Hey. This is another heavy chapter. Last time highlighted Ed. Him transforming Roy (and Maes) into homunculi and why he did. This is Al's creation of his Priest... Scar. Thus it deals with religious musing such as concepts of sin, damnation, repentance vs punishment, and redemption. I have no goddamn idea what Scar's birth name is (no the absurdly long omake joke is NOT it) so I am going with the insinuations made that in turning his back on god has "lost himself" and thus no longer deserves one. Note, this is just MY interpretation of what could have caused him to become the guy we know from the 2003 series. This is based on my own studies of psychology (formal and refresher courses from Google U ;P) so if it rubs you wrong, um, sorry?

Oh, cookies to whoever figures out who the other homunculus is before it's revealed.

*ER*

When he awoke, all he could really think about was how his Ishvala had forsaken him. Or, rather, how he had forsaken himself. His quest began with noble intentions...but the human failings of anger, wrathfulness and hubris warped his righteous crusade into a murder spree. Using the same unholy power he sought to destroy. It made no difference that he fought the heathens, he did so using their perversion of God's laws. It made no difference that he did not 'follow through' with transmutation, thus exacting justice using their own taboo. In the end, all his work had been for nought, he knew it

And this was his Purgatory.

Of course, he had only given his right arm to the lesser of two evils. The choices were either the mysterious likes of those who wished to take thousands if not millions of lives to further their perverse endeavor to live forever. Or the Elrics. Whom he had come to respect for their dedication to absolving their own sin...by using the same wicked power. Who knew the power within their grasp (if they created their own stone they'd be unstoppable) but were repulsed by it's cost. Whom he envied for their brotherly love; a love he could never properly share due to his brother's sacrifice.

He had come to believe so long as he lived so did the power of the half completed stone, the power of those lost souls would remain within him, but how could he be sure? He could have made no choice at all but then he had no idea if the power within him could be stripped from his corpse. Giving it to Alphonse was the only way he could be sure that a greater abomination didn't get it.

So his current situation serves as bitter irony.

He had no clue how long he had been there. Forced to experience the lives of those he had passed judgement upon. And to his amazement, some were well meaning men and women. Those who may not have believed in his god or any at all for that matter but understood that alchemy did not make them gods. Some knew of the evils their government had wrought, wishing to somehow do something about it. Still, many more were blissfully unaware yet became what they were to try and help people. Because they had done so the wrong way, they were still sinners. Every last one.

Right?

/You can't use god as a scapegoat for your own actions./ Fullmetal had said to him once, when trying to convince him what he was doing was wrong. Just what a godless sinner would say. The nerve of him trying sway him from his righteous path. But when he met him again, after he had died and looked upon his actions with new eyes? The short boy took a running leap and punched him right in the face with his metal fist. The bone shattering force knocked him off his feet and backwards a fair ways.

"If you're gonna do something, fucking own it. After all if everyone passed the buck when things went pear shaped, how can anyone ever be responsible for any choice they make? Accountable for any consequence they've wrought? How the hell does anyone learn any damn thing crying 'not it'?" They boy spat hotly. The words had a bit less impact than the ringing in his ears and the pain in his busted nose. He only duly registered the clapping sound and the bright flash that followed.

"Brother's still bit heavy handed. Pardon the pun." That voice lacked the hollow echo he had come to expect from it. "You know, he's not really happy to see you- I'm the one who pulled you out of the gate."

"What?" His vision cleared enough to see a very similar face against the stark white abyss around them.

"You do remember melding your arm with my armor right? What happened after might be a bit fuzzy but basically you died shortly after activating the other half of the transmutation using the soldiers in Reole as alchemic material and making me the Philosopher's stone. It saved me, and you probably don't even really know what you did but well that doesn't matter now."

"I killed more of your people and it doesn't matter?" He laughed.

"Do you regret it?"

"Of course not."

"Did it ever occur to you that there might have been a better way to avenge your people than you did?"

"I don't deny I am a sinner boy. I never did."

"Now that's not true. Didn't you tell Brother that you had been charged by Ishvala to right the wrongs done to your kinsmen? That it was in service to him you killed? When really you just wanted revenge? And once you met us...that lust for revenge morphed into jealousy?" Alphonse knelt beside him and touched his bloody face. Scar froze at the contact, his mind filling with all the memories of his life again coming at once. The peace that shattered when the invaders came, losing his arm, that laugh...

...his brother abandoning him.

"He didn't abandon you."

Yes he did! First for the same woman he had long loved from afar, then to live in isolation so no one could stop his use of the devil's arts to bring her back. When that failed and the soldiers came, he cursed him with the fruits of his own folly in his madness! Such a poisonous gift could only be used as he used it! As a weapon of death.

"Or maybe, he beat back his insanity just long enough to give you, the last person who meant anything to him, a chance to survive. Not to perpetuate the cycle of hate but perhaps break it? Or at least keep it from consuming more innocent life. Perhaps he did do it to spite you for some reason- you had no way of really knowing after all. But in the end, it doesn't matter why he did what he did. It was his choice, his cross to bear." The younger Eric withdrew his hand and the flood of memories ceased. As did the pain in his face. But not his heart.

"What do you want from me?" He sighed wearily. "Isn't it enough that I have been brought so low? That I turned my back on all my teachings and became a monster because of the war Amestris brought to our door?! What more do you want?"

"It doesn't matter why he did what he did Scar. What matters is how you used the life he saved. What I want is for you to stop blaming everyone else for your actions and take responsibility for them. Until you do you will never be at peace. What you believe in can only bring you comfort if you truly believe it. Do you?"

He really didn't know anymore. All his beliefs so far had been shattered. Scattered to the winds by all that had happened in his life.

"If you want, I can help you. Of course, nothing comes without a price."

"Of course not. So what will you take?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?!"

""I will take nothing not freely given. In exchange for the chance to right your wrongs, I simply ask for your help in repairing a broken world. They're basically the same goal."

This whole situation was absurd. He was dead. His last act had been to create that accursed stone. Yet here he lay listening to the boy who had been in the empty armor waxing philosophic about his life choices. A child condemning him for his failings, yet offering something only Ishvala himself could. But...what did he have to lose? He wasn't worthy of any sort of salvation...so why not give further into temptation-

"You're doing it again. Either you take the offer or return to the gate to meet whatever fate awaits you there. It is your choice and yours alone to make." the boy sighed.

Could it be...that perhaps this was a test of his faith? In his studies as a monk, he learned the Sun god was a harsh but just creator. His love, an all consuming fire. And he loved his children so much,that that fire could be either warm and inviting to those who treasured and earned it or a devastating force to wipe the slate clean to begin anew. He was of peace but also of hard work and diligence. But then came the loss of the one he loved to his dear brother; in turn Anmarn's loss of his fiance and the madness that loss caused. Scar recalled seeing the two pray every day and night for her to get well. As well as how each day she grew weaker, frailer and filled with unbearable pain. Scar watched the light die in her eyes.

And all he could think was if she had been his things would have been different.

/And just how would they be?/

So many what ifs...so many missed opportunities...so many times he let his baser urges rule him. He had lost himself long before the war. Each new bad experence in his life fueled the malice and anger that had bubbled up from within him when he realized Milata would never be his. Horrified by these feelings he sought any way possible to absolve himself of them. When prayer failed he instead began to hate Anmarn. And Milata. Scar experienced a sick sense of pride when nothing his brother did could save her- and it repulsed him. He tried to deny it.

Then came the invasion. The tension. That poor girl died and all hell broke loose. Ishvalans were massacred for nothing. Now he had a worthy target for his animosity. But could what he did be considered justice or merely an excuse to channel his rage?

Scar did not want to admit what he knew to be the answer. So instead, he took the outstretched right hand. And welcomed the fire that consumed him.

*ER*

"You and strays." Ed snorted.

"That's rather harsh brother." Al admonished. "Would you consider both of them strays then?"

"How do you always turn what I say on it's head?" The older blonde mumbled.

"Flustering our siblings I'm told is a talent light mages share." Al laughed. "Besides I thought you'd find it kinda funny. Scar screwed up his relationship with his big brother being an idiot. Now he gets to walk in his shoes."

"It's not even remotely the same. He let pettiness cause a rift he never got the chance to repair. He chose to make his life more miserable."

"And now he gets to use the knowledge of his error to help heal another who really was destroyed by someone who should have protected them. It's his turn to be the big brother."

"Yeah, yeah."

*ER*

That was how he ended up standing in the ruins of a once great city, watching the shadow of life that haunted it play out in their tortured loop. He knew in time it could be restored it's former glory. That the plans to do so were already set in motion.

"Nii-tan, is this where you used to live?" a tiny voice near his knees asked.

"Yes anin*, it is. This is where my Nii-tan raised me."

"Oh...what happened to your mommy and daddy?" the child sounded sad at that.

"Well, a lot of things happened. Father was much older than my mother so he died much sooner of old age. My mother...Anmarn never told me what she died of but I suspect it is the same thing that took his beloved. Her strength inspired me to become a priest."

"Nii-tan don't cry!" Small arms encircled his leg tightly before he noticed the water on his face. The lone tear had seeped out from under his shades and begun to rapidly evaporate in the noonday sun but his young companion had noticed it shining. "My mommy went away too. Then daddy sent me away too. But now we don't have to be alone anymore. It'll be okay."

Nina Tucker, he learned, had been the only person he showed true mercy to. Fused with her beloved pet by her so called father- just to hold on to one of those damnable watches. That awful man had done the same thing to his wife in order to earn it in the first place. Lying to her about her mother moving away. The pain he put her through just to keep already ill gotten gains once again caused that see of rage to churn within him. Seeing that in this new life she remained as sweet and innocent as any child should but as hurt and scarred as no soul should was heartbreaking. Upon learning the man still lived, he desired nothing more than to make him pay.

"Daddy was bad. Now daddy's all alone." That same day, she laid her head on his lap curling up with her rather large dog at their feet, watching Scar awkwardly try to comfort his crying mistress. "I miss him."

Scar really had no idea what to say to that. It was natural for a small child to cling to the idea of a parent, no matter what abuse they may have suffered at their hands. And he supposed not too unusual to seek comfort from a stranger, for she didn't seem to remember him ending her life. She had been ecstatic when told he would look after her from now on.

Boy did the dog rememeber though. When Alphonse first brought him to the strange room the pair was in, the large white canine had lunged at him and bitten his right arm hard enough to draw blood. He found the room strange because before then, he'd been convinced 'white expanse' was the only variety this plane of existence offered.

"This is her room, it's the exact same as the one at Tucker manor because she wants it to be." Was all the blonde said about it.

While Nina scolded her pet (who seemed to understand her but didn't look remorseful in the least) the white haired man watched in awe as blue lightning arced across his mangled limb, stitching it up seamlessly. The hardwood floor emitting the same show, swallowing up the spilt blood. Satisfied, the small child began merrily hopping all over her bed, pigtails flying wildly as she played.

"Dear Ishvala..."

Exposed by her bangs moving was a symbol he knew well. That facsimile of Mitala bore it across her breast. The seal of a false human was now stamped across this child's forehead. Did that mean she wasn't even alive, an abomination like that fake? What seemed at first to be blood splatter from the attack he now realized to be the same seal on it's forehead.

"I guess without a mirror you might not have noticed. If she's an abomination, what does that make you?" The younger Elric motioned to his right arm. Cautiously Scar removed his jacket and dropped to his knees.

In the same place his brother's arm once met with what remained of his own, the same symbol Nina now had.

*ER*

*anin- it's Nina's name backwards. However, in this story, it's also an Ishvalan word meaning 'little one'

Yeah, given what was done to make her a Chimera, I don't really see Nina being truly separated from her dog even in death. I makes sense to me that they are instead now two halves of a merged soul. As her main source of comfort in life, I see Alexander helping her by being the one to hold her worst memories. She knows her father did something bad to her and her mother but doesn't really remember what it was. She feels sad that he's all alone now.

If you haven't guessed, the placement of the ouroboros is meaningful. Maes' is where he was shot, over his heart. Roy's is on his neck over a major artery to his brain. Scar's is where the white scar from his brother's arm used to be. Nina and Alexander have theirs where Scar touched them a chimera.

The fire/sun thing is a parallel between the god Ishvalans worshiped...and Al. Light mages are often associated with day or the sun (and in at least one case fire) so it's easy to see how Alphonse could be transposed with the sun god.

So, this chapter title actually has a dual meaning. Roman Catholics refer to indulgence as "An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain defined conditions through the Church's help when, as a minister of redemption, she dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions won by Christ and the saints".

What the hell does that mean?

Priest: Oh, did you fuck up? Are you sure? Good on you for admitting it...still ya might wanna try and balance it out with something less sinful, yes? An earnest prayer will knock out the small stuff but the worse it was, the more effort you need to put into it. Like to volunteer? Like taking the scenic route to really far away places? Step into my office and let's figure out just how much you need to do to make your karma copacetic.

Get your minds outta the gutter.

See, it used to mean just actively doing something good to cancel out the sins you've admitted to. Basically the second part to confession. But at some point in the past it was (not even REMOTELY) okay to pay off your assholery and even put in a bit extra for future terrible behavior and still get into heaven. The word indulgence then began to be associated with giving into temptation/being wicked or overdoing a good thing. While it is important to note forgiveness in the Catholic Church so doesn't work this way nor was this practice as widespread as people like to think, pretending some unscrupulous people didn't try to get over doesn't help either.

So, what do you guys think of my character study of Scar? Love it? Hate it? No strong feelings either way? Let me know. Reviews are like hugs! Sirensoundwave out!

Oh, anyone reading Unexpected Lineage can expect an update by this weekend. Shooting to update several fics by Monday actually n_n