[Redacted]

{I got this question a few times, so I'll clarify for anyone curious. This is FMA: Brotherhood, the real canon version. Also, I'm sick as shit. Like pins and needles, chills and aches, sore throat, sneezing and runny nose, capital SICK! I can only be cured with your powerstones... and the bottle of Mucinex I am about to chug...}

Yuri's ESP {conveniently, cough cough} covered the entirety of Amestris and nothing beyond it. It took him a while of searching, but in a fewish minutes, he located who he was looking for.

Solf J. Kimblee, the Crimson Lotus Alchemist. {Picture Here}

He garnered a notorious reputation for his amorality and extreme explosion fetish while reaping the lives of innocents in the Ishvalan genocide gleefully. The one thing that landed him in prison in that heinous battlefield was the killing of his superiors to hide the truth of a Philosopher's Stone he had in his possession. This willingness to kill and greed for the power a Philosopher's Stone made him a tool the Homunculus were more than willing to take advantage of till the day he was eaten alive by one of those very Homunculi. But Pride wasn't the one taking his life this time, and Yuri had no patience for a man who only cares about victory and destruction.

Solf was a State Alchemist already, meaning he had the rank of Major in the Fuhrer's military and was posted in a Central with a small amount of power without any real subordinates unless he outranks those who arrive on the same scene. He found Solf sitting pretty in a small office seemingly citing a report against another report. Yuri arrived inside without a sound.

Solf didn't notice and continued while Yuri circled his desk and arrived to his chair. A hand pressed against the back of his head and Solf finally tried to react by trying to jolt out of his chair. He was pressed down by the head and couldn't move, he tried to bring his hands together quickly but was interrupted.

"Don't move, Kimblee," Yuri squeezed the back of his head with an inhuman grip and Solf could feel his skull threaten to fracture along the path of his fingers. His head might pop before he could overlap and activate the two alchemy circles on his palms together. He kept a cold face and asked,

"What do you want?" Solf didn't know what kind of person could break his skull with one hand or sneak inside the Central Headquarters unnoticed, but he was at an obvious disadvantage.

"Information. It'll only take a second," And the next second, Solf felt a giant force press against the inside of his head and sift passed it with the subtlety of a gunshot. Yuri delved through his entire set of memories while taking note of everything involving Alchemical theory and practical experience. Solf didn't have experience with Human Transmutation or operating with anything biological, but he had seen the circle before and had a more than basic understanding of how Alchemy operates.

'Circles truly are the perfect shape.'

[Basic Alchemy Learned - 3,000 RP]

[Explosion Alchemy Learned - 5,000 RP]

'Alchemy pulls from tectonic movement as a result of a portion of the script on the outer ring of the circle designating the behavior of the Alchemy. Tectonic movement was probably the most powerful and consistent source available. I only need to write something else, likely in Spirit Language, in it's place to change the way Alchemy behaves and where it draws its power. The symbols inside the circle are involved in the type and the result of the circle directly. Explosion alchemy only uses a sun to represent gold and a fire triangle in one circle and a moon to represent silver with a water triangle in another to create an explosion from the contradiction of energy.'

Yuri released his hand from Solf's head and Solf started panting from his headache while barely getting up to turn around and press his two hands together.

"YOU'LL REGRET LEAVING ME ALIVE!"

Solf pressed his hands out while his palm-centered circles turned blue and threatened to blow the whole room away. To Yuri, this was slow motion.

As Solf was firing his transmutation, he witnessed something he wished he had more time to study. A circle made of blue light rose before his opponent's outstretched palm and the Air triangle took the center while script he couldn't even read lined the circumference. A few more symbols took different places outside the triangle, which Kimblee recognized too late.

To Take, or Deprive.

Sparks exited Kimblee's enthusiastic hands but were snuffed out as soon as they came while the very air in the room was vacuumed out entirely. Yuri didn't need air, but Solf, and consequently his explosion did as well.

'I didn't manifest a circle like this until I learned Alchemy. I have shamed Mages all across the Record, haven't I? But it does feel good to make one of these.'

Solf gasped for air and tried to flee for the door, but he wouldn't make it in time. Yuri didn't fancy torturing the man who was merely born a psychopath, so he quickly snapped his neck with Telekinesis and vanished just as a knock came at the door.

Yuri arrived within the same few feet as the group he left and gave the news.

"It's 1903, Nina hasn't even been born yet and the war hasn't reached a climax but it has already started. We've got time to kill, so how about we settle down for a few years after I take care of a few things? We can meet the cast and everything!" Yuri offered.

Toni and Ally looked at him with a bit of loving relish. Their lives in the Aurbis had been nothing but busy, a few years of serene family life were exactly what the doctor ordered.

"Hmm, so we'll actually live in a real home and act like a real family?" Toni asked with a bit of longing behind her eyes as she can start to learn the arts of home life for a change.

"Precisely, out in the countryside too. I'll trap you in rural normalcy and you two will never want to escape!"

{This is where I laid back just long enough for that Mucinex to knock me out and drag my body into an unmarked storage closet. Night Shift version, my ass!}

{And this is where I came back after my coworkers told me to take an instant Covid test at work. Guess who contracted it? No work for me till next week, MUAHAHA *COUGH COUGH COUGH*}

"Oh, who says we'll want to escape? A vacation in a new land won't be a bad thing at all-" Ally started.

"A vacation? I am unwilling. Point me to the nearest source of entertainment and intrigue that I may explore it for myself, if you will," Drem interrupted.

"I figured you would. Drem, this whole world besides Amestris and a bit of Xing is unknown to us. Do what you want in it, just don't start doing what you know I wouldn't like. Amestris is definitely off-limits, however." He believed Drem was intelligent enough to keep the correct profile but still gave a reminder.

"I was never much for pillaging and dominating more than I needed to, anyway. The more subtle human machinations may be easy to employ given practice. Let me know if things get interesting here!" Drem vanished with a quick spell from his growing innate understanding of Draconic magic.

"Alright, I have a few small projects to perform before we can settle down."

"Oh yeah? Of what variety?" Toni inquired.

Yuri informed her before purchasing a few books from the Exchange and getting to work. Less than two hours later, Yuri had carved an orthodox circle for Human Transmutation with absolutely no magical gimmicks, intended for a specific purpose that would garner a very high toll. He transmuted all the ingredients, the chemical composition of a human, he remembered from Solf's memories out of the stone below them in the ruin before pooling them into a bin he also made and placing it in the center of his circle. Yuri then kneeled right before the circle before pressing his hands on it. He looked back to the real Yuri who was watching with interest beside the girls and gave him an affirmative nod and then the version of him beside the circle activated it in a flash of blue lightning.

The basin started to shift and jostle with the black sand inside the basin while the area around the vicinity seemingly grew dark in broad daylight. The edge of the circle and the basin started to dance with tongues of black smoke and black hands started rising from the seams of the circle and the ground around it to reach skyward. With a noise that would make most men squirm, a large and throbbing eye twisted open from below the basin and above the circle while the circle changed from a bright blue to a foreboding mix of deep crimson and violet hues.

A crack was heard and Yuri's clone was broken with a giant split at the waist. With a groan he fell to the floor and had to remember not to resist, because he definitely could break out of this pull if he tried. Yuri was expecting to find the same lava-like orange pattern between the split like usual, but found that the cracks inside Yuri were white and gold. Shards of soul data of that lustrous composition fled into the eye and out of side as the clone was decomposed little by little before finally vanishing. Both Yuri's had a front-row view of the next event.

█ ✪ █▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓█ ✪ █

It wasn't even a full day before Truth directed his gaze to the same Door he had earlier. Human Transmutation was not all that rare, but to come from the same place as that anomaly on the same day?

'So the intruder has already learned Alchemy. Good thing they didn't manage to learn prudence. Now I can do as much damage to it as his toll allows without risking my own position. Let's see what we have here.'

Truth quickly concealed every other Gate but his own and congealed his form into the more well-known and rounded shape instead of his detailed original form before squatting like a thug on the floor and waiting to level the cruel reality onto the person.

What came first was hardly a door, more like a portal. It tore a place in the veil of his white space across from the speechless Truth and revealed a few of its more minute details. A wondrous galaxy spread in a vastness that even Truth found to be more than comparable to his own universe at a quick glance. From out of this portal, Yuri's clone floated gracefully and fully conscious before landing on the bare white floor.

The portal wrapped itself into a very familiar Gate, with doors bordering between observable reality and a twistable dream, before it was sealed shut by the Record with a loud thud and engraved a majestic Tower upon its face. The Tower was contained in the gate, but would give almost anyone the impression that it was the Gate itself. Yuri's Gate of Truth was not a dull gray, but the usual cosmic kaleidoscope that was constantly shifting along its deceptively deep surface.

All Truth saw in it was a mass of Chaos and a lack of perfection or true limit that Order should provide.

Yuri slicked back his hair and let out a grin that could be seen as arrogant or merely confident depending on your mood. If Truth had eyebrows, he would frown. This wasn't looking good already. He could barely register him as a mortal. In fact, he can't even see his soul and he doesn't feel all that tangible.

"Who are you," He spat without delay.

Yuri's grin burst into a real smile of incredulous joy.

'Is Truth the one asking for MY name, now? How rich! Can't waste this opportunity now, can I?'

"I am what you call Magic... or perhaps Man... or perhaps Possibility... or perhaps Falsehood, or perhaps Ambition... or perhaps Evolution," With each meandering pause, Truth grew more frustrated. How was this intruder copying him before he even said it? Is he here merely as his foil, sent by a power he was not privy to?

"And I am also," Yuri leveled his index at the blank man, "You."

"Hmph! I am what you call the World. Or perhaps the Universe. Or perhaps God. Or perhaps Truth, or perhaps All, or perhaps One. And I am most certainly not you, intruder." Truth stood up like Yuri and crossed his arms.

"Haha, oh I wouldn't be so sure. Reality and Possibility are often only divided by a single choice."

"Why are you here, intruder?" Truth would have none of his whimsical musings.

"Why, to say hello! And I am most interested in the mannerisms of this universe, for sure. After all, only by observing Truth as closely as possible can someone Lie to it and make it so."

"As expected, you seek to disturb the natural order! To let every damned Sapient down there garner more power than should be allowed!"

"I seek to bring chaos and balance among the order, to reward intelligence and ambition with appropriate results. I know your methods, they may work but they offer no peaceable solution to the growing ambition of man. You will be pulled down, perhaps not by the Dwarf but certainly later."

"I have him under control! You've already skewed the timeline with Solf's death and now the future was almost made uncertain!"

"The future is always uncertain! Control is a double-edged sword, how long until you stress the string of an unaltered Fate before it snaps and the universe never returns to normal? Only one mortal world and one of those mortals will soon manage to pull down the World Will and nearly swallow it. How long until another one of these planets blooms and brings you down a peg while Truth is the only God mankind can attempt to reach? An eon, maybe two?"

"You have no proof, Deceiver!" Truth was gritting his toothy mouth while flapping indignantly. "Without your interference, the mortals would remain contained that they may not become boastful. The seekers of power would remain a part of causality, their desires would bring them to their furthest limit which they would learn to not cross and the universe would remain fair!"

"Fair? There is a difference between your fairness which taunts coldly and takes as much as it gives and mine, which weighs against sin and virtue and offers what is deserved. There is a place for both, but you must first be shown the fate that may have awaited you without me. I'll show you proof myself."

"Hahaha! Do you think I'll let you leave here unscathed? You will suffer quite the toll for the immortal vessel you were trying to create to occupy carelessly!" Truth believed he had figured him out.

Truth couldn't open Yuri's strange Gate, so he raised his hands above his head and his own Gate opened with an eye that looked down on Yuri and cast hundreds of hands that were meant to swallow him.

Yuri stretched out his arms willingly and smiled, putting a slight unease in Truth's head before he shook it off and continued. Yuri was entangled and whipped towards the greatest Gate in the universe with blinding speeds and swallowed by the eye.

Yuri's clone careened downward while a series of mind-clogging informational streams tried to pry their way into his head and his body tried to wither away and be given to Truth completely. For the first time, Truth was coming upon Mana and realizing that the one who came in here didn't have an ounce of life force. Truth attempted to pull his soul harder, but still couldn't even grasp at it. Only the strange energy his body was made of was shedding off of him like a river and counting towards an immeasurable toll that kept allowing Yuri to dive deeper into the Truth.

"No no no... Don't tell me."

In the real world, Yuri's Sigil was packing the information his Soul Clone was receiving tightly while he was copying it to every other holder and unraveling it with relish himself. Mana from him was being fed to his other 1% Soul Clone and not allowing the clone to be killed off before he was allowed to return. In actuality, Yuri was prepared to lose him and only needed the clone to safely feed all the information he received back to him. Thankfully, Truth didn't have any domain over souls without a vessel like he previously supposed. Otherwise, using the whole country of Amestris and the souls of the deceased from the blood crests in the circle would be impossible to do as they would already belong to Truth.

It was at this point when Yuri's Clone was nearing the end of the information he was allowed to and paid as much toll as needed without a single point of damage being done, that he was dreading dealing with the Deceiver.

But Truth could not undo the Equivalent Exchange that his entire perception, his existence was shackled to. Out of Pride, he would refuse to anyway. He waited impatiently as Yuri was finally set down right before his confusing Gate once more.

[Sub-Firmament Partially Viewed. Record of Truth Obtained: 35%]

Yuri smiled in the real world and believed that number might rise to almost twice as much when he was finished unpacking it from the Sigil. The rest, that was for the Promised Day. Now his Promised Day.

Yuri spread his eyes open and in them, a tinge of Truth could be found and was already swirling in a mire of possibility and change. With a powerful baritone, Yuri gave a declaration.

"Think of me as you will, but I am not your enemy. I will prove to be your other half, the necessary antithesis, the one who builds gloriously upon your foundation!"

Yuri clapped his hands together as if in prayer and a marvelous ring echoed from the impact. Golden tongues of lightning flared around his body as his eyes glowed with burning fervor and his hair waved about furiously. He spread his palms out again and the ringing tone resounded, the lightning turned backward and his Gate was opened. An Eye that burned the same color as Yuri's opened elliptically and thundering chains made from esoteric script arose and clasped onto the Clone to pull him out. The Gate closed and let itself out in a twist of space before all evidence of Yuri vanished once more.

"...Shit."

Chapter Title: [Lord of Lies]