Manami could only recall moments where she started to come to, but then she would black out again… she lost count of how many times this happened… or how long it's been…
She opened her eyes and found herself in a familiar place. She was underwater once again… but this time, the water felt different.
Calmer… yet colder.
Manami looked up to where she expected to see the hand to dip under the water to reach for her, but… this time, it never came.
She swam up, cautiously, wondering why the mysterious hand still wasn't reaching for her. In fact, she swam all the way to the surface and gasped for air when she rose above it, looking around to see nothing but a white void.
It was similar to the Portal of Truth, except there was no gate here.
Manami went to climb out of the water, noticing that she became immediately dry. She looked down at herself to see that she was wearing only a white gown.
So… this was what was above the surface?
But, now what?
Manami turned to look behind her, but when she looked forward again, she saw a single person. They were sitting on the ground with their back facing her, seemingly far away.
"..." She slowly, cautiously approached the person, wondering for a moment if she was actually getting closer or not… but finally, she made it to where she stood only a few feet from the stranger.
She could tell now that the person had short, blonde hair… wearing a white shirt and pants that matched her gown... but she still couldn't tell who they were from behind.
"Were you… the one who kept reaching to pull me out of the water?" Manami asked, hearing her voice echo unnaturally in this place.
The person didn't respond.
"..?" Manami blinked, slowly reaching out for them.
"Hey… are you okay..?"
The moment her hand ever so slightly touched their shoulder, Manami felt that same invisible force strike right in her stomach, and it sent her flying back.
"Gah!"
Splash!
She was back in the water, sinking down… down… down again. She let out a yell, that only came out in bubbles...
Manami's eyes flashed open, but all she could see was pitch black darkness. She wondered for a moment if she was still dreaming… but then she tried to move and realized that her hands and feet were bound, anddd she confirmed to herself that she was definitely awake.
But… where was she?
No matter how many times she blinked, it didn't help her see any better. Manami grunted as she moved herself to sit on her knees, trying to make any sense of where she was.
The last thing she remembered… was being at the train station with Al, where they were chased down by Gluttony… and Manami saw Gluttony carrying a child…
Was that child a Homunculus too? That had to be the only explanation for what those freaky shadows were…
So, they were captured. That explained why her hands and feet were tied up. But where was she now? And where was Al?
How long had it been?
She felt panic rise inside her. The Promised Day hadn't passed, had it?!
No… the last thing she remembered that child saying… was that she would be awakened on the Promised Day.
Still, time was wasted, and she couldn't afford to waste any more.
"Al..?" She called out, but only heard her voice echo back at her.
No one else was here… and she had a feeling she had to find a way out now, before anyone came back.
Manami grunted as she attempted to pull her hands away from each other and rip her bind behind her back, but to no avail. That would be too easy…
It was an awkward reach, but Manami managed to place her palms together, and she used alchemy to tear the ropes that were binding her wrists together. With the small flashes of light, she saw rock walls surrounding her.
She was in a cave?
"Okay, but where is the exit..?" Manami asked herself, going to use alchemy to undo her feet's binding so that she could stand up and feel around in the darkness.
Boom! Manami froze when she heard what sounded like an explosion in the distance.
What was that..? Whatever it was, it sounded like trouble.
Manami kept reaching around blindly, feeling along the cold stone walls in hopes that anything would budge.
As more time passed, she was getting more and more frustrated.
"Ugh, how do I get out?!"
Manami kicked the rock wall out of frustration, but to her surprise… the rock moved ever so slightly, allowing faint moonlight to peek inside.
"... oh, okay then." She shrugged and clapped her hands and placed them on the rock, using alchemy to turn it into a door that she simply pushed open.
She stepped out of her makeshift door and found herself surrounded by trees, so she figured that she was in a forest… she couldn't see much better out here, but in the distance…
Was that… fire? It looked like it had just started… she wasted no time and started running towards it.
While Manami ran, she reached for her back pockets to feel for her fans… that were miraculously there! They must have been hidden under her shirt and overlooked when she was captured! After all, she never tried to use them back at the train station…
She got closer to the fire, and up ahead she saw Heinkel! Across from him, stood a young boy.
She had a feeling it was the boy who was with Gluttony, when she and Al were captured...
"I'm glad they shed some light for us… now let's shed some of your blood." Manami recognized that voice immediately. That was definitely the kid!
"Goodbye, chimera."
"!" Manami quickly ran through the trees, not thinking as she quickly pulled out her fans and got in between the two and waved her fans to blow gusts and deflect the shadows that were aiming to strike Heinkel.
"Phew… made it..." She sighed in relief.
"Manami?!" Heinkel gasped in surprise.
"So, Gluttony abandoned his post and you escaped…" The boy frowned at Manami, and she finally got a good look at his face.
"Seems that way." Her face twisted into a bitter smile. "And I'm not letting myself get captured again, Selim Bradley."
Selim's frown grew deeper when she said his name.
"Where's Al?!" She demanded, and the boy smirked devilishly.
Manami raised a brow, but became distracted when she heard clanking in the distance. She whipped her head to see Al emerging from the trees and approaching her.
"!" Her eyes widened in horror. The way Al walked, the way the shadows surrounded him… were emerging from him...
"That's not Al!" Heinkel yelled, confirming her thoughts. "He's taken over his body!"
Just as he said that, a bunch of eyes opened within the shadows, including inside the eyeholes of Al's helmet.
"You bastard!" Manami looked back to Selim, but before she could wave her fans…
"GET DOWN!" Someone suddenly came from behind and tackled her to the ground.
BOOM!
Manami's eyes squinted as she saw a bright flash of light, but the person above her hovered over her and prevented her from seeing what it was or where it came from.
"Darius!" She heard the person above her call.
Wait, she knew that voice!
"I'm on it!"
"Ed—" Manami started to ask, but was cut off by another deafening BOOM!
Manami squinted her eyes shut until the light faded away, but before she could react, she was yanked up by her collar.
"Where the hell were you?!"
Manami froze at the sight of Edward.
"U-Uh…" She stammered, shrinking under his glare.
He was probably mad at her…
"U-Up until a few minutes ago, I was unconscious and tied up in some cave..!" She explained. "We were ambushed..! A-And Al—"
Manami's eyes widened when she realized. She quickly looked behind Ed to where she last remembered Al standing, but he was no longer there.
"He's okay." Ed said quietly. Manami looked back at him to see that his face had softened.
"The question is, are you?"
Manami blinked in surprise, feeling a twinge of guilt.
"I-I think so…" She averted her eyes. "I… I'm sorry, Ed… I—"
"Don't worry about that now." Ed went to stand and offer a hand to pull her up. "Can you fight?"
"... yeah." Manami nodded, taking his hand and letting him pull her up.
She looked over to see Ling and Lan Fan appear. They were both glaring at the boy, and Manami turned her head to look over at him as well. Gluttony had also appeared, whining like a child.
"Pride..!" Gluttony was also rubbing his eyes. "I can't see!"
So… this one was Pride.
Pride was glaring at Manami and the others, but then his eyes fell on Gluttony.
"Gluttony… they've roughed you up."
"Only because Greed and that girl were unfair!" Gluttony whined. "They can see me in the dark."
"... how many times have you died?" Pride asked.
"I don't know…" Gluttony held a finger on his bottom lip. "I lost count…"
"You're getting weaker…" Pride said. "And I am too. At this rate, we'll both get annihilated."
"But that's okay!" Gluttony said. "Father can fix us—"
He froze once he saw the expression on Pride's face. Pride had a certain look in his eye… and then he licked his lips.
"No, Pride!" Gluttony cried, backing away as the shadows slithered towards him.
"?!" The humans were confused as to what was happening until it was too late. In an instant, the shadows had lifted Gluttony in the air, and suddenly a mouth emerged from the darkness and bit Gluttony in two.
"!" Manami gasped.
Pride… was eating Gluttony!
"No… don't eat me…"
As Gluttony's body fell towards the ground, it had already started disintegrating into dust.
"It hurts… stop… help me… Lust…"
And his dust blew away in the wind.
"N-No way…" Ed whispered.
"He ate… his own partner..!" Ling gritted his teeth.
"Delicious." Pride sneered at them. "And quite convenient. Now I can trace all of your scents."
He sniffed the air for a moment.
"Oh… what's this?" He sniffed again. "Do I smell… Hohenheim?"
"?!" Manami's eyes widened and she looked to Ed, whose eyes narrowed.
"Tell me, Edward… do you think your father step up save you if I chopped up one of your limbs?!"
"That won't happen!" Manami yelled back, readying her fans in her hands.
"We'll see." Pride sneered, and in an instant shadows shot everywhere. Everyone jumped back, finding themselves separated from each other as they fought off their own shadow.
Manami barely thought as she fended off the shadows with gusts of wind alchemy, that just kept coming back faster than before. She just barely ducked out of the way as a shadow went to strike, instead cutting a tree clean in half behind her.
She quickly jumped out of the way and ran to where she saw shadows rushing to strike Heinkel, who was limping away with the assistance of Old Man Fu.
"!" She got in the way of the shadows and waved gusts to blow them away.
"Thanks, Manami!"
"Get out of here!" She yelled without looking back at them, deflecting more shadows so that they could safely get away.
This was bad… these shadows were striking too fast. She was getting tired… and she had a feeling she wouldn't be able to keep up for much longer. She looked around to see that the majority of the trees in the area had been cleared out, and most of the ground was black with Pride's shadows.
The shadows went to strike again, and she deflected them to the best of her ability... but it wasn't until a single moment where she faltered and took a step back, that the shadows beat her by a split second, snapping one of her fans in half before wrapping around her legs.
"?!" Manami was lifted a few feet into the air and thrown down hard onto the ground.
"GAH!" The wind had been knocked out of her and she writhed on the ground while gasping for air.
In that moment, Ed and Greed had been knocked down to the ground as well.
Manami squinted her eyes shut and dug her nails into the ground as she still struggled for air.
"Manami!" Ed called for her.
"I wonder how much longer you pathetic humans can survive…" Pride sneered at the sight of her.
"Shut up… you monster..." Greed growled.
"What a horrific thing to say to your own brother, Greed…" Pride smiled innocently. "I might just have to eat you."
"I promise to give you a nasty stomach ache, brother." Greed smirked back at him.
Manami groaned as she finally caught her breath and pushed herself to her hands and knees, but she then noticed that Pride was distracted.
"Oh… so I see you've decided to show yourself… Hohenheim."
"!" Manami's eyes widened and she turned her head to where Pride was looking to see a man stepping out, his hands in his pockets.
He looked just like Father, except that his hair was in a ponytail like Ed would wear... and he wore glasses.
"The hero always waits until the last minute to show." He spoke.
"Hero?" Pride couldn't hold back a chuckle. "So, you think you can defeat me?"
"Of course not. I'm not foolish enough to try to fight you." Hohenheim stopped a few few feet away from him.
Pride didn't respond. Instead, he silently stared at him, wondering to himself what his plan was… in that moment, he retracted his shadows back to himself, assumedly to protect himself from whatever Hohenheim had coming.
"..." Hohenheim went to walk towards him again, and Pride's eyes narrowed as he raised his shadows, but…
Manami's eyes widened when she heard the sounds of familiar clanking, and turned her head to see Al charging at Pride from behind.
But, before he could reach Pride, the shadows wrapped around Al's body and anchored him down before he could touch him.
"Are you joking? This was your plan?" Pride asked, looking unamused. "You should have run while you had the chance."
The shadows constricted around Al and brought him down to his knees.
"Al!" Manami cried, pushing herself to her feet as the shadows removed Al's helmet.
Pride was going to take over his body again..!
"Al, no!" Ed went to run for him, but Hohenheim held out his arm to stop him.
He didn't say a word… and it clicked in Manami's head. Was this… his plan?
"It seems that your son enjoys being held hostage. Either that, or he's supremely stupid." Pride sneered.
Manami felt anger rising inside her, but before she could say anything…
"Now you've crossed the line, Pride." Hohenheim said in a low voice.
"Don't you ever mock my son."
Suddenly, red lights began flashing, starting at his feet and spreading across the whole area. Manami looked down as she felt the ground underneath her feet start to rumble.
"?!" She gasped when she ground started to rise, in giant chunks, and form over Pride and Al.
It was… making a dome!
Manami looked over and saw Al grab and hold Pride down, and he he met her glance for only a second before the dome started to close him and Pride in.
"HOHENHEIM!" She could hear Pride scream, and a shadow burst out of the crack, aimed straight for Hohenheim's throat… but stopped only inches away.
The dome was complete. The crack had been closed. Pride's shadows were severed and disintegrated into dust.
"..." Everyone stared at the dome in disbelief. It was huge… and Hohenehim didn't so much as lift a finger to create it.
And… Al was inside it… with Pride.
"What the hell are you thinking?!" Ed was the first to get angry at that realization. "Al's trapped in there with that monster—"
"It wasn't my idea." Hohenheim cut him off, and both Ed and Manami's eyes widened.
"Alphonse knew the fight would spread to the slums at any minute, and that it was impossible to defeat Pride. So he came up with a plan to imprison him, and now we have time to come up with another strategy."
"But, you could have at least told me—"
"Al didn't want me to tell you." Hohenheim cut Ed off again.
"He didn't want you or her to know…" His eyes fell on Manami. "Because he knew that you two would've been against it."
"..." Manami turned her head to avoid his gaze and looked over to the dome with trembling eyes.
"Al came up with this plan because it would make sure that everyone stays alive." Hohenheim said, looking back down at his son.
"..." Manami looked to Ed as well, seeing him glaring at his feet.
After a moment, Hohenheim turned to Manami, who looked back at him.
"Miss, you can manipulate the air with alchemy, yes?" He asked.
"U-Uh… yeah…" Manami slowly nodded.
"Then I need your help. We need to get these fires out."
"..." Manami nodded again. "Okay…"
She glanced back to Ed, then at the dome, one last time… before she walked away with Hohenheim.