Lina carelessly waved it off, adjusting her thin glasses. "No problem. The kid knows how to take care of himself, so there's no point to worry. Now let's get back on the map. What do you think of route six?"
"You're trying to change the subject." Lighting pointed out, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "It's hard to plot any kind of escape rout without our break-in specialist.
"Let's not start this again." Lina groaned. "I told you, he need to get those junks fixed, so I sent him to the mechanic. If you're gonna act with a stick up your arse, then just shut up."
"Hey, hey." Eli raised his hand, pushing his beanie back. "No fighting, let's get back to plan. The kid's flexible, he'll be find with whatever escape route you plan up. Right, Clara?"
Clara took another sip of her coffee, keeping her sight on the window in front of them. "Maybe that's what I'm worried about."
"You're worried about Wrath?" Lighting poked his head up, blinking.
"How can you not be?" Lina shrugged. "The kid's too cute for his good."
"And reliable." Clara added, pushing her blond bangs out. "It's just that he gets attached to people easily, and there's always the time when he acts too innocent. It makes me feel like... If we let him leave, he'll get attached to someone else, and we'll lose the best agilist we ever had."
"This isn't about his skills." Eli grinned. "He's just so easy to love."
"Too true."
Disclaimer: Don't own FMA
Benediction
Two of Four
By: Kitori Chiharu
...
Wrath watched as the blond girl adjusted the wooden automail to his limbs, quietly mumbling.
"Okay." Winry stood up, laying the screw on the bed next to her. "This is only temporary, but you'll be able to move around..." She paused. "If you want."
"I'm not going anywhere." The homunculi replied flatly, letting his bangs fall into his eyes.
"Well, you can't stay here all day." Winry replied, putting the material back into her toolbox. "You have the worst social skills ever, try to hang around town... Or something."
"I have no where to go." He repeated, looking up at the ceiling. "And I'm not exactly the most favorite villager here."
"You're not a favorite anywhere." The girl pointed out, rolling her eyes.
"We're not starting an argument over this." The boy declared, swinging the leg a few times around, testing.
Winry smiled. "No, we shouldn't. That wouldn't be wise." She paused. "Is there something you had in mind? You know, a place you want to go?"
"No." He grunted.
"Okay, whatever." The mechanic shrugged, heading toward the door. "Just don't mess around with my tools, I'll be in the basement." She gave him a quick wave.
"Wait!" Wrath yelled back. "When will you finish?"
Winry paused, turning around. She pressed a hand to her head, blinking. "Depends on how much you pay."
"A week?"
"Four days, tops." She smirked.
Wrath never understood the purpose of human nature; after all, he was still a homunculi. He never asked for the limits of humanity, or their ability to accept others. He didn't know a lots of things, really.
Hn frequently found himself wondering what would happen if he was human. Would he still have had such a pointless existence? Probably not. To some extent, he had been human, he just didn't have any memory with it.
Did it really count that he had been human for one or two moments in his life?
He remembered the shocked look on her face. "Wrath... What did you do?" She was frozen to the ground.
He looked up, frowning. "Mom?"
"You attached yourself to her... You have the cinders with you... Why?"
"I..."
"Cinder?"
"That was... Mother's ashes..." The younger Elric turned to stare at his brother. "You took mother's ashes out, Onii-san! WHY, Nii-san!"
Wrath stared at the grave in front of him. Trisha Elric's grave. He wondered if the villagers knew that her ashes were no longer underneath the built up of these overtime dirt, or that it was lost during the fighter to stop Sloth.
Sloth. Since when had he acknowledged the fact that she wasn't his mom? It didn't matter, because nothing really mattered then.
Was this really how he had expected it to end? Not really. He never pictured himself returning to this town two years later; then again, he never pictured himself being surrounded by humans either.
"Why are you staring at that?"
Wrath blinked, returning back to reality. He turned around in time to see Winry behind him, hands clad in bouquets of flowers. She leaned down on the grave a few feet away, carefully laying the flowers down.
"What are you doing?"
The blond smiled slightly, looking up. "Visiting, what does it look like? What are you doing?"
"Shouldn't you be working on my automail!" Wrath suddenly burst out, frowning.
Winry paused, blinking slightly. "Why are you so moody?"
"I'm not."
"Yes, you are." She put her hand onto her hips. "The fact that you act too much like Ed is freaking me out." The homunculi had to pause and wonder, was that an insult?
"I-"
"Whatever, I'm leaving now." Winry waved it off, pulling slightly on the hem of her skirt before heading off. She gave him a questionable look. "You coming?"
"I... No." Wrath, Winry noticed, was slowing eyeing the grave.
"Okay." The girl shrugged, carelessly walking down the hills. Wrath made sure that she had already made her way out of the cemetery before adverting his attention back in front of him. Why did he cared, anyway?
His life as a Homunculi was well over; and, as much as he hated to admit this, he liked his new life. It meant insane heists and even scarier women to put up with, but everything was so adventure-like. He longed for the feeling of being free, it was something he had lost after the last battle with Elric.
The sky was starting to darken.
Maybe he was just contradicting his situation, but Wrath didn't want to face these kind of things. Some part of his system told him to forget everything he had encountered with the Homunculus, but... How could he do that without lying to himself?
This was why he hated the feeling of being human, all these pain and suffering he had to grasp, it wasn't fair. Humans were useless, uncared for, and they had too much emotion. Sometimes Wrath wondered if he was still a homunculi anymore, there certainly wasn't any physical difference besides the lost limb. He could still freely manipulate his body into wild stunts, he just couldn't preform alchemy without Elric's limbs.
In the end, whose fault was all this? Izumi for creating and then discarding him? The Elric brother for throwing away their body? His own, for ever believing that there had ever been any point to his existence?
Wrath turned back to the headstone, slowly kneeing down. This was the last thing he had to do before cutting off all relations of his old life. He laid his head down, hair falling into his eyes.
He bowed down. "I'm sorry..." If any one of these people could him hear him, would they have forgiven him?
He bowed down again. "I'm sorry." If he was to bow before this gravestone all night, would any of them understand the pain and misery he felt now? How it hurt to know he was alone?
"I'm sorry." Soft drizzles of rain fell on him.
"I'm sorry." If he was to say the same phrase over and over again, would anyone take the time and try to accept his angst all over again?
The rain was getting heavier, pounding onto his back.
"I'm sorry." If Trisha Elric really was that loving mother the Elric brothers adored, would she forgive him for all those horrible deeds he did to her in afterlife? Would she have forgotten all about him too, like she did with her own sons? Or would she have loved him as well?
The ground was slippery, and he was completely wet. His hair was overly damped, blocking out all images of his view. It was just like this last time.
"Hey kid, what are you doing here?" Wrath looked up when he stopped feeling the beating of raindrops on his back. There was a girl in front of him, holding up an umbrella. She looked truly worried.
"Go away." He managed to mumble, looking back at the grave.
The girl leaned down next to him, throwing her umbrella away. Wrath stared at her in disbelief. "What are you doing!"
The blond only smiled in return. "I want to know why you find that piece of headstone so fascinating, will you tell me? See, I had been watching you for a good hour now, and you barely moved from staring at it." She was starting to get wet as well.
"Go away." He repeated, pointed to her umbrella on the ground. "Take your stuff and leave me alone."
"I can't." She replied softly. "Because I can't stand someone being hurt like this, why won't you go home?"
"I don't have a home." Wrath replied flatly, pulling his knees in. He stared blankly at the headstone of the grave. "I have no where to go, leave me alone."
"Why are you staring at the grave?" She repeated.
"GO AWAY!" He stared up at her, fuming. There were uncontrollably water falling out of his eyes, slipping onto his cheek. It tasted salty, more than the rain.
She shook her head. "Come with me."
"What?"
"Come with me." She smiled good naturally, slowly unzipping the front of her jacket. He would make out some sort of alchemy circle, a blinding flash of light, and then... Unconsciousness.
"Are you crazy!" A strong pair of arms pulled him up, holding onto his back. Wrath turned around weakly before sighing. Again with the blonde hair.
"Get up!" Winry yelled at him. "Why are you still outside in the rain!"
A slow smile came to him at the irony of it all. The only thing his brain could comprehend was the single words. "Go away."
The blonde mechanic stared at him. Then, out of nowhere, she pulled her hammer out and violently smacked him in the head.
He could remember waking up in an unfamiliar room, smells of cleanness filling his senses. There was a soft light coming from the door, and voices.
"So you just brought some stray kid in. I appreciated your sudden interest in kindness, Clara, but don't you think this is kind of... I don't know, disrupting to our line of work?" A sarcastic female voice spoke up.
"Oh, come on." The voice of the blond girl spoke up. "He's just lost... So..."
"He's a homunculi." A male voice cut in. "We can't keep him."
"A what?" Another male voice filled the hall.
"Artificial human being. He's not... Normal. I hope you understand that taking him in would be a serious stunt to our plan. Besides, we're not the homeless shelter, we don't take in lost people."
"I guess... That kind of makes sense..."
"No, it doesn't!" The sarcastic female spoke up. "You just don't want to keep him because you're such a cynic, and for all the wrong reasons. You know what? Now I want to keep him."
"You're just siding that way because you always have to disagree with me."
"So?"
"So, can't you understand?" The young man declared rather loudly. "He's an artificial human! He's a freak, a beast, an animal! Besides the fact that it's against our plans, it's not safe to be around someone like that!"
"HELLO!" The female voice yelled back. "Incase you haven't noticed, none of us are normal! You control one of the five natural disaster sources, Clara and Eli are two of the top non-official alchemists, and I mess with people's mind! None of us are 'normal', so you have no right to say that about the kid!"
"You're defending someone you don't even know!" The male voice snapped. "Why can't you just agree with me!"
"Because I'm right. And the kid's cute, so we're keeping him!"
"YOu-"
"Eh.. Clara? Should we stop them?"
Wrath could see the blonde sigh from the crack in the door. "No... They'll be done in an hour or two."
Wrath stared blankly at the ceiling. Winry frowned at him. "I didn't know Homunculus get sick."
He turned sideway on the bed, adjusting his head to look at her. "Why am I still alive?"
The girl blinked, reaching up to feel his forehead. "Why are you talking nonsense? You don't have a fever or anything..."
"No, tell me." A sick and weak smile came to his face. "Tell me why I'm still alive."
TBC
Whoot. Two more chapters to go. >. Remember that Clara is the real idenity of PISREN, the thief. She's pretty cool, and he's not a made-up character either.
Reviews, please?