Chapter 25
They got to Wall Rose and told Pixis what happened.
"It's probably a good idea to get away before the Military Police find you," he said.
"Or we have to prove to them that we're telling the truth," added Armin.
"Do we have any way of doing that?" asked Jean.
"Maybe… if we convinced someone to put on a gas mask and then if we can bring them outside Wall Rose, they might believe us. I don't think it will work, but it's the only thing I can think of," answered Armin.
"The fact that we would probably get arrested on sight makes this almost impossible," added Hanji.
"If we go back outside, we wouldn't be able to do anything, though," Eren pointed out.
A moment of silence. Armin looked like he was thinking.
"If we go outside… we could… we could tell people about what's behind the walls. They didn't believe Isayama Hajime, but maybe that's because he's the person who wrote about us. It's reverse psychology, but maybe they think he's looking for publicity. Maybe they'll believe us because they don't know who we are," said Armin.
"Both ideas are risky," pointed out Levi. "But I think the second one is more likely to work."
They set out to Wall Maria in the morning. Now that there were ten of them, and only eight gas masks, they were rotating them between everyone except for Eren, who had figured out how to turn into a titan at will. He wasn't positive, but he insisted he could, so if any of them died it wasn't his fault.
The trip took all day. Nothing happened except for the fact that they didn't see any titans until sunset on the other side of Wall Maria. It was Ymir, Bertholdt, and Reiner.
"Will you come with us yet?" asked Ymir.
"We still don't know what your objectives are," said Armin.
"We want to show people the fourth wall. To show them what's true and what the risks are. We want them to find out who is behind this and get out of this hellhole," replied Ymir.
"The only thing we've done wrong is separate families, but it felt like we were killing them," explained Bertholdt.
"Is there really no other way of going about this?" asked Historia.
"Nobody believes us on either side of the wall, but at least this way we're freeing them from this place," said Reiner.
"What about Isayama Hajime?" asked Connie.
"He's the person who started all this. Him and his conspirator, Grisha Jaeger," said Reiner.
"What? They were enemies! They weren't working together!" said Sasha.
"They were lying. It's not surprising, knowing them. Isayama Hajime is the grandson of the person who created these walls, and Grisha Jaeger is his old friend. The two of them have been conspiring for years. They've been giving the money Isayama Hajime got from writing a best-selling manga about us to reporters for years to keep them quiet," explained Ymir.
"He's going to have to change what happened if he wants to keep the secret. If he keeps the story exactly the way it happened, then he'll end up telling the world about everything," Armin put in.
"That's exactly his plan. If he tells everyone in the form of his manga, if anyone looks for any information on what really happened, all they'll find is the manga. They'll think it's fiction and then we won't be able to convince a single person," said Bertholdt.
"Tatsuya, Rin, and Daiki believed us," Mikasa pointed out.
"Who?" asked Ymir.
"People we met outside," explained Jean.
"If we contact them, maybe they can spread the word on the internet," said Armin.
"If we can beat Isayama Hajime's next chapter of manga, this just might work," said Ymir.