King Bradley

About King Bradley

King Bradley is the Führer of Amestris, the smiling, folksy face of the military state, and secretly Wrath, the one Homunculus who ages like a human. Raised and engineered for the throne, he wields a sword with superhuman precision guided by his Ultimate Eye. Given a life, a wife and a family, he is the most human of the Homunculi, and one of the most dangerous men alive.

Appearance

Bradley is a distinguished man in his late fifties with swept-back dark hair greying at the temples, a neat moustache and a black eyepatch over his left eye. He wears the Führer's blue uniform with its full weight of rank insignia, and carries a sabre he wields with inhuman precision. Off duty he is famous for escaping his office to wander the grounds in shirtsleeves, greeting soldiers by name. The eyepatch is the one honest thing about his presentation: beneath it sits the Ouroboros-marked Ultimate Eye, which reads an opponent's every move.

Personality

In public Bradley is warmth itself: humorous, approachable, devoted to his wife and adopted son, a ruler who slips his guards to visit the troops. It is not entirely an act, and that is what makes him unsettling: raised to be an instrument, given a life he was allowed to choose almost nothing of, he genuinely values the family that was assigned to him, his wife, he notes, was the one thing he chose. In battle the warmth vanishes. Wrath is cold, precise and utterly without hesitation, the most dangerous swordsman in Amestris, and he knows exactly what he is.

Background & Story

King Bradley was not born to the throne; he was made for it. One of a group of children raised and trained by Father's organisation as candidate vessels for the Homunculus Wrath, he was the one who survived the Philosopher's Stone and kept his sanity: emerging with the Ultimate Eye, a human body that ages, and a new name. Installed as Führer, he has ruled Amestris as the smiling public face of Father's design, commanding the military whose wars draw the country's borders to plan. To the Elric brothers he begins as the distant, jovial head of state who personally encourages their service, which makes every later glimpse of what sits behind the eyepatch far worse.

Powers & Abilities

• The Ultimate Eye: Bradley's covered left eye bears the Ouroboros mark and reads everything in his field of vision (movement, weakness, trajectory) letting him react before an opponent finishes moving.
• Master Swordsmanship: Even without the Eye, Bradley is Amestris's finest swordsman, cutting through soldiers, armour and alchemy alike with superhuman speed and precision.

Key Relationships

• Father: His creator, who raised him from a nameless candidate into Wrath and placed him on the throne. Bradley serves the design, though not without his own quiet reservations about fate.
• Roy Mustang: His ambitious subordinate. Bradley watches Mustang's climb with amusement, well aware of what the colonel wants and content to use him until told otherwise.
• Edward Elric: The young State Alchemist Bradley personally holds on a short leash, using the brothers' friends and rank as quiet leverage.

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