EDIT : ... Okay, Someone just asked me... well, told me to have spoiler alert in, and since I noticed that I didn't, here. Spoiler alert, don't read if you don't want to be spoiled. It will prolly have most of the spoils one would see in fanfictions, so I won't specify. D| There. Happy now?

Just so no one tells me off about not having a disclaimer, I don't own. Hiromu Arakawa does.

Perfect Circles

People who draw perfect circles are crazy.

The younger Edward Elric would never have believed this old saying, believing it to be just an old wives' tale. He would have inclined to say that it made no sense, for all alchemists he knew could draw perfect circles at will; a skill needed for their kind of profession.

But as he got older, Edward saw more and more alchemists and their perfect circles. And as he did he started to wonder. Maybe, just this once, the old wives' tales were right. Maybe you did have to be crazy.

Roy Mustang, the calm, cool and collected ego-boosted manipulating smirking jackass womanizing Flame Alchemist. He had participated the Ishval war, massacred thousands of people, hearing their voices one by one. His demons would torture him in his sleep, and then he would sleep during his work hours to get his minimal hours of sleep needed for survival. Working himself to exhaustion, and sleeping during the work hours when he most obviously knows that he will get shot for it. Roy Mustang, as Ed thought back on these little details, was never quite right in his mind. His smirk was just a face, a mask he wore over his incapacitated mind. Ed saw Mustang's face twitch a lot before he would professionally school his face into a smirk. Those split seconds were enough to let him, but not anyone else, see that Roy Mustang's soul was broken. It seemed like it had been that way for awhile. Probably ever since Maes Hughes died. Frankly, Edward was surprised that he didn't yet seemed to be preparing a human transmutation as he had done years ago. It was almost pitiful to see, during the few months Ed hadn't known about Hughes' death, Mustang sleeping with every girl in the city, one, sometimes two a day. Now Ed understood that Mustang was having a breakdown, in his own way.

Alex Armstrong, the StrongArm Alchemist, was as cheerful as a soldier and a human weapon could get. His obsession on muscles, showing them off to the public was just evidence to his insanity. In almost every hour of the day, he'd be working out at the gym, improving his muscle mass. He had also participated in the Ishval war, and there Armstrong refused to follow orders, thus remaining in the major rank instead of getting a promotion like everyone else. There was also a tiny rumor that Armstrong had been taken in by arrest and was 'trained' all over again for his loyalty to the state. Now he would follow orders, without complaint, and although the effect died down a lot due to Mustang's influence, Edward would still sometimes see the man just sitting there, staring at nothing. Who knew what Armstrong was seeing?

Zolf Kimblee, the Crimson alchemist. He was crazy inside and out, and was proud about it. He killed his superiors and innocent Ishvalans all the same in cold blood, cackling like the madman he was. He was crazy enough to have engraved his circles in his palm as a tattoo, making it impossible to touch anything without making it into some kind of a bomb. In the few times Edward had seen the madman, Ed concluded that he was indeed seeing a man corrupted to the morals, not for monetary or political values, but for his own sadistic pleasure. Kimblee was the standard model for someone crazy, and everyone, including him, knew it.

Doctor Marco, the former Crystal Alchemist. He was a deserter state alchemist from the Ishval war. Most of the people Edward knew complimented or approved of Marco to have deserted his way out of the hell hole at the time. People would say that he was one of the sanest people in the army. Ed knew better. He settled in town, showing off his little human transmutations to the little village he was in, as much as they wanted. He thought of it as repentance. Curing innocents in turn of providing an opportunity to kill thousands of them. In Ed's view, Marco was nothing but a masochist. He felt guilty of what he did in Ishval, or so he said, and provided help to everyone who needed it, like a doctor he was supposed to be. He got used by the homunculi, stabbed by them, his face destroyed by Scar, pushed to the limits of his transmutation without words of encouragement. He still said that it was from his own will, but Ed now wondered, was it really?

Izumi Curtis, his teacher, and his, well, pseudo-mother. He would admit it, if anyone was ever even the tiniest bit closer to being his mother, it would be Izumi. But she is crazy. For one thing she seemed to have a split persona, one of a loving mother, and one of a scary military-hating teacher they always knew. He and Al experienced the difference and the quickness of how she turned from one persona to the other, and frankly, THAT was what scared them. She was way too forgiving, especially to the two brothers, considering that they have disobeyed each and every thing their teacher had warned and banned them to ever do. Every time they had done something wrong, they received a beating… and a flurry of whatever was in the room that was sharp. But right after they did, their teacher's hug would follow. It was not some kind of 'I hate you for what you did but I still love you' kind of hug, but something of a hug that screamed 'I hate you for what you almost did, why did you try to leave me?'. He and Al was not scared of their teacher. They were scared to see what was potentially happening to their teacher, to see that their teacher was actually obsessed with 'maintaining' what she had 'acquired'. Izumi had performed a human transmutation of her baby. Edward thought that was probably the start of the degradation of his teacher's mind.

And then there was the SewingLife Alchemist. Tucker lost his sanity some time long ago, when he decided to use his wife as an experiment. Ed just didn't nearly find out early enough for him to save Tucker's daughter. He was a closet-kind of a madman, seemingly a brilliant alchemist on the outside, accomplishing what others could not, but on the inside, he was one of the most despicable, twisted monsters. Ed still couldn't erase the moment he realized experiment number two was Nina and Alexander. The moment the chimera uttered "Brother". Edward still wished Alphonse had let him punch him more.

Father. Hohenheim. The Bastard. The craziest of all, Ed should say. He lived for at least 400 years and then some, who wouldn't turn crazy after seeing everyone else he had held dear die away? He left his children's mother, his wife, his Trisha. He had released the homunculi from the flask, he had befriended it, or so he said. He left Ed and Al's mother to die alone, without her husband. He'd become a monster who couldn't die. He had left Trisha. He destroyed one whole city-state. He left Mom. How much could the man have taken before he broke? He left Trisha Elric. Ed was surprised he was even sympathizing with the bastard. He left home, after all.

Alphonse Elric was, by Ed's standards, to be considered crazy, at least by some level. Al was stuck in an unfeeling, huge chunk of steel of armor for about one third of his life; Ed would be surprised if Al was sane after all that. He, after all, had to deal with having no body, a half-metal stubborn rash rude idiotic pushy not-to-mention-little brother, the trauma of seeing his mother die twice, the death of Nina Tucker and her father's fall, his brother covered in his own blood, a woman die in his own body, getting chased by bloodthirsty homunculi, seeing a person's head being blown off only to get resurrected, and other than all that, Al had to constantly live in fear for his brother, in case he started to hate his little brother, or thought of him as a burden. He still had the question of the reliability of his identity probably nagging in his empty helmet somewhere. Ed always felt bad about that. But what Ed hated himself the most was when he had to deny the little comfort Alphonse longed for his stability: cats. Cats, kittens, little feline animals were Alphonse's little world, the furry, fluffy niceness drowned out the devils of reality. Edward knew that he was forcing his brother to see the truth in the world; Edward knew he was being cruel to his brother, but it couldn't be helped. Alphonse ended up killing them accidentally anyways, ever since they were little. Since Al seemed to have forgotten their little 'incidents', Ed didn't see the point in giving him the chance to relive those trauma.

Finally, himself. Edward Elric, the FullMetal Alchemist. This was at first a hard pill to swallow, but in the end, this tale explained everything about him and his crazy deeds. He would forget everything else when he was focused in one thing. Some would say that is a skill, ability, a blessing. They couldn't be more wrong. That 'ability' had cost him his brother, his mother, his father, and himself. His metal limbs were doing an awesome job of reminding him. He was the one who thought up human resurrection. He was the one who ignored the rules and forced his brother to do the same. He was the one who stabbed the monster they created; he was the one who had blamed everything that happened to them on their father. His thoughtlessness cost billions to the state, more specifically Mustang, making him vulnerable to the upper ranks to destroy his career. His relations to the Homunculi resulted in the death of his and Al's pseudo-uncle and brother, Hughes and Havoc, to both be unable to ever participate in the army again. Every single fate-turning event was somehow linked to him, either he thought of it, or started the flow. He thought up of a near-perfect human transmutation circle, for crying out loud! He thought up the idea of researching the philosopher's stone, which in turn resulted in almost a revolution of Amestris's government. Edward Elric. He visited the truth more than once, twice, thrice. Izumi didn't dare return after she'd seen the truth from the first time, and he'd done it more than three times. Mustang killed millions during the massacre. Edward destroyed millions of souls that were in Envy's stone to get out of Gluttony's stomach. Mustang decreased the number of people living, and he had decreased the number of beings. When all of the other children of his age were probably studying for their future, he had already found a job that condemned him, at least in his point of view.

Yes, this one old wives' tale just might be true.

AN: I'm not sure I like this that much... I meant this to go very... creepish. Anyways, I got this idea from emuroo, and I'd like to thank her for the inspiration!! And the permission to use her idea! u I really wanted this to go very dark, but then I've alreay made some of these characters OOC out of their behaviour.. Please, if anyone tells me I should make them REALLY OOC like angsty OOC, I would be glad to really twist their actions AND add in new stuff (like self-mutilation or suicide attempt or whatever). Oh, and by the way, most of the examples are from the manga. I do not own.

mrawgirl09