Her Reasons

Mustang and Hawkeye press Ross for the Elrics' whereabouts at the Central hospital, and Hawkeye spots the marked map the brothers left behind, though a fierce woman and her huge husband snatch it first. In Rush Valley, Winry is thrilled by the automail shops and engineers lining the streets. A girl named Paninya, refused a new arm by the master Dominic, loses a rigged arm-wrestling match to a promoter cheating with a hidden circle. When the crooks mock Ed's height and his automail, Winry demands he win, which he does by ripping off the champion's mechanical arm, then confesses his own trickery, earning a wrench-swing beating for the whole group.

Winry befriends Paninya, learns a train wreck cost the girl both legs and an arm before Dominic gave her automail, and decides to pit that automail against Ed to build the girl's confidence. She tricks Ed into producing his State Alchemist watch so Paninya can steal it, then challenges him to recover it without alchemy before she reaches a pawn shop. Ed chases Paninya across the rooftops, dodges the hidden cannon in her leg, reclaims the watch, and saves her from a fall with a wall of stone hands, declaring his automail the finest. Dominic later reminds Paninya that automail replaces lost limbs and is not made for showing off. In Central, Mustang is told the Hughes investigation is suspended and learns of his transfer as Al recognizes the couple who took the map, leaving Ed to faint in despair when he sees the man behind his brother.

The episode adapts the manga chapters The Boomtown of the Broken Down and The Value of Sincerity, and opens the third season. Paninya's automail arm is exclusive to this series, added so the group could meet her at the arm-wrestling contest; the manga and the 2009 anime give her only automail legs. The man accompanying General Hakuro is Frank Archer, a character unique to this adaptation who is formally introduced later. In the manga only Ed cheated in the arm-wrestling match, and Ed's opening invoice oddly names the setting Modern Britain.