The Untainted Child

Mason confesses that his turn as the masked man served Izumi's aim of hardening the brothers, while the group studies the odd boy from the island. Izumi wants to help him, which puzzles the Elrics. The child transmutes his own left hand into stone with no circle at all, though he cannot control it. Ed pins him down until his clothes vanish, leaving the boy sobbing; Izumi takes the gentler route, wrapping him in a sheet and asking about his name, origin, and parents, none of which he knows.

Back home in Dublith, Izumi and Sig watch the boy eat while the brothers talk with Winry outside, reassuring her that their teacher still cares for them despite their broken oath. That night they sneak into his room for answers and bind him with alchemy, but he panics and fuses himself to the bed, a feat beyond Ed. Izumi wakes, scolds them, and restores him, after which the brothers voice their suspicion that he is a homunculus.

In Central, Roy Mustang watches the Hughes household as Sheska visits Gracia and Elicia. Sheska catches him leaving, chides his apparent indifference to Hughes' murder, and hands over the books Hughes had been studying before his death, then continues the inquiry herself. At Sloth's office, the Fuhrer's secretary phones Envy, assigning him to the Elrics while Lust and Gluttony handle Greed, and stresses steering the brothers back toward the Philosopher's Stone while hiding the truth of the Ishval conflict.

The Elrics explain to Izumi and Sig that the homunculi chase the Stone but need human alchemists to make it, and that this boy is unlike the others because he can perform circle-free alchemy. Ed recalls glimpsing the Gate, the source of his own circleless power and the price of his limbs. Izumi leaves alone to check something, forbidding contact with the boy. Later, Al rigs a hidden phone line and the brothers confirm the boy bears Ed's fox scar, proving he carries Ed's lost arm and leg. The boy bolts with Ed chasing, watched by an unseen Bido, while Izumi coughs up blood at her destination.

The episode draws on the chapters The Masked Man, Knocking on Heaven's Door, and Master and Apprentice. Wrath debuts here, created by screenwriter Sho Aikawa as an evenly matched rival for Ed. Izumi coughing blood without any exertion signals emotional turmoil, hinting she already grasps the boy's true nature.

When Ed recalls the Gate, brief images flash the Olympics, American flags, Volkswagens, Joseph Stalin, Hitler, and Gandhi, foreshadowing the later reveal that the far side of the Gate is our own world.