Translation Notes:

Seigen means Restriction in Japanese

Chapter 9: Exam

It was approximately ten in the morning. A soft breeze slipped into the room through the open window and gently blew across Hikaru's face. The nice morning chill awoke Hikaru from her sleep. She threw the bed sheet off her and jumped right out of the bed. She walked over to the window and felt the gentle wind embrace her whole body. Her mind felt fresh and clear, making her ready for the State Alchemist Exam that occurs today at noon. Hikaru looked through the books again for some quick review when she heard a knock on the door. She twisted the golden doorknob and opened the door.

"Glad you're feeling better, Hikaru." Ed happily said as he gave her a big smile. "I brought you some breakfast." He handed her a plate with a couple pieces of butter-covered toast, scrambled eggs, and a few pieces of bacon.

"Thank you, Ed." Hikaru replied as she took the plate from his hand and placed it over on the table. Ed walked over into the room and set his plate on the table as well. He grabbed another chair and ate his breakfast with Hikaru.

"Hikaru," Ed said wanting to say something to break the silence between them. "I was wondering about everything you say about 'wings'. What do you mean by them?"

Hikaru looked up from her food and towards Ed, replying, "'Wings' are 'wings'. Every human has 'wings'. Our 'wings' have the ability to take them anywhere we dream of. They are our guidance through our lives and dreams. But I don't know what they can do if they're broken…"

Hikaru was cut off when the door opened and in came Al. He came to tell them to hurry and get ready for the exam. The two Alchemists decided to save this talk for another time and quickly finished the rest of their breakfast. Then they were right out the door.

About an hour later, Hikaru, Ed, and Al were standing in front of the Central military headquarters prepared for State Alchemist Exam. Hikaru waved the Elric brothers good-bye and began to walk up the stairs, but was held back for a moment.

"Good luck, Hikaru!" Ed kindly wished for her. "Remember that they start off with the written test first, then the physical check, and finally the Alchemy performance test. And don't forget all the reviewing we did last night!"

"Thanks, Ed." Hikaru gave him her magical smile and let go of his grip. She ran up the stairs and into the large military building.

"When is the Alchemy performance test?" Al asked because he was really eager to see Hikaru in action.

"That should be around two O'clock." Ed answered. "They usually give a large amount of time to take the written test and it'll take a while to get the physical check. That was the one part that you couldn't pass."

"Then what should we do in our spare time?" Al asked.

"Maybe return all those books we borrowed from the colonel's office." Ed gave him a quick reply and the two Elric brothers ran back towards the hotel.

Inside the colossal military headquarters, Hikaru began to wander around the building looking for the testing when she soon happens to bump into the Colonel. Hikaru fell to the ground on her bottom.

"You ok?" Roy asked as he handed out his hand towards her.

"Yeah," Hikaru answered while letting him help her off the floor, "sorry I bumped into you though."

"It's all right." Roy said as she accepted her apology. "I'm just glad you're fine."

"Um, can you tell me where the testing room is?" Hikaru asked.

"It's on the highest floor. Take the elevator and it should be the first room from there." Roy replied placing his hands on her head. He leaned down looking at her directly into her crimson eyes and softly rubbed his hand on her soft hair, saying, "I'm rooting for you, kid, so you better do your best out there." Hikaru smiled magically at Roy and he too smiled back. He watched Hikaru run towards the elevator before he walked off on his own. That smile… he thought for moment and then continued to proceed down the hallway.

The elevator hit the top floor and opened its doors. Hikaru dashed out of it and grabbed on to the doorknob of the first door she came across to brake her from her speeding motion. She twisted the doorknob and opened the door and was amazed at the monstrous size of the testing room. There was a tall man with a dark mustache standing behind the high counter. He walked over to Hikaru and handed out a hand towards her with a smile.

"I am Fuhrer King Bradley." He kindly greeted.

"I'm Hikaru." Hikaru replied as she shook his hand.

"You're going to be sitting at the top of the row." He pointed out and Hikaru thanked him as she ran up the stairs and took her seating at the long light brown table on the highest step. The Fuhrer had several military soldiers hand out the test booklets and answer sheets to the many applicants applying for the State Alchemist position. Hikaru was surprised to see so many applicants applying for this position and how out of all of them only one will actually be able to gain the title. The Fuhrer held a stopwatch in his hand and shouted for all of them to begin and clicked the button on top of the timer.

Hikaru quickly opened the test booklet and immediately beginning her test. Looking at the first ten problems on the page she noticed that all the problems looked a bit too easy for her. She knew that she was going to breeze through this exam quick. She softly laughed to herself as she remembered the hard studying she and Ed did last night and began to speed through the test. The Fuhrer took notice of this quick thinking speed of Hikaru's and immediately took a sinister grin over his face.

By the time Hikaru finished with the whole test booklet, she took a look at some of the other applicants sitting somewhat closely to her and was a bit shocked to see that the majority of them were only or barely close to half way through the book. She stared up at the high-up ceiling hoping that the others would finish a lot quicker so everyone could just move on to the physical check. She easily fell asleep from her boredom and immediately began dreaming.

There was a tall, young man at about nineteen years old standing in front of a five year-old Hikaru. His face wasn't very clear, but he had the same colored hair she had, black. Hikaru was running up to him and he leaned down opening his arms out wide waiting for a loving hug from her. Hikaru jumped into his arms and embraced him with her own small arms. Then two other little girls, that were exactly the same age as Hikaru, came running in as well. The young man embraced all three of them affectionately and the four looked as if they were never able to be broken.

Suddenly that happy, loving image disappeared and in came a sudden flash of blood and darkness. The young man was shocked beyond belief as he saw Hikaru sitting a pool of purely fresh blood surrounded by the dead bodies of the two other small girls. Rain pelted strongly on the two who still remained in the living. The man was too frightened by the image he was seeing before him and seeing two of the three girls he loved so much, was too much for him to bear. He screamed as he fell to the ground on his knees and let his tears rush down his damp face into the pool of blood. The man crawled in the blood and looked up at Hikaru. He asked Hikaru what had happened and Hikaru answered him as she leaped into his arms began to cry out all of her tears. She cried loudly, but it was mute. Only the sound of the rolling thunder was heard. The question the young man asked and the answer Hikaru gave him, were both lost within the screaming thunder of the bloody rain on that tragic bloody day…

Hikaru was clenching strongly to her head as the images of her dream were racing past her again. She clenched it harder trying to clear her head of those horrible images. She was in complete pain. Her head was close to exploding as she let out a loud painful scream. Suddenly something triggered her back to the real world. The Fuhrer was standing by her seat holding his hand on he shoulder. Hikaru looked up at him and then took a quick look around the room. It seemed that all the other applicants have already left. Hikaru turned her gaze back to Fuhrer Bradley and stood up while holding her hand up to her warm forehead.

"Glad to see you're feeling better." He said politely with a smile. "Now let's hurry. Don't want to keep the others waiting, right?"

"Yeah." Hikaru nodded as she and the Fuhrer finally left the testing room. Right outside in the hallway were all the applicants waiting for the next phase of the State Alchemist Exam. Fuhrer Bradley walked in front of the crowd and explained loudly.

"Listen up!" He shouted. "Next up is the physical check. This is where we check to see if your body is in a good enough physical condition making you eligible to proceed to the final phase. Please hurry and prepare yourselves while you wait in line for the person ahead of you."

The Fuhrer walked off into a dark room next to the testing room. The applicants were all required to order themselves in an alphabetical formation depending on the first letter of their last name. Everybody began to rush into a single-filed line leading to the dark room, while Hikaru ended up getting mixed into the stampeding crowd. She placed herself in the line after the person with his last name beginning with a letter H because she can't remember her last name. All she knew when she woke up one day, about a few months ago, that her name was Hikaru and nothing else. She can't remember anything about herself before her awakening. It was if she had a strange amnesia that would almost last for eternity. Hikaru wondered where her memories went, how she was able command Alchemic power skillfully, and why does some of the people around her seem strangely familiar to her. She stood in line, leaning against the wall thinking thoughtfully about how her enigma will all soon become clear to her.

An image of a small drop of blood hitting a water surface creating a loud, high-pitched echoing sound woke Roy from his sudden daze while filing some papers in his office. He jolted up from his chair and pictured blood drop in his mind again. He placed his hand on his forehead trying to erase the image out his mind for good. He didn't want to be reminded of it again.

As Roy read the papers on his desk he just realized that he had to have five soldiers transferred over to Central Headquarters to assist along side him. He sighed and reached for the black phone on the wall. But before he grabbed it he took a look at the paper again and noticed that the transfer was to occur in a few days. Roy was relieved that he didn't have to make annoying phone calls over to East Headquarters and instantly went back to his daydreaming.

It was finally Hikaru's turn to step into the dark room to continue on with the State Alchemist Exam. She walked into the room and nothing could be seen except for the light emitting from the open door. Suddenly the door shut with a loud slam and it was pitch black. Hikaru wondered how she was able to find herself around the room because of the darkness, until a bright spotlight flashed on behind her. She turned around and saw the Fuhrer sitting behind the desk directly in the middle of the spotlight. Another light hit a chair in the middle and Hikaru knew that she was to be seated in it. As she sat down the Fuhrer immediately began to ram questions at her. They were all simple questions that were no different than what he asked the other applicants. Suddenly an odd question slipped out of his mouth.

"Do you remember a girl named Natsumi?" Fuhrer Bradley asked with a weird smile written across his face.

"Natsumi?" Hikaru questioned, but was suddenly struck with a strange jolt of pain. She clutched her head as images of blood, again, flashed through her mind. She fell off the chair and on to the ground still hanging on tightly to her head. Hikaru limply got off the floor and back on her feet with one hand still over her forehead. The Fuhrer merely smirked at her and then gave out a big laugh.

"Seeing how you didn't completely collapse and pass out proves that you pass the physical check." Fuhrer Bradley said as he place marked that Hikaru passed the physical check on his applicant checklist. He walked over to Hikaru and stroked her head helping ease the pain in it. "Get some rest. The final part of the exam won't be here until after a while." He explained and then walked back to his desk as Hikaru left the room. She began to think of what she should do to kill off a few more hours left of her spare time. That's when an idea came into her mind. She dashed out of the military headquarters and ran for the hotel.

When Hikaru reached to her hotel room, she knocked the door to check if either Ed or Al was in there. The door opened and she noticed that Ed and Al were in there studying a bit up on Alchemy. She stepped inside and lied on the bed resting up from her previous testing hours.

"How'd the exam go, Hikaru?" Al asked.

"Pretty well, I guess." She replied. "I still have the performance part of the exam left to go. You guys should come watch. I'll make the audience go wild!" Hikaru laughed as Ed simply smiled at her, happy to see that Hikaru was a lot happier than she was when they first met.

"Since it seems like the Fuehrer has given you a break session, let's head over to the Central Library!" Ed excitingly said as he grabbed Hikaru arm a picked her up from the bed. He dragged her right out of the room with her flying in the air behind him.

"Wait up, brother!" Al called from behind as he locked the door and dashed after Ed and Hikaru. When the three exited out of the hotel, Second Lieutenant Ross and Sergeant Brosh happened to be standing right outside the door and greeted them.

"Good afternoon Fullmetal." Ross said as she and Brosh gave Ed a salute. "I trust that you are well."

"Yeah, Yeah, we're all just fine. Now let's get going to the Central Library." Ed hastily replied as he tried to head on over to the library.

"Well, the reason we're here is to make sure you are safe from anyone, like Scar." The Sergeant explained.

"We don't need anymore bodyguards." Ed complained.

"Just let them accompany us and that way we'll get to the library quicker." Hikaru reasonably spoke to her stubborn companion.

"She's right, Ed." Al added. "All that matters is that we get to go look at Tim Marcoh's records on Alchemy!"

"All right, all right! I'm convinced, guys." Ed laughed at the way that his brother and his new comrade tried to persuade him to go along with the bodyguards. They all hopped into the black military car and were all on their way the First Branch of the Central Library.

On the car ride to the library, Second Lieutenant Ross began to explain about the Central Libraries, "The National Central Library houses more books than any other nation in this country and possibly more than anywhere else in the world."

"Wow," Al said as he was fascinated at what Ross mentioned, "they must have Marcoh's records there, definitely! And possibly even more books on the Philosopher's Stone!"

While Ed and Al were getting even more excited as they reached closer to their destination, Hikaru was getting a weird uneasy feeling about the place. As the car got closer and closer to the library, she began to feel a more uncomfortable stress in her mind. The military vehicle made a turn around the corner of the street and drove straight forward. Finally the car made it to a stop and they all stepped out of to find that the library wasn't what they expected. The immensely large building was burnt to ashes and was only a pile of messy debris with an awful stench of smoke around it. It looked as if the building was burnt overnight and the smokescreen above the rubble still looked fresh. Ed, Al, and Hikaru were all shocked at the sight they are witnessing before them.

"Sadly," Ross began to explain, "there was a large fire inside the building that burned down the whole building, as well as all the books inside. Nothing was recovered from the inside and all was lost…"

Ed looked to the ground with a depressing expression on his face. He didn't bother to look back up at Hikaru and the others. He plainly stared at the ground, thinking deeply. Hikaru gazed sadly at Ed, feeling pity for him. She placed her hand on his shoulder, trying to get him out of his sorrowful mood and look up at her.

"Don't worry, Ed." Hikaru said reassuring him. "We can try another branch in Central. Remember, the libraries at Central contain a lot books. Maybe we can try another branch, and there's a possibility that the books you and Al are looking for could be in one of them. Let's just go and look at another branch."

Ed noticed that his moping would only waste precious time, and immediately thanked Hikaru for cheering him up. She gave him a jovial smile in return, and then wondered how much time has passed since the physical check of the exam. She ran over to Sergeant Brosh and asked for the time. Brosh slid the sleeve of his military uniform to reveal silver watch on his wrist.

"It should be about 1:50 p.m." Brosh replied. "Why? Do you need to go somewhere?"

"Yeah." Hikaru said as she quickly ran for the car. "I have to finish the last portion of the State Alchemist Exam." She hopped in along with the other four soldiers and driver drove as fast as he could back over the Central Military Headquarters. By the time they reached there, Hikaru quickly opened the car door and jumped out. She hit perfectly landed on the ground, and then sprinted inside the building.

"Let's head over the area of the performance test." Ed instructed as he ran off in another direction being followed by his brother and his bodyguards.

Once inside the building Hikaru immediately took the elevator to the top floor. The elevator hit the uppermost floor, and she quickly ran down the hallway. There she saw the Fuhrer read out a list of the people who passed the physical check. By the time she reached the crowd Fuhrer Bradley finished the list and announced that only five people have passed out of about 500 and was somehow barely amazed at how little passed.

Hikaru squeezed through the disappointed crowd of applicants and appeared out in front of the Fuhrer. He gave her a smile and congratulated her for passing in first place in both the first and second portion of the exam. Hikaru was overjoyed to see how well she did and rejoiced. The Fuhrer ordered all five passing applicants to follow him to the back of the military headquarters. They walked down a long, almost never-ending corridor until Fuhrer Bradley stopped them at an elevator. After every person walked inside the Fuhrer asked Hikaru to work the elevator. She willingly agreed and pressed the button taking them all to the bottom floor, close to the State Alchemist performance arena.

The five applicants followed the Fuhrer out of the headquarters and into a massively gargantuan coliseum. All five were amazed by the size of the arena was. Fuhrer Bradley walked over to some stairs in the wall near the entrance and quickly walked up them. He stood behind the judging podium and grabbed the microphone.

"First off, I would like congratulate these five strong applicants for making it this far in this rigorous exam." The Fuhrer began. "Now this is the final test to prove if they actually have the potential and skill to become State Alchemists." He then started the explanation of the final round to the participants. "The rules of the final portion of the exam are simple. I have soldiers lined up over at the large mountain, you see over at to the North of this arena. They will release the reservoir of water and the fluid will slide on certain river paths, crashing through the trees on the mountain, leading towards your territory of freshly grown plants and trees. Your territories are separated from each other by sturdy stonewalls. You're required to use Alchemy to stop the water from flowing into your plant life in this arena. I don't care whatever way you decide to stop the water, just as long as one of you is the first one to achieve success. Simple right? Now go take your places."

The applicants each walked over to a territory of their own choice. Hikaru picked the one that was exactly in the center of the others and scanned the wildly shouting audience for Ed. She looked over to the left of her and couldn't find him, but when she looked over to the right she clearly spotted him in the center of the spectator seats, maybe because of his height. He was sitting between Second Lieutenant Ross and his brother, with Sergeant Brosh sitting to left of Ross. When Ed and Hikaru came into perfect eye contact, they immediately waved at each other and exchanged smiles. Ed noticed the look in Hikaru's crimson eyes were full of determination and knew that she was ready for anything that came her way. That feeling made him feel confident as well. He was so proud to see her going through the exam with so much confidence and that feeling of confidence enraptured him. He immediately kept his focus on her as she faced the mountain prepared for the Fuhrer to tell the soldiers to release the water.

The Fuhrer climbed up to a tall tower and stuck two large, red flags into the air, and shouted to the participants, "READY…" All five applicants instantly place their focus on the large mountain standing distantly before them, waiting for him to give the signal to start. He soon shouted "BEGIN!" and waved the red flags downward towards his legs.

The flags gave the soldiers over at the reservoir the signal to release the water. They quickly turned the handles for five of the doors and opened the latches. The water instantly poured out creating a thunderous force that rushed down the mountainside. The violent, outpouring torrent crashed through every tree that stood in its way, carrying each entire plant in its powerful currents. The violent water was unevenly flowing down the mountain, causing some of the stream to flow towards certain territories a faster pace.

A couple of the applicants were hit with the water faster than what they had expected and were immediately eliminated. Hikaru stood in the center, as careful as possible, while watching the fast upcoming torrent getting closer and closer towards her. One of the applicants saw that the water was coming towards his territory, and instantly drew a circle in the ground. He then placed his hands over it and out in front of his was a giant clay wall. Even though the wall looked sturdy enough hold back the harsh, thrashing water, it wasn't strong enough and it broke right through, leaving another territory sunken beneath a pool of dirty water.

He was somewhat clever. Ed thought to himself. He should've realized that the materials he used to make the wall weren't strong enough to hold back a rushing torrent. Just don't make the same stupid mistake, Hikaru…

Now only two applicants were left, including Hikaru. Hikaru looked over to her left and saw the other applicant place a piece of useless metal on the dirt beneath him and drew a circle over it. He performed Alchemy over the two objects and created a small drain out of it. The rabid torrent rushed towards him and went down his drain just like he had predicted. But unexpectedly the water to just to strong for the drain to capture all at once so most of the water exceeded over the drain and crashed into his territory knock down every plant life and eliminating the other applicant from the final round.

It was only Hikaru left on the arena. If she fails to grasp victory, then no one will be passing the State Alchemist this year. The water finally rushed at her with full, immense force. Hikaru already had an idea placed in her mind and ran straight towards the fierce torrent. People in audience were shocked to see a small fifteen year-old girl run towards a violent stream of water, and several of the people were shouting at her saying that her idea was foolish or asking if she was going to throw her life away. Hikaru ignored every word they said and continue to run towards the speeding stream.

She quickly her placed her black gloves over her hands as she continued to run. Ed watched her curiously and wondered what she was up to. He then took notice of the strange symbol on Hikaru's gloves. It was somewhat almost identical to Roy's gloves, but the drawing of the seal was different. It was a silver circle with Kanji characters reading Seigen written in the middle of it. Ed couldn't read the seal on Hikaru's gloves and pondered through his mind, trying to find out what it means.

In the meantime, Hikaru was still running towards the rabid torrent. When the torrent came close to her, she then suddenly leaped into the air and clapped her hands together. She placed her hands on the water and a large blue light shined all throughout the arena. After the blinding light died down, Hikaru's territory was perfectly normal, and the violent thrashing torrent was turned into a beautiful ice formation. It was long ice formation that led up to where the reservoir was.

People were stunned by Hikaru's magnificent performance, but she didn't finish just yet. Hikaru grabbed then grabbed a large pole at the side the arena and transmuted it into a strong massive blade. She jumped on the territorial walls and ran down along the narrow platform. When she reached the edge, she instantly leaped off and swung the blade at the giant icicle a, shattering it into many beautiful shards. The glowing ice shards slowly drifted down through the air, creating a perfect and marvelously beautiful performance.

The audience went absolutely wild. Everyone was cheering crazily around Hikaru and was applauding endlessly for her. Ed jumped down from the spectator seats and instantly ran towards Hikaru. He grabbed her and held her tightly, showing how proud he was of her. Hikaru's face was red with blush, but a strange pain stabbed her chest like a spear. She tried her best to resist it and slowly wrapped her arms around Ed. He held on to Hikaru strongly giving her a feeling of gentleness and warmth. Hikaru couldn't help but let her headrest on his chest beneath his chin. Even though the pain was only stabbing her with greater force, she was trying to withstand it longer so she could remain in Ed's arms.

"You did so well today." Ed honestly commented. "I'm really proud of you."

"Th-Thank y-you, Edward…" Hikaru quietly whispered in his ear. Ed then noticed that her grip on his back began to weaken, so he let go to find out that Hikaru fell asleep due the exhaustion of the exam and her strange stabs of pain.

Ed chuckled a bit and whispered softly into her ear, even though he knew she wouldn't here him, "Go ahead and rest, Hikaru. You deserve it." He then let her rest in his arms and held her tightly close.

The judges were astonished by Hikaru's amazing performance, but the Fuhrer merely began to walk out of the stadium without a hint of amazement in his emotions. It was almost as if he was expecting her to do so well in this exam. Before he could've completely walked out, he turned around and watched Al, Ross, and Brosh run down from the spectator seats to happily congratulate Hikaru, even if she was asleep. The time is almost close… The Fuhrer thought and then walked right out the coliseum.

At about the same time, Roy was in office trying to prepare transferring papers when he heard a knock on his door. He allowed the person to open the door and walk in. The person happens be a woman that looked as if she was from Xing with long ebony hair. As she walked up to Roy's desk, he suddenly realized that she seems to be an irregularly tall woman. He bent his head back to look upward at her.

"And you must be…?" The Colonel asked, staring at upward at her.

"I am Lieutenant Colonel Shia Amano from the Southern Military Headquarters, reporting for duty here, in Central."