Creation began on 05-23-21

Creation ended on 05-23-21

Attack on Titan

The greatest victory is the suffering that never occurs

A/N: This idea had been on my mind for some time, but like many things, it just never came up to the top of my priorities. Just another scenario in which terrible things don't get the chance to become reality.

As Eren waited in the room, he failed to take notice that someone else was in there with him. He was about to cut his hand when a voice filled the room.

"Sleep," a man's voice uttered, and Eren suddenly felt drowsy, falling to the ground under him. "You are as temperamental here as you are elsewhere, always trying to do something because you think it has to be done. Tsk, tsk, tsk. I'm getting really tired of having to clean up your mess every time."

By the time Falco had returned with Reiner, the room was empty, all save a note on the ground. He went over to pick it up and read what it said.

"By the time you read this, he'll have already begun his return back to his home," the note read. "I apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused you, but it is better that you don't concern yourselves with the man. This night is supposed to be one of merriment, and he had no such intentions of having any fun in the traditional sense. May your days be of content instead of contempt. Signed, B.C."

"Uh, someone came and took him home already," Falco explained to Reiner, handing him the note that explained everything.

"Who's B.C.?" Reiner asked him.

"I don't know anyone by those initials."

As the merriment went on in Liberio, a small boat left the port and traveled out to sea towards its one destination: Paradis Island.

-x-

As the sun raised over the island the rest of the world was afraid of, the boat that had left Marley had run aground the shore and a dark man was dragging a long bag across the ground behind himself.

"Stop right there!" He heard a woman's voice and looked up at a nearby tree, seeing a woman with an eyepatch over one of her eyes and goggles, sporting strange gear on her legs. "Who are you and what are doing here? State your business!"

"Fixing certain mistakes is my business, ma'am," he responded to her. "My name is Brother Correction, and I am here simply to return one of your own. Were you not informed of my arrival last month?"

The woman repelled from the tree and stood in front of him.

"What is in the bag?" She demanded, and he opened the top of it to reveal its contents, earning a gasp from her mouth to him. "Where was he?"

"In the city of Liberio, within Marley," he answered her, closing the bag that contained the drugged Eren Yeager.

"Come with me, please," she ordered him.

"Yes, ma'am," he responded.

-x-

Thud! Eren felt his head hit something as he slowly came to, finding himself on the grass of someplace he didn't expect himself to be, and seeing people he didn't expect to see until after they showed up in Liberio.

"Eren Yeager," went Levi Ackerman, who then kicked him. "Do you have any idea of the trouble you caused us trying to find you?"

"Didn't you get my letters?" Eren asked him.

"Oh, you mean, these letters right here?" He looked at a dark-skinned man in casual clothing, holding a handful of envelops in his hand. "You know, you really shouldn't use a dead man's name, even if it was the name your father decided to give you. Eren Kruger just raises red flags to the wrong ears."

"Who are you?"

"He's the guy that informed us of what you were going to do, you stupid idiot," Hange Zoe told him. "He's also the same guy we had to ask to do the not-so-easy favor of finding you and bringing you back here before you could go off half-cocked and cause more trouble for us."

"Eren," went Armin Arlert to him, "what were you thinking when you disappeared? You went behind enemy lines…and you were going to kill people last night, provoking Marley into war with us before we could attempt another peace attempt with them. What were you thinking?"

"It doesn't matter, anymore," said Levi. "It's clear now that you can't be trusted, Eren. You will be confined to Paradis until further notice. Thank you for bringing him back, Brother Correction. I hope he wasn't too much trouble for you."

"Men like him are only trouble when they try to resist," the dark man responded. "I made sure he couldn't resist. Made bringing him back here easier."

"Did you have to pay him to find me?" Eren asked, and then Brother Correction kicked him in the gut.

"Pay me? Really? Please…even if I'd been bribed with a feast, I'd still come after you, you reckless boy that's always trying to prove himself a man. Well, you've clearly become a man now. Just one that can't be trusted by the people you let down. And for the record, they didn't need to pay me to do a job I still would've done…because the only reason you're back here on this island you left, the only reason why I didn't hand you over to the Marleyans and let them know that the Founding Titan was right under their noses, putting an end to the Eldian discrimination, not to mention causing more deaths than I care to count…is because a girl you claim to hate the most out of everyone you ever dared to call a friend or family…asked me to make sure you were found alive and returned here in one piece. Now, if it had been Marley, and they wanted the Founding Titan, that'd be a completely different story, with a completely different outcome, and I didn't need that on my conscience because of you. If you want to go and provoke people into war because you feel a twisted need to move forward and fight for your people's freedom along with your own, the one thing you care about above all else, that's on you, but don't go dragging those you betrayed into your slaughterhouse. Look at them, Eren."

Eren turned away from Brother Correction and everyone.

"Look at them! Don't turn away! Look at them!" He raised his voice, and Eren turned to look at everyone, at Armin, at Sasha, Connie, Jean and even Mikasa, whose expression of sorrow cut through his anger the most. "That's right. You know what I hope and pray happens for you now? That just knowing you hurt these people, weighs you down."

Brother Correction turned to look at the Survey Corps and bowed his head to them.

"Until next we meet," he told them.

"Until next we meet," Levi responded, and the man turned to walk away from them and the wall outside Shiganshina District. "Lock him up until we can decide how to handle him later."

Jean and Connie picked Eren up and dragged him away.

Mikasa then ran to stop Brother Correction because she had to know one thing more.

"Please, tell me," she stopped him when she ran in front of him, "will anything change now? What he almost did in Liberio. The people he would've harmed. Will anything change now that he hasn't had a chance to do any of that?"

"In a war of choice, Ms. Ackerman," he stated, "anything can happen. However, because what he was going to make happen in Liberio didn't happen, only because I managed to find him before he had a chance to express his rage and stop him… You will have an extended window of opportunity to change the world's viewpoint of Paradis and all Eldians in general. Not a whole lot of time, though…but just enough to show the world that you're no different from them. Titans or not. Arrogance or not. I wish you that seek peace over war the best of luck in the future. Until we meet again."

But Mikasa was unsure of just how much more time they now had thanks to this stranger bringing Eren back to them before he could attack Marley.

"One more thing," Brother Correction stopped to say to her, "please, let Historia Reiss know that the lie she suggested I spread across Marley has gotten heard by a lot of people that believe in it due to their desperation. Those that believe the lie don't want to gamble on the mere chance that it's true."

Before he had left to find Eren and retrieve him, Brother Correction had been suggested by Historia to spread a lie that the Founding Titan no longer existed because her ancestors had managed to remove it from existence, leaving only the other eight Titans left to be exploited with no real prize to go after.

"Even if it's only by a slim chance, any amount of time such a lie can bring us may help us protect ourselves," Historia had told him, and he accepted her proposal to spread the lie.

"In times of desperation," he replied, "people will believe whatever it is that they want to believe. If the lie is convincing enough, and enough people hear about it, they'll have no choice but to consider its viability. A Titan they can't obtain because it doesn't exist, anymore…would spark some outrage and cause people to assume that a war with Paradis would make no sense if they don't have any actual means of protecting themselves aside from the Wall Titans. I will give it a try, for the sake of the people here."

"Thank you," Mikasa praised him, and he left.

-x-

"…If the Founding Titan no longer exists," went Calvi to Theo Magath in the former's office a few days after the festival in Liberio, "then all Paradis has really as a threat to us are the supposed Titans within these three walls that the king made to protect the handfuls of Eldians he took with him when he left the mainland."

"Still, the resources beneath the island are crucial to our survival," Theo expressed; even if the Founding Titan no longer existed, they couldn't ignore their country's need for more resources.

"If we launch an attack on them and bring the Walls down, we risk releasing the Titans inside them. Or worse, they'll release the Titans themselves and let the Rumbling happen. Because we don't know for sure, we can't risk attacking the island without more information."

"How long does Zeke Yeager have until his term ends?"

"Maybe five months left."

"Send the Warrior Unit back to Paradis. They'll know for certain if the Founding Titan no longer exists. If that's the case, then there's no reason to persist. But if it's true, then there's still the danger of the Rumbling if we do anything to damage the Walls and release the Titans."

"We've already lost support from half our allies that believe the Founding Titan no longer exists. They don't want to risk their military personnel on a chance that the Titan we've spent over a century in fear of is gone for good."

-x-

What was truth? What was false? Either way, so long as people believed in one thing over another, there would be issues until they knew for sure. But because there were more disbeliefs over the mere possibility that an infamous Titan was gone, and all the power it possessed was no longer within reach, there was no point in going to war with a little island.

This was something Brother Correction was hoping for. The lie would linger just enough to convince the world that Paradis had people that could be coexisted with instead of fought against. There would be no genocide, no twisted need for euthanasia or further chaos. As he sat in a small diner, reading the newspaper about the Marleyan military's inability to decide on whether or not to continue its operation to wage war with Paradis, they were going to shelve the operation until further notice; this would give Paradis more time to attempt further peace talks with other parts of the world.

Hopefully by then, Eren Yeager will have mellowed out, he thought as he drank his coffee.

No violence, no despair

A/N: It was just an idea that could've gone many ways. Suppose Eren was stopped before he could attack Liberio? What if someone like Brother Correction was reached out to by Paradis and asked to find him and return him to the island? And what if a lie was concocted to try and deceive the world into believing that the only actual threat were just the Wall Titans within the Walls on Paradis? What happens next…is up to you. Peace.