Fullmetal Exorcist- Chapter 8- Sir Komurin the Eleventh

"Come on, brother, you're lagging behind!" Al laughed as he and Lenalee looked at through the windows of the shops. Ed, Lavi, and Kanda meanwhile, were very far behind.

"Just came back from that mission, and my feet are killing me…" Lavi whined. "Yuu, how come you're walking with us? You know you don't get tired."

"I'd rather walk in silence than catch up with those two," Kanda said in a nonchalant manner. "And don't call me by that name."

"Give it a rest, Kanda," Ed rolled his eyes. "It's just a name, what's wrong with that?"

"Actually…" Lavi dragged his feet. "The real question is why we're here again?"

"Oh," Kanda and Ed looked up, and an imaginary dream cloud floated above their heads as the three boys paled at the memory.

"Morning, Lenalee!" Ed waved. "Hey, Al!"

"Where were you?" Al asked. "It's annoying when you ditch me in the morning and disappear."

"At the library," Ed set his tray of food down. Lavi was busy annoying Kanda.

"Well, it's pretty early," Lenalee smiled. "We have a whole day ahead of us. Anyways, Most of the Exorcists are getting a break, so we get to go outside in the city. You coming? My brother said you can."

"I guess I'll try hitting a restaurant there," Ed nodded.

"Sounds good." Al agreed. "Maybe Lavi should come, too. The more the merrier!"

"But where are we going?" Ed asked.

"There's a nice city right off from here," Al explained. "I went there before I came here. It's not that bad."

"And how far is it?" Ed asked.

Al twiddled his thumbs. "Oh, not so far, we have to walk though…"

"How far?!"

"About… forty miles…"

"WHAT!?"

"NO worries!" Lenalee smiled. "We're taking the whole trip by train, so don't sweat it!"

"And we didn't know that the train ride only was three quarters of the way…" Ed sighed. "She left out the part when we had to walk ten miles from the train station…"

"Why didn't we try Paris?" Lavi asked. "It's much closer…"

"This is Paris," Kanda emphasized. "Idiot rabbit, we used to be based here."

The redhead shrugged and kept walking along.

"Hm…" Ed looked about. "I was hoping to find a bookstore, but there's none from where I see it."

The three of them stopped and they only saw clothing stores and many people bustling through the doors.

"If you were a bit taller, then you'd see one," Kanda placed his snide remark, and Ed was about to burst a bubble, when he calmed down.

"You implying I'm short?" He asked with tranquil fury. Kanda didn't answer, and the two of them begin to glare. A spark of electricity erupted between the two until…

"Hey, hey!!" Lavi placed a hand on each of their shoulders. "We're on break, so no hard feelings, okay?"

"Who said you can latch onto me?" Ed crossly shoved Lavi's arm off.

"Get off me, idiot rabbit!" Kanda sternly did the same. Then he paused and whirled on his feet to see behind him. Lavi and Ed craned their heads to see.

"What did you see, Yuu?" the redhead asked. The samurai snorted in annoyance and then looked at them.

"The big sister complex is right behind that corner," he grumbled, walking towards an empty alleyway, with the other two following behind. Lavi sighed. The whole thing will happen over and over again…

The three of them charged into the alley, only to find that they ran over a man in a white lab coat. Alarmed at what they did, they jumped away and looked closely. He had sandy brown spiky hair, and the face was too recognizable…

"Reever!" Ed exclaimed. "What brings you here?!"

"Oh?" The scientist got up to his feet. "Well, sorry to scare you…"

"What are you doing here?" Kanda asserted the questioned.

"Just getting something for the lab," Reever said plainly. "I saw you guys, but then I saw the Chief running around right behind Lenalee and Alphonse."

"He didn't think that Alphonse is on a date with Lenalee, is he?" Lavi asked. "But Al's too young for her. She's seventeen, and he's what? Like… how old is he, Ed?"

"Fifteen," Ed answered flatly.

"Well, you know how Komui's like when Lenalee goes outside HQ…" Reever sighed. "But… I think there's something wrong here…"

"What?" The three asked.

"Well, I didn't expect Chief to be here, because his secretary Fay was being quite forceful about letting Lenalee go on her own, and he was really busy with this huge stack of paperwork, along with visiting Central for extra paperwork today…"

"Hey…" Al looked behind him. "Where's brother and everyone else?"

Lenalee looked as well, but they didn't see any of the three.

"Hm…" Lenalee sighed. "Maybe they found something interesting…"

Meanwhile, not so far away, a man with blue hair, square glasses, and a white beret was peeking from behind a fruit stand, watching Alphonse and Lenalee quite closely. His mouth turned into a Cheshire grin, and he slinked away into the shadows.

"So you're saying you might have seen an imposter?" Kanda deducted, and Reever shrugged. Ed then sighed.

"Who would try to disguise themselves as the Supervisor of the Black Order?" He reasoned. "He's not a celebrity, and obviously, to think that Lenalee has that many stalkers…"

"Well, there's one…" Lavi hinted. "And that's the Director of the Asian Branch Order…"

Ed looked at Lavi with surprise. "You mean Bak Chan?"

"Um… yeah…?"

Ed deadpanned. So that's why he was so panicky about not giving the binder to me when I was 'inspecting' the Branch…. I swear I saw photographs of someone… like his girlfriend or something… but… He had been keeping pictures of Lenalee… that's …. Disturbing…

"Well, Bak would never go through such trouble," Lavi added. "So… who else would it be?"

"That doesn't matter," Reever sighed. "Let's just find Lenalee and Alphonse!"

"Alphonse, what do you think of this one?" She handed a book to the younger boy, who took it and checked the synopsis and chapters.

"Well, this is nothing to do with what I'm looking for…" Al sighed. "It's just a novel about dragons."

He returned the book back to its place. Lenalee and Al then looked about the bookcases.

"Gee, If brother wasn't so slow," Al sighed again. "He would have found this bookstore."

"Maybe he found another one?" Lenalee suggested. Al shrugged.

"Oh!" He exclaimed. "Maybe this one!"

He took out a book with faded red binding and checked its contents.

"Aw…" He groaned. "It's all faded, you can't even read it…"

Alphonse then looked up to the end of the bookshelf. Didn't he see someone behind there? But where was he? He could barely feel that person's presence, but he could tell that person's intent was to follow them, he thought.

"Alphonse?" Lenalee looked to where the former was staring. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Al smiled. "Just thought I saw someone…"

And so the chase began, and they ran all over the city trying to find the Supervisor. One instance was the time when Lavi had mistaken a rather nice looking young woman for Komui, since her back was turned… And just before any fluff had happened, Kanda, Reever, and Ed dragged him away…

Another was Kanda bashing his Mugen on an innocent pedestrian, well, the poor guy was knocked out, and Ed spent a while glaring at the samurai for doing that. Hours passed… and then…

"Komui!" The four of them shouted and tackled the Supervisor to the ground. The poor man was begging them to get off, until they had their fill.

"Ugh…" he groaned. "What was that for?"

"That," Ed said sharply. "Was for ruining our break by having us tail you around Paris! We're telling you! Lenalee and Al are fine! They don't need a chaperone!"

"What are you talking about?" Komui raised an eyebrow. "I just came here ten minutes ago and I needed to get more espresso. Apparently Fay refuses to get it for me when she's on break when I'm not…"

"You managed to walk ten miles here?!" Lavi's jaw dropped. "I didn't know you could do that!"

"No, not really," Komui's eyes glinted. And he pointed to a tall structure beside him. "I used this!"

Apparently, a robot stood beside him, painted lavender, for some reason. On its head was a camera, and a white beret. Those who knew what this was turned brain dead. Oh, this brings far too many bad memories…

"A…A Komurin?!" Reever clasped his hands to head in disbelief.

"Yup!" Komui smiled, proud of his work. "It can go really fast, and by the way, the real name is Sir Komurin the Eleventh!"

"Eleventh?" Ed looked at Lavi, who went blue slightly.

"He's made ten of them so far…" Lavi looked at the robot, and talked like a documentary of some sort. "All them were failures, though. Most of them were destroyed by Lenalee, Kanda, and beansprout…."

"Don't worry, Lavi!" Komui attempted to reassure. "It's waterproof, it's fast, and it's really intelligent! See? It can write and read things!"

Reever then hit Komui over the head in annoyance. "Why did you make another Komurin?!!!"

"That's not the problem…" Kanda snarled. "What's wrong is that Komui needs to get his facts straight about Lenalee and Al…"

"I'm telling you!" Komui went back to begging mode again. "I haven't seen them, I swear!"

Ed then gasped. Reever, Lavi and Kanda looked at him in wonder.

"That's strange…" Ed thought. "If Komui is really right, then who was it that Reever saw when he saw Lenalee and Al?"

Lavi then thought. "A person who just happens to look like Komui and stalks girls?"

"No…" Ed bonked the redhead in the forehead with his right arm, the automail one. Then he realized. "Uh oh…"

"What?"

"I think there's… a big problem here…" Ed gulped and turned blue. "This might be an Akuma…"

Al scowled silently. He kept getting the strange feeling that someone was following him and Lenalee. He kept turning around to check, but no one suspicious. Why?

"Al," Lenalee laughed. "You've suddenly gotten more nervous. What's wrong?"

"Um… I thought I saw someone…"

Then it caught his eye. A hooded person dashed away, as if he were running away from them. Al didn't hesitate to keep running when Lenalee was right after him.

"Alphonse! Wait!" She shouted, and they ran through the alleyway. But the person was gone, and a gruff looking person, a cancer stick in his mouth and a straw hat upon his head, was leaning against a wall, not caring why the two Exorcists were there.

"Al… what were you looking for?" Lenalee asked, but Al turned to her.

"I saw someone suspicious… but I think he's gone now…"

The smoking man stood up, and his eyes blared red from under the lampshading under the straw yellow hat. Al spun on his feet, and he looked at the man again. Lenalee gasped as the man's coarse skin began to bubble and then a huge grotesque monster of metal and dark material burst out. An Akuma.

"An shape shifting Akuma?" Al's eyes narrowed. Lenalee put down her shopping bags and readied her Innocence, when Al placed a hand in front of her to stop her.

"Leave it to me," He said, reaching into the inner pockets of his coat. "I'll deal with it."

"You think you can deal with me?" The Akuma taunted. "Try and catch me!"

The Akuma faded away, and immediately, five people were seen running down the alley towards them.

"Brother! Lavi!" Alphonse shouted.

"Brother?" Lenalee was surprised that her own brother was here.

"Al! Lenalee!" Ed shouted. "You aren't hurt are you?"

"Well, we saw an Ak-" Al was cut off by Komui.

"Well, you're safe now!"

"Fools!" the voice of the Akuma echoed in the alley. "You will never escape my illusions!"

"Illusions?!" They all gasped. Al then realized.

"So that's why," He said aloud. "This Akuma can form illusions, apparently material illusions, so they seem real…"

Lavi sighed, "Never mind being safe…"

The demon appeared once again, this time above their heads. Al didn't stop to think and he launched himself upon the nearest elevation point possible and jumped up to engage in battle.

"All right, let's go-" Ed was about to clap his hands, when he realized his arms were bound by strange ribbon. "What?"

"Ed!" Komui shouted, but a sharp illusionary blade of the Akuma was hurtling towards him, and Kanda took the blow in the shoulder for him.

"Hurry up and get out of the way, sister complex!" the samurai shouted. He then backed off and proceeded to attempt to cut the ribbon on Ed's hands, but they wouldn't budge, even with Mugen released. Scowling, Kanda attempted to go after the Akuma, but then he fell forward, unconscious.

"Yuu!" Lavi yelled. Now he was trying to help Ed.

"Since when could simple ribbon be this hard?" Ed said curiously, tugging furiously at the white cloth, then he looked at the Akuma. "Maybe that's the Akuma's power of illusions? Oi, Lavi! Hurry up!"

"All right!" Lavi yelled. "Let's go! Big hammer, little ham- ora?"

He looked at the space where his Innocence should have been, nothing there… "Hey… where did my Innocence go?"

"You must have forgotten it," Ed said flatly, still tied up. "We were in a hurry, after all, but damnit! Now we can't do anything! Stupid illusions!!"

Lenalee was fully aware of the situation and she activated her Innocence. The red anklets glowed, and grew to a large size, molding themselves into a pair of crimson red boots. However, she ran in the wrong direction, and kicked the fire hydrant that exploded and hit the robot square in the motherboard, and the poor thing blew up. The girl then clutched her sore leg. Ed's jaw dropped. Komurin… out of the ball game.

"HEY! I THOUGHT YOU SAID IT WAS WATERPROOF!!" Ed yelled.

"Well, that's what I built it to be…" Komui sweatdropped. "Well, you see, I didn't get a chance to test out the Sir Komurin the Eleventh…"

"Now how do we help Al?!" Lavi complained. Ed continued to tug angrily at the ribbons. "Yuu! Yuuu! Wakey wakey!"

"What?" Lenalee gasped. "The illusions are not breaking!"

"Hey!" Ed smiled. "It seems that my little brother made it out of the illusions before the Akuma closed us in."

Reever then watched Al finally reach the top where a long rod stood between the two buildings and above this alley. The young boy landed soundlessly on the metal pole and kept a good balance, and he readied his Innocence, a set of metal daggers, each decorated with white flags on the handles.

"So you have come to challenge me?" the Akuma Level Two teased. "I'd like to see how you fight."

"Oh, you will," Al played along, smiling, and he stood upright upon the pole and closed his eyes for a moment. Alkahestry, the alchemic art of using life energy in the ground, and that was his way.

One. He could fell sensitive movement about the area.

Two. His opponent was planning an ambush.

Three. That can be stopped… right… now.

He spun around, still keeping his balance, throwing five daggers the opposite direction of the Akuma simultaneously as he dropped five daggers about him on the pole. The small weapons stopped in mid-air, and each group formed a star shaped symbol glowing green, and a piercing scream appeared from the location of the daggers he had thrown, not dropped.

"Y-You…" The Akuma growled, as his true body appeared. "You saw through my illusions…"

"Actually, I could only feel where you are," Al said quietly. "but that was because you were very careless on hiding your presence. As many illusions you can make, you can only trick the eyes and ears, but not the mind. Good bye."

Bit by bit, the Akuma faded out of existence. Al didn't take his eyes off the spot where the Akuma had disappeared. Lavi and Komui watched in amazement. They had not really ever seen Al in combat, and this was the first time.

"Al's Innocence is also an Alchemic Innocence," Ed explained. "That means whatever weapon he uses can be considered his Innocence. However, he can't make weapons out of raw material like me. He needs weapons made beforehand. Usually he prefers daggers."

"Whoa…" That was all Lavi could say.

"Lenalee!" Al rushed to the injured Exorcist. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, just a bruise… I was foolish enough to think that breaking out of the illusion would work." the young woman smiled, with a bright smile on her face. Al then shook his scornfully.

"Don't say that," He smiled. "You twisted your ankle. Here, let me help you-"

"I'm fine, really." Lenalee got up but she found herself falling flat on her bottom again. Al knelt down beside her and clapped his hands and placed his hand on the floor. A strange circular star pattern appeared under Lenalee's ankle, and glowed and faded away. When the process stopped, Lenalee looked at her foot again.

"Hey…" she was amazed that it could move normally. "It's healed! Good as new!"

Al nodded and smiled. "Now you're fine."

"Thank you, Alphonse," she allowed him to help her up and they walked to the five waiting for them.

"So, you okay?" Ed smiled. His brother nodded and so did Lenalee. He then faced the sunset again.

"Seems like we'll need to get back to Headquarters…" He said, and then he blanched. "Just how do we get to the station without walking ten miles…?"

Everyone then turned to Ed and pointed at the broken Komurin, telling him to fix it. Ed then sweatdropped.

"Okay…" Ed said in defeat. "I'll fix it, but I'll have to scrap it down when we get back. Komui, as Inspector, I'll have to prohibit you from making any more Komurins till further notice."

"B-but," Komui pleaded. "Komurin is…"

"What kind of thick head do you have?!" Kanda snapped. "You've nearly hurt your own sister last time, you damn sister-complex!"

"That was accident… You'll forgive me, right, Lenalee?"

"Brother… please don't make any more…"

"Fine…"

A/N: Okay, back to weekly updates! If you think Kanda is a bit OOC, remember that he actually is a bit nicer after poor Allen disappeared. Next chapter gets back to the main story, and the surprise pairing you have yet to see is going to appear. Those who know who the new pairing is, feel free to shout it out. BTW, the pairing is not yaoi or yuri, so none of those.

So, here's the preview: Chapter 9: Vanishing Acts - Al and Kanda are off on another mission, this time to Dublith, Germany. A potential Exorcist awaits, but just who? And just what is the Silver Shield? Questions are cut short when Alphonse is kidnapped. but by whom?