Bonus Chapter: Short Story

A young Edward torments his little brother Alphonse until the boy bursts into tears, drawing their mother Trisha in to chide Ed for being a difficult older sibling who ought to be protecting Al instead. Rather than apologize as she asks, Ed smacks Al on the head and bolts into the hallway, grumbling that Al is their mother's favorite and surely means more to her than he does. From the bathroom, Hohenheim overhears every word of his son's complaint that everyone demands things of him simply because he is older, and that his mother must hate him, yet he says nothing at first.

Hohenheim then calls Ed over and, as punishment for bullying Alphonse, hands him a bucket brimming with water, instructing him to hold it up without letting it touch the floor. Ed strains and gripes about the weight before giving up, and when Hohenheim reappears the bucket is already sitting on the ground. His father points out that the bucket weighs about as much as a newborn, roughly what Ed himself weighed at birth, and that Trisha carried that burden inside her for months and never once set it down, keeping him safe. Someone who hated him, he explains, could never have endured that, so Ed should never say his mother does not love him. Edward returns to the room and raises his hand, and just as Trisha braces for him to strike Al again, he instead pats his brother's head and storms out. When she asks Hohenheim whether he said anything to their son, he claims he did not.

The chapter accompanied Volume 14, released in Japan on July 22, 2006, and in the United States on August 14, 2007. It offers a rare glimpse of the Elric family together while Trisha is still alive and Hohenheim still lives at home.