He Who Searches for Himself - Chapter 34

[yuuki]

Chapter: XXXIV (34) - The Cataclysm's Catalysts
Rating: PG
Word Count: 10,067
Beta: AmunRa
Previous: Chapter list for Part 1 thru Current
Alternative: located on fanfiction.net
Chapter Summary: Ed returns to work at Munich University after the winter break and ends up with an invite to join the Nazi members at their social event. Mustang makes a strategic drop-in at Central HQ to get a message into the core of headquarters, while Izumi tries to keep Wrath occupied outside of Central.



Part XXXIV - Chapter 85 - The Cataclysm's Catalysts

The halls of Munich's university seemed eerily quiet for nine in the morning on the first Monday back at school. Ed concluded that students and teachers were a little bleary from the holiday break and everyone was sleeping through first block classes. Edward would have slept straight on until noon if the task of cleaning out his father's office hadn't been something he'd had to take care of at eight that morning. Ed did the task in relative silence. He had a few boxes to sort his father's things into, two of which were for him to take home, and the remainder was for the faculty. Ed really couldn't bring himself to tell the distraught clerical staff that he would rather not take any of his father's belongings home. He didn't know what to do with them once he'd gotten them back to the house.

It had been over a week since his father passed away, five days since the funeral. The day of the funeral had been the most dissociated day Ed could recall having had in a long time; he'd constantly been two steps behind where he actually was, feeling like he were watching everything from the cloud of his own wake. There had been little that could be done about Winry's tears this time, because everyone around him had been shedding them too, and all Ed had really wanted to do was to scream at all of them to stop. He bit his tongue. Edward had been extremely thankful when the day finally ended.

Ed and Winry returned to their proper house after the funeral, apologizing profusely to the Oberths for the intrusion into their house over the prior few days. There wasn't a whole lot of talking that had gone on between Ed and Winry since returning. Ed surrounded himself in his alchemy notes in front of the fire place, and Winry sequestered herself away in her room with plans and blueprints she was creating. At four thirty on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, Winry had come downstairs without a word and cooked dinner, served hot between five thirty and six. Other than Winry requesting Ed's presence so she could take measurements to do the blueprints of his new arm, dinner was really all the interaction they'd had. It was as though Winry had found a request Ed hadn't voiced to have some space after everything was finally all said and done. So yesterday, Sunday, Ed preempted Winry half a day in advance by having an elaborate breakfast made for nine that morning. He barked at her for gawking stupidly at the epic food display, righteously annoyed that everyone always seemed so surprised when he showed that he could cook - there had been two different women teach Edward how to cook before he'd turned twelve! The chirping turned into one of the few discussions Ed had carried on with Winry outside of either alchemy or AutoMail: a moderate argument over whose cooking skills had culinary superiority, and who would be cooking dinner that day.

Life continued on at ten to nine this Monday, when Professor Haushofer showed up to help Ed with the cleaning task, much to Ed's dismay.

"You'll be back to work tomorrow, right Edward?" the professor asked while he slid a stack of file folders into a box.

"Yeah, I'll be in," he answered. Ed had been given Monday to deal with his father's office.

"The school is actually trying to bring in someone from Berlin to fill in for your father's classes, you'll probably have your assignments continue with him," Haushofer commented, watching Ed mull about absently.

"Makes sense," Ed answered blankly, more interested in trying to find a way to make his father's tacky abacus fit into a space in a box. Why the hell did his dad have an abacus? The contraption had to have been older than his old man was.

Whether he liked it or not, Ed was an office assistant. It was an extremely humbling and boring title to have on his resume, all things considered. But, unless he worked for some level of government, being the office bitch for the University of Munich's sciences department was sufficient employment, considering the deteriorating conditions of the country. Edward's main assignment was to his father, but he had delegation to other professors in the math or science departments. Now, his time would have to be split doing who knows what. Sadly, he doubted anyone would ever let him grade first year chemistry tests again without any proper credentials. Ed would concede that he enjoyed helping his father mark first year chemistry exams; it was easy and sometimes utterly hilarious. He couldn't explain how on earth some of these people made it into university.

Haushofer continued to force along the menial conversation with the Elric, not concerned that Ed had little interest in participating, "Your birthday is next Tuesday, isn't it?"

Ed stopped with Haushofer's comment. Ah shit.

"It's your twenty-second, right?"

"It is, yeah," Ed would rather his birthday be forgotten this year. He never really did anything for it anyways; it was everyone else who thought it was a big deal.

"Well then, my wife wants to have you over for dinner Tuesday night," Haushofer announced, "between five-thirty and six. She's asked for you and Winry to come."

"What?" Ed blinked a wide expression over to the professor, "What? No. No no no," he raised his hand in refusal, "no thank you, Professor. I'm... busy."

The professor walked over to Edward and put a heavy hand down on his shoulder, "My wife is not an easy woman to argue with when she sets her mind on something, and she has her mind set on a dinner for your birthday."

"No no, really, it's okay. No," Ed did not want these people doing anything for his birthday, or want any kind of dinner that he wasn't preparing himself, or want to be sitting at a table with Albrecht Haushofer, and he sure as hell didn't want Winry in the same city district as the Haushofer troll either, "Really, I'm busy... uh, Winry and I have plans!"

"Oh? What kind of plans do you have with Winry?" the professor pushed.

"I'm not sure exactly," Ed sputtered, "Winry mentioned she'd made plans, but didn't elaborate."

"That's nice of her," Haushofer grinned, "quite brave of her to venture out and try to arrange something for you when she struggles so much with the language. Do you think she'll be taking you out for dinner? Theatre?"

"Um," Ed's gaze shifted quickly, looking for a life preserver in the moat he was drowning in, "no, I think we're staying in."

"Ah," Haushofer grinned, nodding sagely, "'plans'."

Two long strikes of the second hand ticked by on the wall clock before Ed turned a suffocating shade of deep red and screeched like a snared bird, "WHA- NO. NOT THOSE KIND OF PLANS."

Haushofer folded his arms, eyeballing Edward from over top the rim of his reading glasses.

"That's just… no. No. Absolutely not those kind of plans," Ed's hand waved around frantically, "those kinds of plans don't exist. Ever." He scrambled to swallow the colour boiling like a hot tomato between his ears, "I'll tell Winry we're coming over on Tuesday. I'm sure she won't mind." A lengthy string of colourful expletives tumbled through Edwards mind.

Haushofer grinned like he was satisfied with the results, nodding to Ed's reluctance and eventual answer, "And what are you doing Wednesday night?"

Ed's face soured at the continued requests for his time, "Um, my plans are in flux at the moment... why?"

"You have an invite," the professor told him, returning to the task of sorting books and records, "to one of our NSDAP Social meets."

It wasn't even half-past nine yet, and Edward's last two hours had been something of a roller-coaster. Now, the ride took Ed through tunnels that turned his stomach until he was sick, and boiled his blood on high through his veins. 'I want nothing to do with those dirty fuckers' was a statement he tried very hard not to make. Professor Haushofer was a member, and Ed didn't particularly dislike the man.

"It's a personal invite from Adolf himself, and those are rare," Haushofer gave a nod of his head, "he said that he'd sent you an invite in the mail, but there hasn't been a response, so he asked me to pass it along."

Ed stared silently at the work in his hand. The invite to the Nazi Party Social gathering had been in the mailbox when Edward and Winry returned to the house. It wasn't verbalized, but there was no doubt in either Edward or Winry's mind that Envy had some sort of hand in Hohenheim's death. The invite had been torn up and thrown in the fire. Ed wanted so badly to put his fist through the wall in frustration... or put his fist through Adolf and knock Envy from him.

"Professor, unlike my dad, I don't do politics. They don't interest me," Ed finally responded with more tact than he thought he'd have available.

"It's not politics, Edward; it's a social event. A meet and greet. What connects us may be politics, but there's no political agenda," Haushofer shrugged, trying to find a way to plead the case, "think of it as one of the university club gathering for drinks, chatter, and some laughs. It's not an official political function."

The thought of that made Edward want to laugh, but an angry, lingering thought knocking on a mental door was borrowing his attention, "I'm assuming that if it's his event, Mr. Hitler will be there too?"

"Of course," the professor nodded.

"I'll think about it," Ed's eyes shifted through the emptying room that had once been his father's place of work, "I'll see how things go."

It was a child's tantrum - only because the figure throwing it could pass as a child. Dante raged around the room, throwing whatever was not held down, and breaking what was not solidly constructed. It was an excessive amount of violence from a childish figure that never shed a tear to her frustrations. She only ripped curtains. Kicking the doors to her bedroom open, Dante threw herself into the hallway, dropped to her knees, and wrapped her stout arms around the upper mezzanine rails in the prime minister's residence. She looked down to the pathetic existences that mingled below; servants, slaves, orderlies, mankind.

Dante had literally blinked and the Gate was gone. Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing special, nothing extraordinary. It was an insulting experience. It was beyond insulting. The Gate laughed at her, yet again mocked her for being on the insignificant side of the Gate, and then spat in her face - it had kept Alphonse and Diana. If little fists of flesh and bone could withstand the impact of being punched through walls, Dante's frustrations surely could have managed a myriad of holes. Any return trip to the Gate now would require precious amounts of what little was left of the Philosopher's Stone, with no guarantee she'd be able to claim Diana.

Yet, none of this came close her largest and most inexplicable frustration.

Dante ran the palm of her hand down the side of her face and through her neck, until her fingers shot back up to string through the long lengths of tangled, loose hair, "Aisa, there is a story being created about how you have taken Diana out of Central for the infant's own well being."

"Understood," the nurse figure emerged from Nina's room and into the hallway light, her shoes clapping on the hardwood floor.

"Now…" the excuse was the easy part, it was the logical part, but the remainder was not, "… what the hell do I do about that baby?" she could have ripped the hair on her forehead out with the thought. It compounded the astoundingly infuriating problem of being forced away from the Gate.

Aisa's feet were again heard on the floor as the woman came to the railing, "You can use the Philosopher's Stone to retrieve her, can't you?"

Dante's tiny hands viciously gripped the railing she looked down on civilization, "Possibly. Diana's methodology is different than the Philosopher's Stone's relationship with the Gate. I don't want to waste it to find out I can't retrieve her. The Stone is too precious; we need to save it."

The nurse's brow rose at the statement, "Save it? There's plenty for a trip to the Gate."

The railing rattled as Dante threw herself back from the perch, sweeping up to her feet, "It needs to be conserved. I need to continue to conserve it."

Aisa offered, "Red stones, then?"

Dante scoffed at the suggestion, "Too unstable. I refuse to sacrifice anything because of inherent flaws in a cheap substitute."

"Then Alphonse and Diana can be considered lost?" the woman's words questioned heavily.

"Until I can arrange an alternative, yes," the knuckles on her fingers turned white as Dante clenched her tiny hands, swallowing immediate facts like a bitter pill, "Where the hell has Wrath gotten himself to?"

Aisa looked off in thought, "Last I heard he was seen in the outback of a hamlet en route to Central."

Dante folded her arms, creasing her face with her thoughts, "And Izumi?"

"Wrath is a little easier to track than she is," Aisa gave a cautious eye to the little woman questioning her for answers, "Izumi is keeping herself low, but I did tell Wrath to engage her like you requested, so assuming he's done so, she'll be keeping an eye on him."

"And following him to Central," Dante nodded as she finished the progression of assumptions, "Izumi's smart enough to know I won't be keeping Alphonse at the Empty City. She'll go elsewhere and probably seek assistance."

Looking out into the rotunda below, Aisa frowned at the busy world. The tension among the masses was thick and unstable with nerves; it annoyed her, "The situation in this city is falling apart. Central is in upheaval. Brigadier General Mustang is rallying troops in the masses, quickly too. It's unexpected."

"If he wants to play this way, I will give that pompous jackass a bloodbath," Dante's words thumped in her chest, "and stain his mittens red." As her thoughts crashed through her mind, a red light shone at the end of Dante's constricting tunnel of thoughts, "which might be very useful," the little red witch looked up at Aisa with a progressing thought, "the best way to conserve and nurture my Philosopher's Stone is to soak it in blood."

Aisa nodded in agreement with her mistress' line of thought; she rarely found cause to disagree, "Should Wrath be re-routed to keep out of your hair?"

"No, Wrath can be a useful distraction," Dante's hands slipped through her hair, pulling a handful over her shoulder, and began a braid, "the red stones you have, are they enough to keep Wrath active for a while?"

Hesitating, Aisa thought the question over, "More will need to be extracted. Anything taken previously was fed to Wrath."

Dante laughed suddenly - it shivered through the air, drifting wild and bitter, frustrated and angry, "Then, when I extract more red stones for Wrath, I will take a portion of Philosopher's Stone as well for myself, and turn two exercises into one."

The announcement brought uncertainty into Aisa's tone, "I thought we were preserving the Stone?"

"I said we were conserving the stone, there is a difference," Dante feigned childish delight in the weaving exercise of hair through her fingers, "I need some for myself in the interim. I'll look good in a little red necklace. You don't mind, do you Aisa?"

The woman looked back at Dante like the question of permission was asinine, "I would never mind."

The little devil began to take herself back into the bedroom, her aura trailing behind her like a poisonous red filth dispersing into the pure air. Silent again, Dante paced through the childish room, throwing away the weave she'd wound through her hair. The demon's childish voice began breathing heavily, her feet thundering down harder with each step she took. Dante's hands slowly began to fumble atop her bed of hair, like the frail legs of spiders dancing over her. The fingers trickled down, sliding through her neck before advancing over her shoulders, dancing down her arms, until her hands leaped to her chest and clawed heavily down the front of her body.

The most outrageous concern the Gate had forced upon Dante was beneath her hands. When the devil's fingers could go no farther, they snapped away, like mud had been slung from her body.

Without warning, Dante flared out like an explosion, fanning her flames through the bedroom, throwing her rage around in a wild tantrum. Behind shut curtains and beneath dim light, items shattered without care. She did not discriminate with her destruction of the room - none of this façade mattered. It could all be reconstructed, like the effort of creation or malice of destruction meant nothing - this entire inanimate pretence could be fixed with the simple clap of her hands.

The only thing that could not be reconstructed with the clap of her hands was the only thing that mattered.

Aisa stood, undisturbed, unaffected, and uninterested in Dante's actions, "Miss, this won't help you. It might make things worse."

"WHY!" Dante screamed, "why is this body rotting, Aisa? It should not be rotting. Nina was perfect! There was no original soul in this doll for it to cause me to rot. There is still NO inherent soul in this doll to cause me to rot, yet, I'm rotting," the little girl's arms flew out in shrieking rage, "I stood at the Gate door with that Elric and my beautiful key, and then something happened, something came through the Gate! I felt it pass through me, and I blinked, and in that pinpoint of a second, I left the Gate. Now, I'm rotting. Again."

Taking an audible breath through her nostrils, Dante threw her disgusted gaze away from anyone who could possibly be looking at it, even from the sight of her inanimate toys and animals.

"I don't have time to deal with this bullshit," she snarled.

Beyond some cursing and swearing, when Ed locked himself down in front of the fireplace with his mountain of alchemy paperwork, he was usually pretty quiet - like some child trapped in a fascinating book. Five, ten, sometimes twenty different permutations of any number of formulas were scrawled out, and discounted. Ed could clearly remember being a child, and looking at alchemy texts, and at worst it would take him five shots at a complex transmutation circle before he'd draw something that worked perfectly. Last time he'd taken five shots at an alchemy circle, he'd been nine years old. Now, he had a mammoth brainteaser without a finished result to target.

How to get home?

How could a world with so much information, so much untapped knowledge, not have a single shred of information or plausible formula that brought him even close to getting home. Even if he had something remarkable, like the Thule Hall, he had no way of making it work. He could regard the Thule Hall as a magnificent nightmare, but no matter how flooring the place was, he still had no way of making it work. It degraded the magnificence down to insignificance. This world was maddening. It didn't help that both last night, and this night, he'd been astoundingly unfocussed. There were… things to worry about.

Winry's footsteps echoed from the stairwell through the house. Ed glanced back over his shoulder, hearing the faucet in the kitchen run before the sound of her footsteps drew closer. With a clipboard in one hand, a glass of water in the other, and a measuring tape slung over her shoulder, Winry came up to what she'd affectionately dubbed 'Fort Alchemy' and looked over the scene, "Are you…" she eyed the miserably frustrated look on Ed's face, "in the middle of something important?"

Ed shook his head.

"Can I borrow you for a few minutes?" Winry smiled.

"Sure," Ed stood up, pulling out of his fortress of white sheets of paper, and stepping into the real world again, "what's up?"

Winry used her clipboard to gesture to the couch, "Sit, I need your left hand," she placed her glass down on a coaster.

Ed shuffled around the confines of the living room, trying not to disturb any mountain he'd created, or any piece of furniture he'd moved to accommodate it. He plunked himself down on a sofa cushion, as did Winry next to him. Handing over ownership of his left hand to Winry, Ed sunk into the sofa and looked back on his fortress with a loud and disgruntled huff.

"Not going so well?" Winry asked, wrapping the measuring tape around his index finger.

With a near snarl, Ed's upper lip rose and the bridge of his nose wrinkled, "Not exactly."

"What's wrong with it?" Winry pushed a little.

Ed's face transformed with a scowl, "Everything…"

Winry scribbled down a few measurements from his left hand, "If it makes you feel any better, I'm almost done with the core work on your new arm."

Ed sunk a little deeper into the cushions, putting the heels of his feet up onto the coffee table, sounding somewhat absent, "That's good."

With a few scratches of her pencil, Winry continued to jot down her numbers, "That leg you've got on was easy, it's not networked into your body, you're just wearing a sleeve. It's a huge challenge trying to work out an arm for you that's not… well, up to Rockbell AutoMail standards. I've been so spoilt with Granny, it's been kinda frustrating having to figure out all the ways to improvise to get something functional that you can use here. It's like two hundred years worth of technological setbacks I have to work around."

"You know what you're doing, Winry. You'll figure it out," Ed's words were again lacking of attachment to the conversation as well as enthusiasm.

Winry shook her head and put her pencil aside, resting Ed's left hand down on the clipboard. Without Winry prompting conversation, the room existed in perpetual silence, like it had for nearly the entire week prior. The only two things that existed beyond their own breathing were the ticking wall clock and the contained sound of the fireplace. The distant and detached moment easily lingered on. Ed's limp hand rested on the clipboard of AutoMail notes, and his focus slowly vanished into the corners of the room. The clock chimed in for seven o'clock that evening, and he finally recalled his focus.

Ed's face soured, and he slouched a little deeper into the couch. He snatched up the clipboard and looked at the measurements Winry had taken. Ed twisted his face at the information and dropped the clipboard to his lap; AutoMail jargon was out of his league. He held out his hand in front of himself, palm forwards, and narrowed an inquisitive eye. He saw a hand with a thumb, four fingers, a few blood veins and crease lines; he could rattle off the chemical compositions of the flesh, blood, and bones, but he had no measurements for the size. Winry's hand came up into the picture; she lined her palm up to the bottom of his and held it for comparison's sake. Ed's brow rose at the result, his hand surprisingly dwarfed hers… well not Armstrong or Sig kind of dwarfing… and his father's hand was undoubtedly bigger, but Edward's own left hand was a lot bigger than he would have expected.

"Last time I made you an AutoMail hand, I don't think it was anywhere near that size," Winry spoke with a near laugh.

There was a section reserved in the back of Edward's mind that he kept for the mental smashing of all things relating to the term 'small', and his big hand gleefully smashed the word like an overzealous child in a lively game of whack-a-mole.

"Hmm," Ed lowered one eyebrow, keeping the other peaked with interest, "your pinky isn't straight."

Winry's laugh sounded foolish, taking her hand away and looking at the odd bend to her smallest finger, "I uh… smashed it up in my workshop a few months ago."

"Ouch?" Ed winced a little.

"Big ouch," Winry rolled her eyes at herself, "absolutely my own fault. I just lost concentration and… yeah, Granny had to finish my commission." She gave a sheepish shrug to her accident.

Ed smirked, nodding slowly as his smile faded into the palm of his hand, now resting on the clipboard in his lap. Winry reached out and took hold of the top of the clipboard, sliding it out from Ed's possession. The Elric's eyes followed the diagramming of his hand as it moved, "I'm going to a NSDAP event tomorrow night."

Winry paused, running the statement through her mind, "… Isn't that… Hitler's group?"

Ed lifted his eyes, drawing his focus in to Winry, "Yeah, it is."

"Why?" her voice burst from her throat, doing everything in her power to sully the concern in her tone, "Envy's there, Ed. We don't know what else he's capable of."

"That's why I'm going," Ed's jaw stiffened with his response.

As the end of Winry's voice lingered on longer than Ed's, Edward began to wonder if maybe she was regretting waiting around patiently enough to hear his thoughts. From the corner of his eye, Ed caught Winry sinking down into the couch cushions as he had done earlier, wrapping the clipboard into her chest.

"Hey, don't worry," Ed tried to lift the room as he watched it sink, "there'll be a bunch of people there. I wouldn't go if the situation was too dangerous."

"Envy used that man's hands to kill your dad, didn't he?" Winry made the statement abruptly, without any preamble, hesitation of thought, or deep breath. She stated something both believed to be something of fact, yet neither had addressed.

As far as Ed could tell, Winry's words sounded more hurt about the circumstances surrounding his father's death than he was outwardly feeling. Ed's emotions on the issue, for the most part, were piled in a hastily transmuted, angry black cauldron that he glared at in his mind - because in that mind, Edward Elric could still do alchemy. He'd had to pack the issue away to some extent; he couldn't just leave that kind of a mess laying around. It was hard for Edward to look inside that container - trying to figure out how or what he felt for the man and his death was more challenging than the mountain of alchemy he was cultivating. Strangely, it was just as hard not to look in it. It had no lid. Things kept dribbling out. Some things even jumped out if he wasn't paying attention. Edward had times when, for some reason, he'd find himself with an overwhelming urge to investigate the cauldron… and he'd peek… but to acknowledge things… that was… just…

Ed sighed despite himself, his brow fusing together with an array of wrinkles and creases, "… I'm going to see if I can find that out. If he did it, I want to hear him admit to it."

… hard.

Winry untangled herself; the clipboard wrapped into her body coming off her chest and landing in her outstretched arms. She pulled to her feet and smiled, "Make sure to tell me how it goes, okay?"

Ed nodded.

Winry spun the clipboard around in her hands before nodding and taking herself back to the staircase, "Gonna finish these up and we'll go shopping for your parts on the weekend, alright?"

"Okay…" Ed replied, glancing over to the glass of water Winry'd forgotten on the coffee table.

Hakuro walked down a long, endless corridor in the mid-day instability that was slowly weighing down Central City headquarters, putting it precariously atop pins and needles. The officer swept his hat from his head and wrung it in his hands. These days were just getting worse and worse. It had been a week since he'd seen his family and honestly, he'd sent them away. No official order had been given to the people of Central to leave, no one was willing to admit that the stability of the people, the government, and the country was falling, but instinct told the officer to tell his wife to take the children and visit extended family far from town. He'd never felt like he'd ever had such a poor grasp on a situation before, a situation that included his own officers. Allegiances were divided, unclear, or secretive. Trust had failed, and it wasn't just the military allegiance that seemed to be falling out of the ordinary.

Hakuro entered the office he'd taken away from Mustang - a coveted room that had somehow escaped assignment to government ministers and remained in military control. Mustang was rarely afraid to tout that when reorganization of Central headquarters was brought up. When the door had clicked shut again, the senior officer stopped in his tracks at the middle of the dimmed room. Curtains had been pulled, lights had been turned off, and in the cold leather chair at the office desk was an unwelcome sight blowing lazily on a flickering little candle, teasing the flame with his breath.

Dressed head to toe in his full military garb, hat tight on his head, and hands dressed in white gloves, Roy Mustang gave the 'superior officer' his flattest stare as his chin teetered around in the palm of his left hand, "You finally showed up," he grumbled.

The corner of Hakuro's lip twitched, "How the hell did you get in here?"

"Considering how important you are, I'd have thought you'd be a little more timely," Mustang chomped his words, disinterested in the question.

"Security is at the end of this hall, Mustang," Hakuro's brow lowered, "one call out that door and you'll be in cuffs before you know what's happened to your ass."

The Flame Alchemist snorted at the threat and straightened himself up, "Use your high ranking brain and think of a reason why I'm sitting here waiting for you, Hakuro. You think I'd show up to talk to you here, in the middle of Central, with people out looking for my head, without a damned good reason?"

Taking a deep breath, the higher officer stiffened his jaw, staying back from the desk and ensuring his position was between Mustang and the door, "You showed up to flaunt your new found allegiances in my face?"

Mustang tilted his head in thought, "Yup."

Hakuro scowled at the response, "Are you proud of yourself?"

Mustang laced his hands together and dumped them down on his desk, "Oh hell yes."

"Congratulations on your promotion to the rank of Anarchist, Roy Mustang. You're throwing your precious country back into chaos," Hakuro turned up his nose to the man seated before him, "for what, your own dictatorship?"

"Yes, and I'm not proud of that," separating his hands, Mustang put his palms down on the desk and pushed to his feet, "but from the last time the country fell out of a leadership and until now, we've always been lost in anarchy and dancing like puppets, we were just unaware of it. Democracy has been faked."

Hakuro scoffed at the statement, "Is that how you're going to explain your actions? Is that how you console yourself without the glorious title of State Alchemist?"

"Since Bradley fell, the last nine months have been an illusion created through complacency and neglect, misery and the need for retribution," Mustang folded his arms. Stepping away from his desk, he expertly walked around it, like the locations of every object on the floor had been memorized, and he needed neither eye to navigate, "and within the chaos, the diversions, the governance that rose from the ashes, the shield of the State Alchemists Ishibal hearings… while all attention was diverted…" Mustang reached a gloved hand into his chest pocket, and pulled out a photograph, holding it like a playing card between two fingers, "Dante reemerged."

Hakuro's heavy brow rose, "Dante?" The sound of loss and confusion flooded his voice for the single word.

"The irreverent Dante," Mustang's gaze sneaked to the photograph in his hand, eyeballing his wild card with intrigue, "she has been the catalyst and conductor for this country's fate for quite some time."

"Pardon me?" Hakuro sounded like he'd choked on his confusion.

Clearing his throat, Mustang lowered his hand from the field of vision, "Dante is a five hundred-year-old, body-snatching alchemist utilizing a Philosopher's Stone, readily performing types of human transmutations for her own benefit," the alchemist nodded at his description, "by the time the regime change came, she'd created a figure for herself that walked alongside Sebastian Mitchell, propelling him into power with every right word, and every in-route she knew mankind could give her," the thumb of the alchemist's free hand hooked onto his belt, "that's what Dante does, Hakuro, she manipulates people for power. She's been doing it for hundreds of years," Mustang watched, withholding his triumphant smirk at the dumbfounded look that was surging through Hakuro, "and when the figure at Mitchell's side could no longer suffice, she stole the body of a little girl."

Mustang extended the photograph to Hakuro. Gingerly, the officer accepted the handout.

"This is… Nina," Hakuro spoke, lost in a matter-of-fact state, "with Edward and Alphonse Elric… and the Hughes'?"

"Nina Tucker," Mustang amended.

"As in, Shou Tucker?" Hakuro looked up from the photograph, "that family is dead. Nina Tucker is long dead. How can the Prime Minister's daughter be in a photograph with these people? Is this doctored?"

Mustang scoffed, "Do you think I have time to figure out how to doctor a photograph from Mrs. Hughes' photo album?"

"How could the same child be in this photo?" Hakuro's words spun through the air, "Nina Tucker's body was defiled; I've been given access to the records. This is impossible. You're accusing a child of being some kind of atrocity."

"Nina Mitchell is adopted, isn't she? Have you ever bothered to investigate the child's history? Mitchell certainly didn't have time to - it was his wife's job. Funny how that works," Mustang grabbed hold of the spinning thoughts, and threw them into reverse, "I'm accusing Dante of defiling that innocent little girl's life, by becoming the puppet master over the soulless doll that remained of her, and slipping into the child's persona like you or I slip into shirts, for the sole purpose of obtaining superior power over everything we know, and everything we don't."

An abhorred silence fell between them - ugly, warped, and rotting. It lay like a dead animal at their feet, waiting for the carcass to either be run over once more, or indiscriminately tossed into the roadside and ignored.

"That's disgusting, Mustang."

"What's disgusting is that we keep falling for it."

Again Hakuro's voice flared up, "Have you no shame Mustang? The girl is a child!"

Mustang stopped, something in the back of his head slowed his retort. He eyeballed the officer standing before him, boiling in the moisture of the summer air. Mustang settled himself, calmed his flame, and lowered the temperature of the room with the smooth, sweeping recapture of the photograph from Hakuro's hand, "You have to stop thinking like a father, and look at the evidence. She is a monster, with the face of a child. That negates anything childish about her. And from what I've heard, she can clap her hands for alchemy with more skill and ease than you or I have ever seen Edward Elric do."

Hakuro stood caught in the audacious headlights of Mustang's continued words, "Have you been bewitching all these men and officers into believing in this for your asinine cause?"

"I've told the right people the truth," Mustang's voice fell over Hakuro with a heavy weight anchored to the core of the world, "The whole truth. I've told them about Dante. I've told them what's been done. There's more to this story than this conversation Hakuro, a lot more," his hands slipped into his pockets, "whatever men choose to do with that truth, however they choose to interpret it or share it with their troops, subordinates, colleagues, co-workers, companions, spouses… that's for each person to decide on their own. But, one of Dante's greatest strengths has been that none of us knows. We don't want to admit that something like that actually exists. I won't allow her to use that ignorance against us any longer. If everyone knows, if I shatter her illusion, she'll have nowhere to hide, and this country can be taken from her."

"You showed up here, today, to tell me this fantastically perverse fairytale?" Hakuro questioned Mustang like he were laughing at the man.

All that was given in response was a shrug of, "Yes, I did," but the Flame Alchemist soon gave an addition to his reply, "I'm confident in believing that you may be one of the few people left in Central with a fully functioning mind. You aren't a complete mindless drone - willing or unwilling. I'm warning you that little monster is walking around at your knees with more skill in human transmutation than any person could think possible. She has a Philosopher's Stone to fuel it. I'm giving you fair warning to get the hell away from this."

"And if I ignore all this?" Hakuro chomped back.

Mustang's brow bounced a little, like he'd expected his words to go unheeded, "Oh, look at that… it's time to go," the alchemist's gaze suddenly flew beyond Hakuro's shoulder, "Major!"

A hand gun cocked into place behind Hakuro's ears; the man froze.

"Please, General, just stand there and admire my desk for a few minutes. You've done such a nice job clearing it of paperwork for me, it's a lovely sight to behold," Mustang grinned hotly, sliding the photograph into his breast pocket as he walked past the man invading his office, lightly brushing shoulders with him as he strode away.

"Wow! Edward Elric!"

Ed wanted to turn around and bang his head into the wall. It was the third 'wow' in the last five minutes, and by far the loudest, shouted by Hess from the other side of the dining hall. Deliberately, Ed held the blankest and most disinterested expression he could muster as random eyes flickered on and off of him. With almost childish enthusiasm, Hess appeared in front of Ed, hands coming down on his shoulders.

"I'm beyond impressed, Edward. In fact, I might be flabbergasted. What part of hell froze over that brought you out for our Social?" Hess beamed.

Ed's eye twitched, "I needed a change of pace, I guess."

Hess gave a nod and looked into the hall, "I have a table near the front. Come join us."

This was the NSDAP Social, one of the Nazi Party's more cordial engagements. Edward wanted nothing to do with this place, but here he was, though Ed sorely wished he could sink into the earth and slip away. He'd have to settle for getting lost in a crowd. Edward wanted to have a good look into Envy's eyes to see what he could see in the homunculus' mind, and gauge the current situation. Apparently, Envy wanted the same from him, considering the invite, and Edward had no problem engaging in a glare-down. This was the best way to do it: in a hall full of people. Considering the ratty metal doors he came in through, this place actually looked like a buzzing banquet hall; people mulled around, chatted with each other, and were generally content to be self-absorbed in their own little worlds.

Ed followed Hess and the pair made their way through people mulling around tables and chairs. Ed threw one drunkard an odd look when the man shoved a bottle of beer into his hand. A table came into view for the approaching duo, and Ed took a disappointing look ahead; Albrecht Haushofer sat with a dolled up girl on his arm, chatty as ever. The Elric couldn't tell if she was a young thing trying to look older, or a twenty-something with the face of a teenager. Ed swallowed a swig of beer, and reminded himself why he was here. There was a uninteresting round of introductions conducted by Hess, interrupted a few times by a drunken young Haushofer who gleefully told a few impossible tales of the Elric and the 'robot arm' he once had. Ed wondered how much of a scene it would cause if he whipped the beer bottle into the young Haushofer's face.

Ed sat at the table for what felt like forever, looking around the bustling room, at a menagerie of lives socializing. Everyone was everywhere, and some people were mentally nowhere. What an annoying charade. Ed wrinkled his nose, his eyes angrily flipping around the hall.

"What a pleasant surprise," a heavy voice sounded off like a deep drum beat behind Edward's ears. Ed jerked in surprise.

Hess's voice rose up over everything with a call of 'Fuhrer'. Ed slipped into a lazy slouch in his chair, taking a few swallows of the beer handed to him earlier. Edward watched Adolf walk out from behind him, drawing people to him like flies drawn to the sweet smell of a trap, and chat emphatically with them as he drifted through the crowd like smoke. The Elric's eyes managed to capture a picture of the moment Adolf's gaze crossed him. Strangely, what Ed saw, or thought he saw, was something he hadn't anticipated. One part of Ed's mind told him to get up and leave the party now, while the other wanted desperately to know why he'd been given such a vile glance. Hitler had looked at Ed, for only a moment, like he'd been repulsed to see him. Usually, Envy looked at him with pure hate or vicious hunger. This was different. What was that for? Then, the feeling got worse.

"And, if I can be excused for a few moments," Adolf finished his circle, coming around the table and putting his hands down on the corners of the back of Ed's chair, "I would like to have a few words with Professor Hohenheim's heir, Edward Elric, who's gracing us with his presence tonight."

"What?" above and beyond being called away, that was the most ridiculous way of being addressed Edward had ever heard. Again, Ed twisted his look up to Adolf, who hung his grin over the Elric like a raw slab of meat teasing a voracious appetite below. Slowly pulling to his feet, Ed kept a conscious thought of how dangerous bait usually was, perfectly aware he was following it like a well-trained animal. He moved away without anyone's continued interest, in fact Hess seemed to react like he'd known it was coming. The two men walked away from the table without another word to anyone.

Ed followed Adolf briskly. Wordless steps of two men marched away from the gathering and down a lengthy hall lit only at either end. Their shadows raced ahead of them as they entered, and by the time they were emerging, those same shadows were clawing back behind them. The hallway opened up to a pool of blue light, lit by an expansive wall of tinted glass windows ushering in the midnight moon. The two men remained silent, wading around within the churning ocean of night.

This was the front entrance of the banquet hall. The 'Social' had been using the back door. Ed smirked at the thought this party had been relegated to the rear of the building.

"I'm surprised, Edward. I expected to hear from Karl that you'd refused the invitation," Adolf's voice carried a low echo.

Ed snorted, "I was in the mood for something different. You people seem so friendly and nice… Winry and I could use good company like this."

Adolf scoffed, the choking sound burrowing its echo into the threads of the carpet floor, "Are you patronizing me?"

"Did you kill my dad?" the Elric son threw his blunt question out point-blank, not interested in bitter prattle.

"Is that what you came here for?" Adolf's brow rose, his upper lip shifting at the question, "Are you looking to avenge his death?"

"Hell no," the look in Ed's eyes standing firm as his hand slipped to his pocket - the absence of his right arm masked by thick shadows in the moonlight, "revenge doesn't get you anything. I'd just like to know if it was you."

"I did not kill your father, Edward Elric," Adolf tipped his head to the side, furthering his statement, and shedding the shadows masking his face, "Envy did."

Ed's golden eyes held the man's smug answer in contempt, "Don't be arrogant, you two are one and the same."

With the swing of his right foot, Adolf changed his posture. The man threw his chest up and open to the evening light as he began to walk forwards, "It has taken me days Edward, days, to recover from your plague."

"My what?" Ed tilted his head in confusion.

"Your plague," Adolf began to pace slowly, his fingers weaving together, and his head bobbing with each heavy step, "the baggage of filth you deposited in my Germany."

Ed eyed Adolf's slow and calculated steps. The dictator's feet made no sound on the carpet. Edward watched the deep black shadow the man cast move with every motion Adolf made, stretching out dark and long through the floor, "Did some voice in your head tell you that I brought the plague and infected you? Envy tends to be full of bullshit."

"Envy was the plague," Adolf announced like an explosion, "the plague you pointed here! The one that besieged me!"

Ed lost his words entirely for a moment. His wide, yet suspicious, golden gaze held Adolf at gunpoint interrogation, "You got rid of Envy?" Ed was somewhat torn, but not surprised - Envy had been evicted before, by a lesser man. Some part of Ed's mind wanted to say 'congratulations', and another part was deeply concerned with this conversation, "or are you just playing around with me for shits and giggles?"

"I think you should be careful how you speak to me, Elric."

"I think you should answer my question, Hitler."

The slow crawl of a grin traipsed its way into Adolf's face, "I like that; you have strong eyes. But, why are they yellow?"

Ed narrowed those eyes with no response.

Adolf threw his head back, his voice rising with each sentence spoken, "You can pretend that you're German, but you aren't even English. I may have been put at the mercy of your family's plague, but for the time I was ill with it, I took so much from it," the man's arm flew out, a stiff and accusing finger pointing Edward's way, "and I learnt that you are someone else. You are something foreign, something alien to me, and you place your existence above and beyond all of ours," Adolf snapped his arms out wide from his shoulders, hands fanning out at his sides, "this… this magnificence that I am trying to establish and build is not good enough for you. You see yourself as better than everything here, do you not?"

"No," Ed's golden eyes shone brighter than all the light in the area the two men stood, "I just don't want the life offered to me here."

"Do you understand the kind of tarnished human being you are?" Adolf spat his words, hissing as he continued, "how could you possibly think you are entitled to anything better than this? Your arrogance is so shameful you should not be allowed to lift yourself from the earth at my feet. You are not deserving enough to eat the same bread as me. That hollowed disfigurement at your right side reminds people of that every day they see you."

The Elric didn't glance to the space where a right arm and shoulder should have been.

"Edward Elric, Envy is quite gone and I do not care to know where. I will be the one controlling my hands, and therefore I will be the one controlling my fate, my people's fate, this country's fate, and I will control and orchestrate your fate down to the very last breath you take," Edward finally got to see that the shadow Adolf cast was made up of the poisonous excrement Envy had left behind, "You have no place in this world, and if I were to analyze how you live your life, I'd say you know that. You no longer have the luxury of hiding in your father's protective arms to do whatever it is you do to find this 'better life'. The reach of your arms… or arm… is not enough for either you or your companion to hide in."

The dark shadows of Adolf and Edward moved suddenly, crashing into the wall with Edward's forearm running up underneath the chin of Adolf's flat and unfazed expression, "You listen to me, and listen good. You have a problem with me, fine, take it up with me. I'll take you on. But, if you bring Winry into this, I will rip your balls off and shove them down your throat. She's innocent and she's got nothing to do with this, am I clear?"

"From what I understand, her mere presence with you absolves her of innocence," Adolf narrowed an eye, not showing the least bit of interest in Edward's threat, "you are intriguing, Edward. Envy may have sparred with your father, but you prostitute yourself to pride, greed, and wrath. Are you okay with these indiscretions?"

Edward's weight fell heavily on the arm pressed against Adolf's throat, "You don't know anything about me." Ed pushed himself away, releasing Adolf with a shove. The heavy thump of Edward's polished shoes thundered along the carpet of the entrance way, his jacket flaring out, and his dark shadow stretching out forever behind him, "I'm done with this conversation."

From beyond the Elric's shoulder, a powerful voice bellowed, "I am in the business of cleaning up the filth that plagues Germany, Edward Elric."

"GREAT," Edward's left arm thrashed about dismissively as he stormed away, "I'll call you when I need my toilet scrubbed!"

Bursting into the air from a tangled ball of tall undergrowth, Izumi's left foot landed squarely on a hefty, thick branch of the tree she scaled. With a swing of her upper body and spring in her knees, the woman thrust herself upwards, her hands grappling with another thick branch, deep in the tree's foliage. Izumi hung there for a moment, before finally snapping her hips, swinging her legs up, and thrusting herself upwards yet again - swinging around the branch, and coming to land like a well practised gymnast. Izumi was quite impressed with herself, she had to be a good nine or ten meters in the air, and there was still a great deal more of this tree to climb. Sitting quietly, catching her breath, the teacher listened to the sounds of the woods settle back into their places. Her ears canvassed the forest's sounds, listening for the distinct sound of Wrath's heavy approach.

"Where did you go?" he called out, almost like a song had been sung.

Izumi took very deliberate control of her breathing, Wrath's voice allowing her to place his direction in the woods.

It was like a game of cat and mouse, and Izumi was willingly and knowingly playing along. If she could keep Wrath busy, the fewer problems he'd cause, and the more time she'd have to sit atop trees and figure out what the hell she was suppose to do about everything else. And as much as the boys had wanted to relieve her of the burden of the living sin, Wrath was still her uncomfortable responsibility.

The teacher's eyes scoured the myriad of greens and browns fluttering in the breeze, searching for a dark mop of hair to appear in the cracks, or for the stray strand of sunlight to reflect off a deteriorating AutoMail shoulder. It was Wrath's mechanics that eventually gave him away, and Izumi watched as the creature moved himself through the shrubs and heavy plant life below. Izumi corralled her breath, holding it in her chest when Wrath stopped beneath her. She watched the creature give a sniff of the air, and then sharply look up to her.

"Hey!" the homunculus exclaimed with a sharp, toothy grin, "I see you!"

Izumi released her breath into the woodland air, "Did the Red Stones heighten all your senses, or just the ones you use for hunting?" she put a hand against the thick trunk and rose to her feet, "I'd still like to know where the your stones came from."

Standing below, Wrath's hands came to his meagre hips and he shrugged, "This conversation is getting old. I told you, Dante extracted them for me." The forest took a sharp breath as the riled homunculus reared back his AutoMail fist and slammed it into the trunk of the tree.

Izumi took hold of an upper branch, and pulled higher within the leaves of the old, shivering tree, "Extracted them how? From what? Red Stones are procured."

"Give me a good reason to tell you," again, Wrath's fist slammed into the tree, mercilessly pounding a hole through the thick trunk.

From her perch, Izumi tried to look out from beyond the higher canopy of leaves, wondering how the tree would fall once Wrath was done carving it out… and why the forest seemed to vanish in the east, "You're telling me that Dante has a stash of Red Stones just to feed you with? And she's pulled them out now, after how many months of starving you?"

Wrath's shrill laughter shook the woodlands harder than his fist shook the tree, "The Red Stones aren't for me. I just get the leftovers."

Izumi's frown tightened, "What are the Red Stones for then?"

"What good reason did you find to convince me to tell you?" Wrath's arms flopped to his side while he twisted his neck upwards to spot Izumi.

"Why does Dante have them when she has the Philosopher's Stone?" Izumi called down to the creature.

Wrath only shrugged in response, throwing back his fist, locking his shoulder, and thundering his arm through the thick trunk of the tree again. He grinned a little when the wood began to groan, "Why not?"

Izumi rolled her eyes, gritting her teeth as the tree's balance began to give way, "This was so much easier when you didn't talk back."

A final, heavy fist slammed into the tree, and the hundred-year-old growth began to topple.

As best she could, Izumi scrambled up higher into the branches as it began to tip. She felt and heard the crack of the wood, the crunch of branches, the rush of the earth, and the general cry of the forest as the tree fell, crashing through everything in its wake. Scrambling through the out stretched arms of the ancient tree, Izumi leaped from the branches before it hit the ground. She grabbed at a few surrounding tree limbs to slow her fall, but ultimately hit the ground, shortly after the old tree. The teacher tumbled, head over heels, and rolled to her feet. Izumi turned herself from jungle cat to sprinter, bolting forwards - east - and away from the destruction, not bothering to place Wrath. The woods cleared suddenly, opening the world up to the bright, afternoon sun, and Izumi skidded to a halt. The treetop canopy of the Amestris outback continued on thirty meters below, at the bottom of the cliff the woman stood atop. Izumi allotted herself a second to glance back, catching the obvious motion, and sound, of Wrath barrelling through the forest towards her. With a deep breath, the wiser of the two jumped off the side of the cliff. Izumi's hands slammed together as she began her fall down the rock face, and reached out for the cliff wall - the spark of her transmutation erupted. The teacher's feet quickly came down on a lip of transmuted rock, her body sinking to it as her knees bent beneath her. Izumi's hands searched the wall of rock, gripping tightly to a dangling tree root, clenching her teeth and stiffening as she felt the definite 'whoosh' of Wrath as he fell past her with an angry scream. She looked out, entirely unimpressed that Wrath had been so eager to catch his prey that he threw himself after her. Izumi winced and looked away before she could witness the homunculus bounce off the lower slope of the drop, and tumble to a tangled mess on the dirt below. Izumi released a breath she'd forgotten she'd held.

"I haven't had this kind of exercise in years. I'm going to have to make an appointment with my masseuse," Izumi rolled her shoulders, hearing them crack, before another clap of her hands gave her a much easier set of footholds to climb back up the rock face with.

Hauling herself back up to the ledge, the teacher again looked over at the unmoving homunculus, waiting for Wrath's stones to lurch him back to life. Again, Izumi chose to clap her hands, and she placed them down on the face of the rock cliff she looked over. Her transmutation smoothed over and polished the rock, free of any blemish, leaving it as slippery as a sheet of ice, and impossible to climb up. Izumi raised her brow once Wrath began twitching like a seizure ridden animal. The creature's reaction soon sullied, and the little forest terror pulled to his feet.

"You cheated!" Wrath hollered, pointing to the sheer and smooth cliff.

"Yes, I did," Izumi's barked down to the wilderness nuisance, "and you can't do transmutations without Ed's arm and leg," her eyes shifted, looking out over the expanse of treetops that filled the valley Wrath had fallen into, "SO," she bellowed, "why does Dante have both Red stones and the Philosopher's Stone at her disposal?"

The child sized golem screamed to the sky, before coming to glare at Izumi hovering above him, "Why should I tell you? So you can starve me from them?"

The teacher bobbed her head at Wrath's expectations, "That's the idea."

Rage in the valley began to settle and Wrath began to look about for another method of escape, "I'm not sharing anything with you."

"Should I be asking Aisa?" Izumi watched the creatures actions stop, and redirect up to her, "she's the one who fed you, right?"

The toothy grin reappeared through Wrath's face, begetting smugness, "Yeah, why don't you go ask Aisa?"

There wasn't a single syllable Wrath had pronounced that encouraged Izumi to take up the task. In fact, his dare had done a marvellous job dissuading the teacher from hunting down the woman. Izumi thought her own reaction over and frowned, wondering what the hell Dante was hiding with her personal escort, "Alright then, well, you hang tight down there and apologize to the trees for all the damage you've caused lately. I know two botanical alchemists who might try to kick your ass if you don't." The teacher pushed to her feet.

"You can't leave! I can't let you leave!" Wrath's scream echoed off the polished face of the cliff.

Izumi lowered her voice, available only to her own ears, "Which means you have instructions to keep me entertained. The last person you spoke with was Aisa, so she should be the first person I find."

Without any further acknowledgement to Wrath's existence, Izumi walked away from the cliff hovering above the valley, ignoring the creature's raging screams as she left him there.

To Be Continued…

Author's Note:

I think it would be absolutely hilarious to see the comments Ed leaves on really lousy Chemistry exams.

I like the idea that, to a point, Adolf liked having Envy in his head - Envy has 400-something years worth of knowledge on how to orchestrate mankind, how to control them with words, suggestions, and subtleties, which are all things Adolf can use. But, I also like the idea that Adolf will not allow any entity, regardless of who or what it is, control his actions. He's too proud for that. When Envy got a foothold and used Adolf's body as the physical means for killing Hohenheim, Adolf wasted no time in finding a way to remove Envy from his mind (which is do-able). Envy knew this would happen (even mentioned it to Hohenheim before he'd died), but didn't care because he gotten the opportunity to kill Hohenheim, and he was more than happy with that.

Word Count: 10,067