A Small Handful of Truth

No. That is not it.

For a fleeting instant he was thrown off, but Kurama quickly realized it: this was not Moko’s aura. At most, it was an aura remarkably similar to Moko’s, almost enough to pass for the real thing, belonging to some other being altogether. In the shock of that moment, he had simply failed to notice the subtle difference at once.

Kurama frowned faintly and lowered his head, concern flickering in his gaze as he looked down at the white bundle in his arms, whose expression had also turned somewhat complicated.

“You felt it too, Moko?”

The little white ball pursed his lips and nodded.

Kurama saw that he too seemed agitated, and so said no more. He merely lifted his face again and looked far off toward the center of the alchemical array, where all disturbance had already subsided, as though the great upheaval before had never happened at all.

There, deep beneath the city in the vast underground hall, perhaps...

The struggle between the Homunculus and the protagonists was already raging.

Through the intermittent images relayed by the dandelions, Kurama watched the unfolding story in silence.

His arrival, together with all he had done before, and the various schemes large and small that he and Roy had laid, had already made Ed’s side far less disadvantaged than in the original tale. After all, after being forced to open the Gate of Truth and losing his sight, Roy had quietly healed his eyes with the Philosopher’s Stone Kurama had given him earlier, all without drawing the enemy’s attention.

With his aid, when Hohenheim later used the shadow of the eclipse to form a circle upon the ground and unleashed alchemy with the Philosopher’s Stones he had spent years scattering across the country, stripping from the Homunculus the souls of the nation’s people that had just been drawn into it, the Homunculus, left with only the Stones within him to sustain himself, suddenly found the fight far more difficult. For a time, the battle truly tilted toward the Colonel and his allies.

Yet the inertia of the plot was formidable. In the end, the Homunculus still broke through the layers of defense around the Colonel and reached the surface.

And by pure chance, the place he emerged happened to be exactly where Kurama stood.

“Oh? There is a man with such abundant life force here? From the look of your clothes... one of Mustang’s subordinates?”

Still speaking with the lofty, contemptuous air of one looking down from on high, the blond man was, in appearance, little more than a grown-up Edward, yet his body was covered in bulging veins, giving him an utterly unnatural air. As he spoke, he casually extended his hand toward Kurama and the soldiers beside him, men who had only just recovered consciousness and still had no idea what had happened.

But the strange beam, crackling with red lightning, that shot from his hand came to an abrupt halt less than a meter before Kurama, then began to tremble violently, as though it had sensed some immense threat, and vanished without a trace.

The blond man—the Homunculus—showed a flicker in his eyes.

“Oh? You are... Kurama?”

He had never paid much attention to those “little insects” around Roy, yet the name Kurama had left a deep impression on the Homunculus.

After that man came to Mustang’s side, he had supposedly offered many suggestions, allowing the young officer to reap considerable gains from the Central Command, and even causing all of those under Lust to suffer greatly because of his ideas. At the time, during the gathering of the artificial humans, Lust had even been mocked mercilessly by Envy for it, told she could not even defeat a mere young military officer.

The Homunculus had taken all of this as nothing more than a trivial diversion in life, heard it once and forgotten it. Yet for some reason, he had unexpectedly remembered the rather distinctive name Kurama.

And now, without any evidence, he simply felt certain that the boy before him was that very Kurama who had made even Lust suffer losses.

The fox spirit made no attempt to deny the question.

Only, while the Homunculus was astonished by the strange incident that had just occurred, Kurama was by no means any more informed than he was.

In truth, before the red beam abruptly ceased and vanished on its own, Kurama had been fully prepared and ready with every defensive measure he possessed.

But before he could even put any of them into action, the Homunculus’s attack had dissipated in the most bizarre way imaginable.

The fox spirit was equally astonished by this, though he had long since grown accustomed to keeping a calm and elegant smile upon his face no matter what he truly felt inside, so the Homunculus could not divine his real emotions for a moment.

And seeing that he only smiled and did not answer, the Homunculus, ever suspicious, ever valuing his own life, and ever arrogant, now found himself somewhat uncertain.

Thus, an invisible standoff formed between them.

When Hohenheim, chasing the Homunculus to the surface, arrived and saw this scene, he opened his mouth, only to find the words he had intended to say caught in his throat, uncertain whether he should speak them at all. Close behind him, Alphonse, their teacher Izumi Curtis, and Mei, already streaked with blood, also came up to the surface.

“Major Kurama?”

“Big Brother Kurama!”

Unlike Hohenheim’s wariness and caution, Alphonse and Mei were overjoyed to see Kurama.

One of them believed that since the other was Roy’s adjutant, he could not possibly be an enemy. The other trusted and liked this very gentle, very patient big brother, and never once entertained the possibility that he might be on the enemy’s side.

Their reactions also influenced Hohenheim’s judgment to a great extent.

“So... not an enemy,” he muttered, before turning a stern gaze back on the Homunculus.

“You bastard... you’re making another Philosopher’s Stone, are you?”

The Homunculus, glaring at him, said nothing, only sneered.

Hohenheim’s expression grew colder still.

“You think you’ve become a complete existence? Don’t be ridiculous! What kind of god is a being that only knows how to destroy? What can you create? What can you grant?!”

“Stop imagining yourself above everyone else!”

None of Hohenheim’s furious words caused the Homunculus’s expression to waver in the slightest.

At first, he had merely been curious and wary of Kurama’s ability to seem to suppress his power. But once Hohenheim appeared, the focus of his attention shifted entirely to him.

He turned his back on Kurama without concern, and after a cold scrutiny of Hohenheim, he sighed as though dealing with a misbehaving child.

“You say I cannot create anything?”

His voice was ice, carrying a trace of arrogance and mockery so dangerous it made Hohenheim feel an instinctive chill.

“Very well. Then I shall... make humans for you to see.”

The words had barely fallen when he spread his arms wide, and from the flat plane of his abdomen, lumps of flesh suddenly swelled outward in a violent surge. Amid crackling red lightning, they twisted and wailed, taking on the shape of human beings...

Izumi and Mei covered their mouths, and at the sight of this scene, which sent a cold shiver through every observer, they could scarcely suppress the sourness rising from their stomachs.

And these so-called humans that had been “brought forth” appeared to possess human forms and complete souls, yet in the end they were little better than the white humanoid weapons. Swaying and shambling like the walking dead, they encircled Hohenheim and the others, their faces contorted with frenzy so ecstatic it was enough to chill the blood.

Kurama, being on the side turned away from the Homunculus, did not suffer the force of the spectacle directly. Yet he still saw those so-called humans staggering toward the others, and when he caught sight of the frightened girl on the far side shrinking behind Alphonse, he suddenly realized what the Homunculus was about to do.

He had no time to warn them. The fox spirit flew at once toward the girl’s position.

At the very same moment, behind Hohenheim and the others, Edward, having just finished off the artificial human Pride, burst upward from belowground...

And it was right then that a cold, triumphant smile curved the Homunculus’s lips.

A tremendous surge of energy erupted without warning from before him and slammed toward Hohenheim and the others.

Amid a violent explosion and a tremendous shockwave, the group had only enough time to shut their eyes tightly. What followed... was left to fate.

Yet a miracle occurred then.

When the blaze faded and they opened their eyes again, they found that after such a colossal blast, they had... escaped unscathed.

As for why...

Lifting his eyes, Hohenheim looked with mixed feelings at the red-haired少年 standing calmly before them all, and thought that at this moment, he probably shared the same question as the Homunculus:

Who, exactly, are you?

---

To be honest, even Kurama himself found it somewhat unbelievable.

He had originally intended to use the Giant’s Cage to forcibly withstand the Homunculus’s attack, but just like the last time, when he was preparing to cause the seeds in his palm to sprout, the Homunculus’s fierce assault suddenly vanished entirely before him, as though frightened of something. It spared Hohenheim and the others shielded behind Kurama as well, and none of them suffered a scratch.

Once might be chance, or sheer luck.

But twice?

Kurama could no longer help but lower his head again and look at the white bundle in his arms, Moko, whose expression was strangely complex.

He thought he understood something.

But clearly, this was not the time to probe the matter deeply.

“Take this chance.”

He quickly led Mei to withdraw, yielding the battlefield to Hohenheim and the Elric brothers.

And because the Homunculus had always been deeply wary of his existence, when battle resumed he was clearly no longer in the absolute position of advantage he had in the original story.

The Elric brothers, Izumi, Hohenheim, the Colonel and the others who arrived later, and the Central City guard forces that rapidly gathered around them...

A vast force was assembled, severely draining the power of the Philosopher’s Stone within the Homunculus.

Although Alphonse ultimately gave up his soul to exchange Edward’s arm back from the Gate of Truth, this time Greed, within Yao Ling’s body, did not sacrifice himself. Instead, through perfect cooperation with Edward, they finally brought down the near-divine Homunculus!

“It’s all over...”

Because of Kurama’s earlier assistance, Hohenheim’s own power had not been consumed nearly as heavily as in the original tale, and so he still retained the form of a wise, handsome middle-aged man.

His sigh seemed to trigger something in Edward. Still dazed, Edward jerked violently, then spun around and ran to Alphonse’s side.

One after another, everyone followed, gathering around him before they could help themselves.

Yet Kurama, who already knew how everything would end, quietly slipped away from the crowd at this moment.

What came next... no longer needed his part.

While everyone was gathered in the central square, Kurama took Moko and quickly found a hidden corner. They both leaned into the shadows and let out long breaths.

“Moko knew all along?”

After a moment of silence, Kurama reached out and gathered up the unusually quiet little white bundle.

“This place... is a world created by Him.”

The little bundle nodded silently.

“Then the Hunter world before was too?”

Nod.

“And the world where we met Diarmuid?”

After a hesitation, another nod.

“The world where we met Tsuna and Reborn even earlier?”

This time Moko hesitated.

“That one, I do not know. Moko did not come into contact with anything carrying His aura.”

Kurama lifted an eyebrow at that.

So that meant it could not be ruled out as a world created by Him as well.

Then his journey... aside from searching for the road home, did it conceal some other secret or hidden truth even he himself did not know?

Or was this simply an accident?

Though he very much wanted to uncover the answer at once, whether by sorting through it himself or simply speaking with Yuko, Kurama knew there were more important things he needed to do.

And that was...

Looking at the white bundle in his arms, head lowered, its gloomy and forlorn aura now so dense it seemed almost visible, the fox spirit sighed, lifted the little one with a soft heave, and held him up before his eyes.

“Moko?”

The little one kept his gaze lowered and refused to look at him.

Kurama’s heart sank slightly.

This... was going to be troublesome.