Leo Zuege, the man who promised to see the end of the world.
"The Yeagerists have taken control over the district, most of the military police have been taken captive or have been eliminated. I've heard numerous gunshots in the streets but as of late things have died out. I've read Ilse Lagnar's diary of her time outside the walls. In the spirit of passing down knowledge to the future generations I'll write as much as these hands allow me. I'll walk forward so that I will document the end of the world." So was he writing, hiding behind corners, taking cover and making sure no member of the revolutionaries see him.
"More gunshots into the distance. I've taken refuge inside a storage room as the soldiers who were guarding the compound suddenly headed towards the centre of the of the district. I've climbed up two flights of stairs and got to a vantage point from where I could see it all. A beam of lightning shot through the sky and hit the ground before titans appeared fighting one another. I can feel the ground shaking from even here. There's! There are flying ships approaching the district. More gunshots can be heard as Marley is attacking..." The battle rages outside for a while.
"A shell hit my location. The storage room is completely destroyed and I fear so am I. Pieces of shrapnel are stuck in my left leg and lower abdomen. I can already feel my vision growing dim and my hands feeling heavy. The blood loss will soon make me unable to write. I can still see the fight, the attack titan is running towards the outer set of walls as everyone is trying to stop him. It hurts to even breath. Lucky I didn't blew up in one hit, what were they even storing in here? Wine... To hell with it all, I'm drinking it."
"Let this wine replace my blood..." Leo says with his hands trembling as he rises the bottle. "Please... let me see the end of the world." He says taking one sip from the wine before the bottle falls out of his hand. Waves of energy go through his body as a scream can be heard into the distance. Suddenly the whole district is filled with pure titans, Leo being one of them.
It felt like a dream, Leo was floating aimlessly through the air, following that bright light that was calling to him. Without knowing the world was ending around him and he wasn't able to write it all down. The wall titans started marching and the world was trampled.
"So this is how the end of the world looks like?" Leo asks finding himself in front of a giant tree with many branches going all over the sky. He stood there watching, seeing the faces of everyone that was crushed underneath the feet of the wall titans. He stood there incapable of acting, incapable of saying a word, incapable of thinking. Then a powerful light shook him. Two colossal titans fighting. He witnessed it, he witnessed the end of the world and those who saved it. He saw Eren's sacrifice, he saw everything as a loyal silent witness to the acts of terror and sacrifice that were made.
"You've seen it all didn't you?" Eren asks looking at Leo. "I'm sorry I've brought you into this. I just wanted someone to remember me, maybe it is better for everyone to simply forget." Eren said turning his back at Leo.
"No... a death like that is... just so sad..." Leo says before a bright flash.
"Move along, move along! Into the interment zone with all of you!" A voice shouts from behind pushing Leo alongside a crowd of other people forward.
"What in the world?" He thinks looking around. "Am I... am I in Marley?" The buildings looked foreign, the people were wearing armbands around their left arms, guards were pushing him further inside. Leo thinks quickly and covers his face, the fewer people see him the better. His days as a journalist taught him well, if people recognise him they can track him down and silence him. He makes himself as small as possible hiding in the crowd, moving along the outer edge of the group examining the area around him.
"Walls, gate... barbed wire, armed guards." He was already thinking about a way out. While walking around the entrance into the internment zone, hiding his face from people, he looks on the ground and sees. A newspaper half trampled. He was just about to pick it up but suddenly a hand grabs him by the arm.
"Tommy! What are you doing boy, we're going home!" A man says with a commanding voice. A woman was behind him looking sad.
"Just a glimpse, I want to see just a glimpse. 845... they year is 845! I'm nine years into the past! If that was the weirdest of things. Leo just realises looking at his hand, the fingers were smaller and a lot thinner than what they used to be. His hands no longer had and calluses or cuts. He knew all to well the hands he used to write page after page after page. For a moment he stood there staring blankly at his hands but, after just one blink he remembered and followed the man who kept calling him Tommy.
"I'm in the past... I'm... gotta look at myself in the mirror..." He says waiting to pass by a clean enough window to see his reflection. "Who in the world is this?" Leo thinks seeing a face he couldn't recognise staring back at him.
"The last thing I remember was... I saw Eren Yeager, I saw his sacrifice in order to spare the Eldians from annihilation. I've gotta..." Leo stops thinking for a second and follows the two adults into one of the buildings. As soon as he entered the house he understood. Leo was a contingency plan, a fail-safe in case Eren Yeager had to kill himself in order to save the Eldians. It seems that Leo's memory and identity were sent back in time as a random eldian living in Liberio, most likely in order to find a way to save Eren's life.
"I have no piece of paper so I'll inscribe these words in my memory. In the year 854 Eren Yeager was killed in a suicidal mission to save the Eldians from annihilation. He chose to sacrifice himself and his future to do so but as a safety measure he sent me back in order to find a way to save him from his own future. Just as the attack titan can send memories through time to different titan shifters, it seems my whole persona was transferred and overwrote the identity of some teenager living in Libero. As soon as I have the chance I need to test the possibility of having titans powers." Thus Leo for the rest of the day played the role of Tommy, a simple teenager living in Libero inside the internment zone with his parents. It didn't took long and the curfew was lifted allowing the citizens inside the internment zone to leave their houses again. It seems that some high end military generals visited the area to look for potential warrior candidates and they just left. On his way through the internment zone Leo stumbled over the remains of what was the retinue that accompanied the generals inside. He studied them from afar, watching their movements, taking note of their weapons, clothing and voices. Every single bit of information about the opponent had to be written down.
Time was of the essence and Leo started walking around the internment zone looking for a discrete way out. It didn't took long for his trained eyes to see numerous vulnerabilities in the zone's walls. A broken man won't try to escape where a free man will be willing to crawl through broken glass to do so. Luckily for Leo he didn't had to crawl through anything. One dirty, tight alley, filled with trash lead to a very short wall which it wasn't the easiest thing to climb over but it was doable. Leo had to crawl through mud under gunfire while writing down the battles that took place in the underground city under the capital. Jumping over a small wall was nothing. He placed his jacket over the barbed wire before jumping on one wall of the alley, using it as a ramp to push himself up over the barbed wire. He takes back his jacket, removes his armband and starts walking the streets of the city.
"Gotta find the closest exit, I have to reach the outskirts of the city, I have to find a secure place and try out the possibility of any titan powers." Walking through the city, face pointing at the road, head in the clouds he is suddenly stopped and pushed back.
"Out of the way, out of the way! The warrior candidates and the generals are passing." A soldier says pushing Leo back. He lifts his head and looks behind the soldier seeing the five warriors which will eventually lead to the death of so many Eldians.
"Rainer Braun, Bertolt Hoover, Marcel Galiard, Annie Leonhart, Pieck Finger and Zeke Yeager. In this world there is no one I want to see dead more than all of you right now. No! This is not the enemy. The enemy is behind them, behind the generals, the warmongers and the politicians. Willy Tybur, I will be the one to take your life." He would have to bind his time though, Leo never got to learn where the Tybur family lived and all he knew about Liberio or Marley as a whole was from interviews and smuggled reports. One thing at a time though, first he had to assess his position and whether he had titan powers or not. He didn't had to make his way far though. Walking through the city he finds an abandoned factory inside of which, after a through investigation, was enough space and privacy for him to transform into a titan without anyone noticing. To make double sure he goes into an underground area, half basement, half platform used for constructions. He cuts his hand and, lightning! His eyes fill with joy thinking he is in the possession of a titan shifter powers but he suddenly stops himself realising what his body was feeling. It was the same sensation as when he turned into a pure titan. He held a one use only bomb in his body, he could transform into a pure titan but not back into a human. It was a one way journey and he had to make the right choice when to use it.
"No healing powers either, might as well be a regular human. No, it might be that I'm just an Eldian aware of what they are truly capable of." Leo rushes back home, in order not to be questioned by his parents. He wasn't out much and his disappearance didn't caused him any troubles. To get back inside the internment zone was quite troublesome. He sneaked inside an apartment complex right next to the internment zone where he got to the roof. He crawled on his arms on the roof and assessed which building in the internment zone was the closest. A two and a half metres jump, to a shorter building inside the zone. If he misses the jump he is dead from that height.
"You've seen a man drive the world to kill him and you fear a jump?" Leo holds himself from shouting as he jumps over the edge and rolls on top of the roof inside the internment zone. He climbs down taking the indoor stairs and finally exits before heading back home.
"I'll have to find a better way to leave and enter the zone. Right, gotta put the armband back on too. I have to make sure I'm never seen with it on, outside the zone."
"You're awfully silent today." His father asks as they sit around the table at dinner.
"Yes, I'm... I'm not feeling to well, I guess."
"Is it about the warriors? Are you angry you haven't been selected?" His mother asks.
"So I was a warrior candidate too? This makes things way too complicated!" Leo thinks to himself before answering. He was about to answer however his father spoke first.
"We've spoke about that before. He leans forward and whispers afraid of being heard through the thin walls. "It is better that you've failed. We're lucky, the two of us work and you've got a future in front of you. Let the other children sacrifice their lives for this god forsaken nation, you'll live to see it crumble!" The father sits back at the table before continuing: "If it makes you any happier we've received your reports. It wasn't about your performance but your age. You were too old to be a potential candidate. Everyone in this batch is thirteen, you are fifteen, there's nothing to be done. They preferred keeping things easy to monitories, to know when each of them is about to... you know, expire."
"Didn't that Yeager child got to be a warrior even though he is of a different age?" the mother asks.
"I heard he sold his parents in order to become one, he wasn't going to be chosen before that.!" The two continued talking but Leo's mind was already somewhere else.
"An athletic body to boast... this might work." He went to bed early that night for he knew early in the morning he would have to start putting his plans into motion.