Chapter Six "Changing"
It was as if Ed's words took the life right out of Winry. There were now so many questions set on her shoulders and the thought of Al no longer alive was too difficult to bear. She tried to put it at the back of her mind; pretend it wasn't real so that it could not impact her in that way. But Ed looked the same, talked the same and came to her for support the way he always had, what did that mean if he was not the real Edward?
She gently closed her eyes and set her hand around her other arm, closing in the flood of emotions running through her at all this shock. Edward began to sense a rush of guilt, the last thing he wanted to do was see her cry and he knew she was holding it in to spare his feelings.
Still the clouds parted and the sun came in as if nothing at all was wrong, a moving setting for anyone not torn down by reality. He didn't say anything anymore, because he started to let it sink in as well.
If he was not Edward, than that means he stole Edward's body and all his private thoughts and memories. Was this equivalent exchange? If Alphonse truly was dead did that mean even his pure soul was not enough to bring Edward back?
Standing there in quiet, the two went over their tragedy. Finally, Winry spoke out. "If you're not Edward, than bring Al back. That's the first thing he would do."
It seemed everything they said to each other was hurting one another, maybe he should have left her alone and unaware but it was too late for that now. The blond strands of her hair sunk down to her shoulders and moved in the wind as she set her arm on his shoulder one time before running back to the house as fast as she could. Even she was not able to contain it in any longer, not when she was looking at the face that she would never see again. He was an illusion, a ghost and a fabricated image, flesh brought out from who once was one of her dearest friends.
It was like he was walking in a daze, blindly following the road in front of him as he tried to forget how she looked before she ran out on him; accepting that he was no more than a part of her imagination and that the real person she knew along with his sweet younger brother were lost forever. His bare feet scraped across the rocks and debris until he realized he was standing in the presence of his old house, or rather, the house of the real Edward Elric.
"Damn it!" Edward struck his fist to ground over and over in frustration.
But right before he continued he stopped and looked at his hand. He squeezed it into a fist, watching it turn into the material that he could only guess as the ground of the peaceful town of Resembool. He was shaking, terrified at what he was and what he stole from somebody else. Everything was the original Edward's, his emotions, his personality, and even his right arm now fully restored.
Winry's words echoed in his mind and he desperately tried the one thing he was unable to imitate from Ed, Alchemy. He struck his hands together until they felt raw, ignoring the fact his right hand was switching between materials, wood, nails, ash, and ground; his body absorbed the information like the Homunculus he was. He kept scarring himself but the wounds would just heal in a purple glow, the way Lust or Envy could not be harmed. Then he stopped, having reached his limit.
"I'm sorry Al…" he said in a whisper, laying his eyes to rest there in the ruin of their house. "I don't have what Ed had."
It felt weird referring to another Edward but it wouldn't have been the first time, the Original Edward took the body from the Ed on the other side of The Gate too. Even when it started raining he didn't do anything, he didn't have a sense of cold anyway. He was being punished for flying too high to the sun, only to come crashing down due to his own selfish pride as a young boy, what the other Ed did to create what he was now. The sun was gone now, only darkness shown at this time of night and yet the stars were still beautiful through all this. Nothing could touch the place Edward's heart lay, there in the small town where his mother and brother grew up.
He blinked when a raindrop pressed into his eye, rubbing it off with his other hand. There was a twinkle in the dusk, something reddish and unnatural. He dragged his feet up so he could stand on his knees and squinted to see it. There in the mists of their house was a small remnant of something, probably left by Hohenheim, thrown there years ago in defiance of the love Dante tried to offer him after he had found Trisha.
It made Ed cringe, it was a stone fragment… a soul crafted into a shard of glass-shaped red liquid. Never mind that this reminded him of what his deadbeat father did to remain in the body that kept the secret from his mother, what disturbed him the most was the way he could not help looking at it. There was something wrong with him, it was as if he was lusting for it the moment he looked at it; before he even knew it he had pulled it out from under the wood and was holding it in his hand.
He was trembling; it was like instinctively he craved this substance. This was the final revelation, it was true, he was not Ed but the Homunculus crafted with Edward's remains. This was enough to confirm it once and for all for him, nothing in the factual mind striped from Ed could deny this fact now. That tiny sliver of hope was dead the second his non-human eyes spotted the thing needed to sustain a body like his.
Angry at himself for believing different he fought against his nature as badly as he could, trying to drown it out with the images that did not belong to him, Al screaming out in protest. His fingers weakened under the pressure, only two movements before he could let it drop to the floor. In the background he could swear he saw the real Edward standing there, his hands in his pockets and a disapproving look on his face. He was in disbelief, Edward was looking down on him disappointed, the shadow of the self he once had until vanishing from his sight.
With one last attempt Ed managed to let the stone slide downwards in his hand, until committing his first sin as his true self. He slipped it into his mouth and the stone burned as it came down his throat, the life coming into his own. Edward's memories began to fade, until only remnants of Al and Winry remained. He felt his teeth with his hand, seeing that his fangs had grown sharp. He wanted to be Edward, all along that was the only thing he truly longed for, all for his being, and all for his Pride.
End chapter
