Manami opened her eyes and once again found herself underwater, perfectly able to breathe.
It took her less time to figure out how to swim this time, and she looked up to see a hand dipping in the water and reaching out for her.
"Manami…"
It was that voice again. Manami wasted no time and went to swim up towards the surface, hoping that she would be able to grab the hand this time. While she swam, she squinted her eyes and tried desperately to make out whose hand it was above the water's surface.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't make out the face of the silhouette…
"Manami..."
She got closer and closer, and it got harder and harder to swim. She reached out her hand and stretched her fingers as far as they could reach… but, once again, right as her fingertips brushed theirs, she was punched in the stomach by that unknown force that sent her down into the depths of the water at high speed. The silhouette and hand became a shadow that soon blended with the rest of the surroundings as everything around her went black.
She yelled out, but once again... all that came out of her mouth were bubbles.
She remembered that she woke up at this point last time… but this time, Manami opened her eyes to find herself standing in the middle of a black void.
"Manami…"
It had now occurred to her that it was not just one voice calling her name. She still couldn't place who any of voices belonged to. She stood up and looked around, only seeing blackness around her. She then looked down to her feet to see little white ripples form into giant circles around her, and noticed that where the circles stopped, people appeared all around her.
Their backs were facing her, but she recognized them still…
Mom… Dad… Shiori… Tyberious… and Maes Hughes.
Just as she recalled all of them in her mind, a bright light came from her feet, and she looked down to see that she was in the middle of a transmutation circle, and lines of light had extended and connected everyone around her in points.
"Manami..."
The light got brighter and brighter until everything went white.
Manami had not fallen out of her cot this time. She opened her eyes to see the stone ceiling above her and she blinked away sleep as she processed what happened in her dream. With a groan, she slowly sat up and rubbed her forehead with her shackled hands.
"Morning." Al greeted her from the cell across from her. "Did you sleep okay?"
Manami didn't respond.
"... Manami?"
"Huh?" Manami snapped out of her trance and looked back at him. "O-Oh, sorry… yeah…" She went to rub her eyes.
Al wasn't convinced, but before he could ask, Ed let out a big obnoxious yawn.
"What happened to letting us out real soon?" He muttered as he went to sit up. "My back is killin' me."
"Good morning, brother." Al said. Manami looked over to see that be had a newspaper in his hands. She fumbled with her pocket along with her shackles, managing to pull out her pocket watch so she could pop it open and check the time. It was eight in the morning.
"Anything happen?" Ed asked, and Al shook his head.
"Nope. Not at all."
Meanwhile, Manami stood up and walked up to the door to her cell, gripping the ice-cold bars and attempting to look down the hall for anyone.
"I'm starving…" She muttered, and to her disappointment, no soldiers were there to hear her.
"Ditto." Ed sighed. "Not to mention we're so off track now… I'm getting antsy."
They all sighed. After a few moments, they heard the door open and close and they looked to see the automail engineer nurse with the bandana wrapped around his forehead approaching them.
"Morning kids." He greeted them.
"Can we please eat?" Manami asked immediately, making him laugh.
"That I don't know, but what I do know is that I'm on orders to bring you some news…" The man grinned. "General Raven's dead. The General saw to it."
"What?!" The trio shrieked, Ed and Al jumping to their feet now.
"She killed him?!" Manami squeaked.
"Yup, and that's all I'm supposed to tell you."
"Hey, wait! When are you letting us out?!" Ed barked after the man after he turned to go back down the hall.
"And could you bring us some food?!" Manami yelled after him.
"Who knows? Take it up with the General." And with that, he let the door shut behind him.
"Seriously..?!" Manami growled impatiently.
"Damn it!" Ed yelled, kicking his automail foot against the bars with a loud CLANG!
But before any of them could say anything else, the door opened once again. Manami peered as far as her bars allowed her until she saw Kimblee approaching them. She frowned immediately.
"Good afternoon to you three. I was wondering if I could have a word with the FullMetal and Wind Alchemists." He said with a tip of his hat.
"Ugh…" Ed groaned.
"You look awfully unhappy to see me…" Kimblee said to him and then turned to see a similar glare from Manami.
"Did I do something to upset you?" He didn't seem to mind, regardless. "Oh well. Maybe you'll be a little more grateful since I'm here to bring a visitor."
"A visitor..?" Ed and Manami raised their eyebrows as someone came from behind him. Manami's jaw dropped once she saw the long blonde hair that could only belong to…
"Winry?!" The trio shrieked, shooting glances between each other and to Winry standing in between their cells.
"Wh-What are you doing here?!" Al cried.
"I should be asking that!" Winry retorted. "Don't you know you have to get your automail adjusted for the northern climate, Ed?! Come on!"
"B-But… I…" Ed stammered.
"And I don't even want to know what you did to land yourselves in jail cells!" Winry turned to face Manami now. "I'm not surprised by those two, but you, Manami?"
"Wait a second..!" Manami found herself sputtering like Ed. "We didn't even—"
"The fact that I get a call from the military before you three…"
"The military?" Ed asked, cutting Winry off. Manami felt the color drain from her face.
Oh no...
"That's right..." Kimblee went to put his hands on both of Winry's shoulders, and Manami and Ed both gritted their teeth. "The Furher was worried about you, and saw to it that you were taken care of."
It was written all in his smirk... Manami and Ed realized, in that moment, that the military's Trump Card was just played…
And that Trump Card was Winry.
"Now, Mr. FullMetal Alchemist, let's get that automail tuned up." Kimblee went to open Ed and Al's cell, but made sure to block Al from exiting.
"We just need your brother. You and Miss Kami can stay here for now."
The trio exchanged glances before Ed let out a small sigh.
"Fine." He muttered, then went to walk out with Winry and Kimblee down the hall.
A few moments after the door had shut, Manami slammed her shackles against her bars.
"Damn it!"
Al looked over to watch her plop down on her bed and hold her head in her hands.
"... we need a plan." Manami said after a moment. "And now."
"I'm open to any ideas." Al replied, sounding just as upset.
Manami opened her eyes to only see the darkness inside her palms as she racked her brain. The Furher had Kimblee bring Winry here, to remind them of their hostage situation… but was that the only reason?
No… Kimblee seemed hasty to get Ed's automail adjusted, too.
It suddenly hit her, like a horse had just kicked her in the chest. Manami lifted her head from her hands, seeing that they were starting to shake.
"Al…" She slowly looked over to him with wide eyes. "Fort Briggs… was the last point on the map."
Al gasped, seeming to understand where she was going with this.
"You don't think…"
"Th-That's why Winry's here..." Manami's eyes started to tremble. "She's fixing Ed's automail so that he can be able to do what Kimblee tells us to do. And, if we don't…"
The door to the hall suddenly opened before she could finish, but she immediately shut up. There were two sets of footsteps and they saw two soldiers who they had never seen before approach their cells.
"Miss Wind Alchemist..." One of them went to unlock her cell door and open it. "You're being summoned by Mister Kimblee."
So, these were Kimblee's men...
"..." Manami slowly went to stand up and stepped outside the cell so that her shackles could be removed from her hands. She went to rub her wrists to hide the fat that her hands were shaking.
"Right this way." The taller soldier with glasses went to escort her out of the room, and Manami looked back at Al one last time before being led out.
She silently followed the spectacled soldier with spiky hair down the hall, into the elevator, and up a few floors. She was then led down another hall until the soldier opened and held open a door for her, and she stepped inside to see Kimblee sitting at a table with two empty chairs across from him.
Ed wasn't here yet.
"Hello, Miss Manami Kami." Kimblee greeted her with that sly grin that made her skin crawl. "Please have a seat. We have some time to wait before the FullMetal Alchemist's automail maintenance is finished."
"Why invite me so early then?" Manami asked cooly, despite that her heart was pounding, as she went to take a seat in one of the empty chairs.
"Just to chat. Get to know you a little." Kimblee answered simply, gesturing to the teapot and three cups sitting in between them on the table.
"And if I'm not interested in getting to know you?" Manami asked with a frown, not bothering with the tea and keeping her eyes on him.
"Well… that's quite rude." Kimblee went to pour himself some tea and take a sip. "I don't know what I did to deserve such hostility from you."
"..." Manami bit her tongue. She didn't want to say too much.
"I think we started on the wrong foot, that's all." Kimblee set his teacup down. "I'm actually a fan of yours, you know."
"I'm not one to really have fans." Manami crossed her arms. "That's Ed's thing."
"Sure, he's a very talented alchemist… but he can't control the very air we breathe, that surrounds us at all times." Kimblee went to rest his elbows on the table and lean forward a little. "In a way, I consider our alchemy to sort of be... related."
"How so?" Manami frowned, watching with narrowed eyes as he lifted his arms off the table and open his hands, to reveal transmutation circles on his palms.
"I take that very air you manipulate, and make it explode at my will." He smirked devilishly.
Manami's frown grew deeper, and she averted her eyes. "I don't see the relation."
"Why is that? Because it's destructive?" Kimblee inquired. "Perhaps, maybe... because it kills?"
"..." Manami didn't answer.
"Tell me, Manami… can your alchemy kill?"
"..." Manami felt the hairs stand on the back of her neck.
"Why do you care?" She asked, glaring back at him.
"Didn't I already say? Because I want to get to know you." Kimblee said simply. "Come on, you can tell me… your alchemy, it's just as deadly as mine, isn't it?"
"..." Manami regretted the instinctive reaction of looking down to her lap, as soon as she did it.
"You don't like to talk much... but your face says it all." Kimblee smirked.
"There's no point in talking…" Manami said, so quietly it was almost a whisper.
"Why not? You don't want to admit that you can be a killer?"
"Shut up…" Manami growled lowly.
"Why join the military? Or did you enlist and not consider the fact that you one day would have to kill?"
"I said shut up…" Manami gritted her teeth, feeling her shoulders start to shake.
Kimblee smirked at the sight of how upset she was getting.
"Tell me, can you suck the air out of someone's lungs until they suffocate? Or is it something more bloody?"
"!" Manami let out a shrill cry as she stood up, using her arm to smack the entire tea set off the table. She glared down at him with burning and hateful eyes as the tea set crashed on the floor, her hand balled in a tight fist and trembling on the table.
"..." After a long pause, Kimblee chuckled softly and went to stand up.
"I'll collect the FullMetal Alchemist and meet you back here. We have important matters to discuss. In the meantime, I'll send someone to clean the mess."
Manami didn't even look up to watch him exit the room. The anxiety was so tight in her chest that it felt like it was going to explode.
She fell back into her chair and slumped, as confirming in her thoughts that her theory was right... once Ed's maintenance was finished and they both returned to this room… Kimblee was going to make them do something awful… they were going to have to kill, probably make bloodshed amounting to the other conflicts in the past…
And, if they didn't, they were going to kill Winry…
This was why Tyberious didn't want her to join the military… he knew that, if she did, his Wind Alchemy would be used as a weapon… to kill people… and it didn't matter what the Furher had to do, or who he had to strike down, in order to make sure that that weapon was used in his favor.
"You don't want to admit that you can be a killer?"
Kimblee's words kept running through Manami's mind, over and over... and it made her eyes fill with tears. She quickly buried her face in her shaky hands, refusing to show any tears falling from her eyes.
The only way out of this was if they thought of something soon, but they were very quickly running out of time.