Act II: Confession

Riza was not one to believe in – or to be fearful of – the physical manifestation of ghosts. But she increasingly found herself trying to reinforce that belief as she gripped the crude banister of the stairwell while descending blindly into its claustrophobic bowels. The atmosphere made it easy for the cadet to imagine frantic footfalls of marching soldiers and running civilians in the incessant pummel of rain, or to hear mournful wails of the dying in the wind howling from the gaps of the walls.

Instead, Riza attuned her ears to the movements made by the State Alchemist who went on ahead of her, sensing him opening door after door two floors below her location. When she reached the landing of what was the tenement's third level, she finally considered her situation. It felt like she was being led from one battlefield to another, with neither offering her a flicker of guiding light. Cadet Riza Hawkeye realized how lost she was in this place, this war zone, this country long bathed in shadows and tempest. And when she came to that fork in her road, she couldn't begin to explain – perhaps never would – her choice to seek out the man who held this violent territory so easily in the palms of his hands.

Taking a deep, decisive breath, the woman snubbed the straight and narrow of the staircase leading to the outside and entered into the twisting corridors of the unknown.

In what little amount of illumination the sparsely windowed aisles provided, Riza was given a peek at the miniature dramas that went on in each of the modest flats in the last minutes of their occupancy. She could almost watch the unfolding scenes of panic, of frantic packing, and crying children that went on beyond the open doors; leaving in their wake a sad disarray of possessions and remnants of normalcy left to rot as they lay frozen for posterity like a tragic still-life.

Riza continued to walk with heavy padded steps down the nickelodeon arcade she had conjured for herself until she reached a flat near the end of the hall. Here, she had caught up with Major Solf J. Kimblee who was inside doing a rudimentary inspection of its provisions.

The small apartment was a stark one-room affair. On one side was a cooking area and water closet, while a large made-up bed took up the opposite end, the room's single slender window hanging high above it. In the middle of the floor were three chairs set around a wooden square table.

It wasn't the room's utter banality that struck Riza, but how devoid it was of the terrifying urgency that was so apparent in the others. It was as if the abode had been sealed in a vacuum, prepped to faithfully await the return of its Ishvalan residents who left it spic-and-span with optimism that the war would soon end and daily life would resume as usual.

But now that the time capsule had been broken in by strangers … enemies … its pristine cocoon began to reek a musty smell of pity and desolation, both for its emptiness and for its missing tenants.

Of course he would choose this room out of all the others, Riza thought, her heartbeats inexplicably doubling-up. She wondered if the man was prompted by its mere tidiness or piqued by its biting irony as well.

Determining that everything about the room was in order, Kimblee walked to the entryway to meet the new arrival. His dark coat had already been folded and draped neatly over a chair back. "This is as good a place as any to ride out the storm. Better than the rooftop at least," he quipped, a content expression crossing his features. He extended his right hand to Riza in a formal invite. "Please do come in and join me, Miss Hawkeye."

Briefly, she searched him and herself for some logical, valid reason to accept his invitation. Tiredness … the sleek rope of raven hair that snaked dashingly along a masculine shoulder … duty … the warm smile whose corners hinted at wicked charm … curiosity … the sophisticated, meticulous way his glowing eyes studied her ...

Maybe it was all of those reasons. But they whooshed by as trivial afterthoughts because, for the few moments she let her mind become a blank slate, Riza wanted – needed – to not think twice, no, to not think at all. Gravity pulled her into a high-velocity freefall and she crossed the threshold.

The Crimson Alchemist moved aside to let the cadet pass. As she walked towards the table with her back at him, Kimblee noticed a fresh splotch of blood staining the lapel of his uniform.

"Fifth one this week," he mused offhandedly. "I suppose I should request Quartermaster field services to send me an adjutant specializing in laundry duty." Calmly, he shut the door with one hand and began unfastening his jacket with the other.

Riza stood at attention next to the table watching the tall officer as he went to the very basic kitchen area and found an oil lamp. Removing its glass chimney, Kimblee put his hands together and transmuted a tiny, tightly controlled spark to ignite the wick, briefly filling the room with an electric blue haze. After that, he placed the lamp with its weak flame within a small stone cooking hearth to ensure the flat was still relatively blacked-out from outside the narrow window. The room now criss-crossed with long shadows, Riza respectfully lowered her gaze as the man nonchalantly shrugged off his unbuttoned uniform and proceeded to hold a portion of it under the faucet of the wash basin.

Having washed off as much of the blood on his jacket, Kimblee turned and expressed surprise at seeing Riza remaining in her formal stance.

"At ease, soldier," he commanded with a chuckle, placing the jacket over his folded coat on a chair and sitting down. "Have a seat."

The sniper nodded once, dropped her pack on the floor and carefully laid her sheathed rifle on the table. She then self-consciously unclasped the fasteners on her wet cloak, slowly lifted it from her shoulders and tented it over the chair next to her.

"I must say, I find it very intriguing to encounter a woman like you in the military, even more so as a female sniper in this war. I would expect your type to be engaged in a more, shall we say, genteel profession."

As she took a seat, Riza couldn't help but notice how the tepid gold hue emanating from the lamp behind the alchemist cast a flattering gleam on the smoothly defined muscles of his bared arms, shoulders, and collarbones straining under the fabric of his shirt. Quickly, she averted her view to the rifle on the table as she straightened her posture opposite him. "My type ..." she began to craft a schooled response. "The likes of me choose to serve the country as required of their abilities, sir."

Kimblee propped an elbow on the table and cradled his chin in his hand. "And I presume your primary ability is sniping?"

"I'd like to believe the courses I excel in at the Academy are Military History and Defense and Counterinsurgency Analysis, but if the Army says so, then yes, Major; my specialization is sniping."

"And how do you like your job, so far?"

Momentary silence. Riza's fingers fussed over an imaginary loose thread on her rifle's bindings. She listened for a tinge of mockery in his voice and only heard genuine inquisitiveness. Surely, he already knew the answer from the look on her face the first time they met. He had even called her out on it. What in the world is he playing at?

Finally, she looked up and answered, "I think I do my job just fine, sir."

The officer smiled and nodded knowingly at the diplomatic reply. "I have no doubt about that. Tell me, how many Ishvalans do you surmise having sniped in this war?"

She scowled visibly at the blunt question, nails beginning to scratch obsessively at the wood veneer of the table. "Before your speech a few days ago, I hadn't really kept count. Definitely not as many as yo-" The woman bit her tongue abruptly. "... the State Alchemists."

"Ah ... Touché."

Riza cleared her throat in embarrassment. "Forgive me, sir. I wasn't trying to avoid the question by deflecting it on … anyone in particular."

"Nothing to forgive, my good soldier. Everyone, be it Amestrian or Ishvalan, knows by now State Alchemists and snipers have turned the tide of this conflict. And as State Alchemists, we - " Kimblee accented the word caustically for emphasis, "are fully aware of the lethal extent of using alchemy compared to conventional weaponry."

His expression perked with an aura that skillfully teetered between plain honesty and pride. "So, if you are insinuating that State Alchemists – like me – have killed more people than you ..."

"Of course, we have."

He smiled.

Riza blinked at Kimblee's amused, unperturbed, and so detached reaction. Her scowl, meanwhile, deflated into a crestfallen stupor at her mention of 'State Alchemists' and his emphasis on 'we'.

How could she forget that thousand-yard stare from those deep black eyes once so focused on dreams so near?

To her aghast realization, 'we' also meant 'him'.

"Out of all your targets, is there one that you remember in particular?" Kimblee's hands clasped beneath his chin in eager anticipation of her answer.

"Why do you ask, Major?" Riza forced herself out of her reverie by adjusting upright on the chair.

"I admit it may be rather impossible for most soldiers to recall each of their kills in battle with precise detail. But surely at least one should stand out to make for an entertaining tale to share at a campfire, yes?" he explained. "What is yours?"

She stifled an exasperated sigh from escaping her lips, conceding that conversation with this eloquent man was expected of her the minute she walked through that door. What else were they supposed to do while waiting for the storm to pass after all?

"Um, I wouldn't know if this is up to campfire standards, but there was this incident a month ago in the south sector of Daliha," Riza began reluctantly. "Chelsea Company of the Second Battalion had been in a protracted door-to-door firefight with a large band of guerrillas and I was brought in to provide support. For three hours, I had been sniping from a bombed-out four-story granary until at about 1300 hours, the enemy had finally determined my position."

"An Ishvalan sharpshooter targeted me from a building opposite my outpost. At that point, we were at a standoff; neither of us sniped at the ground troops below. It was simply me against him and who could manage to pull off the killing shot on the other first."

"I would go down a floor, and he would track me, shooting into the granary windows and gaps every chance he got. Then I would do the same to him as soon as I detected movement in his building. This went on for several hours, each of us testing the other's patience in a battle of attrition. Strangely, we both never considered calling out for reinforcements to ambush the other's position even as we started running out of ammo and willpower."

"In the fourth hour of our deadlock, I was on my last rifle magazine and I knew I had to escape from the granary. It was then that I decided I would initiate a gambit. I fashioned a makeshift dummy out of my cloak and pack and positioned it and my rifle just a tiny bit visibly over one of the building parapets hoping the sniper would take the bait ..."

Riza paused, scanning Kimblee's body language for continued signs of interest. She knew she had a droll way about her and didn't think the alchemist would be particularly entranced with her dry delivery. But to her surprise, bright unblinking eyes alone confirmed his attentiveness.

"Continue, Miss Hawkeye," he egged on.

"In just a few minutes, the sniper shot at the dummy after which I dropped it in a manner of it falling over in a slump and pushed my rifle as naturally as possible out of the parapet."

"Anticipating that the sniper thought I was dead, I carefully crawled down the stairs to the main entrance of the building and hid behind the wall next to it armed with just my pistol. There, I waited for him – anyone, anything really – to come in. It had been almost two hours before someone finally checked in on the place to clear it. Framed by a fading sunset, it took just a second for us to stare at each other in instinctive recognition; another second to draw our guns ..."

Riza's hands knotted into fists, her nails scoring deep into calloused flesh.

"... and only a split-second for me to pull the trigger and shoot him between the eyes."

Kimblee whistled, his features softening from casual interest into one of admiration.

"It turns out both of us were down to our side arms. There we were, two snipers playing hide-and-seek all day, chasing each other through scopes and shooting our bullets into concrete, only for us to end up meeting at a doorway in a face-to-face duel."

The cadet drew in a deep, ragged breath and closed her eyes. Opening them, she confessed, "It was the longest day of my life – our lives. And yet, in retrospect, we had forgotten there was a bloody war happening outside, that all we did was play a game ..."

"And you won."

She flinched.

"It's not that, sir." Riza shook her head, gaze volleying sideways and voice trailing off. Subtly, sweaty palms rubbed across her trousers back-and-forth. "His patience simply snapped before mine. Give or take some minutes, it could easily have been me heading out that door instead of him coming in. I ... It was just ... luck."

"You belittle your skill too much," Kimblee reproached lightly. "But indeed, that certainly is a memorable story."

"Whether or not I want it to be memorable, isn't that correct?"

"Only because you came out on top. But surely, you liked the feeling that you came out alive, don't you?"

She glanced up, the horror and guilt of what she had done straining to show itself on her pretty face. But it was finally tamped down by a look of indifference and relief. "Of course, Major. I did not spend all of that time hiding and waiting just so I could die, sir."

He raised an amused eyebrow. She could swear the wide smile he flashed next almost seemed … charmed.

"You're a fast learner, Miss Hawkeye. I reckon this war will turn you into a most excellent soldier soon enough."

Riza shifted uncomfortably in her seat with boots scuffing the floor as she took in the promise and compliment with guarded reserve. The look Kimblee sent her way reminded her of the one he gave her in the town square, full of disdain and disappointment, not at her gender, but somehow of wasted potential. It was a look that penetrated far beyond her feminine façade and read into her psyche completely. Whereas other men – and women – regarded her as a good, dutiful soldier who just happened to be born with the wrong set of appendages for this war; this man appraised her as a warrior who had only to drop her moral barriers to blossom into a beautifully perfect killer.

His appraisal of her scared her terribly ... yet, to her shame, flattered her at the same time.

"If I may ask, sir, what is your story, Major Kimblee? I have heard from the brass that the military was not your original career path."

He let the question sink for a while before bellowing a subdued laugh. He took the end of his tied-up black hair and bandied it about playfully. "Is that what they're saying about me? How very polite of them," he snorted. Letting the ponytail fall over his shoulder, he folded his hands together. "I may not look like it right now, but I truly was a product of the fine institution that is the Military Academy; one of its best, if I may say so myself, graduating with highest honors, Class of 1902."

"Rumor has it that it was actually you who demolished the old presidential palace to make way for the building of a new one, and that it was part of your State Alchemist certification final exam."

Kimblee leaned his back into the chair, chest puffing up slightly in pride. "One of the very few times His Excellency, Führer Bradley personally served as exam proctor. Well, it was his house, after all."

"He must've been quite impressed, sir."

"Oh, indeed he was," he boasted. "But more so because never before had alchemy been combined with quantum mechanics and applied sub-atomic theory. Never before was a form of alchemy designed so perfectly for pure destruction and warfare." His grin upon mentioning this would go on for a mile if it could.

"But as things are wont to be, a military without a sustained armed conflict to unleash its energies on is practically useless. Border skirmishes and defensive line tactics do nothing to advance the progression of combat alchemy and other martial sciences, so I left soon after graduation to pursue … other interests."

Kimblee's expression turned nostalgic. Riza couldn't begin to fathom what scenes 'other interests' had stirred up in his mind.

"Of course, upon the eruption of this little soirée, I was called back on active duty as a State Alchemist, to which I dutifully obliged. Since then, well, let's just say the military and my alchemy have long since found how mutually beneficial they are to each other."

He leaned closer to her over the table as if to divulge a kept secret. "After all, it's a fallacy that an alchemist or a soldier can always choose his skill. Sometimes, the skill chooses you, am I not right, Miss Hawkeye?"

She hunched her shoulders without a direct reply, instead, training her gaze on the rifle that had been her only companion – and lifeline - for days and nights on end. Kimblee pitched forward inches more and purred lowly.

"I quite like you, young lady."

Her ears perked trying to isolate what had sounded like some sort of admission from the clattering cadence of the rain. She pulled back. Brown eyes went wide.

"Pardon, sir?"

"You are probably aware by now how we are trump cards in the same game, you and I, sniper and alchemist. Except, the way you play, you tend to apply concepts such as compassion when the rules clearly do not require them. Bending the rules to your liking complicates the game in ways that are more than necessary and puts your position - your life - at risk," Kimblee said as his hands grabbed the edge of the table and pushed off his chair away from it. Standing up, he began to outflank the divide that blocked him from her.

"I know you want to survive as much as the next soldier," the alchemist continued as he breached her corner. "I assume you have something or someone to live and fight for, do you not? Otherwise, why be a part of the game when you can easily watch from the sidelines?"

He glided himself between Riza and her side of the table, shoving aside the rifle with one hand to clear a space for him to sit. With him perched directly across and situating her close between his legs, the young sniper instinctively scooted her chair back.

"For country, for honor, for family, or for the heck of it; the reasons don't matter. We just do our part and make our way to the end of the game, preferably alive."

His flashing slivers of eyes pierced down Riza's petrified form. "I wonder, do you not want to play the game anymore now that it has reached fever pitch?"

Unable to endure the increasingly discomforting position she had been hedged into, Riza stood up abruptly in an attempt to take leave. But words and limbs failed to find the fortitude to act decisively and merely led her to sneak behind the useless protection of the chair.

"Major Kimblee, I'm not sure I understand what you mean."

He jumped down from the table and crept after her, ponytail swinging jauntily as he did. "It's troubling how far too many undergo a crisis of conviction at so late in the game and suddenly want to throw in the towel. Even fine soldiers like you," the officer drawled out the word for emphasis, "aren't immune."

With no sign Kimblee was going to halt his beeline to her, Riza planted herself at attention. It was either that or retreat back into the dressing table behind her, or worse, the bed beside it. She conducted herself perfectly to the drill, holding on to it as she experienced a kind of fear she had never felt in her young, sheltered life. A fear mixed with an indeterminate heat and insouciance, it manifested in the twitchy flutterings of her gut, writhing with abandon to the pounding in her chest. So focused was this mutant fear on its dance, it cared not to compel her into pulling out the handgun on her hip and wave it in the man's direction.

Riza's iron gaze glassed over at the realization that the man coming for her was the physical incarnation of judgment in however form he would deal it. But to her utter shock and surprise, her fear had not been solely reserved for the alchemist all along, but was also directed at herself. Fear her soul would willfully allow her mind and body to be passed judgment and be dealt all its consequent punishments. Fear she would willingly give in and give up to this war.

Fear she would surrender. Totally. Unconditionally.

With that trailing thought, Riza awaited the officer's – terms.

"Have you been getting enough sleep?" Kimblee inquired pointedly, the fabric of his trousers scraping against hers as he closely scrutinized the faint umbra under her eyes. "Are the noises keeping you awake?" He deliberately did not specify whether the noises were of the external or internal kind.

Riza swallowed hard, body already starting to numb itself to his proximity. But to her chagrin, she could not still the warm tint darkening her cheeks from joining the tired shadows of her eyes.

"How loud are the screams filling your head? Do they rattle your bones so much that they make your whole body ache?" Kimblee's arm snaked behind the small of Riza's back and made short work of unlatching the harness of the gun holster around her waist. Taking the newly freed weapon with his other hand, he briefly showed it off to her face before tossing it aside on the table behind him.

"I hope it never occurred to you to silence the screams yourself."

She blinked and shook her head briskly.

"Good. I knew whatever resolve you have remaining in this battlefield is too strong for that. Although ..." His composed countenance suddenly reflected bliss. "Really, if you arrange the sounds of battle into a symphony, the results can be absolutely melodious."

Without a warning, Kimblee lunged and hooked his right arm firmly around a surprised Riza's waist and took her right hand with his left, whirling her into a close position stance of a waltz.

"Major Kimblee, sir! What are you doing?"

Keeping the cadet molded to him and clutching her hand away from their forms, the Crimson Alchemist bowed his head to graze the short blonde strands above her left ear with his smirk. "The music can even be good enough in which to dance."

Riza could only gape at Kimblee's embrace, feeling unable to stop from sinking deeper into his world of sublime pathos and madness. She was already aware of being hopelessly tangled in his lines of rhetoric and in the weave alternating his mockery of her motivations with the stroking of her ego.

And at that moment he pulled her in to dance, she knew her fear had been realized.

"Permission to speak, sir."

"Mmh," he hummed while performing a chassé and then dipping Riza low. He then yanked her up close and released his hold as easily as though what he just did was part of normal military formation. "Permission granted."

Light-headed from the sways she was put through, Riza struggled to pillar her posture and stand in the stance of formally addressing a superior officer. "About that lecture you delivered the other day, Major. Please do not mistake me for not having understood your points. I admit, I find myself agreeing with your observations completely, particularly in regard to how I've been hypocritical in my expectations of this war. But - " She paused for a beat as her honest gaze locked onto his.

"I apologize, if yes, I do not willingly want to be here. But, no, contrary to what you said, sir, I do want to forget the people I've killed. I want to forget the blood, the corpses lining the streets, the screams. I want … no, I need to ..."

The female soldier stopped mid-sentence, her head dropping in capitulation as the vicissitudes of her courage depleted into mere stirrings of foolishness.

With head cocked to the side in moderate interest, Kimblee contemplated her declaration for a few seconds before following through with a low, dulcet:

"Is that all?"

"I think there will be no end to what I feel about this war." She shook her head weakly, mind too weary to dispute the wisdom of confessing to a man who would never have anything for which to confess; a man who wore the calculatedly fabricated layers of his mask so complexly she didn't know who of his personas she would meet next.

Kimblee re-closed the gap between them, though less flippantly than his previous contact. "Miss Hawkeye, you may want or need to, but you will never be able to erase what you did – what you're going to do – completely from your memory. You may try to bury them in the deepest recesses of your mind, but they have a nasty tendency to remind you they're still there, cropping up even in the most random of moments. Where someone sees a glass of red wine, you'll see blood. Where others look at people through rose-colored glasses, you'll look at them through cross-hairs."

"I can catalog all of my encounters and their every detail so that they never have to annoy me at a whim. But I am an exception. I suppose that's not an option you have."

Riza inhaled sharply as the Crimson Alchemist reached out his hands to her, giving her a close-up view of the intricate interplay of celestial runes, hexagrams, and alchemical symbols inked in indigo. In such a compact sphere, she saw action and reaction, sun and moon, gold and silver, air and water, yin and yang, male and female … She was awed by such beauty and devastation in their simplicity, and when those same hands rested on her collar in near encirclement of her breath-starved throat, she could feel the exquisitely restrained energy buzzing between them, each daring the other to complete the circle.

"You say you don't want to be here and that you want to forget. But, Miss Hawkeye, there is but one absolute escape and it is, unfortunately, a permanent one. I'm afraid only you can help yourself on that front." Kimblee's finger tilted up her chin. "I, for one, certainly do not wish for your demise under such insignificant reasons."

Throwing her head back, she shot him a dagger look – in parts suspicious, but also provocative.

Kimblee tamed a snicker that hissed up his diaphragm. "However, even if I did say something about not forgetting, I don't recall mentioning anything unacceptable about forgetting your misery temporarily ..."

"That … is something I may be able to help you with."

Suspicion turned into incredulity in an instant and Riza shrunk back only to be blocked by the bulk of the dressing table behind her. "Sir, please, I don't know exactly what you are implying, but if it's what I think it is, may I remind you of the Amestrian Army's policy on non-fraternization between senior and junior officers under Sec - "

He cut her off with a finger to her lips. "Non-fraternization, eh? Interesting. I was expecting you'd charge me with harassment."

She jerked her head away with a sneer. His closeness had forced her to incline into the dresser so that she was half-sitting on it.

"But non-fraternization? Please, I'm a State Alchemist. This military title is a mere triviality which I don't much care about. When it comes to our basic job descriptions, Miss Sniper ..."

"We're equals."

"I think the army would strongly disagree with you, sir," Riza mumbled into her shoulder.

"The military disagrees with me on many things – except on the one thing that matters most." Kimblee glanced furtively on the sniper's side arm on the table. Deftly, he swiveled to the table and in a few quick steps, unfastened the handgun from its holster, disengaged the thumb safety, took her right hand, and curled her fingers around its grip.

"If you disagree, then you're justifiably within your rights to defend yourself from my supposed assault." The golden fire in his eyes was radiant yet stern; his face, cold and unflinching. "But ... I can't guarantee I won't attempt some sort of defensive effort as well …"

"I like winning the game, too, you know."

For almost a whole minute, she held the loaded gun to her shoulder, refusing to meet the alchemist's stare down. With her chest rising and falling so heavily that with each breath she grazed his white shirt, Riza finally pressed on the safety, lowered her arm, and dropped the weapon loudly onto the dresser.

"Whatever it is you are suggesting, sir, that … that's not what I need," she stammered, the line separating truth from lie blurring with each successive word she uttered.

He cupped her chin, moving it so she faced him squarely. "Why are we here, Miss Hawkeye?"

"Waiting … waiting for the weather to clear, sir."

"Why are we really here, Miss Hawkeye?" he smirked, ignoring the answer to his rhetorical question. "Who are we but two soldiers huddling under a barrage of rain and bullets and blood? Who are we but two pawns in a war of extermination where past and future don't exist and the only law governing this forsaken land allows us to do anything necessary to make it through to another day?"

"Who are we but a man and a woman sharing a foxhole where there is but one rule – to survive?"

Kimblee closed in so that his next formed words feathered against Riza's lips sotto voce.

"Tell me honestly, isn't that why you're here? Isn't this what you want … to escape from the chaos for just one moment?"

A soft roll of thunder echoed the drumming of Riza's heart as the overwhelming sweep of adrenaline cascaded down her body. The sensation hovered excruciatingly between nausea, and to her horror, lust. That even though she was terribly frightened, she wondered how his eloquent tongue would taste like, what his deadly hands would feel like touching her under the heavy layers of her wool uniform. Her mind now an empty husk of memories stolen by the victims of her gun, she forced herself to swallow a lump of all the unsaid words of protest and anger toward Kimblee down her throat.

All words, that is, except one as her mouth responded against his with the delicacy of gossamer. Their lips tasted of storm and submission.

"Yes."

(to be continued)