Red: I actually had this chapter written for a long time, but I never finished editing the little bit I had left and posted it. :P At least I'm posting it now after the long wait. ^-^;

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or Fullmetal Alchemist, if that wasn't obvious enough. They belong to their rightful owners. (I mean, why would the creators be on this website writing fanfics?)

Notice! This is going to follow the story of Brotherhood, but will probably make references back to some things that happened in the first series.

Chapter Six: Revealing the Fake

Ed turned to his brother. "Al, do you think you can find something to project the sound of a microphone all around town with?" he asked as he kept running down the hall slightly ahead of the group, he turned his head to one wall then to another as if looking for something in particular.

Al nodded. "I remember there's a bell tower at the top of this church, we could use the metal to transmute it into a speaker to help amplify the audio once the microphone is connected."

Ed smirked. "Perfect. I bet there's a microphone in the office of the fake Father so we can use that." The brothers shared a look of understanding, knowing what must be done in order to reveal that the Father is a fake to his followers all around town.

Kagome looked at the two of them with a confused look on her face. "What do you plan to do?" she asked. Instead of answering her, Ed just sends her another smirk her way, his face clearing saying 'you'll see.' Kagome huffed when he wouldn't tell her his plan.

The four of them continued to make their way through the halls opening random doors trying to find the office. Once they had located the right room, Ed set up the microphone and placed the mic part on the floor in front of the desk. He walked over to the window behind the desk and looked up at the bell tower. "Hey, Al. Do you think you can catch this if I throw it to you up there?" he asked his brother.

Al nodded. "I think so, but what if he comes while you wait for me to get up there?" Ed looked at the wire in his hand with a thoughtful look. 'That's right it will take Al some time to get up to the tower and he couldn't exactly jump out of the window and up onto the roof with Rose in his arms.'

Kagome walked over and took the wire from Ed's hand. "Here, I'll jump up and start setting this bell up and wait for Al to get up there with Rose. I'll keep a close eye out for when things start getting nasty," she told him as she climbed onto the windowsill. She looked towards Al, "You should head up too, kid." With that said, she jumped up to the roof with cat-like grace and began running to the bell.

Ed watched as the girl went to work to help him out. "You heard her, Al. You get going and make sure Rose stays safe."

Al nodded. "Right." He quickly got out of the room and began running down the hall to the stairs and up to the roof. After his brother left, Ed made himself comfortable on the desk and put the switch to the mic behind his back and out of view. He had no doubt his plan would work, the Father was such a joke and a fool.

Al ran up the steps of the tower as Rose bounced a bit in his arms from the motion. "Sorry for the bumpy ride, I'll set you down soon," he told her. Rose just nodded and gripped on for her life.

She knew why he hadn't set her down earlier and let her just follow him instead. It was obvious to her that she wasn't as fit as the two brothers or Kagome. Rose would never be able to keep up with the three of them, she would only hold them back. It seemed to her all she could ever do was pray, she didn't have any strength to achieve what people like them could achieve.

"We're here, Rose," Al told the girl, knocking her out of her thoughts. Al set her down gently as he walked over to Kagome. "You were able to get the bell down yourself?" Al asked, surprised such a small girl was able to lift such a heavy thing.

Kagome huffed and crossed her arms. "I'm not as weak as I look, you know." She also wasn't about to mention she used alchemy to help her out. She didn't want to reveal her being able to use alchemy without a circle just yet, she wanted to use that as an element of surprise.

The two girls watched as the younger brother began assembling the wire together with the bell to prepare the transmutation. Rose looked lost in thought until she finally got the courage to speak up. "How did you lose your body?" she asked with slight hesitation.

Al's movement stopped upon hearing her question. He put the bell down, creating a small thump from the heavy metal hitting the stone floor. With a soft voice, he replied, "No matter what the Cornello told you, Rose, just know that my brother and I aren't evil." He looked up at the sky. "We just wanted our mother back, we wanted to live happily with her again. See her smile and feel her warmth. All we wanted was our family together again…" Al looked down at his hands. "But that obviously didn't happen. Our transmutation had failed, and what we created that night wasn't even human." He gripped his hands into a fist. "We learned our mistake the hard way. And because of that mistake, I lost the ability to feel warmth on my skin along with many other things. You can't bring people from the dead, Rose. Not ever," he finished.

Rose quivered with sadness and disbelief. "T-that's not true! Father Cornello said—He promised—He promised he would—"

Kagome was listening quietly this whole time, but she finally decided to speak up. "Rose!" The dual-colored haired girl jumped from the stern voice and turned to her friend with surprise, not expecting Kagome to shout at her. "After all that has happened today, do you still believe every word your Father has said?" Kagome asked her with bitterness in her tone and her eyes. "He tried to kill you, Rose. He was just using you, willing to throw you away like you were nothing, and you're still willing to follow a guy like that?" Tears began to build up from the raw emotion she was displaying, but none of them fell. "You need to learn that some people just don't come back. You need to face the truth and just realize that you will never see them again. Never…" The last part was just above a whisper, too quiet for either of them to hear over the gust of wind blowing around them.

Rose gripped her hands together. She knew everything Kagome said was right and she shouldn't follow Father Cornello anymore, but something in Kagome's words seemed as if she was speaking from experience. Rose was learning more and more in just one day that she didn't know Kagome at all. Despite the week spent together, it was as if she was meeting Kagome for the first time.

Al looked at the raven-haired girl with wonder. Has she experienced the same loss as he and his brother? She spoke as if she has. Maybe he will ask her about it later.

He turned back to Rose. "A simple concept in Alchemy, Rose, is equivalent exchange. There is no knowing what measures to the equivalent of a human soul, and as you can see, even a failed transmutation has a high price that must be paid." Al went back to setting up the bell and drawing the transmutation circle around it. "The price caused me my whole body and my brother's left leg. He must have been in so much pain that day, but despite all that, he still gave up his right arm to bind my soul to this body."

Al paused in his drawing to take off his helmet to show the girls the blood seal. "My brother drew that with his blood. He gave up so much to get my soul back, so now I want to help him get his body back, and he feels the same about getting my body back." Al put his helmet on and went back to finishing the circle. "The road ahead of us isn't an easy one, and we might die along the way, but even with those odds, my brother and I aren't going to give up."

After the circle was done, Al placed the chalk down and looked up at the girls. "Despite his personality, my brother is very caring in his own way. He's determined to help but sometimes does it in the most unorthodox way. You should give him a chance, he's really not the villain you might think he is."

Kagome wanted to roll her eyes at his words, but she didn't. She knew there was truth to the younger brother's statements about his brother. Even though his personality was a little coarse, she could tell Ed had a good heart and was always looking out for others—especially his younger brother.

She smiled and looked off into the distance as the setting sun colored the sky orange. 'It's funny how mature the younger brother is compared to the older one. Maybe Al's right about all he said. He doesn't seem like the lying type so maybe I'll give the shortie a chance.'

The three of them waited as they heard footsteps through the makeshift speaker signaling to Al to hold the speaker on his shoulder, facing the town. They heard as Ed asked the Father simple questions on why he would stay in such a small town performing miracles when he had such a powerful object like the philosopher's stone at his disposal. After hearing the Father spiel all his plans about making a brainless army of followers willing to die whenever he wanted them to, it was obvious to everyone listening that the Father didn't know he was being recorded, all the things he said was from his soul, no lies could be heard from his tone.

"See, Rose. Now you can hear the true nature of his plans. There were no miracles. He lied to you and everyone." Al stated.

"No…" Rose muttered in disbelief before crying into her hands.

The three of them continued to listen as Ed laughed and revealing that the Father had been projected to the whole town this entire time. There was a lot of yelling on the Father's part, which gave Kagome the cue to stop leaning against the wall and make her back to Ed. "I'm gonna go help your brother out." With that said, she leaped off the balcony the three of them were on and slid down the rooftop until she made it to the edge of the roof right above the window of the room Ed and the Father were in.

She waited until she heard some commotion inside before grabbing the edge of the roof and swinging her body through the window and landing in a crouched position. She looked up and saw Ed had sliced off the gun Cornello had transmuted. "Just face it, you're outclassed here," Ed said cockily as the sliced off gun piece fell on the floor with a heavy thump.

Kagome felt the dark energy coming from the Father's hand pulse with power as Cornello shouted before slapping the pulsing hand to the large broken gun in his other hand to transmute the machine into something else.

She saw Ed do a quick back-spring away from the Father, sensing the danger coming from him as well. After the hand made contact, the two teenagers expected to see something bigger get created by the father, but what surprised them all was how the transmutation failed and the Father's arm had been fused with the gun instead. "A rebound," she and Ed both said at the same time.

The Father grunted in pain from the failed transmutation. "I won't fail and be disgraced like this!" Despite his failed first attempt, Cornello pushed more of his will into the stone on his finger, causing it grow brighter. "I will show you the true power of the chosen adversary of the Sun God Leto!" The Father's body began to mutate and grow in size in front of them.

"Ed get out of the way!" Kagome shouted to warn him, but Ed only had enough time to bring up his metal arm and brace for the impact of the Father. The force had caused the two of them to break through a couple of walls until they eventually smashed into the main chapel area. Luckily, it was during the middle of the day so no one was there worshiping and could've gotten hurt from the impact of the two fighting.

Kagome raced to the large opening in the wall they had made and took her bow from across her chest and notched an arrow in the string just in case there was an opening for her to shoot. She watched as Ed kept jumping out of the way of Cornello's large first. After another hit in his direction, Ed did multiple back-springs, bringing him far enough for Kagome to release her arrow. "Watch out!"

Ed noticed what she was doing and made sure he was a good distance away from Cornello in order to not get hit by the blast of her attack. Kagome released the arrow, but since the Father had heard her warning to Ed, the arrow only hit his arm and not his entire body. The arm that was hit burst into tiny disgusting pieces before disintegrating before their eyes.

Cornello screamed in pain from the attack and turned his angry eyes to the girl. "Insolent brat!" He swatted at her, but before he made impact, she was able to make a quick barrier to protect herself. His hand never made contact with her body due to her being shielded, but the force of his hand had caused some rubbled to be scooped up and fly at her at full speed.

Since her barrier was made with holy energy, it only protected her from things created from dark energy, meaning even though it could protect her from the Father and anything he created, the stone from the chapel was made by man and could not be stopped by her barrier.

Before she could do anything about it, a large piece of rubble flew and hit her on the head, causing her to drop her barrier from the sudden shock. Seeing that she was now open, Cornello let out a sinister smile and smack at her again now that she was vulnerable. The impact caused Kagome's body to fly at one of the pillars in the church before falling on the floor unconscious.

Ed watched everything as if it was slow motion. When he saw her get hit on the head, he tried to run to save her, but he wasn't fast enough to cross the room in time. Ed watched as her back hit a pillar and fall to the ground which made caused anger to surge through him.

"You bastard!" he shouted, putting his hands together and smacking them on the ground. The static of his transmutation moved to the wall closest to the Father and several fists made of stone shot out of the wall and hit the body of the Father. Cornello shouted in pain from the multiple hits as his large body was slammed onto the ground. After the attacks stopped, Cornello quickly got up and glared at the blond boy. "That's right, you bastard. Focus all your attention on me," he taunted. "This fight is ours!"

Cornello smiled sinisterly and aimed to punch the boy with his good arm that hadn't been blown off by that girl's attack. Ed was prepared and braced for the impact with his metal arm. "The Sun God Leto gave me this power himself and he has left me to judge others with my fist of god," Cornello stated, as he punched the boy from the side but was stopped as the boy tried to withstand his attack.

Ed grunted as he kept the large fist at bay. "The fist of god, huh." Ed saw the statue of Leto in the background and got an idea. He pushed away from the Father's fist and quickly ran behind him to the statue. "If that's what you want, then you can have it!" He brought his hands together and slammed them against the wall. A large stone fist came out of where the statue's fist was and smacked into Cornello, sending him crashing onto the floor with a huge amount of force.

The fighting between Ed and Cornello caused the floor to rumble with each hit. The constant noise and floor movement roused Kagome back to reality. She slowly sat up and put a hand to her aching head. She really needs to be more careful when she fought. It was sort of a miracle she wasn't knocked out for the whole fight.

After rubbing her head, she looked around for her bow. She saw something poking out of the rubble and pulled it out, it was her bow but it had been snapped in half. 'Ah...damn it…' She turned her head to the fight and saw they were too preoccupied with each other to notice her at the moment.

She gently put her two hands together and touched her bow to fix it. She looked around for an arrow and found one. 'The last one...' She wasn't able to fit too many materials in her bag so she only had enough for four arrows and she had already used three so far. 'I have to make the last one count.' Kagome stood up with some difficulty as the hit to the head from earlier made her dizzy.

She continued to watch through hazy eyes as the two of them fought and Cornello punched at Ed. She heard Ed say something to Cornello before running to the back of the room and use alchemy to make the fist of the statue of the Sun God shootout and slam into the large body of Cornello. Once her vision was clear enough, she drew back the string of her bow and released her arrow, putting a lot of her energy into the hit in order to vaporize the monster that was created around the Father. She began to sweat from the strain on her head as the dizziness got worse the more of her power she put into her bow. 'I have to wait until the time is right.'

Once the Father's body was on the ground and momentarily stunned by the huge attack, she let go of the arrow. The arrow flew towards the monster with a bright streak of light as it soared and stuck itself onto Cornello's back.

The two males were taken back from the sudden attack. Ed turned and saw the Xingnese girl breathing hard and sweating from the strain, but otherwise alright. She stumbled a bit and fell to her knees from the pain. He ran to her to helped her up. "Are you alright?" he asked, gripping her shoulders as she made her way back onto her feet.

"I'm fine… Just a little dizzy and tired that's all." He nodded and helped her make her way to the body of Cornello. As they got closer, they watched as the last bits of the monster Cornello was disintegrated, leaving Cornello's human body in their view.

"I thought you had killed him with how bright that light was."

Kagome shook her head. "My powers cannot kill humans. The arrow could've if I was aiming to kill, but the holy magic I encased the arrow with would not do any harm to his human body," she explained. Ed let go of her once he knew she could stand by herself.

He walked over to the Cornello who was slowly becoming conscious again after the attack. Ed pulled the Father up by his head and slammed his skull into his. "Aagh!" the Father cried out with pain.

Ed punched his face. "Shut up! You're lucky you're even alive, now give me the philosopher's stone!" he shouted at him. The stone on Cornello's ring, which once glowed bright red began to dim as it lost its power from being overused. The stone eventually lost all of its glow and fell off the ring and shattered onto the floor.

Ed watched the stone crumble into nothing with shocked eyes. "What the hell? The stone should've been made from a perfect material, how did it break like that?" he asked.

The Father denied knowing anything and from what Kagome could tell, he was telling the truth, the Father was just a puppet in someone else's plans. 'How did he even get the stone in the first place?' she wondered.

Ed released the Father and let him fall back on the ground. "I can't believe we risked our lives for a fake. All this trouble we went through, and Al and I still can't find a way to get our bodies back." Kagome looked at the young boy with sad eyes. Al was right. Despite his attitude, he really cared and was determined to risk his life for his brother.

Cornello was nervous to ask since he could see the disappointment in the blond boy's eyes. "Uh… What about me?"

Kagome narrowed her eyes at him. "What the hell about you? You better be grateful I don't shoot you with another arrow," she bluffed since she was out of arrows. Cornello's skin crawled from the threat.

Ed turned to him. "I don't care what you do! Just get the hell out of here!" Cornello was terrified and quickly crawled away from the two teens. They watched as the joke of a Father ran away like a scared dog with his tail between his legs.

Kagome shook her head. "What a disgrace to Fathers everywhere."

Ed turned away from where the Father ran off and headed to the door leading out of the chapel. "Come on. We have to meet back up with my brother. I have to tell him the news about the stone being a fake," Ed said with his hair covering his eyes. "It seems that no matter how close I think I am to finding the stone, it's always out of my grasp."

Kagome put a hand on his shoulder. "I understand how you feel, but you can't let this get you down. The world is full of disappointments, but you just need to learn to get past them and keep on moving to reach your goal. I'm sure you and your brother will accomplish your goal in the end."

Ed smiled at her—a genuine smile, none of the snarky smiles the two of them shared multiple times. "I know. I made a promise to him and I intend to keep it until I die." Ed looked at the bright sunlight shining through the windows of the chapel. "He's my little brothers, he's all I have left and I intend to protect him."

Kagome gave him an empathetic look. She understood his feeling of wanting to protect family. "That's very noble of you." She patted him on the head like a little kid and smiled at him before walking past him to the door. "Maybe a shortie like you isn't so bad after all."

"Hey! What does that mean?" Ed shouted putting a hand to his head where she had patted him. Kagome laughed and never responded to his question. He always thought girls were confusing, but this one seemed extra confusing to him. He always thought of himself as smart—sometimes even a genius—but no amount of intellect would help him figure out this girl.

Once they were outside, Al ran up to them. "Brother! How did it go?" he asked.

Ed looked at the ground. "I'm sorry, Al… The stone was a fake, just like the Father." He tapped a metal fist to the chest of his brother's suit. "When I think that we're that much closer to getting our bodies back, it always falls through our fingers." Al was disappointed. How could he not be? They came so far, but nothing came out of it. Kagome watched the brothers with sympathy as she stood a good distance away to give them their space.

While the two boys were grieving in silence, a click was heard from behind them. Three pairs of eyes turned to the noise and saw Rose standing behind them while holding a gun pointed at Ed. "Give me the philosopher's stone!" she shouted.

Kagome was shocked. After the story Al had told her, she was willing to betray them like this? "Rose! What are you doing?" she asked. "Put the gun down, Rose. You're not thinking straight, you don't want to do this!" she shouted at the girl. She didn't want her friend to live with the grief of having shot, or maybe even killed, someone.

"Be quiet!" Rose snapped. "I know what I want and I want the stone that the brothers have!"

Ed stepped up, not afraid of getting shot. "And what do you hope to achieve with the stone? Are you going to try to bring someone back from the dead?" He saw Rose twitch at his statement, letting him know his guess was correct. "Let me tell you, Rose, that people don't come back, not ever. You saw my body from earlier, saw how I'm missing some of my limbs and how my brother is missing his entire body. When you want anything in this world, you best be willing to give up anything to get it—even your life." With that said, Ed calmly walked past Rose with his hands in his pockets, not even slightly worried about her shooting him along the way.

Rose's hand quivered with hesitation. They knew she could never pull the trigger and that's why he wasn't scared. She watched as he walked past her with his little brother not far behind him. She began to cry at her own weakness and inability to do anything. Rose's eyes snapped open when she felt a hand on the gun and her hand holding it up. She looked over and saw the sad eyes of her friend.

"Let go of the gun, Rose," Kagome told her gently while pushing her hand to make her aim the barrel of the gun to the ground.

Rose released the gun with shaking hands and hugged Kagome and gripped at her shirt as she cried. "What do I do, Kagome? What do I do now? What do I have to live for?" she desperately asked her.

Kagome let her cry for a bit before gripping her shoulders to bring her away from her chest so that Rose could meet her eyes. "Rose." Kagome turned her head to the two boys walking away. "Look at those two." Rose turned her head to where she was looking. "Watch how they are able to continue walking ahead, facing the world and all its trials despite having suffered so much already. Ed lost one of his legs and yet he's still willing to stand up and keep moving forward, so why can't you?" she asked softly.

Rose let go of Kagome's shirt to wipe her tears but more tears took their place. Her tears were dying down, but some still kept falling. She watched as the older brother stood strong as he led his brother away. "I still don't know what to do… Who do I follow now?" Rose desperately asked her.

Kagome stood up and held out a hand to help Rose up to her feet. "Maybe it's time you stop being a follower and lead your own path." Rose took her hand and got up on shaky legs. "Just like how I have my own path to walk on, you need to find yours."

Rose wiped away the rest of her tears with the back of your hand. From her words, Rose could tell that Kagome was telling her that she had to leave her and this town. "Where are you going to go?" she asked her friend.

Kagome watched the two brothers. "I don't know... " she stated before turning to her. "But I do know that your path will start after you apologize to those brothers first, don't you think?" she asked with a small smile.

"I suppose you're right... They didn't deserve all the things I said to them," she replied.

"Then let's go and meet up with them before they leave," Kagome replied back while pulling her along by the hand in the direction of the two boys.

Red: Thank you for reading! Please review letting me know what you thought about this chapter or story in general. See you next time! :D

Also please check me out on my tumblr for updates or just anime posts related to the stories I write, or just come to chat with me. :) My name is the same as on here.