InuYasha Fan Fiction / Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ In Pursuit of the Green Dragon ❯ Resolution ( Prologue )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

In Pursuit of the Green Dragon

By Sharibet

Fullmetal Alchemist/Inuyasha crossover

Post FMA movie. Searching for a way back home, the Elric brothers pass through the Bone-eater's Well. Can they help defeat Naraku, recover the Shikon no Tama, and return to Amestris before Ed and Inuyasha kill each other?

Author's note: this story is a birthday present for my longtime friend Pam (aka Pamela Regina), who wanted to see Inuyasha and Edward Elric, two hot-tempered, golden-eyed boys, interact.

Spoilers for all FMA episodes and Conqueror of Shamballa movie. I'm not following any particular timeline for Inuyasha, but possible spoilers for all episodes of the anime series, and through chapter 530 of the Inuyasha manga.

Rating: R for language and graphic violence

Pairings: Alphonse/Kagome, Kagome/Inuyasha, Sango/Miroku

Genres: adventure, romance

Obligatory Disclaimer: Inuyasha created by Rumiko Takahashi. Fullmetal Alchemist created by Hiromu Arakawa.

Prologue

Leeds, Yorkshire, England, April, 1924

"Fuck, Alphonse, what did you do to yourself?" Edward Elric bellowed as he entered the dingy little flat that he shared with his younger brother, and saw the blood.

There was a lot of it, staining Alphonse's shirtfront and sleeves, and trails of drops speckling the gray kitchen linoleum. Ed's heart gave an unpleasant leap and he suddenly felt as if his ribcage had grown a size too small.

His brother was sitting at their small kitchen table, which was covered with a heap of gears and springs and a clock casing, and the chalked outline of what looked like a transmutation circle, marred by more blood.

Puddles of blood.

And, worst of all, Al--always-cheerful, always-smiling Al--was crying.As Ed entered, Al wiped furiously at his eyes, leaving reddish smears across his pale, freckled face from the blood-soaked handkerchief bound around his left hand.

Ed dropped his books and satchel of papers in the doorway of their dingy little flat, and crossed the room in four strides.

"Brother--I—didn't mean--" But Al couldn't seem to stop sobbing long enough to talk, and Ed saw his brother becoming angrier and angrier at himself as he tried to control himself, and only ended up crying harder.

"Shhh, it's okay, Al." Ed bent and caught his brother in a hug, patting his back. "You can tell me what happened later, okay?" As if he hadn't already guessed.

Al reached up and clung to him, hiding his face in the front of Ed's wool jacket. "Brother--" he started again, and his next sob came as a wordless howl.

He wept for a long time, his whole body shaking, his fingers digging into the biceps of Ed's flesh arm.

Finally, as the gloomy afternoon faded to twilight outside, he wound down. Ed reached into his pocket and handed his brother a clean--well, cleaner than Al's handkerchief, which was probably ruined--handkerchief. Al accepted it, and blew his nose with a snuffling honk.

"You ready to talk about it now?" Ed pulled up the kitchen's other chair with a long scrape, and sat down, wearily rubbing at his eyes. They felt itchy after a long day in the university's chemistry lab, and he had the beginnings of a headache. He might need glasses soon, but...not yet.

We can't afford them right now.

Al nodded. "You remember how I offered to fix Professor Carr's clock?" He sighed again, and stared gloomily at the pile of cogs and assorted other clock-innards on the table before him. "Well I took it apart--you know that I know how it's supposed to go back together!" His voice rose to a near-wail. "But I just couldn't--I didn't have the right tools--and then it wouldn't--"

"And so you tried to use alchemy," Ed finished for him. He could picture the scene: his brother, frustrated with the slow process of making his fingers replicate what he already understood in his brilliant mind, had chalked a transmutation circle and cut his palm in an attempt to trigger an alchemical reaction. Only, in his frustration, he must have cut too deeply, and the cut would not stop bleeding.

Ed could have told him not to bother. Last autumn, he had discovered that his blood, the blood of someone born on the other side of the Gate, could serve as a catalyst--but only a weak one--to trigger a transmutation. Only, no matter how often Ed had cut himself, or how elaborate the transmutation circle he designed, the transmutation simply sputtered out after a few seconds, without achieving anything.

Al was still talking, the words tumbling out of him in an avalanche of words. "...and I'm eighteen, Brother, but everyone treats me like I'm thirteen, because that's how old I look and I hate it..." he trailed off, his weathered-bronze eyes reddened and shiny, and sat down again with a sigh.

"At least you're taller than me," Ed offered, cautiously, not quite sure of how to deal with Al's unsettled mood. His brother was usually the calm one, and the designated soother of Ed's easily-bruised temper.

"I want to go home," Al said softly.

"Me, too," Ed admitted.

He knew better than to remind his brother that they had permanently sealed the gates that linked this world to theirs.

Last November, after Dietlinde Eckhart's abortive invasion of their home country of Amestris, on the other side of the gate, they asked Roy Mustang to destroy the gate that Al had created in his quest to reunite with his older brother.

At the same time, Ed and Al had returned to this place--this dismal, dreary world where alchemy did not work and events seemed to be marching inevitably towards another war--and had managed to destroy the transmutation circles that had opened a second gate at Professor Heinrich Haushofer's Bavarian villa.

The remnants of the shattered Thule organization had managed to drive them away before they were able to do more. In the months since then, they had not been successful in tracking down the uranium bomb brought through the Gate to this world.

With the financial and political situation in Germany growing more dire by the week, the brothers had left the country around just after Christmas.

Using the forged identity papers that Hohenheim had provided before his death, Ed had enrolled as a graduate student at Leeds University, known for its chemistry department, and he spent his days working as Professor Carr's research assistant while trying to find some mention of the elusive uranium or any mysterious developments in this world's understanding of physics.

Al was right. It was useless. They were useless here, stripped of their ability to use alchemy.

Ed forced himself to grin at Al. "Then, let's do it," he said, with more confidence than he felt. "We'll find a way home. If we managed to open a gate once, then we can do it again."

Al's face lit up behind the blotchy tearstains and the smears of dried blood. "Brother!"

"But first," Ed said, firmly. "We have to call a doctor and get this stitched."

Al nodded, still smiling, and Ed firmed up his resolve.

Only the transmutation of a homunculus could open the Gate between the worlds. And this world only contained one homunculus that he knew of—Envy, last seen bound and captive at Haushofer's villa.

They would find Envy, Ed swore silently. Find him and use him to go home.