Hagane no Renkinjutsushi - Volume 3 - Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

THE COLONEL’S CONSPIRACY

EVENING CREPT SLOWLY into the sky as the sun sank low over the rows of hills. In the east, the heavens had shifted from a dim blue to a soft crimson, then glowed bright red for the briefest of moments before drifting into purple. Here and there, the first stars began to twinkle.

“Night already …” muttered the boy Edward Elric, scowling at the glory of nature spread out above him. He squinted his eyes against the beautiful sunset. “How far is it to this town, anyway?” he shouted, shooting a withering glare at the setting sun. 

His brother, Alphonse, turned and looked back at him. “Guess it’s the wild outdoors for us tonight. That rocky outcropping over there doesn’t look so bad.”

Edward shook his head. “I’m tired …”

“Who wouldn’t be, after walking the whole day in this wasteland. Come on. You can make it that far, at least.”

It took more urging from Alphonse to goad his brother into a slow walk, each foot lifting and falling with an almost impossible slowness. 

“Unh … I can barely move my feet.” Edward dragged his feet in the sand, his gold eyes sparkling from under braided blond hair. His face carried the brightness of youth, but the hardness in his eyes and a right arm and left leg of automail betrayed a past unusually difficult for someone his age.

The same held for his traveling companion, his younger brother, Alphonse. Alphonse should’ve been a young boy like Edward, but now he towered over his brother, a lumbering suit of metal surrounding the void where his body should have been. The only thing tying Alphonse’s soul to the empty, walking suit of armor was a rune etched in blood on the inside. 

Several years before, the brothers had broken the taboo of human transmutation, and paid dearly: Edward lost his arm and leg, and Alphonse, his entire body. It was a terrible weight to bear for two teenage boys. Yet they bore it all the same, without stumbling. Much.

Edward had joined the military. The day he became a State Alchemist, he and his brother burned down their own house, so they would never have a place to go back to. Together, they swore they would get back their original bodies someday.

Recovering a lost body was no easy task, and so they traveled far and wide, gathering bits and pieces of infor-mation wherever they went, chasing down every stray rumor they came across. In fact, they should have been searching for a way to get back their original bodies right now. 

But they weren’t. 

Edward scowled. There was a reason why they had to camp out here in the middle of this wasteland. “Darn it. This is all the colonel’s fault.”

“Well, this is as good a place as any,” Alphonse said, ignoring him as he began to prepare the tent.

Edward slumped down next to the rock outcropping, pulled a dried hunk of bread out of his pack, and began gnawing on it, occasionally pausing to glare woefully at the horizon.

Out there, somewhere, was Roy Mustang, colonel at Eastern Command and the man responsible for sending them out into this wasteland in search of a town that might very well not exist.

“Why do we have to monitor this town anyway?”

“Now, now. The colonel’s a busy man, you know. And we get it pretty easy as it is. We should cooperate when we can.”

“Cooperate?” Edward shook his head, thinking back on the string of events that had led them to this desolate place. He clenched his fists and trembled. “We weren’t cooperating—we were coerced!”

IT HAD BEGUN a few days before with two sudden words:

“No money.”

“Huh?” Alphonse looked up. His brother sat before him, dumbfounded, his wallet open in his hand.

“I’ve got my wallet, but there’s no money in it,” Edward repeated, looking at the dishes stacked high on the table. The brothers were in a restaurant on Main Street in a small town. The restaurant itself was a hole-in-the-wall. In fact, the wall facing the road had been removed, so a number of the tables faced right out on the street. They had been eating there for quite a while.

“What do you mean, you don’t have any money? This is a fine time to realize …” Alphonse trailed off, looking at the chicken bones picked clean, the flakes of bread on the tablecloth, and his brother. A small shred of lettuce hung from the corner of Edward’s mouth as further damning evidence of the crime:

He had eaten a ton, and the bill on the table certainly showed it.

Alphonse leaned over the table and whispered, “Are you sure? You don’t have any in your pocket?”

Edward silently nodded, searching his coat pockets and frowning. “This is bad. We’ve been eating pack food so long I hadn’t checked my wallet.”

Edward patted himself down, looking for small change.

For the last several days, the brothers had been deep in the mountains, chasing rumors of a book on human transmutation, They had returned empty-handed, a great disappointment, but their resolve to get back their original bodies could not be broken so easily. Just sitting in a restaurant, eating real food and being around other people had done wonders to restore their spirits and strengthen their determination to try again.

“We’ll find it next time, I know we will!”

“Yeah!” 

The two had looked at each other, slapped fist over fist in a ritual gesture of shared purpose, and began talking about where they would go next. And then, Edward had pulled out his wallet.

“What are we going to do? I could’ve sworn I had some cash in here somewhere …”

Edward slid off his chair and opened his traveling trunk. He began rummaging through it noisily. The other customers watched, some curious, some simply irritated. Alphonse waved their glances away as if nothing was wrong.

“Ed …” Alphonse poked his brother, who now sat on the floor rummaging through his trunk. “I think it’s a little obvious that you’re searching for money. Everyone can see you. What if the waiters suspect something?”

“Suspect what?”

“I mean …” Alphonse hunched down as low as his massive frame would allow and whispered, “What if they think we’re going to eat and run?”

“Eat … and run?”

Now that his brother mentioned it, Edward noticed the waiters and the cooks shooting suspicious glances their way.

“Uh-oh. They’re on to us.”

“Of course they are.” Alphonse sighed deeply and looked down at his armor. “Look how grimy I am. We don’t exactly look trustworthy.”

Edward looked down at his own clothes. Living in the mountains for many days had left them soiled with dirt. Here and there, loose threads had snagged on bushes, fraying his jacket at the shoulders. “No kidding.”

They looked like people without any money. 

“There’s a bank in this town, right? Why don’t you go and—” Alphonse was about to suggest he go make a withdrawal when a dark shadow fell across the table.

“Hey!”

The brothers looked up in unison to see the head chef looming over them, a frying pan raised in his hand. “If you’re planning on skipping out on the bill, I’ve got some bad news for you.”

“N-no, sir! We’d never do that!” Alphonse blurted, waving his hands in hasty denial, but it was too late.

“Think you can fool me?! I thought you were eating too much. You’ve been planning this little caper since the moment you walked in here!”

“No, wait! Please!” Edward squealed. “We have money! I just have to get to a bank …”

“You think I believe a scruffy-lookin’ kid like you’s got money in the bank?!” the chef roared.

“Hey! Don’t judge by appearances!”

The large man scowled. “How else am I supposed to judge you then, eh?”

“You have a point,” Edward admitted.

“Guys, get out here!” shouted the man, sounding his frying pan with his fist like a gong. “We’ve got a couple of runners! Grab ’em!”

The other cooks came running out of the kitchen, bearing pots and pans and other implements of culinary destruction in their hands.

“We’ll have you working for a month to pay this off!”

“No, wait! Al!”

Alphonse saw the look in his brother’s eyes and nodded. They had to get their bodies back. They couldn’t be stuck working here for a month. Edward dashed out the door, shouting as he ran, “I’m going to the bank!”

Times were tough; there probably were a lot of people who would eat and run, Edward thought. The restaurant was right to suspect … but that didn’t mean they could waste a whole month working there!

“He’s running! He’s running!” the head chef shouted. 

Alphonse waved his arms. “He’ll bring money, really. Look, I’ll stay here. Just wait, please! My brother’s a lot more respectable than he looks, honest.”

Alphonse shook his head. This was crazy. Who would believe that the grimy, unwashed boy running down the street with a wild look in his eyes was a State Alchemist?

Leaving Alphonse behind to defend his honor, Edward ran at full speed to the local bank.

“Excuse me,” he panted. “I’d like to take money out of my account!”

Edward flashed his State Alchemist’s silver watch to the bank teller as proof of his identity.

“Now at least we can clear our name with the restaurant.” Edward slumped down into a chair, wiping the sweat from his forehead. However, several minutes later the bank teller came back. “I’m sorry to inform you,” he said curtly, “that Edward Elric’s account has been closed.”

Edward gaped.

“Please come again,” the teller said cheerfully.

“Wait wait wait! I still have plenty of research money in there, I know it!”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t confirm the details from this branch …” the teller repeated, showing Edward the door.

“Why not?!” Edward shouted. “This is a bank, isn’t it? If I go back there empty-handed, that crazy chef’s going to think we really did plan to skip out on the bill! This is … This is some kind of conspiracy!”

It was, in fact, starting to stink of more than just bad luck.

Edward left the bank, ran to the nearest phone, called accounting at Eastern Command, and shouted at them about the trouble at the bank.

There was a click and then ringing. The person in accounting had abruptly forwarded his call without telling him.

“H-huh? Hello? Hello?! Who is this? Who am I talking to?!”

There was a brief burst of static, followed by the sound of someone picking up the receiver on the other end. Edward opened his mouth to shout again, but when he heard the voice on the other side, his face curdled into a frown.

“Long time, no talk, Edward.”

“Hello, Colonel Mustang.”

Roy Mustang was the officer in charge at Eastern Command. With his jet black hair and sparkling black eyes, Roy was the youngest man in military history ever to have reached the rank of colonel, and he was a State Alchemist besides. Rumors persisted on the base regarding his dal-liances with women and his lackadaisical attitude toward work, but he also maintained a reputation for keeping a cool head and making accurate judgments in the heat of the moment, and as such he had many supporters among his men. Edward knew Roy only as an ambitious climber in the ranks, who was enough of a maverick that he might actually make it to the top one day.

Edward’s face remained sour. “So why was I connected to you, Colonel? I called accounting at the base about my money. You think you could send me back to them?”

“I asked that all calls from you be sent to me. I have a request, actually.”

“Absolutely not,” Edward responded, without even hearing what the request was. But Roy, having expected this reaction, kept talking over him. 

“Where are you now?”

“A bit south of East City. Why?”

“Ah. That’s perfect.”

He could hear Roy nodding to himself on the other side of the line.

“Perfect for what?”

“Feel like a vacation?”

“Huh?”

“Actually, I need to check something out, but I’m a little tied down here with work. I was hoping I could ask you to go. It’s a town in the southeast by the name of Wisteria.”

Edward could hear the sound of a pen scratching on paper as Roy spoke. In the background, he heard someone shouting, “Colonel! Did you take a look at that file I gave you yet?!”

“Hang on a second!” he heard the colonel shout back. “I’m looking at it right now! Oh, right,” he said to someone else. “Just leave that here, would you?”

Roy put his hand over the receiver and shouted something that Edward couldn’t make out. Then he came back on the phone. “As you can see, I’m up to my neck in it over here,” he said to Edward at last.

He seemed even more frantically busy than usual.

“So you need me to help dig you out?” Edward said, grinning.

“Got a shovel?” Roy replied wryly. “You know General Hakuro over at New Optain?” 

“Yeah?”

“He’s been giving me a lot of trouble lately about how well Southern Command is doing, upping criminal arrests, modernization, taking on new staff. They’re Central’s darling these days, it seems. So he’s asking why Eastern Command is falling behind, that sort of thing.”

“Sounds like they’re doing something right at Southern.”

“On the outside, sure. But dig a little deeper, and you find that they’re just offering rewards to snitches. And with all their modernization, they’re finding themselves so understaffed that they’ve gone to temp agencies on the side to find more people. But the general misses all of that, see? He just hears the good stuff.”

Edward sympathized. “Sounds like you’ve got it rough.”

Edward knew a bit about General Hakuro himself: prideful, ambitious, and deadly serious. In comparison to Edward and Roy, he was on the staunch, formal side of things—an old-school military man.

“Isn’t Hakuro just doing this to earn himself points with higher command?”

“Without a doubt. But it all adds up to more work for me. That’s why I have to monitor this town and put in a report.”

“And you want me to do it for you? That’s odd for you, Colonel. I’m surprised you’re even bothering to do the work in the first place.”

Roy never shouldered a task he could slip away from. And Roy knew that Edward knew this, too. He sighed. “Of course I won’t do it. It’s a pain in the butt. That’s why I’m having other people do the work for me, i.e., you. Now, if this town were nearby, I could just send someone out to ask questions and fill in the details here myself, but it doesn’t go that easily when it’s a place I know nothing about. And I’m afraid the Southern Area is a bit far. And that’s when I remembered that you said you would be going down south. So I thought …”

“Ab. So. Lutely. Not.” Edward stuck out his tongue at the phone and blew a loud raspberry. “This isn’t an official order, right? So, I respectfully decline. Put me on with accounting, please. If your accounting department and this stupid bank here were doing things right, I wouldn’t be talking to you now in the first place. In other words, this conversation should never have happened, so give it up.”

It infuriated Edward to think that some stupid problem in accounting might have gotten him roped into this. 

“Actually, that was by my request.”

“Huh? What was?” Edward responded, not sure what he meant.

“How else was I supposed to contact you when you’re always traveling all over the place? So, I figured I’d better get you to call me. And what better way to do that than by closing your account?”

Edward’s surprise quickly turned to rage. His hand tightened. The receiver made a faint crunching noise in his grip. 

“This is … This is unacceptable! If I can’t get money, Al and I will be forced to slave away at a restaurant because we can’t pay our bill!”

“Slave away?”

“Yeah, you heard me!”

Edward told him all that had happened, furious that the colonel would have the gall to cut off his funds, but Roy seemed unperturbed.

“It’s a shame you got yourself into that mess, but I think you’re getting angry at the wrong person. You really should check your wallet before you sit down to a three-course meal.”

Roy was right. Edward glared at the receiver, unable to think of a witty response. The colonel continued. “See, I have a friend over in accounting. Why, if I wanted to, I could ask them to cut off your account forever,” he said softly.

Edward knew a threat when he heard one. “So you’re telling me I’ve got no choice?!”

“Consider it part of your duty as a soldier. You are a soldier, aren’t you? You should try working for the cause a bit more.”

“I don’t mind working for the cause. It’s you I mind working for!”

Roy fell silent. It wasn’t that he couldn’t think of a retort. He didn’t need to speak. This silence made for a more tangible threat than anything he might say. 

Edward bit his lip.

Roy took the moment’s silence as an opportunity to read off his request. “ ‘The details to be observed include the vagaries of the daily lives of the good populace of the town from the viewpoint of one sharing that …’ Ahem. My, this is wordy. Basically, you have to go see what’s good about the town, what’s bad about the town, and how the town leaders made it that way. Oh, and be sure you don’t let anyone know that you’re with the military! Tell ’em that, and Central will know that it wasn’t me who went. Got it?”

“H-hey, wait! That’s it?! What about my acc—”

There was a click, and Edward was talking to dead silence. “Colonel … you lazy … grrah!”

Edward’s curse turned into a howl of rage, and he slammed the receiver back down with a crack. The thin tube broke into pieces, sending springs and loops of metal tinkling to the floor. Edward sighed. This was definitely not his day.

TWO DAYS LATER . . .

It still wasn’t Edward’s day. He paced back and forth atop the hill, muttering under his breath. Perhaps Roy had relented, because when Edward went back to the bank, the teller let him have his money, rescuing him and his brother from forced restaurant labor. However, they had merely traded one onerous task for another. And so they wandered the southern barrens, doing the colonel’s bidding, looking for Wisteria.

“Well, it’s not like we had our next destination planned out,” Alphonse noted. “This could be a good chance for a little vacation. We never get a chance to go somewhere and just stay there.”

The brothers had covered a great deal of territory in their quest, but as soon as they had scoured a town for information, they left before they had the chance to enjoy the local scenery or get to know the people. Alphonse seemed to think this was a great chance for them to take it easy awhile, and he pored over the map of Wisteria with eagerness.

“It’s supposed to be a small town … I wonder what it’s like? Maybe it’s a bit like Resembool?” Alphonse said, thinking of the brothers’ hometown.

“Well, it won’t matter what it’s like if we never find the place.”

Edward squinted his eyes against a sudden, sandy gust of wind. Hesitantly, he opened an eye and looked around. “We’ve been walking for two days. I can’t believe we’re not there yet. Where could it be?”

“According to the map, we should be there already. I would think we’d be able to see something by now.” Alphonse tilted his head, confirming the directions on the map in his hand.

“Well, if we’ve come this far and we still can’t see anything, maybe it’s not here anymore?”

With the civil unrest of the last few years finally coming to an end, new towns were springing up all over the place, yet things remained chaotic. People moved from town to town at a moment’s notice, and places that were inconveniently situated quickly dropped off the map.

It wasn’t hard to imagine something of the sort happening here. No trains ran through this barren expanse of rock and gravel and sand. They had been walking for some time, and yet they had found no signs of civilization.

Edward scanned the horizon. “Hey, Al. Do you know why this place is called Wisteria?”

“Wasn’t it something about the town always being in a shadow that gave it this dark purple color—like the wisteria flower?”

“Right. Know what I think? I think that town couldn’t possibly be here. There’s nothing in this wasteland to make a shadow big enough to cover a whole town!”

Edward swept his hand around them, indicating their surroundings. The sun shone brightly on the rolling hills. The only shadows came from small boulders sitting atop the sand.

Edward sighed deeply. “They must have abandoned the place. I’m afraid we’re going to have to tell the colonel that we can’t observe a town that’s not there! We better get some sort of bonus for coming all this way. And he better treat us to a meal or two …” said Edward, pondering how he would get his due from Roy for sending them on this wild goose chase.

Alphonse interrupted his reverie. “Ed! I see someone!”

“Huh?” Edward squinted against the sun until he could make out the vague silhouette of someone walking toward them. It looked like a traveling merchant. He was carrying a large bundle on his back.

“A merchant … out here?”

“The town must be up ahead after all. Let’s ask.”

“Excuse me!” Edward and Alphonse trotted forward, getting closer to the man. He was walking with his face down to keep the sand from his eyes, but he lifted his head when he heard Edward’s and Alphonse’s footsteps on the sand.

“Ah? Something the matter?”

“Hello! We want to ask you something …”

Alphonse showed the map to the man and pointed at the word Wisteria. “We want to go here, but the thing is, we can’t find it … Do you know if it’s still around?”

“Nonsense!” the man laughed, and tapped the name Wisteria on the map. “It’s right here. Just a little bit farther. You don’t know about Wisteria?”

“Uh, well, not really.”

In fact, the only thing Edward and Alphonse knew about Wisteria was that it was a faraway town to the south … a town in a shadow, but of what, they had no idea.

“Well, it’s odd for people to come here not knowing anything about the place. You know, it’s developed a great deal of late. Whole town’s blooming. Some people call it a paradise.”

“Paradise?” Edward couldn’t help but grin at hearing the word. “In this wasteland?” He swept his arm across the horizon.

The man nodded deeply. “Live there once, and you’ll grow so accustomed to easy living, you’ll never want to go anywhere else.”

“It’s that nice a town, huh?”

“And more. From what I hear, no one’s left town since the place was founded. Truly a badge of honor in these troubled times. Why, I thought if it was that nice, I might do well to make my living there. But, alas, they didn’t let me in.”

“Wouldn’t let you in? Why not?” Edward began to worry. How could they check out the town if they couldn’t even get inside?

The man looked back the way he had come with regret in his eyes. “They control who enters the town, you see. They say the policy is that they only let in people in truly dire straits, with no place to go home to. That’s why the mayor built the town … and so I was told I had no place there. Still, that mayor is a real saint. Not many people these days would even care. Why, I couldn’t argue with the man. Still, I did want a chance to get into what some folks’ve been calling the ‘Last Paradise.’ I tried asking some townspeople I passed on the road … but no good.”

“I thought you said no one ever left Wisteria …”

“Not for good, no, but there are no phones in Wisteria, so folks have to leave in order to have contact with people outside. It’s very rare, but you sometimes see people go by. In fact, I just passed some only a few moments ago. If you hurry, you might catch up to them. Why not ask them if they will let you in?”

“Let’s go, Ed!”

“Right!” Edward smiled. Maybe they had a chance of finding—and getting into—the town after all.

The man furrowed his brow, looking a little worried. “I have to warn you, the area outside the town can be a bit dangerous right now. You see, some folks, they’ve heard about Wisteria’s easy life. Think they can sneak into town if they get half a chance. They set up a bunch of tents just outside of town. Harass the townsfolk to no end, they do. Try not to get involved.”

Thanking the man for his warning, Edward and Alphonse continued walking, at a slightly quicker pace than before.

“I’m glad the town’s really there after all.”

“And it’s just up ahead!”

“If what that man said was right,” Alphonse noted, “we might have trouble getting inside.”

“Well, we have to get in, or we won’t be able to do Roy’s job for him. Let’s try asking those townspeople he told us about.”

A short while later, they came to the shantytown: a field of small shacks, tied-up horses, and covered wagons. It looked like the people intended to live here permanently, out in the middle of nowhere.

“You think those are the dangerous people he was talking about?”

“Then Wisteria must be right there … but I don’t see anything.”

Other than the tents, there was nothing: no buildings, no streets, nothing resembling a town.

Edward let out another deep sigh when he heard a sharp voice cry out from up ahead. “Let me through!”

The voice was young, a girl’s voice, out of place in this unwelcoming land. A cluster of swarthy men crowded in the direction of the voice. They had the build of men who worked—or stole—with their hands. Their eyes were distrustful and cunning. They clearly were not the good citizens of Wisteria. One held a rifle.

Through the pack of men, Edward caught a glimpse of long hair waving in their midst. That can’t be good, he thought, observing the evil scowls on the men’s faces.

Alphonse stopped beside him, looking at the crowd. “I wonder what’s going on? What’s the girl doing here?”

The men formed a ring around the girl, blocking her escape. 

“Just let us in, okay? It’s not nice to keep all the good stuff to yourselves,” they could hear one of them saying.

“You should open the gates while we’re still asking nice, see?”

The men were not shouting, but their voices carried an unmistakable threat. However, when the girl responded, her voice didn’t sound frightened in the least.

“If you want to go in, then just walk in. We have no fences, no moat. You just can’t use our way in, that’s all.” Oddly, from her voice it sounded like the girl was daring them.

“But your way is the only way!”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the girl replied with a toss of her hair.

“Little runt! Just because we can’t do anything to you don’t mean we don’t want to. You won’t be wearing that smile for long.”

Edward and Alphonse began walking toward the crowd. They heard the girl continue. She sounded irritated. “You just want to ruin things in our town! Why do you think we should welcome you?”

One of the men shouted back, “I don’t like your attitude!” He was poised to lunge at her.

“Uh-oh,” Alphonse said. “We have to help that girl!” 

Edward frowned. “I don’t know. Normally, you don’t talk to people like that when you’re surrounded. Maybe she thinks she can take them?”

As they approached the ring of men, Edward clearly saw that the lone girl standing in their midst wasn’t scared at all.

“If you want to come in and trade with us, find another way in … if you care to risk your lives.”

Several of the men clenched their hands into fists.

“Some people you just got to beat the sense into,” one grumbled.

“Just cut us in for a piece of the pie, and we’ll protect the town from other people! We’re offering a service!”

One of the men lifted a fist.

Alphonse rushed forward.

“We don’t need your protection,” the girl shouted, grabbing the big man by the collar of his shirt as she ducked to the side. The man teetered, off-balance, and she threw him down onto the ground. 

“You just want to steal what’s ours, without working for yourselves!”

The girl brushed the man’s hand off, blocked a rifle butt with her forearm, and lifted her knee into the new assailant’s solar plexus. Another man dropped in the dust.

With two of the men down, the circle around the girl began to waver. At last, the brothers could see the girl plainly.

She had long black hair bound in a single ponytail atop her head. Her voice sounded quite young, but now that they saw her, she looked a touch older than they. She was tall for her age, with slender arms and waist, and she stood up straight with an almost noble air. She wore a short-sleeved shirt, and though the rest of her was covered in what looked like military surplus wear, they could see that she was well muscled. More than anything, though, it was her eyes that left the deepest impression on Edward and Alphonse.

Her eyes were as black as her hair, yet they burned with such intensity they seemed almost on fire.

Her long hair swayed right and left as she danced in a circle, knocking down one man after another.

“Don’t think we’ll let you get away this time!” 

“Everyone, help!”

In the space of a few moments, the girl had knocked down several men. Those left standing called to their friends to join them.

“Ed, we should help her!” Alphonse shouted.

Edward did not move. “Help? Help who?”

“What do you mean, ‘who’?”

Before their eyes, the girl took down yet another man.

“I don’t think she needs helping,” Edward observed.

“What if they all jump her at once?” Alphonse asked worriedly.

The girl faced off against a gruff-looking thug when another man snuck up behind her. He hefted a metal pole in his arms, ready to strike her from the back.

Alphonse shouted. “Look out, behind you!”

Alphonse couldn’t tell if she had heard him or not. At the last moment, she whirled and lashed out with her foot straight behind her, kicking the man in the shoulder and sending his pole skidding in the dust as he fell flat on his back.

The other men turned to see who had warned her.

“Who’s that in the armor?”

“They her friends?”

The man looked suspiciously at Edward and Alphonse.

“Well, not friends, but …” Alphonse began, then he shook his head. “You shouldn’t all gang up on a girl! It’s not fair.”

One of the men snorted with laughter. “You stay out of this! Forget them,” he said to the others. “Get the girl!”

Now the men looked positively bloodthirsty. 

“That’s ten against one! You can’t do that!” Alphonse shouted.

“Al!” Before Edward could stop him, Alphonse ran right into the middle of the fray.

Edward swore under his breath, but then he smiled. Usually, Edward, with his short temper, got them into these scrapes. This had to be the first time they got into a fight because Alphonse was being nice. Shaking his head, Edward ran to join his brother. He might have trouble motivating himself on behalf of the colonel, but this was Alphonse. Besides, two days of aimless wandering had put him in the perfect mood for a fight.

He swung a fist at the first man he reached, sending him reeling. He moved on to the man raising his rifle toward the girl.

“Hey!”

Several people turned to face Edward. They carried long boards and metal poles in their fists.

“Let’s beat this punk into the ground!” one shouted.

The men charged. But instead of pulling back, Edward whipped off his coat, threw his right glove on the ground, and broke into a run straight at his assailants. As he ran, he clapped his hands firmly together. There was a sharp noise, and, as the men watched, confused, Edward placed his left hand over his right.

There was a flash of light. When it faded, a sharp blade extended from Edward’s right hand. Edward swung.

The man stood bewildered as their poles and boards fell in pieces on the ground.

“An alchemist!” somebody shouted. Edward ran between the confused men. Slashing with his blade-arm, he cut the raised rifle in half and blocked an incoming iron pipe with his right wrist, sending sparks flying.

Edward barreled into the man, knocking him off balance, and swung his left fist up into the man’s stomach. The man fell to the ground, wheezing for air.

A fist-sized rock came flying toward him, but Edward ducked smoothly and grinned at the men hiding behind a boulder. “Try again?” he offered, but it looked like they were now more interested in running and hiding than in throwing blunt objects. They had seen how well Edward fought, and they had seen the flash of alchemy, and it had taken the fight out of them.

“Al, now’s our chance!”

Edward looked around at Alphonse. His brother nodded and called out to the girl, who had just finished taking down two more men.

“You run too!”

Alphonse started to go back the way they had come, but the girl shook her head. “This way!” she cried, grabbing Alphonse’s arm and tugging him in the opposite direction.

“H-hey, wait!”

“Don’t talk, just come!”

They ran through the cluster of tents and shacks and ran straight into the barren waste.

“Just a little farther, and they won’t be able to follow us.”

“Huh? Really?”

Alphonse looked behind to see Edward running after them. Behind him, the men stood watching them run, looks of regret on their faces. Alphonse was relieved they weren’t being followed anymore, but at the same time, he was confused. “I don’t see where we’re running to. Why don’t they follow us?”

The only thing in front of them was the same wilderness that they had left.

“Why are we going this way?! Shouldn’t we go back the way we came?” Edward shouted angrily as he ran to catch up to them.

But the girl kept running. “Just be quiet and follow me! You ask too many questions.”

“Hey, we saved you back there!” Edward shouted furiously, but the girl didn’t look back. It was all the brothers could do to keep up with her.

After a short distance, the girl looked around to make sure they were not followed.

“We should be safe now.” At last, the girl slowed to a walk. “Thank you for saving me. My name is Ruby.”

“I’m Alphonse. And this is …” Alphonse shook her hand and motioned to his brother to introduce himself. 

Edward scowled. “Listen, you …” he said to Ruby. “What were you doing out here? Isn’t it a little dangerous to be traveling alone so far from home?”

Running through the wilderness with no idea of where he was going after having just spent two days wandering aimlessly had done little for Edward’s mood. 

“And furthermore,” he added, “that fight back there was partly your fault. How many lives do you think you have, anyway? Keep talking like that and you’ll use them all up.”

Ruby rolled her eyes. “What are you talking about? They’re the ones who are bad. Why should I be nice to them?”

“Well, maybe they are. But to my eyes, coming from the outside, it was hard to tell who was worse. Actually, now that I think about it, you were definitely the one who started that whole thing.”

Alphonse had to stifle a laugh. Edward was the most headstrong, brazen person he knew. They say that, when you meet someone just like yourself, you either get along great or you hate one another. This looked like a case of the latter.

“You’re not exactly citizen of the year yourself, Ed.”

“Yeah, but I’m nowhere near as cocky as she is.”

Ruby frowned. “Who was the one who didn’t want to run away from those men?”

“Well, what if I was running with the wrong person? Man, I’m sorry we helped you at all. What a mistake!”

“Sorry you helped? I don’t recall asking for your help! But Alphonse was nice to come to my aid like that. Thank you, Alphonse.”

Edward got madder still. “Hey, I helped you too. You know, for a girl, you’re really un-cute.”

“Like you’d even know, little boy!” Ruby shot back.

The two looked daggers at each other, with Alphonse watching on from the side. 

“I’m not a little boy!”

“Really? You’re awfully short.”

“Short?!” Edward’s scowl deepened even further at the mention of the word. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, you know that? You’re barely taller than me yourself!”

Edward’s hand swung out reflexively to slap her on the shoulder. She blocked the blow midswing. 

“Ow!”

“Don’t think I can’t beat you just because I’m a girl!”

The two resumed their staring match. 

Alphonse was impressed. He had seen Edward lash out before when people called him “short,” and few could block his vengeful swing. But Ruby had brushed it aside like it was a falling twig.

“Can we stop this, please, Ed? Ruby, this is my older brother, Edward.”

“Older brother? Are you sure?”

“Yeah, he’s sure.”

“Really? Because from the looks of it …” Ruby looked up at Alphonse, then back at Edward. Edward glared at her.

“Listen, say one more thing about my height, and I’ll—”

“I won’t. I make it my policy to not tease children.”

Alphonse laughed.

“Whatever! We’re out of here, Al!” Edward picked up his traveling trunk and started walking off when Alphonse grabbed him gently by the shoulder.

“Where are you going? I thought we came here to find Wisteria.”

Alphonse turned to Ruby, his hand still on his brother’s shoulder. “You’re from Wisteria, aren’t you, Ruby?”

The girl turned to look back at Alphonse. “Of course.”

“Great! We can rest up here.”

“You think that I want to?” Edward snapped.

“Come on, Ed. Ruby can show us the way.” He turned to Ruby. “We got kind of lost. We’ve been looking for two and a half days. Is the town far from here?”

Ruby looked surprised. “Two and a half days? That long?! Why, it’s only a day to the nearest town from here, if you go by the short route.”

“How can that be?”

“We couldn’t see the buildings, so we got a little lost.”

Edward and Alphonse sighed together.

“Couldn’t see any buildings? You … don’t know anything about Wisteria, do you?”

“I guess not.”

“Then I’ll show you. The town is right over there.”

“Huh?” Edward and Alphonse scratched their heads in unison, seeing the girl point up a gentle slope.

“Where?”

“I don’t see anything.”

They stared and stared, but there was nothing in that direction. No town, no people, just a gentle slope up, and a sound, unfamiliar in this dry, dusty place. It sounded just like …

“Water? Flowing water, here?!” Edward shook his head. The brothers walked up the slope after Ruby and the sound grew clearer with each step. It was water, all right, though still quite far off.

“We’re here.” Ruby called from a few steps ahead of them. “Wisteria.” She was standing atop a small hill, pointing ahead. Edward and Alphonse climbed up to stand next to her, and gasped at what they saw.

It was a brown, barren waste. Rocks and boulders lay scattered amid yellow dust blown by the wind. It was exactly like the plains behind them, with one exception: there was a giant ravine. 

The walls of the ravine were sheer cliffs that seemed to go down forever. Though the sun was still shining on the rise where they stood, the shadow of the rim cast deep shadows over the bottom of the hole.

“Wisteria …”

At the bottom of the ravine was a village. From here, they could see that the hole was slightly elliptical. At the bottom, water flowed through the town from one side to the other out of a spot on the cliff wall. A short distance from the wall, a small dam regulated the flow of water, creating a waterway that ran straight through the middle of town before being swallowed into the cliff wall on the far side. Near the dam stood a large mansion. Several other houses had been built down the sides of the waterway. A line of buildings that looked like factories and a large domed furnace stood nearby. There were fields here and there, growing vegetables and fruit, and they could see people with baskets piled high with produce.

A cool wind came blowing up from the bottom of the gorge, bringing with it the sounds of flowing water and workers in the factory.

“Amazing!” Edward couldn’t help but gasp.

“Didn’t think it was at the bottom of a cliff?”

“No. I can see why it would be dangerous to try to go in,” said Alphonse, impressed.

“Now I see what’s keeping those bandits out,” Edward said.

“There’s only one way in.” Ruby walked along the edge of the cliff. A short distance ahead of her, two strong-looking men stood. They carried rifles.

“A narrow ridge runs down the cliff wall to the bottom near where they’re standing. That’s the way down.”

“What about the other side?” Edward looked at the far side of the pit. It was too far away to see any detail.

“The far side is even more dangerous. There are too many cracks in the cliff, and holes. That’s why we need to guard only one side. Those men back there can’t come within range of our rifles.”

That was why the invaders had given up their chase. They came closer to the armed guards, until they could see the top of the path. Two stones stood at the entrance, with a pole stretched between them, blocking the way.

“So it’s like a natural fortress. But can we go in? I heard there were conditions for getting inside the town.”

“That’s true, but you saved my life. That satisfies the law—I’m legally bound to thank you.”

“The law … of the town?”

“Yes.” Ruby nodded, smiling brightly, and set off toward the path leading down to Wisteria.