Creation began on 10-01-18
Creation ended on 10-19-18
Neon Genesis Evangelion
The Living Alchemist: Small Bonds of Time and Space
Basque Grand couldn't connect the three new State Alchemists to the assault on the third lab, the restoration of the Tucker girl, and even if he could, there was no evidence or witnesses that could tie any of them to the reason the girl was fine and with them again. No, even if he wanted to out of spite, he couldn't blame them for his inability to control the situations he found himself involved in. And even if he could convince the Fuhrer of letting his scientists and Tucker take custody of the his daughter for further research, there was always the chance that someone with an opinion or agenda would argue how the girl had a right to grow up without being condemned to a life as a laboratory specimen…and they'd win the outcome.
If there's no evidence that can state the girl was even in my custody or that she was turned into a chimera, I can't prove that she was ever a chimera to begin with because I made sure there was no record of her ever being in that lab, Grand thought, and nobody that was there is willing to talk due to their meaningless pride. Even Tucker refuses to identify the man that took his daughter, even though he saw his face!
"He was life incarnate," Tucker state only when Grand demanded the identity of the culprit. "He was life incarnate."
-x-
For some reason, they didn't get any trouble from Shou Tucker when they told him that Nina would be taken to Resembool so he couldn't repeat his crime again, but Shinji didn't trust Basque Grand or the State Military to get any funny ideas over the girl's situation. Fortunately, Ed and Al were grateful that Pinako and Winry would look after her while they were refining their alchemy skills and working towards building better lives.
"Will we see each other again?" Nina asked the three as she and Alexander were boarding a train to Resembool.
"You know we will," Ed told her.
"Thank you very much again," she praised them.
Shinji, despite his judgement on the situation that was just relocating the girl, sighed and uttered, "Edward and Alphonse, you two get on the train with her."
"Huh?" The brothers responded, confused.
"It's only a precaution," he explained, "but I don't trust she and Alexander will get there without you two chaperoning them."
"What?" Ed gasped.
"What about you?" Al asked.
"I'll be on the next one behind you," he told them. "This is the express; it only goes to Resembool and back here. They travel every one hour and forty minutes. Until then, don't let her out of your sight."
It wasn't planned, but the Elrics accepted what Shinji suggested and got on the train with Nina.
When the train sped off, the Living Alchemist left to go get his train ticket and the Elrics' tickets so they wouldn't get into trouble.
Although they claimed to have revoked Tucker's license as the Sewing-Life Alchemist, he thought as he purchased the three tickets, I don't trust anyone that works with or for Basque Grand.
You'd be wise to not trust them, he heard that voice again, but it felt like it was beside him. Anyone that threatens the delicacy and purity of life for the sake of their own interests or for the pursuit of power are not to be trusted unless they earn your trust and respect.
As much as he felt he should've questioned this voice (or his very sanity), he chose to overlook the voice since he couldn't risk losing his own license as a State Alchemist due to some, possible, mental instability that he couldn't explain just yet. And so far, he hadn't made any mistakes or suffered severe repercussions from hearing the voice. He wasn't sure why, but the fact that the voice sounded so much like his own made him wonder…if his own soul had somehow been split when he arrived in this world.
-x-
"…It's a big door," said Asuka as she, Misato and Kaji looked at the newspaper and saw the revealed find in China.
"It looks like something that was pulled straight out of Hell itself," Kaji confessed, somewhat intimidated by its very appearance.
In the picture, the find was some sort of large gate with stone or obsidian statues on its sides, all contorted and twisted, and on the doors was what the finders stated to be an eye of sorts (A/N: This is the Gate from the first anime). In many ways, it did look as though it had been dredged up from Hell itself.
"What do you suppose they'll do with it?" Misato asked.
"Probably put it in a museum somewhere," suggested Kaji, "call it another antique object."
But as Asuka looked at the papers, she saw that what the unshaven man had suggested was far from the truth.
"The Chinese government wants Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki to help in opening the doors," she revealed as she read the article further. "They believe it may relate to his theories of metaphysical biology or whatever."
"But he left NERV, so why do they want his help when they could get it from someone else?" Misato suggested; she only said it because the elder was the first to grow a conscience and leave NERV after Shinji was killed.
"I'm starting to think this gate thing is a hoax," Asuka told them as she saw different pictures relating to the gate. "The people that found it claim that they could hear voices coming from inside it."
-x-
"Welcome back, you two!" Winry cheered as Ed and Al arrived with Nina and Alexander. "Wow, look at you two! Did you actually do it?"
"Yeah, we did," said Ed to her as they entered the Rockbell residence. "It feels like we haven't been back here in a long time."
"You three have been in Central City for a few months to become State Alchemists," Pinako reminded him as Alexander and Den met for the first time. "So, what are you three called in the military or haven't they given you codenames yet?"
"Building," went Al to her. "They gave me the codename 'Building Alchemist'. Not something I would've chosen for myself, but it fits with my aim to use alchemy to build things."
"Nice," Winry praised. "What about you and Shinji, Ed?"
"Fullmetal," he answered for himself. "I think Shinji got the weirdest name outta the three of us. They call him the Living Alchemist."
"The Living Alchemist? I don't know, it sounds right for him. How's he been doing?"
"His first move as a State Alchemist was to solve a murder investigation…and he caught the guy that was responsible for over thirty murders of the women in the city."
"What?! He went after a serial killer?! Did he get hurt?" Pinako asked the brothers.
"We think the only thing that hurt with him was just finding the last victim and then fighting the guy that was about to hurt the woman that was on his security detail. She mentioned that they didn't see Shinji fight the killer, they just saw the aftermath." Ed explained to them. "I think he could've done more than catch the guy. But he didn't."
"You mean, kill the guy?" Winry asked him. "As a State Alchemist, he could've done so."
"Except he didn't," Al reminded them. "He wants to use alchemy for medical purposes…even though it doesn't seem to change the fact that he seems able to use it for combative purposes. As someone that wants to be a doctor, he would follow the oath they took to do no harm onto others. Even alchemists that want to be healers would follow that oath, as well."
Over an hour had passed after helping Nina get settled in. The girl had wandered around the small town with her dog later that afternoon, and stopped to look upon the Elric house that seemed…quite lonely in her eyes.
"Whose house is that?" Nina asked Al, who was with her and Alexander, pointing to the house.
"That's our house," he explained. "We haven't been back there since… Well, since we met Shinji months ago."
"It looks lonely," she expressed, "almost sad in a way."
Alphonse wouldn't deny the girl's assumption that the house seemed saddening. It was probably only because of Shinji's reversal of their failed Human Transmutation that he and Edward didn't go and burn the place down. Maybe even have Shinji say that just because they made one mistake didn't mean they had to erase where it happened.
"You should clean it," he heard Nina suggest.
-x-
It was only a minor habit, but Ed couldn't stop examining where his right arm connected to his body. No scar was present, not even the fox bite mark from the time he and Al were on Yock Island when they were trying to figure out what the phrase, "All is One and One is All" for a whole month. Most likely, he was just on the lookout for any signs that his replacement arm was made with alchemy, since most objects made with alchemy were often imperfect, but said limb was flawless, like it had been sculpted to perfection and seamlessly melded to his body.
"You know, I saw him transmute that arm right onto you when he came back from your house with Al's body," he heard Winry say behind him as he stood in front of the mirror. "He even checked himself to make sure it was exactly like your original one."
"Lately, I've come to notice how Shinji's transmutations all seem flawlessly achieved," he explained as he turned to face, putting back on his shirt. "It's like he sculpted his transmutations instead of fabricated them on the go. He's…artistic."
"Yeah, I noticed when I saw that small blade of his. What do you think of him now that you're all State Alchemists?"
"What I think about Shinji? Honestly, as much as I trust him, sometimes, it feels like he's not entirely himself. Sometimes, whenever he talks, it's like he's not entirely there or he has something on his mind that weighs heavily on him."
"Maybe he's just concerned about things we don't fully understand yet," she suggested. "He is fourteen, after all. Or maybe fifteen now, if he's aged considerably."
"No, he's still fourteen. And then, there's what happened with Nina…and the aftermath."
"What do you mean?"
"Her father…a few days ago, did something unforgivable to her and Alexander. He transmuted them into a chimera…and it was discovered that he had done the same thing to her mother, his wife, over a year ago when he applied for his license. Shinji didn't lose his temper like I did with him, even when she was being taken away by this Basque Grand guy. I confronted him about this, and he said to believe in angels, in justice and retribution. I don't know why, but…it was like he knew that things would work out in the end, because Nina was in our hotel the very next morning, human again."
"You think that maybe he had something to do with it?"
"I want to believe that…but then I'd have to wonder how he could be responsible for something like that. If he had a Philosopher's Stone, maybe, but he doesn't seem interested in anything like that old fairy tale."
"Still, if he was responsible for her being returned to normal, it'd be a miracle."
"Yeah, it would be."
-x-
"…What's the matter, Pen-Pen?" Misato asked the penguin.
"Yarp…" He went, looking at the door that had Shinji's sign on it. "Yarp…"
"Yeah…I miss him, too."
Ring-ring-ring! Her apartment phone rang, and she answered it.
"Katsuragi residence," she greeted.
"Hello, Ms. Katsuragi," she heard the voice of Kozo Fuyutsuki on the other end. "It's Fuyutsuki. I hope I'm not disturbing you."
"No, of course not, sir. Have you… Did you hear about what happened to Commander Ikari?"
"I have, but that's not the reason I called. It's actually about the discovery made in China."
"That door?"
"They're calling it a gate, actually. The Chinese believe that it connects to another world."
"A gate?"
"The Chinese government asked me to oversee the project in opening the gate. When I asked why they wanted someone like me to do this, it turns out it has nothing to do with NERV…but more with the belief that there is a metaphysical side to it…and a need for morality."
"Have you decided?"
"I told them I'd think about it…but it was the reason I called you. I'd like for you to be the head of security if I do accept."
"Why me? Surely, there's someone more capable, more qualified…"
"True, but the people here, they just do as instructed…and I'd prefer for someone that won't."
"You mean people with morality."
"Yes."
-x-
The train ride to Resembool was a bit slower this time for Shinji as he sat in his seat, looking out the window at the countryside.
"Ah," he sighed, tilting his head back. Was it all a daydream? Did I really see all of that?
Prior to getting on the train, he had what felt like a daydream, but it also felt like…a premonition or a memory of something he never saw or did. It felt exactly what he had experienced at the Tucker estate before discovering that Tucker had actually done what he saw him do. Only this time, he was seeing a place in the desert bathed in red light, people in military uniform disappearing from sight, an older version of Edward facing a man with an X-shaped scar on his face with a destructive, right arm, a young woman that seemed tortured by the military…and even Lyra, only she was darker than what he would've expected from the Iron Blood Alchemist, accompanied by the androgynous man with dreadlocks. And then…there was a giant Transmutation Circle that seemed to be more runes than a circle, some sort of…Transmutation Array, maybe more advanced than a basic circle.
"Inverse a circle and you reverse an effect that is intentional," he told himself. "Reverse transmutations and you get not what you want, but what you had before."
Taking out his kunai again, the boy looked at it and decided that he'd need to transmute more of them after he had marked this one to separate his first from his extras.
-x-
Even at night, the house looked unbearably depressing, almost as depressing as the day their mother died. Not even Edward could deny this; he and Alphonse hadn't even been back inside yet, and both brothers were finding it difficult to do so.
"Nina actually suggested that it'd be cleaned up?" He asked Al.
"Yeah, she did," he answered back.
"I don't know what's crazier: The fact that she suggested that…or the fact that we're out here."
"Why not just go inside, then, Fullmetal and Building?" They both turned around and saw Shinji standing in front of them. "What? I just wanted to make sure you two were doing fine."
"When did you get in?" Al asked him.
"Eight minutes ago," he answered.
"You must've been an assassin in a former life," Ed suggested, "or at least a cat."
"Or I'm just a quiet person by nature. Still, better to have met me out here than some stranger. Even though Resembool is a small town, I want to believe that there's no such thing as a place devoid of crime rates."
"Eventually, you'll have to tell us everything about yourself, Shinji, beside you being from someplace over a century ahead of us and where alchemy doesn't exist."
"If I told you everything about my past, you'd have to swear not to do anything I wouldn't do."
-x-
"…This is where they came to?" Lust asked Gluttony as they stood on a gravel path in a small town. "Resembool?"
"Yes, Lust," he answered her, sniffing the air. "That boy is here. Can I eat him?"
"No, not now… Maybe never, Gluttony, for we might have need him. But for now, wait here. I'll see him myself."
The female homunculus walked down the path towards a small hill where a lone house resided.
If he's not interested in creating a Philosopher's Stone, he's of no use to us, she thought, but if he can do for me what I desire, then maybe he has some value beyond it.
-x-
"I swear, if he makes another dish from his country, I'll have to beat some sense into that head of his," Ed told Al as they were in their bedroom.
"What do you mean? I liked the miso soup," Al told him; while grateful that Shinji brought food with him when he showed up, the Building Alchemist had no expectation of him cooking anything other than what he knew how to cook. "Plus, it's not all that bad to eat dishes from other places. Also, we barely know how to cook ourselves."
Ed couldn't deny that. He just wasn't a big fan of eating the same, strange thing after a while.
"Huh?" He heard Al utter, looking out the window. "Who is that?"
He looked out, as well, and saw a woman in black standing outside their house.
Suddenly, they saw Shinji walking up to her, indicating that he had stepped out of the house to either help her or confront her. It looked as though he had his kunai with him as a form of protection in case the woman was to try something.
-x-
Lust stood outside the Elric house when Shinji, who seemed different, came out with his kunai at his side.
"Do you even know who I am, Living Alchemist?" She asked him.
"You're Lust," he addressed. "I know what you are, but not who you are. The question is: What are you doing here and what do you want? All I can speculate so far about you is that there are at least four of you that exist. Homunculi…alchemically-created human beings, the result of failed Human Transmutations taken to the extreme because you have survived and adapted to your present state."
"You know what I am…and yet there's nothing you can really do about it without throwing your dreams away."
"Are Gluttony and Envy with you, or are you alone here? Even if you say I can't do anything, the fact that you're just a synthetic person means the playing field is quite even. You can't use alchemy, but you can most likely perform some feat that is similar to what alchemy can do. If Gluttony asked if he could eat me, then it's likely his ability revolves around his stomach. What is your specialty?"
"Now, what makes you think I'd tell you anything?"
"You wouldn't be here unless it was for a reason. What is your reason?"
"What do you know about the Philosopher's Stone?"
There was a silence that weighed between the two that bothered Lust because the boy took his time responding to her question.
"I know enough about that to know that it's something that comes at a terrible price that only the truly desperate would go to extremes to pay for," he finally answered her. "An old fable that attracts those both skilled and driven to seek it out or even create it for themselves, believed to allow one to bypass Equivalent Exchange, but it's nothing more than a lie."
"And the idea of possessing it doesn't appeal to you?"
"No…because while the stone would be within one's physical grasp if they so desired it, the repercussions and pain it causes to others would be more real than we are."
Lust felt disappointment in hearing him say what he said. An alchemist with absolutely no desire to obtain the Philosopher's Stone…served zero purpose to the master's plan. But still, there was something about him that…seemed alluring.
"Why, do you want the stone, knowing the price it has to obtain it?" Shinji asked her. "Homunculi can't use alchemy, and unless they have souls of their own, they can't use the stone, either. What good does it do you? How would it benefit you? Also, even if I were to create a stone, I doubt I could survive such an attempt because it requires a strong will, and even that doesn't mean a thing. So…why would you want it? To gain unfathomable riches, power and fame, or, just like the mad and foolish ones, do you have an agenda that involves a personal empire that lasts for all eternity? You can either tell me, or I can just assume that it's one of those reasons…or all of those reasons."
"I just want to become a human, boy," Lust revealed to him, "nothing more, nothing less."
"Just you…or the ones you're affiliated with?"
"Me."
-x-
"What are they talking about?" Al asked Ed, unable to hear what Shinji and the woman were saying.
"I'm not sure what they're saying," Ed responded, "but it looks like the woman wants something from him."
-x-
Even though it wasn't NERV, anymore, the Geo-Front still seemed like the most obvious place to relocate the gate for experimentation. The Chinese and Japanese governments had to agree on that, and because Tokyo-3 had become partially abandoned and the Angels were declared defeated, there was no fear of espionage.
"Hard to believe that this place used to be where strategies for stopping the Angels were planned," went Hyuga, one the few people from NERV's past that accepted the offer to work on the gate-opening project.
"Now, it's just serving as a location to work on this thing," added Shigeru as the gate from China was being setup within the former Eva pens that had been emptied. "Have you heard from Ibuki after the disbandment?"
"No. I tried calling three times, but I keep getting her voicemail. I guess when NERV was disbanded after the last Angel…she severed her ties after what happened, just like many others."
"I don't blame her. After the end of the war, I was set to move to Sendai to join a museum. It's only because I was still packing up my apartment that I got a request to come back here for this new project. What about you?"
"I was set for Obama to join a music band when I got this request."
As the gate was finally set to be studied, Misato, who had accepted the job offer as head of security, noticed something about the gate that she hadn't noticed before.
"Hey, that part of the gate on the top," she spoke to a Chinese woman that was part of the research team, "was that always there?"
Atop the gate was a stone infant being held up high by a pair of stone arms; it was as though someone were trying to offer it over to someone else that would take it to keep it safe from harm.
"No," she answered. "Truth is, ever since we found this thing, the stone figures all over it move every now and then, changing their positions ever so slightly. Nobody's sure why, just that this thing could've been what inspired that Nineteenth Century French sculptor that made the Gates of Hell, but this thing's a lot older than it appears."
"How old, exactly?"
"Best estimate so far is…somewhere between ten and thirty."
"I'm sorry, but ten and thirty, what?"
"Before the Common Era."
"You're kidding, right?"
"Nope, this thing has been around since somewhere between ten-thirty-thousand years."
"But that's not possible; there weren't people back there that were smart enough to understand this. Not even to the simplest degree."
-x-
"Did you kill him?" Gluttony asked Lust as she returned to get him.
"No," she answered, "but he knows now that he's to behave himself."
In truth, though, this was actually a lie. At the end of their conversation, the homunculus and the alchemist…came to an understanding agreement: In exchange for information on whoever she was serving alongside the other homunculi she was affiliated with and keeping out of trouble, Shinji would find a way for Lust to become a human without the need to sacrifice human lives. So long as both agreed to the terms of their deal, both could benefit in the future.
Lust, however, found it unlikely that the Living Alchemist could find a way to turn a homunculus into a human without a Philosopher's Stone. But even if she was wrapped in disbelief, she had to hold up her end until he found a way.
"Where there's a will, there's a way," he had told her. "Even if we follow the founding law of alchemy, which is Equivalent Exchange, there is no such thing when one wants to trade a multitude of lives for just one. Maybe one life to save countless more if the situation warrants it, but there is no true equivalent trade for any life. Not mine, yours or anyone else's. If there's something that can substitute a Philosopher's Stone and can be obtained without the cost of human lives, I will use that."
With that, she told Shinji to try heading towards the town of Xenotime located in the Amestrian desert after researching the Red Stone and Red Water.
-x-
"…Say, Shinji, who was that woman you were talking to last night?" Ed asked as Shinji as they and Al were sitting at the table about to eat breakfast.
"With any luck," he responded, deciding not to lie about some of his conversation with Lust last night to the brothers, "just someone that I'll be able to help out later on."
"She got a name?" Al asked.
"Yeah, unfortunately, it's not really a name that should be used in any conversation, so I asked if I could use my language's translation for her name instead."
"What's her name in your language?"
"Yokubo."
"That sounds nice."
"Nice to speak, just not nice to hear in any language you understand if it upsets the wrong ears."
"You make it sound like she's not a nice woman," Ed expressed.
"You never know who's who or why until after they do something that shows their true colors. She did, however, mention something that could help in alchemic research that's over in a desert town called Xenotime."
"Xenotime?" Al questioned. "What could possibly be there that could help with alchemy?"
"People," Shinji answered, but was cryptic, "minerals…hidden treasures that only alchemists can find over regular people."
-x-
Rei opened her eye to look at the ceiling above her, escaping a dream she had about Shinji. It wasn't all that bad, but it wasn't entirely good, either. In it, she saw Shinji, dressed as he usually had been in his school uniform with a dark coat that reached down to his knees, his face half-smeared in blood on his left side, his right arm looking broken or dislocated, and he was facing an elderly woman that looked rather unpleasant.
"I had such high hopes of you to help me get what I wanted," she had told him, sounding angry and disappointed with Shinji.
"Yeah, I've disappointed a lot of people," Shinji responded, sounding angry with her, "and a handful of them have disappointed me."
Then, just before she awoke, the elderly woman clapped her hands and unleashed a blast of light.
"Ikari-Kun," she sighed.
To be continued…
A/N: Well, to those of you that think Lust needs to be in the gray area of those that can be saved, here's something to glimpse at. And who thinks Rei's recent dream was a glimpse of Shinji facing Dante in a future encounter?