It's been a week. I haven't said a word to anyone since we got back through the walls. I have just been staying in my quarters, watching the clock. Eren has been sentenced to trial, yet I will no longer have anything to do with it; for he isn't my responsibility anymore...

Is it my fault? I have been asking myself that all week. An I to blame for our failure? For the deaths of our comrades?

I didn't want to think about it, but it was always on my mind... I think of that bloody image and put my elbows on the table, holding my head, which was down with no emotion.

"Petra..." I whisper to myself. "Is it my fault you're dead...?"

I was injured in the ankle, a terrible sprain, but that didn't matter. I had to see her, just one more time; so I threw on my hooded cape and walked out into the raining dystopia known as mankind's temporary refuge... At least until we all die, which may as well come sooner, for the last hope of mankind is impossible to retrieve with Eren gone and the Female Titan on the loose. For now, we are all sitting ducks.

I sigh and start to walk down the path with a crutch under each arm. Where Im headed wasn't far from my quarters, so I shouldn't run into many guards. I kept a straight face as always.

My experiences through correctional custody of the military police and quite a few years of being Captain of the Recon Corps have frozen over my countenance in an absence of emotion. I've seen many horrid things... But years of being exposed to layers on top of layers of them... has helped me. It's helped me teach myself to deal with it and make it part of every day life, so now to me... A dead person is just another dead person, and nothing more or less.

Of course I respect my comrades. I respect how they fight for us and how they die for us... I just tell myself that they have no use anymore once they're dead.

I make it to where I was headed, the soldier cemetery. Soldiers whose bodies are brought back are buried here and given small makeshift tomb markers in the shapes of crosses.

The Recon Corps soldiers who have died but haven't had their bodies retrieved are also here too, under my order.

I limp over to a specific tombstone. The small stone reads "Petra Ral."

I just stand there in silence, not saying anything, not moving an inch. I just stared at the imprinted name for a few minutes. I then went to my knees so I was facing her directly, eye-to-eye. I bowed my head in guilt.

"Im sorry Petra..." I say softly. "Im sorry for not being able to protect you... Im sorry for not giving you the right orders. I've failed you, and Aururo. I... I..."

What was this...? I felt something wet drip down my cheek. Was it raining? Not yet, but the sky was grey. No, then... That means... It is a teardrop? From my own eye?

I shocked myself with the discovery of this foreign emotion. The tear landed on my hand, and I examined it as some kind of foreign species.

I was crying.

I haven't cried for years. I always thought my tears dried up a long time ago along with my ability to feel pain... And love... But no... I feel sadness, guilt, anger... A mix of emotions that usually do nothing but run through my head, absent from my face.

The tears roll faster down my cheek and I find myself actually whimpering and crying softly. Why was I crying? I haven't cried at all after all these years Ive seen comrades die! Why was this different? Why was I crying... For Petra...

The images of her paralyzed state covered in blood on the tree and being thrown out of the carriage started rolling through my head. I was crying louder. All the years of holding it in, Im letting it out, not just for Petra, but for all of my fallen comrades. All of them who never got remembered, who were just left to die.

Suddenly, I tilt my head towards the grey sky. "Gaaaaaaahhhhh!" I yell, a thunderclap in the background. I lean my head on the tombstone along with my hands, the tears dripping down in rivers.

I look at my hands. "If I had just... Taken it more seriously... Would she still be alive...?" I shake my head. I have always been like that. I tease my prey, get them agitated... Then they escape an I end up paying the ultimate price... And this time... it was my team...

I look up at the sky, staring in the face what cowards turn to as a scapegoat for a reason to gain hope. I glare at him, her, whoever the hell he is. So cocky to the extent whereas he uses his almighty powers of ultimate creation to birth the Titan, a blasphemous creature of no intelligence and no moral values; Only on this Earth to take beloved comrades from my grasp and lock them up in his dungeon. He is praised for his security, but not shunned for his wrongdoings. What lesson would this teach us humans? Creatures so intelligent but live on too mortal to survive beyond Titan grasp; delicate ants in the eyes of God, who's mind is no match for a Titan's intent to kill... Was this monster a gift... Or a punishment.

Humans are arrogant creatures, too independent for their own good and got ahead of themselves in the past, taking advantage of everything that was given to them. They have poisoned, tainted, burned, dried up, washed away everything. They carry a path of destruction... And use up, destroy all that is gifted to them... Now that I think about it, it is the human race that is the true monster. God has sent the Titans as messengers, cleansers left to clean up the stain of destruction that the humans have left. Titans don't kill other living beings, because they are not guilty; they don't kill each other, because they have no reason to. They kill as purification. Humans are a sin, and it has been that way since the beginning of time.

My men never meant to harm, they fought to protect. They are the pillars of the sins of mankind, they carry all of mankind's beliefs, thoughts, wishes, dreams on their shoulders. I feel the greatest weight of all. Along with mankind, Im also carrying my men, and God's cruelty on my shoulders, yet I never try to drag my feet. Petra and Aururo tried to help me; they saw my struggle, and followed my every orders, going against God's will to betray and instead follow me, a servant of the devil who lives to kill God's messengers and cries over performing these sins, at least on the inside.

I have been bearing this burden for years, dying a little more on the inside whenever I saw my men look me in the eyes and continue a dangerous mission without another order from me, no matter the level of danger. I couldn't count the number of times Ive looked into Petra's innocent golden eyes and saw sad, helpless submission, ignorant of her sin, taught only to follow her Corporal and nothing else... But Petra... She could mask it with emotion. By making such friends as Aururo, Eren, Hanji, and I... She has hidden her distress under pure drive and willpower, to protect her friends. She had been able to love, unlike myself, who sold his soul the Beelzebub years before, in exchange for the power to betray God and murder his servants one by one.

"You were ignorant, you will be saved..." I tell Petra. "I tricked you into loving and following me, yet I couldn't return a single favor, you have done your duty, unknowingly serving the Devil's messenger..." I nod my head. "You will be saved..." I repeat. "You will be saved..."

In my head, I knew that unlike Petra, and the rest of my men, I would not reach enlightenment... I will not find peace. I am the embodiment of sin and cannot be cleansed by any Messenger or Priest that the Almighty may send to my side. I have seen too much, done too much, drawn through too much...

"...I even abandoned you, Petra..." I shake my head. "...What kind of Corporal am I...?" I question. I have been asking that for years, yet I only came to one answer.

"I am just a man of sin... And that is all I will ever be..." The rain has been falling for a while now and has formed a puddle at my knees, right in front of the tombstone. I look at my cold, withered expression.

"To be disgusted and ashamed of ones face is also a crime among men. For it is our identity, right, Petra?" I sigh, the tears have tried, by the internal pain was stronger than ever.

"I can never look at myself sincerely and respect what I see. I look upon life and see not my face..." I look up at Petra's grave, along with all other men who have died or remain M.I.A to this day. "But all of yours..."

These men have died for humanity, either not caring for their sin as a race or just too ignorant to realize so, blinded by their will to serve or become known to all as a hero. When they looked up, they saw my face, plastered with arrogance and brimming with confidence, letting my presence be a motive to them, and I felt guilty knowing such a thing.

If they knew what I was, they'd scream, hunt me down, kill me, knowing I was one who has tainted the Lamb's blood, making it taste bitter with betrayal. I look up at the sky.

"I have betrayed God, and all of you." I say, one last tear rolling down my cheek. "I have been living on, been granted selfish strength and stealth unlike any other human being. I have lived on, thought to be immortal, as I watched all of you die before my eyes. I am anarchy! I am Satan's Hand! I am sin!" I look down, "And I have over lived my stay... I can't keep this up..."

I reach into my jacket and pull out a loaded handgun that I smuggled, my door, a handshake with death. Placing it under my chin, I look down once again at Petra's grave, closing my eyes.

"It is unclear whether or not I am doing this out of guilt... Or sympathy... The only thing I know is that I never belonged on this Earth. All I have done is lead humanity into battle, watching them drop like flies, being crushed by the wrath of God, which obviously overpowers the wrath of Satan." I sigh, shaking my head, feeling that one last tear drop down my cheek. "Pained, bruised, heavy... I leave this world..." And after a pull of a trigger and a loud pop, I return to my home. A purgatory of eternal slumber, where I will never bear mankind's sin again.