Creation began on 01-15-20
Creation ended on 01-25-20
Neon Genesis Evangelion
The Living Alchemist: Humanity
"…What makes you think he was killed by this assailant the military has been unable to catch?" Roy Mustang asked Maes Hughes when the latter informed him of another murder of a member of the State Military, a month later when the Living, Fullmetal and Building Alchemists had gave their reports on the situation they had resolved in Xenotime and the Living Alchemist had made a stride with the Red Water.
"We know it's him because the kill method's the same, and it's not something you can copycat. Somehow, this guy's able to explode their brains," Hughes explained.
"And you're saying that he's done this to at least forty of them? Forty State Alchemists were killed by this guy?"
"Twelve State Alchemists, actually. When you throw in regular soldiers that knew where to find them or tried to reach out to them in the hopes that they could stop him, it's forty. Yesterday, the military found seven more soldiers dead this way. When you throw in bystanders or people just in the wrong place at the wrong time, it's dozens. Whoever this guy is, he seems to be after State Alchemists rather than the soldiers, so this means he'll likely come for you."
"Let him try."
"Whatever happened to your suspicions on the Living Alchemist hiding something? If this guy's after you, he'll likely be after him, too."
"He sent Fullmetal and Building back to Resembool to check up on Tucker's daughter while he went to Lior on his own to investigate the report of strange miracles that might just be alchemy."
"You still don't think that he's just trying to pursue the use of alchemy for medical purposes? People have been talking about his exploits with those Red Stones he made from the Red Water in Xenotime. They're calling him a miracle healer among you State Alchemists."
"It's mostly because there hasn't been a new war happening yet, so he's yet to get to his hands dirty in bloodshed and violence."
-x-
SHINE! The light that emanated from the two Red Stones Shinji was using to heal this injured man in Lior in front of the people present had them in awe, fading away as their power was used up entirely to heal his injuries and restore his health.
When it faded, the man on the ground opened his eyes and thought he had entered Heaven.
"Is this Heaven?" He asked Shinji.
"Not today," he answered him. "You live to see another day, sir."
"Cain!" A young woman with pinkish highlights in her brownish hair's bangs cried as she ran over and embraced the man.
"Who…who are you, young man?" An elderly woman asked Shinji as he and the young woman helped the man up.
"I'm…just an alchemist in the military that hates conflict," he explained simply.
"You saved Cain from the mine collapse, though," an elderly man uttered. "Those stones you used… It was a miracle."
"No, alchemy isn't a miracle. Just seeing the next sunrise…or saving someone…anything trivial or overlooked by others… Those are miracles."
The collapse at the mine that Shinji was informed about that occurred a week ago had injured less than fifteen men, including Cain, the boyfriend of Rose Thomas. If it hadn't been for the fact that he was here to investigate anything suspicious or an abuse of authority, as well as the fact that he had the Red Stones with him when he did, at least four of these men would've likely died from organ damage.
"I don't understand," one of the doctors at the hospital in Lior said to Shinji as he prepared to leave after Father Cornello had disappeared, presumably into the desert. "You work for the State Military…but you don't take any compensation for your services to the people here. Why?"
"What I receive from the military in exchange for my services is enough for me," Shinji told him. "Alchemists Be Thou For The People. My preference in alchemy is using it to heal instead of harm. The day where I have to use it to do something awful to someone else…is a day I hope never comes. Have a good day."
As he set out to leave, the woman that had approached him, Rose Thomas, had given Shinji a small box as a way of thanks. He was fine with this gesture as long as it wasn't money; he was becoming uncomfortable with being paid any amount of currency by anyone he met just for using his alchemy, whether it was for healing or for repairing. Opening the box once he was in the desert, he found that it was a small pie.
"You've been busy, Living Alchemist," he heard that familiar lady's voice nearby in the sandy terrain. "I trust you've not forgotten about our agreement."
"Yokubo, I've been expecting you to show up ever since I left Xenotime," he expressed as he turned to his left, seeing the homunculus Lust, accompanied by the fat one, Gluttony. "Is he here to eliminate me?"
"Lust says I can't eat you," Gluttony told him.
"I appreciate that, as I have a pact with her. The Red Water has been a boon in what I've been doing with alchemy. I have saved a Red Stone in order to fulfill the end of the bargain, Yokubo."
"I am grateful," Lust told him; once she heard what he had achieved through using the Red Water and achieving adequate results with regular people that were either sick or injured, she had dared to hope that he could use these wannabe Philosopher Stones to make her human.
Shinji removed the Red Stone from his pouch and clapped his hands.
"Are you ready?" He asked her, his hands now flowing with alchemic energy for the transmutation that would affect the homunculus' body compositions.
"No," she suddenly responded, which surprised Shinji. "Use it on Gluttony first."
"Transmute Gluttony into a human? I… Does he want to be human like you do?"
"Can I eat humans?" Gluttony asked.
"It's not nice to eat other people, Mr. Gluttony."
"Oh."
"It's complicated with Gluttony. The one responsible for his…well, what he's capable of, made him to be capable of creating a Philosopher's Stone by doing the one thing he asks to do every once in a while when in the presence of others."
Shinji, despite his abhorrent reaction to hearing this, knew Gluttony was hardly at fault for doing what he did. In fact, the only one responsible for what he did to people…was the person that exploited him, presumably the same person that made him. Thus, transmuting him and restoring him into a human, whoever he was before he became a homunculus, would absolve him of his previous actions. And based on how Gluttony appeared to be of a simple-minded mentality, Shinji got the impression that he was overly dependent on the guidance of whoever was tasked with ordering him around, like a babysitter or someone more intellectually capable than this disproportionately-incapable artificial human wasn't.
And…on a personal level, Shinji suspected that Lust needed proof that he could achieve the impossible and complete an incomplete homunculus, something he has never attempted before.
"You need a guarantee that I can pull this off," he expressed, realizing the subtlety of her having Gluttony here as a guinea pig.
"He should be human, as well," she stated. "All he does, all that he's expected to do, is eat anyone he can consume and turn their lives into ingredients to add to the incomplete Philosopher's Stone inside him. Turning him into a human will remove the lives he has consumed in the past."
But will transmuting him back into a human restore the lives he devoured? Shinji wondered.
-x-
"…Damn," Mustang sighed as the military discovered the remains of yet another State Alchemist in the river in Central. "This makes fifteen now."
The remains belonged to Giolio Comanche, the infamous Silver Alchemist from the Ishbal Civil War. Even without much of a head or face, anyone in the military knew it was him due to his peg leg and the alchemic signs of his weapons scattered across the murder scene.
"This means the killer is here right now," Hughes expressed. "We may need to increase security and assign a protective detail on every State Alchemist."
"Make sure that there's a detail for Fullmetal and Building when they return from Resembool," Mustang ordered.
"You really think this guy would actually…go after them?"
"If it's only State Alchemists, they're on the killer's list."
"Well, fortunately, they won't be back until Living returns."
-x-
It was almost like trying to open a large door with a big lock on it, transmuting a homunculus, an artificial human, with one of his Red Stones. While it wasn't a true Philosopher's Stone, Shinji preferred it over the actual object because it didn't have to be created through the sacrifice of human lives, and if using an entire Red Stone was the prerequisite for transmuting an incomplete human, it was his price to pay…until he thought of something else. Nobody really knew much about the potential energy exploited in any activity during an entire day…or how much of it was wasted when only doing something that limited the body's potential to do more. But Shinji, only because of his sojourn through the metaphysical and metaphorical doors that were what some people referred to as the Gate, and the forced comprehension that expanded his consciousness with knowledge he wouldn't have had at his disposal, understood how energy had to be constant, transformed or transferred instead of being created or destroyed.
How much energy did a human spend running a marathon? How much was spent talking about things? Or how much could be exploited within a day if a person tried to do more than what they limited themselves to do? This is what Shinji was thinking as he continued to transmute Gluttony in front of Lust. If only so much energy could be exploited within a day, then maybe that same energy could serve to do more than what was possible.
Human beings have so much potential within themselves to do many things, he thought, feeling a surge of power flow through him, but we limit ourselves because we don't feel like we have to do much of anything. All I did was…very little when I was back in Tokyo-3…and even before then…I did nothing for fun. I did nothing that was what I wanted to do.
He found himself in the same expanse of white where the Gate usually resided, but instead of a physical structure floating around nearby, Shinji stood face-to-face with none other than his father, who seemed hollow, a pale shadow of his former self…or just the way Shinji currently knew him as. Instead of being dressed in black, his father was dressed in gray, and instead or wearing his orange-tinted glasses, he wore broken ones…and his eyes were devoid of any hint of life, as if he lost much of the energy needed to live.
"Just so that you know," he told his father, "I am better off away from you now. I'm better off away from having anything to do with the Eva, the Angels, the fate of the human race…and you. I've had time to adjust to my new surroundings."
"You weren't supposed to die in that mission, boy," Gendo told him, sounding the same as before, if not slightly weighed down by some measure of disgrace. "I had need of you against the Angels…and you went and died."
"If it was between saving even one life at the cost of my own, I would've traded my life to save anyone else's that didn't deserve to lose their life. You say I wasn't supposed to die? How can you know this? I died…or I thought I died…and yet I feel very much alive…if not more so. I mean, what, was…was there a plot behind the way the Angel was supposed to be defeated? Was there a detailed scenario that explains how things were supposed to work out? You…you can't tell me I wasn't supposed to die…and I still ended up in a situation where I'm not doing as you say or concerned with the fate of an entire race. Am I supposed to feel sad that I'm not there, anymore? Am I supposed to feel sorry that I can't pilot the Eva again?"
"You should feel concerned!" Gendo yelled at him. "I was killed because of your death! My superiors found my decision to bomb the Angel to salvage the Eva to be a critical mistake because you didn't survive! And yet here you are, alive and well, while I'm someplace where I can't move on!"
So it was confirmed that his father died sometime after he himself was confirmed to be deceased? That was unexpected and hard to comprehend. That…and the fact that Shinji had little understanding as to how someone like his father, who seemed more interested in his work than his lack of relationships, ended up dead simply because of what happened to him. It probably wasn't as simple as he would want it to be.
"Was I even buried?" Shinji asked him. "Was there a funeral or memorial? Did anyone pay their respects to my passing?"
"How the Hell should I know?" Gendo responded, angry over this conversation. "I didn't bother to go see where your grave marker was placed! I didn't bother with anything about you! You weren't around to continue piloting the Eva, so you were of no concern to what I wanted to achieve back then!"
Shinji frowned as he then said, "Don't you dare blame me for your own death, Father. I didn't ask to be killed, and I certainly wouldn't ask for you to be killed, even if I did hate you for leaving me. If someone wanted you dead, you only have yourself to blame for whatever reason was behind it."
"Because you died! That was the reason!"
"So, what, my existence was what kept you alive? I was no lifeline for anyone back then, not even for you. Don't forget, you were the one that called for me to come to Tokyo-3 that day. It was you that wanted me to pilot the Eva, and it was you that told me it was only because you had a use for me. A use, a need, like what I wanted or needed didn't matter so long as you got what you wanted from me. That's on you, in life and death. Anything you decided upon was your doing, and whatever factors involved were either what you decided upon or unexpected by you."
"You put the human race in a dead-end by dying!"
"You can't pin what happens to everyone on me just because I'm not where we used to be. And while I would be put at ease to see everyone again, I wouldn't pilot the Eva again, not after all I've done now. I…I can't ever do that again."
"You coward!"
"You, as well, Father. You're not blameless in this, either."
"I'm no coward!"
"Oh, really? Then I guess we have nothing left to discuss."
Shinji then turned to walk away.
"I know what you're capable of, boy!" Gendo yelled at him. "You use alchemy to achieve the impossible because technology in the world you reside in is barely within modern times! I know you can use it to create whatever you desire, so you can use it to bring me back to life!"
Shinji stopped and turned back to face his father, a look of disgust on his face at the very idea of transmuting him.
"There's no way I'll do that, even for you," he told him.
"Why not?"
"What you're asking me to do for you…or rather, what you're telling me to do for you…comes at a high cost, one I'm not willing to pay. Even if I did bring you back, there's no guarantee that I could pull it off. Nobody has ever managed to bring back anyone from the dead through alchemy. An eye for an eye, a life for a life, live by the sword, die by the sword, all of which relate in one way or another to the trading of one person for another person. Some believe that to bring back a person, another person's life must be forfeited, and I won't make that exchange because it's not a fair trade at all."
"You're trying to bring a person back to life right now!"
"Through the use of a stone forged by solidifying a special liquid substance, not from people's lives! And the person is trapped in an unfinished body to a degree. It's a violation of the human soul to try and play God on people's lives. But even if I pull it off and restore two people to life, I won't pervert the power that God possesses over all of us, his servants, his messengers…and bring a false promise of immortality that can't be granted."
"I know you can bring me back to life, boy! Do it!"
"Why do you believe I should do so?"
"Because I'm your father! You have to do as I tell you!"
"You'll do as I tell you!" Shinji found himself recalling someone yelling.
"You have the means and power to make it happen," Gendo stressed.
"Just because I can do something like transmuting a human being," Shinji sighed, "that doesn't mean I should. And even if you wanted me to restore you to life, I still won't do it, no matter what you say. Call me what you will. I will not do it."
"You useless brat! You're willing to help others, but you won't lift a finger to help your family!"
"You're one to talk. Help my family? The last time anyone ever bothered to tell me, my family consisted of just my mother, my father and myself. My mother died when I was too young to recall much, my father abandoned me soon after, and there's no mention of any other relatives. No grandparents, no aunts or uncles, not even a bloody sibling because I'm an only child. In a way, I don't have much of a family to help out…not that they're worth helping based on who was left."
"What did you say?!"
"You're not worth helping, Father. You weren't worth helping then…and even in death, you're still undeserving of any aid. We're as far removed from each other's lives as we possibly can be removed, with you being dead and my being…dead in the legal sense while alive in another sense, only in another world. You represent my past, something that I have to let go of because what I was hoping for, what I clung to out of a desperate hope that was as empty as a drinking cup…was never going to happen. So…I'm moving on with my life into a new future, free of the Eva, the Angels, NERV and you. So…bye."
"You brat!" Gendo yelled as Shinji turned away again. "You condemn us all to extinction with your selfishness! You have power, and you won't use it to help me! You run away from your responsibility to everyone, to me, your mother! You could have it all! Whatever your heart desires! Think about it, Shinji! Be smart about this for once! Shinji!"
But Shinji had thought about it all he needed to…and there was no way that he would attempt a Human Transmutation to bring back his father. And he didn't want to bring him back to life, either; what kind of ghost of a dead father just shows up in a young man's subconscious mind and tries to manipulate his own son into resurrecting him, expecting that he'll do as he's told? Shinji wouldn't cross that line for anyone, family or not. And Gendo wasn't worth any amount of resources anyone could buy at a local market with pocket change.
While his knowledge of alchemy might've initially stemmed from what the Elrics knew, expanded upon by their sojourns through the Gate, Shinji, due to his own circumstances of not belonging to this world, knew much more than the brothers did…and why he couldn't bring back people through alchemy. It took an unfathomable degree and combination of alchemy, willpower and conviction to pull off any transmutation of the highest sort. And right now, his conviction had to be of completing the unfinished homunculus in front of him with the Red Stone that amplified his alchemic reactions, even at the cost of the potential energy that came from a day's worth of activity.
What if all that energy we use within a day could substitute a human life? He thought, still enveloped in the red light of the stone. What if the energy we don't use could make up a fraction of the cost of restoring a human to life? Most people don't tend to live very long, anyway because of the many factors that make up the human condition. I don't even know how long I'll live for. Any day could be my last one, for any number of reasons. Sickness, organ failure, oxygen deprivation, malnutrition, murder, earthquake, tsunami, hurricane… If the energy behind any of these factors could be transferred to something else, maybe we could achieve greater feats. Maybe even…save ourselves from the unpredictable.
When the glow started to fade, Shinji fell to the sand, a little out of breath. The Red Stone he had used was gone, used up entirely in the transmutation.
"Living Alchemist," he heard Lust say to him, "it would seem…that you're more powerful than I thought you were."
In front of them, there was no sign of the homunculus known as Gluttony. Instead, there was a rather large man, somewhat larger than Gluttony had been, taller than Lust currently was, and was dressed in Mawashi, a type of loincloth worn by sumo wrestlers. Whoever Gluttony had been in life was a rather tank-like man than the exaggerated homunculus version that was just a short-but-large man child whose only function was to eat people. But that wasn't even the most impressive thing about what both the alchemist and female homunculus saw. No, what they saw was beyond anything any alchemist could have dreamed of achieving.
"Yokubo," Shinji uttered, "just how many people did Gluttony eat over the years?"
"He ate a lot of them," Lust explained. "He was far older than I am."
-x-
"…Opfh!" Edward groaned after Alphonse threw him to the ground for the umpteenth time in the martial arts training their teacher literally beat into them. "And how many does that make now?"
"Two-hundred-thirty-seven," Al answered him; two-hundred-thirty-seven times that Al had defeated his brother in a sparring match…while Ed only had managed to best him nine times.
"Are they always trying to outdo each other?" Nina asked Winry as they watched the two on the front porch of the latter's house.
"Every time," Winry answered her. "I don't get it, though, because it seems like a waste of time trying to harm each other just to get stronger."
"I had another weird dream last night about Shinji."
"Oh, really? What was it about this time?"
"He's in front of a lot of people…and they raise their hands to him, calling him names, like 'hero', 'champ-on', 'saver'. And his hands were glowing red, like they were shiny and made of glass. What do you think it means?"
"Well, for one, you mean 'champion' and 'savior', and two, it probably means you see Shinji as a good person to the point that he's become someone you admire."
"Shinji is a nice person, but I think he's hiding something from us half the time. I know he probably doesn't mean to, but lately…he seems distant. Not like my dad is, but…like he's up to something and he doesn't want people to know."
"Knowing Shinji a little, it's probably just what he's trying to use alchemy for," went Pinako to the ladies, inhaling on her pipe. "He believes in the ability to use alchemy to help people by giving them new arms and legs made from scratch. Of course, if he manages to succeed, he'll most likely put the business of automail out to pasture."
Nina had understood how important it was for Winry and her grandmother to be able to build and maintain these metal arms and legs for people that lost their old ones, but she didn't think that they would feel threatened by Shinji trying to use alchemy to make new ones for people that were just like their old ones. She had her doubts that he was the kind of person that would try to hurt those that needed what they did just to support their livelihood. And Shinji worked for the same people her father and the Elric brothers worked for, meaning there was even a likelihood that the people in charge would want to use his brand of alchemy to hurt others rather than help them.
"If Shinji does achieve his small goal, I at least hope that it's optional for people," Winry told Pinako. "It will allow people to choose what they want. A restored limb, a regular prosthetic…or automail. He might not try to force or persuade anyone that his option is the best one. We'll know for certain when he returns."
"Aaahh!" They heard Ed scream, seeing him holding his left knee. "Stupid rocks!"
"Ah-heh-heh!" Nina laughed.
Suddenly, Alexander ran off the porch and softly tackled Ed to the ground.
"Alexander…this has got to stop," Ed sighed.
-x-
This was something that was going to likely bite Shinji in the butt of the Amestrian State Military because he hadn't expected this to happen. With Gluttony restored to full humanity, each and every one of his past victims were restored to life, as well. All two-hundred-thousand-seventeen of them, men, women and children, from different times and places.
Not even Lust thought it was possible for Shinji to have transmuted these people back to life when he transmuted Gluttony. If anything, she had believed it was just thirty or twenty people, but nothing in the tens of thousands. Whoever Dante really was when she made Gluttony, clearly had no problem with having the homunculus consume this many people over the years.
"Do not create humans," Shinji told himself as he realized how much trouble he could get in if the military found out about this.
"Thank you, young man," the man that was once Gluttony spoke to him as he stood in front of him. "For a long time, I felt trapped in darkness, consumed by my inability to escape it. And then I found myself surrounded by countless others, trapped in the same darkness as I. You released us from it. Thank you."
He knew he was in serious trouble if the military found out, but he couldn't ignore the praise he received from the former homunculus that possessed a voracious appetite that his name had embodied ever since its inception. And now, whoever the master of the homunculi was, Shinji was certain that they couldn't profit from using one of the artificial humans to create a Philosopher's Stone.
"We know who you are, sir," went another man to Shinji, looking down at him. "We won't tell anyone what you did to save us."
Shinji looked at the others in front of him, and saw them nod their heads in agreement over the decision to be silent about his actions.
"Thank you," he praised them, and then looked at Lust. "Are you satisfied with the results?"
"I am," she answered him. "You should rest now. I can wait awhile longer."
This was a surprise for Shinji to hear from Lust; at first, he expected her to jump at the opportunity to achieve her desire through him, not hold off until another time.
"Can I ask you a personal question?"
"Go on."
"Why do you…want to be human? I can understand that as an artificial being, there are disadvantages what being human can afford you, but you also have advantages a human lacks. So long as you have access to an adequate source of energy from an imperfect Philosopher's Stone, you don't need to sleep or require any sustenance, you're stronger and faster, you possess heightened regenerative abilities, immunity to sickness and disease, and you don't seem to age, either. Furthermore, just based off a dream I had prior to becoming a State Alchemist, homunculi possess abilities that alchemy can't bestow upon people. You have the ability to transform your fingers into blades and Gluttony possessed the ability to consume anything his saliva could melt through…and this Envy can make himself look like anyone he wants, maybe even turn his arms into weapons if he chooses, assuming all homunculi have this ability to varying degrees due to their nature as artificial beings. Why do you desire a human life that is full of uncertainty and chaos…which you're free to not explain at all."
He was making a valid point of how advantaged she was as a homunculus and how disadvantaged humans were, and the fact that both races (artificial humans and natural humans) were both superior and inferior to each other. But to understand why Lust was willing to give up all of that for a normal life would aid in Shinji understanding the woman's motive better.
"Why does anyone that creates a homunculus desire to bring back someone no longer alive?" Lust questioned Shinji. "Why does an alchemist driven to play God try and fail to achieve what is believed to be unachievable if they can't? And why do homunculi feel like they have nothing without the identity of the people they were desired to be? For me, it's the memories of the woman I once was. Subtle and faint, they may be…but they're real. Any textbook about homunculi says we're not supposed to have any memories. And if we do, they're only the emotional moments of the alchemists that made us."
"How can anyone that wrote those books know for sure what lies in a homunculus' mind…unless they made one and it lived long enough to develop into a person?" Shinji responded. "What do your memories reveal of who you were…and who you want to be again?"
Lust looked up at the dusk sky, reflecting up the days she lived as the woman who died long ago.
"I was an Ishbalan woman deep in love…and loved by two brothers, but only loving one of them," she confessed.
"So, then…you most likely died before or during the civil war that maimed Ishbal."
"It was during the early years."
Shinji then bowed his head to her.
"Do you…remember how?" He then asked.
"Sickness," she answered. "There's something you should know now before I leave you to hold up your end of the bargain for another day."
"I'm listening."
-x-
"…I seriously doubt Shinji would want to put automail mechanics out of business," Ed told Pinako as they all sat for dinner that night. "His success with the Red Stone has made some people happy, but he knows he can't fix everything."
"He actually met a guy that uses an automail right leg…and all the man sought his help for was to treat his daughter for her illness," went Al added. "He did offer to use the stone on him if he wanted, but the guy turned him down. When he asked why, the man explained that he was in the last war…and didn't want to forget what he had to do just to get home. I don't think Shinji would've insisted on using the stone if he didn't respect a person's wishes."
"What is it he calls it again?" Winry asked. "It sounded like…Limited Transmutation?"
"Living," Ed corrected her. "Living Transmutation. Instead of trying to create new beings, Shinji is just trying to create new limbs."
"Arrf! Arrf!" They heard Den barking outside.
"Warf!" Alexander could be heard afterward.
"Something has them excited," said Nina as she got up from the table to go to the window. "That's a big balloon."
"Huh?!" Ed and Al went as they got up to see.
Winry followed them and gasped at what was outside.
"That looks like something similar to what you'd make, Ed!" She told him.
"No way!" He retorted.
Outside, descending from the sky, a large hot air balloon in the shape of Ed's head with his tongue sticking out, carried Shinji back to Resembool.
"Good evening, everyone," Shinji greeted them.
"That's not funny, Shinji!" Ed told him, pointing to the balloon.
"Believe me, I kept trying to reshape it into a regular balloon…but I kept seeing your angry face and that just threw off my attempts."
"I think it's funny," Nina defended. "You made your own balloon to fly in?"
Shinji held up one of his Red Stones and confessed that he he had nothing but sand to work with after leaving Lior.
"You certainly like those rocks of yours," Pinako expressed to him.
"They're helpful, I admit, but they serve mainly to save lives when all else fails," he responded, accepting that he might become dependent upon them. "They made some people happy in Lior."
"You don't seem happy," Nina noticed, something that wasn't overlooked by Alexander, who nuzzled the teen's right hand.
"Just a bad memory…of a sad man that couldn't smile," he told them; he didn't want to tell them the truth just yet, so his earlier subconscious encounter with the hallucination or maybe the very ghost of his father would suffice, since Gendo was, in a sense due to his own faults, a sad man that couldn't smile.
What Lust had told him…revealed more than what he had expected to hear. And now he had to make sure she got to be human, more than ever, regardless of his own feelings of the military rules he had violated earlier.
-x-
The more she heard about Shinji Ikari, the more she found his alchemy to be unlike anything that had ever been done beforehand in the years past. His research into the Red Water, the creation of Living Transmutation which allowed him to create actual limbs and even repair or replace organs had left the military talking about him. But this also meant something more to her. It might've enabled the Living Alchemist to finally have a place in her own goals.
"He may even be more valuable than his sons," she uttered in the night as she closed a book. "He may actually be invaluable this time…if he is who I think he is."
To be continued…
A/N: I bet none of you were expecting Shinji to pull that off! Or have Pinako feel somewhat threatened by the idea of being put out of business by Shinji's use of the Red Stone. Can any of you take a guess at what Lust told him that he can't bring himself to tell the Elrics?