Episode 7 (2003 Anime)

Mustang hands Ed his silver pocket watch with none of the ceremony the boy expected, coldly congratulating him on becoming a dog of the military before sending Havoc to drive him back to the Tuckers'. Along the way Havoc explains that the colonel is chasing a killer who preys only on women, work Ed dismisses as ordinary police business. At the mansion the two households share a feast celebrating Ed's success and Tucker's looming re-certification, which he will lose without meaningful results. That night Ed's letter to Winry inspires Nina to write to the mother she believes left two years ago, but Tucker quietly burns the letter, and next morning Ed finds its ashes in the trash and begins to suspect his host.

Digging into Tucker's research at the National Central Library, Ed is turned away without Basque Grand's clearance and, on his way out, tears the sleeve of a strange tattooed man who flees while muttering to an unseen brother about a curse. Hughes then tells Ed that Tucker's wife died before he ever reached Central two years earlier, and that his first talking chimera had only wished to die.

After Grand evicts the brothers from the estate, they slip back that night, knock out the guards, and find a cellar of caged animals. Tucker proudly presents a brown-furred, dog-like chimera that can speak, and when it asks Ed unprompted "why does it hurt here?", the pieces fall into place. Ed forces Tucker to confirm the timing and realizes the creature was made by fusing Nina and Alexander, just as his first speaking chimera had been his own wife. Condemned for toying with lives, Tucker throws the same charge back at Ed for his transmuted body and brother, and a enraged Ed beats him nearly to death until the chimera stops him, still calling him "big brother." Ed wants to undo the fusion but cannot, as it is bonded to the core like the mistake that cost him his mother.

Grand arrives, orders Tucker court-martialed, seizes the chimera, and demands silence, confirming to Ed that he had known and meant to bury it. Ed overturns the transport truck to free Nina, but she flees into an alley and meets the tattooed man again. His arm glows red as he grieves that she is a creature in pain and, praying she be received back into God's light, deconstructs her to end her suffering before vanishing. The brothers arrive to find only her remains, and Ed collapses into mourning as the rain begins.

The episode adapts the manga chapter "The Alchemist's Suffering." Grand having the Elrics removed at gunpoint confirms he already knew the secret of Shou's first chimera and did not care, hinting he may even have been complicit in what Tucker planned for his daughter. The closing credits are replaced with a montage of the happy moments Nina and Alexander shared with the brothers, ending on the pair asleep side by side.