Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Walking into the common room that morning, Denki was met with a strange sight. Strange sights weren’t an uncommon thing to find in the dorms at eleven o’clock on a Sunday, but the subject of this strange sight was what made it noteworthy.

Midoriya was pacing like a puppy that couldn’t find its tail, clutching his phone closely to his chest. Every once in a while he would run excitedly to the TV, glance at his screen, and then amble away, muttering the whole time. Kouda, Shouji, and Tokoyami, who were lounging on the couches playing some sort of overly complicated card game, watched Midoriya like he was a curious zoo exhibition.

“What’s up with Midoriya?” Denki asked Uraraka who was observing her friend with clear concern.

“No idea,” Uraraka responded, equally confused. “He’s been like that all morning. Every time I ask he just lets out this high pitched squeal and starts saying things that I’m not really sure are words.”

“Ah, Midoriya must have read the recent Hero News article,” said Sero as he entered the common room, balancing a stack of books and papers in his arms. Ojirou and Satou trailed behind him nodding along in agreement before moving into the kitchen to carb up after their morning spar.

“What new article?” Aoyama asked from his place at the table, a wine glass filled with expensive grape juice balanced delicately between his fingers.

As if on cue, Hagakure came rushing out of the elevator, Mina at her heels, the rest of the girls following at a more subdued pace. “Guys, guys, guys, you won’t believe this!” she exclaimed excitedly. 

“Believe what?” Denki insisted, starting to feel rather annoyed that he seemed to be one of the few people in the dark.

In lieu of a verbal response, Hagakure rushed over to the TV and flipped to the Hero Network . As soon as she did, Midoriya squealed and rushed over to the TV, literally vaulting over the couch before settling on the edge, leaning so far forward he was practically falling off.

Denki moved closer in interest and was just in time to see the weather anchor pass over the baton to the news anchor.   

“Thank you, Tanaka-san. Now some of you who follow Hero News may have already heard but there is something big happening that could very well change the hero world as we know it. Without further ado, I’d like to hand it over to our reporter on the scene, Nakamura-san.”

“Thank you, Ito-san. As you can see I am currently standing in front of the Hero Public Safety Commission’s main headquarters and the steps are just packed right now. In a few minutes, the President of the HPSC will be coming out to give a statement.”

“For those of you who may not have yet heard, Amestris has recently undergone a change in administration after a revolution that overthrew the previous regime. Amestris has long been a great military power most known for its Staatliches Alchimisten Programm which has turned out many powerful quirk users such as Roy Mustang, better known as Flamme, and Edward Elric, better known as Vollmetall, who were both centrally involved in the revolution.”

“Grumman-Daisoutou has made the decision to abolish the Staatliches Alchimisten Programm and instead has started the formation of a Hero Association patterned after our very own. As a show of solidarity with Amestris’s new government and direction, the HPSC has partnered with them to set up an Agency within Japan where visiting heroes will reside and work and learn alongside Japan’s finest.”

“Isn’t this the first time something like this has happened?” asked Ito-san.

There was a slight delay as Nakamura-san listened to the transmission on her end before she was nodding along.

“Yes. While other countries have sent their heroes to visit Japan none have ever worked alongside the HPSC to set up an Agency within our borders and jurisdiction. Such direct cooperation between hero associations of different countries has never been seen before in Japan or anywhere else in the world, for that matter. This is truly a historic event that very well may change the way that we handle international diplomacy and open up doors for more cooperation between heroes of other nations.”

“Holy shit,” Denki breathed. No wonder Midoriya was excited. This was huge news. He may not be the most forward-thinking or clever student in Class 1A, but even he was able to grasp how momentous and historical this situation was. 

The closest thing to this that had ever happened before had been when All Might had travelled to America to partner with an Agency there to strengthen ties between them and Japan. Even then, that had been in his very early days when All Might had not been very well known and had been more of a glorified internship than anything else. What was happening right now was literally unprecedented.

Denki jumped as Tsuyu croaked beside him. He had been so focused on the news broadcast, he hadn’t even noticed her approach.

“This could be very good for Japan right now,” she mused, bringing a thoughtful finger to rest on her chin. “With All Might having stepped down, Japan is unstable. The police likely mean to use this as a show of strength to further deter villains both in and out of Japan from taking advantage- kero .”

Yaomomo was nodding along, equally thoughtful. “As much as Endeavor has been able to step into the role, he still isn’t quite at All Might’s level, and even with his recent rise in popularity, Japan is still feeling All Might’s loss. This could very well work to help restore public morale and trust in the Commission and heroes at large.”

The rest of the class, most of whom had wandered into the common room as the broadcast had started, were nodding along to her observation, a few murmuring among themselves.

“Well said, Yaoyorozu-san!” exclaimed Iida. “I truly look forward to seeing what may come of this cooperation! What do you think, Todoroki-kun?”

Denki turned to the back of the group where Todoroki was standing, arms crossed, watching the TV with a slight frown. As the son of the current Number One Hero, Todoroki likely had the best understanding of what was going on at the top politically. Denki was curious to hear his take on the situation.

“I think,” he started slowly, “that this could end either very well or in total disaster. Hero Society is in a delicate balance, right now, and while Hawks has shown his support for Endeavor and All Might has given his own endorsement, not all the top heroes have followed suit. Japan is in a precarious position at the moment and the last thing the HSPC needs is a scandal to come out of what is being presented as a foreign peace movement. And the Staatliche Alchimisten are mired in scandal.”

“Dude...I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say at once,” Kirishima said, watching Todoroki in wonder. He wasn’t the only one.

Todoroki noticed this and blinked at the room owlishly, and if Denki hadn’t know him better, he would have thought Todoroki was put-off by the attention.

“Nevertheless,” Iida butted in, “what Todoroki-kun said is correct. Thank you for your valuable insight!”

Todoroki nodded politely before turning back to the broadcast, the rest of the class following suit as the tone suddenly changed and the back-and-forth discussion was brought to a halt.

“I’ve just received word that the President of the HPSC has stepped out!” exclaimed Nakamura-san. “We will be switching over to our live broadcast.”

“Thank you, Nakamura-san,” said Ito-san. “Stay tuned after the announcement to hear from our studio guest, the Prediction Hero, Profiseye, and his thoughts on this venture, looking forward.”

The cameras switched and on the television stood the Hero Public Safety Commission President, Funabashi Chihiro. She was a rather private woman who, despite her position, rarely spoke with the media and had only made a few public appearances in her twenty years in office, including her own inauguration and her announcement of the new standings of the Hero Billboard Chart JP this year post-All Might’s retirement. To see her now was a testament to how momentous an occasion this truly was. Midoriya shifted so far off his seat he was practically on the floor and began to babble excitedly, but Denki was too far away to make out any actual words. He shook his head in wonder. Midoriya really was a hero-otaku.

President Funabashi Chihiro was a somber woman in her seventies who in the five times she has stepped out into the public eye since being elected to office has never once been captured smiling. She was dressed primly in a black blazer, her near-shoulder length white hair swept backwards. Much like her last several appearances, the only adornment she wore was a simple gold necklace. On either side of her stood a grim man with steel gray hair and a young foreign man who smiled politely at the cameras.

Funabashi Chihiro cleared her throat and addressed the crowd.

“People of Japan, thank you for all the support you have given to the Hero Public Safety Commission and our country’s brave heroes during these uncertain times. It is your generous support which has allowed us to continue to grow and prosper, despite the great losses we have so recently endured. It is with great honor that I announce that the Hero Public Safety Commission is working in conjunction with the Japanese Police Force and the newly-formed republic government of Amestris to establish a joint venture which will allow us to work more closely with pro heroes from other nations and further open ourselves to foreign cooperation. I stand here alongside the Commissioner General of the Police Force and it is our honor to invite up the Amestrian leader of the Hero Unity Movement and a veteran of the recent revolution, Alphonse Elric.”

There was a tinny round of applause from the gathered crowd and Midoriya was no longer the only one squealing as Mina and Hagakure squirmed and bounced towards the television to get a closer look.

“Oh my god, it’s Alphonse Elric! He’s really here!” Hagakure exclaimed. 

The young man who had been standing beside the president bowed politely, shaking hands with her and the Commissioner General. He was young, very young for someone who held such a prestigious position, and his smile could charm a bee into buying honey. He was primly dressed in a gray suit and a brown trenchcoat to stave off the cold. His hair was straw blonde and his eyes, from what Denki could make out, seemed to be some shade of gold.

“Oh my god, he’s even hotter in person,” Mina moaned excitedly to the combined horror of most of the boys in the class.

“You aren’t even seeing him in person, though…” Mineta pointed out. Several of the boys winced at his mistake as soon as the words left his mouth. Mina whipped around and fixed him with a glare that spoke of murder.

“Don’t you dare try to ruin this for me, Grape Juice.”

“Alright, alright!” Mineta ran to hide behind Denki, arms raised in defensive placation. Denki gave him a sympathetic look.

“Isn’t he in his twenties?” Hagakure wondered aloud, bringing their attention back to the broadcast.

“Google says twenty-one,” Jirou said from where she was wedged between Yaomomo and the arm of the couch, staring down at her phone screen. “His brother Edward is twenty-two.”

“That is rather young for someone holding such a position,” Yaomomo observed.

“They did say he was a veteran of the revolution,” Uraraka pointed out. “And his brother is Vollmetall.”

“Hero of the People,” added Tokoyami, almost as an afterthought. “What a mad banquet of darkness.”

Satou gave him a look. “You’ve been waiting all weekend to say that, haven’t you.”

Tokoyami shifted in his seat looking as guilty as a guy like Tokoyami ever could. “I will neither confirm nor deny the validity of that statement.”

Before the banter could continue, Mina was violently hushing them as Alphonse Elric cleared his voice to speak.

“Good morning ladies and gentlemen,” he began, his smile blinding and foreign accent leaving Mina and Hagakure sighing dreamily. “I would like to thank President Funabashi Chihiro-san and Commissioner General Yasumoto Kojiro-san for inviting me to speak today.”

There was much applause from the gathered crowd and Midoriya had joined in excitedly. But even as Denki watched this historical moment unfolding in front of him, there was something that had been bothering him since Alphonse Elric had introduced himself. With the suddenness of an electrical discharge, Denki finally understood what it was.

“He looks like Monoma in five years,” Denki blurted out unthinkingly. There was a tense pause as everyone digested his words before Mina suddenly slumped onto the floor with a load groan.

“Oh my god, you’re so right,” breathed Sero.

Tsuyu tilted her head to the side and hummed contemplatively. “I suppose you could see it if you look at him from a certain angle. He does have a similar hairstyle- kero. ”

“Oh my god, Kaminari, how could you ruin this for me!” Mina whined, pillowing her head in her hands in lament. “Augh! I can’t unsee it! You traitor!”

“Sorry, sorry…” he exclaimed, waving his hands and flushing in embarrassment. He had not  meant to say that out loud. Mineta and Sero were chuckling behind him and Jirou shot him a slightly mocking but very much amused eye roll from across the room.

“As the Amestrian representative of this venture and leader of the Hero Unity Project, it is my great honor to stand before you and announce the names of the heroes who will be coming to the newly-formed Green Dragon Hero Agency right here in Tokyo.”

The crowd silenced and the room held their breath, all eyes trained intently on the man at the podium.

“Heading this project will be none other than Roy Mustang, better known to many by his designation: Flamme.”

“Oh my god,” Mina squealed grabbing the shoulders of the nearest person and shaking them back and forth. Unfortunately for Kouda, that just so happened to be him.

“Alongside him, Falkenauge, Riza Hawkeye, and Vollmetall, Edward Elric, will also be overseeing the establishment of the agency.”

“Oh my god! ” Hagakure squealed as well and now poor Kouda had two excited girls rocking him back and forth like a tambourine.

“Flamme’s quirk is fire based which is an interesting choice considering the current number one hero is Endeavor who, of course, has a fire based quirk. Falkenauge’s quirk is a lot like Snipe-sensei’s. I wonder if the two of them went to a range, whose accuracy would be better? Vollmetall’s quirk is incredible! It’s like Yaoyorozu-san’s and Cementoss-sensei’s quirks combined though not quite as versatile as Yaoyorozu-san’s or with as much breadth as Cementoss-sensei’s though he probably has to know a lot about chemistry just like Yaoyorozu-san since his quirk works based off of the deconstruction and reconstruction of the non-living matter in his surroundings...”

“Breathe, Midoriya,” said Kirishima, patting the boy on the back.

Midoriya flushed, embarrassed. “Ah, sorry, it’s just interesting to speculate how their quirks will work alongside the current top pro-heroes’. They’ll be working together with them, and Flamme and Vollmetall are at least powerful enough to compare to Japan’s Top Five, maybe even stronger!”

As Midoriya started to speculate which Japanese heroes they would work best with, Alphonse Elric began to wax poetic about unity and peace and change. He had a good half the class’s rapt attention and Denki could even admit that the man had a way with words. After he finished, he handed the floor back to Funabashi who invited up the Commissioner General to give a few words before wrapping up the talk. As the broadcast wound down, the class began to talk among themselves and the camera switched back to the studio where Ito-san sat on a panel with the number fifty-six hero, Prophiseye as they discussed the announcement and its implications for Japan and hero society as a whole.

So intent were they in their discussions, they jumped a full foot when Aizawa suddenly appeared in the common room.

“As much as I appreciate you taking an interest in the recent happenings in the hero world, you all have a cooperation seminar with Class B in thirty minutes. Get dressed in your gym uniforms and be down here in twenty.”

“Yes Aizawa-sensei!” the class chorused.

A few, Mina included, let out disappointed groans. Denki was pretty sure he heard Mina cursing him under his breath, so he figured it would be safest to not get too close and avoid her until she forgave him. 

~o~O~o~

It had been many years since the last time he had been in Japan. Looking around at the milling crowds rushing to and from their gates, exhausted commuters huddled around charging stations, and children begging their parents for snacks from the nearby stalls, he was struck by how little this people had changed. On the surface, they looked different. Quirk manifestations were more visible now than they were on his last visit. However, the infrastructure of the airport and the way the people interacted with the world was very reminiscent of the past. He had been struck by the stark difference then, but it seemed the country had settled comfortably into its time of peace. He hoped and prayed that time would last.

Taking calm, measured strides, he observed his surroundings, drinking in every sight, every nuance. He was in no hurry to get where he needed to be and people fascinated him. Change fascinated him. As he trudged slowly through the bustling terminal, the world turned around him, a beautiful dance of life and color.

How he had missed being a part of it. Perhaps now he would have that chance.

“Excuse me. Excuse me, sir!”

He was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of a woman calling to him in English. Looking down, he realized suddenly that he had lost himself in his musings and had been standing in front of a service desk for the past several minutes. 

“Can I help you with something?” she asked.

Shaking his head to clear it, he smiled kindly at the woman. “Ah, my apologies. I seem to be a bit lost. I have never been to this airport before. Could you direct me to the train?”

It took him a moment to make sense of the woman’s surprised expression before he realized belatedly that she likely had not expected a clear foreigner to speak Japanese with a perfect accent. Mentally, he berated himself for the mistake. He had been so lost in thought recently that these slip-ups were becoming far too common. He would have to take better care with his actions.

The woman appeared to recover from her surprise rather quickly and smiled brightly at him, responding in Japanese.

“It’s just that way, past gate forty. There is an elevator that goes down to the baggage claim, and the commuter shuttle will take you to the train station.”

“Thank you very much,” he replied with a polite bow and a smile before walking off in the direction she had indicated. 

He stopped abruptly as a small child rushed past him, nearly bowling him over in his haste. The child’s frantic mother ran after him, pausing to smile self-consciously and utter apologies before catching up to her son and corralling him. As she got down on one knee to gently scold him, the boy crossed his arms stubbornly, squirming in place. A man approached from a nearby gate, carrying a little girl on his hip. He handed the girl over to the mother and kneeled down to place a hand on the boy’s shoulder and talk to him as the woman walked away with the girl to stand with their luggage. 

So transfixed had he been with the sight, he hadn’t even noticed he had stopped until an angry commuter glared at him as he bumped into him, speaking urgently into his phone. He forced himself to peel his eyes away from the sight of the small family, walking forward even as a deep pit of longing opened up in his stomach.

He had no luxury to spend time on what wasn’t and what could have been. He had come to Japan with a purpose and he needed to see it through.

With that, Van Hoenheim strode out of the station and into the bustling streets of Tokyo.

Chapter Text

Roy Mustang stepped out of the black limousine and promptly sucked in a deep breath of the acrid Tokyo air.

“Ah, I can smell the democracy,” he quipped. Riza gave him a stern look as she followed him out onto the sidewalk which was being manned by police keeping the frantic reporters away.

“You need to be careful what you say here, sir. We are representing the Führer.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” he replied, waving his hand airily. “I promise to be nothing but polite and diplomatic for the press, the very picture of Amestrian peace and diplomacy.”

He was satisfied to hear Riza’s annoyed sigh before their tour guide exited the vehicle and ushered them forward.

“Right this way, please,” she said. Roy did as directed, a spring in his step as he took in the colorful billboards and shining high-rises, Riza falling behind a step to shadow him. Cameras flashed and a dozen reporters all clamored for their attention, posing their questions in a cacophonous mix of Japanese, English, and Amestrian. Roy and Riza ignored them as they were well-used to doing and allowed themselves to be ushered to the steps.

“As you can see, the agency is centrally located. Four blocks away, you will find the beginning of Downtown Tokyo which has many great restaurants and places to shop. Your building is located between the Ninpo Dojo and Team Idaten. This building was mostly destroyed during a villain rampage three years ago and the renovations are very recently completed. You will be the first to occupy it since its re-opening.”

Roy nodded along politely as a bell boy held the glass doors open for him and Riza. Stepping out of the pre-winter chill, he found himself in the classiest-looking greeting hall he had seen since the Armstrong Manor. He couldn’t help but let out an appreciative whistle.

The ceilings were very high, as high as Central Command’s barracks were tall. A large, modern chandelier hung from the ceiling, light playing off the panes of intricately twisted metal and creating patterns across the walls. Directly ahead, a three-story waterfall emptied into a large pool, the Coat of Arms of Amestris projected onto the continuous stream in soft white light. The entire front of the building was covered wall-to-wall with four stories of window. Sails of green and white hung in intriguing patterns from a suspended wire structure adding an interesting design element while also preventing the place from turning into a greenhouse.

Two glass elevators ran up either side of the waterfall, the doors opening and closing as the Japanese staff of the agency hurried around the greeting hall some dressed in suits and talking hurriedly into their phones while others bore work clothes, carrying large boxes and furniture and disappearing around the corner, likely to the service elevator.

Roy turned a raised eyebrow over his shoulder at Riza who gave him a look that clearly told him to pay attention. Roy pouted but he did as directed. The flight over had put Riza in a bad mood and she really was no fun today.

The tour guide began to list the amenities in the building and which floors were reserved for them only and on which ones each department was located. She walked them over to a reception desk where they were met by a kindly woman with a fish-based mutant ability who handed them each a small leather portfolio with their IDs, room keys, and a map of the building with a more comprehensive list of the facilities and amenities.

As he perused the information in the colorful little pamphlet, Roy was taken aback by the sheer size of the place. The others who had been here before them had been so quiet about everything, insisting that he had to see it all for himself. They wouldn’t tell him a single thing except that it was more impressive than even the facilities at Briggs. Roy, who had been to Briggs a grand total of exactly one time and had spent the whole trip freezing his fingers off and being gloated on by General Armstrong, would have to agree.

A vicious smirk turned the corners of his lips. Oh, just wait until she heard about this place. She’d take back all her jabs about him ‘running away to slack off and play hero.’ He could practically feel her salivating over the facilities even as her pride would keep her from ever admitting to it.

Take that, ya old hag.

The tour guide directed his attention back to the present as she walked them past the reception desk and down one of the many hallways that branched off the main lobby.

“The elevators by the water fountain lead up to the business and marketing sectors. They do not have access to the living quarters or training facilities. The non-hero staff have their own gym which is separate from your own. A private elevator will take you up to your apartments and another one shall give you and your sidekicks access to the training grounds. The building is partitioned so that non-heroes cannot enter the restricted areas unless accompanied by an authorized pro like yourselves.”

The tour guide produced a card which she waved over a nondescript section of wall. Without warning, two of the black marble panels swung open to reveal a hidden elevator.

“This card will deactivate after I have shown you to your floor,” she explained. “You will be able to use your own ID’s to get in and out.” Roy and Riza glanced at each other before following her in. The doors closed silently behind them.

“Your apartments are located on the top floors. Since this is the tallest building for several blocks, the penthouse floor has a three hundred sixty degree view of the city. Up there you will find the ‘rooftop’ pool and hot tubs as well as an open bar which you can put in orders with the wait staff to have stocked with your personal drink preferences.”

“Does it come with a cute bartender, though?” Roy couldn’t help but quip. He could feel Riza’s glare burning holes into his back.

The tour guide looked taken aback for a second before seemingly deciding to take it for the joke it was but answer seriously anyway. “If you desire, you can authorize members of the wait staff to enter certain restricted areas, but they must undergo an extensive identity check before doing so, for the sake of security, and be accompanied by a resident or pro at all times.”

This place has stricter security regulations than Central Command, Roy thought. He glanced over at Riza and saw his own thoughts reflected in her eyes. 

With regulations like these, it’s like they expect an enemy attack at any moment.

Roy wondered if security was this tight in all hero agencies or if theirs was an exception due to the nature of their visit. Or perhaps the increased security measures were a result of the recent fall of All Might and the activity of the League of Villains.

They have a member who can shapeshift with just a drop of a person’s blood. If I recall correctly, she managed to abduct and replace a student at a prestigious hero school and sit for her Provisional Licence Exam without anyone noticing for days despite the fact that she couldn’t even use the girl’s quirk.

With that in mind, it really was no wonder the HPSC was doubling down on their security. And the last thing they needed was villains breaking into their hero agency and killing one of their people or holding them hostage. It would utterly destroy any chance of further diplomacy of this sort with other nations, not to mention causing the public to lose even more trust in them. The same trust they hoped this arrangement would help rebuild.

A part of Roy bitterly thought how helpful such measures would have been with Envy running around Amestris. In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if Envy was one of the reasons it was never even considered.

Can’t have the chattel catching on that they’re being prepped for the slaughter, can you?

When a light hand landed on his wrist, he realized he had been rubbing his thumb and forefinger together absently in a nervous tick that had re-emerged after the events of the Promised Day. He glanced over at Riza who was giving him a look of concern before shaking his head to clear his thoughts and consciously relaxed his hands.

“So, what sort of places are there to eat around here?” he asked the tour guide - She said her name was Saito-san...right? - hoping for a distraction from his ever-darkening thoughts. 

For the rest of the elevator ride, Roy and Riza listened to Saito wax poetic about the local eateries and he felt the tension slowly drain from his shoulders as he was brought out of his head. By the time Saito started listing the local ramen shops and which ones she found particularly good, Roy almost felt relaxed again.

Forty floors up and the elevator dinged, opening up to a bright and spacious entrance area and Roy had to blink several times, his brain not quite capable of processing what he was seeing.

“This is as far as I am allowed to go. Thank you very much for your patience and if you have any questions, you need only to give me a call. I will be back tomorrow at ten to give you a more comprehensive tour of the facilities so that you may stay now and rest from your flight.”

“Uh, thank you,” said Roy after Riza viciously elbowed him in the spine. “We’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“Yes. Please enjoy your stay.” Saito smiled and bowed before hitting the button for the lobby and leaving them to their own devices. It was several moments before Roy could do anything other than stare.

“I don’t think even the Armstrongs could dream of living in such luxury,” he said weakly.

The living quarters took modern luxury living to the highest level and then decided that wasn’t far enough and just kept going. The common room was two stories high. Two stories of glass windows with a breathtaking view of Tokyo. 

And this isn’t even the penthouse floor! his inner voice noted.

The floor and walls were tiled in dark marble and another waterfall - What is with the architect’s obsession with waterfalls?! - emptied into a pool, flowing into a series of streams which twisted around the room. The room was partitioned around the flow of the water, bamboo bridges granting access to each little island. The style was an intriguing combination of sleek modernity and traditional Japanese architecture. A rock garden twisted in and around the streams and a series of shoji doors led into the greater part of the room above a traditional-style wooden porch (The engawa, Roy’s inner voice provided. Well, the one that sounded disconcertingly like Falman and liked to pipe up with little tidbits of trivia he hadn’t even known his brain had stored away. The other ones were thankfully silent).

“Hawkeye, am I dreaming?” he wondered aloud. He received no response. Roy glanced over at Riza who was staring around the room appearing just as lost as Roy himself felt. Riza had grown up in even greater poverty than he had and with not quite the same level of imagination. This place was so completely out of the realm of her life experiences that her brain was likely having trouble processing it all.

Roy could certainly relate.

Roy forced his legs forward, wandering around the place a bit, eyes taking in every minute detail and committing it to memory. Walking over the stone walkways and bamboo bridges, he eventually made his way over to the engawa noting the slippers that waited for him and Riza. He slowly slipped off his own shoes and stepped onto the tatami, sliding into the kindly provided house shoes. He placed his street shoes into one of the cubbies off to the side and noted several pairs of shoes that were already tucked away. 

Seems we’re not the only ones here.

Sliding open the shoji doors, he was met with a far more modest and homely living area and he felt his shoulders slump in relief. He didn’t know how much more of the breathtaking opulence his mind could handle at the moment.

This part of the apartment, while still in-keeping with the nice blend of modern and traditional, more closely resembled a Japanese home. Tatami mats covered the floor and light shone in through rice paper windows and openings in the low ceiling. He could hear voices further inside and gravitated towards the sound.

The further in he walked, the more Western the architecture became until he was walking into a large, open living area with comfortable-looking leather couches and a couple desks and coffee tables that looked far closer to what he had expected to see when coming here. 

In the middle of the room, Ed stood on a ladder in loose sweats and a plain t-shirt, hair tied up in a loose ponytail, some stubborn strands having worked their way out to frame his face. He was wrestling with some wires in a control box near the ceiling, muttering curses all while Al - dressed to the nines as usual - watched on in concern.

“Bruder, please. Just let Feury take a look at it when he gets back.”

“I can do it, Al,” Ed insisted, cursing again as he stubbed a finger. “I’ve almost got it.”

“Bruder…” Al pleaded, despairingly.

“Ah ha!” Ed suddenly exclaimed. There was a small flash of blue light and then a mechanical whir and sleek black shades rolled down over the windows, reducing the light coming in from the windows by about ninety percent. “Told you I could do it.”

“Stubborn as ever, I see, Vollmetall.”

Ed yelped and nearly fell off the ladder as he whipped around in surprise. So focused had he been on his little project he hadn’t even noticed Roy enter. Roy inwardly smirked. He took pleasure in the fact that he could still keep the kid on his toes.

“What the hell, Mustang?!” Ed raged, stomping down the ladder and fixing Roy with a glare.

Roy turned his smile up to a thousand. “Good to see you, Vollmetall.”

“You are such a bastard,” Ed grumbled. The familiar insult was no longer as angry as it used to be. Roy could now hear the fondness that had slowly developed over the years of working together as genuine hatred had turned to grudging but deep respect and then an unexpected but close friendship.

Roy held out his arm and Ed’s own met his halfway as he smirked, clasping his forearm in a manner that showed his joy at Roy’s presence without pushing past the veneer of emotional distance they liked to keep up at all times.

Al had never had such reservations.

“Welcome, Roy!” he exclaimed, folding Roy into a bone-crushing hug. At some point over the course of the past five years, Al had surpassed him in height by a full half a foot and with his rigorous physical training, his body had filled out to match.

Al pulled away and moved over to Riza treating her to a similar embrace before stepping to take them both in, grin lighting up the room and squeezing Roy’s black, black heart.

“Ed has been asking after you every day! I refused to tell him when you’d be coming because I wanted him to be surprised, but he wouldn’t stop bugging me.”

“Al!” Ed yelled at his brother, cheeks flushing in embarrassment. “That is so not true! You take that back!”

“But it is, Bruder!” Al shot back cheerily, ignoring the way Ed had started pummeling his chest. Al was a brick wall and Ed would never truly hurt his brother so it was, of course, all for show. 

The sight brought an amused smile to Roy’s lips and he turned to see Riza’s own eyes twinkling mischievously.

“It’s been too long,” her eyes told him.

His own expression softened in return. It really has, he mused. It really has.

Before the bickering brothers could really get into it, a door on the far side of the common area opened and a man strode in, arms wide and grinning like the lunatic he was.

“Yo, Roy!” 

“Maes,” Roy breathed out through a light chuckle. “It’s good to see you.”

“You, too, buddy,” he said, bringing Roy into a firm hug.

Maes had changed over the past few months. Waking up from a year-long coma after nearly being murdered and finding your country had fallen apart when you weren’t looking would do that to you. He was publicly freer with his affection than he had ever been before and spent more time with Elicia and Gracia, dragging Roy and Riza and the Elric brothers over practically every night and insisting that they make dinner together. Watching Hughes act like a father to two twenty-something-year-old soldiers and teach them how to maintain a car, build a chair, and fix a sink by hand despite Ed’s insistence that they could just use their abilities to do it had been nothing short of utterly amusing. Gracia had taken many pictures to commemorate the events and Roy may or may not have a flash drive with a rather hefty dose of blackmail material stored somewhere in his apartment.

Also Roy may have spent the first few weeks that Maes was discharged from the hospital in a near-panic whenever he lost sight of his best friend and practically stalked him, convinced he would disappear the second he could no longer see him. But the only person who could confirm such a thing was Riza, and she would never tell.

Maes pulled away and greeted Riza before grabbing Roy’s hand and dragging him out of the living room.

“You guys have to see this place!” he chattered, gesturing animatedly as he described their surroundings. “The kitchen is huge and there’s a giant pool with a three-sixty degree view of the city. And you have to see the training facilities, Roy, you’d absolutely love them. You, too, Hawkeye. I swear Havoc has barely left the range.”

As Maes dragged the two around and introduced them to the place, Roy couldn’t help but feel at ease. He may be in a foreign land and things may be tense back home, but at least he was here with people he cared for and trusted. And after the fear and anxiety of the events of the revolution, he hadn’t realized how much he needed this.

However, even good things must come to an end some time and Roy could feel exhaustion hounding his every step. Pulling on Maes’s arm, he halted him and flashed him a weary smile.

“As much as I’d love to have you show me around the place, Hawkeye and I really need to rest.”

Maes blinked at them for a second before his surprise turned to realization.

“Right! Of course!” he chuckled. “You guys probably had a long flight. The tour will just have to wait for another time.”

“Thank you, Hughes,” Riza said, smiling softly. 

Maes chuckled again. “Of course. I already showed you where your rooms are so go! Rest up!”

Roy and Riza nodded and turned to do just that when Maes’s voice stopped them in their tracks.

“Oh, also.” The cheer from earlier was gone replaced by a grave stillness that brought them back down to Earth. “We have a meeting at ten tonight after the soirée to compare notes and discuss our strategy moving forward. Now that the last of us are here, we can’t afford to spend any more time waiting.”

And just like that, the giddy joy and excitement that they had worked up seeing the new place and reuniting with their friends came crashing down around them as they were reminded of the real reason they had come to Japan in the first place.

It was like getting sober for the first time after a five day bender and Roy had the rather unfortunate experience of knowing exactly how that felt.

“Of course,” Riza spoke for them both. “We will make sure to be there.”

“Good,” Maes smiled, but it was a grim smile that brought out the shadows lurking in his eyes. “Go, rest up. We’ll see you later.”

Roy nodded and Riza layed a gentle hand on his shoulder, steering him towards the sleeping quarters. 

Roy sighed as he stepped out of the shower and into his sleep clothes, sinking into the his new bed which had no business being as soft as it was. In a few hours he would have to sit down and relive some of the worst moments of his life in front of a group of strangers and near-strangers and face the reality of the darkness that loomed over the horizon. But for now, he would rest.

And rest he did.

Chapter Text

“Alright, that’s enough for today. Hit the showers.”

Izuku dropped his arms, chest heaving and muscles screaming. He wiped a limp palm across his sweaty forehead where his stubborn hair had started to stick and itch. He turned to Todoroki, who was sitting on the ground, back propped up against a large rock, and offered a hand. Todoroki clasped it gratefully and together they got him to his feet and stumbled on weary legs towards the showers.

“Man, Aizawa-sensei and Vlad-sensei were not fooling around today,” Kaminari moaned as he stripped out of his hero costume.

“Quit your damn whining,” Kacchan snapped, already making his way to the showers. “It’s your own fucking fault they worked you so hard.”

Unable to argue with the truth of that statement, Kaminari merely moaned and slumped onto a bench where an equally weary and sympathetic Awase patted his back consolingly.

“I think my bones are melting...” lamented an exhausted Mineta who had collapsed on the floor and seemed unwilling - or perhaps unable - to move.

“Midoriya-kun! Todoroki-kun!”

Iida came barreling towards them, his helmet held under his arm.

“The both of you were spectacular today! I think your teamwork greatly impressed Aizawa-sensei!”

Izuku flashed his friend a weary smile. “You and Kamakiri did really well, too! You had the third-fastest time!”

“Thank you!” Iida empationately exclaimed.

Aizawa-sensei and Vlad-sensei had been woefully unimpressed with their classes’ collective performance in their physical exams the past week. While some had of course performed spectacularly, the classes as a whole had done far more poorly than was considered satisfactory at this point in the year. As such, they had determined that their punishment would be to suffer in the name of physical improvement.

They had been forced to run an obstacle course from hell that Aizawa-sensei had cheerfully referred to as The Gauntlet. But that wasn’t the worst part, no. They had to do it quirkless and with a random partner that would be decided by lottery - boys with boys and girls with girls - and tied to each other at all times. The course was one that required both teamwork and rigorous physical exertion to make it through. When Izuku and Todoroki had drawn the same number, Aizawa-sensei had given them both a flat look and told them if they didn’t get the fastest time in the obstacle course by the end of the double period, they would be running the course with him that night until they did.

It was utterly unfair but Aizawa-sensei was still pissed about the Kamino Ward Incident. And the Hosu Incident. And how reckless they had been with their quirks during the Sports Festival. Also they were one of only three groups who’d ended up with someone in their own class who they were actually friends with and, on top of that, had both placed at the top of their classes during the fitness test.

Well thankfully for them, they did manage the fastest time, and they ran the obstacle course twice more than the second fastest group by the end of the period, to Kacchan’s unending anger and frustration. He had been paired with Shoda from Class B, who had placed near the bottom of his class during the fitness test, and no amount of screaming and sheer will to dominate the competition on Kacchan’s part would be able to make the boy’s limbs move faster than they were physically capable.

Kacchan wasn’t the only one left angry with the results. Monoma was huddled in the corner of the locker room, shucking off his hero costume while glaring at Izuku and Todoroki from across the room and muttering curses under his breath. Monoma had been paired with Tsuburaba and they had managed the second fastest time.

Iida went to remove his breast plate before noticing Todoroki struggling with the zipper of his hero uniform. While Todoroki likely had the simplest uniform to remove of them all, his hands had gotten caught between the rock wall and swinging log and he had gone through the last one and a half runs with bruised and screaming fingers.

“Todoroki-kun, your hands! Why didn’t you tell Aizawa-sensei? We must take you to see Recovery Girl!”

While Iida fussed over Todoroki who continued to insist it wasn’t that bad, honest, he just needed to run his hands under cold water for a few minutes, Izuku began the process of stripping out of his own uniform, starting with his gloves and shoes and moving onto his knee-pads and mouth guard. He had finally made it to his belt when he felt a light tap on his shoulder and jumped at the unexpected contact. Beside him stood Shouji who was watching him with a bland expression.

“Apologies for startling you, Midoriya.”

Izuku chuckled nervously and scratched the back of his neck. “No worries, Shouji-kun, just wasn’t paying attention is all.”

The boy nodded, before handing Izuku a small, blank envelope. “All Might-sensei asked me to give you this. He said to read it when you got back to the dorm.”

“A-ah thank you,” Izuku stuttered, taking the envelope in confusion. Why All Might would send a message through a classmate and a letter instead of texting him or taking him aside after class, Izuku didn’t know and the thought of what that might mean set his nerves alight.

Shouji nodded quietly and walked away leaving Izuku to shower and change quickly before he had to head back to class, the envelope burning a hole in his pocket the whole way.

~o~O~o~

Izuku looked down at the papers clutched in his hands, blinked, looked away, and then looked back again. Nope, it still didn’t make any more sense than it had the first time.

After Izuku’s last class had finished, he had rushed back to the dorms, locked the door and fished out the envelope, not knowing what to expect, but assuming the worst. But this...he had never expected this.

It was a shopping list. And an odd one at that. It had quite a few strange items, a couple of which Izuku hadn’t even heard of with oddly detailed descriptions of where to purchase each, handling instructions and what sort of price to expect interspersed with rambling personal anecdotes. It went on and on like that for three whole pages. It was signed in All Might’s civilian name with the date that he passed on One for All to him in the bottom right corner.

Izuku had never been more confused in his life.

Was All Might...sending him shopping? But that made no sense. As a student, Izuku was not allowed to leave the grounds without express permission from a teacher and if this was just a simple shopping list, why include his name and that specific date as well? Or all of the strange personal anecdotes? It didn’t make any sense and he sat on his bed staring at the note, willing it to tell him what All Might meant to say.

Ten minutes later, it still didn’t, and Izuku was left with a headache. He decided to take a break and grab a bite to eat, changing into more comfortable clothes, and stuffing the list into the pocket of his sweatpants to mull over later.

On his way into the kitchen, he ran into Sero, Ashido, and Tokoyami, who were huddled around a laptop and talking excitedly, their school bags lying about the floor and table haphazardly. Izuku didn’t give it a second thought before Sero noticed him and beckoned him over.

“Midoriya, you need to see this.”

“What’s up?” Izuku said, making his way over to the gathered trio.

What they appeared to be poring over was a forum post linking to an article from Hero News as well as several different YouTube videos and twitter links.

“What is it?”

“Dude, just read,” said Sero, pushing the laptop over to him.

Izuku glanced at Sero briefly before complying and leaning in to read the linked article’s title. 

“Tokyo: Heroes Flamme and Falkenauge Spotted Entering-”

Izuku’s brain short-circuited before he could even finish reading the title, grasping for the laptop, all thoughts of All Might’s strange letter completely banished.

“They’re here already?! But it’s only been a week and a half!”

Sero was nodding along as Izuku clicked through the links, bringing up a video taken from a cell phone of Flamme and Falkenauge exiting a black limousine and walking up the steps of a large office building situated between…

“Wait, is that Team Idaten? And the Ninpo Dojo?!” 

“Yeah,” said Sero with an excited smile of his own. “Turns out the Green Dragon Hero Agency is being set up in the old Tyber Force building. They’ve been renovating it for years and it looks like they’re going to be the first tennants.”

“This is so cool!” Izuku muttered, replaying the clip again and again, noting every miniscule movement from the moments Flamme and Falkenauge exited the limo to when they disappeared through the agency doors.

“How come I hadn’t heard of this yet?” Izuku mused.

“Their plane only landed a few hours ago,” Ashido joined in, bouncing excitedly herself.

“Their entrance was very public. On purpose, most likely,” added Tokoyami. “Some threads are saying they think they’ve been spotting Vollmetall in Tokyo as early as four days ago.”

Tokoyami held up his phone and showed Izuku a picture of a young blonde man in a red hoodie and black sunglasses ducking out of a sandwich shop, paper bag in hand. Two more images showed the same blonde at different times, in different clothing, shopping in a calligraphy store and then walking with a woman through a park.

“ Hero News still hasn’t confirmed whether or not Vollmetall is in Tokyo yet or not but the threads are pretty convincing.”

Izuku was nodding along, eyes wide and transfixed on the images. If they were all here by now, that meant…

“They’ll be doing public appearances soon,” Izuku said in excitement. “They’ll probably be hosting interviews and meet-and-greets to integrate themselves into the community. I wonder if they all speak Japanese or if it’s just Alphonse Elric who does? Amestris has been so isolated, I doubt a lot of people there even know English, but they did send them here in an official capacity, and it’s important that heroes can communicate with other pros and bystanders in a time of crisis…”

Izuku was pulled out of his rambling musings as the rest of the class poured into the common room, bags slung over their shoulders and complaining about their newest English assignment. As Sero and Ashido called more of them to the table to share the news, all thoughts of All Might’s strange letter fled Izuku’s mind.

~o~O~o~

Ah, there’s nothing quite like rubbing shoulders with high society, Roy thought, only half sarcastically.

Roy used to absolutely loathe these kinds of get-togethers. As a cadet in the Academy, Grumman had dragged him to quite a few to help him foster connections and show off his sponsored alchimist like a charming little circus monkey.

“You have to learn to treat it like a game,” Grumman had told him one day when he had complained. “You can learn a lot from these sorts of functions. Focus less on the glitz and glamor and more on what’s not being said. It’s not the same sorts of circles your family runs in, but similar rules apply. And I know they taught you well.”

He had come to accept these things as a necessity, then had even come to enjoy them, after a time. The food and wine were always good and dressing up and playing the room could be its own kind of entertainment. However, it took several years for Roy to get used to tamping down the urge of wanting to punch a superior officer when they made a sarcastic joke about his upbringing or the ‘low born dogs’ of Central or the ‘uneducated hics’ in the rural parts of Amestris. It was even worse after the War when all they wanted to talk about was how good Roy was at ‘killing those sand-fuckers’ and how proud of him they were for ‘giving ‘em what they were asking for.’

Roy remembered having to sit Ed down and having a similar sort of conversation back when he’d first gotten his certification. Ed didn’t care at all for the politics or the little tidbits of information that could be learned from these things and Roy highly doubted he would ever like them. But he still made an attempt to come and be on his best behavior so as not to damage Roy’s reputation, so Roy really couldn’t complain.

Exiting a black limousine for the second time that day, he thanked the driver, and surveyed his surroundings.

The soirée was being held at a formal banquet hall in the house of one of Japan’s elite. The place reminded him so much of the Armstrong Manor that he had to physically stop himself from frantically scanning the grounds for an imminent ambush by the black sheep of the family. He heard a low whistle from behind him and turned to see the same sorts of thoughts running through Havoc’s head. He’d had his own traumatizing experience at the Armstrongs’ estate.

Riza exited the limo behind them followed by Maes who shot Roy a conspiratorial smirk.

“Been a while since we’ve been to one of these things together,” he said, slinging an arm over Roy’s shoulders.

Roy sighed and shot his friend an unamused look. “You’ve always hated these sorts of things, too.”

“Yeah,” Maes conceded, shepherding Roy towards the entrance to the estate, “but that’s because it always reminds me of my parents dragging me to them as a kid and showing me off like a trophy and all the officers’ wives pinching my cheeks and trying to set me up with their daughters.”

“Your childhood must have sucked,” Roy said flatly, his voice practically dripping with insincerity. 

Maes chuckled and patted Roy on the back. “Well, now I have my own lovely wife and daughter to show off so it’s not so bad. Ah, I really miss them…”

Roy raised an eyebrow. “You trying to traumatize Elicia or something?”

“Are you kidding?” Maes looked almost offended. “Elicia loves these kinds of things! Says it’s like getting to be a princess for a day. Oh! Did I tell you about this one time when Elicia…”

As Maes went off, already deep into his own Elicia-and-Gracia-centered world, Roy glanced over his shoulder for help. Riza had her hand on Havoc’s arm and the two were smirking at him. Well, Havoc was smirking. Riza wasn’t smirking, but the mirth in her eyes was clear.

Traitors. He glared at them. They smiled harder. Roy turned around and let his eyes wander over the scenery instead.

(However, deep down he couldn’t help but enjoy Maes’s chatter, as annoying as it could be. There was a time not too long ago that he thought he’d never get to hear it again. Now, he treasured every moment of it, holding each of them close like a dragon guarding its hoard.)

As they approached the manor, Roy could see a couple heroes and celebrities milling about the garden, champagne glasses in hand. Waiters and waitresses in black suits walked around the chatting party guests, replacing drinks and serving hors d'oeuvres. The four walked together up the manor steps and Maes let his story trail off as he dropped his arm from Roy’s shoulder.

Maes fixed Roy with a serious look. “You ready?”

You sure you’re okay with this? Roy knew Maes wasn’t just referring to the evening party but rather, what was to happen afterwards.

“What kind of a question is that?”

As I’ll ever be.

Maes nodded once before smiling grimly and planting a firm hand between Roy’s shoulder blades.

“Alright, then; into the lion’s den with you,” he murmured under his breath.

Don’t worry, buddy. I’m here and I’ve got your back. Just like I promised.

Roy chuckled and allowed himself to be steered forward and into the world of pro heroes once and for all.

Chapter Text

Mustang was flirting with the President of the HPSC. Obviously. Outrageously. Edward wanted the ground to open up and swallow him right then and there please and thank you.

“She’s in her seventies. She’s married. With grandkids .” 

Al, because he was a bastard now, seemed to be enjoying his pain.

“I think I just saw her crack a smile. Do you think that’s her way of flirting back?”

Ed let out a loud groan. That’s it. Al was the worst. He’d spent far too much time around the bastard and now he was channeling him. Mustang had corrupted him. There was no hope.

Ed was disowning him. Could you disown your own brother? Ed didn’t know but he was certainly going to find out. Just as soon as the earth opened up again and he could crawl his way back to reality. A reality that didn’t include Mustang flirting with a lady who was old enough to be his own mother. Heck, she was old enough to be his grandmother.

Literally kill me right now.

“Ed! Al!”

Ed lifted his head just in time to dodge a back slap from an over-exuberant blond with large red wings.

“So glad you could make it! Was beginning to think you’d bail on us.”

Hawks was the Number Two Hero of Japan and the absolute bane of Ed’s existence. He once thought that Roy Mustang had been put on this Earth to serve no other purpose than to drive Ed to an early grave. Meeting Hawks was nearly enough for Ed to start taking back every rude thing he’d ever said to him over the years.

Nearly. Mustang was still a bastard.

“Hawks!” Al greeted with an equally blinding smile. “It’s good to see you again. How was Kyushu?” 

Ed’s angry muttering of, “It’s Vollmetall, to you, ya damn pigeon,” went completely ignored.

The two proceeded to make small talk, leaving Ed grumbling and tugging at the collar of his shirt. He hated formal functions, but even more, he hated the sort of two-faced elbow-rubbing that took place at them.

Al was great at it, a born diplomat. Ed, on the other hand, would gladly fight a horde of homunculi if it meant never having to attend one again.

He glanced over to where Al and Hawks were chatting and his scowl deepened. He didn’t like Hawks. The guy reminded him too much of Mustang, but not in any of the good ways. And since he was Ed’s age and at the top of the hero food chain, he seemed to have gotten it into his head to befriend the Elrics. He knew some people were just like that, Hughes being a perfect example. However, Ed couldn’t help but feel that Hawks’s intentions were anything but genuine. He had been overly familiar with them since day one and the way he seemed to gravitate towards them in a room rubbed him in all the wrong ways.

He’d leave Hawks to Al. He should probably go introduce himself to some of the other heroes milling about the place. Snagging a glass of champagne off the tray of a passing waiter, he chugged the bitter liquid with a grimace and shook his head. Time to socialize.

Sometimes Ed really, really hated his life.

~o~O~o~

“I apologize for my brother. He really doesn’t like formal functions,” Al said to Hawks with a politely awkward smile.

“No worries!” Hawks laughed, waving his hands emphatically. “I’ve been dealing with worse for years. There’s a lot of people in the hero industry that don’t like seeing a twenty-two-year-old in the Number Two position.”

Al liked Hawks. He was fun and witty and very good at what he did. But more so than that, the man was wickedly clever and very much a fan of the same kinds of mind games Al had grown to love.

He wants something from you. That had been the first observation Al had made the moment he met Hawks. Everything he does is contrived and calculated like a wily jester executing a clever ruse.

Al had been around Mustang long enough to recognize the type. He had watched and learned from the man and he knew how to spot the signs. Hawks was good. Very good. Without a doubt he had fooled many people into letting down their guard and revealing secrets they never intended to.

Al, however, was not like most people.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Al said with a concerned frown, catching a view of Mustang moving on to speak with Gang Orca - the Number Ten Hero - out of the corner of his eye. “It must be difficult being so successful at your age. If the elders in the hero world are anything like the officers in Amestris, I think I can understand the feeling.”

Hawks’s eyes twinkled with mirth and his lips curved into an easy smirk. “Alphonse Elric, Treibstein Alchimist and leader of the Hero Unity Project. I can imagine that’s made you quite a few enemies.”

“You have no idea,” Al lamented, falling easily into the veiled banter as though it were a second skin. “The Führer seems to trust me, but a lot of the top brass really hated the idea of putting me in charge of this. Said I hardly had the experience and felt the Fürher was playing favorites.”

Al dangled the little chunk of information between them and waited for Hawks to bite. 

“Just enough information to make it look like you’re opening up, but not enough to make them look deeper into the ‘Why?’ Let them think they’ve landed on something important and, when they take the bait, run with it.”

Hawks was very good, but he wasn’t as good as Mustang. Al caught the minute twitch of his right pinkie finger and the slight sharpening of his eyes as he latched onto Al’s words.

“The trick is to reveal enough sensitive information that they feel like they’ve gotten you, but never to reveal more than what could be inferred if they put enough time and thought into it. Information gathering is a give-and-take and you always want to take more than you give but leave the other party feeling like they came out on top.”

“Can’t imagine it was an easy decision after everything that went down,” said Hawks, smirk dropping into a sympathetic frown.

“It wasn’t,” Al revealed. “General Armstrong especially was against it. She’s never been very fond of Flamme or any Staatliche Alchimisten, for that matter. She thinks this whole thing is a waste of time.”

“If they see you as the weak link, they’ll try and take advantage of that. You let them think that you are and that they have. They’ll let their guard down enough around you that they’ll let things slip they wouldn’t otherwise, oversharing because they don’t expect you to put the pieces together in an attempt to further cement your trust.”

“General Armstrong,” Hawks mused. “Wasn’t she involved in the revolution?”

“She was,” said Al, nodding along. “She was never very fond of the previous Fürher’s administration and when she saw an opportunity, well, I’m sure you heard what happened. Honestly, it was a close race between Führer Grumman and General Armstrong for the Führer’s seat, but Führer Grumman has seniority and more connections so he was able to secure it.”

And with a calculated jolt of surprise and an embarrassed flush, Al looked down and wrung his hands nervously. “Ah! I probably shouldn’t be telling you all this…”

Hawks chuckled good-naturedly and laid a friendly hand on his shoulder. “No worries! I can keep a secret. My lips are sealed.”

Hawks mimed zipping his lips with his free hand before dropping his palm from Al’s shoulder.

Al chuckled nervously, but smiled all the same. “Ah, how embarrassing. I’ve been a bit overworked recently with...everything, so my mind’s a bit all-over-the-place. Though, I can’t imagine it’s been easy for you either, what with All Might’s retirement and all. Endeavor taking the Number One spot seems to have really rankled a lot of people.”

“And when they think they’ve gotten you, when they think you’re in the palm of their hand, you let them form their own conclusions, and then you let them talk. The ones who approach you and try to befriend you are typically the ones who chatter the most. And you wait, and you listen, and you pick out all the little bits that slip through.

“If they think you’re the weak link, you make yourself the strongest of them all.”

And Al waited. And he listened. And he offered the appropriate responses in the appropriate places with innocuous questions that wouldn’t trip Hawks’s suspicion and slowly but surely he began to gain a picture of the world he had entered.

You do seem like a good guy, under all of this, Al thought sadly. I think that under different circumstances, we really could have been friends.

~o~O~o~

The soirée was already in full swing by the time Roy met him. The former Number One Hero was tall and thin with a mane of wild golden hair and a suit that hung a bit off his bony shoulders. His eyes were sunken and ringed with dark bruises as though the man hadn’t slept in quite some time.

He probably hasn’t, Roy mused. Not with what’s been going on. He just lost one of his best friends.

Roy’s heart clenched in sympathy and he thanked his lucky stars once more that Maes had miraculously pulled through.

As All Might approached him, he gave Roy a weary but polite smile and extended his hand.

“Flamme,” Yagi greeted pleasantly. “It is good to finally meet you in person.”

“You as well,” said Roy, shaking the proffered hand, thankfully without the awkward combination of handshaking and bowing that had arisen in quite a few of his previous interactions that night. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“All good things, I hope,” Yagi joked lightly and Roy let out the same polite chuckle he had been making all night.

“Of course,” he replied.

Up close, it was clear that even if Yagi had lost most of his muscle mass, he had not lost any of his height. The man towered over Roy, even with his shoulders hunched as they were, and Roy couldn’t help but feel like he was in the presence of a giant.

“I met some of your men the other day,” Yagi continued. “The Elric Brothers in particular left quite an impression.”

Roy let out another polite chuckle. “They do tend to have that effect on people. I hope Vollmetall didn’t give you too much trouble,” he joked.

Even sunken as they were, Yagi’s eyes glittered when he gave a genuine smile. “Quite the contrary. He’s an incredibly intriguing young man. We had quite the engaging conversation.”

Roy doubted that. He doubted that so hard . But he got the impression that Yagi really did mean his words which either meant that Al had forced Ed to be on his best behavior, or Yagi had an incredibly high tolerance for sarcastic little shits. Considering he voluntarily worked with teenagers now despite his vast fortune ensuring he really didn’t need the job even after his retirement, he actually wouldn’t be surprised by the latter.

He’s gotta have the patience of a saint.

Roy remembered what Ed had been like as a teenager and he was so thankful those years were behind them.

“Speaking of conversations…” Smooth, Mustang. “I heard you were teaching at UA High School now. What’s that been like?”

Better to start of with light conversation and feel out the man’s comfort before moving on to harder topics. Roy had a long night ahead of him; it was best to ease into it.

~o~O~o~

Toshinori loved these sorts of functions. He had always been a people person and there was something magnetic about gathering a group of heroes together to share wine and companionship. He loved catching up with his coworkers who he hadn’t had the chance to meet with otherwise and learning about what was happening in all sectors of the hero industry from business and support to entertainment and costuming. This soirée in particular was being held at the Yaoyorozu Manor. Not an atypical place for a party of this kind being as the Yaoyorozu family owned nearly half of the support companies in Japan, but it had been years since he had been able to attend one in an official capacity.

It was a bit bittersweet, but exciting all the same. All Might may be retired, but Japan had not forgotten him and, as such, he still had a standing invitation to many of these events.

However, that was not the only thing that set this evening party apart from so many others.

Toshinori’s first impression of the man known as the Flammen Alchimist was conflicted. Before that week, he had only heard of him through stories and communications between Tsukauchi and the government of Amestris. He knew that the man was military and he knew that he had done terrible, terrible things in the name of national security. These facts were kept quiet from the general public of Japan for obvious reasons, but that didn’t mean that they didn’t happen nor that they didn’t matter.

When Toshinori had met the man’s subordinates, however, he had begun to form a picture of the man that was at-odds with that of a ruthless military commander.

A good man, he had found. A patriot who loves the people of his country with all of his being and has dedicated his life to serving them. A visionary who wants to change the shape of his country so that his people could live in peace. A respected leader who puts his own men before himself in every situation. A scientist, an intellect, a philanthropist. A man who has done terrible, terrible things and looks to atone for them by making sure nothing like what he participated in could ever happen again.

(A broken man who desperately seeks redemption while yet believing such impossible for himself.)

Roy Mustang was a man of contradictions. A man shaped by both tragedy and great success. A man whose only desire in life was to do right by his people.

Meeting him had been educational in and of itself. Up close, one could not tell he had a kill count several times larger than the League of Villains.

Roy Mustang looked young, even for a man of thirty. He had been the Elric brothers’ age when he had been sent off to war and had spent the rest of his years working his way up the ranks. He looked unlike the other Amestrians he had met, his features far more Eastern in appearance to the point that if he had merely passed Mustang on the street, he would not have assumed him a foreigner. 

But the one thing that stood out to Toshinori above all else were his eyes. They were not the eyes of a broken man, nor the eyes of a remorseless killer. They were the eyes of a man who looked forward, always moving, always planning, always three steps ahead of his enemies. They had the confidence of a man who had no time for regrets and a fire of life and determination that was oddly magnetic. These were eyes he knew well, eyes he saw every day in those around him and staring back at him in the mirror.

Roy Mustang had the eyes of a hero.

“You’ve killed so many,” he wanted to say, but didn’t. “How can one like you still have such eyes?”

They called him the Hero of Ishval but heroes don’t commit genocide. Heroes don’t burn women and children and wake up to do it again and again. Heroes don’t follow orders that lead to the deaths of tens of thousands, innocent and guilty alike.

The Flammen Alchimist was no hero. 

A rose by any other name is still a rose, Toshinori mused. A hero by any other name is still a hero. Or so one could gather. Ah, I seem to be getting oddly poetic in my old age. Is this really alright, sensei? Did we make the right decision, asking these men for help?

Shimura Nana could no longer answer him. He wondered if she would have had an answer even if she could. They would just have to wait and see.

~o~O~o~

Hawkeye was giving him a Look. She had gotten bolder with those since he had woken up. A part of him was happy that she was finally starting to act more familiar with him, but the other part despaired at getting mothered the way Roy always was. He was the mature one, dammit.

But nevertheless, Hawkeye was Not Pleased and was making her feelings clear. Sighing, Maes snagged another glass of champagne and made his way over.

Riza Hawkeye had always been an intriguing woman to him and not just because of her connection to his best friend. She was a woman who showed very little outward emotion and yet managed to convey her feelings perfectly at any one moment if she so desired. She was quiet and ever-vigilant, always placing herself in the most strategic position in a room. Maes had at first believed that to be a product of the war, but soon learned that while the war may have heightened those tendencies, they were not new. She dedicated herself to her tasks absolutely and was capable of a thoroughness and efficiency that was nearly inhuman in its perfection. And most of all, she had shown herself to be loyal, well-rounded, and absolutely dependable.

“Can I interest you in a drink?” Hawkeye gave the proffered glass an unimpressed look but accepted it anyway.

Maes internally cheered. That, at least, was a good sign.

“You were supposed to watch him,” she accused, eyes leaving him and zeroing in on where Roy was speaking with All Might.

Ah.

“Roy’s a big boy, Miss Hawkeye,” Maes said, taking a swig from his own glass. “He doesn’t need a babysitter.”

That infamous glare was back on him and, Yup, that’s still as terrifying as ever.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” her eyes read.

Maes swished the liquid in his glass around a bit, contemplating his next words. He knew where she was coming from and he knew very well why she was not pleased with him. And he knew his answer was only going to anger her more.

Sorry, Roy-boy.

He stilled his hand and downed the rest of his champagne before speaking. “He asked me to.”

Hawkeye raised an eyebrow. “He asked you to,” she repeated, voice utterly devoid of inflection in a manner that would send chills down the spine of a lesser man.

“He wanted to meet All Might on his own,” Maes continued, turning an eye towards his friend. “Said the man’d be more likely to slip if there wasn’t anyone around to distract him.”

Hawkeye’s glare deepened. “That’s exactly why he can’t be alone right now,” she snapped. 

“If these really aren’t people we can work with, it’s better we know now,” Maes defended. “Mustang knows better than anyone that a person’s public image can very easily hide who and what they really are. And, hell, after all the shit we just went through, I’m more than willing to agree with the paranoid bastard.”

All Might was a dangerous man. The civilians and pro heroes alike practically worshipped him and the villains were scared shitless. He was a powerful man not just because of his overwhelming strength, but also because of the loyalty and awe he inspired. Maes remembers how the general public of Amestris viewed King Bradley: a kind family man, a hero who protected them and smiled and kissed babies. And beneath it all, he had been a homunculus plotting to destroy the very nation he claimed to protect.

Maes didn’t typically like to think ill of people, but he was incredibly wary of anyone on a pedestal. Experience had taught him to tread lightly around such types.

Hawkeye watched her commander through narrowed eyes before her expression relaxed and she sighed in exasperated defeat.

“I really wish he wouldn’t constantly insist on using himself as bait,” Hawkeye murmured. 

Maes felt almost like he had just overheard something he shouldn’t have but knew that this was just one of Hawkeye’s ways of opening up. They both cared deeply for Roy and they both supported him in any way they could, but despite their connection and having fought side-by-side together, they had never really been friends. If there was anything Maes had noticed about Roy and his men after waking up, it was that they were somehow much closer, an even more cohesive unit, and that they were more open with each other. 

“Me neither,” Maes replied. “But I trust him.”

Roy was finally starting to realize what Maes had been trying to tell him for years and he couldn’t be more proud of him. Him or his men.

Speaking of which…

Maes scanned the room noting Al in deep conversation with the Number Two Hero Hawks, Ed chatting with the Number Five Hero Mirko (and by the look of their smirks, this was an alliance Japan may very well grow to regret), and Havoc surrounded by a group of well-known hero support engineers. Seemed everyone was doing well. 

Maes glanced down at his watch and noted the time. In about fifteen minutes he’d drag Roy away and get him and Hawkeye back to the Agency. He’d leave Al in charge of rallying the rest of the troops. Maes was not looking forward to this meeting at all, but it was unfortunately necessary. They really didn’t have any time to waste.

~o~O~o~

The two had been speaking in circles for the better half of the past ten or so minutes. Yagi had regaled him with tales of the struggles of teaching hormonal teenage heroes-in-training and Roy had met that with stories of his own Academy days, Master Hawkeye’s harsh teaching methods, and the struggles of wrangling his subordinates for joint training exercises. Not once had they brought up the elephant in the room and with the two of them alone, away from prying ears, there would be no better time.

“I have a question for you, All Might,” he said after the man had finished talking about how he had learned the importance and difficulty of understanding and balancing interpersonal class dynamics. “And I ask that you please answer me honestly.”

It’s now or never, he told himself. 

Roy closed off his expression entirely, leaving his face a blank, unreadable mask. “Does our being here make you uncomfortable?”

Do I make you uncomfortable? He didn’t ask. But he didn’t need to. The implication was clear.

To his credit, Yagi met his eyes squarely and did not flinch. 

He’s faced more evil men than you, Roy’s mind supplied. True monsters, not unlike those you yourself have fought. He isn’t afraid of you. Whether or not Roy found that reassuring or disconcerting, he did not know. Parsing out his conflicting feelings on this whole venture was for another time.

“I will be honest with you,” answered Yagi, voice measured, “not solely because you asked, but also because I have come to learn that honesty is imperative in such situations as we find ourselves.”

Yagi looked down and was silent for a moment as though choosing his next words carefully. He lifted his eyes to meet Roy’s once again before speaking. “I do not like this. I do not like the fact that we have invited foreign military agents to help fight our war. Not because I dislike the idea of seeking help, but rather because I do not agree with nor condone your methods.” At that, Yagi’s eyes hardened and Roy was suddenly very aware why villains cowered at the mere mention of the name of All Might.

“However, I understand the necessity of our union,” he said, eyes losing some of their edge, anger and disapproval bleeding away and leaving hopeful resignation. “I do believe that your knowledge and aid could help save lives. Discomfort is but a necessary symptom of growth. If we hope to keep people safe, we must not stay stagnant.”

Roy held Yagi’s intense gaze and he read the sincerity in every part of the man’s being.

He really means it, Roy thought, almost in awe. He holds nothing back. He really believes what he’s saying.

He knew Yagi had an incredible reputation, but he wasn’t sure he believed it. Couldn’t believe it until he’d met the man and seen him with his own eyes, not with his experiences, not with what had happened only months ago. But it seemed his fear was for naught. Yagi certainly wasn’t happy to be working with them, but he was willing to. And he was open and honest about his feelings on the matter without seeking a fight or hurling veiled barbs and accusations.

All Might was every bit the noble man his people painted him to be.

A part of Roy that had been prepared to curl up and lash out should their conversation take a turn for the worse, relaxed ever-so-slightly. Nowhere near enough to let his guard down (he never let his guard down), but enough to open himself up to the ever-so-slight possibility of this partnership not going to complete shit. Perhaps this really was a man they could work with. But, as with all things, only time would tell.

~o~O~o~

“You didn’t punch him,” Maes stage-whispered with a grin once the doors were closed and the car had started moving.

Roy shot him an annoyed glance. “Of course I didn’t. I told you I wouldn’t.”

“That you did,” Maes chuckled and pat him on the back with the air of someone who hadn’t believed him.

Not too long ago, he might have been more offended. As it was, he knew Maes now had good reason for his worry and he was forced to acknowledge that. Roy sighed and met Riza’s concerned eyes.

“You need to be more careful about these things, sir,” she said disapprovingly. 

“I’ve been doing better,” Roy defended himself. “It wasn’t like I was about to cause an international incident. I have better control than that.”

“A few months ago I would have believed you had better control than to punch a superior officer, and yet here we are,” Maes added, all humor gone.

Roy clenched his teeth, crossed his arms defensively, and glared.

“I’ve been seeing the damn shrink,” Roy bit out. “I told you: I’m better now. ”

He directed this at both his friends who were watching him with unreadable expressions. After a tense moment, Maes broke the silence with a sigh. He laid a hand on Roy’s back that he had half a mind to shrug off.

“We know you are, buddy,” he said. “And I can't speak for the others but I’m proud of you, you hear me? I know none of this has been easy for you and I know that I, however unwittingly, played a huge role in that.”

Roy immediately made to deny it, but Maes wouldn’t let him.

“I wasn’t there for you when you needed me the most and I will never - never - be able to make up for that, and don’t even try and tell me otherwise. Nothing will forgive the grief and pain I put you and Gracia and Elicia through. But I’m here for you now, wherever that may take us, and I still believe that you can lead Amestris into a brighter tomorrow. I’m with you, Roy, ‘till the end of the road.”

The intensity in Maes’s expression made Roy’s gut squirm uncomfortably and he glanced over to Riza to see her fixing him with a sincere gaze of her own. Her eyes softened when they met his and he felt his heart melt just a little in his chest.

“I swore an oath, sir, to follow you into hell if I had to,” she said. “If you asked me to make that oath again today, I would not hesitate to do so.”

Roy’s heart clenched and warmed at the intense show of support by the two most important people in his life. 

There were some days that he doubted he could ever make a change, that he could ever achieve his goals or (even slightly) right the wrongs of his past. But then there were days like these where he could look at his friends, his subordinates, those who followed him, and maybe just hope, if even only a little bit, that change was possible.

One day, one step at a time. They would change the shape of their country. And then, perhaps, he could rest.

But first, he had a job to do.

Chapter Text

They had a test in three days in Foundational Heroics on field first aid for rescue and emergency applications. There was a lot of information to cover, and Aizawa-sensei had warned the class he would be grading it rather harshly. Any student who failed to receive an A would have to undergo remedial study until they could repeat the lesson in their sleep. The information they were learning was just that important.

Iida had suggested they form a study group and had roped in Uraraka, Todoroki, Tsuyu, and Izuku. Izuku should be paying attention. Even without the threat of remedial classes, he knew how important it was to know this information like the back of his hand. Normally, he would have no problem throwing himself into studying, however he found his mind kept drifting back to the letter upstairs. He had texted All Might about the letter earlier and had received a simple positive yet cryptic message in reply that left Izuku wondering if this was supposed to be some sort of training exercise his mentor had devised. It wouldn’t be the first time All Might had presented him with an odd task.

But that wasn’t the only thing that had been tugging at his mind for the past several hours. The timing of the odd letter matched up quite conspicuously with some current events and Izuku’s mind had turned to those, spinning in circles, connecting dots that weren’t quite there and it left him with a headache and more questions than before.

Izuku sighed, tapping his pen, giving up on studying for the moment.

“You know, there’s something that’s been bugging me,” he said.

Todoroki paused in his own writing with an inquiring hum, eying him from beneath the fringe of his hair.

“Like the Hero Unity Project is amazing and all,” continued Izuku, “but why would the Amestrians come here?”

Finally the others had paused their own discussion and looked at him with varying shades of curiosity or mild annoyance.

“What do you mean?” asked Uraraka almost desperately. She seemed almost painfully eager to latch onto the first thing that wasn’t Iida’s militant manner of hammering information lovingly into the skulls of his classmates.

“Out of all the countries they could have partnered with,” Izuku began, words flowing freely as he began to articulate his thoughts, “why Japan? Our cultures are very different, our languages, too. Why not somewhere in Europe or even America? They have very similar hero systems but their cultures are far more similar. Doesn’t it seem odd to you that they’d partner with Japan of all countries?”

Uraraka’s eyes widened slightly as she considered his words, Tsuyu placed a hand under her chin with a thoughtful croak, and Iida looked five seconds away from reprimanding Izuku for breaking their concentration. Thankfully, Todoroki spoke up in time to save Izuku the lecture.

“Amestris hasn’t exactly had a stellar history, ever since its founding,” he said, looking down at his hands thoughtfully. “They’ve made a lot of enemies, especially in Europe, and a lot of those countries are close allies with the United States and Canada. Japan may have been the only country with a well-established hero system that was willing to work with them.”

Izuku thought that over a minute, weighing what he knew about the history of Amestris and its foregin relations against current events and his circuitous thoughts. It was true, what Todoroki was saying. Amestris didn’t exactly have a stellar history, decades worth of bad blood with neighboring countries due to a militant and expansionist mentality. Not unlike Japan’s own history, now that he thought of it, though it had been several centuries since last their nation attempted to conquer neighboring lands. Politically and historically, he could now see more similarities between Japan and Amestris than he had before and he hummed in acknowledgement.

“I guess that makes sense,” he said. “It still seems a bit strange to me. Do all of the Amestrian heroes even know how to speak Japanese, as isolated as they’ve been for so long?”

“You’re thinking too much, Izuku,” said Tsuyu, not unkindly. 

“Sorry,” said Izuku with a nervous chuckle. “You’re probably right. It’s just, with all the excitement and everything I didn’t think about it and then when I did, I couldn’t stop thinking and-“

Uraraka lightly tapped a rolled up paper on his head and his muttering halted.

“You’re doing it again,” she teased.

Izuku flushed slightly and looked away, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment. “Ah. S-sorry, I got a bit carried away...”

“That you did!” scolded Iida, his hands slicing down in an agitated chopping motion. “It is important that we remain focused while studying, Midoriya! This information is very important to learn if we are to become exemplary heroes!”

“Right, of course,” said Izuku apologetically. “I’m sorry, Iida, my thoughts just got a bit carried away. Where were we again?”

“Best methods for stabilizing a burn victim in the field,” Todoroki answered helpfully, gesturing to his own textbook to show the chapter and page.

“Right!” said Izuku, realizing with slight trepidation just how long he’d zoned out. He’d managed to miss a whole two sections.

“Do you need us to go back?” Tsuyu asked.

“No,” said Izuku, flipping to the proper page. “I’m good; sorry about that.”

Tsuyu just nodded in acceptance and the group turned back to their notes. However, his mind kept wandering even as Tsuyu’s quiet voice read through the section, and he couldn’t help but ponder over recent events and the conspicuous timing of the odd letter sitting in his room upstairs.

~o~O~o~

Van Hoenheim was a biochemist and researcher at Xerxes University. At twenty-six years of age, he had already completed his PhD and had moved on to greater and grander things.

During his youth, children had started developing powers and abilities in increasing numbers. No longer was it seen in only a small subset of the population, but it had rapidly grown from ten to fifteen percent within just Europe itself. The riots and violence and illusion of rule that the ‘blessed’ minority had imposed was shattering, and a more scientific approach was being taken to studying them. At the forefront of this charge was Van Hoenheim himself.

These abilities intrigued him, both as a man whose life was affected by them, as well as a scientist hungry for knowledge. The more time passed, the more people stopped looking to supernatural explanations for these phenomena and started to turn to universities to find a scientific basis for what people were then calling Mutations. But unlike many of his fellow researchers, Van Hoenheim was no longer interested in the ‘how’ so much as the ‘what’ they could teach them. The more he had observed them, the more he had noticed the drastic impact they had on the health and longevity of the possessors compared to the general population and the more he believed that, through studying Mutation manifestations, he could find a cure for the one ill that afflicted all Men equally from which there was yet no escape: old age.

It was not long after he started his research into the potential Mutations had for finding the key to eternal youth that he was approached by a scientist from Japan who had been conducting his own research on the matter and was deeply interested in his work. Sutoku Tennou was a research professor at Todai University in Tokyo, Japan who recognized the same potential in Mutations. They exchanged many correspondences spanning several years, comparing the data gathered from the research pools of their own countries, before Todai cut funding to the project. Hoenheim invited him to Xerxes to help him conduct their research in person. Sutoku agreed and thus began an academic exchange that would change the world.

They worked together for half a decade before Sutoku left for a time to pursue some leads abroad. He returned with a breakthrough that turned their research on its head. Realizing they had been approaching everything from the wrong angle, they applied what they had learned and, before long, the key to eternal life was within their grasp. Van Hoenheim could not control his excitement, but convincing the Board of Scholars for a university grant to fund the building project needed to power and conduct their experiment was another thing entirely. It took much cajoling and several promised favors, and the interest of several anonymous monetary backers, but eventually the project was green-lit and they were ready to test their process.

Later the tale of the fate of Xerxes University would be whispered among scientists and academics as the tale of Icarus was to the Greeks. Attempting to achieve immortality would only lead to one’s own demise. Humanity’s greed pays a price in human life.

But at the time, they were touted as geniuses and the world looked on as they prepared to unlock the secret to eternal life.

Van Hoenheim remembered little of that day. The events leading up to the Incident were one large blur of mundane tasks and excited anticipation. He remembers vaguely several of his colleagues coming to observe the first tests, Sutoku’s calm but eager explanations of the process, the few tweaks that were made to the system before it was ready to run, making sure the lab rats were fed and ready to go after they ran their first safety tests. 

One moment he was standing next to Sutoku preparing to start up the generator, the next there was a flash of red light, the wind picked up and nearly blew him off-balance before he was sinking, falling, falling.

When he had woken up, he had been in a bare white room, nothing as far as the eye could see. Suddenly, a figure detached itself from the blankness, a man-shaped form with neither eyes nor nose and a blank white face with a terrifying rictus grin. Hoenheim recoiled in horror only to be met with the sight of large black eyes with ringed irises twice as tall as his body twisting and blinking on the blank canvas of white sky, waving black tendrils rising up from the ground twisting, weaving, grabbing, pulling him further and further and further.

He saw his life flash before him. Every sorrow, every joy, every success, every mistake. His world was turning and turning and his mind was stretching and compressing, stretching and compressing, blood-curdling screams ripping from his twisting vocal cords. He felt as though every molecule in his body was being atomized and reformed over and over and over.

When he awoke, it was to a barren wasteland. At first, he believed nothing had changed, that he was back in the room with the terrifying being of infinite power whose smile was burned into his memory. However, he soon noticed the blue sky and the gray ground around him and the ruins of the outdoor generator they had built to power their machines. There was another body laying several feet away. Then another...and another.

Hoenheim scrambled to his elbows as reality set in and panic began to fill his system. Around him lay scattered the fallen forms of his colleagues, expressions twisted in pain and shock and eyes utterly blank. Scrambling backwards, heart beating in his throat, Hoenheim searched and searched and searched. A form shifted, long golden hair spilling over naked shoulders, and suddenly he was staring into a face that could have belonged to his twin.

“Huh,” the man had said, tilting his head to take in his surroundings. Hoenheim had sat utterly frozen as he stared at the being without comprehension.

The man cracked his neck, moved his fingers experimentally, lifting them up and twisting them around to observe them from different angles. The man slapped himself and let out a grunt of surprise when his hand connected. Soon shock and confusion turned to wonder and glee and the man rose to his feet and spun in circles.

“Oh my, this is nice,” he said in a voice that was Hoenheim’s but not. Deeper, for sure. And echoing, somehow. “I knew catching a ride on that flash was the right idea.”

And then shock danced across the face once again replaced by even greater glee. “Oh. I can talk now. Well, that’s new. How exciting!”

As Hoenheim watched this strange creature that was him but not, horror and dread pooled heavy in his gut.

What have we done…?

As the being continued to test his mobility by walking and stretching like a colt on newborn legs, Hoenheim heard a groan from beside him and Sutoku lifted himself off the ground, dusting off the debris that covered his clothes.

“What happened?” the man cursed in his native tongue, pulling his body up and looking around. That was when Hoenheim noticed that his research partner did not look quite the same as he had before. Certainly, he was recognizable as himself, but not the man that Hoenheim had met at the lab that morning. Rather, his appearance was far closer to what it had been when they had first begun correspondence as though he had merely shrugged a couple decades off his shoulders.

“Did it work?” Sutoku asked himself, looking down at his hands and lifting to his feet. He had yet to notice Hoenheim huddled beside the husk of the generator and seemed to lack any of the panic he would have expected after what had just transpired.

“I don’t see any lines…” he wondered aloud. “The skin looks much younger! I would need a mirror to tell for certain…”

The man stopped moving and blinked once as though noticing the others around him for the first time. Sutoku’s eyes passed over the bodies of their fallen colleagues with casual disinterest. As though he didn’t care about their deaths. As though he had expected them. Anticipated them even.

Planned them. He had been the one to invite them to watch, after all.

Sutoku suddenly froze, eyes trained on the being not ten meters away. “What is that?” he called out in horrified wonder. 

The being stopped dancing and turned to give Sutoku a considering look. “Are you the one who created the light bridge?” he asked, taking a step, then another, far more confident and steady than before. “If you are, I do have to thank you. Having a body is an incredible feeling.”

“A homunculus…” Sutoku breathed in wonder. “I’ve read about them but I never thought such was possible…”

It was then that Hoenheim’s sluggish, terrified mind began to piece things together and he realized suddenly how badly he had been duped.

“What did you do…?” 

Suddenly the eyes of both beings were upon him. One of a monster created through hubris and the other a monster in human skin.

“You’re alive,” Sutoku sounded surprised. But not in a manner that indicated displeasure. More the casual interest of a horse observing a fly. 

“You killed them,” Hoenheim said in growing horror. “You tricked me. This whole this...this whole time...I thought…”

“That we were working together?” Sutoku tossed out casually. “That we were searching for the answer to immortality? Because I never once lied to you, Hoenheim-senpai, that’s exactly what we were doing.”

Hoenheim felt sick as the honorific he had assumed was a sign of respect sounded so mocking and derisive from the mouth of this silver-tongued monster with the face of his friend.

“You were a useful tool, Hoenheim-senpai. A smart man, yet such an utter fool. If it means anything to you, I very much enjoyed working together. Most people are so dull and unintelligent. Speaking to you was almost like meeting an equal. I will miss our chats.”

The horror that had filled him bubbled up and Hoenheim bent over on the ground, emptying what little contents of his stomach remained. The homunculus made a noise that indicated interest in the man’s bodily functions. Hoenheim’s hand shook as he wiped his mouth, glaring up at the monster he had once called friend.

“How many,” he asked. “How many did you murder?”

(How many did we murder.)

Sutoku smiled pleasantly. “Well, you see…” suddenly he trailed off and a look of horror came over him. Hoenheim wondered what the man could possibly be phased by now when he heard it. Felt it in the core of his being. A tiny inkling of a sensation that grew like ants crawling under his skin growing stronger and stronger until finally, he could make out the sounds.

There were screams. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands of them. All wailing and moaning in agony, crying at the injustice, begging to be let out, to be freed.

Oh, please. No, it can’t be. No no no nonononono….

The screams grew louder and suddenly he was immersed in them, a sea of clawing red, tortured, twisted faces begging for their freedom, tendrils of red hands grabbing at his consciousness, pulling, pleading, crawling towards the surface.

In a panic, he ran from them and his awareness returned once more. He was back in the ruins of Xerxes University, the sky as blue as it had been a moment before. But he could still hear the screams, the wails of the hundreds of thousands of souls trapped within his body.

Sutoku was cursing and pacing angrily, but Hoenheim was too sick and horrified to wonder why.

“It’s everyone,” he said, voice wavering. “The entire country. You...you…”

“-so why can’t I hear them?! I knew I should’ve been more careful about the-”

Suddenly Sutoku’s angry mutterings were cut short and he rounded on Hoenheim with desperate, panicked eyes.

“What did you say?” His gaze was frantic, sweat beading at his brow and his hair mussed where his hands had run through it. 

“I can hear them,” Hoenheim continued in horrified shock. “They’re in agony. The entire country…”

The homunculus who had been quiet up to that point came over and butted in. “Ah, so that’s what that screaming was? I thought it was just the aftereffects of the River, but I guess that would explain it. It’s coming from the both of you as well.”

Sutoku looked down at his hands as though willing the answers to come. “If they’re there, though, why can’t I hear them…?”

“Maybe because you no longer have a connection to the Gate?” said the homunculus, considering them both. He pointed a finger at Hoenheim. “His connection is strong, but yours I can barely feel. Like a shadow of a memory. Ha! That was a nice one. Maybe I’ll start keeping a log…”

Sutoku observed him for a while, his eyes sharpening with predatory intent. Suddenly, black tendrils shot from his body glowing with patterns of red light, straighter and sharper than the ones that had pulled him through the nightmare landscape what felt like both a single moment and a lifetime ago, and Hoenheim felt them sink deep into his skin. There was a sharp, stabbing pain and a feeling like something was pulling, tugging and fighting to drag out the core of his very being. Suddenly, it stopped. Next to the pain of the wounds in his side, he could still hear the wailing of the souls of his kinsmen.

Sutoku cursed and the black tendrils retracted. A strange burning and itching sensation took over his side and then suddenly, there was nothing. Hoenheim scrambled to open his bloodstained shirt and saw…nothing. Nothing but pale, unmarred flesh. Not on his side where he had been stabbed, nor on his abdomen where he had burned himself falling onto hot coals as a child. In fact...Hoenheim began to roll up his sleeves and pant legs and searched frantically for the many nicks and scars that had mapped his skin like a catalogue of his past blunders only to find...nothing. Every injury he had ever received, ever mark they had ever left, had been utterly erased as though they had never been.

Several feet away, Sutoku was back to pacing and cursing. “-the stupid transfer limit. I knew it would just bite me in the back one day, but of all quirks to lose…”

“You should still have a very long life,” the homunculus said. “From what I can tell, the souls you host have stopped your aging and returned you to your youth. Without ability to access the Gate you won’t be able to regenerate, but as long as nothing injures you too badly, you’ll probably live forever. Or, well, until the energy in those souls run out. Whichever comes first.”

Sutoku rounded on the homunculus with a bewildered expression. “How do you know all of this? Weren’t you just created a few minutes ago?”

The homunculus seemed to take great offence at the statement. “Hey, I may have only just gained a body but I’ve been alive since the beginning of time, I’ll have you know. I know a hell of a lot more about how this stuff works than you do.”

But Sutoku was no longer listening. He was gazing at the horizon with a keen eye and tapping his finger distractedly. He turned to face Hoenheim with a face so alien to the friend he had grown to know and yet so similar it made him sick all over again.

“Well, our time was fun while it lasted, however little of it there was,” said Sutoku. “I honestly don’t care what you choose to do with your life but this little complication has botched my plans and now I have double the amount of work I did initially. So long, Hoenheim-senpai.”

With a mocking salute and an explosion of black liquid, Sutoku was gone leaving Hoenheim alone with the souls of his massacred countrymen and a disturbingly cheerful homunculus. 

Several years passed. Miles away from where Xerxes University once stood, Germany’s government fell to the might of its own military. The country was renamed Amestris and thus began a period of ruthless expansion that would shape the place his children would call home. But it would be years until then and Hoenheim traveled and wandered and eventually came to rest in a country town in the east of Amestris.

“As scientists, we want to look to the world and find an explanation for everything,” Hoenheim had told Pinako Rockbell once. “We believe that if we look hard enough, change our variables, broaden our research pool, narrow our focus, that everything we encounter we can eventually understand. We want - no, need it to all fit together neatly like a puzzle, to have it all make sense. But there are some things that are beyond human understanding or definition, powers that are not subjected to the limited constraints our science places on our ability to comprehend. The things I have seen...no scientific understanding could ever explain. Wherever these abilities come from, they are no creation of Earth or Man. They go beyond.”

“You believe there’s a god?” she had asked with a skeptical frown.

“Whether or not I believe one exists,” he had replied, “I can find no other explanation for the things I have seen. ‘ When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth .’ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He was a famous British writer and a physician before that. Scientific-minded man.”

Pinako had given a thoughtful harumph and took a long drag from her cigarillo as they lapsed into silence, seeking answers from the night sky that it could not provide.

“Sometimes I forget how old you are,” she had said, after a time. “And then other days I’m reminded that you’ve witnessed entire civilizations rise and fall. Sounds like a miserable existence.”

He had given a humorless chuckle after that. “Most days it feels like a curse. Other days, it’s not so bad. When we’re living in the present is when we experience the greatest joy. Scientists are always looking forward and, for me, the future holds only loneliness and despair.”

“The Curse of the Rational Thinker,” Pinako had joked, wryly. “That’s what my uncle always used to say. He never could stop once his mind had latched onto another problem to solve. Always looking forward, never looking around.”

“Your uncle was a good man.”

“He was. He was also a lonely man. Always searching, never settling. It’s no wonder you two got along so well.”

(No wonder, indeed.)

Chapter Text

Amestris: Central Command, Several Months Prior

He hadn’t meant it. By his life, he hadn’t meant it. As he stared in horror at Lieutenant General Archer’s stunned face, a hand raised to his mouth and nose, blood pouring out from between his fingers, Roy’s incredulous shock was replaced with a much more primal emotion: fear.

He could feel his muscles shaking, his body sluggishly responding to the commands of his racing mind.

What have you done? What have you done? What have you done?! Oh god you fucked up fucked up fuckedup-

All movement around them had ceased and all eyes were turned towards Roy and Archer in the middle of the room. Mouths hung open in utter shock and conversation halted, silence and rushing blood leaving his ears ringing.

Suddenly, all hell broke loose.

Several men were moving towards Roy, grabbing his arms, wrenching them behind his back, locking steel-fingered hands over his shoulders and forcing him to his knees. Several others rushed over to the Lieutenant General as the pain finally seemed to have broken through the shock and he was cursing up a storm, someone pressing a handkerchief against his nose while he was ushered towards a nearby chair.

And all Roy could do was stare as everything he had worked for since the day he returned from Ishval came crashing down around him.

~o~O~o~

It felt like years Roy had been sitting, hands cuffed behind his back and an MP standing in front of him at parade rest. He was still floating on the shock and high off fear and none of it actually seemed real.

He had attacked a superior officer.

Never mind that the man was a bastard. Never mind that he had been deliberately goading Roy the whole past month. Never mind that Roy had been forced to grin and bear it day after day.

The scariest part of it all is that Roy hadn’t even meant to hit him. Hadn’t even realized what he had done until it was finally over. Had just been standing there, Archer needling him like usual, trying to get a rise out of him. And then as he had been attempting to walk away, to clear his head and cool down, Archer had grabbed him by the bicep and said those words...

All of a sudden, Roy was back in the sewers below Central and he hadn’t even had time to process it before his body was moving ahead of his mind and his fist was stinging and knuckles bleeding after making contact with the bastard’s nose.

Grumman swept into his office, took one look at Roy, and sighed. He moved over to his desk and gestured to the MP. 

“Uncuff him,” he commanded. Casually, dispassionately. 

The MP looked surprised for all of a fraction of a millisecond before doing as ordered.

“Leave,” Grumman commanded once the MP was done. The man looked almost like he was about to protest before saluting and doing as told.

When the door closed behind him, it was just Roy and the Führer. Roy tried to not let it bring up unpleasant reminders of the last time he’d been brought to the Führer’s office under duress, but the memories were too close to the surface these days and Roy’s anxiety was steadily eating a hole through his sanity. 

“I deeply apologize, sir,” Roy said, heart pounding in his ears after Grumman hadn’t spoken for minutes, rummaging through papers in his drawers instead. “I honestly don’t know what came over me. I can make no excuses-”

“How have you been sleeping?” Grumman cut him off, seemingly ignoring his apology and not bothering to look up from his desk.

Roy was taken aback by the question and took a moment to answer. “I, um, well as I can be, I suppose-”

“And meals. Have you been eating well? Regularly?”

Roy was so thrown by the line of questioning he didn’t know what to do but answer honestly. Was this some sort of trap? Grumman’s expression was utterly inscrutable.

“I, um, I’ve been eating fine for the most part-”

“And what have you been doing outside work hours?”

“Sir, I’m sorry but I’m not entirely sure what this has to do with-”

“To the contrary. I believe it has everything to do with it.”

A strange uncomfortable silence hung between them and Roy felt distinctly like a small child being scolded by his teacher. Grumman and his son-in-law had more in common than the latter would have ever dared to admit. He was probably rolling in his grave at the moment just at Roy’s passing thought.

Not that Roy hadn’t given plenty more, far more terrible reasons for Master Hawkeye to be doing just that in the past decade.

“After you were discharged from the hospital,” Grumman began, shifting through the papers he had procured from his drawer and bringing Roy’s mind back to the present, “you were recommended two weeks of medical leave. Against the recommendations of your doctors, you returned to work two days later. Your check-in hours show that you have been working overtime practically every day since then, sometimes never leaving the office for several days on end, and when you do, it’s to visit Brigadier General Hughes in the hospital. For a man who loathes paperwork as much as you do, you have managed to not only catch up with your own work but take on others’ as well and have been deeply involving yourself in reconstruction projects despite the ridiculous time commitment.”

“Sir, with all due respect, there’s far too much work to be done with everything that happened. If I don’t-”

“If you don’t nothing,” Grumman cut him off harshly. He watched him from behind his spectacles, eyes as sharp and piercing as his granddaughter’s.

“I talked to you about this both during the Academy and after the War.”

Roy managed to keep himself from flinching at the mention of their discussion after Ishval, but only just barely.

“You have a tendency to overwork yourself or drown yourself in a bottle when you’re upset. And burnout is incredibly dangerous and all-too-real a phenomenon with consequences both to your health as well as to your work. You need to take a break.”

“Sir, I can’t just take a break. Not with all that’s going on. There’s too much to do and not enough people to do it and-”

“You were tortured, Roy.”

Roy’s breath caught and his face blanched at those words and the use of his first name. He could feel the still-healing scars in his hands screaming and the burns on his chest and back twinged in harmony.

Roy’s throat was dry and he had to clear it several times before he could speak.

“Sir, I...it wasn’t that big of a deal. I can do my job just fine-”

“Just like you did today?”

Roy was struck dumb. Dread curled deep in his gut and he could hear mocking laughter echo through his skull.

“It doesn’t matter if it was one year or one hour, no one ever walks away totally unaffected,” Grumman continued. “Torture is torture. War is war. Grief is grief. You have been under an inordinate amount of physical and psychological strain for the past several months and have not been sleeping or eating properly since Brigadier General Hughes was shot, from what your adjutant has told me. And before you ask, I was the one to approach her with my own concerns. I’ve been an incredibly busy man, but even I have seen you haven’t been yourself.”

There really wasn’t anything Roy could say to that. 

“I’m putting you on mandatory leave for a week.”

Roy’s brain ground to a halt and he almost couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“...leave, sir?” he asked, too thrown to even dare to hope.

“Lieutenant General Archer will be dropping all charges,” Grumman bulldozed on. “He was reminded today of the fact that the behavior he has been exhibiting is incredibly unbecoming of his rank and station and that he has enough skeletons in his closet that he likely wouldn’t want under the scrutiny of an official investigation.”

Roy was too stunned to say anything. This was not at all how he had expected this to go. He had expected a lecture, of course. Grumman had staked a lot on him, had put a lot of effort into mentoring him over the years, and for Roy to mess up so spectacularly only weeks after the man’s instatement as Führer reflected badly upon him. But he hadn’t expected this. 

“I’m...not being court-martialed?”

“Not yet. Unless you give me a reason to.”

“I...struck a superior officer,” he reminded him, as though Grumman could have forgotten why they were there in the first place. As though he had forgotten how grave a crime that was.

“And your circumstances would lead me to believe that you, at the time, believed you were acting in self-defense. Or am I not correct in assuming that you reacted as you did in response to a perceived threat from a memory that may have been a little too close to the surface?”

Roy’s deafening silence was confirmation in and of itself.

“Eyewitnesses testify to the fact that they saw Lieutenant General Archer grab you before you froze and struck him. Considering recent events, it is not unsurprising that you would react such a way to being handled in such a manner,” said Grumman. “Lieutenant General Archer was abusing his station and position in order to mistreat you and attempt to goad you into doing just what you did. It does not excuse your behavior, but, considering the extenuating circumstances, your actions will be forgiven just this once.”

“But, sir-”

“Think of it as a disciplinary leave,” the Führer continued. “After you return, you will approach Lieutenant General Archer with a formal apology and then return to your post. You will also be attending meetings with a military psychologist to learn to better control your anger and reactions.”

Roy’s face flushed at the humiliation both at his own loss of control as well as being treated like a misbehaving schoolboy. While this was certainly better than the alternative, it was a blatant reminder of the fact that he was so incompetent and emotionally compromised that Grumman felt the need to use blackmail to cover him. He felt small again, like the little boy he had once been, perched on his foster mother’s bar, legs swinging as Grumman pulled up a stool and taught him how to play chess. So many years had passed since then and Roy was far from that little boy who used to beg for stories and ply him for sweets, but at times like these, none of that mattered.

“If anyone so much as catches a glance of you within three hundred feet of Central Command in the next seven days, they have orders to apprehend you and bring you to Medical, is that understood, Major General?”

“...yes, sir.”

“Good. Dismissed.”

“Also,” Roy paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Make sure to rest. Go see a movie, take a walk in the park, go on a date with a nice girl, visit your family. Don’t just hole yourself up in your apartment with a bottle and brood.”

Roy nodded stiffly, throat too dry to answer, and closed the door softly behind him.

~o~O~o~

Green Dragon Hero Agency, Current Day

Roy had been strung like a wire since the Promised Day. After the dust had settled and his sight had been restored, his mind and body finally began to switch out of the survival mode it had been operating in over the past several months and Roy had not quite been able to cope. The amount of physical and psychological stress he had been put under since Maes had been shot had finally caught up to him and was making itself known. And unlike after Ishval, Roy didn’t have Maes or his foster family to catch him.

And, just like after Ishval, he did not know how to handle it.

His frustration, fear, and rage had all been so close to the surface since then; bubbling, boiling, clawing to be let out. He had tried to put a damper on it trough sheer force of will and stubborn determination but, eventually, his complete and utter lack of healthy coping habits finally caught up to him, culminating in the utter disaster that was him nearly destroying his career.

It had been months since then, but the feelings were still there and, in times like these, they would not leave him alone. Maes and Riza had been watching Roy like a hawk since then and Roy trusted himself little enough at the moment that he was more grateful than annoyed. Even if Maes’s brand of overprotectiveness could feel incredibly stifling.

“It’ll be fine.” Roy jumped as Maes laid a hand on his shoulder and gave him a reassuring look. “Old man’s pretty grumpy but the others won’t try and goad you. Tsukauchi has an ability that lets him disseminate truth from fallacy so he won’t try and catch you out.”

It wasn’t really what he was worried about, but he appreciated his friend’s attempt at comfort all the same. He didn’t shrug off Maes’s hand as he steered him through the winding halls of their agency.

As soon as Roy crossed the threshold, he knew he was in the investigations department. Not the one upstairs that dealt with general civilian crime and sent their reports through the office of the Commissioner General, but rather the one that dealt with the real threats to Japan’s security. 

The room was medium-sized and scattered with desks, monitors, filing cabinets, and stacks upon stacks of paperwork. Roy recognized several of the people milling about working the late shift as some of Maes’s most trusted men, and several others wore the uniform of Japan’s police force. Tsukauchi’s men, then.

Maes led him over to a conference table near the middle of the room, Maes’s men greeting them as they went, and pushed a couple buttons on the center console, a screen rolling out of the ceiling and a projector pinging to life.

“They’ll be here pretty soon,” Maes said. “I figured it’d be best to brief you and Hawkeye a bit before the meeting. We can start when she gets here.”

Roy nodded and watched as Maes tapped away at a tablet and brought up images and footage and a slide presentation that Sheska had probably put together. When he was almost finished, Hawkeye strode into the room and selected the most strategic position at the table before taking a seat.

Maes nodded at her, monkeyed with a couple more things on the touch screen, and brought up the presentation.

“Now you already know the basics,” Maes started, “but some of this footage is extremely classified and couldn’t be sent through even secure channels. I’m gonna go over a bit of the history as well as the recent events that you should be privy to. Tsukauchi will most likely go over a lot of this as well, but I’d rather you be prepared.”

Roy was nodding in appreciation and, with that, Maes was off. Slide after slide, image after image, video after video, and the brief excited high that had filled him earlier was beaten into the ground. His fists clenched under the table as he learned just what had been happening in the shadows of Japan and couldn’t help the sinking feeling that he’d be facing the Promised Day once again.

~o~O~o~

There was something absolutely incredible, almost surreal, about watching several larger-than-life personalities coalesce and interact and push into each other’s spaces. Differences stood out in sharp contrast and the clashing of personalities and ideals created an energy that was as oppressive as it was magnetic. Jean felt nervous energy thrum just underneath his skin at the grandeur of it all and it took all of his willpower to keep his body still and relaxed.

Yagi Toshinori was a tall man. Huge would’ve been the proper word to describe him in his old form: as tall and muscled as Major Armstrong and nearly as loud. However, despite his lack of muscle, he still utterly towered over most of the people in the room. He had seemed a bit uncomfortable in his skin at the soirée, but any nervousness or uncertainty he might have had then was utterly gone. A shadow of his old self he may be, but in body only. The man still had a presence that could command a room.

In contrast, Tsukauchi Naomasa was a plain man. His features were rather average and unassuming and yet, somehow, Jean was utterly attuned to the man’s presence. There was something about his quiet pleasantness that felt off-putting. Almost unnatural. For some reason, Jean got the impression that he was one of the more dangerous men in the room.

The third man on the Japanese side was one he had yet to meet, but had certainly heard of: Gran Torino, close friend of Yagi’s master who had great knowledge of the enemy. He was an incredibly small and old man and yet Jean had no doubt that Gran Torino could beat him into a pulp if he so chose. He was the only one in the room dressed in a hero costume which was a bit strange, but he supposed the old man was allowed his eccentricities.

On the Amestrian side they had Flammen Alchimist Roy Mustang, Falkenauge Riza Hawkeye, the Vollmetal and Treibstein Alchimisten, Edward and Alphonse Elric, and a man that many people had a tendency to underestimate and leader of the Amestrian investigation, Maes Hughes. All big presences, all magnetic personalities. Mustang was currently in a deep conversation with Hughes, Alphonse was catching up with Hawkeye, and Edward was lounging lazily, spinning himself back and forth on the conference chair.

He could see Gran Torino watching them suspiciously but gave no heed to it. He was used to the dirty looks thrown at anyone in Amestrian blue and knew his choice of profession would rankle some feathers. He had noticed that these heroes were especially wary of military types based off the polite-but-guarded reactions he had been receiving since coming to Japan. Civilians looked at him and saw a hero, but the heroes didn’t trust him. He didn’t envy his commander’s position at all.

Jean noticed Heymans and Fuery chatting in the corner and waved himself over.

“How was the party?” Fuery asked as Heymans rifled through a few papers on the table, a sandwich clutched in his other hand.

“Could’ve gone better,” said Jean, sliding in next to his team. “But overall not horrible. Got cornered by a bunch of support engineers near the end of it. Couldn’t stop gushing over my braces.”

Heymans snorted and Fuery flushed slightly. He had worked together with one of the nation’s top automail engineers to help manufacture them, after all. Fuery wasn’t really a self-conscious guy, but with enough unexpected praise, he tended to pink. It had been much worse when he had first enlisted and Heymans had made a game of it until Hawkeye had put her foot down. 

“Old guy’s been glaring at us all night,” said Heymans, voice wry and muffled through a bite of sandwich. “I get the feeling he’s not fond of the military.”

Jean couldn’t help but snort. No one was fond of the military, least of all any who served directly with or under Roy Mustang.

“Is this everyone?” Jean asked, looking around the room. 

Heymans wrapped up the rest of his sandwich, stowing it away for later, and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Pretty much,” he said. “Apparently very few people on the Japanese side know the full story. Something about total secrecy being necessary to protect people. The general populace may be aware of All For One’s existence now, but very few people know anything about the history.”

Jean hummed and considered the Japanese. Gran Torino, he knew, was a close friend of Yagi’s master, the previous holder of his power. Tsukauchi was Yagi’s in-man on the Force, and Yagi himself was the previous holder of some generational strength enhancement ability that had been passed down from All For One’s brother. He remembered some prophecy-level BS about it being the only power that could defeat All For One that the Japanese seemed to have bought into whole-heartedly.

The fact that despite all this, All Might’s successor wasn’t even present was painfully telling.

“The kid needs to be here,” Jean murmured to himself. Keeping him in the dark like this was dangerous and irresponsible. At best, it would handicap him against his enemies. At worst, it would get him and his loved ones killed. Sure, the kid was only sixteen, but so had been many of the boys who’d fought and died in the sands of Ishval, and keeping him in the dark right now when he had been placed on the League of Villains’ hit list was the furthest thing from a good idea. Not to mention the kid had recently gained his provisional license, so he was legally cleared to fight if the need arose.

He deserved to know exactly what the target on the back of his head meant.

It seemed Jean wasn’t the only one with this mentality as, after Hughes and Tsukauchi dismissed their men and the door closed and locked behind them, Edward rounded on the Japanese. “Is the kid not coming?” he directed towards Yagi. All conversation halted and a tense but awkward silence filled the room.

“Bringing him here so late would have been suspicious,” said Tsukauchi, saving Yagi from having to answer. “We will relay the important information to him later.”

Edward did not look happy to hear this and Jean knew that five years ago he would have argued the point further, but age and experience had taught him how to pick his battles and the hard look that had taken over the faces of the guys on the Japanese side said everything.

“This is...more people than I expected,” said Yagi, eyes scanning the gathered Amestrians and settling on Jean, Heymans, and Fuery. Jean felt himself tense under the scrutiny and his fingers twitched in anticipation of a fight.

Before the situation could turn sour, Mustang fixed Yagi with a hard look. “I trust all of my men implicitly. We’ve walked through hell together and came out on the other side. If they wanted to betray me, they had plenty of opportunities to do so. Anything you say to me, you can say to them.”

Jean felt a warm appreciation and pride fill him at those words and he glanced around and saw the others sit straighter, equally surprised but pleased by such a show of trust from their commander. They knew Mustang trusted them, but to hear him defend them so vehemently was incredibly validating all the same.

“They were included in the meeting roster,” said Hughes, eyeing Tsukauchi. 

“Of course,” said Tsukauchi. “With all that has been happening recently I had yet to have the chance to brief them fully. My apologies.”

Gran Torion and Yagi didn’t look overly quite happy with this statement, but seemed to accept it, the old man crossing his arms over his chest and Yagi bowing politely to them in apology.

“We’re still waiting on one more?” Hughes asked them and Tsukauchi nodded.

“He was not at the soirée as he had some business to attend to, so he’s coming on his own.”

Havoc had about a second to wonder who the last person could be before the door was swinging open and a short man with a mutant ability (or a very large white mouse), walked through the door. All Havoc could do was stare.

“Sorry I’m late!” piped up an overly cheerful voice. “There was a security issue that had to be handled and I couldn’t come until it was finished.”

“Of course,” said Hughes, like speaking with a large anthropomorphic rodent was completely normal. “Thank you for taking the time to join us, Principal Nezu.”

So this was the UA principal?! He thought Heymans had been pulling his leg when he said that UA was literally headed by a sentient mouse. He caught Heymans’ smirk out of the corner of his eye and if they weren’t in a meeting, he would have kicked him. 

The principal of UA High School ambled over to the conference table and slid into the raised chair Yagi had so thoughtfully provided.

“Well!” Nezu clapped his hands ( Paws? ) bringing everyone to attention. “Now that everyone’s here, we should probably start. I believe introductions are in order.”

This is going to be a long night.

~o~O~o~

The Amestrians were certainly intriguing, Sorahiko concluded. While he had been involved in the communications process between Amestris and Japan, he had been focused more on his own missions and hadn’t really had a chance to get acquainted. All he knew was what their reputation claimed and what Tsukauchi had told him.

“I’m not sure if they’re trustworthy,” Tsukauchi had confided. “But what I do know is that they at least believe they’re telling the truth. While I’m certain they’re withholding information, they have yet to lie.”

Which hadn’t been the most comforting thing to hear, but at least it was better than nothing. He knew their reputations, both the ones the general public of Japan was privy to as well as some of the darker aspects of their operations. 

Three of them were complicit in genocide. Six of them fought homunculi head on. Four of them met Vater face-to-face.

They were dangerous men, the lot of them, and even had Sorahiko not been the suspicious sort, like many heroes in Japan, he did not look all too favorably on those who would use their powers to aid the military.

Dogs of the military, indeed, Sorahiko observed the three Staatliche Alchimisten with narrowed eyes. They called their powerful quirk users ‘alchimisten’ and the government paid those who exited the Programm no small amount in compensation for their services.

People who ascribed to Stain’s ideology may see pro-heroes as government sell-outs and perpetuators of a vain and shallow industry, but at least they could say they haven’t gone to the same lengths the Staatliche Alchimisten had. Sorahiko was no fan of the sharkiness of the industry, but he understood its value and necessity and certainly held it above a system like the one the military had implemented in Amestris. They weren’t heroes, they were powerful human weapons and military researchers. The fact that they had been subjected to a puppeteering government with designs to destroy its own country in a bid for ultimate power did not at all excuse the actions they had taken and the choices they had made of their own free will.

“Since we are hosting, it’s only right that we begin,” the older of the two bespectacled Amestrians broke Sorahiko out of his musings. “I have met most of you already, however not all in such an official capacity. I am Brigadier General Maes Hughes, an investigations specialist in the Amestrian Military. I will be leading the investigation on the Amestrian side and will be the liaison between our agency and you.”

Sorahiko’s first impression of him was that he was incredibly clever and incredibly burdened. Hughes had been the one to handle the communications between Tsukauchi and the Amestrian investigations department. The man was sharp as a tack and had a quirk that allowed him to pick up clues from his surroundings that would stump even the most experienced detectives. He had recently survived an attempt on his life that had left him in an almost year-long coma after he had discovered the government’s plans for their country. Overall, Sorahiko saw his work as respectable, though his participation in the Ishvalan War left him wary of the man himself.

“Lieutenant Colonel Alphonse Elric,” said the taller of the two blond boys with a smile as bright as the sun itself. “Treibstein Alchimist der Kampfklasse and Amestrian leader of the Hero Unity Project. I shall be handling the diplomatic aspects of this mission and dealing directly with the HPSC, Commissioner General, and important members of hero industry and government. While I am cleared for combat, I will not be working in an official capacity; only during emergencies.”

He was the younger of the two Elric brothers, if Sorahiko recalled correctly, and the more politically involved. The boy was certainly kind, but a clear diplomat and politician at heart. He reminded him of Toshinori when he had been young, but with a grasp of disseminating character and political maneuvering that the man had never quite achieved despite his position in society.

“Major Edward Elric. Vollmetall Alchimist der Kampfklasse. I’ll be serving as one of the agency heads.”

The elder of the two brothers, and yet the lower in rank. Which was admittedly unsurprising considering the boy’s clear distaste for politics and endearing himself to those in authority. Sorahiko knew he was centrally involved in the revolution and had been the one to lay the final blow that had killed Vater, but knew little else of him besides that. Toshinori spoke highly of the boy’s wit and intelligence, but Toshinori also had an inexplicable fondness for that Bakugou Katsuki brat and had managed to stay somehow oblivious to the intense hatred Endeavor held for him.

“Captain Riza Hawkeye,” spoke the blonde woman with the severe expression, “Falkenauge, sniper and field specialist. I will be assisting Flamme and Vollmetall in the field and posing as one of this agency’s heads.”

Another veteran of their genocidal war who’d wracked up an impressive kill count of her own. Not as long as the Staatliche Alchimisten, but not for lack of trying, it would seem. Her skill was utterly impressive in its deadliness and she was not one to be trifled with. Sorahiko would be watching her closely.

“First Lieutenant Jean Havoc, sniper and weapons specialist. I’ll be assisting Flamme, Vollmetall, and Falkenauge in the field as the sidekick Maverick.”

“First Lieutenant Heymans Breda, investigation specialist. My field specialities are plain clothes operations and diplomacy. I’ll be working as a sidekick as well: designation Rook.”

“Warrant Officer Kain Fuery, communications specialist. I will be handling data acquisition, field communications, and information integration. My official designation is Quartermaster.”

A blond, a ginger, and a brunet. The backup, the spy, and the techie.

They were utter wildcards in Sorahiko’s book. He hadn’t known there would be more than Flamme, Falkenauge, Vollmetall, Treibsten, and Hughes at this meeting until they meandered in. He had heard that Flamme would be bringing a team of sidekicks of his own to aide him, but their names and identities had never been revealed to him and neither had the depth of their involvement in the case.

Sorahiko didn’t like it at all, especially since he hadn’t been warned, but Flamme’s trust in them was at least to be respected, if not seen as a red flag in and of itself. It was clear he valued the involvement and skills of his men, even these three who were so far below his rank, and Sorahiko was of the impression that even if they hadn’t been at the meeting, a detailed briefing of the situation would have still awaited them. 

If that were the case, Sorahiko would prefer they hear it from the horse’s mouth (so to speak). In this way he could be certain of what information they were privy to. He still did not appreciate the fact that he hadn’t been told.

He sent a calculated glance at Tsukauchi out of the corner of his eye. He trusted the man because Toshinori trusted the man and they really had no other choice. And Tsukauchi had, in the time he had known him, proven himself to be reliable. But they would certainly be having words later. He didn’t appreciate being left in the dark.

The final member of the Amestrian party, and the one Sorahiko was most wary of, leaned forward, resting his elbows on the conference table and folding his hands before his lips. “And I am Major General Roy Mustang,” he said, “Flammen Alchimist der Kampfklasse. I’ll be working in an official capacity as the pro hero Flamme and one of the Agency heads. I am the commanding officer of this operation and I answer directly to the Führer.”

A strict chain of command. Unlike their own investigation, their government was privy to the true nature of their operation and thus they represented the leader of their country and his wishes. The public may be under the illusion that Alphonse Elric had been made head of this venture, but those who were aware of the real purpose of their business in Japan knew the truth.

Sorahiko didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all. And he couldn’t stop the low scoff that escaped his throat at Flamme’s proclamation.

The tense air in the room was obvious. Stifling. In sheer numbers and firepower, the Amestrians overpowered them and Sorahiko was hyper-aware of every minute movement they made. He caught the eye of Falkenauge who watched him like a hawk. 

It was the older Elric brother who broke the silence with a loud scoff as he leaned back in his chair, hands clasped lazily behind his back. The action served to make his displeasure more known, like a lazy jungle cat stretching languidly before its prey.

“Look, we don’t wanna be here anymore than you want us here,” he said, not bothering to totally hide the bitter sarcasm in his tone. “We just got through our own national incident and trust me when I say I would much rather be home with my girlfriend.”

Hughes closed his eyes and let out a long-suffering sigh, the younger Elric spared him a reproving glare, and Flamme rubbed the bridge of his nose, a tick appearing in his brow.

“Bruder,” the younger boy hissed, the elder Elric’s sudden yelp and change in position suggesting he had just received a sharp kick under the table.

“But,” he bit out pointedly, glaring at his assailant, before turning back to face them, “we already saw what one iteration of All For One can do and we’ll do anything to ensure that what almost happened to Amestris doesn’t happen to Japan.”

“Apologies,” said Flamme, composed once more. “My subordinate’s tolerance is a bit low and sometimes even champagne can make him tetchy.”

“Hey-” the brat started, making to rise from his seat but another kick from his brother had him settling back in his chair with a sour glare.

Sorahiko’s eye twitched.

“Anyway!” said Nezu cheerfully, clapping his paws once again. “Now that that’s out of the way, I suppose we should introduce ourselves. I am Nezu, Principal of UA High School, and these are Yagi Toshinori, better known as the retired hero All Might and a teacher at my school; Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa of the Japanese Police Force; and Gran Torino, a good friend of All Might’s master and a man who has been battling All For One for most of his life.”

“Thank you very much,” Hughes replied, matching the principal’s cheer with that of his own. “Now that that’s out of the way, and before we start going over the official plans, I believe there were some questions you had for us?”

“Yes,” said Tsukauchi, speaking again for the first time since the introductions began. “I have some questions regarding your observations and dealings with the homunculi and a few things I had hoped to clear up, but first, there was something else I’d like to ask.”

With that, Tsukauchi leaned forward and fixed his unreadable gaze on Roy Mustang. 

“Why did you fight in the Ishval War?”

Chapter Text

“Why did you fight in the Ishval War?”

Ed felt as though he had been punched. He leaned forward in his seat and sent an apprehensive glance towards Mustang. Mustang never talked about the War. Never. The only reason Ed knew anything of their side was because Hawkeye and Hughes had opened up to him. But Mustang had always been tight-lipped on the matter, not even bothering to hide it with circuitous answers or well-crafted diversions.

Ed tamped down the familiar hot rush of anger that arose whenever the War was mentioned. It had been years since he had learned their side of the story and he had since let go of the hatred he had held for the man due to his War Hero status. But it didn’t mean he had left it all behind or that there weren’t still days where he looked at Mustang and saw his mother’s corpse.

He knew the man wasn’t at fault for that, that he already shouldered so much guilt as it was and adding to it for sins he hadn’t even committed was as unfair as it was counterproductive. But he had spent so many years hating him on principle that sometimes things slipped.

Al was quiet beside him, watching Mustang with concern. Hughes had tipped his head so that his eyes were no longer visible under the glare the projector light cast on his lenses, and Hawkeye watched Tsukauchi closely, expression so shuttered it was as though it had been chiseled from stone. 

“Excuse me?” Mustang asked, as though not sure if he had heard right.

“Why did you fight in the Ishval War?” the detective repeated without missing a beat.

Ed saw Mustang swallow before composing his face into a blank mask. “Did you want the State official reason? Upper Command’s actual plan? Or my personal one?”

“Why did you fight in the Ishval War?”

If that guy didn’t stop repeating himself like a broken record, Ed was gonna punch him, diplomacy be damned. And he was gonna do it with his right fist.

Mustang didn’t talk for a while. Ed had no idea what was running through the man’s mind. Was he weighing his options? Choosing his words? Ed tamped down a bit on the hot anger coursing through him and tried to look at the situation logically.

The detective had asked a question. Mustang had asked him to repeat it. After which he asked a clarifying question. The detective had not clarified.

Either the detective was attempting to put Mustang off-balance so that he revealed more than was asked - which, Ha! Good luck getting a trick like that to work on the bastard of all people. - or he was testing him, seeing how he would answer and making a judgment call based off that. Based off the reactions of the other Japanese, the question had been just as unexpected to them.

Except the mouse. I have no idea what he’s thinking. And what the heck is with that bastard detective’s poker face? I can’t get a read on him at all.

Mustang breathed out heavily through his nose and leaned back slightly in his chair. His gaze shifted to meet Hughes’s shadowed eyes before turning back to the detective.

“I’m not typically given to monologuing,” Mustang said, face blank of expression. “So I’ll keep this relatively short. When I was a kid, many of my greatest role models were soldiers. I saw them as heroes who protected Amestris and all of its people. When I got older and learned to harness my abilities, those ideals hadn’t changed. I joined the military because I thought it was the right thing to do, because I wanted to be like my childhood heroes, because if I had such strong abilities, wasn’t it my responsibility to use them to protect others? When Executive Order Number 3066 went out, all Staatliche Alchimisten der Kampfklasse were sent to the front lines. I was a soldier, I had orders, I did as I was told. It’s as simple as that.”

“But why did you continue to fight?” Tsukauchi asked, likely finally realizing there was no way he’d catch Mustang out. “After you realized what you had been ordered to do, why did you carry out those orders? And, after the War, why did you continue to serve the military when so many of your fellow Staatliche Alchimisten turned in their ranks and titles?”

“You mean why didn’t I commit suicide by firing squad?” Mustang asked with a bitter smile that didn’t reach his blank, dead eyes. “Or why didn’t I just take a pistol to my own head and blow my brains out over the sand? Or why didn’t I run away and try to pretend it didn’t happen and waste my days away drowning in my own guilt and self-pity until I finally had enough of it and ended my life?”

“All of the above,” replied Tsukauchi, utterly unperturbed.

Mustang was quiet for a moment, eyes shuttered, fingers steepled. It was clear from his posture that his mind was a thousand miles away. The silence in the room was so absolute that all Ed could hear was the frantic, angry beat of his own heart, and the blood rushing through his veins.

“If I hadn’t carried out my orders,” Mustang finally said, softly. “I would have been executed right there on the battlefield. Then another alchimist would have taken my place and nothing would have been different, except maybe the War would have lasted a little longer and more people who depended on me would have died. I asked someone in the desert why it was he continued to fight. He told me simply: he didn’t want to die.”

Ed spared a glance across the table at Hughes, who was very deliberately avoiding eye contact with the Japanese. If he remembered correctly, Hughes had once told him such before when he had asked why the man had continued to fight. 

“The reason is always simple,” Mustang continued, voice gaining back some of its strength and a mirthless, self-deprecating smile twisting the corner of his lips. “To be honest, I still don’t know why I did what I did, what my reasonings were for continuing on in the moment. But what I was thinking then is hardly important. What you really want to know is why I stayed. And the reason for that is also simple: I wanted to make sure that nothing like that could ever happen again.”

Ed had heard their plan from Hawkeye and even more from Hughes (he wouldn’t still be following the Major General if he hadn’t) but naturally there had been things they had omitted for the sake of propriety, specifically with regards to Mustang’s own personal reactions to the War and how deeply it had affected him. There had been plenty of things Ed had noticed over the years that had allowed him to draw his own picture of the situation. As someone who had experience with quite a few similar issues due to his own past, it wasn’t hard for Ed to spot the signs once he started looking. But that didn’t mean he had ever heard it from the man himself. Never so directly, at least. His typical silence was telling in and of itself.

To hear Mustang breaking that cardinal rule of his now was nothing short of disconcerting.

“I could save the world a thousand times over and it would never make up for what I’ve done,” Mustang leaned forward, voice dropping once again in sorrowful sincerity. “But that doesn’t mean running from it will make things any better. Whether or not my approach is more or less cowardly, I don’t know. My ideals are selfish; I recognize that. But if I simply run away and do nothing, I would have nothing left to live for.”

Ed swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. Mustang had never said it outright - neither had Hughes or Hawkeye - but Ed had been able to read between the lines. But deducing something based off of context clues and having someone come right out and say it were two very different things. 

The absolute silence that enveloped the room on both sides was proof that he wasn’t the only one feeling the weight of such a revelation. 

Tsukauchi finally cleared his throat, the sound so sudden and loud in the stifling quiet that several people flinched in surprise. “We appreciate your honesty, Flamme.”

Mustang leaned back slightly, fixing his sharp gaze upon the detective once more. “You know, there are better ways to conduct a character check.”

“I know,” said Tsukauchi, leaning back and letting his blank mask fall and a slight but unrepentant smile stretch across his face that Ed was just dying to punch. “But considering it’s the one thing that’s been on all our minds, I figured it would be best to get it out of the way first. Conversation flows easier when you shift the building off your shoulders.”

Mustang let out a short, bitter chuckle utterly devoid of humor. “You’re as bad as Hughes,” he chastised.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” continued Tsukauchi. “From what I’ve seen, Brigadier General Hughes is very good at his job.”

~o~O~o~

Toshinori knew that while Tsukauchi had asked the question for all their benefit, it had been for his most of all. That Toshinori needed to make sure he could trust them, that the people they were working with weren’t worse than the League of Villains, as their body count would suggest. It was the elephant in the room that no one wanted to discuss, least of all the Amestrians. Three of them had participated in that war ( Could a slaughter so one-sided really be called a ‘war’? ) yet it had been Flamme he had singled out. Not just because of his body count and status as a War Hero, but also because he was their leader, the representative of their new Führer within Japan. 

Tsukauchi wanted to know who exactly they were working with and whether or not he’d lie or deflect to make himself seem better. Judging by his longtime friend’s pointed choice of words and contemplative expression, Flamme had been nothing but truthful. 

Does that make it better or worse? he wondered. Are your actions less heinous if you perform them with a gun to your head? Or would the only proper course of action be to refuse, even if you’re as expendable and replaceable as a soldier on the battlefield? 

Though, not quite so. People of Flamme’s skill and abilities were one in fifty, even a hundred, million. He wasn’t as easily replaceable as a green boy recruited from the countryside. But based off the grave expressions he could see reflected back at him, if it really had come to that, his commanding officer would not have hesitated to pull the trigger.

A weapon is only as powerful as it is useful. Better dead than useless and better useless than serving the enemy. A turncoat as powerful as Flamme…

No. There was no way they would have let him live if he had refused to follow orders. 

And yet, powerful as he was, was there truly anyone who could tell him what to do? The others were perhaps not strong enough to fight back, but a man of Flamme’s power certainly could have.

And then what would you have him do? his inner voice scolded. Kill his own men? Kill Amestrian soldiers, every last one that was sent to apprehend him? Men and boys who were simply fulfilling their duty, the gun at the back of their heads just as heavy and cold?

Toshinori didn’t know. Before they had started this partnership, before he’d learned of Shigaraki Tomura’s true identity, he thought he understood the difference between good and evil. But in a world like the one the Amestrians came from, would they be heroes? Or merely lesser villains dancing to the tune of a greater evil? If so, what was the culpability of villains in their own world? Could it be argued, or was anyone who took part in villainous actions a villain no matter their motives or reasoning?

“The answer is always simple.”

The answer was never simple. Not anymore. He thought of the boy that had once been his master’s grandson (still was his master’s grandson, no matter what he had done) and all he could feel was sick.

You’re emotionally compromised, Toshi, his thoughts chided him in Sensei’s voice. Your lack of clarity will be your undoing.

Where once he had been confident in his actions and his purpose, he was now unmoored in a sea of uncertainty. Not only was he forced to challenge his own long-held ideals, but this man who had been complicit in such heinous evils was far more like him than he could have ever imagined.

“I joined the military because it was the right thing to do, because I wanted to be like my childhood heroes...wasn’t it my responsibility...to protect others?”

Having some of his own motives, some of his successor’s own motives, thrown back at him in such a manner was jarring. Even villains sometimes saw themselves as the heroes of their own story. But Flamme did not see himself as a hero. He had set out to become one and had turned into a monster.

(Or perhaps the real monsters were the ones who took advantage of such naive, starry-eyed, idealistic nobility and twisted it to their own ends.)

Sensei, what should I do?

As always, his only answer was the conflicted murmur of his own troubled thoughts.

~o~O~o~

Now with the continent-sized cat out of the bag, maybe we can actually get something done, Maes thought bitterly. 

He knew establishing trust was crucial and that the Japanese had been dancing on eggshells around them about the whole ‘Hero of Ishval leading this operation’ thing, but he hadn’t expected them to be brazen enough to bring it up to Roy’s face like that and force him into a corner. Tsukauchi had taken advantage of Roy’s exhaustion and lack of exposure to him to try and catch him off-balance, and Maes wasn’t having it.

Roy had been right, before. It was exactly something he himself would have done (and had done on more than one occasion), but that was with suspected criminals and political enemies, not allies come to lend a hand. He’d expected better of Tsukauchi. Especially considering the man knew how easy it would be for him to turn the game right back on him.

Well, if the Japanese were taking the kid gloves off, he was, too. If he was pissed at them for making him and his friends (his family ) have to relive memories of the War right then, well tough fucking break. They were big boys; they could deal. 

Maes forcefully pushed aside memories of the screams of his men and the smell of burning flesh, and cleared his throat of the smoke and grit that coated it, sharp gaze firmly fixed on Tsukauchi. “So from what you’ve told me, you’ve been tracking this man known to you as All For One for quite a number of decades. And, I have to ask, what progress have you actually managed to make in that time?”

That had been a slight bit ruder than he had intended, but it would have to do. What was that saying the Japanese had? About poking a sleeping dragon? Well, Maes wasn’t almost buried in a flag with one for nothing.

Sorry, not sorry.

The old man was glaring at him and Yagi’s jaw was gonna need to get scraped off the ground at the end of this meeting, but at least the principal looked amused. For a guy that was always chiding Ed about being more agreeable, he was really dropping the ball on this whole positive role model shtick. There was a reason Roy was the politician between them and Maes barely left Investigations; his big mouth had a tendency to get him in trouble. Even if he was clever enough to use it to his advantage.

“As you know,” Tsukauchi continued unphased, refusing to take the bait, “over a month ago, we apprehended him. He is currently secured in Tartarus-”

“Sitting pretty on his steel throne, getting three square meals a day, state-of-the-art medical attention, and the best babysitters your country has to offer. Did I miss anything?”

“ Hughes ,” said Roy, warningly. He went completely ignored. This was between Maes and the detective.

“No,” Tsukauchi replied, meeting his challenging gaze squarely.

“So basically you have him exactly where he wants to be,” Maes continued, never once breaking eye contact, “and he has you exactly where he wants you to be and it’s just a matter of time before this cosmic game of 3D chess he’s playing with your minds reveals itself, by which point hero society is basically doomed unless the Chosen One gets to him first. Which is honestly a big ‘if’ here since there have been, what, nine Chosen Ones? And not only is the Dark Lord still kicking, he’s got a successor now. Who’s doing a lot more to get the ball rolling than yours is, at the moment. Even if the old bastard kicks it, his brat won’t be going away anytime soon. Not unless you do something about it.”

He could feel Roy glaring at him from across the table but chose not to acknowledge it. Tsukauchi met his eyes squarely, the two engaging in an internal battle of wills. After a while, Tsukauchi, thankfully, conceded. 

“I apologize if my earlier interrogation brought up unpleasant memories,” Tsukauchi said, and finally. “My intention was not to cause offense, but it seems that I have.”

Like hell, it wasn’t, Maes’s mind parroted sarcastically. How’d you like it if we sat here and forced you to relive your deepest traumas ‘cause even trying to skirt past it is Not Okay when there’s a human lie detector in the room?

Maes got where the guy was coming from. He really did. But he wasn’t going to stand for his friends being treated in such a manner and he wasn’t going to let such a blatant breach of a pre-established agreement go just like that.

As such, Maes was just angry enough to be brutally honest. “It did,” he said, eyes hard. “And not just for the three of us who fought in it, either. I understand that you still feel you can’t trust us, especially considering our country’s bloody history, but I at least expect some common fucking decency, especially since we’re the ones going out of our way to help you . The cameras are off. There’s no need to dance around each other here and, frankly, in a situation like ours diplomacy’s just gonna get in the way. We need to work as a cohesive unit and, in order for that to happen, shit like you just pulled? Not gonna fly.”

“Understood,” Tsukauchi said with an apologetic bow. The old man was still glaring but at least it wasn’t quite so vitriolic. Maes still couldn’t get a read on the principal. Mice were so unlike humans in mannerisms and even a body language expert like him had trouble discerning what was behind that amused smile. Yagi finally managed to scrape his jaw off the floor and was watching Maes with an intensity that was almost unnerving. He chose to ignore it.

“We appreciate that you want to clear the air,” piped up Al, ever the diplomat, “and that you’re willing to hear us out. And we understand that our cultures are very different and that, as such, you have apprehensions. We will not deny any of the wrongs our country has committed nor that we have committed in the name of our country, nor will we lie to circumvent the truth. Hopefully, now that you have seen we are genuine in our promises, we may move forward with greater trust than when we began. We came here in good faith and we eagerly anticipate working peacefully together in this venture. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu. ” 

Al punctuated his last statement by standing up and bowing deeply over the conference table in a show of respect and gratitude. His kind words seemed to have appeased the Japanese and Gran Torino settled back and Yagi’s sharp gaze softened ever-so-slightly.

Bless you, Alphonse.

Maybe Maes shouldn’t have gone so far to prove a point, but he and Tsukauchi had talked about this. He had made it clear that abuse of his quirk for interrogation would not be tolerated. And while the detective may not have initially seen what he had done as crossing a line, he had very much done so. They were going to have to set clearer boundaries later or else there was little chance this collaboration would work out. Thankfully, though, Tsukauchi seemed to have gotten the message and Al once again proved why he was made the face of the Hero Unity Project.

“Okay, so now can we finally move on to the real reason we’re here?” asked Maes, voice sharp enough to convey that he still meant business but pleasant enough to keep from being too confrontational. “I believe you had a few more questions for us regarding our experiences with the homonculi.”

“Yes,” said Tsukachi, seeming just as eager to get the ball rolling as he was. The detective proceeded to dive into a line of questioning that was not so different from the one he had posed to Maes when they had first met.

What were the homonculi like? How much damage could they take before they could no longer regenerate? What were their quirks and how did they function? What specific strengths and weaknesses had they witnessed? What was the most effective way they had found to combat them? And on and on.

By the time the questioning had wrapped up, Roy had sent Fuery to collect some water bottles from the office fridge, and the whole atmosphere of the room had become far more relaxed despite the heavy subject matter. It was not long before Tsukauchi’s line of questioning was complete and it was their turn to pose some of their own.

“Have you had any updates yet on the search into Sutoku Tennou?” asked Roy.

“As you know,” Tsukauch said, nodding to Maes, “I’ve had some of my men looking into it and they were unable to find any records, digital or otherwise, that gave any indication that a man by the name of Sutoku Tennou - a rather pretentious choice of pseudonym, if I’ve ever heard one - was ever employed by or had any connection to Todai.”

It was an unfortunate fact, but one to be suspected considering how many years had passed and the careful and thorough nature of the man who had taken on the name. Maes hadn’t expected much, and truly the confirmation wasn’t entirely needed due to Hoenheim’s detailed notes drawing a detailed enough picture of the man for them to draw their own conclusions (they wouldn’t have enacted this venture if they hadn’t), but a confirmation would certainly be encouraging, and any records on their elusive target they could lay their hands on had the potential to contain a clue or tidbit that would draw them closer to identifying his proclivities, goals, patterns of behavior, and any potential allies. 

“However,” Tsukauchi said, and Maes’s ears, already well-attuned to the detective’s voice, perked up, “while all records of any individual with that name existing in the time period you provided have, unsurprisingly, been scrubbed clean, we had our agents go in person to investigate any potential paper trail. Nothing in their archives was of any help, but a janitor who is very familiar with many of the buildings on campus was able to direct our agent to a storage closet in the basement of one of the older wings of what is currently their Mechanical Engineering Department. 

“This storage closet contained a multitude of old junk that had accumulated over the years including two items of interest: an award to one Sutoku Tennou for excellence in research in the area of quirk biology and the second, a faculty board with Sutoku Tennou containing a picture of the man himself.”

Maes heart skipped a beat and his racing mind halted for all of a minute while the information sunk in before he let out a breath and his thoughts went haywire, excitement and anticipation and a clamoring jumble of theories and exclamations that he forcefully shoved down as he leaned forward in his chair. “And what have you learned from it?” Maes asked, meeting Tsukauchi’s eyes squarely.

“All Might and Gran Torino have both taken a look at the photograph and have confirmed precisely what you suspected and the notes of one Dr. Van Hoenheim have led us all to believe since the beginning,” the detective said with a mild but triumphant smile. “The man pictured on that faculty board, so named Sutoku Tennou, is identical in appearance to the one we know as All for One.”

Chapter Text

Heymans had a keen ability to psychoanalyze that had gotten him in trouble a lot, especially as a kid. His analyses were typically so spot-on that quite a few people he had met throughout the years were utterly convinced he was clairvoyant. Clairvoyant he was not, but people? People he got. Conversations were like chess and he was the chess-master. Within the span of meeting someone and exchanging a few words, he could already see what pieces they’d choose and what moves they’d make. 

Mustang had been the one exception to that, mostly because the guy was so contradictory that it was sometimes hard to tell the difference between the moves he was planning and the ones he’d actually execute. Until Heymans met Mustang, he’d never encountered someone whose chess he couldn’t predict. The excitement of the challenge it provided had drawn him in and the man’s loyalty and dedication to his people had kept him there.

The Japanese were interesting. Yagi was a simple man to read, but below the surface there were so many complicated tendrils. He was clearly conflicted about the whole venture and the morality of it was eating him from the inside. He was also grieving and that left him vulnerable to uncertainty and introspection. Not that the latter was bad, just that it could lead to him questioning his own choices and decisions and, depending on the situation, that could cause problems.

Tsukauchi was not so different from Hughes. His thought patterns were linear and straight-forward and his focus was always on results over method. He looked at the world then he ordered it and compartmentalized it into labeled boxes that made sense to him.  

Gran Torino was interesting. His distaste for them was utterly clear but he could also sense a strange undercurrent of respect. He was suspicious of pretty much everything but for some reason he trusted Yagi implicitly, the man if not his methods. But only Yagi. It had been interesting to note that he wasn’t totally comfortable with the other two. He was definitely a loner at heart, but he worked with the others out of necessity and there was an undercurrent of nostalgic loyalty that tied him to Yagi that likely stemmed from his friendship with the man’s master.

And then there was Nezu. Never in his life had Heymans met a person he couldn’t get even a glimmer of a read on but somehow, with this guy? Nothing. Trying to understand him was like staring at a bare chess board. There was just...nothing there . Heymans would be lying if he said that it didn’t disturb him. There were people that were hard to read, people that read one too many ways, but he had never encountered someone who he couldn’t read at all .

Heymans eyed Nezu as the meeting wrapped up and the principal approached the Major General and Brigadier General, taking them aside. He couldn’t help the unease that settled in his gut as the door closed behind them and he made his way to the residential elevator alongside Jean and Fuery. 

“What do you think?” asked Fuery in their native tongue as they approached the elevator, now well out of earshot. Heymans waited for the elevator to close behind them and begin its ascent before answering. 

“I think,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “that I don’t trust that rat as far as I can throw him.”

Jean cocked an eyebrow and shot him a wary look. “What makes you say that?”

“Just a hunch,” said Heymans. “I couldn’t get a read on him.”

It was disconcerting, really, how absent of anything the principal was to his senses and it made him wonder at it, what could be causing it and what it could mean. 

“Could it have to do with his ability?” Fuery queried.

His ability was called High Spec, he knew, and from the profile he’d read, it granted him a superhuman level of intelligence. Perhaps it was just that his thought process was so utterly complex that it read to Heymans as blankness, like how all the colors of the rainbow were combined to make white. But that didn’t seem right, either, and the thought of being unable to get so much as a whisper of a read on someone, let alone someone they would be working so closely with, left him uneasy. 

“It’s certainly a possibility,” said Heymans. “Even without that, though, the way he acts makes me nervous. My gut tells me he’s not quite what he makes himself out to be, and I definitely think we should keep a close eye on him.”

The elevator dinged and the three exited to their floor, noting the way the lights from surrounding buildings stood out starkly, almost elegantly in the night, sending starbursts across the sluggishly flowing water around the garden.

“I think I’m gonna turn in for the night,” said Jean with a yawn, heading over to the sink to grab himself a glass of water. “We’ve got that thing in the morning and the Brigadier General will probably wanna talk with us about the meeting today before that.”

“Party take a lot out of you?” Feury asked. 

Jean swirled the water around in his glass before throwing it back like a shot. “Not really my scene,” he said. “So many strong powered people in one place is kinda nerve-wracking.”

“Tell me about it,” said Feury, grabbing the milk from the fridge, and serving himself a glass. “That meeting was intense. I can’t even imagine what it’ll be like to be around more of them.”

While the other two talked, Heymans removed the sandwich he’d saved from inside his jacket and placed it in the fridge for later. 

“It’s not so bad,” said Heymans, taking the milk from Feury and serving himself. “Remember the Staatliches Alchimisten re-registration?”

Feury and Jean shuddered at the memory.

“You’re right,” said Jean, “that was definitely worse.”

The three drank and stood around the counter in silence, processing the events of that night, what they’d learned, and what, it seemed, was to come. None of them were enthusiastic to jump into another war, especially not one on foreign soil. But they had been there for the Promised Day and everything before, had seen the homunculi, feared for their lives and those of their fellow countrymen. They had almost lost everything and had nearly been too late in learning the truth to stop the worst from happening. 

It had nearly been too late for Amestris, but they’d managed to save themselves by the skin of their teeth. If their past struggles and the knowledge and experience they carried could help Japan from avoiding such a fate, they would do what they could to help. Even if it meant risking their lives once again. They were soldiers, after all. 

“You think we’re in over our heads?” Feury asked quietly.

“When aren’t we?” said Jean with a touch of sardonic humor. “We’re Team Mustang. We’ve always pulled off the impossible. How’s now gonna be any different?”

Heymans smirked and lifted his nearly empty glass. “I’ll drink to that.”

The others chuckled and the tension bled from Feury’s shoulders. Heymans met Jean’s gaze over the rim of his glass. He could read the uncertainty there, the hesitation and fear. But below that, he was thrumming with energy, a nervous excitement to be back in the field, to prove himself useful, to throw himself into a noble cause, play the hero once again. And he read confidence, Jean’s confidence in his own skill as well as that in his team and friends. Team Mustang always had dealt with the impossible: insurmountable obstacle after insurmountable obstacle, clusterfuck after clusterfuck. And even after all that, they still always managed to make it out on the other side. It’s why they’d been formed in the first place. Dealing with the impossible was what they were good at, and they were here in Japan to do their jobs once again.

Jean broke their gaze to turn back to the sink and filled his own glass with water, before bringing it up in a cheeky salute.

“To the toughest sons of bitches I’ve ever had the pleasure of serving with,” said Jean with a smirk. 

“To the biggest band of idiots out there,” said Heymans in agreement, “too dumb to stay away from the fight, and too damn stubborn not to end it.”

“Hear, hear,” said Feury raising his own glass. 

They brought them together with a clink and downed their drinks as one, Heymans’s chest filling with pride towards the men he served beside both present and absent. 

“I wish Falman was here,” Feury said with a mournful sigh. 

“Maybe if you ask nicely, he’ll knock down an icicle in your honor,” Heymans joked causing the others to snort.

“Man’s living his best life,” said Jean. “Freezing his nuts off and getting yelled at by General Armstrong. I give him another month before he’s begging for a transfer.”

“Not that he’ll ever get one,” said Heymans. “General Armstrong’s pretty damn determined to hold onto him.”

“He never did like being in the thick of it, though,” said Feury. “He’d hate it over here. Too much press and attention and powered people around every corner. It’s just an anxiety attack waiting to happen.”

“It’s probably for the best,” Heymans agreed, polishing off his glass before loading up the dishwasher. “Well, I’ll see you all in the morning,” he said with a casual salute.

The three bid their goodnights and headed off to their respective quarters, Heymans wondering all the while what kind of new excitement the next morning would bring. He’d hardly had a dull day since the Major General first approached him for that first game of chess, and he was certain it would be a long time before he experienced a dull day again.

~o~O~o~

Tsukauchi sighed tiredly sitting down heavily in his desk chair without slipping out of his jacket. One of the night shift officers passing by his office door paused and raised a questioning brow at them, but Tsukauchi simply waved him away with a tired hand. Sorahiko closed the office door behind him, throwing the lock and turning down the blinds so as not to be disturbed.

Tsukauchi rolled over to the small fridge behind his desk and plopped a bottle and two glasses on his desk, gesturing to Sorahiko to take a seat.

“Could I interest you in a drink?”

“Well, if you’re asking nicely,” Sorahiko said, trying at humor but knowing it was a weak attempt. The tired young man’s answering smile was more of a grimace as he uncapped the bottle and poured them each three fingers of whiskey, throwing his own back like a shot. The two sat in silence for several minutes, Sorahiko’s own thoughts churning as he nursed his own drink, running through their meeting with the Amestrian delegation over and over again.

“What the hell did we invite into our country, Tsukauchi?” Sorahiko asked at long last.

“Valuable allies,” was the man’s tired reply.

“Human weapons,” Sorahiko clarified.

Tsukauchi stared down into his empty glass, placing it down on his desk with a grimace. “People who have made mistakes but have turned over a new leaf. It’s not like villain rehabilitation isn’t a thing we do. In the shadows, of course, but nearly half of our underground heroes are reformed convicts.”

“I know,” Sorahiko said, leaning forward to catch the detective’s eye. “But none of them have quite the same body count.”

Tsukauchi to his credit met his gaze squarely, weary eyes discerning but steadily hardening with conviction. “We can argue the morality all we want and yes, I agree, the things they have done are unforgivable.” The detective sat up, rubbing the bridge of his nose with weary fingers. “And no doubt they’re dangerous. But if I truly believed that they were villains, I would not have invited them onto this investigation. And Yagi wouldn’t have agreed, either.”

The two sat in silence for a minute longer as they digested the words. 

“Mustang,” Sorahiko said. “He was telling the truth.” It was not a question. Sorahiko knew what he’d read in Tsukauchi’s body language that night, but a confirmation seemed appropriate all the same.

“Every word,” the detective confirmed.

Sorahiko grit his teeth with a grimace and Tsukauchi helpfully refilled his glass which he downed with the single-minded determination of a man who’d rather forget. “What kind of a rotten country do they come from that turns kids like that into mass murderers?”

The question was rhetorical, but the detective answered all the same, a bitterness creeping into his voice that Sorahiko had only ever heard once before. “One that cares so little for its own people it would sacrifice them all for immortality and power.”

Sorahiko took another swig, polishing off his glass, and scowled up at the ceiling. “This whole business is a rotten mess.”

“It is,” Tsukauchi agreed. “But hopefully, with their experience and aid, we can keep Japan from going down the same path. Look to them as a cautionary tale.”

A cautionary tale, eh? Sorahiko thought bitterly. It seems that’s all we’ve been hearing for the past several decades. 

Sorahiko was getting old. Far too old for this business, really. But he owed it to his friend and to the boy she’d entrusted her power to and his protege besides to see this rotten business to the end. All for One and his constituents couldn’t be allowed to run free. With the rest of Japan in the dark as to the true danger they posed, it was up to them to fight back against this ancient evil and turn the tides of a war that had been raging in the shadows of their country for centuries. And if that meant working with military dogs and war criminals…

Beggars couldn’t be choosers, but that didn’t mean they had to like it.

Sorahiko shook his head and sighed. That was enough thinking about their uneasy alliance. What they both needed at the moment was a distraction and Tsukauchi was perfectly equipped to provide one. “So what was this potential lead you mentioned earlier today?”

“Ah, yes,” Tsukauchi said. “That.” The detective reached down, unlocking the bottom drawer of his desk. “There’s quite a bit to sift through here so it may take a while.”

“I have all night,” Sorahiko admitted honestly, taking the initiative to serve himself another glass. He wouldn’t have been able to sleep that night even if he’d wanted to. 

~o~O~o~

“We here at Urban Steel have been bringing an urban twist to the streets of Tokyo for the past five years! Gone are the days of spandex and clashing colors that dominated the Gold and Silver Ages. All our designs are optimized for performance with a casual functionality and street look perfect for the modern day hero! Our designers and engineers are some of the best in Japan, working tirelessly to bring you the greatest in hero apparel and support.”

Ed and the others followed closely behind their tour guide, a cheerful woman with bright purple hair cut in ragged layers complementing her dark leather jacket and ripped skinny jeans. Her combat boots clunked on the smooth concrete floor of the spacious office building, floor to ceiling windows letting in copious amounts of natural light into the workshop floor below. Ed took in the multitude of designers and engineers milling about tables and computers, stitching fabric and assembling electronics, chatting away as rock music blared from hidden speakers. It was colorful and chaotic in the best way possible and Ed couldn’t help giving the works-in-progress draping various mannequins an appreciative once-over.

Finally, he thought, some costume designers with actual taste.

Ed hung back a bit from the others to observe a bit longer before a jab in the back sent him forward. Ed glared at the offender, but Breda just raised his eyebrows in amused nonchalance and Ed rolled his eyes with a sigh before continuing forward. Maybe after the whole song and dance was over, he could talk their tour guide into letting him stay a bit longer to pick the brains of the guys on the workshop floor.

They left the catwalk overlooking the workshop and moved into a smaller but equally spacious room. Floor-to-ceiling windows ran the length of two walls and large dark curtains with the Urban Steel logo emblazoned across the middle hid the opposite corner of the room from view. Off to the side stood a woman around his own height with short blonde hair cut in ragged spikes and bright red eyes and a younger man with long dark hair clad in leather pants and a band t-shirt. The two moved over to greet them as their tour guide halted in the middle of the room.

“And this here,” said their guide, indicating the woman, “is Bakugou Mitsuki, one of our best designers and a co-founder of Urban Steel’s hero apparel division. She’s been in the industry for twenty years and was the creative head behind this project.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” said Bakugou, extending a hand for Mustang to shake, which he did with his usually charming smirk (the bastard).

“Next to her is Ikeda Tatsuya,” their tour guide said, indicating the long-haired man to her left, “one of Japan’s most brilliant hero support engineers. He was the technical lead on this project, and he and his team are geniuses when it comes to technological integration and quirk engineering. He is one of the cofounders of DigiHero , a hero support consultant company that works closely with Urban Steel on many of our projects.”

“A pleasure,” said Ikeda with a nervous smile and bow, Mustang mirroring the gesture with his own thousand-watt-grin.

“The pleasure is ours,” said Mustang brightly. “I can’t wait to see what you guys have dreamed up!”

“I guess we should show you, then,” said Bakugou, her own smirk all teeth. She nodded to their tour guide who moved off to the side of the room and flipped a switch on the wall. A click followed by a mechanical whirr and Ed’s attention was drawn to the large black curtains as they slowly began to open, revealing the backlit display stage and the mannequins atop.

Breda let out a low whistle of appreciation. “Bet the one with the cape is yours, huh boss?” he commented, nudging Ed in the side. Ed would have taken a moment to snap at him if he wasn’t busy admiring the handiwork of the Urban Steel design team. 

“That’s fucking badass,” he breathed out with feeling. Hawkeye shot him a glare, however the others didn’t seem to take offense.

“I know, right?” said Bakugou, brimming with easy confidence. “Our team worked hard on these, so why don’t you go and take a closer look?”

There were four separate costumes on display. The two in the middle were by far the most unique. Ed didn’t need to read the plaque in front of it to know that the one with the red cape with a white fur collar was his. The pants and boots were simple and black, the knee of the left leg distressed in a way that would subtly show off Winry’s incredible automail. The black sleeveless muscle shirt had a subtle high collar and a casual cut in the neck with black leather straps across the right shoulder and a subtly accented silver zipper up the side for easy access. A thick brown belt held up the pants, and a black leather belt that crossed over the buckle and hung down with a metal ring at the end tied the whole look together. A couple dangling chains (though not as many as he had initially requested) hung off the belts. But his favorite part of the whole costume had to be the deep red cape with a white fur collar and an artful metal clasp. Ed couldn’t wait to try it on.

The second outfit had to be Mustang’s. Urban Steel had really leaned into the black and red aesthetic for them. Black cargo pants and leather boots, a simple black long sleeve shirt no doubt made from some super durable material, black gloves made from ignition cloth with the symbol of the Flammen Alchimist stitched across the backs in red. But the real draw of the outfit was the black, high-collared, calf-length sleeveless open coat with silver accents across the seams tie-ing in with the various silver and red accents on the pants pockets and boots. The mirror positioned strategically behind the mannequin also displayed the large red Flammen Alchimist symbol emblazoned across the back and shoulders in the same red as his gloves.

It actually looked...really badass. And that...was annoying. At least Ed could rest assured that his own costume was cooler. 

The last two mannequins were draped in what Ed knew to be the standard men’s and women’s uniforms for the rest of their group. Black compression shirts - high-collared and sleeveless for the women, open-collared and short-sleeved for the men - washed-out camouflage cargo pants and sturdy brown military boots, and brown bomber jackets with shoulder patches showing their rank and division within the Green Dragon Hero Agency, and a large patch depicting a stylized version of the dragon of Amestris across the back and shoulders. 

The rest of Team Mustang and Ed’s own team besides had expressed their desire to wear a standard uniform instead of individualized hero outfits.

“Support items are fine,” Breda had said, “but we don’t want to stand out too much. It’s probably strategically better if the eyes are focused on you two and the rest of us are a bit visually harder to distinguish. No to mention the uniformity would be good to help other heroes and civilians better identify us in the field. Not sure why most of the agencies around here insist on the flashy personal costumes. Seems superfluous to me.”

The others had agreed and so the “functional but vaguely military” uniform suggestion had been born. And Urban Steel sure had delivered. Ed couldn’t wait to see Darius and Heinkel’s reaction to the new uniforms.

While Ed was still observing the new costumes in appreciation, the others did as Bakugou had suggested, walking forward to admire them up close. Mustang looked pleased as hell as he ran his hand down the coat, rubbing the fabric between his fingers. Hawkeye was looking over her own uniform with satisfied approval, and Breda, Havoc, and Feury crowded around the final mannequin making excited comments about the different features.

“You gonna try it on or you just gonna stare at it all day, kid?”

Ed did not jump. He had registered the woman walking towards him, even if only subconsciously so he did not jump. Ed was more professional than that. But her sudden voice still did take him by surprise and he looked to his left to see Bakugou watching him with a raised eyebrow.

“I take it you like it?” she posited with a confident smirk that made Ed feel a little too much like he was looking into a mirror.

“You have great taste,” he said by way of answer.

Bakugou’s eyes sparkled and Ed could practically feel her lapping up the compliment. She seemed to be exactly the kind of person who was good at what she did and knew it, but still never tired of hearing others confirm it. Perhaps it wasn’t just an impeccable taste in fashion that the two of them shared.

“You should probably try it on and make sure we got it all to your liking,” she said, sweeping a hand towards the stage. “There are a couple changing rooms backstage with mirrors and the like. Let us know if anything feels off or if you’d like us to make some improvements and we’d be happy to get our people in here to alter it for you.”

“Speaking of alterations,” Ed hedged, chancing a glance in the direction of the others to ensure they were out of earshot, “I remember I put in a request about the...um, boots.”

Bakugou gave him a sharply amused look. “Yes, we included that, too.”

Ed resisted the urge to cackle evilly at the confirmation. Oh, the bastard was gonna be so pissed. He couldn’t wait to quite literally look down his nose at the asshole. Their official photos were going to look absolutely brilliant.

~o~O~o~

“Like hell, you dramatic ass bitch!” Vollmetall shouted, voice dripping with vitriolic indignation.

“Suck it, Evalina,” tossed back Flamme with a shit-eating grin to which Vollmetall flipped him the double bird.

Darius blinked. What the hell had he walked in on?

Breda was eating popcorn and seemed to be keeping some sort of tally on a paper on his desk, and Havoc was leaning back in his chair with a wide grin, making no pretense of working. Fuery was the only one working utterly unphased by the sight of his superior officers insulting each other like teenagers.

“Ah, Darius!” said Feury, looking up from his computer. “Did you bring the new division forms?” 

Darius nodded and handed over the requested documents. “What is going on?” he couldn’t help but ask. Even traveling with Vollmetall as long as he had hadn’t prepared him to walk in on the guy in the middle of an impromptu flyting match with the Flammen Alchimist.

“Falkenauge left an hour ago,” Fuery said as though that explained everything. Thinking about it, maybe it did.

“What are they arguing about?”

“I think it started with something about patrol schedules,” Jean explained helpfully, “but now they can’t seem to agree on whose costume is edgier.”

Darius was intrigued despite himself. “Who’s winning?”

“Vollmetall’s arguments are better structured,” said Breda, turning to greet him with a lazy wave, “but Mustang has more ammunition to draw from since he knew Vollmetall as a teenager, and his insults are more creative. It’s pretty much a tie right now.”

“Calm down, pipsqueak,” said the Major General with a dismissive wave. “No need to take it personal.”

“We’re the exact same height, you bastard!” said pipsqueak was quick to counter.

“That may be true, but I’m not the one who made a formal request for insoles in my boots.”

“Ouch,” said Havoc with a sympathetic wince. Breda marked another tally in Mustang’s favor.

On the surface, the two seemed to be arguing intensely. If Darius hadn’t known better, he might have interpreted Vollmetall’s anger and annoyance as genuine. However, he was able to pick up on the playful edge in Mustang’s seemingly mocking insults, and Vollmetall’s anger was veiled in its own amusement. It was like the two had fallen into some sort of well-loved routine and he doubted greatly that either were truly annoyed at each other in that moment.

It seemed a strange way to interact, but Darius was hardly the best judge at interpersonal relationships. And if the two seemed to be enjoying it, then who was he to judge.

“It’s how they let off steam,” Havoc said as though reading his mind. “When the Boss was a teenager, he used to really get mad. Mustang used to push his buttons ‘cause he’s a troll who likes to get a reaction. Now, he doesn’t really get annoyed, but the two still like to argue over the smallest things. It’s like a game to them.”

“Which is why you keep score?”

“Of course,” said Breda, taking another handful of popcorn. “There’s a running log we keep for these kinds of things. And a betting pool.”

A betting pool? Well, that was certainly interesting.

“So how do you get in on it?”

Breda’s answering smirk was sharp. “How much you looking to put in?”