- Year 852 - Tybur Castle - In the middle of the Marlean Continent
Azymondeus had been around that strange region for two days. It was strange to him, for the man was used to be in that exact patch of land, however, two thousand years before. Azzy had been born in this era, yes, but he could barely recognise the fancier streets, the cars and other technologies; the different clothes, the different people. He had lived most of his life in that wretched past and 'progress' was otherworldly to him now.
It took some time for the time traveller's mind to adjust. He had just recovered his heart from the Castle's vault and was now wandering around - jumping - between castle grounds and the streets outside. Which wasn't completely strange for the people around him, for that Castle and that ancient region were well known for having ghosts.
He quickly figured out that he had reemerged on 852, the year - and on the very same day - of his birth. Az concluded that it wasn't safe to be there, he was too close to his young life. He cogitated for some time about time-jumping again, so he could reach his future, but he was uncertain about it.
When Azymondeus thought about his early life in Hizuru, or even his childhood in Paradise - and even other fractured realities that floated around his memories; he felt confused and afraid. He longed for the things he had grown up with, but he struggled to separate reality from illusion. He had no complete idea of how his childhood had been. He could remember the house in Hizuru, his loving parents and sister, yes, but he also remembered being raised only by his uncle. And had other memories that he couldn't place anywhere.
He knew the right course would be to return to his own future, the one he gave up on when he was only fifteen. But he was afraid of time-jumping, he feared getting it wrong once again and ending up in yet another forsaken, wretched reality. Nevertheless Az knew he couldn't just hang around those marlean streets, people were starting to notice him, paying more attention to his movements - and that wasn't ideal.
So, he finally took courage, and jumped out of there.
-.-
- Year 899 - Tybur Castle - In the middle of the Marlean Continent
[As the world burned in Armageddon]
Az reappeared around the beautiful garden, in castle grounds. He dropped to the ground, kneeling on the bright green grass with a very intense headache. It was as if his head was being split open and he felt dizzy and nauseous. He stayed there for a while, trying to recompose himself. He closed his eyes and he could hear those odd noises far away, but still quite loud. The noise sounded as if giants were stomping and stomping around the world outside. And that was exactly what was happening.
He looked up and around the castle's beautiful garden, analysing it. The garden was very colourful, full of flowers, pretty statues, water fountains and a very bright green grass. That garden was clearly being very well looked after, and it was also an immense contrast to the pure red and dirt he could see beyond the castle walls.
The castle was protected by a thin dome, Az could barely see it as the strange force field confused itself with the sun rays when he forced his eyes to try and take a better look at it. Azzy stopped squinting and decided to space-jump. He went over to the top of the castle wall, and from there he could see the giant monsters walking in the distance.
Azzy looked back towards the castle grounds, he analysed the pretty, well looked after garden and the castle itself in the distance. He could see some of the windows opened and how the place was very clean. It was clearly not abandoned.
'I suppose this strange energy barrier stops the Pure Colossal Titans from stomping this castle… but how are there people living here? In which year am I on? Why wasn't this rumbling ever stopped? Is this timeline broken? Is humanity completely gone?' Azzy had many questions floating through his head. So he jumped away from the wall and decided to investigate the insides of the castle.
Inside Tybur Castle [ -Still- Year 899 ]
Azzy entered the castle very curiously. He couldn't imagine what kind of people would have survived the intense destruction outside. So he walked with care around the many halls, trying to find one living soul in that Armageddon.
He walked around, all over the Castle and he finally started to hear voices, many voices talking loud - it was coming from the kitchens. The boys were chatting away as they ate their breakfast and fixed up their fighting equipment. Az walked in slowly, analysing the young men.
"Oh, father, we weren't expecting you to return today, we were already leaving to assist you-" Albert, the youngest of the boys, was slowly standing up - still finishing his coffee and looking Azzy only in the corner of his eyes - when he turned to look at the man completely. "Oh," the young fifteen-year-old was in slight shock. "You're a bit taller than Papa," he noted.
All the boys were shocked, they'd never seen another human before.
"And a bit younger," Ernest added. Still sitting at the table.
"Are you one of the pilots?!" Theodor stood up in pure excitement with his question.
"Pilots?" Az asked back. He was extremely confused by meeting that small battalion: the boys were all still in their teens but already looked like proper soldiers - for they had been extremely well trained. And they all looked quite similar to one another, and what's more: they also looked quite similar to him, which was making Azzy a little disturbed and uncomfortable. It was as if he was walking into a weird dream.
"No. I don't think he is, but he does look familiar," Íkaros, the older, considered for a moment. "Don't you think?" He asked his younger brothers.
"His clothes are pretty weird," Ciarán added. All the boys were looking at him up and down, all feeling very confused.
The situation was so odd and Az was so stunned that he failed to notice the older lady standing under the door arch - on the other side of the giant room.
"That's enough, children," the old mother said. "You've had your breakfast and you have a long day ahead on the battlefield," Mikasa added. "It's time to go."
The five boys stood up and left the wooden table. "You shall go. I'll handle this situation on my own," she added, looking at her lost boy with a small smile.
Azzy stood very still and very stunned. He hadn't heard that soft voice in so long! And he missed his mother very much.
The teen boys all came in one line to leave the room, all coming in their mother's direction.
"Good day, mama," Albert said, kissing her on the cheek. "Be safe out there. And if you have any doubts, just ask your older brothers," she advised as he was leaving; for the young boy was still quite new to their craft.
"You look lovely today, mama," Ciarán complimented her and also kissed her on the cheek. "We'll see you soon, mama," Ernest added, also kissing her on the cheek. "I'll see you soon. And no pranks, boys!" the mother replied and they both smiled charmingly as they left the kitchens.
"Have a good day, mother," Theodor said, kissing her on the cheek as well. "Are you still keeping score with the others, Theo?" his mother asked. "No, mother. I am winning," he replied very charmingly as he left to follow his younger brothers.
Íkaros was standing in the room, looking at the stranger with some mistrust as his (other) brothers were leaving. He then walked towards his mother slowly, still side-eyeing Azzy, in an almost threatening way. "Do you require my assistance, mother?" he asked and Mikasa shook her head.
"As I said, I'll handle this situation on my own," she firmly replied while holding both sides of Íkaros' face. "Now go and take care of your brothers," the mother ordered. "Yes, mother," he replied and also kissed her on the cheek. Íkaros then followed Theodor and the other boys towards the outsides of the castle.
Mikasa then turned, still under the kitchen arch. "And tell your father to come back with you tonight! It's been three days since I last saw him. It's time for him to get out of that Titan," she shouted to the boys as they left and they nodded back at her.
They were now standing on their own, in that giant old room of that giant old castle; with only that old and familiar wooden table near them. Az was still completely stunned. Mikasa stood there, she then held both her hands together, interlocking them, and smiled.
"Aren't you going to give me a kiss too?" she asked.
The man was still motionless, he just stared at her; she smiled, with her tired but happy face and her dark, but whitening hair. Mikasa didn't look wrinkly, she just looked quite mature and elegant, and she also still looked very strong.
The old mother started to walk in his direction, alongside the old wooden table; as her eldest son had failed to move. She side-eyed the old mark she had once made on that table, as she walked. It had been many years since she had carved through that wood, in pure anger out of her eldest child's time-travelling misdeeds. It had been many years since they had talked, in that very same room and she could tell he looked no different.
She then stopped right in the middle of the way, hoping he would then complete the journey to meet her. Mikasa was in her sixties, but her mind was as sharp as ever. She had dreamt many times, wishing to see her lost child again, yes. But she could tell this was no dream. And her other sons had also acknowledged his presence quite clearly.
The old woman looked towards the breakfast table, considering. "We could have some coffee," she suggested, smiling. "And then you can help me clean this up."
Azzy then walked fast towards his mother. He reached to hug her and he did hug her very tight - as if he was a small toddler again. "Mo- mother!" he exclaimed, gasping for air as he cried and cried. Mikasa held her first child tenderly, and caressed his hairs as he cried in her arms.
Outside, on top of the Castle Wall [ -Still- Year 899 ]
The five Ackermann boys were already outside, preparing themselves for the customary war. They were all on top of the castle wall, looking at their customary battlefield ahead. They could all see the monsters they were about to fight - and customarily take down - quite further away, into the reddish horizon.
"Have we just seen a ghost?" Ciarán considered, as he and his brother's strapped and checked their gears.
"I don't think we would all have some sort of communal vision, much less of a ghost that acknowledged its own existence," Ernest rebuked while better adjusting his gear.
"We have all been living under the same roof for quite some time," Theodor joked with a small smile as he strapped his boots.
The boys' horses were already waiting for them, on the other side of the castle wall.
"None of us is crazy, that was clearly a real person," Íkaros added in a reprimanding tone. He was rolling his eyes and had his hands on his hips.
"Like we've ever seen one before," Theodor kept the joking tone, but it was true, those boys had never seen another human in their lives; beyond their own parents, of course.
"I have," Ernest proceeded with the joke as he adjusted his swords, and Theodor laughed behind him.
"Stop making things up, it's been ages since the people around here died," Ciarán complained slightly as he too checked his swords. He then whistled, calling his horse.
"He is no pilot," Theodor pointed out, continuing the subject.
"True, what kind of pilot would wear those strange knight garments?" Íkaros questioned, adding to the point. That whole meeting had left those teenaged boys quite confused, but also quite curious.
"Mama seemed comfortable enough to be left alone with him," Albert finally added to the conversation. He shrugged slightly.
"I still think we should have stayed," Theodor remarked to the small Ackermann troop.
"She explicitly told us to leave," Ciarán rebuked.
"Perhaps so the ghost wouldn't escape," Ernest considered while scratching his back with one of his swords. He kept the joking tone, but he had a point: maybe the man would be frightened by them and leave, he looked frightened enough when they were there after all.
"Do you think that was him?" Albert asked with some curiosity, and in a lower voice, close to Ernest's ear.
"Who?" Ernest asked back, moving his head slightly closer to his younger brother.
"The oldest… our- our brother..?" Albert explained.
"No way!" Íkaros exclaimed. "He would be in his forties if he was still alive, that guy was older than us, but not that much," he further explained.
"But papa said he didn't age," Ernest pointed out while shrugging.
"We should go get him," Albert suggested.
"Yes, I think we should get him." Ernest confirmed.
"I think we should do as we were told, and leave mother to handle the situation, as she said she would," Ciarán interjected.
"Agreed. Let's concentrate on our mission," Íkaros determined.
"And I say you are all just making your excuses to not focus on what really matters: I'll get to one hundred and twenty kills today, gentlemen," Theodor proposed with swag and a smile.
"Let's make it interesting, how about one hundred and thirty?" Ciarán added to the bet.
"Hah! None of you will get to that," Ernest interjected, laughing.
"Are you going to keep placing bets all day or are you going to actually get to work?" Íkaros asked, pointing at their horses awaiting them, and at the battle ahead.
"Right. We should go, we are losing sunlight," Theodor noted.
"Well, I'm still gonna tell him," Albert said. "Once we reach father, I'll tell him how we left mama in the castle with a complete stranger," he let the others know.
"He didn't feel like a stranger to me," Ciarán pointed out, a little reflective.
The boys jumped out from the wall and mounted on their horses, to then ride to the battlefield.
.
The Titan Realm
Somewhere, sometime, in that cursed dimension
Zeke walked and walked, into the cursed dimension. He was confused, but his Fritz blood soon came into effect and he became used to his new cursed surroundings. He looked up at the bright stars and their endless constellations and to the bright tree at the center of the dimension. He walked around the sand, wishing and wishing and, not long after, he could finally see a man in the distance. Zeke approached him.
Grisha was unresponsive. He sat over the sand, his eyes shone quite naively, like a child's. He drew and drew with his fingers, all over the sand and his face was expressionless.
His son stood there, Zeke didn't know what to say or how to break that broken man into conversation; for his concentration seemed sickly and he didn't seem to acknowledge his son was standing there, in front of him.
Zeke crouched down and picked up some of the sand his father was sickly drawing into. He let it get in between his fingers, standing up again. Grisha vaguely noted that there was someone there with him.
"So, it seems we are trapped in the same nightmare," the son opened conversation, staring at the small mound of sand left in his palm. And into the immensity that engulfed them.
There was still a long wait of silence, as the father slowly recomposed himself into his own mind.
"Eren is in trouble," the father finally spoke.
"I'm afraid I cannot help him, father," he replied. "I am out of the game," Zeke said, he raised his hand and looked at his own palm and the sand within, to see what his brain waves could achieve in that dimension: a baseball was formed as he thought about it; Zeke then threw it with much force. Oh! How much he missed the game! "This place is fascinating," he added after watching the small ball disappear in the distance.
"He can't lose," the father continued somberly. Still seated on a lump of sand. "We worked too hard to see it fail. Don't let him perish, there's more to be done, much more, and Eren is the key," Grisha advised his eldest son.
Zeke grunted, he looked to the side, to the bright tree. "I wished you showed this much interest about me as you show for him, father," he complained slightly. "But I suppose, he is the son who came out of love, and not interest."
"I loved you mother and I loved you," Grisha responded. "And didn't you have interests of your own when you betrayed your own blood? What were you to gain then? The affection of the ones who have enslaved us? I love you, my son. But have you no shame? You destroyed your mother's life!" the father became more agitated.
"I was a child. I was only a child," Zeke contested, pacing around. "Don't you think you wanted too much of me? And I know you did the same to him." the son crouched down, closer to his father's face. "Only to fulfil your self-interest, your desires for grandeur."
"My only interest is for my family and my people, to be safe and free and cared for. We shouldn't live trapped behind walls, we are not monsters and we shouldn't pay for sins committed long ago, sins that aren't ours. We shouldn't have to live in fear. What we inherit in our blood is power, and we shouldn't be ashamed to have it, and use it." Grisha was firm with his son.
"So you took it all in your own hands?" Zeke stood up again, and opened his arms wide. "And since you no longer had me you replaced me with poor Eren, and brought him into your delusions." he lamented for his younger brother.
"My inherited power means I know more than you ever will," Grisha replied; for the Attack Titan knows what the future brings. "Now, mistakes have been made and Evil has awakened. The entire island will plummet into darkness if we don't act fast. All of those people, our people, they will die. We must act!"
Zeke paced around, unconvinced. He stopped. "I say let them die. Our people deserve to die, it's the only way to bury this curse." Zeke Yeager declared. "Let it die with the Eldian race."
Grisha stopped. Saddened and upset. The memory of Paradise Island being buried into the ocean had been haunting him. He knew the future had to be fixed. But most of all, he was upset by his son's words and his hate for their own kind.
"You don't mean that," the father spoke more softly. "I know you don't. If you are anything like your mother and I, and I know you are, you can't be this callous."
Zeke became more frustrated with his old man. "What other way is there? As long as we are cursed into being born as we are we will continue to be hunted." he reminded his father. "There's no way out."
"There will be a way. But the time is not now," Grisha assured his son. "Now is time to save the island and to help your brother."
"We are both trapped here," the son contested.
"I am aware of that, but if things work as they should - and they will - we won't be trapped here for much longer. We will be freed from this dimension. But while we are here, we must use it to our advantage," Grisha called his eldest to action. "Do what we must from up here, to change the tides of this war; for we are now battling pure Evil. And we need to win."
Zeke became reflective. "There might be one thing I could do," he considered.
- Year 854 - Shiganshina - The Crumbling of The Walls
"Beautiful," Yelena said with glittering eyes as they watched the enormous explosion happening at the city's outer doors. The exterior Walls of Shiganshina had already been falling before the Colossal Explosion had started. But the group inside that building was too busy trying to hide from the unexpected and inexplicable earthquakes to notice the Walls had begun to crack. When pure silence struck and Yelena looked over from behind the wooden desks they had placed as a makeshift barricade. She looked towards the windows as the brightness of the explosion was reaching the building.
Not long after, the sound also arrived. And the brief silence at the end of the earthquake was replaced by the thunderous sound of the immense Colossal Explosion. "Beautiful?!" Onyankopon had to shout his question, for the explosion was too loud. "I am pretty sure we are witnessing Armageddon!" he added as they both crouched even more to hide behind the desks, to protect themselves from the glass of the broken windows and the debris the explosion was bringing in those extremely hot vapours of air.
"And aren't you glad to be a part of History? Here we are! At the World's End," she joked with him, still shouting amidst the deafening noise. Yelena then looked around their 'companions' in that chaotic situation.
The Yeagerists were nervous and fidgety. They had also been surprised by the Colossal Explosion, and by those Pure Titan transformations all around them right before that. They were all heavily armed and none of them would remove a finger from the trigger. They were young and inexperienced, quite naive. And fear and ammunition has always been a dangerous combination.
"Do you think they'll kill us?" She asked Onyan in a smaller voice and with a strange smile.
He then looked around their surroundings as well. Onyankopon evaluated their quite unfortunate situation. "If they don't, I'm sure those things outside will." he replied.
The recently formed Pure Titans didn't seem to acknowledge the enormous explosion happening at the very edge of the city. Some of the more Abnormal Titans slightly turned their heads for a moment, but the prey inside that building was far more interesting. And now, with the windows broken, the hunt became more accessible, and even more exciting.
"Don't worry about them. Those Titans are being controlled by the War Chief, and Zeke would have no reason to hurt us." she declared while the Pure Titans attacked the building and rapidly ate the more inexperienced soldiers.
"Well, it seems they are following their instinct rather than being controlled," Onyan pointed out as those Titans feasted on the poor soldiers.
Yelena was baffled. 'That doesn't make any sense. Where is Zeke?' she thought.
"Our soldiers are being eaten! What do we do, sir?!" one of the younger Yeagerists came shouting towards Floch, who seemed quite out of it amidst that whole madness.
He looked at those young soldiers, a little glassy-eyed, he then slowly recomposed his thoughts.
"We-we need to reach the harbour," Floch stuttered as he recalled the plan. "That is the next step." he added with more certainty.
"The harbour?! Are you out of your mind?" Onyankopon interjected. "You are soldiers. You should protect the few civilians still in this city and help us evacuate to inside the Walls and not go to the outer parts of the Island." he firmly added.
"You do whatever you want with the little you still have of your life here," Floch snapped back at him. "We will follow our plan. And our plan is to guard the harbour and make sure the other Shifters won't try anything funny to stop our Rumbling." he explained very firmly while angrily staring at Onyankopon.
Onyankopon then looked to the high - and now broken - windows. "Rumbling? It doesn't seem like any of those Wall Titans intend to leave the inner city, let alone go to the outskirts of the Island and beyond," he cleverly observed. Onyan then let out a small laugh. "It seems a Colossal Shifter is good enough of a prize for most of them now," he added.
"I don't care what Armin will do. Whatever he is planning won't work. He is only one and there are thousands of Wall Titans out there! They will take him out in no time and proceed in the destruction of our enemies," Floch argued back.
"How curious," Yelena added in a smaller voice and Onyan turned towards her. "They seem as clumsy and out of control as these Pure Titans out here. Something must have gone very wrong," she gravelly added, almost whispering and Onyankopon nodded.
Floch then turned to his comrades. "We head out, be fully equipped and don't trust the Survey Corps, it is unlikely they would be on our side. Eren told me so himself," he advised the young men.
"Don't trust them? You need their help more than ever right now!" Onyan exclaimed in disbelief. "The Survey Corps is much more experienced in killing Titans. If you want to leave this building you need to obliterate those Pure Titans outside don't you think? Those young soldiers clearly have no idea what they are doing-"
"How dare you?!" Floch interrupted Onyan's reasoning, he was more than angry with that man's meddling at that point. So he lifted his hand to strike Onyankopon's face with the back of his firearm.
And Yelena swiftly held his hand before it could reach its target. "He is right." she firmly said, looking Floch right in the eyes.
"I am more than right." Onyankopon affirmed. "And you know what else you need?! A proper leader. Since you've been rambling instead of giving proper orders, half of the soldiers in this compound have been eaten." he gravelly pointed out.
"Are you putting yourself forward? You are not even a soldier! You are barely a spy," Floch laughed.
"I am just going to do my best to survive, or enjoy 'the little I have of my life', as you said," Onyankopon replied with a swag smile. "We should hide in the basement," he suggested to Yelena.
"The basement? What if the building collapses?" she argued back.
"We need to protect ourselves and hope the Survey Corps will exterminate these Pure Titans so we can leave this building and this town. We are not exactly their target, well not as much as Eldians are, but we still need to find a safe place to hide-" Onyan was still making his argument when one of the soldiers interrupted with a confused shout.
"What is that?!" one of the Yeagerists exclaimed and pointed out the windows.
They all turned to look. That small group of Shiganshina survivors had finally looked up to see the Original Titan flying very high above them. She was way above the clouds. Ymir was finally enjoying her freedom, after two thousand cursed years.
"What is that indeed," Yelena concurred, walking closer to the broken windows.
"How big is that thing? It's so high up and it still looks gigantic!" Onyankopon exclaimed, completely dumbfounded.
"It's the goddess," Floch whispered, mesmerised. "How could it be?" he asked.
'Goddess?' Yelena became reflective. "Zeke should be in control of the Titans, perhaps this is what went wrong," she pointed above them. "Perhaps he was tricked by the witch."
"Zeke shouldn't be in control of anything. He might have Fritz blood but Eren is the Founding Titan." Floch argued back, annoyed.
"None of that matters now, does it? Neither Zeke's Pure Titans nor Eren's Wall Titans are being controlled. And what matters of Fritz blood or Founding power when we are clearly dealing with the mother of all Titans now?!" Yelena argued and laughed at her own disbelief.
Onyankopon looked up to the bright skies once again, to see that enormous and quite majestic figure cruising in the clouds above them. He also gave out a small and slightly defeated laugh. "I suppose this truly is Armageddon then," he noted.
..
Down in the cells the Commandant could hear all the commotion of that 'Armageddon' outside. He was extremely concerned by those Pure Titans shaking up the compound. The former Survey Corps Commander was indeed very experienced with those creatures and their forms of attack. He laid on his cell bed, staring at the concrete wall, watching it shake slightly.
He could hear the immense noise outside, it was loud but he could also hear steps now. Walking down to the holding area, panting. The Commandant could clearly hear the heavy breathing as someone stopped in front of his cell.
"What is with all that noise?" Shadis complained about the madness outside and then started to hear something unlocking the cell door. He startled and turned.
"Sir, we need your help," the young soldier said while opening the cell door wide.
..
And right in the middle of chaos and destruction walked a small group: the Braus family, accompanied by Niccolo, the marlean cook. They walked from house to house, avoiding themselves from being seen. They had found a place to hide while the tremors occurred, but they now had to keep moving.
"You head to the ends of town and get away from this wretched place as fast as you can. I'll go find the kids," the cook told Mr. Braus and the family.
"No." the older man refused. "In situations like this we need to stick together. We'll all go."
"They are likely at the belly of the beast. It's too dangerous," Niccolo advised.
"We'll all go," Mr. Braus insisted and the cook then looked to the wife and the other children for support in the argument.
"I won't leave this town without all my children accounted for," Mrs. Braun added with certainty, supporting her husband.
"So we all go," Niccolo finally abided and they started to crawl from under some wrecked buildings and towards the city's front gate. They all kept walking, towards 'the belly of the beast' as Niccolo put it. In search of Falco and Gabi.
..
Falco was still unconscious. It looked like the boy was in deep sleep. The new Titan Shifter had been swiftly taken away by one of the Survey Corps members. They were hiding in one of the many unoccupied houses, Connie hadn't had much time to see what to do about the boy, for they had been surprised by tremors and now a gigantic Titan explosion. He did his best to protect himself and the unconscious boy, but he didn't expect that to be enough. Connie knew how close they were to the Wall - that was now crumbling - and that they couldn't withstand the blast, let alone the fallen debris.
So, after the Colossal explosion started to die down, the question remained in Connie's mind: How were they still alive?
The Explosion:
Eren stood up bright and confident. He had reemerged on a brand-new titan form. His Titan still maintained heavy characteristics of the Attack Titan: it had pointy ears and no muscles around its cheeks, showing off its maxillary bones. But now the Titan was coated in crystal, and was fully capable of reaching its War-Hammer Titan abilities.
He was ready to resume their fight. And very proud that his angel, his lovely daughter had successfully destroyed the Walls. He smiled and so did his Titan, as the front part of Wall Maria fell behind him, after that intense earthquake. Eren looked at Reiner, considering who should be the one to throw the first punch, but the Warrior had more pressing concerns in his mind: Gabi.
Reiner had successfully caught her and had protected her from the earthquake and some of Eren's transformation prior to that. He was now standing there, with the small girl hidden inside of his Titan's hands. He was thinking fast. He needed to find a way to protect her, since he expected Eren wouldn't be very happy about that previous lucky shot and how it had found a way into his neck. And Reiner was right, for it had left quite a scar.
He considered letting the girl out into one of those buildings nearby, but he didn't have much time to think, for not long after the Wall started to crumble and the Wall Titan's started to show, the brutal Colossal explosions occurred.
That was it. He knew he was too close, he wasn't sure if his armour would be enough to protect himself or his cousin hidden inside the Armoured Titan's hands. So he waited for the worst.
The Colossal explosion started to die down and he was still alive. Reiner was trying to understand how. The heat was intense and most houses around them had been evaporated, not to mention the Wall Crystal was now flying everywhere. Deadly giant chunks of that dark-grey Titan Crystal mixed with cement that the Garrison had poured to fortify the structure over the last century.
The destruction was unparalleled. But as the heavy fog went away the Warrior saw the Titan fortification that had stopped the heat and debris from hitting him - and Gabi - and most of the houses around them. The explosion had taken Eren by surprise but he quickly acted on instinct: he used his War-Hammer abilities to create a giant arc-like shield that protected him, Reiner and everything nearby.
The younger Yeager also noticed the Jaw Titan had disappeared. Something he would have to worry about later, now his only concern was the Armoured Titan. Eren was still a little annoyed about the little girl as well, but he expected she had died soon after almost successfully killing him. Well, at least he got to see his daughter again, and bring her back with him.
Eren smiled again. And waited for the Warrior to throw the first punch. But Reiner still stood motionless and that made him a little annoyed. The Warrior swiftly let the small girl go out from his hands and she ran into one of the destroyed buildings. The Armoured then turned to stop his opponent's blow with both arms.
The War-Hammer-Attack then produced spikes from its feet that went stories high, covering the entire field they were fighting on; completely collapsing every building nearby and successfully pinning the Armoured Titan high up. And Reiner quickly dislodged his Titan from the spikes and launched himself forward, attacking his opponent head-on.
They fell on the ground in a scuffle and the crystal-arc Eren had made collapsed on top of them. The War-Hammer Crystals shattered and were falling over the two. The crystal shards left Eren disoriented and injured his titan form. But Reiner's harder armour protected him, so his Titan wasn't damaged.
The two Titan Shifters found themselves in that cursed dimension, fighting the same way as their Titans were in the real world. It felt strange and eerie for Reiner to suddenly find himself in that odd place: under those bright stars and over those endless dunes. But he also felt a sense of déjà vu.
They proceeded to fight on the ground, as Reiner prepared to bury Eren's head underneath all that sand. He was considering saying a few words; wondering if they could talk and be understood inside that strange dimension.
Eren was struggling but quickly finding his pace and gaining the upper hand again; when suddenly everything stopped. Eren looked up at Reiner with confusion and Reiner looked back, trying to understand Eren's expression. When the younger Yeager started to glow a blue light. It was very bright and he glowed and stopped two times and in the third, he completely disappeared. And Reiner fell face first into the sand, completely alone now, in that cursed dimension.
Similarly, the Armoured Titan felt unbalanced and eventually fell into the War-Hammer-Attack Titan's carcass, for its Shifter was nowhere to be seen.
Eren had completely vanished and Reiner tried to look for him, he had clearly been removed from his Titan but he was nowhere near the crumbled Walls' area. The Warrior eventually gave up and started to retreat, for the giant Wall Titans were everywhere and stepping on everything nearby. One of the confused beasts even stepped all over the destroyed crystal-arc and the War-Hammer-Attack's carcass inside of it. The Armoured then took a greater distance and started to protect himself from those clumsy giants.
..
Inside one of the many collapsed buildings yet another Titan Shifter was in deep sleep. Jean Kirstein had found the woman unconscious, right near the Wall. He'd removed her from her Titan and used his ODM gear to bring her to safety. They were far from the collapsed front gate of the town and much of the explosion didn't hit them. Their problem now was a little smaller but equally frightening: the Pure Titans.
Jean, as an Eldian, was a good prize, but they were more interested in the Shifter he had hidden inside that building. They tried their best to reach for the prize and the experienced Scout used that distraction to kill as many Titans as he could.
The coast was clear, he had killed most of the Pure Titans around that area. Kirstein wiped his face and started to breathe more safely. He looked around the destruction and then went back towards the building. He landed on the ground with his ODM gear and took an even bigger breath. Jean then proceeded to walk inside the destroyed establishment.
The Warrior was awake, she was weak but her eyes were slightly open. She looked up to see the Scout walking again into the building. She had heard and had partially seen how he had taken all those Titans down, protecting himself, but also her. "Why are you helping me?" Pieck asked.
"I saw what you did," Jean replied.
Back in the Compound:
"What are you all standing around for? Is this a vacation?! Can't you see those Titans outside?!" Commandant Shadis arrived on the upper floor, yelling at those soldiers with no mercy, as if they were still young cadets. "Go grab your thunder spears, your swords! Grab anything and start to kill the Titan threat outside!" He ordered, shouting quite loudly.
"But, sir," one of the young Yeagerists interjected in a very small voice. "Those Titans out there were military men, sir."
"Even Commander Pixis is among them, sir. How can we kill them?" Another soldier asked, very conflicted.
Shadis looked down, thinking. He put his hands on his hips, then scratched his head. The man looked around the room. "Very well, we will evacuate," he decided.
"Are you saying we shouldn't kill the Pure Titans?" Floch questioned.
"Since none of you seems particularly skilled in that, we shouldn't risk it. It's not worth it to lose more soldiers than we already have." Shadis explained. "As long as they are not inside the walls they won't be a problem," he added.
'What Walls?' Floch thought.
"And we shouldn't let go of hope. Perhaps there will be a way to turn our comrades back to normal," the Commandant solemnly told the group.
He then looked towards Yelena and Onyankopon. "Are there any civilians in the town beyond you two?" Shadis asked.
"We believe there are a few scattered around town," Onyan replied.
"Then we will divide ourselves into two groups: the more skilled will come with me, and we will gather all the civilians around town and help them evacuate. The other group will evacuate immediately, taking these two with them," the Commandant expertly explained. He then walked closer towards Onyankopon.
"When you get inside Wall Maria, go find Commander Hange and Captain Levi and brief them on this mad situation," Shadis added, giving Onyan a mission.
"Are you putting him in charge?" Floch contested.
"Of this group, yes," Shadis replied and walked towards the young Yeagerist. "And you are coming with me," he added, staring Floch right in the face.
"Why would you want me in your group?" Floch asked, defiantly.
"Like I said, the more skilled will come with me," the Commandant explained, and turned again to the soldiers. "Grab your thunder spears and make sure you have enough gas!" he shouted. "We just need to get to the horses, once we're there we will be fine. We then can put some speed and distance from these Titans and get to work on our missions!" Shadis finished giving his orders and made the heart salute, very solemnly.
The young soldiers immediately stood to attention and saluted very bravely in response. Floch looked around the room and reluctantly saluted as well. Onyan and Yelena looked at each other with half smiles and saluted as well.
When a giant shadow fell upon the half-destroyed building, completely burying them in darkness for a moment, then leaving and letting the sun shine on them once more. They all looked up, most of them already knowing what they expected to see.
"What is that thing?" Shadis asked, with eyes fitted in that majestic and terrifying monster flying above the Island.
.
Ymir rose and rose up in the sky. She was quite happy but she was also feeling a little confused and out of place, for she hasn't been in this land for quite a long time. And she hadn't been in Titan form for even longer. This was a brand-new feeling and a brand-new adventure for her. The goddess had waited long enough, finally, everything had fallen into place. And she was finally where she always wanted: flying high in that paradisian sky, getting ready to strike.
.
≃2000 years ago
[Six Years after the first appearance of The Titan]
The tower
Az had just arrived from the latest battle, one which the queen had decided not to fight on, for reasons unknown. Ymir had simply told the King she was tired and wanted to rest and not transform into Titan form for a while. So her Army had left without her. She remained in her tower, waiting for the Army and her beloved to return. Az had just arrived, after a couple of months and he jumped straight to the top of the tower, to see her.
-.-
"…I'm just happy you're home. I'm very very happy!" she said excitedly and held both his hands. "I missed you," she declared and kissed him, a long and wet kiss.
"I've missed you too." he said and kissed her again. He pulled away and saw her with that angelic smile again. "What?" he asked, dumbfounded.
"I want to tell you something," she whispered, innocently. Still holding both his hands.
"Then tell me something," he said, smiling a charming smile.
She took his hands and placed them over her stomach. "I'm with child," Ymir said, smiling.
"You-You're with what?" he asked in disbelief. Az moved his hands away, completely bewildered.
Ymir smiled, amused by his awkwardness. "Platyhelminthes," she joked. "I know you heard what I said," Ymir contested.
"Why?" he continued in disbelief.
"What do you mean why?" Ymir asked back, slightly offended.
"You are unbelievable-" Azzy complained and shook his head, he then came closer to hold her so they could both jump away from the tower.
Ymir barely noticed, the whole process was quite fast, and in a flash of blue light they both completely vanished from the room.
The riverside
They reappeared in the middle of the forest and the poor pregnant woman felt like her world was spinning. She hit him a couple of times in the shoulder and chest then held him, looking for balance. "You promised you would never use that stupid trick with me again!" She complained and slowly bent to the ground, Ymir started to throw up.
"I had to get us as far away from that place as possible!" Az justified himself. He looked at her vomiting then looked away. "I guess those will come up more and more often," he complained and sighed, she then looked up at him with fury. Ymir was vexed - and still quite dizzy - as she continued to vomit. Azzy turned to face the trees and tried to recompose his words, he was feeling nervous and confused. "I had to get us out of there, so we can discuss this more properly. Somewhere others can't hear us."
He explained then turned to help her stand up and clean herself. Ymir's head was still spinning, but she slowly and calmly found balance again. "Where even are we?" she asked with a small voice.
"I have no idea," Az honestly replied.
"What? Are you mad?!" Ymir exclaimed, hitting him on the shoulder again.
"I had to think fast-" he shrugged, defending himself.
"We could be on the other side of the world right now. Or in a completely different time!" she argued, in an admonishing tone.
"I haven't seen any dinosaurs so far," he joked and she looked at him with fiery eyes once again. Az thought about it. "You know, that wouldn't be so bad…" he considered, crossing his arms.
"Of course it would. That would be terrible!" Ymir exclaimed.
The couple was actually in a very familiar patch of the forest: they were near the river, the place where they have met several times before. The two of them could actually situate themselves now. They hadn't gone too far.
"No." he realised. "That's actually the solution," Az proposed. "We need to leave."
"Leave?" Ymir asked with annoyance.
"Yes, leave," he confirmed.
"I'm not going anywhere. This is my home, my fam-" she was about to argue and he cut her short.
"Family?" Az interrupted. "Like any of those snakes care about you," he argued, the man was getting increasingly mad. "This was not supposed to happen," Az shook his head in disbelief.
"Why not?" Ymir asked. This wasn't the reaction she was expecting, not that she had considered his reaction at all.
"This shouldn't have happened. I gave you that device for a reason," he pointed out.
"If you're referring to that grotesque thing, I removed it," she told him, crossing her arms.
"Of course you did," he said condescendingly. "Why?" Az asked.
"It was uncomfortable," she complained.
"And of course you didn't tell me, so I could find another better 'less uncomfortable' way to prevent all this mess!" he exclaimed, quite vexed.
"Mess? Is that what you call our child?" Ymir asked in fury.
"What would you call it?" he questioned her.
"Our child!" she shouted at him in rage.
"What is really going on here?" Az started to question her motives. "What is your plan-?"
"My plan?" she interrupted with confusion.
"I know you. This isn't a mistake or an accident. You are doing this for a reason," he said, looking for her eyes and she looked down. "You wanted to get pregnant."
She looked up again in spite. "Well, yes," she confirmed. "I'm doing this because I want to be a mother." Ymir replied without hesitation. "You already trapped me in this hell. Are you now going to deny me even from that?!" She argued in anger. "You monster," Ymir added in her rage.
"Don't call me a monster." Az replied sternly. "And don't think you can buy me with sentimentality. I know you don't care for any of those things, you cold-hearted wit-" Az couldn't finish speaking, for Ymir had slapped him across the face.
He started to incessantly pace around the area, very nervously, trying to comprehend this mess of a situation. Ymir followed his pacing with her eyes, to the point it was almost making her dizzy again.
"What are you afraid of?" she questioned him and the man stopped.
Az looked at her with his hands on his hips. "Well, where should I begin?!" He exclaimed, opening his arms wide. "Do you know how insane all of this is?! How would it even work?"
"It's not just that. You're afraid," Ymir noted. "That's why you're lashing out. You are afraid of being a father."
"Perhaps," he reluctantly conceded. "But that wouldn't be the main reason. How can I be a father to a child that can't even call me that?" he questioned her.
"Well, not in public-" she tried to argue.
"Ymir, you are married to another man," he reminded her.
"That is just a formality," Ymir shrugged, like it was nothing.
"You make it sound so simple," he argued.
"And you make it sound so difficult," she complained.
Ymir looked around the trees and exhaled, quite sadly. "Our lives are already so bleak. Everything is so dark in here. A child would be a light, something to bring us genuine happiness. Hope," she argued with watery eyes.
The man was completely dumbfounded, this whole situation had really caught him off guard. Az adored Ymir with all his heart, and their romance was very special; the secrecy of it made it even more enticing and exciting. But that was all it was: a secret romance. This sudden wish for a child was very unexpected for him, since for his side it made no sense. Az thought it was completely against their rules, if only they had set those rules in the first place. But they never did, not entirely, and Ymir took full advantage of that. He just wanted to figure out her game now. 'What is your play?' he questioned in his mind.
There was pure silence, for a while, as Az stared at the river, reflective. "I think it will be good for you, for us, don't you think?" Ymir asked with a smile but he just turned his head away, completely ignoring her.
Ymir sighed. "I'm sorry if I didn't discuss it with you," she apologised, but not very genuinely.
Az crossed his arms. "You didn't because you knew I would say no," he pointed out.
"Do you want to get rid of it?" Ymir asked, quite bluntly.
He uncrossed his arms, opening them wide for the next argument. "And of course you know I would never let you do that," Az argued.
"Alright then," she shrugged slightly and held her stomach with genuine happiness. "We'll keep it." she said.
Az shook his head in disbelief. "You are completely manipulating me," he complained.
She smiled, "I learned with the best," Ymir complimented him, giving out quite an evil smile.
He scratched his head, upset and confused. "I need to think," Az added and embraced her. "What?" Ymir barely had time to ask, for in a flash of blue light she had been transported back to the tower. "Azzy?" she called for him amidst her confusion. "Azzy?!" Ymir shouted to no avail, for he had left her all alone once again, in that tower.
-.-
- Year 867 - Paradise Island - the Reiss Lands
In the remains of the Ancient Crystal Cave
The giant erosion stretched out to the horizon. The destruction truly looked like something only nature could cause, an earthquake perhaps, or a true erosion caused by time and terrain, but it wasn't. No, this had actually been caused by the desperation of the boy's grandfather: the last King of the Walls; who, many years ago, had inadvertently lost control of his Pure Titan. After all, the King had become the biggest Pure Titan history had seen.
It was well known by the prince, at this stage, that the death of the King, his grandfather, had been by the hands of both his father and his mother; to protect the people of the Walls. He was also aware that his grandfather was beyond saving, even before the old man had surrendered himself to his cursed titan form; the prince grew up knowing there was no turning back for the last King of the Walls. Ezra was taught how his mother was destined to be queen. And so, the beloved Queen Historia cut off her father's head, completely obliterating the enormous titan before it could destroy a small town. She took the crown and saved her people from a tyrant, liberating the Eldians into a new era, it was the rebirth of their empire.
The prince's birth was a symbol of this rebirth for the Eldian people within Paradise Island, and the boy was incredibly popular and well known by his people. His twin sister's demise hadn't been forgotten, of course, but it was out-shadowed by 'the boy who would be king'; even more so as the boy grew and his thirteenth birthday became nearer.
It was supposed to be a well-guarded secret, but the people knew how that would be it: the thirty-first of October, the day the boy would be thirteen would be the day he would reach his Founding Titan's abilities.
That special date had passed. And now, a few days later, the now teenaged prince was travelling with his father around the Reiss Lands. This was the 'birthday trip' his father had promised him and Ezra was a little sceptical about it. They had been accompanied by a small military troop, but they had now left those soldiers and their own horses behind to walk on their own. They hiked around the terrain for a good couple of hours, and neither of them talked much. Eren Yeager and his son finally arrived at the ruins of that ancient Fritz cave.
They both finally stopped to catch their breath and admire the ancient, underground construction that had been carved by the Original Nine Titans two thousand years before. Now, exposed, all the Titan Crystal shimmered in the sunlight.
"Happy birthday, son," Eren told the teenage boy with a wide smile.
"Why are we here?" Ezra asked his father, still quite sceptically.
"Can't you at least appreciate the view?" the father complained.
"It just looks like the remnants of some crazy disaster," the young prince complained back, shrugging. The father and son were vastly different in their life values, but incredibly equally short-tempered.
Eren offered the boy some water and drank some as well, as they recovered from the long hike. He took the canteen to the side, reflective as his son seemed a little lost and out of place.
"Even so, it still looks nice, to see the sun reflecting on the crystals and the surrounding trees," Eren said while looking upfront, admiring the horizon.
"Was he that bad? Grandpapa?" Ezra asked very naively as he looked into the destruction and reflected on it all, or at least, on the history he had been told.
"We didn't exactly spend quality time together. The last I remember of him, I was bound and heavily chained," the father complained in pure rancour.
"Because other granddad stole the Founding, and not in the nicest way," Ezra contested.
"And if he hadn't done that, things wouldn't have unravelled the way they did, and you wouldn't be here. So you should thank History for it happening as it did," his father remarked. "You were born weren't you?"
Ezra looked at the horizon, still confused.
"Why did you bring me here? Was it for the history lesson?" the teenager asked, raising his eyebrows.
"I brought you here because you, my boy, are now thirteen," the father explained while removing a small knife from his coat. Eren placed the knife on his son's hand.
Ezra looked down at the object in pure confusion. "I expect you will know how it works, or do I need to explain it to you?" the father asked with small trepidation.
There was a moment of awkward silence and the prince started to laugh.
He held the knife up. "Do you really think I am going to injure myself just for your amusement?" the teenager confronted his father.
The pair never got along, and things didn't necessarily improve once the boy developed more and more into his own person. Eren Yeager had expected to shape the boy in his own image. Unbeknownst to him, Eren was just following in his father's footsteps. Doing to his son, the very same his father had once done to him, and to his half-brother before him. By his own trauma, the Yeager boy chose to hide the memories of his father away, especially those last haunting moments of terror and realisation: as the Titan child learned he had killed his own father.
Since most of these father-son memories had been hidden away and since there also weren't many to begin with, Eren had forgotten most of his father's teachings. And now, as a father himself, Eren was following on the same path. He fought against Ezra's ways and Ezra fought against his temper. It was a lifelong struggle.
The boy stopped laughing.
"I will not hurt myself," Ezra said, more gravely.
Eren took a deep breath, so he wouldn't lose his patience. "That is the only way to confirm that you have in fact inherited the Founding Titan," he explained with some composure, but while still gritting his teeth.
"Why me? It could have been passed to Ymir, or to any other Eldian child born at that moment. Why does it have to be me?" Ezra asked while waving his arms around.
"Because it is you." Eren said firmly, pushing the knife into the prince's arms.
Ezra pushed him away. "Is that why you brought me here? Is that why you sent all the guards away? For some stupid ritual?" he asked in exasperation.
"This cave has been the center of Titan ceremony and tradition for two thousand years and you will respect it," the father firmly admonished him.
"I will respect it? You destroyed it!" the prince pointed out, throwing the knife back at his father.
Eren caught the knife.
"I didn't destroy it, I tried holding it together. Your grandfather destroyed it," Eren firmly argued. "All Fritz kings since Karl, the 145th King, have weakly destroyed everything Eldia stood for. Your grandfather not only destroyed this ancient landmark, almost killing me, your mother and much military personnel in the process. He also almost ran this Island to the ground in sheer incompetence, he killed much of the paradisian population by feeding them to Titans; and who knows what else he would have done if he were allowed to continue?! I have dedicated my life to rebuild our two-thousand-year-old Empire, to obliterating our enemies outside like Karl Fritz was incapable of doing. I have raised you to finish what I started. You will be king and you will set our enemies ablaze. You will use this power."
Eren shoved the knife again into his son's arms in pure anger.
'Is that what you think a birthday present is? Cursing your own child?' Ezra thought, but he said nothing.
The boy looked at the knife, he was on the brink of crying, but he held himself together. He, as a child, had done anything and everything to please his father, to make him proud. But it was never enough. And now, as he was growing into adulthood, Ezra had decided to stop pleasing his old man and finally make his own way into life.
"I'm leaving," he firmly told his father, and turned to leave.
"You will do no such thing," his father admonished. Eren had completely lost his patience at that point.
"Here," the boy angrily slashed his hand with the knife, spilling blood everywhere. "Now I'll have a scar for the rest of my life because of you!" the boy waved his hand around, showing the blood.
He threw the small knife on the ground. "There you go: nothing happened. I'm not cursed," Ezra said very firmly as his hand bled away.
"You are just trying to trick me," Eren considered while looking at the boy in pure mistrust.
"You are unbelievable!" Ezra shouted then turned again to leave. He started to walk away, trying to stanch the bleeding with his coat.
"Come back here!" Eren shouted at the boy. "You cannot leave." he firmly demanded.
But the boy completely ignored him and just kept walking away. He didn't turn back, not even once.
.
"You must be laughing at me right now," Eren said, out loud, to his side.
"I am not," Grisha replied. Eren looked towards him. "You are not real, you're just in my head," he complained to the ghostly figure of his old man.
"Of course I am real," Grisha refuted. He turned to look at the boy, making his way into the distance. "I'm sure you didn't expect this would be easy," he told his son.
"I didn't expect it would be this hard," Eren complained. "He is impossible!" he let out, pointing at Ezra walking in the distance and then opening his arms wide.
Grisha sighed. "I didn't have the best relationship with my old man, I loathed him," he revealed. "So, I expected I could repair that, with your brother and with you."
Eren became reflective.
"You cursed me. And now, I cursed him," he said very quietly. Eren felt broken.
"It isn't your fault," Grisha said, holding him by the shoulder. "Fate just happened the way it did, to you and to me. We all need to play our part-"
"Maybe I'm tired of playing my part," Eren interrupted his father. "I have lost too much."
"But you still have him," his father reminded him, signalling to Ezra walking in the distance. "And you still have me."
"You are just in my head," Eren grumbled. "Why did you curse me?" he finally decided to ask his father, Eren was curious about it.
"Because I knew you could do better than me," Grisha told his son. "And because I was out of time."
"So if Zeke was there you would have gladly bestowed this curse upon him instead? After all, you were out of time, like you said." Eren confronted his old man. "I have no Fritz blood and those powers would be useless on me, you knew it. But you no longer had him, so I was your only choice-"
"Your brother betrayed me. Don't think I will ever forget that," the father rebuked very sternly. "But I still love him, the same way as I love you and as you love your son. So don't ever think that you were my second best choice. You were my only choice."
"I don't know how comforting it is, to know all that," Eren grumbled.
Grisha looked to the boy, walking in the distance once again. "Is that what he is to you? A second best choice?"
"We both know very well, how Ymir is much stronger than he will ever be," Eren replied without hesitation.
"But she betrayed you, my son," Grisha said what Eren didn't want to hear, "same as my eldest betrayed me."
"She did not, she only did what she thought best-" Eren rebuked.
"I'm sure Zeke also thought it was best to hand us over to the wicked marleans," Grisha proceeded in his comparison.
"Oh, father, please-" Eren was about to argue, but his father interrupted him again.
"Eren, she stripped away your power. The power I gave you." Grisha said very firmly.
"Didn't you say 'fate' chose for those things to happen the way they did?" Eren questioned his father; as he was blinded by the love and appreciation he gave to his favourite daughter Ymir; too blind to admit his eldest might not reciprocate his feelings completely.
"We call it Fate for those things that have happened and can not be changed," Grisha explained to his son. "The point is: she didn't trust you. She chose to trust in her own brother instead. And gave the Founding Powers to him."
"Well, he will prove a deep disappointment to her," Eren complained, crossing his arms.
"You don't mean that," Grisha reprimanded him softly. He looked into his grandson walking on the horizon again. "I'm sure he'll find his way."
.
"Who are you talking to?!" Ezra shouted from the distance. 'Crazy old man,' he thought. The prince had noticed how Eren was talking to himself for a while now.
Grisha disappeared from Eren's side.
"We should head back!" Eren shouted to his son.
"I'll make my own way!" Ezra shouted back at him, he then proceeded with his walk.
"Alright," Eren said in a lower voice and started to head back, to the direction they had previously walked from.
Ezra stopped. And turned. "And where are you going?!" the teenager shouted once again.
"To get the horses!" his father shouted in reply. "Or do you intend to die of thirst and starvation while 'making your own way' into a land you don't know?" Eren questioned the inexperienced boy, and kept walking.
The prince looked down to his bleeding hand, reflective. He considered following his father, but he was still too angry about it. His hand was still bleeding and he felt scarred. He reluctantly turned once again, and proceeded on his own walk; so, the two Yeagers kept walking in opposite directions.
- Year 847 - Paradise Island
The 104th Regiment training facilities
"Eren, you're staring again," Jean joked from the other side of their table. Christa had sat in front of him and he was in fact staring at her, and this wasn't the first time the younger Yeager had found himself completely lost in the petite and delicate girl's face.
Eren was confused. The boy was still incredibly young and a lot had already happened in his life. His mind was overwhelmed with memories of tragedy that confused themselves with the happy memories he'd had with his friends and family before the Wall went down and the last of humanity was attacked by Titans. Also other memories, many memories that weren't his own. The boy was transfixed in Historia's face, his mind was very much overwhelmed. So he couldn't help but stare.
- Year 842 - Paradise Island
In a small farm, in the Reiss Lands
The poor, sick woman was lying on her bed as the doctor examined her frail state. He was there to give a proper diagnosis, and subsequent treatment. The doctor then took the lord, who had been watching the whole procedure quite nervously, to the side so they could talk. "I'm afraid it is Consumption," Doctor Yeager whispered to the man.
"Can-can you be sure?" Lord Reiss whispered back, very worriedly.
"I am completely sure," the doctor confirmed and gestured for them to leave the room, so his patient could rest. "I will prescribe some medication and-"
"And she will recover?" Rod interrupted the doctor, quite anxiously. They stopped, outside of the room.
Grisha sighed. "There is no cure, per se. She might show signs of recovering with treatment, but I'm afraid Consumption truly is fatal. We can only make her comfortable while fighting the disease," the doctor explained with care. "She might still live for many years if every precaution I advise is taken, but we cannot know for how many."
"How sad," the lord solemnly replied, and sighed, trying his best not to show too much emotion. "Please make sure she has the best treatment available, I should hate for her to suffer."
"I will," the doctor abided. "It is good to see that your lordship takes an interest, some of those medications can be quite expensive. It could be difficult to manage, especially if the treatment is prolonged, which is what we hope," Grisha advised.
And Rod thought of an excuse for his 'interest' in the woman's health. "Our families are close, my father and her father were very good friends. I just wish to honour his memory," he embellished his lie. It was clear to the doctor that this family lived in Lord Reiss' favour, and in his land. "How long do you think she has?" Rod asked with trepidation.
"It's not good to put a number on those things," Grisha proceeded. "In my research I have found that some people can live up to twenty years with this affliction, but others fade in less than one. So as I said before, we can only hope. And make sure she is under good care and the right treatment," the doctor advised.
"I'll make sure," the man affirmed.
"Is there a maid or a nurse so that I can pass down all the instructions?" the doctor asked.
"Yes, I believe there are a couple of nurses already in the house," Rod replied and took the doctor to meet the nurses. He then came back to the room, eager to see the sick woman. He closed the door to make sure they would have some privacy.
"Why would you call me a fancy doctor? You shouldn't even have come here," Alma weakly said while trying to sit up right, the sick woman immediately started to cough.
"Don't exert yourself, my dear," Rod advised while waving his hands, he then nervously sat down next to the bed.
"You should leave, Sir," she insisted.
"I'm sure I don't need to remind you, my love, that this house is mine," he added.
"You've reminded me enough," she replied with her weakened voice. Alma then rested back, laying her head again on the pillows. She looked towards the window, reflective and sad.
"I-I didn't mean to upset you," the man slightly apologised. "He is a good doctor. I trust him, he saved my boys on multiple occasions," Rod tried to cheer her up.
"What will the Queen say when she finds out you came here, Sir? And that you're spending all this money with me?" Alma questioned.
"Let me handle Gretta," he replied, Rod then came closer and kissed her frail hand with much passion. He looked her in the eyes and held her frail hand inside of his. "You are all that matters to me, my love. You are my queen."
Alma removed her hand and turned her head to the other side again. "I know you don't mean that, Sir," she replied with her weak voice, almost in a whisper.
"You're tired, my dear," Rod said, trying to justify her mood. "The doctor said you need lots of rest to recover your strength-" Rod stopped himself, Alma was unresponsive, she was in fact tired and she didn't wish to give him any attention. So he finally took the hint. "Well, I'll leave you to it," he quietly said and kept watch as she fell asleep again.
..
Eren was running up and down, exploring the country house. He was accustomed to accompanying his father on some of the doctor's Inner Walls trips. Doctor Yeager had made sure to leave Eren in the cares of the governess as he attended his patient. But, as usual, the boy had quickly escaped the old woman so he could explore that big, wooden rustic house.
He walked fast around the corridor, exploring room by room and making sure none of the maids saw him. It was quite a thrill! In his head it was like he was living his own adventure. The seven-year-old was full of imagination. He walked and walked around the many corridors and rooms, until he saw two big blue eyes staring at him, watching him from behind the crack of one of the wooden doors.
It took a few seconds of pure silence as the image was recognised in the boy's brain. And he finally understood that those big blue eyes just belonged to a very small person who was hiding and gently observing him. Eren then quickly entered the room.
"Hey! Do you wanna play?" he asked with cheer as he saw the small girl and she hid even more behind the door. He walked even closer and peered through the small space where she was hiding. Eren then naively pulled away the door so he could see her better. After hours in that coach and days away from Shiganshina the boy was full of energy and very very happy to have finally found another child to play with. He smiled at her, a very wide smile.
Historia composed herself. "I don't think it would be appropriate," the six-year-old finally spoke. The girl was very small and her voice was as small as her, but she spoke quite firmly and very eloquently. She then fixed up her hair and moved away from the door. Historia stood with hands interlocked, very lady-like. She looked like a tiny politician, or a mini ambassador, her whole demeanour made the boy very confused and unsettled.
"I-I'm Eren," he stumbled while presenting himself.
"I am Historia Reiss," the small girl replied, still maintaining her eloquence.
"Reiss..?" the small boy thought about it, scratching his hair. He had heard that word recently. "Oh, that's where we are!" he realised.
"Correct." the small girl affirmed.
"Does that mean you own it?" he asked.
"My grandparents own it, one day I will inherit it," she explained with grace, talking about the farm. Historia didn't know the name Reiss meant far more than the small land she knew. The small girl had never left that farm, so she didn't know better. "After my mother, of course," she added with a smaller voice and Eren noted she was upset.
"Your mom will get better. She will be just fine," the small boy assured her. "Trust me. My dad is the best doctor in all of the Walls! He can fix anything and heal anyone." Eren told her with a proud smile.
Historia gave him a small smile back.
He looked around the corridors. "Does this place has an attic?" Eren asked with excitement, he wanted to keep exploring around the house.
The girl thought about it with some trepidation. "It does, but I've never been up there, I'm not allowed."
Eren grabbed her by the hand. "Let's explore it then!" he told her with much enthusiasm, completely ignoring the 'not allowed' part. Historia looked down at the small boy's hand pulling hers, she smiled and they quickly ran all around the house, playing and laughing together.
..
Down in the farm's porch, the elderly owners conversed while rocking back and forth in their chairs. They watched the fields and the sun, hidden between the clouds in the horizon.
"Why does that man insist on coming here?" the old woman complained to her husband.
"Well, he is paying for everything, dear, we should be grateful," her equally old husband replied.
"I just want her to rest, she needs to be able to rest," the old mother maintained. "That man only brought us problems, including the problem running upstairs," she added.
..
The two tiny kids ran all over the house, Historia was very happy and excited to be playing with another kid her age. They stopped closer to one of the windows and looked to the outside. Historia could see her grandparents sitting and conversing down below, in their usual spot.
"We should go outside," Eren proposed excitedly.
"We can't, they're right there!" Historia pointed out from the high window, at her grandparents sitting on the porch.
Eren sighed, looking around the room they were in. "It's pretty fun running around here, this house is pretty big, but you must be sick of it since you live here," he considered, while walking in yet another room. Eren then picked up a delicate porcelain piece from the side table.
"Be careful, that's an antique," the small girl advised and he put down the small object.
"You know a lot of odd words," Eren pointed out.
"Well I read a lot of books," the girl replied and shrugged. "I don't mind showing you around the house," Historia added. And the two small children left the room and proceeded to walk again in one of the corridors.
"But aren't you tired of being inside? My friend and I, we always run around the city streets! We go all over the place," Eren explained quite happily. "We spend all day playing, until it's dark!"
"I've never seen a street," Historia disclosed. She had never left that farm.
"You've never seen a street?!" Eren asked in disbelief, as they walked through the corridors.
"Well, there are stone paths around the farm, I've run through those," the small girl shrugged, slightly embarrassed.
Eren thought about it, "you should run away!" the small boy proposed with excitement.
The small girl was wide-eyed and nervous, she had heard footsteps and the boy hadn't.
Doctor Yeager stopped right behind him. "Eren, what are you doing on the upper floor? And where is Madame Badeaux?" he scolded his son.
The boy only shrugged.
"Come on," the doctor said, holding the boy's arm.
"But-" Eren looked down the corridor, looking for the girl, to at least say goodbye, but she was nowhere to be seen. The girl had vanished like a ghost.
"And I hope you haven't broken anything," the doctor added while pulling his son by the arm.
"I haven't," Eren contested. They both made their way down the stairs and through the door, leaving the country house.
Historia had hid again, behind a wooden door, and quietly watched the boy leave, peering through the cracks.
Father and son walked outside and into the fields as the small girl watched them from one of the windows. Historia sat back on the floor and sighed, quite sadly. She had just made a new friend, but she was now alone once again; she had no one to play with.
..
"If I leave you with a guardian, you need to stay with that guardian. Do that again and I won't bring you on my trips again, Eren," Grisha admonished his son as he held the small boy up and sat him down on their coach. They were readying themselves to leave the farm.
"But I just wanted to play," the boy argued back, quite saddened. "I was bored, you never let me in to see the patients," Eren complained, crossing his arms as his father joined him on the coach.
"You are not the doctor, Eren, I am. I'm sure we can find something fun to do before my next consultation," the father considered and then caressed the boy's head. They then started to make their way outside the farm while they could see another rider coming in through the gates.
"Lady Frieda!" Grisha shouted with a smile as he waved with his hat. He stopped their coach and the small boy looked over to see the pretty lady, and she smiled at him. "Did you come to see your friend too?" The doctor asked and Frieda was taken back for a moment. She was there to visit her youngest - and half - sister, as per usual. The Fritz Princess had hoped to keep these visits a secret, so she quickly masked her expression of confusion so she wouldn't be caught out. "Of course," she replied solemnly while holding the reins to her horse.
"She will improve quickly if the medicine I gave is administered right," the doctor continued. "Your father is still in the house," he added. "Oh, yes, of course," the teenager nodded. "Have a good day, doctor," Frieda said, and smiled, waving goodbye at them; she then proceeded to gallop into the farm.
"She's a very sweet girl, isn't she? And very polite," the doctor commented as they proceeded to leave, and the boy looked back, seeing the pretty lady one last time. Their coach quickly made its way into the fields.
Father and son went on travelling for a while, getting closer to the next town. They enjoyed the view of the green meadows and the bright blue sky.
"So, how did you enjoy yourself in this one? Did you go outside to see the cows?" the father started a conversation.
"No, I was playing with this girl I met in the house," Eren replied. "His- His…" the small boy couldn't remember her name completely.
"Girl? There were no children in that farm, Eren," Grisha told the boy.
"Yes there was," the small boy contested. "She is about this height, a little shorter than me and-and she has these biiig blue eyes," he explained with certainty. "She's tinier than me and has this very bright yellow hair…"
Grisha smiled and messed up his hair with a laugh, "I know you miss Armin, son, but we'll be back home in a few days," he comforted the small boy.
"I wasn't talking about Armin," the small boy complained, annoyedly crossing his arms.
- Year 847 - Paradise Island
The 104th Regiment training facilities
Eren was indeed staring and everyone could tell. They were all in the canteen, having their dinner. It hadn't been long since training had started, and the young soldiers of the 104th regiment were still getting to know one another.
The tiny blonde girl just ignored him, so to make things less awkward. But the moment one of their friends pointed out the staring, she looked up from her plate and their eyes met. Eren looked at those big blue eyes fitted into his once again.
"Are-are you sure we haven't met before?" he asked, a little nervous and uncertain.
"That's a new one," Jean whispered to the others near him, proceeding with his joke.
"I- I mean, were you in the orphanage as well? You look so familiar," Eren proceeded with his questioning. The twelve-year-old was quite nervous and a little confused.
The boy was stunned, he just sat there, at their communal table, feeling a little lost. She was indeed very familiar and he couldn't understand why. Eren'd had dreams with that petite girl, many dreams and even nightmares. But it made no difference, for he would always forget all of it, the moment he'd wake up. His memories of meeting as children would confuse themselves with the memories he had inherited from her sister Frieda and even with his own future memories of his future queen. All of that was very much buried, deep inside his mind, but some of it seemed to surface, every time he stared at those eyes.
"No, I didn't go to that orphanage, otherwise we'd have arrived in the same coach," Historia pointed out quite eloquently and proceeded to eat her dinner, avoiding his eyes once again.
"But you're an orphan, aren't you?" the boy insisted and Historia dropped down her spoon again. She was slightly annoyed but made sure not to show it, for it wouldn't go well with her new character.
Historia sighed, "yes," she replied. "Yes, I am." She didn't want to bring those horrible memories back to the surface, the horrifying memories of her mother's murder.
"There are other orphanages around the Walls, Eren, the one you went to wasn't the only one in existence," Ymir admonished him from another table, most of their friends were watching that awkward exchange and she could tell Christa was uncomfortable.
"I- I didn't stay in an orphanage, I went to a conservatory instead," Historia explained a little awkwardly. "It was only for girls and it was in Wall Sina, so I doubt we met before."
"That sounds fancy," Reiner noted from the corner of the table, while finishing up his plate.
"It really wasn't," she replied, still feeling embarrassed for being put in the spotlight. The small girl just wanted to eat in peace and was really hoping someone would change the subject.
"Christa…" Eren considered and decided to keep probing. "Is that really your name?" he asked.
"What kind of question even is that?" Historia asked back, very defensively.
"You just don't look like a 'Christa', that's all," the young boy argued, shrugging, and their table companions were baffled. It seems Eren wasn't very good with reading social cues.
A lot of the young cadets were watching that whole exchange at that point and it seemed quite entertaining. The Yeager boy's lack of awareness had been entertaining from day one, actually. But no one expected he would eventually pick on the girl most of the regiment was already in love with, for 'Christa' was already considered a pure angel by her peers.
Historia looked around the room and most of the cadets were holding in laughs about this whole scene or just engaged in conversations of their own. She looked for an empty table but most of them were full. This conversation couldn't go on or she would end up cornered. So, the future queen maintained her look of indignation for that 'stupid' question and stood up in spite. She left their table and went to sit in a nearby one, right in front of Ymir, the one person who had stood up for her since she'd gotten into that camp.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you," Eren tried to apologise as she left the table. "I just think I've seen you somewhere before-"
"Just let it go, man," Connie advised his new and naive friend, while shaking his head and looking down at his plate.
"You are not very good at this," Sasha added while munching on her lovely potatoes with gusto.
"Very good at what?" the young boy asked in confusion. "Don't you guys think she's familiar?" he turned to ask his closest friends.
"You're just confused. It's because she looks like Armin," Mikasa explained very bluntly and turned back to her soup. "No she doesn't," Armin complained beside her. He then looked over to the next table, towards the petite girl and they both exchanged quite an awkward look.
"That's not what those guards thought," Reiner added with a laugh, from the corner.
"You told him?" Armin turned towards Bertholdt with pure indignation.
"I-I didn't-" Bert tried to defend himself.
"Come on, everyone knows," Reiner continued, crossing his arms and still smiling.
"Knows what?" Eren asked with a naive smile, wanting to be included.
"You just left me there," Armin complained. "I thought we were friends," he was still feeling a little hurt.
"Left you where?" Eren asked.
"In the library, but it's not important," Armin replied, a little reluctant to keep on the awkward subject.
"I'm sorry man. I head the gong and you know we barely have half an hour to eat! I left you with the guards, I- I didn't expect they would make such a stupid mistake," Bert explained, trying to justify his actions.
"Hey, it's good to have a doppelgänger," Reiner argued. "It can come in handy someday."
"What are you guys talking about?" Eren kept asking.
"It doesn't matter," Armin replied sternly.
"It really doesn't." Mikasa added. "You don't have to make a big deal about it," she continued while caressing his hair, very motherly. "The important thing is that you weren't hurt," she added but he didn't seem very convinced.
"You sure made us all very certain of that," Sasha added, trying to mask her smile.
"I just don't look like her," Arlert insisted, still indignant.
"Maybe you two are related and you just don't know?" Sasha considered.
"Yeah, I don't think that's it," Eren argued.
"You are the one who brought this whole conversation up, can't you at least accept someone else's input?" Braus argued back, annoyedly and the boy only shrugged.
..
Historia had sat on a different table, looking for some peace and quiet. She sat quietly, trying to finish her dinner. The talkative and bubbly girl was chatty no more, and that intrigued Ymir.
"How old are you?" She asked but the small girl just kept eating her dinner, ignoring Ymir completely. Historia was about to be caught out and she was scared. "Come on, just tell me," Ymir insisted with a light and joking tone.
"How old are you?" Historia asked back.
"Eighty-six," Ymir replied, keeping her joking tone.
Historia stopped herself from rolling her eyes, she was struggling to keep the sweet persona she had made for herself. Her own theatrics were tiring her and she decided to let go of the mask and open up for a moment.
"Eleven," she said very quietly.
Ymir looked slightly surprised. "You shouldn't be here," she noted while eating some bread. "I could tell you were a bit younger, not that twelve is an appropriate age for combat anyway," she added as she ate. "Why are you here? Did you escape that conservatory you spoke of?" Ymir became curious.
"I just wanted to leave," Historia replied, not wanting to extend the topic.
"So you lied about your age? Were you so eager to join the Military that you lied to come here one year early?" Ymir questioned. "Learning fancy lady things seems more fun," she added.
Historia sighed. "I wasn't there to learn fancy lady things, I was put there to work," she disclosed with a small voice. She carried a lot in her chest and it was good to finally take some things out. "I was tired of that place, always cleaning and doing manual labour, as those girls were given the very best education one could have. I just watched from the distance, from the corners; and did everything the nuns ordered me to," Historia opened up a little more about her past.
"It seems a bother, having to waiter on spoiled Wall Sina girls, I'll give you that. But was that all? Or were you looking for some freedom?" Ymir asked, curiously.
"What do you mean?" Historia asked back, confused.
"Oh, Christa, you can't fool me," she joked with a laugh. "You said yourself how you had to do everything the nuns ordered you to; and I remember a couple of odd men in robes coming to see you off. Who were they, by the way?"
"Just clerks," Historia shrugged off, "from the church."
"Right, I bet you are glad of not being constantly watched and preyed upon," Ymir commented as she chewed. "You are free now," she joked.
"I just didn't want to be there, so I saw an opportunity and I took it," Historia explained and looked around the canteen, she smiled with the thought of making so many new friends. "There were so many people in that building and yet I felt so alone, I didn't enjoy being there a bit," Historia let out.
"And there was hardly any food. I was sick of starving," she told Ymir sincerely while finishing her soup. Ymir looked down, a little upset. "What is your story? Where do you come from? Is it something similar?" Historia asked, she had an inkling she might have hit close to home.
Ymir was reflective, she was considering opening up or not. "Not like this horrible conservatory of yours, but a little similar. I was an orphan too, and I was taken in-" Ymir stopped herself, she noticed Annie looking at her in the corner, gently side-eying their conversation, observing the two like a spy.
"What are you looking at? Do you wanna share your sad story too?" Ymir asked, sarcastically. Annie rolled her eyes and finally stood up from the table to leave. She had finished her dinner, most of the cadets had at that point.
"You are not very good at making friends," Historia noted to her with a small smile.
"I am not trying to," Ymir replied while sipping her drink.
"You should," Historia advised while finishing her food. "In this line of work, one needs friends out there, to watch out for danger."
"I'm much better at being on my own, trust me," Ymir replied in full confidence. Cleverly hiding her pain inside.
"Then why do you bother?" Historia complained and stood up in spite. She took her tray and walked away.
Ymir leaned back, looking around the room and to her fellow cadets, she watched as Christa walked away from her. "Where is your sister going?" Ymir joked as Armin passed near her with his friends.
"She's not my sister," Armin replied, slightly annoyed, as he and Eren left the canteen.
Mikasa stopped for a moment, and stayed behind as the other two left. "Why do you feel the need to pick on everyone?" she turned and softly asked Ymir.
"Oh, don't even start," Ymir complained while comfortably crossing her arms behind her head. "No need to 'mom' me, oh mother of us all!" she joked and then stood up to take her tray away.
Historia walked toward the door and exchanged a small look with Mikasa before she left the room.
'You shouldn't feel the need to push the others away,' Mikasa thought, but said nothing; for Ymir had simply ignored her. She then followed Historia, and the others, and also left the canteen; leaving Ymir alone there.
-.-
- Year 899 - inside Tybur Castle
[As the world burned in Armageddon]
The old lady and her eldest - once lost - son were seated by the wooden table, as she tried to help him recompose himself.
"How did I get here?" he asked and they both laughed.
"I have been hoping to see you again, more so now in my last days," the old mother smiled. "Perhaps you heard me."
Az looked around the tall ceiling of the old castle, "I was here," he said, slightly holding his head in confusion. "But it certainly wasn't in this time," he smiled timidly at his mother and she smiled back.
"It is 899," Mikasa told him, "last time I checked."
"And why is the world burning outside, mother?" he asked.
"Sometimes it feels like a bad dream…" Mikasa trailed off as she looked towards the high windows. "But your father and I have our dear boys now, so there's a reason to keep fighting."
"Right… he's… alive," Azzy said quietly to himself, in complete confusion.
"And so are you!" His mother exclaimed in pure excitement. "I'm so happy to see you again, I can't even believe you are standing in front of me! Still alive and healthy," she played around with his face and hair. "And so young!" the old mother noted. "How old are you now?" she asked.
"Twenty… seven I wanna say, or twenty-eight?" Az replied while scratching his hair.
"You don't know your own age?" Mikasa asked with a laugh.
"It gets complicated sometimes," her son shrugged.
"Well, you should be forty-seven. I always celebrate your birthday," the mother said with pride. "Even after all these years."
"Yikes! I can't really imagine myself in my forties," Azzy joked.
"My dear boy, ageing is a part of life," Mikasa wisely told her son.
'Not for me it isn't,' Az thought. "Where's Sunny?" He asked, looking around the old building and thinking of his dear sister. "Is she piloting one of those 'planes' the boys talked about?" he laughed.
Mikasa smiled brokenly, she held his hands with much affection, so he wouldn't notice her pain. "The boys never actually met those pilots. We only see those planes in the distance, and we haven't for a few months…"
Azzy played with her fingers. "Right. And her..?" he went back to his previous question. "Is she leading some other resistance at the ends of the Earth?" He added in a joking manner, but he could tell his mother was deflecting.
"Well, your father is fighting the Colossals in our end, we don't really know about the other side-" Mikasa continued her explanation, but her son interrupted her.
"Mother, where is Sunny? What happened to her?" Az asked more firmly. He was a lot more worried now.
Mikasa let go of his hands and looked down.
"Gone," she replied softly.
There was pure silence as he tried to process what his mother had said.
"When I started to give birth again, I kept hoping for another girl. But fate only gave me boys, I understood, I wasn't supposed to replace her," Mikasa divulged.
"When did it happen?" Az asked, very upset.
"Oh, it was so long ago," his mother replied. "Not long after you left me, a few years after, maybe," Mikasa told her boy.
"And- and how did it happen?" he asked more softly. "Mother, I need to know." Az knew this would be a painful topic for his old mother.
"She wanted to live by her own rules, follow her own path, so she left Hizuru," Mikasa reminisced. "That was the last time I saw her," she added in melancholy and pain.
"Where did she go?" Az asked.
Mikasa continued. "To Paradise, it seems she got too close to the prince-"
"Ezra?!" Az stood up in shock. 'He killed my sister!' Azzy thought to himself, remembering how the prince had considered that very possibility, the last time they spoke.
..
"An eye for an eye. The right thing would be for me to kill Sonnen and you having to live with it. Then you would feel what I feel." Ezra had said in a strong and threatening way, but with slight humour.
That memory still hanged around Azzy's head.
..
"She's gone. And now the world is burning outside," Mikasa continued as her son recomposed himself, still quite shocked. "-it has for so long and I don't know if it will ever stop."
"None of this makes sense, it shouldn't have happened," Azzy mumbled to himself as he sat down again. The time traveller was immersed in confusion. 'I just wanted to save you,' he thought as he looked at his old mother. 'How did it get this far?'
"Sometimes I wonder who is left. For a while it was just your father and I, then the children came along," The old mother continued. "The boys are almost all grown now, and I wonder if they'll have wives, it seems unlikely. I don't think there are women left in the world anymore." Mikasa sighed.
"It seems none of you will give grandchildren," she said and noticed her eldest son's eyes becoming watery. Mikasa held his hand tight and looked into her son's eyes. "Unless there's something you want to tell me." she said softly.
Az looked down and continued very quietly. The father hadn't had time so far to mourn the loss of his children. "We had three beautiful girls… but they are gone now," he revealed to his mother. This was a conversation he never thought he would have; for he'd never imagined he would meet his mother again.
"I suppose that was how this whole mess started," he added, timidly. "You-" Az smiled. "You would have loved them! They were perfect," the father said with pride. Azzy considered. "If as you said, I would be in my forties in this age, then they would be teenagers by now," he laughed. "My beautiful girls," the father said with pride and pain.
"But I lost them. It is all my fault, all of this! It is all my fault!" Azzy became agitated and his mother reached for him and held both his hands, quite softly and affectionately, so he would calm down.
"I am glad you were able to find love," she smiled. "And have a family and children of your own, wherever you've gone. I've always wondered what had happened to you and-and I would picture you alone, in a dark corner somewhere," she laughed. "Hiding from me, like you used to when you were small, as if you had done something wrong," the mother said. "But now, to know that you've had love and a family, even if it wasn't for very long, even if tragedy happened to strike," Mikasa smiled. "It truly makes me happy, my beautiful boy," she held the side of his face, quite lovingly.
"I wished you could have met my girls, I truly do," he told her.
Mikasa kept the smile. "What about their mother? What happened to her?" his old mother asked, and his eyes dropped to the floor. "Was she struck by a similar tragedy than the girls?" Mikasa asked softly.
"No, mother," Azzy said, still looking down. "I killed her," he declared and Mikasa stood back, removing her hands from his. Az wept. "It was an accident," he said softly. "She shouldn't have died, I-I still don't- I don't how it happened," Az stumbled on his words.
He seemed confused and the mother ascertained that her boy was very traumatised by whatever had happened.
"She was just gone… and then those monsters-" Azzy proceeded in some confusion. "They killed my children… and… and they killed me," he realised, glassy-eyed. Azzy dropped his face down again and held his head with his right hand. Mikasa came closer once again and held him, she could tell her son was broken. "And then I woke up again, alive," he was slowly realising. "It- it all feels like a dream now… How did I wake up again? Why? Why am I still alive?" Az questioned. "Will I ever be able to die, mother?" He asked his mother.
"That is a question your father and I have always wondered. From the moment your umbilical wound healed itself." Mikasa divulged. "We have no idea why you were born like this; if it had to do with our families, my Ackermann blood, your father's abilities, all these Eldian curses… We considered all of those things, of course, but-"
"But?" he asked.
"But it never felt right," Mikasa conceded. "Not to me."
"So what do you think? Why am I so different, mother?" he asked and they both smiled. "You've had six children since then. Six!" he laughed. "And they seem fine, quite the 'classic' Ackermanns, but are any of them like me?"
"No, they are not," the mother answered. "Each one of you is special to me, in your own way."
He sighed. "I wished I was just normal, just a regular person."
"You are perfect to me, just like you said your girls were perfect to you," the old mother smiled.
"If I could only talk to Sunny now," he said melancholically. "When I jumped to the future, I expected to meet her, and even tease her about being much older than me. We talked about those possibilities once before, but we were both teenagers then," Az remembered. "And it feels like a million years ago now."
"Well, she is gone and I miss her dearly. But you still have five young brothers who you still haven't properly met and that would sure love to have guidance from their eldest sibling," the mother replied. "And there are millions of mindless titans out there that you need to help them and your father to kill-"
"I am not the best example, you and I both know that they shouldn't look up to me for guidance. They shouldn't look up to me for anything," he teased.
"Nonsense! They will love you," Mikasa replied.
"And I can't get over the fact they thought I was Dad!" Az continued with the joking tone.
"Azzy, you are-" she raised her eyes up while doing the calculations in her head. "Twenty-nine years older than Íkaros and thirty-two years older than Albert. It's time you have grown up, my boy," she advised.
Azzy started to think, "that means I should have returned right before you even had them, so I could be at the right age in the right time," he had also done his calculations. "So why did I jump so much further into the future?" Az questioned.
Mikasa held both his cheeks and looked into his eyes. "You tell me," she replied with some humour. "Maybe you don't want to get to your forties," the old mother joked. They smiled.
"Did you ever think you would have children again?" he laughed. "And so many! After Sunny and I were already adults?" Az questioned his mother.
Mikasa exhaled and looked through the window, quite happy. "I was a teenager when I had you, I was barely twenty when I had your sister," she reminisced. "Things were different back then and so were our perspectives about life. But then we were old, and I thought I could no longer have children so I needn't to worry, but I was wrong," Mikasa smiled. "I was very wrong, and they just kept coming one after the other," the old mother laughed.
"Well, you were in your 'forties' I supposed that isn't 'very old' after all," he joked once again.
"I see now they were good provision," Mikasa added.
"Good provision?" he asked.
"So many people have died, my boy. Too many. At least your father has help out there once again," she explained.
Azzy dropped his head to the floor once again, reflectively. "I suppose uncle Levi is gone…" he trailed off.
Mikasa smiled, a bit sadly. "It's been a while. I miss our talks, even if most of them were silly bickering," she remembered her dear cousin. "It was sad to see him go, and like many others, he died fighting. All of our old friends are gone too, I expect even the Shifters…" Mikasa considered. "But your father disagrees with me, he thinks the Shifters are fighting in the other end. I think that is unlikely. I also wonder if there is anything left out there, I keep thinking if Hizuru is still standing," her eyes became watery. "But that is also unlikely," Mikasa sighed.
"I used to dream that I would go back to live there, when all this would be over, and how much your brothers would love it! Now, as I get older and older, I just wonder if there will be an end to this. If I'll be alive to see it. If there will be any humanity left," the mother divulged. "Your father dreams of people in the other side, fighting the monsters on the 'other end', and he dreams of meeting them once this is over. But I doubt we will. Maybe your brothers might, but your father and I are too old now. I wonder how much he will last in that wretched battlefield-"
"What about those pilots?" Az interrupted.
"Yes, they come from time to time and drop these 'bombs' over the mindless titans. But I haven't seen one in months! And we've never had proper contact with them. Whoever might still be out there probably doesn't even know there are people living in this castle," Mikasa explained. "If we've had contact with them, I would have told them the bombs are useless. You and I both know how those titans can only be killed: by removing the nape," she continued. "Your brothers have been helping your father, now that I no longer can," the old mother sighed. "And now, you will be able to help too! He will be so happy to see you!" Mikasa was very joyful with that prospect.
"No." Az let go of her arm. "I'm sorry mother, but I can't allow any of this to happen," he firmly said.
"Don't you want to see your father again?" she asked.
"I do, I really do. But not like this," he replied. "This future should never have happened… I somehow made things even worse," Az felt guilty and conflicted.
"What are you saying?" his mother asked in confusion.
"I don't want to live in a world where Sunny is dead! A world where you grew old seeing your family and friends perish in an endless war," Az declared. "A world of endless destruction and grief," he kept talking and the old woman just looked confused. "I can see you're happy with your new children, mother, but none of this is right. I shall fix it, I'll bring father back to you, like I promised myself I would do, back in '67. And then you two can have as many children as you like, but not like this. You deserve a happy family, in a happy world. A world full of life, not a world of death and destruction."
"You made this even worse?" the mother asked, she had hanged onto those words. Mikasa looked down to the old mark on the wooden table, it was still there. "Sometimes I wonder if that was only a dream," she mumbled.
"What was only a dream?" Az heard and asked.
"When we spoke, in this very same room, so many years ago. I suppose that hasn't happened to you yet," the old mother considered. She could tell he looked the same as he did all those years ago, he was even wearing the same clothes.
"No, it hasn't," Az replied. "I look forward to it," he added.
"Oh, Azzy," the mother sighed. "When are you going to grow up?"
"Not until I fix all these horrible mistakes," he doubled down on it.
"Would you really kill your brothers? Would you really destroy the reality where I managed to find some happiness, in spite of everything? A reality where I have your father again?" she questioned him.
"Mother, none of this is real. This all came from me messing with Time in the first place. So I need to be the one to go back and fix it." Az tried to explain. "I only went back the first time because- because you were no longer alive, and I wanted to see you again…"
"So I was supposed to have died?" Mikasa questioned.
"Yes, I-I suppose so," he trembled in his answer.
"And you changed that?" she asked.
"I fixed it, or I tried at least," he responded with uncertainty.
"Perhaps you should have let me die then. Didn't you say you only made things worse?" Mikasa crossed her arms in pure disappointment.
"Mother, how could I? You didn't deserve to die-" Az opened his arms wide while making his point and she interrupted him.
"And who are you to think you get to decide that?" she reprimanded her son.
'Not this again,' Azzy thought. She'd made him feel like a reckless child once again.
"And what else changed?" Mikasa asked quite coldly.
"The King," Az responded. "Ezra, he- he didn't exist before. He died, even before being born. There was this small grave in the garden, it was his grave, I- I remember that. And now, he is alive, and destroying the whole world outside. And he killed my sister!"
"He didn't," Mikasa said quite gravely. "His father did," she revealed.
"What?!" Az raised his voice in anger and confusion.
Mikasa shut herself out for a moment. She would forever be hurt by the pain her brother had caused her. Eren had killed her baby girl. He had killed her with his bare hands, right in front of his son.
She finally spoke again, very softly. "I believe the prince loved her very much and his father wanted a reason to take him over the edge, he was the Founder after all."
Azzy was shocked.
His mother continued. "And then, he killed his father and started the destruction you are still seeing outside," she explained. "And that was so many years ago, it seems his grief has no end."
"This is all so wrong! It is too wrong!" Az exclaimed in disbelief. "What about the Queen? What about Historia? What happened to her?" he questioned.
"I have no idea of what happened to her, I don't even know if Paradise still exists. It is unlikely," Mikasa responded.
This all felt like madness. A completely wretched reality. Azzy couldn't make sense of it, he had no idea how things could have gotten to this point.
"I need to stop this for good," he said firmly while standing up.
Az was now completely certain that this future should never be allowed to happen.
Mikasa can see the determination in her son's face. She understands his frustration but it's too late now, what has happened has happened and there's no changing it. The old woman is tired and hopeless, and she doesn't want her precious boys to disappear.
"Azymondeus, no." Mikasa stood up as well. Looking at him very sternly. "I am ordering you to stop this madness and stay here with your family."
"Then once again, mother, I'm afraid I must disobey you." Az said, and disappeared in a flash of blue light.
Somewhere in the middle of the ocean [ -Still- Year 899 ]
The Resistance or "the other end"
Azymondeus reappeared on the other side. The jump brought him much confusion and it took some time for him to adjust. But for the first time, he had actually successfully jumped to where he intended to go: he wanted to meet those 'pilots'.
He had landed on a giant vessel. A ship larger than anything he had ever seen. It carried a large crew and lots of equipment. It seemed to stop on strategic islands only for coal and then keep moving, always avoiding the Titans' path. It went to aid the small islands where humans still resided. Not only that, this was only one vessel of the many around the oceans.
"This is how humanity has survived," Az concluded. He watched the airplanes for a while, they would takeoff and land on the vessel's airstrips. It was quite a feat of engineering. "This is fascinating," he also thought out loud. Azzy had scouted all over the giant ship and was now standing on the highest deck.
"It is fascinating, but it isn't enough," the old man replied and Az turned to look. He walked forward and smiled at Azzy. He reached and held the time traveller's face with some affection. "I haven't seen this face in so many years, but you haven't changed a bit, boy," Onyankopon told him.
Azzy smiled. "Well, I am an adult now, uncle Onyan, but thanks," he replied. "You are still looking pretty good as well, for someone who's in his eighties," he reciprocated the compliment.
"I'm in my seventies still, boy, do show some respect," Onyan complained with a smile. He became reflective. "Last time I saw you, you weren't very happy with me," the old man commented. "You just stormed away."
"Well, you weren't exactly bringing good news," Az pointed out.
Onyan gave out a half-smile and looked towards the vessel's airstrips and its airplanes, and towards the rocky waves. "If only we knew that it would only get worse from that," he reflected on the past. "I do miss your father," Onyankopon added.
"Do you still pilot one of those things?" Az changed the subject.
"Oh, I try to, from time to time," the old man replied. "I'm still a commandant to the aces, but I don't fly as much, no."
Azzy was considering a few things as he watched those planes. "Could you lend me one?" he asked, "but I can't give it back," Azzy added.
"Can you pilot it?" Onyankopon asked back. "Last time I talked to your father he told me you weren't paying enough attention to your lessons," he added.
"It's not for me," Azzy smiled. "It's for you."
Onyankopon looked at him confused and Az smirked. "Also could you make it 'vintage'? As in a '54 model?" he asked.
"There weren't exactly working planes in '54, perhaps some prototypes," Onyan argued in confusion.
"Exactly," Azzy smiled, pointing at Onyan's chest.
Azymondeus looked back towards the ocean. "I know how it all happened back then. I've learned and memorised it play-by-play," Azzy started to explain. 'Well, I know how it happened the first time, but the second couldn't have been too different if we ended up here,' he considered, only to himself; for this was the second timeline and he hadn't lived through it, not completely.
"I know we will need a working plane for back then, to bring the team ahead. This was one of your many hiccups in '54," Az explained.
"But the plane did work. It took us all the way to Tybur Castle, that's where the first rumbling ended," Onyankopon contested. "But now that you mentioned it, that plane really shouldn't have worked. It was barely a prototype," he realised, scratching his beard.
Azzy smirked. "So this is the moment we changed that," he stated, and looked up to the bright sky. "This version of reality that we are now, in that first rumbling, did about half of the human population perished? Is that what you meant when you said it ended in Tybur Castle?" Azzy questioned the old man, while looking at the clouds, then looked down into his eyes again.
Onyankopon was frightened. "Yes, over half of the world's population perished-" he tried to explain.
"But not nearly ninety percent, right?" Az interrupted with a question, thinking this version of the rumbling had never reached Fort Salta.
"Ninety? No," Onyan replied. "This version of reality? What do you even mean by that?" the old man asked back.
"It means I come from a worse situation than this," Az tried to explain.
"There couldn't be a worse situation than this one," Onyan argued back. He looked at Azzy. "You clearly haven't been to the Devil's Throat then, have you?" he asked.
"No, I haven't," Az disclosed. "But I've seen it from afar."
Onyankopon looked him in the eyes, very sternly. "There can't be a reality worse than this one," he said. "Now, I would be surprised if there was even one percent of the human population left," the old man added with sorrow. "That man is completely insane and ruthless. And here I thought he was a nice kid, I suppose one can never know."
"How about that airplane?" Az asked, with a joking tone, to lighten the mood.
"I know a little about your strange abilities, but can you really carry an object as large as that with you to the past?" Onyankopon questioned him.
Azzy crossed his arms and sighed comically. "I just need a big rest, you know, and to eat well… anything a regular human would need to keep healthy and 'recharged'," he explained. "It should be enough for the jump to work, even with an airplane with me," he considered, shrugging it off. "Did Dad tell you about me?" he asked.
"Your uncle Levi first told me, he was very worried about you and this condition you have; but I assume he didn't know about the time hopping, your father was the one who filled me in on those details, you guessed correctly about that," Onyankopon explained.
"You are right, it is a condition, but I'm used to it," Azzy said. "I do miss uncle Levi, a lot," he added, looking up to the bright sky again.
"I miss him too," Onyankopon replied. "Everyone I knew is gone," he added melancholically.
"We're going to fix that," Az told him with much confidence.
-.-
- Year 871 - The Lighthouse - in Paradise Island
Sonnenblume had already explored every room, every corner of her old family home. It had made her learn much of her parents' early years and even of her older brother's early life. But she was eager to know more. Sunny had been living on her own in that house for many months now, she used Diamond, her horse, to go to the harbour and villages nearby. She had galloped all over the Island in her only companion. The teenager had found out many interesting things in this new adventure of her own making, she had made friends and had found out much more about her Eldian heritage. But one thing still had been bothering her: the vault.
Ever since Sonnen had arrived in that house she knew it was there. She had quickly found the basement and that closed-off wall. She had also quickly figured out that the vault lock on the wall was fake, and had found the real lock behind the bookshelf. But the girl was still stuck on one thing: the combination.
Sunny was still a little frustrated by that. She walked around the beach, in front of the Lighthouse, thinking about other things, watching Diamond play in the ocean waters. The girl smiled and sat down on the sand, admiring the view. She then looked down and saw a tiny shell, it was quite round and Sunny held it in her hand, then brought the small shell close, to compare the curvy lines in it to the curvy lines in her hair ends. The girl kept staring at it with a smile when it finally came to her. Sonnenblume immediately stood up and ran towards the house.
..
- Year 861 - Hizuru - The Azumabito House
Armin had taken upon himself to tutor his children, it was a nice summer morning and Azzy'd rather be anywhere else, doing anything else beyond 'learning', he was bored as their father went on and on about his favourite subjects. They were walking down the airstrip as Armin talked about history, fine arts, philosophy and geography. On that particular day he had decided to talk about his favourite subject: Mathematics.
Sonnenblume was always fascinated by everything her father taught them, much more than her older brother anyways. Azzy wanted to chase butterflies and small toads around, but their father wouldn't let them play, not until the lesson was over.
They finally arrived on the beachside as Armin was talking about patterns and sums, he crouched down and held up a small shell, showing it to the children, continuing the lesson.
"There's this sequence that is pretty simple, it is the 'nature sequence', and it can be found anywhere. From seashells and snails, from trees and rivers-" the father explained with a smile. Azzy was paying more attention to the small crabs near them, so he turned his attention to his daughter, "from the locks of your hair, my sunflower," the father added while caressing Sonnenblume's wavy hair, "to even sunflowers themselves," he explained. "It's pretty easy to memorise," Armin added with a small laugh.
..
- Year 871 - The Lighthouse - in Paradise Island
Sunny ran across the house and down to the basement, she stopped and stood in front of the vault door with a smile.
"One, one, two, three, five, eight," Sonnenblume whispered to herself as she turned the lock into the nature sequence that her father had taught her. She could tell he loved talking about it, so this was a pretty good shot. She had turned all six numbers and immediately heard the whole wall clicking and the vault started to open. That had been a wild guess but it turned out to be true.
The door slowly opened, the mechanisms had difficulty, for it had been many years since it had last been activated. The vault door had revealed that place to be much more than just a small vault room. It was a whole bunker that occupied most of the basement of the Lighthouse.
Sunny walked around, checking all of her father's prizes, but she quickly became much more interested in his small office. She rushed towards it, at the end of the last corridor. There were many books and maps around, many notebooks and her grandparents' old inventions on display on the shelves. Some nautical equipment of the fallen ships he had conquered and even a couple of ship miniatures that Armin admired.
The teenage girl sat on his chair and looked around the contents of the wooden desk. Her father had many notes and studies, she opened all the drawers, very curiously. And that's when she found a very small book hidden underneath layers and layers of paper.
'You have so many books, father. Why are you hiding this particular one?' Sunny questioned in her mind.
The small book was involved in a velvet sheet, and the girl quickly realised why: it was very, very old. A tiny book covered in odd inscriptions. It seemed her father had made many notes, for what she could tell, he was incessantly trying to figure out what was written in what seemed to be an ancient language. Her father never concluded his research, he had gotten to the point of guessing what some of those symbols could translate to, but he hadn't gotten very far beyond that. Sunny could tell this was some form of pastime to him, a fun puzzle to play with, so she decided to keep playing.
Sonnenblume took the tiny book upstairs, and together with it, all of her father's endless papers of research. She wanted to break that code too. Sunny sat at her own desk, in the bedroom she had chosen for herself and started to go through her father's guesses with more care and attention.
She spent hours there, completely immersed in this puzzle. Sunny was very drawn to the ancient notebook. One thing she had eventually noticed was that this tiny book was familiar to her, she had seen those intricate drawings in the cover before: it was very similar to a tiny notebook one of their tutors had given to Azzy as a present. Sunny considered that the model could just be the same as this hundred-year-old book.
The girl had guessed the book was maybe a century old, of course, but she was very wrong. Although it was very old, the tiny notebook had been well preserved. It had been in the Tybur Family possession for two millennia, before her father had stolen it out of his own curiosity.
And, yes. It was the exact same notebook her brother had gotten as a present. Something she could never imagine, of course.
The sun was going down and the girl didn't even notice it, she was very focused on this unsolved puzzle.
Sunny worked on trying to decode that tiny, ancient book all night. She read all of her father's research over and over, trying to make sense of it. And at the same time, reading his words made her feel closer to her dear old dad. So, it was yet another incentive to continue with the research.
But as the night went on she began to feel tired and Sunny eventually fell asleep over all those papers. And she slept way past her usual time, for the sun was already high up, when she started hearing knocking noises.
The girl slowly woke up, she was up on the second floor, in the bedroom she had chosen for herself. She could vaguely recollect that knocking noise, now that she was waking up it was starting to sound like something tiny knocking on the glass windows. Sonnen startled when a larger rock broke through, shattering the glass and landing on the bedroom floor. She stood up in shock. Now she was in fact awake. Sonnenblume stared at that rock in pure confusion.
"Sorry…" she heard a muffled voice trail off, it was coming from the ground, outside the Lighthouse.
Sonnen immediately walked towards the windows and looked down, she had recognised the voice. "Sorry, I was aiming for the opened one," Ezra said, quite embarrassed while pointing to one of the open windows. He still had a few small rocks on hand.
"You clearly missed," Sunny noted while looking towards the windows to her left side. "You owe me a window," she joked.
"Technically I owe you the glass," he pointed out with a smirk.
"How did you get here?" Sunny asked with a smile. "I mean, how would you even know where I would be?"
"Father used to tell me about this place," Ezra said, "back when we used to talk." he added. "So I figured it would be a nice place for you to hide," the prince explained.
"I'm not hiding," she stated, slightly annoyed.
"Well, this isn't an easy place to get to," he complained slightly.
Sonnen had noticed his titan marks, but she hadn't mentioned them yet. In fact she just noted how she hadn't seen the boy's face completely. Since last time they'd met, he was also missing most of his cheeks. "Right, is that why..?" She asked while pointing at her own cheeks and he smiled timidly. "Did you really have to transform?"
"Yep. And it took me a few times trying to jump over that giant ditch surrounding this house, let me tell you. This place should have a bridge or something," he complained and she laughed. "What is the point of that anyway?" he asked.
"I believe it was meant to keep titans away," she replied, still grinning. "Did you walk all the way before? Or is your poor horse waiting on the other side of the trench?" she asked.
"Nope. I drove," he boasted, "my own car," Ezra added.
"Oh! Can I drive it?" Sunny asked with excitement.
"You haven't even invited me in yet," he complained slightly and smiled.
"Alright then," she rolled her eyes jokingly and left the window. So the boy patiently waited near the side door, when it suddenly opened. "Come on," she said while finally pulling him inside the house.
"I thought we were going back outside," Ezra said with confusion. "Didn't you want to drive my car? Can you even drive anyway?" he asked jokingly while following her.
"Of course I can," she replied, still pulling him around the house. He looked down at her hand pulling his and smiled. "Oh, we will need torches," she reminded herself.
"Torches?" he asked. "Woah," he looked around the house. "This place is in pretty good shape, I mean, it looks abandoned from the outside."
"I have been living here for a few months," she replied and gave him an old torch. "Of course it looks good," she added.
"I bet the view from up the tower is incredible." Ezra considered while looking up towards the base of the tower.
"Well, we are actually going down," Sunny remarked and opened a hatch on the floor.
"Where does this lead?" he asked, looking down the stairs.
"Where do you think? Outside," she replied. And reached for his hand again.
They went down the basement and further down into a cave with multiple tunnels going in all directions. "Where did you park your car?" she asked with a smile, so they could take the right tunnel.
"So, I suppose we will walk beyond the ditch?" he asked, jokingly, as they walked inside one of the crystal tunnels.
"It's not a ditch, it's a trench," Sunny corrected him.
"I'm the Founding Titan, anything like that is only a ditch for me," he joked, gloating.
"Funny," Sunny replied unamused. "Didn't you say it took you a few 'tries' to jump across that 'small' ditch?" she joked back.
"That's because I chose a fifteen meters one, I should have calculated better," he justified himself.
They walked across the wide tunnel. It was dark, but the light from their torches illuminated the crystal walls and made the whole place shine wherever they passed.
"Yes, we will go past the 'ditch', that's the whole point of these tunnels anyway," she finally responded.
"How did you even find these?" Ezra questioned, looking around the beautiful crystal tunnel.
"Well, I knew my father was clever. So I found it strange that he would build a house with no easy escape route. It isn't like him. This place is a fort, but I know he wouldn't want people to be completely trapped here just to keep pure titans out. So I went looking for another 'entrance', beyond the sea and the trench. And that's when I found the tunnels," Sonnenblume cleverly explained.
"You know our fathers built this house together, right? My Dad even has his own room here, or so he told me," the prince disclosed.
"I know, I've been to his room. I've been living in this house for a while, and I have explored every corner of it." Sonnen let him know with a smile.
They walked all the way down the Titan Crystal tunnel and reemerged on the sunny outside. And Ezra did let the teenage girl drive his brand-new car. But he was quite reluctant. "As long as you don't ditch it in the trench," he joked.
The two brand-new friends talked about a lot of things, mainly about nature and its beauty as they rode around the beach and appreciated the sight. The prince avoided the topic of family, for it was a sore topic for both of them. They eventually parked and sat on the grass, amidst the sands, to watch the pretty view of the ocean waves.
"Did you drive all the way from Mitras to here?" Sunny asked.
"No, I took the train," the prince explained as he laid back and watched the blue sky and its white clouds. "The car was in the harbour, I drove it from there," he added.
"Why?" she asked, looking back at him.
"It was a birthday gift, and mother doesn't want it to frighten the citizens. So I just ride it around the coast," he explained.
"This place really needs some progress if a car can frighten your citizens," Sunny pointed out.
"Indeed. That's why I can't wait to rule," the prince concurred.
"That wasn't my question though," Sunny added.
"What was your question?" he asked, still looking up to the clouds, quite reflective.
She continued. "You took a train, a car and had to transform just to reach the Lighthouse-"
"To see you," Ezra responded before she could ask, looking her in the eyes.
"Why?" Sunny questioned him.
"Because you intrigue me." He answered.
She was stunned. "Besides, it's not my fault you decided to live in the middle of nowhere," Ezra complained slightly, to change the subject.
"It's my parents' house," Sunny shrugged slightly. "Where else was I supposed to go?"
"I think it's the opposite. You miss your dad, that's why you came here, to feel close to him. That's why you chose to stay there. That's the reason you came here, to the Island," he said softly. Ezra decided to bring up a topic he had been avoiding all this time.
"Maybe you're right," Sunny conceded while throwing some pebbles into the waves. "I do miss him," she added in a smaller voice.
"It hasn't been very long, but it gets better, I promise," Ezra advised while sitting closer to her, he too took some pebbles to throw into the waves. "I have some experience with grief," he disclosed.
Sonnenblume stayed silent, she held herself very timidly and reflective.
"You'll be just fine, Blue," the prince added for comfort.
"He lived beyond his years, that's what you said last time we met," she remembered.
"Well, he lived beyond the thirteen of the curse, that's what I meant," Ezra tried to explain while scratching his head. "I was making the point that the curse didn't affect him, or any of the remaining Shifters," he justified his point.
"He was still taken in the end, maybe the curse was just different somehow," Blue pondered about it. "He was the first of the Shifters to die," she let out and reflected on it, "and you were the last of them to be born," she added. "That intrigues me," Blue considered.
"Well, not entirely," Ezra argued back. "If you want to consider the Eldian curse to still be in effect somehow, then we should conclude that your father's power has been passed down as well. Meaning there is a young Eldian child who has been born as the Colossal Titan."
"Good point," she conceded. "If that can be proven then it would mean the Eldian curse still exists," Blue considered. "I suppose we can't know, not yet anyways. It hasn't been thirteen years. And it would or will be quite a surprise for the poor soul," she added.
"Not only for them, depending on the level of transformation, a lot of people around them would be very badly hurt. Maybe even an entire city," Ezra commented, still throwing pebbles into the waves.
"That would be difficult to hide, not like you just ruining a few rooms in your mother's palace," Blue added.
"I guess we will know if or when it happens. I will be king by then," Ezra considered, with some gloat.
"So you will be the one to deal with the mess," Blue added and smiled. "Are you really going to be passed the crown this soon? You are so young," she noted.
"I think my mother is tired of it, and she trusts me," Ezra supposed more lightly, but then decided to give her the more plausible reason. "And we don't know how long I will live, so, there's that too," he added timidly.
"Oh," Blue was taken by surprise. "I forgot about that," she felt deeply saddened all of the sudden. She had grown fond of her newfound friend. "It was different for my father, if it was even the curse who took him, it might as well have been fate," Sonnenblume changed her tone. "I bet you'll have much more than just thirteen years," she said very cheerfully so her friend wouldn't be sad.
"Nine," Ezra corrected her. "It's been four years since I turned thirteen. I only have nine left, not even that actually."
"You shouldn't think like that-" she tried to cheer him up again but he interrupted her.
"No, it is better to think like that," Ezra corrected her quite firmly. "It makes me want to realise as much as I can in my life. It makes me want to fight more, so when the time comes my life won't have been wasted," the prince argued with conviction. "And if I don't die when I was supposed to, well then I'll be grateful and just keep going," he added with a smile.
"You sound like my parents," Blue noted. "They lived their lives counting the years because of this stupid curse. My mother was what? My age when they got married?! It's all so weird," she commented, slightly annoyed.
"I'm sure it was because they were also in love," he made her consider it. "And you were born weren't you? Even if the curse didn't matter in the end, and they could've had their children only later on…"
"But it did matter," Blue argued back. "Even after my father completed his thirteen years and nothing happened it was like she knew. I think she always knew he would be taken from her eventually," she added with some sorrow.
"Still, they were happy weren't they?" Ezra asked with a timid smile, trying to cheer her up.
Blue smiled back and looked towards the waves. "My mother told me they made sure to be the first couple to marry in the same office both their parents had been married from; when it reopened in Shiganshina, when the city was being rebuilt, back in '51," she told him with a smile and reflected on it. "It's sweet, really. My two sets of grandparents and my parents all married in this one little building in this little town. It is quite romantic, I'll admit. And I'm sure they were much more mature than what I am now, I'll admit that too," she disclosed.
"Shiganshina is not just one little town. It's one of our biggest cities and it has seen a lot, I'm sure you know that," the prince argued.
"I know, I've been there." Blue argued back.
"And I don't think you are immature," he added.
"You don't know me," she pointed out.
Ezra looked towards the waves, considering a few things. "My parents were never really on the romantic side," he disclosed. "They both really like power and I guess that's what attracts them to each other. My mother only signed some documents and gave my father some high-up military title," Ezra commented. "And that was all way after my sister and I were born."
"A military title?" Blue asked.
"You know, as her consort," he explained.
"Because he can't be the king?" Blue asked.
"I'll be the King." Ezra replied and smiled.
"You seem very eager to be," she commented and threw yet another pebble into the waves.
"Because I know I can do good," he stated.
"And what if your sister was still here? Would you still be king then?" she asked.
"No, she was the eldest. She was born quite a few minutes before me, actually. People don't know how long exactly, I guess nobody bothered to count," Ezra explained.
"Well, I feel bad for your mother," Blue commented.
"Yes, I think it was a very hectic day for her," he conceded. "But she got her precious twins in the end so she always told us it was more than worth it," Ezra added.
Blue considered for a moment. "What would you do then? If your sister was-" she paused. "If your sister was still here and was crowned instead of you? What would you do with your life then?" Blue asked with some curiosity.
"I don't know... Maybe I would be given some vague military title as well," he joked. Ezra considered it for a moment. "That is a pretty good question," he scratched his head. "I think the right thing would be to get out of the way, and let her do her own thing. I actually never thought about this before. Maybe I would go live somewhere else, explore..." he shrugged.
"You don't sound very sure," she noted.
"I don't, do I? I can't really see my life away from this Island, ever since I was born, I always wanted to take care of it, and of my people-" Ezra stopped himself. "But I shouldn't start talking like that again, or you'll think me too mellow, like when we last met," he disclosed.
"When you said you wanted to free all those Colossal Titans?" Blue asked and he nodded. "Not in the same way your father wants them to be freed, of course," she added jokingly. "I think that is very sweet," Blue told him.
"Sweet?" he asked. "Certainly not a good adjective for the tyrant my father expects me to be, but I personally don't mind," he told her with a smile.
"Something tells me you two don't really see eye-to-eye in some matters," she considered.
"No," he confirmed, "in most matters, it seems." Ezra looked towards the waves again. "My father and I," he sighed, "it has always been like that, it has always been a struggle." the prince confessed and threw another pebble into the ocean.
"What about your sister? Do you think she would follow his ways? Concede to his wishes?" Blue asked, she was curious about it.
Ezra reflected on it. "I don't really know. I have no idea what she would be like," he confessed and took another deeper breath. "After she was gone I used to still pretend I would talk to her, and play with her, when I was little. Nowadays I find myself forgetting about her every now and then, and I feel bad about it, I don't want to lose my memories of her," he added with anguish.
"I'm sure she would feel the same if the roles were reversed," Blue tried to cheer him up.
She considered looking for the girl's soul around the cursed dimension, but even if she ever found Ymir, how would she explain to Ezra how she could do those things? Sonnenblume always kept her gift to herself, it was her secret. The only other person who knew about it was her brother, and he only knew it by chance. Blue considered telling Ezra about these strange abilities she had been born with, but she didn't. She kept it all to herself.
But the proposition stayed in her head. Why not try to find the lost princess in that dimension? After all, it connected all Eldians, even the ones who had already passed. Especially the ones who had already passed.
'Maybe I could give you some closure,' Sunny considered, it could be good if she could help the twins meet again somehow. But she herself was too scared to try to contact her own father in that cursed place, so maybe Ezra would feel a similar way about his sister.
They had reluctantly arrived on the topic of families and as Ezra feared they were getting too close to talking about Azzy. That would be the last thing he would want, for he was enjoying Blue's companionship and he loathed her brother with all his heart. He knew they would have some disagreement about him and he didn't want to lose the girl's friendship. So, he decided to stop their conversation short. Ezra stood up.
"Well, I think I should head back," he noted. The prince started to walk but stopped. "Aren't you coming with me?" he asked. She seemed very distracted.
"Oh, I'll just use one of the tunnels to go back into the Lighthouse," Sonnen just shrugged. "You can use them whenever you want to visit me again, by the way. It's easier than jumping over the ditch."
"Don't you want to-" he was about to ask.
"Go back to the palace with you?" she finished the question for him, and he nodded. "You asked me last time," Blue explained her guess. "I'd rather stay here, but thank you." she replied.
"Do you really wanna be by yourself in the middle of nowhere?" he maintained.
"I don't really mind," she shrugged once more. "But it was really nice, having someone else other than Diamond to talk to," Blue smiled.
"Alright, if you need anything, you know where I live," Ezra told her.
"And you know where I live," she replied, and he walked back towards the car. "You're gonna leave that car in the harbour again, aren't you?" Sonnenblume asked.
"Yep," he replied, hopping on the driver's seat.
"I might steal it," she added.
"You're joking," he replied, calling her bluff.
Sonnenblume only raised her eyebrows and smirked, she then turned to watch the waves, and the boy left.
-.-
- Year 899 - Somewhere in the middle of the ocean
The Resistance or "the other end"
"What? Did you come back for another plane?" old Onyankopon asked. The time traveller had returned to the giant vessel. Not long after he had left.
Azymondeus walked towards him. "I thought you were going to change things," the old man added in a joking tone. He looked down at his arms and hands, jokingly. "But things still look pretty much the same to me."
"What I did just maintained my own timeline as it should. It secured my past, and I wasn't planning to return here to be honest. But now," Az took a deeper breath. "Now I've been tricked and I'll need much more than just one old plane." he stated.
Onyankopon looked at his watch, "it has been only five minutes since you left," the old man remarked.
"It has been much more in my end. I'm sure you understand how time-jumping works," Azzy replied.
"How long has it been for you?" Onyan asked.
Azzy shrugged. "Not counting regular time passed in between jumps, a few days, probably. And I haven't slept since then."
"Maybe that's why you're cranky," Onyan joked.
Azzy exhaled. "I'm not cranky, I am-"
"Pissed?" Onyan interrupted with his guess.
"Mad. I am very mad," Az stated. He was in fact, beside himself. "I am going to end this, once and for all. And you are going to help me."
.
Somewhere in the middle of the Marlean Continent [ -Still- Year 899 ]
Much closer to the Devil's Throat
The five Ackermann boys had reached higher scores than they had planned. They had slaughtered many Titans, yes. But now the sun was going down and they needed the rest. The boys kept watch as their father removed himself from his Titan, for they were all expected at home this time around. And there was yet another reason for Armin to return to the Castle on that very night: Albert, his youngest child had told him about the strange man that had appeared in their kitchen, and had apparently come out of nowhere.
"Mom said she could handle it," Theodor whispered in the boy's ear while walking behind him with arms crossed.
"I don't care. We shouldn't have left her there alone with that stranger in the first place," Albert whispered back.
They were standing in the Colossal Titan's steaming remains, as their old father was considering what he had been told. Some of the boys were further away, watching out for Titans. They were already quite far from their usual battlefield. Even so, there could be some abnormals coming out of nowhere, one never knows, so they stood watch. But all five eventually gathered to find out what their father thought about the stranger. Armin was seated at the centre, rehydrating himself, and the boys surrounding him.
He finished up his canteen and gave back to Ciarán. "From what you said, it does sound like him," Armin commented, he hadn't thought about his eldest child in some time. "What was he wearing?" the old father asked again.
"That really threw me off too," Ciarán commented.
"Some old knight garments, it was all black and it didn't seem very practical, but maybe it's good armour. Who knows?" Ernest explained and shrugged.
"He could have gotten that stuff from somewhere in the Castle," Theodor pointed out. "There's some weird stuff around those old rooms."
"I'm sure you would know all about that," Ernest joked back at him.
"You can see it for yourself once we reach home, father," Albert added.
"If he is still there. From the way she behaved, it seems mom was trying not to frighten him off. If it truly is our brother then he could very well actually have been frightened off," Íkaros argued. "He could have already left."
"Good point," Armin held his beard, considering that very point. "That is a very good point, Íkaros." The old man then looked up to the sky.
'Oh, Azzy, what are you up to now?' Armin asked himself. They could all feel this emptiness inside, even before that whole conversation had started.
None of them knew what it was, but it felt very eerie. Old Armin started to see bright spots appearing all around them: their reality was starting to fizzle away.
"Is it raining? What is this?" Ciarán asked, trying to hold one of those bright spots.
"This isn't rain," Ernest replied, feeling confused and empty inside.
"What is it?" Albert asked. feeling very upset and frightened.
The boys started to huddle closer together, trying to protect themselves from the inevitable.
"It's the end of the line," Armin whispered, feeling equally empty and very disgruntled. The old man shook his head and looked down. "This boy… he takes destruction wherever he goes." Armin said as they all disappeared, engulfed in the bright light. That whole reality was gone.
End of Chapter Sixteen: "Ezra"