Al did his best to help Inuyasha avoid people for the rest of the day. He wasn't entirely sure how they were going to make "Ed" seem normal to everyone when he didn't know pretty much anything about his own life, but they could at least buy time until they had a better plan on what to do.

The "lay low" plan ended up going out the window though when dinner rolled around. As guests, Ed and Al had been getting served an elaborate dinner every night as a sort of hospitality custom. Since the whole point of the dinner was them, it seemed rude to try and skip it in favor of staying cooped up in their room.

Besides, Al hadn't seen Mei all day, and he was starting to wonder how she was doing.

But Ling was already down at dinner himself, cheerfully greeting the two brothers when they appeared. As soon as Ling started talking, Inuyasha bristled, as if he was a dog backed into a corner.

Considering what Al had seen of Inuyasha so far, he was beginning to wonder if a name that meant "dog demon" was referencing Inuyasha's behavior.

"What is it?" Al hissed under his breath as the two of them sat down.

"He sounds exactly like Koga," Inuyasha snarled. "I hate that guy."

Al blinked. "Oh, yeah, Koga. He said that was his past life. So you two really did know each other?"

Inuyasha snapped his head to Al, looking even more agitated. "If he really is that stupid wolf idiot, then I want nothing to do with him!"

The words ended up coming out loud enough for everyone to hear, and a hush fell over the room, even making Ling pause in his happy rambling. Al blushed and sank down in his seat. It seemed that Inuyasha was even less capable of social standards than Ed, and that was saying something.

"So I take it that you gained some valuable knowledge from the great tree after all," Ling said, raising an eyebrow at the brothers.

"Yes, thank you very-" Al started, but was cut off by Inuyasha.

"I don't need some stupid wolf trying to annoy me in every single life I ever have, so butt out now before I make ya butt out, got it?" Inuyasha had jumped to his feet and was glaring daggers at Ling across the table.

"Inuyasha!" Al hissed. He reached out and tugged on Inuyasha's sleeve to make him sit down again. Ling sat staring at Inuyasha with a stunned expression.

After a minute of silence, Ling started to laugh. His laughs got louder and louder until he was practically crying. It certainly wasn't the sort of reaction Al would expect from having a guest insult him in his own house.

"I thought we shared a past history, but I never expected you to regress!" Ling finally said when he managed to compose himself enough to speak. "It seems you have more problems to work out with me than I originally thought!"

Inuyasha jumped to his feet again, eyes blazing. "If you think I came back because of you, then you're even more of an idiot than I thought!" he snapped.

"By all means," Ling said with a wave of his hand as he stood up and came to stand next to Inuyasha. "It would seem that you know more about our shared history than I do right now, so feel free to enlighten me. What did I do that made you so upset that you're mad even in the next lifetime?"

Inuyasha growled and bristled further, and Al was certain that the "dog" part of his name wasn't a coincidence. Neither was the "demon" part, judging by Inuyasha's temper. Al wondered if that was just something that followed his brother around in every life.

"Um, maybe we could just have dinner…?" Al said with a nervous laugh. Inuyasha and Ling seemed to pay no attention to him.

"I got no reason to explain myself to someone like you," Inuyasha snapped. "If you want to know what happened so bad, then go ahead and regress yourself."

"I would," Ling said with a careless shrug. "I've been trying to learn how to regress for years now, but alas. It seems that the Fullmetal Alchemist continues to be a genius ahead of the rest of us, yet again."

"You wanna regress, I can make you regress. Your tree taught me how," Inuyasha growled, cracking his knuckles. "And then I wouldn't feel bad kicking your wimpy butt."

Ling stared at Inuyasha for a minute with a stunned expression. "You can trigger a regression?"

"Yeah," Inuyasha said with a smirk. "Jealous?"

"Guys..." Al said, poking at his food. He didn't really expect anyone to listen to him by that point, but he seriously wished they would just stop. He was thankfully saved at that point by a very welcome distraction.

"Alphonse!" A pair of arms were thrown around his neck. "I'm sorry I couldn't spend more time with you today! Did you miss me? I missed you!"

Al turned to smile at Mei, who had buried herself against his neck. The two of them hardly got to spend time together, so she was always so upset whenever work got in the way while Al was visiting. It wasn't as if he minded, though. She was a princess, after all. He knew that she couldn't just stop being a princess every time he showed up.

"Oh, gross."

Al was pulled away from Mei by a famliar, annoying voice. He sighed and turned to look at Inuyasha.

"What?"

"Nothing," Inuyasha said, though it was clear he was still grossed out at Mei being affectionate to Al. "It just figures that you and Rin would find a way to get together."

"Rin?" Al blinked, but Mei had gotten a bright expression as she looked at Inuyasha.

"Oh! Did you know me in my other life, Edward?"

Inuyasha winced at the name with a sigh. "Yeah."

"He apparently also knew me," Ling jumped in with a smirk. "Or hated me, it seems. He regressed when he went to see the great tree."

"Oh!" Mei had pulled away from Al and was looking at Inuyasha with a slightly awed expression. Al pouted and went back to poking at his food. Apparently he wasn't even allowed a distraction from all this reincarnation mess.

"The tree must have thought you're very important," Mei said. Inuyasha winced and looked at the floor.

"Yeah, well, the tree and I have a history, so I guess it thought it… owed me or something," he mumbled.

"How did you know I was Rin?"

"You look just like her," Inuyasha said with a sigh. "It was pretty obvious."

"He can also apparently trigger a regression."

"Oh! I want to try! I've always wanted to regress!"

Al sighed and pushed his chair away from the table with a loud scraping noise. Clearly the rest of dinner was going to be further obsession over reincarnation and regression and how everybody was connected to his brother and so forth.

"I'm going to bed," he announced. Mei and Ling were looking at him with surprised expressions, but Inuyasha was frowning as if he knew something was wrong. It was the most Ed-ish expression Al had seen on him all day.

"Alphonse..."

"It's fine," Al said, cutting Inuyasha off. "I'm just… tired." He knew it was a weak excuse, but he just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. "I'm sorry. Goodnight, everyone."

He thought he had actually gotten away with it once he managed to get halfway down the hallway, when the doors banged open and he heard footsteps running towards him.

"What's up with you?" Inuyasha said. Al kept looking at his feet and avoiding Inuyasha's eyes.

"Nothing," he muttered.

He expected some sort of further probing after that, but Inuyasha was silent. It just reminded Al even further that Inuyasha wasn't Ed, not really. His brother would have known something was wrong, no matter what Al said. He would have kept pressing no matter what, even if it was incredibly annoying.

"Is this just how it's going to be until..." Al trailed off and gestured a hand at Inuyasha. "I don't know, until you figure out… whatever it is you're supposed to figure out?"

Inuyasha frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Al wiped away the tears that were forming at the corners of his eyes. "Are you just going to go around ignoring me like this? Just because I was apparently some awful person in some lifetime I can't remember? Are you just going to hate me until you go back to being Ed?"

Inuyasha made a face. "I never said I hated you—"

"You didn't have to!" Al snapped. "You made it pretty clear!"

"Look, it's not my fault that you want someone paying attention to you all the time!"

Al just stared at Inuyasha with his mouth hanging open for a moment before he snapped his mouth shut and glared.

"You know, I thought it wasn't possible for anyone in the world to be ruder than Ed, but I guess I was wrong," he said. "If you hate me so much, then fine, go ahead and find your Kah… Karo… Kanomen by yourself! Come talk to me when you feel like being my brother again!"

With that, Al turned on his heel and stalked back to his room, leaving a very confused Inuyasha staring dumbly in his wake.

"I think I did something wrong," Inuyasha muttered, reaching up to scratch his head with one finger.

Inuyasha tried to ignore Al at first, but found that the longer he did, the more there was a ringing sound in his head. It was starting to get so loud that he was having trouble hearing much of anything. Plus there was a nagging feeling at the back of his mind that felt like it was telling him to go after Alphonse, go, go now.

He eventually realized that nagging feeling had to be the Ed part of his soul. And the Ed part of his soul was furious at the Inuyasha part of his soul. Inuyasha knew that if he didn't go after Al himself, eventually Ed would just take over again, whether he liked it or not.

So Inuyasha was forced to go find Al and find some way to apologize, even if his pride wanted otherwise.

"Alphonse," Inuyasha said, rapping his knuckles against the door to Al's room. Technically, it was their shared room, but he was pretty sure Al wasn't willing to share at that moment.

"Go away," came the muffled response.

"Look, Alphonse, I… Ah… I'm… Sorry," Inuyasha ground out, clenching his hands into fists. There was a moment of silence.

"Sorry for what?"

Inuyasha stared at the door with wide eyes. That wasn't how this was supposed to go! He was supposed to say sorry, then there was making up, and then everything was back to normal. How was he supposed to explain what he was sorry for when he didn't even know what he'd done?

"For, uh… Being a jerk?"

There was an agitated sigh from the other side of the door before it was flung open to reveal a very angry looking Alphonse. Even Inuyasha felt a stirring of fear deep within him, and he involuntarily took a step backwards.

"If you don't know why you're apologizing, why did you even come at all?" Al snapped at him.

"Because," Inuyasha huffed. "Ed was making this big stink about it and wouldn't leave me alone!"

Al froze, his expression softening. "You… You can talk to him?"

"Huh?" Inuyasha raised an eyebrow. "Well, he doesn't really talk, I can just sort of… Feel what he's feeling."

"What's he feeling right now?"

Inuyasha frowned and tried tapping into the general area that he'd felt the furious feeling coming from earlier. "He's… sad, I guess. And lonely."

As the feelings of Ed swept over Inuyasha, he realized he knew the exact same sort of feeling. He'd felt it the last time Kagome had gone through the well. He kept forgetting that even though he and Ed were two seperate people, they were still the same soul. And he wasn't going to be able to have the chance to have a face-to-face talk with this Ed guy, if they even could manage that without tearing each other apart. So there was no way of him ever really getting to know Ed himself.

"Look, kid," Inuyasha said with a sigh. "Ling and Mei want me to trigger regressions for both of them, but how about after that, I let Ed back out until we get to this fiance of mine?"

"You can do that?" Al had wide eyes.

"Course," Inuyasha said with a careless shrug. "It works the same as making a person regress. You just trigger strong emotions from the lifetime you want. So you can just talk about memories that are important to Ed, and he'll come out. And I'll tell you what to talk about to bring me back out."

"So I can bring Ed back whenever I want?"

"Yeah, but don't be a jerk about it, got it?"

"Okay," Al said with a nod. He smiled at Inuyasha. "Thank you."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, don't mention it," Inuyasha said, scratching the back of his neck and looking at the floor. "I'm just tired of having you upset all the time. It's annoying."

"If that's what you have to tell yourself to sleep at night," Al said with a snort. Inuyasha snapped his head up.

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"Nothing," Al said with a grin. "I'm just relieved that you don't actually hate me." Inuyasha sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Ya big idiot, I wouldn't still be here if I hated you, okay?"

Oh, Inuyasha, will you ever learn...?

I must like you guys to update this often and this frequently. Thanks for the reviews so far, it's been awesome to get them and see that people other than me like this whole reincarnation in FMA concept.

I also forgot to say last chapter that the whole naming concept I had Inuyasha talk about was based on something I heard briefly about old Japanese culture. But I didn't really have time to research it, and I figured since it's just fanfiction anyway, I'd just leave it as it was. If it's inaccurate, I'm sorry. We'll just claim it's a demon ritual if that's the case, yes?

I still feel very obvious with my clues about who is who. But I'd love to see what guesses you have for who's the reincarnation of who in the story! I feel like Miroku and Sango should be fairly obvious...