chappy 26 ish

Ed feels his body slump and, with a start, opens his eyes.
He quickly stands up in the inky blackness. He looks about himself, seeing nothing in the gloom. A heartbeat later, he realizes he hears nothing in the surrounding ether. He breathes deep to holler out, and feels no complex interplay of muscles to take no intake of breath. Not sound passes through the nothing that must be his his lips. He knows his heart would have raced with panic with sheer panic, and he wonders if he still has one, somewhere.
Most of all he wishes he had something to strike with his fists, but he knows it is a futile wish. He is nothing but a passing thought, and even if it is a crazy thought, he somehow he knows this as true.
Is this how Al feels..? He thinks, darting his non-eyes about. A rumble of something like thunder passes overhead and he looks up to see the familiar seal flash like blood soaked lightening above him. He reaches for it, and through it, sees the ghosting of his fingers. His throat would have tightened, he knows, and he wonders if he's dead as he sees dark and red tinted storm clouds forming.
No. Those are no clouds, he thinks. He watches them, billowing about above him, and know they are numbers. He looks away and around, seeing all of them quickly drape and arrange themselves into orderly formula after formula: billions upon billions of alchemical arrays storm forth from that one ragged seal and soon enough he surrounded by the foggy mass of them.
He feels a sharp pain in his remaining knee and gasps. It's a real gasp, with the complex interplay of muscles and the dull ache of something else in his gut. Then he sees her.
Or rather the ghostly image of her, far far below. She floats in the darkness, utterly at home and snarling something in Gibberish. He hears something about a body being hers now, and she states with some pride that there is no defense against her technique. He uses her words to work out that the body she speaks of is his.
Logically, if he can judge by the seal he saw, the seal which he supposes connects his soul to Al's, then he is still somewhere within his own body. If that is so...
He would have laughed had he a diaphragm to do so. She is only human, and nothing really, compared to that ancient monster, Pride. He won that terror of a fight entirely on his own, and with nothing more than his own mind and soul as a weapon. This fight would truly be nothing for him to win.
She doesn't stand a chance. He thinks. Familiar anger from deep in his being bubbles forth, frothing the arrays as though they were sea foam. If she expects me to not defend myself against such an invader, a hoary, living violation of my very being, then she is sorely mistaken.
He begins, telling himself that he is a philosopher's stone, with the power of a single soul…
He lifts his non brows at just how off his perceptions are in this strange place when his ghostlike hand fully encompasses the girl. He easily lifts her, for she is but a tiny thing, really. As she rises in his massive grip, she turns to look at him, and then shrieks shrilly.
When she is the size of an insect and perched on his forefinger, she brings her hands together, and looks up at him with wide, terror filled, eyes. He watches tears stream down the shape of her face.
Even here, he can't but help be reminded of just who this girl, this—nin—looks like. Besides, he tells himself, those tears are in no way real.
He tries mightily to keep his silence stony as he regards her, but here, especially here in what must be his core, he can feel the cracks of his many flaws grinding. As ever, it is those cracks which threaten to shatter his heart to pieces.
ooooo
Kakashi squats down by him as he lifts his head from his hands.
"Ino..?"
Ed narrows his eyes at the man as he pushes himself off the tiled floor.
"No..I suppose not." Ed hears the man whisper.
The white dog whines as he ambles his way over to the end of the bed, and stops mid step when he feels the sharp edge of a knife at his throat. He follows the arm as far as he dares, but the strong whiff of dog tells him that it is the wild haired boy that has the weapon. He drags his eyes to the fat boy cradling Winry's limp form and swallows.
oooooo
A/n--working on it...
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....