Edward left the training hall later. Students had ten minutes in between classes to take up time, so Edward set off to find Cynthia. He tried to go back to his dorm room, but was stopped by a crowd of people, including Alphonse.

"Al!" Edward tapped his shoulder "What's going on?"

"It's Cynthia." Alphonse looked at him. "She won't move…"

"What's she…" Edward pushed through the crowd, then sighed. "Cynthia…"

Cynthia was sitting against the wall, her halberd laid across the length of the hall. She kept lifting the sword, then dropping it, over and over. It wasn't very face, but the cut through the air just enough to scare someone. Hey, she COULD cut someone's foot off.

"Cynthia, what are you doing?" Edward asked. "You're keeping everyone from their dorms!"

Cynthia said nothing. Edward knelt down next to her and wave his fingers across her eyes.

He stood up and cleared his throat. "Under close examination, I have discovered…"

The students leaned forward slightly, eager to find out what was with the blonde-haired girl with the halberd.

"…Cynthia Suhn…"

"Yeeesss…" Alphonse urged.

"…Is sleeping with her eyes open."

Alphonse sighed. "Well… Ed, pick her up and take her to her next class, will you?"

"What? Pick her up? I'm not picking her up with that halberd!"

"Ugh…" Alphonse walked over to Cynthia and gently pried her fingers from the halberd's hilt. "Now pick her up. I'll go tell Mr. Inuyasha and ask him to move the halberd."

"Thanks, Al…" Edward picked Cynthia up and closed her eyes with his fingers. When Alphonse looked at him quizzically, he said, "It's kinda creepy looking…"

Cynthia's eyes fluttered open. "Huh?" She sat up. It was one minute before archery started, and Edward was kneeling over her. "Cynthia? Are you okay?"

"Wha…" She sat up. "I must have dozed off…"

"With your EYES open?"

"Oh, not again." Cynthia sighed. "I taught myself to sleep with my eyes open while I was in the woods, in case any wild animals came along while I was sleeping…"

"Good afternoon, class!" Kagome walked in with her bow and a quiver of arrows. "Please go find your targets, we're going to just have some practice today."

"Damn." Cynthia picked up a bow and a quiver and walked to find a target. Edward chose a target next to her. Edward pulled back his bowstring and let the arrow fly, watching it thud into a center of the target with satisfaction.

Cynthia pulled back her own bowstring and let the arrow go. The arrow flew wide of the target and hit the wall twenty feet behind it. "Oh, damn… I am so bad with archery…"

Edward looked at her, a sweat drop falling down the back of his head. "Need some help, Cynthia?"

"No, no, I can do it myself." Cynthia replied. She tried once more, and did the same thing. "Damn." She tried this once more, and her arrows sailed so wide, that it thudded into Ed's target and not hers.

Edward put down his bow. "Cynthia…"

Cynthia gritted her teeth. "I hate this stupid…"

Edward's hands closed over hers, one on the bow and the other pulling back the bowstring. Cynthia could see his face over her shoulder. "You have to actually aim, not just pull and shoot. Put your finger straight next to the arrowhead, like this, so you can see where the arrow's gonna go…"

Cynthia blushed. The only time he had been this close to her was when he picked her up before…

Kagome looked over from where she was practicing with her bow. Her eyes fell on Edward and Cynthia. She smiled and returned to her bow, thinking, just like me and Inuyasha in the old days… Except Inuyasha was always helping me.

Cynthia and Edward let go.

Thud.

"Yes!" Cynthia jumped up and down. "I hit my own target! And so close to the center! Thanks for your help, Edward!"

"Welcome. Try again, OK?" Edward stepped back.

Cynthia pulled back her arrow, but got a sly idea. She had felt… happy when Ed was so close to her… No one had really been nice to her. Her father was a businessman and her mother died early, so she lived with her grandparents, and her grandfather was a student at Lalaurana's, and that's why she was here, so…

So she purposely missed the target completely.

"Right…" Cynthia sighed. "This is harder than I thought, Ed! How did you get so good."

"Practice, Cynthia." Edward laughed. And a metal arm that doesn't get tired or hurt. He mentally added.

"Ed!"

Edward turned his head. Winry was running across towards him. "Ed, Miss. Angela said it's time for your monthly checkup." She relayed.

"Okay, Winry." Edward smiled at Cynthia. "I'll be right back okay? Try not to kill someone."

"Can do."

In truth, Ed and Winry weren't going to see the nurse, Miss. Angela. Winry had to take Ed to a hidden place so she could check in on his automail. The Elric home had collapsed five years before, when Edward was eleven and Alphonse was ten. Alphonse had made it out fine, but wooden spars jammed into Edward's arm and leg, and their mother, Trisha, was killed. So they came here.

Edward followed Winry back to the main training hall. No one would be there because sword practice was over. If anyone, Inuyasha would be there, and he knew about Edward, as did the other teachers.

Cynthia moaned and said she had a headache to get herself a trip to the nurse's. Once she saw Edward wasn't there, she left in search for him. Something's up, She thought. And I have to find out.

Edward took off his shirt (A/N: Exposing his sexy abs!) and held out his arm, sitting down on a small chair. "Hurry up, Winry. I have to go back and help Cynthia with her archery…"

Winry laughed and sat down next to him, popping the skin-colored casing from his arm, exposing the silver mechanics inside. She grabbed a screwdriver and began poking around through the wires and metal plates. "Little Ed has a crush!"

"Do not!" Edward protested. "I just met her this morning, she's my roommate! She's bad with archery, so I help her out."

"Oh, I see. So you're too shy to admit it to her."

"… Yeah." He sighed, shifting the metal arm Winry was toying with. "But my arm, and my leg… I just think she'd be scared. Think about it, Winry. You took advantage of a fatal accident to turn me into a machine. Having these artificial limbs has changed the way I look at some things. Now when I look at normal people, I envy them for having organic arms and legs. This metal… I can't feel anything. I can't feel your hands on my arm, or the pain of a cut. I miss it all, even the pain…"

Winry moved on to Ed's leg.

Ed pulled up his pant leg and held it for Winry. "You're the only person who knows, you and Russell. But when he graduated last month he left the school for some reason."

"Are you sure it's just me and Russell?" Winry asked, looking up from Edward's metal shin. "You seem tense whenever that guy and his two friends are around. Um… What are their names?"

"Envy, Lust and Wrath." Edward replied. He closed his eyes. "Yes, they know too. Wrath's nothing special. He's just a kid, anyway. Lust and Envy are like older siblings to him. Lust is really good at using her fists in battle, especially her nails. I've fought her, and she fights dirty. Envy is so flexible it's not even funny. Envy saw me once when I was getting ready for bed, and my shirt would go on, so I took off the casing on my arm and he walked in the saw me then. I'm just glad he didn't tell anyone else. But now, anything he wants me to do, he gets me to do."

"That's not fair!" Winry replied. "That bastard! Just throw him in the woods and be done with it. Or get some dirt on him!"

"I've been trying to!" Edward replied, sighing. "I've been trying to dig up dirt on Envy for years, yet I never found anything. He's as perfect as his weird palm-tree hair." Edward idly moved his arm back and forth, watching the mechanics twist and turn.

Cynthia peered around the door. Edward's back was to her, and Winry didn't see her come in. She took several steps toward them, her bare feet silent on the wooden floor. Her emerald eyes were fixed on his metal arm, watching it go back and forth as he turned it.

Winry lifted her eyes. "Listen, Ed, just deal with it. I'll…" Her eyes shifted to Cynthia, who was just ten feet behind Ed. Her sapphire eyes widened.

"What, Winry?" Edward blinked. "What are…" He turned his head to look over his shoulder, at Cynthia, who was staring at his arm, still. Cynthia lifted her eyes to his, staring into them deeply before turning around and running out.

"Cynthia!" Edward called after her. "Wait!"

Cynthia ran all the way across the school. She ran down a hallway that stopped at a dead end, cursing when she found this out. But, to her advantage, there was no one around to hear her. She sat down and scooted herself into the corner, hugging her knees and resting her chin on them. I probably wasn't supposed to see that… She closed her eyes, but all she could see was Edward's automail arm. I think I hurt Ed's feelings…

Wrath was bored, bored out of his mind. He had ditched his class, hand-to-hand, and was now wandering the halls. He was in Alphonse's grade, so he was in his classes. He decided to head back down to his dorm. He skipped through the halls of Lalaurana's school, until he looked down a random hallway and saw Cynthia and at the far side. "A girl?" he asked himself. "…Older girl."

So he turned and proceeded towards her.

One he was close, he asked, "Is something wrong?"

Cynthia opened her eyes. "No."

"You're older. This is the side of the school for younger kids. Why are you here? You should be on your side."

"Give me one good reason why I should care."

"You seem angry. What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Liar."

"I…" Cynthia's eyes shot to look away from Wrath. "I just saw something I shouldn't have, okay?"

Wrath furrowed his brow, trying to register what that meant. So… "Aren't you the girl who blocked the hall with her halberd?"

"Shut up."

"So you are! Why did you do that, anyway?"

"I don't know, kid. Leave me alone!"

Wrath paused. "You're lost, aren't you?"

Cynthia sweatdropped. "Yes."

"Come on, I'll take you back to my dorm room. Envy will be back with Lust after armed combat, okay?"

"Okay, fine. So what's your name anyway, kid?" Cynthia asked, standing up.

"I'm Wrath! And you are?"