Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction / Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ The Unforgivable Sin ❯ Chapter 9 ( Chapter 9 )
[ P - Pre-Teen ]
By: Rurouni Saiyan 
Anime/Manga: Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction / Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Mystery / Drama / Angst | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 07.13.2005 | Pages: 3 | Words: 4.3K | Visits: 275 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction / Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Mystery / Drama / Angst | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 07.13.2005 | Pages: 3 | Words: 4.3K | Visits: 275 | Status: Completed
Chapter 9
I stayed outside near the police vehicles for the rest of the investigation, letting the locals do the rest of the work. I had found out too much already; my heart felt like it was going to burst open from all the emotions swirling within me.
Akira was alive. It was completely impossible, but somehow it was true. There was no other explanation. No one in Lior knew my past, knew I had once had a brother, or even that I was from Serra’s Point, the town notorious for its awful train accident. Yet here was a newspaper clipping about that same accident, a list of the dead with my brother’s name clearly marked. A thief who looked like me…the man watching me from across the street after the State Alchemist Exam…the thing in the middle of the transmutation circle as the smoke cleared, struggling just to breathe…
Tears of frustration welled in my eyes, and I fought them back down before anyone could notice. It wouldn’t do to break down here, where everyone was looking up to me and expecting me to do my job. But the emotions fueling those tears were threatening to boil over, so I leaned back against Honda Hiroto’s automobile for support and bowed my head, letting my hair fall forward to conceal my face.
This was all so impossible. It just couldn’t be. Akira was dead; I watched him die, crushed under the weight of the passenger car we had been riding in. So there was no way he could have been in Central City that day, when Malik and I chased him through the city’s alleys. There was no way he could be here now, stealing and killing and taunting me. Unless…
Unless I had succeeded, that night that I lost my left leg. Unless that monster, that pitiful thing that had struggled for breath, choking and gasping horribly, really was the reincarnation of my twin. But I couldn’t bring myself to believe that. That creature, my creation, wasn’t human. I doubted it had even survived more than ten minutes. If Akira truly walked this earth again, someone else must have brought him back. Someone else must have succeeded where I failed. Unless…
Unless this was all a cruel joke that someone had decided to play on me, and this thief that tormented me wasn’t Akira at all.
I shook the thoughts out of my head as best I could when I saw Lieutenant Colonel Hiroto come out of the warehouse, calling to the rest that the investigation of the crime scene was over for the day. I could spend all day going through questions about this strange connection between myself and the thief and get absolutely nowhere. It was time I turned my attention back to the matters at hand.
* * *
“Akira Bakura.”
I jumped, startled at Hiroto’s mention of the name. We were sitting in his office, poring over what little we had learned earlier that day at the warehouse. Or rather, he was poring over the information and evidence, and I was letting my mind wander back to memories and past events that I thought I had sealed away forever.
“Bakura…a relative of yours, Major?” the Lieutenant Colonel asked. If he noticed that I hadn’t been paying attention before, he didn’t show any sign of it.
“He was,” I admitted, settling my gaze on the desk rather than on Hiroto. “Like the article there says, he died in the Serra’s Point train accident.”
“So we can be safe assuming that this was a message of sorts, directed at you.”
“We can.” I shrugged my shoulders helplessly as I looked back up. “I just wish I could make sense of it.”
The Lieutenant Colonel frowned as he set the piece of newspaper down. “Do you think it’s possible…” He paused, as if choosing his words carefully. “…That this thief could also be related to you?”
“It could be, though I don’t know who. I don’t have very much family.” I let my gaze drop back to the desk and hoped he wouldn’t catch on to the lie. After all, he wouldn’t believe me even if I told him all that had happened and all I had been thinking.
“In any case, this is disturbing,” Hiroto continued. “This thief has been bothering us for the better part of a year, and now he has decided to make things personal with a military officer. Though if what you said about the pattern is true, it was personal from the beginning and we just didn’t know it.” He frowned suddenly, as if an idea had occurred to him. “But now, with you here, maybe he’ll make a mistake. And then we’ll have him!”
“Maybe,” I echoed. “Are we finished? I’d like to go to my hotel and get some rest.”
“There’s just one more thing.” The Lieutenant Colonel sat back in his seat and glanced at the map on his office wall. “We’re planning to stake out the next target starting tomorrow night. If your theory on the pattern holds up, the thief will hit the place sooner or later. You’ll be there, right?”
“Of course.” I stood up and shouldered my pack. “If you don’t mind, would you tell me the way to my hotel? I haven’t exactly had the chance to find it myself yet.”
“It’s across the street,” Hiroto answered. “See you tomorrow.”
* * *
The first few days of the stakeout were uneventful, boring even. No sign of the thief was seen, and after the third day the guards, myself began to grow lax, letting down our guard. The others believed that my theory was wrong, that the man who had eluded them so many times wouldn’t strike that small apartment building after all. And I wanted to believe it, too. I didn’t want to think that I had any kind of connection with him, that he had established this pattern in an effort to draw me down here, that he had stolen and murdered because of me.
But in the time that we watched the apartments, the thief didn’t hit anywhere else in the city. I was hoping he would; it would disprove my pattern theory and hopefully my awful suspicions with it. And so, even though the other officers and policemen grew bored with the stakeout, and spent most of their time at card games, I stayed vigilant, both anticipating and fearing the moment that I would face the thief.
I wanted to meet him; I wanted to speak with him. I wanted him to prove every theory I had wrong. I wanted to know that he was a total stranger, and not my brother returned from the grave. But at the same time I was terrified that I wasn’t wrong. That it was Akira. And that he hated me for what I had done.
I took the late afternoon and evening shifts at the building. The heat of the day had passed by the time I went on duty, but there were still people around, lessening the chance of a strike. And as afternoon shifted into evening, bringing twilight with it, the setting sun painted gorgeous colors across the western sky beyond the apartments. Then that would fade into night, with the stars coming out to shine their soft, soothing light on the city.
It was just such a night, the fourth night, that my worst fears were realized.
The sun had set an hour ago, and the dry desert air had cooled off considerably. I had developed a habit of walking through the building every hour, checking all the rooms to make sure everything was well. By this time I had the whole layout memorized, and I didn’t need light, especially the meager light of a lamp. Electricity had yet to reach Lior City. I could easily create light using alchemy, though; I had set up a signal for the guards in the street below. If a light appeared in any room of the building, it meant that something was wrong.
I was on the third and last floor, stepping through the halls silently and checking the tiny living areas one by one. All the residents had been relocated earlier that week in an attempt to keep the casualty count down, so I didn’t have to worry about disturbing anyone.
I backed out of one apartment and locked its door before moving on to the next, carefully keeping away from the floorboards that creaked. After all, it wouldn’t do for the thief to hear me coming, if he was here. Checking the lock of the next door as best I could in the darkness of the hall, I decided it hadn’t been tampered with and slid the key into it. As I twisted the knob and eased the door open, a sound from within made me freeze.
I kept the door open just a crack and listened to the continuing sounds within. A drawer being opened and rummaged through. The clink of something being thrown on top of something else. Footsteps. Breathing.
Someone was inside a room that should have been deserted, that had been locked. I bit down hard on my lip, trying to gather what little courage hadn’t fled the sounds. Then I pushed the door open all the way, sending a silent thank you to the heavens above when it didn’t squeak, and clapped my hands together, beginning the transmutation that would bring light to the room. The thief, crouching down and inspecting the contents of a trunk in the far corner, straightened and whirled to face me as light flooded the room.
And I found myself face to face with a nightmare.
He was Akira, and he wasn’t. The height, the build, the features, even the clothes he wore were the echo of my lost brother. But his snow white hair wasn’t cropped short; rather, it was as long as mine and perhaps longer, wild and unkempt. His skin was paler, almost translucent, and his eyes, instead of the gentle chocolate brown that I remembered, were blood-red, with slits for pupils, like an animal’s eyes.
The seconds seemed to stretch into eternity as we stared at each other, frozen. “Who?” I choked out, somehow finding my voice as I stepped back, bringing down my hands and ending the light-producing transmutation. “What…?”
A laugh reached my ears from the darkness within the room, a laugh from a voice slightly more high-pitched than mine, a laugh that belonged to Akira, a laugh that held a psychotic edge that scared me far more than his appearance ever could. The shadowed form jumped at me suddenly, my only clue to the danger coming from the sudden disappearance of the dim moonlight streaming through the window as his body blocked it.
Purely on instinct, I reached into one of my sleeves, pulled out a small throwing dagger, and launched it at the thief. A sickening crunch sounded as it struck home, cracking through bone, and the shadow fell to the floor.
I reached for another throwing dagger, clutching it tightly in an effort to still the trembling in my hand as I stared at the unmoving figure on the floor. After a couple more seconds, when I could hear more soldiers making their way up the stairs, I dared to stick the dagger between my teeth and transmute light into the room again.
The thief, the being who might have been my brother, lay sprawled on the floor, my dagger stuck firmly between his wide-open and unseeing eyes. Blood trickled away from the grisly wound, trailing into his eye cavities and down his forehead, staining his bangs red.
It was over, then. All those questions that had been whirling through my mind these last few days would never be answered. I sighed, stepping out of the way while a few soldiers made their way into the room, exclaiming over the body and assuring me that they’d deal with things from here on. Congratulating me on the kill. I felt sick at their words.
Yet I decided that it was better this way as I made my way down the stairs to where Lieutenant Colonel Hiroto was just pulling up on the street below. Maybe I’d never get the answers I had so desperately wanted and feared, but maybe it was better that I didn’t know.
“My report says you killed the thief,” Hiroto said as he climbed out of his automobile and spotted me. “Is that true?”
“Lucky shot,” I mumbled in reply, looking at the ground. That was the first time I had ever killed someone…I didn’t like the feeling.
“Good, good,” the Lieutenant Colonel replied absent-mindedly. “Finally, everyone he’s hurt had gotten justice. You did well, Major. I suppose it’s time to start writing the final re–“ He stopped and whirled, as we all did, to stare at the third story apartment window.
A scream had erupted from the room, a scream that ended as abruptly as it had begun, too abruptly. Then the window shattered as a form flew through it, a white-haired form that landed on his feet barely ten meters away, completely unaffected by what should have been a lethal fall. My heart still in my chest as the thief looked up, right at me, Akira’s face wearing an insane smile. The blood was still there, dried in a splatter pattern on his forehead, but the skin beneath was smooth, not even a scar visible.
Before anyone could react, he flicked something at me, something that thudded into the ground between my feet, and took off, disappearing into the night as if he had never been here. I looked to the ground to find my blood-stained dagger, the same one I had buried in his head mere moments before.
It was too much for my overwhelmed mind to comprehend, and my knees buckled, the ground rushing up to greet me though I never felt the impact.
* * *
When next I opened my eyes, it was to the view of a white ceiling, one that reminded me of the hospital I had stayed in right after the train wreck. I lay still for several seconds, staring at that ceiling and trying to figure out where I was and how I got there.
Then memory slammed into me like a ton of bricks.
I sat up straight, staring wildly around the room as if the thief–Akira–was going to jump out at me from behind something. But all I could see were the usual hospital room furnishings: a small table, a chair, and a couch, as well as the bed I had been lying in. No one else was inside, and the door was closed.
Running a shaky hand over my face, I stood and started for the lone window. This was a ground floor room, and the view outside was partially obscured by bushes. Beyond them was a busy road, and beyond that was a park, where I could see people strolling among the shade trees as if nothing in the world were wrong.
I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the cool glass as I tried to make sense of what had happened the previous night. Yet my mind seemed to shut down every time I approached the subject, and all I could bring myself to feel was mild disgust and annoyance at the fact that I had fainted.
After ten minutes of staring dully out at the park, I gave up and picked up my clothes, which were folded neatly on the table nearby. I shucked the hospital gown and put on the real clothes, and then I opened the door and stuck my head out.
An empty hall greeted my gaze, more closed doors like mine lining both sides of it. At one end the hall opened into a room that I assumed to be the lobby. I could see one edge of the main desk. Two young women dressed as nurses sat behind the desk, one working diligently at a typewriter and the other arguing with someone I couldn’t see. But I recognized the voice as the Head of Investigation’s, and I frowned, starting down the hall so I could hear what they were talking about.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the nurse was saying. “But all medical records are confidential. I can’t release them to anyone who isn’t immediate family.”
“But I’m his superior officer,” Hiroto argued back. “And all medical records have to be forwarded to the military. Now tell me what’s wrong with him!”
“Technically, Colonel Elric is still my superior officer,” I informed them, startling them both. “And nothing’s wrong with me; I just…fainted.”
The Lieutenant Colonel didn’t look happy at my statement, but he didn’t bother to comment. After all, it was the truth; all State Alchemists reported directly to Ed. “Well the, if you’re ready, let’s go,” he said instead. “It was a crazy night, and now we have to get started on the report.”
Irritation filled me at his words, especially the implication that we would work on that report together. I knew exactly what he was trying to do–find out more about me without asking me directly. He wasn’t the first; a couple of the State Alchemists in Central City had tried to the same. It was getting old.
“What about the doctor’s orders?” I asked, turning to the nurse. “I can’t leave until he lets me, correct?”
The nurse shrugged. “He’s busy with another patient right now,” she answered. “But he did leave a memo saying that you were just fine and could leave when you woke up. Apparently you just–“
“Fainted,” I finished for her. “Don’t remind me.” I stepped back and bowed to her before stepping around the desk and heading for the main entrance.
Hiroto hurried to catch up with me as I pushed through the doors and into the sunshine beyond. “You’re going to just leave your personal effects?” he asked.
“Unless you took the time to go to my hotel room and get something else, this is all I have here,” I answered shortly, frowning as I stopped and looked both ways down the unfamiliar street.
“Ah, of course,” the Lt. Colonel said as he turned to the right and took the lead. “Start thinking about how to write that report. We’re going to have a hard time getting the big brass in Central City to believe it.”
“I’m not writing any report,” I replied, and then nearly plowed into him when he stopped abruptly in front of me.
“Wh-why?” he demanded, turning to stare at me.
Because your efforts to pry into my past behind my back are not going to work, I thought, and said, “Colonel Elric sent me down here to capture a thief, and it would be a waste of time to write a report on how he escaped when we could be making preparations to catch him.” I walked past him, recognizing now where we were and how to get to the hotel.
“But all the places in the pattern have been hit,” Hiroto protested, once again rushing to keep up with me. “Robbing anywhere else would break the pattern, so he’ll probably stop, or move on to another city. At any rate, the case is closed here.”
“There’s still one more location,” I reminded him. “The seventh point and top of the circle.”
“The Temple of Leto,” he said with a scowl. “I already told you, he wouldn’t risk it. No one would.”
“We’re talking about a man who hasn’t hesitated to steal from the military and murder innocent people as well as State Alchemists. I don’t think he will care about breaking into a temple.” I turned down the road to the hotel and police station, mentally shaking my head at the Head of Investigation’s lack of common sense. “You can believe me or not, but I’m staking the temple every night starting tonight.”
“Suit yourself,” Hiroto replied, turning to cross the street and go to the police station. “I’ll be starting on that report. Come help me when you feel you’ve wasted enough time.”
I ignored his last statement as I entered the hotel and headed up the stairs to my room. It wouldn’t be a waste of time; I knew that too well. The thief would strike the temple, possibly tonight. And I had to be there to see him. There was so much I didn’t know, so much he could explain.
I didn’t even know what I was going to ask him when I saw him again. Or even where to begin. My brain still went blank every time I began to explore the possibilities; it was too overwhelming. A part of me wanted to forget everything that was happening, forget that twisted version of my brother, my dearest friend and companion growing up. Forget that I had ever tried to resurrect him. Forget that he had died. Forget that he had ever existed in the first place.
I fought against that part of my mind, against the clouds it threatened to throw over my memories, the good as well as the bad. There was no denying or erasing the past, and as hard as I had tried to bury it, I had to face it now. Though I dreaded the upcoming encounter, feared it with every fiber of my being, I had to face him. I had to know the truth.
And I had to find out what he wanted from me.
So I busied myself with small tasks, marking the route to the temple on my map and then memorizing it, and sharpening my small daggers. I preferred them over firearms; merely holding a gun made me feel uneasy. After making sure everything was in order, I sat on the bed and picked up a book.
I quickly lost myself in its pages, but when the light began to fade from my room hours later, I put it down easily, my nervousness returning to me tenfold. The sun hadn’t quite set yet when I walked out of the hotel, for which I was glad. I didn’t want to walk all the way to the temple in the darkness. On the way, I stopped to buy a roast sandwich for dinner and ate it as I continued on. Before long, I found myself in front of the temple, the largest and grandest structure in the city, and without giving myself time to think about it, I started up the steps and pushed through the main doors.
The inside was cool and dark, with only a few candles glowing on the altar at the front of the sanctuary. The large room was empty, its caretakers having already retired for the evening. I walked down the rows of pews and sat in the middle of the first one, staring up at the statue of the being these people worshipped as the avatar of the sun.
The seconds stretched ever so slowly into minutes as I waited, keeping my mind as blank as I could lest I think about what I was doing and run back to the hotel in terror. But it was hard, especially as time slowed to a crawl. No matter how long I was there, the candles never seemed to burn lower, and no one else came to pray, or meditate, or do whatever the faithful of Lior do in the house of their god.
It seemed like hours had gone by when at last I heard footsteps behind me, walking up the left at an easy, ambling pace. Yet I hadn’t heard the door at the back open, and I knew I should have; its hinges had squeaked awfully when I had pushed it open. I knew then that it could only be one person.
He was there, right behind me, and all I had to do to confront him was turn around.
I stayed outside near the police vehicles for the rest of the investigation, letting the locals do the rest of the work. I had found out too much already; my heart felt like it was going to burst open from all the emotions swirling within me.
Akira was alive. It was completely impossible, but somehow it was true. There was no other explanation. No one in Lior knew my past, knew I had once had a brother, or even that I was from Serra’s Point, the town notorious for its awful train accident. Yet here was a newspaper clipping about that same accident, a list of the dead with my brother’s name clearly marked. A thief who looked like me…the man watching me from across the street after the State Alchemist Exam…the thing in the middle of the transmutation circle as the smoke cleared, struggling just to breathe…
Tears of frustration welled in my eyes, and I fought them back down before anyone could notice. It wouldn’t do to break down here, where everyone was looking up to me and expecting me to do my job. But the emotions fueling those tears were threatening to boil over, so I leaned back against Honda Hiroto’s automobile for support and bowed my head, letting my hair fall forward to conceal my face.
This was all so impossible. It just couldn’t be. Akira was dead; I watched him die, crushed under the weight of the passenger car we had been riding in. So there was no way he could have been in Central City that day, when Malik and I chased him through the city’s alleys. There was no way he could be here now, stealing and killing and taunting me. Unless…
Unless I had succeeded, that night that I lost my left leg. Unless that monster, that pitiful thing that had struggled for breath, choking and gasping horribly, really was the reincarnation of my twin. But I couldn’t bring myself to believe that. That creature, my creation, wasn’t human. I doubted it had even survived more than ten minutes. If Akira truly walked this earth again, someone else must have brought him back. Someone else must have succeeded where I failed. Unless…
Unless this was all a cruel joke that someone had decided to play on me, and this thief that tormented me wasn’t Akira at all.
I shook the thoughts out of my head as best I could when I saw Lieutenant Colonel Hiroto come out of the warehouse, calling to the rest that the investigation of the crime scene was over for the day. I could spend all day going through questions about this strange connection between myself and the thief and get absolutely nowhere. It was time I turned my attention back to the matters at hand.
* * *
“Akira Bakura.”
I jumped, startled at Hiroto’s mention of the name. We were sitting in his office, poring over what little we had learned earlier that day at the warehouse. Or rather, he was poring over the information and evidence, and I was letting my mind wander back to memories and past events that I thought I had sealed away forever.
“Bakura…a relative of yours, Major?” the Lieutenant Colonel asked. If he noticed that I hadn’t been paying attention before, he didn’t show any sign of it.
“He was,” I admitted, settling my gaze on the desk rather than on Hiroto. “Like the article there says, he died in the Serra’s Point train accident.”
“So we can be safe assuming that this was a message of sorts, directed at you.”
“We can.” I shrugged my shoulders helplessly as I looked back up. “I just wish I could make sense of it.”
The Lieutenant Colonel frowned as he set the piece of newspaper down. “Do you think it’s possible…” He paused, as if choosing his words carefully. “…That this thief could also be related to you?”
“It could be, though I don’t know who. I don’t have very much family.” I let my gaze drop back to the desk and hoped he wouldn’t catch on to the lie. After all, he wouldn’t believe me even if I told him all that had happened and all I had been thinking.
“In any case, this is disturbing,” Hiroto continued. “This thief has been bothering us for the better part of a year, and now he has decided to make things personal with a military officer. Though if what you said about the pattern is true, it was personal from the beginning and we just didn’t know it.” He frowned suddenly, as if an idea had occurred to him. “But now, with you here, maybe he’ll make a mistake. And then we’ll have him!”
“Maybe,” I echoed. “Are we finished? I’d like to go to my hotel and get some rest.”
“There’s just one more thing.” The Lieutenant Colonel sat back in his seat and glanced at the map on his office wall. “We’re planning to stake out the next target starting tomorrow night. If your theory on the pattern holds up, the thief will hit the place sooner or later. You’ll be there, right?”
“Of course.” I stood up and shouldered my pack. “If you don’t mind, would you tell me the way to my hotel? I haven’t exactly had the chance to find it myself yet.”
“It’s across the street,” Hiroto answered. “See you tomorrow.”
* * *
The first few days of the stakeout were uneventful, boring even. No sign of the thief was seen, and after the third day the guards, myself began to grow lax, letting down our guard. The others believed that my theory was wrong, that the man who had eluded them so many times wouldn’t strike that small apartment building after all. And I wanted to believe it, too. I didn’t want to think that I had any kind of connection with him, that he had established this pattern in an effort to draw me down here, that he had stolen and murdered because of me.
But in the time that we watched the apartments, the thief didn’t hit anywhere else in the city. I was hoping he would; it would disprove my pattern theory and hopefully my awful suspicions with it. And so, even though the other officers and policemen grew bored with the stakeout, and spent most of their time at card games, I stayed vigilant, both anticipating and fearing the moment that I would face the thief.
I wanted to meet him; I wanted to speak with him. I wanted him to prove every theory I had wrong. I wanted to know that he was a total stranger, and not my brother returned from the grave. But at the same time I was terrified that I wasn’t wrong. That it was Akira. And that he hated me for what I had done.
I took the late afternoon and evening shifts at the building. The heat of the day had passed by the time I went on duty, but there were still people around, lessening the chance of a strike. And as afternoon shifted into evening, bringing twilight with it, the setting sun painted gorgeous colors across the western sky beyond the apartments. Then that would fade into night, with the stars coming out to shine their soft, soothing light on the city.
It was just such a night, the fourth night, that my worst fears were realized.
The sun had set an hour ago, and the dry desert air had cooled off considerably. I had developed a habit of walking through the building every hour, checking all the rooms to make sure everything was well. By this time I had the whole layout memorized, and I didn’t need light, especially the meager light of a lamp. Electricity had yet to reach Lior City. I could easily create light using alchemy, though; I had set up a signal for the guards in the street below. If a light appeared in any room of the building, it meant that something was wrong.
I was on the third and last floor, stepping through the halls silently and checking the tiny living areas one by one. All the residents had been relocated earlier that week in an attempt to keep the casualty count down, so I didn’t have to worry about disturbing anyone.
I backed out of one apartment and locked its door before moving on to the next, carefully keeping away from the floorboards that creaked. After all, it wouldn’t do for the thief to hear me coming, if he was here. Checking the lock of the next door as best I could in the darkness of the hall, I decided it hadn’t been tampered with and slid the key into it. As I twisted the knob and eased the door open, a sound from within made me freeze.
I kept the door open just a crack and listened to the continuing sounds within. A drawer being opened and rummaged through. The clink of something being thrown on top of something else. Footsteps. Breathing.
Someone was inside a room that should have been deserted, that had been locked. I bit down hard on my lip, trying to gather what little courage hadn’t fled the sounds. Then I pushed the door open all the way, sending a silent thank you to the heavens above when it didn’t squeak, and clapped my hands together, beginning the transmutation that would bring light to the room. The thief, crouching down and inspecting the contents of a trunk in the far corner, straightened and whirled to face me as light flooded the room.
And I found myself face to face with a nightmare.
He was Akira, and he wasn’t. The height, the build, the features, even the clothes he wore were the echo of my lost brother. But his snow white hair wasn’t cropped short; rather, it was as long as mine and perhaps longer, wild and unkempt. His skin was paler, almost translucent, and his eyes, instead of the gentle chocolate brown that I remembered, were blood-red, with slits for pupils, like an animal’s eyes.
The seconds seemed to stretch into eternity as we stared at each other, frozen. “Who?” I choked out, somehow finding my voice as I stepped back, bringing down my hands and ending the light-producing transmutation. “What…?”
A laugh reached my ears from the darkness within the room, a laugh from a voice slightly more high-pitched than mine, a laugh that belonged to Akira, a laugh that held a psychotic edge that scared me far more than his appearance ever could. The shadowed form jumped at me suddenly, my only clue to the danger coming from the sudden disappearance of the dim moonlight streaming through the window as his body blocked it.
Purely on instinct, I reached into one of my sleeves, pulled out a small throwing dagger, and launched it at the thief. A sickening crunch sounded as it struck home, cracking through bone, and the shadow fell to the floor.
I reached for another throwing dagger, clutching it tightly in an effort to still the trembling in my hand as I stared at the unmoving figure on the floor. After a couple more seconds, when I could hear more soldiers making their way up the stairs, I dared to stick the dagger between my teeth and transmute light into the room again.
The thief, the being who might have been my brother, lay sprawled on the floor, my dagger stuck firmly between his wide-open and unseeing eyes. Blood trickled away from the grisly wound, trailing into his eye cavities and down his forehead, staining his bangs red.
It was over, then. All those questions that had been whirling through my mind these last few days would never be answered. I sighed, stepping out of the way while a few soldiers made their way into the room, exclaiming over the body and assuring me that they’d deal with things from here on. Congratulating me on the kill. I felt sick at their words.
Yet I decided that it was better this way as I made my way down the stairs to where Lieutenant Colonel Hiroto was just pulling up on the street below. Maybe I’d never get the answers I had so desperately wanted and feared, but maybe it was better that I didn’t know.
“My report says you killed the thief,” Hiroto said as he climbed out of his automobile and spotted me. “Is that true?”
“Lucky shot,” I mumbled in reply, looking at the ground. That was the first time I had ever killed someone…I didn’t like the feeling.
“Good, good,” the Lieutenant Colonel replied absent-mindedly. “Finally, everyone he’s hurt had gotten justice. You did well, Major. I suppose it’s time to start writing the final re–“ He stopped and whirled, as we all did, to stare at the third story apartment window.
A scream had erupted from the room, a scream that ended as abruptly as it had begun, too abruptly. Then the window shattered as a form flew through it, a white-haired form that landed on his feet barely ten meters away, completely unaffected by what should have been a lethal fall. My heart still in my chest as the thief looked up, right at me, Akira’s face wearing an insane smile. The blood was still there, dried in a splatter pattern on his forehead, but the skin beneath was smooth, not even a scar visible.
Before anyone could react, he flicked something at me, something that thudded into the ground between my feet, and took off, disappearing into the night as if he had never been here. I looked to the ground to find my blood-stained dagger, the same one I had buried in his head mere moments before.
It was too much for my overwhelmed mind to comprehend, and my knees buckled, the ground rushing up to greet me though I never felt the impact.
* * *
When next I opened my eyes, it was to the view of a white ceiling, one that reminded me of the hospital I had stayed in right after the train wreck. I lay still for several seconds, staring at that ceiling and trying to figure out where I was and how I got there.
Then memory slammed into me like a ton of bricks.
I sat up straight, staring wildly around the room as if the thief–Akira–was going to jump out at me from behind something. But all I could see were the usual hospital room furnishings: a small table, a chair, and a couch, as well as the bed I had been lying in. No one else was inside, and the door was closed.
Running a shaky hand over my face, I stood and started for the lone window. This was a ground floor room, and the view outside was partially obscured by bushes. Beyond them was a busy road, and beyond that was a park, where I could see people strolling among the shade trees as if nothing in the world were wrong.
I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the cool glass as I tried to make sense of what had happened the previous night. Yet my mind seemed to shut down every time I approached the subject, and all I could bring myself to feel was mild disgust and annoyance at the fact that I had fainted.
After ten minutes of staring dully out at the park, I gave up and picked up my clothes, which were folded neatly on the table nearby. I shucked the hospital gown and put on the real clothes, and then I opened the door and stuck my head out.
An empty hall greeted my gaze, more closed doors like mine lining both sides of it. At one end the hall opened into a room that I assumed to be the lobby. I could see one edge of the main desk. Two young women dressed as nurses sat behind the desk, one working diligently at a typewriter and the other arguing with someone I couldn’t see. But I recognized the voice as the Head of Investigation’s, and I frowned, starting down the hall so I could hear what they were talking about.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the nurse was saying. “But all medical records are confidential. I can’t release them to anyone who isn’t immediate family.”
“But I’m his superior officer,” Hiroto argued back. “And all medical records have to be forwarded to the military. Now tell me what’s wrong with him!”
“Technically, Colonel Elric is still my superior officer,” I informed them, startling them both. “And nothing’s wrong with me; I just…fainted.”
The Lieutenant Colonel didn’t look happy at my statement, but he didn’t bother to comment. After all, it was the truth; all State Alchemists reported directly to Ed. “Well the, if you’re ready, let’s go,” he said instead. “It was a crazy night, and now we have to get started on the report.”
Irritation filled me at his words, especially the implication that we would work on that report together. I knew exactly what he was trying to do–find out more about me without asking me directly. He wasn’t the first; a couple of the State Alchemists in Central City had tried to the same. It was getting old.
“What about the doctor’s orders?” I asked, turning to the nurse. “I can’t leave until he lets me, correct?”
The nurse shrugged. “He’s busy with another patient right now,” she answered. “But he did leave a memo saying that you were just fine and could leave when you woke up. Apparently you just–“
“Fainted,” I finished for her. “Don’t remind me.” I stepped back and bowed to her before stepping around the desk and heading for the main entrance.
Hiroto hurried to catch up with me as I pushed through the doors and into the sunshine beyond. “You’re going to just leave your personal effects?” he asked.
“Unless you took the time to go to my hotel room and get something else, this is all I have here,” I answered shortly, frowning as I stopped and looked both ways down the unfamiliar street.
“Ah, of course,” the Lt. Colonel said as he turned to the right and took the lead. “Start thinking about how to write that report. We’re going to have a hard time getting the big brass in Central City to believe it.”
“I’m not writing any report,” I replied, and then nearly plowed into him when he stopped abruptly in front of me.
“Wh-why?” he demanded, turning to stare at me.
Because your efforts to pry into my past behind my back are not going to work, I thought, and said, “Colonel Elric sent me down here to capture a thief, and it would be a waste of time to write a report on how he escaped when we could be making preparations to catch him.” I walked past him, recognizing now where we were and how to get to the hotel.
“But all the places in the pattern have been hit,” Hiroto protested, once again rushing to keep up with me. “Robbing anywhere else would break the pattern, so he’ll probably stop, or move on to another city. At any rate, the case is closed here.”
“There’s still one more location,” I reminded him. “The seventh point and top of the circle.”
“The Temple of Leto,” he said with a scowl. “I already told you, he wouldn’t risk it. No one would.”
“We’re talking about a man who hasn’t hesitated to steal from the military and murder innocent people as well as State Alchemists. I don’t think he will care about breaking into a temple.” I turned down the road to the hotel and police station, mentally shaking my head at the Head of Investigation’s lack of common sense. “You can believe me or not, but I’m staking the temple every night starting tonight.”
“Suit yourself,” Hiroto replied, turning to cross the street and go to the police station. “I’ll be starting on that report. Come help me when you feel you’ve wasted enough time.”
I ignored his last statement as I entered the hotel and headed up the stairs to my room. It wouldn’t be a waste of time; I knew that too well. The thief would strike the temple, possibly tonight. And I had to be there to see him. There was so much I didn’t know, so much he could explain.
I didn’t even know what I was going to ask him when I saw him again. Or even where to begin. My brain still went blank every time I began to explore the possibilities; it was too overwhelming. A part of me wanted to forget everything that was happening, forget that twisted version of my brother, my dearest friend and companion growing up. Forget that I had ever tried to resurrect him. Forget that he had died. Forget that he had ever existed in the first place.
I fought against that part of my mind, against the clouds it threatened to throw over my memories, the good as well as the bad. There was no denying or erasing the past, and as hard as I had tried to bury it, I had to face it now. Though I dreaded the upcoming encounter, feared it with every fiber of my being, I had to face him. I had to know the truth.
And I had to find out what he wanted from me.
So I busied myself with small tasks, marking the route to the temple on my map and then memorizing it, and sharpening my small daggers. I preferred them over firearms; merely holding a gun made me feel uneasy. After making sure everything was in order, I sat on the bed and picked up a book.
I quickly lost myself in its pages, but when the light began to fade from my room hours later, I put it down easily, my nervousness returning to me tenfold. The sun hadn’t quite set yet when I walked out of the hotel, for which I was glad. I didn’t want to walk all the way to the temple in the darkness. On the way, I stopped to buy a roast sandwich for dinner and ate it as I continued on. Before long, I found myself in front of the temple, the largest and grandest structure in the city, and without giving myself time to think about it, I started up the steps and pushed through the main doors.
The inside was cool and dark, with only a few candles glowing on the altar at the front of the sanctuary. The large room was empty, its caretakers having already retired for the evening. I walked down the rows of pews and sat in the middle of the first one, staring up at the statue of the being these people worshipped as the avatar of the sun.
The seconds stretched ever so slowly into minutes as I waited, keeping my mind as blank as I could lest I think about what I was doing and run back to the hotel in terror. But it was hard, especially as time slowed to a crawl. No matter how long I was there, the candles never seemed to burn lower, and no one else came to pray, or meditate, or do whatever the faithful of Lior do in the house of their god.
It seemed like hours had gone by when at last I heard footsteps behind me, walking up the left at an easy, ambling pace. Yet I hadn’t heard the door at the back open, and I knew I should have; its hinges had squeaked awfully when I had pushed it open. I knew then that it could only be one person.
He was there, right behind me, and all I had to do to confront him was turn around.