One Man Intervenes

{Faked you out with that pretend spoiler, didn't I? Sike, changed my mind at the last minute. I'm so reliable}

A man with raven black hair and eyes approaching the same shade marched in blistering heat as the sun beat down on his tan cloak over his uniform and the dry dirt crunched beneath his boots. He tried his best not to look to his left and his right, where the dirt turned red beneath the bodies of women and children. He tried not to walk any faster than a trudge so he didn't have to join the frontier of culprits with the sounds of gunfire and blue light ahead.

It was only a matter of time before he reached his part of the front line, devoid of any comrades in arms while a few Ishvalans fled across his vision from the left and right where other Alchemists were.

Roy clenched his fist and then raised it, the Ishvalans to his front taking notice.

"ALCHEMIII!-"

*SNAP BADOOO FWOOOOOOSH*

A burst of air imitating a snapping noise joined the brushing of his gloved fingers and a roar of flames burst to join the sickening heat. Screams overtook the tidal sounds of the flame and rung out in Roy's head.

'I'm making them suffer, I'm not strong enough. I need more power, I need to be faster. I can do it, Alkahestry will help me.'

Roy was a military man who had sought one of the most potent combat Alchemy around intentionally. He had killed before, hunting down deserters or one of the many serial killers to be found in the East Area. He had relished knowing he personally burned the owners of the blackest ledgers around. Only today did he start to really feel like a killer.

A groan escaped his lips with equal amounts of force and desperation, and he cast a flame that burst in full bloom with incredible haste. Each time a full-grown man came across his vision he practiced this, telling himself that the lack of screaming was starting to mean they could barely feel it before they died. A small doubt ran in the back of his head, saying they can feel the pain even if they can't speak it, but he tried to make it as brief as possible even so.

Whenever a woman or a child crossed his vision he pulled out a small arm, trying to put it in their head as accurately as possible. He knew letting them go might lead them to some of his less merciful comrades. Giolio Comanche the Silver Alchemist, Basque Grand the Iron Blood Alchemist. He had heard tell that these two were already ripping holes through their sections without the slightest hesitation. In Giolio's case, even glee. There was another assigned pretty close to him, a newbie named Alexander Armstrong. Their family was heavily combative and very tied to this nation, he too would probably muster up a lack of mercy to save his family's face.

*SNAP BADOOOM BOOM FWOOOOOOSH*

'Why didn't I bring more than just a Flame Alchemy circle?!'

*SNAP BADOOOM BOOM FWOOOOOOSH*

'Why is my country demanding I do this?!'

*SNAP BADOOOM BOOM FWOOOOOOSH*

'Why am I listening? Dignity? Ambition?'

*BANG... BANG BANG... SNAP BADOOOM BOOM FWOOOOOOSH*

Tears formed and the moisture evaporated before they could fall, his eyes settled on bloodshot.

*SNAP BADOOOM BOOM FWOOOOOOSH*

'That eyepatch PRICK sitting at the top of this country can look down on everything with a face of stone and I'M THE ONE PULLING THE TRIGGER! I AM THE WEAPON!'

His mind, in self-defense, turned sadness and guilt into anger and his victims truly didn't know what hit them before death. He was getting more and more winded under his cold facade thanks to the use of Alkahestry in his right-hand circle, but he didn't let up. In the distance through a few blocks of the simple stone and clay houses, he heard an argument between two people. One of them, the shrill and almost comical voice of an aged and nasally Alchemist he recognized. Giolio Comanche. Roy felt that the man could laugh evilly at the drop of a hat, his side of the argument was filled with sneers.

The other was younger, but had a manly depth and seemed to be pleading for something. He could hardly recognize the tone, but the voice he remembered from a small conversation. Alex Armstrong.

"Are you displaying dissidence under the command of Brigadier General Fessler, Major Armstrong?" Comanche sneered and pointedly jabbed a silvery blade towards a child in the arms of Alex, who flinched away to stop it. "Over what? A corpse?!"

"Women and children are non-combatants! I don't see why they must be targeted even while fleeing! This is the first war in our history to kill civilians! Our OWN CIVILIANS!" Armstrong pled.

"You are a soldier!" Comanche sneered. "A weapon! We don't think, we obey!" Comanche was saying this more for the soldiers around him than himself. He didn't believe he fit in that category, only others. At a diminutive height of 4'8, Comanche in his already advanced age did not compare well to the young, powerful, and clean-shaven Armstrong. Yet even when they had the same rank granted to a State Alchemist, Comanche seemed to be towering over his fellow Major with his attitude.

Roy had rounded the bend and heard that exchange, not realizing how brave and good-hearted Armstrong turned out to be.

'He's stronger than me in a way.' Roy clenched his fists in a fit of anger at himself. Comanche noticed him at the corner of his eyes and turned on his heel to salute.

"Lieutenant Colonel Mustang! Forgive the interruption, I was chiding this insubordinate."

"At ease. It seems I've wandered into the Kanda Region Front, feel free to ignore my presence," Roy kept his cold hard face among them. He directed his gaze to Alex, who seemed to be looking up in sorrow.

"If you can't handle the war, I suggest you depart. Better to have another replace you quickly if you are unfit for duty." Roy lightly gave him good advice in a commander's tone.

'But I certainly won't be. I don't care how long it takes, I'll pull down that Fuhrer and become the next one so people like Alex don't run the risk of being court-martialed. So people like me don't have to kill innocents to keep their dignity. To be more than a washed-up orphan in this country.'

But Armstrong didn't even respond to him and kept looking up, his mouth had unhinged and his eyes had spread further apart.

"Listen to the Lieutenant Colonel when he is talking to you!" Comanche prepared to kick Armstrong squarely in the face, but Armstrong caught it and pushed it aside with comical ease only to keep gawking. Comanche looked to his right and saw Roy staring in the same vertical direction with the same face, along with all of his men. He frowned and joined them, and if he didn't he wouldn't believe the sight.

Every other man but Roy saw an Ishvalan with particularly outstanding traits. Hair so white it was a lustrous blank that concealed all details in a shiny haze. Eyes so crimson it brought the attention from the hair and made all who saw them flinch from seemingly the brightness. A shawl extended from the halfway point of his head and draped down the shoulders while the edges were threaded with golden details that reflected the overbearing sun. The rest of his body was covered in similarly styled veil-thin garments of pure white. His face, while definitely handsome, couldn't be remembered for longer than a second by everyone as if it was a fleeting dream. Well, one person was allowed to recognize it.

'Nightingale? It can't be, he wasn't an Ishvalan! But there can't be such a coincidence either.' Roy was stuck in his thoughts beneath the same agape expression as everyone else.

The man quirked his brows and looked in Roy's direction, not changing his neutral expression before turning away and surveying the rest.

In a distant and central region still holding steadfastly to the onslaught of Amestris, a warrior monk bolted from soldier to armed soldier and slew each and every one of them with brutal and decisive hand-to-hand combat. A silence had started to descend in every direction, and as more and more people stopped their fleeing, their fighting, their shooting, and their transmuting to search for the reason, they found themselves looking up.

This warrior monk, Vahran Lowe, was a distant relative of the last and now deceased Ishvalan Supreme Cleric Logue Lowe and a warrior nigh unequaled in his generation. He, along with his brother, Behran, who had exited his tent some miles away, both stared at the sky in wonder. Vahran, in his deep and gravelly voice, uttered his guess in amazement.

"Ishvala..."

It was Giolio Comanche who snapped out of his stupor in a fit of violence. His thoughts likely bordered on envy, rage, or perhaps fear. Either way, he didn't want an Ishvalan to be so high above him.

The intricate detailing on his hands along with all eleven circles he had jammed into them lit aglow as he touched the ground and made the dirt and stone into silver. Into the sky, this silver leaped as jingling chains that aimed to pull the man down. The man, now surmised as Ishvala by many present, spread his eyes just a little wider and the chains stopped dead in their tracks. By the chains coming from the ground, the man was tied up and hung from them and brought up to the sky like a screaming hooked fish. When Comanche was sufficiently bound in a ball of silver chains in front of his outstretched hand, he used the other to point towards the sky, and thunder clouds were suddenly summoned.

'That wasn't Alchemy, what the hell is going on?!' Roy thought to himself while the Ishvalans were assured. Their god had come.

With a great and terrible quake, a bolt of voracious thunder had descended, blinding all sight and snuffing out all noise. The ball of silver was electrified and its contents were carbonized, then the man dropped the ball of empty chains.

'So many willing sinners ready to serve me in death. An unintended benefit of coming at the height of the war.'

Comanche joined the Black Star in his inventory, and Yuri clapped his hands as if in prayer. A great and powerful bell rung three times across the entire southwestern quarter of the great nation of Amestris, rattling the core of all who heard it. Not a single Alchemist existed who could still transmute after hearing that.

A formless wave passed through all things within this massive range while white lightning flickered at its edge and started forming a ring of tropical thunderstorms to resist Yuri's pull. They didn't know what it was, but they all felt it.

In the secluded research laboratories hidden beneath the earth, housing men like Doctor Marcoh who were making philosopher stones from the captured Ishvalans they felt it. In the whole tide of war from every inch of Ishval and the outer rim of the East Area where other Ishvalans had led insurgencies they felt it, and in the central underground of Amestris a certain Dwarf found he had distinctly lost all control of what he felt.

And then the ground shook in Ishval and started lighting up with gigantic sigils of an arcane form across the whole country and beyond.

█ ✪ █▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓█ ✪ █

Yuri watched as Trisha's soul flew through his pendant and adopted a slow trail towards her original vessel, and kept watching as an eye twisted into existence and decided to interrupt it.

But the hands which arose from the creases in the bulbous eye searched for a sinner and found a rod. Arms clung to the green rods in their hands which performed admirably with their whole duty and the brothers remained unabated but scared all the same. Their brows collected sweat, their eyes scanned the floor for sharks out for blood, their hands remained on their mother's bald but vital head and the soul sunk into it.

Truth grit his teeth.

'The toll is being paid evenly, they won't lose much. The problem is, they'll actually succeed! The first true resurrection without a single soul or human being offered in exchange. This wasn't in the script! This must be that Lord of Lies doing, I must stop them or he won't be deterred from bending the reality of death!'

Truth stretched out his barely detailed white hand and fissures of black and ash grey cracked along from fingers to elbow as they slowly spit dust. He grit his perfectly white teeth and continued, his will stretched to the real world.

Instead of bringing the brothers to his realm, his realm came to them. Instead of a headstone, a door took its place and stretched to a towering height. The brothers recoiled in terror and nearly leapt away from their mother in the midst of their transmutation.

"This was supposed to work! What's going on?!" Ed pled to the air and his brother.

"There was nothing wrong! This must be because it's taboo!" Al grimaced and his heart shuddered.

The door opened and a man was revealed, a man with no characteristics other than his white skin and his form which stood at the same relative shape and size as the young brothers. That, and an arm that looked like it was about to shrivel.

"What is your relationship with the Lord of Lies?!" He pointed accusingly with his dying hand and spoke with a voice that couldn't be discerned as masculine or feminine.

Confusion marred the terrified faces of Ed and Al as they used all their will not to backpedal.

"Wh-Why are you here?! WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" Ed screamed with his eyes closed while Al looked at his brother like he was as crazy as the situation.

Truth merely scowled and clenched his dying fist. The rods in the hands of the brothers snapped and the hands which held them leapt in a frenzy to the casket of their mother.

""NOOOOOOOOOO""

The violent clashing of hundreds of chains rang out behind them and caught each and every one of Truth's tendrils by the hand before thrashing them aside with a fury. A tornado of black on black ensued with the family of three in the center. Truth's culprit had arrived.

"DECEIVEEEER!!!!"

"DEPRIVEEEER!!!!"

Shouts broke out amidst the storm and the brothers shared an incredulous look. They had heard Yuri and they hardly recognized it. They had never heard him that angry. Hell, they had never heard him raise his voice!

"Why is he here?!" They asked each other among the thrashing winds and clanging chains. "To save us!" They prayed.

"Even before earnest fairness, you arrive to punish them! Just like any one of the Alchemists you despise, you are a selfish bastard!"

"Who asked you to teach children to TRY THE HAND OF GOD?!!!"

"AAAAAHHHHH!!!"

Two childish screams rose from within the black maelstrom and Yuri grimaced before letting his gaze grow colder. Truth snapped the rods and denied that payment, trying to use the brothers as collateral so the process would fail as he pulled them to punish. Rather than immediately go to their aid and let Truth get to Trisha, he sent one more chain toward her.

Quickly it wrapped around her whole form, body and soul which Truth refused to let join, and with a clench of one of his hands, Yuri sealed the two together irreversibly under the lock and skeleton key.

Trisha leaned forward with an atrocious and raspy gasp for air before she started panting and holding her rapidly beating chest. Her mind and eyes were overloaded with too much information as she captured the details around her. Tendrils whipping around her with a sound and a fury distracted her for a moment before:

""MOM!!!""

Her two kids leaning over and holding onto the coffin she was sitting in, the arms they were using to try to soul bond her both missing and letting blood leak into it.

"OH MY GOD!!! ED, AL!!!" Trisha scrambled out of the coffin and started tearing every article of clothing she had that could wrap their stumps. A percussive boom erupted around her as she worked and the sunlight seeped into the dome as the extra limbs receded in either direction.

"Do you think you've won, Deceiver?! Truth will always have the last laugh!" He, the man in white, pointed his dying arm as the decay was visibly stretching past his shoulder and into his neck and ribs.

The other side of the currently calm battle revealed itself to be the man in black, Yuri, whose body was stretching with visible cracks that let out golden light which threatened to stretch to the rest of his own body.

Truth let his brow furrow, then looked to the East. His energy seemed to be visibly sapped and his face turned to a straight-up glare.

"Hahaha, this isn't even your real body! Your real body is over there, fighting me for territory again! You were clever to wait until I was weak to try pressing on me, but if I can tear even this portion of you down into my understanding and erase what your little pupils have done, I'll pay any price!!!"

Truth raised his now decrepit arm alongside his other one as it began to show the same signs of splitting at the seams. Truth's ego, his ideal of fairness and his attachment to the realm of god he believed he had reached at great a price, had surfaced and he acted out against his bond of actual equivalence for the second time. The Eye of God in the shadows of Truth's door spread with a bulbous fury and countless arms burst forth and overshadowed the sky and the sun once more.

The Yuri Clone spread a slick smile and pulled the horrified family back to him and grasped them in a hug. "Did you think I would let you?" Yuri winked, and then they all vanished.