Important: in the last chapter, I ended with a repeated quote from the manga: "Will you offer up your own soul?" Turns out the scanlation I'd used to read FMA for the first time wasn't the best… I just reread the final chapter last night using a far better scanlation, and the question Truth uses is worded as "Will you offer up your own being?" This makes far better sense in the context of the chapter itself, and it's a vital distinction for this story, so I've gone back and changed it.

Also: I am so sorry for this chapter. I am so, so sorry.

So, alchemist, it said. Al thought it sounded smug. –I repeat my earlier question. Will you offer up your entire being?

"What?" Al heard himself breathe.

Ed glared at Truth. "Is that what you want?" he asked it. "My entire being?"

And that was Al's cue to speak up. He glanced between the two of them, suddenly sick with apprehension. "Brother, you weren't planning on—"

"No, I wasn't," he said, his eyes never leaving Truth. "I never came here planning on not coming back. This guy just didn't like what I was offering."

"What were you offering?" He hadn't given much thought to what might happen after when he'd traded for Ed's arm: Ed would have died otherwise, and his seal had been cracked anyhow. And when he'd told Truth that he was sure Ed would come back for him, he didn't mention that he hadn't the faintest idea how Ed would manage it—he wouldn't have used a Stone, and (at least he was pretty sure) he wouldn't have used himself.

Ed jerked a thumb over Al's head at the Gate behind him. "One of those," he said. "Except mine, not yours," he added.

"Your Gate?" he asked, startled. "But why…" he trailed off, and then he got it. "Your alchemy." His voice came out slightly hushed. Ed minus alchemy... Now that was tough to imagine.

"Yeah." His eyes cut to Al briefly, before returning to Truth, making a face that could only be called a scowl. "But apparently these things are, what was it, fixed objects?"

-That is correct. Another unnerving, toothy grin. –Now tell me, have you anything else to offer?

"You never answered my question." Ed raised an eyebrow, planted a hand on his hip, the picture of frustration. But Al could practically hear the gears whirring in his brother's mind. "So you tell me, is that what you're after? My entire being?"

-Your being would provide a sufficient toll, yes.

"Sufficient?" Ed asked, raising an eyebrow. "It'd be more than sufficient. You're hedging here, pal. That's not the only option and you know it."

-Oh? Truth sounded amused. Curious, but amused.

Al's stomach was tying itself into knot after knot watching that empty being direct its somewhat ravenous smile at his brother. Al himself couldn't quite yet see what Ed was getting at here. But at the same time, he knew that if anybody could out-reason Truth, Ed probably could. He was surely the only one out there with the nerve to try.

"Yeah," Ed said. He brandished his skinny right arm. "I traded this to get Al's soul back. And a complete human being's comprised of three necessary components, the body, mind, and soul, right?"

Truth said nothing. Al didn't like that.

Ed paid him no mind. "Now arguably," he continued, "The soul's the most vital ingredient out of the three, as the essence of the person itself. It can't survive forever without the other two, obviously, but it's still the key component."

Something flickered in Truth's body; the vague shape of its left leg shimmered and solidified into pale flesh. –And you would know, wouldn't you, alchemist?

Ed's eyes lingered for a second or two on his own missing leg, his expression unreadable, before they flicked back up to Truth's blank face, burning with defiance. "Right," he said through gritted teeth. "Anyway," he continued, voice clipped, "even if a soul is worth that much, all you took in exchange was my arm." He clenched the fist of his raised arm, stared at it. "A body and mind are worth no more than the soul."

And then Al understood.

No.

Nonononono…

"Brother, you can't—"

"You got a better idea, Al?" Ed dropped his arm and turned. He'd snapped the words, but when he looked at Al, Al caught the faintest traces of very real fear beneath otherwise hardened features. He doubted anybody else would've noticed it. "'Cause I was planning on us both making it out of here alive, and trust me, whatever this guy's asking for, you can't afford to give right now." His eyes gave Al a pointed once-over, taking in a body that he knew must look half-dead as it was. Al looked away. Because, damn it, he didn't have a better idea. Ed wheeled back around. "Well?" he demanded.

Truth stood with its arms crossed over its chest. –You're not wrong, alchemist. Its voice was inscrutable, though the corners of its mouth were still upturned. –It will be as you wish. I'll accept a suitable alternative from you. Although, he added, -know that it will be a toll of my own choosing.

Ed hesitated for a moment. Then he said, "Fine," while at the same time, Al was saying, "Wait."

Ed and Truth both turned towards him.

"What are you going to take from him?"

"Al…" There was a slight warning in Ed's voice, but Al ignored him and stared resolutely at Truth.

-I will take what is fitting, Truth said simply, chillingly. –No more and no less.

Fitting? Al thought.

Despite what Ed had said, something was telling him that what was fitting here was exactly what Truth had said earlier—a life for a life. He himself by all rights should be dead, after all… Whatever Truth was going to do could simply be a more creative, roundabout way of claiming his life.

Brother can't die here…he can't die for me…

Al glanced at Ed, his own mounting fear and desperation met with what he was sure was supposed to be a reassuring nod, though Ed could no longer mask either the reflected fear, or the sorrow, in his eyes. "It'll be okay," Ed told him, softly.

Al couldn't bring himself to respond, panic constricting his throat, but he nodded.

"Alright," Ed said, addressing Truth once more, though he backpedalled a few steps until he was standing next to where Al still sat. "Claim your toll. And don't lay a finger on my brother."

-Very well, Truth said, and suddenly all its teeth were visible once more in a too-large mouth. –I don't intend to harm your brother. What I do intend, it added wryly, as Ed's old left leg rematerialized from nowhere on its body, -is to claim a complete set.

Ed went rigid beside him. Al heard his breath hitch. A "no" tumbled out of his own lips before he could stop it, and all his insides froze. But before he had time to think, a deafening rumble erupted from the Gate behind them.

He turned to look, just in time to see a yawning crack in the double doors, from which shot a thousand tendrils of darkness, each supporting its own miniature, grasping hand. Before Ed could even turn to face them, they'd all launched towards him, swept his feet out from beneath him, and pinned him to the ground, countless tiny fingers splayed out across his chest, arms, legs, around his neck...

"Brother!"

Ed's eyes were wide, shocked, but before he could say a word, Truth's cold voice suddenly boomed all around them.

-For the soul.

And Ed's right arm disintegrated, ripped to shreds by the threads of darkness that converged there. He screamed.

-For the mind, it said.

His left arm.

Al tried to lunge forward to close scant the few feet between them, grab for Ed, do something, anything, but an invisible force seemed to hold him in place. All Al's own most horrific memories were stirred up at once at the sight, his whole body being torn apart by the very same forces. And for Ed…this was the stuff of half the nightmares he'd had for the past five years once more come into being. That fact was reflected in the near-primal terror in his eyes and each raw, devastating cry that was ripped involuntarily from his throat as his limbs were torn from his body—but Al couldn't do a thing about it. He couldn't even move.

-For the body.

Ed's right leg, boot and all, vanished beneath a swarm of clawing, razor-sharp hands, leaving only emptiness—and blood, an expanding pool of scarlet startling against the white of the floor—in its wake.

As each limb was claimed, it slowly flickered into re-existence on Truth, who, somehow, was now standing directly over them. Al swallowed back bile at the sight—all four of his brother's limbs, attached to a formless trunk, shrouded by pulsing blackness. Ed's eyes rolled up to land on Truth, his breath coming in tight, shuddering gasps.

-And finally, Truth said, looking down at them both, -For the tie that binds them.

With that, a dozen or so tendrils detached themselves from their tight grip on Ed's chest, to shoot straight at his bone-white face, force their way past his tightly clamped lips and straight down his throat.

To be continued…