Episode 4: A Forger's Love (2003 series)

On the way to meet Lt. Col. Roy Mustang, while waiting for the next train they apprehend a thief and learn from a cop about an alchemist named Majhal and ‘murderous zombies’ have been terrorizing the village. Edward expresses his keenness to meet Majhal, because that name frequently appeared in their father's correspondences.

They reach the village, get scared by sudden fireworks and get ‘welcomed’ by the village children (which involves bullying). Majhal arrives and uses alchemy to fix a broken statue leading the Elric brothers to guess who he is. At his house, Majhal seems to know about Al’s soul attachment and thinks Edward has inherited his fathers’ talent for alchemy.

One of the village children, a girl named Claus comes by, forced to apologize to the brothers. There she declares she isn’t sorry and that her sister was killed by a dead girl. After this outburst she runs away, the brothers follow and save her by alchemy when she trips and rolls down a hill. She then explains how at her sisters funeral, she and her father saw the form of a dead girl, Karin. After hearing Ed’s refusal to help she runs away in anger.

At Majhals’ place they hear more about Karin, a woman who died 20 years ago. He explains that she was a florist and had cultivated the rare ‘blue rose’. On her way to deliver blue roses to a town, her horse and carriage fall down the cliff leading people to believe her to be dead. Majhal finds it impossible that a kind person such as Karin would hurt anyone.

Edward finds it all a little suspicious and believes human alchemy at work, and suspects Majhal. While walking through the cemetery they fall into a trap made by Claus and her friends for Karin. Karin’s form appears and Majhal destroys it with fire. Lust is then seen to be observing from the woods, disappointed with Majhals lack of alchemic talent she walks off.

The villagers start celebrating believing Majhal has saved them. Even more suspicious, Edward starts snooping around Majhals house when he remembered that the strange sound he heard last night was the same one he heard inside the house earlier, where he runs into a middle-aged woman, a friend of Majhal, who warns that Majhal would be angry at them for snooping. Due to some alchemy, Ed feels dizzy and falls on a wall which reveals a hidden stairway. He falls to the bottom, notices dolls looking like Karin and blanks out. When Ed comes to, he and Al are bound together in chains where Majhal reveals the dolls to be canvases for ‘Karin’s soul’, some escape and fuel superstition in the village, he explains how he loved Karin and even if he could not have her, at least dolls that resembled her beauty, and hence this mad scheme.

He has kept Ed in chains to learn more about soul-attachment; Claus then arrives, interrupting his speech, to thank him. He knocks her unconscious, and hits his middle-aged-woman friend, and leaves. Upon him leaving, Al breaks the chains and Ed discovers a rare blue rose petal on the woman. The Elric brothers barge in with the woman to see Majhal trying to use alchemy on Claus. Edward tells him that nothing he knows is the truth; Karin never died, she hit her head, lost her memory and started a new life, 20 years later she remembered everything and in a gesture of true love returned to Majhal, who failed to recognize her in her current middle-aged woman state. Edward makes the revelation that Majhals friend, the same woman is Karin. Majhal gets angry; a fight occurs and by accident gets stabbed by his own sword. Even when dying he refuses to acknowledge the truth, fixated by Karin’s youthful beauty, he dies believing himself to be right. A distraught Karin is forced to acknowledge his shallowness. As the brothers leave town, a now more sober and gentle Claus, thanks them.