Creation began on 05-30-21

Creation ended on 06-03-21

Attack on Titan

Rise, Sasha, Rise: A Fallen Hope

A/N: There's a reason for crushed opportunities, but they enable for new ones to rise.

There was no denying it any further when Armin and Mikasa took notice of something different in the last two days. There were fewer faces of familiarity within the Survey Corps after Sasha left to go plan her wedding.

Connie had left to go keep watch over his mother in Ragako.

Jean had requested a transfer to the Garrison.

I'm starting to wonder what will be left of the Survey Corps if everyone in it can't trust Eren, Armin wondered as he and Mikasa were still barred from seeing Eren. We're still trying to understand why he chose to attack Liberio before further attempts at brokering peace could be implemented. Even if it takes me the remaining nine years I have left as the Colossal Titan, I'm willing to put in the effort.

It was difficult for them to understand why Eren did what he did in Liberio when they couldn't meet with him and he refused to explain his actions. If he and Zeke conspired to attack Liberio, or Eren did so of his own accord, or was even manipulated by Zeke his followers was anyone's guess, but they couldn't jump to conclusions unless they had some clarity. But one thing was certain, and it was people that used to work alongside Eren had begun to lose faith in him, like his recent actions have caused them to feel a sense of betrayal. As much as he tried to comprehend the possible reason, Armin was at a loss with Mikasa; neither was able to make a determination on their own on why the young man they thought they knew would behave the way he was behaving now.

"How long do you suppose he'll keep silent?" Mikasa asked him.

"I honestly don't know," he answered her. "I can't understand why he would do what he did. Why he would just…kill those people that didn't do anything wrong to anyone. This is completely unlike anything else he has done. But…then again…maybe I didn't understand him to begin with."

"What do you mean?"

"He only got interested in wanting to see the world beyond the Walls because I showed him a book that spoke of places that existed in other parts of the world, but after we left the Walls, we didn't really see any of those places like we could've. Instead, we…we're just dealing with people that need an excuse to see Eldians as a threat to all that they know when we're not really a threat to anyone. At least…not most of us are."

Of course, Mikasa understood what Armin meant by that; he was among those that many would consider a noncombatant that had gotten dragged into the conflict because he possessed the means to harm others. His possession of the Colossal Titan made him invaluable to Paradis' defenses, but his conscience, his morality, made him hesitant on fighting people where there had to be another option they could all agree on. Even the harm he committed at the port in Liberio haunted him because of Eren's actions; Mikasa could see that Armin had barely gotten any sleep with the dark spots under his eyes.

"We need to speak with him," she told him, "and he needs to explain himself."

-x-

She wasn't going over there as a former member of the military or as a regular citizen or a villager of Paradis Island, but as a friend. That was Sasha's intent when she made the conscious choice to go to Historia's and see if she'd be willing to come to her and Niccolo's wedding when it came time for it to begin. She was hoping that Historia would come; she'd been a recluse for the last few months as is, which made Sasha suspicious of why everyone from the cadets that went to the Survey Corps rarely heard from her. The sight of the house the young queen was currently being housed in came into view as she rode her house over.

I hope she's doing alright, she thought as her horse stopped just a few feet from the house.

"Aah!" She heard a scream, and panic swept over her.

Oh, no!

Running over to the house, Sasha, armed with nothing but a bow and less than ten arrows, thought that someone was being attacked or worse. She approached the front door and, albeit with restraint, knocked on it, hoping for a response from someone that actually lived there. The sound of footsteps could be heard and she took a step back, just in case the person was not someone she felt she could trust. The door opened and Sasha stood in front of a woman with what looked like red stains on her apron, making her worry for Historia or whoever it was that was hurt.

"Who are you, young lady?" The woman asked her.

"I'm Sasha Blouse of the village of Dauper," she introduced herself to the woman. "I'm looking for Historia Reiss."

The woman's expression was saddened.

"I'm afraid Ms. Reiss can't have visitors at this time," she told Sasha, and the girl became suspicious of her.

"Why not?" She asked back, wondering if she needed to use her archery skills.

"Aah!" She heard that scream again, but it was different this time; it sounded…agonizing, distressful…and as though something terrible had occurred. "Ha-ah!"

Sasha then pushed the woman aside and entered the house, following the screams to a room in the back. She then entered the room and found, to her great shock, Historia, laying in a bed, her face stained with pain, and the sheets stained red.

"Historia!" She gasped, running over to her. "What happened?!"

Historia looked up at her…but couldn't say anything; she was in too much pain.

Sasha turned to face the woman that she met at the door and saw the look of woe on her face.

"What happened here?" She demanded from her, threatening to use her bow if she didn't get a response as soon as possible.

"The queen…suffered a miscarriage," the woman revealed.

Sasha was now confused. Her friend had a miscarriage? This meant the queen had been pregnant. Was this why she was out of sight for months? Just what was going on here?

She couldn't ask Historia directly at the moment. But maybe there was someone she could ask that was with her.

"Hey," she went to the guy that she found was the only man living at the house with Historia, "can I ask you something?"

He was among those people that had teased and poked fun at Historia for years when she lived on a farm behind Wall Sina, people that didn't know at the time that she was the illegitimate daughter of the previous king. When it was revealed that she was Rod Reiss' bastard child, he wanted to atone for his bad behavior towards her by helping with the caring of the orphaned children. While Sasha had no previous suspicions of anything beyond seeking forgiveness from the queen, she wanted to confirm something from him.

"What do you want to know?" He asked her as he set down a plate of three cups and a pot of tea.

"Historia…what happened to her… Was that child yours?" She questioned.

Sighing, the man responded, "What does it matter, anymore? I was informed of the risks involved with her pregnancy. I didn't want to know, but she needed me to know. She needed me to be with her for this."

"It matters to me…because I didn't know…and a few days ago…I almost didn't make it home. The last time I would ever see her…would've been before she went into reclusion. The last time I would ever see the people I love, the people that I fought for…would've been before I left to go to Marley to rescue a guy that I'm not even sure was ever meant to be rescued. That's how much it matters to me to know."

The man looked at her, slightly older than she was, but she was more out in the world, a clear sign of how different they were due to living further out by one of the outer walls than near Wall Sina. He sighed again and gave in.

"It would've been mine," he told her. "I care about Historia. I didn't want to hurt her."

Sasha looked back towards the room where Historia was now resting.

"People hurt each other all the time without ever intending to," she told the guy. "Even during times like this, we hurt each other without meaning to."

"But it's bad for Historia at a time like this. The midwife believes that she may…"

"What is it?"

"Because of this unexpected tragedy, the midwife doesn't believe that Historia will ever be able to have children."

"It's that bad?"

"She was bleeding a lot more than what was expected."

"What was it? The baby, I mean. What would it have been if it survived?"

"A girl."

The door to the queen's room opened and the midwife vacated it, looking towards Sasha and gestured with her left hand for her to come over.

Sasha walked over and stood in front of the woman that had tried her best to help Historia and her baby.

"How is she?" She asked her.

"Resting, but even if she fully recovers, it's doubtful that she'll ever be able to bear another child," the midwife answered. "She asked to see you. You have five minutes."

"Thank you."

Sasha stepped into the room and saw Historia in the bed, covered by sheets and her eyes stained red by tears. She sat in a nearby chair and looked down at the young queen with a pained expression; she knew at least three women from her village that had experienced this sort of tragedy and barely recovered from it. There was no way, in this life or the next, that she would wish this on anyone.

Historia looked up at her.

"Hey," she greeted miserably.

"Hey," Sasha replied. "I was told that you…that you'll be fine after you've rested."

It wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't the truth, as Historia understood that Sasha was trying to spare her further pain. She didn't expect to see a familiar face today…or at all because she was in hiding, which made seeing Sasha a surprise.

"What…brought you here to see me?" She asked the young woman.

"I…I left the Survey Corps after going to Marley to get Eren," she explained. "It's complicated, so I won't bore you with the details."

"I…I'm all alone here," Historia told her. "I have nothing but time. Bore me, please."

"It's really complicated…and not worth what you've just gone through."

"I rather hear about you now…than think about what happened before you got here, Sasha."

Seeing no other way to get around this, Sasha expressed her reasons for leaving the Survey Corps and coming here to see her friend.

"On the way back, an Eldian from Liberio snuck onboard the airship in an attempt to kill Eren for his actions in the town," she started, "but ended up shooting me instead. I almost died that night…and…for a little while, I was dead. I saw someone that looked like Bertolt, only older and more miserable, and he told me I wasn't supposed to be wherever it was that he was at, like he was afraid of me or something. He yelled at me to leave, and I came to back on the airship. Connie and Jean were relieved that I was alive, but I still had a bullet in my chest that needed to be removed. After my procedure to have it taken out, I met with Niccolo."

"Niccolo?"

"He's from Marley. He used to be a soldier, but now he works as a cook and…well, he's part of the reason I was coming to see you."

"How could he be part of your reasons for coming all the way out here?"

"When he found out that I was shot and almost died on the way back from Marley, I saw the look of sorrow in his eyes. He proposed to me shortly afterwards, and I accepted. I was coming to invite you to our wedding if you were able to come. I…just didn't expect something like this to happen to you. I am sorry for your loss."

And what a loss it was for Historia. What Sasha didn't know was that Historia had gotten pregnant to try and delay the transfer of the Beast Titan owned by Zeke Yeager because of the military's goal to protect Paradis and ensure their future with the threat of the Rumbling for the next fifty years while they worked to modernize the island infrastructure to the outside world's present-day advances. When they find out about her miscarriage, they would undoubtedly turn her into a Titan and feed Zeke to her before his thirteen-year term was over. Even if there was a slim chance that possessing the Beast Titan would heal her body so that she could have children in the future, it wasn't a future worth living for; she thought of what Ymir told her to do with her life, and how much she'd be disappointed in her for being used by other people all over again after she left her that day Bertolt and Reiner tried to escape with Eren when it was discovered he possessed the Founding Titan in addition to the Attack Titan. There wasn't even a guarantee that she might live to see another week after her miscarriage due to her blood loss; she was merely touch and go for the time being.

But to know that Sasha had almost died… To hear from Sasha herself that she was getting married, and to a man from Marley, no less…

"Do you…love him?" She asked Sasha, which was quite a shock to hear.

"Yes," she responded. "Yes, I do love him. And I know he loves me. I wouldn't have accepted his proposal if I didn't."

Historia understood that when people were in love, they did the strangest things to show it, and this was no different. Someone she knows was almost killed because of someone else they know, she survives the traumatic ordeal, meets with a foreign man from another nation of people that despise them…and he proposes to her out of genuine love towards her. If the man, this Niccolo, was willing to marry someone like Sasha, an Eldian girl, a Subject of Ymir, someone that could be turned into a Titan at any point in the future, and out of love, no less…then he had to be someone that could look past all that he knew or thought he knew and simply see Sasha for who she is to him instead of what she is to his own people. Maybe if Ymir were still alive, she would've taken her up on her own proposal out of love, as well.

"I…I should be going now," Sasha told her; it was getting close to the five-minute limitation of their time together. "I'll let you rest now."

"When is it?" Historia stopped her. "Your wedding, I mean? When will it be?"

"It's… Hopefully, it'll be by the end of the next month," she explained. "We're still going over things. My primary job is inviting people we know."

"If I recover…if I live to see the next week…I'll be there. Just tell me where it'll be…and I'll be there for it."

"Dauper is where it'll be."

"I'll be there."

Sasha smiled and bowed her head to her.

"Get well soon," she told the queen, and left out the room.

-x-

"Well, this is quite a surprise, Bertolt," the former Colossal and Attack Titans heard a woman's voice in this desert realm and they saw someone the former hadn't expected to see. "If that's who you are and not someone that looks like an older version of him."

It was Ymir, the girl that, as a mindless Titan, had killed his friend Marcel and obtained the Jaw Titan while returning to human form. If she was among the people they needed to find, then there was a reason for her being here.

"What are you doing here?" He asked her.

"I've been here ever since the day your friend Galliard ate me," she explained. "Wherever 'here' is. What happened to you?"

"I was captured and fed to a Titan that used to be Armin Arlert."

"So now, he's the Colossal Titan?"

"That's right."

"Sucks to be you right now."

"Yeah, it does."

"And who's this man?"

"Eren Kruger," Kruger introduced himself. "I was a former Attack Titan."

"Attack Titan?"

"One of the Titans Eren Yeager and his father possessed. A fifteen-meter one."

"Yeah, I've seen his Titan before. It's a lot like him, temper-wise."

"Have you seen anyone else here that used to possess one of the Nine Titans? Anyone at all?"

"There was a man a while back, but I paid him no mind. It was barely even a second. Behind him was a Titan that looked like some kind of sheep with horns."

"A Titan with horns?" Bertolt questions.

"That must be the Beast Titan," Kruger explains. "The Beast Titan always has an animal appearance that varies from one holder to the next. Sometimes a wolf, other times a monkey, sometimes a lizard, even a bird."

"We need to find him, whoever he is, and then find five more."

"What are you two talking about?" Ymir asked them.

"Earlier, we met a guy that said we needed to find seven other people that once possessed the power of the Nine Titans," Bertolt explained. "If we find them, there's a chance that we can save them and ourselves."

"What do you mean, save them?"

"We believe that this is a test that we need to pass," Kruger added. "If we find all of the people that possessed one of the Nine Titans, it's possible, just a possibility, that everyone can be saved that paid an unforgivably high price. If there's even a chance that finding people that once possessed a Titan power means even the barest of hope for those of us here in this place leaving, then it's a risk I have to take."

"Okay, say that you find everyone you're supposed to find, how do you know you haven't been lied to? How do you know this isn't some kind of game that someone's playing with you?"

"We don't know," Bertolt expressed; while he was willing to believe that all of this was nothing more than an elaborate hoax for them, he didn't want to believe that there was no hope for them just yet. "But if there's even one chance of every one of us possibly returning to life, even preventing the Rumbling from ever happening, I have to at least try and find everyone that's here. Wouldn't you if you were given a choice?"

"Hey, could you people please stop your yelling?" A new voice, female, uttered as they saw someone laying on the ground. "I thought I was allowed to sleep in peace after I was killed by that man that attacked my family."

It was a woman, with dark hair, a slim build, and a pretty face.

"Who are you?" Kruger asked her.

"I'm nobody. Not that I was anyone before any of this."

"Join the club, ma'am," Ymir told her. "We're all nobodies here. He used to be the Colossal Titan and that man claims he was the Attack Titan. I used to be…"

"Attack Titan? Him?" The woman questioned. "The man that killed my family possessed the Attack Titan!"

"Grisha Yeager," Kruger revealed, realizing that this woman had to have been a member of the royal family. "You once possessed the Founding Titan, didn't you?"

"And that man murdered my entire family for it! Even after he was told the Founder wouldn't serve anyone without royal blood, he still chose to kill my family for it! What possesses a man that has no royal blood, whatsoever, to murder an entire family for something that he can never make use of?"

"The memories of whoever possessed the Attack Titan after him."

"How can the memories of someone that comes after a person that possessed the power of the Titans affect someone from before?" Ymir questioned.

"The Attack Titan is the only Titan that can receive memories from people that have yet to possess it. In the past since its creation, the Attack Titan has never obeyed the commands of the person with the Founding Titan, instead fighting for freedom. It's only for the sake of freedom that it fights, no matter what the day and age it finds itself in. Guided by the memories of those yet to possess it, it allows for foresight on events yet to transpire. In other words…"

"A Titan that can transcend time itself," Bertolt expressed. "A Titan that can know the future before it even happens."

"Yes."

"But if he knew of the future, then he should've known that the Founder doesn't obey any that have no royal blood in their veins," the woman stated. "If he knew this, why did he continue to persist, knowing that it was moot?"

"Probably because whoever memories we were following were incomplete. Just as the past memories of previous holders were incomplete, the future memories are just as incomplete. Whoever would come to possess the Attack Titan wouldn't have known until afterwards, after whatever happened…happened."

"So, then, he killed me…murdered my mother…my siblings…for my family's Titan…because he didn't know beforehand?"

"Any idea of who would possess the Attack Titan after you?" Ymir asked Kruger.

"My best guess is…someone that knew these two names that I knew nothing of because they didn't exist at all during the time I was the Attack Titan. Someone that knew or knows Armin Arlert and Mikasa Ackerman."

"It's gotta be Eren Yeager," went Bertolt. "He's the only one that knows them…or did."

"Which means he's likely the one that made his father attack your family," Ymir added, really wanting to know who this woman was. "Who are you?"

"Frieda Reiss," she revealed, "former Founding Titan after my uncle, Uri Reiss."

"Reiss? As in…Historia Reiss?"

"You know my sister?"

To be continued…

A/N: For those of you thinking I was cruel to Historia, it was necessary in this story. As Einstein said, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Sasha lives, so someone else needed to go, but someone that wasn't alive yet can make for a substitute. As for the previous Titan Shifters, what they're doing will explained further as the story escalates. So far, there's Bertolt, Kruger, Ymir and Frieda. Any suggestions for previous Armored, Female, Cart and War Hammer Titans?