Hope from the Sky

by Traitor of All Traitors

Inspired by the works of other writers that took to it, this is my first attempt. Shinji and Unit-01, victims of the Twelfth Angel attack, find themselves in another world with giants that crave human flesh. Can Shinji offer his Eva's assistance in allowing mankind to cancel their extinction, or will he be joining them? Finally Finished. Bonus lemon chapter now uploaded.

58. Diminished Rage

Creation began on 04-26-19

Creation ended on 05-30-19

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Sky: Diminished Rage

He wasn't sure how long he was actually being held there, but Calvi couldn't deny what his brain fought against in a failing struggle: These Eldians of Paradis, despite his previous assurances that they were just a bunch of savages, were superior to Marley, both technologically and medically. And what was more, due to their isolation of what they once had inside the former Walls and Marley's own reasons to keep away from the island as much as possible, he and the other Marleyans had witnessed a group of people with a vast amount of resources they were only beginning to put to use, a part of Marley's desire to take the island for themselves. Because Marley had nearly exhausted their own resources over the years to produce weapons and war machines to defend themselves again potential enemies beside the Eldians, they were looking at a possible decline in food resources within a decade or two. And now that their naval forces had bitten off more than they could chew, along with seeing the deaths of so many soldiers before they could face these people that were allied with a giant that made the Titans pale in comparison because of its size and speed, Calvi also knew that the military might of Marley had taken a critical blow from the Eldians and may not recover from it.

"You look like you're in poor spirits, Mr. Calvi," went a woman to the man as she came to serve the prisoners their breakfast. "It's only been a month."

"It's been a month? Has it really been that long?"

"I suppose a calendar wouldn't hurt for each of you, now that we know the exact year it is."

"Thirty days in prison."

"Thirty-one days, to be exact. It sounds like you've mellowed out a bit."

"After being made to watch that video thing you people made… It got me thinking about Marley in a…different way."

"In what way did it get you thinking?"

"The wars between Marley and other nations have…over time been about more than just hatred against the Eldians and their power of the Titans."

"I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that it's also been about the one thing any war grants after a victory, depending the necessity of it, and that's resources."

Calvi looked at her like she had read his mind.

"The Survey Corps is good at what they do, and part of what they do is survey the landscape," she explained. "Imperialism isn't a good way to live, as it causes a whomping loss in both lives and resources. Ruined grounds are almost impossible to use to grow crops."

"I take it the people here had a similar problem of that sort?"

"The encroachment caused by the Titans that lasted for five years. When the former Wall Maria was breached, a lot of people died because we lost a lot of territory needed to grow food. They either suffered from sickness or starvation…or through failed attempts to take back Wall Maria. So, yes, we have faced a similar reduction in our own resources."

She then left him to go serve breakfast to the other inmates, leaving Calvi to look down at his meal comprised of…sushi and rice balls.

They seem to cook meals belonging to other countries more than the standard meals we know of, he thought as he picked up a rice ball. How do they expect me to develop a taste for fish and rice like this?

-x-

"…So Reiner and the others didn't know what their parents and guardians knew?" Eren asked Historia after another meeting that took place regarding the operation to begin reclaiming the other island for the Eldian people.

"No, they didn't," she answered him as she helped Shinji and Kaede collect the tea cups and empty water bottles on the table in the room. "And they were here for over five years during the time we were attacked by Marley, trying to take the Founding Titan for them, so they were constantly kept out of the loop. But, yes, Marley is facing a crisis of their own due to their militaristic imperialist view that was their choice after Karl Fritz gave them control of the mainland. Another reason they attacked Paradis was not only to take the Founding Titan, but to gain control over our resources here."

"They've exhausted almost everything they have in the pursuit of power and dominance and left very little for future generations," said Kaede as she carried a small, blue bin full of recyclables. "Certain imperialists develop a mindset where they believe that more is better, resulting in an insatiable hunger for more resources. As a consequence of this mindset, Marley is heading towards a self-destructive end…and their conflict with us only hastened things along."

"Within twenty years or so," added Shinji, putting the tea cups in the plastic bin under his left arm, "they're going to be dealt with by a severe case of famine. If that happens, there's no telling what could occur afterward. They could go to war amongst each other just to try and put food on the table every day."

"They'll kill themselves more than they tried to kill us with our own people," Eren stated, sounding almost eager to see that happen.

"Are we really that desperate to see people suffer for their own behavior like this?" Historia questioned. "I want Marley to stop, but I don't want any more people to die over something that can be prevented."

"You think that if we help Marley with their food shortage," went Ymir, standing by the door with a trolley cart, "among other things they have problems with, they'll see that we're a good people that don't want to persist in conflict?"

"That's right."

"The power of the Titans in the past was used to cultivate barren wastelands," said Kaede to them. "Uninhabitable terrain was remade through the use of Titan flesh, molded to benefit the people when they were helping to change the landscape that couldn't be survived in."

"How did Titan flesh…remake uninhabitable terrain?" Eren asked her.

"The land was bathed in the flesh of the Titans," she explained, seeing it happen as though she was there when it did. "Like a blanket or a wave, the Titan flesh covered the lifeless soil of a parched land where not even weeds could grow, absorbing the matter, reaching deep into the Earth from whence they came…and revitalizing it so that flowers, trees and produce could grow overnight. The Titans were a form of life unbound by our perceptions of mortality. They just helped to alter the wastelands and turn them into gardens."

"That sounds like a fairytale, Kaede," Ymir expressed her belief.

"If I didn't have access to the memories of the past possessors of the Nine Titans, I would've believed it to be nothing more than a fairytale myself."

"Could you do what the past inheritors did, Kaede?" Historia asked her. "I mean, you've never practiced something like that with any of the Titan powers you possess, but…could you do what they did…eventually?"

"Yes," she answered honestly; while she might've never done anything as unbelievable or miraculous as turning a wasteland into a garden, Kaede wanted to believe that she could since she could see the past Titan Shifters had done so.

-x-

"…Anything new today based off the synchronization of Shinji and the Eva?" Misato asked Ritsuko as she and Asuka showed up at NERV HQ the next day.

"Other than he was present during a meeting regarding the Eldians having an operation to retake a neighboring island by sending people over to begin construction of a new community," the faux-blond woman responded, "he's currently on guard duty again for the day, only it's to do something different from simply walking along the coastline of Paradis."

"What's different for him today?" Asuka asked them.

"He's helping the Survey Corps monitor Marley's coastal areas," explained Maya, showing them a surveillance scene of Shinji using the Eva to levitate along the coastline of Marley's eastern side while several members of the Survey Corps were flying across the neighborhoods. "It looks like Marley has reached a standstill against Paradis."

"More like a proverbial loss," Ritsuko stated. "There hasn't been any attempt by them to stage another attack against the Eldians after their attempted airborne assault ended in presumed failure. The Eldians appear to be the ones in control now because they're no longer primitive, live in fear of the Titans, have an honest ruler whose two advisors help to benefit them all. More knowledge, more efficient use of their resources, and not to mention their enemies no longer have any means to harm them. This is like being policed to a degree."

"Except Marley was also warring against Paradis due to their withering resources," Maya reminded her.

"How bad are their limited resources?" Asuka asked.

"It's bad. Marley practically blew through as much of their materials as they could to build weapons and ships to advance their hold on the world, only to lose most of them against Shinji and Kaede in the first two attempts to take Paradis. In their wars with other races, they destroyed a lot of land that can't be used to grow practically anything for anybody, limiting them to few places they can use to produce food. If it's not the enemy's reduced manpower, it's their ability to ensure the lives of their people after being involved in a conflict for as long as they have, leading to infighting over what's left of their own resources."

"Looks like Shinji helped to turn a race of people believed to be on the verge of extinction into the new superpower of that world just by being on that island."

"Looks like it," Misato suspected, "or a great power in the making."

-x-

"We have a new problem," SEELE 10 informed the council. "Somewhere in NERV revealed information related to the Human Instrumentality Project, the Evangelions, the Angels and the Dead Sea Scrolls."

"How much information was leaked?" SEELE 03 questioned.

"All of it."

"All of it?" SEELE 06 repeated.

"They revealed everything that had been hidden. Someone with access to secure files distributed the information across the global networks. They're starting to disclose everything, including our very existence."

"Could it have been Ikari?" SEELE 12 suggested. "After he was cast aside when his son's universal displacement ruined our scenario, maybe he was planning to take us down with him."

"No, when we cut him off, we cut off his access to the MAGI…unless he used someone else's access to disclose secret information," SEELE 02 explained.

"After the scenario was ruined, we should've shut down NERV," SEELE 10 expressed his belief. "There was no further point in keeping them active if the remaining Angels ceased to attack Tokyo-3 for Lilith, thinking it might be Adam."

"One of our contacts on the inside say that most of the time, the personnel at NERV HQ spends its hours eavesdropping on the visual data connections of Unit-01, keeping tabs on the Third Child," SEELE 01 informed them, "and all he appears to do is aid these…Eldians in retaking the world from these…Marleyans who behave in a way not so different from the Nazi Germans of World War Two, believing themselves to be a master race. Now, it would seem that they're in a resource war because Marley squandered theirs while the Eldians of this Paradis have an island full of resources that could be used to replenish the world."

"Or further our own goals here if they could be obtained through force," said SEELE 07 to them.

"Have you forgotten what Ikari had attempted when he tried and failed to reclaim Unit-01, its pilot and this girl that could become one of these Titans in the initial plan to regain control over the scenario?" SEELE 10 questioned. "He threatened to wipe out everyone on that island with N² bombs if his son refused to surrender within forty-eight hours. His son refused, choosing these Eldians over returning to a life of facing the Angels. While the plan failed, it caused tension between them and NERV, and by extension, it caused tension with the rest of this world. I wouldn't deny the possibility that this recklessness on Ikari's fault made the Eldians distrust anyone from our world with the sole exception being the Third Child himself, who they turned to for his aid in retaking the land within a walled community and further…and who gave his aid willingly. When they saw the Second Child and Unit-02 attack them in that coastal city of theirs, it only made an attempt at relations worse when the ultimatum was given."

"Even if we could go there for their resources, we have no diplomatic relations with either race of people, and from what was monitored from the Third Child's memories, Marley despises all other people and wouldn't hesitate to kill any foreigners, whether they're friendly or not."

"How long do we have…until we're found out and hunted down like rabid dogs?" SEELE 11 asked, wanting to focus on their problems rather than those of another world.

"We may have only a few days," answered SEELE 02. "No Adam, no Lilith, no Lance of Longinus, no Human Instrumentality Project, and all that we've worked for all these years have amounted to absolutely nothing!"

"We have no choice but to disband and avoid the authorities for as long as we possibly can," SEELE 01 declared. "We don't have time to investigate this leak of information or find the culprit or culprits responsible. This may be the last time any of us ever engage in conversation."

And with that, each of the holographic monoliths representing the members of SEELE disappeared as the men behind them had to flee from wherever they were in order to avoid facing the consequences of their secret actions. But Lorenz Kiel, one way or another, intended to get revenge on whoever was responsible for this breach of intelligence that exposed everything to the world, including the strings behind the UN.

-x-

"This place seems so much more desolate than the last time we were here," went Armin as he and the selected members of the Survey Corps and Garrisons stood in front of the ruins of the former settlement that existed on the neighboring island.

"Yeah," agreed Sasha with him. "Well, this place isn't going to rebuild itself. Let's get to work, everyone! Start clearing up the debris!"

-x-

This time, it didn't feel like an hallucination or a dream for her. It felt like Kaede was experiencing something that couldn't transpire the way it could've had she not have all the Titan power that existed, even though she had only closed her eyes for just a moment. Here she was, standing in the midst of Shiganshina, the Wall Titans that comprised Wall Maria unawakened, and what appeared to be a war or sorts that started between Paradis and Marley because she was seeing the Attack Titan, the Cart Titan, the Beast Titan and the Armored Titan fighting. Only now she knew what happened and why it was transpiring the way it was: Eren Yeager and his half-brother Zeke had conspired to eliminate their enemies, all of their enemies, despite the initial goal being to seek peace between Paradis and the world around it, a goal that Eren purposely ruined by declaring war against Marley when he attacked Liberio and caused the deaths of many of the people living there.

This is insane, she thought, seeing Eren's Titan fight back against the Armored Titan while the Beast Titan stood atop Wall Maria. Most people would want peace to the point where they preach about it, but Eren looks and acts like the type that can only teach one thing that is the exact opposite of peace, which is violence, something he's dead set on causing, no matter whose side he's on. Whether this is a side-effect of having the Attack Titan in him or a product of his environment, or just because of his father's actions, this is something that can't be allowed to transpire while I'm around. This won't transpire because I hold all the Titan power, meaning this is just for show. A war that can't transpire because Marley has neither the resources to persist nor the allies to aid them in persisting…and Zeke Yeager is dead, murdered, meaning Eren would just be a young man venting at Marley's inability to be violent towards us now that we're at a standstill.

"But can you trust Eren Yeager not to cross the line, Kaede?" She heard someone say to her, and she turned around to see her human-sized Dark Titan, standing before her, armed with just her variation of the War Hammer Titan's war hammer. "Is he someone you can trust not to let his rage consume him over the transgressions of Marley's previous actions…or is he just someone that can't be allowed to take part is anything until he's mellowed out?"

Kaede watched as she walked past her, grew to her initial size of seventeen-and-a-half meters, easily out-sizing the Beast Titan, and swung her hammer at the Attack Titan, sending it flying against the stone wall.

None of the other former Titan Shifters did anything to indicate that they would try something against either Kaede or her Titan.

"You decide if Eren can be trusted until later on," her Titan stated, and then she bashed her hammer against the Armored Titan's waist, shattering its form into pieces. "I follow you, no matter which choice you make. So wake up now."

The world around her began to blur. She saw the buildings crumble, the sky fade into darkness, and the other Titans turn to dust.

"…Kaede…Kaede…" A voice called out to her.

Opening her eyes, the girl found herself looking up at the afternoon sky, surrounded by water. As her memory from before she drifted into her daydream returned, Kaede, wearing a one-piece that Shinji described as the kind school girls wore sometimes, remembered that Shinji and she had ventured off to one of the lakes in between Paradias City and Shiganshina. She was floating in the water whilst Shinji, simply because he didn't want to sour their time together out here, floated in a large swim ring to compensate for his lack of swimming ability.

"What is it, Shinji?" She asked him.

"I was…just saying that you shouldn't drift off to sleep for too long in the water," Shinji explained, slowly turning in the water around her floating body while he sat in the tube. "You drifted off for two minutes."

"Oh. I'm sorry, Shinji, I just slipped into a daydream," she confessed her reason for being unresponsive to him. "It's nice out and we can relax until we're needed."

"Oh… What was your dream about?" He asked her, curious.

Kaede could've answered that she was having dreams about a life that never was or never could be because of their actions and reactions, most particularly Eren Yeager's, but as she thought about it, the very idea of making him worry about something that wasn't going to happen no matter what anyone else said or did wasn't worth making trouble over. And if push came to shove, she could always talk to the guy about his problems with Marley at a later time; as an advisor to Historia, she needed to be truthful, but she also needed to take into consideration the opinions of other people, even those that might've had some degree of issues with the enemy, no matter how weakened they had gotten over time.

"Building a giant skyscraper that reaches higher than any tower ever could," she lied to her boyfriend, "and where people can live and work in it because they'd all have residences."

"That sounds like something you could actually do," Shinji responded.

Kaede thanked him and then swam away back to shore; she didn't want to lie to him, but she didn't want him to worry about anything. This was a time to let the negative things fade, not progress, and to focus on the positive that got better. In honesty, the girl couldn't remember the last time she was ever angry about anything or anyone other than Grausam's exploitation of her and Marley's unjust assault on the Eldians five years ago when they first attacked the Walls with the Colossal and Armored Titans. With the way things were going, she couldn't find it in her to stay angry over what was beyond her control, and she didn't want to control what wouldn't be.

-x-

"…The UN's shutting us down?" Misato asked Fuyutsuki, responding to an update that the United Nations and other organizations were being reorganized after several individuals were reported to be involved in some shady businesses that went back decades.

"Not immediately," he explained to her NERV's current predicament. "Until further notice, we're on indefinite standby. It's anyone's guess if the Angels will continue, but we're to act as though they won't. Until then…resume with what you're currently doing."

It was more or less saying that NERV was getting repurposed from facing Angels to just research and development. This made Misato wonder just how long it would be before the UN decided to shut down NERV indefinitely. And there was no telling how long that portal to the other world would remain active until someone beyond them decided to close it off and they'd never see or hear from Shinji again.

Maybe it's not too late to consider the possibility of relocating to a new world if this one can't be saved, she thought, more geographically than anything else; half this world was either dead or underwater, and maybe the only way to save what was left of it was to move elsewhere. All I'd need to do is ask Shinji if it's possible.

-x-

"…Right here, Commander Smith," Hange showed Erwin and Levi as she showed them where the problem was in this storage facility they were using. "This shed's inventory."

"What's the problem with it?" Levi asked her.

"The problem is that it's been compromised," she explained. "Before Armin Arlett left with the others to the other island to rebuild, we counted the vials of Jaeger Titan Serum we took from the Marleyan soldiers. We counted four-hundred-fifty-seven vials, but today, I counted only four-hundred-fifty-six vials. I double-checked and then rechecked and got the same total, which means there's a vial missing from here."

"Who else was here prior to the vial going missing?" Erwin asked Hange.

"Only ten people had restricted access to this place, which narrows it down to just a handful of them, and they had to sign in each time. Check it for the last person that was here before the theft was noticed, we find out who was the culprit."

Levi was curious on who would want to steal a vial of Jaeger Titan Serum. After the conversation with Vega Howl on how the serum affected the subject on a level that went beyond the physical level, how it affected their mentality, their way of thinking, messing with their very soul in the process. But only if the person exhibited a degree of flaws prior to being administered the serum, like instability or irritability. This made him wonder just who would risk stealing a vial of the serum, taking it for themselves, and becoming something just as unstable as Grausam and Marley's Jaeger Titans had been before they were dealt with.

"Where's the sign-in sheet?" He asked Hange as they went to the front of the building they were using to store the confiscated vials.

"Right here," she answered him, reaching over a front desk and pulling out a large booklet. "Everyone has to sign in when they walk in and sign out before they leave. Wait a minute… This can't be right."

"What is it?" Erwin asked her.

"It says here that…Arlett had signed in and out a week ago before he and the volunteers were shipped out to the other island…but he came back two days ago."

"Check the security cameras," Levi suggested; since they had the means to monitor the building, they would be able to tell for sure if Armin was ever here when he was miles away on another island helping to reestablish a settlement there.

-x-

Historia was surprised to see Kaede show up in the evening without Shinji; she'd often see the two together as much as possible. And it seemed unusual for her to show up just to speak with her and Ymir about something that wasn't a priority that needed to be dealt with just yet…or at all.

"So, what brings you here at this late hour?" Ymir asked as she served them all tea in the kitchen where they were sitting.

"I wasn't sure if I needed to think about it," Kaede explained, "but after I left Shinji in the city, I decided I had to ask you two about Eren."

"Eren Yeager?" Historia questioned. "What did you need to ask about him?"

"You remember my situation with the visions I get sometimes about the other lifetime where everything happened differently and where Shinji never fell from the sky? I had another vision during a daydream at a lake with Shinji…and I saw more of what had been going on with this other lifetime that explains a bit more about how events were transpiring. I know none of it actually affects our lives today, but I wanted to hear from you…has Eren done anything recently that might seem…off?"

Historia thought about it for a moment, and during the time some of the Survey Corps were here to help in watching the orphans, there were a few times when Eren was here, he seemed to be in discontent over something, like he wanted to do something else that made more use of his time.

Ymir thought the same about Eren, but concluded that due to his mindset, the guy was not happy about how they were considering dealing with Marley now due to their self-destructive behavior over the years that led to them squandering their own resources in the pursuit of militaristic advancement and dominance.

"Maybe he's not content with the state of things that are right now," she suggested to them. "He did watch his mother almost get killed and eaten by a Titan five years ago when Wall Maria was attacked. When we learned of Marley wanting the Founding Titan and our island's resources for their own purposes, he was probably one of the first of those that felt we needed to fight back against this enemy we knew nothing about because we were made to believe that we were the last of mankind on the planet, only to discover that we were not, and now he can't consider tolerating the Marleyans after everything they did."

"Except if we declare war upon them when they're already down on the last of their legs after all their failed attempts and the loss of all the Titans they had in their possession, and we demonstrate a hatred that may pale in comparison to their own that was worsened by time, would we be any different from there? Would we be any worse than they were to other nations around the world they either collaborated with or betrayed in their fury because they wanted the whole world to hate Eldians?" Kaede questioned. "It's not my place to decide whether or not how things get handled, but do we really need to express hatred to resolve hatred, to show the world what they think of us is close to the lies they were led to believe in from the time they could comprehend anything?"

"As one of my advisors, Kaede, it is your place to offer information and through that information, you give suggestions that only I can choose whether or not to follow," Historia told her. "So…I ask you, Kaede Sogen of the Dark Titan…do you believe that we should show hatred to Marley…and do away with them as they had tried to do away with us?"

"No, I don't believe we should. The whole point of our methods used in the beginning when we had access to more resources on the island and more knowledge than anything we could ever hope for…was to regain the Nine Titans of Ymir Fritz and free what remained of Eldian from a life within a walled-off world, and we did all of that and more. Marley, even without the power of the Titans, lost everything else they had or desired when they decided to persist against Paradis. And…my mother's having a new baby, and what I'd like, more than anything, is for it to be in a world without hatred and a need for revenge."

"And do you think Eren Yeager should be watched to make sure he stays in line in case he tries something severe?"

"I believe that he should…but we should also evaluate his sense of right and wrong and how far he is willing to go to do what he thinks needs to be done."

"And…if he's willing to go too far?"

"Then I'll do whatever I feel is necessary to stop him…without crossing the line myself."

"What would you consider to be crossing the line, Kaede?" Ymir asked her.

"Murdering him, using my power to rob him of his memories or locking him up instead of giving him a time-out, those types of method that would be going too far."

"You're a softie, Ms. Sogen."

"I'm not that soft as I was a long time ago."

"She means you're morally soft," Historia explained. "Even after the conflicts between us and Marley, after your bouts of violence against either Marleyan soldiers in their naval armada and dealing with Grausam, you still demonstrate compassion and a need to view every situation with a beneficial solution."

"Well, not every situation needs to be remedied with conflict. Sometimes, to win, one has to be subtle…to a degree."

"You sound like your relationship with Shinji is helping you to mature, even when he's not with you all the time."

"Shinji set me free from a lifetime in the darkness, hiding myself from others. Back then, despite never showing it, I was so angry over not being able to be myself, whoever that person was likely to be. But over time, and I mean after my boyfriend showed up, I didn't feel as angry as I used to. Even after I found out Grausam was alive and helping Marley, the anger I did feel was tempered with hope. Whichever way we dealt with everything that was trying to become a major problem if it wasn't resolved soon, I knew that if we all were subtle in some ways, the anger would fade out. It's not a good thing, being angry most of the time. You let it consume you or you allow it to boil in your soul… It's like letting a dangerous animal out of its cage…and it attacks the first person it can put to use its claws and fangs on."

-x-

"…I don't believe this," Hange expressed as she, Erwin and Levi saw who was on the surveillance tape after requesting Shinji's aid and collaboration on who the culprit was likely to be when he returned to the coastal city. "Shinji, I could kiss you right now."

On the monitor, in color, the room to which the cupboards being used to house the Jaeger Titan Serum was visited upon by none other than Eren Yeager, who took one of the vials on the shelves. And the thing of it was that he was acting sneaky about it, always looking over his shoulder or at the door, even after leaving the room.

Shinji had been asked to look at the list of signatures on the sign-in sheet when he confirmed something the three members of the Survey Corps hadn't noticed.

"I made sure that Mr. Arlett and the other volunteers got to the other island, and he never seemed like he did anything suspicious," he explained as he examined the signatures, "and… Hold on a minute… This is Armin's signature…but it's not his handwriting. Someone must've forged his signature to cover their tracks. Who better to impersonate on paper than someone that's not there?"

"So Eren took the missing vial," Erwin went. "The question now is why?"

"We'll know as soon as we find him," Levi uttered, unsure of another question: What did Eren do with the serum after he took the vial?

-x-

Some of the Marleyan soldiers had once prided themselves on their resilience against an enemy that wasn't one of them, but this had been a different case for them. They thought they knew what to expect against the remnants of Eldia that took refuge on Paradis, that they had the advantage against them because they were isolated from the world…except they didn't expect everything to change within the course of a few months after the Warrior Unit failed to retake the Founder from them. They didn't expect the Eldians to have an ally in the form of an Asian boy with his own giant that their anti-Titan weapons were useless against, that a young woman with partial ties to Grausam Zanki had amassed the total collective power of the Nine Titans, making her akin to an incarnate goddess like Ymir Fritz was believed to be, or that they'd have technology and resources that were unlike anything they had seen before. And then there was this way of imprisoning them; the Marleyans were locked up, but they were being treated unlike the way they treated the Eldians for even the most minor of would-be offenses that weren't even offenses, such as breathing or laughing. Here they were, treated to music they never heard of and food that tasted better than anything they had previously, even the bathrooms were like marble and the water was warm.

It was making Calvi start to consider that these Eldians weren't as bad as he had believed them to be, that they were the children of the Devil. And he still had a one-day pass to see how they lived now that they had no walls or gates to live behind of. Did he dare to use it at a time like this? Was he willing to do the unimaginable…and let go of his anger towards all things Eldian?

"I must be going crazy," he considered, sitting in his cell. "Eldians…Eldians…Eldians… As much as I should despise you for the deaths of all my soldiers in the naval armada and defeating us time and again like it was mere child's play, I can't find it me to yell at any of you for even the most minor of disgusts."

"This is a crazy nightmare," he heard one of his men say. "What was the name of that dish they served us last night? It started with a 'P' or something. Um…'pie-ta', I think it was called?"

"They pronounced it as 'pizza'," another soldier stated, "and it was customizable, meaning it could be made to suit one's individual tastes. The one we all had last night was a combination type. It had everything that's supposed to go on a pizza, from sausages to mushrooms. My first pizza…and it was good."

"Better than what we're used to back home," a third soldier expressed.

"These Eldians are something else entirely, even with their Asian ally," a fourth soldier yelled out. "Hell, I might have to support their culinary skills! These people cook food better than my mother and wife!"

"Yeah, same here," some other men and women shouted.

Calvi sighed, unable to argue with that belief. He might've had to settle for Asian cuisine if their ramen and dumplings were anything short of superb, and that was a word he reserved only for the most delightful of meals.

-x-

Sitting atop the island on the naval carrier, Eren had a difficult time trying to process what was new going on. Paradis had, more or less, turned the tide against Marley, had the means to fight back and show the people the error of their mistreatment towards Eldians over something they had no control over, that only this Ymir Fritz caused in the very beginning for them to befall when viewed in a negative sense. But instead of going to the mainland and Marley-dominated lands across the planet to show the world that they could wipe them out if they wanted to, they were all just planning for when they visit the war-ravaged parts so Kaede could use her Titan powers to…to grow crops and make the areas habitable again. As much as he found that plan benevolent, he didn't believe that the rest of Marley would ever accept them as they were if they were unyielding of their hatred…and didn't trust them as far as he could tolerate them. And this was why he felt he would have to take matters into his own hands, eventually.

He couldn't forget that Marley, through the disgraced and obsolete Warrior Unit, attacked his home in Shiganshina five years ago and repeated the action with Trost over six months ago. This was why he took one of the vials of confiscated Jaeger Titan Serum; if the serum enabled Subjects of Ymir to become Titan Shifters without the need for the Nine Titans, then all he needed to do was inject himself and he'd become capable of dealing with Marley on his own terms, putting a permanent end to their reign.

"The Jaeger Serum's only actual flaw when turning a person into a Titan Shifter…is within the very person themselves," he recalled Vega Howl's warning information regarding Grausam's Jaeger Serum and variants, imposing the dangers behind using it. "It's their very personality that defines what type of Titan they become in the end."

If it was the person's personality that defined what Titan they would become upon using the serum, then Eren had no guarantee that he would become a Titan similar to his former Rogue Titan, the Attack Titan that once belonged to his father…and the Founding Titan he stole from the Reiss family, both of which now resided within Kaede's Dark Titan, their powers hers to command whenever she pleased. But so long as he felt he was justifiable in his actions, then there was a chance, only a chance, that he would become a Titan of similar power, strong and resilient, able to endure pain and give it.

All I need to do, Eren thought as he stared out at the ocean, is gather the will to carry out my conviction, and then they'll see…the only good Marleyan is one that knows not mess with Eldians or people of any other ethnic group ever again. Only then can the rage diminish.

To be continued…

A/N: Uh-oh! This is only because Eren can't seem to let go of his anger, because he's a man wracked by emotional trauma that he has yet to recover from with the slow passing of his mother and the fact that his father turned him into a Titan Shifter, then he loses the power to Kaede during the ultimatum, and now that he's just normal again, he's surrounded by those that can do anything to end the feud with Marley, but would rather seek peace through non-violent means rather than solve the conflict with conflict. But don't worry your heads off. What happens later in the story will only be minor for him and the other characters.