Hagane no Renkinjutsushi - Volume 6 - Chapter 6

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE

AROUND THAT SAME TIME, Darish was being stared down by men in a large warehouse situated along a back street. He was feeling terribly uncomfortable.

“I’d like to get back to my hotel soon,” Darish said to the man standing in front of him, ignoring the automail they had been forcing him to look at.

“Not so fast. Look at a few more of these, will ya?” a thin, pasty man said with a broad grin.

A bald man polishing automail from the wooden crate he sat on agreed, “That’s right. What do you think of this one? It’s one of my own creations—even got carbon fiber to boot. Try picking it up. Pretty light, huh?”

When the man plopped the polished automail into his lap, Darish could only pick it up as he’d been told.

Several hours had passed since he had been brought into the warehouse. The whole time he had been shown automail and schematics the men had produced for sale in the past. The gigantic warehouse they were using as a shop was outfitted with worktables and metal sheets like any normal establishment, but the rest of the building around Darish was dimly lit and filled with shelves piled messily with objects, as well as an inordinate number of stacked wooden crates.

The men had been producing objects from all over the warehouse to show to Darish and simply wouldn’t allow him to return home.

“Say, didn’t we just stock up on some secondhand prostheses earlier?”

“Yeah, yeah. You got that right.”

“Since we’ve got a guest right here and waiting, we’ve gotta make sure he gets to see all of them. Where’d we put those again?”

After the pasty man and the bald man winked at each other, they plastered on smiles, passing by the counter in a roundabout route as they headed into the back of the warehouse. When the men disappeared into the tall stacks of wooden crates, Darish sighed. They had called him a “guest,” but they had actually clapped their arms firmly around his shoulders and practically dragged him in.

Looking up at the small window at the top of the warehouse, he could see that it was pitch-black outside.

“I wonder if Lettie’s gotten back yet,” Darish wondered. Searching for his missing sister was why Darish had been walking around outside in the first place, making himself vulnerable to aggressive solicitation.

His mother had constantly warned him not to go into the alleys, and he himself had been careful not to approach any shady establishments until that point, but when he remembered how Winry had rescued Lettie from trouble before, he had wandered into the alleys just in case she had gotten lost there.

This alley, which featured rows of half-razed buildings and warehouses, had only been home to shady characters; he had seen no trace of Lettie. Darish had felt relieved, but that in combination with it being the middle of the day had made him lower his guard. His eyes had ended up landing on a piece of automail on display in front of a warehouse.

It had been unceremoniously propped onto a wooden crate, but the leg’s design was sharp and Darish couldn’t help imagining how far that leg could’ve taken him on a run if he only had it. It could’ve been just like his original leg—the leg that could take him to his sister’s side faster than anyone else when she was in danger.

The way the doctors and mechanics had practically disparaged his original leg had dug its way deep into Darish’s chest like a sharp thorn—a thorn he still couldn’t pry out. The beautiful automail made him forget that pain. He felt as though that piece of automail could take him far, far away. It had inspired a faint hope in him.

But that was also when some men had come out of the warehouse, talking to Darish in a sickly-sweet tone. Before he knew it, he was being sat down in a chair. The pasty man, who doggedly kept recommending automail to him and wouldn’t leave his side, had declared dramatically that this shop could fulfill any request Darish desired.

“Sorry for the wait.”

The two men who had secluded themselves in the back returned carrying automail legs and other prostheses.

“See, this here leg prosthesis is a real bargain. We’ve got one that’ll probably fit you, so how about you try it on?”

“No, it’s getting late and I haven’t got any money on me,” Darish firmly refused him.

Since the men had seemed so friendly when they initially spoke to him Darish had been lulled into thinking this was a conscientious shop, but as they tried to wheedle him with their sales pitches, his vigilance had returned. If they got a prosthetic leg on him, there was a chance they’d claim he was buying it and would demand payment.

“Hey, c’mon, don’t be like that. And if it’s money you’re worried about, you don’t hafta pay us right away,” the bald man said and grinned disingenuously. That rubbed Darish the wrong way. Now cautious, Darish felt the condescension in the grinning man’s smile.

“I can’t choose one on my own,” Darish firmed his guard.

The pasty man theatrically clapped his hands together. “Ah, I get it. Your mom’s back at home, isn’t she? But your parents wouldn’t disagree with your decisions, would they?”

The man was slyly using the information they had forced out of Darish over the last few hours to move the conversation along in their favor. As pros, they were masters at scamming people out of money. A twelve-year-old, even a stubborn one like Darish, was no match for them.

As moonlight began streaming through the window, Darish started to feel anxious about Lettie. He was the one with the hotel key. The front desk would have opened the door for her, but he doubted Lettie could get to that point on her own, knowing how young she was. And if she were actually lost, he really needed to continue looking for her as soon as possible.

“I need to get back to the hotel,” Darish said as he got up, forcibly putting an end to the conversation.

When he did that, the look on the men’s faces changed.

“Wait right there. We’re not done talking yet.”

Darish ignored them. He grabbed his crutch, which had been propped up against a crate, and turned to leave, but a large, burly man was now standing in front of the exit. The iron door that had been open when he had come in was now firmly shut. The large man standing in front of the door made Darish automatically take a step back. Then the pasty man placed a hand on Darish’s shoulder and spoke to him from behind.

“Say, why don’t you let our mechanic make you some automail? You don’t have to pay right now. Just sign your name on this piece of paper here,” the man said in a slimy tone as he presented Darish with a sheet of paper. Darish didn’t even need to read it to know the contract would result in an exorbitant bill later on.

The man’s coercive tone made it clear that he wouldn’t take no for an answer as he said, “Or would you like to buy one of our secondhand prostheses? I know, how about that leg we’ve got displayed out front? That thing looks slick on the outside even though the internals have rusted out, but we can tune it up just for you.”

“Huh?!” Darish twisted around and shook off the hand on his shoulder. “Cut the crap! You told me at the start that I could just listen to what you had to say!”

He strained to keep his voice from shaking as he tried his best to put on a show of bravado. Then, they said something he couldn’t believe.

“How about you at least pay us our consultation fee?”

“What?”

Darish was so shocked at the groundless demand that he whirled around.

“You took your sweet time making us explain things to you, right? Obviously you’ve got to compensate us,” said the pasty man, who had dropped his fake smile. 

Their persistence had been a ploy to squeeze money out of him. Potential automail buyers coming to Rush Valley often prepared significant sums of money. While the legality of Darish’s signature would be questionable since he was twelve, using a contract as a shield to wheedle his parents into something using their sharp tongues would be like child’s play to these men.

“A consultation fee? Can you—can you even do that?” Darish murmured, which made the pasty man shrug. As though that were his cue, the large man standing in the way of the exit started to yell, “Why’re you bringing this up this far in? You were lookin’ at the automail out front like you wanted it. We invested time into talkin’ to you! You think you can head home without even paying the consultation fee? Don’t mess with us!”

The man’s shout resounded loudly throughout the expansive warehouse. Darish clung to his crutch and cringed. Once the man stopped shouting, the pasty man waved the paper around and let out a showy sigh.

“Well, I suppose there’s no use reasoning with you. We’ll just have your parents pay us directly. Where’s the hotel you’re staying at? Since your parents will probably be back tomorrow or the next day, we’ll just wait until then. Well, I guess we’ll tack on a late fee for every day we’ve gotta wait.”

“But … !”

The last thing Darish wanted was to cause trouble for his parents. They had already gone through so many hardships for him. Darish was so shaken that he couldn’t even find anything to say to the smooth-talking men. His hand trembled around the crutch and he hung his head. 

Then, the pasty man hit his fist against his palm as though he’d come up with something.

“How about this. You just make a promise to have your automail made by us. We’ll get together a loan for you in exchange. You can just pay us back a little at a time after.”

“Huh?” Darish said as he looked up instinctually. If there were any way he could settle the issue without causing trouble for his parents, he was ready to accept it.

The pasty man, who had constructed another fake smile, thrust out the document he had been toying with. Darish eyed the creased paper with a tired and vacant look. After being trapped for so long, it seemed much better to his exhausted mind to just choose an engineer at this point rather than paying some sort of incomprehensible consultation fee.

As Darish slowly took the document, an image of Winry floated into his mind. Winry had been the only person who had understood how he had suffered. She had told him she was willing to listen. He had been so happy about that, and had made up his mind to be the one approaching her this time when he’d gone to visit Atelier Garfiel the night before.

But Winry had broken a tool and gone out to buy parts for it. He had waited until it was late, but she hadn’t come back. Darish vaguely understood that she had started hearing out her client’s desires and worries, which had left her pressed for time and had started hindering her work. In this town where the clients came in droves, waiting on every single person in that way would inevitably result in consequences of some sort. Once Darish convinced himself that he never should have expected a mechanic working at a business to understand his feelings in the first place, he had told Garfiel to relay the message that he would no longer be coming to the shop. When morning came, he had been met with the pain of a leg incapable of walking and Lettie’s worry. His only outlet for his inescapable irritation had been Lettie.

He didn’t care what happened anymore. Darish put the tip of the pen to the document. Just as he did, someone knocked on the iron door.

“Is that a customer? If they’re coming this late, it must be an emergency job,” grinned the bald man who had been watching the proceedings from behind the pasty man. The more pressing the emergency, the more they could charge.

“Possibly. Looks like we got our second catch of the day. Hey, open that up.”

“All right.” The large man grinned as he slid the heavy-looking door open.

“Excuse me!”

Once the door slid open along its rails, someone stuck their head into the warehouse. It was Winry. Her wide eyes, clear as a blue sky, met Darish’s just as he was in the middle of signing the contract.

“Darish! I finally found you!”

“Winry?”

When she looked into the shop, Winry realized what Darish had been about to do in an instant. Before the large man could stop her, Winry ran in and snatched the contract from Darish’s hands, then tore it to pieces, saying, “You can’t sign something like this!”

“What do you think you’re doing?!” The men laid their rage bare. They had almost gotten their hands on a mark. This strange girl suddenly getting in their way made them lose their cool. “Who the hell are you?! Keep your nose outta our business!”

“Your business? You can’t call this anything other than intimidation!” Winry cast aside the shredded contract, then shielded Darish behind her back and faced the men.

“How did you know I was here?” Darish asked Winry as he clutched her clothes. He hadn’t expected to ever see her again. 

“One of the clients at the shop said that he saw you being solicited around here!” Winry said.

“And you came because of that?” Darish asked. 

“It’s not like I could stand by and do nothing while someone tried to trick you into getting another leg that doesn’t fit!” Winry replied without letting her eyes leave the men. Her desire to help Darish had been stronger than her fear. Yet she couldn’t let her guard down around the men, who were exuding a sinister atmosphere. 

“Why, you little—who do you think you are? Coming into our shop uninvited and accusing us of intimidation!”

“But that is what you’re doing! You were just about to have Darish sign a contract!” she replied to the men who glared at her, then tried to leave with Darish.

“Why, you—!”

She was so quick that the men were a moment too slow to act.

“C’mon, Darish, let’s head back!” Winry encouraged Darish, supporting him and keeping out of the way of his crutch while heading for the exit. She and Darish needed to get out of there while the men were still deciding whether to call it quits after realizing they had failed to deceive Darish.

However, the large man near the door yelled, “Hunh? This girl’s the one who meddled with me earlier!”

“You!” Winry exclaimed.

Winry remembered the man’s face as well. He was the one from the stall who had picked a fight with Lettie when the girl had been lost.

“You twerp, you’re gettin’ in the way of our business again?! Hey, she’s a mechanic!” the man from the stall, who had witnessed Winry fix automail with lightning speed, told his buddies.

“You mean this little girl?” The pasty man turned to Winry, seeming dubious. “Are you actually a mechanic? Where do you work?” Not only was she young to be working at a shop, he doubted that a girl like her was an engineer in the first place.

Winry said nothing, as she couldn’t respond without endangering her employer. She just ignored him and tried to leave through the door. It seemed the pasty man hadn’t expected a reply in the first place. He simply tsked, then quickly signaled at the large man.

“Oh!” Winry said, noticing what they were planning. Before she could dash forward, the large man closed the heavy-looking door.

“What good’s supposed to come from trapping us in here?!” Winry flipped around and glared at the pasty man and his bald companion.

The men were persistent, but once they realized they had made a mistake, they normally didn’t relentlessly pursue their marks. They didn’t want to draw the attention of the military police. However, this time was different.

“Normally we’d just let you go, but we’ll be in hot water if you go blabbing about how we kept the kid occupied at our place for a long time,” the pasty man said, his lips twisting into a grin as he shrugged. 

“You know just as well as I do that you won’t be punished even if we did tell anyone. There weren’t enough witnesses!” Winry countered.

“That would’ve been the case before, but the military police have already got their eyes on us. Somebody who got in our way earlier put up a big fuss too, so we started a little fire at their shop. Then the military police started suspecting us. Said that they’d run us out of town next time we caused trouble, and if things really went sideways, well.” The pasty man put his hands out with his wrists together as though he were wearing handcuffs.

“A fire? That was you?!” Winry exclaimed. But no sooner had Winry realized she was in the presence of the culprits behind the arson than they had surrounded her.

Even if Winry and Darish promised that they wouldn’t tell the military police, the men, who were a step away from being in shackles, likely wouldn’t believe them. Since they’d even admitted to setting someone’s business on fire, they probably had no intention of letting Winry and Darish go home unharmed. As if to cement that suspicion, the bald man reached out and violently grabbed Darish’s shoulder, then dragged him to a chair by force.

“Ow!” Darish cried out in pain when his prosthesis chafed against his leg.

“We really didn’t want to ditch this town, cuz we were making a killing,” the pasty man said, “but we’re done now. We’ll get the capital from this kid so we can scram and hit up another town. Hey, tie these two up together.” The pasty man jerked his chin, which prompted the large man to shove Winry from behind.

“Git. You get on over there too!”

“Ahh!”

When Winry was sent flying into the shop and away from the door, she fell right into the stack of crates next to Darish. They’d broken her fall, but she had taken a nasty hit and groaned in pain.

After a moment, she managed to pick herself up from the pile of collapsed crates. As though underestimating Winry and Darish by assuming they couldn’t run, the pasty man and the bald man had faced away from them and were whispering to each other a short distance away. She caught some unsettling phrases like “hostage” and “blackmail their parents.”

Meanwhile, the large man had sat down in front of a large box near the door and was pulling out a cord to bind Winry and Darish.

Winry’s eyes quickly darted to the darkened rear of the warehouse.

This would be her only chance.

Making sure the men didn’t notice, she grabbed Darish’s arm. He had been looking worriedly at her.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said in a clear, authoritative whisper, then she swung Darish’s arm around her shoulder.

“Hey!” the pasty man cried out when he heard the commotion, but by that time, Winry and Darish were climbing over the mountain of boxes and headed deeper into the warehouse.

THE WAREHOUSE WAS EVEN LARGER than she had expected. Apparently the men had only been using the very front of it as their store. Lights hung from the ceiling near the entrance, but their illumination didn’t reach the back of the building.

In the past, the warehouse might have been a parts storage facility for some wholesaler. It was packed with rows of shelves over two meters in height made from interlocked iron rods. The shelves within reach were occupied by prosthetics fittings and automail parts, but the rest were filled with cables, machine fixtures, and other such things.

Winry wove through the cramped passages between the shelves while lending her shoulder to Darish and muffling their footsteps. While the men were trying to clamber over the collapsed crates, she veered to the right or left whenever there was a break in the rows. As the pair fled deeper into the warehouse, its darkness concealed them more fully. The men shouted behind them. 

“Damn it, where’d they go?! Hey, where are the lights?”

“The ones in the back are broken!”

“We can’t let ’em get away!”

After getting past the crates, the men started to pursue Winry and Darish in earnest. However, they couldn’t find their quarry in the dark, obstructed rear of the warehouse. All the men could hear was the sound of the pair’s footfalls.

Relying only on the moonlight that filtered through the window, Winry clutched Darish’s arm and kept walking toward a remembered destination. 

“It’s small, but I’m pretty sure there’s a door at the back,” Winry said. 

Relying on the information that the men had been soliciting people off a road in the western district, Winry had run through the neighborhood and had passed by the back of what she believed to be this warehouse. She had vague memories of seeing something like a door next to piles of discarded materials. 

“Hey, how’s it looking over there?” 

Winry heard the pasty man’s voice a slight distance away. She went faster, crouching down with bated breath. The men continued to shout.

“Damn it! They ain’t here either!”

“Think those twerps are convinced the military police’ll come along while they’re hiding?”

“We’d be in trouble if that girl already called ’em in before coming here,” the bald man said, irritated, from a way off. The pursuers’ footsteps became more rushed.

If the men had known about the back exit, they probably would have gone to close it from the start, but their haphazard search didn’t indicate they were aware of it. That, or the door was unusable or nonexistent, but Winry drove those thoughts from her mind and pressed forward. After a while, she heard the front door of the shop open and the sound of new men’s voices.

“Hey, what’s going on?” they said.

“We’ve got ourselves a little problem. Come help out,” called the original men.

It seemed that there were others in their group. Suddenly, the sound of footsteps increased all at once, signaling an intensification of the manhunt in the warehouse. 

“What are we gonna do?” Winry, who hadn’t expected there to be others, wiped the sweat that had formed on her palms onto her clothes, her mind racing.

She saw a candlelit lamp making its way into the back of the warehouse. It seemed the men had nothing else, since she didn’t see any other lights. That was the one stroke of luck Winry and Darish had, but their situation had still deteriorated, seeing as they had even more people to run from. 

“At this rate, they’ll find us,” Winry said. “Darish, you’ve got your crutch, right?”

“Yeah. Why?”

Winry stopped and made Darish sit. She got on all fours and started to poke her head into the shelves around her, scavenging parts as she went.

“I’ll use this and this … like that and …”

After fumbling around to find what she had been looking for, she sat down at Darish’s side and took his crutch. She had retrieved a cable and a spare part with a rubber shock-absorption pad. She pulled the rubber pad off, put it on the tip of the crutch, then fixed it in place by wrapping the cable around it. With the rubber pad in place, Darish could sneak away from the men silently and unnoticed.

Winry handed the crutch back to Darish.

“Here. As long as you’ve got this, you’ll be able to get away even if I’m caught,” she said, then once again got onto the ground and searched through the shelves. “Now we just need a weapon. We need to have something just in case.”

As Winry searched for something to fight off the men once they were found, Darish silently patted the crutch that had been placed on top of his knee.

“Why did you come to help me?” he muttered falteringly.

He could see the sweat glistening on Winry’s face even in the gloom. He was grateful that she had run around trying to find the warehouse and was still doing all she could to help him escape. But, when he thought about his immobility holding her back, his gratitude soured into irritation.

“I know I told you I wanted you to understand how I feel, but taking on all of a customer’s problems like that is just going to put more of a burden on you. You were out late yesterday night because of it,” Darish said. 

“Oh, that’s right. I still haven’t apologized to you yet. I’m really sorry about last night. I know you came all the way over,” Winry responded, looking up and apologizing to him in a heartfelt way after hearing his halting muttering. That made Darish violently shake his head.

“That doesn’t matter! I’m asking why you’re trying to help me even though it means you’re just taking on more responsibilities! You’re a mechanic. You’re not under any obligation to go this far. What if you get hurt?” Darish said.

He looked down at his own aching leg. Faint moonlight from the window hit it, making the ill-fitting prosthesis glint dully from where it was strapped to his leg with a belt. The pain that had become a daily part of his life was even worse at the moment from having been roughly forced to sit down. The pain was like torture to him—not just physically but also mentally.

Darish was exhausted from all he had been dealing with.

“All they’re after is money,” he said. “If I go out there, they won’t do anything too bad to me. I was about to accept their offer earlier. I was going to sign. Even if they’re a little more expensive than other places, what does it matter so long as I choose a mechanic to make my automail? You’re the one who told me to hurry up and choose someone, weren’t you?! Just leave me alone!” 

It hadn’t been his intention, but at some point his tone had turned accusatory. Winry blinked in surprise, but Darish just couldn’t stop. “Or what? Are you going to tell me to let you put your automail on me? Then be my guest. Any leg’s the same to me!”

Darish threw his crutch down and leaned carelessly against the shelf behind him.

When he looked down, he noticed Winry’s hand trembling. She had come to rescue him despite knowing she was heading into danger and he had probably hurt her by saying all of that. Darish, thinking he might have made her cry, peeked at her to see if she was crying. The next moment, a pale palm whooshed into his field of vision.

“You dummy!” Winry said in a quiet but sharp whisper. She had slapped Darish on the cheek.

“… !”

As Darish held his cheek in surprise, Winry’s shoulders trembled and her lips pursed together.

Darish didn’t know that Winry had decided she wouldn’t compromise between the pursuit of knowledge and attending to her automail clients. However, before Winry could tell him that, Darish’s words had inspired unadulterated fury in her.

“Sure, I know that the prosthetic leg you have right now and any other artificial limbs you wear in the future aren’t the same as your original leg. But, even if they’re not the same, it’ll still be part of your body, regardless of that!” Winry looked Darish straight in the eyes. “What we mechanics can do is explain your prosthesis to you and how rehabilitation will work. We make better prostheses by communicating with our clients. But it’s your job to hear the mechanics out and choose the prosthesis you want. You need to choose a mechanic you can trust with that. You can’t make an arbitrary decision. You need to think about this for yourself. You can’t say you don’t care! It’s your body and it’s important—it’s your leg!”

As her anger worked its way into the words she spoke, Winry’s eyes started to tear up.

“Hm? I think I heard a voice over here just now,” someone said.

They heard the sound of shoes scuffing the floor near them. Winry and Darish froze, still looking at each other.

There was someone on the other side of the shelf right next to them. The person mumbled to themselves about not being able to find their target and flicked on a lighter. It was the large man. He strained his eyes as he looked around at the surroundings his flickering flame illuminated. However, it seemed the lighter was almost out of fuel since he switched it off immediately.

“Damn it. Can’t find anything like this!”

In irritation, the large man punched the shelf next to him with the hand that held the lighter. The shelf wobbled wildly from the impact. Objects fell off, dropping onto Winry and Darish. A jar about as big as a fist landed right where Darish’s leg met his prosthesis.

“Ugh!”

As though the man had heard the groan, he stuck his head through the shelf and peered into the other side where Winry and Darish were.

“Found ya!” he shouted when he noticed Darish. He reached through the gap in the shelf to grab him.

“Darish! Hyah!”

Winry gave the shelf that the man had stuck his head through a good push.

“Ahh!”

The shelf slowly fell. The man was saved from being crushed by the shelf landing on its neighbor, but he couldn’t protect himself from the objects tumbling down on him like an avalanche.

“Damn it! Hey, the two twerps are over here! Somebody get over here!”

While the man was struggling and flailing his arms around, Winry quickly grabbed the fallen lighter, pulled Darish up from the ground, and supported him with her shoulder.

“Let’s go! We’re almost at the back of the warehouse!” she said.

“I said it’s fine already!”

“Just come with me!” Winry insisted.

She forced Darish up and practically dragged him away. Before long, the other men found their fallen comrade and started to clamor. 

“Where’d they go?!”

“Hey, you, look over there!”

Winry knew that if she and Darish became surrounded, they would be powerless to do anything. While the large man’s comrades frantically helped him, Winry hurried along as quietly as possible.

Eventually, she made out a black wall directly ahead of them. Winry let go of Darish’s arm temporarily and slid her hand against the rough wall as she tried to find the back exit.

“I’m pretty sure it was around here,” she said.

Her fingers caught on something that felt like a cold plank. Winry pulled out the lighter and blocked its light with her hands and body. For a few seconds, orange light illuminated a door boarded shut by several planks, then she snuffed out the light again.

“This is it!”

Winry stuck her hands between the gaps in the planks and grabbed the handle. She pushed and pulled on it several times to make the boards shift, which made the door budge slightly. A single line of light from the streetlamps streamed through the opening and into the warehouse. When she yanked at the handle even harder, the band of light grew larger and her surroundings started to grow brighter.

“Darish, help me! It’s almost open. I’m sure we’ll be able to get out.”

But, when Winry turned around, she found the pasty man standing behind Darish. Before she could say anything, he shoved Darish. The impact made the boy’s prosthesis fall off, clattering as it tumbled across the ground.

“Whoa!” Darish cried out. 

“Darish!” Winry said, running over to Darish’s aid.

“Finally found you!” said the man, grabbing her arm and pushing her face-first against the wall. “How about we cut a deal, huh? Let’s say that the kid came to our shop of his own accord, what do you say? You do that and we’ve got an excuse for the military police. It’ll sure help us out.” Then he turned to Darish. “In exchange, we’ll introduce you to a great piece of automail, kid.”

The man grinned as he pulled a new contract out of his pocket and threw it down in front of Darish, who was on the ground.

“Darish, you can’t!”

Winry turned her head to glare at the man who had pinned her. “Don’t you feel any shame? Tricking people and roughing them up like this!”

“Not in the slightest.” The man spoke as though it was everyone else’s fault for allowing themselves to be duped. Winry’s face was pressed against the wall, but her fist trembled in silent rage. 

While that was happening, Darish absently gazed between the sneering man and the seething Winry, as though none of this were happening to him. His leg had tumbled far away and was out of reach. When he strained his neck to look at his right leg sans its artificial limb, all he saw were the blackish-blue bruises on it. All he could feel were the long-pent-up emotions that had tortured and haunted him.

Darish picked up the contract, then collected his crutch and managed to support himself on one foot.

The man grinned. “That’s right, no need to resist when it won’t do you any good.”

“Darish!”

Winry struggled against the man holding her arm. Meanwhile Darish stumbled forward one step at a time toward the two of them.

Winry’s earlier words had stung—terribly, in fact. But Darish had noticed the tears glistening in Winry’s eyes. Those had been tears for him. And, at that moment, her eyes told him she was genuinely angry that he was about to be taken advantage of. He couldn’t accuse her of sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong. What Winry had said, what she had done, had all been the result of sincere concern for him.

Darish glared at the man. Then, he hurled his entire body forward.

“Let go of Winry!”

“Wha—”

The man, who had been convinced he had Darish in the palm of his hand, was caught off guard and stumbled. He fell to the ground.

“Y-you little twerp!”

“I get to decide who gets to be my mechanic! Like I’d let people like you be in charge of something as important as my leg!” he bravely declared and crumpled up the contract in his hands before throwing it at the man. Then he grabbed Winry’s upper arm from where she and the man had both fallen to their knees. 

“Winry, let’s hurry up and get out of this place!” he said. Regardless of the fact that he was precariously balanced on only his crutch, Darish jerked Winry’s arm. He was a lot stronger than she would have expected.

“Darish …”

He cast aside his hardened emotions, including the melancholy and impatience he had been carrying, and raised his head gallantly. Seeing Darish like that made Winry’s heart swell with joy.

However, they still hadn’t left danger behind. Before they could pry away the boards that had been nailed over the door, the man who had been sent flying leapt to his feet and roared, “If that’s what you’re plannin’ then we’ll show you what real villains look like!”

The man grabbed Winry’s and Darish’s shoulders from behind, pulling them down by brute force. The loosened boards clattered. The pair had been about to make a quick escape, but now were sent flying to the floor and rolled along the ground.

“Ahh!”

The man paid no mind to Darish as the boy’s crutch toppled and he lost the ability to move. Instead he pushed Winry to the ground and held her hand up, twisting with a terrible amount of force.

“Stop it!” Darish shouted.

He desperately reached out to grab the man’s clothes. However, he was lying on his side and couldn’t move. No matter how hard he tried to pull the man away, he didn’t budge at all.

Winry’s arm was grating painfully. Winry shut her eyes, preparing herself for the worst.

The next moment, a dreadful crack resounded through the warehouse.

“Huh?”

Winry didn’t feel the pain or shock of a broken bone. When she opened her eyes, light from the streetlamps poured in, illluminating the ground in front of her.

“Winry, dear, where are you?! Are you okay?!”

None other than Garfiel had heroically kicked open the boarded-up door.

Once Garfiel recognized that Winry was pinned down and was about to have her arm broken, he glowered.

“You get your grubby li’l mitts off my darling apprentice!”

He ran over in a flurry of protective anger. When his heavy fist connected with the man’s head, the man didn’t even have time to react before he was sent flying through the air. He got entangled in the shelving and caused a glorious racket in his descent to the floor of the warehouse.

“Oh my, you’ve forced me to say such unbecoming things,” Garfiel sighed. He straightened the suspender that had slipped down so that it was perfectly straight again and bitterly glared at the man who had caused him to speak in such an uncouth manner.

“Mr. Garfiel, why are you here?” Winry asked. 

Garfiel beamed as he offered a hand to both Winry, who had remained on the ground stunned, and Darish.

“I couldn’t just do nothing knowing my apprentice was in danger. And if those shady businesses have their way, Rush Valley won’t have a future. We can’t be scared of them claiming we’re obstructing their business. Everyone banded together and decided to chase them out,” Garfiel said.

“Everyone?” Winry repeated as, suddenly, Henrik and Weis rushed in.

“Catch them! We’re handing them over to the military police!”

“Yeah!”

People started flooding in one after another from the broken back door. They were all Rush Valley mechanics who Winry knew. And that wasn’t all—there were even clients wearing automail and normal prosthetic limbs.

“Tsk, looks like we’ve got all the town engineers here!” one of the crooks said.

“You all get what’s gonna happen now that you’re doing this, don’t ya?!” the men from the shady business blustered at the crowd of mechanics who had made their way into the warehouse. However, the engineers, determined not to let themselves be intimidated, didn’t hesitate as they raised their fists and charged at the men. In the blink of an eye, the inside of the warehouse turned into a free-for-all brawl.

“Come on, let’s get Darish out of here before he gets involved,” Garfiel urged them while gracefully dodging the bald man’s punch and giving him a karate chop to the head.

“Okay!”

Winry wrapped Darish’s arm around the back of her neck and supported him as she headed to the open back door. They left the shouts and tumult of the collapsing shelves behind them as they fled outside into the soft moonlight. After the gloom of the warehouse, the light seemed incredibly welcome to their eyes.

The narrow backroad was littered with materials leaning against the walls and door. They could see residents and military police gathering because of the commotion.

“Oh!” Darish stumbled over a fallen piece of wood.

“Darish!”

Winry braced herself and held on to Darish’s arm when he lost his balance, but she couldn’t support him. Darish reeled to the side and his left hand nearly hit the ground.

He reacted in surprised as a small hand grabbed him. 

“Lettie?” 

Lettie had caught her brother’s arm and supported him with her entire body.

“Darish, hold on to me,” she said. 

Lettie, sensing her brother had gotten himself in danger, had followed Garfiel and the others. Now that she was supporting Darish, it was clear that she would never let go no matter what he said to her.

ONCE THE BRAWL at the warehouse ended, the men of the establishment were prodded along by the military police and taken away. Winry and Darish watched the proceedings from a safe distance. Lettie had stuck close to her brother the entire time.

Some unsavory-looking men had watched from behind the onlookers as their colleagues were taken away. Once they saw what was happening, they had immediately snuck away. Most of them were probably planning to leave town, likely anticipating that business would become harder for them from there on out. Their activities of fleecing the mechanics and customers out of money through blackmail were illegal, after all. 

“It’d be great if we end up with fewer crooked businesses,” Winry said.

“It would,” Darish agreed.

A slight night breeze comfortably cooled Winry and Darish’s sweaty skin.

Darish shifted his eyes from the men being taken away to Lettie. Even though she struggled to support the weight of her much bigger brother, she hadn’t let out even a peep in complaint. Darish gently stroked his sister’s head.

“Thank you.”

Lettie’s eyes went wide, and as Darish broke into a smile when he met her gaze, Lettie also started to beam, full of glee. Seeing his sister’s smile from up close after such a long time going without it, Darish recalled again just how many times he had made her cry. 

He murmured to himself, “What was I thinking?”

Several automail users and mechanics assisted the military police by carrying out mountains of documents from the shop that would serve as proof of coerced sales and broken laws. Just as those people wearing automail had come running to his rescue using their automail bodies, Darish wished he could run to his little sister’s aid when she was in danger. That thought was firm in Darish’s mind.

“I’m going to start putting real thought into my leg from now on,” Darish told Winry. His expression was filled with anticipation and hope for his new leg. His expression was so bright that Winry practically had to squint to look at him.

“So I was thinking,” Darish continued, seeming to have some trouble finding the words. “Could I ask you to talk to me about my leg?”

Winry blinked in surprise for a moment, but then a smile bloomed on her face.

“Of course you can! I would be happy to, if you’ll have me!” Winry immediately agreed, incredibly happy that she once again would be Darish’s mechanic. She wanted to develop her skills while also never losing sight of her clients’ wishes. She felt grateful to Darish for helping her realize that, and wanted to do everything she could for him. With that in her mind, she looked up at the moon and braced herself by taking a deep breath.

But then, her breath stilled in her lungs. 

“What’s wrong?” Darish asked when he saw Winry’s expression had frozen. He gave her a questioning look. 

“I might be out of a job.”

“Why?” Darish asked, giving a puzzled look in response to Winry’s declaration. 

“Because,” Winry faltered. She had been told not to go near the shady businesses, but had broken that rule. She’d even shaken off her colleagues when they tried to stop her, and she’d forced her way out of Atelier Garfiel. After all the mistakes she’d made at work, and the trouble she’d caused, it was only natural she would be fired for not obeying the instructions of the studio’s owner.

Just as Winry murmured “What am I gonna do?” she received a smack to the back of her head.

“What’s this now, Winry, dear?” Garfiel had come to stand directly behind her at some point. He deftly re-curled his sideburns, which had frayed during the fight, while he looked down at Winry. “Didn’t I just say you were my darling apprentice?”

“But I didn’t listen to you and I messed up so much.”

She knew she would continue to make mistakes, like ones from the night before, as she attempted to become the engineer she sought to be, and she would probably cause Garfiel trouble every time.

“Listen here. I tried to give you this talk in front of the shop,” Garfiel sighed as he placed one hand on his hip. “And this applies to the parts you paid for too. You don’t need to worry about things like that. You’re the apprentice and I’m your teacher. I’m supposed to smooth things over when you make a mistake.”

Garfiel tapped the end of Winry’s nose as she looked up at him.

“Sure, you’ll probably make even bigger mistakes in the future and you’ll probably cause a lot of problems that you won’t be able to fix by yourself. But, I’m here to accept all of that—the whole package deal. So don’t worry about it. Learn your fill in this town, make mistakes, and grow.”

“Mr. Garfiel!”

Winry was jubilant as her eyes welled up with tears upon hearing those genuine words from her teacher. Finally Winry truly understood what Dominic had said when he had told her, “But you’re not alone, are you, girl?” There were people looking after her and they were understanding to a degree she couldn’t even begin to imagine.

“And also, there are tons of clients who want a mechanic like you,” Garfiel said, and moved his large body aside so she could see just who some of the clients who had participated in the brawl were.

“Hey, Winry!” Pollack raised his hand to her. “I just got myself punched, so my eye’s on the fritz. Could you take a quick look? I appreciate how thorough you are with your maintenance.”

“Could you take a look at mine too?! Looks like I’ve lost my screw right here!” Another man next to Pollack lifted up his grubby automail leg. “I’d also love it if you could lighten this for me, so could you do a consult?”

“Sounds nice. Maybe I’ll ask Winry to look at mine too. The mechanic I normally go to has got the skills, but we just don’t see eye to eye.”

Folks showed her their broken automail, pointing things out and telling her their requests, one after another.

“See?” Garfiel grinned and winked. “Now stop fretting that you’re going to be fired and take responsibility for the automail that broke during today’s commotion. Fix up these clients. That sound good to you?”

“Okay!”

Winry wiped away her tears of gratitude toward Garfiel with his big heart and the customers who insisted she look at their automail. Then she dashed off toward the clients with a spring in her step.