Creation began on 07-07-21
Creation ended on 07-09-21
Attack on Titan
The Penance of Freedom
A/N: There is a right way and a wrong way to do something right, but when you are faced with a multitude of wrongs committed, you will have to face the consequences for having committed them. Fate may be a fickle, old whore, but fate is without irony.
He stood before the island, angry at what had been done…and upset at what he was going to do, but knew he had to do it. His sister among various people from the past called him a hypocrite for many of his actions against select individuals, but he reminded himself that he was authorized to act however he chose by a greater force than anything known to those bound by mortality. As he took his first step onto the sand, he felt the twinge of grief forming in his conscience, but he knew that this needed to be done. He didn't want to punish the people that had no say, but he needed to punish those that chose to do what should've been done long ago.
"Those that fail to learn from history the proper way are the ones that will be condemned to repeat it," he told himself as he raised his hands into the air. "Let the past become the present once again, the dead return to life, the lands ravaged by war and death revitalize and the day begin anew. Let what was be once more, let what is…be no more."
At his will, the ground shook with intensity as he ran towards his destination. No one anywhere was safe from this penance. It was a global reckoning of reversal.
-x-
The people could only watch in horror as the Walls raised from under the ground, looking like they had never been damaged or destroyed, but on their gates were something new that wasn't there before. In place of the head representations of Ymir Fritz's daughters, Maria, Rose and Sina, were representations of three men: Grisha, Zeke and Eren. It was a horrid sight for the people to witness. They questioned each other on what was going on and how this was so, but none of them had an answer to any of this.
"I am sorry, people," they heard a great voice as something emerged from behind the wall with Eren's head on it, "but this is something that needs to happen all over again. The cruelest lesson is the one most ignored by all: Those that fail to learn from history are the ones condemned to repeat it, again…and again…and again."
It was a…a Titan, just like before, except this one was the size of the Colossal, but with dark skin and a full head of glossy black hair, with eyes that were an all-encompassing darkness. This being looked down at them and knew their fear of him…and those that weren't afraid of him being the ones that needed to be handled discreetly more so than the rest.
"Five years," it uttered, "and it all begins again. Five years from now…you will all either live to see a better future…or die like before…and this isn't something any of you can outrun or refuse. You must either change…or fall like the angels that fell when they were cast from the Heavens. Until then, sleep. Sleep and forget. Sleep and disappear. Sleep…and live like before."
All around the island, people fell to the ground, anything they were originally doing…vanished from sight. People in random areas began to disappear from sight, like dust blown in the wind.
"I am sorry for this," a voice uttered in the haunting silence, "but this is the way it has to be for now. To change for the better, lessons must be learned all over again. To learn how to live, you must forget why you desire what you lack…only to find reason for such desires all over again. May those of you that suffered the most find the means to either reclaim or save those you value above yourselves. To those of you that were content with the state of things, may you find strength to preserve some of your livelihood in the hopes that it'll still be there. And to the ones that obsess over what they desire the most…soon, you'll one more chance to earn what can be given rather than take what won't be offered, for this is how you will overcome the penance."
This voice continued to speak, but in echoes, across time and space, past and future, and all the while as a dark man with a young girl in rags walked around those on the ground as they headed towards the center of the island.
"You wanted him to love you the same way you grew to love him," he uttered to the girl. "Except love, while expressed in different forms in many, different places, is not the same as enslavement and exploitation. Love has to be an equal partnership between people. There needs to be a foundation on which to develop a relationship and see where it goes. What you felt for that man, while it was viewed as love on your end…it wasn't love on his end. I've seen you long for true love and freedom, time and again, and I promise you, one way or another, you will receive true love and freedom again. And maybe this time, things will be different."
The girl in rags ran in front of him, a look of anger on her obscured face; she wanted to know what would become of her if things repeated themselves again like the previous time. What would befall her if nobody learned from the history that would be forced upon them in five years from now?
"It's as spoken by those that understood it," he told her. "Those that fail to learn from history are the ones condemned to repeat it. If they fail to learn and to change…then nothing that needs to change will be what repeats itself until the people show that they have learned. This…will be the penance that keeps on repeating itself, suffering and all."
The girl didn't want this to happen, but understood why this man was doing this to them. But just because she understood didn't mean she had to be in agreement with him. Neither enjoyed the consequences of what befell the people from the past, and it was their hope that none of those tragedies would repeat themselves. But if they did, if the people responsible for the majority of the suffering failed to change, then she would not know the promise of love and freedom until they did. And then, she raised her arms up, adorned by silver manacles that the man had given her earlier; she wanted to know what they signified between them.
"Unlike before, you made a conscious decision to continue serving the man who violated you and tortured your people," he explained. "This time, while you can still choose to follow that man, even in death, you'll have a bit more independence. You get to decide how long those with access to your power have to make use of it before they have to give it up to someone else at the cost of their lives. If those that fail to learn how to change due to this, the cycle of murder and cannibalism will never end."
The girl then gestured about the boy with rage; how long would he be allowed to have?
"I'll leave that up to you," he reveals. "Give him more time, give him less, even just another year. He's the one that needs to change the most, and if he fails to, then everything the people everywhere long for won't mean anything to someone like him…for he will cause everything to begin again."
She couldn't believe how this was going to be. If most people, including this boy of rage, failed to change things differently, then nothing anyone else did, including herself, would matter because they would have to do it all over again. This, of course, placed her in the roughest of situations because this man desired to see benevolent change instead of change brought on by violence. He didn't believe in the necessity of peace through suffering in every instance, even if there were those that did believe. No "peace through tyranny", no "the greater the suffering, the greater the peace", and certainly no "this is the only way to change the world" would suffice.
Then, she pointed to him and gestured her hands all out; she wanted to know if he had any faith in the people that would return changing for the better. Did he believe in them? Did he possess any degree of faith?
"This penance will test my faith in those that can and will change," he explained to her, "and those that either can and don't want to change. I will be sticking around to watch. Maybe the ones that don't change are the ones that end up getting reminded the most about what will befall everyone because they had a chance to do something different and chose not to. You know I have my fair share of reminders."
He pulled away his shirt from his neck and showed her a large scar just over his chest where his heart would be; he tried to convince a woman to spare her son because he tried to run away from her after learning she was a serial killer…and then she tried to murder him before she could kill her own child, claiming that nobody was allowed to leave her, resulting in him condemning her to a fate many times worse than that of death. He chose to carry the scar because the boy that would've suffered had he not intervened had to live with the fact that his mother was a flawed and heartless woman, someone he hoped to forget as time passed by and he recovered in a new family that he could find a better future with.
"I have faith in you, though," he told her, which surprised her to hear. "A female muse once reminded me that, while faith is a funny thing, it doesn't matter who or what you have faith in, just that you have faith. Therefore…I choose to have faith in those that can change. I choose to have faith in you finding love in the future. Real love. I choose to believe in that."
She nodded in acceptance…and then hugged his legs. The man sighed and placed his arms over her shoulders.
"See you around…Ymir Fritz," he uttered.
And then, they vanished from sight. Time seemed to pass by rather quickly as people started appearing, doing whatever it was that they always did back in the past. Buildings being rebuilt within hours, mountains rising back to their previous heights in a matter of seconds, even people that had died returning like they never left at all. This happened all around the planet, and with this change of time, the memory of why became apparent…and the anger that was minute because it served no purpose for the time being.
Paradis Island, the location of the Fritz Eldian royal family, the one place on the planet where the monarch turned coward and abandoned the majority of his people during the Great Titan War and hid behind his Walls trying to pretend that everything was fine with the current state of things.
-x-
He paid a visit to the farmlands where Historia lived with her maternal grandparents, watching with a sense of woe over how her mother continued to mistreat the girl simply for existing, went through Ragako and saw some pleasant faces from the Springer family, followed by a stroll through Dauper where the Blouse family resided, all the way to Shiganshina where the current Yeager family of three, stubborn as always son and mysterioso father and all, and ending it by going past a small shack or hut where he could make out the three Ackermans living together. This was as it had started in the beginning, and, if by fate or some sort of miracle, some of these lives could be preserved, they would be grand and a godsend for those they mattered the most to. But if they couldn't be preserved, or if the people that desired too much for too little were to treat them as insignificant…then there would be more suffering in store for them.
Look at what they have here, he thought as he sat outside a small café with a cup of coffee in front him, looking at the Marleyans of Liberio as they went about their former routines all over again. They never know what they have or what's in store for them until it hits them. They know not the repercussions of war and conflict. The theater of warfare promises only one thing to those that want nothing to do with it or think that it'll be a walk in the park, and that's despair.
"Look at them!" He heard a woman cheer, and he saw why the people were so cheerful: It was a small parade for Marley's Warrior Unit, with five of their newest holders of their usurped Titans.
"They'll show them island devils!" He heard a man declare.
Oh, how things need to change soon, he thought as he looked at the children that were being manipulated to serve in the military by adults that could think of no other way to obtain resources than to wage war against other countries for them or to enforce their way of life upon those less interested in conflict. Things need to change in due time.
He finished his drink and got up from his table to leave this city. Soon enough, those affected by everything that had occurred would recall most of their recollection and why…and some of them would have the knowledge without the will to do anything to deviate, requiring more direct action from those that have both knowledge and willpower. He also had to make sure that there was enough influence to go around that the penance didn't need to repeat itself. Hypocrisy was just a belief for those that don't believe in the power of deviation, the will to change the fates of many for more benevolent reasons, and such a power was within reach of those that could grasp it and make use of it.
"Let what was be once more…and let the penance of what had been past and present aid to ensure that the cruel future of what was be no more than a memory meant to be forgotten," he told himself, walking past a butcher shop where a Marleyan man had returned from witnessing the parade for the Warrior Unit.
Will the penance lead to a future of new hope…or an echo of nothingness?
A/N: Until some other ideas course through my head about this story, I'll leave it be until I choose to back to it. In the meantime, those that view the OC as being a hypocrite can feel free to believe what they will until something gives. But what do you think will happen? Will there be hope for those that died in the beginning? Grief for those that survived? You tell me.