The Same Coin

Foolish

She almost didn't go.

Winry packaged the items she'd collected over the past several days to be mailed to Garfiel. She'd given Garfiel inventory of her finds and they had said, in no uncertain terms, she'd had greater success in Saherta than anyone sent in the past.

There was less enthusiasm when she'd told Garfiel of her intention to go to the Republic of Tentai. She listened through an echo of Ed's reservations, but that was the end of that. Garfiel wasn't close enough to challenge her further.

Ed and Garfield weren't what nearly stopped her from going to Tentai: it was the realization that perhaps Hisoka would be waiting for her there. Looking for her. Luring her. She'd set aside what she'd been packing and her hands sank into her lap, until she thought longer on her hesitation. Hisoka worked for Chrollo — unless Chrollo happened to be in Tentai, she should be safe from running into Hisoka again.

The greatest affirmation, however, was in that Hisoka hadn't said anything of it when he'd been on her balcony. He didn't strike her as the type who could patiently sit on a secret without gloating.

She'd reach Tentai via two more airships, with a layover in Zaban City. The hotel reservations were at — Hotel Dosei — was not as lux as the Hotel Beitacle, judging by the brochure she'd received, but it was still extremely nice. Winry wondered, optimistic, if she might even find more technologies to bring back to Garfiel.

Winry arrived after the sun had already set on 25 June. Yorknew City had been tall and stunning. As the airship into Tentai had approached its final destination, however, she'd lost her breath as she looked out across this new skyline. A single building dwarfed the rest, a brilliant silver-gray that reflected the lights of the city surrounding it.

"What is that?" she'd asked one of the airship attendants.

The woman had given her an enthusiastic-customer-service smile before declaring, "That's Heavens Arena!"

Winry turned her eyes back to the skyscraper, her heart aflutter. So that was where the event on the 26th was to be held. She had expected to receive another brochure for the event as she had for Hotel Dosei, but one had not been forthcoming. Now, however, she wondered what kind of event it would be. A music concert? A grand theatre production? The possibilities were endless.

Her plans for the evening were to go check in at her hotel, then find somewhere to eat. She'd had a small meal on the airship, but she was hungry again and it would be foolish to pass up the opportunity for food on an inclusive trip.

As at the port in Maycape, after Winry had collected her checked bags from the airship, she headed outside to where a line of taxis waited at the curb. She'd expected it to be quiet traveling, but the airport was thrumming with people. Perhaps this place was even bigger than Yorknew City? Winry let out a heavy sigh as she wondered what Ed and Al were doing right now, and wished she had a way to share the immensity of here with them. Someone climbed out of a taxi as it arrived to the airport, and Winry swiftly ducked in through the open door. The door on the other side opened at the same time though, and a man ducked in. They each looked at each other with startled surprise, then Winry's eyes grew wide.

"Chrollo!"

"Winry-san?"

Her stomach dropped as she looked past Chrollo to the people standing behind him. Pakunoda was there, but instead of Shalnark there was a different man. His hair was black and hung down his chest in stringy lengths, and he had a thin mustache over his mouth and a sparse patch of hair on his chin. There was a woman whose hair was an electric shade of lilac. Hisoka, however, was nowhere to be seen.

Chrollo gave a quiet laugh, then waved away Pakunoda and his other companion.

"Follow us in the next taxi," he instructed, then shut the door.

"Where to, miss?" the driver asked.

Winry was still staring at Chrollo in shock as she answered him numbly, "Hotel Dosei, please." Then, to Chrollo, "How—What are you doing here?"

"I would ask the same," Chrollo said in return as the car pulled away from the curb. He gave her a smile. Tonight he wore a black shirt with a tall, stiff neck, with black slacks.

"I've asked first."

Chrollo nodded. "So you did. I'm here for a fight. And you?"

"I was in Yorknew City for the Bull Market, but apparently after you spend so much money they compensate you for some of your investment," she said, carefully tiptoeing her way around the truth.

"If you're asking if I'm here on business for Chrollo, the answer is no. I'm here on my own accord," Hisoka had said. So it was unlikely that Chrollo even knew what Hisoka had been up to in his spare time.

"The compensation I was gifted was an inclusive trip here. I don't know when I'll come back across the sea after I go home, so I didn't see any reason not to come."

That was a lie. She'd thought of a list of reasons not to come, but the most prominent among them had been Hisoka. The logic she'd used to override those concerns was that it was unlikely Chrollo would happen to be on different continent at the same time as her, so it was equally unlikely to encounter Hisoka since Chrollo was Hisoka's boss. Yet here Chrollo was, and Hisoka was not. It was the best result she could have hoped for.

"Is that so? I seldom have my interests met at the Bull Market," he said.

"What do you collect?" Winry asked, and the question seemed to catch him off-guard. She read what she thought was surprise on his face when she asked, although it may have been an illusion of the shadows that crawled over his handsome countenance as car drove.

"Antique texts, among other things."

"There was an enormous library in Central, but you had to work for the State to be granted access to it," Winry said. "I have a friend who works for the State — he told me it was burned in a fire. Everything was lost."

"A shame," Chrollo said.

"What happened to your bodyguards?" she questioned. "I only saw Pakunoda."

"They aren't my bodyguards. They are my...friends. Hisoka and Shalnark have their own businesses to attend to. That was Nobunaga and Machi with me. They are some of my oldest acquaintances, as is Pakunoda."

Winry found the information to be exactly the reassurance she'd been hoping for. She remembered the expression on Hisoka's face on the balcony. His eyes had narrowed into slits and his smile had been a frightening thing to behold — as though he'd stared into a vast abyss, and found the terrible thing staring back at him to be worth seducing and killing. Maybe not in that order either. He unnerved her.

"I don't believe I thanked you for what you did on the airship."

She focused her attention on Chrollo again, blushing slightly in the shadows of the car. "It was nothing, really."

"I disagree. You were able to repair something you'd never encountered before in only a matter of minutes under extremely stressful conditions. If I didn't know better," he said, watching her intently, "I'd have thought you had some special power when it comes to machines."