I don't own FMA.
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Excerpt from the Journal of Colonel Roy Mustang
"Excuse me, officer," she said me. She wasn't very tall, no. And it was odd how even on this hot of a day she covered her face with a hooded shawl protruding over her long hair. She looked familiar, almost as if I had seen her before. But no name or situation had come to mind of where, perhaps, I had seen her before, so I shrugged it off as she simply having a common face. This was a mistake, yes. "There's a man back there. Sort of tall, he has a scar on his face sort of an 'x' shape. He sort of looked suspicious like he's doing something he shouldn't."
"A scar you say? Havoc." I said looking back and motioning for the orange haired idiot to come over to me.
She disappeared without another word. I wonder to my self why, at that time, that wasn't suspicious of her at all. It's insane the crimes that were allowed to get accomplished under our own noses.
Journal of Kristoph Mistan
She killed him.
I did not want to be involved in this. I did not want to be labeled as a murderer.
My insides went cold already, and I hadn't lifted a finger to neither help nor harm.
I was an innocent.
"Scar!" was growled in my general direction.
I turned my head, "Yes?" I answered to the name. This was my first mistake. Well, second. Looking like him was my first. No... Getting involved with the devils themselves was what eventually lead to my down fall.
Three dogs of the military. A dark haired man, another with slightly orange-ish shade of hair, and a third was tall, overly-muscular and the only hair on his head was a swirl of blonde hair on top.
The orange haired man bent down to the fallen soldier and checked for his pulse. When there was none, he looked over at the leader (a.k.a. Mustang) and said, "H-He's dead, sir."
The dark haired one looked at me menacingly. I would have been nearly intimidated had I had the time to be. I didn't have the time though because in that same second, he snapped his fingers and fire engulfed around me.
'Shit. Shit. Shit.' I thought. I kneeled on one knee and quickly drew a circle in the dirt. A solid wall shot from the ground, as I attempted to pat out the flames that had started to singe my shirt.
Damn, did I hate Mondays.
I quickly drew another circle and the ground formed a stair step formation. I ran up those stairs, which were only three-fourths of the way up that building. I had to jump the rest of the way. I nearly stumbled off the roof but finally maintained my balance. I looked on either side of my shoulders hesitantly.
'Shhhiiiit...either I jump the buildings, or go back down there with those people who are likely to kill me. I guess I have to jump'' I thought to myself. 'One... Two... Three...' I did jump... Word of advice to anyone soon to attempt to jump off a four-story building and jump to another one 6-or-so feet away, don't. And slap your self for thinking about it. Needless to say I fell a foot short. I don't remember anything for a while after that. I think I must have fallen on my head.
Journal of Edward Elric
Scar sat there in that cell. He was sitting cross-legged, his hands folded and laying on the ground. The size of the room, the dirt, how long he'd been in there without food, nothing seemed to be bothering him. He moved from this position only once to stretch his legs.
"Brother, didn't Mustang say that he was using alchemy? S-Scar can't use alchemy though... I thought that it was just his arm." My younger brother said. He was frightened. I could tell by the way that his voice broke.
"He can't. Why was he caught so easily? Why isn't he trying to get out of here? And why is he so calm during all of this? No one is this calm when they are about to be killed." I responded. He made me nervous. Having this man around made me nervous.
"I don't know. Has anyone talked-"
"They've attempted to. He doesn't say a word. Hasn't since he's arrived here." another voice said.
"Furor." Al said taking a step back.
"I see that you've been watching him, Fullmetal."
"Yes, sir," I gave him a two finger salute. "I can't figure it out. This Scar that Colonel Mustang caught, no matter how many state alchemist go in there, he says and does nothing. Does that seem like the Scar that killed over 15 state alchemists in the last three years? Sir."
"You're right. Maybe I should talk to him." he said placing his hand on his chin.
"I don't believe that will be very wise. Although he hasn't killed anyone since he's arrived, that doesn't mean that he wouldn't kill the Furor if the chance arrived." the metal form of my younger brother.
"I think that I'll take my chances, Alphonse." he opened the cell door and shut it after him.
"Do you think that that's safe, brother?"
"I doubt it."
Journal of Kristoph Mistan
Furor Bradley came in, leaning up against the door. "Kristoph."
"Pride, old man." My eyes didn't move from the floor, and I didn't move from that same position. It was almost as if I was a statue. Stuck there in that permanently hunched stature for what seemed to me as if it was the rest of eternity. It may have well have been.
"Seems that Lust was right. You are nothing like Scar. Too quiet, much too calm. It's almost frightening to those attending to you."
"Mm."
"I think that you need to be a little more...convincing."
"I say I don't. If I don't say anything, I don't believe that I have a problem."
"You're making the Elric brothers think that you aren't Scar at all."
"I think that that's good, too. How can I befriend him if he thinks that I am the person that has killed so many of his comrades? He can't. If he thinks I'm somebody else, it'll be a lot easier."
"You do have logic. I will talk to you again soon." He left the cell. I hadn't moved the entire time. It was getting hard to stay still and think about absolutely nothing.
Journal of Edward Elric
"What did he say?" I asked.
"Nothing..." he sighed, "I think he's about as stubborn as they come. Perhaps, you should try your luck."
"Furor, I think that you put me in that situation, to be alone in a room with him, I'd kill him... Sir."
"It was merely a suggestion. Contact me if there is any improvement." He merely walked away as if this situation were mere child's play, not to be regarded to as anything important. It was frustrating, trying to understand the man's logic.
Later on, I began to fully understand why the Furor was acting so nonchalantly in a situation in such dire need of attention. Although at that point in time, I don't think that I fully understood anything. Although I hated to admit it, I was left completely in the dark until things had already ripped from the seams and I could do nothing except make matters worse. I was completely and utterly more helpless than a child. A child at least knew what situations to avoid when they saw them. While I, being the idiot that I was back then and still am to this day, plummeted head first into the situation that I knew would cause death. I made a mistake right off the back.
I hated that more than anything that I could imagine.
"Do you really think that he was serious?" I hated the way Al's voice sounded when he was thinking hard about something. Even more so when he was thinking hard about something that I had done or was soon to wrong. He always managed to sound so disappointed in me. It was almost crippling. It's a good thing that I took him for granted back then. If I hadn't, I would have been crippled from the start.
I nodded, "He was." I sat in the chair next to the cell.
"Do you think that you should go in there?"
"I'd kill him Al, and he'd more than deserve every instant of it. But I can't do that."
"I'm going to go find Winry..." My younger brother, over the years, had gotten so much quieter. I missed the old us so much. I missed little Edward and Alphonse Elric, those lovable kids. We were so different such a few years ago.
"Right." I wasn't really paying attention. I kept thinking about what the Furor had said, in a mild to severe state of disbelief.
'Hughes. Really after Hughes they want me to go in there? After what happened to him? Gracia? Elysia? But this shouldn't be personal. This is my job. I'm nothing more or less than a military dog. Designed to follow orders without thought or compassion. I'm just a pawn.' I glared at that door. I glared through that door.
I'd wished, on that man, more than death many times. More than anything good that death could manage to offer. No, he deserved to live and suffer just as everyone else did. He needed to feel the pain that everyone else had to feel because of his actions. Watching everything he knew and cared for to fade away into dust.
Yet, he already had.
From what I heard, rumors, purely rumors, (Soon after, completely unexpected to me and all around me at the time, with the exception of one, they were all found to be, in fact, true.) Scar had seen his brother's wife die, then his brother and was cursed with that arm. Those two were all that he had left. And then, his city, his homeland, his people died, too. Wiped out fully by the military and knocking his people into the brink of extinction. Killing any hope that may have once been alive.
But fighting fire with fire only leads to more mayhem. It didn't make past actions any more or less right. The blood of more of the innocent didn't make the blood of murders equal. Half of the people that were military personnel now, they wouldn't have helped in Ishbal back then. Most were killed. Most had gotten their retribution. But Scar… to him none of this was equality. None of this was equal to the pain that all those that had been unfortunate enough to survive this massacre had to endure. The repression they got from the military was uncanny compared to anything that I had ever heard about. He was almost right… Nothing made up for that.
And, sadly enough, I knew that much. I knew at least some of the pain that came with losing all of those around you. But Winry's eyes that day had shown it all. All that I never needed to know about war. And in that instant, when I saw her like that, I felt my heart shatter into a million pieces.
I took the handle in my grasp and yanked the door open. It creaked softly as it opened fully. He was still sitting in the exact same position. The door started to creak more and slammed shut on its own.
He looked up, and for a brief instant, it didn't look like Scar. More delicate features. His face all together appeared more feminine.
His eyes were the same. They still had that same exact hatred that he had seen in that man's eyes the first day of meeting him, on the steps of Central's military library. They were so hardened that one could hardly see the color of his eyes because they were too distorted. One was so distracted by that hatred that it seemed impossible to look away. But his eyes seemed almost to glint fire when they were in the small lighting of the room. The deep red color almost scared me the first time that I saw them. I almost felt my heart stop because I was seeing something that I'd only dreamt of in nightmares.
This man...he scared me.
His hair was nearly the same. It had grown and was covering his eyes. His clothing was dirty. His normally golden skin was dark brushed. Thick lines of black and dug in nail markings, revealing crusted blood, covered the arm of his burden...the arm that controlled him in a sense. It almost appeared as if he was attempting to claw off the arm with every fiber left in his being and had failed in every attempt. It was odd. I almost felt pity for him, seeing him so pathetic and weak. It was completely opposite of every other time that I had seen him.
"You're Hagane. The legendary prodigy State Alchemist, little Edward Elric." The voice was also more feminine, though it was hardly notable at the time. Although I couldn't see his face clearly, I could almost hear the cold-hearted sneer in his voice.
"And you're Scar, mass murderer of military personnel. Quite an honor right there." I muttered in a bitter, sarcastic tone. If hatred could have been felt through words, he would have been the single most hated man in all of the land.
He didn't really nod or do anything, just diverged his eyes so they were back at looking at the ground. It was odd. Usually, Scar managed to stare you down until you felt your heart drop and your blood begin to run cold, almost as if he was killing you with only his eyes. But now...he couldn't even manage to look me of all people in the eye? There was something wrong there, and I was surprised that I didn't notice it at the time. I was too wrapped up in my own anger to begin to think out side of the box for even a second.
"If you truly are Scar, and you have such hatred for State Alchemist, then why don't you kill every one that walks through that door?" I nearly barked at him. My voice was malicious, a strong contrast to his anomalously calm one.
"Think about what you just said. I am in the middle of a building full of you Dogs. If I was to kill one, do you think that I would get out of here alive? No. I wouldn't. I'm not as stupid as you take me for, idiot," he paused for a few instants before saying, "Besides maybe I want to turn over a new leaf."
"You wouldn't." Snide comments were my specialty back then.
"You're not me. How do you know what I want to do?" he questioned in a childish manner. It was almost as if he was testing me to see if I would lose my temper. It was working quite well.
"Because of that arm." I said shortly.
He moved his left arm over the right; he placed his dirt-covered hand over the sleeve, pulling it softly up to his shoulder. The instant that he began to move, I shifted into a defensive position. As I have stated before, this man scared me close to my death. Instead of even acknowledging my movement, he ignored it. He ran his fingers over the dark markings and the cuts deep in his skin. "I never wanted this. Call it a curse, if you must." His voice was quiet, calm and shaking ever so slightly. This was worse than any yelling and arguing that he could have done. He was reminding me of Al.
How could this man that I hated- loathed, despised, detested, take your pick of words- remind me in the slightest of the only person in my life that had been there for me whole-heartedly and remained loyal to me even when I messed up, as I often did? How was I even able to make the comparison between this monster, this committer of the most heinous of crimes and my little brother, whom was possibly the most innocent creature left on this God-forsaken planet?
And I wasn't able to provide explanation for that. I couldn't explain to myself why my mind had done such a bizarre thing. Maybe some part of my subconscious was in the deep belief that, this man, although he had killed so many, was no more or less innocent than my own flesh and blood, and that perhaps he was just attempting to correct the past wrongs that had been done unto him, just as Al and I were doing for ourselves. Maybe I was attempting to convince myself that he was no more of a monster than me.
Perhaps, I was the worse of us two. He was working out of revenge. He was avenging those whom had died in an unjust war. He almost had a righteous cause. I did what I did purely out of greed. I wanted my mother back, and I had given up my brother's body to do so. Perhaps, I was more monster than Scar had ever had been.
But these thoughts were buried far, far, waaaay back in my subconscious. I didn't discover them myself until years after this incident.
After that, he stayed quiet. He answered no more questions. He continued to have his gaze on that arm.
For some reason, in a split second, he began to believe that nothing else needed to be said. So on his end of the spectrum, nothing else was said. I became extremely flustered and even angrier, and as I turned to walk out the door, I heard a shuffling. He had stood up, stretching his legs for the first time in what had to have been weeks upon weeks. He was far more than a head taller than me, meaning I came hardly up to his shoulder. It was degrading honestly.
He muttered a few things under his breath in a language that I couldn't understand. I remained looking at him with a crazed expression on my face.
He looked up at me, brushing his long, white hair from his eyes. The look that he gave me, it was almost frightening. He began his little speech of sorts, "You know of the war in Ishbal. Of course you do. You are in the military, but do you know the truth of what happened in Ishbal? No..." he paused and released a heavy sigh, "You didn't see it with your own two eyes. You didn't see the death and destruction that was caused there. A little kid. Imagine, would you? Just out looking for his sister. He was less than your age, now that I think back on it... Probably barely older than your own younger brother."
At first I had no idea how he knew about Al, but of course I wasn't thinking clearly and had forgotten of all the stories that were told about us back then.
He continued still, "Shot down like he wasn't human. Like he was merely a dog, not worthy of respect from other lives. Like he was an insurgent in some land where he didn't belong. But he was on his own home soil. Now, imagine...seeing it with your own two eyes. Imagine watching your flesh and blood die, Hagane. Blood of innocents are spread over that God forsaken land. You couldn't even begin to imagine." His eyes didn't look so vibrant with passionate hatred as they had before. They didn't have the same crazed gleam to them. The look in his eye changed so suddenly that it was unfathomable for me to explain at that time what had happened.
I honestly didn't know whether to believe him or not. Most murders lied. So where was my proof that at this point in time, he wasn't flat out lying to my face? Where was this proof that I needed? Until he provided that I had no reason to believe him. But the look that passed over his face. It was almost as if he was reliving a horrible nightmare. For the first time since I had been in that room, he was the one that was showing over-powering emotions, not me. It was odd, and I felt the urge to believe him, even though all my good senses were leaning against it. Of course, my "good" senses never seemed to work out in my favor.
My eyes widened because I sort of knew how he felt. I'd never before seen Scar as human. He was simply a killing-machine previous to then. I didn't expect for him to be able to harbor the same feelings at his brother's death that I had been able to feel at Al's.
I'd simply never allowed the idea that maybe he was righting past wrongs when he did what he did. He was simply trying to make things right in his own mind and not thinking about the feelings of others.
In that instant, he reminded me of myself. He'd gone from reminding me of Al to reminding me of me. It reminded me of the way that I had destroyed the hopes of the entire city of Lior because I believed that maybe my brother would have been able to have his body back. In that sense, Scar was no different from my self; although, never, in a hundred million years, would I have had admitted that to anyone but myself.
"Why? Why would the Furor do that? Why would he have his men willingly kill those who have done no wrong?" I had difficulty remaining at a calm tone. I didn't expect to care so much about what had happened in a time many years before I even understood what was going on. The military had been fragmented from the start. Ishbal did not start that. It had merely excelled the process.
"I've wondered the same thing." He walked to the bed that was chained to the wall. He lay on the bed, his arms folded over his chest. He didn't say another word. His eyes were shut. I could tell because there was no glint from the light onto the whites or even the red of his eyes. I was lead to believe, at that time, that he fell to sleep. Later on, I began to doubt that he did
I remained standing although my legs felt weak. I knew that a lot had gone on in Ishbal and the military wasn't proud of it, or they wouldn't have kept it under wraps like they did.
But how? How bad was it really? Why was it started? Why didn't the military stop when they had the chance? Why did they let it go on for so long?
I walked up the decrepit staircase of the east wing. It creaked with almost every step. (I did have a strong eye, in this case ear, for detail and my memory is still fully intact.) I made my way down the hallway, eventually making it to the main door of this hallway, the office of a Colonel Roy Mustang, class A asshole. At least he (usually) had class when he insulted me. I rapped on the door with my knuckles. My tapping only quickened and hardened every time my call wasn't responded to.
The Colonel eventually said in an extremely aggravated and annoyed tone, after a long and drawn out sigh, "Come in." He looked up as I opened the door and a look of annoyance and disgust agreed with his tone, "Fullmetal, what is it?"
At that point, I began to understand his eminent dislike of me, and it was heart-warming. It was a beautiful thing knowing that I annoyed him so much.
"What happened in Ishbal?" I said as bluntly as a statement had ever before been uttered, with the exception of the way that I had spoken to Scar.
He looked away, and his eyes seemed to glaze over, as if thinking about something, "It is none of your concern. The past is the past. No use in droning on about it," he said nonchalantly.
"It does if it is effecting what I have to do now," I responded, cattily.
"What is with this sudden interest in Ishbal?" He asked, almost as bluntly as the first thing that I had said, but in a mildly more annoyed tone.
"It has something to do with Scar, and I know exactly how. I just want to hear that you messed up from your own mouth. So, go on. Spill."
"Scar is not your problem. He's mine."
I scowled at him, annoyed to the point of hating him almost as much as he hated me. "How does it feel to have the blood of innocents on your hands, Colonel?"
His face fell from an aggravated one to emotionless. He didn't respond to the question and I stormed out of the office in a worse mood than I ever had with the exception of one time...
But that is a completely different story...