Mustang also felt things had taken an unexpectedly bad turn. The Ishvalans' armed resistance had already cost the army nearly five hundred men—and it hadn't even been half an hour. If this kept up until nightfall, the losses could reach into the thousands.
"What do we do now?" Mustang asked in a low voice.
Armstrong's eyes suddenly lit up. He stared hard at Mokhfat, and so did Allen.
Mokhfat ground his teeth and glared at the distant city. As if he'd made up his mind, he lowered his voice and said, "We wait. If casualties stay at this level an hour from now, then I'll be relying on you two!"
Mustang gave a slight nod and began checking his gloves and a few necessities. Armstrong's ramrod-straight posture finally loosened; he stretched out on the nearby grass to conserve his strength.
Mokhfat was in a foul mood. He was an alchemist too, and only alchemists climbed fastest in the military. In terms of battlefield merit, every strike from an alchemist dropped at least dozens. By the end of a war, at least a third of enemy casualties were killed by alchemists; if four or more alchemists joined the fight, ninety percent of enemy deaths would be theirs. In the east–west wars, having even one more alchemist than the other side meant overwhelming victory.
Allen leaned against the car, arms folded, a cigarette at the corner of his mouth. His eyes were fixed on half-planted fields spattered with blood. He didn't care how many died. War had always been like this—death was its main theme. It wasn't that Allen was inhuman; he'd just grown used to it. In that other world there was never any shortage of chaos—dynasties rising and falling, peasant uprisings, civil and foreign wars. Every decade or few decades, some massive conflict erupted. And right now that world was aflame too, global war everywhere. Compared to that, this place almost counted as peaceful.
See enough corpses, see enough wars, and you go numb. Humans adapt to anything.
Allen was only thinking about how to wring the greatest benefit from the war—how to slaughter more Ishvalans and carve out chances to make his name. He wasn't a saint. Born into a great family, the drive to claw for power and profit ran in his bones.
An hour—neither long nor short. Before the assault, the city had been divided into ten circular sectors. A1 was the outer ring; A10 was the core. They were already into A4. The deeper you went, the harder the pushback. In urban fighting—especially when you're the attacker—losses are always astronomical.
As they pushed deeper, more and more wounded were carried back on stretchers, and the injuries got worse. Taking several rounds, losing an arm or a leg—that counted as "light." Plenty of men were set down from the stretcher and died before anyone could even start treating them. The entire rear camp fell silent. As the nation's elite, they had never imagined the Ishvalans would beat them in street fighting.
Watching those already out of the fight, Mokhfat clenched his jaw. His hand tightened around his cap. He bit down, tamped his anger, and said, "Major Mustang, Second Lieutenant Armstrong—I'm counting on you." He desperately wanted to go himself, but a commander charging the line in person was foolish.
Mustang and Armstrong nodded and walked alone toward the city. Allen smiled, stubbed out his cigarette, stepped over to the seething Mokhfat, and patted his shoulder.
"What now?"
"Heh. Major General Mokhfat, as a citizen of this country, I ought to do my part. I am a State Alchemist, after all," Allen said, all affable ease.
Mokhfat started to object—then Allen said the one thing that tied his hands: "All for the nation."
If Mokhfat refused to let Allen onto the field now, a report about a certain major general obstructing the Ishval operation would land on the Central Government's desk, and what followed would be a long stretch of investigation and interrogation.
Mokhfat's expression shifted through several stages before he sighed and nodded helplessly. It wasn't that he didn't want Allen's help; they just weren't from the same system. The Intelligence Bureau and the military always rubbed each other raw. Soldiers bled for their achievements; the Intelligence Bureau climbed by digging up dirt on officers. It was hard to believe the two could ever work in peace. That attitude had become habit among military men—like a Ming-era provincial governor eyeing the Jinyiwei. If the Jinyiwei said they wanted to join a battle, the generals would still hate it.
With Mokhfat's nod, Allen tossed his cap into the car, smoothed his messy long hair, rolled his neck, and a stone slab rose under his boots. It shot forward like a conveyor belt toward the city, leaving Mokhfat gaping and Riza covering her mouth as if she didn't recognize him at all.
Allen hopped off the slab when he reached Mustang and Armstrong, falling into step beside them.
"What are you doing here?" Mustang asked.
"Nothing much. Felt like stretching my legs—plus I should prepare for promotion, fortune, and a beauty on my arm."
Mustang took it in stride, but Armstrong's face lit with kindred spirit, which made Mustang want to laugh and cry at once.
The three walked abreast. They still had some distance to the battle line. Harried soldiers, seeing Armstrong, brightened at once. He was a celebrity now: that build and that signature, over-the-top hairstyle—flashy as a firefly in the dark—made him instantly recognizable.
As they passed through those admiring looks, Allen murmured in Mustang's ear, "Riza's worried about you."
Mustang, curious a moment earlier, nearly blew his top at the tease. Everyone in the military knew he wasn't exactly a gentleman—that he'd even bedded his adjutant, Riza. "Mustang the beast in gentleman's clothing." The rumor wasn't proven, but most believed it. Mustang's reputation with women wasn't good, especially his fondness for older beauties. With Allen stirring the pot, it was hard to refute.
After a while, Mustang cooled off and ignored Allen. Allen gave a sheepish grin. They'd reached the boundary between A3 and A4. Gunfire cracked on all sides, and soldiers kept dropping out of nowhere.
"Ten minutes. Want to bet?"
Mustang and Armstrong blinked, then nodded…
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