AoT Changes - Chapter Eighteen: "A Z"

= This chapter contains deep graphic imagery of torture, physical violence, injury and cannibalism. =

- Year 853 - The Harbour - Paradise Island

The small boy walked joyously around the street market. He was mesmerised by everything in his sight. Azzy heard a lovely noise and he went looking for its origin, the toddler quickly found it: a giant cage full of very colourful birds. His blue eyes shone brighter as he saw the tiny creatures. Azzy approached, coming closer with a large smile. The boy was very clever for his age, and even a little musical, he liked to hum, just like his mother had taught him.

He hummed with the lovely birds, but he soon realised their singing wasn't happy. The boy looked to the skies and noticed how all those birds were yearning to be there. Azzy could tell they wanted out of that cage, so the toddler swiftly pulled the latch and swung the cage door right open. He stepped to the side and laughed, passing his hands through the countless flying birds; there were birds of all colours, shapes and sizes, it was a beautiful scenery and the boy laughed joyously as he watched them all swiftly fly away.

"I-I am so sorry, sir," the father thoroughly apologised to the man on the stand. "I am truly sorry," he insisted.

Armin couldn't believe it. He had turned for a second and the toddler had already caused some level of mayhem. The father sighed while opening up his wallet to appease the merchant. "How much for all those birds?" Armin asked and the man looked at him sternly, with arms crossed. The father was extremely embarrassed.

Azzy ran towards the open fields, he followed all the birds with his eyes, still mesmerised. The boy watched the skies, admiring the little creatures. His heart filled with joy while hearing the small birds' song. They were signing happily now. Flying high up in the sky.

Chapter Eighteen: "A Z"

The Tree

Part Two: The Past

"How many fingers am I holding up?" Sasha asked Azzy, while hiding her hand behind her back.

"Three," the toddler replied with a large smile.

"Oh! He's good! And now?" She asked again. Azzy tilted his head.

"Two," the boy got it right again.

Sasha was in awe. "Can he read minds too?" she cogitated, analysing the small boy from head to toe, she squinted slightly while crouching with her hands on her knees.

"Sasha, mirror." Jean pointed out, unimpressed, he crossed his arms.

"What?" She asked, raising herself up and looking back confused.

"He is looking at the reflection, we can all see your hand from the shop window," Jean pointed at it again.

Sasha turned herself and looked to the shop window of the store they had just walked out of. "Oh, right, that makes sense," she became a little embarrassed.

"Still, I'm impressed he can count! He is not even two yet." Connie added.

"How old were you when you started counting? Five?" Jean joked.

"Haha," Connie replied ironically and slightly punched Jean's shoulder.

"Just one more," Sasha whispered while feeding the boy and then reaching to hold him up in her arms.

"Mikasa's not gonna like you giving him candy again," Connie pointed out.

"Well, she's not going to know," Sasha justified. "Will you tell her?" She asked the toddler with a funny voice. "Will you tell mummy?"

The boy moved his head negatively and hugged Sasha close, she hugged him tight. "Okay, just one more," she gave the child another tiny candy.

"Sasha," Jean admonished her with arms crossed.

"What?" she complained, while munching on some candies herself.

"He barely got teeth and you're already ruining them," Jean proceeded with his admonishment, and Connie nodded, taking his side.

"You two are no fun," she complained and started to walk away with the small boy in her arms.

The Lighthouse

It was a slow day and the group of friends had decided to spend some time together in the lighthouse. They first finished their duties at the harbour as usual, to then head to the secluded spot. It was customary for them to spend time together in that beautiful fortress.

"Why would you invite him?" Sasha asked her friend, pulling her aside. She seemed a little embarrassed.

"Because I like him and I'm nice enough," Mikasa justified in a small tone. "And he also cooks very well," she reminded her friend with a smile.

They were all around a small picnic setup outside of the house. Niccolo, the Marlean cook, had taken over the fire and was explaining to the boys all kinds of curiosities about how meats and cheeses could be grilled.

Mikasa kept the smile.

"Don't push it," Sasha whispered.

"I'm not pushing anything," Mikasa whispered back. "I honestly just think he's really nice and he's really putting a lot of effort to blend in since he arrived on the island."

Mikasa looked up into the bright skies, it was a lovely afternoon, although slightly cold. The two friends were sitting close together on the sand, a little closer to the bonfires. Closer to the bonfire only for heating, further from the fire for cooking, to where they were looking towards and whispering about. The mother was also watching her toddler like a hawk, to make sure he wouldn't get burned as he ran around the sand, playing with the adults around him.

"And I'm not saying he likes you, of course," Mikasa continued.

"What do you mean?" Sasha asked with some confusion.

"Unless you want me to say that," Mikasa questioned, drinking a little more of her hot chocolate.

"I-I don't know," Sasha stuttered. "I mean I don't know yet. We don't know him that well," she started to show her point.

"We know he cooks well," Mikasa pointed out. "I know that's at the very top of your list," she commented, slightly jokingly. It can be difficult to catch the Ackermanns' dry humour.

"It's not at the very very top," Sasha rebuked and tilted her head, thinking. "I mean it is kind of important but it's not all that matters, I am not that shallow," she defended herself.

"I know, I'm messing with you," Mikasa replied, going for another sip.

"Yes I can tell that," Sasha complained with a smile and stole her mug swiftly, she drank the rest of Mikasa's hot chocolate.

"He's mature and a good influence on the boys, at least that's my view," Mikasa explained more seriously. "These four act like children when they are together, sometimes it's too much," she complained slightly. "I wonder when they'll grow up for good."

"I don't think any level of influence will help with that," Sasha argued. "They've been around the Captain for years."

"That's different, Levi is old," Mikasa pointed out.

"And not here," Sasha noted.

"He comes in and out of this house," Mikasa explained. "But I don't have to invite him every time we all get together. Again, he's old, he doesn't like being around us, if you never noticed-"

"Yeah, that makes sense, we're probably very annoying to him," Sasha considered.

"And I don't have to spend all my free time with him just because we're family," Mikasa became a little more defensive. "Still, terrific babysitter," she added a small praise to her cousin with a smile and eyebrows raised.

"Better than me?" Sasha asked, jokingly.

"Never," Mikasa swiftly replied, giving Sasha a friendly shoulder to shoulder bump as the two friends smiled at each other.

"Spin! Spin!" the small boy shouted with joy.

Jean crossed his arms. "It's your turn to spin him," he told Connie. "I just ate and don't want to get dizzy," Jean justified.

"Alright," Connie agreed and turned to the toddler. "Let's spin!" He said with cheer, holding Azzy's small hands.

"What is 'spin'?" Mikasa shouted from the distance, with some alarm.

"It's fine," Eren raised his hand nonchalantly at the mother.

"They're just going to swirl around, it's harmless," Armin explained, slightly nervous. Mikasa accepted the explanation and went back to her conversation with Sasha.

"The name is self-explanatory really," Eren whispered to Armin with an ironic chuckle and he tilted his head in confirmation.

"Spin!" Eren shouted to them child-like and with a cheer in the air. The boy smiled widely and Connie understood it as a go: they started to spin around to the point the boy's feet left the ground and he felt like he was flying.

It was a fun ride, Azzy felt dizzy but he also felt super excited. They had already stopped and Connie was already engaging in conversation with the others, still holding on to one of the small boy's hands. When Azzy's eyes started to slowly glow a bright blue light.

"Ah, Connie-" Jean was about to say. Eren and Armin had noticed as well.

Connie looked down. "What-" he was about to ask in confusion once Azzy looked up at him with a wide smile and pure fiery bright eyes.

'Connie, let go of him,' Eren thought but he didn't have time to say. Neither of them did. The two disappeared, holding hands, it was the first time ever Azzy took someone with him in a Jump. It had never happened before, no one even knew he could do that.

Eren swiftly took Niccolo to the side and started to ask him random questions, making sure to get his full attention and it worked, he didn't even notice what had happened. While all the others just looked at each other, not knowing what to do. The moment was tense but it only lasted a few seconds. The boy eventually brought his passenger back.

They reappeared again in a flash of blue light, slightly further to where they were but still in the vicinity of the bonfire picnic. Connie immediately dropped to the ground and started to throw up in the sand. He looked sweaty, nervous and miserable.

Azzy was laughing joyously next to him. "This is not funny," Armin admonished him severely as he walked closer to the boy with arms crossed. Azzy continued to laugh, he thought it was hilarious.

"You spun too hard, did ya?" Niccolo finally asked from the distance as he noticed Connie throwing up.

"Or maybe was your grilled cheese," Jean joked with a fake laugh. And the marlean laughed a little as well, he went back to concentrating on the food. Eren walked over after Armin and the friends huddled around Connie.

"Do you want some water or something?" Jean asked with concern. Connie only shook his head negatively.

"You're cold, a little chill to the touch," Eren noticed while holding his shoulder.

Armin brought Azzy closer to him, but he wasn't sure about even touching his own son. He wasn't sure on what to do, he only felt shocked and extremely bad about it.

Connie sat back on the sand and breathed more calmly. "It's alright, don't worry about it," he told the boys.

"Well, how was it?" Eren kneeled in front of him, extremely curious about it. Connie looked up to see Jean and Armin staring at him and back down to see Eren's eyes full of curiosity right in front of him; while the toddler stood a little further away, behind his father's legs. Azzy had his hand in his mouth, he seemed preoccupied, but also curious about what his passenger was about to say.

Connie held his head, he still felt dizzy. He contemplated on it. "When I was there it felt like forever, but it also felt like nothing," he started to explain.

"Where were you?" Eren asked.

"Yeah, where did he take you?" Jean also asked, equally excited.

Armin looked to the side, in some discomfort with this situation and their curiosity.

Connie looked at Eren. "It's that place, like you talked about, with the sand dunes and all the stars in the sky," he explained a little more excitedly. 'I knew it,' Eren thought.

"Well, we are in a place with lots of sand," Jean pointed out, a little sceptically.

"No, this was different," Connie quickly rebuked. "That place feels very odd."

Azzy looked around the adults, trying to understand the conversation and Armin looked down at him, still unsure about holding his own son's hand. He looked at the boy's eyes, noticing Azzy was getting anxious. "How about we go collecting seashells?" the father suggested with a charming smile and Azzy smiled back at him, the boy went running closer to the shore.

"Wait for me!" the father shouted. "I'm sorry," he sincerely apologised to his friend before walking off. "I am genuinely sorry."

"No worries, man. It's cool, he's cool," Connie tried to ease his mind. Armin looked towards the boy running into the waves, contemplative, and walked after him.

"At least you didn't die," Jean joked.

"Don't make this worse," Eren turned to him in complaint.

"What? It's a possibility. What if he came back with only half-a-Connie? We don't really know what this kid can do. We don't know the rules," Jean argued, still with a joking tone. "But we know now, if his eyes are glowing, don't hold his hand," he proceeded with the joke, looking straight at Connie who looked back at him with annoyance.

The two friends continued bickering as Eren turned his concentration to his friend walking away. He watched Armin go out into the shores, also contemplative.

The afternoon went on and they joked around, playing games and eating a lot of good food, like they were used to. The group of friends were having quite a lovely time. Armin and Eren were again near the shoreline, admiring the ocean in that cold afternoon. Eren was still very contemplative, reflective.

Azzy was following a small crab on the beach, wanting to play with it and was even imitating its walk, to his father and his uncle's amusement. "Look!" the boy cheerfully pointed at it, showing it to his father.

"Just don't try to grab it," Armin advised the boy, "he already got pinched before," he told Eren.

"There's never a dull moment with this kid is there?" Eren replied, and laughed a little. He turned to watch the ocean again.

"What? Are you thinking of going for a swim?" Armin asked, jokingly. It was a very cold and late afternoon, the sun was almost going down.

Eren considered it all. "I'm just wondering about the other side, what's beyond all these waters," he confided on his best friend. "Remember how much we would wonder about the ocean?" Eren asked with a small smile.

"I mostly wondered how it was possible to exist all this immensity of water," Armin remembered. "I couldn't imagine it properly but I hoped it was there. I hoped it was all here and it is. And now I'm living here, so near it. That's the dream," Armin smiled. "And I never get over how beautiful it is."

"It certainly is beautiful," Eren concurred.

Armin shrugged slightly. "And it's true, we certainly didn't expect there would be people on the other side," he considered. "We didn't expect a whole world would be out there."

"Evil people," Eren noted, "people who hate us," he let out with small anguish.

Armin tilted his head, considering it. "There's evil people here too. There's evil people anywhere," he argued.

Eren looked towards his nephew and observed him play for a while. Azzy had a handful of small seashells and was still following the small crab. The boy played joyfully around the sand.

"Do you ever worry about him?" the uncle questioned. Eren scratched his head slightly. "I mean I still think it was bold of you two to have a child. Don't you worry what kind of world he's going to grow up in?"

"I don't think about that all that much, at least don't dwell on it," Armin explained. "Sometimes it's good to enjoy life for what it is," he shrugged, with his hands in his pockets. "You know? Concentrate on the good moments, like this." the father argued.

Eren looked to the side, still quiet and reflective. Armin smiled, looking for his eyes. "A good friend once advised me to make good memories with my son," he reminded Eren. "You know, just in case," Armin raised his shoulders slightly. Eren smiled back at him, with his hands on his coat pockets. It was Autumn but it was already a very cold afternoon, especially so near the ocean. The sun was starting to set.

Armin started to look reflective as well, he was cogitating a few things. "And things are so quiet now, life has become a little more mundane, prosaic," the father started to argue. "Unlike all the frantic distress that was a couple of years ago," Armin laughed. "If only we knew on our graduation day, how much our lives would change and how much chaos the next few months would ensue."

"The traitors certainly knew," Eren argued, crossing his arms, "they brought the chaos."

"I know." Armin confirmed. "And we should be glad they didn't take you away," he argued back, "or else you'd just be someone's dinner." Armin raised his eyebrows, "I was the one who ended up having a nice dinner," he joked slightly.

Eren chuckled. "The fact that you can finally joke about it all shows progress," he added to his friend with a nice smile.

"Yes, progress," Armin scratched his head. "True," he also chuckled, a little naively.

The two friends stood there, admiring the waves and the sunset. They turned to watch Azzy playing in the sands, the boy was as joyous as always.

Armin shrugged a little, he decided to confide on his best friend. "And… since things are so calm, we're thinking about having another one…" he trailed off.

Eren laughed out loud.

Armin scratched his head, with small embarrassment. "We're considering it, now that things are so… stable," the father looked for the words, "now that we have this… peace."

"Double the trouble," Eren joked, they smiled and continued to watch the small boy playing in the sands.

Eren turned again towards the ocean, to watch the waves. Considering his friend's notion of 'peace'. "What if it's just the calm before the storm?" he questioned somewhat more philosophically.

Armin smirked slightly. "You don't always need someone to punch, Eren," he advised.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Eren asked back, confused.

"That you're always looking to start a fight, ever since we were kids," Armin added with some frustration, he leaned in closer. "Not everyone needs to be an enemy," he added, somewhat condescendingly.

Eren became angry. "So I should be like you? Hoping to make friends with everybody. So we can all dance around the fire together," he complained with some humour, pointing at their bonfire in the distance.

"Don't start," Armin crossed his arms in admonishment.

"You started it," Eren threw back. "You even invited the Marlean over," he raised his hand in complaint, in the direction of the bonfire once again.

"He's a nice guy, what's wrong with being friends with people?" Armin questioned, angrily.

"You don't have to invite him to our- to your house," Eren argued, maintaining his anger. "He almost saw Azzy jump!"

"So? I'm getting used to the fact that other people will just find out he can do that eventually. Besides, Niccolo knows we're Titans," Armin argued, pointing at the both of them. "What's the big deal?"

Eren rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. "Sometimes you're just too careless."

"Why? Do you think he's a spy? Do you think he'll tell on us to the marlean authorities? You think that of every person who comes to the island," Armin complained with some mockery.

"We just need to be more careful, that's all I'm saying," Eren maintained his argument.

"Well," Armin crossed his arms. "I just think you're getting paranoid," he let out.

"Paranoid?" Eren questioned. "I can't wait for when they invade us with full force. Then let's see who's 'paranoid'," he challenged his best friend.

Armin looked back at his house, his own personal fortress. "If that ever happens I'll be more than ready, and I hope you will be too," he argued with conviction. "But unlike you, I choose to hope that a day like that will never come. Not oddly fantasise and hope for it."

"Fantasise?!" Eren questioned his choice of words once again.

"And there's one more thing," Armin proceeded. "You're clearly not shaping yourself as a good judge of character."

"What?" Eren was baffled, and he was becoming increasingly angry.

"You can't tell that Niccolo is a good and trustworthy person, for instance. You didn't try to befriend anyone who has come to the island so far, on the contrary, you just see them as a threat," Armin argued. "That's just narrow-minded thinking."

"Narrow-minded?" Eren continued to question Armin's choice of words.

"Well instead of opening your mind and yourself a little to new possibilities and new cultures you're just closing yourself off completely; which of course worries us." Armin scratched his head slightly. "And you're not making the best new friendships-"

Eren'd had enough, he interrupted Armin. "Oh, I'm sorry for worrying you with my bad friendships, 'Dad'," he mocked.

"Eren, come on," Armin pleaded. "I'm just saying there's one such thing as patriotism, but hating the outside world is another thing all together, is borderline stupid. It's unnecessary stupidity-"

"Stupid?" Eren questioned, vexed.

"Yes," Armin continued in pure and natural conviction, "these people are idiots. Their entire 'Eldian philosophy' is nonsense, we barely knew we were a nation before. It's just brainless and reactionary-"

"So you're calling me an idiot?" Eren asked.

"I'm not calling you an idiot, I just hope you wouldn't believe in any of that. Do you?" Armin asked back, confused.

"I know what I stand for," Eren affirmed, in a serious tone.

"Do you?" Armin maintained his question, still confused. And became more confused as he watched Eren turn away in anger and start to walk away from him.

"Eren, wait!" Armin shouted as Eren walked back into the lighthouse. 'What did I say wrong?' he thought, naively.

Azzy ran after his uncle, just naturally and purely following a person he adored, like any toddler would. "Stop following me," Eren hissed at the small boy and continued walking. The boy stopped and his father picked him up in his arms. Azzy rested his head on his father's chest, a little saddened and confused. Armin held the boy close, caressing Azzy's hair, and watched his friend go.

The lighthouse stable

"Don't go, the sun is down, there's no need for you to go out into the cold night like that," Mikasa pleaded to her brother, while walking into the stable. Eren was preparing his horse, so he could go.

"I knew you'd show up," he complained in between his teeth while fixing up his saddle. He had already gathered his things to leave.

"I hate when you two fight," she commented brokenly while crossing her arms. Mikasa was miserable and genuinely concerned.

"And we all know whose side you're taking, just like every single other time," Eren complained, still in between his teeth, he was vexed.

"That's not true," his sister countered. "You know I'll always stand by your side, no matter what," she affirmed passionately. Eren just rolled his eyes, 'not you won't, you never do,' he thought. "But I just wish you would tell me what is really going on," Mikasa continued.

"There's nothing going on," Eren responded, "apparently I'm just 'paranoid'," he hissed, gesturing the air quotes. "And an 'idiot'."

Mikasa opened her eyes a little wider and held herself a little closer, thinking of Armin's words, a little disappointed. She knew her husband had a sharp tongue, he'd never been unkind to her, fortunately. But with others, Armin could be very evil with his words, it was one of his main talents.

"You know he has a big mouth," Mikasa tried to justify. "He's always been like this. Armin always goes too far with his words without even realising it. But once I explain to him how he hurt you, you know he will immediately apologise," she argued.

"He didn't hurt me," Eren hissed back, while taking his horse out of the stable.

"Then why are you leaving?" She asked with a cold stare and arms crossed. Mikasa squinted a little.

"Because I want to go," Eren turned towards her with an ironic smile.

Mikasa thought about her next argument. She continued to plead. "I know it wasn't about Niccolo being a marlean. That's not the reason you were bothered by him being here, even though Armin thinks it," she proceeded with conviction, slowly walking in closer.

"It's because he's not in our friend group. I know it takes you a while to get used to new people. Back in training, it took ages for you to befriend others beyond Armin," Mikasa shrugged. "And half of your new friends betrayed you, so it's understandable that you closed yourself off again," she took a deeper breath. "I know you're still hurting with that betrayal," Mikasa looked at him with motherly, loving eyes, concerned. She tried to reach for his hand but he moved away again.

"Stop talking like you know everything about me," Eren complained, looking high up. He was still very angry.

"Well, I'd like to hope that I know everything about you, or almost everything," Mikasa conceded. "You're my brother, Eren," she reminded him softly, "we've known each other a long time."

"I'm not really your brother and you certainly don't know me, you never did," Eren declared sternly, hissing at his sister.

Mikasa sighed, sadly. "I know you are very lost right now and I'd hope you wouldn't go out like that into the night," she pleaded once more, brokenheartedly.

"Again, you don't know me, and I'm not lost," he maintained while climbing on his horse.

"Please don't leave," Mikasa insisted, very saddened.

"Just leave me alone," he maintained, leaving the stable.

"Eren, please! Don't go!" Mikasa shouted from the stable door, extremely concerned for him.

"Leave me alone!" He shouted back, galloping away. "I'd rather be on my own," he added under his breath.

Mikasa watched her brother go, she was in deep anguish and worry as he rode fast in the sand and under the moonlight.

[Still 853] Shiganshina

"It's 3 am," Armin commented from his horse, looking at his pocket watch. He climbed down, walking into the garden.

Eren looked back, "eergh, I knew you were following me," he complained, scratching his hair.

"I didn't follow you exactly, you were too far gone for me to even track. But I knew you would come here," Armin replied.

Eren had gone to the remains of the Yeager House, in Shiganshina. When the city started to be rebuilt, the three friends had cleaned the area and had decided to make it a beautiful memorial garden. It had been Mikasa's idea, she knew their mother would have loved it. The place was now filled with many beautiful flowers.

Armin stopped and put his hands on his hips, more comically. "I'm sorry I called you an idiot, and paranoid," he apologised, underneath the bright moonlight.

"Is that what she told you to say?" Eren complained, unimpressed, he squinted a little.

"Oh, I haven't heard the end of that, believe me," Armin complained back, still with his hands on his hips. "I don't think I ever will."

"Good," Eren replied, with a small smile.

Armin started to walk further into the small garden. "Now I remember calling you paranoid, I don't think I called you an idiot," he argued while sitting on the grass, beside his friend.

"Do you really want to do this again?" Eren complained with some humour as Armin sat down. He looked up to the moon. "How did you know I would be here?" Eren asked, more curious.

"Home," Armin noted, and explained. "When you were talking about Niccolo you called the lighthouse our house, but then you corrected yourself, and said it was only my house."

Eren looked down, reflective.

"See, I was listening," Armin added more softly. He looked around the garden, the beautiful flowers were illuminated only by the moonlight and they danced around the wind. "You know the reason why we made this place to be only a garden, right?" Armin asked.

Eren shrugged, a little childlike. "You two didn't want me to rebuild the house," he replied softly.

"And be alone in it," Armin confirmed. "We wanted you to stay with us."

Eren scratched his head, slightly annoyed. "But I can't just live with you, or just in the barracks- I-I don't want to. I only have a few more years left and I don't know-"

"And you don't know where your home is," Armin concluded, he knew his friend well.

Eren sighed with some frustration. "Not only that," he looked to the side, holding his knees close. "My time is running out and I still don't know what to do. I haven't found my purpose and I don't want to leave this Earth without leaving behind an impact. I know I have a role to play somehow," Eren tried to explain, pouring his heart out.

Armin smiled at him. "Eren you have done a lot already in this life. You protect the island daily and you saved us countless times. You saved countless people. What are you even going on about?" he laughed a little.

"It's not enough," Eren remarked, under his breath.

"Maybe you're just overwhelmed and out of focus," Armin considered.

"Out of focus?" Eren asked, he didn't understand.

"Well, for instance, what is your main goal in life?" Armin questioned.

"To protect the island, to protect our people," Eren declared.

"Alright, you're already doing that. We're doing that, together. So what's missing?" Armin proceeded with the questioning.

Eren looked inward, "I suppose I also want to leave my mark, as I said, but I don't think that's what's missing," he confessed. "I don't know what is missing."

"Why are you here?" Armin insisted.

Eren looked around the garden and held his head, unsure. "I don't know," he insisted, confused.

Armin considered a few things. 'It's not enough,' Eren's whisper was still swirling around his head. He thought about his friend's reasoning. "You know how you like to say how if it wasn't for me, the Survey Corps would've never gotten to where they did. How if it wasn't for me, things wouldn't have happened as they did. And we would never have gotten as far as we did, and arrived back here, at the basement?" Armin questioned.

"I say it, because it's the truth," Eren affirmed.

And Armin shook his head. "It's not true, not entirely," he pointed out.

"If it weren't for your crazy plans, for your actions, your clever decisions, things would have been very different. We would have lost this war ages ago," Eren insisted.

"Not really," Armin maintained. He leaned closer to his friend. "My plans are nothing without you, Eren," he told him with a smile. "Without you, we would have lost this war ages ago," Armin declared.

Armin looked around the garden as he could tell Eren was reflecting on his words. "And I think you already knew that but you are too humble to allow yourself to view your own in that perspective. And there's more, I think you also feel guilty."

"Guilty?" Eren looked up at him, confused.

"Well," Armin passed his hands through his own hair, thoughtfully. "There are two reasons why the armies of the outside world want to invade and destroy our island. First, the obvious one: vengeance. They think we deserve it for what the Eldian Empire did to the rest of the world in the past centuries, which is broken logic. We don't deserve to pay for the sins of our ancestors, that's just bonkers," Armin proceeded to expertly explain.

"Second and the more tactical reason: they want to use the power of the Titans for themselves. To do what the Eldian Empire did, to be what they were. And they already have a lot of power in that regard, with other Shifters and the atrocious use of Pure Titans," Armin proceeded. "But they would be infinitely more powerful if they could harvest the Founding Titan Power, that's the dream of any wannabe empire out there," Armin giggled but then proceeded more seriously.

"I think you feel guilty, because deep down you know they only invaded us to get to you, and they will probably keep trying to invade us constantly," Armin looked around the city of Shiganshina and sighed. "And I don't think you should feel guilty, but you're a good person and you just naturally do. Because so many people have already died and countless more could die, just because you're among us, on this island, alive and breathing."

Eren sighed. "The least I could do is protect them," he let out, timidly. Eren decided to divulge a little more. "I have this nightmare, it never goes away, in which the Island is completely destroyed; burned down to the ground by our enemies and eventually engulfed into the ocean," he confessed brokenly. "I hoped I could forget it but it always comes into my mind, and sometimes it feels like it's driving me insane."

Armin looked at him worried. "That's why we don't want you to be alone, Eren, you know you'll always have our support. Why haven't you told me this before?"

"Well, I'm telling you now," Eren justified. "Do you ever have nightmares like that?"

"Not exactly," Armin lied, his nightmares were filled with Armin Tybur's haunting memories, but he didn't feel the need to burden his friend with that. He passed his hand through his head, thoughtfully again. He decided to divulge a different type of Titan Dream.

"When Mikasa was pregnant, we both would dream with Azzy, future memories in different instances of his life," the father became saddened. "She claims she dreamt with him already as an adult, multiple times. She wouldn't remember much of the dreams of course, neither of us did. But she still made small sketches, saying she could tell how he looked like her dad," Armin added with some jealousy.

"Mikasa could just be dreaming of her dad," Eren argued.

"No, she is sure about it, you know how different Titan Dreams are," Armin argued back. He held his head with one hand, miserably.

"So you think that means…" Eren trailed off.

"That I'll be dead before he's twelve, that's why I can't see further like she can," Armin confirmed. "I hate this stupid curse," he let out in anger and frustration. "I still wish I'm wrong and just overthinking it, I wish it isn't real."

Eren gave him a half-smile, reflective. "It would be nice if we could grow old together, but I don't want to wish for it too much," he let out.

"I just wish this island can be left in peace," Armin also let out, with small hope. He sighed. "So are you coming back to the lighthouse, or are you staying in the barracks, or…?" he asked his friend, Armin scratched his head. "I need to send a telegram to Mikasa to confirm you weren't murdered on the road or anything," he added.

"Like I would," he rolled his eyes. Eren sighed and stretched a little. "I think we're both staying in the compound, there's no point in leaving Shiganshina at 3 am," he argued.

That hadn't been Armin's question however, he expected Eren would have finally made a more permanent decision, but Eren was clearly only thinking of where to sleep that one night, not about where his permanent home should be. He could tell his friend was still a little lost and unsure of his life. Armin became more curious, he thought of a way to get Eren to where he needed.

"Can we play a game?" Armin asked.

"A game? Armin, it's 3 am, we both rode from shore to Shiganshina. I'm beat," Eren argued, stretching again.

"It's just simple word association," Armin started to explain with an intrigued smile, "just like I asked what was your life goal and you immediately said it was to protect the island. It didn't require too much thought, you just knew it."

"Where are you getting at?" Eren scratched his head with confusion.

"Simple: I'll say a word and you tell me what is the first thing that comes into your mind," Armin suggested. They both started to finally stand up from the grass, Eren wasn't as excited as Armin was.

"Alright," he replied, nonchalantly.

"Home," Armin said.

Eren immediately turned his head down, red with embarrassment. Armin kept looking for his eyes, trying to decipher what his friend had thought about. Eren was red as a tomato with his sudden realisation.

"Did you think about her?" Armin asked, a little cheekily.

Eren grunted and started to walk towards the horses. "I forgot how obnoxious and hyperactive you can get at 3 am," he complained.

"Come on, that's not the game, you need to tell me what you thought," Armin complained while following him.

"Please, just stop." Eren told him off. "I just want to get to the compound and get some sleep," he added.

"That means she's your home," Armin insisted with a smile.

"You are so romantic," Eren replied, sarcastically.

"Okay, another word: Future," Armin suggested, and Eren looked up, red in the face again.

Armin smiled. "Did you think about her again?" he asked in a whisper. Eren nodded, extremely timidly, while holding on to the leashes. They started to walk with their horses by their sides.

"That means deep down you genuinely believe she's your home and your future," Armin concluded with a sweet smile. "It's a fun game isn't it?"

"It doesn't count," Eren argued. "I was already thinking of her before."

"How much do you think about her?" Armin asked, cleverly.

"Maybe a little too much," Eren confessed and sighed. "I can't believe I'm telling you this," he added, regretting it.

Armin smiled. "I missed our talks like that, it's been a while," he added and they both smiled at each other, and kept walking. "You should tell her how you feel," Armin advised, sincerely.

"It's not that simple," Eren replied. "I'm not right for her, besides, you said I was searching for home, and I came here. To Shiganshina, to my old house, not after her," he argued.

"Mitras is pretty far," Armin argued back, "something tells me you were just being nostalgic in coming back here. But you thought of her as your home," Armin cleverly pointed at Eren's chest. "You thought of Historia, that's what is important."

Eren became silent and reflective, and Armin continued. "And what's this about you not being right for her? You two are perfect for each other."

Armin looked for Eren's eyes, his friend was very contemplative. "Armin, I only have five years left, I can't do that to her," he revealed with some anguish.

"Let her decide that," Armin maintained. "Tell her how you feel and let her decide. She knows about the curse."

"It's not worth it," Eren disclosed. "I'll just embarrass myself in front of the sovereign, I know I'm already a joke between her courtiers."

"Come on, Eren, that's just in your head," Armin argued back. "You're just creating excuses, everyone knows she likes you back. We can all tell."

"How can you tell?" Eren asked, unconvinced.

"Because we're not blind, we all have eyes," Armin replied. "Just let her know how you feel. Trust me. Tell her you want her to be your home and your future. And to hell with the courtiers," he laughed.

Eren became red again, considering it, he eventually let out a small smile.

Armin smiled back at him. "Maybe she's the thing that is missing. The hole in your life to fill," he added.

Eren kept silent, but he wondered about it, the thought of Historia gave him peace inside, and relief to his troubled mind. He smiled, still timidly.

Armin continued. "Eren, we all just want you to be happy, maybe you two can make each other happy. What harm could come of that?"

≃2000 years ago

[ The birth of the Original Titan ]

- Signe

The small girl was absolutely lost, in a completely different world. A different reality, Ymir had been a princess before, heir to a beautiful island, her paradise. But all that seemed so far to her now, she almost forgot it. Her past felt almost like a dream now, a long lost dream.

Ymir ran around that forest for almost two weeks, the eldian people in the village near started to tell scary stories about some lost child in those woods. All to scare the village children. But the screams were real. The lost princess cried for her mother, she cried a lot. The tiny girl had almost no voice by the time she was found.

Not that it would matter, for Ymir would immediately be sold into slavery, as it was customary for foreigners and unclaimed children, like her. And eldians didn't believe slaves had any use for their tongues, it just made them unnecessarily argumentative. At the age of only four, the eldian heir herself became a mute slave, and was placed in the market.

It all felt like a nightmare for the small child, she didn't understand what was happening. She cried for her parents, she cried only very quietly now, to avoid admonishment. Ymir thought of the monsters in her imagination, the things she thought she could see late at night in the darkness of her bedroom. And how she would run fast through the palace, at night; she would run to her parents aid. She now cried for her father to send these monsters away too.

'I will never let anything hurt you. Never,' she remembered her father promising her, and her parents embracing her. The small girl missed their warmth more than anything.

Ymir could also remember her brother, her twin. The only true companion she'd had so far in her short life. The small girl sighed, she was miserable. All of her family, the palace, the gardens, the people and the island; all she knew her whole life felt so distant now, she felt defeated. Ymir could still feel the taste of blood every time she swallowed. Old, noxious blood from the not completely healed wound in her mouth. They had cut her tongue.

This poor little girl had been through a lot in a month only. First she had become extremely emaciated while lost in the woods. And she was not given nearly enough food to compensate for it while in the slave market. Even with what she was given Ymir had trouble with, she couldn't keep much of the food down, for the awful taste of old blood in her mouth made her nauseous and the wound in her mouth was still painful. She was scared, this nightmare wouldn't end, she felt so weak and so powerless, hurt. The girl had no escape.

All these people felt like monsters to her, they were odd, brute, uncivilised. They treated her and the other slaves as they were nothing, worse than nothing. The eldians were extremely unkind and inhumane, Ymir was sure they were just monsters, demons in disguise, they couldn't be human.

She also couldn't understand them, they spoke something familiar to her, but she couldn't make out the words properly. It felt more like they were grunting than enunciating and her failure to understand simple commands resulted in many beatings.

Ymir not only had to smell the blood of her never fully healed mouth. Eldians were infamously known for being cannibals, and they were constantly eating their fallen enemies in rituals. The little girl could also smell blood in the awful breath of the eldians around her, which left Ymir in a perpetual state of nausea.

The soldiers had come back from a small but successful campaign to secure some of their borders. Signe walked around the market, looking for goods before returning to his small farm. The tiny and extremely thin girl was on display at the slave corner, like she had been every day for the past week. No one had interest to buy such a small and weak human, who clearly couldn't do any hard labour, even if on sale.

"Why is this one here? She's just a child," the soldier asked the vendor. Children weren't common in the market, especially the weak or the ones too small. Not because Eldians were kind, but because those weak children weren't worth much.

The man grunted. "That's the one they found in the woods," he explained.

"Where are her parents?" Signe asked.

"Don't know, don't care," the vendor callously replied. "Wanna buy her?"

"If she was found in the woods surely she must be from a village nearby, did you look?" the soldier insisted.

"It's been a month, no one claimed her," the vendor argued. "Do you want to buy her or not? I can make you a good price," he offered.

The vendor wanted to get rid of the girl quickly, before she died - or just in case.

Signe looked towards the tiny, emaciated child. The girl was looking down to the ground, miserable. "I'll take her home," the soldier announced to the vendor.

"Come on," Signe said softly, he offered his hand with a sweet smile. The man could see the child was broken.

Ymir looked up, it was the first time a human had shown compassion towards her, since she'd arrived in that cursed land.

"Go, go with him," the vendor carelessly ushered the tiny girl out of the slave corner, while counting his new sack of gold coins.

Ymir reached out and held the soldier's hand. Signe could feel her bones, and he felt extremely upset, he couldn't imagine what this little girl had gone through.

They walked hand-in-hand around the market, the girl was wearing rags and was barefoot. Signe raised her up and sat the four-year-old in his cart. "First we need to get you some shoes, and clothes, then we head home," he told the girl in a fatherly tone. Ymir couldn't understand what he was saying, as she still didn't know the language. But she could tell he was being kind to her, something she hadn't experienced in a while. The girl finally started to feel safe again.

Ymir grew up happily in that tiny farm. They had no animals for the lonely soldier was always out on campaigns and couldn't care for those, so he'd gotten used to only grow plants instead. And Ymir loved taking care of the crops, she loved the fields and the open bright skies. They had a good life. Signe and Ymir had to quickly figure out a form of sign language, he would always talk of course, but the mute girl could only respond with signs.

Signe was a childless and widowed man. After many unsuccessful tries, his wife and only full-term baby so far died together during childbirth. The broken man never thought he would have happiness again in his life after the tragedy. So he focused on his job as a soldier instead, for those battles were easier to fight. But after two decades or so of mourning, he saw that little girl in that market. She was broken and alone, just like he was, she needed help and he wanted to help her.

He taught her about the crops and about the land. He taught her how to cook food and bake bread and cakes, baking bread was Ymir's favourite activity. Even if she couldn't speak, Signe still taught her the eldian language with care. So she could understand others and respond accordingly. He even taught her the marlean language, and a few eastern words he had picked up in his travels. Signe loved to talk and to tell the girl many stories and she loved to listen, and sign back to him with joy.

After the girl was nine, Signe decided to go back to the army. Five years had passed and the soldier had taught his daughter a lot. Ymir had developed quickly and had shown him to be an extremely intelligent and clever girl. He felt she could take care of herself and of the crops while he was away. The soldier then started to teach her how to defend herself. He trained her on how to be always on alert and he also instructed her to hide in the basement in case of intruders. Good skills that Ymir never needed to use, to his relief, for their tiny farm was very remote and didn't have much goods to steal. Still, Ymir was always prepared.

"If you need anything, there's always the neighbours." As always, Signe advised Ymir before he left for yet another campaign.

Ymir was thirteen now. She had grown quite a lot in those past four years and she didn't care for that particular advice very much. 'I can take care of myself,' she thought, but she just signed happily and gave him a goodbye hug.

Signe left and the teenage girl watched him go, waving and smiling at him from the distance. The soldier then sped up on his white horse once he left the gates of the tiny farm.

At this point Ymir was very much used to staying by herself. She enjoyed the extra freedom and she'd rather be alone than deal with those 'neighbours'.

Although Signe always told her to go to that neighbouring farm if she ever found herself in trouble, Ymir actively avoided those brutes. Their countless devilish children had the pesky habit of throwing rocks at her whenever she was tending to the crops closer to their fence.

The nasty children would laugh at her while throwing the rocks and yell loudly that she was just a dirty slave. They deeply taunted her.

'I'm a slave?!' Ymir thought while watering the crops and hoping those rocks wouldn't hurt the saplings. 'Do you even know why your parents have so many of you little demons? Slaves are expensive. They are actually getting hard labour for free.' she laughed to herself, quite joyously; which just added to the notion of mad those brute neighbours had of her. The children ran off scared, and Ymir laughed even harder. She was getting older, smarter and more confident, she was tired of their bullying.

'We are thirteen now,' Ymir thought as she entered the small farmhouse. She walked towards the mirror and looked at herself, at her full image. Ymir sighed. 'I wonder where you are now. I think about you every day, you know?' She mouthed the words, even though she couldn't speak.

She looked through the window, to the endless fields outside. 'Do you remember how Mama would tell us about the farm and how she grew up? She made it all sound so magical.' Ymir wondered back. 'I am on a farm now, and I quite like it,' she smiled. 'And you are probably still in the Palace,' the teenage girl sighed again. 'I can barely remember that place, I can barely remember anything from Paradise. I hope I won't ever forget what Papa and Mama and you looked like.'

Ymir looked deeper into her reflection in that mirror. 'I just hope you're alright,' she wished of her twin. Her eyes shone a purple energy for a split second.

'I just hope you're alright,' the teenage boy could hear it deep in his subconscious. Exactly two thousand years in the future, to the second. His eyes slightly shone a purple energy in that moment.

"Yes, I'm alright," Ezra replied, out loud, sounding a little miserable. He sighed.

"I'm sorry, dear?" his mother inquired from her table.

"I'm sorry, mother, what did you say?" the prince asked, confused.

Ezra thought he had misheard his mother, for the voice in his subconscious was similar to hers.

"I did not speak, darling." Queen Historia maintained. "But for what it's worth, you don't really seem quite 'alright,'" the mother pointed out, looking over from her endless stack of State papers.

The thirteen-year-old looked a bit saddened and distant. He sat on the sofa, near his mother, with one hand holding his face. Ezra looked miserable and tired. The teenager sighed.

"I know the trip wasn't exactly a success," Historia proceeded.

"Success?" The teenager questioned. Ezra looked towards the unhealed scar in his palm.

His mother was already very much aware of the fight he'd had with his father in the remains of the old crystal cave. The two of them had just come back from their trip to the Reiss lands. He didn't want to bring it all up again, as he was tired of all the bickering with his old man. Ezra was maturing.

He reflected on it. "I suppose it was successful in one thing," Ezra noted. "It made me realise we are supposed to be what we are, not what others expect us to be."

Queen Historia smiled. "How philosophical, dear," she noted. Historia tilted her head. "You are becoming very wise," she complimented her boy.

Ezra stared at the scar a while longer, passing his other hand through it. The boy sighed again, he stood up. The prince came over and kissed his mother on the cheek. "I'll withdraw to my quarters now," he told his mother.

"Are you tired? It's quite early," she noted to her son.

Ezra scratched his head. "I am. I'm a little tired," he replied. That wasn't entirely true, the boy just preferred to be on his own after all that ordeal. He was also avoiding his father who he expected to be lurking somewhere near at that hour.

"I hope you're not coming down with anything," the Queen added and he just gave her a half-smile before leaving the room.

Ezra was deeply confident he had won that war. He carried that scar with pride. The prince firmly believed he wasn't cursed, therefore he concluded he could never be. The thirteen-year-old walked joyously and confidently around the palace. But he was deeply mistaken. Sheer willpower alone could never contain the titanic otherworldly power within him. And in only a few days the prince would be proven wrong. Wrong to the extreme.

In only a few days, but also exactly two thousand years prior Ymir had set up for yet another mundane day's work.

After walking a long way into the plantation the girl saw her hideous neighbour herding his cows out of Signe's land. The small girl was outraged. By the time Ymir reached the area, the herd had completely wrecked that section and was already across the low fence. The hideous man thought nothing of it, as he knew Signe was away in the war and his tiny slave was too weak and small to defend herself.

The man met with his equally hideous wife and they continued to herd their cattle into their land. Ymir gave the pair an angry and dirty look, as she stood on the other side of the fence.

"You should tell your master to build higher and better fences once he comes back," the awful woman challenged her. "We don't want to lose our precious cattle for some weeds," the neighbour added in scorn. They acted as if it all had been Ymir's fault.

"He probably has no money for that," the man argued and laughed. "With this tiny land; one would expect to earn more in the Army," he added with hands on his hips.

The couple believed Signe to be extremely poor, because he barely had land to farm. But they were very wrong, the veteran soldier owned a lot more land than they did. Only he rented the majority of his fields for others to farm since he was not physically able to farm it all himself.

"I heard he spends all on whores and liquor," the woman added with disdain, "still, he will have to pay for any cattle of ours that runs off, these fences are ridiculous." She complained.

'Your fence, your problem. My herd doesn't have legs.' Ymir thought. 'You should be the ones to stop those brainless things from eating my crops,' she also thought, but the girl couldn't sign any of those words at them as she knew they wouldn't understand her. Ymir just maintained her angry stare.

"Whores, huh?" The man gave the small teenage girl an odd and malicious look while adding to his wife's ugly and unnecessary comment: "He probably spent the last of his gold in buying a whore he could grow for himself." The man laughed.

That was an awful and evil suggestion, but Ymir only maintained a stoic look as she watched them walk further into their land. The girl was plotting.

Ymir had been scared of crossing over that fence ever since she had been a small child. For not long after she had moved into Signe's farm, she had been accused of stealing a small piglet from those horrible neighbours. It all gave her father quite the trouble and his relationship with those annoying neighbours just soured even more. But that gave her an idea.

The lost princess could see the sty in the distance, she knew those pigs were all mostly grown and set for slaughter.

'You are all so fat,' Ymir thought. 'Maybe I should deliver these little ones, they will be happier in nature rather than in those disgusting bellies.'

She crossed the low fence.

Ymir waited patiently until the family was inside the house, setting things for their lunch. She freed the pigs from the sty and chased them all the way to the woods, making sure those annoying humans wouldn't be able to retrieve them.

The family was appalled as they watched it all from the distance, from their farmhouse windows as they were setting things for their lunch. "Get her!" the hideous woman exclaimed. They ran outside, the entire family. Those annoying humans chased after that dirty slave child.

"Go after those pigs, boys!" the man shouted to his countless sons as they reached the small slave, Ymir had nowhere to run.

The hideous man held the teenage girl by the ear. "You are going to pay for all that," he threatened, quite angrily. The woman crossed her arms. "Let's take her to the village," she proposed.

- The boy

"Don't you have anything to say for yourself?" Fritz asked the girl.

Ymir didn't have much to say, even if she could. After all those years in that nightmarish environment, she'd gotten used to not thinking much. Her mute state and all the trauma she had suffered made her mind stagnate. She lived in a state of wonder, and sadness, as if she was still a young child. The girl felt very lost.

One of the Chief's advisers leaned over to his ear to explain that the girl being questioned was a mute slave.

"Oh, I see," Fritz said while scratching his chin. He wanted to know what motivated the young girl to set their entire month of food supply free into the woods.

"Meat is a very delicious provision, my dear. Pig flesh is extremely tasty, almost as good as human flesh." The old wicked man laughed. "Were you upset and vengeful because your owners didn't give you any? Is that why you set the pigs free?" he asked.

Ymir didn't respond. She didn't even engage with the old Chief. The girl just stayed there, kneeling, looking down at the ground. Ymir was staring at a group of ants, in line, carrying their food, and thinking how small they all were and yet how those small creatures had an organised society. How they lived in peace and order, following and serving their queen.

"Or maybe you were looking for the glory of the chase," the wicked man presumed. Ymir looked up at him, confused, and Fritz laughed.

"You are my kind of girl then. Pigs are animals set for slaughter; they die depressed, and you can taste it in the flavour. Chasing wild boars at the height of their survival energy, or killing a glorious warrior at the height of battle always makes for a better, much juicier meal," Fritz said with a wicked look on his face. He was bored; maybe he finally had an opportunity to make this afternoon more interesting.

The Chief held his chin with one hand and thought for a moment, then he leaned over to his best warrior:

"What do you think, Lud? Are your boys ready for some hunting? I believe we will eat well tonight. We have good game," he told his right hand man.

"Always ready to serve you, Chief." Lud gave Fritz an evil smile and adjusted his best sword.

The poor innocent girl understood who was the game in question: it was her. Ymir started running. She ran towards the open forest.

"I told you we have good game. She's fast." Fritz laughed. "Get the horses," he ordered.

-.-

She was racing through the woods, running up the forest. Running as fast as she could, further and further away from the village. She was panting, her heart was racing, it was almost beating out of her chest. But she couldn't stop: she could hear the voices, the laughs. They were getting closer. She was bleeding; those wicked men had been shooting arrows at her. She was desperate, but she would not give up. The girl wanted to live, she was a survivor. The pain in her shoulder and in her leg, it was too strong - she'd been pierced by two arrows and the blood was streaming down fast.

The girl lost her balance and fell to the ground. Her mind was as if in a trance, barely awake. Ymir finally saw a place to hide; for some reason, she felt that giant tree was there just to help her, to protect her. The girl walked slowly in its direction, like it was calling her. She would finally be home. It was waiting for her. As she walked, her blood stained the flowers below her.

The tree was giant, and it felt out of place in that forest. The innocent wounded girl walked into it. The hole in the tree was much taller than the girl, showing just how ancient that wooden cave was. Ymir looked down the hole; she couldn't see anything, there was no light in there. She was disappointed, she couldn't hide in that, but it was still calling for her, like an evil spell. The girl was smart enough not to throw herself into a sinister black hole. She didn't know how deep it was, or what laid down there.

Unfortunately, she wasn't careful enough. She didn't notice the dirt giving way under her feet. Ymir fell down the hole, and hit the water at the bottom. The poor innocent girl could feel her life leaving her; she was fading, drowning.

Sinking deeper and deeper into the water.

-.-

There was a thunderous noise that could be heard all over that area and beyond. A giant explosion, an inexplicable explosion arising from the heart of the forest.

The villagers were in awe as they saw it in the distance. It was like the forest had given birth to a monster.

-.-

"All you need to know is this: save the girl. That is all that matters."

Nine years earlier, the boy arrived in that very spot. He was coming from the future, a very dark and broken future. 'All that matters,' Azzy thought of the good witch's words. He knew the girl he had to save, but where would he find her?

Azymondeus startled. The fifteen-year-old could see the small princess running around the woods. The tiny girl was chasing after a tiny piglet, looking very cheerful. The sight frightened the teenager, Ymir looked the same as when they were little children, when he had seen those bright green eyes for the last time. Azzy felt a chill running up and down his spine. He turned behind him to see that ancient giant tree: it was the same as the one in the crystal dimension.

"You nasty, nasty thing, you're here too?" The time traveller questioned, walking closer to the cursed portal.

Azzy passed his hands closer to the force field and it gave out electric sparkles, shocking his hand, reminding he wasn't welcome. "I guess you and I don't go together, do we?" He noted. Azzy looked up to the tree's peak and down to its dark cave, analysing it.

"I wonder what would happen if she fell through this thing once again. Would she go back to that dimension and I could grab her there or would she fall further into the past?" Az wondered it, he gently walked backwards. He kept slowly walking backwards and thinking about it when a very small thing ran into his black boots. Azzy turned to look.

The tiny piglet had stopped and the tiny girl stopped too. Ymir noticed that the barrier stopping the piglet was a pair of boots, a kind of boots that she hadn't seen in that place, but she had seen before. She looked up to see a person dressed in modern attire, akin to what she would expect to have seen in Paradise. Ymir froze.

Azzy reached down to hold the piglet, while smiling at the small child.

"Is it yours?" the teenager asked. "He is very cute." Azzy held the piglet in his arms and caressed the poor, frightened animal.

Ymir was stunned; she had no response.

"What did you name it?" the boy asked. Az was trying to start a conversation, but it was fruitless; the only reaction the girl had was to run, and she ran. Ymir ran away from him fast.

Azzy just stood there, next to the old tree, caressing the small pig, contemplative.

He tilted his head and brought the piglet closer to him. "She does like to run, doesn't she?" he commented. Az put the small thing down again and tried to follow Ymir with his eyes.

The four-year-old was quite fast. He was fearful that he would lose her trail, so the boy naturally did what he was born to do: he Jumped.

Az reappeared on top of one of the trees further into the direction the girl had been running, he was just trying to get a better look. But the girl was nowhere to be seen, and Azzy found that odd. He looked back down to see the ancient tree there, but the pig had also vanished.

After inspecting better that environment, something started to daunt on the boy. Some of that forest seemed much different than what he remembered from seconds before. A lot of the more recognisable trees were much taller and some were just stumps. He became fearful.

"No! Did I jump in time again?!" Azzy realised. "It can't be! When am I now?" he questioned to himself. "I can't believe I did this again!" the teenage boy let out in frustration. The good witch had trusted him to fix things, and he had botched it all in only a few seconds. He felt himself to be so careless. Azzy was immediately frustrated.

But it hadn't been his fault, not this time. His otherworldly energy was synced to that cursed portal the moment he arrived in that time. And once he jumped, his energy followed the ancient tree's energy. The portal was linked to the girl and it could hear Ymir calling for help - nine years later; so the tree followed her there and Azzy was dragged to it too. But still, this all could have been avoided, had he not Jumped.

He could hear laughs, wicked laughs and dogs barking. He could see horses coming through the trees, and knights in ancient clothes riding them. Azzy was immediately annoyed, as he had told his friend Patrick multiple times: he hated Ancient History. "Eerrgh, now I have to deal with those idiots," the teenager complained from up the tree.

Azzy noted they were shooting arrows, as if they were hunting something; and the future Ackermann quickly identified the ancient Ackermanns' target.

The teenage girl was running fast and she had already been shot. Az tilted his head, she looked a little like his aunt Historia. "It better be you again," the boy hoped. "Otherwise I just screwed up this whole thing very badly."

He noted the girl speeding fast into the tree cave. It was like Déjà vu. Just like when they were little and she ran into the cave in that crystal dimension. Azzy knew, again, that this would end very badly. He had a split second to decide if he should go down that height and run towards the girl as a regular human would, knowing full well he wouldn't stop her in time; or if he should just Jump again, running the risk of arriving in a different time again.

Before he could decide the girl fell into the cave and Azymondeus instincts kicked in immediately. He Jumped.

And again, and again. And again. Azzy found himself in a complicated loop: every Jump followed by an immense explosion. He didn't know what the explosion was, he only cared about saving Ymir from falling in that cave.

"I was falling. I was drowning. And you didn't save me," the beautiful woman confided to him in their shared bed. Az was an adult now, he was his adult self looking into those bright green eyes, Ymir's melancholic and disappointed eyes. Az was frightened and confused as his teenage brain became bombarded with those memories. As these were the strongest memories the time traveller had: his biggest regret.

He jumped again.

"You never saved me," the woman maintained.

And he jumped again, and again and again. The immense explosion always catching up with him, the giant tree always there. Ymir always running and looking back. Her green eyes full of desperation. He could never reach her in time.

And again.

"You let me drown," Ymir reminded her lover time and time again.

There was nothing he could do.

And again.

The boy had reached his limit, he finally understood: he stopped Jumping.

There was a thunderous noise that could be heard all over that area and beyond. A giant explosion, an inexplicable explosion arising from the heart of the forest.

Azzy was thrown very far in an impressive high trajectory. The explosion was intense and the fire burnt away a lot of his skin and some of his muscles. He hit many trees on his way down and also hit the ground extremely hard, which added to his list of injuries as it meant he broke quite a few bones.

The Original Titan was extremely large and it could be seen by anyone in and out of that forest. The boy couldn't see it however as his new eyeballs were still growing back - as his previous ones had been burnt away. Azymondeus' whole face had melted away, in fact. But he had no idea, he was exhausted from all that had just occurred and his brain wasn't functioning properly yet.

The amount of energy he had spent had been so intense that even the Original Ackermann's extreme rapid healing factor was impaired. Az tried to raise himself up, but he had no strength to do so; so he just slowly crawled over the dust.

There were a few villagers in that part of the woods, like many others, they were curious to see the big monster up close. They noticed the person crawling somewhere further in front of them and decided to investigate; the group expected it to be a victim from that explosion, so they wanted to help the poor soul.

They approached to see a horrid sight.

It was a hideous creature. Dressed in burnt rags, with red muscle and white bones sticking out and a mixture of its red blood and entrails and that strange otherworldly blue energy coming out of its insides. And credit for said blue energy for it was rapidly stopping any more blood loss and quickly patching up the Ackermann from his inside to his outside. Of course, any human healing could never be so proficient, he'd be dead otherwise.

It also had no face, no eyes, but it seemed to be very much alive: truly a creature from nightmares.

"Devil!" They screamed. "Devil!" the group kept screaming loudly as they ran away very fast.

Azzy couldn't hear them of course, for his ears hadn't healed back either. So for the rest of his life, he had no idea where his nickname had originated from.

He eventually stopped near a tree, and laid his head gently over the large trunk; panting. He needed a little time to heal. Azzy concentrated on his lungs and his eyesight, the more important things he needed at the moment. The time traveller tried to find peace within, he needed his mind to stop spiralling so his healing could work properly.

Az thought of his mobile swirling over his crib, it was one of his earliest memories. The thought of it made him smile. The sweet sound it made as it gently swirled with the winds, and also the sound and smell of the ocean. He remembered his mother's warmth and his sister's laugh. Azzy thought back to his toddler self collecting small seashells on their lighthouse shores; his father's gentle smile. All things that were close to his heart, his loving memories. He thought of Ymir's bright green eyes, and also other lovely eyes: Az saw a small baby boy with curious big blue eyes, same as his.

It felt as if his own eyes were staring intensely back at him. Azzy tilted his head in confusion as his eyeballs slowly grew back into his eye sockets. "Where did that come from?" the teenager questioned. He couldn't place that particular memory anywhere.

The young Ackermann continued to run through the woods. He wanted to go back to where all had begun.

"Devil!" he heard in the distance. "The devil is in the woods!" he could see some of the villagers telling others and those others than passing this information further. He could see a much bigger huddle of villagers down the forest, closer to where he intended to go. The curious people were all gathering closer to the explosion site, and this was a problem.

Azzy was starting to think of a way of getting to the girl again. He looked down his arms: his regeneration was almost complete. He had skin now, most of his body anyway, and he was considering Jumping once more. "Devil!" The villagers continued to pass the information down. Azzy tilted his head. "What are they talking about?" he questioned, baffled.

There was someone else walking near him in those woods: a brave and very famous warrior, who also happened to hear all those villagers' cries about this devil lurking in the woods. They had seemed to have connected this giant monster and all the fire and explosion and now this devilish appearance with the end of days.

Ludvík quietly walked with his sword raised, looking around for any signs of anything unusual. Everything was quiet, until he heard the sound of old leaves breaking.

The boy was focusing on plotting a way to get back to his girl, he knew she needed him more than ever now. Azzy was so distracted with his own thoughts that he didn't even notice the Ackermann closing in behind the tree he was leaning over. Ludvík swiftly grabbed the teenager by his badly scorched collar.

"What are you-" the eldian warrior stopped himself mid-question. He was horrified to see the boy's face: half of it was still melted into the bone, just as the fire of the explosion had left it. For Azzy did not prioritise the healing of his facial features, cosmetic adjustments weren't as crucial as life support organs.

The boy looked at the old soldier with scared eyes. The Ackermann had really gotten him by surprise. Ludvík saw how that otherworldly blue energy shone from under the boy's bones, muscle and skin as it was slowly sewing his face back together. Ludvík would never forget that face. He recognised that glowing light, it was as if those cursed glowing rocks from long ago had now made themselves look human. The man was frozen.

The younger Ackermann took the opportunity and quickly overtook the giant-sized warrior. Az removed Ludvík's hands from his collar and shoved the man - who was twice his size - quite a distance. Lud landed against an old trunk and over many old leaves, that rose up in the air with the dust as the impact of that giant's fall had been a great one.

Ludvík was confused as the dust got into his eyes. He knew immediately that boy wasn't human, not after that show of his otherworldly strength. Of course, the old Ackermann himself was extremely strong, and he definitely was not used to being overtaken by a small teenager. As the man tried to find his bearings again, still cleaning dust from his eyes, Azzy took the opportunity and ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction. Fleeing from the forest.

The irony of Azymondeus' first encounter with a person from the Ancient Era was great. For this would be the man to one day kill him. In thirteen years, Ludvík would make the gruesome decision to perform the ancient eldian ritual with that same teenage boy. And give his flesh as prize to his five sons. One day his sons would have all this power and strength too.

-.-

The boy ran across the forest, trying desperately to find his way out of it. Azzy was scared of people seeing him while regenerating, he knew it couldn't be a good thing. His uncle had warned him about it many times since he was very little. People are evil and he felt very vulnerable, specially with the way that strange soldier looked at him. He was afraid people would hurt him and try to get his powers some way. And he was very right to fear that, his uncle's warnings had served him well.

Azzy stopped near a flowing river, and leaned closer to the margin, trying to see his reflection. He passed his hands around his face and looked down to his arms, torso and legs. It seems he had finally regenerated, so he proceeded with his rapid running, to leave the forest.

Once he reached the tracks of a dirt road, near an open field, Azzy could finally see beyond the giant trees. He gently walked backwards, looking to the top of the forest, to see the gigantic form of the Original Titan slowly appearing in the distance as he proceeded to walk backwards. The Titan was enormous, much much taller than the tallest trees surrounding it, it was an impressive sight.

"Oh," the boy let out. He finally connected the dots of what had happened. Azzy could also tell the Titan was badly formed and it seemed confused. It just stood there, motionless. "I forgot you were one of them," Azzy let out, reminding himself that the 'princess' was obviously from the Royal Fritz Line. "You probably don't know it either," Az concluded. "You must be terrified."

He was ready to build up his energy again: all fully regenerated. 'I'm getting you out of there,' Azzy thought. Readying himself and looking closely to the giant thing in the distance - analysing the Titan structure so as to be sure of where he should land. He was ready to jump. Ready to save the girl.

The boy was so concentrated that he didn't notice, or didn't pay enough attention to the cart coming down the road, and the odd people riding it. The carriage was speeding up quite fast and the experienced trader quickly reached out with his odd contraption and trapped the boy by the neck.

-.-

Fire was everywhere near the area where the Titan had transformed. The villagers were terrified but they also couldn't help but watch, it wasn't everyday something like that occurred. The otherworldly creature wasn't moving but the eldian soldiers were already swarming it, trying to trap it as they would trap any big animal. Of course, they never had to trap something that big, so they were a little out of their wheelhouse.

- Vengeance

One of the Ackermann boys, in fact, the oldest one, made the decision to kill the beast. He thought it was better than to threaten their village with that immense creature. For now, the thing remained motionless, but they couldn't be sure if it would just remain this way. The risk was too great, the thing was unknown and unpredictable.

So, the twenty-year-old expertly climbed the thing's neck, Axl was very daring. He looked down to his brothers with a smirk; they were climbing the thing as well, but he was the fastest, most enduring and strongest one.

He went around trying to cut the throat of the creature, struggling with the intense heat. The young soldier got some bad burns out of that, but he was more concerned with the creature's reaction.

The reaction wasn't what it was expected. The creature didn't get agitated with that sword going through its throat, no, not even a little bit. It just remained in that same strange state, almost like it was in a trance. But they all got scared when the thing moved slightly and the young Ackermann soldier raised his eyebrows, he wasn't expecting to see that. What a surprise: the little slave girl came out of the thing's nape.

He went over and she looked up at him for a moment, still in a slight trance. Ymir closed her eyes again, she was exhausted. The girl lost consciousness as the Ackermann pulled her out completely out of those Titan fibres. And once she was disconnected completely from the Titan, the whole thing came crashing down, destroying even more of the forest.

Axl came over proudly as he and his brothers showed the rest of the eldian soldiers and to the Chief how they had found the tiny girl responsible for all that Titan mess.

Fritz looked at the small slave girl very contemplative. He knew she had been the girl found in the woods all those nine years ago, only a few days after his last ritual.

"Put her in a cage," the Chief ordered.

-.-

"Where were you, dad? You missed all the fun," Klaus turned to ask his father. Ludvík was coming from the woods, walking slowly and with his head down; he seemed distracted and slightly frightened. The old warrior raised his head to see all the commotion with the soldiers and the more curious villagers.

"Ah, Ludvík!" Fritz raised his hand as he stood closer to the cage, calling his right hand man. He too had been wondering where Ludvík was.

"Watch her," Tara ordered to Elke, her only daughter. "Closely," the Chieftess added.

Ymir was still passed out, completely unconscious. She slept with her hands holding her knees - in a fetal position, which made her seem even smaller in the giant animal cage they had locked her in. The cage was made of wood and metal and was on top of a large cart, but at the moment, not attached to any horses; for it was one of the large cages they used to transport cows and other big animals.

Ludvík approached, trying to understand the scenery, he too could recognise the slave girl as the one child from the woods.

Fritz took him to the side. "I know who bought her," the Chief tried to remember. "The reclusive one, that unlucky chap," he added.

"Yes, I know who you mean," Lud replied. "The young widower."

"Right." The Chief looked towards the small slave girl in the cage, analysing her. "I think he pampered her too much," he considered. "But perhaps some good can come of that." Fritz was already forming his plan. He needed a way to control this new monster.

"Do you know where his troop is? Are they already returning?" the Chief questioned.

"Probably, most of the troops are returning, or have already returned. I could check," Lud replied while scratching his head.

"No, not just check. You can do better than that," Fritz told him while raising his eyebrows suggestively.

They both looked back towards the cage.

Ludvík tilted his head. "Understood," he replied.

-.-

The boy woke up with a shock. He had been knocked unconscious after the slave trader violently grabbed him from the side of the road. The trader had grabbed him by the neck with a makeshift iron lasso and had thrown him violently inside the cart. Azzy remembered hitting his head on the dirty wooden floor of that cart, but he woke up sitting down, not lying as he was. Azzy felt confused. He looked around to see a couple of dozen people sitting in that large cart as well, all tied with iron chains.

The slave trade was a lucrative market at that time and these traders had a good business by kidnaping random people to be sold. The boy knew instantly he wouldn't be staying there, Azzy hated being trapped. It was a shame for he had just regenerated, but he quickly broke his hand bones and swiftly removed the metal chains. To the surprise and fear of the people sitting around him.

Azzy swiftly stood up, as all those unfortunate and weak people looked up at him in pure confusion.

The boy came over rapidly and without warning and hit one of the men at the front violently in the head with the metal chain that he held with his right hand; and shoved that trader out of the side of the moving vehicle. All while taking the leashes from the men and wrapping it around the second trader's neck with his left hand. Az pulled him down by the leashes, choking him violently and the man then fell in between the horses, to then rapidly be run over by the wooden cart - which helped the thing to slow down.

The horses came to a halt and Azzy swiftly came down from the carriage. He wasn't done yet. He walked towards the men as the unfortunate people watched, scared and confused. The young Ackermann swiftly snapped the neck of the man that had fallen further away in the trail and then started looking through his clothes. The boy seemed disappointed, so he leisurely walked back, in the direction of the second.

He first kicked the man's head with his inhuman strength. Azzy let out a small laugh. "This one was already dead," he added comically to the frightened and chained people and they just maintained their scared looks. "Right, you probably have no idea of what I'm saying," Azzy concluded. They didn't speak the same language after all. He then proceeded to go through this second trader's jacket.

"There you go," the young Ackermann swiftly threw the keys to one of the poor, chained men. He made a hand gesture around his wrists, as if showing them they should unlock the chains with those keys. "You are free now," Azzy added before turning back and walking away, and he walked with open arms for a moment. 'Free,' he thought.

"Where am I?" The boy stopped and questioned, after a while. He had no idea of how far he was from that initial forest.

The young Ackermann noted that the people he had just freed started to run in the opposite direction from where he had decided to go as soon as they released themselves from those chains.

"Huh," he wondered why for a moment but he kept walking the way he had previously decided anyway. He would soon realise this had been a very bad decision.

Not even a kilometer down the road and Azzy found out what scared those poor people more than the slave traders. He had just stumbled upon a giant Marlean camping site. Hundreds if not thousands of soldiers camping, just waiting for their next campaign.

"What are you doing here?" One of the sentinels asked, sneering.

The giant man looked the boy up and down, analysing him with some disdain. The teenager was wearing badly scorched clothes and melted down boots. But he could tell the boy wasn't burnt himself, it looked like he was just poor and had stolen those clothes from a dead man.

Azzy couldn't understand what the man was asking, this was an ancient marlean language that would only last a couple hundred more years, for a lot of the marlean culture would be completely eradicated by the now rising Eldian Empire.

The soldiers quickly huddled around the teenager, surrounding him to a point he could not run, he couldn't escape. They all looked at him, laughing to each other and saying words he couldn't understand. The boy was trapped. Azzy was feeling very threatened now and his Ackermann instincts started to build inside his entrails. He swiftly grabbed the sword of a slow soldier next to him and raised it, showing he was ready to defend himself. So all the soldiers surrounding him raised their swords as well, showing they were ready to attack. And the bloodbath began.

-.-

"He killed fifty men," One of the advisers told the General as they brought the boy to him. "In only a few minutes," the adviser added.

Azzy was drenched in blood and he looked at the old man with some disdain and anger. "Impressive," Severus congratulated the teenager.

"We could send him to the arena," another adviser suggested more quietly to the General. The whole thing had been very entertaining for them to watch.

But Severus just raised his hand in a dismissive manner and turned to focus on the boy again. "You must be feeling very tired," the General suggested and the boy said nothing, he just looked like he was about to eat the old man's soul. "Or perhaps you're not," Severus retracted. "Release him from the chains," the General ordered.

And the soldiers all looked concerned, it had taken a lot to take that teenage boy down. "I know what I'm doing," Severus added firmly and they obeyed, reluctantly.

Azzy was confused. He was having a hard time trying to read that room without knowing what they were saying, but he was also intrigued by that old general.

They released his chains and he stood there, looking around the room. The men were all scared. "Come on," Severus said to him while gesturing with his hand and Azzy followed him.

"You were lucky to catch me during my dinner time," the General added as they arrived in the next room to see a beautiful and luxurious table, bursting with all kinds of meats and cheeses and fruits.

Severus threw one of the towels at the teenager and he swiftly caught it. "Clean your face, we are about to eat," the General added while making the motion with his own hands and face. And Azzy clearly understood, he had forgotten how he was drenched in blood.

They both sat down at the table, it was all very quiet and a little awkward for a moment.

"By the way you killed those men, so brutally and uncoordinated, you must be from one of those savage small villages here in the north," the General concluded and proceeded. "An eldian, perhaps?" he questioned while drinking some of his vintage wine.

Azzy couldn't understand much of what they said, but he understood that one word. And he shook his head negatively. He knew he shouldn't admit where he was from, it wouldn't be wise.

Severus tilted his head, analysing him. He then decided to pour the boy some of his expensive wine. "I think you have a lot of potential. You could serve us well," the General began to argue as he gave the teenager the glass. "I'd rather be friends than enemies with the likes of you," Severus raised his glass. "Friends?" he proposed.

"Friends," Azzy repeated, perfectly imitating his accent.

"See? You are already learning." The General replied with a fatherly smile.

-.-

Elke hit on the metal bars with anger, to scare the slave girl. "I know you can talk," she proceeded in a threatening tone. "You have your tongue."

Ymir was very quiet ever since she woke up. She was scared but she was also very stoic, just like she would act with those annoying neighbours. The small girl just sat very quietly, with her hands on her knees, reflecting about everything. She had a lot more memories now and a lot to think about. The girl was now connected to the paths of that cursed dimension and she was starting to see the world very differently.

"Tell us how you conjured the beast!" Torin exclaimed, more softly but still in an equally aggressive and authoritarian tone as his twin.

"Ah! Imagine being up there," Torr thought out loud, crossing his arms and leaning his back on the metal bars of the cage. "High up in the sky," he continued while staring up at the open skies. "It must be quite a view."

"People must look like ants," Torin added in wonder, while staring viciously at the slave girl inside the cage.

Torr looked down at him with a smirk. "You look like an ant from up here," he joked. Although two years younger than his brother, Torr had already passed Torin's height by a lot.

"What?" The firstborn asked back in anger.

"Calm down, shorty," Torr replied, caressing the top of Torin's head in mockery.

Torin wasn't a short man, he was above average and the same height as their father. But Torr was already a giant, he towered over his brothers - and he hadn't finished growing yet.

"How dare you?" Torin exclaimed and shoved him with much force.

Torr fell backwards, slightly hitting Jari and Osmond. "Hey!" Jari exclaimed, indignantly.

"Guys, come on," Osmond tried to appease his older brothers. Torr and Torin were about to fight.

"Stop it," Elke ordered, holding her twin's shoulder. "Both of you." She added while staring Torr down as well. "You are getting too old to still act like children," the sister argued. Although still teenagers, the twins were already nineteen and Torr was seventeen.

"Even those two already act more mature than you," Elke argued while pointing at the younger teenagers: Jari and Osmond.

Jari was fifteen and Osmond was fourteen, ages that Elke considered more probable to present this kind of behaviour, but as she had argued, the younger teenagers did not bicker like their older brothers did.

'Idiots,' Ymir thought. She had to watch those idiot siblings arguing and bickering about senseless things. She thought very little of them.

"Will the monster come back to get us, mummy?" Ymir overheard the small boy ask to his mother. She turned her head to watch that instead.

"No, darling, the monster is gone," Tara told her smallest boy very softly, as she finished feeding him some berries. "Go play with your brother," she told the seven-year-old Tait, pointing at her second smallest child. And Dorian looked back at Tait with some disdain, crossing his arms. He was reluctant to play with his younger brother.

"Dorian," Tara warned in an admonishing tone. "Go," she quietly mouthed to Tait and kissed him on the top of the head.

The two smaller boys went over to play closer to the twins, Ralph and Raleigh who were sword-fighting with their small wooden swords; further away from the cage.

"You spoil him," the father complained to her and Tara only rolled her eyes at her husband.

Fritz was inflating it, for they both spoiled their younger child equality, and he knew it. He just needed to have something to blame her for the day. They had been married for many years at this point.

"Where is Ludvík?" Tara questioned. And Fritz only gave her an evil smile.

The two parents stood there, near the cage, both side-eyeing the small slave girl inside it. And surrounded by the more curious villagers and most of the soldiers that had already returned from the last campaign.

"The monster will eat us, it will start by eating you," Tara overheard one of her smallest boys scaring the other unnecessarily. Dorian was even making scary faces at Tait. "Mummy!" The small boy yelled.

"Dorian!" Tara yelled in an admonishing tone again, for the boy to stop.

"No, no, no. Stop that." Fritz also started admonishing one of the small twins, as he walked over. Their play had transformed into a proper fight and Raleigh had Ralph in a headlock.

All while the teenagers were still bickering around, closer to the cage. Ymir was tired of all of them. 'Idiots,' she thought. She was starting to think her neighbours weren't so bad after all.

The night was following and the girl remained there, silent. Ymir hadn't had any form of interaction with the eldians outside. She was starting to loathe them more and more with each passing hour. For she hated being trapped.

Those first couple of weeks in that village - back when she was four and had just arrived in that strange world - had been terrifying to the small girl. Ymir carried that scar in her mind.

She had never left the farm to go to the village on her own before, she always went there with Signe. He was her protector. And she knew going to meet those savages on her own now would have ended in her being trapped again. Ymir expected that. From the moment the neighbours took her there to be judged by the Chief, Ymir knew she would end up in a cage somehow. The girl had been proven right, so she stared them all down, with arms crossed. Ymir didn't say a word.

The eldian elders were all there, at the edge of the village, discussing what to do about the nightfall. They knew this small slave girl was dangerous and they couldn't just leave her unsupervised. The question was: who was going to stay with that monster in the darkness of the night.

Most of the curious villagers started to crack at sundown. They had been there all afternoon just watching this tiny girl stare back at them from her giant cage. All they wanted was to know her secrets. Was she really a witch? Or some kind of goddess? All she appeared to them was as a small and frail slave girl. How did she conjure that gigantic monster?

"Talk!" Some of the villagers started to yell. "Show us your power!" They insisted. "Tell the secrets!" Some of those annoyed and frustrated villagers and soldiers started to not only complain with their screams, they walked closer and started banging on the metal bars with their swords or other metal objects, to scare the small slave girl. "Tell us!" They yelled and banged louder and louder.

'They are going to overturn the cart,' the Fritzs and the village elders all thought, worriedly. The animal cage was still set on wheels and those villagers were putting too much weight on it from the side. They all yelled and banged on the metal, vexed.

Ymir was tired and annoyed with that incessant noise. She'd had enough. The girl rapidly stood up and ran towards the metal bars, confronting the idiots. All the eldians around quickly moved back, looking absolutely terrified by that girl's sudden movement. Some of the more coward villagers started to run away in fear the moment the girl stood up and reached the metal bars, but most of them just froze after walking only a couple of steps back.

There was sudden silence.

And Ymir started laughing maniacally. She thought hilarious how those terrible people who had done her some much harm all those years ago; those brute devils in human disguise, were now absolutely terrified of her. Ymir laughed loudly. She dropped down on the cage with her joyous laugh. The irony was too funny for her.

The girl had tears of laughter, this had been the best joke of her life so far. Their terrified faces as she laughed just made her laugh even more. 'You are all a joke,' Ymir thought. 'Cowards in hiding.' She laughed. 'Weren't you so loud before?' Ymir questioned, they were all very quiet now.

She sat back down again and signed the word 'idiot' to them, with a smirk. Of course, none of those villagers understood. They just thought she was cursing them with her witchcraft.

"What we need is a priest," one of the elders suggested and the Fritzs could hear many in the crowd agreeing.

Tara could hear some of the villagers in the crowd start to mention Vékell and how he would know what to do if he were there. Many more agreeing and also telling others how they missed him and his wisdom. Tara looked back at Fritz with fiery angry eyes.

The mother had had enough.

"It's about time you all left," the Chieftess yelled firmly to the crowd.

She firmly walked towards the cage and stood in front of it. Fritz went to follow her, he wasn't sure of what she would do, as his wife could be very unpredictable sometimes.

"I'll stay with her," Tara declared and Fritz walked slightly forward raising his hands as if to make his next argument. The mother swiftly took her sword from her scabbard and directed it straight into the Chief's throat. Fritz stopped dead on his tracks, startled and still with hands raised.

"No one touches this girl," the Chieftess ordered very firmly. "You can all go," she maintained to the soldiers and the other villagers still in that area.

"Elke, you stay with me," she told her only daughter, and Elke gently nodded. This decision for Elke to stay was not only for the teenager to make her company in the night, but because the mother never trusted Fritz enough to leave him alone with their daughter. He was a deviant and sadistic man after all.

Tara and Elke stood in front of the cage as they watched the mob disperse. Fritz walked away with the boys last. For the night, the three women were alone at the edge of the forest.

Ymir couldn't sleep, but she pretended to, she instead quietly watched Tara sitting down there, firmly watching her only surviving daughter sound asleep. There was complete silence in that night, nothing beyond sudden gusts of wind and the random small cracks and flickers of the bonfire.

After a few hours, the sun was finally rising again and the Chieftess could see some movement in the village. Tara could tell her husband was walking back with the boys again, she could make out their figures forming in the distance.

She also noted the slave girl slightly moving, she could tell the girl was awake. Tara stood up quietly and started to observe the small slave girl more attentively. So far they hadn't been able to get through to her, perhaps they should have tried a more softer approach. Tara became more contemplative, considering it. She then started to walk closer to the cage.

Tara softly put her hands on the metal bars and started to talk to Ymir.

"You called me mother once," Tara said very softly. "I never forgot that."

Ymir turned to her with sad eyes, and a little more interest but quickly turned her head away again.

Tara continued. "When I found you in those woods, in that dark night." She reminded the small girl. "You were so alone and so frightened, so small." The mother justified: "I'm sorry we didn't keep you. But my husband has the nasty habit of sacrificing my younger girls," Tara added more brokenly. "I couldn't risk you too."

"That's not how you deal with wild creatures, dear," Fritz interjected in a softer tone as well, as he stood next to his wife, leaning over the metal bars.

"You do know well how to deal with wild creatures," Tara reminded him in disdain. She knew her husband to have a deviant interest towards animals.

Fritz smiled evilly and came closer, to whisper in the Chieftess' ear. "That's how you deal with wild creatures," he told her in a very small and quiet whisper.

"Mama, look!" Dorian exclaimed, the nine-year-old pointed into the distance.

Tara turned to see Ludvík finally arriving back, entering the village in the far distance. And his older sons following him, carrying a corpse in a small cart. The body was respectfully covered by a white sheet, just as it was customary for any fallen soldier.

Some of the villagers were already gathering again as the Ackermanns slowly made their return. They were getting closer to the forest edge now, so they stopped in the open field and started to remove the body from the cart. Ymir stood up inside the cage, she slowly walked forward, placing her small hands on the metal bars. She watched the proceedings attentively and with this horrible eerie feeling in her entrails.

"I'm sorry my dear," Fritz told her, leaning closer to the bars. And Ymir looked down at him with fear in her eyes. Ymir looked up into the distance again, her eyes fixed on the corpse under the white sheet, her hands anxiously holding the metal bars.

"This battle was truly a tough one," Fritz proceeded. "My condolences," he added, callously, and Ymir immediately understood: that was Signe.

Her eyes were speaking for her. The Chief could tell her desperation and he couldn't hide the joy in his face.

"Open the cage," Fritz ordered. And the eldian soldiers finally did.

The gate swung open and the girl ran out desperately.

Ymir reached the field and dropped down near the body, she removed the sheet, already crying. Signe was lifeless, with a giant and horrid scar through his throat. The girl became more desperate, she cried immensely but also quietly. Ymir felt lifeless as well.

She held him in her arms, and cried, she just cried. Ymir remembered their last goodbye. She hadn't expected it to be their final one, she remembered his smile. Ymir cried even more.

"Father," she said softly as she held Signe. The first word Ymir spoke in those past nine years.

She held him close. 'Who did this to you, father?' The small girl questioned in her mind, horrified.

Fritz and Ludvík were walking closer but quietly so as not to disturb the girl in her grieving moment. Fritz slowly and softly kneeled down, to speak to the girl as she held her father's corpse.

"He was an amazing man. A good soldier," the Chief declared passionately and Ymir looked up at him. "This is truly a tragedy. And it is not the first nor it will be the last. This cursed Marlean Empire has taken many lives, many fathers," he proceeded as the girl gave him her full attention. Ymir looked down at her father again and caressed his hair, lovingly and in pure grief.

"They were the ones who killed him," Fritz proceeded, telling the girl what she wanted to know: the culprits. Now she had a target. "As long as they are around, dominating this world, there will be more deaths. More and more deaths. But you - you can do a lot," Fritz argued. He had finally gotten to what he wanted: "You, with all this power. You can destroy them all. You can kill them all."

Fritz smirked at her, evilly. "You can have your vengeance," he told the girl.

'I will.' Ymir thought. 'I will kill them all.'

She nodded to Fritz with fiery eyes.

The Chief stood up. He walked into Ludvík's direction with a wide smile on his face. He came over as his friend just seemed guilty and a little confused with his expression. Fritz stood near Ludvík as they both watched the small girl grieve over that corpse. Ymir seemed devastated but also getting increasingly angry, Fritz was very glad to see his whole plan work.

He leaned over towards Ludvík so as to expertly explain.

"That's how we create a monster," Fritz gloated.

-.-

- Year 854 - October 30, Shiganshina

[ After Wall Maria Fell ]

Mikasa could hear the waves, she felt at peace. She sat on the sand, looking up to the bright blue skies and its white puffy clouds. She took the sunlight in and turned back down to admire the vast ocean in front of her. Mikasa held her hat in place as the strong breeze reached her, it was a lovely summer day.

She was at the beach, in the comfort shores of her Lighthouse. Enjoying the day. Mikasa looked to the side to see Armin concentrated, taking notes on his book. She noticed Azzy running, the mother's eyes followed the small boy as he sat down and played around in the sand. Mikasa smiled, it was just another perfect day.

'Wake up,' Mikasa vaguely heard inside her subconscious. And that almost broke her concentration a little. 'Wake up,' she heard again.

When a small girl rushed towards her. Coming from the waves. The toddler was small, she wore a lovely summer dress and a hat, similar to her mother's. With her bright and almost hypnotic yellow eyes, she stood in front of Mikasa, with some alarm. 'Wake up, mummy, wake up!' Sunny warned. The dream was over.

Mikasa slowly opened up her eyes, they shone bright yellow for a moment, but it slowly faded away. She opened her eyes to see herself again, and again, in complete confusion. She saw her image mirrored thousands of times in an infinity of reflections. Mikasa closed her eyes again and held her head. 'What is that noise?' She thought, even more confused.

She could also hear a very low noise and vibration repeating over and over again. She felt lost, she couldn't understand where she was, she couldn't remember what had happened. Mikasa searched inside her memories.

Mikasa was trying to identify what this place was, it looked like a strange world. It was a small space made of very cold crystals, like ice. She was lying but almost vertically, somehow attached to the crystal wall behind her. There was room in front of her, enough for her to move, but not much. And it didn't feel as claustrophobic as it should in that small crystal space, to the contrary, the infinity of her reflections all around her made the place feel very large.

It was difficult for her to tell directions, she wasn't sure if she was laying down or standing up, it almost felt like she was in an angle, but Mikasa couldn't tell where gravity really was. She also noticed she was attached to those mirrors somehow. Mikasa used some of her inhuman strength to break her right wrist free, to then see some Titan fibres steaming out around her wrist.

Those crystal mirrors were very cold, icy. But those fibres were hot, steaming hot. She broke herself free completely and turned herself to face the crystal wall that had been supporting her. She noticed how there was flesh behind that cold layer of Titan Crystal. He was protecting her from the heat. Mikasa started to pay more attention to the low, repetitive noise. It made the crystals and her own heart vibrate together with it. 'That's his heartbeat,' she finally realised. Mikasa's mind was more clear now, she could finally remember what had happened.

Mikasa slowly and softly moved her head closer to the cold crystals, pressing herself against it. "Armin, can you hear me?" she asked, shouting slightly. "I'm awake," Mikasa informed.

The walls of Shiganshina had fallen down a few hours earlier; deeply affected by the first earthquake, they couldn't remain standing. The Colossal Titan had also exploded in transformation, after its Shifter had been severely injured by marlean forces.

- Right after the First Earthquake and the Colossal Titan explosion

[A few hours earlier]

Back in the Army Compound, at the heart of Shiganshina, Commandant Shadis was organising the troops. He had chosen the more experienced soldiers to stay behind with him to rescue the one family that was said to still be in the town. And had ordered another group to go warn Commander Hange and Captain Levi, and to fill them in about the current situation.

The second group was made of less experienced soldiers, mostly cadets, who quickly left the wrecked city mounted on their fast horses and guided by two older civilians. The ones who stayed with the Commandant were much more experienced but also extremely disloyal to the Commandant and to the Army Authorities. They also left the compound fully armed, riding fast on their horses, ready to kill the Pure Titans.

Shadis expertly killed multiple Pure Titans. The Commandant was in his element, he not only was a former Survey Corps Commander, he'd been a soldier for decades: a proper veteran, with one of the highest Titan kills' count. This was still difficult however, although a natural in Titan killing, most of these Titans he knew. Shadis could recognise his friends, his comrades. He tried not to think about it, and concentrated on the mission.

The Commandant swiftly landed on the hard concrete of a roof ridge. He looked around the town, beyond the steam of the Pure Titans he had just killed. Shadis was looking for the civilians who were apparently left in that already evacuated town. He found it odd how he couldn't find anyone. It had already been a couple of hours and he had gone to most spots where the Pure Titans were crowding - expecting to find humans, but he and the troop didn't. Shadis had spent a good few minutes annihilating this large group of Pure Titans, that now were steaming away - and he only now was realising how he was completely alone.

The group of more experienced soldiers who were with him were all Yeagerists, and they had more pressing concerns in mind. Led by Floch, they took the opportunity and while the Commandant was distracted with this large group of Titans, they all bailed on him. And rode fast, outside of the town. The Commandant looked around with his optical instrument, he decided to climb to a higher spot.

From the shoulder of a Pure Colossal Titan, Shadis looked around Shiganshina, using his small optical instrument. He still couldn't find signs of those civilians but he could see those traitors running away from duty. They rode fast on the trail to shore.

"Huh," he took the optical instrument down, considering it. "Luckily I know a shortcut," he told the giant Pure Titan whose shoulder he was on, with a small smirk. Shadis swiftly climbed down with his ODM gear and whistled for his horse.

He expertly landed on his horse's back. "Come on, Tempest," the Commandant said. "Let's bust some criminals."

There were two different routes from Shiganshina to shore, the longest and more well known was the one Floch and the Yeagerists were taking. That was what the Commandant had noted from up the Pure Colossal Titan's shoulder. He also had calculated how Onyankopon and the second troop were much further ahead in that same trail, but would eventually make a turn and meet with Commander Hange at the secret checkpoint he had quietly told Onyan about, while taking him aside. But Shadis knew the other route, it would be a much faster way to meet this second group and join them on the checkpoint with Hange and Levi. That's what the experienced Commandant meant as 'shortcut'.

-.-

"You have such a strange smile on your face right now, and I'm a little scared to ask," Onyankopon let out, looking towards Yelena as they rode fast through that trail. The cadets followed behind them.

Yelena turned to him. "Well, I'm just curious to know where the War Chief was being hidden this whole time," she explained, smiling. "I was dying to find out."

"The checkpoint is not exactly there. And even if it was, he is not there anymore," Onyan rebuked, confused.

There was a brief silence as Yelena considered a few things. "Do you think he's dead?" she asked, suddenly and callously.

"I-I have no idea," Onyankopon replied with nervous laughter. "Ever since this doomsday started I lost track of everything." He told her sincerely.

The two spies could see the Commander and the Captain in the distance. The troop rode fast and met them at the checkpoint.

"What happened to you?" Yelena let out with a small laugh as soon as they saw Captain Levi, and he glanced back at her murderously with his one working eye.

"What is happening out there?" Hange asked Onyankopon, ignoring the crazy woman's comment.

The spy relayed all the information they had so far. Mostly focusing on the chaos that had ensued and on the monster up in the sky.

"What is that thing?" Levi questioned and Onyan only shrugged.

"Where did it come from?" Hange asked.

"We don't know that either. It just appeared in the sky," Onyan maintained.

"From inside the earth, not from the sky," Yelena corrected him.

"How do you know that?" Hange turned to ask her, mistrustfully.

"It's a logical conclusion." Yelena proceeded to expertly explain. "Has this island ever had a history of earthquakes before? Isn't it very probable that they were caused by this thing hatching from inside the earth? From under the island?" she questioned.

The group was very focused and engaged in deep conversation, but they all turned to see as they heard another rider galloping their way. Commandant Shadis was arriving, alone. The other cadets all looked at each other concerned. The young soldiers could instantly tell their Yeagerist comrades were up to no good.

"Hange!" Shadis let out with a nice smile as he approached with his horse.

"I am glad you found us, Commandant," Hange greeted her fellow veteran. Giving him the heart salute, and Shadis also made his heart salute in return.

"I'm glad you're alive," Levi added from under his bandages. Making the heart salute as well.

"I was lucky," Shadis replied, coming down from his horse. "So," he continued more lively. "How are we stopping all this mess?"

Hange sighed. "Geranium," she replied.

And all the others just stared at her blankly. They had no idea what that meant.

Hange turned to Levi. "I had plenty of time to consider all this while you were recovering," she quietly disclosed.

"It sounds menacing," Shadis joked. "What is it?" he asked curiously.

The Commander turned her attention to the young cadets. "The information I'm about to share is critical and so far had been top secret. But this is an urgent and unforeseen situation and Geranium is our best bet. So you should feel honoured to be at this private meeting." Hange told the young soldiers very firmly, and made the heart salute, and they made the heart salute back at her, all very solemnly.

"Well, I for one am excited," Yelena let out sincerely, she smiled.

"You will be arrested as soon as this is over," Hange shut her down.

"For what?" Yelena asked indignantly.

Hange turned to the cadets once again. "We have dozens of witnesses that can place you in cahoots with the Yeagerists," the Commander argued, and proceeded: "who will be tried as well."

"What about him?" Yelena asked, leaning her shoulder to Onyankopon beside her.

"Me?!" Onyankopon asked indignantly. "I haven't pledged any allegiance to Eren, much less Zeke," he firmly argued, very purely.

"You both will be put on trial regardless," Captain Levi explained. "It's the standard procedure," he added to Onyankopon.

"Now that this is all settled. Proceed," Shadis asked of the Commander. The old veteran had more pressing concerns in mind than this small bickering.

"Project Geranium is a deep and meticulous study of the Iceburst Stone, that has been conducted in secret for the past two years." Commander Hange explained solemnly. "The study has focused on many things, but in particular the level of energy and destruction of a stone and how to activate it."

"So it's a bomb?" Onyankopon asked, perplexed.

"Multiple bombs," Hange explained. "Out of our successful five petals, we have tested two in the deserts of the north, to great results."

"What do you mean by great results?" Captain Levi asked with arms crossed.

"The explosion of one of our Geranium petals is extremely destructive," Hange replied. "Our remaining three, if detonated together, they could level a whole city."

"How secret is this project? How many people have been aware of it?" Commandant Shadis questioned, concerned.

"Only Arlert, the Queen and I are aware of it," Hange replied. "And the six Hizurian scientists involved in the project."

"If the Queen knows, that means Eren Yeager knows about these bombs as well," Onyankopon pointed out.

"He never mentioned it before," Yelena noted, shrugging. "Not in any of the meetings we had. I feel it's impossible he wouldn't have mentioned something as destructive as this if he knew," she argued.

"You need to give our little Queen some credit, she is clever that one," Hange argued. "I didn't ever think she would share this with Eren, not if she could have this card up her sleeve; as I said, she's smart. Smarter than you think."

"What about the Hizurian scientists? Wouldn't they just inform Kiyomi? She's been so involved with the air machine project as well," Levi argued.

Hange let out a small smile. "We made sure to choose the best, but also favouring only republican scientists. They are not fans of the Emperor, and therefore not loyal to Kiyomi," she explained. "It was Arlert's idea," she added.

"Now, these three petals are at the heart of the island. Deep down, even further than the underground city; in Mitras." Hange explained. "They are obviously very sensitive and need to be handled with extreme care."

"And you want to use it to blow that thing in the sky?" Levi asked.

"Exactly," Hange replied. "We assume that once that creature is gone, the Wall Titans will cease their destruction."

"Let's hope you're right about that," Onyan let out.

"So, how are we supposed to throw a bomb at a gigantic flying Titan?" Levi questioned.

"The key word being 'gigantic' there," Onyankopon theorised. "Its immense size makes it an easier target, even if the creature is moving. I'm not saying it's very easy, it certainly is very difficult, but not impossible. If we can get close enough. I'm assuming you want to use the air machine?" He turned and asked Hange.

"If you get close enough you die in the explosion," Shadis pointed out.

"For now, we need to get to the petals. And we need to secure the airship at the harbour first, for it's the fastest way to reach Mitras before this creature wreaks more havoc," the Commander explained. "Then, once we have the bombs, we can lure the creature into the ocean, and kill her there. No casualties." Hange proposed.

[Still] Year 854 - October 30, somewhere in the Southern Maria Region

[ Early afternoon ]

The small village hospital was full by the time Springer arrived with the Braus family. They rushed in looking for care as Mr. Braus was completely unconscious and losing a lot of blood. The Jaw Titan stood outside and was immediately surrounded by scared MP soldiers, all with weapons drawn.

"It's ok, it's ok," Connie came out of the small hospital hut with arms raised. "He is one of us," the Survey Corps soldier declared. "He's not gonna hurt anybody, please move on, move on," Connie proceeded, ushering the curious and scared soldiers away and back to their duties.

The small boy came out of the Jaw Titan, but still remaining attached to it. "Hey, I was wondering if you could do that," Connie let out. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

Falco let out a deep sigh. "It's good to finally breathe from my own lungs," he relayed.

"Falco!" Gabi exclaimed and rushed towards them, limping out of the hospital.

"What happened to your leg?" Falco asked with concern.

"Oh, I just twisted my ankle," Gabi explained as she climbed the Jaw's back with difficulty. "Look at you! I'm glad you came back for us!" she told him cheerfully as she finally reached his side.

"Your arms have burns," the boy added to his concern.

"That's nothing, they're very shallow and far apart, I'm sure they'll heal just fine," Gabi tried to ease his mind.

"They'll still leave a scar," Falco maintained, sounding quite upset.

"We need to go back to Shiganshina," Connie interjected, warning the small Warrior. "There's a lot to be done."

"More like small skin marks, not scars," Gabi argued with a smile. "He's right we need to go back." she added as Mrs. Braus approached, coming out of the hospital as well.

"The important thing is that we are alive because of you," the woman told him solemnly. "Thank you, my boy," the old mother added and Falco gave her a timid smile.

"How is Mr. Braus?" Connie asked.

"He's still struggling but the doctor said he will live," the woman relayed. "I will take care of him myself, the nurses here have their hands full and they already told me they are running out of supplies. Many people were injured with the earthquakes and the crumbling of the Wall. It's chaos."

"You should treat these burns too, Mrs. Braus," Connie noted.

The woman sighed. "All the children have burns as well, luckily just small ones like this," she let him know. "The important thing is that we are safe now, thank you."

Connie smiled. "Well, I'm glad to know you are all safe. Now we can return to the city with our minds at ease," he said.

"I hope you all can kill that thing as soon as possible," Mrs. Braus hoped. "Gods should take care of us, not destroy us and kill our children," the old woman let out. "Whatever that thing is," she added.

Falco sighed. "You should stay here," he told Gabi.

"Stay?" She asked back. "You don't want me to go with you?"

"You're injured, Gabrielle," he maintained. "We shouldn't risk your safety."

The small girl sighed. She looked towards the small hospital hut and then back at her friend.

"Come on, Gabi," Mrs. Braus interjected, walking back to the hospital and calling the small girl to go back inside with her.

"Be safe out there," Gabi told Falco and gave him a small kiss on his cheek. "Your cheek is very hot," she let out in small complaint, jokingly and they both laughed.

The girl climbed back down from the Jaw Titan's back.

"Ok, we should really leave now," Connie advised and Falco nodded.

The boy returned to the Jaw Titan's insides and took control of it once again as the soldier climbed onto it again.

The small girl watched as they left the small village, galloping quite fast. She then slowly limped back into the small hospital hut.

Shiganshina

The Phoenix Titan was making her descent, after she had risen up to take a look at the goddess up close. Pieck was considering many things, deep in thought as her Titan flew leisurely down with spread out wings. She was thinking of a way to bring that goddess down.

Reiner had eventually left his Titan. The Warrior was exhausted and he had noticed how he was a much easier target for those giant Pure Titans while in his Titan form. He laid down next to a partially destroyed column, out of many partially destroyed columns of a large school building that had lost its roof entirely.

"Look who I found," the Phoenix Titan joked from behind those columns and Reiner startled with the Titan voice, but slightly recognised it. He turned to see those giant red eyes staring at him from between two columns.

She had seen his Titan steaming somewhere near, and had quickly located her fellow Warrior. Pieck smoothly came out of the Phoenix Titan's back, still maintaining her connection to it, and she smiled at Reiner.

He became confused for a moment as he analysed the creature. Reiner walked in closer to her. "So you're the Beast Titan now?" he questioned.

"I'm still the Cart too if you want to get technical," Pieck replied.

Reiner scratched his hair with the thought. "One of the Fritzs is down, I guess our mission is half-complete," he noted.

"Indeed. One to go," Pieck confirmed.

"Where is Falco? We know he became the Jaw," Reiner asked, looking around the destroyed city.

"He did?" Pieck asked, a little confused. "I was wondering where Porco was," she added quietly.

"Oh, so you didn't see it? When he sacrificed himself to Falco?" Reiner asked.

"No," Pieck quietly replied, a little upset.

Reiner walked further into the destroyed city, putting his hands on his hips. "Well, the important thing is that we need to find Falco," he maintained. "And Gabi," Reiner added.

Pieck looked up to the skies. "I've been up there," she said.

"Careful, that thing is much bigger than you," Reiner warned.

"I know, but she barely noticed me," Pieck relayed. "It seems she had bigger concerns."

"The second wave is here?" Reiner asked. "It was about time. I hope we can end this soon," he added.

"Reiner, I think we gravely miscalculated this," Pieck started to argue. "The second wave won't be enough. I thought you had already realised that, since you were hiding," she pointed out.

"I wasn't hiding, I was resting," Reiner defended himself, "recovering my strength."

"Do you know a John?" Pieck asked.

"John?" Reiner asked back, confused.

"Here in the Survey Corps," Pieck explained. "Quite tall, nice hair, slightly obnoxious and self-serving…" she trailed off.

"Jean?" Reiner asked.

"Yeah! That's it!" Pieck confirmed with a smile. "Come on, he can help us get reinforcements here on the island."

"Reinforcements from the island?" Reiner questioned.

"Do you have a better idea?" She asked and Reiner seemed trepidatious and lost in thought. "Reeeiner?" Pieck slowly called his name in slight mockery, to get his attention.

He sighed. "I don't think we can be allies with people after killing their friends," Reiner argued.

"Well, then don't bring that part up," Pieck argued back. "We haven't completed our mission and we can't fight that thing just the two of us."

Reiner reluctantly climbed onto the Titan and Pieck went back inside. The Phoenix Titan rose up again and flew back to the Army Compound.

-.-

"I must say, choosing wings was clever of you," Reiner told Pieck while climbing down the Titan, after they had landed on the roof of the compound.

"I'm always clever," the Phoenix Titan replied.

Jean walked out of the roof door. They locked eyes for a moment. And the soldier removed his rifle from his shoulder and put it to the side. "I'm not going to shoot you," Jean told Reiner very diplomatically.

"Good because I have no weapons," Reiner joked with hands raised.

Jean looked around the destroyed city. "You are a weapon," he corrected the Warrior. "That's quite a party you and Eren had, look at the state of this place," Jean noted.

"Whoa," Reiner started to defend himself, still with arms raised. "I didn't do this. The big girl up there did," he pointed upwards, to the sky. "So don't go on blaming me."

"How are we going to stop that thing?" Pieck questioned after coming out of her Titan to talk.

"Where's Eren? What happened to him?" Jean asked Reiner.

"I don't know but he and Zeke are probably responsible for setting that thing free," Reiner responded while pointing up towards the open skies again.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Jean questioned. "We know Zeke is dead," he argued while pointing at the new Phoenix Titan with both arms. "You were the one fighting Eren, how did you lose sight of him?"

"He just disappeared." Reiner explained while shrugging.

"Disappeared? What do you even mean by that?" Pieck questioned.

"I actually mean disappeared." Reiner insisted. "As in: out of thin air. He was just gone."

"Huh…" Pieck trailed off, she turned her attention towards the Army building. "Why do I have a feeling this building is empty?" she then questioned Jean.

"Because it is," the soldier replied.

"So that's our reinforcement?" Reiner turned to ask Pieck. "Jean?" And the Survey Corps soldier looked a little indignant.

"Where is everyone?" Pieck asked Jean.

"They probably left, either to the harbour or to the inner cities," Jean replied with a small shrug. "But that doesn't matter, the important thing is that we have plenty of supplies left here," the soldier argued. "And the other reason why that doesn't matter is-" Jean moved both Reiner's shoulders and pointed him in the direction of the fallen city gates. "Because that's your reinforcement."

The soldier, the Warrior and the Titan turned to look towards the swarm of gigantic Pure Colossal Titans all piling up on top of the actual Colossal Titan. The Shifter was clearly struggling.

Jean took out his optical instrument and gave it to Reiner, so he could see it better from afar. The soldier looked around the destroyed city, with his hands on his hips. "It's so odd to see this city without walls." Jean let out.

"He's really not having a good time there," Reiner noted as he looked through that optical instrument. "There's something odd with his transformation. I thought it only had been ripped off before - and would eventually regenerate - but now that I see it, he only has one arm. Where's his right one? So strange, and it certainly adds to this struggle. He's clearly having difficulty fighting with just his left."

"I suppose all of our comrades are dead," Pieck considered, thinking of her troop up in the Wall and of General Magath.

Reiner put the small instrument down. "They were certainly killed in the Colossal Titan transformation, no one can survive that," he told Pieck.

"What about Mikasa?" Jean asked, taking the optical instrument from Reiner's hands and trying to look through it himself.

"There isn't any human there, just the Titans," Reiner argued. "Was she with him?"

"Always," Jean replied. "Those two are a double act. Did you forget about that?" He questioned his 104th Regiment friend. "And she isn't exactly human, if you forgot about that too."

"Who is he talking about?" Pieck asked.

"The Ackermann," Reiner replied. "Well, one of the Ackermanns."

He then turned to Jean with raised eyebrows. "Do you think she's dead too?" Reiner questioned, thinking how that would be a big tactical loss.

-.-

"Armin, can you hear me?"

She asked, shouting slightly.

Mikasa had her head turned closer to the wall of cold crystals supporting her, she pressed herself against it.

"I'm awake," she continued more softly.

Although Mikasa had shouted, she was too far and the Titan heartbeat was too loud for her voice to be heard. But Armin could hear her inside his mind, through that cursed dimension.

The Colossal Titan was struggling, for most of the Wall Titans had immediately taken some interest in him, the moment they were released from the Wall. The Shifter was doing his best to keep them away but there were just too many. The majority of those gigantic Pure Titans were only simple minded, they were quite slow and with little to no reflexes; those Armin could divert and eventually kill at ease. But the rare Abnormal Titans were more complicated, those were much more difficult to fight and Armin knew he had to go for the nape quickly with those, otherwise he could end up killed himself.

The gates and its surrounding areas in Shiganshina were absolutely trampled because of their fight, to Armin's absolute frustration. It pained him to see his city in flames and completely destroyed. He looked around to see all those immense Titans stomping all over that region. Armin was dispirited. Wall Maria had completely fallen.

He stood near the now destroyed gates of his hometown, surrounded by fallen grey Titan Crystal and red disintegrating Titan flesh. The Colossal Titan started to pull out his right arm away from his chest - in his hasty transformation he had completely crystallised his right arm into the centre of his chest - and for good reason.

The crystal went up from his right shoulder, down his right arm and into his chest, completely immobilising that side and rendering his right arm unusable; what had made his fighting all the more difficult. But he managed, Armin was good with working with what was available.

The Colossal Titan broke down all the crystal as he raised its arm, and finally opened its hand. All very slowly and extremely carefully. ϟ Are you ok? ϟ he asked.

Mikasa was a bit bothered by the sudden rays of sunlight and a little dizzy. But she quickly found her bearings and reassessed the situation. She was glad to finally find where gravity truly was. Mikasa was sitting at the very centre of the Colossal Titan's palm. A palm that extended to over seven meters, so she looked extremely small in comparison, but also extremely well safeguarded.

"I'm ok," she confirmed with her forearm over her eyes, to avoid the strong sunlight. Mikasa quickly noticed that those crystals hadn't left her after Armin had opened his Titan's hand. She looked around her arms and legs and felt around her head. Mikasa was covered in Titan Crystal, she now had her own armour.

She looked up at the Colossal Titan in pure confusion.

ϟ I didn't mean to do that, ϟ he justified, trying to whisper.

That small moment of tranquillity was quickly over as an Abnormal Wall Titan came charging towards them and Armin barely had time to defend himself. Another wave of Wall Titans was coming his way, and there were much more all around that region.

Mikasa swiftly used her ODM gear to fly off his hand. It was her natural response and only midway into the flight she realised and became very glad that her ODM equipment could work despite all the crystal coating it.

She landed on the Colossal Titan's left shoulder.

ϟ Is it heavy? ϟ Armin asked in pure curiosity.

And Mikasa climbed up to his left ear. She leaned closer to it as the Colossal swung a few punches at the Abnormal - now that he could use both arms.

"When you talk, even if you don't want to, it sounds very loud," she whispered into his ear in light admonishment. "And no, it's not heavy. It's actually quite comfortable, thank you," she responded.

Mikasa stood on the top of the Colossal Titan's head and took out her two long and beautiful crystal swords. The Ackermann was quite proud of her new armour and she was thirsty to attack. Mikasa knew she had a good amount of gas left so she set out quite fashionably. She swiftly killed that pesky Abnormal Titan with one deep laceration and set off to kill another three Wall Titans. They fell, one after the other.

There were hundreds of others Wall Titans coming their way, walking slowly from the near Wall Maria regions. The extreme steam made up a foggy curtain of pure heat and flames, and the couple couldn't see past beyond a few tens of meters in front of them, but they kept fighting.

Mikasa flew back to near his ear again. "They don't wear out," she proudly told him, about the crystal blades. Mikasa was very glad, that meant she could kill many more Wall Titans without the worry of her blades becoming dull. She stood on top of the Colossal Titan's head and looked down, showing him the swords; and he quickly looked up at her, acknowledging what she had said, midway through all the fighting. Mikasa then flew out again, to kill even more Titans.

'But your gas will if you keep spending it like that,' Armin thought as he fought the Titans surrounding him. He was very concerned for her safety, and they were in a very dire situation.

Mikasa started to feel fatigued, she could feel the stomps in her head coming, the chimes were quickly increasing and becoming more like clangs. She hunched down while on top of one of the many Wall Titans, she firmed herself with one of her crystal blades as she waited for the worst of the pain to go away. Mikasa hadn't had headaches for a long while, she had almost forgotten how they felt like, but as she was going through the thick of it, she could tell these felt slightly different.

She looked up and all around her, feeling quite hazy and dizzy, and having trouble discerning things. She then decided to fly back near to Armin, just in case. And as she flew near him and secured herself over his shoulder he could tell she was not alright. Mikasa looked nervous and apprehensive.

Armin looked ahead to see those hundreds of Titans all around then, he kept fighting.

When eventually they could both see this strange, colourful and extremely hot fire coming their way. It quickly burned the Wall Titan's heads off, up to the point of the nape. And the giant creatures started to drop in flames, one by one.

That was a strange Titan Armin and Mikasa had never seen before, it almost didn't look like a Titan at all. They both became very confused.

The Colossal Titan reached out his arm and the strange Titan swiftly landed on it, just like a regular bird would. And Armin brought the bird close to his Titan's face, as he identified his friend Jean and also unexpectedly Reiner, of all people, sitting on the back of that strange Titan and looking up at him.

"This is a mess isn't it?" Jean said and slightly bumped Reiner, shoulder to shoulder. "Look who I found," the soldier added.

And the Colossal Titan looked down at the Warrior mistrustfully.

"Nice get up," the Phoenix Titan addressed the Ackermann and Mikasa looked at her confused. Pieck came out of the Titan, right in front of Reiner and Jean. "No, seriously, I love the helmet," the woman maintained, talking about the Ackermann's Crystal Armour.

Reiner looked around the area, assessing the dire situation. "It seems you need some help," he pointed out to Armin, presenting himself.

ϟ Help? ϟ the Colossal Titan questioned, mistrustfully.

Jean flew over with his ODM gear and landed on the Colossal Titan's right shoulder, as Mikasa stood on the left; which separated the Survey Corps Soldiers from the Warriors for a moment.

The Phoenix Titan looked up at the Colossal. "Let me help," she proposed.

Reiner noticed Jean's full equipment and looked around himself for a moment, "I'm not wearing any ODM gear," the soldier realised, warning Pieck.

"Then strap on," she advised. The Phoenix Titan flew away from the Colossal Titan's arm with quite an impulse and did a gracious lap high over their heads. Pieck was counting the amount of Wall Titans down below and planning her route of attack. The Titan then flew down beautifully and gaining speed, she started blasting.

"Do you have enough gas? Are your blades edged?" Mikasa questioned Jean, shouting from the Colossal Titan's other shoulder.

"Yeah," Jean shouted back, taking out his two swords. "I just replenished. Are those things operational?" he questioned back, pointing one of his swords at her full crystal get up.

"Of course," she replied and set out elegantly, flying around the Titan threat and killing as many as she could.

Jean went after the Ackermann and tried his hand on killing those immense Wall Titans. It was a strange experience, certainly different from slicing the napes of much smaller Titans.

Reiner cogitated his place in that fight. He took out his small knife, planning on transforming again. But he looked up to the bright skies, and retrieved the small weapon. 'No,' he thought. Reiner decided to save his energies, he wanted to be fully charged and as prepared as he could once he came face to face with that goddess. 'I'll be the one to kill her,' he thought. 'This is my shot.'

In between all the intense steam and heat Jean found Mikasa crouching down over one of the Wall Titans, she seemed to be in a lot of pain as she held her head intensely. She had even taken her helmet off and put it to the side. "Are you hurt?!" he shouted, coming down with his ODM gear. "Are-Are you ok?" he asked as he approached, full of concern.

"I'm fine," she replied coldly. Mikasa stood up and put her helmet back on, she took some impulse and flew again, slicing that Titan's nape as Jean was then forced to also fly away from it - as the Titan fell down dead - and secure himself in yet another Titan. He watched as she flew away slicing Titans on her way back to the centre of the battle.

Mikasa was feeling hazy again. Even as the pain went away, she decided to go back towards Armin again, just in case. She flew over and stood on the Colossal Titan's head once more. Armin became more wary of his movements once she landed, so she wouldn't fall. Mikasa quickly secured herself more firmly with her ODM gear.

Her adrenaline was high, and her heart was beating faster by the minute; Mikasa could not understand what all that was. She closed her eyes firmly, waiting for yet another strong headache to reach her but it didn't. Mikasa opened her eyes again to see herself in that cursed dimension.

She looked up to those bright stars in the sky and to the sand down below, just to see that tiny girl in front of her. Mikasa was stunned with the sight but she smiled with the comfort as Sunny quickly ran into her arms, hugging her very tight.

"Are you alright, my sunflower?" The mother asked very softly.

"Mummy, I'm scared," Sonnenblume replied.

And Mikasa held her even tighter. "Don't worry, I'm right here, baby girl," the mother affirmed, lovingly.

"Who are those people? They scare me," Sonnenblume asked her mother, very frightened.

"What people?" The mother asked back, confused. Mikasa looked up to see hundreds and hundreds of strangers all around them in that cursed dimension.

She couldn't tell who they were, they just looked like regular people: men, women and children of different ages, wearing odd old clothes; all looking very frightened themselves. They all cried very strangely, in deep mourning and agony. They were starting to frighten Mikasa as well.

"I want them gone," Sonnenblume affirmed, somberly.

"Sonnenblume?" Mikasa asked as the small girl's eyes shone a very bright yellow. The small girl was letting her instincts come out, she was going to frighten them too.

"Sonnenblume, wait-" Mikasa exclaimed as all she could see was that very bright yellow energy all around her as the small girl turned into stardust. She looked around to see all those people running away even more frightened and in pain than before. The mother felt deep sorrow for all those lost souls. They just ran off, terrified, in multiple directions.

Mikasa opened her eyes again, they shone bright yellow for a moment, but it slowly faded away. She quickly had to protect her ears, for the intense noise all over her was extremely deafening. It took a small moment for her to realise what was happening and what was all that noise. Mikasa stood up in the Colossal Titan's head to see all those Wall Titans running off from them in all directions.

The whole scenery was bizarre, the creatures just ran away. Stomping their way across the Maria Region. Hundreds and hundreds more of Wall Titans, they just ran off.

Jean flew from shoulder to shoulder of those things, trying to find somewhere firm to latch his grappling hooks onto. He was running out of Titan flesh and losing balance in his flight as he bounced around those gigantic creatures - as they ran in the opposite direction. He couldn't find a building or anything firmed into the ground as he flew around those Titans; Jean was getting a little desperate until he finally felt the claw of the Phoenix Titan grab his arm and he then climbed onto its back.

He looked at Reiner and Reiner looked back at him, neither of them understood what was going on. The soldier, the Warrior and the Titan looked down to that bizarre scenery, all very confused. All those Titans were just naturally fighting them a couple of minutes earlier, just trying to eat Shifters as usual. Jean, Reiner and Pieck could not understand what had caused that sudden shift in behaviour.

"Do you think the goddess called them?" Reiner asked, considering.

"Or maybe Eren did," Jean proposed his own theory.

"It certainly wasn't Zeke," Reiner argued back while affectionately tapping the Phoenix Titan's back a couple of times. Confirming how Zeke was in fact dead, and they all knew it.

'If they were being controlled, why would they run off in multiple directions instead of simply following towards where they were called?' Pieck thought, but kept it to herself.

Sonnenblume could not control Titans, she could not control Eldians in any way, but she could give them the most unpleasant memories and illusions. And it still was quite impressive the amount of damage she could generate in such an early stage of her life, just by being frightened herself.

Those poor souls had been alive and agonising for over a hundred years, they did not choose to become those gigantic monsters. They were once just regular humans, eldians that had moved to the Island of Paradise with the promise of a new start: a new life, away from the war.

Armin looked at those Titans running away, disturbed but also quite upset. He'd rather those monsters stayed there fighting him, than stomping all over the Maria Region; wreaking havoc in the cities and trying to eat the citizens.

Mikasa was still in a small haze, she held her stomach, considering. It seemed Sonnenblume could manifest her powers through her somehow. She noticed the Colossal Titan hunching down for a moment, Armin came out of the nape to talk with her.

"These things are going to destroy the island!" He shouted as Mikasa came flying down with her ODM gear.

"Then we need to stop them," she responded, landing on his side.

"Good point," Reiner noted as the Phoenix Titan flew down and landed on the Colossal Titan's shoulder. "So, what's our next move?" he asked Armin with some excitement.

"I thought you wanted the island to be destroyed," Armin threw back at him. "Wasn't why you were here in the first place?" he questioned.

"Not if it means the whole world is next," Reiner swiftly replied.

"So if that wasn't the case you would gladly watch Paradise burn?" Armin questioned again, callously.

"Armin-" Mikasa held his shoulder in light admonishment, for she knew very well they needed those allies.

"No," he said, turning towards her. "I need to know what we are dealing with here," he maintained, sternly.

Pieck came out of her Titan as well. "Have you seen that creature up in the sky?" she questioned her fellow Titan.

"What creature?" Armin asked, confused.

"Up in the sky?" Mikasa asked simultaneously, sharing in the same confusion.

Mikasa had been inside the Colossal Titan's hand for the past few hours and Armin had been too busy fighting the Wall Titans to even look up. He had seen the goddess Ymir flying high up in the sky moments after he had been shot, during that first earthquake. But Armin had convinced himself that wasn't real.

"The giant monster goddess flying all over the island. She caused the earthquakes and brought the Walls down," Reiner explained.

"Huh, I thought I was dreaming," Armin considered, thinking back to when he first saw the flying monster.

"It's more like a nightmare, mate," Jean pointed out.

"That's the thing we are truly fighting," Pieck completed her argument. "So you two can calculate all the damage to this city and to our harbour and split the account between Eldia and Marley- After we have dealt with the world ending threat."

Armin looked down, calculating.

He then turned to Jean. "I'm assuming the compound is empty," he asked.

"Of people," Jean replied, "everything else is still there."

"You are running low on gas," Armin noted to Mikasa, "you've got to be more careful with that," he advised.

He turned to Jean again. "Can you bring out as many supplies as the Phoenix can carry? Blades, gas and spears, dynamite, anything explosive. Then we can meet outside-"

"Huh," Pieck let out.

"What?" Armin asked.

"Nothing," Pieck was a little surprised that he had recognised her mythological bird of choice.

"We can all just meet there," Jean argued. "And discuss our plan there."

"No, I can't really," Armin reminded him, raising his shoulders as the Colossal Titan's shoulders moved as well.

He was deeply attached to it with all those fibres, and Armin wasn't planning on leaving that vessel just so he had to conjure another again. He had no plans on wasting his energy, for he knew it could be critical in the near future.

"Your Titan seems capable of walking," Reiner argued, looking down to the Titan's feet.

"I'm not walking all over Shiganshina," Armin patiently explained. The Army compound was in the middle of the town.

"The city is already destroyed," Jean argued while shrugging.

"Well I'm not making it worse. I'll meet you all outside," Armin maintained. "Then we can discuss our next step."

He went back into his Titan and the giant thing started to walk, passing the now destroyed city gates, the Colossal Titan eventually sat down some a hundred meters in front of the city. All while the Phoenix Titan flew back in the direction of the Army compound.

-.-

"Is that really a bird?" Connie asked as he appeared on the roof with the Jaw Titan, who had just climbed the side of that building all the way to the top.

The Phoenix Titan was on the other side of the ledge.

"Woah!" Falco exclaimed as he came out of his Titan. "It looks so cool!" The twelve-year-old added.

"Look at you," Pieck complimented the boy back from her Titan. "You're already getting the hang of it," she noted, smiling.

"I was hoping you would show up," Jean noted as he carried some boxes up to the roof with Reiner. "I'm glad you're not dead."

"Almost," Connie joked as he greeted his friend. "But this big man here wouldn't let me die. He saved all of us," he added, pointing at Falco. "And isn't this our designated regrouping spot anyways?"

Jean shrugged, putting the boxes down.

Connie looked around for a moment. "Are you alone here?" he asked.

"Clearly not," Jean replied, pointing at the Warriors in front of them.

"Yes I see them," Connie concurred. "I meant: where are all the other soldiers?"

"Ran off? Jean shrugged again. "Who knows?"

Connie finally looked towards his old 104th Regiment friend, acknowledging him. "How are you, Reiner?" he asked with his hands on his hips.

"Hoping I can get some nice ODM equipment," Reiner replied with his charming smile. "Not all of us can wear pure crystal," he joked.

And Connie just looked at him confused, he had no context for Reiner's silly joke.

"Well, now we have two Titans," Jean noted. "Means we can carry a lot more supplies."

Jean, Connie and Reiner then climbed down the stairs back inside the compound, to bring out more fighting equipment.

-.-

The Colossal Titan was sitting on the grounds outside of Shiganshina and his wife had landed next to his nape. Armin had swiftly removed himself from the Titan again, still remaining very attached to it. Mikasa secured herself tight with her ODM grappling hooks, sitting very close to him.

Armin looked up to the bright blue paradisian sky. Already deep in concentration, considering things and trying to put a plan together. Mikasa looked to his face with much tenderness, tilting her head. He seemed extremely concentrated, and she then delicately leaned over, surprising him with a gentle and passionate kiss on the lips. Armin almost lost control of his Titan for a moment with that surprise and the entire thing became out of balance.

"Don't drop me," Mikasa joked with a small laugh as she pulled away.

"What was that for?" Armin asked, with eyebrows raised high.

"Just while the others aren't here," she replied, and they looked back towards the destroyed gates of Shiganshina.

"Alright," he replied softly and charmingly and leaned in to kiss her again, another equally passionate kiss.

Mikasa looked deep into his eyes as they pulled away again. "Thank you for not killing me with your transformation," she softly told him, jokingly.

"That was tricky, but I couldn't just lose you. I couldn't even bear the thought," Armin explained with an embarrassed smile. "So I had to figure out a way to protect you quickly."

"Then it's a good thing you're a quick thinker," Mikasa noted. "I owe my life to you working well under pressure, again. I lost count of how many times you saved me that way," she told him softly.

"Why are you being so sweet? Armin asked, mistrustfully, and squinted a little.

"Why? You think you don't deserve it?" She questioned him softly, raising her eyebrows, and leaned over for a third very passionate kiss.

They pulled away slowly and locked into each other's eyes for a moment.

"There's something I need to tell you," Mikasa said quietly, looking down.

"And there it is," Armin noted with a small, clever smile. "What do you need to tell me?" he asked.

"I was going to wait until it was all over, so as not to worry you. But now I think this could be useful," she explained.

"Well, now I'm intrigued," Armin replied, curious.

"I'm pregnant," Mikasa revealed.

"What?!" he asked, baffled. Armin lost balance again.

"You need to take control of your Titan," the mother complained while holding on closer to her equipment.

"You-you shouldn't even be here," Armin noted, stuttering, while finding and firming his bearings again.

"I'll be fine," Mikasa replied with certainty.

Armin thought about it and leaned closer. "Can you regenerate again? Just like with Azzy?" he asked.

Mikasa nodded. "Remember the explosion? At the office?" she asked and Armin nodded. "Well I got burned too, but my burns just quickly healed, they were gone as fast as they came," she explained while looking around herself, remembering.

"Huh," Armin let out and considered. "How far along are you? How long have you known?" the father questioned.

"About two months. I've known for a while," she replied.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Armin asked, a little upset.

"Because a lot was happening, and there was never a good moment. And I knew it would make you distracted," Mikasa argued.

"When…" Armin trailed off, thinking back, he started to squint again.

And Mikasa tilted her head, observing his own concentration. "Are you trying to figure it out? Don't- Stop trying to figure it out," she told him. "I know when it was, I'll tell you later."

Armin was curious. "You could just tell me now," he suggested cheekily while raising his eyebrows.

They looked over to see the others coming in the distance, coming through the rubble with all the supplies and tactical gear.

"I'll tell you later," Mikasa maintained. "The important thing is: this can be helpful."

"Right you said we could use it, what do you mean by that?" Armin asked.

"Remember how we were a little concerned about having another one? You know, after Azzy," she reminded him.

"Are you saying this one has odd powers too? How could you even tell so early on?" Armin questioned.

"This one is a little different," Mikasa explained. "And I could tell from the beginning, she's been messing with my head from day one."

"She? It's a girl?!" the father asked with a big smile. "What do you mean by messing with your head?"

Mikasa started to gently stroke her husband's chin. "Because," she explained, "I have a feeling, I can do it to others too."

She held the side of his face, Mikasa's eyes became bright yellow: Sonnenblume was about to give her father a vision.

Armin's eyes became bright yellow too. He looked up to see the sky abruptly go from bright blue to bloody red. The clouds turned purple and many black birds swirled around, hovering on top of him. Preying upon him. They suddenly flew down fast to attack him and Armin put his head down defensively as the black ravens all came flying down at his face. He closed his eyes, shutting them tight. He looked very scared and Mikasa noticed how he was troubled so she let go of him. Her eyes became black again, it all stopped.

"So?" she asked.

Armin opened his eyes to see the bright blue sky again. "How can you do that?" he asked, perplexed.

"I'm not the one doing it, I'm just a surrogate, literally," Mikasa relayed.

She could then see the wheels turning behind Armin's eyes. "You're already planning something aren't you?" Mikasa asked.

"We can definitely use this," Armin replied. "Can you do it at will?" he asked.

"I just did it, didn't I?" Mikasa pointed out.

"Alright," Armin replied.

-.-

The rest of the group eventually arrived. The Phoenix Titan landed on the Colossal Titan's right shoulder and the Jaw Titan climbed up to the left. Jean, Connie and Reiner were all fully equipped with the latest ODM tactical gear. Jean was on top of the Phoenix, with some of the supplies, in particular the dynamite; while Connie and Reiner were on top of the Jaw, carrying extra blades, gas and many thunder-spears.

"What do you mean he just disappeared?" Armin questioned Reiner.

"I mean it looked like this bizarre Paths thing," Reiner tried to explain.

"Paths thing?" Armin asked.

"Now I get the crystal joke," Connie quietly commented to Reiner as they set eyes on Mikasa.

"Can't you just track him?" Mikasa quietly asked Armin.

"I can't track the Founder," Armin reminded her.

"You can track him?" Reiner loudly asked.

"No, I can track other Shifters, but not the Founder," Armin explained to him.

"Maybe the goddess is keeping him ransom there," Connie supposed, he crossed his arms, remembering. "It's a weird place to be in."

"How would you know?" Reiner questioned.

"Oh, I'm just guessing," Connie lied.

"Do you think that creature is controlling the Titans?" Armin questioned the others.

"That's a theory," Pieck let out. She wasn't very confident on that.

"She's definitely the reason why the Walls fell and those things were set free," Jean affirmed.

"How could Eren and Zeke just release a creature like that?" Mikasa questioned.

"Unknowingly?" Reiner proposed. "It's possible. Ymir has been known throughout the centuries for being a tricky witch. But that could just be folklore."

"And Zeke is dead now, right?" Connie asked for confirmation.

"Do you think Eren is dead too?" Armin questioned. And Mikasa became fearful.

"I'm the reason Zeke is dead. Not the witch," Pieck revealed, dutifully.

"But from the weirdness of what I experienced she might as well have taken Eren," Reiner maintained.

Mikasa kneeled down, closer to Armin. "Can't you just try to track him?" She pleaded in a small whisper.

Armin started to calculate. "We will take her down," he told the others and then turned to Mikasa. "We'll deal with Eren later," Armin quietly said. His childhood friend wasn't a priority at that moment: the goddess was.

"I believe there are some people already working on that," Reiner pointed out, scratching his head.

"What people?" Armin turned to Reiner with his question.

"The entire World Alliance," Pieck explained.

"World?" Jean questioned.

"There was never anything like that before… was there?" Connie asked.

"No," Pieck replied. "But after the attack to our harbour new deals were made," she explained.

"To destroy the island?" Armin questioned. "I suppose I expected that," he noted.

"Then why did you do it?" Pieck questioned back, thinking of the terror she had to witness and of the bodies of those innocent children.

Armin tilted his head. "I thought we were only going to split that account after we have dealt with the world ending threat," he replied to her very coldly.

He turned to Reiner. "How many ships are headed our way?" Armin asked.

"You destroyed all the ships," Reiner swiftly replied. "We have about four hundred and forty-one airships coming this way," he proceeded to explain. "Since none of them have arrived to this point, I'm assuming they are all stuck somewhere near shore trying to blast that giant creature down from the sky."

.-.

Reiner, Armin, Pieck and Falco all had an odd sense of Déjà vu. It was this strange feeling of the beginning of yet another war that brought this eeriness upon the Shifters. Their Titans had lived through wars over and over again for hundreds and hundreds of years, all of it was deeply embedded in their memories - throughout the centuries.

There was a difference however: this time the Nine Titans were set to fight against the witch herself. This had never happened before. All those merciless wars, all throughout the centuries might have been instigated by Ymir in her vengeful spirit. But now she was the one coming to the battlefield: the witch was there in flesh and bone.

Ymir could count and know each of those vessels and their inheritance. She knew their strengths and also their crippling weaknesses. Armin had Torr's Colossal Titan powers and some of Osmond's crystal abilities he had inherited by blood, he was a tricky one. Reiner had Jari's Armoured Titan powers: strong, more brawn than brains but he liked to play the hero, this could be dangerously unpredictable unless she used it to her advantage.

Annie had Elke's Female Titan powers, and she knew how to use them. Ymir hoped she would just remain as lost as she was. Pieck had Tate's Cart Titan powers and Ralph's Beast Titan powers, this was another one that could be tricky, she hoped both Titans would confuse their holder. The other twin: Raleigh had his Jaw Titan powers inherited by the small kid Falco, this one definitely wasn't a threat.

Now her father, she had him deeply inside the palm of her hands. Eren had Osmond's War-Hammer Titan powers and Dorian's Attack Titan powers. And he was deeply troubled, the powers confused him. Regardless, Ymir knew he would never betray her, she was his 'little angel' after all. The Founding Titan was trickier, she needed those powers to fully release all the Wall Titans and to completely control them. And those powers resided, at this moment, within her unborn brother. Ezra had just inherited Torin's powers in the brief moment when Eren had died.

.-.

"They're not going to be enough," Armin argued, about all those airships. "We still need an impact. I don't think I'll be able to transform again in the foreseeable future. Reiner, you're the second strongest explosion, it will have to be you," he proposed.

"Okay," he concurred. "But my Titan doesn't have wings. What happens if I fall from the sky?" Reiner questioned back.

"You're wearing ODM gear," Mikasa pointed out.

"I have wings. I'll keep a look on you, and catch you from falling. I'm not gonna let you fall from the skies to your death, that's a horrible way to go." Pieck put herself forward.

"You'll catch me? I don't know about that," Reiner expressed his doubts.

Pieck was a little hurt. "So you don't trust me to catch you? After all these years?" she asked.

"In the middle of the chaos? And in the vast skies? I'm sorry, it's not that I don't trust you, I just needed to point out my doubts," Reiner explained.

"That creature spans hundreds of meters, just hold on to it with your ODM gear and signal for help if you have too, we'll all have flares," Armin argued, but still considered another flying option. "Still, you're right about depending on only one winged titan."

Armin then suggested to Jean and Connie: "Maybe you guys can reach the harbour and take the airship-"

He then turned to Mikasa, more quietly. "-and maybe you should go with them," he suggested.

"No, I'm staying with you," she swiftly replied and he gently nodded.

"I don't think that would be easy, that place will be crawling with Yeagerists," Jean pointed out.

"True," Connie confirmed.

"What's a Yeagerist?" Reiner asked with arms crossed.

Pieck let out a small laugh. "Oh, you weren't here before like I was," she remembered, still chuckling.

"Is it what I'm thinking?" Reiner turned and asked her.

"We'll have so many things to laugh about later, if we survive this," Pieck replied with a small laugh.

"I don't think we could laugh at any of this in the future," Jean countered.

Reiner turned to Jean. "She will find a joke or two, believe me," he explained.

"Regardless," Armin proceeded to hastily concoct his new plan. "Reiner's explosion will be a good way to smoke her out."

And he then turned to Falco, the now holder of the Jaw Titan. "And that's when you come along," Armin proceeded to explain. "The witch is definitely clever enough to be crystallised. So only you can bite the nape."

"What's going to be there?" Falco wondered for a moment.

"A two thousand year old mummy, probably," Connie theorised.

"Cool," Falco replied with some excitement.

"Gross," Jean interjected. "You'll be the one to have to bite on it."

"And she'll probably curse you, she's a witch," Reiner added.

"Aren't we all already cursed?" Falco argued back, rightly.

-.-

- Year 854 - The Marlean Continent

[ A few days before ]

"So, this is Azymondeus Tybur. He is William's cousin. We only got acquainted recently," General Magath presented his new ally as they entered the war room, to join the others.

Azymondeus stood there, quite a tall and slick presence with his new shiny suit.

"Oh, yes: the Warriors. I am glad to make your acquaintance," Az replied with a big excited smile.

He looked around the room. They were all seated across the center table, looking very serious, but also surprised to see someone replacing Willy so suddenly after his untimely death.

"Let me guess," Az proceeded comically. "You must be the Armoured Titan," he correctly pointed at Reiner and the Warrior solemnly nodded. Azzy smiled, "you have the build for that," he added, widening out his own arms for effect.

"Cart?" Az asked as he pointed at Pieck.

"Correct." she replied, Pieck had her arms crossed.

Az noted she was the only woman in the room. "Where's the Female Titan?" he questioned the General.

"AWOL," Reiner replied.

"Since 850," Pieck added.

Az leaned closer to Magath as the two stood up there, in the front of the war room, near the marlean's paradise map. "This is a problem. Her Titan has some level of control over Pure Titans, that could be very useful," Az addressed his concerns to the General.

"True. Especially now that we lost Zeke Yeager," Magath added.

"He is one of our targets," Az reminded the General.

"Right..." Pieck quietly let out. And Azymondeus turned to her.

"Do you have a problem with that?" he questioned the Warrior.

"No," Pieck replied firmly, putting her hands on the table. "He's a traitor," she confirmed very seriously.

"Ok, who else?" Az continued, clapping his hands together and smiling again. He pointed at Porco. "You?" he asked, unsure.

"I'm the Jaw," he replied, reluctantly and with arms crossed.

"Right, I forgot about you," Az said, "I mean I forgot about your Titan," he quickly corrected himself.

"And you, gentleman over there," he proceeded, "who must you be?"

"I'm Colt Grice, the inheritor of the Beast Titan," Colt replied.

"Well, you can drop that second part," Az advised. "You can't inherit a Titan from a dead man." He noted and turned to Magath: "I guess we'll leave the next Beast to luck."

"Surely it needs to be passed down," Reiner interjected.

"Yeah, we can capture him," Porco added and Pieck remained quiet, only observing it all.

"No," Az countered. "We can't risk it. He needs to die. The only way to end this curse is by killing the Fritz Blood Line completely. That means Zeke Yeager and the Queen must die." Azymondeus firmly maintained while addressing the Warriors.

He turned his attention to the Cart, as she seemed more trepidatious. "You must kill him," he sternly maintained the advice.

And the woman looked to the side, considering it.

"Agreed. We need to stop the eldians from rising again," General Magath confirmed, as he and his new guest were finally sitting down at the center table. "We have had peace for over a hundred years now, we can't risk it."

"Peace?" Azymondeus questioned with a small laugh as he placed his shiny fancy shoes over the table, crossing one on top of the other. "You haven't had peace." He corrected the General. "What you have is control. Not peace. And that's what you Marleans always wanted." He proceeded to expertly explain. "You forget, General, Marley was once a great, merciless empire too. Once much greater than Eldia ever was, and for thousands of years."

'And I was there to see it fall, I brought it down myself,' Azymondeus thought.

"There will never be such a thing as 'peace'. Humans are born at war and die at war. Empires rise and fall and are unceremoniously replaced by other empires. So, there's no need to be so romantic about it all," Az declared.

There was a brief silence in the war room.

"Can you get your feet down from the table?" Reiner broke the silence, looking at the strange man with arms crossed.

"'Peace'," Az quietly repeated with a small laugh as he put his feet down and sat properly.

"Either way," the General proceeded with the meeting, "we need to stop the eldians from destroying the whole world with those Wall Titans."

"What do you bring to the table?" Pieck asked Azymondeus, mistrustfully.

"Technology," Az replied quite smoothly. "Future technology that is."

"Mr. Tybur will gladly lend us some of their family's private gadgets that, according to him, will help us win this war quite easily," the General explained.

"Why hadn't Willy shared this new technology with us before then?" Reiner questioned.

"Not his part of the family exactly," Az replied nonchalantly.

"So are you saying he didn't know?" Pieck questioned.

"I never told him," he shrugged, maintaining, "this project is extremely private, secret. And I haven't seen him in a long time," Az explained, lying of course.

"What sort of gadgets are we talking about?" Reiner asked.

And Azymondeus stood up promptly. He walked towards the map of Paradise Island, looking at the drawing of the Walls.

'Maria, Rose and Sina,' that took his concentration for a moment but he snapped out of it and focused on the mission again.

"The funny thing about Walls is: they are useless against air attacks," Azymondeus turned towards them with his charming smile. "These are nothing against our state-of-the-art airplanes."

"I'm assuming all of this will come with a price?" Magath considered.

"We can sort that out with Auntie later," Az replied.

"Who's auntie?" Reiner asked, confused.

"Kiyomi," Magath replied, "he calls her that."

"Do you know her?" Porco turned to ask the strange Tybur man, also confused.

"Oh, Auntie and I go waay back," Az replied with a charming smile. He then turned to Magath, "but the real price is vengeance. For my family and all those who died. You know why I'm here," he reminded the General while sitting down again.

"We still need to rescue Falco and Gabi," Colt interjected, reminding the others.

"What is he talking about?" Az asked Magath.

"Two of our children that have been captured," Reiner explained.

"We don't actually know what happened to them exactly," Pieck added.

"They have been captured." Colt maintained. "We need to rescue them. Please! One of them is my little brother," the young Warrior pleaded.

"Settle down, man," Reiner advised, for the young man was suddenly very agitated.

"How can I?" Colt turned to question him. "And what about Gabi? Your family must be worried sick too. Are you not?"

"Yes, I'm worried," Reiner confirmed, sounding a little disingenuous. "But we have more important things to discuss, I'm sure we'll get to that," he argued.

"If you don't behave properly you'll need to leave the war room, man," Porco warned.

"You don't get to make that call, Galliard," Magath reprimanded him sternly.

"Sure, we can have a small team to go find them," Az conceded, shrugging.

"I will. Just send me," Colt passionately volunteered himself.

"Yes, yes, sure. I was expecting you'd say that," Az said to Colt, and then turned to Magath. "Put an asterisk in there will you," he asked.

"You're more callous than Willy," Pieck noted to the stranger.

Az leaned back on his chair with much charm. "I can't imagine any William who willingly accepts to be called that to be very callous," he joked about the deceased man's nickname.

"But then again I never really met my cousin, so…" he trailed off, still smiling. Az was very good at amusing himself.

Reiner crossed his arms. "I thought you said you just haven't seen him in a long time," he questioned, doubtingly.

And Azzy scratched his head. "Well I only met him once, actually," he justified, "I think."

"You don't get to laugh at anyone called Willy. You're named after a cartoon character," Pieck made her argument, rightfully so.

And Azzy leaned back on his chair again. "I guess we all get to keep our ridiculously childish names, Peach," he argued back.

"Pieck," she corrected him.

"I prefer Peach," he maintained, flirting a little.

"Ok. So what is our main objective?" Magath proceeded with the meeting, stopping that derail.

"Killing the Fritzs," Az swiftly replied. "That's how we avert the Wall threat. No Fritzs no Wall Titans. We need to erase them from history, completely."

"What about the rumours that the Queen is expecting," Reiner pointed out.

"Well she certainly shouldn't be expecting us, this is being planned to be a highly stealthy operation," Az replied, looking very serious.

"You know he means-" Magath was about to ask.

And Az interrupted him. "Yes, I know he meant pregnant."

"I think he tried to make a joke," Porco noted, squinting a little.

"Badly," Colt added.

"Well what do we do then?" Pieck asked.

"We proceed with the mission," Az swiftly replied. "The eldian curse started with the Fritzs and it will end with the Fritzs," he maintained quite firmly, but all the others just looked back at him either glassy-eyed or just mistrustfully.

Az stood up from his chair. "The important thing is: we need to kill the Queen," he affirmed sternly, with his hands on the table. "And also her second-rate cousin," he added with a shrug and a small smile.

'You're someone's second-rate cousin,' Pieck thought, amusing herself.

Az looked towards the woman, he could tell she was mocking him in her mind.

"You don't trust me, do you?" Azymondeus asked, with his customary charming smile.

Pieck leaned in, reaching further into the table and looked him firmly in the eyes. "I don't trust anyone." she replied.

- Year 899 - A forgotten Timeline

"Look at those birds!" Az crossed his arms with a proud smile. "They are all beautiful," he added.

They were at the giant vessel. In that destroyed future. The enormous ship sailed through the dangerous waters, serving the small island communities and also working as an airstrip for those beautiful planes.

Onyankopon had assembled his squadron, the best of the best. All on display on the deck of the ship. That squadron was in charge of minimising the Titan threat. The gigantic Pure Colossal Titans had been freed many many years ago and they walked all over the Earth. Humanity had resorted to living in small islands hidden across the vast oceans. Only less than one percent of humans remained, and the population continued to drop fast over the years.

The giant ships, like the one they were in now, had been built to transport goods and people and to maintain communication in the many remote islands. That main vessel also transported the state-of-the-art airplanes that were used to try to bring those giant Titans down. Onyankopon was already an old man, and the last survivor of the first alliance. He was old, and quite frankly dispirited, for in so many years they hadn't made a dent in that Rumbling. The power of the King was too great.

"How would you like a target you can actually bring down?" Az proposed to the old man, with his hands on his hips.

"Let's hope that's the case," old Onyan replied.

"Oh, it is," Az confirmed. "Plus they've had more than enough practice," he added, talking about the pilots, who had spent years fighting in the devil's throat - trying to shoot it down. "How about finally fighting for a real Change?" Az maintained his proposal.

"What's the catch?" Onyankopon asked.

"The catch?" Az asked back, a little confused.

"Come on, there's always a catch with these things," old Onyan noted.

"Well," Az crossed his arms again, now more contemplative. "If things work out as they should. And they will," Azymondeus confirmed, gravely. "All of this will be just gone," he relayed.

"You mean all of it will cease to exist?" Onyankopon asked and Az nodded.

"That means you too, and the rest of your squadron," Az explained. "Even the airplanes. Once all is over none of that will have a place in the new timeline."

The old man looked down, contemplative. He looked up towards the airplanes. "We need to tell them. If this is a suicide mission then all my aces need to know, so they can choose if they want to be a part of it or not."

"That's fair," Azymondeus agreed. "Are you coming?" the young man asked.

And Onyan became reflective again. "Even if this doesn't work, I would like to see the world again, as it was. It would be a nice image to take with me, before I go," the old man conceded.

"It will work," Azzy affirmed. "Are you ready to lead your squadron?" he asked more cheerfully.

The devil's throat

The twins were playing in their sand castle, happily as they always were; making their little sand sculptures and smiling together.

Azymondeus jumped to the insides of the giant Founder's head. He walked around, looking for her.

"Does he even know you have him suspended in an illusion?" the time traveller firmly asked as he approached the devil's throat.

The four-year-old girl looked up towards him very somberly, as her brother continued to play happily in their castle. Ymir stood up and tilted her head, looking straight into Azzy's eyes. "All of us see the world the way we want to see it," she justified. "It's always better that way."

"What world?" Az questioned. "You destroyed everything."

"That's the way you see it," Ymir pointed out. "See?" she added, smiling.

She turned herself into a thirteen-year-old into that illusion. Ymir proceeded, walking further. "I see it differently. I'm just getting rid of the plague and starting anew."

"Do you agree with her, Ezra?" Azymondeus tilted his head looking further, and asked the small boy, but the toddler just ignored him. Ezra kept playing with the sand, very somberly.

"The world is just cruel," the girl continued. "What good has it ever done to you?" Ymir questioned her old friend.

Az shook his head in disbelief. This couldn't be Ymir, no, the Ymir he knew had died over two thousand years before.

"I'm coming for you," he threatened her.

"I'm right here," she replied, opening her arms with a smile. "Why don't you come closer?" Ymir asked, trickily.

"This 'you' will disappear as soon as I leave this version of reality," the time traveller explained.

"What?" Ymir asked, tilting her head in confusion.

"Goodbye, love," Az replied, saying his farewell to that version of the witch.

Ymir maintained her confusion as he disappeared from her sight, taking with him all that reality. It all ceased to exist.

The new timeline - Year 854 - Paradise Island

Azymondeus walked inside the marlean dirigible. He stopped near old Onyan, over the controls, and placed his hand over the old man's shoulder. They leaned in with extra attention, as they had stopped to hear the pilots over the radio. Danso was informing that they had sighted the giant Titan, flying in the sky. And Az pressed the button to speak back.

"Give her hell, boys," he ordered.

The squadron flew upwards as the goddess Ymir was distracted with the countless airships down below. She hovered somewhere near the shores of the island, moving her giant, crystal wings with much grace. Ymir looked up to see those small, odd looking airplanes coming down towards her in multiple directions. They prepared their Iceburst cannons, ready to fire.

The future airplanes started to blast the flying Titan out of the sky.

-.-

- Year 871 - Mitras - The Royal Palace

The prince was coming back from yet another training journey. He hadn't been home for weeks. Ezra joked around with his friends from the Special Forces about how glad he was to finally be able to sleep on his own bed and to be able to eat real food again. The prince wasn't exactly the talkative or charming kind, on the contrary, Ezra was on the shy side. But he was so used to these soldiers that he felt comfortable enough to joke and laugh around.

"The banquet is on me, boys," he told the troop as they slowly galloped into the stone steps of the Palace's main garden and they all laughed and kept joking as well. "Or on the crown, that is," he corrected himself as they all stopped near the Queen's beautiful statue, which was majestically positioned in the middle of the entrance garden.

Ezra could also sense something familiar as they all admired the statue and the other soldiers kept joking around. He could sense something in his peripheral vision. The prince turned to see his car, parked on the side of the Palace's garden. The teenager opened his eyes wide. He quickly galloped near the entrance, came down from his horse, and walked into his home.

He paced quite quickly as a million thoughts went through his head. 'I might steal it,' her voice swirled around his brain. Ezra stopped to look himself in one of the many mirrors in one of the Palace's corridors. He fixed his hair and kept walking, he also discreetly checked underarms. The teenager wanted to make sure he wasn't smelly or sweaty, or untidy. He looked around, he looked all over. Ezra eventually stopped, a little disappointed.

Ezra looked down from the balcony sill, to the car parked down below, near the garden. The teenager sighed, he gave up. 'Maybe Mother just finally decided to bring the car to Mitras,' he considered. The rush was over and the teenager felt a little downcast. It had been a while and he missed that sunflower.

Ezra walked unenthusiastically into their more private quarters, hoping to greet his mother in her favourite drawing room. And to his surprise, there the sunflower was. The prince opened his eyes wide and stopped near the giant wooden doors, paralysed. Blue was engaged in deep conversation with his parents. She looked up from her tea and gave him a smirk, her eyes said everything.

"Oh, dear!" the Queen stood up with a large smile, she put her tea to the side. "You're finally home." Historia came over and hugged her boy, and he barely hugged her back, Ezra was still processing it all, he squinted a little. He expected to see Sonnenblume there from the moment he saw the car, but now his mind was rushing with questions again. 'Why are you here?' He questioned only in his mind as his mother gave him a very tight hug. And Sonnenblume kept the smile, almost as if she could hear his thoughts.

"I said the troop would be back today," his father affirmed with certainty. Eren turned to his niece. "You chose the date well," he added.

"Only because that's when Ezra told me to bring the car around," she responded and looked towards the prince with a clever smile.

They both knew he wasn't allowed to have the car in Mitras. It was almost as if Blue wanted to get him in trouble, either that or she just wanted a faster way to travel. Ezra couldn't decide, he couldn't really see through that smile and find her intentions.

Historia could tell her son was nervous about the car. "It's alright. Sonnenblume brought it through quite a hidden route. It was about time we had the car here, I gave it to you as a present after all," the mother conceded.

"You certainly learned your way around the Island," Eren noted. "And so quickly considering you haven't been here long."

Sonnenblume smiled. "Dad left behind a lot of cool maps, it wasn't too hard," she explained.

"He loved maps," Eren replied, smiling back at his niece. He leaned back more comfortably on his armchair. "We travelled a lot, all over, tracing all those new routes," he remembered quite joyously.

Historia smiled politely at her husband's tale, while still embracing Ezra. She turned to the prince more reservedly. "You should wash up and change," the mother advised. "So we can all have dinner."

Eren stood up. "And I should call your mother and tell her you're here," he told Sonnenblume in a fatherly tone.

"No, uncle Eren, please!" the teenager pleaded.

"Nonsense, she surely is worried about you," he maintained.

"But she'll just send someone to take me away," Sonnenblume argued, sounding quite juvenile.

"Or she could just come here herself," Historia proposed quite regally, holding her two hands together, slightly apathetic.

And the other three all looked at each other, unsure if the woman was being welcoming or threatening. For it was well known that the two mothers didn't get along. Historia and Mikasa hadn't spoken since 859, when both their firstborns disappeared together. And the princess - her heir and the future Queen of Paradise - was declared dead, after the Ackermann boy came back alone.

There was a small silence for a moment and the father decided to break the ice.

"She'll probably send your uncle Levi," he told Blue with a smile and a small laugh. "So good luck with that." Eren raised his eyebrows with a smile and the teenage girl looked miserable.

Sonnenblume buried herself into the chair, looking quite smallish.

-.-

"I'm not sending anyone," Mikasa told her brother over the phone.

"Yeesh! What happened between you two?" Eren questioned, with some humour but also concerned.

"She's capable enough to come back home on her own if she wants to," Mikasa maintained quite firmly.

"Mikasa, she's still a minor," her brother argued.

"So? I'm not holding her hand," the mother rebuked.

"So you are legally responsible for her," Eren reminded his sister.

"At her age we held senior positions in the Army," Mikasa firmly argued. "Again, I'm not holding her hand."

"But surely you must be worried sick about her," Eren insisted. "Come on, I know you, this must be killing you," her brother maintained his argument. "You're the definition of overprotective."

Eren stopped for a moment. "And after everything that happened with Azzy," he added, more softly.

Mikasa raised her shoulders up, shrugging slightly while she heard her brother's argument. "With Sonnenblume is different," she explained. "I trust her."

"Oh," Eren was surprised.

"Azzy is-" the mother stopped, to correct herself. "Azzy was more complicated. He had always been too impulsive. I blame that damn curse. He always felt so… troubled, so confused," Mikasa explained and reminded her brother: "And we both know where that got us in the end."

There was a moment of silence as the two parents remembered the tragedy that had occurred over twelve years ago.

"How is Historia?" Mikasa asked softly.

"She's great. She- She's doing much better," Eren relayed. "And we've been quite busy with everything as always…" he trailed off.

"I know she blames me," Mikasa said, quite bluntly.

"No she doesn't, come on," Eren countered and sighed. He continued more softly. "You should come here so we can sort out this Sonnen situation and I can also see you. It's been so long, you know I'd love to see you again after all these years."

Mikasa laughed. "I'm not going back to the island just so the Queen can send me to the gallows," she somberly joked.

"You're exaggerating, come on," Eren insisted.

"I'm not going there," Mikasa maintained. "And that's what she wants."

"That's what who wants?" he asked, confused.

"Sonnenblume," Mikasa replied and proceeded to explain. "She is trying to force me back into the island. But she won't have her way."

"Force?" Eren asked, raising his eyebrows. He thought his sister was definitely exaggerating now.

"And you need to be careful with her," Mikasa advised, "she's a bit tricky that one."

Eren sighed. "Alright, but she's your kid," he argued. "I'm not just leaving her to wander the island on her own. It could be very dangerous and not end well. I'll just keep her here in the palace with us." Eren proceeded. "I'm assuming you are ok with me inviting her to stay in the palace."

And Mikasa stopped to consider the proposition. "You need to be very careful of how to phrase this invitation," she advised.

"Why?" her brother asked.

"As I told you, Sonnenblume is a bit tricky to deal with," Mikasa started to explain.

"How should I deal with her then?" Eren asked, curiously.

"She needs to feel in control," Mikasa proceeded expertly. "Don't force her to stay in Mitras, just make her think it was her own decision," she advised with care.

"Alright," Eren considered it.

Mikasa continued. "If she thinks she's being ordered to rather than her staying be her own decision she'll just do the opposite."

Eren smirked. "Opposite, huh?" he questioned his sister with a small smile. "So she is too stubborn and will just do the opposite of what others say…" Eren trailed off, considering. "I wonder where she got all those amazing qualities from," he joked.

"What do you mean?" Mikasa asked, cluelessly.

"Well, it seems you two are at war," Eren noted, "and I'm curious to know who is going to win," he added, laughing a little. "I'll keep an eye on her, and try my best to make sure she doesn't think we are forcing her to stay here," the uncle promised.

"Just be more suggestive and less controlling," the sister started to advise but soon realised it was useless. "Oh, who are we kidding, Eren? You're the king of controlling. She's gonna see right through you and just run away again," Mikasa realised and let out a deep sigh.

"Hey, I'm not-" her brother stopped himself, and eventually admitted. "Alright, what do I do if she runs away from the palace?" Eren asked.

"Nothing," Mikasa replied, "like I said, if she wants to come back, then she will come back to me." The mother hoped further. "And I hope it happens sooner rather than later."

"Okay…" Eren shrugged, reluctant and slightly confused, "stay safe," he wished.

"You too," Mikasa replied and quickly hung up the phone.

Eren stood there, reflective as he processed this conversation while his wife came walking down the stairs.

"Dinner?" Queen Historia asked as she reached the bottom of the stairs, with a lovely smile and a beautiful gown.

"I just had the weirdest conversation," Eren noted while finally putting down the handset.

"With Mikasa?" the Queen asked, tilting her head, somewhat condescendingly and her husband nodded.

"I don't know why you're surprised, Sugar," Historia proceeded firmly in her argument. "The girl ran away after all."

- Year 859 - Mitras - The Royal Palace

[ after the princess' disappearance ]

"That's it. You need to leave," Mikasa turned to her old friend with spite, pointing at the door.

"Leave? This is my house," Historia firmly responded, in complete authority.

The two mothers were at odds. They were arguing in the darkness of one of the many guest rooms in the giant palace. It was the room where the small boy had been placed to rest, Azzy was still recovering.

The boy was visibly troubled, constantly mouthing nonsense and cold sweating in high fevers. Azymondeus was clearly hallucinating, and sparkling small rays of lightning, which slightly shocked his mother, but she didn't care. Mikasa still held his hand throughout everything. "I'm right here," she told him softly.

"I'm not telling you to leave your palace, Your Majesty," Mikasa proceeded with anger and annoyance. "I'm telling you to either stop berating my child or leave this room," the Ackermann mother firmly told the Queen.

"I'm not berating him-" Historia started to argue.

And Mikasa interrupted her. "No, you're just endlessly interrogating a small child who is clearly unresponsive," the mother argued loudly and with anguish.

"I just want to know where my daughter is," Historia argued back in deeper anguish. She held herself, feeling small, tormented, powerless.

"Does it look like he can answer your questions?!" Mikasa maintained her argument, angrily and clearly also feeling tormented.

"He's not a toddler like my child. He's seven, he should be able to articulate-" Historia argued.

"He's six," Mikasa firmly corrected the Queen. "He is still six. And I won't say it again," she walked closer in dominance and protectiveness. "Back off." Mikasa threatened.

Arlert watched the discussion very quietly. He followed the back and forth of the two equally desperate mothers only with his eyes; with arms crossed, Armin was leaned on the giant wooden door. Engulfed in the darkness of the dimly lit room, in the middle of that cold, desperate night.

He quietly reached and turned the knob behind him and walked out of the room as he had heard steps on the antechamber.

"How is the search?" Armin asked his friend anxiously, closing the door behind him as Eren walked into the antechamber.

Eren was carrying his toddler son in his arms as the boy slept soundly. They were all very tired. The father sighed, walking in closer to the large crib. "We have mobilised the entire Army, at least here in Mitras," Eren started to explain.

He gently placed Ezra next to the small girl already sleeping on the crib: his cousin Sonnenblume.

The fathers stared at the two younger children peacefully sleeping for a loving moment. Armin reached to fix the small toy dinosaur Sonnenblume was holding close and tight. And to also caress her wavy caramel hair, gently placing it behind her ear. The toddlers were sleeping soundly, safely. And even if small, that was still a comfort to the parents.

Eren sighed. "Armin, he was found in Shiganshina," he proceeded to explain in a lower voice. "Two days ago," Eren gravely added, raising his head up to stare deep into his friend's eyes.

Armin let out an incredulous half-smile. "Are you suggesting he went back in time?" he questioned.

"That part is clear," Eren hissed back, angrily. "The question is: was it just those two days? Let's hope so," he added in a threatening tone.

Armin looked back towards the bedroom door, trying to visualise the boy in his memories. "He's wearing the same clothes," the father noted. "He looks largely the same as he left," Armin shrugged, with his hands on his pockets. "Unchanged."

Eren looked extremely unconvinced and Armin proceeded, scratching his head while preparing his argument. "Wherever they went they couldn't have been there for long. Even if he has come back before he left, which is new and certainly unlikely."

"His clothes are the same but they are also torn, dirty and wet," Yeager argued back. He expertly proceeded. "They clearly fell into a river or another body of water and also struggled in a forest-like environment."

"If they were together, we can't confirm that," Armin noted.

"Don't play with me, Arlert," Eren advised his friend.

"Have you considered that she could have been just snatched off by one of your many many enemies? Enemies who you keep unnecessary provoking, might I add," Armin firmly argued.

Eren shook his head. "I know what you're doing. Don't try to shift the blame," he firmly argued as well. Eren pointed at the bedroom door. "This is all his fault," he loudly affirmed. "Whatever that thing that is in there," Yeager added.

"What?" Armin questioned, baffled.

"Come on, that thing isn't human, we don't know what he is," Eren maintained and Armin opened his eyes wide.

"How dare you talk like that?" the father replied in anger. "Azzy is just a child," Armin passionately pointed at his chest. "He is my child."

"You and I both know he's not just a child. We've known that from the start," Eren maintained.

"He is just a child. He might be a bit different, but he IS just a child." Armin countered.

"A bit different?!" Eren exclaimed. "Armin, my daughter could be dead," he reminded his friend with much anguish.

"Well, let's hope not," Armin responded, coldly.

"You two," Eren shook his head in disbelief. "You two are cursed," he let out.

"What?" Armin questioned.

"You, Armin," Eren firmly pointed at his friend's chest. "You and Mikasa. Your family, you are all cursed," Eren declared.

Armin laughed.

His throat was scratching and burning, he was readying himself to fire back. His sharp tongue was not only Arlert's main attack, it was also his defence. But he contained himself from saying too much, this was a delicate situation and he knew his friend was clearly hurt.

"Cursed?" Armin asked back softly but still aggressively. "You, out of all people? You are saying we are cursed?!" he questioned, baffled. Arlert angrily sighed. "We are leaving," he firmly told his friend. "For good."

He turned towards the bedroom door and was surprised by Queen Historia storming out of the room in pure anger. Arlert walked in and closed the door behind him.

Historia stopped as she was about to leave the antechamber. She turned to her husband completely vexed, and pointed furiously at the bedroom. "They need to go," Historia firmly ordered. "I want them gone."

Eren crossed his arms and angrily sighed. "You and Arlert clearly agree on something," he pointed out.

Armin walked into the room to see Mikasa leaning over closer to their small son. "Is he breathing?" the father asked anxiously, the boy looked dead.

"Only faintly," the mother replied. She laid her head closer to the boy's head and caressed his hair.

Armin walked in closer and softly placed his hand on the boy's forehead, to check his temperature. "He's burning up," Mikasa added, raising her head and looking up at Armin. She kept caressing the boy's hair.

"I'm sure he'll recover on the boat," Armin firmly said while removing his hand. And Mikasa looked up at him with concern. "We need to leave," Armin told her softly.

'For good.' Those would be the last words Eren Yeager would hear from his friend. Armin Arlert would pass away in a plane crash nine years later, without the two friends ever making amends. And that hurt Yeager deeply.

They never made amends.

The father sighed as he turned to check on the youngest children once again. Ezra and Sonnenblume were both sleeping deeply and peacefully on that crib, they had no idea of the tragedy that had occurred. They had no idea of their parents' extreme adversities, they were just small children. Naive and happy children.

-.-

- Year 871 - Mitras - The Royal Palace

They all joined together again in the dining room. So far Ezra hadn't had the opportunity to be alone with Blue, he really wanted to know what was her whole game, but that wouldn't be easy without a more private interrogation.

"You certainly look like a girl now," he jokingly whispered as he passed near her, raising his eyebrows.

They both walked into the room.

"Well, what did you expect? I wouldn't visit the Queen dressed in rags," she whispered back, maintaining the joke. "I'm a Hizurian Lady," Blue graciously added, reminding him.

"Those aren't Hizurian clothes," Ezra argued with a smile, looking her in the eyes. Sonnenblume's bright yellow eyes were hypnotic.

"Well, I'm still three-quarters Eldian," she cleverly argued back.

They both went over to the table and sat down, joining the adults.

"I talked to you mother," Eren told his niece.

"Does she remember I exist?" Sonnenblume joked, raising her eyebrows.

"She said she knows you'll come back," her uncle relayed. "When you feel ready to."

"Huh…" the girl let out. "So she's not sending anyone," uncle Eren concluded. 'Interesting,' the teenage girl thought.

"Of course you're more than welcome to stay here," Queen Historia affirmed without hesitation. "If you'd like," the Queen added.

"Thank you," Blue politely replied with a small smile. "Ezra had already invited me before. That's why I decided to visit," she explained.

"I thought you came here to ask me about the book," her uncle questioned.

"What book?" Ezra asked, curiously.

"Something my father was working on and I can't quite figure out what it is," Blue replied.

"I didn't know you two had met before," Queen Historia interjected, curious.

"No?" Sonnenblume asked, turning to the Queen.

"Ezra certainly didn't mention anything," Historia maintained.

And Blue then turned to Ezra. "Why didn't you tell your parents you came to meet me in the Lighthouse?" she questioned him with a smile.

"Are you staying in the Lighthouse?" The uncle asked and the girl nodded. "Sonnenblume, that place can be very dangerous, you shouldn't go there, especially alone," Eren admonished her.

"And it is extremely remote," Historia added. "How did Ezra know how to find you there?" she questioned her niece.

"Oh, we've met once before in passing," Blue replied, nonchalantly.

"Right, 'in passing'," the boy quietly and ironically repeated, thinking of how they really met.

-.-

Sonnenblume stayed in the Palace for the next few days; as she did not want to counter her aunt, the Queen, who insisted for her to stay. "For as long as you like," Historia told the small teenager. "We wouldn't want you alone in that big, old fort. Or in any sort of danger." Eren added softly. The girl could tell the parents were immensely enjoying her presence; having a new young girl in their household was almost healing for the two. They treated her lovingly and with extreme care, almost out of guilt.

The place was lovely, a true paradise, and the family was sweet and welcoming as well. But Sonnenblume was starting to feel trapped and the prince could notice it. He knew if he didn't act fast he would lose her again. Ezra didn't want Blue to run away again, so, he had an idea.

-.-

"Do you remember this?"

The prince showed his old playmate the small toy dinosaur they had fought over in that truly cursed playdate they'd had when they were toddlers. For their parents and their older siblings that had been a cursed day alright. But for Ezra and Blue it had just been a lot of fun.

Sonnenblume opened her bright yellow eyes quite widely.

"How can you have it?" Blue questioned it, thinking back to all those years ago, she then softly took it from the prince's hand. "I was pretty sure I took this back home with me..." she trailed off. Blue gazed at the little fluffy thing, inspecting it.

"Well," he swiftly took it back from her hands again. "I took it back when you weren't looking," Ezra gloated.

"Sneaky!" Blue exclaimed with a clever smile. She decided to play with him again. "Well, you're not getting it back now!" She announced, taking the fluffy toy from his hands and running around the corridor, and he chased her like they were children once again.

Ezra knew what she was doing, he was a naive boy but he was clever enough for this. He knew she was teasing him, so the prince quickly cornered her and the two locked eyes and smiles. It was also a good excuse he had to hold her slender waist.

She kept laughing as he held her close. Blue was infatuated while Ezra was completely spellbound. Sonnenblume held her hand with the fluffy toy as high as she could, even though she knew the boy was slightly taller than her, still, she kept the game.

The toy dinosaur was high up in the air and he played the game too, reaching to grab it. Ezra embraced her more as an excuse to hold her down to grab the toy. Blue kept moving the small toy further away and he held her even closer. The two of them started to laugh uncontrollably as he finally reached and took back the small dinosaur to hold. They laughed and laughed but then stopped. The young souls locked into each other's eyes. And the prince decided to steal her a kiss instead.

He reached his face down into her lips, daring but also feeling apprehensive as she might not have liked the surprise. But all his anxiety was gone once she started to kiss him back.

-.-

- Year 854 - October 30, Paradise Island

[ After the second earthquake ]

The entire Island of Paradise was engulfed in pure chaos. Wall Maria had fallen completely and the Titans were trampling all over the region. Wall Rose had broken down in some places and so had Wall Sina. People were desperate and the death toll was increasing by the minute; the earth did not cease shaking after the first two earthquakes, it just trembled more leisurely. The eldians were running desperate, in complete panic. The hospitals were flooded with the injured and many were dead on the streets. People didn't know where to go, it was complete and utter pandemonium.

Some had already given up, they had already started celebrating before, so they just kept drinking and partying, waiting for that doomsday to take them out. The commotion wasn't as strong on Walls Rose and Sina, as it already was in Wall Maria, not yet. Most of the citizens in Mitras had absolutely no idea of the level of the chaos, they had just felt light tremors. They just proceeded with their day, as regular as ever.

Until the underground citizens started fighting with the Military Police on the last steps, frightening the upper class residents as they walked leisurely on their streets. The brawl erupted, the underground citizens had won; they trampled all over the MP guards as they all came rushing up the countless steps that led down to the hidden community. They came up in droves. Hundreds and hundreds of underground citizens came up from all the steps, in different points of Mitras, absolutely terrifying the noble citizens.

"We have to evacuate!" some of the underground citizens shouted. "We must leave the city!" they shouted. "We need to leave Mitras or that thing is going to kill all of us!" All of them shouted desperately as they ran for their lives.

The underground citizens were warning their fellow Mitras residents, but the upper class just seemed confused by it all. "What thing?" they asked, baffled.

The cancerous creature was rising, coming up from the depths. It destroyed everything on its path and made it its own. It was destroying the insides of the island: Paradise was sinking.

Deep Underneath the Reiss Cave

Eren was engulfed in pure darkness. He was tired and those chains were very heavy. He had lost track of time, the dungeon was dark and also very cold. He couldn't get over the smell of dirt, of deep earth, that constantly reminded him of burials. Eren was starting to consider that dungeon as his own burial.

"Eren," he faintly heard inside his consciousness. "Eren, can you hear me?" Armin asked.

-.-

≃2000 years ago

[ The night Queen Ymir Fritz was killed ]

"She still got no pulse," Elke noted. The princess stood up and cleaned herself from the dirt as Maud remained on the dirty ground, holding Ymir in her arms. The old woman quietly cried in mourning, it seemed the Fritz Queen was in fact dead.

It had been three hours since the attack and the King, his children and also some advisers and confidants all huddled together near the undead witch; as the rest of the higher ranking soldiers all huddled even further. Protecting them and threatening any curious villagers who dared coming closer. The eldians wanted to know if the witch was in fact dead, and what that meant for their precious Titan.

That had been an anticlimactic afternoon, as Ymir had swiftly saved the King from the unexpected attack; that came from one of his most trustworthy soldiers. No one even knew where Azymondeus had gotten that spear from, as the soldiers weren't carrying any long-range weapons, only swords at that celebration. Only the princes and the Ackermanns knew, of course, that the strange man could conjure weapons and make them appear out of nothing.

This all had been a surprise for Ymir. She was proven wrong as she was told she would be. The mother bled out on the dais, desolate, and eventually unresponsive.

Ymir had decided to die.

The Fritzs were routinely checking her pulse, hoping she would eventually return to breathe. They knew the witch could heal herself, they just didn't know why it was taking so long. Ymir did not breathe again, she did not heal. Three hours had passed and the witch's body began to slowly let out a steam, similar to her Titan, which steamed away completely after she would remove herself from it.

King and company all immediately knew this couldn't be good. "Is she decomposing?" Torin asked, inspecting the witch closer. "What do we do now?" he asked his father.

Fritz looked over to the three small girls in the corner, all looking quite smallish and extremely terrified. He remembered Vékell's words: "The creature will give you three new girls of its own. Those girls, they will be powerful." The seer had said. And Fritz smiled with the memory.

"Come here, my dearest ones," the King called the small children. And Maria walked over mistrustfully, with Sina in her arms and holding Rose by the hand.

Those small and innocent children had no idea of what the King was planning for them. Fritz was aware of how cruel all this was, but he was not going to lose this power. He needed that power, all of his empire was dependent on it.

Before the ceremony could start the King walked over towards Ludvík, to give the General his final instructions.

Ludvík and his sons had tied Azymondeus up very tightly and had also left a dagger embedded quite deep into his chest in case he woke up, and had any ideas of running; for Ludvík knew he couldn't magically disappear while injured and he couldn't heal from a wound like that, not with the weapon still lodged deep into his chest.

The five sons surrounded the culprit as they prepared the carriage to quietly leave, avoiding the frantic crowd. The Ackermanns had planned to take their business up the mountain.

"Torture every information out of him," Fritz ordered, "do what you must, I want to know everything."

"Gladly, Chief," Ludvík replied, sounding quite vexed. The old Ackermann held that girl in the highest regard, Ymir was like a daughter to him, his only daughter. He was beyond mad and grieving heavily with her sudden death.

"Do what you must," Fritz repeated with emphasis. He held Ludvík by the shoulder. "But don't kill him," the King added gravely. "I need him alive, Ludvík. I need him," Fritz insisted.

"Yes, Sire," Ludvík affirmed, lying of course.

Ever since they had been young children Fritz had been the brains of the operation and Ludvík gladly followed him. He trusted his friend's instincts and intelligence and he was right to, after all it had gotten them this far. This would be the first time Ludvík would ever counter one of Fritz commands, and also the very last, for the two childhood friends had no idea what they had gotten themselves into and they were both about to lose their lives over it.

Ludvík was decided: he was going to kill that traitor. He was going to torture him until his last breath. He solemnly nodded at Fritz and the Ackermanns took to their carriage. All six men galloped fast into the darkness of the night and up those high mountains, taking the seventh to his doom.

-.-

"That's what we get for trusting the enemy. I should have known you were a traitor from the start. Now you will pay for it." Ludvík threatened the young Ackermann.

Azymondeus woke up with a shock. He was tied to a wooden chair and bleeding profusely. He looked down to his chest to see Ludvík slowly and painfully remove the dagger from it; a lot of his skin had already healed around that old knife so it was like he was being sliced through from his insides to his outsides. And the soldier bled even more.

"Why did you kill her?" Ludvík asked as he took the dagger and sliced a deep cut onto the man's face.

"Kill?" Az questioned as his left cheek bled out as profusely as his chest. "She-She can't be dead, she can't die," he argued in confusion.

"Oh, she's dead alright," the old Ackermann affirmed.

Az looked down, in pure disbelief. He was sure Ymir was immortal, just as he was. But he was about to be proven wrong in both accounts. Azymondeus looked up again, he looked around that mountain peak, it was a dark night; illuminated only by a small bonfire the brothers had built. And he could see all around him: his good Ackermann friends sharpening all their pointy weapons, they all had turned on him.

Ludvík made another cut on the man's cheek, on the same side and almost completely parallel to the other he had made previously. The old Ackermann had incredibly good precision, and much experience. "I know that as long as you bleed, you can't run," Ludvík explained while making yet a third cut. "I know that you can't use that demonic power unless you're fully healed."

Azymondeus had difficulty breathing as the hole in his chest tried to heal, he stared down, confused and hurt. His arms and legs were tied to that wooden chair, but not so tight that his extra human strength couldn't free him. The problem was that he had already lost a lot of blood and he was too weak to even think, let alone set himself free.

Ludvík proceeded to make cuts to his face and arms. "I could have shared your secret. But I kept my word and never did," the old Ackermann argued. "I could have, and let you be sold and experimented on," he proceeded while making more cuts into the man's skin.

"I protect you from witches, warlocks, alchemists! I protect you from all kinds! 'The undying man'," Ludvík leaned closer to Az's face as it bled profusely. "I could have ratted you out, I could have sold you, made lots of money, but I didn't. Instead I treated you like a son, I made you one of mine and you betray me like that?" he questioned, Ludvík stood up again. "Now it's time for my own experiment." He threatened.

"Father is going to bleed him dry," Erik quietly pointed out to his brothers. The five sons were over at the side of their little makeshift camp, sharpening their weapons as their father conducted the torture.

"I don't think so, if he can regrow limbs, he can probably regrow blood quickly as well," Tyr considered.

"Exactly. Father is not even making a dent," Klaus agreed.

"I can hear you," Lud complained of his sons' loud-talking. Not that they were commenting all that loud, but the mountain was very silent, there was barely the noise of the wind. So any quiet whisper could be considered loud-talking.

"Come on now, Azzy," Lud proceeded with his interrogation, making yet another cut in the man's face. Ludvík was so precise that his cuts were starting to look like a nice piece of art.

Azymondeus was shocked. "Where did you hear that? No one in this land has ever called me that." He questioned with blood dripping all over his face. Az felt extremely strange to hear his family nickname being called out by that old man.

"She has," Lud replied. "She has called you that many times, and very affectionately," he added. "I heard."

Ludvík made another cut on the man's arm.

"Why? Why did you kill her?" The Ackermann asked once more.

"I didn't." Az replied very firmly. "I didn't kill her. She can't be dead, she can't die. That wasn't the plan. She should heal!" the broken man exclaimed. Az could not believe that silly spear had genuinely killed Ymir.

"Well, maybe you broke her heart," Lud argued. "Those don't heal very easily, now do they?"

Az looked down, brokenly and contemplative. "That woman broke my heart too many times for me to count." He let out his own frustration. Azzy looked up again. "What about the girls? Where are they?" the father finally realised and questioned. Az's heart started beating faster.

"I don't think that is of your concern." Ludvík replied and turned to grab a bigger sword. He gave Axl his small, blooded dagger.

"Of course they are!" Azymondeus countered in pure anger.

"You should have thought of that before delegating their care to the hands of another man and his family." Ludvík maintained while checking the blade of his precious Azumabito sword.

Azymondeus was becoming increasingly angrier, thinking of how those monsters could hurt his children; especially since neither him nor Ymir were now there to protect their girls. The father couldn't bear the thought of them being left in the care of those abhorrent Fritzs.

His eyes started to glow, a bright blue glow. Az was calling over all the power he could muster in that debilitated state. His insides were glowing but he didn't want to focus on healing. He was feeling for the weapons all around him. And they all started to vibrate, to almost move: the axes, maces and swords. Ludvík's sons all looked at each other. They all remembered very well what had happened in the Battle of the Merciless. So they all looked at their father, all quite scared for a moment.

Ludvík swiftly walked over and hit the man's face with much force; with the hard handle of his Azumabito sword, dislocating Az's nose.

It all stopped. He had no power anymore, Az was too weak. He was truly trapped in that place, Ymir was dead, the girls were left alone; his mind was racing with all that pain. Internal and external pain, for with his now broken nose, all the cuts and his flooded lungs; it all made breathing and thinking very difficult. Ymir was dead and that was all he could think about. The broken man just wanted to hug his children.

He began to cry.

"Just let me out of here," he quietly started to plead. "Let me get out and take them with me. Let me take her body and bury her somewhere respectful. Somewhere peaceful very far away from here, so the girls can remember her, so they can visit her. We'll disappear for good and you'll never see us again. You'll never see me again. I swear! You'll never see me again."

Ludvík stood there silent, as he watched the broken man bleed out in his plea.

"Please," Az pleaded, "just let us go," he exhaled with difficulty. "I just want to take my girls somewhere safe."

"You are not going anywhere." Ludvík pulled the man's head back by his hairs and looked straight into Az's eyes. "You will not leave this mountain alive." the old Ackermann threatened.

Lud stood back again and sighed. He shook his head. "You shouldn't have killed her." Lud said while sharpening his Azumabito sword.

And Azymondeus started to laugh very quietly and with a little difficulty, as his lungs were flooded. "What are you even saying?" He let out in between coughs as he laughed with difficulty. "You can't kill me." the broken man declared with certainty. "You can hurt me as much as you want, I'll just come back."

"Remember, boy," Lud pointed his Azumabito sword at Azzy. "Remember when I said I could kill you? I said I would find a way," he reminded his young pupil.

He walked over and held Az's head back by the hairs again, he looked into the man's eyes and slowly made a light cut around Az's neck. Deep enough for the man to bleed out, but not deep enough that Az would lose conscience.

The old Ackermann proceeded to make even more cuts all over Azymondeus' body. The detail and the precision made the cuts look almost ritualistic, like a work of art. Ludvík couldn't contain his anger, he sliced through Azymondeus' feet and hands almost completely, his extreme limbs were almost detached from the rest of his body. The man was in excruciating pain, but he was still alive.

Azymondeus was breathing heavily, the pain was too much. His vision was blurred, for his eyes were covered in blood. His mind was spiralling.

Ludvík then sliced through the man's right forearm, the cut made was deep and it immediately started to bleed out profusely.

The man was in deep pain and he had no reason to live anymore. He had lost his love, he had lost their children. Azymondeus was ready for death.

"Why don't you just kill me? Kill me and be done with it." Azymondeus argued with difficulty. "You already said you could, and you already showed off your skills. Bravo, you are clearly very good with torture," the broken man provoked. "But you said you would kill me," Az let out in complete pain. "So just kill me. Kill me and be done with it."

And Ludvík then leaned closer to the man's bloodied face. "Oh, I will. Believe me. I will kill you slowly, just like you deserve. And I will make sure you are conscious throughout all of it." The old Ackermann proceeded. "Before I have the pleasure to do all that. I need you to tell me why. Why did you kill her?" he questioned.

He proceeded to make more cuts, asking: "Why? Why? Why?" Ludvík was frustrated and in deep grief.

"That spear wasn't for her. It was meant for Fritz," Az let out with difficulty.

Ludvík stopped and stood up straight, he looked at the broken man and at his own blooded sword, reflecting on it. Lud then pointed his sword at him.

"Either way it makes you a traitor," he argued. "We welcomed you, we let you join our tribe. We made you one of us and that's how you repay us? By killing our leader?" the old man questioned.

"You are all monsters! Horrible monsters, all of you," Az exclaimed with difficulty. "I was just killing the head."

"The same way you did to the marleans?" Lud questioned. "You joined them, got their trust and cut your superior's head. And I heard he treated you like a son," the old man maintained his argument. "That's all you are: a traitor."

"No," Az countered with difficulty as he gasped for air. "I'm not, I'm- I am-" he tried to speak. The broken man started to cry once more, he cried with difficulty.

"It was her last wish," he let out. "My mother's," Az tried to explain. "She told me to be a good man. I promised her I would be a good man, and I failed," the broken man let out as tears mixed with blood over his heavily mutilated face.

"All my life, I failed to be good. I failed my love and I failed our children," Az relayed as he exhaled deeply. "Killing that evil by its root would be my redemption. I would save my family, doing that one good thing."

They all stood silent, very silent as the broken man just bled out. "Fritz is a monster," Az maintained. "Look what you are doing to me, you are a monster too, Ludvík," Az looked around to that ancient family, in the darkness of that high mountain. "You are all monsters," he maintained.

Ludvík raised his blade, ready to strike. He stopped it close to Azymondeus' neck, the old man hesitated. And Az looked deep into his eyes.

"I will haunt you forever."

Those were Azymondeus' last works as Ludvík swung his sword again and cut the man's head clean off.

The Original Ackermann's head fell to the ground and Ludvík's sons were astounded and stunned, as they did not expect their father to actually go through with it. The head immediately started to glow, and so did the rest of the body.

"You killed him!" Axl let out, confused. Ludvík didn't even acknowledge him, or paid attention to his sons' staggered reactions. The old Ackermann just swiftly cut all the man's limbs clean off as well, dismembering him completely.

"Dice him up quickly!" He ordered. And the men jumped into action. Even if still processing the situation, Lud's sons knew they had to deal with this threat quickly and swiftly. They couldn't risk that creature coming back to life.

They quickly set up their ritual. They minced all the meat, all the soft tissue, all internal organs, his brain, his eyes, tongue, lips, the broken nose, his whole face, and all his skin, even his reproductive parts. They grinded all the bones. All of the strange man's body emitted a bright blue glow and they were fascinated by it. The six Ackermanns quickly finished the job, the idea was to make all the parts unrecognisable, so they wouldn't preference anything.

And he was in fact unrecognisable. By the time the Ackermanns were ready to start the feast, their ritual table just looked to be filled with a mound of otherworldly blue and red glowing jelly, with some crunchy white pieces of bone sprinkled around the mound. All was minced and grinded into very tiny pieces, all apart from one organ: Azymondeus' heart.

The ritual of Warrior's sacrifice demanded that the human parts would be minced until unrecognisable, exactly to avoid any of the participants getting greedy and too picky. But Ludvík was extremely fascinated by that otherworldly heart, as it kept beating and beating. He had declared it for himself.

The undead heart sat at the top of the mound as they started their feast, and it kept beating throughout the whole ritual. It was a dark and very cold night, with barely any moon to witness this atrocity. The six Ackermanns stuffed their faces with that feast. They ate compulsively as that strange blue energy entered their bodies, it made them want more and more. Their own bodies were changing internally and they couldn't even tell. They just felt the insatiable need to keep eating.

After a few hours all of the mound of flesh and bones was gone, and all that remained was the beating heart. The five sons leaned back, in respect to their father. Their part in the ritual was done, they understood. Ludvík reached out in pure greed and fascination, and he quickly started to devour the heart. Even after all that immense feast, somehow this particular piece of muscle seemed more delicious than the rest.

The man finished and looked very pleased with himself, only for a moment. The five sons watched in horror as Ludvík's expression quickly changed from delight to despair.

'I will haunt you forever.' They all remembered those cursed words.

Ludvík started beating his chest with his right fist over and over again until he fell to the ground. Lying on his back, he agonised in much pain as his sons watched, paralysed and unsure of what to do. They kept calling out his name but Ludvík couldn't form any words, he just screamed in his agony, beating his chest frantically. He eventually reached with his own nails, finally cutting through his own flesh, he rummaged around trying to find the source of his agony.

The old Ackermann eventually pulled out his own heart with his right hand, raising it up with an expression of much relief. He died on the spot.

Ludvík died with his heart on his hand and his sons just all looked at each other: confused, traumatised and absolutely unsure of what to do next.

-.-

- The tower - Fritz Castle

[ The year before ]

Azymondeus walked over, into the Queen's quarters, in the early hours of the morning. "I heard you woke up screaming today," he said, gently sitting near her in the bed. "Maria told me," he added while kissing her shoulder. "The girls were scared."

"I had that nightmare again," Ymir revealed in sadness. She rested her face over her left knee, holding on to it. "I dreamt I was drowning, drowning and drowning, the agony never stopped," she added while holding her own throat. "I couldn't breathe, I-"

"Ymir-" Az said softly, he took her hand out of her throat and held it softly inside his two hands. "It was just a silly nightmare, nothing real," Az tried to appease her worried heart. He kissed her hand, hoping for some of their customary morning affections.

Ymir pulled her hand away and went back to embracing her left knee, contemplative. "You were there, and you tried to save me," she informed him. "To my relief, you appeared. You swam down closer to me and breathed into my mouth, but somehow it wasn't working. Somehow you couldn't-"

Az became silent and less cheerful as his love proceeded. "It seemed like you couldn't save me. So you just left me there," Ymir relayed, "on my own, agonising. You never saved me," she turned to him in despair, sadness and accusation. "You just left me there."

Ymir looked deep inside his eyes. "You let me drown." she told him in sadness.

-.-

"You let me drown."

Azymondeus could hear those words. Her voice echoed deep inside his consciousness, in his last moments, the memory lingered.

'I'm sorry, my love. I'm sorry I couldn't save you,' were his last thoughts before death.

End of Chapter Eighteen: "A Z"

↑Back to Top