Chapter 25

The impact of the explosion was devastating… and effective!

Noah knelt on one knee, the spikes of his glove embedded into the ground, a large, deep crater, just inches from him, extending all the way to Ed and Al; the sky still showering down with bits of debris caused by the use of his Alchemy, though without the showmanship of his Uncle Alex Louis Armstrong. He used a simplistic method, a very basic skill to create just the right effect, to stop Alphonse Elric from killing his brother in cold blood. And it worked!

He stood on his feet and looked across the crater, looking at Edward, who stared back at him, sitting on the edge, his mouth agape with shock. Alphonse, however, wasn't so lucky. He had been subjected to the brunt of his attack and hung off the edge of the crater, clutching the side with his hands to keep from falling into the deep chasm. But with every movement he made, trying to climb over the edge to stable ground, there was greater risk of falling. Al tried to get a foot hold on a stone sticking out from the side of the crater, but it broke free and nearly fell. But at the last second, he grabbed onto the edge and held on.

"Al!" Edward cried, and ran over to help him, grabbing his right wrist with his automail hand.

"You insufferable Alchemist!" Envy snarled out, and leapt over the crater and pounced on Noah, pinning him to the ground. "Your interference will cost you your life!"

Envy morphed his arm into a long, black blade and raised it into striking position, however, before he got to make the kill, Al shouted at him, as Ed helped him to the surface. "Envy, stop it! We need him!"

Envy turned to Al in disbelief, and Edward gave him the same look. On his hands and knees, Al looked at Edward and smiled innately. Then he gave his brother a head butt to the face, knocking him over. Edward grabbed his face, cringed in pain, and felt the warm ooze of blood streaming down his face from his nose. It wasn't broken, but it hurt like Hell!

Al got to his feet, and smirked maliciously at Edward. "I'd like to thank you for saving my life, Edward Elric, and for that heroic feat, I won't kill you just yet," he said.

"Kill the pipsqueak, I'll kill this one!" Envy said, his blade at the ready to kill Noah.

"NO," Al commanded. "You will do what I say, Envy."

Envy growled with displeasure and jumped off Noah, taking a few steps back. But he kept an ever watchful eye on him just incase he again tried to pull another alike stunt.

Observing Envy obeying his order, he turned his attention back to Edward. "Who are you?" Ed asked. "You're not my brother. What did you do to him?" Ed scuttled away from Al and then got to his feet. "Give Al back his body!"

"You're not a State Alchemist anymore, you can't order me to do anything; on the other hand, if you ask me nicely, I may just acquiesce to your request," Al said. But he wan't Al.

Edward said, "Please return my brother to me."

"That was very touching and I really felt your heart calling out to me to release your brother's soul," he said. But then he started to chuckle, amused. "But I'm afraid I can't grant your request. Your brother's body now belongs to me, like Winry's body belongs to Envy, and soon the pearl of Amestris, the entire world, will also belong to me."

"Who are you?" Edward asked again.

Al gave a thoughtful glance towards Edward, and smiled crookedly, as if trying to formulate a delicate answer to an important question. But he knew what had to be said. He savored a dramatic moment, pausing to allow, if he could, for Edward to guess before he told him. The moment passed without Ed saying nothing, so he said, "You can call me brother."

"Brother? But Alphonse is the only brother I have and you're not him!"

"But I am your brother, just not the one you know about, or maybe you do," he said. "You want to know everything, don't you? You want to know about the sword, don't you?"

"What does the sword have to do with anything?"

"It's the reason why we're all here today," he said. "And, of course, Hohenheim."

"Where is Father!" Envy shouted a demand, his voice carried loudly over the crater. "I want to kill him!"

Ed started to put some of the pieces together and through his observation between Envy and this imposter pretending to be his brother, possessing his body, he gathered that who-or-whatever commanded Al's body was obviously in the leadership role. He looked at Envy and then at Al, gazed directly into his eyes, and said, snorting a smirk, "Sorry to be the barer of bad news, but my father is dead. He was killed by a creature of his own creation in another place, far from this one." The decision to embellish the truth was problematic. He didn't want to reveal any secrets about the other world, despite the Gate was sealed.

"You're being evasive, Edward, but I accept your answer. I know about Hohenheim."

Edward's eyes widened with confusion. "What!" he said.

"Al told me, he told me everything about what happened to you on the other side of the Gate, in that other world," he said. "When I learned of your adventure I was awestruck to know of another world that parallels this one. Quite fascinating, wouldn't you agree?"

"About what?"

"That you and Al exist in both worlds simultaneously. It was very clever of Al to utilize the dark matter brought through from the Gate that covered the ship to create Chimera's of both of you and him and transfer a permanent portion of your souls to them, while the two of you escaped the ship, just as your doubles went through unaware that they were copies of the originals. You managed to lock the gate in this world, but without Alchemy, I doubt the Gate is closed there. Both ends of the Gate must be sealed for it to be locked. You can't say for sure your doubles did that, can you?"

Ed swallowed nervous. "It doesn't matter," he started to say. "Without the Philosopher Stone or other tangible material--"

"Like human lives," the other said.

Ed sneered, then said, "Yes, like human lives -- the Gate will remain closed."

"What if I told you, I have the Philosopher Stone."

"I'd say you were lying," Ed said. "The Philosopher Stone is gone."

"On the contrary, your brother has told me exactly where to find it."

"Al, no…" Ed said softly. "But he doesn't have it, Al knows it."

"He knows, and he knows where to find it."

Edward paused for a moment. 'He knows, and he knows where to find it.' Does that mean, you don't know where it is? But just a moment ago, you told me you knew exactly where to find it. Then Ed had a thought. Perhaps he wants me to believe he knows, but Al hasn't told him. He was fishing for a clue where to find the stone. But there is no stone to find, or was there? Did Al know something he didn't? Obviously yes, or this imposter wouldn't be acting so smug.

"Tell me where Al is?" Edward said.

"He's safe, for now," the other said. "But he won't be unless I get what I want."

"And what is it that you want?"

"Freedom."

"Freedom from where?"

"I've been trapped in Hohenheim's sword for nearly 3 centuries and I want out," he said.

"I don't understand. And I bet there's a story to this."

"Quite right, Edward," the other said. "It started when my parents died and Hohenheim took me in as his heir. Unstained by war, he trained me in Alchemy and I joined the Academy in Central. After I was certified and given my first mission to the Western town of Cala, my orders were to inspect the mines, I unknowingly arrived in the midst of fighting between two warring fractions who wanted control over the town and its resources. The town wanted my help to conclude the war, but I was bound by duty not to get involved with such issues."

"Let me guess, you got involved anyhow," Edward said insipidly. "No matter now many times I told myself I'd never get involved in the private affairs of people, I always did."

"And so the nature of the human condition to interfere when we know we shouldn't is established," he said. "We're bound by our instincts and personal ethics to help those in need. However, with me, that was not the case. It was more out of revenge."

"Revenge? I never acted out of revenge!"

"Self-preservation is a form of revenge and we are all guilty of it." He continued. "After a bomb nearly killed me when it dropped on my hotel, I had no choice but to settle the war or the entire town would be destroyed. So I went to frontlines and using my Alchemy put an end to the war once and for all. However, little did I know that during my conquest a house was bombed with a rogue shell, killing a little boy."

It reminded Ed of the very first day he returned back to Artemtis from the Other World, when bombs showered down on Central City during on attack from Dietlinde Eckart, who wanted to destroy this world; a little child was killed then, too.

"Back at Central, there was a hearing and I was stripped of my State Alchemist certification. But I wasn't punished because I had done something wrong, I had done everything according to the charter. The townspeople wanted justice and threatened to cut off access to their mines if I wasn't punished, so the Fuhrer at the time gave in, and I was run out of town when the media got a hold of the story. But I came back one year later and I was going to make them pay for what they had done to me, with the Dark Arts as my weapon."

"But the Dark Arts is forbidden alchemy, and as taboo as…"

"What you attempted, trying to resurrect your dead Mother? Yes. The Dark Arts is as much taboo as that and more. Studying to become a State Alchemist, you must have come across the Dark Arts in your readings."

"Yes, I did. But I choose to ignore it. It's evil at its core."

"The good little Alchemist, always on the righteous path. How naïve of you." He said. "The Dark Arts is powerful and amplifies a person's Alchemy a hundred fold. And there is a price."

"Like the Philosopher Stone, it needs human energy to work," Edward said. He crossed his arms across his chest, looking annoyed. "So, you came back, swore revenge, and then want?"

The other narrowed his eyes annoyed too. Edward's tone was trite. "Hohenheim interfered before I was able to do much of anything and cast me into Hell! He sucked my soul into that blasted sword, then he disappeared and so did the sword. Then, one day a little boy started to play with it and awakened me. And I watched and bided my time, devising a plan. Knowing of Hohenheim's condition, that he jumped bodies, his soul transferred, and had done so for nearly 400 years, I knew what had to be done, and through the ugliness of Hohenheim's desire to be normal, Envy was born!"

Envy smirked thin, he had been listening to every word. "Envy is the embodiment of everything Hohenheim desired to be, his aspirations, hopes and dreams, crushed. All that penned up hate and invidiousness absorbed into the sword from his soul towards the world was transferred into Envy. And he would be the catalyst to free me."

"Third time. Who are you?"

"If you really must know, I am the real Envy -- his soul, his essence. The man he used to be." He morphed into a tall, handsome man, with blonde locks, using the ability of his spiritual powers to perform the feat. "And I have a name: Kaoru, son of Hohenheim of Light. But I am not the true Kaoru, only a imprint of the person who died 400 years ago from mercury poisoning at age 18. But I have all his memories. Hohenheim tried to resurrect me, but succeeded at a terrible cost, and I was split into two halves. Dante, my Mother nursed one half of me, the Homunculi known as Envy, while the other half, was born into a body of a little boy 300 years later, which house my reincarnated soul, and who grew up to become Hohenheim's heir. Ironic, isn't it?"

"I see no irony in the situation, just a freak of happenstance."

"The events were preordained before I was born, told to me by a mystic I visited in the town of Liore 300 years ago while I was studying the Dark Arts. She told me of my past life, and that I was actually the son of Hohenheim who died a century earlier, reincarnated. She also told me that I was destined to become great, a powerful Alchemist. Yet again, I already was."

"How much money did she charge you to tell you that foolish prophecy?" Edward said.

Kaoru snorted an amused grunt, then burst out laughing. "Do you really think she told me only what I wanted to hear? She told me of her own volition, I paid her nothing." He said. "She also told me about you and Al, and that one day I would meet you. I thought that part was far-fetched seeing how I would be dead long before you were even born. But guess what, here we are. How little did I know that that bitch had such a glorious gift. She would've been famous if I hadn't killed her."

"Why did you kill her?"

"Because she knew too much about me and I thought that was too dangerous. She knew I had plans to overthrow the Alchemy Academy in Central and I didn't want her to alert them before I was ready. Besides, no one would miss her, she was a drifter."

"You had no right to kill her!" Edward said angry.

"The past is ancient history, she's been dead for nearly a century. Why would you care anyway?"

"Because no one has the right to take another person's life!"

"You've killed."

Edward sighed softly. "Yes. I've killed people. But it wasn't my choice." He said. "And every night their faces haunt my dreams." He made a tight fist with his right hand at his side, feeling the sorrow and the despair of killing those people. But he also felt angry that Kaoru was manipulating him like this, making him remember what he had done.

Kaoru felt his anger and smirked thin. "Emotions are the downfall of society, Humans are so weak," he said.

"Emotions make us who we are, without them, we're nothing but empty vassals. They are the core to the human experience, they make us whole."

"I feel nothing but hate and the desire to kill, that's what makes me whole," Kaoru said.

"Then I pity you, because life without experiencing emotion is no life at all," Edward said.

Anger began to swell inside Kaoru and he looked around for Hohenheim's sword and found it at the bottom of the deep crater. He extended a hand and called for it. Once he had it, he'd kill Edward.

But Edward saw what he was doing and couldn't allow him to again gain control of the sword. Evil begets evil, and that sword was pure evil. So he did the one thing he could do, and bulldogged him, grabbed him in an attempt to stop him. But he lost his balance, and both plummeted down the side of the crater.

"Edward, Alphonse!" Noah shouted, but they obviously couldn't hear him as they rolled to the bottom. There was nothing he could do to help them this time anyway, and even if there was, he suddenly had his own problems, as Envy leapt and pounced on him, clutching his hands around his throat. Noah gasped for breath, and grabbed Envy's arms, trying to brake the chokehold, but the Homunculi was much too strong, and he couldn't break free.

"I'm gonna to kill you, Noah Mahjongg, then I'm gonna kill Edward, and this time, there's not a damn thing you can do to prevent either!" Envy said, and laughed with insane pleasure.

To be continued...