Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Calling of Kurai ❯ Blood Stained Mystery ( Chapter 2 )

Calling of Kurai

Chapter 2: Blood Stained Mystery

 

Disclaimer: Other than the standard “I don't own FMA” bit, I would like to give a little warning about the rest of this story. This plot will be pretty dark from here on out. There will be some things that may be seen as graphic, such as gore and disturbing imagery.

 

Thank you for your time. I hope you enjoy chapter 2.

 

 

“Lieutenant, what's wrong?” Roy stood up and immediately went over to her. Riza didn't often show any emotion, be it joy, sadness, or fear, but when she did, everyone knew that it was something to take seriously.

 

“A MP just found a severely wounded man outside.”

 

“I don't understand. Why not just take the man to the hospital?” Breda asked not seeing why Riza seemed so panicked.

 

Riza, having finally caught her breath, looked up at Roy with her stone expression. “It's better that you see for yourself.”

 

Roy nodded and quickly put his coat on before leaving the room, followed closely behind by his subordinates.

 

 

Nothing could have prepared them for what they found as they approached the main gates. The man Riza had mentioned was in his mid-20s and of average height. Through his chest, just barely missing his heart, was a two foot long metal spike about an inch in diameter, covering his entire front and back with blood. With every pulse of his rapidly depleting heart beat, his entire body would jump and more blood would gush from around the spike. His eyes were wide open and seemed to be glazed over from the obvious pain.

 

“…He...e... lp…, he..l...p…,” the man, trying to talk, was cutting off by his own gagging, blood pouring out of his mouth.

 

“Please sir, calm down, an ambulance is on its way,” said the MP holding the man.

 

“Mon... mon...s...ter…Sa…sa..rah… he…l..p...” More gagging. More Blood. The man didn't seem to hear anything surrounding him. He didn't even seem to realize his own injuries. He reached out a hand towards Roy, his eyes seeming to look directly at him. Fuery took a step back; Falman looked away from the man's gaze. “Do… on'..t….S..ar..,” Mouth still open mid sentence, pleading eyes still looking straight at them, his arm fell down to his side. His body stopped jumping, though the blood continued to flow freely.

 

The man was dead.

 

Roy looked at the man's eyes, still wide open as if pleading for help. He tightened his fists. The MP, gently closed the man's eyes and laid him on the ground as best as he could, the spike keeping the man's body up a good half foot.

 

Unable to take it any longer, Roy spoke up. “Where did you find this man?”

 

The MP jumped at Roy voice but quickly responded. “Just outside the gates about 10 minutes ago.”

 

“Just outside… He came here on his own, in this condition?” The MP nodded. “Do you have any idea where he came from?”

 

“No, but I'm sure that there must be a trail of blood.”

 

Before Roy could say anything, two panicked corporals ran up to him and saluted. “Colonel Mustang. There have been reports coming in from all over the city.”

 

“About what?”

 

“There's been a body found near Main Street.” That got everyone's attention. “Also, people have been saying that they heard strange noises during the night from the neighbors' homes, and when they went to look this morning, there was blood everywhere.”

 

“Falman,” Roy started barking out orders before the men could even finish. Falman straightened up, looking at Roy, “Go look for the trail of blood and see if you can find out anything about this man.” Pointing to the two corporals, he added, “Take these two men with you. Fuery, get on the radio headset and wait for Falman to call you about anything he finds. Remain on back up and send someone to find me if anything big turns up.” Falman and Fuery both saluted and left to do their tasks.

 

“2nd Lieutenants Havoc and Breda, go investigate the North area of the city. 1st Lieutenant Hawkeye, you're with me in the South. The rest of you,” Roy said to the military personal standing around, “go gather as much information and report your findings to Fuery. We may have a serial killer on the loose, so watch your backs.” Everyone saluted and everyone burst into action as they quickly went about with their orders.

 

Walking outside, Havoc moved up closer to Roy, making sure only those in their group could hear. “Sir, do you think this has any relation to that monster?”

 

“I don't know, Havoc, but if it does, then this situation may have just gotten even more dangerous than we could have ever thought.”

 

 

In the south part of the city, where the residences were, people were scattered about the streets in a panic. MP's were trying to get everyone under control, but things were getting out of hand so there hadn't been much time to do any investigating.

 

Walking through the wooden gate, which had been nearly ripped off its hinges, Roy and Riza carefully made their way towards the first house. Footprints from what appeared to be struggle littered the yard, still muddy from the previous day's downpour. Hearing a faint sound coming from inside, Riza took her gun out and moved carefully towards the broken door. Roy, too, approached cautiously before gently pushing the door open, splinters of wood breaking away, and peering inside.

 

Once again they were met with a truly horrible sight. The bloody body of a man, in about his early-30s, was leaning up against a blood smeared wall. His skull was completely caved in. The only more horrible thing they saw than the body itself was the small boy weeping beside it, also covered in blood. He kept shaking the body, crying for it to wake up. It was more than enough to make anyone's stomach turn.

 

“Take care of him, Hawkeye. I'll see if there's anyone else here.” Roy said in a gentle voice, so as not to frighten the boy.

 

“Yes sir,” Riza put her gun away and kneeled next to the boy. She pulled him away from, what one would assume was, his father's corpse. The boy looked up at her, seeming to just now notice her presence, and clung tightly to her uniform jacket, crying louder than before.

 

“Why won't daddy wake up? Why? Why?” Riza put her arms around him, trying to calm him down. It was like Hughes' funeral all over again. A child too young to understand what had happened to their father. Crying over and crying for someone to wake him up. “I want mommy. Where's mommy? Where did she go? Where did mommy go?!”

 

The thought hit both Roy and Riza at the same time. Where was the mother? Roy walked into the living room, then to the bedroom. Everywhere he looked there were more signs of a struggle. Finding no one else in the house, Roy returned to the front to see Riza handing the boy to an MP to be taken somewhere safer.

 

“Did you find anyone else, sir? Any signs of where the mother may have gone?”

 

Roy shook his head. Riza left the room and went to go investigate the kitchen. Roy went back to inspecting the body. `What on earth could have done this?' The man's skull looked as if it had been squashed between something heavy. Looking around, he couldn't find anything that could have been the cause. `Maybe the murderer took it with him. But who could have carried something heavy enough to do this?'

 

Just as the thought passed, he instantly remembered the metal creature he saw last night. It had certainly been large enough to do this sort of thing. `Maybe…,'

 

“Colonel, come quickly,” Hawkeye's yell brought Roy out of his thoughts. Standing up, Roy turned to some of the MP's and ordered them to take care of the body. He then quickly went to into the kitchen to see what Riza found.

 

“What is it?”

 

“Look around, Colonel. Notice anything missing from this room?” Roy looked around the room carefully. Something was missing; he just could put his finger on it. “The icebox, the sink, the stove. There are places for these things, but they're not here.”

 

He scanned the room again. There was a dinette set and the counter, but everything else was missing. Looking at the floor his frown deepened. “It doesn't appear as if they were moved anywhere.” Once again, his thoughts went back to last night.

 

“Not only that,” Riza started, opening a cabinet, “but I looked around and there aren't any pots and pans either.” She closed the cabinet and opened a drawer. “All the silverware's gone as well.” Roy walked over and looked to see for himself. A thought came to mind and he turned to go back to the front room. Looking at the broken door, he realized that even the doorknob was missing.

 

“Looks like that creature came here after our encounter last night,” Roy said, sighing deeply.

 

“What do you mean, sir?”

 

Roy covered his face, shaking his head. “That's right; you were out of the room.” He leaned against a wall; she came and stood beside him. “Last night, I was on my way home when it started raining.” He looked at her to see if she had an `I told you so' look on her face; she didn't so he continued. “Suddenly I heard a loud scraping sound coming from down an alley, so I went to investigate.”

 

She narrowed her eyes a little. “Without back-up.” It wasn't a question. It was a statement.

 

Roy nearly fell over at her words, suddenly realizing how stupid that was of him. He quickly regained his composure and cleared his throat. “Of course I had back-up,” he lied, trying to cover up how embarrassed he was at his actions. “Two MP's were with me.” `Well, it was true, mostly' he thought. He smiled nervously at her thinking, `There's no way she'll believe that'. She just gave him a knowing look and sighed. Roy cleared his throat again. “Anyway, as I looked around the corner I saw a huge creature, absorbing a metal dumpster into its body.”

 

“So then it's true. There really is some creature going around the city. And now it's killed someone.”

 

“It's too soon to say for sure, but things seem to point in that general direction.” He looked down at Riza's face. Her expression was the same, but her eyes told him that she was thinking rather deeply about the events. “Let's go, Lieutenant. We've got more places to investigate before we can be certain about anything.” He pushed away from the wall.

 

“Yes sir.” Roy led the way out of the house with Riza following close behind.

 

 

“Ah-Ah- AH-CHOO!” Breda let out an extremely loud sneeze. “Damn it, I wish I grabbed my coat before we left,” he said as he rubbed his arms.

 

“Yeah, well, when the Colonel gave out the orders I didn't exactly feel like saying, `Just a second, let me grab my coat first.' Though I am wondering why I didn't grab my coat before heading outside in the first place.” Havoc reached into his pocket and pulled out his lighter and a new cigarette and lit it. After taking a drag, he returned the lighter and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Let's hurry up and find some information so we can return to HQ.”

 

“Yeah, I'm all for getting back.”

 

Turning the corner, they were approached by a panicked man. Just by looking at the man, one would assume he was about late-40s or early-50s.

 

“Please you've have to help me.” The man, obviously out of breath, grabbed a hold of Havoc's jacket, nearly knocking him over in his haste.

 

“Sir, please calm down,” Havoc grabbed the man's shoulders in an attempt to steady the man and himself.

 

“Yeah, what's the matter, sir?” Breda asked once the man seemed to have calmed enough to speak.

 

“My…,” the man started, took a couple of deep breaths, and then continued, “my daughter. She's missing. Her name is Ruby. She's 19 with long, red hair and green eyes. Someone broke in and took her.”

 

Havoc and Breda looked at each other. Even though they were supposed to be investigating the murders, this sounded too suspicious to just ignore. Havoc decided to ask into it more before deciding what to do. “When did you last see her, sir?”

 

“Last night. This morning she didn't come to breakfast, so I went to look in her room only to find these large, metal spikes sticking through the door.” Breda looked to Havoc and nodded. While not a murder, this was definitely involved. “I ran outside to look in her window, only to find her missing.”

 

“Didn't you hear the glass breaking?” Havoc inquired.

 

“No, the window didn't appear to have been broken into. It was more like the glass had been cut and moved out of the way.”

 

Breda shook his head, trying to sort out everything in this odd case. Placing his hand on the man's shoulder, he decided to continue with the questioning. “Was there any blood in the room?”

 

“No aside from the window and the door, there was nothing else wrong with the room.”

 

“Was there anything missing? Jewelry, money, clothes?”

 

“No, everything was there.”

 

Once again, Havoc and Breda looked at each other. This case was getting stranger by the minute. “Can you take us there, sir?” Havoc asked.

 

“Of course. Follow me.” He quickly started off towards his house, Havoc and Breda following close behind.

 

The man's house was only about two minutes away from where they were so they got there relatively quickly. The house was a medium size, giving off the impression that the occupants weren't exactly wealthy or poor, but more of a middle class. Just an average looking house. Normally it was the wealthier families that had their children captured, using them as hostages in order to receive a hefty ransom.

 

This didn't seem to be the case here. No one would expect an extremely large sum of money from this kind of place. Also, normally, the captured children would also be much younger, mainly because it was easier to control young children than grown adults.

 

The man took them to the side of the house where his daughter's room was. Below the window's frame was a single sheet of glass that had been perfectly cut and moved aside. That just added to the other weird things going on. Normally, when some tried to capture someone, they would just break the glass, but this looked more like the work of a skilled artisan.

 

Havoc carefully climbed over the window sill and into the dark room. Walking towards the door, he got a closer look at the spikes. They were identical to the one that had killed the first man. He then walked over to the delicate wire-frame bed, carefully examining it for any traces of blood. Seeing none, he started walking back towards the window to leave when his attention was brought to a picture of the girl and her family. He picked it up and took it with him, handing it to Breda before climbing back out the window.

 

“Sir, do you mind if we take this photo so we have an idea of what to look for?” Breda asked him.

 

“Yes. Please, please just find my daughter.” The man pleaded with them.

 

“We'll do what we can, sir.” Both Havoc and Breda saluted the man and left, needing to continue with their investigations.

 

After walking for a bit, Havoc looked down at the picture again. “I still can't believe some kind of metal monster is doing this. I mean senseless destruction, sure, but kidnapping?”

 

“I don't think it's the work of the monster the Colonel saw at all.” Breda spoke up.

 

“Oh?”

 

“Yeah, I mean, sure it'd be easy to say it was, but if you look at it closer, it can't be. The window was carefully cut and moved aside. A ten foot monster would have just broken the glass, and probably the wall for that matter, to get inside. Also, everything was still left in the room. The other occurrences with the monster mentioned that large amounts of metal were disappearing. Yet the bed, which was made entirely from metal, was left perfectly intact.”

 

“Yeah, you're right. There was nothing wrong with the bed at all.” A thought suddenly stopped him in his tracks. Breda turned to look at him. “Wait a sec… didn't that man this morning mention a woman's name?”

 

“Hey, yeah, you're right. Sa…sar… Sarah! That's what it was.” Scratching his head, deep in thought, “Maybe, just maybe, the same creature who captured this girl tried to capture this Sarah woman.”

 

“And the man got in the way and was attacked.” Both stopped and thought about the obvious connection. “Anyway, Falman's group went to check out that guys place, so hopefully, he'll find something. Let's check out the rest of this neighborhood.”

 

“Right.” Breda rubbed his arms again. “Something strange is definitely going on in this city, and to be honest, I'm not sure if I want to know what it is.” Havoc nodded and they both started off down the street again.

 

 

“Amazing. I've never seen anything like it.” A young corporal exclaimed.

 

As ordered, Falman's group followed the trail of blood the wounded man had left. Heading north they had found several spikes sticking out of the street and surrounding buildings. A large pool of blood around a deep hole in the ground gave off the impression that the man had first been struck down here before making his way to HQ. After that point, the trail of blood was considerably less but still gave Falman a good idea of where the man had come from.

 

It could be noted that who ever it was that attacked the man with these spikes was not normal in the least. Just the sheer size and amount was enough to make anyone notice that.

 

Finally, they made their way to a small house just three blocks away. As the corporal had said, it was truly an amazing sight. The entire house was covered in hundreds, maybe thousands, of holes. Each hole was about an inch wide and went all the way through the house despite what material the targets were made of. However, there were no spikes anywhere to be seen. Also it seemed as if whatever caused the holes came from inside the house, not outside. Looking around, Falman found a window with the glass neatly cut and laid aside.

 

`Interesting,' Falman thought. Turning to the two men, he asked, “Does anything inside appear to be missing?”

 

“No sir. There are no spikes or blood either, though it does appear that there was a struggle.”

 

Falman nodded and stepped into the house. Looking around, one could notice that the living room had been where everything had happened. On the table was broken tea set. Touching the spilt liquid, he found it slightly warm. He frowned. `How long ago did all of this happen? Didn't anyone notice?' Standing up, he asked the two corporals to question the neighbors for anything they knew. Returning to looking around the room, he took note of a silver framed wedding picture. Engraved on the frame was the writing `Richard and Sarah: 1916.' “Sarah? That's right, the man mentioned a Sarah earlier.”

 

Turning around he looked at the table with the tea set again. “The married couple was having their morning tea,” he looked towards the glassless window, “when they were attacked. Startled, they jumped up, knocking over the set.” Moving towards an over-turned chair, he continued, “They fought with the attacker,” moving his eyes to the door, “and fled before the attacker,” looking around at the holes, “attacked them.” He started towards the door. “The attacker must have caught up to them and captured the woman, leaving the man for dead.”

 

Hearing voices, he walked over to the street. From his spot, he could see the two corporals taking to a young woman. He couldn't see the woman's face at this angle, but she had a somewhat pale complexion and slender figure. Her long black hair was tied in a low ponytail. She wore a long black coat over black slacks and a blood red shirt. It was odd, he didn't know the woman, but she seemed somehow familiar. He moved in closer to better hear the conversation and see if he could make out the woman's face.

 

“Yes officer, that's all,” the woman finished.

 

“Well, thank you, ma'am, I'm sure that will help a lot with our investigations.”

 

“I'm glad I could help. Sorry to rush off, but I must be going.” The corporal nodded and she turned to leave, stopping when she found Falman standing behind her. The woman's eyes were a bright emerald green; her lips were a deep, blood red. Falman jumped slightly, realizing that he was staring and moved to the side. She smiled and made her way down the street before disappearing from sight.

 

“Warrant Officer Falman.” Falman turned away from the woman to listen to the corporals. “That woman said she was out walking this morning when she heard screaming. She turned to see a man and woman, both in their mid-20's, running down the road being chased by a woman.”

 

“A woman?”

 

“Yes sir. The woman was described as medium height, pale complexion, crimson eyes, and very short black hair. She was inhumanly fast and capable of shooting spikes from her body.”

 

“From her body? You mean the spikes came out of her body, from her skin?”

 

“That's what the witness said, sir. It would make sense with what we have seen.”

 

Falman nodded. If what the witness said was true, then that would explain the condition of the house. It still seemed odd however. Why did the witness not tell anyone what she had seen earlier?

 

The witness: why did she seem so familiar? “Corporal.” The man gave Falman his attention. “Did you find out any information on the witness? Her age, where she was going, her name?”

 

“Yes sir, she said she was in the city for a short while, visiting, and decided to go out early to shop. She didn't give her age, but she said her name was Yamome Black.”

 

“Yamome Black? Yamome. Even that name sounds familiar.” He looked up as a thought hit him. “Wait a minute.”

 

“Do you know her, sir?” the corporal asked.

 

Falman shook his head. “No, it can't be.” Seeing that Falman was deep in thought, the corporal excused himself and continued to question people.

 

Falman thought back to his early adulthood. He remembered a young woman named Yamome that was a few years older than him living in his hometown. `Impossible.' He looked in the direction the woman had left. `It can't be her.'

 

`She's been dead for over ten years.'