Everyone looked up in awe when they saw Ling flying in the air. He looked beat up, his shirt having been removed somewhere in the fight. He readied what looked like a bomb and, as he landed on Gluttony, he went to shove it down the Homunculus's throat.
"GET DOWN!"
"!" Al quickly turned around to hover over Manami, using his back to shield whatever was to come.
BOOM!
Manami saw blood splatter all over the ground, a hand rolling by her feet.
"Ew..!"
Al pulled away and turned as the three of them watched the creature begin to regenerate.
Ling landed in front of them and looked back at the Elric brothers.
"I need strong metal cable!"
Al and Manami watched as Ed clapped his hands and went to transmute the cable he needed. Ling took it and went to wrap it around Gluttony, and then jump on top of him as he wrapped it around some more.
"This cable will be once and tight when you've completely regenerated..!" Ling said as he finished tying the knot. "I've got you, Homunculus..!"
They watched for a moment, holding their breath as they watched the Homunculus struggle in its bind... unable to move.
"… we did it…" Manami resisted the urge to fall to her knees.
"I told you to have faith." Ling grinned back at her.
But suddenly, they heard tires screech in the distance. They looked over to see a car turning a corner and quickly approaching them, a pistol being aimed to shoot at Scar.
BANG BANG BANG! One bullet managed to hit him in the leg.
"!" He groaned in pain as the car came to a screeching halt in front of them. There was a blonde woman wearing glasses in the driver's seat.
Wait a minute… was that..?
"Put it in! We're getting out of here!"
The voice confirmed it. It was Riza Hawkeye!
Ling struggled to lift the Homunculus and throw it in the back seat, but managed to do so. He then jumped in the passenger's seat.
"Wait, Lie—" Al went to say, but was interrupted by Riza lifting a finger to her mouth and hushing him.
"Shh!"
She then tossed over a folded piece of paper, which Manami caught.
"Meet us at twenty-hundred." Riza said, before turning the car and driving away.
"Put it away, the MP's are coming." Al whispered, and Manami quickly went to tuck the paper away in her breast coat pocket.
"Let's deal with this!" Ed went to run after Scar, Al following after him.
"Wait!" Manami yelled, watching as Ed landed a punch on Scar.
"He killed Winry's parents and countless other people!" Ed yelled back at her as he and Al went to clap their hands.
"He needs to answer for his crimes—"
All of a sudden, a pink blur jumped up and kicked Al with such force that he fell over. Manami caught a glimpse of long, braided black hair as they jumped from Al to Ed, using the same full-body kick to also land a kick right in Ed's face and knock him over.
"!" She saw the small person use the momentum from Ed and launch towards her. Manami quickly balanced her stance and bent her knees to anchor her feet, crossing her arms in front of her— to at least block the kick from hitting her square in the face like it did Ed.
The kick landed on her forearm and still managed to push her back a foot or two. For someone so small, they packed a lot of punch. The person bounced off her and landed next to Scar, and Manami got to get a really good look at a young girl, getting into a ready battle stance.
Her black hair and eyes... and her clothes...
"Did they hurt you?" The girl asked Scar, and he shook his head.
The girl then pointed to Ed, on the ground.
"This is the servant of the man who saved my life! You better leave him alone, you puny bean-boy!"
"B-Bean boy?!" Ed growled, immediately standing back up. "Who are you calling a bean?!"
They looked around to see the MP's surrounding them.
"A kid!"
"Get away from him, little girl! That man is dangerous!"
Though she didn't look like she intended to back down. Instead, she pulled out some small knives, which Manami recognized.
Those were Xingese knives, like Lan Fan and Fu had… come to think of it, this girl looked familiar.
But before Manami could think more on it, the girl threw the knives. At first, everyone thought they were being thrown at them and they ducked. Manami was first to look back and see the knives stuck in two of the trains behind them, in the shapes of circles. She looked back to see the girl drawing what looked like a transmutation circle on the ground with her foot, and throwing more knives down around it.
Manami made the connection as the girl placed her hand on the circle.
"DUCK!"
BOOM!
The two trains exploded behind them, throwing a giant cloud of smoke all around them.
Manami had fallen to her knees from the blast, but kept her arm over her eyes to protect them. Even so, the smoke was too thick to see a thing.
It was almost too thick to even breathe.
As she and everyone around her coughed from inhaling the smoke, Manami went to wave her fans, though the cloud of smoke was too big to move with an individual gust…
She had to try something else.
Manami took a breath as deep as her lungs allowed, before extending both her arms out. She then went to spin around until the smoke started to whirl around her. From inside the small tornado she created, she waved her fans upward to send the swirling smoke higher into the air, so that it could dissipate above them.
Once all the smoke went up, Manami let out the breath that she was holding and coughed the smoke she had held in her chest.
"We lost sight of him!" An MP yelled.
"He couldn't have gotten far! Spread out and search the area!"
"Are you okay?" Al asked as he approached her, followed by Ed.
"Y-Yeah." Manami finished coughing into her arm. "Sorry I couldn't disperse the smoke sooner…"
"Don't worry," Ed shook his head. "That girl seemed like she was determined to get away one way or another." He looked over to the spot where they last saw her and Scar. "Though that alchemy was pretty bizarre…"
"..." Manami followed his gaze. "I'm pretty sure… that wasn't alchemy at all." She frowned a little.
From first glance, she wasn't sure, but after seeing that fighting style and those knives… that girl was Xingese… which meant that what she used was...
"That was alkahestry."
"Huh?" Ed and Al blinked as they looked back at her.
But the MP's approached them, and Manami shook her head. Now wasn't the time to talk about it.
"Mr. FullMetal and Miss Wind Alchemists, please come with us!"
After being questioned, a car was summoned to take the trio to Central Headquarters, where they said Winry was waiting for them. Luckily they got a car that had a booth in the backseat, so while Al took one side, Manami and Ed sat across from him, the brunette staring out her window.
"Man…" Ed scratched his head.
"Are you worried about Winry?" Al asked, and his lack of response answered for him.
"I promised I'd tell her everything when we saw her again…" He mumbled.
"..." Manami sighed. "It was bound to happen…"
"It shouldn't have happened like this." Ed gritted his teeth.
"You're right, it shouldn't have..." Manami kept her eyes on the window. "But it did."
"But—"
"Yeah, she's going to cry." Manami sighed again and looked back to Ed. "Look, I probably should've said this a while ago, but… it's a pill that's hard to swallow, and I was hoping you'd realize it on your own."
Both Ed and Al blinked, allowing her to continue.
"I've talked to Winry a few times now about how she feels about all this…" Manami crossed her arms. "I get that we have to keep a lot of from her for her sake, but… try to put yourself in her shoes. If she went off on a journey, and all you knew about it is that she kept getting hurt and you had little to no idea why, wouldn't you be scared? Sometimes to the point of tears?"
"..." Ed looked down to his feet.
"The point I'm trying to make is… you don't make her cry, Ed. She cries because she's scared for you."
Ed's eyes narrowed.
"I just… don't like seeing her cry at all." He said quietly.
"And I get that's what you've been meaning this whole time…" Manami's expression softened a little. "But we're human. Crying comes with the package, along with laughing and whatever else."
She then smirked. "We don't like seeing you being a grumpy grouch, but you just are one sometimes." Her smirk only grew bigger when Ed frowned back at her.
"I-I'm not a grumpy grouch!"
"You're kind of a grumpy grouch sometimes, brother…" Al chuckled, and Ed rolled his eyes and looked out the window.
"Whatever."
Manami managed to stifle a laugh. "I'm just saying… we all gotta have emotions, y'know? They're what makes us who we are."
She paused, looking down to her feet. "But, this whole thing about Scar…" Her eyes narrowed. "Winry has more of a right to know about that than any of us do. She shouldn't have found out this way... but that's what happened, and there's no going back on—" She stopped midsentence to notice that Al was holding something.
"What is that?" She asked.
"Huh?" Ed turned his head to look back at Al, also seeing the black and white thing in his hands.
"Uhh… I found it…" Al said, sounding sheepish.
"You picked up another stray cat?!" Ed shrieked.
"I couldn't leave it all alone in the train yard!"
"There's no way we can take care of it! Throw it out!"
"What a heartless thing to say!" Al cried.
"Seriously!" Manami yelled at Ed. "We could at least take it to a shelter or something instead of throwing it back onto the street!"
"You too?!" Ed barked at her, and she just rolled her eyes.
"You don't like Winry crying but you'll throw an animal out. Your selective compassion is so bizarre."
"S-Selective compassion?!"
"We're here…" The driver announced before they could argue further. His tone sounded relieved to be at their destination.
But Ed sure wasn't relieved. Even after the talk they just had, he was still hesitant.
"..." He sighed and went to open the car door, climbing out first before Manami and Al. He looked up to the building, still trying to mentally prepare himself for what he'd say to Winry.
"..." Manami noticed, and she put her hands on her hips as she looked to the building as well. "You ready?"
"No…" He muttered as a soldier approached them and saluted.
"Right this way."
They were led through the building as soldiers scrambled around, muttering details of what had just happened.
Scar…
Young girl with knives…
Woman with glasses and a white coat driving a car…
Manami didn't dare touch her breast pocket. She wanted to keep any and all suspicion of that note's existence away.
The escorting officer went to open a door to reveal Winry sitting at a plain wooden table with a mug of what Manami deemed coffee, as the scent of it wafted out to the hallway.
"You're alright…" The blonde smiled up at them, looking tired but relieved. They smiled back at her as they took a step inside, but froze when they saw who was sitting across from her.
He was sipping a mug of his own but then noticed the trio, holding up his mug as a sort of wave.
"Hello there, FullMetal and Wind Alchemists."
Manami felt the hairs stand on the back of her neck as a shock went down her spine. It took all of her to resist the urge to shiver.
"Furher King Bradley…" She breathed.
"What a surprise…" Ed added, seeming to have the same feeling Manami did, at least from what she could tell through his tone.
"What brings you here?" Al spoke up.
"I heard that a childhood friend of yours was under our protection here." Bradley answered. "As a friend of some of our most important alchemists, she deserves only our best treatment."
"What makes us so important?" Manami suddenly asked, noticing from her peripheral vision that Ed and Al looked over to her.
"After all... we're just a couple of kids." Her expression remained hard, not showing any real emotion that could be read.
Bradley was quiet for a moment. "Indeed, you two are still young… but your alchemic talents have made you two some of the military's… more precious alchemists."
Manami's eyes narrowed. She didn't like that word choice.
Bradley he went to stand from his chair. "I should be on my way." He went to bow his head to Winry.
"U-Uh," Winry went to stand and bow politely. "Thank you, sir…"
"I look forward to seeing your talents grow and further assist our military, FullMetal and Wind Alchemists." Bradley walked toward them, bearing a smile before turning his back to them to face the door.
"You've got a nice, honest friend." He said, not turning to look back at them. "Make sure you take good care of her."
They watched as he walked out and down the hallway. They even peeked outside the door to make sure he walked down the hallway and turned the corner.
"I don't like it…" Manami muttered under her breath, so that only Ed and Al next to her could hear. "Not one bit."
"... Edward…" They heard Winry speak up from behind them, and they looked back to see her standing right behind them.
"You promised." She said quietly. "Tell me everything you know about what happened to my parents…"