Doorway of Darkness

Ed wakes in a pitch-black expanse and, unable to reach Al, finds Ling instead. After each suspects the other of being Envy in disguise, Ling's memory of his food bill and Ed's fury at being called short prove they are genuine. Ling reasons from the swallowed debris, Hawkeye's car, and Mustang's flames that they sit inside Gluttony's body, though no exit reveals itself. Elsewhere, May Chang mourns the missing Shao May and recalls how the tiny creature helped her cross the desert from Xing, driven by her mission to win a Philosopher's Stone and save her dwindling clan. Scar agrees to search for the animal under cover of night while Ed and Ling weaken from hunger.

Forced to eat his leather boot, since automail replaced the leg beneath it, Ed keeps the pair alive until Envy appears and admits there is no way out: the void is Father's failed, incomplete copy of the Gate, where they can only wait to die. Ed learns Father is not King Bradley, who is merely an ordinary homunculus, and that Envy personally triggered the Ishval war by shooting the child as a disguised soldier, dooming an innocent anti-war protester who took the blame. Enraged, Ed attacks, and Envy shifts into his monstrous true form. Above ground, Al chooses to follow Gluttony to Father, reasoning that as a sacrifice he will be admitted. Bradley calmly tells Mustang the homunculi have ruled Amestris since its founding, while Hawkeye and Mustang's men are quietly scattered by forced transfers. As Ed forges blades from the iron in blood, Al learns to his horror that Father waits in Central.

The episode adapts material built around the ouroboros mark shown on the title card. Much of the lighter banter between Ed and Ling from the manga, including jokes that Edward will be remembered as the man who fed a boot to a future emperor of Xing, is cut for time.