Manami managed to pay the hotel everything Ed owed, but it just about wiped her account clean. She and Al went upstairs to greet Winry in the girls' room, and have a small chat to catch her up on everything, but Al insisted that Manami should get some sleep and politely exited the room.
"I'm totally broke…" Manami whined as she went to collapse on her bed, facefirst. "How am I supposed to sleep..?"
"You can dream of how you're going to kill Ed." Winry said to her, nonchalantly. "Speaking of which, I called Granny earlier today— he should be back tomorrow."
"He literally owes me an arm and a leg…" Manami grumbled into her pillow.
"Just take his automail ones. Then he can pay me for new ones!" Winry giggled.
"Ha, ha." Manami rolled her eyes. She sighed, closing her eyes as her head got comfortable on the pillow.
"... I'm glad you guys are okay." Winry said quietly, and Manami turned her head on it's side so she could look at Winry.
"I know Ed and Al go off and do their own thing a lot, but sitting here alone, waiting for Al to come back this time around... I tried taking your advice, I did my best to believe in him, believe that he would come back safe…"
Winry sighed and went to hug a pillow. "Still… it was terrifying. And the whole time, I kept wondering if you and Ed were okay. And then we called Granny, and when she said you weren't there..."
"... did she know I was with him?" Manami asked quietly, and Winry shook her head.
"I didn't bring it up, no…"
"Mm…" Manami hummed, closing her eyes again. "I'm such an idiot..."
Winry looked over to her, blinking.
"I wanted to go with Ed, but… I don't know, it just didn't feel right."
She went to roll over onto her back to look up at the ceiling. "I told Ed that I would hold off until I can come home with a story that's worth being proud of… I know I have to apologize to Granny, but… I don't know… it was easier to apologize to all of you because I wasn't... there." Her lips pursed.
"It just felt wrong, the idea of going home and revisiting everything I left behind… to visit my family's graves, with nothing to show for my life so far except more grief..."
Manami paused for a moment, then went to rest her arm over her eyes.
"… it's just stupid…"
"No… I get it." Winry replied, a smile in her voice. "But, I don't think it's all grief."
Manami lowered her arm to look back at her.
"Sure, you made your mistakes… but some people make mistakes and never come back to apologize. Some people just keep running forever. But, you eventually stopped running. You don't have to help Ed and Al with their journey, but you do. I think that's something to be proud of."
"... yeah?" Manami chuckled weakly. "I guess…"
"You're not perfect. But you have to understand that nobody is. You've got to give yourself some credit to the steps you've made so far, you know?" The blonde smiled at her, and the brunette smiled back.
"Thanks, Win…" She said, yawning shortly afterwards.
For the first time in long while, she finally felt relaxed enough to where she could sleep.
"WHAT THE HELL?!"
Manami groaned as someone's yelling woke her up from her sleep. She sat up, eyes squinted and still filled with sleep, as she looked around for where the noise was coming from.
"Wh— you broke—GAAAAH!"
Her eyes widened when she realized who it was that was yelling.
Edward.
"GET OUT!" She heard their door swing open and slam shut, and she got up to open her own door, seeing Ling and Lan Fan on the floor.
"Oh hey there, Cuti—"
"I will kick that bone in your mouth down your throat." Manami glared daggers at Ling before threw open to throw the door to Ed and Al's room.
Ed had just finished fixing Al's armor, but then he felt a dark and ominous aura behind him…
"Edward Elric. You owe me three hundred thousand Cens."
He quickly turned around to see Manami, looking like a demon.
"What for?!" He shrieked, holding his hands up as she slammed the door behind him.
"For the past three nights of these rooms, plus feeding that royal pain-in-the-ass," Manami pointed behind her to the door. "Plus the late fees on top of it all— because you had to pay for these rooms on a nightly basis, instead of just having them withdraw from your account automatically, like any smart person would do!"
"A-Ah… I see…" Ed began to sweat. "W-Well, I'll take are of it..!"
"You bet your ass you are! Do you realize that my account is wiped CLEAN?!" Manami yelled, fuming with anger.
"I-I'll pay you back! I promise! Can I just get bearings on what the hell's going on first?!" Ed yelled back at her.
To his surprise, Manami took a deep breath and sighed heavily, going to hold up what looked like... a journal?
"Yeah." She said, her expression serious. "There's a lot to talk about."
Al was first in the game of catch-up. He explained his situation that involved Lust and Barry the Chopper. But most importantly, he revealed that his soul can reject his body at any given time.
"So, what do we do?" Winry asked. "We can get Al back to normal, right?"
"Of course," Ed answered, then sighed. He looked to Al. "I have something to confess to you, Al."
"Hmm?"
"I… dug up the thing we created while I was in Resembool." Ed admitted, looking down as everyone gasped in surprise.
"What?!" Al jumped up. "Why would you—"
"I did it to confirm that what we made wasn't mom." Ed cut him off, and Al fell back to sit back down on the bed, speechless for a brief moment.
"So… that means..."
"We made something completely different." Ed said quietly. "I called Teacher to ask about her experience, but she hung up on me…" He looked over to Manami.
"Manami, you said that the thing you made… it had two heads?"
"Yeah…" Manami's expression darkened as she nodded. "Though, I don't think it was actually alive… I don't know," She shook her head. "It never moved… but I was too scared to get close to it."
"Well, the fact of the matter is that Shiori never had two heads." Ed said, before looking back to Al. "Which further proves that I can get your body back, Al."
Everyone stared at him, waiting for further explanation, but instead Ed just seemed like he was getting uncomfortable.
"Well, before I explain how…" His cheeks turned a little red. "D-do you guys remember when we were little? Al and I fought over… which one of us would marry Winry?" He asked.
"Yeah." Al and Winry answered, but Manami began to sweat.
She remembered that day vividly.
"But you turned us both down, right?" Ed asked. "Can I ask why?"
"Well…" Winry met eyes with Manami, who at this point had a face redder than a tomato. She quickly lifted the journal and opened it in front of her face to pretend she was reading it.
The truth was, Winry didn't get much chance to consider either of them, because she had found Manami crying after that fight. She had confessed to Winry that she was upset that nobody wanted to marry her, but she kept mentioning Alphonse. It was easy for Winry to catch on to why Manami was really upset.
And so, Winry felt bad... and she ended up turning the both of them down, saying the reason was…
"I don't date guys who are shorter than me." Winry answered, and Ed almost fell off the couch.
"You can't make that judgement by something someone can't help! You're cruel!"
"What does this have to do with anything, anyway?" Winry muttered, turning her head.
"I-I was just confirming that Al remembered something from our past, something that I didn't remember…" Ed sighed heavily.
Manami internally sighed in relief. That was close…
"So what that basically means, is that before that suit of armor became your body, the fact that you still have memories from before you were ten, means that that's really your soul in there," Ed explained. "But the real question is, what happens to your memory after you were put in there? You don't have a physical brain, so where are these memories and experiences being stored?"
"In this?" Al lifted his helmet to point at his blood seal.
"No," Ed shook his head. "The only thing that does is bind your soul to the armor."
"So, you're saying that Al's real brain is still working, wherever his body is." Manami said.
"Ah, Barry the Chopper..!" Al gasped. "His body was separate from his soul, but still existed and functioned!"
"... yeah, that makes perfect sense..." Manami spoke up, and everyone looked to her as she looked down to the journal she held tightly in her hand.
"When I was in New Optain… I found my teacher's journal." She looked to Ed. "He studied Human Transmutation, and he did a hell of a lot of experiments… all his findings are here in this journal."
Ed's face twisted in something that looked like a mixture of shock and disgust.
"He experimented with... Human Transmutation..?"
Manami nodded. "Needless to say, all of this is really messed up... and, seeing the way his mind worked during it all, in his own handwriting... it still makes my skin crawl… but, the point I'm making is that it confirmed exactly what you just said."
She went to open to the specific page she read before. "It says right here… 'It is impossible bring a dead person back to life— for their minds have been lost, severing the connection between the soul and body. However, we have proven the possibility of bringing back a soul whose mind is not yet lost. The determining factor of whether a soul can be reunited with its body is if the mind is still existent to bring the two together, like a magnetic force. Without it, they are truly dead.'"
"Then that's the answer," Ed nodded and looked to his brother. "You're still alive, so your mind is still here, connecting your soul to your body. If I can pull your soul out, I can pull your body out, too."
He went to stand up and approach Al.
"When I was in there… I reached out to something that I thought was mom…" Ed looked to his automail hand for a moment, then looked back to the suit of armor.
"But Al, you paid more of a toll than I did, which means you must've gotten closer than I did."
"..." Everyone looked to Al, who looked down in thought.
"... ah!" He gasped. "I remember..! I reached out and grabbed it… but it was me..! It was my own hand that I grabbed..!"
"I was right." Ed smiled a little. "It looks like we're not yet done with the Truth, then."
"Brother…" Al didn't seem to be finished. "When I woke up after seeing the Truth, I remember… I looked at you from inside that thing… the thing that we thought was mom..!"
Everyone's eyes widened.
"Your soul was transferred… to the rebound?" Manami whispered.
"It didn't last very long… I think the body rejected me almost immediately… but…" Al looked up to Ed. "That means we didn't drag in anyone else, except for ourselves…"
Ed took a moment to think of what to say, but before he could say it, there was a knock at the door.
"Mr. Elric? You have a telephone call from Miss Izumi Curtis." A man spoke from behind the door.
"Teacher…" Al watched as Ed approached the door, turning to look back at them and force a smile.
"I'll be right back…"
He exited, and the room was silent for a long while.
"... I think I'll check on him…" Al said quietly, before getting up and going to leave the room as well.
"..." Winry looked over to Manami, who was gripping the journal in her hands tightly, staring down at her feet with narrowed eyes.
She didn't even seem to notice that Al left the room.
"... are you okay, Manami..?" Winry asked quietly, snapping her out of it. Manami quickly looked back at her, seeing her worried expression, before forcing a small smile.
"Yeah... I guess… all of this is just so hard to understand."
"You're telling me…" Winry offered a small smile. "But… I mean, this just doesn't affect them… it affects you, too."
"I'm not about to make it about me…" Manami shook her head, her smile fading. "I accepted a long time ago that I killed my mom and dad in the freak accident…"
Her hands gripped the journal even tighter, to where her knuckles turned white.
"It's just… now I really don't know how long they suffered because of it."
"..." Winry didn't know what to say. After a moment, she went to stand up and grab Manami's wrist.
"Huh?"
"Come on," Winry smiled at her. "Let's take a walk and try to think about something else…"
"..." Manami scoffed, but went to stand up with her, managing to crack a small smile.
She set down the journal on the bed and they exited the room, heading for the stairway... but before they could go down, Winry noticed Ed and Al standing in the middle of the stairway. She quickly pulled Manami past the stairway so that they could rest their backs against wall next to the stairs.
"Wh—"
"Shh..!" Winry held a finger to her lips, her eyes on the stairway...
After hearing Al's voice, Manami joined her in the eavesdropping.
"I felt like I was to blame when Mr. Hughes was killed… and I began to think that if other people were going to get hurt, then I don't even want my body back… I've met other people who weren't exactly 'human,' but they still lived their lives with a purpose… this body could reject me at any time, but that's not much different than a normal body— you could get sick or die in an accident at any moment. If I tried, I could get by and live the rest of my life in this body… but…"
There was a pause.
"I can't… I don't want to be alone at night anymore..!" Al suddenly cried.
Manami felt her heart break.
"I-I want my body back…"
"And you'll get it back, Al… I promise."
"But… I don't want to lose any more people. I want to be able to protect the ones I love. I'll go down the path where no more people get hurt to get my body back!"
"I agree!" Ed laughed, and the girls heard a clank. Probably Ed knocking on his armor.
"Let's do it. We'll get kick that Truth guy's ass, and drag your body from that place!"
They heard their footsteps climbing up the stairs, but they turned the other way once they reached the top, not even noticing Winry or Manami as they went to walk down the hall toward their room.
Manami watched Winry take a few steps to start to follow them, but then she stopped.
"... hm?" Manami stepped to her side. "You okay?"
Her cheeks were a little pink...
"Huh..?" Winry snapped out of it and shook her head. "Y-Yeah, sorry. Just got distracted…"
That was weird...