Signs of a Counteroffensive

Sheltering in an abandoned northern house, the fugitives reassemble Alphonse's scattered armor, careful not to swap his left and right parts, while May Chang studies Scar's brother's cryptic notes. Gathering the pages tied to "gold" and "immortality," she connects the symbols and reveals that Scar's brother had uncovered the nationwide array being built around Amestris. The group despairs at learning nothing new, but Al insists the notes may hold more, and when a stray sneeze from Yoki flips several pages upside down, he realizes that reversing them produces an alkahestric counterpart to the nationwide circle.

In the Baschool mines, Kimblee loses Scar's trail but blunders into the tunnel Sloth is digging, where Pride orders him to drop the pursuit and head to Briggs to inscribe a Crest of Blood. At the fort, Miles reports that the Fullmetal Alchemist has gone missing along with Kimblee, Darius, and Heinkel, and a call to Breda in West City reveals the border wars in Pendleton and Fotset are escalating unnaturally, even as Sloth completes the five-point array beneath the country. In Reole, a starving Hohenheim arrives, crosses a toxic spring in the Church of Leto's basement on an alchemically formed bridge, and confronts Pride in the tunnel. He learns the shadow homunculus can only move freely near his human vessel in Central and within the tunnel itself, and he sends word that "Slave 23" will visit Father soon, then destroys the bridge, calling it a declaration of war. Up north, Drachma opens an offensive on Briggs with Kimblee advising the enemy commander, while in the town of Asbeck, Zampano secretly phones Envy and Wrath to betray Marcoh's location.

The episode adapts Chapter 77 and Chapter 78, and its title card shows the nationwide array rendered as an alkahestric inversion. The anime blurs the timeline of Miles returning to Briggs, whereas the manga specifies ten days had passed, which also clarifies how Kimblee mustered the Drachman army so fast. The Adult Swim broadcast pushed Zampano's betrayal call into the next installment.