Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ 20 Views of Alchemy ❯ Strong ( Chapter 5 )

Disclaimer: I do NOT own Fullmetal Alchemist or any of the characters for that matter. I am just merely...er, borrowing them as my muses at the moment. Do not sue me for anything but my imagination, which will not get you far in the courtroom. If there are any similarities between my story and another, I apologize but all I have to say is, I guess great minds think alike after all. Ja na! Enjoy!

 

20 Views of Alchemy

Author: Tiasha

Title: Strong

Word Count: 667

 

WARNING: Slight Spoilers Ahead for the End of the Series!!! You have been forewarned!

 

The burden of being strong had always been placed upon her shoulders, or at least it had always appeared that way. It was a quality worth having and a highly praised one as well. Anyone and everyone wanted to be stronger, to save and protect or to dominate and rule. And she like everyone else had strived to obtain strength, so as to please her family and herself. But strength was not as beautiful a gem as it was made out to be. With it came responsibility and consequences.

Her parents had always insisted that she be strong, her father being of Military background and her mother a farmer's daughter. She had needed strength to go about her daily chores and later for keeping young boys' hands off of her when she went away to school to learn alchemy. She later would marry the son of a meat-store owner and move off to a new city, helping others with alchemy and some such. She had quickly been given the informal job of keeping the peace in the town, her knowledge of alchemy making her the prime candidate; for what brute force could go up against the use of magical alchemy and win?

She was always revered as strong and somehow the rumor of her preferring strength over everything else had begun to spread. Young children, boys and girls alike, would go to her seeking strength through alchemy. She always refused, saying that alchemy was not about strength and because they did not know that, then they were not worth teaching. Being the icon of strength in her town had quickly worn on her nerves and soul, added to that her miscarriage and failed attempt at human transmutation, and she found that she had needed to leave.

She had traveled around the country, helping as she went along, and soon found herself with two pupils who were as eager to learn alchemy as the other children, but with the heart to learn it as she had all those years ago. She learned many years later, that her students too revered her as strong, but it had not bothered her nearly as much as she would have thought. Their view of her was justified. She was their teacher. To beat her while they were so young would make all of their training pointless. And they were children, looking up to an adult who held more knowledge and experience than they. In their eyes, she was strong.

Yet, she was not strong enough. She had not been able to save them the pain and heartache that came with human transmutation. She could not save them from life, and she had not been able to save them from themselves. Her two students had helped teach her that there are some things that one just cannot overcome. They had taught her that she was strong and yet not strong at all.

“Izumi-sensei?” Alphonse questioned softly, looking at her curiously from his ten-year-old body. Izumi Curtis smiled a somewhat sad smile at him, one of many she had bestowed upon the boy since he had returned to his body and them with no memory of the past four years.

“Ah, Gomen Alphonse-kun,” she said, loosening her muscles into a ready stance and nodding at him. Her nod was silent permission to try going against her again. He moved in quickly, having lost no speed since his loss of a body all those years ago, but was not skilled enough and rather abruptly found himself looking up at her from his back.

“Ouch…” he muttered, smiling at her slightly. “Just like before ne? Even when `Nii-san was here with me, we could never beat you.”

Her smile faltered at the mention of the older brother. She nodded nonetheless and hoisted the boy up to his feet. “Again,” she ordered, dropping into a ready stance once more to hide an errant tear as the boy moved in to attack her.

No…she was not strong at all…