Kirina covered her nose.
"Ugh, I can't believe I'm going to do this," she mumbled, "but if I make it perfect, maybe Mr. Marcoh will be happy. Then again, he did tell me not to do this. Oh, well. I'll worry about that later."
Kirina stared at the ingredients. There were regular ingredients, but the only ingredients missing were the live humans. All she had were bones, skeletons, a few limbs that still had skin on them, a couple hundred arms, and one skull riddled with bullets. She made a face and shuddered.
"Snap out of it," she said. "It's not like they're still alive. They're just body parts and can't feel any pain."
She couldn't tear her eyes away from the skull. There was something about the way that it stared at her with its empty eye sockets that made Kirina feel extremely uneasy.
Why did he tell me I shouldn't do this? Kirina thought.
She recalled what had happened earlier that day:
"What!" Mustang asked, rising out of the chair so fast that he knocked it over.
"I'm going to help Mr. Marcoh create the Celestial Stone," Kirina repeated with a large, proud smile.
"No, Kirina!" Marcoh said.
Kirina's smile faded. "But why not?"
Mustang grasped her shoulders. "Don't you know? The ingredients to make that piece of crap are---!"
"Don't tell her!"
"Humans!"
Kirina's eyes widened. "What?" she whispered. "What?"
Mustang let go of her. "Listen. Whenever we alchemists use alchemy, we gain something, but we also lose something. And that something may be something very precious."
"Precious?" Kirina walked over to Marcoh. "What does he mean?"
Marcoh knelt in front of her so they could see eye-to-eye. "Kirina, it's called equivalency. It's what alchemy's all about."
"But I haven't lost anything while using alchemy."
Marcoh frowned. "Remember the red phosphorous?"
"Yes."
"How did you create it?"
Kirina recalled the blood it took to create it. "Oh, I see." She stared at the ground. "I'm sorry, it's just---" she balled her little hands into fists "---I feel so useless. There's got to be something I can do."
Marcoh smiled and patted her head. "Just do whatever feels right."
Kirina scowled. "Well, he said I could do whatever feels right."
She bit her fingers, made a large transmutation circle, and activated it. After a few seconds, the bodies disappeared and in their place was a red stone.
"Yay!" Kirina cheered, jumping up and down. "Hah! I didn't lose a thing."
Kirina picked up the stone. Almost immediately, she felt a pulse coming from the stone. It felt like a beating human heart.
"What's going on?"
The stone flashed. Immediately, Kirina drew her hand away from it. She stared at her fingers, which were still bleeding. Kirina immediately bandaged them up and picked up the Celestial Stone. She inspected it. It felt smooth in her fingers, like a stone that had been in a river for a while.
"It looks like an ordinary stone."
The only difference was that it glowed with a strange red light. It felt warm to the touch, but after a moment it shifted to coolness a bit like running water. Kirina stared at the stone and saw her reflection. Blinking, she touched her face and felt something wet. Kirina gasped and stared at her fingers.
"Oh, my God," she whispered, trembling.
Her fingers were the color of blood.
"Wh-what is this? Is this . . . what I lost?"
"Those are the tears of those you killed."
Kirina's eyes widened. "Who said that?"
"Those are the tears of those killed. The ones slain for selfish desires. Those are the tears of those that are now forever bound within this cursed stone."
Kirina stared at the stone. "The stone's talking?" she gasped with disbelief.
"And now, just like before, you shall be forever cursed with this reminder of your horrid deeds."
The stone glowed and Kirina dropped it with a cry.
"It's . . . gone."
The stone had disappeared.
Not such a good chapter, right?