Heart of a SIN - FMA Envy Fanfic [Edited]

2 - Slip Up

Arisa pov:

Getting past the men who stood guard around the mansion was easy but had me wondering what Krystal was keeping a secret. Sure, he was stinking rich and probably hand lots of gold and gems and what not's in his house but why was there this much security? These men with big guns sure didn't seem like normal security to me.

"Angel, get out of there right now," hollered Oba-san, getting more and more hysterical the closer I got to the mansion. "There are too many of those guards. It's not safe – you're going to get caught!"

"Don't you think this is strange, Oba-san? All of this security isn't normal. I don't think he has them just to keep his money and gems safe. There's something else he's hiding for sure," I said, ignoring her orders.

"It doesn't matter what he's hiding. Get out of there right now! That's an order from your superior!"

My curiosity got the better of me though. Oba-san would surely chew me out later for disobeying her and I would perhaps even get an earful from Keith Nii, but I couldn't resist the desire to find out what this guy was hiding. I'm sure the answer would be worth all the trouble.

Once past the men around the mansion, I climbed the niches in the brick wall to enter the mansion through on open window on the second floor. I landed softly on the wooden floor of what appeared to be an office room. Huge wooden shelves filled with all kinds of books lined the walls while a desk with books and papers and writing equipment sat in the center. I stepped to the bookshelves to glance over the names of the books. Most of them were literature, documentaries, papers on mechanical and electrical engineering and technology. They weren't something that caught my interest. Nonchalantly, I placed a small camera at the very back of one of the shelves and stepped away.

I was about to leave the room after a quick glance over the books on the desk. However, one of the books had me stopping rigid in my tracks. Narrowing my eyes, I picked up the book and read the title barely above a whisper, "Basics of Alchemy in Human Transmutation...what is this? Why does this person have something like this?"

Did this mean that Krystal knew of alchemy? Could he use alchemy too? Is this why he was being so secretive?

"Angel, don't get any stupid ideas seeing that book. You've placed a camera in his shelf so leave the rest to me. Go back to your house."

"No, Oba-san, something isn't right here. The topic of this book, Human Transmutation sounds dangerous. We need to make sure peoples' lives aren't in danger because of this man," I said while putting the book down. "I'm going to look around a little more."

This investigation was no longer only for my curiosity – what I had just seen had made the situation a lot stranger. I had to get answers for alchemy that none knew of but feared, and also for the worry the book had stirred within me.

There was nothing more of interest in this room so I left it while making sure there was no one around to see me sneaking around. There wasn't anything interesting that I could find in the other parts of the house I searched. I was seconds close to giving up and leaving but I tensed at the clawing, scratching sound I heard suddenly. Turning on a small hand torch, I searched for the source. The noise was coming from a trap door I saw underneath some furniture in the dining room.

I moved the furniture out of the way slowly so as to not hear even a squeak before I opened the trap door. With a deep inhale, I slowly climbed down the dark stairway to an underground room of sorts.

"Arisa, I have a bad feeling about this place. You have to leave now, please!" Oba-san yelled from the other side.

It was rare for her to call me by my name – she was really worried about me now. It had me wondering if I really was doing something too reckless after all, perhaps walking right into a trap. But it couldn't be possible...if this was a trap, I should have been caught already. I couldn't have got away with looking through the entire mansion without getting caught. I had to find out what was down here.