Chapter 51: What a small child can do for the future
The information provided by the titan-shifter are unbelievable. Erwin had never thought that they would get so much out of Berthold Hoover. He had never thought that mankind would learn so much in his lifetime let alone in a single afternoon. The new information changes everything and nothing at all, he realises. They know now where the titan´s come from. Why there are the shifters. That there are only three left. But the most important information is this. Their numbers are limited.
There is a chance that there will be a world without them. A goal they can reach for. Sadly there is no total number of titan´s they can expect but from what he can get out of the young man, there aren't many left. Maybe 100, 200. Even if there are more. Their numbers are limited.
That is the only thought that kept Erwin going on with their normal mission. They would start today. He send a few of the soldiers back, together with Annie in her crystal and Berthold. Both will have to face justice for their crimes. Berthold asked to stay with her. To talk to her if … when she wakes up. To make sure she wouldn't start another attack. The young man seem not to mind to spend his future in a prison cell next to a crystal. But he must have known that he had given up on his freedom the second he surrounded himself to them after the fight with the female titan.
If Erwin wasn't so aware of all the sorrow and death he had brought on them by kicking in the wall he would feel bad for the young man. Influenced by people and without the opportunity to make up your own mind, being forced into a fight that has nothing to do with these children.
That's what they are children. All of them and Erwin uses young soldiers since the moment he became the commandant without any regret. Since they had Eren join, another child far too young to be a participant in a war the numbers of death on his conscious have decreased, still the scars that stay behind on the living are nothing to make fun of it.
Erwin looks at the new recruits around him. They are young. Some have seen the horror of war already but their eyes are clear. They see a future he can only dream of to see. Whatever happens next, they are the ones that will life in it. Hopefully one day there will be children born that grew up without knowing the fear of the monsters that wait behind a giant wall to eat them. The titans will become stories, fables and fairy tales to frighten children into eating their vegetables. There is a future without them and Erwin will make sure that mankind will survive long enough to see that. Day.
For tonight they will sleep on top of Wall Maria. After a long day of riding, they have reached the wall. His soldiers need the rest and they need to get the horses over the wall. With the giant Rock blocking the wall, there is still no gate that could be used for easy exist. Erwin watches Eren and his friends showing the others of the 104th where they had been buried alive and told the real story of how they closed the whole. Erwin smiles slightly, the first real win against the titans only possible because one of his soldiers got hurt and found a strange child in the middle of the forest. No, because this soldier was found by the child. The child that gave humans strongest warrior a reason to life, a reason to fight and hope again. Thanks to this child that had lived alone in a forest far away from the place he helps daily to save and secure a better future.