Words of Farewell

Hughes dreams of the years after the war, when he urged a bitter Mustang to move forward rather than dwell on those he killed in Ishval, and first learned of his friend's ambition. Waking, he wins Bradley's approval to keep digging into the fifth laboratory and the mercenary attack on the Ishvalan refugees, and asks that Marcoh be brought to Central, a task only the secretary Juliet Douglas can carry out. Hughes briefs the Elrics, who have decided to abandon the Philosopher's Stone and seek their old teacher near Dublith. They set off with Winry, though the brothers secretly plan to visit the Ishvalan camp to shadow Scar, whom Ed believes is hiding something.

Sifting through the Ishval war, the Reole and Xenotime affairs, and Lab 5, Hughes realizes something vital: the real Juliet Douglas died two years earlier, yet her name was never struck from the records. He abruptly dismisses Sheska to keep her safe, then confronts Douglas, only to be ambushed by Lust. Wounded, he wards her off with a hidden knife just as Envy arrives wearing Ross's face. Hughes catches the disguise by recalling the true Ross's mole and slashes the impostor, but Envy takes Gracia's form, and Hughes hesitates a fatal instant before being shot through the heart. At his funeral, a grieving Mustang stands in the rain over the grave of the friend who was posthumously promoted two ranks. On the train south, Ed glimpses a smiling apparition of Hughes waving from an empty platform.

The episode adapts the manga chapters Fullmetal Heart, Separate Paths, and To Meet the Master, and closes the second season. Screenwriter Sho Aikawa originally conceived it as the series finale when only 25 episodes were greenlit, and later welcomed the extension. Director Seiji Mizushima built the funeral scene around its soundtrack and initially wanted the closing train conversation to play without dialogue. The ghostly sighting of Hughes and the biker thugs' dialogue about designated Ishvalan camps are unique to this telling, the latter contradicting the manga's premise that most Amestrians believe no Ishvalans survive. The usual ending sequence is swapped for a plain credits roll.