Riza Hawkeye

Riza Hawkeye (リザ・ホークアイ ,Riza Hōkai?) is a character from the Fullmetal Alchemist anime and manga series; she acts as Colonel Roy Mustang's second-in-command and personal bodyguard. She currently holds the rank of 1st Lieutenant within the Amestris military.

Character Outline
Riza Hawkeye is Mustang's most trusted subordinate. She carries out many of the tasks he is too lazy to do, acts as his personal assistant, and protects him from danger. She also doubles as his voice of reason, keeping cool in heated situations and scolding him when he allows his emotions to get in the way. Riza and Roy seem to share a close relationship in both adaptions of Fullmetal Alchemist; in the anime she identifies him as her most precious person whereas in the manga she loses her resolve to live when believing he has been killed. Riza specializes in firearms, particularly sniper rifles, and can hit nearly any target with lethal accuracy to the point where she even poses as a dangerous threat to the Homunculi. Her sharpshooting skills garnered her some amount of reputation during the Ishbalan Civil War and earned her the nickname "The Hawk's Eye".

Riza adopts a dog who she names Black Hayate (in both the anime and the manga) and raises him with stern discipline; when Hayate goes to the bathroom inside, she shoots at the wall behind him to reinforce that doing so is bad. However, the two share a strong, loving bond which Hayate displays by fervently defending his master when she's in trouble. Their bond can be seen as a metaphor for all the relationships in Riza's life.

History
Not much is known about Riza's life before the death of her father but it is assumed that she spent most of her early life growing up in the relative solitude of her family's old manor with her father and possibly (during the time of his training) a young Roy Mustang; in chapter 60 of the manga she reveals that her father made sure that she received a proper education. At some point in the years leading up to his death Riza's father collected his life's research, the secret of fire alchemy, into a coded sigil and tattooed it upon his daughter's back; whether or not she was a willing participant in this procedure is currently unknown. During his last words her father entrusted her with the task of determining whether or not Mustang was worthy of inheriting this secret. At his funeral when Roy tells her about his dream of a united, peaceful Amestris she decides to trust him with her father's research as she realizes they share the same dream, asking if she can "entrust my back to it?" Soon after this she follows Roy into the military and, as a result of monumental loses in the field of battle, is shipped out to the front lines in Ishbal before her training is even complete. Here she is reunited with Mustang after saving both he and Maes Hughes from an ambush by a wounded Ishbalan soldier; before learning her identity and relationship to Mustang, Hughes states that she had become "quite a topic among us". Their reunion is bittersweet at best as Roy laments her transformation into a killer and Riza voices their shared torment concerning the life their righteous dream has lead them to:"'Why are soldiers, who ought to protect citizens, killing them instead? Why is alchemy, which ought to bring happiness to the people, being used for murder?'"

Since she bestowed upon Mustang the secrets encoded on her back Riza considers herself to be at fault for all the lives taken through the use of her father's alchemy. When Roy finds her burying an Ishbalan child at the end of the civil war she asks him to help her prevent the birth of another flame alchemist by burning and crushing the tattoo on her back. Mustang vehemently objects at first, but Riza is persistent and pleads with him to destroy her bonds to her father and alchemy so that she may "become Riza Hawkeye as an individual". He reluctantly agrees and burns away only enough so as to make it indistinguishable.

After he is stationed in Central Mustang appoints Hawkeye as his aide and informs her that he will "entrust my back to you" making their original pact come full circle.

Plot Synopsis
While Riza does not extend far past the role of Mustang's subordinate in the anime, she takes on a more central role in the manga. When Mustang begins to learn too much about the Homunculi, Riza is reassigned as King Bradley's assistant, a hostage to be used if Mustang steps out of line. Though she no longer works under Mustang, she still keeps an eye out for ways to make his plans of becoming Führer come true; she discovers that King Bradley's son, Selim Bradley, is a homunculus, and sends her discovery to Mustang by way of a coded conversation.