Title: Hell's Battlefield

Pairings/Characters: Royai

DISCLAMER: I own nothing other than the fanfiction itself

Summary: *Spoilers from volume 15 of manga* Nothing could have prepared them for the living nightmare they had willingly walked into; now they wanted nothing more than to take it all back. Royai.

A/N: This is a companion piece to Pictures of the Past. The events that transpired in the previous story may be referenced; however, it is not necessary to read Pictures of the Past to understand Hell's Battlefield.

I will be referencing volume 15 of the manga for some of the dialogue; however, I will be typing the words from memory rather than directly from the text.

Chapter One: Reunion

No amount of military training could have prepared Riza Hawkeye for the hell she had been thrown into. No one told her she would be crouching in an abandoned tower, practically swimming in her own sweat as she gazed at the faces of terrified women and children through the scope of her rifle before pulling the trigger. Nothing she told herself could block out the anguished cries of mothers and fathers, of sons and daughters, of brothers and sisters as they watched the lives of the ones they loved bleed out into the sand at their feet; nothing scared her more than the knowledge that, in a fraction of a moment, their suffering would also end, all while she exerted only as much energy as it took to move her right index finger back against the trigger of her rifle.

Riza allowed herself to take a deep breath when she saw her commanding officer give the all-clear from the ground below. Her shift wasn't over for quite some time, but she gave herself a moment to sit back off her knees and stretch her muscles. A sharp prickling sensation flooded her left leg, and she stretched it out as blood began to flow back into her sleeping limb. Each and every one of these actions was a sign that she was alive – a blessing in this living nightmare. She removed the white cloak from around her shoulders and stripped down to her brown military-issue turtleneck, savoring the burst of air that just barely brushed against her body as it streamed in through the window; even the wind in Ishbal was hot, but it was still slightly cooler than her body temperature. After wiping the sweat from her brow with the sleeve of her discarded blue jacket, she picked up her rifle and took her position by the window once more.

When sniping, time was an illusion. The only indication that time was passing at all was the sun's position in the sky, which continued its steady westward descent. It was strange how her world could be so still while the rest of the universe continued to move. If she killed someone, only those directly affected by her actions would even know a life had ended. She wondered briefly if this was the way alchemists saw the world – it would certainly explain some of her father's absurd behavior.

A sudden movement out of the peripheral scope of her rifle jolted Riza from her thoughts. Almost robotically, she aimed her gun and pulled the trigger, watching with jaded indifference was the Ishbalan fell to the ground. Something in his hand glinted in the sunlight – a knife, she presumed – and she felt marginally less remorseful about ending the life of this particular individual. She found that killing was easier if she assumed each of her targets harbored malicious intent (which was admittedly harder to do when her target was a child). Another movement caught her eye, and she moved her rifle a fraction of an inch to the right, poised to pull the trigger.

Her heart stopped as the figure lifted his gaze to her tower, his black eyes angled so that they seemed to be staring directly into her own. For the first time since her arrival in Ishbal, her hands began to shake, and she was incapable of holding her gun steady. With that one look, she was flooded with an unrelenting wave of shame – everything she had done over the past several months rushed back to the forefront of her memory. She felt as though she had been placed on trial with her sins laid bare, all because Roy Mustang had happened to look at her through the scope of her rifle, and he didn't even know it. She was ashamed of the person she had become, and, though she knew he hadn't actually seen her, she couldn't bear the thought of him knowing the things she had done on this battlefield. The thought that he had done the same, if not worse, did nothing to lighten the remorse she felt at the present moment. Abandoning her post, she sat down upon the rubble-covered floor and rested her back against the wall, burying her face in her hands.

-x-x-x-

After being relieved of duty hours later, Riza was thankful to finally be able to leave the tower. Her body ached from resting too long in a single position, and nothing sounded better than a warm meal before heading off to the makeshift showers and trying to remove some of the sand that was constantly caked onto her skin. However, it seemed as though things simply refused to go her way. As she took a cup of soup from a fellow soldier, she heard a familiar voice shout from behind her.

"Hey!"

Riza turned her head towards the cry, thankful that her face was covered by the hood of her cloak when she saw Maes approaching her. The green-eyed man had yet to recognize her, but she couldn't blame him; the last time she saw him, she had been a child visiting Central and wearing a dress back when her hair was long. Five years was a long time, and she probably wouldn't have recognized Maes, either, if she hadn't heard several people use his name.

"You were the one who fired that shot, right? Thanks for that." Maes said, walking towards her with a grin upon his lips.

Riza was planning on giving him a nod and dismissing his thanks entirely – she didn't deserve gratitude for killing another human being. However, she stopped short when she saw Roy standing behind him. She briefly battled between the instinct to flee and the desire to openly embrace him before settling on a strange combination of the two. Setting her bowl down, she lifted herself to her feet and turned her body to face the two men. An eerie sense of calmness came over her as she lifted her hands to her hood and pulled it back from her face.

"It's good to see you again, Mr. Mustang – or perhaps it's Major now." Riza stated hollowly, turning her tired hazel gaze to the man before her. She braced herself before asking the question she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer to. "Do you remember me?"

A look of pain and disbelief crossed Roy's face as he looked down at her, and it took him a moment to speak. "How could I forget?"

Maes looked between the two of them, deciding that it was probably best to make himself scarce. He recognized Riza now, but he knew any reunion he might have with her was far less important than any she would have with Roy. He stuck his hands into his pockets, taking a step back from the two of them. "I'll see you at dinner, Roy." Not certain his friend had even heard him, Maes turned his back on the two and headed off into the lines of tents that made up their camp. Once he was out of earshot, a slight smirk crossed his lips, and he let out a slight chuckle.

Roy's gaze never left Riza's face. After a period of silence, he decided to take the initiative and be the one to speak first. "Take a walk with me?" He asked, uncertain if she would agree. Seeing her again left a nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he felt like the nervous teenager who had walked up the snowy path to the Hawkeye household on that first night.

"Sure." Riza complied, just as nervous as he was. They hadn't talked to one another since she left for the military academy. She had never told him she enlisted, but there was no hiding that fact from him now. As they walked, she remained just a step in front of him, but he made no move to close the distance. The pair walked in silence away from the military camp, heading off into the desert so they could speak in private. She finally cane to a stop beside a misplaced pile of rubble and took a seat upon one of the larger stones. Roy chose to remain standing beside her, and silence fell between them once more.

Riza lowered her gaze to her hands, and she sighed before beginning to speak. "I was afraid of my father. When he lost himself in his research, he looked like a man possessed. But I still believed him. I believed that his power could be used for the greater good." She paused, studying the newly-formed scars and calluses on her fingers and palms. "That's what I used to believe. I honestly thought that alchemy could make dreams come true and that the military was working for the benefit of Amestris." She blinked once before turning her eyes up to Roy's face. "Tell me, Major. Why are we killing people? Why are we doing this when it's our job to protect the people we're fighting against? Why is alchemy being used to murder when it's supposed to help people?"

Her eyes searched his face for an answer, but he was at as much of a loss as she was. The look in his onyx eyes was one full of pain and sorrow, and he remained silent due to the lack of reassuring words he could give her. They had both been so young and idealistic, but they had been thrown into the real world with no regard as to their personal beliefs and dreams. They had been beaten down and made to do what they once would have deemed unthinkable, and it had changed them more than they knew.

Seeing that he had no answer for her, Riza turned her gaze away from him, looking off into the distance. "How could we have fallen so low?"

Roy stuck his hands in his pockets, lifting his onyx eyes to the cloudless horizon. "We tried to fly too high."

A/N: And so it begins! I already have ideas for the next several chapters, and this story will be similar to Pictures of the Past in its ratio of somberness to light-hearted moments. I'm excited to be able to bring in a new cast of characters (keep your eyes out for Knox, Kimblee, and more!) as well as expanding upon Roy, Riza, and Maes' characters. Things are going to get very interesting on the Ishbalan war front.

Up Next:

Chapter Two: What We Signed Up For