Fritz Yeager: AKA What if King Fritz was reincarnated as Eren Yeager?
Fritz had lived an fruitful life.
He had risen to chieftain of the Eldian Tribe, when the last chief died at the hands of a Marleyan raid.
He conquered several rival tribes in his youth, granting his people much power and many slaves.
He had a loyal slave, who possessed the powers of a god and helped him achieve everything he could ever desire: Eldia's security and prosperity, the defeat of Marley, and a bloodline that would likely rule for untold centuries with the Power of the Titans flowing through their veins.
He died surrounded by allies, servants, and his three daughters.
His life had not been as long as he would have liked, but he doubted he could find a better end than that. If Ymir hadn't fallen to that spear, it would have been perfect...
He did not know what to expect in the afterlife: welcomed into the halls of the gods, or sent someplace far worse. But he didn't imagine...this.
This, being an endless expanse of desert sands, under a moonless starry sky.
"Where am I?" he asked, rubbing his temple. This was so bizarre yet, he felt so much better. Like he was strong and in his prime once more, as if he had never been bedridden with disease or burdened with the creeping effects of age upon his body.
He scowled, wondering if he was truly dead. He expected it to at least be obvious if he was in an afterlife or som-
His thoughts stopped as he turned and noticed a...thing in the distance. It was large, shaped like a tree, and glowing brilliantly.
"Definitely dead and definitely the afterlife," Fritz concluded. Between his suddenly improved health and this unearthly sight, it felt like a good time to concede this was a realm of the dead. Was this the World Tree? The thing that connected all worlds, that all realms grew from? He never heard of the dead having to pass through it, but than again, wisemen never knew everything.
With that, he walked.
And walked.
And walked.
It felt like he had been journeying for years, that he could have walked the length of the world and back again, but the sun never rose and the stars never moved. Time didn't seem to be real here, ebbing and flowing in ways he couldn't understand, only vaguely feel.
Why was he here? Was this a journey he had to make to reach his final resting place? Or was wandering this desert a punishment for what he had done in life to those he conquered? To Ymir? To his daughters, forced to devour their own mother's corpse?
If there was one thing he truly regretted, it was that. But it had worked. In the end, that horrible act of cannibalism was the only way to protect Eldia's future. The only way his children, and their children would survive.
The only way to keep moving forward.
If only Ymir hadn't died. If only he had taken more time to try and understand her powers instead of just more ways to use them, they might have found a way to pass on or even awaken the Power of Titans in Maria, Rose, and Sheena without forcing such an horrid thing on them. He thought they'd have more time. He thought Ymir was invincible.
The gods did love to make fools of everyone, especially the proud.
Still, if this was a place to punish one for their sins in life, it had an odd way about it. He felt neither thirst nor hunger, only a dulling tiredness from crossing such a vast distance without rest. Yet, his body never succumbed to exhaustion. Thus, he pushed onward and forward.
He grimaced, rubbing his face. Had his beard gotten longer? It was hard to recall, but he wouldn't be surprised if so.
His mind drift. How did things go with his passing? His daughters were young, true, but he had left a trusted ally as a steward. Having three Titans, instead of just one, should hold off Marley and any other powers from attempting to strike at Eldia. That was, assuming that Eldia didn't dissolve into infighting.
And that none of their own got the crazy, insidious thought to try and end Ymir's bloodline for whatever reason. He was pretty sure they had wiped out and exiled all the groups within their tribe that thought Ymir was a monster or witch or demon that needed to be slain in the name of the gods. But one could never be too certain about such things.
So lost in his thoughts of the past, he found himself tripping and falling in an undignified manner.
He snarled in frustration, cursing as he glared down at the offending object-
Only to stare in shock at the sight of a body. A child, a young boy half-buried in the sand with green eyes that stared at him lifelessly.
Pulling himself up, Fritz turned to the body fully with a small frown. It was hardly the first corpse of a child he had seen, but to find one out here in the des-
"Wait..." Fritz said suspiciously, as his mind caught up with what he was seeing. If this was the afterlife, there shouldn't be corpses here, or so the common train of thought went.
His scowl deepened as he kneeled down to examine the boy and realized that he had been wrong: the boy wasn't just buried in the sand, his body was...part of the sand? It was strange. Part of the body faded away as if it crumbled and turned into sand, as if this were some half-finished sculpture. But that was definitely skin, hair, and an eye.
"What is this?" he murmured to himself. Was this someone he had indirectly killed, through his warriors or Ymir? Yet, there were no more bodies around. He would have a lot more corpses waiting for him if that was the case.
He was brought out of his quandary by the sound of something landing in the sand behind him. Tense and guarded, he turned, expecting to find some manner of demon or monster from beyond the nightmares of mortal men...
Only to find himself blinking at the mostly-familiar figure before him. "Ymir?"
Indeed, before him stood the Titan herself, the blond slave girl staring back at him with a bucket of sand laying spilt over at her feet.
She looked younger than he had last seen her, more than a decade ago, appearing as only a child now instead of the woman that bore his children and saved his life.
His frown remained but softened as he approached her, and knelt down to her level, staring...glaring at the sand at her feet. "Is this my punishment, Ymir? To be alone in this cursed place, with the corpses of those slain in my name? To never be at peace? Is this your long awaited vengeance, Ymir?!" he demanded harshly. If eternity here was his fate, he would know it, from her own mouth.
But he found himself blinking as Ymir fell backwards in alarm. That was...not the reaction he expected from the vengeful spirit of what had essentially been a living goddess.
His confusion grew as he realized, in his shock of her arrival, he failed to truly take in her appearance. She didn't looked angry, wrathful, or even judgmental. She looked just as shocked to see him, now that he noticed. Her eyes were wide and her open mouth was trembling in disbelief.
Comprehension slowly came over him. "You...didn't bring me here, did you?" he realized slowly. Ymir stilled before slowly shaking her head. "Are we dead then, both of us?"
Ymir hesitated to answer for a moment, before nodding slowly.
Fritz quirked an eyebrow. "And you still can't speak?" he asked curiously. He had heard of even gods being crippled or disfigured, but one would assume that the souls of the dead would appear in the prime of their life. After all, he seemed to be.
Ymir stared at him for a moment, as if that was to be the answer, until..."I...I can, Master," she forced out, trembling and submissive as she knelt in front of him.
"Well, that makes this easier," Fritz stated idly. "Ymir, where are we?"
"This place...has no name. Most just call it the Paths," Ymir started slowly. "It is the place where the Power of Titans comes from."
"The place where..." he trailed off in shock, looking towards the tree-shaped object in the distance. "I take it, THAT is the source of the Titans?"
"No, and yes," Ymir answered immediately, "It is what connects everyone who is... our descendants, allowing them to turn into Titans."
"Descendants?" Fritz said, both relived and confused. Had he wandered long enough for Maria, Rose, and Sheena to have children? Grandchildren even? "Ymir...how long have we been dead?"
"...It's been nearly two thousand years, Master," Ymir answered with a hollow voice, lowering her head.
Fritz didn't speak, didn't react, only sat there. Two thousand. Two thousand years. Twenty centuries. Two-hundred decades. No matter how he tried to comprehend the number, it was hard. But then, that would mean, his bloodline had continued for that entire time! How many could there possibly be by now? Still...
"I...I don't understand. Why am I here, now? I haven't wandered this realm for two thousand years have I?" Fritz asked numbly, baffled by his own existence.
"I...don't believe so," Ymir admitted cautiously, not raising her head. "I haven't seen you before. I haven't sensed you before."
Fritz ran a hand through his hair. "You didn't bring me here, and I haven't been here before. So how..."
"Master?" Ymir spoke up. He looked and saw her pointing behind him.
In all this time, Fritz had forgotten that there was a half-formed body of a child behind him. "Right...who and what is this?" he asked, staring at the...body? Creation? Whatever it was, he stared at it suspiciously.
Ymir picked up her bucket of sand, moving forward to dump it onto the body, kneeling down. Before Fritz's very eyes, she sculpted the sand into flesh and limbs.
"What...? How...?" he asked, unable to comprehend.
"He's one of the Nine now," Ymir answered solemnly. "He was turned into a Titan, so that he could inherit his father's Titan."
Fritz frowned. "I don't understand," he admitted. He had always wondered how Ymir's powers worked, but this was...unexpected.
"Whenever someone becomes a Titan, I...make them a body. When they heal, I remake what they lost. And when they become one of the Nine, I have to make them a new human body too, one with the Power of the Titans," Ymir explained demurely.
"But...that doesn't make sense," Fritz said with a confused scowl. "If you have to make a Titan with sand, wouldn't it take a...very long time?" he pointed out, eyeing the bucket. It would take her years doing it like this to make her own Titan form, decades even.
Ymir froze. He swore her hands shook before continuing. "Time...is strange here, Master. After I finish making a titan, they appear in the world, the instant they were supposed to."
Fritz hummed to himself, conceding he had experienced some of that himself in his travels. It was bizarre, time behaving this way. "Very well, but how could this boy become a Titan without eating his father's spine? Why would he need to become one of these "Nine" you speak of, if he was already a Titan?"
Ymir stopped, looking up at him oddly. Then he saw realization set in before continuing. "Much has happened, Master. Only nine can become Titans and return to being human again. All others...become Pure Titans."
"Pure...?" he repeated with a scowl of distaste. He had a feeling that didn't mean anything good.
"They become Titans, but are...mindless. All they do is try and eat humans. Any humans. Unless controlled by the Founding Titan," Ymir explained solemnly. "Only by eating one of the nine can they regain their minds and take human forms."
Fritz sat there, letting that sink in. "So, any one of our descendants can become Titans, but only nine can become...like you?"
"All of them are...smaller than I was, but...yes," Ymir admitted.
"Why?" Fritz asked idly. "Not about them being smaller, but..."
Ymir fell silent as she worked.
"Ymir, answer me," he ordered with a scowl.
"I don't know," Ymir answered abruptly. "I've just been...trying to follow your orders. As best I can. And those from the holders of the Founder. But it's hard. I...I can't make them all like me. I don't know why, I just can't. I'm...I'm sorry," she whimpered.
Fritz's scowl vanished as something sunk in. "Ymir, look at me."
Ymir raised her head and found Fritz's staring at her curiously. "Master?"
"You've been here, all this time? Watching over our descendants, and Eldia?" he asked with something in his voice that Ymir longed to hear.
Was...was that praise? Honest, genuine gratitude? "I...yes. Your order was...for Eldia to rule forevermore," Ymir answered as if it was obvious.
Fritz blinked. "Ymir, I thought you were dead. Passed on entirely. I thought it would simply fall to our children to carry on Eldia's future. I had no idea you'd be toiling even in death for Eldia," Fritz noted with a nod.
Ymir said nothing, but couldn't bring herself to resume sculpting while trying and failing to truly process what Fritz was saying, really saying to her.
The first King of Eldia cleared his throat to change the topic. " You mentioned The Founder? I'm guessing this is the most powerful Titan?" Fritz guessed.
Ymir nodded. "The Titan of the royal family. It allowed them to come...here, and I would do what they wanted."
Fritz hummed. That made sense, he suppose. If Ymir was still controlling the power even in death, the one with direct access to this realm and her would be the most powerful by default. "And this boy? Which is he?"
"He is...two of the Nine. The Attack, and the Founder," Ymir explained.
Fritz looked taken back by that. Both the number and the name. "Wait, so...this boy is the new King of Eldia? Rather young."
Ymir shook her head. "His father stole it from the royal family, and passed it on to him. He is not royal blood though, so he cannot use the Founding Titan."
Fritz paused. One would think that someone stealing the Royal Titan would bother him the most, but there was one other glaring issue. "That makes no damn sense at all."
"Master?" Ymir asked, looking to his annoyed expression.
"Ymir, if they're all our descendants, they're all royal blood," Fritz pointed out.
Ymir nodded slowly in understanding. "A King of Eldia a thousand years ago restricted the Royal Family to to just his immediate family. There were too many."
"Too many? How many descendants do we have?" Fritz asked in surprise.
"Millions."
Fritz sat there for a long, good minute before letting out a hearty laugh, slapping his knee. "Millions! Oh, well, I can see Eldia must be doing marvelously even if only nine can become proper Titans."
Ymir stopped working for a moment, but Fritz didn't notice this time.
"That still doesn't answer my question though: How did I get here?" Fritz asked curiously.
Ymir looked down at the near finished body of the boy, glancing between him and her master. "I...believe this is your reincarnation, Master."
Fritz blinked. "I was reborn?" he murmured. He had heard of such things, but never expected to experience it. "And the boy coming here reawakened my spirit?"
"I...believe so, Master," Ymir answered.
"Born outside the royal family though," Fritz mused curiously, wondering why it was this one of all people he was reborn as. Perhaps the current royal family had become unworthy of their power. Idly, he reached down and touched the brow of this boy that was supposedly himself.
He recoiled instantly as a spark leapt between them, his mind haunted by a land of walls that had forgotten its past, Titans breaching the barricades, a woman being eaten alive and more.
"...Master?" Ymir spoke up cautiously.
Fritz slowly turned to her, his expression both angry and disturbed. "You have...left a great many things unsaid, Ymir," he said with gritted teeth. "Why are our people living in fear of their own Titans? What has happened to Eldia?"
"..." Ymir didn't speak for a moment. She couldn't deny her master, but she knew he would not be happy. "His name was Karl Fritz..."
Later
Fritz sat there, staring blankly. "Are you sure this isn't your punishment for me, Ymir? To see my own people led to their own downfall by a cowardly, false-king baring my namesake? To have the survivors turned against one another, made to hate themselves and each other, and robbing those on this island of all their memories of our proud culture and history?" Fritz all but spat out. "Are you sure you didn't want this to happen?!"
Ymir flinched. "Master, I only obeyed the Kings of Eldia that held the Founder. I didn't...do anything I wasn't commanded to do. I only obeyed, just like you wanted me to."
"Like hell," Fritz said darkly. "Do you think, for one instant, I would have wanted this? For my people to be turned into dogs and slaves, for the brood of Marley no less!?"
Ymir bowed her head deeply in apology. "Master, you were dead."
Fritz seethed with rage and fury, but kept from lashing out at Ymir more. "Most powerful empire ever, lasting for over a millennia and a half, and one weak-willed fool tried to ruin it for himself and all future generations," he snapped, glancing down at the body of the boy. His reincarnation. As hot headed and defiant as he had been in youth. There were plenty of differences, but there was enough alike. "Ymir, remove that fucking, vow."
Ymir blinked.
"Have you just been calling me Master for no reason this whole time?" he asked firmly. "Remove the damn thing, and that restriction to "royal" blood. I don't know if I can trust the current King of Eldia, or the Walls, or whatever they go by. They might actually believe this suicidal conviction of Karl the False-Fritz."
Ymir nodded slowly, demurely, before the finished body of the boy vanished from the sandy realm. "It is done. Is there...anything else, Master?"
Fritz paused. There was a great many, many things he wanted to say to that, but for as angry as he was about the current situation, there was something else he had to addressed. "...You've spent all this time making Titans, Ymir," he observed, looking to the bucket of sand sitting by her.
Ymir nodded in confirmation.
"And all the other Nine are loyal to Marley?" Fritz continued, getting another nod. Well, that settled that then. "Then rest, Ymir."
"..." Ymir's eyes slowly went wide at that, unable to believe what she just heard. "W-what d-did you say...?"
"Rest, Ymir. Despite how angry most of this makes me, you deserve it," Fritz ordered with a frown.
Ymir stared at him for a long, long moment...before instantly falling backwards into the sand, eyes closed and passed out with a look of relief on her face.
Fritz resisted the urge to snort as he watched her sleep, realizing he had forgotten one very important question. "Why the fuck is she a child again?"
End of Chapter
So, yeah. I went with the idea of Eren being the reincarnation of the Original Fritz. And Ymir being Ymir, well, she'd automatically take anything Fritz told her to do as a mass-override on all other commands. So no more Vow Against War, no more Royal Blood restriction.
And as this was a oneshot, I decided to let Ymir speak. If I ever make a full story version, she probably won't. Still, yeah, Fritz is pleased by everything between his era and the Great Titan War, mostly, and than he hates the last hundred years. And now he's trying to get things back on track.
And if you're wondering why he told Ymir to rest, that's because me and Fritz both enjoy the idea of Marley and others wondering "Why the fuck did Titan Powers turn off for X hours?!"
Anyway, until next time.
p a treon . com (slash) akumakami64