Creation began on 12-05-19
Creation ended on 12-17-19
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Hope from the Sky: What the people remember
A/N: Even though the canon timeline no longer applies to the new timeline, the people that still exist have to live with what they remember from the lives they either had…or didn't have.
Sasha Blouse
One day, I just woke up from the most unusual dream. I would've normally dreamt of hills made of mashed potatoes or long tables with piles of roast beef a mile long, but this dream was a weird one. I was in a Marleyan town or city, and there were these Titans fighting on the streets. In fact, I recognized them as the Attack Titan, the Beast Titan, the Cart Titan and the War Hammer Titan, except the Attack Titan was in the possession of an older Eren Yeager…and the War Hammer Titan was fifteen meters like the majority of the Nine Titans. And then…in the aftermath of rescuing Eren and putting him inside a blimp we had acquired…I was shot by another Eldian, Reiner's little cousin, Gabi Braun, who was aiming for Eren. I…had died protecting Eren…and it was his fault we were there in the first place!
I can't believe I had memories of when we were in Liberio, trying to rescue that kid, and it was his fault that we were there due to his absence from Paradis, still in possession of the Founding Titan, what Marley was after since the day they sent their Eldian child servants with the Colossal and Armored Titans, and how he'd purposely instigated a lot of hatred towards Paradis that would result in a war instead of the initial attempt to seek peace between the nations.
And this was when he still had the power of the Titans instead of Kaede taking it from him to save us from Shinji's father, I had realized, meaning that in the previous lifetime, neither Kaede nor Shinji had been around, meaning that we had been on a rather-depressing losing streak because there was a lot we didn't know about, the means to defend ourselves and better our lives on the island weren't ours to utilize, and we had lost more of our own people just trying to reclaim our lands than we could've protecting them. Dammit, Eren, what were you thinking? Just what the Hell were you thinking, leaving us and then having us come to rescue you in a plan that ended up being worse than what would happen later on? What the Hell were you thinking?
Just the mere thought of feeling as though she had relived that entire ordeal where she had died for someone that was difficult to understand and trust because he wouldn't be as open as any of them were made Sasha feel sick to her stomach, and she hadn't even had breakfast yet! For once in this new life where she was still alive and not in the future of that previous life four years from now, she was relieved to still be among the people, relieved that people like Shinji and Kaede were around to help them, that Shinji had fallen from the sky and came to their rescue when Bertolt, back when he still possessed the power of the Colossal Titan, attacked them a few days after the first attack on Wall Rose failed. She was relieved…and grateful.
-x-
Historia Reiss
I wake this morning with only my interests in making sure the children are happy…and I wake up from a dream that was comprised of memories of my previous life that will never be lived…and can't stop shuddering at what I recall every now and then. In the previous lifetime, Zeke Yeager, the Beast Titan of that time that had attacked us was alive and had a plan that was not in the best interests of the Eldian people of Paradis or Marley…and he was hoping to get us to help him carry his goal out to fruition. While there were some benefits to helping the Paradis population, I was uncomfortable with my role in the operation to "save" the people. Inherit the Beast Titan and spend the next thirteen years of my life having children with royal blood to ensure that the Titan would be passed on to members of the royal family to help maintain the order on Paradis.
Ymir looked at me for a moment while we were helping to prepare breakfast for the children, and I got the impression that she also knew more than what we used to know before Kaede took the Founding and Attack Titans from Eren. If she did know more, I wouldn't blame her; the last time I ever saw her in that lifetime was when the Survey Corps came to rescue Eren and I from Reiner and Bertolt when they still had the Armored and Colossal Titans…and she chose to leave with them rather than stay with me…and she was eaten afterward by whoever was next to take on the Jaw Titan, much to my regret.
Still, the thought of having become pregnant in that lifetime just to keep from inheriting the Beast Titan, or any other of the Nine Titans, for that matter, felt sickening to my stomach. Whether or not it was with some boy from my past when I was on a farm or, as a small rumor had gone around about the father, Eren himself, I didn't want that to echo anytime in this lifetime. I'd rather be with Ymir when I'm of legal age to start a family of my own (and once Kaede had gotten mastery of the full power of the Founding Titan's ability to manipulate the human body of any Subject of Ymir).
"Historia, can I ask you something personal?" Ymir asked me as we set the table.
"Yes," I answered her.
"This morning…did you get more memories of the other lifetime that were…upsetting?" She asked me.
"I did," I answered her again. "Did you?"
"I left you here instead of staying with you. And then I let myself get eaten by a man that was turned into a Titan just to pass on the Jaw Titan when I had it. My biggest regret…"
"Was not asking if I'd spend my life with you?" I cut her off; I didn't want the children nearby to hear things and get ideas.
"Yeah," she told me.
"Stay positive, Ymir," I encouraged her. "We're still in the here and now, not then. Everything's changed. Maybe you'll get lucky this time around. Maybe we'll both get lucky."
-x-
Levi Ackerman
It wasn't the knowledge that I was expecting to receive, but it was the knowledge I was granted upon waking to the new day. If it were up to me, I'd have Eren expelled from the Survey Corps for his insubordination, but then I'd be holding a grudge against him for something that had occurred in another lifetime that didn't apply to this one. His brother wasn't alive, anymore and all the Titan power Eldia had come to possess was safely in the possession of one of Historia's advisers. Still, the kid was such a…stubborn brat that couldn't even be bothered with trusting his teammates or friends to even help him when he was in a jam that he caused. And the worst of it was that the last memory I got was falling into a river!
Does this mean I died because of his half-brother? I wondered as I strapped on my ODM gear. I need to talk to Commander Smith and see if he received any new memories of the other lifetime.
Stepping out onto the deck of the carrier, I had to wonder if any of the other members of the Survey Corps were going to raise Hell concerning Eren's past actions if this were something that had affected everyone that had been involved.
-x-
Armin Arlert
Yeagerists, the name of the band of people that believed in Eren Yeager being in charge when he started acting on his own in the interest of protecting the people of Paradis from the rest of the world, but at the cost of everything else that he had left in his life, including his friends. Including Mikasa and I. Worse was his choice of words he had used in his severing of bonds between the three of us, and then having us locked up in order to keep us from stopping him and Zeke from using the Wall Titans or the Founding Titan. Even if none of this has happened in this new lifetime, the fact that Eren had done so in the previous one still had a negative impact on the people closest to the former possessor of the Attack and Founding Titans.
He unleashed the Titans to destroy the world, I thought as I walked down the cleaned path of the rebuilt town on this secondary island we found miles from Paradis, watching other people that looked like they had much on their mind. He was going to unleash them to destroy the world. Even if it was to protect the people of Paradis, the cost was still too high a price to pay.
"Hey, Arlert!" One of the Garrison members got my attention as he ran over to me. "Did you wake up this morning with new memories that revealed what had transpired once upon a different lifetime ago?"
"I did," I answered him. "Why do you ask?"
"Your friend, Yeager… Even though he hasn't exactly done anything that can be considered wrong this time around…can he still be trusted? He may not have the power of the Titans, anymore, but can he still be depended upon by the rest of us if things go bad again?"
For the first time in a long time, I wasn't sure if Eren could be trusted after knowing this. A lot might've changed after Shinji fell from the sky and Kaede was revealed to be the Dark Titan that had saved his mother from being eaten by the Smiling Titan, but it didn't mean that everyone in this new, uncharted territory that was the new future was capable of changing their ways. I had received a piece of knowledge on something called future memory inheritance, which might've related to at least one of the Nine Titans in the past, and it reminded me of this theory conceived by this intellectual guy named Einstein about how time was immutable and how changing the past didn't affect the future. But it didn't seem true for any of us here, as a lot of the future was changed because the past was changed. What had been written once upon a time was rewritten, the ink wiped clean before it could dry off or covered with white-out.
"The Titan he used to be able to turn into," he asked me further, "it used to be able to ensure the freedom of Eldia by allowing whoever had possession of it to see into the future by way of memories yet to be made, right?"
"Yeah, that's right. That…that either used to be a power that only that particular Titan possessed…or still is in possession, but I don't believe Eren ever used it this time around. With all the previous holders of most of the Nine Titans, they never had full recollection of the previous holders' past."
"I want to believe that he can be trusted now that he no longer has the power of the Titans, but what with most of us now know about what he did once before… His judgement is the most questionable of people that want to protect Paradis from Marley if they persist in fighting."
And he wasn't wrong about that. Of all of us still alive after the fall of Wall Maria, Eren had the most hatred against the Titans before we found out what they were, and then shifted his hatred towards Marley who unleashed the Titans upon Paradis in order to get rid of criminal Eldians. Even with things now at a standstill until they were updated by Paradis, Armin was unsure of what was likely to happen in the future, since they hadn't received any new knowledge relating to the situation between Paradis and Marley. But whether or not Eren could be trusted was one of the biggest questions that needed to an answer we didn't have.
-x-
Marco Bott
I know my life would've echoed its end that day in Trost were it not for that mysterious man that saved me after Reiner, Bertolt and Annie took my ODM gear, but I couldn't shake off the dream I had that showed me what had transpired in what was another lifetime that no longer applied to the one I now had. I saw the Walls crumbling down to release the Wall Titans, a Titan that was much larger than the Wall Titans themselves, mostly skeletal and almost like some sort of beast of vengeance, and the reclaimed district of Shiganshina swarming with regular-sized Titans attacking anyone they could reach. And throughout this nightmare, I knew whose fault it was: Eren Yeager, who sought to destroy the world in order to ensure that we were all free. But it was a sickening goal because one man decided to act as our overseer, making his personal decisions the only ones that mattered above our own.
Right now, it didn't matter who was the would-be dictator that had to decide what was to become of us, whether it was Eren Yeager, Marley's staunch believers of Eldia's people being monsters, Shinji Ikari's father who hated us simply because he hated his own son for refusing to return to his world or surrender his girlfriend, or even Grausam Zanki, Kaede Sogen's step-grandfather, who was amongst the darkest examples of people and world-hating extremists, nobody of this sort had the right to decide what was best for the rest of us when we had to decide for ourselves. It was this discovery that left me feeling relieved that Kaede Sogen, the keeper of the Dark Titan and an adviser to Historia Reiss, had a less-violent drive and a conscience that prevented her from making decisions that were against the good of the people…and grateful that she was on our side, helping to protect us and ensure our future was one of peace.
She unleashed the Wall Titans to protect us all from the wrath of Shinji's father, who was willing to bomb us all to Hell because he couldn't control his son, who rejected his demands for him to surrender himself and his girlfriend, I thought as I made my morning jog out on the streets of Paradius City. Yeah, she destroyed the Walls, but not to unleash any vengeance upon the world. She had the Founding Titan in her possession, and she stayed the same, being able to ensure that the Titans ignored the towns and villages as they surround the island to protect us all from danger. Some of us, even those from the disbanded Military Police, couldn't have imagined anyone else using the power to ensure such a plan. But Kaede had confessed that she wasn't sure if it was going to work due to the belief that the Founding Titan's powers required the presence of a person with royal blood, like Historia, but she refused to endanger any of us. And now the children of Paradis call Ms. Sogen the Queen of the Titans. She's a lot like Historia in that area; both possess a regal air to them, but are ruled by their morality, preferring to do right by the people instead of lying to them. They both could be queens of the world if they wanted to, but would still choose to help us obtain a happy future instead of living in fear.
-x-
Sig Zanki-Sogen
I'd rather have pleasant dreams of Christine, Kaede and the new baby instead of a nightmare where there was unrest and double-crossing in varying groups affiliated with Eldia and Marley. Getting out of bed and walking to the kitchen, I shook my head in order to clear the cobwebs and unpleasant imagery of the Nine Titans still around and being used to threaten the world because people in possession of them had agendas that didn't sync up with one another.
"That Eren Yeager boy," I expressed as I got started of preparing coffee, "I get that he's an orphan, but what a temper and stubborn attitude."
"What are you talking about, Sig?" I heard Kaede's voice ask as she stepped out of the hall and into the kitchen.
"Just a bad dream," I told her only half the truth.
She scratched the back of her head and sat down at the table.
"What was it about?" She asked me.
Still, I didn't want to worry her, so I had to lie about what I had dreamt of.
"My crazy father murdering my mother," I chose to say to her; that idea wasn't so farfetched because everyone knew my old man was a monster and capable of murder now that he no longer had any inhibitions to keep him at bay.
She looked at me like I was crazy for saying that, her eyes giving off this frown that was between confusion and anger.
"Yeah, that's pretty messed up," she expresses, probably buying the lie. "I fear that man just coming here and doing the unforgivable to all of you just to get on my bad side further. I don't ever want for him to come after any of you and hurt you."
"Whatever you gotta do to stop for good, Kaede, I support your decisions."
If I make her think that this included killing my father, then I am sorry to her for making her assume such. When she helped to have Grausam buried alive at Titania's Abyss, I was among those that were greatly relieved that he was in a place that Marley couldn't reach him and where he'd have nobody to hurt the way he had too long ago. One of the fears I had of him being a constant thorn in my side is the possibility that his research in creating Titans with intelligence was no different in negatives from the power of the Nine Titans, meaning that in thirteen-fifteen years, anyone turned into a Jaeger Titan by Grausam, including Grausam himself, would either face death or a lifetime of fatigue. But Kaede, the only daughter of my best friend, has only been a Titan Shifter for a little over five years, meaning she could still succumb to the drawback of having such a power in her possession in another eight-ten years, which I was hoping would be a pile of B.S. because I don't want her to die because of something my father did to cut her life down to just let her live before she could turn thirty.
"Hey, Sig, can I ask you a personal question?" Kaede asked me.
"Yeah, sure," I answered.
"It isn't really personal, but I'm curious about it. Have you and my mother thought of a name?"
"Huh?"
"For the baby. Have you thought of a name yet?"
"Oh! Uh, no, uh… Do you have any suggestions?"
"Oh, no, Sig, you two are the parents. That's your department. If there's any name I would suggest for you two, it'd be Belle for a girl and Leo for a boy."
Personally, if it were to be a boy, I would suggest Hagen, after Kaede's father.
-x-
Kenny Ackerman
So…I died because that despicable Rod Reiss turned himself into a Titan and being refused by his only surviving daughter, who he wanted to reclaim the Founding Titan from that Eren Yeager…and made a bigger mess of things because he didn't have the balls to do so himself. What a load of garbage, this all is, knowing that the brother of the closest thing you had to a best friend…is the most pathetic person in all the world.
"Despite his subservience to the will of Karl Fritz during his time possessing the Founding Titan," that Sogen girl told me once while visiting me in my lowly prison cell one day a few months back, "Uri had considered you, despite the initial attempt you made on his life, his best friend. Even in a confined space, he didn't want you to die when the day came and the outside world attacked the Walls."
"And how do you know of this, girl?" I had demanded of her to tell me.
"Those were his last thoughts before he was devoured by his niece, Frieda," she had answered. "His biggest regret was that he would never see what became of what remained of the Ackerman clan after he made it a law to cease all hunting of them and others that didn't live by the rule of the crown."
That girl with her gray hair. If it weren't for her hair coloring being a little off-putting, I'd say she were a rather fine woman. I've never met anyone with such an unusual hair color that was still young…unless, of course, she went and dyed her hair a different coloring. But she didn't look like the type of girl that had access to such a resource like the nobility did.
"Who are you?" I had asked for her name.
"Kaede Sogen, the possessor of the Dark Titan," she had introduced herself.
Five years ago, there had been some talk about what happened in Shiganshina, about how several Titans that got in after the Colossal Titan kicked a hole in had met their ends at the hands of a Titan with dark hair and skin. I didn't believe it in the beginning, but there had been too many people on their last breaths due to starvation and sickness that spoke about what they saw of this Titan. So I asked around in the beginning for whatever information they could give about this Dark Titan, getting some consistency between what was most likely fact and what had been a trick of the eye and mind; the Titan was much larger than the standard fifteen meters, was said to have an androgynous build that seemed both petite and muscular, at one point used its hair as a type of cutting whip, and had even saved a woman's life from becoming food for a Titan with twisted smile on its face. And then I heard something new about this Titan only a few months after the people started going beyond Wall Maria once again and discovered a city by the edge of the island: A Titan the size of this behemoth that fell from the sky…with dark skin and hair, identical to the one that had appeared five years ago, but only after the Colossal Titan had been beaten and these other Titans had started emerging from the ocean.
And then I saw the Titan people were talking about during the meeting between those Marleyan military head honchos and the new leadership of Paradis, I thought as I sat in my cell. What a deviance in the way things have shaped out.
-x-
Across Paradis, other people, whether they were Eldian or Marleyan, were finding themselves recalling things that, while technically not happening to them in the present, had occurred at some point to them in at least one other lifetime, with varying degrees of either acceptance or reluctance over the recollection.
Gabi Braun recalled shooting a girl named Sasha in her attempt to kill Eren Yeager.
Rod Reiss remembered licking a small puddle of Titan spinal fluid…and turning into a Titan far bigger than the Colossal had been…over the fact that Historia refused to eat Eren Yeager and reclaim the Founding Titan, something he was a coward to do the job himself.
One of the Marleyans, Calvi, had realized that in the other life, not too far into the future from now, he had died because of an attack on Liberio by the Attack Titan, one of the two Titans that Marley was unable to gain possession of…and was uncomfortable with this revelation because it wasn't part of what these Eldians had desired as a whole, instead being the attack was the agenda of a handful of Eldians and the turncoat at the time, Zeke Yeager, who didn't desire peace between the two nations…but total freedom from the discrimination they had faced from the world that had been during that time. It was both infuriating and disturbing that this had happened at one point in a life he had never lived…but had been close to living had they not met Grausam Zanki and this Shinji Ikari that changed everything, literally undoing that future.
Another Marleyan man, Niccolo, recalled spending time with an Eldian girl that actually liked his cooking. In fact, he had seen the girl a few times during his earlier days in captivity after the failed invasion attempts on Paradis, but only now had realized just who the girl was…and couldn't tell if she knew who he was if they were to meet again. He was relieved that when the first invasion attempt occurred, he was among the soldiers that had survived. The life of a soldier was not a life he desired when his only real passion was cooking dishes.
Dot Pixis…was uncertain end of how to react to the memory of having been turned into a Titan stripped of all intelligence and memory at the hands of the Yeager brothers in an attempt to unleash the Wall Titans and use the Founding Titan's power to end the war that they made worse with their arrogance and disinterest in seeking peace. Despite one of the brothers having been killed by Grausam over a month ago and the other brother currently suspended from the Survey Corps due to some instability in his behavior towards the Marleyans, Dot had to wonder if the younger Yeager could still be trusted, despite no longer having any Titan power and no different from a regular soldier.
Hange Zoe woke up finding it hard to believe that she fell into a river trying to get Levi to safety from their enemies at the time, which were Titans and traitors…and she was hoping none of this would come to echo itself in the present…because she liked her life as it was and didn't want it to end at any point in the future unless it was from old age and sickness.
-x-
"Why must this feel depressing?" Shinji wondered to himself as he walked out of the local supermarket with a bag of groceries for the Sogen family; Christine had given him a list of things they needed for the next week and he got the items, impressed that the city life had gotten up to date with the people now working in the places they had the knowledge to maintain the shops and restaurants that the shelves in the markets were full of items that people could obtain. Not that I have anything against being an errand boy, I just get the awful feeling that danger is near, waiting for an opportunity to strike and endanger the people. Grausam and my father working together with the group that dredged him up from the abyss. I certainly fear that Grausam will be more than what SEELE bargained for because he's not trustworthy or someone that could be viewed as their own hope. Hope from the Abyss? Come on, Shinji, don't be ridiculous about something so unlikely. Grausam doesn't give hope to people, just pain and suffering as he seeks only to benefit himself. And my father is likely to pay more than what he had intended to pay.
As he walked back to the building the Sogens resided in, he looks out at the ocean and sighs at how close the enemy was…and yet how far they were from him and everyone else that had taken a loud and silent oath to protect the people of the island that were no longer confined to such small spaces.
"Bring it, SEELE," he sighed.
-x-
The fact that it was likely a lot of people were to recall the things that he had done in another life that was worse than anything that had occurred in this one made Eren Yeager uncomfortable with the likelihood that he'd be looked down upon for his previous actions. Even he was finding himself repulsed by his past actions that certainly wouldn't absolve him of his guilty conscience that cost the lives of many people that he didn't know anything about. He had to wonder what, if anything, people were likely thinking of having done to him if they came looking for him. There was already a threat on his life by Mikasa if he crossed the line, but this recollection of his darkest decisions would most likely give him a penalty that was worse than being suspended from the Survey Corps: Execution.
I gotta leave, he thought as he grabbed a small knapsack. I gotta hide someplace where they won't find me.
Fearing for his life, Eren Yeager left the training grounds near Shiganshina and ran as far as his legs could take him.
To be continued…
A/N: This was bound to happen, and with the most recent chapter of the manga released, this aids in making the people question themselves and the actions of others. Who do you think in this chapter recalls it all and feels they got it worse in the other life that doesn't matter in the one they have right now?