Chapter 42: The Father Standing Before a Grave

Short on hotel money in Central, Alphonse phones Pinako and learns Edward has not reached Resembool, though Van Hohenheim has. At the town graveyard, Edward angrily faces his father, who says Pinako already told him about their failed Human Transmutation. Grieving before Trisha's grave, Hohenheim asks why the family house is gone, and Edward claims he burned it so he and Alphonse could never turn back. Hohenheim counters that the real motive was to erase the evidence of his sin and flee the pain, an insight that stings Edward, who storms off toward the Rockbell house with his father trailing behind and quietly noting how alike they are.

That night Hohenheim looks in on Edward, nearly touching him before withdrawing, unaware the boy is only feigning sleep. In the next room he asks Pinako whether the thing the brothers transmuted truly was their mother, and whether its eye and hair color matched Trisha's. The implication horrifies Pinako, who wonders if the creature was something entirely unrelated to the family, and the eavesdropping Edward is shaken as well. The next morning Hohenheim leaves without a farewell, taking an old family photo and warning Pinako to flee the country because something terrible is coming. She refuses, and he departs saying he can never share a meal with her again.

In Central, Alphonse tells Ling he wants to talk alchemy with his long-absent father, and Ling reveals his own is the Emperor of Xing, one of many rulers with dozens of children by clan concubines; Ling, of the Yao clan, seeks immortality to win the throne amid a succession struggle. He eyes Al's deathless metal body enviously, but Al warns it may be a ticking time bomb. At the hospital, Dr. Knox reveals he covered for Mustang's ruse, calling them accomplices from Ishval. Learning Havoc is paralyzed, Roy sends Breda after Tim Marcoh, but Envy, disguised as Breda, has already seized the doctor and his Stone, leaving the real Breda to find an empty house.