered the living circles and the Homunculi remains who you yourself should have recovered from the members of the Thule Society who didn't return through the Gate.
"Teaching Huskisson about human transmutation, and our efforts to ensure that his summons would reach the Elric brothers rather than Dante so he would perform it under the conditions that we wished for him to, have thus served both the purposes for which the Brethren of Trismegistus taught Huskisson human transmutation.
"But I have little concern that the reverse transmutation circle will soon be able to be activated, and you will be able to transmute through the Gate at will. Your circles for analyzing the pathways of energy passing through the Gate should have discovered by now that a Homunculus embryo, one of Koushaku's animal type embryos, has recently been in contact with someone without infesting him or her, by hiding in her hair before infecting someone else, so that girl is now in a condition to become the cost for the reverse transmutation circle each time that you activate it on your end of the Gate.
"She has thus been altered into the chain reaction Equivalent Exchange who will pay the price of the reverse transmutation circle until she has supplied it in full.
"We need but to wait for the third imperfect Stone to be transmuted into the protons, and we will be able to begin complementing your theories in Shamballa."
Ouka felt her jaw drop at what that meant, and the possibility that alchemy might have accomplished far more on Shamballa, but there was more after a line break.
"Against my predictions, I was able to escape the confrontation at Gensai, so I am adding an addendum to the above report at this time.
"I am almost fully certain that Muto will become the neutrons now, and he might have by the time that I am writing this.
"But we have been thrown an unexpected monkey wrench.
"For a reason that I am as unable to determine as why Edward Elric was brought here in the first place, the Gate did not return Edward and Alphonse to Amestris as a result of breaking it apart with physicism, as Mustang must have.
"It held them captive in stasis for about eight decades and then released them here, during Muto's and Tsumura's battle with Bakushaku's Revised Humanoid Homunculi, to condemn Alphonse Elric's soul to Victor's Stone as the price for breaking it apart with physicism."
Even through her horror and terror for Shusui and Kazuki, new horror rushed through Ouka at the knowledge that an older brother and younger brother had been held prisoner in whatever this Gate was for around eight decades.
But at least they should have met Kazuki then, and he should have been there for them about this and about whatever had happened to their father, Hohenheim, so that reassured Ouka slightly.
"It will most likely be harder for you to return Edward to Amestris now, as he is no longer in the Gate, although I have as much faith as you that Tucker should be up to the task, based on my analysis of the most recent pathways of energy flowing through the Gate.
"This, however, appears to be a good time for me to express my sympathies that; even though Victor was this Earth's Izumi Curtis' first cousin, and Bakushaku the son of a Xingese retainer named Fu, and your Earth's Izumi Curtis used to live in Amestris while both Bakushaku's father and daughter are renowned retainers of the Yao Clan of Xing; you have yet to locate your Earth's Alexandria, Victor, and Bakushaku."
Ouka started violently at what the concept of doubles implied.
"Though I partially understand why, as the Curtises had no knowledge that Alexandria was Pinako Rockbell's third cousin, and they were visiting Resembool the day that they met the Elric brothers solely to meet with Resembool merchants there still struggling to supply the Curtis family business years after the Ishbalan Civil War disrupted trade in the East.
"But I am certain that the Victor of this Earth has fully recovered at the time that I write this, so Alphonse, at least, should have already met Victor. Thus, when Atlas arrives, if he hasn't already, we should be able to play him as you need to play Edward.
"In addition, Edward's and Alphonse's arrival here might have worked in our favor, because Koushaku appears to actually be friends with the neutrons or soon to be neutrons, and there's a very good chance that that will incite Koushaku to study the protons, and that could throw an unknown variable into the mix that we can do without."
That meant that, whatever this set of protons was, whether it was an oppositely charged substance that would repulse whatever Victor possessed, convincing Papillon to research the protons and develop another set that could potentially interfere with whatever Kazuki's neutrons were as well; might be Ouka's best chance at protecting Shusui and Kazuki from what this Enlightened Sage, whoever he or she or it was, was seeking to accomplish with all of the nearly half a millennium of successful studies of alchemy on this entire planet.
Ouka needed to find a way to locate the developing set of whatever these protons were, and then Papillon, as soon as she was done reading this.
Hopefully Papillon was hiding at the LXE's secondary laboratory.
And, as she knew the likely location of what would become the first set of protons, and perhaps the sole set, hack into the Newton Apple Academy for Girls school network and leave a message that whoever was developing them might see.
The second task would most likely be the easiest, so she'd do this first.
"Thusly, I might need to endeavor to the best of my ability to ensure that Koushaku does not research the protons, or his research into them makes insufficient progress or none at all; and if he does create one or more set or sets of protons, that I recover it, or them, from him.
"That the Alchemist Army is now partially focused on the Elrics, and not just the electrons and the neutrons, should make it much easier for me to prevent Koushaku from becoming this unknown variable.
"Furthermore, I'm uncertain that I would have been able to escape the battle if they hadn't appeared.
"Thusly, I have not been taken prisoner, but Lunare almost certainly has, once I join up with Atlas, we will endeavor to extract him from the Alchemist Army and inform him of the true purpose all research of alchemy on this world has been striving for for almost half a millennium.
"Should he still wish to side with Bakushaku, or, at least, Victor, once we inform him of the truth, we will leave him for the Alchemist Army to take him captive once more, or dispose of him through murder, as necessary.
"Nevertheless, even though Edward and Alphonse were once again able to catalyze the Gate in ways that we have yet to understand, I still believe that the theory of Adam Kadmon can successfully be proven in Amestris before this week is up, and that the Promised Time for which we have longed for will follow before too much time passes after.
"The Promised Time that I have longed for, so no family member or lover or friend will once again try to force me to live solely as a go between serving my siblings or others, and I'll at last be able to assert myself as an individual person with an identity of my own.
"The current of All Is One, One Is All, itself appears to support our efforts now, for, when I fulfilled my duties for the LXE during the battle today, I have identified the price who you will be sacrificing in stages to the reverse transmutation circle.
"Whether you find this believable or not, she is none other than Kazuki Muto's younger sister, Mahiro Muto."
All Ouka was aware of now was frigid frozen ice colder than an absolute zero vacuum twisting her heart so violently and sickeningly that she could barely even remember what it was for her heart to beat or her blood to pulse or her lungs to breathe or her brain to exchange electrical impulses, and she could no longer be sure that she was doing so, or what it even was to do so.
Or whether or not it was tears obfuscating her eyes so fully that she could see past them, or the blood pooling on Kazuki's midsection from Shusui's ambush with the Sword Samurai X that Angel Gozen must have failed to transfer because if it hadn't she couldn't have let this happen to him or Mahiro the same way that she'd let Mom die and Shusui almost follow.
And, once again, she could do nothing but sit here as she'd lay weak and empty and exhausted and faint on the floor while Shusui died and do nothing to protect two people who she loved.
Why was she even wasting time sending her fingers darting over the keyboard, due to there being nothing left to read in Shinyo's record, extending open a new window and then calling up command after command as she located the Yokohama localized network for the Newton Apple Academy for Girls?
But there must have been some reason that she was doing it, because within a matter of further minutes, she was in its archive of Deleted Messages on its Message Boards searching for any discussion about matters that the Moderators and Administrators would have seen as pranks and hoaxes, such as references to damage done to the school by unidentifiable sources, mysterious contraptions, or unnatural healing.
It didn't take long for her to find a large number of Posts by students about a talisman that had appeared to accelerate the speed at which cuts and scrapes, and worse injuries, healed, that had been placed in the school Catholic church's nave for weeks before most of Papillon's animal type Homunculi had been reported to have been killed by an Alchemist Warrior.
But Ouka must still have known what breathing was, because something stopped moving in her chest at the sight of a Poster named Violet Strength whose Posts had titles all telling the Posters to stop blowing the healing out of proportion, that it might just be the good weather.
Ouka wasn't even sure that there was such a thing as breathing as she skimmed the Posts, all of which went to extensive length to denounce the claims of accelerated healing as pranks, while worded in such a way that, although it was extremely surreptitious, someone as experienced with subterfuge as Ouka had been since her childhood could tell that the Poster was choosing her words carefully and hiding one or more things.
Within the space of a few minutes, not daring to even think of whether or not the term 'hope' had a definition, Ouka established a concealed Account known as Uroborus Tincture, created a Site hidden beneath further shadow coding behind the Deleted Threads with a firewall designed to roughly resemble the shape of a kakugane, and typed up a brief Message.
"This is Ouka Hayasaka, formerly of the League of Extraordinary Elects, an alchemic research team created by the Japanese alchemist Bakushaku Chouno, in order to enable the British alchemist Victor Powered to recover from terrible injuries sustained during a battle with the Alchemist Army around a century ago after he became an imperfect Philosopher's Stone," Ouka wrote.
"I defected partially to the Alchemist Army, but they have now betrayed my younger twin brother, Shusui Hayasaka, and my friend, Kazuki Muto, who also possesses an imperfect Philosopher's Stone.
"Whoever you are, you might be my brother's, his, and best hope to get through the events that have been set into motion by Bakushaku's efforts to heal Victor less worse for the wear than we might make it through them otherwise.
"If it's possible, I'm requesting immediate extraction from the Saint Germaine Hospital in Gensai City.
"If you don't believe that you can trust me, you can consider this me surrendering myself to you into protective custody.
"If you can recover me, I can provide you with many specifics about what happened to Victor over the last century, and what has become of him now.
"For now, see Attached Extension, Great Serpent."
Ouka Saved Shinyo's record as a Document on the computer, connected it to the Post, and then she Submitted it to her hidden Message Board and erased it completely from the hospital computer and its network.
Then she left the LXE archives and started erasing all traces of having hacked into the LXE network, not daring to even think about whether she knew what hope was.
She was almost finished removing the traces of her activity when another Message appeared in her hidden Board.
Ouka, unsure what a brain and heart and veins and lungs were, opened it, and read it silently.
"We have a Buso Renkin that creates Underground Shelters that I can reposition within a limited range at will, so I can keep shifting its position underground and the range over which I can deploy it while traveling in the direction of Gensai City, and extract you from one of its basements before tomorrow morning at the latest.
"However, I have no reason whatsoever to trust you, so if you still wish to be extracted, you'll need to consider yourself taken into protective custody.
"If you still wish for us to extract you, we've already looked up a map of the hospital, so arrive at the southwestern by directly southernmost upper level basement by no later than eight o' clock tonight.
"Do not make contact with Mahiro Muto.
"To our knowledge, there's nothing that you can do about her current condition, and if you try, it will just make things even worse for her by involving her further in the world of alchemy and battle.
"We met with Tokiko Tsumura and Alphonse Elric, an around thirteen year old boy, yesterday; and although Kazuki Muto and Edward Elric are currently elsewhere, all four are alive, to my knowledge."
Perhaps there was such a thing as breathing and heartbeats and electrical impulses in her axons and dendrites and throbbing blood.
"Tsumura was badly injured in a duel with an Alchemist Warrior, but she's recovering under the care of a doctor who I know, and I'll endeavor to wake her up from her rest as soon as I receive your reply.
"Depending on what she says and her condition, I may bring her to accompany me in extracting you, but I'm not letting you anywhere in Al's vicinity until I can be sure that you're no danger to him.
"If you're the former LXE familiar who my mother's use of a Buso Renkin that can read memories, known as the Rurio Head, on Tsumura told us you likely are, he did for me what Kazuki did for your brother and you, so I shouldn't need to tell you why I'm determined to protect him from anyone who I can't trust."
Ouka found a fragmented, broken smile curling up the corners of her lips.
"For reasons that we're not at liberty to tell you without betraying Al's confidence, Al especially does not need to know about the danger Ed is in from the Enlightened Sage, his and his brother's role in causing this Huskisson to transmute Victor into everything that he has become, and everything that has resulted from this; or about the numerous living transmutation circles present on both sides of the Gate; at this time.
"Al is at least as close to Ed as you are to Shusui."
What small amount of happiness had filled Ouka at knowing that she was about to spend time in the vicinity of someone like Kazuki, and meet him sooner or later, disappeared.
But what the mysterious Violet had said gave Ouka as many reasons as Violet, though different ones, to protect Al as much as Violet was.
"But, if you used to work for the LXE, you should know that, though we don't support Victor's current objectives, I'm actually Victor's child Homunculus daughter, Victoria; and I work for his crippled wife, the alchemist Alexandria, who unintentionally transmuted him into the living Stone who he has become, and who has since sought a means of restoring his humanity."
Ouka started violently.
"You should also know that the Enlightened Sage who is the source of all that the misuse of alchemy has put your brother and you, and the rest of the world, through, is Al's oldest half brother; Viator Elric, and the late Hohenheim Elric and Viator's mother, Dante, were responsible for much of what Viator is researching as well, although he left the world of alchemy's darkness and reconciled with Al and Ed before he passed away during the Munich Putsch.
"Dante destroyed much of Al's and Ed's lives, though, before the two of them ended up here as a result of defeating her to put an end to widespread alchemy research she was sponsoring on an Earth where alchemy has had much greater widespread success; and that was causing a very large amount of large scale suffering, including at least one genocidal war that led to the deaths of two of Al's friends.
"Such as a preadolescent girl whose own alchemist father transmuted her into an inhuman monster and who was then gruesomely murdered by the survivors of this war."
"It's dangerous out there… so stay inside, okay?"
"Mommy's…"
"…coming apart!"
"Outside!"
"Huh?"
"We have to go outside!"
"But Mommy said never to go outside!"
"Open the door!"
"Please! Open the door! Open it! Open it! Open it! Open the door! Let us out! Please!"
"What's all the racket? Is something wrong?"
"It's better not to get involved."
"Shut up, you brats! Keep it down!"
"This is the police! Mayumi Hayasaka! We know you're in there! Open up! You're under arrest for the kidnapping of two children! Open up!"
"No, I had no idea."
"They were always so quiet, I didn't even know there were children in there."
"The mystery surrounding the disappearance of a pair of infant twins three years ago, ended today with the discovery of the corpse of Mayumi Hayasaka, who is believed to have died of exhaustion and heart failure."
"The children were found in a state of severe malnutrition and dehydration and will have to remain in the hospital for at least a month."
"They've been raised by that woman for the last three years! They're not my children anymore!"
"Quiet, they'll hear you!"
Ouka was barely able to see anything but the memories through the tears now obscuring all of what wasn't present and what was about her.
If Victoria had had any valid reasons to believe that Ouka wasn't willing to be as much of a friend to Al as, as much as Ouka didn't want to admit it, she knew that Tokiko was willing to be, this had obliterated it washed from even erasure.
And Ed, as well.
And as much as Ouka hoped that Shusui would never become involved with alchemy once more, if he returned from his swordsmanship pilgrimage before this was over, she was going to introduce him to both Al and Ed at the first opportunity.
"What all of this in mind, do you still wish for us to extract you?
"If so, can you please erase this entire secluded Site, and all evidence of your hacking, around a half-hour from now?
"I will have read your answer by then."
Ouka realized that her hands and arms were shaking and shuddering and trembling so hard that she almost couldn't move the mouse to click on the Post New Message bar, and start typing it.
"Without fail, I'll wait."
.
"Delita! You live!"-Ramza Beoulve
"So I do. And you, ever your Lord brothers' faithful hound?"-Delita Heiral
"Are you mad? I knew naught of any of this! What of you, Delita? You now play party to their plot?"-Ramza Beoulve
"Surely you jape! I came to rescue the Princess! I would not see her made a tool for others to use to their own ends!"-Delita Heiral
"If you would lie, boy, at least lie well! You are no knight errant! You were paid to take the Princess. Do not play the fool with me! Name the man who bought your sword!"-Goffard Gaffgarion
"I sell my sword to no one! Do not count me among your lot!"-Delita Heiral
"Spare me the lecture, I ask for a name! You've have me believe some bright-eyed pup caught wind of this plan and rescued the Princess in the name of justice!? Who gives you your orders? Who told you of this plot!?"-Goffard Gaffgarion
"That is not for you to know!"-Delita Heiral
"Tell me, ser – are you friend or foe?"-Princess Ovelia Atkascha
"I am a human being, no different from you."-Delita Heiral
FINAL FANTASY TACTICS: THE WAR OF THE LIONS
