Creation began on 10-22-18
Creation ended on 11-07-18
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Hope from the Sky: Cleanse
If anything, the Akuma Titan had taken to looking like a demon even further with the addition of wings. It would be even crazier if the behemoth could actually fly.
"This guy…is twisted," Shinji uttered as he saw the Akuma Titan.
"Shinji, you should be able to handle this," went Levi to Shinji over the intercom. "For some reason, the spinal fluid of the Dark Titan does the complete opposite of what it should do to Grausam."
"You're saying the wings are from getting hit with a missile?" Shinji asked.
"I know, it makes no sense," stated Hange. "He should've been obliterated by the missile, but he survived. He'd make a remarkable research specimen, but I'd rather see him dead right now. He killed one of the Warrior Unit."
Shinji also had to keep Kaede from facing him; if the girl killed him and didn't let go of the rage she had for him, he feared she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she did. Even if she had more self-control than before facing him the first time, there was still the chance of her going down that dark tunnel that he promised to keep her away from.
"Time to put my foot down," he uttered.
-x-
"…Do you really think he'll really kill the guy?" Asuka asked Misato as they were watching through the eyes of the Eva at the Akuma Titan.
"As he's fought a bunch of soldiers that turned themselves into Titans to hurt the people he and the Survey Corps and Garrison protect from this Marley nation out of hatred," Misato responded, "and this Grausam Zanki is an unfriendly man that is as cold as some of the worst criminals here…and Shinji promised he'd keep Kaede from crossing the line regarding him, I wouldn't hold it against him if he did kill Grausam, a man that clearly deserves whatever he gets from these people."
"It's almost funny, you know. Shinji seemed like the wimpiest person to have ever set foot in an Eva, unable to do what's necessary. Except now, he's killed soldiers."
"It's a war, Asuka. A war that was instigated by Marley out of their own hatred towards Eldia and anyone that sympathizes with instead of hating them. And Shinji doesn't deny that he's unaffected by what he's doing, just like none of the people he works alongside can't deny that it bothers them."
"Yet he does it, regardless…"
"…In the hopes that he doesn't have to, ever again."
STOMP! The sound of Unit-01's foot slamming down on something brought their attention back, and saw the Eva had landed a direct blow to the Titan Shifter with its right leg.
Verdammt, Asuka cursed to herself, realizing that Shinji could've done that to anyone if he were pushed too far to cross the line, including herself, but remembered the footage detailing the promise he had made to Kaede. Even if he has to be the one to do him in, he'd do anything for her like any devoted boyfriend would.
-x-
Five years of personal torment ever since the day the Colossal Titan breached Wall Maria through the Shiganshina District, five years of contempt and the desire for revenge against the man that caused so much pain and suffering to dozens of people without any signs of remorse, and it all ended in an instant when Shinji brought his Eva's foot down on the Akuma Titan, crushing Grausam Zanki under the weight of the armored limb with more force than even the Armored Titan had when it rammed through the inner gate of Shiganshina. For the first time in a long time, Kaede felt like she could breathe again knowing that her step-grandfather was now dead, that he wouldn't be hurting any more Eldians with his deranged Titan-creating methods.
May you burn in Hell for your sins, Grausam Zanki, she thought, relieved that the biggest part of this waking nightmare had ended with the cruel man's death.
"You did it, Shinji," said Eren to him over the intercom.
Suddenly, something shot out several feet from where Unit-01 had brought its foot down on the Akuma Titan, revealing itself to be…the very Titan that was believed to have been killed, only wingless now.
"You big bastard!" It shouted, sounding enraged. "You think that was enough to kill me?! You're gonna have to try harder than that!"
In her Dark Titan, Kaede couldn't believe that he had somehow survived being stepped on.
"But I stomped you!" Shinji shouted. "How in the Hell did you survive that when you should've been reduced to nothing but pulp?!"
"Heh! You stomped me…but even I'm surprised to still be alive. I might've lost my Titan's wings, but I doubt they were worth any real value. Maybe I've achieved some unexpected bonus from my constant research regarding Titan power. Maybe I've just become impossible to kill."
Impossible to kill, huh? Kaede wondered, trying to disbelieve that any Titan Shifter was impossible to kill. There is no such thing as a Titan that is impossible to kill. Everyone has a weakness…and we'll find yours, Grausam.
Immortality? Invulnerability? Are these possible for him to have obtained through his work on the Titans? Shinji wondered, beginning to question whether or not Grausam could be killed, anymore. Titans are only immortal in their mindless state while Titan Shifters can only retain their power as one of the Nine Titans for thirteen-fifteen years before being reduced to living with constant fatigue…but these Jaeger Titans… Excluding Kaede, we don't know what sort of negatives, if any, they have from having the power of the Titans. Maybe they don't have the time-limit limitations that anyone with the Nine Titans possessed, but I get the feeling that anyone that became a Jaeger Titan after Kaede might pale in comparison to her in so many ways because they're not as unique as her Titan is.
Then, without a hint of warning, a series of barbs or spikes of hardened Titan flesh…shot out of the Akuma Titan and were released in every direction!
Unit-01 and the Dark Titan weren't affected by this surprise attack due to the former's AT-Field, and the fighter jets were able to evade the projectiles due to their distance and maneuverability.
"Whoa…not what I had anticipated," the Akuma Titan stated, "probably a side-effect of my tasting the remains of the former Beast Titan…or a regurgitation response of my getting stepped on. Either way, it felt good to release a new attack."
"You must think this is all nothing more than a sick game to you, don't you?" Kaede asked him.
"Oh, like you're not playing with me?" Grausam countered. "Your Titan was eighteen meters tall, and now you're larger than the Colossal Titan. You're practically the same height as the purple behemoth that serves you Eldians. You're clearly as secreted as I am. You and I, we're not all that different."
STOMP! Unit-01 took advantage of the conversation and brought its right foot down on the Akuma Titan a second time, with more force than the first time.
Shinji, of all the things he could've heard from anyone that he didn't like, was disgusted by Grausam's twisted claim that Kaede was no different from himself. He prayed that he was dead this time. Digging his heel into the ground, he tried to make sure that the Akuma Titan couldn't regenerate or anything.
"Bastard talks too much," he stated as his only excuse for doing what he did.
"Yeah," Kaede agreed with him, "he does."
Rumble! The ground shook a few meters from where Unit-01 stood…and a hand shot out from it, revealing the Akuma Titan had survived again.
"Oh, Hell, no," went Eren, wondering what it was going to take to kill this guy.
"Aaaaurgh!" Grausam groaned, climbing out of the ground. "You have some nerve!"
SLAM! The Dark Titan, trying her hand at putting him down, brought her left foot on his face, burying back in the soil.
Removing it, she saw that he was unharmed, but irritated.
"Really, Kaede?" He asked her as the joints in his neck corrected. "You think you could succeed where he failed? Then again, I'm surprised that I'm still alive after three slams on me by large feet. I've yet to see a white light that leads to the afterlife. No Heaven, no Hell, no loss of life. I must've conquered the cycle of life and death represented by humans and achieved a perfected version of the immortality afforded to the mindless Titans. Even if you attack my nape, there's a chance I won't die, meaning I'm everlasting! Unlike all of you fools that have to grow old and succumb to natural causes!"
"Oh, shut up!" Shinji grunted, slamming his foot down on the Titan Shifter again and again; he wasn't all for murdering anyone, but this man was one that deserved death in every sense, but just wouldn't succumb to the type of dying you'd expect for one getting crushed and buried under several tons of justice for countless people he had harmed without any shred of remorse. "Just die already!"
But when he removed his foot, everyone couldn't believe the impossibility of what they were seeing.
"Are you finished?" The Akuma Titan asked them. "I can do this all week, just so you know."
Shinji turned to see the Dark Titan and saw how the behemoth's facial expressions were beginning to show signs of the girl's hatred towards him taking control.
"Okay," he uttered, reaching down and simply grabbing the Akuma Titan in his Eva's grip. "We need a different plan of execution. Missiles don't work, neither does spinal fluid nor stepping on him. We gotta bend the rules if we can't break them."
"You think such a tactic will work on this…this disgrace?" Hange asked him over the intercom.
"He just claimed he could do this all week, and that's assuming he can stay in his Titan for a whole week. Let's see how long he can actually do so before he risks getting stuck inside it and paying a price he didn't expect on paying. If worse come to worst for him, we can rip his head and spinal column out if he still has either left."
"Either way, he's just proven that we can't put him down right now with the methods we currently have access to," the Dark Titan frowned; Kaede was beyond furious with how Grausam seemed to be mocking them all with his current situation and their inability to deal with him properly. Oh, just you wait. We'll find a way to get rid of you, Grausam. Nobody lives forever. Nobody should be able to live forever, even if it is a blessing. Not me…and not you, either.
-x-
They hadn't seen any other ships from Marley in the last few hours, but the Survey Corps and Garrison had to keep up with the protection of the people after apprehending what remained of the initial invasion force, which was a measly two-hundred-twenty-two survivors out of what had to be over three-thousand, give or take. When the prisoners were relocated to one of the sections of Titan Forests that was in between the former Walls Maria and Rose, Historia and Ymir were given the okay to bring the orphans back to their shelter village until further notice.
"What of Grausam Zanki?" Historia had asked Erwin and Levi when they came by to give a hand in helping take the children back. "Were you able to deal with him above all others from Marley?"
"Unfortunately, no, ma'am," Erwin explained their current situation regarding Grausam, "but he will be confined until he can be dealt with and the situation regarding him is resolved."
Of course, this meant that Kaede would have to bear with the fact that her step-grandfather would be around a bit longer than they had anticipated he'd be when he was captured. Not only that, but her time would be split further between her role as the Dark Titan, an adviser to Historia and spending time with her family and boyfriend, something she was getting back in rhythm with after her incarceration sentence was over. And the worse thing of it was that the whole island had to deal with the bad odor that was the scorching flesh of the Devil of the Titans, someone that Historia needed to keep her children away from out of fear for their safety.
The most recent base that the Garrison members that were blessed with more knowledge on how to construct bases out of metal and with help from Shinji and Unit-01 doing the heaviest of lifting for them was in use as a makeshift prison for Grausam to be in custody, separate from the Marleyans that were held elsewhere away from the former districts and coastal city. Not only was the building just a glorified, thirty-meter-tall box of iron, titanium and steel, but it was big enough to hold at least twenty fifteen-meter Titans and had benches several feet in the air built into the walls to enable the Survey Corps or Garrison members present to dispatch them with ease.
"How is he?" Levi asked Hange as he returned from doing a perimeter check with Eren and Mikasa, seeing the Akuma Titan still where he'd been placed: A large vat of water with a lid on top; if Grausam could endure a week in Titan form, then he could wait until he had to choose between risking absorption into his Titan…or potentially drowning.
"It's only been a day and a half," she told him, never taking her eyes off the Titan, "and he's not moved an inch. Either he's playing us or waiting for an opportunity to get loose."
"The joke's on him if he tries to get away."
All around the large room were stationed Garrison and Survey Corps members armed with ODM gear and RPG launchers loaded with armor-piercing rounds reinforced with hardened Titan flesh, all with the orders to attack the instant Grausam tried to get free. Outside the base was Unit-01 with its Prog. Knife; if the guy could survive getting stepped on, then Shinji was going to decapitate the man and see if he could survive that if it meant protecting Kaede from doing the job.
"The keeper of the War Hammer Titan wasn't with this invasion force," Connie expressed, disappointed that they were still one Titan short of all nine as he looked down at the large vat with the Akuma Titan inside it.
"Not this one, but we'll get it," stated Sasha, "and maybe, then, we can stop worrying about Marley."
"What do you think he's doing inside his Titan?" Jean asked them, pointing to the vat.
"Hopefully, he's choking of water and drowning on his despair," Connie suggested his opinion.
-x-
After being told to go home until they needed her later on left Kaede, as she was walking down the streets of the coastal city towards her family's apartment building, with a lot on her mind. Not five hours ago did she hear that Jonathan and Madeline Yeager were informed of Zeke's murder by her step-grandfather by Reiner Braun, and it wasn't five hours ago that she received the update on how the elderly couple was crushed by the loss of their grandson.
He might've been viewed as an enemy to the people living here, she thought as she stopped under a streetlight, but he didn't deserve that. I mean, maybe incarceration or hours of community service or even house arrest or getting sent back to Marley to let them decide their fate, but not getting killed by him, of all people. And he still had an opportunity to turn his life around in the future after being relieved of the Beast Titan, maybe find someone to share his life with, settle down, and even start a family of his own without the pressure of his royal lineage because all but one of the Nine Titans is no more. How cold are you, Grausam? Do you need to hurt everyone around just to prove you're the worst of the worst to have ever existed?
"Miss Sogen?" She heard a woman's voice behind her and turned to face her. "What are you doing out here so late at night?"
The woman was slightly older than her own mother, with blond hair and amber-colored eyes, dressed in a green, floral dress, carrying a large tote bag.
"Uh…" She uttered, unable to recall her name from before.
"I'm Connie Springer's mother," she clarified for her. "I met you and your mother during the relocation period beyond the Walls a few months ago."
"Oh, Mrs. Springer," Kaede finally recalled where she had met her. "I'm sorry, ma'am, I've just had…a lot on my mind. I was told to go home and get some rest."
"You being the Dark Titan that saved a lot of people over five years ago by defeating several Titans when Wall Maria was breached, you seem like you do need rest and… It…it must take a toll on you to have that much power in you, doesn't it?"
"No, uh…not really, Mrs. Springer. I mean, there wasn't a single day before any of this, before my boyfriend fell from the sky and changed everything for us all, where I saw myself being anything other than a secluded person, afraid to be around others. Even with the power of the Titans, it's not the physical toll I can experience that gets to me more than the emotional toll that everyone goes through every now and then. How are things with you and your family, though?"
"My husband's joined the group of people that are able to provide clean water for dozens of buildings around the city. Plumbers, if I recall their occupation. My daughter, Sunny's become obsessed with these camera things and this…photography, and my other son, Martin, has aspirations for wanting to be an oceanographer."
"An ocean what?"
"Someone versed with the study of ocean life."
"Oh… And what about yourself, Mrs. Springer? How has this life beyond the Walls been to you?"
"I used to enjoy knitting in my spare time, and now I spend half my days as a pediatrician to my friends and neighbors' children. Thank you, Ms. Sogen."
"What for?"
"Everything you do, you and your boyfriend. I don't know where we'd be were it not for you. Probably still behind the Walls and living in fear."
"Yeah, maybe we'd be doing that. If Shinji had fallen from the sky at another time in the future, I can't imagine how things would've turned out…but I'm glad he fell from the sky when he did. Well, have a good night, Mrs. Springer."
"You, as well."
As Mrs. Springer turned to walk away, Kaede saw not the woman that she was…but an emaciated Titan that resembled said woman. Then, the image of the Titan was replaced with the woman again as she left her by herself.
What was that? She questioned, thinking she had hallucinated the older woman as a Titan. Some sort of…glimpse of what could've been had Shinji never fallen from the sky? Would Mrs. Springer and her family have been turned into Titans by Marley through the Beast Titan? No…no, I refuse to believe that to be true. None of that has happened. Shinji fell, he's here now, and we're all free from the Walls, the past…and we're moving forward into unknown waters. We've been cleansed of our past stains.
She stopped walking towards her building and decided to take a detour towards the beach.
-x-
Even though he was disgusted with the actions of his son, Gendo still looked over the recorded footage from the initial invasion by Marley and saw how it seemed impossible for this Grausam to be killed, even by the Eva, and he had been stepped on repeatedly. It was impressive how the man that was referred to as the Devil of the Titans was able to survive such brutal punishment from these people who were now much more advanced than they thought possible. If he hadn't been prevented from doing so, he'd have NERV capture the man in place of the Sogen girl and persuade him to join their cause if he could give the old men this potential immortality, regardless of whether or not he was already in league with this Marley.
"I don't understand how he could survive your Eva stomping on him like that, Shinji," he heard this Armin say to the boy as they watched the lid being secured to the vat of water to restrain the Akuma Titan. "I mean, against the previous Titans, it was clear you were the victor, but against his Titan, it was like…like you were hitting nothing but air."
"I know, but he's not invincible…even if he thinks he is," Shinji had responded. "This guy's no better than my father, and the only difference between them is that Grausam turned himself into a Titan after turning Kaede just to see what he wanted. I always thought my old man was a monster, but this guy is the literal freak from Hell while he's just a jerk I'm glad to be away from."
Gendo frowned at how he was being pathetically compared to Grausam by Shinji.
"Maybe he's Kaede to kill," Armin suggested.
"Even if that were true, I don't want to believe that it's Kaede's responsibility to put him down just yet," Shinji responded. "I promised her that I'd do it to keep her from doing it."
"Why is it that important for you to do it?"
"…Because I don't want for her to be consumed by her hatred towards him if she does end up having to do him in. Neither she nor I want for that to happen. Anger, hatred, even vengeance consumes us the more we hold onto them, and when they consume us completely, even when we say they don't…we lose from ourselves all that we ever were and wanted to be. Hate is a poison I can't let her become forever tainted by because of Grausam. If I can't find a way to put him down for good and she ends up doing him in, I'll have failed in my promise to her to keep her from going down that dark tunnel that there's no hope of coming back from unharmed."
"You sound like how I once feared for Eren when he was a Titan Shifter before Kaede took his power from him."
Gendo found it ironic how his son was trying everything he could to keep the girl that had snatched his heart from him from having to kill this man that turned her into a monster among people, and his reason for doing so was so that she wouldn't have to and be consumed by her hatred towards him. It almost mirrored how he himself would've done anything to be with Yui again before she performed the contact experiment with the Eva and ended up consumed by it. Only in this case, the only repercussion that was to be feared was the girl having to live with murdering her step-grandfather if the boy failed to find a way to do it.
I can always hope that he fails and sees her consumed by her hatred, he thought, watching as the footage ended with Shinji taking his Prog. Knife and getting ready to act in the event that the Akuma Titan tried to escape, then he'll know how it feels when you get hit with the harsh reality of failure.
To be continued…
A/N: What Kaede saw in her mind was actually a glimpse of what could've been had Shinji not fallen from the sky and changed everything. Do any of you ever stop to wonder what might've been had Shinji fallen into the Titan universe at different points in time instead of where he had when I had the Colossal Titan attack shortly after Wall Rose's Trost District had been plugged of its breach? I mean, what if he had fallen during the time Wall Maria had been attacked, or when Rod Reiss had turned himself into a Titan, or even during the recapture of Wall Maria? And who among you believe that Grausam Zanki has become immortal to a degree? Read and review, please.