Touka Kouka wa Uso Desu

MAJOR SPOILERS!! MAJOR SPOILERS!! MAJOR SPOILERS!! MAJOR SPOILERS!! MAJOR SPOILERS!!

(Don’t read beyond this point if you don’t want to read any Fullmetal Alchemist series spoilers.)



Introduction: If you’re reading this without the first chapter some things might not make sense so I strongly advise you to read chapter one, Touka Kouka wa Uso Desu Ch. 1, before you read this chapter. This is more character building and foreshadowing for later events but chapter three is on the way and it will have plenty of action and reunions, promise!

Basics: There are MAJOR SPOILERS for a lot of different episodes in this story and in this chapter alone. I’m disregarding the movie and anything that showed Ed when he got to our world the second time. I’m taking artistic license with some alchemic theories and practices and I’m hoping that it all seems like it’s possible based on what is known about Alchemy in the FMA universe.

Rating: I’m bad at ratings. For now this chapter the story is rather mild but I’m aiming for NC-17 overall...

Warnings: Yeah, if you didn’t know from my other works or whatever, I’m a yaoi (male homosexual relationships for those of you who don’t know this term) girl. For fan fiction I write yaoi and so far only yaoi. My original works are different but I haven’t posted anything original yet. My aim is to somewhere along the lines make this story explicit. I don’t write PWP but really my stories are just vehicles for me to get to the sex. Yeah, I’m a pervert and I know it so you don’t have to tell me; I’m proud of it. And in FMA I’m a complete RoyEd whore. Meaning, the main pairing in this and probably every other FMA story I write will be RoyEd.

Notes: I know this chapter has a lot to do with the original character Isana but there is a reason and I liked how I connected her to the past so forgive me if you think there is too much or her and not enough of the actual FMA characters. It is part of the plot though, so it’s unavoidable.

Writing Conventions: The use of (Scene) indicates a break either in time or from one setting to another. The use of ((Words.)) is indicative of a character's inner voice/thoughts.



(Chapter Start)



Roy awoke with a start in the morning. He was lying in his bed which he couldn’t remember getting into in the first place. “What happened?” He quickly went to his kitchen and saw that the kettle wasn’t where he had left it last night when he had heated water for tea. There was no mug in the sink where there should have been two at least. He looked at the table where they had sat and there wasn’t a smudge on the surface where Isana had traced out something. And then it crashed over him, the reality of his situation. “A dream... it was only a dream,” he said with a sigh and leaned against the back of the couch that was the separator between his dinning room/kitchen and the living room. He sighed and rubbed the heel of his palm into his good and uncovered eye to rub sleep from it.



“Are you talking to yourself? You really have become rather pathetic,” a voice said from just below and behind him. Slowly the black haired man looked over one should and saw a very sleepy Colonel Ebba looking up at him with narrowed eyes. “I’m gonna have to do something to make you less of a girl...” she muttered and turned over so she didn’t have to look at him. “Now go and get ready for work or you’ll be late. I’ve still got to get a few things done before I can show my face again so don’t even mention that you saw anything that even looks remotely like me,” she told him, waving a hand limply in his direction in a dismissing fashion.



Despite himself he smiled. It wasn’t a dream at least and he could take comfort in that... and she had more to tell him, good news she had called it. “Alright then but will you be here when I get back?”



She sighed in a put-out way. “I don’t know.” The tone of her voice was rundown and tired. She had a lot on her mind, he could feel it in those three words, and she wasn’t ready to share what that was. But as he passed by the end of the couch on the way to the hall where his room and the bathroom was she grabbed his wrist and stared up at him with her piercing eyes. “I don’t say what I don’t mean, you know that right?”



He had no idea where she was going with that but he nodded anyway. “I know you don’t believe in false hope and lies. Your words always hold truth,” he confirmed slowly.



She stared him in the eye more intently. “Then believe me when I say that Edward Elric is alive,” she told him with every bit of her strength behind it. They stayed like that for a long moment. He was waiting for more, hoping that she would say more. She was trying to determine whether or not he really believed her. Two red colored eyes and one black stayed locked and neither moved for what felt like a lifetime compounded into only a few minutes.



When he pulled away it was because he realized he had to get ready. As he walked down the hallway he stopped for a second and said quietly, “It’s enough for now.”



He didn’t see the soft smile on her face, one that was somewhere between pitying and proud. But she turned over again and shut her eyes. When Mustang went to leave he was fully dressed and groomed for the day ahead of him and over one arm he carried a blanket that he threw over the “sleeping” young woman on his couch. He marched out his door and closed it quietly behind him, locking up from the outside, and paused in the hallway for a handful of second before turning on his heel and walking away with the confidence that everyone knew him for.



As soon as he was gone, Isana threw off the blanket and stood up. She went to the bathroom and took off the military issue black pants that were part of her uniform as a Covert Operations Division member. Her right leg was entirely wrapped in bandages that were red with blood. With a grimace she removed the gauze and cloth. From just above the ankle to the upper part of her thigh there was no skin at all. The epidermis and dermis were missing. She choked back a sob of pain and pressed a hand to her forehead. Taking a white sheet from Mustang’s closet she made a mental note to get him a new set as she began to rip it into strips. She wound them around her leg and when she was done and it was secure she pulled her pants back on, sat on the couch and put on her boots, the tails that were the sign of officers and the top coat. Her whole uniform was black and it lacked the designations of rank and accomplishment ribbons that the blue uniforms had.



Once her clothing was all in place she stood up and went to the kitchen’s window. She opened it up and looked down at the drop of five stories. Red eyes flitted back to the apartment for a moment, as if trying to remember if she had forgotten anything, and then she used her legs to launch herself out and away from the building. Grabbing a tree branch she used her momentum to swing around and up and used her feet to grab hold of a higher branch. Pulling her body up, she got up onto that one and stood up. Colonel Ebba looked back once more before using the tree limb as a spring board and leaping far away into a nearby park that was abandoned in the early morning.



(Scene)



It was a day for reminiscing, Brigadier General Mustang felt. He pulled out a book that Hughes had given him a few years back, when things had been better. He opened it up and there on the first page was a picture from his school days. He was only fourteen in the picture, next to a fifteen year old Maes Hughes with his arm around a fifteen year old Gracia Whitefield. On Roy’s other side was a ten year old girl who looked out of place. She had very long black hair, down to her feet with chin length bangs framing her face which looked similar to the boy’s next to her, and she had black eyes just like his too. They looked like they could have been siblings or cousins. ((You’ve really changed, Isana.)) He thought with a tinge of regret. He remembered when she had smiled easily, smiles that fully reached her eyes.



Pale long fingers turned the page of the album and loomed at a series of pictures. The four of them had been good friends all through the last three years at Central Academy. The pictures showed that over time the youngest of the group got closer to them by her position in the photos which had begun with Isana barely in the frame at all and looking timid, then standing closer and closer, with expressions increasingly moving towards truly happy, until she was in the middle of the group with her arms around her friends and a great infectious grin on her face.



Turning the page again he saw their graduation pictures with Isana held up on Maes’ and Roy’s shoulders between them and Gracia stood in front of them all. Maes held up two fingers with a lopsided smile, Roy held up three with a wry grin, Gracia held up four with her tongue out but still smiling and Isana held up one in triumph mouth open in joyous declaration. It had been their class rankings.



There was a smile as he looked to the next page, he and Isana and Maes all in full military dress uniform the day they had passed their year long officer’s training and were admitted truly as officers, Hughes as a First Lieutenant in the Intelligence Department, Mustang as a Major and the Flame Alchemist and Ebba as a Major and the Midnight Alchemist. Isana had been made to cut her hair and she had it exceptionally short but for her bangs which still framed her face and hung to her chin. Maes held up his papers in the picture as proof and the alchemists held up their watches. In the next picture, Gracia who had been missing from the previous one, stood crying and smiling as Maes slipped a ring on her finger from a kneeling position smiling up at her. The picture was taken slightly skewed because Isana and Roy had both been trying to get the picture but the next one they cooperated on and captured with perfect levelness the fiancés’ first kiss as future man and wife.



Page turned, there were two whole pages of pictures from the Hughes’ wedding. Everything had been perfect that day and Isana had even worn a dress without complaining and was pictured next to Gracia as her maid of honor, both looking like they hadn’t a care in the world. Roy and Maes, side by side, both in tuxedos and looking sharp were smirking into the camera for all they were worth. The actual ceremony was well documented including a perfect shot of the kiss and the newly weds leaving the chapel with Ebba and Mustang throwing rice and flower petals at the pair as they hurried towards an open top carriage waiting to take them to the reception. Dancing at the reception were next, Maes and Gracia and then Roy and Isana with Gracia and Maes pushing them towards one another and the pair rolling their eyes good naturedly. Maes mashing cake lightly into Gracia’s mouth and she doing the same to him a second later. The removal of the maid of honor’s garter, which had both Isana and Roy blushing like mad but laughing too, because Maes refused to throw one of Gracia’s garters. The throwing of the flowers of which the picture after was of Isana aghast and holding the bouquet in her hands as though it was going to kill her and Roy laughing much to hard for her liking.



The pictures after that had the group divided, there were pictures of Gracia with Maes and pictures of Isana and Roy but the group had essentially been split it two. Roy remembered that those were pictures of when he and the black haired young woman had been sent to Ishbal. There were pictures of the Hughes’ holding up signs, one word on each, to make a message: ‘MISSING’ ‘YOU’ ‘BOTH’ ‘STAY’ ‘SAFE’. The pictures of Roy and Isana were of them smiling but not really meaning it. They made them to send to reassure the married couple that they were alive. And then, Isana disappeared from the pictures altogether. It had been at that point that she had been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and put in the Covert Operations Division. She had been on the front lines from then on to just about the end of the war when she had been given the order to bring down Kimblee. Anytime after that when he had seen her, she had been different, her expression pained and her eyes somewhat hollow.



There was one last picture though of the Flame and Midnight Alchemists, it was them both standing in front of a ruined building, looking defeated and destroyed themselves. It had been taken right after Ishbal had been conquered and it was the only picture with the ears and tail that she sported ever since then. That was the last picture of Isana in the whole book and the pictures after with Roy and Maes and Gracia looked somewhat incomplete.



But the pictures went on without her. There were pictures of Roy, Maes and Gracia but there was worry in the faces of the couple and there was a certain haunted quality to Roy’s own expression. Then there were pictures with Mustang’s subordinates, Havoc and Hawkeye were the first to appear followed by Falman and then Breda and Fuery. Finally there were pictures of Edward Elric and Alphonse, even though Alphonse had never been an official part of his outfit. One couldn’t have Ed without Al, that was the way it was with the Elrics. And the Hughes’ with Elysia was a well represented block. Some were even taken in the office with the Colonel and his group and the happy parents and their offspring. Only one of those had the Elric brothers as well and that had to be one of Roy’s favorite pictures because Edward was holding the baby girl looking at her in wonder and Alphonse was rubbing one of her pudgy cheeks with his leathery glove very tenderly. Gracia was beaming in a way that she hadn’t since Isana’s drop out of the pictures and Maes looked so damned alive. Roy himself was smirking in a way that he knew meant he was truly happy.



There were pictures of all sorts of times in the office in the East City and then after the transfer back to Central. Lazy afternoons of cards while the First Lieutenant was off on an errand, the shenanigans that his office was well known for such as Breda flipping out over the presence of Black Hayate and Havoc looking glum as a secretary mooned over Mustang and Fuery trying to save a radio he was working on from a spill Falman accidentally made and Edward off on a triad because someone had called him short and Alphonse trying to hold him back from introducing the unfortunate individual’s face to automail. There was one of Al filled with cats, running from Black Hayate, as Edward lay sleeping on one of the couches after getting back from a particularly tiring mission, while Breda tried to become one with the ceiling, Havoc was half way out a window because he had been shoved towards it by a huge running suit of armor, Fuery was looking over his shoulder in bewilderment at Al, Falman was cowering before Hawkeye who was scowling and reaching for her sidearm. Another had the group gathered around the group of desks with Havoc, Fuery, Falman, Breda and Hawkeye sitting in their normal places, Fullmetal was taking up a spot to write out a report and Alphonse was sitting next to him scribbling out array ideas while the Colonel leaned over the elder Elric’s shoulder to see what he was writing and to make sure it was legible.



The ebon eyed man put the album down on his desk, leaned back in his chair and breathed out heavily. And then he realized something he had never seen before. He flipped it open to one of the pictures of Isana from the Ishbal War era of snap shots and then flipped forward to the later pictures in which Edward appeared, more specifically the ones where Ed first appeared and the ones right before he disappeared.



The man had to flip back and forth quite a bit and when he was done he hung his head in shame.



((Why didn’t I ever see it? It was right there all this time!))



He shook his head as if to try and deny what was staring him in the face.



((The same... they had the same look in their eyes. Isana, after she had stopped Kimblee was never the same again.))



He had assumed it was because of the things she had been ordered to do. It had never entered into Roy’s mind that she had preformed human transmutation until then and once the thought came it made sense out of so many things he knew it was true.



((She told me of her father, transmuting himself, and having seen the Gate then and gotten a certain amount of knowledge then... Isana told Gracia, Maes and me... Why didn’t she tell me about this?! I always thought that those ears had been done to her to make her more alert and the tail to give her better balance... Did she... do that to herself?!))



He slammed his fist down on his desk and that earned him the attention of everyone in the large room outside of the open doors to his own private office. Riza came to the door quickly but without looking rushed. “Sir, are you alright?” There was tangible concern in her voice and he couldn’t help but think it must have had something to do with the look on his face which he imagined probably looked pretty fearsome.



“Lieutenant Colonel Hawkeye, I’m quite sorry to do this but I’m afraid I must take off for the day. Something has come to my attention that I must take care of as quickly as I can,” he swept out of his chair resolutely in the manner that said he wouldn’t allow anyone to deter him. He rarely used that distinct air of authority but when he did everyone took notice and they did as they were told. Hawkeye snapped a salute to him and he tossed one off back to her as he passed her on his way out. “I promise to return as soon as this business is over with.”



(Scene)



When Brigadier General Roy Mustang pulled his car up to the cemetery parking lot he paused for a moment before getting out and locking up the vehicle. He strode quickly towards a spot he had been to few times but new by heart. When he got there he wasn’t disappointed. Colonel Isana Geli Ebba who was on her knees at the grave of Maes Hughes crying as she ran a hand over the name engraved in the headstone. “He.... was killed by Envy... My hiding out for the last year had less to do with hiding from the inquiries and more to do with wanting to find that bastard... I searched in places you wouldn’t even believe... and I still have yet to find him...”



The black haired male officer’s eyes filled with a knowing look. “Fullmetal... he blamed himself. He told me he was sorry in a letter I received days after he disappeared. He apologized for having killed Maes, Isana... He wasn’t even within a mile of him when it happened but he... he felt responsible,” he said to her in a whisper.



Tearful blood red eyes looked up at him. “Then we both failed... You failed Edward and I failed to avenge our friend... but I won’t just sit here and wait for it to magically fix itself... I rather try for the rest of my life to make this right than spend it like you’ve been for the last year. You’re not alive, Roy... And Maes would be angry with you for being so stupid.” She was angry but not at him. She was angry with herself. “Edward is still reachable. He is your chance to find what it is that we lost in Ishbal. Now are you gonna stay here, where you’ll never be able to fix yourself or are you going to come with me and make it right?”



He stared at the grave for a long stretch of time, the wind being the only sound between them, and then he turned around. “Where is it that we’re going?”



Mustang didn’t see the hopeful and watery smile on the young woman’s face as she stood up and followed him to his car.



(Scene)



There was a horrified but amazed expression on the Flame Alchemist’s face as he took in the sight that Isana had relayed to him, a city laying in a huge cavern complete abandoned. “The first city,” he whispered without even realizing it.



“Preserved and hidden for four hundred years beneath the very heart of Amestris, Welcome to Old Central...”



(To be continued in Chapter Three)