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CHAPTER 13:

THE EXAM OF THE HOUND

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Ed took a stride down from the entrance to the train after Armstrong, with the soldier named Jelso and the other soldier who might also be a chimera the first two soldiers who had accompanied Armstrong to arrest the Ed of this Amestris following the foreign Ed, for his eyes to land on who must be this Amestris' native Riza Hawkeye.

Too many sentiments to identify rose inside him, as well as ties and eddies of terror and worry about how no one else the Hawkeye he'd known had been close to, from Mustang to Fuery, was in sight.

But Ed pushed those sentiments away.

"I can barely believe it."

"Ed, what's wrong?"

"Ed! Get up, Ed! Get up, Ed, and move forward!"

"I'm sure, whatever happens, you'll find your way out. You've got strong legs. You'll get up and use them, won't you, Edward?"

This time, his legs were going to remain walking, and standing, solidly.

Hawkeye saluted.

Edward suppressed the urge to clench his teeth at the rush of worry for what had happened to Mustang and Hawkeye when he'd left them to confront Dante, while they'd headed off to attempt to assassinate the Führer King Bradley he knew as Pride, at the sight of how similarly professional and composed this Hawkeye's salute to the one he knew.

"Storch saw the rest of the papers through ahead of schedule," Hawkeye informed them, her voice likewise composed and dutiful.

"My transfer as personal assistant to the President was accelerated, so I'll take this from here."

"I should always hate you for creating me."

"Clean up after yourselves, and take care of each other."

"And could you take him to the surface, too?"

"I'm sure, whatever happens, you'll find your way out. You've got strong legs. You'll get up and use them, won't you, Edward?"

"Ed! Get up, Ed! Get up, Ed, and move forward!"

This time, he needed to walk into his State Alchemy Exam, and earn his certification as another dog of another Amestrian military, with his eyes wide open to the Truth of everyone, and every world, around him.

Armstrong's salute, after he halted, was no less professional, if contained in different ways.

With a single nod, he turned, and when the side of his face entered Edward's vision, Ed could see no sign of how he felt about this on his face.

Edward didn't clench his teeth when no one else followed Armstrong.

Hawkeye walked briskly up to him, but as she approached, the corners of her lips twisted up in a familiar mixture of what he knew to be her welcoming smile to newly enlisted cadets and wry amusement for how Mustang had, or would, react, before vanishing.

Edward knew this wasn't the Hawkeye he was friends with, so he couldn't be sure that expression meant what he hoped it did.

And hope was one of the very last things he could allow himself to feel at this time.

The minor smile was gone seconds after it appeared, and Hawkeye stopped in front of them at parade rest with military precision.

"The Red Lotus Alchemist is waiting in the car I'll be driving to inform the applicant of how his exam will be conducted under these unusual conditions," Edward suppressed another urge to clench his teeth, "So you will be stationed in the cars preceding and following us."

"I am the Philosopher's Stone?"

"It matters far the least of all that the Red Lotus Alchemist was officially cleared of his war crimes yesterday, and that he used to be a patron of your own research into gunpowder.

"Kimblee protected our parents from the Ishbalans by transmuting through the soldiers serving under him."

That told Edward all of what he needed to know about the differences, and similarities, between Kimbley, and Kimblee.

Ed responded with a salute of his own.

Hawkeye's face shifted almost imperceptibly, but she just nodded and turned, leading them both to Ed's left toward a black military car sitting at the center of a small cordon of similar cars.

When they reached it, Hawkeye opened the back left door.

This time, Ed saw no reason to scowl at the sight of a familiar black haired male with his hair in a ponytail, wearing a white suit rather than a military uniform, opposite him with one leg crossed in over the other while holding a wide brimmed white hat in his hands with a smugly assured smile on his face.

Ed turned into his seat with sharp military precision of his own, but he made it a point to do so at an angle that clipped the nearest rim of the hat.

Kimblee just snorted, and rolled his eyes.

Hawkeye closed the door, and within seconds, she'd taken her seat and they were on their way.

"As I understand it, when an alien crosses the border illegally and then seeks to abduct the son of the Führer President and imprison him in the territory of a second foreign country," Hawkeye didn't shift at all, giving Ed no idea what she did and didn't, "greeting a military officer with even that little violence can be seen as a clear threat ranging from attempted assassination to an act of war."

"I'm sure the Ishbalans felt the same way.

"Tell me, did Envy actually literally shoot the child, or did he just deliver one of your transmutation circles into his vicinity so you could turn him into a bomb?"

Kimblee frowned with an amount of protective defensiveness that Ed knew better than to believe wasn't an act.

"Mind your manners, deserter.

"Envy is one of the Homunculi who is most devoted to his work, and I won't have a coward who fled his post and abandoned his duties to hide inside an entirely different state malign one of his finest hours."

'Work,' was it?

And, now that he was in the privacy of this car, it was high past time Ed cut loose on a punching bag of his own.

"These memories are the driving force behind everything I do. Because they feel like chains. The mother I remember being had endless devotion, and I have none. It's a fraudulent role that was forced upon me, and I don't have the energy to assume it."

"I should always hate you for creating me."

"What's wrong? I thought you wanted to see him."

"But then he abandoned me, and started fresh with his wife and kids. Needless to say, I never did like being replaced!"

"Says the mercenary who treats his oath of service as a job," Ed sneered with as much derision as he could call up from the amalgamation of despairing serrated hate that had been burgeoning since he'd first transmuted Sloth into ethanol.

Kimblee snorted.

"It's because I swore to serve I treat my duties as a job, and I therefore seek to take as much pride and joy in those duties as possible," Kimblee responded, unruffled.

"I'm supposed to believe that when you've been in prison until recently?" Ed retorted in a voice dripping with sarcasm.

Kimblee shrugged, still unperturbed.

"My superior officers refused to allow me to retain a Philosopher's Stone I recognized would enable me to better discharge my duties. I mutinied as a protest against this, but when I could have then deserted and sought employment as a freelance mercenary, I willingly stood trial and have remained in prison to serve my term.

"That should be all the answer you need."

"That, you mean, and the gigantic crosshair that would have been painted on your back if you'd gone AWOL with a red stone," Ed responded.

That did show a small amount more decency than the Kimbley he'd known had displayed, however, but Edward refused to let any of that reach his inflections.

"Freelance work would have been a lot harder to come by than military duty with wanted posters up for you all around Amestris, and requests out farther than even Xing and the most distant opposite border of Drachma for you to be extradited back here if you were located outside Amestris.

"As far as I'm concerned, even though you don't slack at your desk like the Mustang I knew, you're just an armchair deserter."

Kimblee went stiff, and genuine unfettered fury appeared in his visage as he let go of his hat and crossed his arms over his chest to sit up straight.

However, when he answered, while his tones were filled with rage, they were level.

"That's very presumptuous of you to say, thank you very much.

"I've been giving my all for my vows since I first took an exam you, I will remind you, should be thankful you've even been given the privilege to be assessed for when the sole reason President Bradley has arranged for your examination is because, after your desertion from a foreign military, you unwittingly took an officer here hostage."

Ed suppressed the surge of guilt, and the urge to look at Hawkeye.

From his peripheral vision, he could see she didn't even shift at this.

"There were a number of answers in the psychological evaluation that sounded too unbecoming of a soldier's oaths, but rather than walk out of the exam in protest, I acknowledged them as the party lines they were and answered them neutrally.

"I don't know what kind of person my double was on your side of the Portal, but if he was anything less than entirely willing to give his life to death and glory on the most full scale battlefields he could find, with the least quarter and mercy possible, he tarnishes every belief the State Alchemist pocketwatch stands for in this Amestris.

"I'm nothing like him, I can assure you, and if he's still alive and I one day meet him, he'll be one of the first civilians, or combatants, I turn into a powder keg on whatever battlefield I meet him on, open, or covert."

That still didn't alter anything that mattered, though.

"The Kimbley I knew didn't even believe in one single thing," Kimblee's eyes widened, and this time the hate in his face was unrestrained and unadorned, "unless you can call ensuring everyone remembers him with a bang one, but that's beside the point.

"You're living for your dreams, and that means you're not promising an oath to your comrades in arms, or the people of you nation.

"I've learned the folly of caring about my dignity, so I'm not going to argue from my own life to make my point.

"So look at the Mustang I knew.

"He dreamed of becoming the new Führer of our own Amestris in order to end its own belligerence and oppression of our own people, Ishbalans and Amestrians and other ethnicities and religions and ordinary humans and Homunculi alike, but as soon as he discovered our own Bradley was a Homunculus himself, and had murdered a close friend of his, Maes Hughes," Ed pushed down more emotion as the car shifted a little, Hawkeye's hands clearly moving on the steering wheel, "He deserted to serve his comrades and the people he'd vowed to protect, and he even ruined his name, and all his hopes of becoming Führer to assassinate him.

"He cast away all his dreams to avenge Hughes, and if I have a chance to meet the Mustang here, and he's anything like the one I've spent much of my own military career with, I'm going to tell this Mustang, too, about this, in great detail."

The next second, the tires of the car were screeching on the road, and the car was skidding to the side so fast it appeared as though it was going to collide with the sidewalk before its movements became contained once more, and Hawkeye guided it back onto the road.

Before Ed could open his mouth to ask Hawkeye what had just affected her so much, a faint mixture of amused and genuinely interested approval appeared on Kimblee's face.

"So you do believe in something.

"That's good to know.

"Then, in that case, onto business.

"Because we don't have the means or the time to make the usual arrangement, President Bradley has decided to split your alchemy exam into two parts; theoretical and practical.

"The information about the theoretical segment is too sensitive to tell you in the presence of Lieutenant Hawkeye,"

Edward pushed away the rush of relief that Kimblee, at least, wasn't naming Hawkeye 'Secretary.'

As well as, if he was correct about why Hawkeye had just reacted, his wish it had been this Hawkeye with the Mustang native to his Amestris when that Mustang had, although in a far more humane way than Scar, chosen to avenge Hughes; along with Edward's terror for what it meant for the foreign Mustang here; and a corresponding wish the Mustang of the Amestris on the other side of the Gate, had, through the one here passing through this foreign Gluttony or another way, switched souls with the Mustang of this anti particle side anywhere between around when Armstrong and the native Mustang had located Al and himself near Resembool, and the car ride as the Sun had set on almost anything remaining of what Al and Ed had been able to call the warmth of home.

Perhaps that the two Hawkeyes had shifted their souls between their own bodies, as well

Maybe then the Ed on Dad's side of the Gate would be alive, along with countless Reolians, and Ed wouldn't have condemned the people and Rose and Reole of this Amestris as he had his home one.

Most likely, though, if that had happened, passing through Gluttony, or any other means, would have just dropped Mustang, with or without Hawkeye, right into the home Mustang's body with precise enough timing that Mustang and Hawkeye had located Al and him, but before Winry had enabled Al, Winry, Sciezka, and the others to genuinely take the first steps toward becoming true brethren in arms.

Or at any of the other given worst times, on either or both sides of the Gate, it could have been possible for one, or both, of their souls to jump bodies to each other's.

Ed wouldn't doubt Equivalent Exchange any more, but he knew in his heart's spirit far more now just how much effort obtained something unanticipated.

And if two people on two different sides of the Gate, or Portal, weren't just going to suppress the soul within one double's body, but actually swap their souls into each other's double, it wouldn't be two Mustangs or Hawkeyes who the Gate condemned that way, regardless.

It would be two different Als.

With the Al from either anti particle side ending up inside his younger brother right after the Al he'd grown up with learned he was the Philosopher's Stone, thus drowning a second Al in the mess Ed had caked the Rose of Lior, and the people of Lior, with, while imprisoning Ed's brother on one of the two anti particle sides of the Gate with the knowledge of just what had happened to his first body of frosted metal.

Or at some other time they could least afford to jump into their alternate's bodies.

Or, even without any Stone or Homunculus able to catalyze the passage through the Gates, merely to drag the Winrys were tied to the messes the Als and the other Eds and he himself had made, the souls of the Winrys of one of the anti particle sides, and Ed's home side, would jump into each other's body right after each learned who had been the person who murdered the other's parents.

And before either Winry's soul had the chance to react to that revelation, causing both to at last understand the full scope of their loss before then becoming deprived of the sole family they had remaining without even having had a chance to gain any outlet at all on the person they blamed, as self defeating as how the Winry he had grown up with had reacted, or not.

Equivalent Exchange did, at least, provide at least something unanticipated in return to the sacrifices made by alchemists, and others, but that didn't mean the Truth wasn't even more apathetically sadistic than Kimbley and Kimblee, caring nothing for quarter, or whether its victims had even performed a transmutation, human or Philosopher's Stone or another kind.

Ed knew far too well to believe that would be any different with the potentialities that branched wouldn't be trusting in Equivalent Exchange as a promise, not a law, but the same blind faith that had ruined two to four Roses who had already lost enough to the remorselessness of reality.

"but the practical segment is easily iterated," Ed realized Kimblee was continuing onward.

"Once we've arrived at headquarters and you've been provided a provisional State Alchemist pocketwatch to make it easier to keep the civilians from encumbering us, in order to demonstrate your battlefield combat experience with alchemy associated with the Philosopher's Stone, your task is to assist me, and any compatriots I hunt with, in bringing Scar to judgment, by any means necessary, preferably within the vicinity of Central City."


Standing at the entrance of a small chamber with a ceiling of pipes curling up into a rising hole extending up into shade, Scar gazed down at a Cretan soldier with black hair tied in a ponytail, lying in the middle of a small partially complete chalk transmutation circle in the center.

This had been his last hope for uncovering the mysteries of precisely why these Homunculi had exterminated the majority of his people, and by now Scar's trust he could discover anything else here on his own, such as what the double of the Fullmetal Alchemist had been discussing with the Homunculi about transmuting a Portal or Portals, or Truth, had been waning.

This intersection in the labyrinth of this complex, and the features that caused it to stand out as potentially important, had been his last hope.

And, once more, Ishbala had not totally forsaken big brother, his family, his people, or himself.

However, a Cretan military officer had been one of the very last discoveries Scar had believed he would come upon, even this far in the depths of a concealed alchemic laboratory at the heart of a nation that saw Creta as an even greater adversary than, even after all it had put big brother and his family and people through, it saw what was left of Ishbal to this day.

"The curvature of space time by mass or gravity… a black hole's accretion disc… Klein bottle… transmutation circle…" the Cretan muttered, as though he was waking up from a coma.

Scar had no idea what most of that meant, but he recognized how the concepts of 'curvature,' 'disc,' and 'transmutation circle' were tied to one another, and each other, even better than usual, after what the Homunculus with the wagging tongue had boasted about.

The next time they met, if that tongue didn't stay decomposed, Scar was going to teach Envy just what big brother's right hand could do to a member that refused to stop flitting, along with all of his own right arms, his eyes, and his forehead, until Envy wished they stayed in bits.

That filth hadn't just set big brother and his family and his people and his whole life up to die, he'd sadistically mocked their slaughter and torture in detail.

If there was any remaining capacity for mercy left within Scar, Envy wouldn't receive a single most frayed threadbare string of it.

The same nightmarish phantasms that had chased themselves through his mind every time he closed his eyes, ceaselessly reflected through the lenses of Winry's own gaze fixed upon him, once more appeared in his perception.

"Let's be realistic. You're a highly-skilled warrior. I'm just a bookworm."

"But because we went through so much together, she's become an irreplaceable presence in my life. I don't think I could have endured everything I've gone through if she weren't there with me. Like crossing the desert. I was only able to make it because I had her."

"Look at me… now that I've been thrown into battle, my legs won't stop shaking."

"Unless I bring back the method to attaining immortality and gain the favor of the Emperor, my clan will surely perish. Even if it might cost me my life, I wasn't afraid. Not as long as Xio Mei was with me… Xiao Meiii…"

"You'll get dehydrated! Come on, stop crying, please!"

"Some role model I am.

"Big brother…"

"Julia, why won't you unde–"

Scar realized he'd spoken those last two phrases aloud, and the Cretan's eyes were now open, and looking directly at him.

The last words that had emitted, from vocal cords that sounded unused to working, had been the Cretan's.

Then they flew wide, and he reached up to move a hand and arm that were now shaking so violently he could barely hold them steady over his face, as though its contours were entirely alien to him.

"That's my brother's arm.

"Good… Big brother's alive…"

As the Cretan's eyes attempted to follow his hand, in order to better discern what had happened to his face, his eyes fell upon Scar's mostly exposed right arm, and then they flew wide as he inhaled harshly.

For a number of seconds, Scar couldn't tell if he was looking at Brother's eyes, May's, Winry's, or the Cretan's.

Or were those eyes his own, reflected in big brother's glasses and May's tears as they spilled down a face not that much older than the boy Envy had shot, so far, far too young to be the fulcrum around which all her people gyrated?

"That's a Xingese decomposition transmutation circle!" the Cretan yelled.

"What did you do to my face!?"

"Wh…

"What!?

"What is this…!?"

Displaying surprising fluid dexterity for someone Scar had assumed had lost his firearm, but now appeared to have most likely lost a sword or other close range combat weapon, the Cretan shifted backwards into a roll and then brought his legs forward to ascend to his feet and point both of them at him.

"You're an Amestrian Ishbalan!

"Did you murder my younger sister and use her face, or her side where she lost her half of the map, to reconstruct mine, you barbaric monster!?"

"State Alchemists… Amestrians… I'll never forgive them. You murderers… You murderers!"

"Answer me, or I'll torture it out of you!" the Cretan cried, and the vocal cords that must have been strained by whatever condition his face had recently been in now cracked, and the tones were now so garbled Scar couldn't tell whether he was hearing the Cretan, Winry, or Scar himself.

"Doctor Rockbell!"

He kept his hands held out for a number of seconds, but nothing happened.

The Cretan snarled.

"Fine, then.

"If I can't bury the cesspool, and the filth who have now even infected Julia, in its own lava, I'll settle, for now, for decomposing your arm with your own transmutation circle, then take it for my own to avenge whatever you did to my sister!"

The Cretan then charged at Scar, moving faster than even May, Comanche, Armstrong, and Grand.

But at the recognition someone was attempting to fire the first shot, and that person was also an alchemist, the nightmare morass was gone, and things were clear once more.

Scar deftly sidestepped to the other figure's left, and twisted roughly perpendicular to the person to clap his right hand around the Cretan's left wrist, his feet positioned lightly in the event he needed to spring back if Scar needed to perform the transmutation and the soldier retained enough of his composure to strike with his open arm and hand at the same time.

This time, May wasn't there to treat his injuries.

And all the power of the right hand of destruction, the weapon that could surpass even the Amestrian State Alchemists, hadn't been able to protect her.

Even through the fire of the pain searing apart anything, he could clearly feel sensation where what should have been big brother's arm hung suspended before him.

The sanguine of the Philosopher's Stone drained into the crimson on May's right hand with viscous sloshes until Scar couldn't tell what was jewel and what was blood, but it made no difference when the true treasure was May's vitality and effervescence.

The Cretan snarled, almost ferally this time, and shifted his legs while positioning his free hand in a martial artist stance.

"If you recognize this style of transmutation circle, you should be able to believe me when I tell you I don't need both of my hands to use it with the way my own brother applied its matrix," Scar uttered first, his words filled with a clear warning.

The Cretan stilled, but his face remained preserved in a challenging snarl.

"I have no knowledge of who healed your face.

"Based on my limited knowledge of medical alchemy, I assume it was your sister herself."

"Look at me… now that I've been thrown into battle, my legs won't stop shaking."

"Come on, stop crying, please!"

Winry's eyes perforated him with ruined and hopeless hate as tears spilled down a drawn and slack face.

The visions were gone, and Scar clearly beheld his enemy, right in front of him.

The Cretan's eyes were wide with an entire, utterly desperate hope.

The next second, they emptied of all expression.

"That's not possible," he stated, his words emotionlessly matter of fact.

"She's been warped by the Milosians, even after they cast our own family out of our own society as children."

"Why do you hold me back!?"

This time, the memories dispersed.

The enemy in front of him was what mattered, not big brother's whimsical daydreams of an Amestris and Ishbal with teachings and hands joined in peace and cultural exchange.

"Even if she's come to her senses, the Milosians would never let her do it; not after I just attempted to put them out of their misery."

"Why do you hold me back!?"

The memories were once more gone.

Though, Scar's eyes were wide for a totally different reason, now.

From what he knew, the Milosians who lived in Death Canyon near Table City were nowhere near as bad off as those in Ishbal, due to regular economic support they received from Creta, even if it was as insincere as the support Aerugo had given Ishbal during their war against Amestris.

But they were still discriminated against by the Amestrians in Table City due to their differences of birth, nationality, religion, and economic stature the same way Ishbal was, enough that Scar regularly made it a point to research into whether a State Alchemist had been deployed to Table City, so if one was, Scar could ensure that posting lasted as short as possible.

And, now that Scar was able to think without the nightmare seeking to drown out his mind, he could no longer be sure what Milos this Cretan was from, or if it was this Creta that had altered its stance on Death Canyon.

However, that was beside the point.

Even with all his years of training, both as a warrior priest, and afterwards, Scar needed to remind himself not to grip the Milosian's arm any tighter.

"The Milosians treat alchemists the same way Ishbalans do; if you refuse to understand that, you're just as blind as Julia has become.

"She's even friends with two State Alchemists, dogs of the Amestrian military itself, curs of a country almost as bad as Milos itself."

Scar realized how much he ached all over.

But he'd been correct, then.

This soldier was from whatever side of the Gate, or Portal, the Fullmetal Alchemist had taken the Homunculi to, and that meant he may know the answer to a number of Scar's questions.

That was partially beside the point, however.

"And even that hypocrisy hasn't shown her how the Milosians are attempting to just wring her out, after which they'll do nothing more than discard her in the same piles of garbage that cover the floor of the valley we spent our childhood scraping through."

"Le"

Scar pushed it away.

"No, Amestris and Creta are your enemies, not your own people," Scar stated, and he did allow his fury at the concept of what the Milosian was talking about into his voice.

The Cretan laughed once, harshly.

"That's why you let your fellow Ishbalans walk all over you?

"How does that kind of delineation make you any different than the Amestrians, then, and their racist, religious, ethnic, and classist bigotry against the people you call your kin?

"That itself is another way of saying who people are, and their lives, are purportedly structured into castes, or determined, in any way at all, by dint of birth. Or that Amestris was right to oppress, and slaughter, the Ishbalans because your religious and cultural beliefs were different, so that supposedly causes them to be wrong, and the beliefs of the Amestrians right.

"If you're willing to make a claim as lunatic as that, that immorality as opposed to morality, and individuality, are castes of birth and culture, money and locale, not choices we're responsible for at and in all and any literal times and places, you're already burying your kinsfolk in lava."

"You'll probably just scold me again for saying this, but this is really worth studying. Xing alchemy is firmly based in its people's belief in a power within the Earth called the 'Dragon's Pulse.' They describe it as a great energy force that flows through the Earth no matter where you go. Doesn't that sound similar to our belief in the Earth God Ishbala? What a wonderful coincidence! We should take what fate has brought us and study it further. Perhaps then we can better understand each other. 'One is all and all is one.' It means that we are each only a small single part within the flow of the entire world. All the tiny parts come together to form the great flow that makes up the world."

Scar wanted to push the reminiscence away as far as possible.

But he couldn't justify doing so when confronted with a comment like that.

"In no other way but choosing responsibility for the Truth can we destroy this world and rebuild it anew.

"If you refuse to do that, you yourself are just as much a fabricated Ishbalan as a cadre of artificial humans who called themselves Homunculi I just parted ways with."

"I'd say that it's a little too late to bring back the Ishbalan boy who I shot as the Amestrian soldier in order to foment the Ishbalan Extermination Campaign, wouldn't you?"

"I'm begging you – calm down. Your brother's research may be Ishbal's salvation."

"What!?"

"Have you heard about the State Alchemists? They're being deployed on the front lines to use their powers to ravage entire cities."

"I know! And now they're on their way to this city!"

"What does any of this have to do with my older brother!?"

"Through his research, he may be able to discover a power that's even greater than the State Alchemists' – a power which could be used to defeat the Amestrian military! An unstoppable weapon! With alchemy, we'll finally be able to retaliate against those murderers!"

"We will pay them back with blood!"

Scar could see his enemy clearly, once more.

And his big brother.

And his family.

"My family…"

And his people.

And his brethren in arms.

See, Brother? This alchemy that you're so devoted to…

"You may think it's a means to help people and bring them happiness – but no one else sees it that way!"

"My comrades…"

And Ishbala sought destroyers to decompose the creations of lava, the very building blocks of life on the planet, as much as any other creation, or its, or their, creator, or creators.

"Even here in God's holy land, I have nothing left to protect."

He released the Milosian's wrist to knife his hand and thrust it into a key pressure point on the Cretan's neck.

"So what is this strength that keeps me going?"

"Vengeance!"

This time, Scar could hear his own voice echo the howl of the one in his memories as the Milosian who had turned on his own slumped.

Scar caught his body over his left arm.

"For vengeance alone, if you become my enemy, even against fellow victims of discriminatory oppression, such as you, I will still be the one left standing," Scar spoke with quiet determination to the unconscious officer, or soldier.

Scar hoisted the Milosian's comatose body over his other shoulder, and turned to leave.

He didn't understand why his Master's words were the sole words that encapsulated how Scar felt about what the Milosian had said.

But Ishbala had formed all sides of this Gate, or Portal, and God needed Scar to pray for something, for this Milosian.

"Someone must sever this chain of hatred," Scar intoned with quietly reverent deference.

Why did it sound as though it wasn't the Milosian Scar was praying for?

"We must not lower ourselves to the level of animals.

"Even if you deny it with your entire world, that doesn't change the fact that you Milosians are as much humans as we Ishbalans."

.

"The record says that Asmodeus rebelled against his peers and escaped through a vortex, taking the Space-Time Laboratory with him."-First Officer Ilia Silvestri

"And that vortex was connected to the demon world."-Captain Ronyx J. Kenny

"Apparently they were incapable of creating another Asmodeus-like superhuman afterwards."-First Officer Ilia Silvestri

"Interesting. Now I understand why they bothered going all the way to Roak to collect Asmodeus' DNA."-Captain Ronyx J. Kenny

"And Jie Revorse was created using Asmodeus' genes as a base."-First Officer Ilia Silvestri

"The people of Fargett have obviously spent a lot of time and energy to make even this cruel environment somewhat habitable."-First Officer Ilia Silvestri

"The Crimson Shield was under the Archfiend's control. The Archfiend, who was created on Fargett, escaped into the demon world… I'm not really sure who's at fault."-Erys Jerand

"No matter what the reason may be, if you take an action, then only you can be responsible for the results. We don't know what kind of treatment the Archfiend experienced when he was still a test subject on Fargett. But even if they tortured him, that doesn't excuse the fact that he invaded Roak."-Captain Ronyx J. Kenny

"You're right. We can have sympathy for the devil, but we don't have to agree with him."-Erys Jerand

"It'd be much easier if for once there'd be enemy that we can clearly blame for all the evils of the world, but it's just never the case."-Captain Ronyx J. Kenny

"People have good and evil in them…"-Erys Jerand

"None of us are Gods, after all. We can only do so much."-Captain Ronyx J. Kenny

"Perhaps good and evil are the same thing. Maybe the only difference is how you look at them…"-Erys Jerand

"This is where we end the fighting, once and for all. Let's get this Jie Revorse!"-Captain Ronyx J. Kenny

STAR OCEAN: FIRST DEPARTURE