The Empath Alchemist {Edward Elric X Reader}

27

Even the most stable of human beings managed to reach their breaking point somewhere along their twisted path of life.

That was the first thought that crossed Greed's mind when he saw the unhinged expression plastered across (Y/n)'s face once she lifted her head from the ground to peer at the large Homunculus charging toward her at full speed. Greed had watched her trudge toward the Homunculus, who could have split her body in two with the pressure of his fingers if he had gotten his hands on her (if he hadn't been so distracted). In the end, the girl had been the one to sever his unsuspecting body. That weapon she carried, the burnt orange that marked the blade as hers, had cut through the air once she swung it. It had been far different from the weapon she'd birthed from Greed's emotion. Rather than a bright, luminescent laser, it looked like some twisted tool a serial killer would utilize, by its size and its aesthetic.

It looked nothing like a weapon that a fifteen year old girl would use to fight her enemies. That thing was meant to kill, and (Y/n) was not a killer. Greed really hoped that she didn't become one.

The violet eyed man had never seen (Y/n) in such a manic state. He hadn't known her for very long, but he knew her enough to know that the way she cackled and sliced in Gluttony's thick flesh with no hesitation was not a representation of who she was. Not a very accurate one, at least. Greed wasn't sure what it felt like for someone to lose their mind. On the inside, it could have felt like a string snapping, allowing all the clandestine mental turmoil to suddenly pour out like water from a broken dam. He didn't know if it was a relieving feeling, or if it felt like being trapped within your own skin- unable to claw your way out. If it felt like an outer-body experience, on the outside looking in. Hell, he had no way of really knowing, but it must not have felt like how it looked. Because if it did, no one would ever allow themselves to lose control. Not that anyone ever could.

It was a bone chilling thing to witness. (Y/n), a sweet, considerate, peaceful girl, had shown just how terrifying she could truly be if she were to let all that she experienced consume her.

Due to the fact that she was constantly fighting, both physically and metaphorically, she had never allowed the trials and tribulations of her adolescent life to control her, like a puppeteer would control the movements of their dolls by pulling its strings connecting to its lifeless limbs. (Y/n) had friends and family to support her, and a reason to keep moving rather than to allow all that lurked beneath her shadow to pull her down into its madness.

Those who had nothing to hold on to, no generosity behind the warmth of a hand to pull them up, no gaze of a loving peer, no family to worry for the state of their being, were the truly lost souls. The poor, unfortunate souls who saw life as an endless trap with no way out. Who lived in fear and sought to hate rather than to love, simply because they'd never experienced the very artistic power within the baffling concept.

Greed had often scoffed at the idea of love only because he knew that it was something he'd never encounter, though he desired it more than the women, money, and power he claimed he wished for above all else. He wasn't a human, but if he were, would he have ended up in the sorry state that (Y/n) had shown to him just before Gluttony had wiped her, as well as Edward and everything in the vicinity, out in the blink of an eye? Would he have regressed to a state of insanity? Insecurity? Instability? Would he even have the strength to pick himself up after allowing himself to stray so far away from his given path? Would he have been able to?

It was pointless thinking about it.

He was a Homunculus. He needed to remember how to think and behave like one rather than like a human being. He was only the sad result of what happened when a jealous being tried to create what could not be scientifically conjured.