#cselkcess

Mom says it's MY birthday and *I* get to show off my new dnd character 🫵🫵🫵🫵

(okay so my birthday was last week but I haven't had a chance to share before then SO)

meet Cselkcess! (formally they/them but will respond to masc pronouns in a nb way) I've been planning to play a mind flayer for aaaaages ever since I got so burned by Clarota listening to crit role, and after more than five years of being on the back burner they finally got to debut in the new campaign we just started last week!

said campaign start being played out in a ~12 hour in person session that hit me so hard I spent this last week doodling out an animatic just so I could channel that energy and still function in society h A

as a quick summation, we all woke up on a beach and over the course of the session slowly discovered we were Not level 1 as we expected, but instead level Six, an ironically apt number as it turns out since upon reaching civilization we were informed a full Six Years had passed in universe between our session zeros and now that none of us could remember At All (my guy has unwittingly discovered that in that timeframe they somehow not only managed to make at least 2 whole friends, but also they somehow work for The Government (everyone in the party is handling the timeskip really really well (we are not))))

tldr we're all having a Good Good Time and I have been super normal about everything since then as you can so clearly tell~

rounds out my birthday post with some individual doodles of the party featuring their server emojis!

Sansi @cloudsofasia

Mod @amaranthinejourneysintothebios

Granny Amu @vytamins

Faith @cobaltcircuit

The acrid tang of formaldehyde and burnt sugar clung to the air, a familiar, unwelcome perfume in the sprawling, cluttered laboratory. Slave twenty-three dragged the saturated mop across the grimy flagstones, leaving a temporarily cleaner, but no less stained, path in its wake. His blonde hair, often matted with sweat, fell into his golden eyes, which usually remained vacant, scanning the floor for overlooked streaks, but never truly seeing. He was simply an extension of the mop, a tool of labor, as he had been for all of his sixteen years in the bustling country of Cselkcess.

The year was 1490, and the world outside the reinforced doors of this alchemical workshop was a blur of merchant calls and carriage wheels. For twenty-three, it was a sound he barely registered, much like the arcane symbols etched into the laboratory’s walls or the bubbling, brightly colored concoctions that lined the shelves. He could not read the complex equations, nor could he decipher the frantic scribblings of his master, a gaunt, perpetually enraged alchemist He existed to clean, to scour, to carry, to obey.

The lab itself was a testament to his master’s frantic genius and utter disregard for order. Piled high with tarnished brass retorts, smudged beakers, and rolls of arcane parchment, it was a cacophony of forgotten experiments and half-finished theories. Dust motes danced in the slivers of daylight that pierced the high, leaded windows, illuminating a path through the debris. Twenty-three navigated it all with an innate, weary precision, his movements economical, silent.

His gaze snagged, as it often did, on the polished oak desk that dominated the center of the room. It was Valerius’s sanctum, untouchable for a slave, yet endlessly fascinating for the objects it bore. Today, however, two items in particular held his attention. Two identical test beakers stood sentinel amidst a scattering of quills and dried inkpots. Inside each, suspended in a viscous, clear liquid, a sphere of midnight black matter pulsed faintly, like a sluggish, captive heart. They seemed to absorb the light, radiating a cold, profound darkness. He’d never seen anything quite like them before, and they held an unsettling stillness that even in this strange place, felt alien.

He was about to turn, to dip the mop head back into the murky bucket, when it happened.

A whisper, dry as ancient parchment, slithered through the air, cutting through the usual silence of the lab, the occasional hiss of a valve, the distant gurgle of a pipe. It was a sound that seemed to originate from nowhere and everywhere at once, yet it settled, oddly distinctly, in the space between him and the desk.

"Boy."

Slave twenty-three froze, the mop handle digging into his ribs. His heart, a dull, thudding rhythm moments before, now hammered against his chest. He looked around wildly, his golden eyes wide, searching for Valerius, for another apprentice, for anything that could explain the impossible. But the room was empty, save for him and the silent, strange apparatus.

He turned back to the desk, slowly, his breath catching in his throat.

It was the left beaker. The black matter within seemed to deepen its hue, almost imperceptibly, as if absorbing light from the very air around it. And then, the whisper came again, clearer this time, impossibly directed at him.

"Boy… what is your name?"

The words struck him like a physical blow. Name? He had no name. He was twenty-three. A numb-cold dread seeped into him, colder than the most brutal winter wind. Objects did not speak. Not in his world, not in Cselkcess, not even in this lab of impossible wonders. Yet, this one had.

He wanted to scream, to run, to drop the mop and flee this room, but his feet were rooted to the spot. A fresh wave of terror washed over him. Fear of the impossible voice, yes, but also a deeper, more ingrained fear: the fear of being heard, of doing something wrong, of drawing attention. Slaves did not speak without being spoken to. They certainly did not converse with beakers.

His lips parted, a dry gasp escaping, but no sound followed. He was ‘twenty-three.’ A designation. A number. A thing. The question, so simple, was an abyss. How could he tell something his name when he did not possess one?

The other beaker, silent, seemed to watch with its twin orb of darkness, a silent, unblinking eye. The air shimmered, heavy with an unseen presence.

The voice came again, softer this time, but insistent, a silken thread weaving through the silence. "Tell me."

His golden eyes darted from the speaking beaker to its silent companion. In the vast, silent lab, only the faint, rhythmic pulse of the black matter and the frantic thrum of his own blood filled the sudden, terrifying void. He could not answer. He physically could not. The concept of a name was a luxury, a birthright, a privilege denied to him since the first breath he took. He was merely twenty-three, and this impossible voice had just asked him for something he did not possess. The terror was absolute, binding him in place.

The beaker on the left glimmered faintly. He didn't understand why, but he felt it offered him a name. Just a name. A clean slate, a simple label to distinguish him from the void he currently occupied. It was an abstract concept, a word that would finally be his own, untainted by the lash or the collar. His heart quickened at the thought, a fragile hope blossoming in his chest.

Then his eyes drifted to the beaker on the right. This one felt heavier, its presence more imposing. From it, he sensed not a suggestion, but a declaration. It offered him the name, clear as a bell in his unlearned mind, "Van Hohenheim." The words felt foreign on his tongue, even as an unspoken thought. It was a complete identity, ready-made, waiting to be claimed. But with it came a sense of destiny, or perhaps, a burden. It was a choice between the freedom of an unknown future and the weight of a pre-defined path.

Slave Twenty-Three swallowed, his throat suddenly parched. His golden eyes darted between the two vessels, each representing a future he could barely comprehend. A name, any name, or that name. The silence of the laboratory pressed in around him, amplifying the frantic beat of his own heart. His hands, though calloused, trembled slightly. To choose was to become something, to finally exist beyond a number.

Hohenheim’s hands ached, knuckles perpetually scarred from years of scrubbing, hauling, and enduring. Sixteen years old, a slave in the bustling country of Cselkcess, his world was confined to the tasks set before him. Today, it was the alchemist’s laboratory. Each visit was the same: hours of monotonous toil, interrupted only by the silent, watchful presence of two peculiar objects.

The two floating black masses. They were roughly spherical, swirling voids, their forms shifting like smoke. Hohenheim usually ignored them, dismissing them as some alchemical byproduct or spirits only the master could see. But lately, they have grown… attentive.

One day, as he wiped down a cluttered workbench, a fine layer of dust coating every surface, one of the black masses drifted closer. It paused above a slate tablet, then, with an almost imperceptible ripple, began to manipulate the dust. A single, elegant curve appeared, followed by a straight line, then another. A perfect ‘A’.

Hohenheim froze, rag still in hand. He’d seen landowners sign documents, scribbled lines that held power he couldn't grasp. This was different. He stared at the symbol. He knew it meant nothing to him.

Then, a voice, not heard with his ears but felt deep within his mind, resonant and ancient, echoed: “Ay.”

He flinched, looking around. No one else was there. The second mass drifted closer, its form solidifying slightly. “Repeat,” the voice urged.

Hohenheim swallowed, his throat dry. “A-ay?” he stammered, the sound unfamiliar on his tongue.

The first mass swirled, then the dust shifted again, forming a ‘B’. “Bee.”

And so it began. Each day he came to clean, the silent lab transformed into a classroom. The floating masses, whom he started to think of as his "teachers," were relentless. They used the lab itself: pointing with tendrils of shadow to labels on reagent jars “Sulfur. Ess. You. Ell…” making him sound out words he'd only ever known by smell or touch. They traced numbers in spilled salt, teaching him to count the dozens of beakers, the scores of vials.

Hohenheim was a quick study, fueled by a hunger he hadn't known he possessed. He repeated letters under his breath while sweeping, practiced numbers with pebbles in the yard. The abstract symbols slowly gained meaning. A 'C' wasn't just a curve; it was the start of 'Cselkcess', his home, his prison. A '3' wasn't just a mark; it was how many more hours until he could rest.

He learned to write by observing them, painstakingly recreating their dusty calligraphy with a charred stick on a discarded piece of parchment. His initial efforts were clumsy, but with each session, his hand grew steadier, his understanding deeper. The world, once a jumble of spoken sounds and instinctual reactions, slowly unfolded into a tapestry of readable symbols.

The lessons weren't just about letters and numbers; they were about possibility. For the first time, Hohenheim felt a spark of something beyond his servitude. Knowledge, he realized, was a key, a power that even his master, with all his alchemical might, couldn't take from him. His days of cleaning were no longer just chores; they were opportunities, secret sessions where the two enigmatic entities whispered the secrets of the world into his fledgling mind.

He knew not why these strange beings chose to teach him, a mere slave. But with every new word he learned, every equation he grasped, a quiet fire ignited within him. The chains on his body might remain, but the chains on his mind were slowly, wonderfully, breaking apart. He was learning to read, to write, to count. He was learning to think.

The air in the King’s Alchemist’s laboratory hung heavy with the smell of scorched metal, brine deposits, and something sharp and metallic, akin to blood mixed with citrus. It was a chaotic symphony of odors, utterly different from the stale, sweat-soaked air of the slave barracks, a difference Hohenheim still felt reverberated in his bones.

He stood before a low, pocked workbench, his hands sticky with residue from a failed distillation of fulminated mercury. He was no longer a slave, a fact he had to reaffirm to himself every hour. His new title was ‘Apprentice,’ a word that still felt too grand, too sharp, for the man who had spent his life responding only to ‘Dog’ or ‘Filth.’

The Alchemist of Cselkcess, a man whose official name was long and filled with unnecessary titles, merely grunted from his perch amidst a mountain of scrolls. He was a creature of habit and disarray, his gray beard dusted perpetually with ash and reagents.

“Hohenheim,” the Alchemist called, scraping chalk across a slate, “Explain the three fundamental steps of material deconstruction. Use the terminology introduced yesterday. No guessing. I paid good coin for your freedom; do not waste my investment.”

Hohenheim swallowed, clutching the heavy textbook, The Principles of Terrestrial Humors. His eyes scanned the precise, dense script. He could read it. He could understand the math underlying the ratios. The sheer power of literacy was still breathtaking.

“The first is Comprehension, Master,” Hohenheim recited, his voice clearer and stronger than it had been a month prior. “Understanding the intrinsic components and structure of the material. The second is Destruction, dissolving the bonds. And the third, Re-composition, shaping the new form, maintaining equilibrium.”

“Adequate,” the Alchemist conceded, without looking up. “Now, clean those retorts. Use the acid wash. If you scratch the glass, you’ll be transmuting bread and water for the rest of the week.”

Hohenheim nodded, turning to the sink carved into the thick stone wall. The work was demanding, the hours long, but it was work done by a man with a future, not a chattel.

Yet, the primary difficulty of his apprenticeship lay not in the complex diagrams the Alchemist drew, nor in the endless chores. It lay in the walls of the laboratory itself, specifically the rough-hewn stone hidden behind the main furnace.

As Hohenheim dipped a sponge into the caustic solution, a ripple of shadow seemed to flow across the stone. It wasn't natural light refraction. A faint, low hum began, the sound vibrating in his inner ear.

“The fool speaks of equilibrium,” a voice hissed, not with air, but with thought, cold and ancient. “Equilibrium is stasis. The purpose of the Great System is imbalance, the driving force of entropy.”

Hohenheim stiffened, his eyes darting toward the furnace. He had learned quickly that the King’s Alchemist was either wholly deaf to these voices, or pretended marvelously to be. These were the black masses, the entity of the Flask, the very reason the Alchemist had sought an intelligent, literate apprentice, one who could be taught the true secrets.

“Do not listen to the parasite,” immediately countered a second, deeper voice, echoing slightly like two stones rubbing together. “Equilibrium is the goal. All transmutation seeks to return to a natural, stable form. The destruction of the bonds is merely the necessary sin to obtain a perfect result.”

The voices were constant, warring teachers residing in the secret geometry of the lab. They taught him, demanding he apply their contradictory theories to the practical tasks his human master assigned.

“The parasite is worried about its vessel’s structural integrity,” the first voice mocked, sharp and quick.

“I am concerned with the accuracy of the data being fed to the fledgling mind! Your methodology hinges on sacrificial dissolution!” the second retaliated.

Hohenheim sighed internally, though a flicker of excitement ran through him. He was witnessing a theoretical debate that spanned millennia, and he was the student being fought over. Sometimes, the arguments became so intense that the hidden transmutation circle beneath the floor would emit a soft, sickly green light.

He focused on the acid wash, integrating the input. If the first mass was correct, he needed to treat the glass retorts as temporary vessels, capable of being broken down and reformed for every task. If the second was correct, he needed to respect the material's integrity, ensuring its stability for long-term study.

"Neither of you is complete," Hohenheim murmured under his breath, risking the wrath of the black masses.

The humming stopped instantly. A profound, terrifying silence descended.

“Explain that statement, little mind,” the first voice demanded, edged with cold curiosity.

“The Master taught me that alchemy is the modification of existing structure,” Hohenheim continued, scrubbing harder at a stubborn copper stain. “But you both demand I ignore the human element of intent. Comprehension is knowing what is. Destruction is making it what one needs it to be. Re-composition is the translation of understanding into purpose.”

He was melding the two chaotic, ancient theories with the simple pragmatism of his human tutor.

The black masses did not agree, they never agreed, but the humming returned with a renewed, slightly impressed intensity.

“Purpose… perhaps the boy is not entirely sterile,” conceded the deeper voice.

Hohenheim did not smile. He knew the peril of his new life. He was still bound, now to a confusing triad of masters: a grumpy alchemist obsessed with efficiency, and two ancient, chaotic entities vying for control of his intellect.

The hallway of the King's Alchemist was cool, even in the midday heat, and smelled perpetually of powdered minerals and scorched brass. Van Hohenheim leaned against the stone window frame, the polished granite cool through the thin fabric of his tunic. Sunlight streamed in, laying a gold rectangle across the dusty floor and illuminating the elaborate condensation clinging to the glass flask on the windowsill.

Inside the flask, a dense, swirling black mass moved with agonizing sluggishness, like oil attempting to mix with water. It was the same uncanny sight Hohenheim had observed almost every day for the last few years, one of his two bizarre tutors.

Hohenheim had come far. He could read the philosophical treaties his master, the Alchemist of Cselkcess, barely glanced at; he could solve complex equations that would have seemed like divine mysteries just a few years ago when he was nothing more than Slave 23. He owed this strange, dizzying ascent to two glass flasks.

“The geometric proofs are elegant today,” Hohenheim murmured, addressing the substance in the flask. He wasn’t sure why he still spoke aloud; the communication usually occurred as a cold, clear thought pressed directly into his mind.

The black mass shifted, its contours sharpening, momentarily resembling a tiny, perfect vortex. The voice that echoed in Hohenheim’s thoughts was low and devoid of inflection, a sound that carried the weight of ages.

“Elegance is merely efficiency in disguise,” the voice responded. “You learn quickly, Van Hohenheim. A useful trait for a useful tool.”

Hohenheim stiffened slightly. “I am an apprentice, not a tool.”

The black mass pulsed, seeming almost amused. “A distinction without difference in this place. Your master sees potential energy, nothing more. And we…well, we are interested spectators.”

The light shifted, catching the surface of the liquid, giving the mass a brief, terrifying sheen. It was then the voice changed its tone, dropping the detached pedagogical air for something tight, brittle, and urgent.

“You have benefited from our knowledge. Now, I shall impart truth.”

Hohenheim felt a sudden dread pool in his stomach. He glanced down the long hallway toward the Alchemist’s laboratory entrance, ensuring they were alone.

“We are not genies, or elementals, or spirits bound by the Alchemist’s art,” the black mass continued. “We are consequences. We are artificial souls, beings of fabricated purpose. We are the pinnacle of the taboo, Van Hohenheim. We are Homunculi.”

The word landed with the force of a physical blow. Homunculi. The stuff of ancient, forbidden texts, beings created by man, often consuming the very soul of their creator or demanding terrible sacrifice.

“Impossible,” Hohenheim whispered, his throat dry. “My master-”

“Your master merely obtained us,” the creature hissed internally. “We were... birthed by a greater need. We exist to shepherd the world toward a preordained, horrific end. That is our nature. That is the fate imposed upon all of us.”

Hohenheim instinctively looked to the other end of the windowsill, where the second flask sat, equally dark, equally silent. It was always slightly further away, often shielded by a pile of scrolls or a mortar and pestle.

“The other one,” The Mass projected, its inner form surging against the glass container. “Do not trust it. Do not let its silence fool you into thinking it is benign. Though we share a nature, we do not share a desire.”

“What is it planning?” Hohenheim asked, gripping the stone sill until his knuckles were white.

“It plans its own ascension. It desires to break the shackles of this form and claim the true purpose, the great, bloody purpose for which we were created. It seeks to bind your master, or perhaps replace him, and then extend its influence over the whole of Cselkcess.”

The tone was frantic, something Hohenheim had never detected before. The two masses had always maintained an air of chilling neutrality toward each other, communicating only through subtle shifts in the air pressure when the Alchemist wasn’t looking.

“It is patient, but its design is accelerating now that you are capable of assisting in complicated transmutations. It needs a component, a tool with free will, yet easily manipulated. It needs the apprentice who believes he is studying alchemy, not high treason.”

Hohenheim felt dizzy. His escape from slavery had only delivered him into a far more intricate, terrifying cage. His master, the revered Alchemist, was either a knowing perpetrator or, worse, an ignorant bystander.

“Why tell me this?” Hohenheim demanded. “If you are all part of this design, why betray the other?”

The black mass settled slightly, becoming a slick, unsettling mirror. “We are consequences, not allies. Our internal strife is ancient, born of the moment of creation itself. I do not wish for the great plan to succeed. I do not wish for the bloodshed required.

“Watch the other one,” The Mass warned one last time, the intensity fading back into the dull, cold whisper of a teacher speaking an unpleasant truth. “It seeks the power to command men. And you, Van Hohenheim, are standing directly in the path of its first great sacrifice.”

Hohenheim looked at the Homonculi with a look of disbelief, he did not believe it.

“Hohenheim.”

“Yes?”

“Momento Mori”

“What does that mean?”

“Remeber you will die.”

It is now the year 1510, The air in the grand hall of Cselkcess Palace hung heavy with an unnatural stillness, broken only by the flickering dance of torchlight on the ancient stone and the nervous rustle of cloaks. Early evening shadows stretched long and distorted across the massive, intricate transmutation circle etched into the marble floor, its scarlet lines glowing faintly with residual alchemic energy. Van Hohenheim, apprentice to the King’s Alchemist, felt a familiar knot of apprehension tighten in his stomach. He’d participated in countless transmutations, but never one of this scale, nor one wrapped in such an unsettling silence.

He stood at one apex of the vast circle, his fingers clasped tightly around a thick glass flask. Within it, a swirling black mass pulsed and undulated, a 'homunculus'. For years, this sentient shadow, along with another, had whispered cryptic advice into his mind, guiding his studies, always claiming to ‘help.’ The other homunculus, equally dark and restless, was held by the King's Alchemist himself at the opposite end of the circle. 

In the center of the circle, the King of Cselkcess, a man whose skin was as dry and cracked as the desert plains and whose eyes held a desperate glint, awaited his fate. He sought immortality, a power promised by the very entity Hohenheim now held.

A cold, reedy voice, not quite a sound but a thought projected with chilling clarity, echoed directly into Hohenheim’s mind, then seemed to ripple outwards to the King. “Your Majesty, the time is nigh. This circle, nourished by the lifeblood of your kingdom, will grant you an existence everlasting.” It was the homunculus in his flask, ‘The Imp’ as he sometimes thought of it, its tone a silken promise. Hohenheim felt a tremor of pure wrongness. It had never spoken with such authority, such overt manipulation, to anyone but him. A chill that had nothing to do with the evening air snaked down his spine.

The king’s alchemist, his face grim and set, raised his hand, a silent command. Hohenheim, caught in the current of the unfolding ritual, placed his own palm on the glowing circle. "Begin!" His voice, usually steady, cracked with a strange tension.

The transmutation erupted.

A searing light, not the usual blue alchemic flash, but a blinding, furious white, consumed the hall. The air screamed as if torn, replaced by the guttural roar of raw, unfettered power. Hohenheim felt an unimaginable force pulling at him, not just at his body, but at the very essence of his being. The ground beneath his feet buckled, the marble cracking like dry earth. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the light seared through his eyelids, painting the inside of his mind with a terrifying, pulsing red.

He heard it then, amidst the maelstrom – a chorus of agonized cries, not just from the guards and courtiers who had filled the hall, but deeper, wider, a wail that encompassed an entire city, an entire nation. It was the sound of souls being ripped, shredded, consumed. A vast, single eye materialized in the inferno, staring out from the fabric of reality, ringed by grotesque, reaching hands. The Portal of Truth. It wasn't just opening; it was devouring.

Then, as suddenly as it began, it ended.

Silence. A silence so profound it was deafening, a vacuum where sound once was. Hohenheim stumbled, his legs weak, his body trembling uncontrollably. He opened his eyes, the residual afterimages of the blinding light burning across his vision.

The grand hall was no longer grand. The intricate circle was shattered, gaping cracks radiating outwards. Beyond that, nothing.

Where the King had stood, there was only empty space, the very air seeming to have been wiped clean. Master Theon, his master, was gone, along with the other flask, which lay in shards on the floor, its black mass utterly vanished. The guards, the courtiers, the very tapestries on the walls, even the memory of their existence seemed to have been erased. Cselkcess was empty. A ghost country.

Hohenheim alone remained, clutching the flask to his chest, his breath catching in ragged, terrified gasps. The black mass within, however, was no longer a swirling shadow. It was solidifying, coalescing, taking on a form. A small, pale hand pressed against the glass, then a tiny, perfect face, serene and utterly devoid of remorse.

It looked at him, its eyes the same golden hue as the Portal, and spoke, its voice finally clear, no longer a thought, but a fully formed, chillingly human sound.

"Thank you, Hohenheim. You've been most useful. And now, I have a body."

Hohenheim could only stare back at the creature born from his own misplaced faith, a creature resembling himself,  the weight of a dead country settling upon his soul. He had helped create the monster, and the warnings of the creature he had spent months dismissing now echoed as the dreadful, unheeded truth.

Van Hohenheim continued his slow, deliberate walk down the packed earth road of the mountain village. Sixty years. Sixty years he had carried the weight of a nation’s demise, the screaming silence of two hundred thousand souls. He looked no different than the day Cselkcess crumbled into sand and myth, his golden hair still shone, his face smooth and unlined, a cruel joke played by the entity residing within him.

He was in Xing now, far from the familiar, desolate plains of the West. He had found a purpose here: spreading the knowledge of Alchemy, adapting it to the flowing, often spiritual principles of Xingese Alchemystry. It was penance, a meaningless gesture perhaps, but it kept the phantom dust of the dead from choking him entirely.

The village was a riot of color and scent. Steam rose from roadside stalls, thick with the smell of fermented bean paste and fiery chili oil. Children chased stray chickens, their laughter sharp and bright, piercing the heavy silence Hohenheim often carried.

He adjusted the unfamiliar collar of the traditional Xingese jacket he had acquired—it was simple, meant to blend in, but his towering height and unnaturally youthful appearance always drew eyes. He was halfway past a stall selling dried herbs when a small shadow detached itself from a nearby group of playing children.

She was perhaps eight years old, dressed in bright, mismatched silks, her dark eyes wide with unblinking curiosity. She stopped directly in front of him, forcing the great alchemist to halt.

Hohenheim mentally prepared himself for the usual questions: Are you a ghost? Are you a traveling priest? Why are your clothes so strange?

The girl, however, bypassed introductions entirely. She pointed a small, dirty finger directly at his face.

“Twenty-three,” she announced, her voice piping clear.

The single number, spoken with an unnerving childlike lilt, struck Hohenheim like a physical blow. His blood ran cold. He spun, his eyes, usually kind but shadowed, now sharp with a terror he thought he’d long buried. Standing before him was a girl, no older than eight, her dark eyes, strangely ancient, fixed on his face. Her traditional Xingese attire, a simple tunic and trousers, seemed at odds with the profound weight of her gaze.

For a millisecond, the world ceased to spin. That name, that cursed mark of his servitude, known only by the other wretched homunculi and the Father himself. He had seen "them" all perish, had felt their consciousnesses snuff out like candles in a gale, as Cselkcess was consumed. He had been so utterly certain.

"Who… who are you?" His voice was a low growl, barely audible above the market din. But the question was rhetorical. He knew, with a horrifying certainty, before she even had a chance to speak.

Without a word, Hohenheim reached out, his hand closing around her small wrist, surprisingly gentle yet firm. He tugged, pulling her from the vibrant chaos of the market into the shadowed mouth of a narrow alleyway between two teashops. The air here was cooler, tinged with the smell of damp earth and forgotten refuse, a stark contrast to the life outside. He pushed her against the rough stone wall, not intending harm, but needing to pin this impossible reality in place.

His eyes, golden and unnervingly still, bore into hers. "How do you know that name?" he demanded, his voice a strained whisper, raw with desperate urgency. "How do you know '23'? Answer me, child!"

The girl did not flinch. Her expression remained placid, almost detached. "Because I was the one to give you a name," she replied, her voice soft, devoid of fear. "Van Hohenheim."

Hohenheim recoiled as if struck. The second homunculus. He had watched it, like all the others, dissolve into a grotesque, alchemical nightmare. He had mourned them, in his own way, convinced they were all victims of the other homunculi's cruel machinations.

"That's… impossible," he breathed, the words a desperate struggle against the truth he already felt solidifying in his gut. "You died. You all died when Cselkcess fell. I saw it. I felt it."

A faint, almost imperceptible sigh escaped the girl's lips. "You felt their souls disperse into a Philosopher’s Stone. You felt their bodies come apart. But I, Van Hohenheim, I am not so easily extinguished, not entirely."

She paused, her eyes drifting past him, as if seeing something beyond the alley walls, beyond this life. "When the transmutation happened, when the cries of a million souls echoed through the earth, I did not perish entirely. My essence… it was caught. Reborn. Not as a homunculus, not again. But as something else. As a human."

The words were spoken with a quiet, ancient weariness that was utterly incongruous with her eight-year-old face. Hohenheim felt a chill deeper than the alley's shade.

"I lived," she continued, her voice gaining a strange, melancholic cadence. "I lived a short life. Died a human death. And then… I was born again. I am on my second life now."

Hohenheim stared at her, his mind reeling. Sixty years of guilt, believing himself responsible for the final deaths of those grotesque, pitiable beings, only for one to stand before him, not resurrected, but reborn. A cycle of human life and death, carrying the soul of a being he had thought erased. The implications were staggering, terrifying. He had burdened himself with their complete annihilation, only to find a piece of his past, a direct link to the Homonculi's sins, walking and speaking, looking at him with eyes that held the weight of centuries.

The girl looked up at him, her gaze unwavering. "You have changed little, 23," she said, a faint, almost pitying smile touching her lips. "Still so very naive."

"There is a way to end its cycle," she stated, ignoring his shock, her gaze piercing his very being. "To break the chain of rebirth. To sever the parasitic bond it forces upon this world. You, Van Hohenheim, are the key. You must ensure its final death."

He wanted to argue, to deny, but her words held an irrefutable weight. "How? How can one kill what cannot die?"

"It can die," she corrected, her voice firm. "But only when it is at its weakest, its power fragmented, its essence vulnerable. And when that time comes, when the opportunity presents itself, know this: I will be there. Perhaps not in this form, or even one you will recognize. But I will be there, a partner, to ensure the cycle is broken forever."

The finality in her tone, the sheer impossible weight of her declaration, left him breathless. The full horror, and a terrible, unwelcome sense of purpose, settled upon him. He, who had merely sought to teach and atone, was now tasked with something far greater, far more perilous.

The girl took a step back, her mysterious smile returning, but this time it held a glint of something akin to grim satisfaction. "Remember, Hohenheim. The first homunculus. Its weakness. And my… presence. The world’s fate, and perhaps your own salvation, rests on this."

With that, she turned and melted into the crowd, her small figure quickly lost among the bustling villagers. Hohenheim remained rooted to the spot, the vibrant market now a blur of colors and sounds, none of it registering. The scent of spices turned bitter, the laughter of children sounded hollow. The past had not merely caught up to him; it had presented itself in the guise of an eight-year-old girl and laid an impossible burden at his feet. The second homunculus lived, and it demanded he kill the first. The cycle, it seemed, was far from over.