Fullmetal Alchemist: The Way To The Top

Chapter 6: To die or to live

When Riza woke up, she was alone in a place she had never been to before. There was neither too hot, nor too cold. When she opened her eyes, she saw beautiful nature all around. Trees with green leaves. Plants covered with flowers of all colors. A stream running down between the stones. It was amazing. After a long time, she felt no pain. She laughed happily.

***

When Roy, Ling and May entered the room, it was a mess there. Many doctors and nurses were running around the bed. "What is happening? Why are so many people here?" Roy asked with fear. "They are all doctors and nurses." Ling answered. "Something isn't right." Roy said. He felt the tension in the room.

"She stopped breathing!" a doctor called. A chill ran through Roy "No. Don't!" he whispered. "Colonel, you came in the right time." an unfamiliar voice said. Ling led Roy to a chair next to Riza's bed. Roy sat down and found Riza's hand. He held it. With the other hand, he looked for her face. Someone guided him to touch it. He felt a mask on her nose and mouth. Her forehead was wet from sweat. Her forehead was burning. She breathed irregularly. Roy inclined so that his head was right over Riza's. He whispered to her: "Riza, please, don't give up now. I know you can go through this." Then she stopped breathing again. "No..."

"We need more oxygen!" a voice called. "And bring also more disinfection!" another voice called. Roy heard many people run around him. He pulled his hand back from Riza's forehead, so that the doctors could do what was needed. They said something he didn't understand. Most likely some medical term.

***

Riza walked between the trees in that amazing land. Then she met a woman. She had long blonde hair. Riza had never seen her, but she knew who was that. "Mother?" she wondered, "What are you doing here?" The women looked at Riza in disbelief. "I wanted to ask you the same, darling. What happened to you?" Riza shook her head, confused. "I'm not sure. I was on the mission with the Colonel." Fear was in her mother's eyes. "You joined the military, didn't you?" Riza bowed her head. "It was the only thing I could do back then. There was a student, Roy Mustang, who came to father. He wanted to learn alchemy from him. And then we became close. After father died, I had nobody. Roy joined the military not long before. He went away from our house. But most importantly, both of us promised father we will look after each other once he is not here. And I just couldn't stay there anymore. Roy was my only friend and I decided to follow him."

Her mother smiled sadly. She wanted a better life for her daughter. But it seemed that nothing could be easy for her family. "Now I think I understand. But how did you get here?" Riza began to speak about everything, what happened. "We discovered that the whole country was ruled by Homunculi. They are artificially created humans. In their center, there is a Philosopher's stone. Philosopher's stone amplifies powers of an alchemist. But the material for it are living humans. Many people are needed to create just one stone. We wanted to defeat the Homunculi. Roy wanted to become the President. I helped him as much as I could. After finding out about the Homunculi, the motivation became even stronger. There was a tattoo on my back, which showed the secrets of the Flame alchemy. Father put it there. I showed it to Roy long ago. He earned a state alchemist license. He is known as the Flame alchemist. It took a long time, until we found out what was going on. One of our friends, Roy's best friend found out. Then he was killed. Many things happened. It came to one final fight. We fought against many enemies and lost. They needed Roy to perform the human transmutation. If you perform it, you lose something in exchange with witnessing some Truth. I don't know what that 'Truth' exactly means. First, they tried to make him perform the transmutation by killing me. They cut my throat. They thought he will perform it to save me. But I forbade him to do that. I didn't want to sacrifice everything for my sake. I saw it was very hard for him, but he agreed he will not perform it. Then they made him. I couldn't prevent it from happening. He said he would entrust me to protect his back. I failed. He was taken from me." Tears ran down her face. "I don't know what happened next. The next time we met, I learned that the transmutation cost him his eyesight. He couldn't see a thing. I helped him in the final fight. I guided him to help to defeat the creator of the Homunculi, which killed the Homunculi as well. Then some soldiers came. They were snipers.  The only thing I could do was to shoot them as I am a sniper, too. But I missed once. I hadn't missed a shot for a very long time before. Probably I lost too much blood. The last thing I remember was that I got shot in my chest and..." Then she stopped speaking and looked on her mother with eyes full of fear. "Do you think that... This isn't a dream... Am I...?" Her mother was crying, too. "I fear yes, dear." Tears ran down her face as she said: "You are still so young." then they hugged.