Eheh... Hey there, guys. ^^; Yeah, I know some of you were all 'JKLFS' when I cut off the last part so abruptly, but I won't do it again, I swear!

This chapter is going to be from Mustang's POV, simply because he was present during the transmutation the entire time. If you want, make believe that Ed is telling this whole thing. It probably won't make sense.

The next chapter is closing up the case.

Enjoy this one.

Disclaimer= Nope. I don't own FMA.

xxxxx

"I thought I told you to stay outside, Colonel. All we need is Fuery's help, and you're useless when it comes to this stuff," Edward grumbled, drawing a curved line of chalk on the concrete floor. Fuery was on the other side of the room, scratching his chalk across the floor as well. The emerging design reminded Ed much of a blossoming flower, like the eruption of life itself.

I kept my distance from the two working young men and looked over at the suit of armor sitting in the corner. Alphonse wasn't participating in drawing the transmutation circle. When Edward had tried to talk him into it, Alphonse had only let out a small grunt and remained silent enough that I thought his soul had left. However, the poor kid was still in there somewhere, thinking.

"Alphonse?" I made my way over to him across the chalked floor, ignoring the protests of 'Dammit Colonel! Now I have to sketch this part over!' coming from Ed's direction. Alphonse's armor creaked slightly when he looked up at me from the hollowness of his shell. Oh, I thought, he's scared. When I looked at him close enough, I could see how the giant arms he'd wrapped around his thick knees were trembling slightly, and I could hear the constant chink of his joints.

"I hope Brother draws it right. He never really was good at drawing," Alphonse said in a small voice, attempting to play off his fear. I managed a smirk.

"I don't know about any of his sketches, but I think he knows how to draw a circle, Alphonse," I told the sixteen-year-old soul, and from the sound that he made, I knew that he was expressing a weak smile.

"It's so... complex. Huge. And Brother's always working so hard." As an afterthought, he added, "It's not as if you help him, you know, Colonel. Always making him rewrite reports and stuff. He's stays up really late at night sometimes to get his work finished for you, Sir."

I cleared my throat and sent a quick glance over at Edward, suddenly figuring out why the little idiot always had a shadow under his eyes. For a moment, I wondered if I had ever been a little too hard on him. After all, he wasn't the sort of person to do anything half-assed, and he certainly didn't accept criticism very well. Hard-headed, stubborn, unnaturally obnoxious... he was the reason I never wanted kids.

For some odd reason, though, I sort of enjoyed watching him succeed.

"Colonel?" Alphonse brought me out of my thoughts with a soft voice. "Would you promise me something? Promise something to both me and Ed?"

I hated promises. You always had to keep them. I thought of several different ways to escape Alphonse's question, and came up with nothing. Sighing, I rubbed the back of my head uncomfortably and answered him.

"Sure, Alphonse. I'll do my best to promise," I exhaled. That seemed to be enough for him.

"Promise you won't interfere when the time comes to do the transmutation, Sir. Edward wouldn't want you to do anything drastic, especially after we worked so hard to do this."

I looked away from him. There were some things that I really just didn't want to promise. After all, I couldn't... I couldn't just sit there and watch them if they actually ended up failing, right? What if the transmutation backfired and Ed lost something else close to him? What if he lost Alphonse for good? No. I didn't want to promise Alphonse something like that. It would be unfair to the both of them.

"I..."

But then again, if they did failed and I didn't promise, would Alphonse's last memory be of my inability to keep a promise?

"Alphonse, I..."

What about my subordinates? I told them that I planned on going to the top to become Fuhrer. If I left them behind, what would happen to them? Oh. Hawkeye. She would keep them in line, and she knew that I wanted her to be the one to succeed me after Hughes died. But still, everyone would...

"Colonel?" Alphonse asked hesitantly. His voice echoed eerily through the empty armor.

They'd gone too far in their journey to fail now. Besides, Edward didn't have a sacrifice to give to the Gate. The transmutation wouldn't work at all, unless he was planning on bringing back only Alphonse, and even then, the kid would probably be missing half an intestine or something. Their only motivation in life was to be whole again, and all I wanted to do was become powerful. Two functioning, living boys or presidency? Damn the odds.

"I promise, Alphonse..." 'that I won't let you two fail again'. But of course, I didn't really say that. Alphonse would tell Edward, and then the little punk would fume at me for the rest of his life and the afterlife. I'd probably end up meeting him in hell, and that was supposed to be for eternity. So, I kept the rest of my promise to myself.

"Alright, Al! We're done!" Edward declared from the other end of the room, rubbing a smear of chalk off of his cheek with his arm. Fuery had his rifle in his hands again and was almost slumping against the back wall. His clothes and face were smeared with chalk as well, and his eyes looked heavy and tired. He wanted the transmutation over as much as I did.

"Al, you lay down in the middle of the circle. I'll stay on the outside to activate it, and it'll affect me too. Colonel." He shot a firm, sharp glare at me that could rival only Hawkeye's, "Stay in the corner. If you're going to be here, then you're not going to interfere."

Boy, was he going to hate me.

"Alright, Fullmetal, but I expect you both to have functioning limbs when you're done."

"And I expect you to not get any stupid ideas. Don't interfere, Mustang," Edward growled, though I could sense that he really wanted me to be safe. Sure, we had our spats, fights, if you will, but I don't think we entirely hated each other. After all, underneath the teenager shell, Edward was a pretty respectable person overall. And I mean overall. He wasn't the easiest person to get along with when he got determined, just as he was now.

And my idea wasn't stupid.

"Sending your superior to the corner. Very brave," I muttered as I stalked over to the corner of the room and stood at-ease. I watched as Alphonse adjusted himself, lying flat down on his back. I couldn't tell if the kid was staring up at the ceiling or anything. The hollow glow underneath his helmet was indecipherable.

"The others are outside?" Edward asked to no one in particular, glancing towards the closed door with a swallow of what I assumed was nervousness. Hell, I was nervous. My hands were a little shaky, and I had the unquenchable urge to glance around myself. We would need Havoc, Hawkeye, or Breda to help us if anything went wrong.

But nothing was going to go wrong if I could help it. Perhaps, that's why I was shaking.

"They'd better be," I answered Ed, "I gave them specific orders to-"

"Alright, Colonel, I didn't ask for a report," Edward snapped, sounding exasperated. With a dull thump, he kneeled down abruptly in front of the edge of the transmutation circle. The sound of his clap reverberated off the walls, sounding almost deafening to my ears, though I was probably hallucinating.

Before he released his hands from the clap, Edward looked over at me with a smile I'd never seen on him before. It was one of those 'Hey, I'll be alright. Don't worry about me' smiles. I swallowed hard to escape the lump in my throat as I watched him turn to Alphonse.

"Let's bring our bodies back, Al," he said so quietly that I knew he wanted only Alphonse to hear him. Then, his fingertips touched the chalk, and a vortex of light erupted from the white design on the floor. It swirled and wavered so fluidly that I couldn't help but stare at it, mesmerized. There was a rushing sound in my ears, and I felt a strong breeze coming from the circle itself. Edward's hair was whipping out of its braid and brushing his cheeks, but his eyes were closed hard in concentration. Alphonse was silent, not that I would be able to hear him doing anything anyways with all of the noise. A quick glance to the corner, and I saw Fuery cowering against the wall, his rifle cocked.

It seemed to be going well. I thought they wouldn't have needed my help. And then, I heard Edward cry out in pain, and I saw that his automail arm was slowly disintegrating from the fingertips to his shoulder. The nerves were being taken along with the particles towards the middle of the light funnel. He was in pain, and the lump in my throat was back. The wind seemed to get louder.

"Fullmetal! Stop the transmutation!" I screamed, but no one could hear me over the wind. If I could only grab him and force his arms away from the circle before he could kill himself...

I took a step, then another. My feet began carrying me towards the howling funnel, and my arm went up over my eyes to shield myself. Faintly, I thought I could hear Fuery screaming for me to stop, but I did nothing of the sort. I kept walking slowly towards Edward, hearing his screams escalate until I could visibly see his blanched face and the cloud of moving particles that were being picked apart from his shoulder and neck. He was going to suffocate if it got to his throat. Droplets of blood were already being swept away from the side of his body. He saw me and yelled for me to stop walking. I didn't.

Then, I was at the edge of the circle. It was glowing a radiant white against the dull gray concrete floor, and the wind that came with the transmutation was billowing steadily from the chalk lines. The heat of the transmutation was almost overwhelming. I smelled burning flesh and felt pain in my cheeks. When I touched them, they were covered with a sheen of my own blood. I was burning. I was too close. Edward was gasping and shrieking at the same time now. I could see the lines of straining muscle in the cords of his neck. His jaw bone was visible. The skull around his eyeball was nearly gone.

Without any further thought, I stepped directly onto the circle. As the chalk smudged under my boot, I felt an unrecognizable and alien pain rip through my body, traveling from toes to hair follicles in less than a second. I couldn't even scream. I wanted to step back, but I was so deeply rooted in pain that I couldn't even process the memory of walking backwards. My skin felt slimy; it was flaking off, my cells swirling away towards the center of the circle. My uniform had dissolved. I was completely bare to the pain now.

I felt two arms wrap around my shoulders, trying to drag me back. It was Fuery. He opened his mouth to yell at me, but I heard surprised cry come from him instead. He fell back onto the ground, his front covered in my blood and his mouth cascading with his own. I didn't see anything else. I continued to feel the pain of being slowly taken apart.

The only thing I could think was: When will I die? It wouldn't take long, would it? Not that I had anything to do. I had already gotten myself into deep crap. I just didn't think that it would take this long to die. I was sacrificing myself, for crying out loud. Couldn't the Gate just eat me whole and be done? It would be much easier than picking me apart for the whole world to see.

I got the sudden image of a child savoring a bowl of rice, grain by grain. Grain by grain by damn grain. Over and over and over. The bowl was half-empty. The fork would spear just one little white grain at a time, and the mouth would eat the grain and crush it. Then, it would be another grain's turn. Just a continuous cycle until the bowl was empty. Grain by grain by grain by grain by...

...

I didn't remember ever lying down during the transmutation, but the next thing I knew, the wind was gone, and so was the screaming, and so was the pain. The insides of my eyelids were a bright red from the light shining through them. My fingers twitched. I sat up.

I felt lightheaded and gleeful, sort of like one feels after drinking too much. With a soft groan, I forced myself to my feet, but immediately stumbled backwards. It was weird... without the heavy boots I wore, I didn't make a single sound as I wobbled backwards like a newborn fawn. In fact, the only sounds I could hear were coming from me. Just... breathing.

There was a creak. I whirled around soundlessly and nearly collided with a solid, stone door. It towered over me ominously, and the slit in the middle of it was expanding slowly. I could see thousands upon thousands of large, dilated eyes staring down at me. The Gate.

I clambered backwards awkwardly, giving the Gate room to open. The eyes kept staring down at me, mocking, waiting. Waiting for what?

A soft moan echoed from the darkness of the open Gate, and I saw Edward stumble out unclothed with half of his body covered in a sheen of blood. It was then that I realized I fared the same state, only with my whole body was stained crimson. Strangely enough, I didn't feel naked. Edward collapsed, and I instinctively caught him, kneeling down to lower his limp form onto the ground next to me. The Gate creaked shut, and then I could only hear my breathing again.

"Edward..?" ...ward... ward... ward..?

My eyes scanned his body. There were no injuries, and there was no automail. With a clenched heart, I saw the seamless shoulder where his fleshy right arm extended down to perfectly formed fingertips. His left leg was seamlessly in place as well, and the toes were twitching gently. It was then that my subordinate opened his eyes slowly and watched me.

"I... told... you," he whispered raggedly. "Told you... don't interfere..."

"You're not the boss of me, Fullmetal," I said in an oddly calm voice. He sat up slowly, examining his own body in disbelief.

"It worked. It's back," he said in a slurred, dazed tone. His eyes searched the continuing white space around us. "Alphonse?"

"He might be back already, Fullmetal," I mused, "He's probably waiting for you. Go on. Wake up or whatever you do." He looked up at me with a lost expression.

"Aren't you coming?" he asked. I looked down at the bloody handprint I'd left on the shapeless ground below me. I couldn't feel my fingers. I couldn't feel much of anything, really. I was so lightheaded.

"I don't think I will ever be coming back, Fullmetal," I said as if I were just starting a conversation. Edward seemed to understand.

"You're dead, aren't you?" he said quietly, "I told you to stop walking, you know." As he held up his right arm to examine it again, it began to fade away into the white background. "If only you'd listened to me, Colonel." The rest of his body began to fade as well, until only his shoulders and above remained slowly drifting away. "Damn you." His usual cocky grin was plastered on his face, even as the rest of him became nothing. He was gone, probably back at the gun factory between the Central and East city, waiting for Alphonse to wake up and wondering if I was only kidding.

The Gate was silent, unbearably silent. My skin felt sticky and crusted with blood, and my eyes stung. I didn't know what to do. Would I simply stay there forever? Or would I vanish? Everything just felt so... so pointless. I was sitting nude in front of a giant stone door with no scenery around me, much less any noise.

"Hello?" I called. "Can anyone hear me?" My voice echoed off of unseen walls and came back at me like a punch to the face. So I was alone. Truly alone. I'd never known what that felt like, not even during the Ishbalan war. "And so the Colonel spent his eternity repenting to a door," I muttered.

As if it had heard me, the Gate groaned and began to sweep open again. As the eyes began gleaming down at me for the second time, I felt a strong, vacuum-like wind begin pulling me in. Even as I resisted, I felt my blood-slickened body slide across the non-existent ground towards the darkness of the Gate. When I figured that I couldn't resist the movement, I began to scream in panic. It was going to eat me. What would it feel like to be eaten?

I looked over my shoulder, wondering if I could find something that I could latch onto to keep from being carried away into the wind. In horror, the only thing I saw was my own body, sprawled across the floor in the same position that I usually slept in. At the moment, I was a soul.

"Wake up!" I screamed at myself, "You damn idiot! Wake up!" I thrashed and kicked my legs as if the vacuum were a pair of strong arms. My resistance was futile. Ha. I sounded like a freak alien movie. I was going to die inside of a nightmare after living in one.

The Gate closed behind me, and I was left in the most complete... unimaginable...

...darkness.