Fullmetal Alchemist: Testament of the Brothers of Sin Chapter 24: Catching a Crimson Avalanche, a fullmetal alchemist fanfic

CHAPTER 23:

CATCHING A CRIMSON AVALANCHE

Kazuki looked over at Ed, held in Major Armstrong's arms to the left, with concerned worry, as he stepped down from the train in the pre dawn light into the station in Central, after Sciezka, Winry, and Rose.

The next thing he knew, Captain Buccaneer was snarling a surprised yell, and his automail arm was sweeping into Kazuki's right side and hurling him away as someone thin leapt down from the top of the train behind them.

Buccaneer, however, didn't stop his turn after he pushed Kazuki away, and continued it to bring the closed end of the chainsaw of his automail arm up under the chin of the thin person, sending it careening upwards in a backwards tumble toward the outer train wall above the door to the train car.

Before the back of the person's head could even collide with the wall of the train, Buccaneer had slid forward and clamped the end of the chainsaw's maw around their ambusher's own throat.

Kazuki jolted violently where he had twisted to land in an almost kneel, with his left hand planted on the pavement, and holding him up, the need to deploy his Buso Renkin partially forgotten in the flood of drawn shock.

"Shinyo!?" he inhaled.

Kazuki hadn't known the Secretary of the Student Council more than a little; but even though he was now wearing a white trench coat and military fatigues in an ordinary style that was slightly cut to look like the Silver Skin, Shinyo wasn't wearing a hat, so his face, and blonde hair, could be clearly beheld.

Whatever fatigue had seeped its way into Kazuki had faded, as his shock had asserted itself, for he knew the resemblance might be far more than cosmetic.

"Buso–"

"Now now, is that any way to say thank you to the researcher from the Brethren of Trismegistus who arranged for you to become the alchemist you now are?" Shinyo questioned with dryly sarcastic amusement, even with a metal vise gripping his neck, and drawing thin trails of blood from it, while holding his head uncomfortably back against a metal wall.

"It's cold out here, Mahiro… You shouldn't be out here… Please, you should go inside where it's warm, and safe, and comfortable… I'll put your sweater on and close the window and keep the cold out, and I won't let the Homunculi hurt you again… Not for the rest of your life… Please, go inside… Where it's warm… Where you're safe…

"Please, go inside… I'll keep the cold out and keep you warm and safe…

"Please, go inside… I'll keep the cold out and keep you warm and safe…"

"I'll be all right. Chii-Chin, Saa-Chan. I… remember now. Didn't I tell you about it? About that scary dream I had? Well, that dream was real. And my brother came and saved me in the end. And he's going to protect me again now! But this time, he's fighting for all of us!"

Kazuki brought the Sunlight Heart up through the floor below the Revised Humanoid Homunculus he could hear Mahiro talking to Chisato and Saori from in front of, almost certainly blocking them from it as it strode inexorably towards them, and tore up into the monster to shred it to chunks as Mahiro pointed her right hand and arm at him with a wide, open mouthed, welcoming and eagerly elated and excited smile as he at last confirmed for her, before her very eager and joyful eyes, the faith and trust and hope and belief in him that he now realized that she'd known on some level since he'd first protected her from Mita, and that had never once flickered or dimmed the most microscopically infinitesimal, the most minutely minuscule bit.

"He's going to save… all of us!"

Nono

nonononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononono

no no

Mahiro's torturers were the real reason he had been able to gain the power he now had to protect people he loved, and clasped near and close

the reason he'd gained the power to protect Mahiro

and To

he wasn't going to stop sailing forwards through the air long enough to close his eyes this time.

"This has gone on long enough!" Armstrong shouted, Ed now on the pavement behind them in front of Winry and Rose, and Armstrong crossed the distance to Shinyo in quick walks, teeth clenched tightly in contained powerless fury with tears cascading down his cheeks once more as he opened up Buccaneer's chainsaw arm. Then Armstrong clasped Shinyo's arms in firm and tight restraints to push him more gently, but no less securely, back against the wall of the train to the side of the door.

As Major Armstrong strode forwards, Kazuki transmuted Sunlight Heart Plus into his right hand in radiant yellowish gold.

Sciezka was sliding in front of Kazuki's arm hand, gun out and aimed at Shinyo.

Around them, the surviving Briggs soldiers were motioning the civilians on the train platform, and closest to them in the station, away.

"I will not be an audience to these theatrics any longer!" Major Armstrong cried.

"You will tell Kazuki, and the rest of us, what extortion you have arranged as this contingency for Kazuki escaping your grasp, cordially, without the apathy your research head, his late mother, and your teams, past and present, have demonstrated to this point!"

Shinyo snorted.

"It's not extortion," he replied, unruffled.

"I see blackmail as the most practical approach, but, even with what you said at Baschool, the Enlightened Sage wants to give Kazuki at least one chance to surrender to us.

"He's proved his theory, so he's thus demonstrated to Kazuki the kinds of powers Kazuki will have at his disposal if he really wants to become as strong as he has the potential to be, and he's also in a better bargaining position with his new body."

"Don't apologize. You hypocrite."

"Don't be grateful for nothing, you hypocrite."

"If you don't shut up right now, I'll splatter all of your innards!"

"That Muto even gave up his humanity for a matter of seconds revolts me, but I've now become interested in how high I can fly with my own wings if I research the Stone."

Anguish cleansed away the new rushing fury inside him in new tears, but the hate for himself burgeoned.

"The Enlightened Sage wants to create worlds without any war, so, as the situation has changed, he wants to make you one final offer.

"I believe the conference room was a dead end even before Baschool, but he's the one who is really calling my shots, so I can't argue.

"So, how about it?

"The Amestrian military doesn't deserve your trust any more than we do, and we have the ability to give you the power you became an Alchemist Warrior in search of. And even after all the training Bravo gave you, Shusui and Ouka beat Shi and Tai, and Chouno Doctor Butterfly. Bravo defeated Kinjo, and Tokiko Jinnai."

Kazuki suppressed the urge to clench his teeth.

Just how closely had Shinyo watched him, when Shinyo had pretended to serve the LXE?

"All you've been able to beat was one familiar, a bunch of animal type Homunculi, and an incomplete humanoid Homunculus who, as you yourself recognized, had no combat training at all, informal, or legitimate.

"Shusui was talented, yes, but we both know that battle would have ended a lot differently if he'd been a Homunculus, and not a human.

"Name one single finished humanoid Homunculus you've beaten yourself.

"And how many times have you yourself admitted you need to be stronger?

"You've had your successes, yes, but that's a far cry from protecting everyone, like you want to. And in the long run, less people will die if we establish the Promised Time as soon as we can.

"So will it really be so bad to just surrender to us, and let us transmute with you, if it gives you the strength you seek? If you don't get it, people other than the ones you're so keen on safeguarding are going to cry and be hurt and frightened and die anyway, at the hands of Homunculi from your Earth, or alchemists from this one, or who knows who else, broken and in tears as they starve or bleed out in the cold darkness of a reality you've still just begun to grasp the depravity of.

"How can you possibly think you can protect everyone when you, too, are unfinished?

Sickness caused Kazuki's insides to warp.

But the time for second guessing at all was over now.

"You won't even need to be the person performing the transmutations to mass produce the Stone.

"We'd be doing it.

"Give me one good reason you're

"Not if it means I'll need to give up my humanity to acquire it, I don't."

However, even Ed's words now hung suspended in the window of his mind.

"Fighting for a cause that you yourself believe in is a lot better than just sitting and wagging your tail and rolling over as an unthinking dog of a military who just obeys the orders that he or she is given to fight for someone else's cause."

"If you make the attempt, you're expelled the instant that you try.

"Given your track record, I can't trust that you won't let yourself be ruled by your emotions to pay attention to what I'm telling you right now, so I'll go into detail later.

"So just keep in mind that, if you hurt, or kill, people yourself for any other reason than to keep them from hurting others; no matter what that reason is, no matter what that person has said or done, you will be the person who causes one or more people to feel the pain and fear that the people who you love, and others, and you yourself, did."

He was already a hypocrite.

don't close your eyes and land

Ed gave you the answer to this one

you already know the reason

"The Truth itself is merely just information about how the laws of the cosmos operate, not an irrefutable and absolute source of knowledge of how all space and time are governed.

"The Truth and the Law of Equivalent Exchange are promises to the people who we love, and to the people in both worlds outside of ourselves and our dreams and our loved ones; promises that we need to believe in even though we can't prove that their precepts are true, because if we don't, we can't give everything that we have for the sake of the people who need us to give it."

There was no time to even think about why those words were now resounding in his brain, though.

Because Ed wasn't information.

Ed was his teacher, and a veteran soldier.

Kazuki was his student, and a rookie.

As Buccaneer had said, true soldiers, and students at alchemic transmutations for battle, needed to learn how to follow orders.

And Kazuki wasn't a dog of the military, whatever that really meant; he'd enlisted.

All Kazuki needed to do was keep jumping so quickly that he virtually never landed, and never stop moving, and trust Ed to give him all the answers he needed as a loyal soldier, and then Kazuki wouldn't need to stop, and think about his situation.

Because Kazuki had all the proof he needed he didn't have the ability to understand others' situations, or anything past what was right in front of him.

Ed had the capability to understand others' situations.

Kazuki couldn't.

But if Kazuki trusted in Ed to tell Kazuki the answers, and truths, he needed to learn, then Kazuki had at least a small chance of being able to keep moving, fast enough, and unhesitatingly enough, he could protect Mahiro this time.

if you give up your humanity you'll be the one causing people to feel terror and pain

That was what Ed had said.

So Kazuki needed to be a loyal soldier and believe this.

Otherwise he wouldn't be able to become stronger.

Sciezka started violently, clearly at something in the voice Kazuki had just used, and her head whipped around to scrutinize his visage carefully, a depthless and resigned terror that Kazuki could tell she was used to feeling now present in her eyes, and on her expression.

Armstrong jolted violently, even more tears pouring free down his cheeks, but he didn't turn.

"I don't disagree with you, but why, specifically, are you saying this?" Sciezka asked with the tones of someone who had been arguing something a lot over the past recent period of time.

Shinyo rolled his eyes.

"First the Fullmetal Alchemist sees the souls in the Stone as human, now you think you'd be giving up your humanity to become it?" he queried with irritated exasperation.

"Suffice to say, they're human, yes, but not so much you'd become something more than human if you totally assimilated with them.

"To our knowledge, the Fullmetal Alchemist never figured out precisely why the Philosopher's Stone is red.

"Souls and information flood out of the Gate because both are conveyed by waveforms, photons that haven't yet been converted from wavelengths to both wavelengths and particles."

Even with everything that had happened in Baschool, and here before then, Kazuki still didn't have a good grasp on what photons were, but this must have meant something to Sciezka, Armstrong, Winry, and Rose, for Sciezka's mouth parted.

Armstrong clenched his teeth tightly, himself.

Winry's eyes opened wide.

Rose pressed her lips together tightly.

"There exists within reality, and within the human body, and mind, a dimension known as phase space, where the position and momentum of particles and wavelengths are expressed at once," Shinyo was going on. "This is the dimension between the Gate and matter where souls reside in their bodies and minds.

"Here, particles themselves possess more energy than in our three dimensions because they express this position and momentum at the same time. The Philosopher's Stone is both a catalyst for energy and a solid because, even though we see the Stones as brighter than dim shades of red because of the higher energies they accelerate to within phase space, the transmutations that reconstruct them do so by cooling these souls below infrared temperatures, where they can be maintained as photons of particles and wavelengths at once.

"They're just ingredients broken down to give you more sustenance.

"Humans are omnivores; they eat other living animals all the time.

"And if you let us turn you into a complete Stone, you'd be in a stable state, and you wouldn't need to worry about draining anyone."

Kazuki had already understood that would likely be the case, on a number of surfaces, but for the first time, what that honestly meant entirely registered.

"Don't apologize. You hypocrite."

"If you make the attempt, you're expelled the instant that you try."

Ed knew what he was talking about.

Even though Kazuki didn't understand everything that meant any more than he'd understood what was really going on when he'd first met Tokiko, Ed was the Fullmetal Alchemist.

That meant something.

Kazuki's heart was useless.

Without Ed, Kazuki couldn't see anything more than what was right in front of him.

Kazuki couldn't doubt that.

"So here's our last offer.

"With the powers of a completed Philosopher's Stone, you can prevent people from dying every day, no matter what you do.

"And we can do more than just give you the power to protect whoever you feel like all over both sides of the Gate, we may be your sole means of enabling you to stay true to your beliefs and protect yourself, and thus literally everyone.

"Be truthful with yourself.

"Can you sincerely think of any other way to stop you from being a danger to everyone around you, if anyone so much as brushes you on this side of the Gate, or comes in your vicinity on yours, other than for you to let us complete your Stone?"

Kazuki barely realized what had given were the contents of his own stomach in time to clamp his mouth shut, and keep his throw up down.

Because there was no way he could accept.

However, it was now drowning every labyrinthine switchback concaves within notalways recurring concentric inversions there wasn't much likelihood he could refuse.

Kazuki barely registered Sciezka had placed herself under his left shoulder, and if she hadn't caught him with her free arm under his opposite shoulder, he wouldn't have just landed aeons too prematurely from his jump, he'd be on his face, if not being strangled by a pool of his own throw up.

Kazuki couldn't be sure whether he was aching all throughout his skin, and within himself, or whether reality was, because everything now hurt so much he knew there were such things as reality, and himself.

"I have a better question, Kazuki," Armstrong interjected, contained anger at Shinyo in his voice, but also empathetic confident sympathy.

"Who, precisely, will be the strong one, if you attain the powers of the Stone?

"The marathon leading to the Philosopher's Stone is raced on a track of blood, not through a field of captured souls, but through a cemetery of the dead.

"Allow me to tell you much of what I know of a number the most recent of Dante's attempts to create the Stone she was researching before Edward defeated her, of which there were so many over the past centuries Sciezka believes we still may have just scratched the surface of uncovering them all.

"First and foremost, you should know that, under the Bradley administration, the Amestris military sought to transmute a complete Stone by waging a genocidal war against a race of people known as the Ishbalans, their civilians as well as their military."

"Please, go inside… I'll keep the cold out and keep you warm and safe…

"Please, go inside… I'll keep the cold out and keep you warm and safe…"

"But if you need a big sister, I'll try to be one for you.

"To that end, if you yourself are too scared and in too much pain yourself to fight any longer, though the kakugane isn't my heart as it is yours, I'll take the risk of becoming what you are and might turn into in the future by activating it as you discussed with Ed that they're activated; so I can feel the pain and fear that you are in place of you yourself, and fight in your place to protect you, so you don't need to fight and shoulder that death and fear and pain any longer."

Tokiko

Mahiro

Bravo

anyone

someone

anywhere

why won't anyone protect me?

Sciezka wasn't Mahiro.

She wasn't Tokiko.

She wasn't Daihama or Okakura or Rokumasu or Saori or Chisato.

But she had still offered to be his sister, whether she'd served in this war and followed her orders, and he could feel her arm securely around his back and her head and body surely solid under his arm.

And Armstrong wasn't Bravo or Shusui or Ouka or Angel Gozen or Ed.

But it was Armstrong's voice washing over him, assuring and confident even if he'd followed his own orders during this war, and the warmth of their presence and care and nearness and protection kept the cold away even though he was on the other side of the window now and racing after Tokiko.

"She began this war, and she went to the lengths she did to emerge victorious in it, in order to intentionally escalate the war enough the Ishbalans would believe their last, and best, hope was to transmute the Stone as a weapon to oppose the Amestrian military.

"Dante intended to rob them of the Stone before they could use it, and at first her attempts to play both sides were successful. Soldiers from the Amestrian military were told the Ishbalans were stockpiling arms for a revolt against Amestris, so they were tasked with a preemptive strike that was supposed to dissuade the Ishbalans from rebelling. Our soldiers carried out their orders, but because the Ishbalans hadn't been arming themselves, this was what incited tem to rise up against Amestris in vengeance for its unprovoked attack upon their city state. The Ishbalans made a very good accounting of themselves, as Dante had known they would, so this gave her the justification she needed to command her puppet, Bradley, to order their extermination, purportedly for the overall protection of Amestris by amputating a limb that made a body infirm.

"Much of the slaughter was carried out by imperfect Stones, wielded, both knowingly and unknowingly, by State Alchemists."

"He's going to save… all of us!"

"Don't apologize. You hypocrite."

Sciezka and Armstrong were here, with him, and Sciezka's arm was around him, and her body was against him, and Armstrong's voice was wrapping around him, and it was continuing to unravel as a net strung between two poles for him to stand on.

"In spite of all the Ishbalans massacred, however, and all the Amestrian soldiers killed on both sides, one single Ishbalan was merely successful in creating an incomplete Stone.

"Even after the Ishbalan people had been reduced to a minority of their previous number, and they had become scattered about Amestris, though, Dante didn't stop preying on them. Through varying means, she arranged for the abductions, captures, incarcerations, and continuing deaths of the surviving Ishbalan refugees, seeking to incite them, and their still smoldering hate for Amestris' ethnic majorities, into launching a guerrilla terrorist war that might also result in the Stone. who had survived the genocide captured and killed through differing means, seeking to incite them into waging another war against Amestris that would push one of them into creating the Stone."

"I came to get you," Mahiro said, smiling with her eyes closed in loving and welcoming worried warmth and concern.

"It was getting late and you weren't home yet. Let's go home. I grabbed you some dinner."

"Please, go inside… I'll keep the cold out and keep you warm and safe…"

"But this time, he's fighting for all of us!"

"He's going to save… all of us!"

"Don't apologize. You hypocrite."

Sciezka and Armstrong were here, right with him, and their warmth engulfed him.

And even if one, or both of them, had been in this war, and followed their orders, all that mattered was that they could be frightened and in pain, and the three of them could get along great.

"This tactic also failed, but her continued attempts to oppress the Ishbalans spurred the brother of the Ishbalan who had created the incomplete Stone, who called himself Scar and who had received this Stone, to seek to put the finishing touches on it himself.

"Dante also attempted to transmute the Stone by commanding the Bradley administration to utilize criminals given the death sentence as ingredients for it."

"I came to get you," Mahiro said, smiling with her eyes closed in loving and welcoming worried warmth and concern.

"It was getting late and you weren't home yet. Let's go home. I grabbed you some dinner."

"Please, go inside… I'll keep the cold out and keep you warm and safe…"

"Don't apologize. You hypocrite."

Sciezka was right here with him.

Armstrong was right here with him.

Their warmth adumbrated him.

"Furthermore, she transmuted an alchemical plague that set off a chain reaction to reconstruct the humans of a village into stone, with the goal of spurring an alchemist there to transmute the Stone in order to cure it. He created an unfinished Stone, but before he could complete it, it wasted itself up, and all the people of the village died of that plague."

"I came to get you," Mahiro said, smiling with her eyes closed in loving and welcoming worried warmth and concern.

"It was getting late and you weren't home yet. Let's go home. I grabbed you some dinner."

"Please, go inside… I'll keep the cold out and keep you warm and safe…"

"He's going to save… all of us!"

"Don't apologize. You hypocrite."

How many victims could there possibly be?

How many lives, on both Earths, on both sides of the Gate, was it possible for alchemy to ruin?

"You know about Mugear.

"Sciezka's mother wasn't the only victim of his research into red water."

"He's going to save… all of us!"

"Don't apologize. You hypocrite."

Kazuki ignored the second memory and wrapped the arm Sciezka was holding up around her the same way he'd held Mahiro close to his side when they had been children and she'd woken up terrified from a nightmare and had crawled into his bed to seek shelter and refuge in his embrace.

And Sciezka and Armstrong were right here with him, their warmth around him, and the cold wasn't as frozen frigid corrosive evaporating melting acidic biting away all aware perception as it could have been.

"Cornello himself was a part of Dante's research. Ed and Al prevented this avenue of her research from making any strides by exposing him, but she gave an imperfect Stone to a man named Cornello and had him pose as a priest who could work divine miracles so that he could trick the people of the city into following him and launching an uprising under his leadership."

Why couldn't he feel his feet?

Why couldn't he find any footing, even an unsteady position, at all?

"Don't apologize. You hypocrite."

Maybe he didn't need to keep himself from landing if Sciezka, and Armstrong, were there to catch him, though.

"Do you understand what I'm talking about now, Kazuki?" Armstrong questioned, the assured surety of his voice winding around Kazuki as much of an embrace keeping him close and warm as Sciezka's arm.

"If all these people need to die to give you your power, this many, even, from unsuccessful attempts to bring it to its pinnacle, can you sincerely call this power yours?

"And if this is how you are cured, and you reach your healthiest fitness, will it be you who has gotten back in good health, or who has reached better shape, or will you merely be vaulting a pole on a track by springing off a trampoline held up almost to the height of that pole by a tower of infirm hospital patients?"

The aches were gone.

Kazuki could feel his feet, and legs, beneath him.

Kazuki stood up so quickly from Sciezka's shoulder, and grip, the world swam a little.

"What good will that power do anyone, others, or myself, if I'm not the sprightly one?" Kazuki questioned back.

Shinyo snorted.

"Why am I not surprised you gave us that kind of an answer?

"The next time we meet, then, you'll find out just what it takes to wage battle with alchemists, not just on this side of the Gate, but in Amestris itself, a nation with government sponsored alchemic research."

Purple then coursed from beneath Shinyo's hair, and before Armstrong could react, the metal of the train behind him flowed backwards into a pit with a hand emerging from its floor that yanked Shinyo back as it then extended into the inside of a hollow mostly horizontal pillar of metal that shot at a rapid pace back through the train, the metal in the front closing over Shinyo while Kazuki could see metal in the back opening behind him.

There was a series of sounds of impacts, and then quiet.

"Auracite is the work of demons, not Gods – the Zodiac Braves, their unholy knights. Heroes of a false legend!"-Ramza Beoulve

"All such tales of Gods and their miracles are false. Those who would lead prefer that history suit their needs, and rewrite it to see that it does. And why shouldn't they? The fault lies not with them. The reeking masses yearn for Gods and miracles. It is their opiate, and they consume it greedily. The people do not endeavor towards greatness, but rather mire themselves in their petty strifes – shackles on the feet of man. Their leaders give them no more than that for which they clamor. It is history's oldest and most oft repeated tale. Do men exploit this weakness to dominate their fellows? Mayhap they do. But they succeed only because the people are eager to know such dominion. Gods are only illusions born of man's fear. It is they who see this charade for what it is and join in the pageantry who are to blame."-Wiegraf Folles/Belias, the Gigas

"And you? You did not conquer your fear. You turned to the auracite to find your miracle."-Ramza Beoulve

"It is because I am weak, because I fear, that I turn to the Gods. Can you claim to be free of weakness and fear?"-Wiegraf Folles/Belias, the Gigas

"No, but I endeavor to be so!"-Ramza Beoulve

"Your endeavors are soon ended!"-Wiegraf Folles/Belias, the Gigas

"You are… stronger than I had thought…"-Wiegraf Folles/Belias, the Gigas

"You cannot run, Wiegraf! Show yourself!"-Ramza Beoulve

"This has gone on long enough."-Wiegraf Folles/Belias, the Gigas

"I am come. You fight alone no more? Then nor shall I. Here join me, followers loyal and true. The battle is now joined, Ramza Beoulve! Behold for true fell pow'r of the Dark!"-Belias, the Gigas

FINAL FANTASY TACTICS: THE WAR OF THE LIONS