Sometimes, all it takes is one key moment to turn one's life around. In the case of mercenary Alex Mustang, a chance encounter with an ancient book begins a chain of events on his road to redemption.
HyperDimension Neptunia belongs to Compile Heart...
Ed was horrified at what he saw however he didn't get much time to react as the girl's arms morphed into long water like whips as they targeted the blonde alchemist.
At the last second he managed to dodge the attacks as he clapped his hands, a light flashing for a brief second as he slid his left hand across the front of his right arm as a blade suddenly emerged just above his right hand.
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Edward immediately began to charge at the girl as he blocked and defended all the water whip attacks from her.
"Christ she's strong! I think we found our homunculus!" Shouted Ed to try and get Alphonse's attention in which he succeeded as Alphonse began to run to their location.
The moment he did though, Alphonse stopped as he saw who the homunculus, more accurately what they looked like.
"M-Mo." Before Al could finished speaking, the woman used one of her water whips and knocked Al's helmet off.
"Alphonse!" Shouted Ed as Akari went to check on Alphonse's armor only to find out that there wasn't a person inside the armor as she gasped in shock.
"E-Edward. Where's Alphonse?" Asked Akari being genuinely confused as to what was going on at the moment.
Ed however couldn't answer as he continued to defend against whip attacks only for the girl to speak in her eerie voice again.
"Edward........you, couldn't make me right................you, couldn't make your brother right." She said slowly.
"S-Shut up!" Shouted Ed back at her.
This conversation would unfortunately distract him enough as a water whip would wrap itself Ed's leg and trip him up as Edward fell onto the ground.
The girl then aimed her water whip above Ed's neck to finish him off only for Akari to suddenly strike out of nowhere as she completely decked the water girl right in the face with a punch.
The girl would be sent away back into the shadows as Akari would grab Ed and Al's helmet as she and Alphonse's body armor ran away and back outside.
"Hey what the hell!? Take us bac-." Shouted Ed as he stopped speaking in the middle of the sentence due to Akari had hitting a nerve which knocked him out for a while.
As Akari ran back to them to safety, she kept hearing a voice from Al's helmet mumbling about how he just saw their mother.
Akari seriously doubted that could be their actual mother but knew that she was gonna get answers straight away.
After what felt like a long time, Akari had managed to get the two brothers into a hotel room and laid them on their respective beds as she left the room, ready to get answers the next day.
[The Next Day]
Akari would immediately head towards HQ in hurry as she made her way past the entrance, up the stairway, and down the main hall as she now stood in front of Roy office.
Shockingly she knocked this time instead of kicking down the door this as after three knocks, she was allowed to enter.
Needless to say Roy wasn't pleased to see Akari especially after how much she had annoyed him a few days ago.
"Oh great. You're a little early for your daily teasing ya know?" He said as Akari shook her head no.
"I would've kicked down the door if I was gonna tease you dunce. I'm here for some important business this time around." She said as she sat down.
"Oh really? And what kind of importance for you requires my help?" Asked Roy.
"I want to know the brothers' past. Everything." She said which caught Roy off guard.
"I didn't think you'd be this interested in the Elrics."
"Remember? I said there was just something about them that intrigued me. I wanna know them now."
Roy took a moment to answer before be sighed. "Fine I'll talk. Just don't tell the brothers I told you anything okay?"
Akari nodded as she prepared to listen as Roy cleared his throat.
"Now then, what exactly brought this on?"
"Well, last night we all ran into that, umm.........what'd you call it? Homa......no. Humu............uh..........Homayonnaise?" Said Akari as Roy groaned.
"Homunculus." He said.
"Yeah yeah that thing. Anyways, we ran into them last night."
"Alright. What happened?"
"Well, it started to attack them but it completely ignored me for some reason. Weird part was that Edward and Alphonse had this look of shook and horror on their face."
"Really? What could've caused that?"
"I hears Alphonse mumble something about it being their mother but surely that can't be right? I mean, what kind of mother would attack and try to kill their own children."
Despite saying that, Roy kept quiet and had a thoughtful expression on his face.
"H-Hold. There's no way right?"
"It's a likely possibility. I might as well start explaining." Said Roy, clearing his throat as Akari began to pay attention.
"The Elrics' childhood was rather odd to say the least. Nothing bad ever really happened to them as children. They lived happily with their parents Trisha Elric and Van Hoeinheim. That was until one day, Hoienheim left the home and never came back. Hell. Even to this day the brothers still haven't seen their father since that day. That just left the brothers and their mother. Unfortunately, things would go from bad to worse as on one day, the brothers would come back home after picking crops and were greeted by the sight of their mother on the ground unconscious. Shortly afterwards she died. Turns out, Trisha had been deathly sick and the boys hasn't found out about it until it was too late. One funeral later and now they were alone. A mother tragically passing at a young age, and a deadbeat father who had long since abandoned them."
"I-I see. Um...............why do I get a horrible feeling that it gets worse?"
"Because it did get worse. You see, young Edward didn't take this predicament very well. He refused to be an orphan with his brother. Thankfully for them, their father had left something behind when he left. Something that was useful to Edward's plan. His Alchemy notes. After much convincing, Ed and Al made the plan to research all of their father's books until they found something useful. They eventually did and began to gather ingredients. Those ingredients being every single thing that made up a human body. Down to the exact measurements as well and their own blood."
As Roy said that, Akari was heavily baffled as to why children like them did something so specific like that.
"Why did they do all that?"
"Simple. They were about to commit the biggest sin in all of Alchemy history. Human Transmutation."
