Human Transmutation

Tucker, who has worked out that Scar completed a Philosopher's Stone and once learned the homunculi's secrets in Laboratory 5, dangles a bargain before Alphonse: lessons in wielding the Stone in return for using its power to bring back his dead daughter Nina. At Dante's mansion, Izumi shows Edward a love letter penned four centuries ago from Hohenheim to Dante, and the boy grasps that the ancient woman must be the true hand steering the homunculi. He resolves to face them alone.

Bradley sees Mustang and Armstrong off on their northern campaign, noting that Archer survives to guard Central in their absence, then descends to Dante, who promises that Envy will cut down every soldier who has learned too much. Envy rages at being robbed of his revenge on the banished Hohenheim, yet the offer of a fresh Stone drawn from Hohenheim's sons calms him. Sloth, Lust, and Wrath close on the brothers' hotel room, and when Edward returns he baits Lust into striking her own hidden locket before Wrath fuses part of his automail arm away and pins him. Edward reminds him that stolen limbs cannot grant a soul, breaks loose, and flees into the alley.

Cornered, Lust falters. She pleads with Edward to make her human, arguing that a world where every homunculus turns human would leave him no enemies, and when Wrath turns on her for betraying Dante, Edward rescues her instead. As they head toward the factory, he coldly asks why an immortal would crave humanity, and her wounded answer, that his own wish to restore Alphonse is no different, leaves him without a reply. She refuses to name her master unless he grants her wish. At the factory, Tucker has already spent part of the Stone, and thus part of Alphonse, to shape a hollow, mindless child he cannot bind Nina's soul to, and Sloth arrives to carry the younger Elric off to Dante.

Izumi's four-hundred-year-old love letter convinces Edward that Dante commands the homunculi. Bradley launches Mustang and Armstrong on the northern campaign designed to get them killed, and Dante placates Envy with the promise of a Stone from the Elrics. Edward exploits Lust's weakness, then spares her from Wrath, and she confesses her longing to become human while withholding her master's identity. Tucker wastes part of the Stone inside Alphonse trying to resurrect Nina, and Sloth seizes Alphonse for Dante.

This marks the first time Edward performs alchemy without pressing his hands together or drawing a circle, dragging his intact left hand across the stump of his missing automail arm during the struggle with Wrath.