Back in Dublith, the Elric brothers began a new phase of training—Izumi's personal boot camp. It was a balance of combat, philosophy, and survival that turned boys into warriors.
For Edward and Alphonse, it was grueling.
For Auron… it was transformation.
He stood shirtless beneath a waterfall, the freezing water crashing down on him like punishment. His chakra flared around him, forming a visible shroud of red-violet lightning laced with gold.
He wasn't training his muscles.
He was forcing his two worlds to collide.
Alchemy was about equivalent exchange, about rules and formulas.
Chakra was will, spirit, essence made manifest.
And Auron had both.
But that wasn't a blessing. It was a fracture waiting to break him.
---
"Again," Izumi barked, arms folded.
Auron exhaled slowly and performed a series of hand signs he had adapted into this world. Each sign lit up with sigils of both chakra and alchemic symbols now etched into his gloves—his own design.
"Elemental Creation: Wind Blade Barrage."
A swirling arc of wind-chakra manifested in his palm, condensing into curved daggers of pressurized air. He thrust his hands forward, launching the blades toward a boulder.
BOOM!
The boulder cracked, groaned… and shattered cleanly in half.
Edward, watching from nearby, whistled. "Alchemy can't do that."
Auron turned his glowing eyes to him. "Not yet."
---
Later that evening, as the three brothers sat beneath a tree chewing on roasted fish, Edward's curiosity finally broke free.
"So… explain it to me again. Chakra isn't alchemy?"
"No," Auron said. "Chakra is life force mixed with spiritual energy. Every person has it. It flows through tenketsu—chakra points. Alchemy draws from external energy and follows a formula. Chakra bends the world to the user's will."
"Sounds like cheating," Edward muttered.
"Sounds like emotion-based science," Alphonse added.
Auron chuckled. "You're both right. It's part of me. But the more I fuse it into this world, the more… unstable it gets."
Edward leaned in. "Unstable how?"
Auron paused, eyes glowing faintly.
"It reacts with equivalent exchange in ways even I don't understand. When I infuse chakra into alchemical transmutation circles… sometimes it changes the result."
---
The next day, Izumi decided to test that.
She had the three boys attempt a transmutation challenge: turn sand into reinforced glass using nothing but hands and intellect.
Edward went first, clapping his palms and slamming them into the sand. Blue energy flared, and the grains fused into a perfect slab of glass.
Alphonse followed with a similar result.
Then it was Auron's turn.
He closed his eyes.
He didn't clap his hands.
Instead, he knelt, tapped the sand gently, and infused it with a slow stream of glowing violet chakra.
FWOOM.
The sand flared with unnatural heat.
When the glow faded, the others gasped.
Before them stood a glass sculpture—a dragon coiled around a blooming tree—perfect in detail, clear as crystal, reinforced with chakra essence.
Izumi's eyes narrowed. "That wasn't pure alchemy."
"No," Auron said. "It was a fusion."
He looked down at his hand.
"It's getting easier. But… the more I do this, the more I feel something pulling me further away from alchemy's rules."
Izumi didn't reply immediately. Then she said, "Maybe you weren't meant to follow the rules."
---
That night, Auron sat alone in the forest clearing.
His eyes glowed red-violet beneath the stars.
He activated his Rinne-Mangekyō and placed his hand over a patch of dying grass. Chakra surged outward. The grass turned vibrant, alive again.
But then the same energy jumped from his hand… to a nearby tree.
It cracked.
The leaves withered. Bark split.
> "Give life, take life," he whispered. "Balance is inescapable, even with chakra."
That's when Edward walked up, arms crossed.
"You okay?"
Auron didn't answer at first. Then he said, "I think chakra doesn't exempt me from equivalent exchange. It just masks it. Makes it… subtle. Delayed."
Edward scratched his head. "So you can give a little too much… and still lose something anyway?"
"Exactly."
"Then stop trying to defy it. Work with it. You're already the freak among freaks," Ed smirked.
Auron finally smiled.
---
As training intensified over the next few days, Auron began developing techniques no alchemist could replicate. Chakra blades infused with elemental bursts. Short-range teleportation through pure spatial manipulation. Chakra-enhanced perception that let him read movements before they happened.
Izumi tested all of it.
And every time Auron pushed beyond his limit, he could feel the demon inside twitch.
Not a real one.
A metaphor for something deeper: limitless power without purpose.
He had strength that could reshape the world.
But if he didn't shape it with love, logic, or loyalty…
It would shape him.
---
One night, Auron carved a new symbol into his gloves.
A fusion of chakra sigils and alchemy circles, etched in silver-gold ink made from his own condensed chakra.
His new path.
Not alchemy.
Not chakra.
Something else.
Transcendence.