- Year 743 - The Sealing of the Walls
The small boy held his mother's hand. "Don't you dare let go!" she said. "I can't afford to lose you in this crowd." She was firm with the boy.
They were walking in, with thousands of people, into the new Paradise enclosure. The King had promised that he would keep all his people safe there. The small boy had just turned four years old; he didn't enjoy walking very much, especially around so many people. He was feeling tired and lost.
He gripped his mother's hand. She'd promised him they would be happy there. They were going to see his father again. He thought about it and gripped something else harder, something he held on his other hand; it shimmered for a moment, and he hid the small present deeper inside his grasp. His mother would take it from him. She would say he would lose it. But he would never lose it. He would show it to his father, so his father could be proud.
He was happy with the thought. He smiled at his mother, but she looked worried. They were already inside as the last Wall started closing in. Hundreds of immense creatures locking hands together and disappearing into a curtain of dark grey crystal.
The boy looked up to his mother again. She shed a small tear. Her heart was broken. She shouldn't have lied to her son.
-.-
"She can't hear you."
- Year 854 - "The Void"
Armin was staring at her; in his mind he was shouting her name. "Mikasa! Mikasa! Mikasa-" She couldn't hear him. He couldn't move either. What was happening? What was the curse in that forsaken place? Something felt ominous and eerie, foggy.
There was something else he was supposed to do, something else that he should be concerned about, a more pressing matter. "What was it again?" Well, he didn't care; he needed to reach her, that was more important. He kept trying to move closer, he kept shouting, even though there was no audible sound from his mouth or forward movement by his legs.
"They are going to eat you."
There was that voice again; that was the only thing Armin could hear in that void.
Mikasa was happy. For some reason, she felt at peace in that place. She sat there, in the sand, under a small tree. She was looking at something, a clear pool it seemed, very clear waters, that perfectly reflected the starry night.
"You are wasting your time. Do you want to join her? Because you are very close to-" the voice warned him again.
Armin opened his eyes. He was back at Fort Salta. His friends were fighting for their lives, his titan was still recuperating from the blows; it seemed that Eren had transformed again, but Armin couldn't find his new titan form. All his friends were struggling desperately, and he was struggling too. He was surrounded by the Pure Colossal Titans; they were trying to eat him. They all seemed to have difficulty moving and weren't hard for Armin to kill, even in the state that his titan form was. But what was he thinking? He could have died, he needed to protect his friends. He realised then that the Pure Colossals were acting on their own now: they had stopped marching. 'Must be the number of Shifters in one place,' Armin thought. But why Eren wasn't controlling them any more, that was the mystery. 'Maybe Eren lost control after Zeke was killed.' Armin was trying to understand what had happened. Everything was a mess, abnormal, and mindless.
"There's no more point in fighting those monsters; I'd rather stay here. I will die a horrible death, and so will my good friends, and so did my wife. We took our shot, did what we could to prevent the end. It was a meaningless effort it seems-" Armin gave out a small desperate laugh. "But I'm proud to die fighting. It would've been cowardly of me if I had given up before. I did all I could: if even only one person survives after this massacre because of my defending, I will take it. My work here is done. I can go now," Armin told the voice that had been speaking to him before. He turned to look in its direction.
She was a beautiful woman.
"I thought you were a child, but this place seems to be timeless, it feels like a dream. Bravo! You have some amazing tricks!" Armin clapped his hands ironically and condescendingly. He was angry. But he was also pleased to finally meet the true monster behind all this destruction.
The woman didn't respond; she was looking at Mikasa undecidedly.
"Why can't I reach her?" Armin asked, upset.
"You know why," Ymir responded.
"Then I will join her soon." He came to terms with it.
"That's it? Are you just going to give up now? No clever plan, no last minute solution? That's not the Armin I know." She was teasing him, he could tell.
"I've made my decision." He was walking towards Mikasa.
"All for a woman; that's so pathetic." Ymir wasn't done yet. "She doesn't even love you, but I'm sure you know that." She didn't hesitate. "Do you want to know what she was doing when she died? And how she died?" Ymir was laughing now. "I was there: I can tell you." She was hoping to hurt Armin as much as she could, as he was trying to understand why.
Armin didn't take the bait. He knew how to deal with devils; he himself was one. He gave her a strong look, measuring her words, staring down her soul, letting her speak, looking for her motivation. 'In moments like this you should let them talk. Until they strangle themselves,' he thought. 'What is her play?'
She kept talking:
"It's effortless, all the energy you spend. It bores me, watching from up here. No matter how much you try to make it work, she will always love Eren more than she loves you. You will always come in second. She told you, that you were her first love, but you know it's not true. Why bother so much with this? It's just ridiculous-" She was still going but Armin wasn't looking at her; he was looking at his wife again. Mikasa was smiling, she was so happy. Armin interrupted Ymir's speech.
"I know I will always come in second." Ymir hadn't expected him to respond like that. "Her love for me and her love for Eren are very different, and I know that too." He felt comfort in Mikasa's joy in that moment. "I don't know what your game is here, but if you can see and know everything like you said, then you know who I actually come second to, in Mikasa's heart." He smiled. "And I don't mind that."
He looked at Ymir, she looked down at the sand, to avoid his eyes, she knew what he was getting at. "I can see what she sees in that pond," he concluded.
Mikasa was staring at the illusion that was reflected in the pond. She could see a small boy running on the beach, the boy was showing her every little thing in his sight. Because that's how children are, they see a wonder in the world that adults have forgotten. He was pointing at the sun, the waves, the small creatures, the sand. It was perhaps a memory, or a clash of memories that Mikasa had made for herself. That's how she saw her child. It made her the happiest she'd ever been.
"That's just an illusion." Ymir gestured with her hand, as witches do. The image changed. It reflected reality now.
"Why would you do that?" Armin snapped back at her. He hated anyone who would try to hurt his love. Ymir knew that.
Mikasa was crying now. She could finally see reality: she saw Azzy crying at the orphanage... she shouldn't have left him there. He was all alone, crying for her to come back. She finally realised that she was dead, and would never see her son again. The pain was too much. She held her hands up to her head, tangling them in her hair. Then she bowed her head down her knees, shaking it intensely from side to side. "No! No! No! No! No! No! No! N-" she cried, over and over again.
"STOP IT!" Armin shouted at Ymir.
"Or what?" she answered defiantly.
"At least- At least let me go there," he pleaded desperately.
"Isn't it better to see things as they are? Or do you prefer to live an illusion?" she asked.
Mikasa stopped shaking. She slowly lay down next to the pool, and extended her arm toward the water. She was trying to reach and touch Azzy's pink cheeks... he loved it when she pinched his cheeks and tickled behind his ear, it made him giggle. His laugh was the best sound in the world for her. One tear slowly rolled down her face and dropped to the sand. She was transfixed by the image.
"See? At one time or another, we all come to terms with our sins, our fate, and become part of this place. It's better than pretending throughout all eternity, don't you think?" Ymir asked.
Armin wasn't paying attention; his family was more important to him than the witch's taunting. And there was something else: he could see his son clearly. The boy was quieter now, calmer. It was almost as if he could sense his mother there with him. The boy was playing with a couple of small 'plane' models, which were supposed to be a part of Armin's flying-ship studies. But after he'd used those models to explain to the boy how those machines could make people fly high up in the sky, Azzy wouldn't let go of them, so Armin let him keep the priceless things. They were his favourite toys now. Mikasa was going through all those precious memories, their tranquil life near the ocean, all those days. She would do anything to have them back.
"How can you sense her, Azzy?" Armin wondered. "How does this place work?" He looked up to the stars, then down at Ymir again.
"You are just a visitor," Ymir answered. "You can only become one with the stars once your soul joins us completely. When you no longer have your physical form." She gazed at that bright light in the center of everything. "Once you die, you will be here forever."
"If you can control Illusions, why make a mother suffer? Do you get enjoyment out of that? Is it the same enjoyment you get seeing children trampled to death by your monsters? How sick can a person be?" Armin tried to remain calm, but it wasn't working, he was too angry now.
"They are not my monsters," she affirmed, "they are your monsters. And you know that very well. It's your blood that makes them what they are." She seemed very certain about her statement.
Armin was trying to understand what she was proclaiming. Maybe she was in fact crazy. "You are The Founder. You are the one controlling this place. You are the one who is torturing Mikasa. You are the one who killed her-" He was getting increasingly upset when Ymir cut him off.
"She killed herself. You are all doing that. It seems it wasn't obvious enough, that none of you had a chance from the start. I gave you an out: the Island is safe, but you all wanted to be heroes. You are all getting what you deserve," she snapped back at him.
"So is that how it works? Zeke and Eren are out of commission so I'm the next best thing? Is that what you mean by 'your blood'? I don't care what you have in mind. I won't be your puppet. I'm not like them, so go look for some other idiot."
From what Armin could tell, Ymir needed a holder to maintain her contact with her rumbling. Her talk of souls made him realise she was looking for a physical body; that was probably the reason why she seemed desperate to convince him not to die. Maybe if he kept her talking he could get even more information out of her. It was a difficult task. At that moment he was building barricades with the dead Pure Colossals he had killed so far: stacking piles of steaming, disintegrating flesh to slow down the thousands of others trying to reach him. And at the same time building another small barrier to prevent the poor recently converted pure titans from reaching his other friends. The other Shifters were trying to help, but they could only hold for so long.
"Those two..." Ymir sighed, annoyed. "What a pair." She complained. "They deserve each other. Honestly, you wouldn't want to know the annoyance I had to put up with, especially the old blonde one. What a tool. But that's family for you, right? You can't choose them, as they say. I feel sorry for the younger one; he is such a lost child." She turned to look at the light again.
"Yeah, family, right?" Armin was trying to play the game.
"I'm sorry about your mother," she said quietly, still looking up at the light.
Armin felt confused. He was looking for the right words to say; everything and everyone was depending on it.
"Why do you want to use me? I don't understand." He decided to take a more sincere approach, and maybe he could reach her that way. "You said something about blood- but I'm not sure how to make sense of any of that."
"How much do you know about your family, your Titan, your history?" She was also being more sincere now, and more understanding. Maybe she wasn't all evil...
Ymir continued, "You should know more than you apparently do. Maybe you are having trouble with your memories, or maybe you don't want to see them."
Memories. Armin looked at Mikasa again, under the small tree, lying beside that pond as she relived the short happy life they'd had. There were things that had terrified his mind, dreams, ever since he'd become a Shifter. He had kept them to himself, never told anyone, not even her.
"I can help you win, but you need to reach those memories to know how," Ymir offered.
That was even more confusing, why would she be on his side now? It didn't make sense. "That was the first thing I did. Why would you think that I wouldn't try to control these things? I can't. They might be a part of me, like you said. I can definitely feel that. But they aren't under my command; otherwise, I would have stopped this before it even started."
Ymir let out a small laugh. "Of course you can't control them," she said, "you need a Founder for that." She continued, "But there's one thing you can do..." Ymir told him.
- Year 867 - In the middle of the ocean:
Levi jumped into the small boat. It was the middle of the night; no one noticed the boat so close to the big ship. They had the perfect plan, and it was sad to see it fail.
Onyan was confused. The boy should've been with Levi. He'd been counting on it. "What happened?" He looked up the big ship. "Where's the boy? Why isn't he coming down?" he asked the boy's uncle.
"I'm on my own, he's not coming," Levi answered as he shuffled around the boat's equipment.
"What do you mean not coming?" Onyan hissed angrily at Levi. "Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea how much work we had to put into this mission? Everything is at stake here."
Levi grabbed him by the collar. "You don't even know the half of it! There's a lot more at stake here than your own stupid world alliance plans. He was taken from me and we need to find him. He is in serious danger. Now, I'm assuming there's some sort of way to contact the others on this thing?"
Levi clearly needed help, and urgently. "Yes..." Onyan was proud of his equipment. "Push that button and you can talk with the whole Resistance. It's been quite helpful, it was just what we needed-"
Levi interrupted him, he had no time for that type of crappy conversation. "And I'm also assuming no one in Paradise can hear us or track us?" he asked.
"Nope. It's all under the radar," Onyankopon answered.
Levi continued, "Good, now call the cavalry. We need all the help we can get. I'll tell them where to meet us. We are getting Azzy back, no matter what it takes."
- Year 854 - At the Last Battle - in Fort Salta
Ymir could be tricking him, but Armin had to make a decision. At this point it was either that, or dying and taking his good friends with him. If he took the deal, at least he could avoid the death of his friends, but he would never see his son again. On the off chance that he survived this, he could raise Azzy, but he had no idea how to do that without Mikasa. 'Off chance,' he thought. As if he could actually battle thousands of Colossal Titans that wanted to eat him. It was impossible. It was a gamble, and he knew it could all be a trick, but at that point maybe he wanted to be tricked.
'I will play your game,' he thought finally.
"I agree," he said out loud. "But I have three demands." He continued: "I want to be with my wife here, for all eternity as you said, even if I'm not completely dead. I want you to release my friends from the torture you put them under. Let them be human again, and live their full lives. All of them. And for last, I need you to promise me that this is the end: those monsters will never cause destruction again, that you will leave the Earth in peace and never try anything remotely similar."
"I can fulfil two of your wishes," she gracefully responded. "Yes, I can grant you a pass to stay here, in exchange for your blood. Yes, I can make your friends inferior beings again. However, I will never agree to your third offer. I'm just being cautious. One never knows... Maybe I will need some order and decency in a thousand years or so. But don't worry about your time; the harvest is already done, and it will take centuries for humans to become a problem again, at least in my experience."
Armin had no time to bargain more; the here and now was the priority, and he had the rest of eternity to convince Ymir otherwise. "It's a deal then," he confirmed.
She extended her hand in a queenly manner. Armin reached out to hold it, and the deal was fulfilled. A bright white light originated from their hands as soon as they came in contact with each other, a bright light that blinded the whole dimension.
Reiner was struggling; they all were, but at the moment, with his armour, he was the best defence for Annie and Pieck. Falco was hovering over, Levi stood on the Jaw's back, he was ready. If it got worse he would have to kill one of those pure titans, he was conflicted, he knew them... he couldn't bring himself to do it, but in the end he knew he would have to when it came to it.
Onyankopon was watching everything from afar; he was glad those titans had no interest in him... well, glad might be a strong word. At that point he felt that they were all in Hell anyway. He might as well bleed to death. It was the end.
Armin stopped fighting the beasts and stayed still for a second. Reiner could see his titan eyes become white all of a sudden. Maybe it was just his imagination, or the sun playing tricks with his eyes... Armin destroyed the barricade he had built and started to run. All of them were flabbergasted. No one had any idea what was happening. The tremors and the noise were unbearable as Armin ran and the Pure Colossals followed him. No one had ever known he could do that! Sure, he was more agile than the Pure Colossal Titans, but not like that. Seeing a sixty-meter creature made of muscles and bones running and letting itself be clumsily and slowly chased by other sixty-meter creatures also made of muscles and bones was a terrifying sight.
Reiner was following Armin's movements, trying to understand, and he finally did. Armin was taking some distance from them, to make sure his friends wouldn't be trapped inside. He was the only who saw it: Armin stopped, surrounded by Colossal Titans, and slowly started to crystallise his titan form.
His eyes were a bright white and the crystal originated from his heart, he held the Titans next to him. The dark crystal made its way all around him, enveloping every centimeter of flesh that it came into contact with. The Pure Titans were actually scared of it: even in their small cursed minds they knew what it meant, and they didn't want to stay in that prison for another one hundred years. They tried to escape but it was useless. The crystal quickly enveloped them, and the more Titans it found, the faster it went, like it was hungry and looking for that flesh to eat.
Thereafter, Reiner never told anyone what he'd seen, at least not completely. 'Goodbye, Armin,' he thought. 'Thank you.'
"What just happened?" Jean asked, disoriented. He looked at Connie and the others, they were all sitting on the ground, near Fort Salta, as the last of the Pure Titan's steam rose up the sky. He was confused; they all were, but they were all alive. All of them.
Falco extended his wings and made a last lap, looking down below. He landed on Reiner's shoulder. Pieck and Annie joined them and looked at each other; it seemed that it was all over. The Rumbling had ended. They'd finally won. They were the last Titans left. Well, not quite.
-.-
- Year 854 - The Void a.k.a "Paths"
The void was empty and soundless. Mikasa could hear a hiss in the wind, far away, and the sound of the ripples as she passed her hands through the water. She startled. She could hear footsteps in the sand, coming closer to her. She quickly turned and raised herself up. "Ar-Armin?!" She gasped. Mikasa ran towards him and they held each other. She hugged him very tightly, just to make sure he was there and he would never go away. They kissed like they had kissed many times before, in their previous world. A world very different to the one they were in now.
Armin had one tear running down his face. He'd paid a high price for this. But he was content. He had made his decision.
Mikasa was beside herself. He was there! He was actually there. For a moment she felt pure happiness, but then she realised what that meant. She pulled herself away. "No," she said. "No! You can't be here." Mikasa hit him on the chest, she was in pure distress once again. She ran her hands around his chest, shoulders, his face, in disbelief. "You can't!" She was in despair now. "How- How did it happen?" she asked in a quieter voice as she stared down at the sand. She rested her hand over his chest.
He reached his hand to interlock with hers, over his heart. "I'm not actually dead, I think," Armin told her. "But I am here."
"Why? How?" Mikasa was still in distress.
"I had to be the catalyst, so the Pure Colossal Titans could be petrified again. It had to be me, otherwise the rumbling would never end. They would walk the Earth forever." He knew that wasn't an answer Mikasa would like to hear, but he had to tell her the truth.
She didn't want to think of Armin forever trapped in an unbreakable stone prison. "Azzy?" she asked.
"I know." Armin answered. "I'm sorry, but this was the only way."
Mikasa cried in his arms. It was difficult to know for how long, time worked differently in that place, but he could hold her forever.
She finally snapped out of it. "It's all my fault. What difference did it make? Coming here, leaving Azzy all alone?" She felt guilty, angry with herself. "I thought I could kill Eren. I finally brought myself to do it. And it did nothing! I ended up dying myself. Worthless!"
"It definitely did something..." Armin responded. "I think you broke his link with Ymir, but I'm not sure how yet." He was trying to make something out of the pieces. "I couldn't find him after that, so I wonder where he ended up."
"Well, he's not here. If he was dead, he would be another lost soul in this place," she responded.
"The important thing is that the rumbling is over. People survived it, not many, but humanity is still out there. We played our part in it. Now it's up to the living to tie up loose ends," Armin concluded.
"You are still living," Mikasa pointed out.
"Yes, but I'd rather be here, in this eternal dream with you, than have my consciousness out there, knowing that I'm trapped inside a wall for the foreseeable future," Armin explained sincerely. He didn't want to feel the pain of the living anymore. "Please, let me stay in your dream. I can't bear the thought of life without you, specially now that I chose to be a prisoner." He interlocked his hands with hers again, putting them next to their hearts.
"How can you consider that I would ever let you leave me? You are not going anywhere. Especially now that I can hear you, see you, and touch you again," Mikasa told him. And she continued: "I just-" She sighed and looked to the left. "I wish we didn't have to leave him." She went closer to the pond now, to look at their child. "We won't ever see him again and he won't see us," she stated sadly. "Do you think he'll forget us completely?" she asked.
Levi was there now, at the orphanage, like he'd promised: he was going to take care of their child. They were pleased with it, but jealous of him. He could reach Azzy, they were in the same room, at the same time, in the same dimension. His parents would never know what that was like again.
"I don't think so, not completely," Armin answered Mikasa as he came closer to watch over his son, together with his wife, the boy's mother. He held her and looked her in the eye. "He will never forget us, trust me," he assured her.
The two-year-old was listening to his uncle and learning that he wasn't going back home like he'd been hoping. Azzy had no idea his parents were watching over him. The two proud and joyous parents would watch him grow up, looking over his life through that small pond, under a small tree. If he only knew they were up there, near the stars.
That new world Mikasa and Armin found themselves into was magical, no doubt, but it was a magic they couldn't understand. The endless desert and the bright starry sky looked beautiful but felt empty and frightening, their consolation and distraction was that small pond, where they could watch over their child.
They could hear giggles, faint giggles, running through the wind. There it was again, Armin noticed. He heard that it was coming closer, and getting louder. The faint giggling wouldn't stop, like a child dancing in the wind. Armin looked over and it seemed that Mikasa couldn't hear like he could, or maybe she was too focused on watching over Azzy in the pond. But Armin could hear it, like it was surrounding them.
"C-Can you hear that?" he asked Mikasa worriedly.
"I'm not sure..." She looked up at him.
"Who is that?" He was looking behind Mikasa, a little further away. It was difficult to tell but it seemed to be a young girl with bright yellow eyes.
"Who is what?" Mikasa asked as she turned to look. The apparition was gone.
"Nothing." He was unsure... "It's just-" he wondered, a little perplexed.
Then he finished the thought:
"It looked like my mother."
End of Chapter Three: "Deal [854]"