The winds in South City carried the scent of coal smoke and restless steel. Beneath the marching boots and whirring train engines, a deeper pulse lingered—one Aeon followed like a tether through the threads of the world.
It led him to the outer industrial zone, past boarded buildings and hushed barracks, to a forgotten corner beneath military jurisdiction. No sign marked the facility. No windows faced the street. But Aeon knew.
The Shadow had passed through here.
He entered the facility unseen, slipping between attention and memory. Soldiers stood at the door, hollow-eyed and silent, hands tense on rifles. They didn't see him. Or perhaps they didn't want to.
Inside, the air was still and sterile. The corridors led to a reinforced room where a single chair sat beneath a flickering bulb. A girl occupied it—no older than twelve. Her legs hung over the edge, too small to touch the floor. Her back was straight, her arms folded calmly in her lap.
But her eyes—black-irised and swirling like ink—held a depth Aeon had seen only in dying stars.
She didn't look at him when he entered.
"I know you," she said quietly, her voice too calm for a child. "You were at the gate."
Aeon stopped. He'd felt many things in this world—resonance, disturbance, grief. But this… this was familiarity. Not of her—but of what spoke through her.
"You've seen the Gate?" he asked.
She nodded. "It opened when they tried to make me into something else. Something strong. Something perfect."
Her fingers tightened. "But something else got there first. Something that said it used to be part of you."
Aeon stepped closer, crouching to meet her eyes. "What did it show you?"
The girl blinked. "Pain. But not mine. Yours."
A moment passed.
"Flames," she continued. "A place burning. Someone you trusted… screaming. You turned away. You wanted to forget."
Aeon's breath caught.
She looked directly at him then, and in that moment, the black in her eyes shimmered with violet—briefly, like a ripple in memory.
"It wanted me to be like it," she said. "To give up my name. To let it in."
"Why didn't you?" Aeon asked.
She smiled faintly.
"Because someone in the dark said 'wait.' And I think that voice was yours."
————-
Elsewhere
Colonel Mustang tapped his pen against the desk, irritation furrowing his brow. "Another unauthorized facility. Another experiment gone to hell."
Riza Hawkeye stood beside him. "The survivor is being held for observation. The girl."
"She's not supposed to exist," Mustang muttered. "Not like that. A twelve-year-old conduit?"
"No Philosopher's Stone was recovered. Just corrupted ash and broken seals."
"Seal it off," Mustang said. "Bury the evidence. I want everyone with access to that room watched."
He didn't say what they were both thinking.
If this kind of alchemy was spreading again… it wasn't just rogue scientists anymore.
Back in the cell
Aeon placed a hand near the girl's, not touching her, but allowing his aura to settle like a breeze.
"She isn't bound," he said aloud, though no one else could hear. "Not entirely. The Shadow didn't finish."
He closed his eyes.
In the space between seconds, the threads around the girl's soul came into focus. Like a damaged loom, frayed and stained, but not severed.
He did not purge the darkness.
Instead, he wove around it—wrapped it in light, gave it form, so it could no longer feed unseen. The Shadow's whisper faded, like smoke through fingers.
When he opened his eyes again, the black in hers had faded to gray.
She exhaled sharply, as though waking from a nightmare.
"You're not a soldier," she said. "They wear masks."
"No," Aeon said. "And I don't want you to forget who you are. Not ever."
She looked down, trembling now.
"My name is Elin," she whispered. "I didn't remember it until just now."
"Keep it," Aeon said. "Names are anchors."
Later, outside
The sky above South City had begun to lighten with the pale hue of morning. Aeon stood on a rooftop, watching trains snake their way toward Central in the distance. The girl was asleep in her cell now—peacefully, for the first time since the ritual.
Hohenheim approached from the shadows of a nearby stairwell, his long coat fluttering in the breeze.
"She'll survive," he said quietly.
Aeon nodded. "But she's proof that the Shadow is learning. It's adapting. It's no longer just corrupting—it's inhabiting."
Hohenheim looked troubled. "Then we need to move faster."
Aeon's gaze turned north.
"Yes. It's time I see the Elric brothers again."
To be continued…