Joshua, more than a month ago

"A letter, sir."

I take the parchment from the soldier and close the door. "A letter, huh?" I open the letter as I return to the desk where Hange and I are sitting. Unfolding the message, I quickly scan it quietly. It's from Eren, of all people.

Some time ago, during a trip to the continent of Marley. A conference about protecting the Subjects of Ymir was being held at an international forum, which we attended in disguise. Turns out, the forum was true to its name, unless you were a Devil of Paradis Island. On that day, at that moment, Eren disappeared. This letter is the first time we've heard from him since.

"Well?"

"Marley is holding a festival in a few days, one in which the world shifts its focus on us 'devils'. He's going to make his attack then and there, with or without us."I set the letter on the table and glance up to Hange. "Well, we know what Eren's going to do. What says you, Commander Hange?"

Hange closes her eyes for a moment, then sighs. "What do you think, Executive Officer Hardin?"

I lean back, holding my chin in thought. "...They showed up on our doorstep nine years ago. It's time we repay them. But… I don't like it one bit. Eren wants to entrust everything to Zeke, yet we don't know what Zeke even wants. And if we attack… If we follow Eren and Zeke's plan, the only consolation I get out of it is seeing Reiner again."

Hange narrows her eyes and picks up the letter. "Joshua, answer me honestly. If I decide to go forth with this operation, knowing that Eren is breaking military rules, knowing that Marleyans will lose lives, both civilian and military, knowing that we're shooting ourselves in the foot and giving the world what it wants… Will you lead the operation?"

"Hange…"

"Sometimes, to get results, a man must lose his humanity. You know that well, you served under Erwin long enough to see that. But I don't think I have that in me. I think you do. Your desire for revenge made you a great leader, even if you don't recognize it yourself. I saw that in you the day I chose you to be by my side, and I see it in you now. The operation will cost many lives. I'll take responsibility for whatever happens, but I want you to lead them on the ground."

I sigh. "I'll do so."

Moments before Tyber's declaration

"Nice choice of a scene for a talk… Eren." I look at the "wounded" man in front of sitting, barely visible in the candlelight. He looks back at me with droopy eyes. I believe he's either dead inside or about to fall asleep. "You look like shit."

"So you've come. I guess that means the rest are too."

I frown. "After this, if we succeed, you are under arrest. Just want you to be aware of it. I also want you to know the consequence of this action. Marley might be weakened, but Paradis will be a target for the entire world. You're putting innocent civilians under a scope, your friends under a radar, your family in the enemy's sight. And for what? Revenge? To send a message?"

"You speak as if you care what happens to Marley. But wasn't it you, on the beach, who said we should exact the vengeance of the Eldians? What happened to you?"

"Sasha. I looked at her and saw what I wanted in my future. I see myself and her, lying in bed, her in my arms as the sun rises. I see us in the woods, holding bows on an afternoon hunt. I see us together, riding on a horse as we enjoy an evening stroll. I see us together, expressing our love passionately in the night. That's what happened to me, Eren. I want to go home and see the girl I love safe and sound. You can't tell me you don't have such aspirations too, with the time you have left in your life."

Eren looks away to a window above us. "...All I want...is freedom."

Sighing, I stand up and head for the door. "And all I once wanted was vengeance...if I still want that."

"You don't want to be here when Reiner arrives?"

"No. I rather be on the other side of the stage when hell breaks loose. Someone must observe what's going on in case...well I guess it doesn't matter. As for Reiner…"

"I'll tell him you wait for him."

Present Day

I land beside Mikasa and Armin, holding Gabi as the world around us, fifty or so meters tall, marches towards the south. In the center is the largest Titan we've ever seen. For Gabi, that might be saying a lot, but Armin, Mikasa, and I saw Historia's father become a Titan, and he was enormous at the time. This one, no doubt the Founding Titan, is much, much, much, much larger. He's nothing but a spine and ribs, with tiny legs at the back. That's what we can see, from the distance, between the fires that turn the sky orange and black.

"Did...Eren...not hear you?"

"We won," Armin shouts back at Mikasa. "Eren has command of the Founder! If the rumbling started immediately, that must be because it's what Eren wanted! He's planning on crushing the Allied Forces gathered in Marley! Eren's on our side! How could he not be?"

Mikasa looks away. "Eren...came back...to our side?"

I feel a tug on my sleeve. Looking down, I see Gabi pointing to the north. Following her gesture, I look up...and drop my jaw and widen my eyes. I blink thrice just to make sure I don't see the Colossal Titans of Wall Maria walking as well...yet it is the truth. "W-W-What the hell? Armin…"

Armin looks in my direction and I bet he's got a similar expression. "What? That's… Why… No… Mikasa! Even Wall Maria has been destroyed! There's no need to go that far if he just wants to destroy the Allied Forces in Marley! The hundred of Titans in Shiganshina District's wall...should be more than enough! Why sacrifice the walls just to attack? If he just wanted to crush the Allied Forces gathered in Marley...if that was all... there's no need for all this…"

"Hear me, all Subjects of Ymir…" Was that...Eren? I turn to my friends, seeing the same confusion I possess. Is Eren...speaking to us through the Founder?

"Did you guys…"

"I… I just heard Eren's voice..."

"My name is Eren Jaeger. I now speak to all the Subjects of Ymir by way of the Founding Titan's power. Every wall on the island of Paradis has been unhardened. All of the Titans buried within them have begun to walk. My goal...is to protect the people of Paradis Island who bore me and raised me. But the world desires the extinction of the people of Paradis. Over countless years, their hatred has grown beyond this island. They surely will not stop until they have killed every one of the Subjects of Ymir. I reject their desire. The Titans of the walls will trample and rumble all the lands beyond this island. Until the lives there...are eliminated from this world…"

As we sit in silence, processing what Eren just said he's going to do, tears from my left gain my attention. "Reiner...Falco...where are you?" That's right, Reiner, Falco, and by extension, Pieck are still over there. It might be against my better judgement, but something in me knows I can't leave them there.

"Armin, Mikasa, regroup with everyone and assess the situation."

"What will you do," Mikasa asks.

I turn to Gabi, taking hold of her shoulder. "It is about time I see Reiner face to face."

"Reiner!" Returning to ground zero of Eren's transformation, Gabi runs over to her cousin, now free of his Titan. I stand nearby, letting the two reunite before the elder Braun spots me. Sighing, I walk over, looking at the smoldering Armor Titan behind its bearer. "I would ask if you're okay, but you survived your head being blown off."

Reiner nods. "Thank you for grabbing Gabi...although it being you is...unsettling."

With Reiner safe, Gabi walks away, the anti-Titan rifle recollected. "Falco! Where are you? Where'd you go?"

"He'd just become a Titan for the first time. He'llhave lost his memories and wouldn't be able to move right away… They took him."

"Who did? Why?"

"Jean and Connie, probably. How could they leave behind someone as important as Falco? How could they ignore the ninth Titan? Ugh." Reiner drops to his knee, clearly unable to move on his own.

I heave him up and hoist an arm around my shoulder. "What happened to you?"

"For some reason, I was stripped of my Armor, and so the pieces of that crumbling hit me straight on. Right as the walls come down, so did my Armor. I couldn't...stop him. Joshua… Eren is going to destroy the world!"

I sigh as I walk Reiner inside a building, dropping him softly on the wall. "Reiner… If I knew that was his plan, I would've let you squish him. Hell, I would have blown him to bits myself."

"Take Gabi… There are airships we'll use to withdraw. Find Pieck or some Marleyan soldiers...and make sure she escapes there. Hurry… Gabi… Let them know… Tell Marley...no, the world…"

"What good would it do to tell them," Gabi exclaims. "Where would we run?" Reiner and I say nothing, for similar reasons. There's nowhere in the world, not even here in Paradis, for us to run, and that's if the Titans have the sense to not destroy anything on this island except the walls. "Mom… Dad… Even Aunt Katrina… They're all going to die, aren't they?"

"That's right," Reiner says.

"...We have to kill Eren and stop this!"

"You can't. Just as he stripped my Titan of its armor, the Founding Titan is able to control all Titans and Subjects of Ymir as it sees fit. No one can stop him. We can only run."

Leaving Gabi to care for Reiner, it doesn't take me long to find Mikasa and the rest of the group together. As Reiner predicted, Jean and Connie did pick up Falco. As I land, Jean is tying Falco's mouth to prevent a second transformation. "It's over. I never imagined… He'd decide to slaughter all of humanity outside the walls. But if they disappear, so will all the hatred. All the enemies that have ever threatened our existence are going to be flattened. Blank, empty land is all that'll be left. The one thing they all feared the most on the other side of that sea has happened and it's because they decided we're devils and tried to kill us all. In other words, this...is the result those outsiders brought upon themselves. There was nothing we could have done, right?"

"But," Armin says, "this… It's going too far. A massacre on a scale that's never been seen before."

"Then...do we stop him, Eren? He rejected Zeke and his euthanization plan to castrate us all...and rejected sacrificing Historia in order to maintain the Founder's power. In other words, in order to protect us, Eren sacrificed all of humanity outside the walls. The ones to reap the benefits of this massacre...is us."

Destruction, though on a smaller scale than the rumbling, catches our attention. "What's that?"

"Titans," I say, "and they're fighting with soldiers. Did they already eat all the Marleyan soldiers…"

"But why? If Eren has command of the Founder, can't he control all the Titans too?"

"Just look, though. They're eating people… We're heading in!" As Jean says that, he picks up Falco. Alarmed by what he plans on doing, I step in front of him.

"What are you planning to do with the boy?"
"I'm afraid...that he's inherited the Jaw Titan. We can't just leave him behind. If we feed him to some who's become a Titan, we can save them...like… Commander Pyxis."

"No," Connie denies. "My mom. We'll feed him to my mom in Ragako Village… Okay?"

"No," I say. "No one is feeding Falco to anyone. He's a warrior candidate, a junior to the warrior that Reiner and the others belong to. If you were to kill someone else close to them, like the boy, you're starting another conflict with Reiner and the Cart Titan. Look around you, Marley is done, there's no need to continue this fight with Reiner."

Connie steps up to my face. "So you, of all people, are saying my mother doesn't matter? To make peace with Reiner? Do you know why I've kept going back to that village where my mom is? Are you saying you don't understand? What about Armin? It's because he ate Bertholdt that he'd come back to us, right? I'm bringing my mom back to life! Don't you stop me!"

"Watch out!" We leap away from each other as a Titan smashes its head on the roof we stand upon. In that time, Connie manages to snatch Falco and depart from us.

"Dammit! Mikasa, Jean, Armin, forget Connie for now!" Drawing our swords, we face the multitude of Titans before us. "We must eliminate the Titans at all cost! There aren't any walls left on this island… To the headquarters!" A plan forms in my head as I fly off, heading into the horde of Titans between us and the headquarters. Following my lead, we actively ignore any Titans we can while eliminating those we cannot. As we come in the vicinity of the headquarters, I see some Titans trying to scale the building.

"Mikasa!" I point one out and she flies off, cutting the nape of the window-viewing Titan. To the boys, I drag them inside the building with me, finding some soldiers cowering in corners. "Get off your scared asses and listen up. To all surviving soldiers, we're going to go to the top floor of the fort, gather the Titans, and blast them to high heaven. I want every Thunder Spear we have to be used. Not a single Titan will leave this place. I don't care where you shoot it, its face, its chest, its back, or up its ass, if you give a damn about those who have been turned, you will lay them to rest here and now. If you care about the people elsewhere on the island, you'll get the fuck up and start moving now!"

And so we did. Using a similar tactic that saved Trost four years ago, we drew the Titans to the Shinganshina fort, using the Thunder Spears to eliminate the Titans as best we could before using our swords. Round after round, we dropped down and unleashed hell on the multitude that were once our allies... Even to the man whose devised this strategy all that time ago, Commander Pyxis...

Some time later…

"The flames have really settled. The Marleyan soldiers are nearly wiped out, and the Pure Titans are gone. My hometown is safe for now."

Onyankopon sighs as he joins me watching the sun set under a veil of smoke and towers of Colossal Titans make their march. "I see. Do you think you could tell us about this daydream, then? What Eren is trying to do now?"

I look away from him. "No need. You see it as well as I do."

"I see… Is my homeland...doomed as well?"

I close my eyes. "...I wish I could have seen the land myself, the land of my ancestors."

"Floch!"

"Are you okay?"

I hear the jackass' laughter from behind. "Looks like while I was busy trying not to die when the walls came down, you were leading the Titan hunt… Joshua."

Heavens, grant me the serenity not to shoot this motherfucker. Of all people to survive impossible odds, why is he always one of them? I turn my head slightly to him, eyeing him angrily. "So you live."

"Yes, thanks for the concern. You know I can't afford to die, though. Not during the moment of the Eldian Empire's return." He walks over to the lone person sitting far behind me, pointing a handgun at their head. "Yelena. Gather the volunteers. We're restraining you all."

"If you don't know for sure, we can ask him!" After dealing with Floch's newest development of stupidity, which means I couldn't do a damn thing, I go check on the Braus family. However, as I arrive, I see Gabi in their presence along with Mikasa and Armin, who I sent ahead of me. Gabi currently grips Armin, pleading with tears in her eyes.

"We can ask Eren! Does he really have to kill everyone outside of the island? He doesn't have to do that! Can't he just atack all the world's military facilities? Ask him! He even stripped the Armored Titan of its armor! He must be able to do it!"

I assume she learned of Connie taking Falco away. As I step into the room, Armin's face goes into shock as Mikasa eyes me. "Where is Reiner?"

"Doesn't matter, he isn't going anywhere."

"The Armored Titan's hardening was undone?" Armin looks between me and Gabi with wide eyes. "When? When did it happen?"

"As the walls fell," Gabi answers.

"Armin…"

Armin turns to me. "He would undo...all of the hardening...Annie…"

Stohess District, ?

Why...is it so loud...and what did...Eren just say? Eyelids heavy, they manage to open to a blurry, dark sight. As the world refocuses, the sounds of thunder and the slight shaking of the ground rouses me from my drowsiness. I feel weak, I feel tired, but most of all, I feel hungry, like I've barely eaten in a month. Using whatever strength I can to raise myself up, I glance over to the window, where a girl with long, blonde hair stares out the window in fright. Wait...is that..."Historia?"

Indeed, it is the young queen. She turns around, gasping as she spots me. "You chose a bad time to wake up... Sasha."

"How so... Wait, did you hear what Eren said? About destroying the world, is that true or is it a dream I had? And where am I? Where's Joshua?"

"I can answer all of those, but for the first one... See for yourself." She helps me to my feet and walks with me over to the window where all I can see is gigantic Titans walking around the city. The thunder I hear and the quaking of the earth is the footsteps of every Colossal Titan out there.

"What..."

"Eren used the Power of the Founder...and he's going to destroy the world."

I look at the outside world in horror, and only one thought comes to my head. "We have to go to Joshua. He and the others...maybe they know what to do."

Historia turns to me with the regality of a queen, not the stumbling of a scared brat she used to be. "You're too weak to go now, and to do so would be suicide. But you are right...for the future of the world, we must join them. Eren," she pats her belly as she looks outside again, "must be stopped."