A/N: Here it is, April's chapter. Only a day past a month since the last chapter, so that's not too bad! I hope you enjoy this one, and as always, reviews are appreciated but never required. Thank you for reading!
It was a blur.
Everything was a blur.
Nothing existed, and yet everything existed.
Explosions, screams, they all rang out; she could hear them, but all she could do was stare. Stare unblinkingly at the corpse before her.
In her head, only one thought existed: I didn't do it.
I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it.
Over and over it echoed. She didn't do it, she couldn't have done it. It had been someone else, someone else's hand, someone else's knife. This had all been caused by someone else. She'd promised not to kill any of them.
She hadn't killed any of them. Not her. Karla hadn't done it.
She never killed.
"How do you feel?" came a smooth voice. It was that soldier. That soldier who had the gall to call himself a state alchemist… that bastard… "Don't you feel better? Positively empowered by it?"
Karla reached over and picked up the knife that had dropped to the ground. Getting to her feet, she turned to face the man, her gaze locked on him. "How can… how can you possibly be empowered by this?" she asked. Her voice was hoarse, lifeless; it was as if someone else was speaking through her. It wasn't her voice. It was someone else.
The man didn't respond except with a chuckle. "You had to learn, Chernikova," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "It's the way of life. You kill so you live, you live so you kill."
As he continued to speak, the rage that had filled her once before surfaced again, and before she knew what she was doing, she reeled back and punched him square in the jaw. He stepped back, rubbing the spot but otherwise showed no reaction. Karla recoiled, her eyes widening as she realized what she'd done. She'd just struck a fellow soldier. A fellow alchemist, whose power she'd already seen. This was not good… but part of her didn't care. It didn't care what he would do to her as a result; after what had just happened…
The soldier merely smirked after a moment, then clapped his hands together. "You're eager to die, aren't you?" he asked. He stepped toward her again, and fear fueled her as she turned to flee the alley. "How about I show you again why I'm dubbed the Crimson Alchemist?"
Karla wasted no time in taking off running, though as she reached the mouth of the alley, the building next to her crumbled in another explosion. She skidded to a stop, the rubble completely blocking her path. She whirled around only to find him approaching her again, and her heart raced as she realized she had nowhere else to run. The Crimson Alchemist reached her, instantly taking her by the front of her jacket and slamming her back against the rubble, pinning her.
"How ironic would it be," he hissed, using his free hand to take her knife from her once again, "if your death was caused by your own weapon? After all, I'm sure you're more than reluctant to part with it."
Karla felt the edge of the blade poised against her throat, but didn't respond. Instead, she swung a leg out in an attempt to knock him off his feet. His movement caused the knife to cut her, but she managed to squirm out from underneath him, grabbing the knife in the process. The air stung her wound as she moved, and she instantly put a hand up to cover it. It was bleeding, but it was shallow, small, nothing bigger than a thin cut.
"Your dedication to survive is admirable," he said, smirking as he approached her again. "However, that dedication ends here, my dear. You've angered me. No one who angers me lives."
Karla's eyes widened at this – I cannot die here, this isn't what I came for, god damn it – and took off running again, down toward the other end of the alley, where rubble also blocked her path. She didn't let this stop her this time, however, and she began climbing it as quickly as she could. She had to get away from this maniac… whose side was he even on?
As pieces of the rubble fell beneath her, she managed to climb to the top of the pile, jumping off and landing smoothly on the ground before taking off once more. The sound of an explosion behind her reached her, and she ran faster with no mind as to where she was going. Whether her camp was behind her or not was lost to her, she just had to get away from him.
Karla dove behind a building, crouching amidst the shadows, panting. What is wrong with him? Her heart raced anxiously in her ears as she glanced around wildly, searching for a sign of him. When there was none, she relaxed slightly. Maybe she'd shaken him, maybe he'd gotten bored, maybe he'd decided not to chase her after all…
It hit her just then.
The building began to collapse, and she moved just enough to where she was knocked into the air by the blast, and she tumbled, landing hard on her back. Her ears rang from the colossal sound, and all she could feel was pain rocketing through her entire body. She opened her eyes to see the alchemist standing above her, peering down at her with a rather disinterested expression.
"That should have killed you." The passiveness in his voice was evident, though it seemingly didn't prevent him from pressing one of his boots down against her hand. Karla didn't move to protect herself; she felt as if she was crippled by pain, and it only increased as she heard bones breaking. "You're making far more work for me than you're worth, you know that?"
"Don't do it," she heard herself croak, closing her eyes as he brought his hands together. "Don't… please…"
"Of course you beg now, while you're defenseless," he replied. "All humans are the same in the end, after all."
"Kimblee!" A new voice sounded then, and the pressure on her hand decreased. "Don't you have some sort of assignment somewhere else?"
"Well, if it isn't Mustang," the alchemist replied, a sneer in his voice. "Still alive, I see. Hm. You new bloods are stubborn, aren't you?"
"Get out of here, Kimblee," the new voice grunted. "You wouldn't want a report on your record, would you?"
Kimblee chuckled. "It makes no difference to me. No matter." Karla felt herself shift on the ground, realizing he was turning her over with his foot. "She's yours now. Make sure she's taken care of. We wouldn't want to lose another alchemist, after all."
His footsteps sounded, growing more distant, and then she heard the sound of the new soldier shifting. Only then did she open her eyes again to see a rather young-looking man crouched next to her.
"Are you alright?" he asked, his voice sounding gruffer than she expected. She attempted to speak, but found her throat was far too scratchy to even make a decent sound.
It seems as if those last words were all I could say, she thought dimly. She felt a hand slip under her shoulders and a second under her knees, and she was off the ground in only a few seconds. She automatically attempted to clench onto the front of his jacket with her hand, but pain shot through it the instant she tried to move her fingers.
"Don't move anything," the soldier, the one Kimblee had called Mustang, said. "You look pretty beaten up. We've lost our doctors on this side, but we'll do what we can."
Karla nodded as she felt movement, then closed her eyes once again, trying to ignore the chaos around her. How long must I still be here? When will this end? She was unsure which would be worse for her: to experience this for the first time, or to be as accustomed to it as she was already. Even the horrible familiarity didn't prevent her from wanting to flee, especially not after she had… she had…
No. Damn it. It wasn't me. I didn't do it.
Before she knew it, she opened her eyes to the darkened area of a tent, and Mustang was crouching with her once again. He attempted to lay her down onto a blanket, but she put her good hand up against him, stopping him as he sat her up. She glanced around the tent to see two other soldiers seated within as well, shortly before Mustang forced some sort of canteen in her hand.
The water that rushed down her throat was warmer than she would have liked, but right now, nothing satisfied her thirst better than it did; once she had finished drinking, she coughed and spat to her side, grimacing at the sight of the small amount of blood that was there. It seemed as if she'd been more injured by Kimblee's attack than she'd initially thought...
"Who's your commanding officer?" Mustang asked as he looked her over. He reached over and picked up her left hand, and she hissed in pain as a result.
"Brigadier General Fessler," she replied once she felt as if she could speak again.
"Boy, are you on the wrong side of Ishval," said one of the other soldiers, a man clearly older than her with glasses. "How did you get over here?"
"I was being pursued by a soldier named Kimblee," Karla replied, resisting the urge to shove Mustang away from her. He was taking far too long in looking her over for someone who wasn't some sort of doctor, and the way he kept trying to bend her fingers was paining and aggravating her. "What's wrong with it?" she demanded of him, trying to free her hand from his grasp.
"It looks like it's broken to me," answered Mustang. "From what I know, you'll have to keep it immobile, but that's a bit difficult to do without the doctors here."
As he began rummaging around the tent, Karla silently cursed. That bastard of an alchemist had managed to break her dominant hand… how was she supposed to do anything now? "I'm going to kill him," she muttered.
"Here." Mustang returned to her with a long rag that looked as if it had been cut off something. "It isn't much, but it should help at least a little." Karla reluctantly held out her injured hand to him, grimacing as he pushed up her sleeve and began wrapping the rag around her arm. "What's your name, if I may ask?"
"Chernikova. Karla Chernikova." She was half-expecting him to recoil at the sound of it, but he seemingly took no notice, continuing his task as if it was the most casual thing in the world. Every time someone didn't respond how she expected they would, it caught her off-guard, and this time was no different. Now was not the time to think about that, however. "I'm going to be useless now," she remarked. "My left hand is my dominant hand. He must have known that..." Something suddenly occurred to her, and her other hand flew to her waist. Oh, no, don't tell me I've gone and lost it...
"You fought with him?" Mustang finished wrapping her hand, then sat back slightly. His charcoal eyes stared at her with such intensity that Karla nearly flinched from it. It was all she could do to nod under that gaze; he was intimidating, as if he'd seen more hell than she had.
"I did," she finally answered after a moment. "Honestly, I'm the one that started it. I lashed out at him after..." Her voice faded then, and she pulled her bandaged hand back, breaking the eye contact. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mustang stand, but she kept her eyes firmly on her lap, pretending to be fascinated at all the dust and dirt that had accumulated on her uniform.
"Regardless, we shouldn't be fighting with each other," he said. "That will only make this conflict last longer than it needs to." He paused for a moment. "Stay here. You're in bad enough shape as it is, and I'm sure you have a family you'd like to go home to."
One of the other soldiers in the tent rose, and both of them departed, leaving Karla behind. Despite the fact her body ached now more than it ever had before, she pulled her legs up against her, gingerly wrapping her arms around them. She could feel tears threatening to pour forth from her eyes, and she brushed a hand over them in irritation. She'd never cried before, and she sure as hell wasn't about to start now. The thought of her family lingered in her mind: her mother, with her seemingly overprotective ways that Karla knew in her heart were for her own good; and her father, whose disappearance still rattled her to this day. Mustang was right. Karla did have a family she would have loved to go home to, even as small as it was. She couldn't die out here, not before seeing them again.
These Ishvalans feel the same way. They have families as well. Or… they had. Before you and your people came in and destroyed them.
The thought tore through her faster than she realized. She rested her head on her knees, trying to block out everything that was happening, everything that had happened, but it all came screaming at her, louder than anything else. She tangled the fingers of her good hand in her hair, only just now noticing that it wasn't pinned up anymore. What was she supposed to do? How was she supposed to face the other soldiers back at the fort… how was she supposed to face Major Miles? How could she even think of returning to them…?
"Rough out here, isn't it?" The voice of the soldier from earlier reached her, and she looked up to see him staring at her.
"What?" Was he talking to her? He stood and approached her, sitting down next to her.
"It's rough out here." He took a swig from the canteen he held, sighing and setting it down. "Everyone has dreams of the military, making it big here, having a successful career, all that good stuff… but eventually we end up in situations like this. We can't help but follow orders, even if they're barbaric."
"I didn't enlist to make it big or anything like that." She shrugged, staring at the ground. "I enlisted to… to bring my father back from Drachma. He was deported when I was fourteen. I wanted to… I wanted to bring him back. I didn't want to do it like this."
"Sometimes the things we want aren't the easiest to get," the soldier said. "Sometimes you just have to do things you don't want to do in order to make what you want happen."
Karla sighed. "I didn't want to kill anyone. I didn't…" Her hands were shaking, she could feel panic rising within her. She couldn't break down now, not here, not after what had happened the last time she did… A Drachman swear fell from her lips, and she stood with some difficulty on trembling legs. She began pacing around the tent, her injured hand swaying at her side, her good hand running through her hair. She had to work off this panic; she couldn't let it cripple her again!
Focus, focus, focus, come on, focus, focus on something, anything…
Her knife.
Her knife was still missing. It had gone missing after the explosion on the building that had nearly killed her.
She had to find it. She couldn't lose it.
"Sorry, Mustang," she muttered, "I can't follow that order. I can't stay here."
"Hey, what're you doing?" the soldier asked, rising from his place on the ground. "You were told to stay here, weren't you?"
Karla ignored him, striding out of the tent as best she could. The bright sunlight stung her eyes as she walked out into it, but she ignored both this and the soldier's frenzied calls for her to return. She went back on the path she'd come, in search of the last remnant of her father she had: his treasured kinzhal.
I can't leave here without it. It's all I have left of him.