Kamaitachi Chronicles

By: Aviantei

Six

As much as I wanted to go back to the library and try to force my transmutation circle into cooperation by sheer willpower, I hated the idea of Mustang knowing where I was even more, so I settled on taking a walk to clear my head. I had been through a fair number of areas in Central as I hunted down food in the evenings, but there were far too many streets in the city for me to cover on feet in a mere week. Double checking my mental map for a path that would take me as far away from both the military base and hotel as possible, I set off at a crisp march.

The sun shone down on the city with a pleasant afternoon breeze to keep things cool. Cars of all sizes rumbled past, running smooth over the roads. The stones were kept pressed even, and not so much as a pebble popped underfoot. I wouldn't be surprised if alchemy was used to maintain the roads. I should've thought of it myself; most country towns threatened twisted ankles on the casual stroll.

My meanderings farther south led me into a more residential district, neat homes painted in bright colors resting in cozy lines. Several young children scampered across the roads, chasing a ball in some game with rules that wouldn't make sense to the uninitiated. The rubber bounced between hands as the kids shouted at each other, and a frantic cry rose up as the ball flew loose. It rolled down the street towards me, and I scooped it up before rolling it back.

They thanked me, and I caught sight of a smaller group tucked close to one of the fences. They all hunched over the road, pastel colored chalk gripped tight in their hands. I did a few small parlor tricks with alchemy, and even fixed up a few cracked toys. They were more than happy to let me join their art party after that.

I had never trained in any artistic sense, but I could draw alchemy circles from memory. Pulling my own thin piece of white chalk from my pocket, I sketched out the current circle from my scythe, just several times larger than usual. I had compressed the shape of the circle so it could fit on the capsule, plus keep on the handle. You needed a circle of energy in yourself to complete a transmutation, and I substituted the traditional double clap with my spins. I'd lose too much resourcefulness if I didn't keep the circle at its current size.

However, alchemy allowed for fine detail work. Microscopic changes were easy when you were affecting the world on a molecular level. I could afford to think in bigger terms.

So I did, switching out my own chalk for the large colorful sticks that were better fit for children's hands. Sometimes you needed to change your methods to think in new directions. Children's chalk was the farthest thing I could think of from the State Alchemy exam. I changed colors from pink to pale green to yellow every couple of circle drafts, stitching together different inscriptions and element lines, waiting for something to click.

I ended up with about eleven circles on the concrete before I realized most kids had broken off from their own activities to watch me. Three of the others were still tossing the ball about, but I had a sizable audience. I flicked my eyes back to my own work, moving one of my metal symbols forty degrees clockwise around the edge and readjusting the cross lines to fit the new position.

"Big Sis's art is so weird."

"They all kinda look the same, huh?"

"What's she trying to draw, anyway?"

"She's trying to combine a fire theory into a metal layout, which is just asking for an explosion."

That voice was too deep to be one of the kids, plus it didn't register in my memory. I dropped my current piece of chalk (lilac purple) and joined the kids in looking up at the newcomer. It was the guy who'd waved at me in the exam hall. Out in the sun, his caramel hair shone even lighter and he looked more dressed for a desert excursion than a day out in the town, though it did show off his suntanned limbs. "Hey there, Miss Record Breaker," he said. Deeper than the kids, but nowhere near Mustang's timbre. Age had pulled his voice around, but not yet beaten it into the ground. "Were you just trying to show off by finishing way before anyone else?"

"Says the guy who probably finished right after me," I said. The guy shrugged. I stood up, dusting chalk dust from my hands. "Now, if you tell me you followed me, we're gonna have to conduct an ass kicking. One stalker is enough for me, thanks."

I didn't reach for my capsule, though the weight pressing against my leg from my pocket gave me little reassurance. Would it be enough to fight a fellow State Alchemist candidate? Mustang had toyed with me, but just because the guy in front of me had book knowledge didn't mean he was a competent fighter.

It doesn't eliminate him having tricks up his sleeve, either.

"Oh, I guess it looks like that, huh?" the guy said, casting his gaze to the sky. The kids huddled close to each other, their eyes hopping between both of us. I hoped that some watchful parent didn't peek out the window and mistake the situation. "Sorry, I'm staying at a hotel on the edge of the city, and this is on my route there." Of course, not everyone had helpful military contacts. The guy gave a half-hearted smile and waved the kids off. They pouted but clamored back to the abandoned ball game soon enough. "I've been hanging out with the kids a bit, but I didn't think someone else would have the same idea. Are you staying close?"

"No," I said, not wanting to get into the topic. "I needed a walk after sitting around all morning and ended up here and I…" I glanced down to my incomplete alchemy circles, wanting nothing more than to smear them into oblivion. "Well, I tried thinking outside the box, I guess."

"And ended up with a couple of nonsensical structures, I see." The guy skimmed over my circles before giving a start. "Sorry, I'm Nicolaus Liaoning. I'm sure you noticed, but I'm taking the State Alchemist exam, too."

My brow furrowed at his name, glancing over his person again. "Xingese? No offense, but you don't look it." Sure, my knowledge of the country was some basic words, myths, and topography, but this guy wouldn't be mistaken for hailing from the east any time soon.

Liaoning laughed. "That's 'cause I'm not. Well, by any rational means." He rubbed a finger under his nose. "I'm like a sixteenth Xingese, the rest Amestrian. I just got the lucky name chain all the way down." Well, Xingese immigrants weren't common in Amestris's history, but not impossible, either. "I'm guessing you don't have secret foreign roots hidden in your past, do you?"

Ah, I had skipped giving my name. I didn't want to make a connection with this guy, but he hadn't done anything wrong. I would just need to decline any further offers for company if they arose. "Ivy Caiman," I said. "We may be fellow examinees, but that doesn't mean much, does it?"

"Don't be silly, it means we're both alchemists," Liaoning said, leaning down to get a closer look at my circles. I watched as he traced his fingers around the chalk lines. "I don't think I've seen you at the exam before, but you've got a sharp head on your shoulders to finish your written portion like that. And while you have some errors, these arrays are impressive, too. Original?"

"Yes," I said before any sense of caution overcame me. Alchemical research was a valuable thing, and original breakthroughs were guarded in code. It was a good thing all my attempts had been failures, otherwise I would've spilled my secrets across the street. I kneeled back to the ground myself, keeping track of how much Liaoning observed the circles. "You've been to the exam before, I take it?"

Another bashful laugh. "Yeah, well, I always seem to miss the practical cut. But!" Liaoning put his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest. "I studied extra hard this past year, so I'm sure I got a good enough score. I knew most of the answers like it was nothing. They'll just have to get ready to watch me this time."

Ah, full of determination and hard work. It wouldn't do any good to mention my over the top memory, then, not that I'd been planning to. "We'll find out in a few days." I was sure I'd be performing, but I didn't know what kind of knowledge Liaoning had. He had picked out the error in my circle by just a casual glance, too. It didn't matter much; even with the few cut off values, the exam wasn't meant to be a competition.

"Yeah, I guess that's true." Liaoning tapped at the circle closest to him. "So what are you working on here? I can't tell with all the different things you've got scattered here. Sure, it's a metal transmutation." He glanced back to my mismatched elements. "I think. But what's it for?"

I snatched up the closest piece of chalk and crossed out that mistake. "That one was me spacing out," I said, wishing it was just a bit warmer so I could have an excuse for why my face was starting to heat up. "As for the rest, they're a personal project."

"Oh, so they're for your practical demonstration then." He was right, but I just shrugged. "Well, I can get why you wouldn't share, but it's a bit late to be preparing your presentation. Didn't you think this through before?"

He had such a nice tone it would've made it difficult to get mad at him—if I weren't annoyed at my own lack of preparedness already. In fact, the way he was so polite about the damn thing just ticked me off more. I put the piece of chalk aside before I snapped it in half. A quick transmutation could fix that, but upsetting kids wasn't high on my activity preferences. "It's not like I was planning on doing this until a week ago."

Liaoning blinked, his smile dropping for a second. "If you weren't planning it, then why are you doing it?" I glanced to the kids, hoping for an out, but they had moved way too far down the street to even catch their attention without being obvious. "Wait, a week? If you haven't been studying for a while, how'd you take care of the exam so quickly?"

"I got recommended, okay?" And the details of that could keep out of the conversation. "It just worked out. Why the hell are you so worked up, anyway?"

"Because I—" Liaoning snapped his mouth far faster than he'd flung it open. He took a short breath, and I pulled out my own chalk, adding correctional lines to the pale blue circle in front of me. If this one broke, it was at least my own property. "Sorry, that was rude of me. I've just…been working really hard to do this, so hearing someone take it lightly…"

Ah, so he was the hardworking type. Picturing someone like him as one of the military's dogs didn't seem right. "I've been studying alchemy for a while, just not for this," I said, tucking a lock of hair behind me ear. "The opportunity's a good one to help a lot of people, so I thought I'd try. Your work all paid off if you completed the written exam so quickly." He at least deserved a shot a hell of a lot more than I did, my connections with Mustang or no.

Despite my best attempts to avoid eye contact, Liaoning's resulting silence didn't give me much other choice. Still sketching idle lines on the road, I glanced up. Liaoning looked every bit like a kid seeing new toy sitting in the window.

Dammit, he's honest and a weirdo. If both of us pass, I hope we get assigned far away from each other.

"That's it. That's exactly it, Caiman!" Liaoning shifted his weight to his right foot, bouncing all the way. "I've been working so hard because I want to help people, too. If you're a State Alchemist, you get all sorts of research funds and stipends. My town's not the best out there, and I do a lot with alchemy, but having that money would mean I could do so much more, you know? I wish there were more people like you taking the exam."

"Yeah…" Was that better than him getting upset at me for taking such a half-assed approach to things? I couldn't tell. If he decided that was enough for us to become friends, then it would be appalling. I went to stand up. "Well, I won't be able to do much good if I can't put on a good show for my practical, so I should get—"

Liaoning snatched onto my sleeve with the force of a disturbed viper, his grip almost sending me crashing back to the ground. "Hold on, I think I figured out what you need," he said, and I checked my palms for any damage. All that was smeared on them was chalk dust. Liaoning pointed at the circle I had been sketching at while we talked. "This is a metal composition swap, right? You're trying to adjust overall density along with space."

Considering an entire section of the exam had been dedicated to identifying the properties of circles, I wasn't surprised he could figure that out. "Yeah," I said, because there was no point in lying about it.

"Okay." Liaoning pulled out his own chalk from one of the multitudes of pockets on his shorts. He urged me aside, then started adding inscriptions to the edge of the circle. "I work with metal a lot, so I'm used to dealing with this sort of thing. If we make these adjustments here…"

He kept scribbling along, and I was stuck watching. A woman's voice shouted a few houses down, signaling that it was time for a child to return home. When he was done, Liaoning dusted off his hands and smiled. "There," he said. "That should give you a start."

I recognized enough properties of circles to know that he'd done better work than I'd been getting the past few days. This one was good enough to test on my scythe. "Why are you helping me?" I asked. Even if it wasn't a competition, there wasn't anything he would gain out of fixing my circles. "There's no point."

"Don't be silly," Liaoning said, "being an alchemist is all about helping people. There's no rule that we have to help people all on our lonesome."

I wanted to tell him that his ideals didn't have a place in the Amestrian military, but I couldn't unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth.

[Author's Notes]

Alright, we've officially introduced Liaoning to the story! He's a character I've only had ideas for in rough concepts up til now, so it was nice to write concrete scenes and flesh him out! He's kinda got this idealistic thing going on that...really clashes with the way Ivy sees things. We all need a good foil in our lives, yeah? Well, Ivy may disagree with me...

Thanks to Hotaru-IsWatchingU for the follow! Considering how sporadic I've been with updating this one, I'm honored to see any attention on it. Your support is super appreciated. Feel free to share your thoughts with me sometime.

We're slowly inching closer to the end of the State Alchemist Exam arc, so I hope you'll hang in with me a bit longer. How will this new alchemy circle help Ivy out in the practical portion of the exam? Tune in next time! With balanced work between my fics, chapter seven will go live in a few months, so please look forward to it!

-Avi

[01.14.2019]