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Broken World

The Eye that Reflects Hatred

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Shiganshina, Year 845

That day... had been peaceful. It was a day like any other. Wall Cultist stalked the streets, shouting down anyone who made even minor comments about sealing up Wall Maria. Shopkeepers went about their business and crowds of people moved about the town. It was seemingly an ordinary day that humans had grown used to... after all the Walls that protected them had never been broken in the past. Who wouldn't assume that they'd be safe forever? That they could etch out a peaceful living like this without having to worry about the worries and pains that facing the Titans would bring?

But then again, nothing lasts forever.

People in the streets looked up, frozen in place for a moment, as they heard a heavy thumping that seemed to originate from above them. They looked up, and saw the colossal-sized titan standing over the walls looking down on them.

There was a moment of awe and fear as the large inflamed colossus gazed down on them. The colossus raised its gigantic foot and repeatedly slammed against the stone-held gate. An explosion sounded as the bits of rubble parted where the giant's foot made a large hole in the wall.

People of all ages madly dashed away as the base of the wall was suddenly sent flying over their heads, leaving a wide-open chasm in the barricade that had never before been breached in human history.

Eren Yeager ran through the streets, fearing for his mother's safety, along with his childhood friend Mikasa Ackerman as the town all around him went to hell.

They made their way to where a large chunk of the dislodged gate had leveled his home, trapping his mother underneath stacks of wood and stone. Try as he might, his mother was unable to be saved.

Despite his best intentions, Hannes was forced to grab Eren and Mikasa and flee. Eren was helpless to resist the soldier and watched from the man's shoulder as the large Smiling Titan came into view above his home.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HANNES! MOTHER IS STILL BACK THERE!"

Eren struggled as best he could to try and free himself. He desperately pushed at the grip of the soldier, hoping to pull away. The titan arrived at the now-destroyed home and bent over, its hands reaching into the piles of wood and stone.

Time slowed down for Eren. The world seemed to dissolve around him as he watched the scene unfold in front of him while being shouldered by Hannes. He watched as the Titan picked up his mother from among the wreckage of their home. She squirmed, the large hands grasped her, squeezing what little life was left. At that moment, a single feeling welled up inside Eren. It clutched his heart with an iron clasp and refused to let go. It was...

Despair.

At that moment, both unseen and unknown to the three of them, Eren's pupils shrank in size, deformed for a second, before transforming into a bright crimson red with two tomoe on the outskirts of the pupil. Eren began to kick and struggle against Hannes, but was inevitably powerless to resist the man's grip and was frozen in place as he watched helplessly while the titan brought his unconscious mother up to its large gaping mouth.

In a flash, Eren's mother was swallowed, leaving nothing but her two disembodied legs remaining.

His face was transfixed for a moment, agape in utter horror, shock, and terror. That single moment burned itself into his memory, leaving his thoughts a jumbled wreck. The fading sunlight shone over Eren's eyes, briefly obscuring the shadows over his eyes.

Without him even noticing or anyone being there to witness it, Eren's newly crimson eyes began to warp once again... the tomoe rotating once before shifting rapidly. Eren's bloody red eyes switched shapes once again. The two tomoe of the right eye disappeared and were replaced by a new design resembling a scythe-shaped pinwheel.

Hannes reached the nearest corner and turned away, but as soon as he did he felt Eren's elbow smack into the back of his head. "Eren! What the.."

"We could have saved her! She was right there! A little bit longer and she wouldn't be..." Eren cried out, the beginnings of tears hiding at the corners of his eyes.

Eren wound his fist and in a fit of anger aimed to hit the older solder, but it was easily dodged.

"You couldn't save your mother because you lacked the strength... And I couldn't face the titan because I just lacked the courage to do it!"

Hannes yelled aloud, grabbing Eren by the scruff of his shirt. In dire sadness, Eren dropped to the ground, his head momentarily bowed before he rose his feet up again in a final ditch of frustration. He launched himself at the soldier, his thoughts mired in grief. His fist went straight for the gut of Hannes and would of hit him cleanly. Hannes braced for the hit when the unexpected happened.

Eren's fist passed right through the stomach of Hannes, leading Eren to become off balance. His entire form passed straight through the soldier's body, as if he was just a ghostly apparition.

"What the... How am I..."

Eren tumbled to the ground, much to the shocked looks of both Mikasa and Hannes. Eren helped himself up, gazing at his hands and bringing them to his stomach, trying to verify if he was still present. "What did I just..."

Before he could finish, an explosion shattered a nearby building, sending pieces of debris into the road ahead of the trio. A large titan, around 14-meters high by Hanne's observation, traipsed over the destroyed home, a young child clutched in its hand. With one gulp, it swallowed the child and then stared at the 3 gaping humans further down the road.

Hannes gritted his teeth, sweat pouring down his face "Dangit. We'll have to go the other way."

Holding Mikasa tight in his grasp, he immediately turned around and Eren followed suit.

They ran away, heading back down the path they came and quickly turned into the next alley way to avoid heading towards the home. They rounded the corner and continued jogging, Hannes breaking out in panic and his fear beginning to get a hold of him as he began to hear heavy footsteps from the passage behind them. Eren was still taken aback by what had just happened, how his entire body had just phased through Hannes like he wasn't even there. He continued to run behind both Mikasa and Hannes as they rushed down the narrowing path. They ran as fast as they could, taking the roundabout path in order to avoid being seen by more Titans.

They finally made it out of back alleyways and began heading towards the inner district where the evacuation boat would be waiting.

They came within sight of the throngs of people, eagerly crowding around and awaiting the boat to arrive. In the distance, they could see the several titans that had already emerged through the hole and begun devouring humans. They bee-lined for the boat, running as fast as their feet would carry them when a large explosion of rubble and smoke sent them sprawling backwards.

'WHAM!'

Both Hannes and Mikasa were blasted to the side while Eren was sent careening towards a trash can on the opposite side of the alleyway. His vision blurred for a second, the impact with the wall momentarily jarring his concentration before his focus returned. When Eren managed to regain himself, he looked up to see the source of the blast, a gigantic 15-meter class Titan with a frowning expression etched on its face standing over him.

"EREN!" Mikasa and Hannes yelled out. Eren sat on the ground, his head feeling concussed from the force of being sent against the wall. His arms scrabbled backwards to try and give him some traction to hopefully stand up, but he was not fast enough to escape.

The titan bent down, its hand enclosing over Eren's small form. Mikasa and Hannes could only watch in horror, scrambling towards the titan from the alleyway.

Eren's could do virtually nothing as he was lifted closer to the mouth of the titan. The gaping maw opened and Eren stared into it. As he struggled against the vice grip that held him, his renewed eyes burned the sight into his memory. For the first time, he began noticing the increased clarity that he was seeing things with. He focused and anything within his field of vision, he saw with an extreme amount of perception and detail.

"Has my eyesight... always been like this?"

Eren continued to struggle as his head was brought firmly inside the Titan's mouth...

"Unhand him!" Hannes used the 3D maneuver gear to quickly ascend to the Titan's height, the grappling hooks rocketed to the nearest stone wall, swinging him up at the fist that held Eren captive.

The sobbing tears in his eyes remained and his hands shook with fear, but... he couldn't. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he allowed his charges right now to die on his watch.

His swords made a solid connection, slicing through the fatty muscle of the Titan's hand. The fingers parted, allowing Eren to slide out and begin plummeting to the ground. Hannes reacted as fast as he could, jumping off the nearest roof, attaching the grappling hook to the ground and snatching Eren in midair before he fell to his doom.

They fled immediately afterward, Hannes using his 3D maneuver gear to get the trio away from the titan and headed towards the docks where they could maybe find safe haven from chaos and have time to grieve. All 3 of them would need time to recover, Eren in particular was seeming like he was going to need a long rest and even then... nothing was going to be the same after this ordeal.

"Forgive me... Eren... Forgive me... Mikasa" he sobbed.


As they made their way to the northern end of Shiganshina, Eren couldn't get it out of his mind how clear his vision now was. Every detail that he previously wouldn't have been able to make out clearly was now easily visible. Even very slight movements and shifts in the landscape could be tracked as his eyes wandered about the destroyed homes and bits of rubble that had been scattered about. Though this factor surprised him, he decided to put off pondering it further.

Again, just as they entered within sight of the evacuation dock, Eren heard a loud scream coming from farther off to their right. He stopped in his tracks and turned around to see the source of the noise.

"Eren! Hurry up we need to get going! The boat will be leaving soon!" Hannes yelled out, though Eren wasn't listening.

In the middle of the alleyway, not too far off from them, there was a young girl. Couldn't have been older than 13 years old and dressed in plain summer attire. She was cowering before a titan that was closing in on her and she was now backed against a corner with little way out. Eren gritted his teeth and rushed forward to come to the girl's aid, leaving Mikasa and Hannes to yell out after him.

Eren charged down the street and interposed himself between the approaching Titan and the girl. Upon facing it himself, he realized that it wasn't an extremely large one as the others had been. It was probably around 7 meters in height, much smaller than the others he had seen but still towering over him. The screams of the girl ceased once she realized that someone was there, but it did nothing to subside her fear and despair. Unsure of what to do himself, Eren said nothing too and only continued to think about what to do next. Mikasa and Hannes arrived just behind Eren, the both of them moving to the side where Eren stood.

Suddenly, the titan lunged at them, its mouth wide open and aiming to engulf Eren. Acting on instinct, Eren grabbed the girl by the scruff of her shirt and dodge rolled off to the side. The titan's face collided with the wall, sending the all of them bowling over after the dust had settled. Eren, winded but otherwise unharmed, managed to stand up almost immediately. It took but a moment for the titan to recover itself, digging its face out of the wall where it had shattered the glass and stone, but in the midst of the shock, Eren spotted a plump woman held between the titan's jaws. Eren and the girl both gasped. For Eren, it was a gasp of having to watch another victim of the Titans be eaten and unable to do anything to help. He saw images of his own mother from moments before and his sadness threatened to overwhelm him at any moment.

For the girl whom he had just saved, it was a gasp of recognition. "MOM!"

And with one gulp, the titan swallowed the woman. The girl's limply fell to the ground as her mind rapidly spiraled downward... reaching the deepest throes of shock. The kind that only comes from having a life taken away in a single moment. Her eyes remained poised on the same spot her mother had been a moment earlier, seemingly unable to register what had just happened.

Eren glanced at her before his anger flared up once again. "You bastard!"

Eren charged forward, his impulse to confront the titan overpowering any sense of caution. Mikasa and Hannes had yet to recover from having been bowled over by the Titan, though they were conscious and regaining themselves, it would take time to get them back on their feet. He didn't know what to do, but whatever he was going to do had to be done fast. He racked his brain for ideas ... and one luckily came to him as he remembered what had happened previously.

"Maybe if I..."

He thought, the gambit in his head now taking shape. He closed his eyes for a moment, searching for the switch inside himself that had been clicked earlier on. He focused and sure enough the vision from before came back to him. He began to see everything again with a renewed sense of clarity. He glanced around and luckily spotted the pair of blades that Hannes had used earlier to engage the titan. He ran over and picked up the two of them and turned to face the oncoming giant.

The titan charged at him on all fours, running like a bull ready to gore the prey in its sight. Without knowing much how, Eren felt a slight jolt in his stomach that traveled through to his eye. The Titan crashed over him, but he felt nothing. The monstrous giant passed entirely through him, its hands passing right through his form before slamming into the home again, causing it to shatter into pieces.

Eren turned on his feet, readying himself. He was planning to head right up the Titan's leg by clinging onto its back and maybe perhaps use the blades to...

"Eren! Aim for the neck!"

He heard Hannes yell aloud, "Its the Titan's weak point! Slice them at the neck! As deep as you can!"

Eren nodded affirmative before turning his attention back to the titan at hand. He was planning to start running up its legs now that it was exposed, but then something else came to him. Without meaning to, Eren focused his eye on one spot and seized at the jolt again, hoping maybe the power from before might help him again.

Just as he thought, the jolt came once again, hitting his eye with renewed force. He knew nothing of what was going on, but he moved quickly, he moved to the titan's leg and phased his body into the bare muscle laden there. It was like... he felt as if he was in two places at once. One side of him felt like it was in someplace empty... void of life and somewhat cold while the other half was phased inside the titans leg. He focused on the latter half, using his legs and phasing himself through the titan's innards.

"Help Me! Help me! Please!"

Eren turned around, his feet caught in the titan's digestive system but he felt no pain. In the titan's stomach, he saw the young girl's mother. She was alive, but from the looks of it her legs and right arm had been quickly dissolved. Without thinking about it, Eren reached for the woman. Without meaning to, his arm phased right through her outstretched hand. He made a mental note to himself at that. First, he jumped to clear himself of the liquid he was phasing through before becoming solid himself again, grabbing the woman, and phasing himself back up again with the older woman in tow.

The two of them emerged of it when he had gotten far enough. Surprisingly, he found himself right beneath the back of the titan's neck. He wobbled for a second, not used to emerging from that form and having a bit of trouble balancing but quickly regained himself and barred the blades that were clutched in his hands. With a single loud cry, he plunged the blades into the titan's neck and dragged them along the base of the neck. He madly slashed at the neck, his anger getting the better of him until the blades were broken, mere stubs from before.

The three bystanders looked on, wondering what had just happened. At first Eren was somewhere... than he was nowhere... than he appeared at the nape of the Titan a moment later with the girl's mother whom they thought had been lost. It was a... transfixing moment and one they would need to investigate further later on. For now, they had other problems that needed addressing, like getting to the boat before it left so they wouldn't become titan food.

Mikasa and Hannes hurried to restrain Eren, pulling him back when the titan was no longer moving. The woman, sitting on the back of the titan, was in both awe and shock. For several moments, her voice was lost to her, until the loud cries of her daughter broke her out of her stupor. They embraced, the young girl running into her mother's grasp, the two lost in thought for a moment before they were pulled apart and told to get a move on. Hannes helped the older lady, piggybacking her as she no longer had stable legs to stand on. Her daughter also helped, still in shock and rather taciturn but active and eagerly helpful.

They didn't speak much on the way. The girl and her mother glanced periodically at Eren who was having a conversation with Mikasa while they ran.

"Eren, What did you..."

"I'm not sure. We'll figure it out later.

That was the extent of their conversation and Eren noted down to explore his new power a little later.


They finally arrived at the evacuation dock.

They were loaded onto the boat and both him and Mikasa stood in the back of the crowd where few would talk to them. Everyone kept their distance from the two, some even noting the grim aura and haunted expressions that surrounded them and found it unnecessary to ask questions. It was painfully obvious what quite a few of the refugees were now going through. The 3 of them finally allowed their grieving to begin. Eren's eyes began to fog up as he remembered that very morning. He remembered the last things he'd said to his mother... had been nothing but a stupid argument between them.

Eren kept his gaze downcast, drowning out himself for a moment as his grief fully set in. Suddenly, the clarity of his eyes faded and he brought himself to gaze upward and finally allowed the dam that had kept his tears at bay to let go at last.

He looked up at the setting sun, watching as everything he'd known in his life being burned and destroyed. He remembered his mother and her last moments burned into his memory.

"How did we end up like this? Is this all that we're meant for... because we're weak?"

Eren's eyes raged with anger and hatred, his crimson eyes reappearing and the increased clarity returned. From his point, he could see the horizon. He could see the destruction and the decimation that had befallen his home. And it filled him with nothing but absolute hatred.

"So our only option is to weep and cry? No. I'll wipe them all out... I'll erase them from this world!"

"I'll kill them all! Every... single...last... one of them!


Author's Notes

Alright, so this is a new idea for a story I came up with and I've been wanting to post for a while now.

For a lot of reasons, I haven't been as active updating my other story lately as my college work has gotten in the way and so has my part-time job so I'm feeling a bit rusty when it comes to writing. This chapter is a test for the idea and I do want to continue it, hopefully since my school work has declined and I want to get back into writing fanfiction but I can't promise much at this time.

For starters, Eren will have Kamui as you can observe. I already have plans for this story... and surprisingly Eren isn't going to be the powerhouse that Tobi was. Because of his abilities however, things are going to move at a different pace and I'm going to deviate from the Manga eventually, but I will stay to most of it until I feel is a good place to branch off and make my own path.

This will be a slight Naruto crossover. By necessity, I will be including several other things from Naruto but it will be mainly Shingeki no Kyojin.

Please review and let me know what you think.