Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist. I do own Kristoph Mistan.

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The Journal of Kristoph Mistan

Volume One

My hair was a pale gray almost appearing white. Skin tanner than most's. Eyes almost appearing such a strange color that they looked almost a shade of blood red. This description out-cast me from every one else. No matter where I go this look goes with me. My heritage keeps me apart.

What I was? Ishballian.

And my job? To keep with my teacher, the one known as Merzan...Scar.

"Kristoph?" He called my name. I could hear, without even trying to, the malicious tone that he spoke it with. He hated me more than he had my father.

"Yes, sir?"

"Do you know why my brother chose me to inherit this arm?"

"No. Do you know? Sir?"

"My brother worked in mysterious ways. None of which I understand. Sinful ways..."

It was rare that he would admit that he didn't understand something. But by now I knew better than to test him on anything. I had witnessed some of the murders that that arm had committed.

Merzan... He was not- He is not, in his heart, a bad person. That arm made him do crimes he normally would never commit. How would I know this? It's actually simple, well not really. Living in secrecy was not all that easy. I hated it. So few people even knew of my existence... I wanted to get away from this. From everything.

But Merzan? Scar? Scar was my uncle.

I know it may seem strange. And it may not even seem believable, but it is the truth. My father was and is his brother. It was little known that Merzan had a nephew. Why this was left unknown to the citizens of Ishbal, I will never know.

My mother was killed during long before the war in Ishbal was even started. She took my father's heart with her. Left dazed, confused on where to take his life next he set off to find the man that could help him make the philosopher's stone. When he came back he didn't say a word of it, so I knew better than to ask.

He died. He died a horrible and painful death that I would not with all my heart and soul not wish on anyone- even my worst enemy. He was ripped limb from limb, quite literally, and then he was left to die alone. He left his arm to Merzan. I was left alone, in my own solitude, that managed to kill me slowly. So now, all I that have left is Merzan. He may not be the perfect example of family, but he is all that I have. All that I have left has betrayed me so many times.

He had been silent all of this time. I had made the notion not to talk as well. He needed his quiet time now. He indeed had quite the temper, I knew this from experience. I have a scar from my left shoulder to the palm of my hand as a reminder of that little incident. I still refuse to believe that in his heart that he was a bad person- no matter how much hardship he has managed to call me.

"Kristoph?"

"Yes?" I looked up.

"Come. We're going to East."

"But sir-"

"Don't question me." And I didn't after that. He sounded too angry for me to even attempt to disagree with him. I'd tried that before, remember?

He stood up and walked from the tent. I followed. My eyes were kept to the ground as we walked from our campsite. Our leader would more than likely ask Merzan questions and I would be left unnoticed in the back ground as always.

To the people of our fallen city, I was invisible. What I did to deserve this I don't know. (I later found out many things. Trust me.) And long ago I had lost all reason to care as well. If these people hate me, let them hate me with a vengeance. My ability to care about what people thought of me was lost as my best friend was killed in the War.

Rison was only thirteen years old. What had he done to the military that would make them kill him without a second thought? He did what any other person would have in a war. He was simply curious, which wasn't a sin from what I had heard, and they killed him for it. I drove my fingernails into a fist so hard that I nearly drew blood from my palm. I got a little worked up when it came to Rison, let's call it.

The military was wrong when they came to Ishbal, and they needed to know it. This was the only reason why I went along with my uncle. It was wrong, yes, I know this, and I'd be punished for my sins when I died. But now I didn't care about what was going to happen when I died and much less about my sins. I, to this day, do not regret being willing to follow Merzan to the gates of hell. I refuse to regret anything that I have done in my infancy of a real life. Maybe, back then, I was a bit harsh but it was how I was raised.

'Be untrusting of whom you do not know. Be unforgiving to whom you do not trust.' If I remembered nothing, I was sure that was the one thing I'd be forced to remember.

My family was not what you would call a normal one. My father, he wasn't horrible. He didn't mean to be at least. I don't know how I managed to live with him for fourteen years, though. He was so overprotective, overbearing. I thought that, at times, if he wouldn't loosen his hold, I would suffocate from his pressure. I held no doubt in my mind that he loved me- for my mother, if nothing else. Some of the things that he did or said lead me to believe that he didn't love me because I was his child, but because I was my mother's child. And it was completely obvious if you would have been around the two of us. We acted exactly alike, it was frightening. Nothing was the way it should have been, I noticed that when I was done.

My mother was a... Actually, I don't know if there was a word to describe my mother. I met her, of course. But I was young. And I was infantile, even for my years. She died when I was six. She had been ill since before my birth. I just happened to intensify the process of her death, I suppose. The Medicine Man was thoroughly surprised that she had not died in childbirth. He said that she had this will to live about her, that he hadn't been able to see in anyone that he had met before her. Because of her illness, I was directly blamed for her death. That may have been the source of my scorn. Every person in Ishbal had relied on my mother for something as I have now come to find out.

She was just a child when I was born- not very much older than I am was at the time that this story is taking place. (A mere eighteen if you are too dumb to do the math.) She had met my father when she was young; they married young; they died young. That was the way that fate worked for them. Not the most flattering of ways, but they never deserved the most flattering of ways. And it was a vicious cycle that had consumed our entire family. No one with the name Mistan ever lived past their thirtieth year- who was I to think, that after the long line of this curse that consumed us, that I'd be the one to break it.

My father... he talked of her like she was the goddess of Heaven and Earth. As if not even Ishbala was as holy as she. That was ultimately his fatal flaw. He missed her. He more than missed her. He needed her. He was dying without her, literally. He'd do anything within his power to get her back. He was willing to massacre hundreds of thousands to be able to have her back. He was willing to kill off our holy land to have her back. He was willing to attempt to kill me to get her back. And just like that, I was nothing to him. He saw the chance to get her back, and he ignored any parental instinct that he may have had. I was nothing- just a pawn that he attempted to use like he had any other.

I held no resemblance to her. I held only a likeness to his nothingness, his brother. To the man that had attempted to keep my father from getting her back. Whether their love was one that blossomed from hate (they're closely related you realize), or if it really was love, I don't know. I don't want to know. They weren't meant to be together. They had been purposely separated for most of their lives. They weren't meant to be. I wasn't meant to be. But people become blinded by love. They leave all things that they knew behind. People kill to find and keep love. Little did they (or do most people as a matter of fact) know, but love, while able to turn people into valiant and fantastic knights, it is also able to turn people into monsters. Love is often worse than hate in that case. Their forbidden love turned me into something that I did not want to be. It turned me into an outcast. In this back drawn, and nearly died out, society, I was the main outcast. I was alone.

"Kristoph."

I didn't notice how long we had been walking. We had left in early morning; I hadn't realized that it was now far past sunset. I got trailed off into my thoughts easily back then. It was almost an escape from reality, really. I lived for those moments. I really, truly did.

I guess it was from being alone until I met Rison. He was more like family to me than my own. His family treated me as if I was one of their own. I could never repay them for that, and I will never have the chance unless something in a different world decided otherwise.

"We will finish this tomorrow." He said sitting down.

I simply nodded and continued standing. The words exchanged between him and I were never more than necessary, meaning that for the most part I was silent. Not that we were very talkative when other people were around. There was no reason to talk in general because there were always the remnants of things that ached to be said. Grudges held for years and years that were attempting to make their escape were all that existed between Merzan and I.

"I'll be back sir."

At the time, I wasn't quite sure how close to East Headquarters we were. I figured that Merzan wouldn't be stupid enough to close to the city when every State Alchemist in the Military was after him. Apparently, I was wrong, because Merzan may have just been the biggest idiot that I had ever met in my life. And I had met myself.

"Hey, you," was shouted in my direction. I looked over my shoulder into what seemed to be a garden of sand because nothing else was in sight. But before I even realized it, there was a dog of the military, dressed in the standard dark blue, white trimmed military uniform.

'Crap!' I exclaimed mentally. (That little line right there- you see it? The one that's all tilted and such, yeah. Not a typo. Those little tilty letters mean that I was, at that point in time, thinking those little tilty words. Go figure. I can think.)

First instinct cut in right there; I turned and got my ass out of there. I always listen to my first instinct- for better or for worse. It's usually for worse. Which is not that good, but things happen.

In this case, it was probably the wrong move considering I had done nothing wrong. However, if I was to mention that I look exactly like my uncle even down to the 'X' shaped scar on my face, every person in the military would be out to kill me, which they were. The only differences were that my hair was much longer than his and I was only 18 to his 27. There were two more, the face decorations. The ones that labeled us 'marked', otherwise known as traitors. Mine were made so that they hit the upper part of my scar down under my ear lobes and connected to the back of my hair line. Not as noticeable as my father's had been, but nonetheless there. Merzan had none. He wasn't considered traitorous until the demolishing of Ishbal was already said and done. Well, that and the fact a lot of people said that my face was a lot more girlish than expected from a male in my family. But that was often blamed on my mother's side of the family. Males were more effeminate than most on that side of the family.

Oh, if they only had known the half of it.

I finally stopped. I needed to catch my breath and fast because, with hearing the ferocity in the approaching voices of those officers, I needed to get out of there. Quick. Very, very quick.

"Hey Major. What's all this about?" I heard a voice say. They weren't as far away as I thought that they would be.

"Scar has been spotted in the city. We must find him before he gets away." This major's voice was odd. Very odd.

"I'M NOT SCAR! YOU STUPID-!" I found myself shouting. My hand capped over my mouth.

'To Ishbala...I'm such an idiot!' I ran faster, if that was even possible.

When you are thought to be a mass murderer of military leaders and the military that those leaders were from are on your trail, then damn right you'd better run fast.

I grabbed a piece of coal from my pocket. Yes, I did often carry around coal just incase crap situations like this popped up. It's called foreshadowing. I often got into these types of situations. Apparently, I am a "trouble magnet".

Without thinking or even drawing a breath in edgewise, I quickly drew an alchemy symbol on the flattened part next to the huge crack in the concrete wall in front of me. The wall folded into its self an opening a little less than two feet wide. I slipped through, closing the wall behind me. I leaned my forehead against the wall in a pathetic attempt to catch my breath. It didn't work. Things rarely work out in my favor, you'll realize this later. Or you could take my word for it and realize it now. It's your choice really. I could care less.

I knew alchemy, but that was an entirely different story. One not needing to be told while I was being hunted down by people with guns and alchemic powers. I don't think that this is the proper time. There are several other times when this little story will be much more appropriate.

'Why does this always happen? I shouldn't even be allowed in public.'

And by the way, I loathe my sense of hearing. I think it has a defect. I can never hear things when I need to. Honestly, Ishbala must hate me dearly, right?

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