.

CHAPTER 15:

COSMIC CHAFF

.

"Let your Gateways fight for my soul! Shed your energy for me!"

dual small light red rocks

the same size as Doctor Marcoh's semiliquid incomplete Stone

Dad wearing white robes

sandals and a sash

"You didn't expect to be having this conversation, did you, Hohenheim!? I told you that I was going to become the perfect being!"

opaque pitch night

strewn haphazardly with slitted eyes with red irises

"And now my lovely home has a gaping hole in it."

Brother lying on the floor

bound by ropes of the same opaque impermeable black

a vertical large silver eye with concentric circles

open on his torso

"No way.

"Not now, here, as well.

"Julia, I'm sorry.

"Ashleigh, I'm sorry.

"You really did do it, then?

"You turned

"into a Philosopher's Stone?"

another vertical silver eye on Dad's own torso

now wearing ordinary clothing

on Teacher's

on Mustang's

"Its immensity is indescribable! What truly magnificent energy! It's all I can do to contain it!"

inky black hands dragging Brother into the Gate among yellow gold with transmutation circles cascading in blue white on his torso

mirrors of the same circles, doubtlessly on Brother's body at the Gate, cascading in blue white on a transparent silhouette of Brother as he soared into a roughly vertical column of shimmering air that Gluttony's stomach appeared to be exhuming over an ocean of blood to then plummet through two large partially transparent sets of double doors through a vertical red eye with concentric circles behind a transparent double door Gate and then through a vertical silver eye with concentric circles behind a transparent double door Gate

the same circles cascading in blue white on a transparent silhouette of Brother as he rocketed up through the dual layer semi transparent double Gate with the silver eye behind it through the red concentric eye and the two layers of its Gate the blue white disappeared as Brother's eyes rolled up in his head and he passed out

"they still found the means to take a round trip to our third world"

the points of the human transmutation circles Al knew had been meant to restore him had been active until Brother had passed through the fifth Gate

in the space of a single day

"Your flask is broken, Dwarf. We will destroy you. And that container of yours will be the first to go.

"Feel the wrath of the thousands of lives you ruined."

couldn't see through the tears in his eyes

"Do you have any clue how many people Scar has killed to create the Philosopher's Stone? Of all the soldiers that invaded Lior. Seven thousand of them didn't make it home. But don't fret. They're all right in h"

No

I am empty, and worthless

My memories, and my soul, should be fake

Al blinked the tears out of his eyes, and while hotness pushed against the backs of them, he was able to gaze up at the darkened ceiling of his room at h

The Rockbell residence

ome without them returning.

Exhausted aches in a body Al shouldn't be able to feel with were already receding.

He processed he was inhaling, to sigh in relief.

Al stopped breathing, and he suppressed the urge to let the air out in a sigh, just expelling it as though he were out for an ordinary stroll.

Emptiness with feeling would just turn Al into Dante, Kimbley, or Barry.

It had let Envy, and Al's fears of what he'd become, get to Al, so, even though Al had been the true Philosopher's Stone, he had just lay there on the floor, unmoving, and let Brother d

Al blinked away the tears.

He stopped blinking as furiously, and blinked the wetness away with measured precision.

Al should never have cared whether he could feel warmth.

He should never have cared if he could remember the taste of Winry's apple pie.

Dad's reasons for living that way had been the wrong ones.

But the expression on his face when he'd been in the white robes in Al's dream, or memory of something he'd seen as Brother had transmuted him out of the Gate, or a combination of the two, was the answer to the lessons Al should have asked Dad about the night he'd been back, if Al hadn't been throwing his self absorbed temper tantrum of solipsist elation he could now have an in depth conversation about alchemy with Dad while camping under the stars about the most whimsically infinitesimal minute alchemic hypothesis, or formula, that came to mind, the same way he had with Brother for so many years, while suppressing an even worse spoiled brat blinding wish to march out of the tent, sock Brother good, and then drag him kicking, and screaming, back to the tent, and hold him there until Brother stopped blathering about Dad, and Brother, at least for Al's sake, agreed to join in.

If Al had known Dad would leave, once more, he very likely would have, at the least, fought with Brother as vehemently as he had about Brother acknowledging who Sloth was

he'd been willing to attack Brother wh

Al squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as possible.

He reopened them, when he couldn't feel any wetness.

Why wouldn't it stop?

Why hadn't he accepted what he was?

Why had he been so thankless for everything Brother had already given up for him, he'd just lay there and let Brother d

Al refused to take any deep breaths.

He shouldn't need it.

The lacuna of infinite absence within the supermassive black hole that the voice that had been so angry with Dad for thinking less of him had conveyed even when its speaker had derided Dad for underestimating him, and it had exulted about Gates, and energy, had communicated that apathy as though he was barely even removed, or indifferent.

That, and Dad's expression, were what Al should have learned about, when he'd camped out with Dad.

If Al had taken after that kind of an alchemic researcher's mindset, he would have accepted who he was.

He wouldn't have been so thankless after all Brother had given up for him, Brother wouldn't have not just died, or, then, imprisoned himself in the same nightmare he'd just freed himself from all over once again, he wouldn't have also pushed himself so hard he'd traveled through nine Gates, themselves, in the space of hours, a total of five while the transmutation to restore Al, very likely due to difference in the pace time passed on different sides of the Gate, was still going, to pass out, helpless before the same abyssal singularity that had now claimed his whole body, and mind, due to A

This time, tears just slightly pricked the backs of Al's eyelids.

It was hard to believe, whatever the reason Dad had been so unfeeling, whoever the black figure had been, they needed deep breaths to stay calm.

Regardless, that was what Al should have taken after.

Al was now going to correct that mistake.

Al waited, letting time pass until he knew his dream, or memory of the Gate, or both, should have stored itself sufficiently in his memory, and all he could take in was a quiet relief.

Then he opened his eyes, and sat up.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and, pushing all awareness of how the cool, smooth boards felt beneath his feet aside, he stood up.

He tiptoed towards the door.

He'd glimpsed Wrath's legs sticking out from behind a tree in the yard, so that was the first place he'd look.

He opened the door.

A single white fist collided with Al's face.

A single elbow, and knee caught him between them as spots danced in his eyes while, swiftly, and carefully, but with quietly unbalanced ease, Wrath closed the door from the inside, locked it, and then he turned to raise his knee and send Al falling onto the floor on his back.

couldn't see through the tears in his eyes now.

blinking wasn't removing them.

was now weightless, and there was no longer any reason to be empty

voice was a thread breathless whisper of giddy and elated euphoria.

"Are you here to, at last, have your revenge?"

Gasped

didn't care

was giggling beneath

words

sentiment was now

anyeverywherewhendrowning

anymightcould'nhavenot

"Did you, at long finally, recognize I'm the one you want, not Brother?

"Or, were you taking it out on Brother to get at me, from the beginning fraction of an instant?

"If you were, will you now do it, since you, at finally last, got him?

"For everything I did to you, and I indirectly put you through, since we met?

"For all the ways I brutalized, and verbally tortured, you, at Teacher's, and Dublith, and Yock Island?

"For driving all the wedges I did between you, and Brother?

"For taking Teacher away from you, when she was willing to mend fences, and driving the two of you back apart when you could have been a real family?

"Then taking Sloth, your second Mom, from you, too?

"Ending with me getting precisely what I'd been fighting for, the whole time, and ripping your arm, and leg, right off of you?"

now giggling with such unrestrained euphoria he could barely draw breath to cry, or get the words out, and he was shaking, and trembling, and shuddering so much the boards striking the back of his head, and body, hurtblessedeuphoricpainheshouldhavegottenhisbodybackhowcouldhehatehavingitbacknowhecouldfeeldizzyinggiddyglidingdrowningweightlessswoopingdivingsoaringpain

"But, while I won the battle, I can still lose the war, do you know?

"Go right ahead.

"Do it.

"However torturously that you want.

"I will not fight back.

"Tell me if you want me to scream, after you drag me off somewhere no one can hear, or whimper.

"Whatever you feel I've deserved, this whole time, all the torments you must have been thinking of, all the ways you wanted to scare me before you murdered me, all the ways you wanted me to know it was all for nothing, all the ways you wanted to revel in it.

"Go ahead, right now, and here, whenever, however you want."

"For once in a big echo of you running that mouth of yours off, will you shut up?" Wrath hissed with contained anger of different mixtures through what sounded as though it was clenched teeth, along with surprise, very possibly because he hadn't been totally aware he'd been targeting Brother because he knew hurting him would hurt

the most

"If I'd wanted you dead, quickly, or some other way, I'd have done it, or dragged you off, while you were still asleep."

Alphonse couldn't see through his tears, but, he once more didn't recognize anything but quiet relief, and there were no delineations, or absences, between self, and realities.

"I'm here, because it was obvious from how you kept looking at me, while attempting to hide that you were doing so, I've already gotten what I don't want, any longer.

"Dante, and Envy, made that very clear."

couldn't breathe

shifted

arms

maybe if

"If you pretend you're about to strangle me, I'll let you do it."

There was, solely, quiet relief, once more.

"I'll also use what I've learned about my new lack of balance to ensure I scrape one of my burn scars that can't heal the way the rest of myself does, so you'll be the person who tells Winry, and the others, why there's another red stone right on the floor of your room, in their home, when Edward was supposed to have erased all research into the Philosopher's Stone."

Al opened his mouth, and he felt nothing at how it took no effort to keep his voice steady, and ordinary.

"You're in no condition to stop me from leaving, and I can be out of here before anyone else can."

Al blinked, and he could, at last, see Wrath's face, glaring at him with contained fury tinged with a genuine guilt that caused Al's insides to begin heaving, and then, quickly settle.

Wrath rolled his eyes.

He walked up to Al's side.

Unceremoniously, he fell into a sitting position on Alphonse's left with Wrath's right leg crossed, his left leg roughly colliding down into Al's side.

Something thickly viscous rushed into Al's mouth, crimson washed into the edges of his vision, and two sets transparent double doors were now hanging in the air in front of him, with a giant horizontal purple eye vibrating out of sequence over a vast vertical eye with concentric red circles, and a third, massive vertical eye with silver concentric circles superimposed over the other two, extending out familiar black hands in Alphonse's direction with a featureless figure of pure white with motes of black dancing off of it standing in front of it, grinning with its mouth open, and teeth showing.

A single, familiar, thin inky black arm shot out of Al's mouth as Wrath jerked back, emitting a cry of contained agony, to stab into the stump of Wrath's left leg, and then pull back out in a geyser of blood, clutching a red stone.

It recoiled back into Al's mouth, and the viscous sensation disappeared.

"I am…

"…the Philosopher's Stone."

"They don't have too little confidence in themselves, they have too much; to the point they, or at least the Homunculus – not a human – leading them wants to become the Truth itself."

"they still found the means to take a round trip to our third world"

"The Stone is just sitting there right inside, with supposedly unlimited power. How can that be me?"

inky black hands dragging Brother into the Gate among yellow gold with transmutation circles cascading in blue white on his torso

the same circles cascading in blue white on a transparent silhouette of Brother as he soared into a roughly vertical column of shimmering air that Gluttony's stomach appeared to be exhuming over an ocean of blood to then plummet through two large partially transparent sets of double doors through a vertical red eye with concentric circles behind a transparent double door Gate and then through a vertical silver eye with concentric circles behind a transparent double door Gate

the same circles cascading in blue white on a transparent silhouette of Brother as he rocketed up through the dual layer semi transparent double Gate with the silver eye behind it through the red concentric eye and the two layers of its Gate the blue white disappeared as Brother's eyes rolled up in his head and he passed out

"Do you have any idea how many people Scar has killed to create the Philosopher's Stone? Of all the soldiers that invaded Lior? Seven thousand of them didn't make it home. But don't fret. They're all right here. Oh, I bet you didn't realize all the souls of the Ishbalans that were sealed inside Scar's arm are inside you now. Isn't that great?"

didn't matter this might still be

flesh body

mind

the transmutation had been altered by an unintentionally directed rebound because Brother traversed the Gate

he pushed himself

that far

five times after

beImeI

threw him aside back into the nightmare he'd just gotten out of

meIbeI

don't

no

noohplease

don'tplease

ohpleaseohpleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasenopleasenopleasenowaynowaynowaynowaynononowaynowaynowaynonowaynowaynowaynowaynowaynowaynowaynowaynowaynowayno

don'tplease

ohnopleaseno

don'tplease

pleasenoway

no

nowaynoway

please

pleaseohno

no

please

'There are so many moments when I should have died. Time after time after time. But I survived. And for what?'

"That's reality for you. All the effort he gave got him one thing in return."

to become

I

"My memories, and my soul, are fake! Isn't that what you wanted to tell me!?"

meImeme

"At the end of the day, the human being is not much more than the components used to create a common bomb. If you think about it, we're not that special. Not you. Not me. We're all empty. We're all worthless."

me

"Do you have any idea how many people Scar has killed to create the Philosopher's Stone? Of all the soldiers that invaded Lior? Seven thousand of them didn't make it home. But don't fret. They're all right here. Oh, I bet you didn't realize all the souls of the Ishbalans that were sealed inside Scar's arm are inside you now. Isn't that great?"

I

me

beme

am

theverythingthattookBrother'sarmandleg

forgood

nowhashisbodymind

me

I

be

me

am

I

tookBrother'sbodymind

whattookhis

leg

arm

blissful

foreternallyneverlastingdrawnblindingpitchopalescentnight

.

"I lie crying facedown in the breezy shade of a tree

I saw a version of myself I didn't recognize

.

"A guitarra plays the harmony of one who passed away

Stars fall in grief of someone who will never come

I yell out not to go, but the only response I get

Are the orange petals, quietly swaying

.

"I can still feel the touch of your hand

On my forehead but it's fading

I strum an eternal goodbye

.

"Like a child, my heart clings to a gentle hand

But burning wheels shake it off and keep moving

Guitarra, play the harmony of one who passed away

Furiously strum away at the strings in my heart

.

"With pureness unstained by sorrow

The orange petals sway in the Summer shadow

.

"Even if I lose the feeling of your hand

The rhythm of farewell

Will resonate across the crimson sands

Crossing the Earth as it burns away the memories

Yet there is something that cannot be forgotten

.

"I send off the carriage of dawn

The orange petals still sway somewhere

.

"Until the calm daybreak I once saw

Is back in my hands again

Don't shut off the light

The wheels continue to turn"

'Carriage Of Dawn'

GUNDAM SEED HD REMASTER PROJECT Director's Concept Music Video Four