Finally, they reached a corner and found an X already scratched onto it. They were back at their starting point.
Standing under the X was a soldier waiting with a map in hand, which Hughes took from him. The soldier saluted and then left.
Pulling out a pen, Hughes sketched a rough drawing of the shape they had traveled in over the original sewer lay out. Mustang stared at the map in horror as Hughes finished.
Hawkeye frowned, "Sir, do you see something?"
Mustang carefully took his right hand out of his pocket without its glove and took the pen from Hughes. Overlaying the scenes of the massacres over the new map of the sewers, formed a shape that was aching familiar to Mustang.
Master Hawkeye, Lieutenant Hawkeye's father, had made Mustang draw the shape so many times that his hand ached. Time and time again, Mustang had complained that he was supposed to be learning alchemy not geometry only to have Master Hawkeye insist that precision mattered. In time, Mustang had mastered the shape and found that it really was as essential to alchemy as Master Hawkeye claimed.
"It is a transmutation circle with each of the massacres corresponding to one point on the circle. There is only point that hasn't been covered by one yet," Mustang explained.
Hawkeyes' eyes widened, but Havoc and Hughes just looked at Mustang blankly.
"What does that mean?" Hughes asked.
"Alchemy operates on the Law of Equivalent exchange. If Kimblee can trap an entire city in a transmutation circle," Hawkeye began.
"He can turn the entire city, people and all, into a massive bomb or worse. Who knows what Kimblee could do with so many human lives offered up in exchange. What he can do with it will be only limited by his imagination," Mustang finished.
They all stared at the map for a moment.
"Well, then. Let's get some dynamite down here and blow his circle apart. We can pick a wall and explode it. That will break the circle," Havoc said.
Mustang shook his head, "Any damage we do to the circle know Kimblee can fix before moving. Even if we sent soldier to guard the break, he would simply blow them apart and fix the circle. Best case scenario: we destroy the entire circle and Kimblee gets to simply move on to another plan to kill large amounts of people.
"So what do we do then? Let everyone in the city die?" Havoc asked sarcastically.
Mustang pointed to the only spot on the circle that had yet to be a killing ground.
"We know where Kimblee is going to be. We stop him there and he is finished," Mustang said.
Hughes studied Mustang's face.
"I know that look, Roy. What do we tell the rest of the military about all this?" Hughes asked.
"Tell them to be ready to hang on to something. What comes next will shake the entire city to its foundations."
