Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was an old tale, told by a Xerxian scholar named ‘Plato’, that spoke of caves and shadows. It was a strange tale, not quite a story, and disjointed in its happenings. But, if someone had chosen to read it, they would have found remarkable parallels.

Particularly, to the one by the name of Edward Elric.

‘The Allegory of the Cave’ they called it, and it went as follows:

…

Imagine there exists some people, who have lived in a cave their entire lives. They are chained in this cave, only ever able to look forwards onto the cave wall. On this wall are shadows. Shadows of animals and people that dance and play and seem to be alive. These shadows are cast from a fire that sits behind the chained, but they do not know this, for they have never seen the fire. They only know the shadows that dance on the wall. Every sound they hear, every name they have, they would understand to be for these shadows on the wall. These shadows are their world.

...

But imagine, if you will, that one of these prisoners is freed of their shackles. They can now turn their head, and see the fire behind the shadows. It is painful, because they have never looked into the light. The glare makes them unable to see the shadows they once knew so well. And they are left floundering, because they have had their eyes opened to a new dimension of the world. It was always there, but now their head is turned. At first, of course, the prisoner would be frightened. They would try to return to what they knew to be true and real, the shadows on the wall. But it is a hard thing to forget, the fire. And they would be curious, wondering after these things that cast the shadows.

...

Now, imagine this prisoner was brought out of the cave to face the light of the sun. They would be utterly blinded, unable to see the world we call real. But over time, they would adjust. They would see the higher things. At first, they might trace the shadows they are familiar with. But soon they might trace the shadow up to the object itself. They would behold the tree that casts the shadow, the sun that creates the shadow. They would look up and see countless more light from the sun and the stars and the planets. 

...

The prisoner is a prisoner no more. They have had their eyes opened to the world above the shadows. It is as beautiful as it is terrifying, a depth that could not be explained. And if they were to return to the cave, what do you imagine would happen? Would they feel stifled? Having lost the colors and light and warmth and depth of the surface? Would they try to explain these marvels to their fellows, only to find they have no words to explain?

...

To those still chained, their truth is in the shadows on the wall.

To the one who was freed, they see the fire behind the shadows.

Both of these are the truth to those who view them,

But wouldn’t you say one is a greater Truth?

To reach the Truth, the freed only need to turn their head,

The Truth was always there, it was simply a matter of perspective.

The Promised Day ended, and Amestris breathed a sigh of relief.

Yet, the silence was short lived.

There was much to be done in the following weeks, much to heal and be healed from.

Very few who knew the full extent of what actually went down that day. Few knew why the skies had lit up with red lightning or why a golden-haired man had rained down hell in Central Command or the full extent of the coup or conspiracy. 

And those who did know wouldn’t say, because the tale was unbelievable and fantastical and dangerous, even to themselves. 

People sought answers. They searched to explain a country-wide hallucination, of which there was only the memory of pain. Some proclaimed it was the end of days, others declared it a sign the gods themselves had brought down their wrath on the former administration of government.

And, even for those who’d been injured, there was hardly a moment of rest. 

Mustang, Grumman, General Armstrong and several others were busy trying to finish overthrowing the government and restructuring the political system. Yet, this wasn’t as hard as they’d feared, nor was there as much public resistance as there could have been.

(Edward, Greeling, and the rest of the crew hadn’t spent their six months in silence. Chaos and sticking it to the military was the M.O. of the People’s Alchemist, after all. Where they’d gone, whispers of unrest followed, whispers of support for Mustang, Armstrong and Grummnan. When the former government found itself on its knees, the people were quite happy to see it go.)

But, for all the chaos that came before, the country was healing.

And so were her people.

Alphonse Elric moved off of fluids and onto eating solid food, slowly regaining years of lost fat and muscle. It was not a fast process, but even within a month, his renewed body had lost its gaunt features. By his side was his brother, Edward barely leaving his side for even a day as he watched over his younger brother.

At some point, amidst the chaos and activity that was the days after Promised Day, someone finally asked.

“How did you do it, Brother?” Alphonse asked, looking over at Edward. Ed sat at the foot of Al’s bed, his shoulder wrapped in bandages after he’d undergone surgery to remove the pieces of metal shrapnel remaining in his shoulder. (For once, Truth had been merciful, and Ed didn’t have an entire automail port located within the flesh of his arm.) "How did you get my body back?"

Ed gave a grin, wide enough that his eyes squinted shut. “I traded my alchemy for it.”

He repeated the answer several times to other friends, to Mustang and Hawkeye and Hohenheim. Yet, despite his repeated reply, no one understood how that was possible. 

You couldn’t lose alchemy. Alchemy was a science. It was like saying if you dropped sodium in water, it wouldn’t explode!

It might have made sense to onlookers if Edward had had no more knowledge of alchemy, but that wasn’t the case either. He could still name the atomic mass and name of every element, could describe in minute detail the exact molecular composition of cement, or describe the necessary transmutation circles and symbols to change one element to another. 

When pressed to explain himself, Ed drew out a pre-activated transmutation circle in complex interlocking symbols, with every instruction needed to transmute the wood of the table into a statue. The circle would activate for any living thing that touched it, even if the individual had no knowledge of alchemy. Yet, when Ed pressed his hands against it, there was not even the faintest spark of alchemic energy.

“I’m inert,” Ed explained, and that was that.

Privately, many were surprised how well Ed took the loss of his alchemy. They’d expected him to mourn the absence of such a fundamental part of his identity. Something that it felt wrong to have him without. 

But then they saw Edward sitting by his brother of flesh and blood, tossing advanced alchemical theories back and forth, and understood. Edward Elric would have given up alchemy a thousand times over to bring his brother back. 

So they simply rewrote their internal definition of Edward Elric, removing ‘practitioner of alchemy’ and underlining ‘knower of alchemy’. Because even if he could not perform alchemy, Ed could still describe the composition and structure of substances down to the atomic level. And, well, you didn’t need alchemy to throw a very effective punch.

So went the weeks after the Promised Day. 

Time moved on and so did the people, accepting this new fact and facet of life. There was still much to be done. There were homes to rebuild and answers to seek and people to heal and a government to renew. Everyone had something to do. 

It can be forgiven then, that they didn’t fully notice how Edward’s gaze sometimes flitted to stare into empty space. 

After Promised Day, the Elrics returned to Resembool.

Yet, even there, they did not stay. Alphonse wanted to re-experience the world in his own body, travelling to Xing with Mei to learn alkahestry and see and taste more of everything. Edward, on the other hand, decided to continue travelling around Amestris, but this time without the weight of the Philosopher’s Stone pressing against him.

Ed never stayed in one town for very long. Sometimes it would be hours, others it was as long as a month. As was his wont, he often got into trouble. Sometimes he’d accidentally stumble onto some former military members plotting, other times it would be alchemists conspiring, and other times it was just people who needed an ear to listen. And then Ed would be off again, a hurricane cloaked in skin.

Some people wondered what Ed was running from. Others wondered what he was running to.

The truth was neither.

It was rare he stayed still long enough to notice, and perhaps that was why he moved so much, so often. Because when Edward stood still, people noticed.

They weren’t sure what they were noticing, when they did at all. Perhaps it was the intensity he radiated, every emotion and intention magnified, whether it be kindness or fury or grief. Or perhaps it was the way ancient eyes peered out of a youthful face. Or it could have just been a sense of familiarity, the golden hair and eyes tugging on memories of a similar person dressed in red, but shadowed by a towering suit of armor. 

A few times, people Ed had never met peered at him curiously and asked: “Did you get a haircut?”

There was something, but no one quite knew what it was. They couldn’t have even said if it was something missing or something more. 

To Edward, it was both.

He was missing something, and that something was a towering monolith in a white void.

But there was also something more.

In fact, Ed had been carrying more since the first time he was pulled into the Gate by hands made of shadow. Since the first time he was greeted by the Truth. Since the first time he saw everything.

Chapter Text

It started after Promised Day.

In the first few days, he wrote it off as stress. The creeping shadows that opened curious eyes was just his phantom fear of Pride. The tilting of the world and static that buzzed in the corner of his eye was due to lightheadedness. The void-white figure and the Eye that loomed behind him in the shine of every reflection was just trauma from years ago, finally catching up. 

Edward thought he was seeing things.

As it turned out, that was the entire problem.

He soon came to realize it was far from stress. 

…

“Why, why do you torment me everywhere I go?” Ed pleaded with his reflection, or more correctly, the figure that loomed behind his reflection. It had been a week, and he was already tired of these phantom nightmares his brain had conjured when awake, to the point he was now talking to his reflection.

“Why ~Li-ttle Al-che-mist~,” the figure in his reflection crooned, and Ed startled backwards. “I am everywhere! I am All, and I am One. I am the Universe. Or have you forgotten that already?” 

“I’m dreaming,” Ed muttered into his hands. “Or hallucinating. It’s a wonder I didn’t go insane earlier, honestly.” 

The Figure of Void cackled. “I am Truth, Edward Elric. You simply see too much of it.”

Ed looked up, staring his hallucination down properly. Logic protested, because obviously he was seeing things. But at this moment, Edward didn’t care that he was most likely talking to figments of his imagination. He wanted answers. “What do you mean? I destroyed my Gate, my access to the Truth.”

Truth smirked, Its too-wide grin nearly splitting Its not-face. “You didn’t think destroying the Door would get rid of me so easily?” The Being lifted a hand, tapping the inside surface of the mirror. Its blunt teeth looked like razors. 

“What do you get when you remove a Door? A sealed surface? Or a hole in the wall?”

…

Truth was a fickle thing.

It was a lesson Edward Elric had learned years ago, the first time he stepped foot in a howling white void. And one he learned again, each time he entered or brushed against that Place That Was Beyond.

Sometimes, Truth was Information.

At first, this was all Edward thought the Truth to be. Truth was facts, after all. Truth was some constant of ‘this is how things are’. It was science and logic and the chemical breakdown of materials to the atomic level. When Ed had first gone Beyond the Gate, he’d been greeted with this facet of Truth. He’d had all the information in the world poured into his mind, a cup somehow holding an ocean. 

Edward returned Knowing things he shouldn’t. 

He held information he’d never learned, never heard, never seen. He could rattle off every digit of pi, could tell the exact mass of an object by holding it, could state the performance statistics of a Heinkel He 343 despite never knowing what it was. But in the end, it was just information, just pieces of a grand puzzle no one knew the full scope of. 

Sometimes, Truth was Knowledge.

This was the second part of the Truth that Edward came to know. Truth as understanding. It was a practical side of things, similar to information, but not quite the same. It was an interpretation of the information, existing pieces of a puzzle being nudged into place. Edward had come to know this facet of Truth when he returned to the Material Realm, his head swimming with information he hadn’t known before and a brother that was gone.

But he’d had the Understanding he needed

Edward understood how to perform alchemy just by clapping, which had never required new information, just a different understanding. He oriented his self, arrays arranging in his mind and his body forming the matrix to draw and direct the tectonic energy. A few pieces of the puzzle slotted into place, and the image formed a seal to bind a soul. 

But there was a final element of Truth that took Edward Elric years to understand, and when he did, he realized that it was the root of what Truth was.

Perspective. 

Edward’s Truth had been in alchemy, in science. It was in the molecular arrangement of the universe, the physics that bound matter together and caused stars to burn. But, it was far from the only Truth.

Sometimes Truth was knowledge of blood seals or a history long forgotten. 

And other times, the Truth was perspective.

Edward Elric often thought that the night he saw the Gate for the first and second time was the night he lost his innocence. He wasn’t wrong. Some of it was lost to the realization of what he’d done, lost with his younger brother’s body, lost in the guilt he carried on his shoulders like Atlas carried the sky.

But there was another factor in play.

Edward entered the Gate at age eleven, and left it the age of eighty. People often said he had old eyes, eyes that had seen too much, and they were right. He had seen far more than many thrice his age would ever see. 

But even with this, Ed did not stop with two trips to the Gate. 

No, he kept going.

The third time Edward went to the Gate was as he escaped the stomach of a Homunculus and found his brother in the process. While he did not pay a Toll of himself, he still visited Truth. He awoke back in the Material Realm with too-much pounding on the inside of his skull, and nausea curdling his stomach.

The fourth time Edward went to the Gate, he did not see Truth so much as brush shoulders with It. Using his own soul as a philosopher’s stone, he exchanged his life for his life. Even as alchemic energy crackled around him — in him — Ed sensed the Eyes of Truth watching from afar, seeing if they could claim him this time.

The fifth time Edward went to the Gate, he stared Truth in the Eye and laughed. He answered the riddle of human transmutation, accepted himself as himself, and traded his Gate for his brother’s body. Once, just this once, someone defeated (realized) the Truth. 

But Truth has a way of remaining true, whether we want it or not.

… 

Ed yawned, awareness slowly filtering through the fog of sleep. He slowly sat up, shivering as his warm blanket fell away and the air’s morning chill wrapped around him. Resisting the urge to bury himself under the blankets, Edward swung his legs off the bed, his automail foot clunking slightly against the floor. 

Standing, Ed crossed the hotel room to open blinds, letting sunlight spill into the small interior. With the light to guide him, Edward looked over his cache of food, scowling as he saw the dwindling rations.

Swatting aside the small, vantablack hands that slithered from the shadows, Ed picked up what remained of his bread loaf. “Damn, I’m gonna need to go to the market,” mentally counting his remaining change, he eyed his food stores again. “Could also use some more beans or jam spread.”

The shadows rustled, breathy not-whispers carding their hands through his hair and wrapping greedy fingers around the cans. 

Ed huffed. “You want beans, huh?”

Yesyesyes—

“Alright, alright,” Edward swatted away the wind, whispers curling in on themselves and sulking away to join their shadows. 

Pulling out a knife and the spread, Ed slathered jam liberally on his remaining bread. He raised it to his lips, but just before he could take a bite, things j e r k e d

His right arm, the one holding his jam sandwich, spasmed. Except it wasn’t his arm that was doing so, it was the skin of the world itself. Ed ground his teeth, resisting a cry of pain as nerves ran hot and cold, electricity seizing his body. From shoulder to fingertips, something snapped and his arm wasn’t there.

But it was there, he knew it was, somewhere. 

But it just wasn't here.

Instead, there was an automail arm, full and whole and oh-so-real, yet, at the same time, it was not. Just out of sight yet still seen, the arm was flickering and hissing. It felt like radio static, looked like a whining buzz and drone that made Ed want to claw off the nonexistent skin of his arm. 

s n a p

The static b r o k e, never there at all. Sensation rushed back into Ed's arm all at once, and he choked back a cry as volts of lightning danced between his raw nerves. His skin prickled and burned from fingertip to shoulder, cold metal replaced by flesh and blood and bone. But still, phantom cold and hot stepped finger-by-finger down his arm, a knife blade running its edge along his skin, hair by hair.

“God,” Edward moaned to himself, despite knowing that It would do nothing for him. “I hate glitching.”

He stared mournfully at his now crushed bread-and-jam sandwich, victim to the strength and seizing grip of the automail. Sighing, Ed slurped some of the sandwich-turned-soup, licking it off his hand. No wasting food, Teacher’s voice (and his stomach) thundered in his ears.

“Damn it, Truth,” Edward scowled. “Could it have at least waited until I’d finished eating?”

Static flickered in the corner of his eye, vision going  w h i t e   for a breath. In the millisecond of whiteout, Ed felt more than saw the eerie not-smile the void gave him, stretching into infinity.

Hardly, the Void replied. 

Ed shoved the rest of the destroyed sandwich in his mouth, muffling his various curses. The grasping shadows encircled his right hand, and he let them, the darkness nibbling away at the jam and static that sparked off him. 

After pulling on some more clothes and tying his hair into a ponytail, Ed eyed the empty (not empty, never empty) room. Eyes peeked at him from under the bed, from the space between the dresser and the wall, and shadows played with the dust hanging in the air. The entire room hummed with something-not-nothing and nothing-not-something. It hummed with the Beyond.

“I’m going to need to move again,” Ed sighed, shrugging on his trenchcoat.

He paused at the door, turning to eye the mirror, which had been laid face-down on the dresser. He knew that if he looked into it, he’d see a featureless white face grinning back at him. “Try not to cause too much trouble for me today, Truth,” he muttered.

No reflection answered him, but the shadows chittered a bit louder, and the eyes opened a little wider.

…

Edward stepped out of the hotel and onto the street, the daylight slightly hazy from early morning fog. Tugging his coat a bit tighter, Ed strode down the street towards the market. 

Eyes followed his movements. From faces of flesh and blood, and from the shadows that pooled out of  c r a c k s, they watched him. The human gaze at least faltered when Ed returned the stare with his own, eyes blazing molten gold. The shadows on the other hand, just looked deeper into him, strained harder to pull themselves from the  c r a c k s.

Thankfully, the walk to the market was quick. 

The door creaked slightly as Ed pushed it open, and he was hit with the smell of baked goods (an emptiness that smelled of burnt licorice). Stepping inside the bakery, he moved to the counter to wait.

He shivered slightly, his breath fogging in front of his face.

An older woman came from the back of the shop and began inspecting the bread displays, humming to herself. Ed waited a few minutes before he coughed slightly, and the woman startled, spinning towards him and clutching her chest.

“Oh dearie me! Don’t do that to an old woman!” Her breath slowed, and she squinted at him. “Edward! Good to see you again. I didn’t even realize you were there!”

Because to you, I probably wasn’t, Ed thought. It was literal too, sometimes, he just blipped off someone’s senses, to the point he may as well have been a ghost, at least until he announced his presence.

“Morning, Agatha,” Ed gave a wry smile. “Sorry about that. Can’t help it.”

Agatha huffed, and smiled brightly. “Your usual wheat?”

Ed nodded, already reaching into his purse for the necessary cenz. “Please.”

He placed the cenz on the counter top, accepting the bread loaf that Agatha handed him. Her brows furrowed as her hand brushed Ed’s glove, and before he could pull away, she took his hand in hers. He froze, trying to jerk away, but she held him fast. 

“Oh my! Even through those gloves, you’re freezing!” The shopkeeper worried. Edward stumbled for an answer, but Agatha was already shuffling into the back, returning with a mug of tea. “Here!” she demanded, pushing the tea into his gloved hands. “Drink up!”

Not one to deny the orders of a woman with a rolling pin, Ed did so. 

The tea helped ease the frost that had secured itself to his bones. A winter only he felt ebbed away, leaving him warm again. He nodded to Agatha, smiling. “Thank you.”

She nodded, taking back the mug he gave her. “Quite right. You’re far too young to be freezing like us old folks.” She rang up his bread, handing him a few cenz change. “Will you be in town much longer?”

Ed shook his head. “No, another day at most likely. I don’t like to stay put for too long.”

Things warped too much, the longer he stayed. 

The longer he stayed, the more people noticed. 

Agatha eyed him for a long moment, then shook her head with a sigh. “No, I don’t suppose you do. Well, safe travels. Try not to trip over too much air.”

Edward scowled. “That was one time!”

“Ten times,” Agatha corrected.

Rolling his eyes, Ed grabbed his bread loaf and turned to the door, waving to Agatha over his shoulder. “Bye, Agatha!”

He took a step, and he tripped as his foot sunk into Nothing. Ed caught himself with his arms, sighing as he sprawled on the bakery floor. Karma danced away, cackling with glee before it dove between the Worlds again. Behind him, Agatha laughed. “Make that eleven times.”

Ed huffed, tugging at his leg in hopes of freeing it from the crack it had slipped into. (And hopefully without making it look like he was tugging at his leg that seemed to be not-stuck to an outside observer.) Finally, he stood, his leg sliding free of the Space Between with a squelching slurp. Standing straight again, Ed gave Agatha a two-fingered salute. “See you.”

“Fair travels young man!”

This time, he got out of the bakery without tripping over not-so-thin air. The trips were not ‘trips’ exactly. Ed thought of them as ‘accidentally stumbling into interdimensional quicksand’. Usually, he could tell where they were, but they never stayed in the same place long. It was like walking over ground that was actually tissue paper, where one wrong step meant he slipped halfway into a hole in the fabric of reality. 

His life was fun like that.

Edward headed to his next destination, a grocers’ where he could buy more canned beans. He strode past some windowed shops, and kept his eyes fixed straight ahead. Despite that, he could still sense the looming Eye that Judged him from the glass reflection. A blink, and it was gone, replaced by a white-not-white figure that mirrored his movements. 

“Ah, the ~Li-ttle Al-che-mist~ has come out to play!”

“Can I convince you to play with someone else?” Ed muttered under his breath. A man walking the opposite direction gave him an odd look, opening his mouth to speak. Ed send him a hard glare. “Not talking to you.”

The man hurried away, and Edward continued to stalk towards the market.

“Rather mean, don’t you think?”

“What’s ‘mean’ is the fact that I have to see you whenever I look at a reflective surface,” Ed growled, his eyes darting to the window he was passing. In it, a human shaped figure crafted of the void moved with him, head turned to look directly at him. A too-wide toothed grin smiled from the otherwise featureless face. “Hell, you figure out how to make yourself present without that!”

Truth smirked, razored smile stretching . “I cannot help that you See too much, Edward Elric. You got the Answer right.”

“How did getting the answer equate to this? I didn’t ask to come away seeing More,” Ed growled.

“Who said it was More?” Truth chided. “Equivalent Exchange, ~Yo-ung Al-che-mist~. You are Yourself, nothing More and nothing Less. One thing, transformed into another.”

Edward huffed, ignoring the Entity as he turned into the grocers. He pulled open the door, a bell jingling as he did so. “I’m getting alchemical principles quoted at me by God,” Ed muttered incredulously to himself. “As per usual.”

The interior of the grocers’ was well lit, driving the shadows to dance beneath the cases and baskets. Ed went quickly, grabbing a few apples and adding some jam and canned beans to the load in his arms. He avoided staring at the flicker of white that glided over the metal cans, that shone in the glare of the glass jars.

“This everything?” The clerk asked as Ed dumped his items on the counter.

Ed nodded, glancing up to look at the clerk, and he froze. 

Reality threaded a string, and began to pull.

Ed’s eyes trailed across the clerk’s face, horror curdling in his gut. 

Blood streaked skin, yellowed teeth, dark sockets empty and gaping, skull missing, blown apart blown to pieces, rotting, festering, w h i t e

s n a p

Somewhere, elsewhere, Fate snipped a thread.

“Sir, you alright?”

Ed jerked back, gasping. His eyes darted downwards, breath wheezing, to stare at the items on the countertop. Jam. Canned Bean. Apples… yellowing, brown, rotten, maggots, decay, dying—

“Sir?”

“I’m fine,” Edward bit out. “Don’t feel well. Can I get my stuff?”

“… 2500 cenz,” the clerk informed him. Ed couldn't pull the bills out fast enough. 

“Keep the change,” Ed said stiffly, sweeping everything into a bag and striding to the door. 

He walked as quickly as he could without running, fixed on getting back, getting out. He’d been here too long, too long, too long. Things were warping, twisting, pulling. White followed him, crackling in the corner of his eye. Shadows nipped at his heels, rising from c r a c k s in the Nowhere.

Ed kept his eyes fixed forwards. 

But he could still see the way the buildings and cobblestone shifted, turning from stone to sand, burning and broken, never changed, never there. He could see the people, flickering around him. Sometimes aging from birth to death, wearing festering and fatal wounds, yet walking as if they were whole.

And there were. But they weren’t. Was it Here or was it There? 

“Tsk, tsk, ~Li-ttle Al-che-mist~, ” Truth sang. “Everything is Here and Everything is There. It depends on where you Stand.”

Edward ignored It. 

He reached his apartment, hand grasping the door knob as he slotted the key into its lock.

God is All and All is God, the shadows hissed like nails on metal. Ed flinched as eyes opened in the shadows under his hand, stared out from the darkness within his coat. Truth is to All and One and None.

The doorknob groaned beneath Ed’s flesh-metal-flesh fingers. He exhaled sharply, stepping through the door and slamming it behind him, hard enough to rattle it in its frame. Ed massaged the aching muscles of his right hand with his left, while outside, the knob held the dents of metal fingers.

“Okay,” Ed breathed, setting down his groceries. He laid them out, considering what to eat. He considered the beans, but when he went to grasp the can opener, his hands were shaking. “Okay… maybe just an apple then.”

He grabbed the fruit and moved to sit on the bed, the wooden frame groaning in protest as he did so. Ed raised his apple to take a bite, but it went soft in his hands. He looked, and found it sloughing away in his fingers, fresh fruit turned to decay and dust and—

Ed stared at the now whole fruit in his hands. He set it aside.

He didn’t feel hungry anymore.

“What is wrong, ~Li-ttle Al-che-mist~? ” The voice made of thousands crooned.

Ed’s eyes snapped to the dresser where the mirror was now, instead of lying facedown on the wood, hanging on the wall. 

“How—” Ed snarled, baring his teeth at the Entity. He stood, ready to take the blasted thing down again. As he did, Reality’s thread p u l l e d —

The room shifted, dust rising and falling, shadows dancing rapidly across the floor as days long past and not yet come cycled by. Hands made of darkness crept down the walls, and the Eye of Truth stared at him from a thousand different directions.

Ed  b l i n k e d 

and the World passed him 

by

He was Edward Elric, but not this Edward Elric. 

.

Edward gasped, staring at the woman — his mother his mother not his mother — formed of semi-fluid, a Homunculus formed and doomed to a half life because of his arrogance. 

Do you remember, he cried without words. Do you remember? 

Do you remember us, your sons? Do you remember what we did, bringing you into a world of pain? Why do you hurt us, Mom? (I don’t blame you hating me, but Al is innocent, let him be).

.

His arm was wood and string, a poor but ultimately functional substitute for automail. The world was painted in sepia and ash, different from his own, from his home. Above him, a living Ouroboros formed a great circle, a green serpent named Envy, his half brother, their shared father clenched in a massive maw. 

To Shamballa, Hohenheim said. Above them, a portal to the Between crackled open.

The Gate, different in shape and to a different place, no Truth greeting him beyond, but the same always and forever the 

s a m e

.

He was dead for half a decade, lost in all consuming  e m p t i n e s s 

A reversal of roles, trailing after Al. A lost soul with no medium, tied to the world of the living by a blood seal thought lost and gone by all but him. 

Truth grinned, and the white white white swallowed him whole.

Not a second chance at life, that was never his, dead dead dead as he was.

But a chance to feel.

Was it better if I had stayed dead?

.

A thousand alternates, some dead and rotting like a clerk or apple, others with automail, some in a world unknown and alien. A thousand lives, a thousand places, a thousand thousand thousand— 

a l l       i s      o n e

o n e     i s       a l l

i s

e v e r y t h i n g

.

“What do you See, ~Li-ttle Al-che-mist~? What do you See in the fire?”

Ed gave a wordless roar of rage, driving his fist into the mirror. It shattered, cracks webbing out and glass shards falling, turning to dust as time drew on. He drew back his fist, panting heavily as blood stained his knuckles. Edward looked in the mirror, and his face paled.

A fractaled smile filled every mirror shard, the white that flickered with static and void crackling within. He blinked, and the white expanded. The mirror was blank, all white white white, a gateway to emptiness through a gate that was not there. 

A hole in the world.

A hole in the wall.

“I am All and I am One. I am God and Truth and You,” the voice from Beyond whispered. “This is the world of Truth, to Know and See the In Between, the Everything.”

“But why?” Ed asked, exhaustion pulling at his bones. “Why can I see these things? Why can’t anyone else feel them?”

He’d seen these things, felt these things, now dozens of times. But the warping never ceased, and the shadows that followed only grew in size and number. The realities of elsewhere clashed and burned in his head, but only he ever Saw, ever Felt. 

“You have seen Beyond the fire, you know enough of the Truth to See it. It has always been here, but now your eyes are opened.”

Somewhere between the worlds, the Eye of the Gate, the Eye of Truth, opened. 

Edward looked into the Abyss, and the Abyss looked back.

He Saw.

…

Edward Elric traveled to the Gate five times and on each one, he saw a bit more of the Truth of Existence. He turned his head from the shadows, and looked into the Sun.

Edward left with more, and yet, nothing new at all. 

He simply saw the Truth.

He learned the reason why the Gate is not spoken of, why no one told that human transmutation was the path to the Truth. Because human transmutation often took more than what people had to give. Some were never found, only more dust left to collect on tombs that were better left alone. Some never spoke again, at least not in words that anyone else understood. 

To have Truth in your mind was to shatter yourself. 

It was to know and understand and see too much, enough that it consumed you and ground you to ash and left you to pick up a billion scattered pieces. No one was the same, after seeing the Gate.

That was the Truth.

It was this that Edward Elric came to know and understand.

He knew why he Saw — the world turned from shadows to a world of the fire that cast them — but he could never explain what he Saw.

Because it was Everything and Nothing and the In Between.

It was Everything, Everywhere, Always and At Once.

It was the Truth and the Beyond, no longer Beyond a Gate, but free to roam as It pleased.

- - -

I drew some art for this chapter :D

Chapter Text

It began after Promised Day.

Roy knew that dealing with the aftermath of it wouldn’t be easy. Between fighting the Homunculi, Father sucking out the souls of everyone in Amestris, not to mention overthrowing a government, he and his allies had their work cut out for them. They were all aware it would be a long road to recovery, for both the country and themselves.

But if he was being honest, Roy hadn’t been expecting… whatever this was.

Removing his glasses, Roy pinched the bridge of nose in some feeble attempt to stave off the migraine beginning to pound the inside of his skull. The source of his headache was spread out before him, dozens of papers and reports and casefiles from the past several months.

Roy picked up the most recent one, squinting at the text:

MEMORANDUM for GENERAL ROY MUSTANG, FLAME ALCHEMIST; CENTRAL HEADQUARTERS

SUBJECT: Incidence Report from Aparo Outpost in East Amestris, forwarded via Intelligence Department, East Headquarters

- - -

EAST HEADQUARTERS

Aparo Outpost, East Amestris

14 July, 1917

REPORT NO. 362

1. Mission: Maintaining operations in the town of Aparo, East Amestris.

2. Incident Summary: 

• As of June 28, 1917, strange incidents have been reported by military personnel and civilians in Aparo. Individuals describe a continuous feeling of “being watched” and “goosebumps.” They also report seeing “moving shadows” and hearing “whispers like squeaking metal.”

• Reports initially dismissed, but due to sheer volume and influx of reported incidents, matter was investigated. 

• Several anomalies have been discovered. Physically, these anomalies look like heat hazes and smell of burnt licorice. They have failed to vanish for days on end. So named Anomaly no. 1 (see attached fig.), the largest at the time of writing, is approximately 4 meters in diameter. 

• Officers attempted to interact with the anomalies, throwing stones and sticks into their radius. Results were… strange. Results varied by anomaly, material, and time. Some materials would physically warp, others remained motionless where they landed. 

• These things are weird as hell, you can only sense them half the time, and you can only see them best when you look through the corner of your eye. They’ve taken to moving. Some streets are darker than they were, you swear the shadows hold eyes and teeth. Reflections hold something but it’s never there. Something is fucking wrong. 

3. Recommended Action:

• Requesting a State Alchemist to assess the situation, preferably one with experience with abnormal events. Requests East Headquarters forward this report to relevant parties.

• Send us a fucking State Alchemist something is fucking wrong and we don’t know what kind of bullshit it is. Might be alchemy, might not be, but we need fucking something okay?!

Roy sighed, tossing the report back on the desk. There were over a dozen other reports all recounting similar incidents across Amestris. Roy knew that the sheer number and similarity was why Central’s Intelligence and Surveillance Department had taken notice instead of dismissing the events.

The Department, obviously having no idea what it was or how to handle it, sent the case files to Roy. The highest ranking alchemist in the entire country, and a premier player in Promised Day. 

“You’re the most qualified,” Intelligence had informed him.

Qualified at handling random bullshit, they didn’t say.

Roy flipped to the back of a file, inspecting the photograph of the Anomaly that had been included with it. The quality was so poor he nearly tossed it, then his eyes caught on a handwritten note in the corner: “We tried several times to retake the photo, it came out like this each time. We think the anomaly is somehow interfering with the camera. We can’t get an accurate image.”

Eyebrows raised, Roy’s eyes turned back to the photograph, inspecting it more closely. It was… choppy. If radio static had a physical form, that would be what the photograph showed. Roy could roughly make out buildings and cobblestone streets, but in the center of the photo was a pixelated blob. 

Roy could feel his migraine getting worse.

A knock sounded, and Roy looked up, relief filling him. Thank goodness, a break. “Come in,” Roy called. Falman opened the door, looking uncharacteristically shaken. Roy’s brows furrowed, and he focused his attention on his officer. “Falman, what is it?”

“Uh, Sir… well… it’s hard to describe. You’re gonna want to see this,” Falman gestured out the door. “Bring your gloves.”

Eyebrows dipping lower, Roy stood from his desk and followed Falman out. The guards nodded to them as they exited, striding down the halls of Headquarters. Roy reached into his coat, slipping his spark-gloves on his hands and taking comfort in the familiar fabric.

“What is this about Falman?” Roy asked, looking at the officer. It was unlike Falman to give such a lack of explanation. “And why might we need alchemy?”

Falman went to speak, but hesitated. The man’s silver hair flopped over his eyes as he sighed. “I can’t even explain it, General. It’s… not right.”

Anxiety and tension twisted in Roy’s stomach, his fingers twitching against each other. What the hell did that mean?

Falman and Roy met with another group of officers, among them Hawkeye and Breda. Like Falman, they looked similarly perturbed. Roy felt the sinking feeling in his stomach get tighter. “Okay, someone needs to explain what is going on,” Roy ordered. “What sort of threat are we facing?”

The officers traded looks, before Hawkeye finally sighed. “There is… something that’s appeared near the nearest hospital. The area’s been barricaded, but that’s mostly because no one can figure out what it is. It’s some sort of… atmospheric disturbance?”

“We thought it was sewer gas at first,” Breda added. “But… it doesn’t smell like the sewer, and it feels… wrong.”

Well that was informative.

After a short ride to the hospital, Roy was led to a side courtyard, barricaded with rope and several soldiers standing guard. Even before they turned into the courtyard, something prickled under his skin, every hair on Roy’s body standing on end. Ducking under the barriers, they turned and…

“What the fuck,” Roy whispered as he caught sight of it.

The air was warped, twisting and shimmering and rippling as if caught in a heat mirage. Static electricity crackled along Roy’s arms, carrying with it the scent of ozone and burnt licorice. The longer he started at the warping space, the harder it was to see, and the more his stomach twisted into knots.

An Anomaly.

“How long has it been here?” Roy asked, turning to his officers.

“The hospital staff reported it this morning,” Hawkeye said. “They said that was when the main… disturbance began. But they said they’ve felt increasingly unsettled in this area for over two months. It was only today that it turned into this.”

“A few thought the place had become haunted,” Breda continued. “They said it felt like they were constantly being watched, and they kept seeing things in the corner of their eyes.”

“How has it behaved?” Roy asked, stalking around the border of the inner barricade the officers had set up, just outside the anomaly’s bounds. “Has it harmed anyone?”

“It’s been relatively static,” Falman explained. “But one of the officers reporting to the scene accidentally went into its radius. He came out alive and unharmed, but he thought hours had passed despite it being only seconds. And he is still saying the shadows have eyes and teeth.”

Roy jerked his head over, narrowing his eyes. “Pride?”

“We checked in on Selim and Ms. Bradley,” Hawkeye said softly, cautious of the soldiers nearby. “No change, no abnormal happenings, and no shadows.”

“Hmm,” Roy turned back to the distortion. “Get everyone back, I’m going to see how this thing plays with fire.”

“Right. Everyone, stand back!” 

While Hawkeye, Falman and Breda shuffled the other military officers back, Roy sized up the rippling air. The longer he stared at it, the more he felt like a spike was being driven through his head, and the more the mirage seemed to grow. Static crackled around him, like alchemic discharge but from no transmutation.

Alchemy, but with no source.

Roy lifted a hand, and snapped.

Fire bloomed to life in front of him, and he sent the transmutation forward. Methane formed and ignited almost immediately, but as his atmospheric transmutation entered the radius of the anomaly, something changed.

His transmutation had been small to begin with, nothing more than a ribbon of flames, but as it crossed the anomaly’s threshold, it quadrupled in size. Roy stopped the transmutation, but to his shock, the fire continued to burn and even grow within the anomaly, as if it had taken on a life of its own.

The hell?! 

Eyes narrowed, Roy activated his transmutation again, but this time he focused on removing the oxygen around the anomaly’s radius, creating a semi-vacuum. It should have caused the fire to shrink as a fuel source was removed, but impossibly, the fire trapped within the anomaly continued to burn.

The flames danced erratically within the radius of the distortion, a ball of constantly shifting light. Cautiously, Roy stepped closer to the suspended flames, splaying a hand in front of him.

There was no heat.

Roy jolted slightly. The flames from the anomaly didn’t give off heat… if anything, the air felt colder. It felt… deeper. Like there was something lurking inside, an ocean’s worth just waiting to emerge. Something just beyond, just below, baring razored teeth and infinite depths… It was nothing, nothing, nothing, an immensity of n o t h i n g—

Retreating a few steps, Roy pulled off his glasses, massaging his forehead. Of course he had to deal with a patch of physics-defying air. He moved to put his glasses back on, but before he could, his gaze caught the anomaly.

His eyes widened. 

Without his glasses, most everything was a fuzzy mass of color. But where he knew the distortion to be, around the orange mass that was the flames… Roy could see w h i t e . The w h i t e danced like grass caught in a breeze, and the harder Roy squinted, the better he could see it.

The w h i t e was hands, small hands of flickering white shadow that ate at the fire, and from the w h i t e  stared eyes, countless eyes. He blinked. The w h i t e was darkness, an endless black abyss. Blink. W h i t e, devouring and consuming. Blink. Eyes, Judging and staring and immense. Blink. An Abyss, reaching for him, consuming him, unmaking him, taking him.

Roy hissed, driving the heel of his palm into his eyes as they burned. But despite his closed lids, the shadows still danced, and memories of an endless void whispered in his ear.

“Sir?” Roy felt Riza’s hand on his shoulder, and he took a deep inhale. 

Pushing his glasses back onto his nose, Roy opened his eyes and met Riza’s concerned gaze. “Contact Edward and Alphonse,” Roy instructed. “Whatever this is… I know they have more experience with it than anyone else.”

Ahead of them the fire sputtered out, presumably as the anomaly finished eating Roy’s transmutation.

An endless white void. An eerie, empty figure with a smile that was a thousand razors and stretched to infinity. A massive stone monolith from which spread a trillion grasping shadows. An Eye, immensine and Judging and then his eyes were burningburningburning and darkness—

“I was flung into a strange place… into a Gateway of some sort…”

“The Portal?!”

Yes… if anyone could unravel the secrets of… whatever this was, it was the Elrics.

Edward yawned, arms stretching above his head. 

The sun beat against his face, a warmth settling in his skin and bones. He basked in it, enjoying the soothing heat that filled him. Closing his eyes, Ed could almost imagine he was in Resembool, lying in the fields under the summer sun.

Almost.

The clamor of people and carriages around him made it a bit difficult. 

Opening his eyes, Ed glanced around, taking in the city of Aquroya. Built atop a sizable lake, the city had forgoed half its roads for canals, and was also the tourist capital of the East. Ed faintly recalled he and Al had visited the town once upon a time several years back, and gotten tangled up in chasing a thief.

Fun times.

Though, he certainly didn’t miss the reek of fish. Ed gagged as a particularly pungent smell wafted past his nose, coming from the waterways. Give him the familiar stench of cow manure any day over fish.

Something tugged at his braid, and Ed winced. He glanced down to see dark hands reaching from his shadow, snagging at his braid and twisting their way through the darkness of his coat. Eyes stared at him from the depths of too-dark shadow, chittering and whispering with the sound of static and screeching metal. 

“Alright, alright, I’m going,” Edward soothed, standing from where he had been leaning against a wall. The shadows chittered with glee, looping in the darkness underneath him and swirling around his legs like tangled grass. 

“Oi, behave,” Ed kicked his feet out, loosening the twisting bonds. “Don’t trip me, alright?”

Thankfully, the shadows quieted, and Ed strolled off to join the throngs of tourists crowding Aquroya’s streets. 

His feet brought him to a bridge crossing one of the canals, and he came to a stop at the center. Ed settled his arms on the railing, looking over into the waters below. Or well, what was supposed to be water. The surface was shifting, white white white reaching into infinite depths. From it, Ed sensed more than saw the razored smile that watched him.

“The Shadows are eager today, ~Li-ttle Al-che-mist~,” the Void crooned from below and everywhere.

“They’re always eager,” Ed huffed, speaking into the air. One shadow-hand stretched out of the darkness of his sleeve, twirling around his wrist like some strange bracelet. “I don’t think you entertain them enough.”

“Oh, but of course they are entertained,” Truth chuckled, the sound scraping against Ed’s ears. “You are their entertainment. Hmm… but perhaps they are hungry. They may stretch Everywhere and Everywhen, but they are infinite in number.”

Ed scowled at the abyssal not-water below. “Don’t you dare have them eat me, Bastard. I’d know you’d try it.”

“Tsk, tsk, they are fed with the Rebound, with the husks of alternate times. I needn’t do a thing.”

While Ed knew it wouldn’t do anything, he was half tempted to take a dive into the not-water. While he’d immediately sink because of the automail, it would also be his best shot at punching Truth in the face. 

Maybe.

Or maybe he’d die and get slingshot into Truth’s Domain. Odds were about 50/50.

Deciding not to give Truth the satisfaction, Ed shoved off from the bridge and continued on. Thankfully, he made it back to the hotel without too many issues. Sure the buildings were dripping with liquid darkness, eyes peered out from every shadow, and some tourists were glitching between alternate dimensions with every blink, but it was fine. As ever, Edward was the only one who Saw it. 

The hotel was small and quiet, but large enough to feature in-dining. Feeling his stomach protest, Ed ordered some noodle soup, relaxing in a corner booth. His meal was swiftly delivered and Ed dove in. He was happily enjoying it too, when one of the shadows decided taking a dip in his bowl would be a good idea. 

Ed scowled, batting the shadow out with a spoon. “That’s unsanitary,” he hissed softly. “Scat.”

The shadow refused, so Ed twirled it onto the spoon along with his noodles. Before the shadow could protest, Ed shoved the whole concoction into his mouth.

Unfortunately, Ed’s shadows were not like the usual ones. They bit back. So Ed yelped, spitting out the noodles, soup, and one very smug shadow. Ed soothed his burning tongue with some water, glaring at the few patrons who had looked over. 

Let them think what they would. Ed was used to it by now. 

Ignoring the hissing laughter that emanated from the darkness, Ed shoveled the rest of his soup into his mouth. He had just paid the bill and was nursing a cup of coffee when something disturbed the slight peace he’d made for himself.

“Excuse me, Edward Elric?”

Ed glanced over at the hotel clerk who had approached. He politely ignored how the man was missing half his head. Ed tilted his gaze slightly, and everything shifted. The background danced in sickening colors, but the clerk at least looked more alive now. “Yeah? Who’s asking?”

“Telephone for you, sir.”

Edward’s eyebrows climbed his face. Telephone? For him? Admittedly, while Ed wasn’t trying to hide or be out of contact, his constant travelling made it difficult for anyone to get a hold of him. He’d been in Resembool for a few days about a month ago, and endured a thorough lecture from Winry and Pinako about calling more often. 

“Who is it?” Ed asked, rising to his feet and following the clerk to the front desk.

“Some man calling himself Roy.”

Ed nearly dropped his coffee, sending wide eyes towards the clerk. Even the shadows stilled briefly, surprised as he was. “What?!”

“Yeah,” the clerk waved to another at the desk, who was holding the phone for Ed. “Said to get, and I quote: ‘the shrimp named Edward Elric on the phone.’”

Edward scowled, jerking the phone out of the clerk’s hands. “Really, Bastard?!” Ed growled into the receiver. “You know I’m as tall as you now, right?!”

From the other end of the line, Ed heard Mustang’s chuckle, and in his mind's eye he could clearly see the smug smirk that the General was wearing. “Good to hear your voice too, Edward,” Mustang said pleasantly. “You know, you’re a hard man to find these days. You’re not even doing me the courtesy of causing frequent explosions. Makes it much harder.”

“That’s what you’ve got Madame Christmas and your date nights for,” Ed countered.

Ed did not fear God. He did, however, fear Madame Christmas and her information network, which had eyes and ears in literally every corner of Amestris. That woman knew all your darkest secrets, and Ed knew Roy’s adopted sisters (and date-night stand ins) were half of how the General knew so much. 

“True enough,” Mustang said with a sigh, before his voice turned a bit more serious. “How’s the weather down there by the way? Any visitors? Marie tells me there’s plenty of sun, but we’re seeing more clouds up here.”

Ed went to give a sarcastic reply, but then stiffened, realizing the implications of the words. 

When Ed had joined Mustang’s team, the then-Colonel had insisted he and Al learn some basic codes and phrases for speaking over potentially tapped lines. Ed had grumbled the whole way, but in the end he appreciated it. Made it easier to talk about things like Al’s armor without talking about it.

In this case, Mustang had just asked him: “Is there anyone that could overhear you? This is sensitive information. We’ve got a problem here.”

“Yeah,” Ed began slowly, glancing over at the two clerks that were nearby. “I’ve seen some birds. How are things with you?”

“Fine, fine. I was actually hoping that you could visit. There’s some sights up here I think you’d find interesting. Think you can come up?

Ed scowled, flicking a particularly persistent shadow away from the phone. “You know you’re not technically my boss anymore, right?”

“Maybe not, but Al’s coming by Central. You want to see him, don’t you?”

It was true. Ed hadn’t seen Alphonse in nearly a year. Al had been in Xing learning alkahestry, and Ed had been traversing Amestris, leaving them apart for quite a while. It was making Ed anxious, if he was being honest. Ed finally sighed. “Low blow, Bastard. Fine. I’ll be there.”

“Perfect! How soon can you arrive?”

“You know where I am, Bastard. I think you can answer that.”

Mustang laughed, and the sound had the corner of Ed’s mouth twitching upwards. “See you in a few days, Edward,” the General told him. “I’ll have someone meet you at the station.”

“See ya, Bastard.”

Ed hung up the phone, leaning back with a sigh. Eyes watched him curiously, from both the clerks and the deep shadows. Edward exhaled, turning back to face the clerks. Shadows crawled up their bodies, faces shifting between ages like a photographic reel. The shadows spiraled in a hungry mass, chewing at the space In Between.

“When’s the next train to Central?” Ed asked.

Two days later, Edward stood on the platform of the main Central train station, bag slung over his shoulder. His gaze searched the crowd, scanning for any blue coats or familiar faces, but he’d had the misfortune to arrive at the height of rush hour.

“Hey,” Ed whispered to the eyes populating the shadows. “Any chance you can find my ride?” The shadows chittered and Ed sensed something spread out from the darkness underneath him. 

However, Edward found himself swiftly regretting his request as the interior of the station darkened. From the crannies of ceiling above to beneath the feet of those on the platform, an Abyss opened. Vantablack pooled in every shadow, a darkness that was deep and absolute. And from every shadow opened eyes. Eyes that whispered and cackled and stared into his soul and opened beneath his feet.

See see see, they chittered in the sound of static and reeds. What do we see, what do we see?

“Well I see my nightmares,” Ed muttered to himself. The shadows grinned at his misfortune, a thousand razored smiles.

Picking his way through the crowd and across the ground that had turned into an inky abyss, Ed navigated towards the exit. He didn’t make it far before the shadows reared up around him, grabbing him, taking him and then there was nothing but d a r k n e s s e m p t i n e s s  

He was

f a  l     l            i               n                        g

The passersby never even blinked, because to them, there had never been anything there. 

…

Ed was thrown from the shadows coughing and sputtering, a sensation like cold oil dripping down his body. He retched, hands on his knees as the shadows slid off him. It felt like he had been unmade within the Gate all over again. The shadows twisted under his feet, a thousand eyes that felt distinctly pleased.

See see see, they whispered in glee. What we found, what we see!

Edward looked up, and blanched in surprise as he found himself outside the station, tucked into an alcove of shadows. He looked around and saw…

“Edward!” 

He gaped at the sight of Maria Ross and Denny Brosh, waving to him from nearby. The pair of officers hurried over, stopping a few paces away. Maria offered Ed a hand, but he waved it off, standing straight. Meanwhile, Denny chuckled as he looked Ed over, a grin stretching across his face.

“Wow Ed, you’ve gotten taller huh?” 

Ed scowled, baring his teeth at Brosh. “Don’t call me short Brosh! I’m taller than you now!” He smirked with smug satisfaction as Brosh blanched, realizing the wonderful truth Ed had bestowed upon him.

“Oh, fuck me, you are.”

While Brosh had a crisis, Maria nodded to Ed. “We didn’t even see you get up here. We looked away for one moment, and ‘poof!’” she chuckled a bit nervously. “I hope Hawkeye doesn’t decide we need more awareness training, it’s like you weren’t even there.”

Ed glared at the shadows nearby, shifting and waving to him with a thousand glimmering eyes. “Yep, that’s me. There one minute, gone the next. Stealthy like a shadow.”

How fucking long have you been able to do that?!

Us us us, the shadows grinned, twisting underneath him. Everywhere and nowhere! Everywhen and nowhen! All is None and One! 

“How was the trip?” Maria asked as Ed bent down to grab his suitcase. 

“Uneventful,” Ed said with a shrug. And it was, at least for how things could go. He followed the two officers through the crowd until they made it to the car. Tossing his suitcase in the back, Ed followed after it while Maria took the wheel and Denny sat in the other seat. They pulled out from the station’s street corner, and soon they were puttering through the streets of Central. 

Ed leaned back against the car’s seats, turning to watch the buildings go by. The city was as busy as ever, street vendors calling out from market stalls, newspapers being sold at corners, and people on foot and on cycles moving past.

Flicker. 

From moment to the next, the world shifted. It was still similar, achingly similar, but oh so different. Street vendors called out from stalls, newspapers were sold at corners, and people moved by on foot and on cycle, but it was different. The colors of the world had dimmed, turned to sepia and the sky above was marked with smog and clouds. 

Edward’s right arm spasmed slightly and he gripped it tightly with his left, feeling the hard steel of automail beneath the false skin made of silicone and rubber. 

Ah, Ed thought to himself, grimacing as static clawed its way through his arm, because it wasn’t there there there but it was. So I’m here again.

“So, you said your name was Edward was it?”

Ed glanced forward, eyes widening as he saw someone that looked like Denny Brosh, but wasn’t quite him. 

“Uh, yeah,” Ed choked out stiffly, somehow answering in the same strange tongue. English, the him that was not him but was thought in annoyance. So many strange verbs that had to go in the middle of the sentence.

“How are you enjoying London so far?”

“It's fine… reminds me a bit of home.”

While Brosh-but-not-Brosh chattered away, Ed took several deep breaths, attempting to calm the spasming nerves. He’d been here several times before. An alternate world, as best as Ed could figure, but with an Ed that was him but not him, and originally from a version of Amestris. When Ed flickered into parallel places, this was the one he was in most often. 

Ed and his other self looked out the window, watching the streets of “London” go by. The city felt gray in comparison to Amestris, lacking the vivid colors of home. But it was no less lively.

No less real, one of Ed whispered. 

You’re telling me, Ed told himself. At least you’re not seeing the shit I see on the daily. 

They rode in relative silence (save for Other Brosh) and then the world flickered once more. Between one moment and the next, the world inverted and Ed was breathing in the familiar scents of his home, of familiar shadows that clawed through alleyways and endlessly seeing eyes. 

(But which home was home? When everything was forever shifted sideways in reality? Which way was up if everything pointed down?)

“Hey Edward? You back there?” Ed looked to Denny, who had twisted in the front seat to eye Ed with concern. “Your arm alright?”

Ed realized he was still gripping his arm, but beneath it, he could still feel the crackling of electricity as something was there, not there, not here. The automail fingers clenched into a fist, metal groaning as he did so. 

Nerves that weren’t there, but were somewhere buzzed and burned. His arm was filled with a million needles, every nerve-that-wasn’t a branding iron that stabbed him like one of his spears. Somewhere, somewhen, but not here, not here, not here.

“Just fine,” Ed said, giving Denny a smile. “I just get some phantom pains still. That’s all.”

Automail, full and whole and oh-so-real, burning and buzzing as the shadows licked him clean like meat from bone. His nerves were full of lightning, burning and blazing and filling him like a thunderstorm, until every beat of his heart, somewhere, somewhen, echoed in his ears

w i t h    a       s n a p p i n g      s o u n d

Once Edward realized the military officers were driving him towards the Central hospital, unease gripped his heart in a vice. The two military officers parked the vehicle and Ed slid out, eyes flicking back and forth.

“Why are we here?” he asked, and the pair exchanged a look. 

“It’s hard to explain,” Maria eventually said. 

While Denny kept hold of Ed’s suitcase and watched the car, Maria led Ed around the building. His eyes widened as he took in the numerous military officers stationed around, and the numerous barricades at one side. As they drew closer to the barricades, Ed’s eyes lit up.

“Alphonse!”

He raced forward, picking up his brother and wrapping him in a hug. Ed was cautious, the automail still g l i t c h i n g in place of his right arm, but Al didn’t notice. He squeezed Ed right back, the newfound strength in his arms (arms of flesh and bone!) shoving the breath from Ed’s lungs. 

“Edward!” Ed could hear the grin in Al’s voice. The two embraced for a long minute, until they finally released one another, both gasping for breath. 

“It’s so good to see you,” Ed wheezed, one hand on Al’s bicep. He looked his younger brother up and down, grinning himself silly as he took in Al’s living, breathing form. (And in the In Between, he looked at Al countless times, a thousand of the same face but still as whole). “You’re looking really good, Al.”

Alphonse smiled back at him, and it was as bright as the sun. “Thanks, Brother. I can say the same to you. You’re actually my height now.”

Ed scowled, gently thwacking his brother in the head. “Oi! I’m your big brother! No insulting me!” But he was still smiling as he did so, and Al giggled all the while. Ed shuffled back, sweeping his gaze around at the bustling activity. “Now, mind catching me up?” 

“Ah, Fullmetal! Nice to see you finally made it.”

Turning, Ed was greeted with the face of Mustang. The shadows flickered around the General, pooling from the c r a c k s and playing in the flames that danced somewhere In Between, where the Gate stood sentinel. The General’s face flickered, lines etching across it and an eyepatch appearing and vanishing with every breath.

“General Bastard,” Ed said with a nod. “Trying pirate decor, huh?”

Mustang gave him a strange look. Hmm, it seemed the eyepatch was something of the Sideways. But the General moved on, waving them both to follow. “Thank you both for coming. Frankly… none of us know what to think about this.”

Ed’s eyes narrowed and he shared a look with Alphonse. The General didn’t usually admit to knowing nothing right off the bat. 

The brothers followed, ducking under several rope barricades. Ed eyed the shadows, which hissed and coiled tighter and tighter until his ears were filled with a constant rattling like the drone of bees. And then he became aware of the sensation, a tugging at space, like the shifting of sand beneath his feet. 

Then, he saw it.

Ed’s eyes widened as he took in the Sinkhole. At least, that’s what he’d taken to calling them. Ahead of them, the world was warped, twisting and sinking inward. It pulled at him, at everything, a fraying of reality’s fabric that nudged everything a bit farther up and to the left. Ed knew without knowing that they were Gates without Doors, places where Truth’s Domain slipped sideways into this plane.

“What is it?” Al asked, and Ed’s head nearly flew off his shoulders as he whipped around to stare at Alphonse.

“Wait, you can see it too?!” Ed nearly screeched.

Al gave him a puzzled look. “I mean, mostly yeah. You see the shadows too?”

Slowly, Edward nodded. Something was swimming in the pit of his stomach, and for the life of him he couldn’t say what it was. Terror, maybe. Or the twisting shadows that haunted his every waking day.

“Alphonse,” Mustang called, and the Elrics looked over to the General. He nodded to the Sinkhole. “Try a transmutation. Send it into the anomaly’s bounds. But be careful, make sure it’s a small one.”

Al frowned, but nodded. He clapped his hands together, pressing them into the ground. A rumbling buzz echoed from deep below the ground, and the white white white of the Beyond condensed into alchemic lightning. It danced across Al’s hands as the cobblestone warped. The transmutation rippled forward, pausing slightly as the edge of the sinkhole, before it entered the pit.

Ed’s eyes widened as the shadows went nuts. White white w h i t e flared around the sinkhole, and inside it, the shadows pulled at the cobblestone, eating it, taking it, remaking it. But there was nowhere to go, so white white white doubled back on itself, energy filling the stone and stripping it and unmaking it.

The cobblestone aged from shells to sand to dust, rippling like water as it was caught in the slipping slipping s l i p p i n g  sand. Colors inverted and reverted and p u l l e d in a dizzying display.

Unmade, remade. From atoms to ash. E v e r y t h i n g  and  n o t h i n g

Again and again and again and again—

All at once.

“What the hell?” Al whispered, watching as reality squeezed and stretched. “Brother, are you seeing this?”

“Yep.”

“Any ideas?” Mustang asked as he approached. “Because none of us have an idea what to do with the reality-warping hole.”

“Wait, wait, wait—” Ed held up his hands, narrowing his eyes at Mustang. “Are you telling me you can see that?!” He pointed aggressively at the sinkhole and the shadows that twisted around it, a thousand eyes and hungry mouths.

“Uh, yes?” Mustang nodded.

Ed dug his fingers into his hair, and resisted the urge to scream. “Are you fucking kidding me,” he hissed into the shadows. They cackled gleefully. “Are you fucking kidding me?!” Edward glared at Al and Mustang, resisting the urge to strangle someone. “I’ve been walking around seeing these things for nearly two years but only now have you decided to bring it up?! I thought I was the only one!”

“Wait, you’ve seen these before?” Mustang asked, narrowing his eyes. He pointed back to the sinkhole, which was still eating Al’s transmutation with utter rapture. “That?”

“Yes!” Edward threw up his hands. “I thought we established that!”

“Where?”

“I dunno, around?” Ed waved a hand. “They show up now and then. I try to avoid them. I don’t know what happens if I enter one, but I know it’d be bad news. I’ve slipped sideways into quicksand before, but I’ve always gotten myself out.” Ed jerked a thumb at the sinkhole, which he could swear had gotten bigger. “I don’t fancy my chance with that.”

“How long have you seen these things?” Al asked, eyeing the sinkhole. 

Ed shrugged. “Couple years, nearly. Since Promised Day.” He narrowed his eyes at his brother. “You haven’t?”

As Mustang and Alphonse shook their heads, Ed realized he had made a rather grave error. “Ah,” he said, and internally, within the depths of his mind, he screamed bloody murder into the Void. Externally, he kicked some shadows in the direction of the sinkhole and said, succinctly: “Fuck you, Truth.”

Thankfully for Ed, Mustang and Al did not interrogate him out in the street.

Unfortunately for Ed, they dragged him back to Central Headquarters to interrogate him.

“Alright, Brother,” Al eyed him from his seat on one of Mustang’s many couches. “What did you mean? You see those things differently? Those… anomalies as the General called them, they’re obviously related to the Gate, but how does Truth factor into it?”

“Yes, Fullmetal,” the General leaned forward from his desk, eyeing him closely from two-one-two eyes. “Do tell.”

Ed grimaced. In the corner of his eye, his saw white white white fill the reflections in the windows, an empty humanoid shape (not human, never human, not in the least) give him a wide, razored smile. “Yes, ~Li-ttle Al-che-mist~,” the Being of the Beyond hissed with cackling laughter. “Do tell. Please, tell of the Truth.”

Ed inhaled, then exhaled, long and slow. “I…” he paused, blinking up at the ceiling. Shadows writhed in the corners, endless eyes peeking out from the c r a c k s in the world. “I have no idea how to begin to tell you this.”

“Start at the beginning?” Riza offered, speaking up from her place behind Mustang. “Or give the basics of what is presently happening?” 

“It’s more like there are literally no words in the Amestrian language to describe what is going on,” Ed huffed, scowling as the shadows grinned toothily at him.

“Please try?”

Sighing, Edward leaned back against the couch, puzzling over his words. “Okay. So it’s like… well basically, Pride knock-offs have been stalking me for the past couple years, and Truth, the absolute bastard that It is, likes to interrupt my life and loom over me like my impending doom. Reality gets a little funny in places and sometimes I slip sideways? Like, some days I have automail and some I don’t but I’m the only one who knows.”

There was silence for a long, long moment. “And… how long has this been going on?” Al asked, eyeing him closely. 

“Since Promised Day,” Ed said with a shrug. 

“And Pride has been following you?” Mustang asked sharply, but Ed shook his head swiftly.

“No, not Pride. The thing he came from. Well… he thing that he came from, came from. The Shadows of the Gate.”

The others stared at him skeptically, and Ed sighed. Right, they probably thought it was his PTSD catching up to him. Well, while they were right in that this was doing wonders for his mental health (note the sarcasm), and that this wasn’t entirely not in his head, Truth was all too unfortunately real.

“Right,” Ed stood, brushing off his pants. “I see I need to convince you.” He stepped to the side, moving to the center of the room in full view of the others. “Watch this.”

Looking down at the shadows and curious eyes that circled his feet, Ed inhaled. He couldn’t believe he was willingly subjecting himself to this. “Right,” Ed spoke to the shadows. “Take me outside please.”

Darkness reared up around him, eyes and teeth flashing and glimmering. Shadowed hands grabbed at him, taking him and u n m a k i n g  h i m.  

d a r k n e s s  e m p t i n e s s 

He was

f a  l     l            i               n                        g

…

After getting spat outside, Ed, for some reason, threw himself through the shadows again. 

He fell to the ground, back in Mustang’s office, coughing violently as the shadows dripped off him like oil. Ed could feel his atoms vibrating, cold and hot and burning, the same pain that had stolen his arm and leg from him. It buzzed throughout his body, like a trillion insects skittering over his skin. 

Ed would be happy if he could never do that again. 

“So,” Ed coughed as he looked up at Al, Mustang and Hawkeye. “Proof enough?”

Al’s expression was deeply furrowed, but neither he nor Mustang looked as shocked as Ed was expecting. “What do you mean, Fullmetal?” Mustang asked, squinting at Ed through his glasses. He lifted a hand to rub at his chin. Ed winced as things flickered and the man touched bone.

Eyes darting between the three, Ed leaned back on his heels. “Okay, explain to me what, from your perspective, happened?”

“You said ‘take me outside’ then walked outside. Then, a few minutes later, you came back,” Hawkeye said promptly.

“But did I?” Ed prodded. “Think. I left, but how long was I gone? How long from when I vanished and returned? What did you do in that time? ”

Alphonse’s brows furrowed, and Ed could see the gears in his brother’s brain working. For all the reality warping that Ed endured, there were always holes. Some things that didn’t quite line up. Gaps.

“I… but wait, you were just here…” Al said softly. His eyes widened, and Ed grinned as he saw the realization of wrongness alight in his brother’s eyes. “Edward, what’s going on?”

“Welcome to my world,” Ed spread his arms. “Nothing makes sense.”

“Fullmetal, please,” Ed turned to Mustang, and he found himself startled by the pleading look in the General’s eyes. “Try. How are you here, gone, and then returned in a few seconds? Why do we remember you leaving out the door and being gone for minutes but there being seconds between then?”

Ed sighed, and all he could do was shrug. “I don’t know General. Your guess is as good as mine and how all of this works. I know why it’s happening to me, but I couldn’t explain what is happening even if I had twenty years.”

“So, why is it happening then?” Hawkeye asked, and finally, finally, Ed gave in.

“You all know I gave up my ability to do alchemy in exchange for Al’s body, right?” At their nods, he continued. “To do that, I gave up my Gate. Everyone has one. They’re in Truth’s Domain, and it, essentially, gives people the potential to use alchemy.” 

He looked at Mustang and Al, whose eyes had widened in recognition. “Yeah, so as far as I can tell, and from what I've put together from Truth’s nonsense, when I gave up my Gate, it didn’t cut off my access to the Truth. If anything, it made it so I can never escape Truth and what’s Beyond the Gate.”

The shadows swirled and something, somewhere, s n a p p e d. Reality threaded a needle, and began to pull.

“I see it. The shadows of the Gate are everywhere, and so is the Eye. These things were always there but now I can See them, can interact with them. I slip sideways sometimes, see other places, other… worlds I guess. They’re as real as this one, but it all exists at once. Everything.”

“And these anomalies?” Mustang asked. “What are they?”

“I call them sinkholes.” Reality pulled tighter, and the fabric was dipping, sinking, f r a y i n g. “It's the best description for what they are, from my point of view at least. They’re like… holes that lead to Truth I think. Alchemy behaves strangely in them because it's caught in the In Between. There’s no alchemy in Truth’s Domain, and when the two collide, the shadows eat it. It’s a place where things are thin, where things slip from one to the next.”

“But… you say these shadows have always been there? That all this is nothing new?” Al asked, narrowing his eyes.

Ed nodded. “I think so. It’s like… like you spend your whole life seeing things from the sky, but suddenly you look at everything from the ground. It’s the same stuff and it’s always existed the same, but there’s now a whole new layer of depth you couldn’t see before.”

“There’s just one problem, Fullmetal,” Ed turned to look at Mustang, tilting his head in question. He immediately tilted it back as things shifted and time warped. The General’s gaping wound changed to more of a weeping scar. “These sinkholes, as you call them, we’ve only begun to get reports regarding their existence during the past nine months.”

One by one, the threads unraveled. 

“What?” Ed furrowed his brows. “How can that be?”

“You forget, ~Li-ttle Al-che-mist~,” the Void crooned, from every surface, from every shadow. “What do you get when you remove a Door? A sealed surface? Or a hole in the wall?”

A hole a hole a hole, the shadows chittered, opening gaping mouths of teeth. 

“I…” Ed looked into the white white w h i t e abyss, that lurked just Beyond. Its grin stretched wide, ten thousand voices hissing and scratching and echoing across reality. “What are you talking about?”

“Tsk, tsk, Edward Elric, you disappoint us. What does that make you?”

“Brother?”

The threads pulled tighter, wore thinner.

“Mustang, you said the sinkholes have only appeared in the past nine months, right?” Ed asked, keeping his eyes locked onto the immensity that lurked around him. “Only after Promised Day?”

“That’s right,” the General said, and Ed could hear the frown in his voice. “Edward, what’s going on?”

“… I think I know why they appeared.”

Somewhere, somewhen (here, here, here) Fate snipped a thread, and a hole was ripped in reality.

“I think… those anomalies are appearing because of me.”

Somewhere, somewhen, a small hole in reality left others in it’s wake.

Reality frayed, thinner and thinner.

Fate snipped a thread. 

“A hole is a hole, regardless of shape,” the Truth smirked.

Chapter Text

Promised Day would go down in Amestrian history. Between the eclipse, the “mass hallucination”, and the coup led by Roy Mustang, Olivier Mira Armstrong, and the Briggs’ Army, it wasn’t a day that was liable to be forgotten anytime soon.

And, for Alphonse Elric, it was significant for all those reasons and one more.

It was the day he became whole once again. 

…

He knew what he had to do.

Alphonse clapped his hands together, focusing on his blood seal. He Knew how to do this, as assuredly as Ed had Known how to bind his soul in the first place. A Truth that had been realized, the other side of their Exchange. Alchemic lighting arched around him, and through the absence of sensation that had dominated the past years of his life, Alphonse felt warm.  

Then, his perpetual soul-fire vision faded, and the world fell away.

Al blinked his eyes open to white white w h i t e, with a Being that was made of Nothing yet Everything across from him. 

“So, I see you’re all in one piece then,” The Being tilted Its head in something like amusement. “Think he’ll come back to get you?”

“I have no doubt,” Al said, staring down the Arbiter of Balance. “He’ll come.”

Nothing smiled, a razor sharp grin stretching wider than infinity. “What will he sacrifice this time?” Everything inspected Its right arm, flesh disintegrating to leave endless depths of white white white static in its place. Truth laughed, a thousand voices echoing in distorted harmony. “I can’t wait to find out.”

…

Not too long and an eternity thereafter, Alphonse — all of him — walked out the Gate, and he opened his eyes to Everything. 

The ground was hard and rocks jutted into his side, though it was softened by the scratchy padded fabric that surrounded him. The wind stung his face, dust tickled his nose and watered his eyes, yet despite the cold that swept past his skin, he felt warm. And the sights… he could see a richness of color he hadn’t known he’d lost. He could see Edward and Mei and Teacher and Armstrong and a dozen Briggs’ soldiers, covered in dust and blood, their expressions filled with fear and hope. 

Alphonse was whole once more, surrounded by his friends and family, and he reveled in it. 

…

Later, from his hospital bed, Alphonse would hear the rest of what had happened — “You punched Father in the face?! And I missed it?!” — and hear of what was to come. Several months of physical therapy were ahead of him, and it would be painful, because he now had muscles and nerves he hadn’t had for years, but Al was happy. 

Because he could feel again.

His body and soul sang at being reunited, twin voids he had felt so keenly now slotted together. That said, they didn’t agree in all things. While Al’s soul was overjoyed to be back in the familiar world, away from the abyssal emptiness, his body prickled at it, uncertain of the everything yet lack of Everything around him.

And, Al dreamed.

In his dreams, he opened his eyes to white white w h i t e. He sat cross legged across from a figure of Void, which mirrored his position. The Void smiled at him, a too-wide grin of too-many teeth. “What is the World?” The Void asked, Its thousand voices echoing in Nothing.

“The world is in two,” Al felt himself responding, strangely apathetic and emotionless to this whole charade. “All live in their own world, a world whose bounds stop at our consciousness. It is this which makes the individual. But the second world is made of individuals, a thousand separate consciousness coming together to be One world.”

“Is that the Truth?” The Void asked.

“It is a truth,” Al replied.

Then the dream would shift, and Alphonse would be lost in his memories. He was on the train with Edward, riding to Somewhere, but it was not the same train. The shadows were darker, and sometimes they moved, even when that which cast them did not. Sometimes Al would blink — but he did not blink, not like this — and someone would be different, a fatal wound wrapping across their head, their chest, yet they did not flinch, because it wasn’t (was) there.

Then, Al snapped awake, staring at white, but it was not the w h i t e of Nothing and Everything. His eyes would fall, and he would see sheets pulled around his body, and Edward slumped at the foot of the bed, head folded on his arms, and drool trailing down his chin. 

Edward…

Since he had returned from Truth’s Domain, there had been something about Ed that had tugged at the corner of Al’s mind. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, and it had taken several days, but Alphonse eventually realized his brother felt different. He felt more.  

But why?

Alphonse turned it over in his mind, trying to understand it. Until he at last came to realize that Ed felt more because to Alphonse, was more. 

Alphonse was smaller and Edward was bigger. Al could no longer cradle his brother in massive armored arms. And, now that Al had regained his senses, he could feel in ways he hadn’t been able to do in years. When he hugged Ed, he was embraced in strong, solid arms that radiated warmth and safety. And he could take in the smell of Ed, something that was so fundamentally him that Al hadn’t realized he’d forgotten.

And, when Edward smiled, he smiled wider than Alphonse had seen in years.  

So yes, Edward was more. 

But, as Alphonse waved to his brother from the back of the train, heading towards Xing, he couldn’t help the whispering feeling that there was something else. That there was more he was missing, just out of sight.

…

It was over a year until Alphonse saw his brother again, this time back in Amestris, outside the Central Hospital. At least this time, Alphonse considered, it wasn’t because either of them were injured.

“Alphonse!” 

The familiar voice had Al turning, just in time to be picked up and squeezed in a hug. “Edward!” Al laughed, and embraced his brother back, reveling in the warmth and solidity of it. He didn’t think he’d ever tire of it.

Eventually, they released each other, both wheezing for breath from the twin hugs that had squeezed all the air from their lungs. Ed laughed, leaning into Al. “It’s so good to see you,” Ed said, and his golden eyes locked with Al’s. “You’re looking really good, Al.”

Al smiled back, and he couldn’t help a bit of mischief. “I can say the same to you. You’re actually my height now.” Edward scowled, but Al could see the humor in it. 

“Oi! I’m your big brother! No insulting me!” Ed grumbled, his hand lightly hitting the back of Al’s head. 

From there, they were swept up by the now-General Mustang, who guided them around the building. As they got closer, Al felt something shift in the air. His soul prickled in response, and some tension in his muscles relaxed. 

Then, he saw it.

It was…. Wrong and yet, at the same time, his body felt it was familiar. A rippling distortion in the air, through which Alphonse could see the world inverted. Darkness fractled at the center of the thing, shadowed hands flicking in and out like the tongues of snakes, scratching and clawing at the skin of reality before they folded back upon themselves.

It smelled of emptiness, of burnt licorice and prickling too-empty and not-full-enough.

“What is it?” Al asked, his voice hushed, almost afraid he might disturb the Beyond from where it lay on the other side.

However, Edward didn’t seem to share his sentiments. “Wait, you can see it too?!” Ed screeched, and Al turned to meet his brother’s wild eyed gaze.

“I mean, mostly yeah,” Al said, furrowing his brows. “You see the shadows too?”

Abruptly, Edward’s face turned to one of devastation. Before Al could ask why, Mustang called him over, nodding to the distortion of fractled shadows. “Try a transmutation,” the General said. “Send it into the anomaly’s bounds. But be careful, make sure it’s a small one.”

Al frowned, but nodded. He clapped his hands together, pressing them into the ground. He reached down towards the tectonic energy, pulling a ribbon of it up and below his fingers, lightning danced. In front of him, the cobblestone warped as the transmutation advanced towards the distortion. Al hesitated at the edge of it, but then, he steeled his nerves, and extended his reach to the stone within the anomaly. 

i t   p u l l e d   f r o m   h i m

In an instant, Alphonse felt control of the transmutation be swept from his grasp, and felt the empty-not-emptiness that emanated from the distortion surge. white white  w h i t e   disintegrated and filled the stone as the fractled shadows shrank and grew, tearing into themselves, into the stone.

Within the distortion, the world tore itself in two, into Nothing and Everything, reduced to atoms and frozen in time—

Again and again and again and again—

“What the hell?” Al whispered, and it was all he could say as he watched the stone be unmade and remade and nevermade by shadows and w h i t e. “Brother, are you seeing this?”

“Yep.”

“Any ideas?” Mustang asked. “Because none of us have an idea what to do with the reality-warping hole.”

“Wait, wait, wait—” Ed narrowed his eyes at Mustang. “Are you telling me you can see that?!” Al’s brother pointed aggressively at the distortion and the twisting shadows. Al would admit, he was a bit confused by the question. How could anyone not see it?

“Uh, yes?” Mustang nodded.

Ed dug his fingers into his hair and made a keening cry that bordered on hysterical. It was then that Al learned that apparently his brother had been seeing these distortions for years now, and not only had he failed to mention it, apparently Truth had something to do with it. 

And now, Alphonse sat across from his brother in Mustang’s office, looking at where his brother had been thrown from the shadows (and yet, had never left at all). He stared at Edward, trying to unravel the contradictions and confusing statements that Ed had spun, while his brother stared into the middle distance, his face some mixture of confusion, fury and fear.

Al wasn’t sure what to ask first, so Mustang did it for him.

“Not that I’m underestimating your ability to cause trouble,” the General said slowly, eyeing Ed from behind his thick-rimmed glasses. “But how could the anomalies be appearing because of you?”

Ed exhaled sharply, scrubbing a hand through his hair as he began to pace across the office. “It’s… I gave up my Gate for Alphonse. I thought that would cut me off from Truth, but instead, it’s more like there’s nothing stopping it. I’m – shutup – a hole, as It loves to put it. I see the Truth all the time—” Ed gestured expansively around the room, “—but no one else does. It’s… leaking through me, I think.”

“What about the time difference?” Al asked, thinking back over the conversation. “You said it yourself, you’ve been seeing these things since Promised Day, and that was nearly two years ago. The General has only been getting reports for nine months.”

Ed began another circuit of the office, rubbing at his right arm. He looked in the direction of the windows, as if he could see the anomaly from here. (His gaze was too sharp for that).

“Holes,” Al’s brother muttered under his breath, continuing to wear a path in Mustang’s carpet. “What do holes do? They let things through, that’s what’s happening now… but… they also make things weaker.” Ed had his left hand closed around the bicep of his right arm. The fingers of his right hand flexed, open, closed, open. “Not all at once, but as time goes on, the fabric frays… threads unravel, and more patches of fabric get thinner…”

Ed’s gaze snapped downward, and he kicked his leg out. Al wondered what had gotten him frustrated. (He wondered why the shadows under Ed’s feet looked darker). “Shut it,” Ed hissed, he squeezed his eyes shut, and raked a hand through his hair. (Ed’s hair snagged in the metal joints of his flesh fingers.)

“Look,” Edward said, louder. “It… it’s possible that my proximity has been causing this. I… where have the Sinkholes been?” Ed asked, looking over at Mustang.

Mustang rattled off a dozen names, and Ed grimaced. “Yeah, I’ve been to all those places in the past year. I… I was in Aparo over a month ago, before I was in Aquroya.” Ed gestured widely. (Shadows trailed behind his hand).

“It’s getting worse,” Hawkeye said lowly, and when the room turned to her, she continued. “You were last in Central nearly a year ago, but the anomaly only appeared to us within the past week. On the other hand, you were in Aparo relatively recently, and unless you were there before then—” Ed shook his head, “—then these anomalies are developing faster.”

And if that rate continues, Riza didn’t have to say. Then it won’t be long before the entirety of Amestris ends up one gigantic Anomaly. 

“We need a plan.”

Ed squeezed his right arm tighter, nails digging into skin that buzzed with static. His fingers dug into metal, and every twitch of his automail fingers sent lightning shooting up his existent-non-existent nerves. Across the room were the rest of Mustang’s unit who had all been briefed on the current situation, and they were taking it about as well as could be expected. Breda was staring at Ed with an almost uncomfortable intensity, Falman looked intrigued, and Fuery and Havoc looked ‘done with this shit’. 

Edward didn’t blame them.

“We need more than that Breda, we need a solution,” Mustang said sharply. The General’s forefingers rubbed together, the only sign of his anxiety. “So… any ideas?”

let us out let us free, the shadows chittered, reaching out from under the couches. Ed shifted his weight from foot to foot, the shadows under his feet curling around his legs. we want to play we want to be  f r e e

“I’m fine like this,” Ed protested, ignoring the eyes that stared at him from human and shadow.

“Sure, you are,” Havoc drawled around his cigarette. “But your weirdness threshold is skewed so far that it’s not even in this plane of existence anymore. Literally, apparently. And I for one am in favor of reality not being like that. ”

Edward sighed. “Again, how exactly are we supposed to do that?”

He’d been like this for nearly two years at this point, and he’d gotten nowhere.

“It’s your lack of a… Gate… that’s causing this right?” Falman questioned, to which Ed nodded. “Well, why can’t you go get it back?”

Ed bared his teeth, hackles already rising as he snarled. Beneath him, the shadows writhed, though whether they were reacting to Ed’s fury or the prospect of a meal, he didn’t know. “No way in hell!! My Gate was my Toll to get Alphonse’s body back, and I’m not doing anything to put him at risk again!” 

“Easy Brother,” Al said, patting him on the shoulder. “Falman didn’t say that… but it is something to consider.”

“What?!” Ed shot his younger brother an incredulous look. “You can’t seriously be considering—”

“The issue lies with the Gate,” Al cut in, his voice hard. “And there are more ways to pay a Toll than that. We could bargain with something else, many smaller trades instead of one large one.”

“What, we’re all going to offer Truth a kidney?” Ed muttered hysterically. 

White white w h i t e flashed in the corner of his eye, the figure that loomed in the Void peeking out from the windows. “Oh, that might be nice,” It muttered with a razored smile. “I could also take a liver, maybe a heart while I’m at it. Is it an Exchange if you don’t see the worth in what you give? Is it a Toll if you don’t pay a Price?”

“What if we go to the source of the problem?” Fuery asked, and Edward couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow, gesturing to himself. (To the shadows that dripped from his skin, the shine of automail that flickered there-not-there). Fuery shook his head. “No, not you. I mean… When there’s an issue with transmission, we track the problem to the source of the issue. Sometimes it has to do with the wiring, but a lot of the time the generator is the issue. The thing behind the wires.”

Fuery pointed at Ed. “You’re the wires. We need to go to the source of the problem, this… Truth I guess. We need to go to what’s on the other side of those holes.”

“Nope, no, no, no,” Ed waved his hands, even as Mustang and Alphonse were nodding.

“It’s one method,” Al considered, looking entirely too thoughtful. “You can’t fix a dam if water’s spraying you in the face.” 

“No!” Edward protested, shaking his head vehemently. “Sure, the Sinkholes lead to Truth’s Domain, to the Beyond, but I have no idea what happens when you go through them! I don’t even know if you can go through them!”

“Edward,” Ed snapped his head around to Hawkeye. She gave him a concerned look, and when she spoke her voice was soft. “I understand you’re worried, but we do need a solution. We can’t leave this to fate.”

“I’ve met Truth too, Brother,” Al said, and when Ed looked at him, he saw the Void reflected in Al’s eyes. “I fear It too… I know how maddening it is… but, right now, you’re not alone. We can help.” Alphonse nodded to the other’s of Mustang’s Unit, all gazing at him with the same determination.

I know, Ed thought, staring at their faces, which alternated between various bloody wounds with every blink. I don’t want you to have to see this. But… 

“You can’t fight Truth,” Ed finally said. “Trust me, I’ve tried.”

Exhaustion weighed in his bones, made too-old from all that he had Seen. Pain lanced up his arm and leg, ones that had been, that were, made of metal. A reminder of the Toll he had paid when he tried to resist Truth.  w h i t e  stared at him, a razored smile flashing from Fuery and Mustang’s glasses, from the shine of Hawkeye’s gun. A constant reminder of when he’d realized (not defeated, never defeated) Truth.

“You’ve learned…” the Arbiter of the Universe sang in a thousand, million, billion voices. 

Alphonse gave Ed a grim smile. “I know. And I don’t plan to fight Truth… but there are other ways of getting around It.”

“Like what?”

“But… so have they.”

Alphonse grinned. It was a feral thing, one that reminded Ed of Truth, too-wide and knowing something you didn’t. “You remember how the Xerxian philosophers were always arguing about the nature of an absolute Truth? About knowledge and belief?” 

“Yeah…” Ed said slowly, only seeing half the picture. Alphonse had always been more interested in the poets and philosophers than he was. Al had gotten especially attached to one guy named Descartes for his thesis on “I think, therefore I am”. Ed only knew some of the classics. (He’d enjoyed pointing and laughing at the guy that said “God is dead”. No, God was “alive” and a bitch.)

“Well, to some, Truth is absolute and there are things that are always True. But to others…” Al chuckled, a smirk stretching across his face. “Well, Truth can be a very subjective thing.”

Ed blinked, the pieces of a puzzle he hadn’t realized was there slowly fitting together in his mind. Around him, the shadows buzzed, eyes wide and eager as they watched watched watched. “Are you trying to beat Equivalent Exchange at Its own game?!” Ed almost shrieked.

What the fuck Al, I thought I was the crazy one!

“Not in the least,” Al said, his grin echoing the one worn by the Being that lurked in the windows, too-wide and too-sharp. “There is nothing to win. You don’t need an Exchange for something to be Equivalent.”

Ed stared at his brother, eyes cunning and swimming with knowledge. 

Perhaps, Ed wondered, feeling the Eye staring at him, Judging him, from somewhere (nowhere) beyond. Even though I can See and Interact with the Truth, maybe… maybe Al is the one who Understands the Truth.

Static played at the edge of his senses, eyes watched him from every shadow, and in the corner of his eye, the Truth of the World, the thing that was God, watched with a razored smile. 

“What do you think, ~Li-ttle Al-che-mist~?” It crooned. “Are you going to play the game?”

Locking eyes with his little brother, Ed felt exasperation and fondness well up in his chest. “This is a bad idea,” Ed said flatly, brushing past Al’s attempted protest. “The fact that I am saying that tells you everything. However… I also know that sometimes the craziest plans are the ones that work.”

His right hand clenched into a fist, and metal ground against metal. He looked up, and met the gaze of his younger brother, whole and healthy and alive. Crazy plans, desperate plans, plans that had worked. They’d cheated fate before, had matched Truth’s bargains with their own. What was one more time?

Edward grinned.

“I’m in.”

In his reflection, Truth cackled, Its eerie grin stretched across every window. “I can’t wait to see what you do this time, ~Li-ttle Al-che-mists~.”

Chapter Text

“Let the record show that I still think this is a bad idea.”

“We know, Brother. You’ve said it quite a bit already.”

Edward sighed, glancing over at the Anomaly that was currently fraying at the fabric of reality. The world warped around it, dissolving into a rotating sphere of fractals that expanded and collapsed inward, white white w h i t e scraping vantablack talons across the skin of the world. Through the twisting and sickening maelstrom, Ed imagined he could almost see a great Eye staring at him, ready to Judge what he was about to do.

“I still don’t get why we had to come along. This is an alchemist problem,” Breda muttered slightly, hauling some more boxes over to Fuery, who was adjusting his radio receiver. “Is that everything Fuery?”

“Yep,” Fuery nodded, twisting another dial on his equipment. Ed winced as a high pitched whine pierced the air, and the shadows hissed their displeasure, twisting around the trees until the trunks were stained black and thousands of eyes stared from the underbrush. 

Finally, the crackling static of the receiver eased to a relatively constant drone. Fuery grinned, too many teeth showing, as he patted his radio lovingly. Ed blinked, and the man’s smile no longer showed bone. “This should tell us about what the Anomaly is doing while you’re in there,” the engineer told Ed and Al. “As the thing fluctuates, it’ll get picked up by this. Hopefully anyways.”

“Way to inspire confidence, Kain,” Havoc muttered, taking a nervous drag of his cigarette. (Ed glared away the Entropy that was trying to rest in Havoc’s lungs. Not yet, he hissed silently. Not now.)

“What were you doing all the way out here anyways, Chief?” Falman asked, looking at their surroundings. They were in the middle of almost-nowhere, their only company the cabin they were currently stationed out of. The nearest village was half a mile down the road, where they had evacuated the cabin’s singular resident to.

“Look sometimes you just need to go out into the woods and scream,” Ed said flatly as living shadows twisted around them.

The others gave him a concerned look. 

Ed ignored it as he rubbed his chin, thinking back to when he’d last been here. “Well that, and there were some shady guys extorting the folks in the local village. I helped out, got to stay in this cabin for a bit, and had some nice relaxing scream therapy.”

He’d even been able to get rid of all the nearby reflective surfaces, so Truth hadn’t bothered him for over a week! 

Ed shared this tidbit with the group, which for some reason didn’t seem to assuage their worries.  

“Alright,” Mustang stepped into the clearing, Hawkeye at his shoulder. The General eyed the Anomaly, his face twisting as it squeezed space in ways space was not meant squeezed. White static dribbled onto the ground, popping and spitting like acid. “Are you ready?”

“As we can be,” Alphonse said, to which Mustang sighed.

“I suppose I can’t ask for much more with you two.” The General swept his gaze around their makeshift camp, from Fuery’s receiver station, to Falman, Havoc and Breda, firearms strapped to their sides. (Over the shadow-filled trees and the eyes that watched their every move). “We’ll hold down the fort out here until you get out.” 

Mustang paused, then pinned the two brothers down with a sharp stare. “Come back in one piece and with all your limbs, Elrics.”

“Sir! Yes Sir,” Ed muttered sarcastically. “Not like I want to lose anymore limbs.”

Automail f l i c k e r e d, the nerves of his shoulder burning as lightning lanced through them. An arm he’d lost and an arm he’d gained. An arm he’d never gotten back.

“We’ll come out,” Al said, rolling his eyes. “We’ve got a plan.”

Mostly.

The pair of brothers strode up to the anomaly until they were a couple meters away. Ed winced as he felt it tugging at him, w h i t e raking its claws near his face. The shadows being pulled into — crawling out of — the twisting distortion latched onto his legs. They spiraled around him until Ed’s body was almost entirely cloaked in shadow, eyes of varying sizes and shapes staring out of the inky darkness.

“We’re sure this will work?” Ed muttered softly to Alphonse, who just gave him a grim smile. 

“Trust me, Brother… we can do it.”

“Yes, we can do it, doesn’t mean it will work.”

“Optimism, Brother,” Alphonse said, gently hitting him on the head. “Learn to have some.”

“I’m plenty optimistic,” Edward muttered. The shadows wrapped around his body objected, squeezing in protest. Ed had to cut back several choice swears as his ribs broke, healed, atomized, reformed. “I’m optimistic that we have a low chance of success, and a high chance of getting torn apart at the atomic level.”

“Optimism, Brother. ” 

“Boys,” Hawkeye said sharply, and Ed looked back at her and the others. The Captain gave them a Look, and Ed gulped, sweat beading his brow. “You will get back here alive, you understand me? If not… we’ll be seeing how well you dodge bullets.”

“Yes ma’am,” Ed said softly.

He steeled himself and turned back towards the anomaly. Exhaling, he locked his fingers with Al’s, tugging his brother close to his side. Edward took a breath and, squeezing his eyes tight, he stepped into twisting u n r e a l i t y

the world 

tore 

a p a r t

Now, Edward and the others knew they didn’t know what would happen when he stepped into the anomaly. It was the reason why they had chosen to come to such a remote location for their mission. But, even still, they didn’t fully consider the consequences of what might happen when Edward went through. 

After all, a hole jumping inside another hole is not known to be a smooth process, particularly in the third dimension. 

…

h e   w a s   f a l l i n g

i n t o   n o t h i n g  

s u r r o n d e d   b y   e v e r y t h i n g

w h o   w e r e   t h e y

w h y   w e r e   t h e y 

f a   l       l          i                n                     g

d

     o

           w

                  n

             d

        n

    a

u

    p

        w

            a

                r

                   d

                        s

…

He is torn apart, atom by atom.

Nothing but a billion protons and electrons, simple charges, sitting in an ether.

The Beyond holds him up to the light, a pinned insect with no wings to flutter. 

His fingertips peel away into ribbons, stopped at deconstruction, unmade by the feasting shadows.

Into the empty shell, the Beyond pours the heart of stars.

From stardust they were made, and to stardust they returned.

s o   s a n g   t h e   u n i v e r s e 

Edward slammed into the ground, and he immediately tasted dirt and cyan.

He lay sprawled for a minute, his head pounding and every fiber of his body screaming in pain despite there being no pain to scream from. Deconstruction and reconstruction at the atomic level, only to appear somewhere that didn’t exist. It was an almost familiar pain, for how many times Edward had come here.

Here…

Ed shoved himself upright, and the world titled, black spots dancing in front of his eyes. He followed one, and the black blob waved a thread-thin hand, blinking its eyes and giving a toothy smile made of silver needles. 

He blinked.

One blob became a thousand.

He blinked.

(n) o n e

Squeezing his eyes shut, Ed struggled to get his pounding migraine under control. Finally, he tried opening his eyes again and unfortunately, the dancing black blob(s) was still there, still looking like a dizziness-induced hallucination, crackling and glitching at the edges.

Joy.

Ed swept his gaze around, glaring dispassionately at further black blobs, which, now that he thought about it, looked rather like condensed coal dust. Had the dust motes become sentient? They wafted through the air, twisting around the tree branches and settling curiously onto Alphonse.

Alphonse!

Edward lurched forwards, stumbling over to his little brother’s side and turning him onto his back. The dust motes rose off Al in a flurry of black and Ed coughed, waving the things away. His eyes roved over his brother’s body and some of the pain in his chest eased as he saw the smooth rise and fall of Al’s chest.

“Hnngh,” Alphonse groaned and Ed’s brother shifted, one hand coming to hold his head. “Brother?”

“I’m here, Al,” Ed said, reaching forward and holding Al’s other hand in his own. His right hand spasmed, and Ed bit back a hiss as metal replaced his bones, and wires filled in tendons. “How are you feeling?”

“It’s that day all over again,” Al murmured, his face twisted in pain. 

It took Ed a moment to realize, and when he did, he couldn’t help the soft keening whine that escaped his throat. Fuck, I hadn’t even… Ed had gotten his body thrown either side of the Gate nearly half a dozen times. To Al, it had happened once. And it had been on the worst night of their lives.

“I’m sorry,” Ed whispered, pressing his forehead into Al’s hand. “I… I’m so sorry, I didn’t think—”

Al’s hand twitched, shifting just enough to flick Ed’s forehead. (He felt it through the metal toes of his left foot.) “Stupid Brother,” Alphonse muttered, a slight laugh in his voice. “I signed up for this too, you know. Now, stop hovering and let me sit up.”

Shuffling backward, Edward helped Al sit upright. The dust motes hovered around so Ed shooed them away, clearing a spot on the ground for Al to sit. 

“Ugh, what the fuck was that?! ”

“That was the feeling of being deconstructed and then reconstructed Mustang, catch up,” Ed called back reflexively, before going back to fussing over Alphonse.

…

Wait—

Edward and Alphonse froze simultaneously, then spun around. Across the clearing, in roughly the same place they’d been before, was Mustang, Hawkeye, Havoc, Falman, Breda, and Fuery. All sprawled on the dirt covered ground, eyes wide and looking halfway to terror as they stared at the Elric brothers.

Dirt covered…

Startled, Ed’s eyes snapped downward, taking in the dirt and twisted grass he was kneeling on. He looked upwards, and he was greeted with trees, the same as those from the clearing they’d left. In fact, it seemed they had not left the clearing. The clearing had left with them.

“Fuck,” Ed said eloquently.

“Where are we?” Fuery asked, flinching away as a dust mote brushed against his face. “And what are these things?”

“You can see them?” Ed raised an eyebrow, reaching out his left hand to grab one of the dust motes from the air. It giggled, the golf-ball sized sphere of shadow wrapping tendril-like hands around his fingers. It felt like holding static, pins and needles popping and prickling against his skin, but at the same time, he was holding nothing.

nicenicenice, the dust mote chittered, and a half dozen more came to attach themselves to Ed’s hand. the bright one has come to play

“Hard not to, Edward,” Hawkeye said, gun in hand as she eyed the dust motes warily. One of the motes twined in Ed’s fingers sent her a curious look, several eyes opening and staring at her. Hawkeye shuddered. “Are these the shadows you were talking about? The ones like Pride?”

“Not quite,” Ed said, flicking the motes off his fingers. “Those actually look like Pride. Lots of eyes and mouths.”

“Getting back on track, where are we?” Mustang asked, eyes snapping to the sides as he scanned the clearing. The General’s hair cycled from black to white, aging a decade in a minute, frozen in time. “Aside from these… things, it’s like we didn’t go anywhere.”

“Oh we went somewhere,” Ed muttered. A smell like burnt licorice burned his nostrils and the air itself prickled his skin and lungs. He tasted mauve and whalesong and he saw something sour drip through the creases in the air from where they’d come. “Welcome to the other side of the anomalies.”

“It’s a lot… greener than I was expecting,” Falman muttered, looking around at the trees.

Alphonse gave a wry laugh. “It usually looks a little different than this… I think we may have brought the forest with us.” Al paused, and looked straight up through the tree canopy. “Yep, take a look.”

Ed craned his neck back, and instead of blue sky, he was treated with a white white w h i t e   not-sky. He inspected the trees with curiosity, because he’d never been in Truth’s Domain with this much from the Material Realm there too. Indeed, the forest was lit up, but it felt w r o n g . The light came from everywhere, overly saturated and with no source. The trees were lit from the sides, from underneath, from above, and the air tasted green and empty.

And in the places of not light, eyes o p e n e d 

“What in the name of God…” Breda whispered as shadows twisted around the tree trucks and eyes opened beneath their feet. (Ed wondered what he was seeing, how much he was seeing).

“Not really worth saying here, Breda,” Ed said dryly. “You’re in the Domain of the thing closest to God, and It’s a bitch.” He swept his arms out to the side, a wry grin on his face. Shadows dripped from the darkness of Ed’s coat, grasping vantablack hands twirling around as a non-existent wind ran its fingers through his hair. “Welcome to the Truth’s Domain, the Realm of the Gate and the Place Beyond.”

Havoc made a keening noise. “I should have called in sick today.”

…

After Havoc and some of the others who’d never had the (mis)fortune to visit the Void had been more or less calmed down from their existential crisis, Ed decided to get them back on track.

“Alright,” Edward clapped his hands together. (It rang out loud and long, the sound of metal and almost alchemy). “Let’s get going.”

“Go where?” Falman asked, looking through the trees to the white white w h i t e beyond. “There’s nothing out there, and it’s the same in every direction.”

Alphonse made a noncommittal noise, see-sawing his hand. “Eh, not really? I mean, we’re in Truth’s Domain, but we’re not at the Gate.” Al waved his hand around, indicating the lack of stone monoliths.

“Plus, we may be in Truth, but we’re not at the Truth,” Ed continued. “Truth’s like that, we have to go find It.”

“Alright,” Mustang took a deep breath, giving a long exhale before he locked eyes with the Elric brothers. “You two are our guides here. We need to get this fixed and figure a way to get out of here. Preferably before we’re reported as missing.”

“And before our brains melt,” Fuery added.

Easier said than done, Edward thought dryly.

He exchanged a look with Alphonse, their eyes flicking to the Expanse just beyond their island of matter. Ready, Brother? Alphonse asked, his amber eyes glinting (filled with soul fire). 

No, Ed returned. But when are we ever ready to face the Truth?

“Okay,” Ed said, and beckoned the others to follow. “Let’s go.”

They took a step.

Edward’s foot sank into sand. 

He blinked, and the trees dissolved into atoms. 

He moved, and they were walking through ruins that were not ruined, that were whole, fading, falling. Kingdoms built themselves from dirt and crumbled to ash, swept up in the whirling wind of Time. Around them a city built itself brick by century and the river wore a canyon sandgrain by sandgrain. 

They walked away the seconds in eternity.

Protons to stardust to ash and back again.

…

All time and no time later, the In Between t w i s t e d

Edward was looking at a Mother that was not his Mother, a Homunculi formed by human hands (folly). A different world a different realm and this Edward too had walked between them

Edward was looking at his own buried coffin, cold cold cold seeping in front every side, and he slipped straight through the world and into the next, dead dead dead

Edward stood at the feet of the World, a too-wide smile as It held Everything in Its hands. 

“I am All and I am One and I am You,” the World said as Edward’s mind filled with Everything. “All Time, All At Once. Everywhere and Nowhere. The Beginning and the End.”

…

They walked.

They sought a Truth they sought to not make True, dimensions folding around them.

Edward knew if he looked into his friends’ eyes, he’d see his own self reflected back, too-full with the World. But he’d been living with Everything in his head for a long time, they had not. And now, they were in the head of Everything.

At some point (time may or may not have passed at all), someone made a choked noise.

“Sir…” The quaver in Hawkeye’s voice had Ed spinning around, only to see her staring at Mustang with open horror. Ed squinted, looking at Mustang, but he seemed alright, large wounds notwithstanding. 

Oh… that’s probably what it was.

“Tilt your head,” Ed said tiredly. “Nothing’s actually wrong, not Here and Now at least.”

But, then again, everything was Here and Now, now.

Hawkeye’s eyes flicked to him, uncertainty radiating from her, but she complied. She tilted her head, and immediately something in her expression relaxed. The Captain squeezed her eyes shut, taking deep breaths while the others stared with concern.

“Captain, what’s wrong?” Mustang asked, but Riza just shook her head.

Edward sighed. “If someone ends up looking like they’re the dead walking, ignore it,” Ed said to the group as a whole. “It’s not True, not Here at least.” 

They all found out what he meant, at some time.

…

“How do we know when we’re there?” Breda asked, exhaustion in his voice.

“You’ll Know,” Ed said with a laugh. “That’s the whole point.”

“I hate this place,” Havoc muttered under his breath, cigarette reduced to a stub after the officer had chewed through it. The shadows had eaten the rest. “I hate this place so much and I would like to erase my memories after this please and thank you. I did not sign up for this shit, this is alchemist and Elric bullshit.”

“Edward, when we’re out of here, I am getting you an appointment with someone,” Mustang said, and oh look, he had the eyepatch back on.

Ed raised an eyebrow. “You really think a psychiatrist can help with this?” He gestured to the dust motes and shadows that clung to him and trailed in his wake, at the warping dimensions that had no end and no beginning. Who knew how much of it Mustang could see, but it was probably enough for Ed’s point to get across.

“No, but, at the very least, we can arrange for some nice walks into the woods. Maybe to more cabins for screaming-into-the-void therapy. I know I could use some.”

Ed stared at his friends. Their eyes dripped dark tears, their fractaled consciousnesses folding inwards and outwards, a spiral of too-much and not-enough. 

“Yeah,” Edward said. “Might be nice.”

…

They found Truth.

Between one moment and the next, the white white w h i t e of the void around them flipped, and then there was a humanoid (but not human, never human) figure sitting in front of them. It grinned, and the too-wide razored smile stretched to eternity.

“Hello ~Li-ttle Al-che-mist~,” the Being crooned. “Are you ready to play?”

“Truth,” Ed greeted and, just to be petty, he waved, wiggling the fingers of his now flesh and blood right hand (metal glinting in the not-light) at It. “And who says we’re here to play? Playing implies a game, and we’re not here to lose.”

“Ah, so you’re here to win?” The Void leaned forward, resting Its chin on a hand. “You Know better than that.”

“I do,” Ed said, inclining his head. Alphonse slid next to him, his presence a comforting weight at Ed’s side. (Though how he wished that Al wasn’t here, that he was far away and tucked safe.) “We’re here to surprise you.”

Truth cackled, a thousand voices scraping against each other in a sound that rattled dimensions. “I do love surprises, ~Li-ttle Al-che-mist~.”

A few snaps clicked behind him, and Ed gave a tired smile. “Sorry Mustang,” Ed called back without turning around, keeping his gaze on the Thing That Wasn’t. “No alchemy here.”

“Yes,” the Thing that Was the World looked past Ed, presumably at Mustang. Its grin grew impossibly wider. “This is the Beginning and End, Nowhere and Everywhere. The Place of Alchemy's Potential.” 

Ed blinked and suddenly everyone was spread out, standing in a semicircle in front of Truth. A stone monolith stood behind all of them, ranging from dense spiraling symbols on Alphonse and Mustang’s, to ones that were almost blank for Havoc, Breda, and Fuery. And then there was Ed, the only one without a Gate at his back.

“This is the Realm of the Gate.”

Truth smiled, and Ed saw the Everything contained within It, every atom from every universe condensed into the Being in front of him. A black hole so complete, so Empty, it became the birth of Everything.

Edward walked forward, and Alphonse went with him, until the two Elric brothers stood in front of the Arbiter of the Universe. Before, they had faced Truth alone, with demands and with bargains of Exchange. But this time, they were not seeking to best Truth. 

Because Truth stayed True.

But True did not.

“Equivalent Exchange,” Al said, giving a sharp grin that matched the one on Truth. “We’ve come to bargain.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” Truth asked, tilting Its head. Ed’s sense of gravity went with it. “Will you give me an arm and a leg? But that is not enough, hmm? ” It looked directly at Ed, and behind It, the Eye of the Gate opened. “You traded your Gate for the human body, traded the cause of your mistakes for their resolution. What Toll can you pay to meet that?” 

“What is Truth?” Al asked instead, and the Being turned Its non-existent gaze to him.

“You ask me what Truth is?” It asked, and if Ed didn’t Know better, he’d say It sounded incredulous. He certainly felt it. When Al nodded, the Being laughed, and the sound echoed across Nowhere. Eventually, it grinned and Ed saw the smile reflected in the Maw of the Abyss.

“Truth,” the Being stated. “The state of being true, of being in accordance with facts or reality.”

“And what determines Truth?” Alphonse asked in challenge.

“Truth is what Is.”

“But how do you find it?” Al continued, sweeping a hand around them. “Truth is subject to belief, on what we believe to be True. But how do we, those who can’t immediately know Truth, determine what is True, what to believe?” 

“Evidence, perhaps,” Ed added in, tapping his chin in an almost thoughtful manner. “Though some would say there are ‘justified true beliefs’. But something can be justified and still not be true. And what is enough evidence to say something is True? Can we ever reach enough evidence to say something is True in its entirety? We can never know Everything, so we must instead know enough.”

Truth looked between them, and It seemed almost confused. “This is not a bargain,” It said, smile closing to leave Its not-face blank blank blank

“No,” Alphonse said. “It is a redistribution.”

The Being in front of them gave off the distinct impression of a raised eyebrow, despite having no eyebrows to raise. Maybe it had to do with how the Between folded and Ed tasted neon orange. “A redistribution,” It repeated, many layered voices scraping against the walls of Nowhere. “And what are you redistributing?”

“The Truth.”

“You would lie?” The Entity tilted Its head, a flicker of mockery in the gesture. “You would have Truth perpetuate a falsehood?”

“Falsehoods are still fundamentally tied to Truth,” Edward countered, baring his teeth at the Entity. “They can’t not be. They are the deliberate obscuring of Truth. They oppose it, but you cannot have a lie without having Truth.”

The Keeper of the Gate looked at Ed, and he was standing above a chasm, falling forever and strung like an insect, the Eyes piercing him with needles that tasted of ash. “Hypocrisy, Edward Elric,” It rumbled, and the shadows hissed and scraped talons against his mind. “You would lie to those whom you have sought to bring Truth?”

“No,” Ed said, meeting the gaze of the Gate. “But you do not learn the Truth of the world all at once. Your understanding of the world, your Truth of it, is gained through experience, through Time.”

“That is equivalent,” Alphonse said, and he gave Truth one of Its own grins, too-wide and razored. In it, Edward saw the sun. “Truth over Time.”

For a second and eternity, Truth was silent, face utterly blank, the World utterly still. And then, It laughed. It was raucous, wheezing laughter, a thousand voices clashing and chorusing, the very sound of which rattled the stars. Truth grinned, sharp and b u r n i n g

“Very good, ~Li-ttle Al-che-mists~,” It cackled, teeth bared in a grin. (If Al mimicked Truth’s knowing smirk, then Truth mimicked Ed’s smug one). “That is a suitable exchange. Nothing lost, nothing gained.” 

The Universe smiled. 

“Deal.” 

- - -

Bonus Snippet:

When they exited Truth’s Domain, stepping back into the Material Realm through Alphonse’s Gate, it was to a massive crater. A massive crater, now filled with dozens of soldiers where once there had been forest. Both sides froze when they laid eyes on the other, before the silence was shattered by one soldier in particular.

“GENERAL MUSTANG! ELRICS!!” Major Armstrong bellowed, leaping forwards and sweeping his fellow alchemists into a bone crushing hug. “It is good to see you alive and unharmed!”

“Put us down!” Ed screeched, his lungs expanding painfully as he was finally dropped to the ground. He and Al leaned into each other, both struggling for breath. “What the hell?”

“Mind explaining why all these soldiers are here, Armstrong?” Mustang asked, rubbing his own sore chest.

Armstrong gave them an incredulous look. “You’ve been missing from Command for two weeks, General! You were supposed to report in a week ago!”

The entire group froze, and then Ed proceeded to fire off a furious volume of swears. Amidst the massive amount of cursing, which was enough to make even the seasoned soldiers around them blush, it seemed to consist mostly of increasingly threatening remarks against an entity named ‘Truth’. 

“I should have shot It,” Havoc muttered, spitting out the remains of his cigarette.

“I did,” Hawkeye said, and everyone turned to look at her incredulously. “It didn’t work, the bullet just stopped in midair as soon as it left the barrel.” Riza dug in her pocket, then held out her hand, where a bullet sat. “I grabbed it.”

Chapter Text

The land known as Amestris was rather fantastical to those who didn’t live there, and even to those that did.

The country was a world leader in the science known as alchemy, which concerns itself with the understanding, deconstruction and reconstruction of matter. While to outsiders, this may have appeared magical, those of Amestris understood it to be otherwise. Alchemy was an extension of the natural laws, based on the concept of Equivalent Exchange.

But, beyond its alchemy, the country was also known for being a mysterious one, one of legends and folktales, of cryptic places and liminal spaces.

People spoke of the Alchemist of the People, the red coated wanderer with hair and eyes made from spun gold, who could shape the world in his hands. They spoke of the armored behemoth that loomed next to the wanderer, who’s fearsome appearance belied the kindness within, whose gentle hands could cradle the smallest kitten.

People spoke of the Physician of the People, a slender figure with hair and eyes made of frozen sunlight. They spoke of his kind eyes and hands, and of the cunning smile he sometimes wore, one that Knew something they did not. They spoke of the simple traveler that stood next to the Physician, the one the Physician called “Brother”, who’s eyes held Eternity and spoke of things Unseen, yet who’s razor sharp wit could cut the largest down to size.

People spoke of the Flame Alchemist, of his loyal circle, who rebuilt Amestris from the ashes of her old government. He had once been the Scourge of Ishval they said, but now he was its Hero. No one forgot the genocide, forgot the mistakes that had been made or the blood that stained hands, but from the ashes, new life grew.

Amestris grew, and so did her legends. 

There were places in Amestris, they said, where the trees stood taller than mountains. If you got lost in these woods, if you stumbled into their depths, you would find places where the shadows had eyes, where creatures unliving walked. In these forests, the trees fell upward, towards a sky that was not blue but w h i t e. And there was no time in these trees, no day or night. There was only the white , that loomed just beyond the treeline, but could never be reached, no matter how far or long you traveled.

Some say the forests were not always filled with eternal depths and forgotten places, but that’s impossible. Of course they have. Amestris has always been this way, for the entirety of Time.

There were places in Amestris, they said, where the roads did not end. Walk or run, car or horse, the road stretched for eternity. It was simple enough to take a different path, but on those roads, time stood still. The sun never rose and the sun never fell, stretching as long as the journey. Among these roads that led to Nowhere, one was a train. In a small village in the East, it was said, there would, now and again, come a train that went to Nowhere. At least, everyone said it led to Nowhere, because it never went the same place twice, and no answers could be found in the places that it went. But, they said, if you rode the train long enough, you would find yourself Somewhere.

Some say the roads and trains did not always lead Nowhere, but that’s impossible. Of course they have. Amestris has always been this way, for the entirety of Time.

There were places in Amestris, they said, where the shadows had a life of their own. There were alleyways that were too dark, places underneath the shelves that were too deep. If you held an animated conversation, be sure to watch your shadow, they said. It could very well be holding a conversation of its own. Sometimes the shadows whispered, a shifting chatter like the rustle of dead leaves, flickering movement only seen from the corner of your eye

Some say the shadows did not always dance and twist beyond our sight, but that’s impossible. Of course they have. Amestris has always been this way, for the entirety of Time.

There were places in Amestris, they said, that whispered knowledge into your ear. These places were rarer than rare, but sometimes, if the wind was right, you could stumble upon a Truth. These Truths were not always helpful, nor were they always kind. Truth does not differentiate between what mortals find important, it simply Is. And sometimes, these Truths were not clear to be Truths. Sometimes they were small occurrences, a drop in the pond of the World. But to some, these small things meant the World.

Some say that knowledge was not always whispered in the wind, but that’s impossible. Of course it has. Amestris has always been this way, for the entirety of Time.

There were places in Amestris, they said, where the wind howled in words. None of these could be understood, and none could have lived long enough to learn. But, if you’d brought all the seconds in eternity together, you might have been able to hear the voice, echoing in Time:

“Welcome to the Truth’s Domain, the Realm of the Gate and the Place Beyond.”

Some say Truth did not always seep into Amestris, that it had begun with fractaling anomalies of light and shadow, but that’s impossible. Of course It has.

Amestris has always been a land connected to its alchemy.

That’s the Truth.

“Don’t you think so?”