The Phantom Thief

Dodging a scheduled meeting with Colonel Mustang, Edward and Alphonse detour into the small town of Aquroya on their way back to eastern headquarters after wrapping up the Reole affair. Edward hopes to sniff out a fresh lead on the Philosopher's Stone and to unwind in the tourist spot without suffering one of Mustang's lectures. The town, however, is caught up in a manhunt for Psiren, a thief with a Robin Hood streak who escapes the police by using alchemy to raise a bridge across the water while clutching a stolen jewel.

Not long after arriving, Edward is splashed with water and, after tidying himself up with alchemy, is arrested by a local detective. Hours of grilling and a bout of food poisoning from the station's cooking land him in the hospital needing an injection, which he loudly resists until Alphonse pins him down for a gentle nurse named Clara. Her kindness reminds the brothers of their mother, and Alphonse is quickly smitten. Having confirmed Edward's identity through Mustang, the detective plies him with free meals in return for help catching Psiren.

During Psiren's next announced heist she conjures steam to knock Alphonse out, and Edward's chase ends with him pinning her down only to find his hand on her chest, where she flashes the transmutation circle marked on her breast to fluster and beat him. The following day Edward catches Clara using that same marking to tend plants and realizes she and Psiren are one and the same, just as word spreads that the hospital is slated for demolition. Even with a police trap waiting, he lets Psiren slip away at her next robbery so she can share what she knows about the Philosopher's Stone and keep the hospital open, yet it is torn down regardless. Clara reinvents herself as a nun and, after the convent meets the same fate, as a schoolteacher, convincing Edward she has been lying from the start. Townsfolk finally explain that her thefts are meant to draw visitors to the slowly sinking Aquroya, buying the doomed town attention in the time it has left. Unmoved, Edward hunts her down by transmuting a giant stone hand underwater to cut off her escape. After her arrest she drops a rumor about a Philosopher's Stone being made in Xenotime, and as the brothers ride the train there debating her true motives, Clara breaks free of custody back in Aquroya and resumes her Psiren activities.

The bumbling inspector chasing Psiren bears a clear resemblance to Inspector Gadget and to Koichi Zenigata of Lupin III. A running gag has Edward wolfing down katsudon, first supplied by the inspector, again in a heaping spread, and finally on the departing train, with the later servings even showing his chopsticks snapped apart unevenly. The elderly patient Clara feeds is given the name Misses Crabnick in the English version, though she goes unnamed in the original Japanese.