Creation began on 12-03-18
Creation ended on 12-07-18
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Hope from the Sky: Out of Darkness is the Miracle
It was different this time than the first time she was in the ocean. There was a silence around her that brought no sense of fear or relief. She couldn't feel the cold or loneliness surrounding her as she looked down at the abyss beneath herself. There was only a sense of emptiness that came from looking down at the darkness below.
Why can't I just move right now? Kaede wondered, trying to move her arms and legs, but the signals from her brain didn't seem to reach out to her nerves in said limbs. I must've hit the water harder than I anticipated I would. Maybe my body's in shock or something, trying to recover from the trauma. But…I can't wait around forever to get better from something I did just a while ago. There could still be ships that survived, and the War Hammer Titan is still out there. Even if Shinji's still able to do something, he'd mainly be defensive; he can't fight and protect the coastal city at the same time by pushing away an enemy that can't be pushed away. Come on, Kaede, move. You have to get back up and in the fight.
Slowly, she felt her arms move, followed by her legs, propelling herself up towards the surface. Her Titan body clearly weighed a considerable amount in order to impact the water as hard as she did, but she knew how to swim, so the whole sinking and floating aspects of her current situation weren't an issue. As the surface came closer into view, she noticed bits and pieces of debris sinking around her, followed by people, both whole or as pieces, dead and good for nothing more than fish food for the bigger fish that ate meat.
Oh, this is going to follow me to my grave, she thought as she couldn't fathom how many Marleyan men and women she had to kill to destroy as much of a navy fleet as possible.
Now, as she finally reached the barrier separating her from the surface world, Kaede pushed her Titan head through and looked around the point of return, seeing that she was a considerable distance away from Paradis…and that Shinji was defending against the War Hammer Titan's hammer and tendrils. There was no sign of any other ships from Marley around, implying that they were all destroyed.
Whoa, man, she realized that she had made a serious dent in Marley's navy power. That just leaves the War Hammer and we'll be able to settle this with ease.
But she couldn't overlook the fact that the War Hammer Titan, a practical virtuoso of the Nine Titans of Ymir Fritz when it came to the extensive manipulation of Titan flesh being molded into whatever the possessor desired, was a force that Kaede, in the words of people from Shinji's world, was trying to go up against with shit she's never seen before.
The only way to beat the War Hammer is to take out the operator, who won't be too far from the Titan. Find where they are through the Titan body…and you have what you need to defeat them.
Since she was in the water, she had the advantage because the Titan Shifter wasn't paying attention to her. If Shinji could keep the person occupied with his Eva, she could find the operator that had to be hiding close by underwater.
"Just so that you know," she heard Shinji's voice through the Eva, directed at the Titan, "if my girlfriend is dead because she tried to stop the fleet from harming the Eldians here on the island, I'm bound by my devotion to her to avenge her by going after the people responsible, which would be all of the military power behind Marley and the people that supported this invasion plan to begin with."
"You'd go after innocent civilians just because of your girlfriend getting ended?" The War Hammer Titan questioned his morality.
"It all depends on how this conflict plays out in the end."
-x-
"You think he's bluffing?" Ritsuko asked Misato, wondering if Shinji would really cross the line like he had against Marley's military.
"He is bluffing," said Asuka. "He's playing with this Titan so that they don't suspect his girlfriend of anything."
They saw how, far behind in the ocean, the Dark Titan's head had surfaced and then submerged again, as if hiding from view. The fact that it had been able to create a tidal wave of such force made it more dangerous and just as impressive as the Eva was due to being empowered with increased active time from eating the discarded husks of the Dark Titan after it ceased eating regular Titans once it was discovered they were once people and could be returned to humanity with the Sogen girl's spinal fluid. Two powerful forces that NERV couldn't possess for themselves due to later revelations that made everything harder to duplicate for their own purposes and other factors, such as two of the Angels going to that Titan universe over Tokyo-3.
Ritsuko had done extensive tests on the Titan Serum they had obtained from the people of that village Asuka found outside of the former walled off country on the island, and tried it on various blood samples she had procured from random people from other countries, only to find that the serum wasted away faster when introduced into incompatible genetics. This led her to conclude that, despite having two Titans in their possession, anyone that didn't have any biological relation to these…Eldians were unable to be turned into Titans…or weren't as intellectually gifted as this Grausam Zanki was when it came to redeveloping the formula and giving it to people that weren't related to the Eldians. And as ridiculous as it seemed the way Shinji had either heard of it from someone else or seen it for himself before, the former Eldian that Grausam was had to be the most depraved person to have ever lived when it came to his intelligence and sociopathy; only second to Gendo, the guy was as cold and uncaring of others as any man could demonstrate toward others.
Even when he was crippled, he seemed dangerous, she thought, just as the War Hammer Titan swung its hammer at the Eva, actually making it step back when its AT-Field reverberated in a way that caused Shinji to feel discomfort.
-x-
"Waaaahh!" Hange gasped at the level of destruction that was left in the form of debris in the ocean water as the Survey Corps were on horseback, heading towards the carrier to get to the jets. "Unbelievable!"
"I wonder which of them did that," said Armin as they rode through the streets.
"We can see the Eva," went Connie, "so I don't think Shinji did whatever caused that destruction. It had to be Kaede."
"The girl's not much of a fighter, but she's definitely a badass," added Marco.
"Or she's just reckless…or resourceful," stated Sasha.
They watched as the War Hammer Titan, much larger than what they had expected, and more versatile than they had realized, swung its hammer and sent these tentacles against the Eva, who blocked with its barrier.
"Why doesn't he fight back?" Eren wondered, noticing how the Eva just stood there defensively. "He's just letting it hit him."
"There's a reason behind it," Jean suggested. "We're just not seeing it yet."
-x-
Found you, thought Kaede as her Dark Titan located the end of the War Hammer Titan underwater, twenty-eight feet below the surface of the shoreline, wedged into the ground, protected by a cocoon of hardened Titan flesh with a strand or cable of said flesh leading away from it towards the surface.
The cocoon was like crystal…and the person inside, immobile and conscious, was indeed a woman, possibly no older than Kaede's own mother. She had dark hair wrapped in a bun, was dressed in a black and white gown (Kaede couldn't tell if she was going for the modest attire or was some kind of maid on looks alone), and her face seemed…full of despair or some kind of negativity that diminished her beauty to a huge degree some time ago.
She's facing towards the ground leading up to the surface of the beach, not outward towards the terrain leading away from the island, Kaede realized; anyone with the power of the War Hammer only demonstrated their consciousness and perception in only their Titan's eyes…and their own. So long as she can't see me, she has no idea of her vulnerability to me.
Slowly, she approached the cocooned woman that controlled the War Hammer Titan above the water, distracted by the Eva…and then reached out to grab her.
"Grrr," the Dark Titan growled as the crystal cocoon was ripped from out of the wet sediment, causing the woman to take notice of the new, immediate threat to her life.
Pierce. A tendril shot out the ground behind the Dark Titan and pierced its back, coming right out its chest.
The Tybur woman looked at it with a frown, as if taunting the behemoth that thought she was vulnerable to attack just because it was able to get close to her. While she never had much practice with her family's Titan, she was versed in all of its power due to the memories of previous inheritors. Sure, it wasn't as intimidating as the Beast Titan or as frightening as the Colossal Titan, not even as heavy a hitter as the Armored Titan or as nimble as the Female Titan, but of all the Nine Titans, the War Hammer was the most versatile, which made it the most dangerous after the Founding Titan. The only Titan that might've had a chance in terms of rivaling its might was the Attack Titan that disappeared a long time ago, but that was before she took the serum that increased her Titan's size to fifty meters, erasing that chance for good.
Crack! She looked at her crystal casing and saw a crack had formed, and it spread across the whole structure.
The Dark Titan lowered to its knees and propelled itself upward to the surface with the cracking cocoon before any harm could befall the woman inside it; even when she was attacked the way this Tybur woman did so, Kaede was only after the final Titan, which she felt this woman had just lost to her by attacking her with hardened Titan flesh, causing her to come into contact with her spinal fluid, so there was no need to let the woman drown or get crushed. And enough people had died by her hands already today.
You did it, Kaede, she heard her Titan say to her, and she felt like she was drifting away from consciousness and into her unconsciousness.
She was in the city in her subconscious mind, standing beside the Dark Titan in front of the mural that was finally completed with the self-portrait of said Titan and the Nine Titans of Ymir Fritz. The War Hammer Titan in its previous state, before getting bigger, depicted on the far left of the mural, its face obscured by the strands of hair from the Dark Titan. All nine were now residing within the Titan that became their undoing, with each of their powers merged together, their strengths unified by the one that possessed them without fail.
"The mural is completed," she expressed.
"Your mural," the Dark Titan added. "You are without boundaries now, Kaede. Your torch burns brightest in the darkness wherever you go with those that choose to follow you…that you can guide through the unknown. You became something much greater than even I couldn't foresee."
"What do you mean? What…what have I become?"
The Dark Titan turned to face her…and knelt down in front of her.
"You're Ymir's successor," she revealed to her. "Her Nine Titans, all nine pieces of her soul that were left to Eldia, they all now reside within you. You're only Ymir's successor, not Ymir herself. You could never be her. Even if it were possible, not even she could bring back the dead, even with the power she possessed. You'll understand as you mature further."
Then, as she wanted to ask her Titan more on what she meant, even though it felt more she was actually having a conversation with herself in two different states of being, Kaede felt thrust back into the conscious world, surfacing from under the water with the half-shattered crystal cocoon of the woman that lost her power to her.
"Urgh, what?!" She groaned, trapped in the grip of the Dark Titan's left hand. "What have you done to me?! My Titan…"
"By attacking me the way you did, you lost your Titan to me," Kaede told her. "Think of it as a passing of the torch. Each inheritor or possessor of the Nine Titans carries a torch across the dark plains, lighting up the night. When they reach the end of their journey, they pass the torch onto the next bearer, who will carry it across the night. The only difference is that with me, those torchbearers are still alive. Your War Hammer, your torch, has been unwillingly handed over to me, who now has the means to do what is necessary for her people. The Nine Titans of Ymir Fritz have all been reclaimed by Eldia. Marley can no longer take them. You've lost."
Wading back to the beach, Kaede saw Shinji's Eva stand straight as the last of its AT-Field diminished from the Wall Titans and as the previous War Hammer Titan bodies began to degenerate and evaporate.
"Are you alright, Kaede?" Shinji asked her.
"Never better, Shinji," she answered him. "Are you okay?"
"I am now."
-x-
Unlike the first time they fought Marley's navy fleet, there weren't any confirmed survivors from this one, indicating that the Dark Titan-induced tsunami had obliterated the entire fleet, right down to the very last soldier. Even after three hours of monitoring the island on all sides due to the extremity of the wave leaving debris that either drifted towards the shorelines or sank beneath the waves, there wasn't a single sign, any trace of survivors from any one of the destroyed ships.
"Thirty-thousand men and women of Marley's military, all dead because of you," the woman that lost the War Hammer Titan to Kaede had yelled to the girl as she was handed over to the Garrison for holding. "You think it's all over for you? You think you saved your little garbage island from Marley? It's not over yet!"
Laying on the roof of her building, looking up at the sky, Kaede Sogen sighed as she was given the next few days to recover from her attack on the fleet and to adjust to the accumulation of the Nine Titans inside her. Although she might as well as stated that because of her Dark Titan's unique existence among the Jaeger Titans created by Grausam, the Nine Titans of Ymir Fritz were no longer present. There wasn't a sense of multiple presences within her, only the Dark Titan, who gained strength from the Nine Titans, and she didn't feel a sense of instability or like she was going crazy and hearing voices or the like. She felt the same as she always did every other day.
They can't be taken by anyone, no matter what happens, she thought, listening to the calm breeze. When my life ends, all that power follows me to my grave. Someone imbued with power will retain said power and it will never be passed on like whatever else can be. There are no more Nine Titans…only the Dark Titan. There's only myself.
A shadow obscured her view of the sky and she saw that it was her mother, looking down at her.
"How are you?" She asked her daughter.
"I'm okay. How about you, Mother?"
"I'm relieved that you're still alive, Kaede. You actually had me worried when Shinji explained that you caused a tidal wave by falling from the sky as your Titan to destroy an entire navy fleet. Even he got worried because he was the one to throw you up there."
"Yeah…he told me as he walked me back here. I think he was going to cry when he hugged me."
Christine slowly lowered down beside her daughter and expressed, "I'd do the same if I was worried about your current state after hitting something or vice versa."
"Honestly, I didn't think what I did was going to even work; I don't know how much any Titan as big as the Colossal or my own weigh, but I had to assume that mine was heavy enough to affect at least some of the fleet. Even just sinking four or five of them would've been enough."
"You two were lucky…but you were luckier because you came home. Even if you were able to do it again, please, don't unless absolutely necessary. It doesn't matter if the Dark Titan is perceived as being invincible, you're not invincible."
"I promise, Mother."
Christine then lay on her back and looked up at the sky with Kaede.
"So, you really had Shinji throw you up into the sky?" She asked her daughter.
"Yeah," Kaede answered.
"What did it look like up there? What did the world below look like?"
"Up there? It looked like what you once told me about Daddy and where he went when I asked about why he wasn't home. Up there…it looked like Heaven. It was beautiful. It was absolutely beautiful. And the world below…was much bigger than I thought it was. And it was vast in its own beauty. Even if I were to transform into my Titan and simply gaze out at the ocean, it wouldn't be the same as the view you get from up there."
"I believe you."
-x-
The more Gendo watched the latest footage recorded from his son's time in the Eva, the more he definitely despised him for having this girl he was involved with be so powerful now and NERV or any other organization from this world couldn't touch her for anything related to research on the Eva or some other kind of bio research because he was willing to go to whatever extremes he had to in order to keep her safe. And even now, because she had all of these different Titan powers in her possession, she was something else he was certain NERV couldn't fathom without researching her extensively, but was probably the same as whoever it was that made the Titans to begin with, based solely on Shinji's memories recorded from the Eva.
These Nine Titans of Ymir Fritz, he thought, seeing the Eva on the defensive against this Titan that swung some mallet at it to keep it distracted after the Dark Titan had created a tidal wave to decimate an entire navy fleet. He and these people he serves and protects with the Eva let her take possession of these different powers that could be taken by anyone that was turned into a mindless Titan, and from what she had chosen to confide in them about, they no longer exist except for in her own Titan that uses their power. This would imply that if anyone wanted to decide the fate of these people on a large scale, they'd have to have control over her to do it.
But even if he or anyone could do anything to "persuade" or "convince" the Third Child to let any of them "look at" his girlfriend, the boy was as stubborn as he was viewed as a hero by these people he protected.
"Just as he protects the people from any that would harm them, I will protect him from any that dare to hurt him," the girl had once said to the Second Child the day she was handed back to NERV because they couldn't stand her verbal nonsense and because the Third Child was more merciful towards her by simply destroying Unit-02. "Stay away. Don't ever let me see any of you back here if you're going to hurt us again."
One way of another, he had to try and convince SEELE that they needed to obtain the girl if they were going to gain more insight to these Titans that existed in this other world; they had been unable to learn any further from the two that they had. Even if the scenario had been ruined because of this predicament, they could still salvage something worth taking from this other universe if it meant having an edge against others. And in his mind, the power this girl had, along with the power the Eva gained from eating the Titans…was worth taking from the other universe completely.
-x-
After surveying the coast on all sides of the island, Shinji decided to pay Grausam a visit to make sure he was…behaving himself.
"Who was the man that he killed?" He asked earlier after Ms. Agnes Tybur, former possessor of the War Hammer Titan, was confined in a cell among the other previous possessors of the Nine Titans to make sure they were separated from those that were once Jaeger Titans.
"Robin Williams," Hange had informed. "He once lived in Trost when he trained in the cadets. Graduated third in his group about eight years ago, joined the Military Police up until their disbandment after their corruption was proven too far to be of any value to the country. After which, he requested a transfer to the Garrison; apparently, you and Ms. Sogen had an impact on him that made him want to believe in living beyond this island."
Although it wasn't his or Kaede's fault the man died because of Grausam, Shinji still felt a measure of guilt because the man died from unnatural causes instead of just sickness and old age. Ever since he and Kaede had gotten involved with helping the Survey Corps and Garrison, there had been a complete elimination of the human casualties that were inherent in the Survey Corps because the Titan threat had been resolved. But Grausam, a man that turned into a monster worse than the Titans, had killed a man in order to escape, and there was no bringing that victim back.
"Was he…married?" Shinji had asked Hange. "Did he have any next of kin or family?"
Even if the guy had once joined the Military Police to avoid dealing with the Titans and focus more on protecting the people from other people, even those among that disgraceful faction had to have people close to them. Even just a simple girlfriend that was only dated for a few weeks would've been sufficient.
"Nice to see that you're still crippled," Shinji spoke to Grausam as he sat where he was placed not too long ago, unable to regenerate because of the braces that prevented his limbs' regrowth.
"Was that supposed to be a joke," he heard Grausam ask him in the darkness, visible only by his glowing eyes. "I'd be laughing if you were reduced to pulp."
"You don't hear me laughing, do you? If you weren't so difficult to kill, I'd probably be laughing a little bit. But there are rules to what is and isn't possible, and with those rules come loopholes. If you can't be killed, then you can at least be harmed; you can feel pain, you can bleed, you can feel despair. If we can't break the rules of immortality and invincibility, then we can bend them. Maybe you'll live to be one-hundred years old, maybe even two-hundred, but you'll never be free again. You grow back any of your limbs, and we'll just cut them off again. We'll disembowel you, poison you, keep you heavily sedated, whatever is necessary to keep you in control and contained. Maybe it'll feel like dying, but you'll still be alive. There's a downside to immortality, you know, and it's the inability to move on. When everyone you've ever known and love are gone, when you're the last person alive and there's nobody else to cherish or despise, you'll succumb to the feeling of loneliness. You'll start to feel despair, and when you want it all to stop, for eternity to end… That's when you realize that you've traded away a life of numbered days for an unending story, for your beginning to remain in the middle, for the end to be beyond your reach. That's when you truly start to go mad."
Grausam looked at him as though he had gone down some philosophical road and spoke a belief that was ageless.
"Is that what you think?" He asked him.
"What I think doesn't matter…and in due time…nothing you think will matter, either."
"Boy, you better pray I don't kill you, too."
"I know better than to be afraid of some cripple that was willing to lay waste to everyone on Paradis. You're only on borrowed time, and the sand has to run out in the hourglass, eventually."
Shinji then walked away, leaving Eren and Mikasa to continue their guard detail on Grausam.
"How long before we can expect for there to be a way of dealing with him permanently?" Eren asked him.
"I'm hoping soon," he answered him. "Has he attempted to regenerate despite the measures we've taken to ensure that he can't?"
"No…but just keeping an eye on him is irritating."
Shinji got the feeling that Eren was talking about the fact that he was playing babysitter to the same guy that murdered his half-brother in cold blood and didn't bat an eyelash or feel any degree of remorse for his crime.
"Don't forget what happened the last time we rushed into something terrible," he reminded him of the ultimatum his father gave them that resulted in Kaede taking his Titan power and getting sick later on because she used the power immediately after acquiring instead of letting her body adjust to it. "I want to see him dealt with as much as you and everyone else want to see him dealt with, but we need to exercise patience. In the end, patience will pay off."
"How is she doing?" Mikasa asked, referring to Kaede.
"I…I don't really know," he answered. "I walked her home after Ms. Tybur was incarcerated, but I didn't stay with her because I had volunteered to help survey the ocean around the island. Excluding Ms. Tybur, everyone else in that fleet is in Davy Jones' locker. Um…they're sleeping with the fishes, shark food, downright dead because of the tidal wave."
"Your girlfriend made an impression when the ships crashed and wrecked across the air above the districts and villages."
"A crazy move on her part…but one of her best ones by far."
"Yeah," Eren agreed with him. "Still, it's hard to imagine any Titan to be capable of anything remotely like that, though. It was…unreal."
Shinji then decided he needed to be with Kaede; he didn't check to make sure she was doing alright, but he could still make sure she was.
"Patience will pay off," he reminded them as he left.
-x-
"…I should warn you, though," Misato heard Shinji say to Kaede in a memory of a day sometime ago before they had to deal with Marley; it was just during the young couple's time in the space of land between what used to be Walls Maria and Rose. "If you met Misato, she would tease me to no end about you, heh-heh."
Kaede, who was laying on the grass beside him, looked at him and asked, "What kinds of things would she tease you about, your guardian?"
"Well… I honestly don't know everything she'd tease me about, but one of them would be like, 'Why is her hair gray, Shinji? She looks rather strange'."
"If I met her, I'd say that…my hair is gray…because I inherited my color from my father. He had a unique hair color ever since he was young and it made him stand out among the people. When I was born, I had a full head of hair that was the same shade as his. Even if I was in a crowd of dozens of little girls, Daddy would recognize his daughter because she was Daddy's little girl. And then…after he died, one of my reminders of his life became my very hair. I dare not let anyone mess with it."
"Wow. That's a pretty amazing tale."
"Thank you."
Misato, even as she sat in Central Dogma to view this old footage, got the feeling that she couldn't tease Shinji about Kaede. No, she couldn't, not when the girlfriend in question had power beyond their understanding and was capable of things not even an Evangelion was capable of. The girl had just recently came into power and could use it however she saw fit, but, due to a memory recorded that occurred after the failed ultimatum, she refused to exploit the total sum of her newfound power because of her conscience, her sense of morality, her inability to keep her people from progressing forward instead of keeping them at a standstill forever or until someone else came and declared war upon them for something. No, she couldn't see herself teasing Shinji about this girl.
"…It's probably moot to ask you this, Shinji," she heard Kaede say to Shinji, "but do you ever think about what might've been if you went back to your world? Even if it was only for just one day? To see your classmates, to see your guardian, the people you once protected because your father dragged you into a war you had no understanding of?"
"Sometimes," Shinji answered her, "but not to return to the fighting. I'd just go back to see them. Sometimes, I have to wonder if Misato's still drinking her forty gallons of beer…or trying her best not to hate Mr. Kaji as much as she claims she does…or how Ayanami is. But then, I'd probably have this one fear that would become my worst one to symbolize my sorrow."
"What fear?"
"That I couldn't come back here. You, your family, the Survey Corps, the Garrison, Historia and the people we look after…being nothing more than a dream I didn't want to wake up from because it was so real, so meaningful. Anything that kept me from you would be painful and heart-wrenching."
"You'll never lose me, Shinji."
Misato had to wonder when, if even "when" was possible with everything that has happened and has yet to happen, someone or something like NERV (mainly just Gendo) had failed to do would try to separate this young couple for vindictive reasons.
-x-
Opening her eyes in the darkness, Kaede felt another presence near her bed as she saw the moonlight slipping into her bedroom window. Looking at the mess of hair in front of her, she recognized Shinji asleep nearby. She reached out to him with her left arm and placed it on his right wrist before drifting off to sleep again.
The Nine Titans of Ymir Fritz are gone now, she thought, and with them the bane that was her curse. Only two Titans of any significance remain. The Dark Titan…and the Akuma Titan. But in due time, the man that refers to himself as the Devil of the Titans will be returned to Hell for his crimes…and we'll all be free of his insanity. I look forward to the day I can put him behind me and reduce him to nothing more than a memory that deserves to be forgotten.
-x-
In the night on the carrier, Unit-01's eyes flared for a moment before shutting down.
-x-
In the chamber of Lilith in Terminal Dogma, the two Titans ignored how the artificial lake of LCL beneath Lilith bubbled as a form emerged from it, gasping for air.
It was…a woman, bare as the day she drew her first breath, with dark, pageboy hair and a slim build. As she climbed out of the LCL and crawled across the floor, she looked up at the ceiling above her and the two Titans.
"That Titan within the girl," she panted. "She actually forced me out of the Eva and sent me back here, brought me back to life. She…she severed his connection to me. He can use the Eva like he always does, but, beyond that, what he could do it here in this world…has been reduced to just what he does over there with it."
Sooner or later, someone would come down here and find her. They'd discover who she was…and she'd have to explain everything that was and wasn't.
She would have no choice but to identify herself as Yui Ikari, and the only reason she was alive was because of a miracle out of the darkness in a young girl that had a personality all of its own…and was interested solely in said girl's future, however she saw it.
To be continued…
A/N: I wasn't really intending that, but it just took on a life of its own at the end. I just read the latest chapter of Attack on Titan, and Eren's become a sore loser now. Proud to have written this story where he hasn't gone down the path he's taken. But what do y'all think will happen next now that Kaede has all Nine Titans?