This is an excerpt of Attack On Titan Changes - Chapter Six: "Pure Soul". The full chapter is available in my main document, you can find the link to it on my profile page. :)
Enjoy this small Changes tease!
Cheers!
C.T.
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- Year 854 - "The Rumbling" - Near Fort Salta
They were high up in the sky, flying on Falco's back, dealing with the absurdity of resurrected Titans. Their mission was to destroy the Founder. It wasn't going to be easy; on the contrary, at that point it was feeling nearly impossible.
Ymir watched over them. She was at peace: all those years and finally, she was bringing cleansing. The impure would die and her Kingdom would prevail, all was good. For a moment, her happiness was disrupted. An icy chill ran up and down her spine, it shook her to her very core. "What are you doing here, old friend?" she asked in her own thoughts.
-.-
"BOTH. We are doing both," Levi ordered. "We'll split in two teams, do it simultaneously."
They needed to blow the Founder's nape and help Pieck, but they also needed to rescue Armin, it was plain and simple. Levi explained this to his pupils, and they were ready to follow his lead. Suddenly, there was a flash of light that confused them all, just for a split second. The group looked around at each other, somewhat disoriented.
"Where's Mikasa?" Connie asked. He'd noticed that their friend was gone.
-.-
Mikasa found herself standing at the top of the Fort, further away from the chaos. She could still see it from a distance. She dropped herself onto the floor; the headache was unbearable, but she knew it would pass soon, as it always did. The loud high-pitched sound in her ears had increased to the point of being deafening, but now it was slowly fading away. She felt sick to her stomach as well as dizzy. As she was finding her bearings, she could finally feel her mind clearing and she could stop and think, process what had just happened. Then she stood up and checked her surroundings. Down the Fort there was the remainder of a very weakened Military.
"Probably the last soldiers alive in this war," she thought to herself.
They were arguing amongst themselves, wasting time, desperate. They knew their end was nearing, and the pure despair was clouding their judgment and impairing their behaviour. They were being human. Despite all that, they were still lives worthy of salvation. 'Every life is,' Mikasa thought.
That wasn't of her concern now: she was looking for something else. Mikasa knew. She knew very well. There was only one possible way for her to have gotten there. From so far away, high up in the sky, to some kilometers distant in a blink of an eye. There was only one plausible explanation.
She finally found what she was looking for. The power of the sun gave him away. That climate wasn't the best one, but the clear skies and scalding sun could give a perfect shadow. She could tell that her son was standing, hiding on the other side of a wall.
Mikasa walked in closer.
He could hear the footsteps. Azzy felt like he was in trouble, as if he were a small toddler again.
She crossed her arms in a reprimanding manner. "What are you doing here, Azymondeus?"
Azzy took a deep breath. He slowly came out from his hiding spot, to face his mother.
"H-How... How do you know it was me?" the young teenager asked with a trembling voice, baffled.
"I will always know that it's you." Mikasa answered.
- Year 852 - Summer - The Lighthouse - Paradise Island
Mikasa had been awake for a while by that point. She had a few thoughts on her mind that wouldn't leave her. It was the middle of the night: the full moon was high up in the sky, shining across their balcony. She didn't enjoy watching Armin sleeping; he always had a sad expression, or a painful one. Mikasa knew something wasn't right, but she respected him and hoped that he would share his nightmares with her someday.
She was looking up the moon and listening to the waves. It was peaceful. She wondered how beautiful the world must be, and how long would take for them to finally see it. Armin promised her they would. Mikasa stood up, deciding that night wasn't going to be for sleeping, and she wanted to look for something.
As she moved away from the bed and closer to the closet, she heard faint giggles from the crib. She changed her direction and moved closer to it.
"Why are you awake?" She smiled at her son.
Azzy was enjoying the sound of the waves too, and the moonlight. His big blue eyes were fixed on the crib's mobile, watching as the wind swirled the small starfishes and seashells in it. He seemed fascinated by it. Until he noticed some movement; the small baby got all excited, expecting someone to grab him and take him out of his crib. Even for a four month old baby, being trapped behind those cute bars was still a prison. Despite them being for his own protection, he wanted out. So as soon as he saw his mother, the young trickster raised up his hands and put on the biggest smile.
"I just fed you Azzy, and you went to sleep. You were supposed to be asleep, baby boy." Mikasa held his small hand and played with him a little. She picked her baby up, as it was clear he wasn't going to fall asleep on his own, alone in that crib. She knew it. That's just how babies were.
"Here, have some company," Mikasa whispered as she gently placed Azzy on her side of the bed.
Armin was in that darkness again. He knew it was all in his head; it was just a dream, a very bad dream, but he couldn't escape it. He just wished he would forget all about it in the morning. It was claustrophobic and very dark, and he could only see a faint flame very far away, but the flame was slowly extinguishing itself. He wanted to shout but he had no voice. He was alone, completely alone. The pain was unimaginable: he couldn't move, he could barely breathe, and even that was painful. He knew he was living a life that wasn't his own, he wanted to get out of it, but he was chained to it all. He couldn't even cry, he had no strength for that. He gave up, he just gave up on his own life...
All of a sudden, he felt a small pinch on his nose and some sweet strokes all over his face. He started to hear the sounds of the ocean, as his brain slowly woke up. There was no better relief than that moment. He opened his eyes, and Azzy started to giggle softly. He was still stroking Armin's face, hoping his father would wake up. He realised he was successful, once he saw his father's eyes and smile.
"How did you get here?" Armin whispered at the boy, pulling Azzy closer to hold him. He closed his eyes again as if to go back to sleep.
"Why are you messing with my side of the closet?" he asked then with a muffled voice, as he put his face against the pillow.
"You are not even looking," Mikasa unaffectedly called from the other side of the room.
"And she just confirmed it." He smiled and pinched Azzy's nose. The boy was giggling loudly now. Mikasa started to laugh too, in the other room.
"Why does he think my voice is funny?" Armin couldn't understand.
"Because you made a funny voice," Mikasa tried to explain.
"This is my real voice," he called back, and Azzy laughed even more.
"How are you so awake?" Armin held the boy up to question him, as Azzy was trying to reach for his hair. "You can't be hungry, besides, if you are..." He moved closer to the baby's ear, "...I can't feed you," he said jokingly.
He reached out for his watch on the nightstand. "Not even two hours, huh? You can't even sleep for two straight hours..?" he softly complained to the small baby. Azzy was more interested in the watch's golden chain and the faint noise it made, and he grabbed it. "No, no, no." Armin removed the chain from the baby's hand. "This is not a toy, it's a gift. And I'll give it to you when you are older, much older."
Then Armin could hear some noises coming from the closet. "What are you looking for, and why now? It's too late at night for us to function," he complained to Mikasa. He was very tired.
"I think you tried to hide it well, but I've known you for a long time. Don't forget that," she told him.
"She doesn't even hide the fact that she is going through my things," he joked with his accomplice. "In the middle of the night," he added to his son in a whisper.
"Here, I found it." Mikasa was proud of herself.
"What?" Armin was curious.
She was looking for the Book.
"Why would you hide this?" Mikasa asked.
"I wasn't hiding it..." Armin was taken by surprise, and he became a little embarrassed. "I just decided to keep it on a safer place." He'd spent months researching. Every new piece of information they got, even if very small, he took notes and added more to the locations in the book. He was planning to see them all, or at least the majority of them.
"Don't lie to me, Armin." Mikasa moved closer to sit on their bed. "I saw you throwing away your notes today, back at the office. Why would you do that? Did you give up on our dream?" she asked him sincerely.
"I just wanted to preserve the book as it is. I shouldn't have filled it with all those notes. I-"
Mikasa interrupted his explanation. "Tell me the truth. Why would you throw away everything?" she asked him again.
Armin placed Azzy's head on his shoulder, as he tried to put the boy to sleep. He moved closer and sat next to her. "I haven't. I still want to travel, I want us to go and see all these wonders," he said as Mikasa was going through the pages. "But I can't afford to think about any of that now, you know that," he finally explained more truthfully. "We are under constant threat of war. The world hates us. I can't just leave; I have a job, we have a job. We need to protect the island." He finished his argument.
"I know that. I understand." Mikasa said. "But I can't deal with you giving up like that. If you stopped believing that one day we will live in peace and will be able to fulfil our dreams, then I'll probably stop believing it too," she told him.
Armin sighed. He gently rested his head next to Azzy's head. The boy was fast asleep in his father's arms, breathing heavily.
"I still want to believe we have a future. And a great one! I want to believe this will all stop and we will live in peace, so we can all enjoy the little things in life. I dream of all that, but I need to come back to reality now. Just for now, so I can find a way to reach this dream. Does that make sense?" he asked his wife.
"Now? What do you mean by now?" Mikasa was puzzled. She inspected the book closely.
Armin wasn't sure where Mikasa was going with that, but maybe he was, deep down. "I mean before we can reach that peace. Why-"
Mikasa interrupted him again. "Does it have anything to do with this?" She pointed at a symbol on the back cover of the book. She'd noticed the symbol from the book, and she could recall it, but she just wanted to confirm it. It was the same as the one from the golden watch and from other artefacts they had recovered from a shipwreck the week before.
Armin didn't respond. He just looked away, thinking.
"Please don't do this now. You've been like this since we sank that ship last week. It is not healthy," Mikasa pleaded with him. "And I hate that you think you can hide it from me."
"I can't explain it, I don't know what it means," he responded, but he still wouldn't meet her eyes.
"But you are always excited about this kind of stuff! You always research every little thing we come across in the harbour. Don't you want to know more about it? What is it about this that upsets you so much? You are always curious about everything!" Mikasa was trying to understand what was happening in his mind.
"If we get more information on it, I don't mind learning, but for now, I'd like to take a break from my own curiosity. I have other responsibilities, and so do you," he told her firmly. Armin realised that talking about their job was a very good way to move on from that subject. And she didn't even notice, but still, that symbol would remain in her mind. His reaction to it bothered and puzzled her a lot.
They stayed in silence for a moment. Armin finally continued.
"Marley won't rest until they get the coordinator from us. Everything seems calm now, and their attacks are very weak, but this will change, we both know that. Once they come with full force, we need to retaliate fast and with accuracy, to spare the loss of civilian life. I need to focus on that. I need to be sure we will be ready when the time comes," he concluded his speech.
Mikasa stayed silent as she was thinking. She didn't want to think about war at that moment, or picture it. The Island was very precious to them both, and she didn't want to imagine it being destroyed. Not even for a second. They were living such a peaceful life at that point, far away from trouble. They'd been at peace for almost two years, and she got used to it, she didn't want to fight any more.
She closed the book. "You are right, we can dream later. I chose to be a soldier for a reason: I want to protect the weak and defenceless, and I want to defend the place we grew up in. This is our home after all. I'm sure the world out there is very beautiful, but we can dream about it later. I want to make sure Azzy and all the other children of our Island can grow up in a safer environment. I want to make sure he'll have a better childhood than we had. And maybe he'll see the world, if we don't get to." Mikasa let all her feelings out; she realised it was a good exercise, and they needed to talk things out. She was glad they were in agreement and thought it was better to leave it as it was. She would wonder about the symbol later.
Armin smiled at her. He was glad they had similar views in all this. They both looked up at the full moon for a moment, that beauty they could see it from the island, with no need to travel. Because no matter where one was in the world, the moon would always be up there; that view was irreplaceable.
Mikasa gently leaned over to see baby Azzy's face, as he was very quiet through all this.
"Is he asleep?" Armin asked. He quickly reminded himself that he should be whispering, but it was too late.
Azzy's eyes were wide open.
"Nope." Mikasa leaned back up and told him.
Armin sighed. "This is going to be a long night."
-.-
- Year 854 - "The Rumbling" - On Top Of Fort Salta
Mikasa looked in the direction of the chaos further away; she knew she was needed there. She took a deep breath and looked at her son in a loving way.
"We can talk for as long as you need me here, baby boy. But I need you to promise me you will place me in the exact moment we left from there; that is extremely important," she explained carefully.
Mikasa was astonished, but also a little unsettled. She had seen her boy all grown up in her dreams a few times, but this was a different thing. She knew this could happen: it was very probable. Seeing it happen, however, gave her a whole different feeling. She wasn't mentally ready to see her small toddler looking like that, and it took some time to adjust.
"So you know what I can do?" Azzy asked, looking at the floor.
"Of course I do. I'm your mother. I know how it works. I also know you have limitations, so I'm surprised you made it back this far," Mikasa told her son.
"Well, I'm sure I no longer have the same limitations I had when I was two," he replied, feeling a little offended.
-.-
"Who is that?" Jean asked, confused, pointing up to the top of the bone structure.
"It looks like a ghost," Gabi said. She was squinting her eyes and protecting her face with her hand. The brightness of the sun was bothering her.
"Did you guys hear what I said? And see what I saw? Mikasa just vanished!" Connie was very confused, but no one was paying attention to that.
"That's her!" Reiner sounded somewhat spooked. "That's the goddess Ymir," he told the group.
"She looks very small and frail for a goddess." Annie wasn't impressed.
"You shouldn't talk like that. We are seeing what that thing is capable of, and we don't know what it is planning to do next," Levi reprimanded Annie.
"Should we kill it?" Jean asked.
"The ghost?" Gabi was confused.
"That witch has been dead for over 2000 years, there's nothing we can do about that," Reiner explained.
"So, what do you think it wants?" Annie asked, puzzled.
Pieck was on the other side of the Founder's bone structure, near the head. She'd been struggling with many resurrected Titans, particularly a group of War-Hammers that were exceptionally tough to beat. And even then, whenever she did eventually beat them, they would just rise again. It felt like an endless nightmare, but she was ready to fight again, and she kept fighting.
Until all the Titans stopped. It was like they were waiting for their next command. Then it looked like they finally had received a new one. Some of them stayed as they were, and kept fighting The Cart, but the majority of the Titans started to run in one specific direction: they were running towards The Fort.
"What the hell is happening now?" Levi could see the commotion from further away; it was a spectacle to look at. All those Titans running in the same direction, looking like they were going to kill the last humans in there. They were all baffled as they watched that unexpected change of events.
-.-
Azzy went over the ledge of the Fort, watching the destruction. "This all looks insane," he told his mother.
The teenager had never even seen Titans before. He never thought too much about that terrible part of history, the boy didn't like wars. "How did things get this far?" he asked his mother. He could see how the wind was carrying red particles and debris, how the world was completely red where the monsters had already walked through. He knew that colour far down in the horizon was coming from the blood of the deceased.
"This is what happens when people think fighting is the only solution," Mikasa told her son. "I know it looks hopeless now, but we will stop it. I'll make sure this ends here," she continued. "I don't mind giving up my life for it."
Azzy sighed. "So you know why I am here, then?" he asked.
"You are alive and well-" Mikasa smiled as she fixed up his jacket and his hair. "And you are all grown up. Well-" she joked, "-almost." She hovered her hand over his head as if to measure his height. Azzy took her hand to hold.
"If you are healthy and safe, it means there's still a world out there. It means we stopped this madness before everything was destroyed," Mikasa continued. Her son was staring at her hand and playing with her fingers. She raised up his chin so he could look straight into her eyes. "Why would you come all the way back here? If I was there with you? Why would you risk so much just to talk to me, if I was a part of your future?" Mikasa asked. The fact that he'd come back so far and showed up there, to see her for one last time, was the confirmation for her. That was the place she was supposed to die.
"I'm not here just to talk to you. I'm here to take you home," Azzy explained.
Mikasa let go of his hands, and stepped back for a moment.
"I'm not going anywhere." She was firm with the boy.
Azzy could not believe what he had just heard. It shattered his heart into a million pieces. "What do you mean? I came here to save you! You don't deserve to die like this. I can just remove you from here, I can make it all better," the young boy tried to explain. He was feeling very small.
"Azzy, I can't just leave. Your father is in real danger, and I have to go save him." Mikasa pointed one of her swords in the direction of the Rumbling.
"He will be fiine." Azzy's voice squeaked a little, as he was nearly fifteen.
Mikasa opened her eyes wide in a disapproving way.
Azzy scratched his hair for a second. "I-I mean, we can deal with that afterwards. You are my priority now," he tried to explain.
"How old are you now?" Mikasa questioned her son.
"I'm nearly fifteen... I think." Azzy responded.
"You think?" Mikasa didn't like the uncertainty.
"Jumping can get a little complicated. I get confused sometimes." Azzy was used to having many gaps in his memories, and he hoped his mother wouldn't pick up on it. He didn't want her to worry about him.
"When I was a little younger than what you are now, I made a decision, perhaps the most important one in my life," Mikasa said. "I became a soldier. And that is what I am. I vowed to protect others, the ones that can't protect themselves. If I'm stronger and I can make a difference, then I will protect them all. I need you to understand that. There are lives out there that can still be saved, so I will gladly sacrifice my life to save them." Mikasa gave her speech.
Azzy started to get angry with his mother. "So, when you left me in that orphanage, you were leaving me there for good? You knew you were never coming back?" he asked, his eyes a little teary.
"I knew that was a possibility. Now you just made me sure of it," Mikasa responded.
"But it hasn't happened yet! I can change it," Azzy argued.
"That's not how it works," Mikasa responded. "You should be aware of that by now." She hoped her son was a little more mature than he seemed to be at that point, and a lot more responsible with his abilities.
"Why?" He asked her angrily.
"Because things already happened as they did," she answered.
"Not yet, not to you!" he replied, crying.
Mikasa really wanted to hold her son in that moment. He seemed desperate and confused, heartbroken. But she couldn't take any chances. This could all be a trick: if she made contact with him she was at risk of disappearing from that reality for good. The boy was devious, just like his father.
"But they have, you are the proof of that. Changing any of it would imply disrupting and even destroying many people's lives. Do you understand that? It would be a very selfish thing to do," she explained to her son.
"Look around you!" Azzy gestured out with his hands. "The world is already ending! Is it really going to make that much of a difference if I save you?" he questioned.
"It will. Because that never happened. You shouldn't play with things we don't understand. Please, I need you to be more wise with the abilities you were given," his mother responded.
"So what? I do nothing then? I just let you die here?" Seeing his mother disagreeing so strongly with what he believed to be right was very painful for the young boy.
"Yes." Mikasa was blunt. "Promise me you will go back, and live your life, just as it was before," she asked.
"Do you want me to just go back and pretend nothing happened? Go live underground, with uncle Levi, always running from everything and everyone? And never see you or Dad again?" Azzy asked.
Mikasa was relieved to know that Levi had kept his promise to take care of the boy, in case something happened to both her and Armin. And also glad to know at least one of them had survived all this.
"Why would you be running?" She became curious about that particular detail.
"Things in the world aren't exactly easy after all this. I'm sure you can imagine that," Azzy responded, annoyed.
"I'm sure you can handle it." Mikasa smirked at him. Azzy wasn't in the mood, but he still gave back a half smile.
They both noticed how the commotion out there was getting closer and closer to the fort.
The boy thought on his own for a second. He'd grown up knowing very little about himself, his parents, and his abilities. He was taught to put them aside, to always hide. He had so many questions that no one could give him answers to. He'd finally decided to own himself and accept his power. He was sure what he wanted to do was good. He never thought that his mother, out of all people, would disagree with him. Azzy was feeling lost and powerless, he was very confused and upset. The boy couldn't understand why his mother didn't want to be saved.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked.
"For the reason you said. There's a world out there, after all the destruction. People survive this," Mikasa answered.
"Not many people," Azzy replied.
"Every life is worth saving," Mikasa explained.
"Not yours, apparently." The boy was angry.
Mikasa looked at him with love, the same look she would give him when she was putting him to sleep in his crib, when Azzy was much younger than what he looked like now. The boy wouldn't meet his mother's eyes; he was very disappointed with her.
"Why am like this?" he finally asked. "Why do I have the power to do what I can do, then? Why keep it hidden? To never use it?" The boy didn't know what to make of himself at that point. He was hoping his mother would.
Mikasa didn't know the answer to his question. That had been a mystery to them since the beginning. No one knew why the boy had been born like that, not even his parents. Armin was always focused on the 'how' in his endless researches. Mikasa was more centred on the higher meaning of it all.
"I believe you were born like that for a reason. And we don't know what that reason is yet. Don't waste your gift on your own selfish needs; that is not the right thing to do and I don't believe your uncle raised you like that." She held him by the shoulders and wiped the tears from the boy's rosy cheeks. "Be patient, learn how to master this. When the time comes, you will know what to do. You will know the reason. You will know what was it that you were born for," Mikasa advised him.
Azzy looked up to meet his mother's eyes:
"I will never see you again!" he told her.
"I will always be with you. And I know you will never forget me," Mikasa told her son. She finally embraced him. "I love you more than anything in this world, baby boy. And knowing how much you have grown, that you survived all of this, is the best gift I could get, before I go," she confessed. Azzy's visit in that moment had made her extremely happy.
Az hadn't a clue how to respond to that. He just decided to obey his mother, this one last time. Mikasa could see the light surrounding them, she could see the light shining from him.
"Wait!" she exclaimed. The boy startled. Mikasa hugged him even closer.
They stayed like that for a few minutes.
The military outside of the fort was absolutely terrified. There was a wave of Titans running at full speed in their direction. They were getting closer and closer fast.
"Before I go-" Mikasa was tender and serious in her tone. "I need you to promise me one thing. I want you to grow up to be a good man. Promise me you will be a good man." It was her last wish for her son.
"I will," Az answered his mother.
They disappeared in a streak of lightning. And just like that, the moment they had, actually never was.
The herd of Titans coming their way dissipated, and so did the settling of the argument between the soldiers and civilians next to the fort. Or the troublings the Alliance just had with an apparition. All of it was gone. Time was reset.
-.-
"BOTH. We are doing both!" Levi proceeded to explain how they were going to divide their efforts into two teams. His pupils were listening very attentively.
"Did you hear what I said?" He turned to address his cousin, after his whole explanation, but she seemed very out of it.
Azzy fulfilled his mother's first request. She was back in the same place at the exact time, not a second out of line.
"Mikasa, we need to rescue Armin," Annie addressed her. She also noticed Mikasa's confusion; they all had.
"Right," Mikasa said, holding her head.
"Are you okay?" Reiner asked.
"Headaches?" Levi was familiar with what might've been happening.
Mikasa nodded.
"It will pass, don't worry." Levi told her.
They moved on with the plan. She slowly came back to her senses. Mikasa felt empty inside; she couldn't recall what had just happened. Those memories would never reach her.
The mother had asked her son to be a good person. That wish was still in her subconscious, and it made her extremely sad. Mikasa knew she was not being a good person herself. She was ready to give up her own life if it meant to save the hundreds of thousands still alive in that wrecked world. And in doing so, she was very aware she was not only giving up her own life, but the life of her unborn child as well.
Ymir could recognise the sadness in Mikasa's eyes. She was a mother too. The old apparition was watching over them. Unlike the others down there, she could tell the change of time. It was almost seamless, but she knew.
"Where are you?" Ymir asked in her own thoughts.
-.-