A Rotted Heart

Cornered at Dante's hideout, Hohenheim offers the reason their shared bodies are decaying if she will leave his sons in peace, but the ancient woman would rather he stay and savor her new form. A flashback to four hundred years past shows the pair forging a Philosopher's Stone from the souls of plague victims and condemned witches, after which Dante's first soul transference saved his life and set them both on an endless march from one body to the next. He calls the immortality they won a blasphemy, while Lust grasps at last what her mistress truly sought all along.

In Central, the Fuhrer and his council grill Mustang over the Reole affair and his choice to abandon the search for the Elrics. The colonel deflects the pressure by naming Bradley's secretary in the murder of Hughes, and the questioning abruptly ends. Recovering with his officers afterward, Mustang voices his growing certainty that the homunculi drove the Ishval war to push someone toward making a Stone, and he decides he can no longer trust a ruler who spends innocent lives so freely.

Back at the hideout, Hohenheim warns that their eroding souls will soon fail to hold a body, but Dante brushes it aside, counting on the Stone now sleeping inside Alphonse. Distracted by Sloth's likeness to Trisha, Hohenheim is snared and cast through the Gate using Rose's infant as a key, while a weeping Wrath spills back out into Sloth's arms. Dante frees Lust to help seize the younger Elric, dangling humanity as her prize. Disguised, the brothers flee a military sweep aboard the train, and while Alphonse hides and rests, Edward seeks out Izumi at Dante's house to ask whether any of her lost child's remains survive to use against Wrath. Elsewhere, Alphonse turns to Tucker to learn how to wield the Stone within him.

A four-hundred-year flashback exposes how Hohenheim and Dante first made a Philosopher's Stone and began passing their souls across bodies to cheat death. Dante hurls Hohenheim through the Gate using Rose's baby as a key and releases Lust to hunt Alphonse. Mustang provokes the Fuhrer before the council to confirm the brothers' warnings, and both he and Armstrong are promoted and ordered north, a posting the colonel suspects is meant to get them killed. Edward seeks a piece of Izumi's dead child as a weapon against Wrath while Alphonse asks Tucker to teach him the Stone's use.

Edward's disguise of a broad hat, round glasses, and a long overcoat closely resembles the signature look of Alucard, the lead of the Hellsing series.