Struggle of the Fool

After the clash with Father, Envy rides the brothers up by elevator to Wrath, and they are stunned to learn that Central Command stands directly over Father's domain. Disguised as a soldier, Envy lets Ed shower first, and in a private moment Ed tells Al he glimpsed Al's real body at the Gate, while Al reveals May and Shao May are still tucked inside his armor. Escorted to a meeting room, the pair realize that Wrath is none other than King Bradley, seated with Colonel Mustang.

Mustang explains that his subordinates have been scattered as hostages. Ed wants to abandon the State Alchemist program once he sees it exists to scout sacrifice candidates, but Wrath threatens Winry's life to keep him in the ranks and silent. Bradley still permits the brothers to seek their old bodies. He denies killing Hughes without naming the culprit, then stabs Al's armor over an earlier noise; the blade comes out clean because May and Shao May hide in Al's legs. After collecting money from Mustang, the brothers depart.

Mustang finds Armstrong outside rather than Hawkeye, who soon returns from a break. Greed intercepts the brothers at a phone booth and passes them a cloth bearing Xing script for Lan Fan, a message from Ling. The injured Scar, brooding on Father's hand in the Ishval conflict, stumbles onto Marcoh's cell, where the doctor admits he is being coerced and confesses his own role in the war. The brothers split up, with Al heading to Dr. Knox's home to treat May and deliver the message, where Lan Fan appears and learns from the writing that Ling has claimed a Philosopher's Stone.

At headquarters, Greed meets Wrath and briefly channels Ling's voice, warning him not to underestimate humans, though Greed knows Ling waits for a chance to reclaim control. Mustang tells Hawkeye and Armstrong he suspects he is being tested, since a power still stands behind Bradley. Lan Fan resolves to get an automail arm quickly, then nearly brawls with May over their clans' rivalry until Knox stops them. While cleaning the kitchen, Al glimpses the doctor's estranged family in a discarded photo. Meanwhile Ed notices his alchemy works again, and hearing that other alchemists failed earlier that day, he ties it to Father's shutdown and realizes foreign alchemy like May's and Scar's may hold the key to restoring Al without a Stone.

The episode adapts the chapters The Lion of the Round Table, Scars of Ishval, and In the Absence of God. The arrays behind the title card are the Elrics' human transmutation circle and Mustang's flame alchemy circle.

An irony runs through the story: Scar has long cast himself as an agent of God to others' offense, yet when Marcoh frames the Ishvalans' arrival as an act of God, it is Scar who bristles and can barely stop himself from killing the doctor outright.