Critical Haircut

Disclaimer: I don't own FMA or Naruto.

Welcome to my third one-shot! Okay, y'all remember the Naruto episode "Sakura Blossoms"? If you do, then you already have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen to our favorite blond midget. If you don't, then don't worry. It's not necessary to watch that episode before you read this. I'm only borrowing a key idea from it, so it doesn't matter if you do or don't know what happens.

Rating is for language (obviously) and some not-so-mild violence. Be warned, even I got a little frightened when I went back to edit this. Nothing too bad though, knowing me. XD

Having said that, I can start the actual story! Please enjoy the third example of what I do when I procrastinate!

o.O.0.O.o

The uneven pounding of two feet shredded the silence of the muggy evening air. A cape-like banner of red fabric fluttered in the wind behind an exhausted teenager. His blond hair was held together in a messy braid, keeping the strands out of his face as he ran. Golden irises glowed pale yellow in the soft light of the moon. Beads of sweat trickled down his face, and sharper-than-average teeth were clenched together due to the strain. Despite the cloud of fatigue looming over him and threatening collapse, the teenager continued to press forward down the empty alley.

His ears picked up two sets of feet sprinting behind him. They were gaining on him. But in the distance, he could also hear the clanking of a familiar suit of armor running to intercept them at the next alley turn. The plan was simple: lure out the drug dealers, lead them on a chase towards Fifth Street, and catch them at Leer Drive where a team of back-up would be waiting to ambush them. The suit of armor's clanks were alone, which told him that Mustang's team was already in position. And from the sound of the footfalls behind him, Edward guessed that his little catch-me act was working perfectly.

As Edward lifted his vision, he caught sight of the sign for Fourth Street. And that's when Alphonse leaped out of the alleyway, joining him in the chase while creating a second target for the drug dealers.

"Brother!" The armor whispered harshly beside him as they ran. "The Colonel's team got held up! We're going to have to keep the diversion up until they get here!"

Edward's eyes widened. "WHAT?! So much for being ahead of schedule!"

The blond clenched his teeth in anger and briefly turned around to check on their chasers. They were still gaining on them, but it was obvious they were starting to run out of stamina. Edward smirked. Then he whipped his head around again and shouted,

"What's the matter, Gramps'? You guys running out of steam back there?"

They didn't take kindly to the taunting. The guy in front, the one with the graying hair, a black coat, and a mustache, growled in response and poured on a bit more speed. The second one, who was wearing a similar black trench coat but was clean-shaven, shook his fist and shouted back, "You're gonna pay for that one, kid!"

Suddenly, from behind another alley, two large men jumped out and tackled Alphonse, slamming his armored body to the ground and pinning him.

"AL!" the elder brother yelled, halting.

The armor struggled under the tight knot of muscly arms, but to no avail. "Keep going, Brother! I'll catch up!"

Edward frowned, but one glance at his chasers convinced him to keep moving. His muscles tightened up again and he broke out into a sprint once more, dodging random trashcans, mailboxes, and signs as he went. Sweat was now pouring down his neck, soaking both the front and back of his tank top underneath the red coat. His lungs burned along with his tired body. His own stamina would deplete inevitably, and he could tell that it would be doing so very soon if the Colonel Bastard's team didn't show up in the next five minutes.

As time wore on and the chase drew out, Edward began to doubt that the Colonel would even show up. He'd been leading these two drug dealers in circles around Leer Drive, occasionally throwing insults and taunts to keep them on his trail, and he was finally starting to wear himself out. Despite their appearance, the drug dealers seemed to be doing a fine job of keeping up with him. Although, he had to admit, they did look a little more worse for wear. The teen allowed himself a quick grin at this thought as he turned down Fourth Street for the sixth time that evening.

It was when he tripped over a loose cobblestone in the street that his body finally gave out. His chest heaved and his veins pulsed with fading adrenalin. The blond brought his hands underneath himself to hopefully get back to his feet before the drug dealers caught up to him. Edward wasn't given the opportunity to try. Just as he pushed himself halfway upright, a heavy boot slammed into his back, forcing him down again and crushing his ribcage in the process. Rough, breathless laughing grated against his ears.

The teen panicked. He brought his hands in front of himself and clapped, transmuting his automail blade. But before he could even swing, a strong set of hands restrained his arms behind him, effectively pinning him. Edward tried to kick his legs but he was pressed into the ground stomach-down; his legs were of little use in his current position. Instinctively, he started screaming his head off.

"Let me go you bastards, before I break your legs off and stick 'em on your heads! ALPHONSE! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?! I COULD USE A LITTLE HELP HERE!"

"Quit your squawking, kid!" one of then shouted angrily.

Another growled, "You're getting what's comin' to ya, brat! Hold still and shut up!" The second voice was accompanied by the sound of a switch blade being opened, and Edward's already risen panic rose even more. Shit! This wasn't part of the plan! Where the hell was Alphonse? And why wasn't the Colonel's team there yet?

Edward squirmed and shouted beneath the drug dealer's grip, ignoring the second one's command. Then stabbing bolts of pain shot through pretty much the entirety of his scalp. The pain was enough to dim his vision for a moment, and when he came to again he realized why: one of them had a vise grip on his hair, continuously pulling on it as the teen writhed. At some point, it became too much for him to bear. Edward halted his squirming and stilled, yet the grip on his hair didn't loosen.

"Dammit, let go of my hair!" he shouted hoarsely, voice strained.

A few agonizing moments passed and it came to Edward's attention that he was no longer pinned to the ground. His arms were still clamped together behind him, but he was sitting upright on the shaded cobblestone street. Whoever had a hold on his hair still hadn't let go or loosed their grip, relentlessly sending volts coursing through his skull. They were also holding his hair up and above his head, so that the weight of his body was being slightly lifted off the ground. Edward's heavy half-automail form was hovering a mere few inches off the street now by only the braided dead protein. It was painful, oh god was it painful, but his hair wasn't showing signs of breaking anytime soon. The braid was acting like a strong rope; each of the thousands of tiny strands working together to uphold flesh and metal alike.

It was awful, and he knew that it would take a long time for either his hair or his scalp to rip. The drug dealers had him in perfect restraint. He couldn't move a muscle; he was in too much pain. He couldn't even see anything because his vision kept blacking out. The blond was slowly coming to the conclusion that help might not even be coming, and that he'd have to get out of this by himself. Somehow.

This had never happened to him before, and nor did it ever occur to him that something like this ever could happen. Back when he first joined the military, he'd been told several times to get a haircut. That long hair wasn't suitable for combat, that it would eventually be the death of him, bla bla bla… Edward himself had never taken it seriously because other military officers paid it to no heed, either. Kimblee's hair never cost him any trouble. And even normal military officers like Mustang, Havoc, and all those guys; theoretically their hair was long enough to be used against them. But not like this.

The blond teen remembered back when he'd first started sparring with Al after his automail recovery. All the time before was spent either glued to a bed or a brief trip to the bathroom with a little bit of assistance from someone, so he couldn't exactly cut his hair. He'd wanted to cut it short again, as it was starting to get annoyingly in his way, but then he realized just how out of place Alphonse felt, being in that hulking suit of armor. A young boy like that didn't deserve the harsh glares and curious stares of strangers that he got whenever he went out in public. No one could even tell how young he actually was until he spoke. He was just too big to look like an average ten-year-old.

Edward had felt guilty that, despite his automail limbs, he looked almost completely normal. He wasn't a soul sealed to a steel, unfeeling prison. He could go out in public and receive very little unwanted attention so long as he wore long sleeves and pants. The teen had also noticed that Winry had been able to go about her daily business with her long hair, given that she put her hair up instead of leaving it down. So, as a gesture of sympathy and apology to his brother, Edward had requested to keep his hair long and a couple rubber bands from Winry. From there on out, he'd started braiding his hair so that a) he didn't look so damn similar to their bastard father, and b) Alphonse wouldn't have to suffer alone. Edward willingly allowed himself to stand out and look different, so that the both of them would get stares instead of just Alphonse.

Now though, that decision was coming back to bite him in the ass.

The drug dealer was still suspending him above the ground. Edward was dangerously close to passing out from the pain, but even if he did pass out the pain would just wake him up again like it had been doing for the past three minutes. Through the blood rushing through his ears, he could hear no trace of help coming. Not even the clanking of Alphonse's armor. He clenched his teeth together, trying to bear the agony a little longer, as said bones threatened to crack under the pressure.

This was getting out of hand. If he didn't do something soon, his scalp was going to rip clean off his skull. Edward couldn't tell what the drug dealers planned on doing to him. So far, they'd only held him here like this without any other form of punishment or restraint. Being suspended by his own hair was enough, he assumed, and absently he was grateful that they seemed to think so as well. He knew he wouldn't be able to take much more. Perhaps they were only there to hold him while their back-up arrived, like he'd planned to do to them.

Finally, after a couple patches of scalp had seemingly gone numb, the blond teen started struggling again. He could feel how far he was from the ground by how his legs were positioned under him. More sound had filtered its way into his ears again. About three sets of footfalls were coming in from his left. It sounded like he was right about the back-up thing. Nonetheless, he didn't give up. He kept struggling and squirming despite how fresh pain coursed through his scalp with every muscle he moved.

"Hey! You actually caught him!" an unfamiliar voice boomed over him.

One of his captors snorted. "Yeah. He tripped and we were able to pin him down. You wouldn't believe how easy it was to keep him restrained. Turns out the little bastard has long hair! And in a braid, no less."

"WHO'RE YOU CALLING SO SMALL HE COULD USE A NOSE HAIR AS A MOUNTAIN-CLIMBING ROPE?!" Edward ranted through the pain.

A few other unfamiliar voices started cracking up at that. Then the first unfamiliar voice started talking again. "Well, in that case we can take him to the boss. He made it very clear that he wanted to deal with this little brat himself."

The sound of chains rattling shocked Edward out of his rage. The sounds were closing in on him, and he could feel through his left arm that whoever was holding his arms had tightened their grip and brought them straight out behind him. The teen desperately searched his mind for a way out, but it yielded no immediate answers. Then the world seemed to stop rotating as time slowed to a crawl.

This drug dealer, whichever one it was, had been holding his hair up like this so he couldn't get away. If not for the constant pain radiating from his scalp to distract him, he might've wrestled his way out of their restraint a long time ago. They were doing it on purpose, and not just to be assholes about it. It was the one thing that was keeping him from escaping. And now he had an even smaller chance of escaping, because their back-up had arrived. The cold metal of chain links connected with Edward's neck, and he made his decision in that slit-second moment.

I'm sorry, Alphonse. He thought, already regretting said decision.

Without another wasted second, he cranked his elbow back and jabbed his captor in what sounded like the stomach, since the guy grunted in pain and loosened his grip on his arms. Then Edward yanked his right arm free, bringing it up and swinging it above himself.

The blond sliced his automail blade, and the last thing he remembered was the feeling of the pressure on his scalp being released.

o.O.0.O.o

Mustang had just been about ready to give up on the kid when he finally spotted a glint of blond hair in the alley on Fourth Street. He rushed forward with his crew steadily keeping up behind him. When they arrived, they were greeted with the sight of one unconscious alchemist and about five equally unconscious drug dealers. Someone behind him rattled their findings and location over a walkie-talkie, signaling that they've found their suspects, and Mustang could almost hear Alphonse's armor sprinting towards them in response. In fact, said Elric sibling appeared around the corner a mere ten seconds after, just as Mustang approached his youngest subordinate.

He didn't appear to have been seriously injured. There were no visibly bleeding wounds, or even any scratches. Just bruises, it looked like. The black-haired man knelt down to check on his condition anyway, just in case, and what he found would forever be engraved into his memory. He pulled back the kid's hood to find a young, sleeping face. The peaceful and surprisingly childish features weren't what he'd remember, though.

It was his hair. Or rather, the lack of it.

o.O.0.O.o

He ran his hand through his newly severed locks. His fingers, it seemed, had not gotten used to the feeling. Nor was he used to the absence of the small pressure on the back of his skull that came with his usual braid. The feeling of it whipping back and forth as he turned his head, the feeling of it lightly scraping against the back of his neck as he walked, the feeling of running his fingers through it after a stressful day: it was all gone.

And he actually missed it. After so many years of styling his hair in that signature braid, he'd grown used to the way he looked and liked it. It became his trademark. It was what made him the Fullmetal Alchemist. Newspapers across Amestris were plastered with pictures and descriptions of the great Hero of the People with long, golden braided hair, black leather clothing, and a red coat with a flamel on the back. Now he was one less trait from what the country envisioned him as. And he hated it.

The worst part about it was Edward had to ask Winry to cut it even more, after the ordeal. He severed the entire braid and the hair at the center of the back of his head was significantly shorter than, say, the hair around the sides of his head. Now he was basically back to square one. His hair was now as long as it had been the night he and his brother performed human transmutation. And it bothered him greatly that he looked starkly familiar to his younger self, especially on that fateful night.

Now he felt terrible every time he looked in the mirror. Not only did he look like his younger self, but he also possessed the result of what happened that night: his automail. Now, when he looked at his reflection, he was reminded of that horrible night all over again along with what had come of it. After a couple of days, Edward had taken down the mirror.

On the bright side, when Edward had reported back to Mustang's office after the incident, Fuery had commented that the new haircut actually made him look a little taller. Havoc and Breda had agreed, and soon the whole office had noticed it, including Edward himself after he stared at himself for a good five minutes. After the five minutes, he couldn't bear to see his reflection anymore; however, he'd exited the bathroom with a new spring in his step. Because they were actually right: with his hair shorter, it actually did make him look taller than before.

It was strange and inexplicable, but Edward accepted it gladly.

One problem still remained, though. Now that his long hair had been severed, his image in the eyes of the people hadn't been adjusted quite yet. Everyone refused to believe him when he stated that he was the famed Fullmetal Alchemist, arguing that the youngest military officer was said to have shoulder-length hair, not spikey short hair. Suddenly he found himself sympathizing with that Russell kid, who, despite his best attempt to imitate him, had been missing one key ingredient: the braid.

So here he was, running his hands through his hair in the same way he did when he was stressed out. The lady sitting before him inside the ticket-vending booth at the train station refused to sell him two tickets west. When he showed her his State Alchemist watch, she just snorted and said,

"How do I know you didn't just steal that watch and dress up like Edward Elric? Give me a break, kid. Now quit holding up the line, before I call your parents!"

Pissed off now, he shouted, "I DON'T HAVE PARENTS! Just give me the damn tickets, lady!"

"Brother, you need to calm down," Alphonse placated.

The lady in the booth sighed and laid her forearm flat against the counter. "Look kid, if you can prove you're the Fullmetal Alchemist I'll sell you the tickets, but if you can't I'm calling security."

Edward made an enraged shriek before shouting, "THE TRAIN LEAVES IN FIVE MINUTES!"

She smirked as she lazily curled her finger around a lock of her hair. "Then I suggest you snap to it. Ya know, rumor has it that the Fullmetal Alchemist has two automail limbs, and that that's why he's called 'Fullmetal'."

He clenched his teeth in irritation. "Are you serious, lady?"

"Oh yes, I'm very serious." she chirped. "Read it in the newspaper and everything."

Edward met Alphonse's red soul-fire gaze. The armor said, "Brother, I think you should just get it over with. We're going to miss the train if we don't hurry."

A couple of people in the line piped up,

"Yeah, come on, kid! You're holding everyone up!"

"My train leaves in three minutes!"

"Get a move on already!"

Finally, with his brother's encouragement, the people's complaints, and the ticket lady's insistence, he gave in. The spikey-haired blond glanced around awkwardly to find about half of the train station watching him curiously. He swallowed apprehensively, bent down, and rolled up his left pant-leg, exposing the shiny metal underneath. The ticket lady and the rest of the train station craned their necks to get a good look at the limb. Edward was thoroughly embarrassed after a few seconds of letting everyone gawk at his leg, his face turning about as red as his coat.

The ticket lady's shocked expression smoothed over and she said, "Now the other limb."

The teen glared at her and ground his teeth, but decidedly complied if only to end this nightmare. He slid off his red coat and draped it over his left arm, allowing everyone a full view of his gleaming right arm. Everyone had crowded around him at this point, and if he was not mistaken, he could've sworn he'd caught a couple of camera flashes out of the corner of his eye. The people that were in line and the ticket lady alike wore baffled expressions as he slipped his jacket back on and rolled his pant-leg down again. A small, slightly embarrassed and apologetic smile spread itself across the ticket vendor's lips as she handed him his tickets.

"S-Sorry for the inconvenience, sir." she'd said.

After that, the two Elric brothers boarded their train and left for their next mission. Needless to say, the next day's front pages were covered with photographs of the updated appearance of the great Fullmetal Alchemist, with short spikey blond hair and the newly confirmed two automail limbs. Winry had even given him a call squealing about how her and Aunt Pinako's automail business was booming now that the signature "R" stamped on his automail had been advertised for all of Amestris to see. Things had actually started to look up again after that.

Until he ran into Envy again, who laughed his ass off when he finally recognized him. It had pissed Edward off beyond measure, and the homunculus walked away from that battle with a new haircut of his own.

o.O.0.O.o

And done! Now I should probably get back to writing my multi-chapter story. I've been putting it off for like, a week now. O.O

I actually don't really know that much about Russell. So in case I got anything about what happened with him wrong or inaccurate by the way I was mentioning him, I'm sorry. I've only watched Brotherhood and I only have a vague idea of what happened with that in the first anime.

Anyway, thanks for reading and see you next time!

Fare thee well, strange people!