The Water Alchemist

Father

Welcome back to The Water Alchemist. I don't own any of the intellectual property of Fullmetal Alchemist.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Father

***

"Hey there," he said with a wave. He was taller and more slender than I remembered, his cheeks sunken under the stubble on his chin. He smiled, that same smile I had burned in my brain, and I wasn't sure how to respond. I blinked at him, unmoving. He shifted awkwardly, scratching the back of his head. "Marina, right? Gosh, you got so big." He laughed a beat, and my eye twitched.

"You're really... him..." I said eventually, more to myself than to him.

"I'm sure you must be confused, Rina," he said, and I bristled at the nickname.

"Yeah," I muttered, looking around. We were in Truth's void alright, but one thing was missing: Truth. Somehow, Truth's absence unsettled me more than their presence.

"Well, if you hadn't guessed by now, I'm your... father," he said, cutting straight to the chase, catching me off guard. "It's nice to meet you, finally."

I opened my mouth, only to close it again. I couldn't figure out what to say. Nice to meet you, man whom I've heard so many terrible things about, standing in Truth's infinite void of calamity seemed a bit coarse. But it's great to meet you, dad, seemed somehow worse. I opted for something neutral.

"What's going on?"

"Well, that's quite the loaded question," he said, scratching his chin sheepishly. "But a good place to start. It seems you, like me, managed to get yourself wedged between domains." I chuckled dryly, my first instinct disbelief

"You're kidding," I said. He shook his head. "What does that even mean?"

"Caught between this world and the next; that is where we find ourselves," he said simply. My mouth quivered into a smirk, which grew to a grin, and I laughed.

"Oh, man, you had me going for a second," I said after a few moments, clutching my stomach, my belly sore from laughing. I understood making up for lost time, but now wasn't an appropriate moment for a dad joke. "Now, what's really going on?"

"What I just told you," he said, his tone even. I continued to laugh. It echoed loudly, filling the void, working to ground me.

"That was a good joke, but let's be serious now," I said, waving him off, urging him to drop the act.

"I'm being serious, Rina," he said, addressing me with that name again. The way he said it set off alarm bells in my head as he stared at me. "This isn't a joke." His face remained stagnant, his gaze steady.

"No," I said, my chuckles faltering, my breath shortening, my mouth dipping into a frown. "You have to be joking because I wasn't supposed to get wedged between worlds— I was supposed to destroy the gate. But if I didn't destroy the gate, and I am stuck in limbo, then that means I... failed." The word came as a shock even to myself, falling from my lips in a broken whisper. My heart began to thrum in my throat.

"Marina," he said, his voice pitying. Stuck between worlds? That was just... he was wrong. Dead wrong. This was all a mistake, a misunderstanding. Truth was watching from somewhere, laughing at me; I just knew it.

Let's, for a moment, agree with Carter, I thought to myself fretfully. Let's say, yes, we've ended up in some sort of other-worldly limbo. How did it happen? My mind raced, retracing my every step up to this point, trying to figure out just what went wrong. Step one; development. Was the circle defective? No. Hohenheim and I had calculated so much, had toiled endlessly over the transmutation circle. I could understand if I had made a mistake, but Hohenheim was too well-versed in his alchemical knowledge. His making a mistake seemed highly unlikely. Step two; inscription. Hohenheim branded the circle into my back, alright. I could retrace the burning sensation with my eyes closed, and I did, bringing us to step three; activation. I was sure I had activated the circle. I felt it. But... what if something interfered with the activation? Hohenheim did say there was a possibility that something would happen, that something could go wrong, but I hadn't thought of what that might be. Had I activated it too early, or maybe too late? Was it reversible? Or... would I be stuck here forever? What about everyone else? What did all this mean for them? They were counting on me, and I—