Chapter 8: The Road of Hope

Edward rides an eastbound train beside Major Alex Louis Armstrong, sour about the babysitter forced on him. With his mechanical arm wrecked and Alphonse crippled, the military refuses to let the boys head home unguarded while Scar remains loose, and Armstrong is the only officer both free and eager to go. After Hughes waves them off, Edward describes his hometown as an eastern village kept small by the Ishval war, home to a family friend who works as both automail surgeon and weaponsmith. Neither brother notices Lust seated a few rows back, quietly keeping watch over the young alchemist.

A scheduled stop draws Armstrong's eye to a familiar face, Tim Marcoh, a former State Alchemist who slipped away with his medical research when the fighting ended. Marcoh bolts at the major's call, so Edward decides the group will get off and catch a later train, hoping the doctor's knowledge might shed light on biological transmutation. Asking around town, they learn the man now heals residents under a false identity. Cornered, Marcoh fears arrest or execution, yet once soothed he admits the guilt of having his work fuel a massacre, then reveals the astonishing aim of his experiments: the legendary Philosopher's Stone.

Marcoh produces a vial of red gel, an incomplete stone weaker than the true article, but refuses to share his notes, insisting the knowledge is evil. On the platform, Edward tells Armstrong he could never steal something that had healed so many locals, and the major privately decides against reporting the doctor. Reconsidering, Marcoh catches the train and slips Edward a written clue pointing to where his research lies buried, trusting the boy to face a horrible truth. Back at his home, Marcoh finds Lust lying in wait; his alchemy tears into her, yet the wound knits shut at once, the first glimpse of a homunculus healing itself. She seizes a neighbor child to force his cooperation and resolves to reach Central and burn the notes before Edward can. Riding onward, Edward reads the clue: the first branch of the National Central Library.

The newspaper Lust holds carries a headline about a slain British naval commander alongside the number 007, a nod to the James Bond films You Only Live Twice and Tomorrow Never Dies, both of which report Bond's staged death with that same rank. When her wound closes, Lust remarks that Marcoh has made her die once, alluding to her many lives. The VIZ English release has the neighbor girl address him as Doctor Marcoh, an error since the townsfolk only knew him as Mauro; the original Japanese and Chuang Yi versions have her say merely Doctor, with no name attached.