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In another life he had been a warrior monk, a man in service to his God. Not too long ago, he had lived in peace, praying to the deity of Ishval and protecting his temple, because that was the path he had chosen when, as a boy, he had understood the purpose of his existence.
A life, his, that had been given a name that carried meanings that were inexplicable in the language of Amestris: words like protection, courage and loyalty were not enough to clarify the ultimate purpose of his life, the deep importance of his name.
In Ishval the name bestowed by their God was a great honor, but above all, a seal on each one's destiny. And what had been entrusted to him carried within it a vow he had honored with pride in his heart.
At least until that cursed war.
My destiny was to serve and protect, to love and cherish the faith and life of my people. I was entrusted to be the shield and the sword that would watch over my people.
And I... I failed.
When his country's civil war escalated into a war of extermination, fate had taken a turn so violently that it had overwhelmed his people and left them annihilated. The armed forces that had brutally interrupted the lives of his brothers and sisters were those of the State Alchemists, those faithless and merciless mongrels who had spared no one.
Brother, was really this one the Alchemy you devoted all your efforts to?
His brother had been his entire family: he was a curious child, a kind but introverted boy, and finally a deeply clever man who had dedicated his studies to the science of alchemy. He had lost count of the times when his brother had tried to convince him that one day that power could save the world, immune to the doubts continually raised in more or less obvious protests from their acquaintances. Even when the war had knocked on their door, even more violent than the sandstorms of their homeland, he had tried to safeguard the results of his research, going so far as to tattoo them on his arms.
His faith in that diabolical discipline had never wavered; it seemed he could see a distant future they couldn't even imagine. He had seen hope in his gaze until the last moment, and he would never forget it, because in the moment he had stood to protect him, when it had been clear that the thread of their lives was about to be severed, instead of the resignation or hatred that had too often remained imprinted as the last glimmer in the red eyes of their people... his brother had felt hope. Because he hadn't given up. To death, to loss, to cruelty.
What happened next, Scar always remembered it as his worst nightmare.
Because it had been real.
Before he passed out from the impact of the tremendous explosion that the Scarlet Alchemist had caused, he clearly remembered looking at himself in those lakes of hope as red as the blood that had been spilled, like that which still flowed in the veins of the survivors.
But when he awoke, the eyes that greeted him were as blue as the sky he had admired as a child from the hills surrounding his village. Since the ash and dust of the fighting had begun to foul the air, he had no longer been able to admire it.
His vision was blurry in those moments and his mind was confused, but the worried eyes of those doctors from Amestris would remain with him even after his death, along with his sense of guilt toward them.
He often wondered if it wouldn't have been better to die that day.
Because along with his brother, the man he had once been had also ceased to exist. He had failed in his task, unworthy of the name the God of Ishval had entrusted to him, so he had buried him along with everything he had been and the only family he had ever known.
All that remained of those days flowed through his veins along with his blood: a burning anger that demanded revenge, and the alchemy engraved on the right arm that had been given to him on his deathbed.
The mere sight of it had thrown him into such a state of panic that every thought had been annihilated in favor of pure animal instinct, that of wounded beasts when they feel attacked.
All he had thought about in those terrible minutes was his brother's dismembered body, a limb removed to give to him. He could only imagine the excruciating pain he must have felt when he had used alchemy to remove it, resisting the temptation to give in to the wounds and blood that surrounded him in a pool of macabre scarlet splendor. He was weak and mortally wounded, but he had used his last strength to save him.
His body had likely been left to itself, lying without a piece of itself in the blood that had made them a family in life and in which his brother's body would now drown.
And the sight of that arm attached to his body had simply been too much.
Because if he hadn't been able to protect anyone, then he just wanted to die and be with his loved ones. He had lashed out at the people who had banished death from his stitched together limbs like a grotesque and sadistic puzzle, ending up killing them.
Those two doctors had been his first victims. But they wouldn't be his last, even if he couldn't have known it then.
When his senses returned, he seriously considered rejoining his people and his God, but he felt unworthy of a merciful death. The solitary, desperate cry that his heart continued to emit incessantly made his blood boil and his soul vibrate, as if earthquakes were trying to split the arid earth and the sharped rocks that surrounded the home of the people of Ishval.
There is no hope, brother, neither for this world nor for me.
It was then that he had repudiated his past, when he realized how empty was the hope that lighted his brother's red eyes in his final breath, when his name had been stripped of its meaning and he had failed to fulfill the responsibilities placed upon him.
He did it not out of shame, not because he had lost his faith.
But because I lost myself and everything I was supposed to protect. Because I'm the only one left, the one who should have been the first to fall to defend others. Because I'm no longer worthy of being called a man of Ishval.
His religion was pacifist, conservative, and ironclad. That's what he had been taught, that's what he still believed.
He no longer had any right to be a priest of his God. Because he had lost everything, he would not tarnish the memory of his people with the hatred that had taken root in his soul.
Filled with a sacred fury, he began the long journey that would lead him to avenge the lives taken from his homeland.
Without a name, a family, or a homeland to call upon.
He was left alone. Alone, with his demons, his fury, and the only purpose that kept him from killing himself.
Revenge.