Hatching (after battle)
.......
... It's like you're asking, "Why didn't you tell us you had this power all along?"
But you must know, Mister Hohenheim, that it's never that convenient.
If we really want to get into it, I should be the one who's the most surprised. I didn't know about the sudden pull of this power, and wasn't expecting it to summon me here, either.
It - *cough* Mmh, my voice sounds rather hoarse... On account of the rather cruel choking from earlier.
Despite being pushed to the point where I was about to lose both of my subordinates... I still found myself clawing at life when death came knocking at my door. How ridiculously pathetic.
Don't worry. One way or another, she will overcome this ordeal and go on living. She's a lot stronger than you - or any of us - might think.
... Is that so? That's good to hear.
.......
How many years have you traveled back?
That's not a question I can answer.
... I'm sorry to say that it does not appear to me that you've come from a very optimistic future.
From where I'm standing, there isn't much to be optimistic about the past either.
Back then, never in my wildest imagination did I think we'd ever have to coin the term "The First Smoke War."
What...
What is... happening? Do you see him too, Faust? Or am I seeing things from losing too much blood...?
... I see him, too.
... The Sign... has summoned you.
The Sign merely behaved as a medium. "I" was the one who summoned me.
The awakening and the summoning occurred simultaneously.
Then, is that -
Ah... no, not every Sign has this power. This is the power of my Sign.
So you're... from the future...? Not a Mirror World...? W-what happened... to the original Sinclair...?
There is no such thing as the original. This is unlike the Mirror Worlds... it is more akin to a different branch of the same tree.
Wait, hold on...
Is it inevitable? That future... you're from...
I don't know. Maybe.
But it's not all misery.
Life goes on, after all.
Do we really have no choice but to... face that future?
.......
I don't know whether the life I'd lived through prior to my summoning... will be in your path, or whether you'll be able to avoid it.
... But it will not be impossible.
No. It will be a difficult path, still. Almost unbearably so.
Now, I find myself thinking that...
... maybe the journey I've walked my entire life, everything I've gone through as I trudged across the fields of battle... was merely an offshoot event of an offshoot world - designed to end here and now, to serve this very moment and nothing more.
All has been cast into the realm of speculation, now.
Correct. But if I can be a strength to myself, then I best accept that fate.
I wish certain others were here, too. So I could see everyone I'd been longing to see... just one more time.
Every now and then, I find myself thinking back... to the days I spent aboard that bus.
Those memories... might be the only things that keep me going in the days to come.
.......
I should leave now. Before the longing gets worse.
I might be returned to where I came from, but perhaps this is simply the end of the road for me, like death. Neither you nor I will know whether this is how I die. Still...
Even if this is where I end... even if my entire existence boils down to serving this moment and nothing more...
... I'm glad I got to spend my last moments with you guys, instead of being surrounded by dying comrades. And that's good enough for me.
Oh, and Miss Faust?
Don't grieve everything all at once.
That's the only advice I have for you.
.......
I don't suppose the promise of a reunion will mean anything.
Even if my Sign were to burn again, there's no telling whether it'll be "me" again next time. Because there's...
... No guarantee.
Well, I don't think you've... changed much, at least from what I can see.
Ah, though it seems you've grown a bit taller.
So I have.
Thank you. It couldn't have been easy.