Looming Shadows

Spring has returned when a Briggs train reaches Resembool and Winry is smuggled into the Rockbell house inside a water tank, only to find Edward and his outlaw companions hiding upstairs. Between tuning his arm and hearing his blunt advice that she flee the country, Winry loses her temper and instead demands he defeat the enemy and come home with both brothers whole. He departs that night with a promise and a request for apple pie. In rebuilt Reole, Scar and Marcoh return from their travels leading a band of like-minded Ishvalans and set out for Central, Scar insisting his aim is to change Amestris rather than to save it.

At the eastern training grounds, Grumman welcomes the Northern troops but warns Miles that the Fuhrer himself has come to oversee the exercise. Aboard his train to Central, Alphonse wakes to find night has fallen and is ambushed by a revived Gluttony, then bound and knocked out by Pride, who means to keep the armored alchemist docile until the Promised Day. Mustang, calling on Olivier at the Armstrong mansion, slips her a hidden message about Selim's true identity tucked inside a bouquet she promptly burns.

With one day left, Hakuro warns Bradley of Grumman's coup, but the plot is a lure. As the Fuhrer's train heads back to the capital, his car is left on a bridge and blown apart, and the eastern soldiers report the assassination complete before moving to reinforce Mustang. In Central, Hawkeye reunites with Breda and Fuery, who have deserted their posts. When the generals panic over Bradley's reported death and Olivier weighs seizing command, Father emerges alongside Sloth to remind them all that he still rules.

Edward slips into Resembool for a final reunion with Winry, who orders him to win and return with both brothers restored. Scar and Marcoh gather a company of Ishvalans and march toward Central. Pride and Gluttony capture Alphonse aboard his train and keep him subdued for the Promised Day. Grumman's forces destroy the Fuhrer's train car in an apparent assassination, and as the Central generals reel, Father reveals himself to keep them in line.

The chapter adapts Shadow of the Pursuer and The Empty Box, and its title card carries the Ouroboros. Hakuro makes his first appearance here without his later ear wound, and his turn as a bearer of misinformation is staged differently from the manga, where a long-standing grudge against Grumman and Mustang drives him. The episode also makes plain that Edward has at last grown taller than Winry.