Chapter 14: Remembrance
Ed knew that with Hikaru still asleep in the Emergency Room, there was no way she could repair his auto-mail arm. He also didn't want to be a bother to her after her recovery, so he had no other choice but to call his mechanic from Resembool. He slowly dialed the numbers on a nearby phone, knowing the future that awaits him when his mechanic on the other side picks up.
"Hello? Rockbell Auto-mail Shop." A young female voice answered.
"Hey Winry? It's me, Ed." The Alchemist said.
"Ed? I never expected to get a call from you out of all people."
"Yeah, well…this is really hard for me to ask…but could you, um, come out here to do some repairs?"
"What? You want me to come to you?"
"Yeah, I busted my right arm and I can't get over to Resembool, since I have things to take care of here."
"What kind of things?" Winry asked suspiciously.
"Uh… I kinda got this girl-" Ed began, but then was interrupted by Winry loudly shrieking at him.
"YOU GOT A GIRL PREGNANT?!" She screamed at him with bewilderment.
"No, no." Ed clarified. "Before you suddenly interrupted me, I wanted say I got a girl, who happens to be a good friend of mine, in the Emergency Room in the hospital. And it's best if I stay to see when she recovers."
"Hospital? Were you and her in some big fight?"
"You could say that. We weren't fighting each other, but fought alongside each other in battle. And that's where I busted my arm."
"AGAIN?!! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO BE MORE CAREFUL WITH YOUR AUTO-MAIL?!!"
Ed held the phone far from his ears as possible. He didn't want Winry's deafening voice piercing through his ears and throughout his brain. Ed knew that if he told her about completely breaking his right arm in his battle with Scar, she would definitely yell at him even louder. If he had actually gone back to Resembool for repairs, she would've thrown a wrench at his head.
There was then silence coming from the phone. Ed wondered where all the screaming went and asked, "Hello…? Winry…?"
"Looks like I have no choice." Winry sighed. "Where are you at?"
"I'm at Central."
"All right. I'll be on my way."
"Are you okay, Winry? You seem awfully… nice."
"Of course I am!" She said defensively. "I'm always nice!"
"Yeah…Sure…Just take the train to Central and you'll find somebody you'll recognize instantly."
"Okay, I'll be there in a few hours."
"That's good." The two hung up the phone, and Ed stood, with his hand still grasping onto it, staring at the ceiling. His mind soon drifted off into space.
"You shouldn't be getting out of bed like this!" A nurse suddenly shouted, startling everyone at the clinic.
"Your wounds still need time to mend!" another nurse said.
"Don't worry about me. I'm fine." Hikaru spoke back as she slowly limped her way from the Emergency Room. It's been about several hours since Ed had visited her room that morning. She suddenly awoke and noticed that her wounds were strangely no longer in pain, but her legs were still fatigued. Knowing that her injuries have mostly recovered, Hikaru hurries to Ed's room. There was something that came to her in her sleep. A piece of her fractured memory suddenly came back to her and it bothered her every minute that passed by.
She went around, asking the nurses where Ed's room is located until she finally came upon the hallway that led towards it. But right when she turned the corner, she noticed Major Armstrong was speaking with a blonde stranger. Hikaru watched him lead her into Ed's room and something inside of her began to ache when she saw that girl. The crimson-eyed Alchemist clenched the chest of her green, infirmary shirt and felt confident to follow them in.
The door was slightly opened, leaving enough room to eavesdrop. Hikaru overheard about the blonde girl being Ed's real mechanic and that she's here to fix Ed's broken auto-mail arm. Ed pulled off his shirt and revealed the arm to his mechanic, as she shrieked.
"WHAT HAPPENED TO MY AUTOMAIL?!!!!!"
"What are you talking about, Winry?" Ed asked, secretly hiding his guilt.
"Don't try to play innocent with me, Ed." She scolded. "I can perfectly tell that's not the same one I made you before. Every mechanic has his or her own style of making auto-mail, and that is definitely not the style of the Rockbell Auto-mail Shop!"
"Calm down. I completely destroyed the arm you made in another fight a long time ago. You were gone when I went to Resembool, so I had to have another mechanic do it."
"W-WHAT?! YOU COMPLETELY DESTROYED MY AUTO-MAIL?!! MY WORK OF ART?!!" This time Winry's eyes lit up in flames. In fact, there was a raging aura surrounding her that resembled the start of a crazy wildfire. Winry took out her whole arsenal of mechanic tools and was ready to punish Ed for destroying her auto-mail. She first pulled out a giant monkey wrench and slowly lifted the tool in the air.
Hikaru watched as Winry came down like a meteor and smashed the wrench into Ed's skull. At that instant, Hikaru classified the blonde to be scary, violent, and very psychotic. Suddenly Winry pulled out a giant chainsaw and Hikaru knew that this was going a bit too overboard. She was supposed to be to repair Ed's arm, not to slice him into pieces. Hikaru hastily bursts into his room and shouts.
"Please stop! It's not Ed's fault. It's mine!"
Winry dropped her weapons, as she and Ed were thunderstruck to see Hikaru appear unexpectedly in the room. There was a sudden moment of silence that came among the three. Ed was shocked to see Hikaru recovered so quickly. No human can recover from wounds as fatal as hers at that fast speed rate. In fact, the average human wouldn't even survive from those wounds and the terrible hemorrhage she suffered through.
Winry wondered who she was. She just suddenly bursts in, telling her to discontinue Ed's punishment. She also doesn't like the familiar feeling she's getting from Hikaru. There was a ghastly vibe that she felt when she set her eyes on Hikaru.
Hikaru now feels pretty bad for interrupting like this, but she couldn't stand seeing Ed being abused. She wanted to clear up everything that's going on right now, but the moment just felt too awkward. Hikaru can tell that the blonde mechanic had been a friend of Ed's longer she has. It made her feel like she shouldn't even be in the picture. There was a certain emotion that she couldn't describe that began to surge through her as she saw the disliking stare Winry was giving her.
"Who are you?" Winry asked with suspicion.
"The name's Hikaru. Just like you, I'm Ed's friend," Hikaru answered, "and a mechanic that made him an auto-mail arm."
"I'm Winry Rockbell, Ed's mechanic. Looks like we're gonna have an engineering competition here." Winry said as flames lit in her eyes.
"Winry, Winry, there's no need for this." Ed pleaded, but the blonde mechanic refused to listen.
"Ed, I'm your mechanic and I'm not gonna be replaced by short, little shrimp like her!" Winry shouted and pointed directly in Hikaru's face. If that comment were towards Ed, he'd be furious and run on a rampage. However, Hikaru remained calm and not angered. Ed was stunned to see that Hikaru wasn't even the least bit angered by Winry. Even Hikaru herself was shocked. It's like the emotion of rage and anger has left her.
What's going on? Hikaru thought. Obviously, I'm offended, and I should be angry at her, even if it's a tiny amount. But…I can't feel it! I can't feel the anger that should be coming out from inside of me! She had to think of something fast before anyone suspects that there's something wrong with her emotions.
"That's very nice of you calling me a shrimp and everything," Hikaru said sarcastically, "but I'm not like Ed. I won't get angered for needless, derogative comments. I don't really care if I'm short."
"Still, are you up for it?" Winry asked.
"For what?"
"Our mechanic competition to prove who's the better mechanic."
"I should probably throw in the towel right now." Hikaru surprisingly said, throwing Winry and Ed back in shock. "I mess with engineering stuff on my free time, and it's just for fun. You on the other hand are a skilled professional. I can never match you in skill level."
"But Hikaru," Ed opposed her, "the arm you built for me was like perfect auto-mail and you did it the quickest speed I've seen in my life."
"Ed, are you suggesting that her auto-mail is better than mine?" Winry threatened.
"N-Not at all, Winry…" he stuttered a bit in fear of her rage.
"Ed, the arm you have attached to you isn't entirely auto-mail." Hikaru explained as both Ed and Winry were appalled. "It's not the authentic auto-mail you would get from a professional mechanic." She walked over and had Ed take off his shirt again. She then pointed around at the mechanical arm. "It looks real, but half of it is material you would use to assemble a gun or any other military weapon. So it's my fault that his arm is in this bad condition. And now you're in the hospital because you couldn't defend yourself. I feel terrible."
"I-It's not your fault, Hikaru." Ed spoke, trying to reassure her. "That Silcer guy purposely twisted the joint loose."
"That arm is light and sturdy, but is best used when you transmute it to a firearm. It has a great attack power when on offensive and can hold itself when in defense as well. However, if you're too rough on it, it will break. The Slicer brother must've jammed his blade perfectly into one of the joint gaps and forcefully smashed the interior material."
"Since she threw in towel," Winry declared, "looks like I've won the battle."
"Are you okay with that, Hikaru?" Ed asked. "It's really not like you to surrender."
"Just remember the saying," Hikaru smiled at Winry, "'you may have won the battle, but you haven't won the war'."
"You're real clever." Winry competitively smirked at her.
"Thanks for the compliment." She said and returned the smirk.
Ed noticed the fire burning between the two and thought to himself, Why are girls always so competitive? He sighed but then noticed someone pass by his door. The silhouette was obviously that of Al's. He walked by without coming inside. There was something strange going on with him, like something happened to him back at Laboratory 5. What's wrong with Al? He thought.
"Get on your stomach, Ed." Winry instructed. "I'm going to fix that arm for you…if I can figure out the mechanics of this crazy hybrid." She then glares over at Hikaru, who innocently smiles back.
Suddenly the door bursts open and in comes two nurses. They had very angered looks on their faces, and it seems that they were doing a bit of exercising. In other words, they've must've ran around the entire hospital.
"Miss Hikaru!" one nurse shouted. "How could you just run off from the Emergency Room with fatal injuries still needing to be healed?!"
"We had to run around the whole entire hospital looking for you!" the second one added.
"I'm sorry," Hikaru apologized, "I needed to tell Edward something really important."
"Well, you'll just have to tell him about it later." The first nurse spoke as she grabbed her arm. "It's time for us to check up on your wounds."
"But-" Hikaru began.
"No 'buts'!" the second nurse scolded and grabbed her other arm. The two nurses then dragged Hikaru out of Ed's room. She was still resisting their hold on her but who knew that medical assistants had such tight grip. With Hikaru completely out of the room, Winry began her operation on Ed's arm. She sighed, knowing that it may take longer, since she has to work with a hybrid auto-mail arm.
Blinding lights flashed from many ceiling lamps. It illuminated the dark the dark room with its bright luminosity. However it directed above one certain spot in that dark room; it was above a white stretcher. Several medics surrounded the stretcher looking down at their patient, who happens to be Hikaru.
"The light really hurts my eyes." Hikaru said as she held her arm over her eyes.
"We're just doing a quick check-up on you." One medic explained. "We'll turn them off real soon."
They had to strip off her clothes to see how the wounds have progressed in recovery. The medics were in shock. Never before they've seen such fatal wounds heal in a fast amount of time. Most of the injuries were gone. There were only a few scabs on her legs, which still show signs of fatigue.
"Looks like you no longer need to be in this room." A doctor spoke. "Most of your injuries have almost full recovered. I'll release you from this room now."
"Thank you." Hikaru replied. "Sorry if I troubled you."
"No need for any apologies." A nurse said. "You're, after all, our most unique patient."
"Besides, we didn't have to do much work on you, since you quickly recovered." A medic added.
"Thanks again." Hikaru smiled and then left the Emergency Room.
She wandered back to Ed's room and noticed that only Winry was there. She was sitting on the floor, wiping tears from her eyes. Hikaru kneeled down by her and asked.
"What's wrong, Winry?"
"Nothing you need to worry about, Hikaru." She answered. "It's just that the Elric brothers were fighting over something stupid again. Al thought that Ed fabricated his memories and that he was never real. I had to slap him out of that thought and make him go apologize to Ed. I can't have him thinking like that. Throughout their whole adventure, all they had was each other. They never tell me what's going on, and for everything terrible they go through, I cry for them instead."
She wiped her face once more and then looked at Hikaru. Hikaru strangely showed no sign of sorrowful emotion. I feel terrible for them, but why can't I show any signs of sadness? Hikaru thought. First my anger vanished, and now my sorrow! What's wrong with me?
As Winry continued to cry more as her memories of all the pain the Elric brothers went through returned to her. Hikaru knows she feels awful about it, but needs a way for her emotions to show. She held Winry's face and wiped the tears from her crying eyes.
"There's no need to cry over that, Winry." Hikaru stated. "They both must believe that there was no need to tell you of their troubles. Just observe it. Men tend to express themselves through their actions rather than words. If I question Ed and Al myself, they won't say a word. They'd rather bear the pain themselves than cause their loved ones to worry. When it's the right time, I'm sure they'll explain everything."
"Thanks Hikaru." Winry said as she wiped the rest of her tears away. "Even though you're being a great friend to me now, our rivalry over mechanics is still on."
Hikaru merely laughed at the last comment, but at least she got Winry to feel better. She helped Winry up from the ground and the two girls gave each other a strange smile they both found ghastly familiar. It's as if they've met before in the past. And just from their recent encounter a new friendship and rivalry has been forged.
"Wanna go check up on the brothers?" Winry asked.
"I hope everything's back together." Hikaru chuckled. "It's really not like Al to keep quiet and keep stuff like that to himself.
Winry and Hikaru reached the roof of the hospital and noticed the two brothers up there. They were quickly sparring, and for the first time, Ed finally beat Al. They lied on the floor and began to go back through their memories about all their stupid arguments. The girls found themselves interested in the Elric brothers' conversation and began to eavesdrop.
"What's wrong, brother?" Al asked when his brother suddenly stopped talking back.
"Nothing really," Ed answered. "There's just something I can't quite remember from our childhood. It's like a missing piece of a giant jigsaw puzzle."
"Is it really bothering you badly?"
"I guess. I remember before we infiltrated Lab 5, Hikaru asked me something really important. She wondered if I can remember anything from 3 to 4 years before I became a State Alchemist. I was about 8 or 9 that time, and for some reason there seems to be a memory gap. I still have all the memories of the rest of my years, but for just two years, it's all a blank. Do you remember anything?"
"I think I remember some of it. Those two years were strange times we've been through. The second year you were mostly gone. Mom said you went to Central for a really important kind of rendezvous with some military men. And the first year I remember we had a guest living with us. I'm sure the guest was a girl, and she was about your age, Ed."
"What did this guest look like?"
"I admit she was really cute." Al then began whisper loudly. "Don't tell Winry this, but the girl was much cuter than her."
Ed loudly laughed, and back from behind the roof entrance, Winry was angrily muttering to herself. She made a death list to herself and poor Al was moved up to the number one spot.
"Go on, Al" Ed requested. "My memories are slowing coming together. And maybe this stupid amnesia problem will be solved."
"She had long black hair and had dark blue eyes like the Colonel's. I think her name was Natsuki, but she was always called Naoki."
When Al finished, he noticed something wrong with his brother. He was clutching his head in pain! Winry wanted to hurry and help Ed, but there was also something wrong with Hikaru as well. Just by hearing what Al said, Hikaru began to hold her head in deep pain. To still keep her and Winry undercover, she slid behind the wall and slowly let her body slip to the ground. Winry quickly turned her attention on the brothers and noticed that Al would take care of Ed, so she placed her focus back on Hikaru.
"Brother, are you okay?" Al asked in concern.
"I'm all right now." Ed answered as he slowly panted. "It's just when that memory came back it brought so much pain back into my head. I don't know why."
However, unlike Ed, Hikaru didn't recover so easily. With her back lying against the wall she was suffering a greater pain. She still held tightly on to her head, as well as covering her ears.
"Hikaru, what's wrong?" Winry asked. "You just suddenly broke into pain about the same time Ed did."
"I don't know what's wrong with me." Hikaru replied. "I keep hearing this sound in my head and it hurts. It's like a really fast beating." She steadily placed her hand on the upper left of Winry's neck. "It feels and sounds like that."
Winry removed Hikaru's hand and placed her own on there. "That's a pulse from your heart."
More pain continued to jolt into Hikaru's head. Winry realized that what she said only made it worse.
"I couldn't hear the last word you just said." Hikaru solemnly said. "Only that last word was left out, like it was censored from my ears. The beating got louder only just to cover the sound of your last word."
"Maybe, it's best for me not a say anything. Sorry about it." Winry apologized
"It's all right. You didn't know. I'll be fine in a moment." Hikaru said as she rested on the wall for a bit longer. Just like Ed, she was heavily panting, and her head was warm and sweaty. Winry tried to blow some cool wind to help cool her down. Soon Hikaru's temperature returned to normal and the fast, rhythmical, beating sound disappeared. She took in deep breath and slowly let it out from her system.
"I feel better now." Hikaru said as she slowly stood back on her feet. "Let's go see Ed."
"Yeah." Winry replied. "I hope he can recover as fast as you."
"Ed's strong. He should be fine, but it's still best to check up on him." Both Winry and Hikaru ran through the roof entrance and surprised the Elric brothers with their appearance.
"Hikaru? Winry? What're you two doing here?" Al wondered.
"When we arrived here, we noticed Ed going through serious pain." Hikaru explained.
"Are you okay, Ed?" Winry asked.
"Yeah." Ed answered. "It was only a quick jolt of pain."
"Ed," Hikaru said, as she helped him off the ground, "there was something I really needed to tell you back in the hospital room, but never got the chance to."
Ed can tell how serious it was by her expression and asked for both Winry and Al to leave and not try to eavesdrop. Just in case they might, he told Hikaru to speak in a soft voice. It didn't matter, however, since Hikaru already has a soft voice. Once the two left, their secret conversation began.
"What did you need to tell me?" Ed asked.
"First, I must apologize for secretly listening in on your conversation with Al about your strange memory gap." Hikaru said. "I'm apologizing for Winry as well."
"So you heard everything we said before I suddenly broke out in agony?"
"Yeah, I'm sorry."
"That's okay. Most of the stuff you already know about."
"Well now, I hope you're ready for me to tell you something important."
"Why?"
"Seeing how you suffered from a piece of your fractured memory returning," Hikaru explained with concern, as she placed her hand on his forehead, "I was afraid that you would be in more pain from what I'm about to tell you."
"I'll be fine." Ed reassured her as he tightly held on to her hand. "There's no need to worry. I'm always getting stronger." He gave her a heartwarming smile, and with that, Hikaru knows that he's ready for anything.
"When I suddenly woke up from inside the Emergency Room, I went through the same sudden jolt of pain you just did. You know that I, too, am missing pieces of my memories, but most of mine disappeared. Strangely when a fraction of our memory returns, it gives us both great pain, like there's something that's blocking us from remembering and our memory portions happen to break through the sealed wall. The passing of our memories through that sealed wall causes us to suffer a great deal of agony, probably from the friction of the memory trying to get through."
"Woah." Ed commented, as he was amazed about Hikaru's logical configuration of the possibility of their shared pain. "Is this what you needed to explain to me?"
"No." she answered. "It was only to elaborate on what I need to tell you. Now let me continue. When I awoke I piece of my lost memories returned to me. It came back to me through a strange dream. I was a dark laboratory, and I was walking along a narrow corridor when I suddenly noticed that you confronted me. There was only a blank expression on your face. You looked like you were possessed by something evil. I continuously questioned you about what was wrong and then something unexpectedly appeared on your chest. There, written in blood, were three large digits, '024'. You then pointed to my chest and written on mine were '023'. That's where I woke up with the pain in my head."
"That can't be real, right?"
"Of course something like that wasn't real, but it made me remember something bizarre. Now the number haunts my memories. That number '023'."