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.

71. Retaking the Way

Creation began on 11-14-19

Creation ended on 02-21-20

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Sky: Retaking the Way

A/N: For the moment, I'm having issues with my primary computer due to it being a Windows 7. I know I should upgrade to the latest and greatest in technology, but I have to wait until money's no longer tight and I've found the best computer to meet my needs. It's still useful to have an iPad around for the time being.

"…It doesn't look like there's even a NERV base there," Asuka expressed as she looked at the photo images of the Nevada branch, before and after the Dirac Sea portal appeared that connected their world to the Titan world.

"That's the thing, Asuka," Kaji explained, "NERV is a paramilitary organization. They have to appear like they're not really there so that nobody gets suspicious. Most of the facility's like the Japan branch, so it's primarily underground. The Unit-04 experiment resulted in the portal appearing above ground, though, making it a public display for anyone with eyes in their head and a camera on their phone."

"And they couldn't build a dome over it?"

"Would you want to risk falling into it and ending up in an environment where oxygen is nonexistent? It's only because of the surveillance drones that we were able to discover that the portal connects to space just in between the other world and the moon. It's also because of the dimensional buffers in between our two worlds that keep the air here and the space there."

"We'll be landing in fifteen minutes," the pilot informed them.

"You better change, Asuka," Kaji told her, as their plane had Unit-03 underneath it for easy installment of the Entry Plug.

"Yeah," she agreed with him and got up from her seat to go to the back of the plane to change into her plugsuit. If he weren't in need of assistance against his father and his girlfriend's step-grandfather, who definitely seems to mirror the former commander in terms of how far he's willing to go to hurt someone he hates the most, I'd probably just sit and watch. But Misato said we'd help him, and as she's the new sub-commander, and the former sub-commander is now the new commander, they have the authority necessary to make it so that we do just that. He's willing to throw his life away for a bunch of people he doesn't even know, for a girl that's able to defend herself, and yet he refuses to return here, even when everything's in shambles, and all because he feels more at home there than he ever could've here.

"You're saying he actually saw snow while he was there?" Toji and Kensuke had once asked when they were told what had happened to Shinji.

Of course, Japan was a nation plagued by constant summertime and rare periods of rain, so it'd be a rarity if even one day of snowfall were to occur. It made Paradis seem like a small world unchanged by a disaster that people would've probably preferred over where they currently resided, something Shinji was unwittingly taking full advantage of, getting to see the change of season, the snowfall, the leaves turning different shades of dull, things that he'd never get to see if he came back to this world the way it currently is.

"You have no idea how much hearing this means to me," she recalled the recorded memory Shinji had of Kaede responding to the discovery of how her Titan power didn't affect the entirety of her life or future, in the fact that she discovered that she could still have children of her own someday without the fear of them being Titans.

Still, the thought of those two having children one day…and the fact that she saw one of his more recent memories that included a dream Shinji had of starting a family with Kaede years later… Asuka found it to be utterly unlikely that either one of them would get such an opportunity when they had so many different problems in front of them. Whether it was an enemy nation that they wanted peace with after so many years of one-sided hatred, a group of people that were upset with Shinji for defecting against NERV and their maimed world, or just an old man that hated his own people to the point of genocide, it was just one problem after another that Shinji and Kaede were having to face.

Verdammt, Asuka thought, wondering just how difficult it would be to retake the Nevada branch since NERV was not exactly in the business of fighting the Angels right now. They still better rebuild my Unit-02 when this is all over.

-x-

The leaking of information and the discovery of SEELE's inability to progress with the production of the Eva Series after the Unit-04 incident that led to the creation of the portal made Fuyutsuki believe that retaking the Nevada branch would be possible with just Unit-03. If things got difficult, he'd have Unit-00 sent to provide backup.

"…So…Gendo really did go that far," he heard Yui say as she had finished reviewing the recent memory Shinji had that was recorded through Unit-01, discovering that her husband had made a declaration of war with SEELE against the people of Eldia and Shinji, mainly with the intent to kill Shinji out of spite towards him.

"I'm sorry, Yui," he told her. "He…he clearly made his intentions solid."

Even Yui didn't like this. How could she? Her husband and the father of her only child…just made his desire to see him, his girlfriend and several other people in the Titan world…dead…and all because he was angry with their son for his own decisions. And worse was how the rest of SEELE were of the same goal in their declaration of war against the Eldians.

Not even Grausam's declaration of his own intentions being strictly revenge against Kaede eased anything that was said and heard.

"Do you think Shinji will kill him?" She asked Fuyutsuki then.

"Personally… I don't think he'll hesitate if his father tries to kill Kaede or someone else he knows over there," he expressed his opinion, "and I don't think there's anything we could've said or done that would have persuaded Gendo not to take the route that he did when Shinji chose not to return here."

"If I had known he was going to do this…I would've stopped him."

"How?"

"I don't know how."

"When hatred evolves into obsession and obsession into conviction, there's almost nothing no one will do against whoever it is they're out to get."

Yui then had to recall how, in the past, there were dozens of people that spent their whole lives, right from the moment they were either inspired or forced to do so, trying to bring some measure of misery to those they felt were the cause of their own so-called suffering. And now her own husband, simply because their son made a choice to abandon the scenario he had without even knowing about it, was out to hurt Shinji because he couldn't let go of his decision. While Yui might've had her fears of Kaede and her Dark Titan hurting Shinji in some way that was emotional, her newfound fear of Gendo hurting Shinji was greater, despite the fact that their son was already hurt by them years before the Third Angel attack.

"My greatest regret would be for all of this to be nothing more than a dream," Shinji had once admitted to Kaede, sharing with her his fear of their time together to be only a figment of his imagination that he didn't want to let go of.

"And if this were all nothing more than a lovely dream that you couldn't wake from?" Kaede had asked him one time, holding his hand.

"If I couldn't wake from it, if I could stay here with all of you? That…would be alright with me…because my feelings for you are real."

Sometimes, I think he wishes that his life before the Angels and the Eva was nothing more than a dream that he had awakened from after being asleep for such a long time…and Kaede being among those that awaited his awakening, Yui thought as she sighed again.

Of course, one of her possible methods of stopping Gendo from hurting Shinji…was to convince Shinji to return to this world and let the Eldians fend for themselves. But she knew her son wouldn't do that; he had become such an invaluable friend and ally to the people of that island that he would rather face the end with them than to leave them to their fate. And with the Sogen girl at his side… Even if Yui had her concerns or opinions about her, she was someone that Shinji had fallen for…and was still falling for with each passing day.

"What do you suppose are the chances that Gendo will realize how futile it is to go up against a nation like Eldia, which has gone from a primitive nation and returned to being a modern and advanced one, and surrender peacefully?" She asked Fuyutsuki.

"Personally, I don't expect him to cooperate with any form of authority at all. Professionally, the chances of him and SEELE cooperating are practically slim to none."

-x-

This was insane, and Asuka couldn't deny it. The Nevada branch was occupied by a small army of persistent soldiers under the control of SEELE, but their weaponry was inadequate against an Evangelion. A few tanks, some missiles, even just a bunch of guns, and they were all useless because of how the Eva was designed to fight against Angels, giant monsters that conventional weapons were useless against. It was the equivalent of fighting a tank with arrows and spears.

BLAST! Asuka even took notice of several explosives buried under the ground, but even they were useless.

It's like they're not even trying, she thought.

Of course, the higher-ups at NERV had to suspect that with the world knowing who SEELE was and what they had tried to achieve, their access to both firepower and manpower was astronomically reduced before they took what they still had access to and relocated to the other dimension to salvage Grausam Zanki from his would-be grave. Even just the thought of being a dangerous place to go to in order to see the portal and venture off to a world where Second Impact never happened, where there were resources ripe for the taking, would've been sufficient enough in stalling some people for a while before realization set in that the resistance was amateur at best.

"Just pray that they don't use biological or chemical weapons while you're there," Shigeru had warned her. "The last thing we need to worry about is a viral outbreak caused by some genocide-obsessed maniacs."

Asuka had her doubts that anyone here would be desperate enough to want to risk causing an outbreak that was engineered by other people too smart for their own good and were interested in warfare and profiteering (the latter was only because she knew there were some people willing to pay large sums for something too dangerous).

Before she knew it, the enemy had ceased firing their weapons at her Eva; they had either run out of ammunition or realized that it was futile to persist.

"Do you surrender?" She demanded of them though the Eva's open communication channel.

"If you come any closer, we'll self-destruct this base!" A man's voice responded to her. "You don't know what might happen to this portal to the other dimension if that were to happen!"

While Ritsuko had done her analysis on the portal, it was to confirm how long it would stay open, not the amount of potential damage it could endure before causing a reaction that reduced its presence.

"You wouldn't risk destroying the base if you knew what could happen to the portal," Asuka countered, deciding to view what they had said as a bluff.

"We have our orders to detonate the explosives we placed around the base if you try to retake control of this facility! The portal, be damned!"

"You do realize that if you managed to damage the portal to the other dimension, you would risk cutting off your access to Eldia's resources that SEELE desires to retake this world. If you did that, you'd doom yourselves of failing to retake the future…and worse than that. Much worse than you can possibly imagine."

"The last we heard, the Third Child, that Gendo Ikari's son that defected from NERV and screwed us all in favor of a race of people that have no beneficial value to this world, politically or economically, isn't much of a threat to anyone here because he refuses to return to this dimension. And for what, a bunch of primitives that used to live behind three walls to stay safe from giant man-eaters that used to be them?! He betrayed everyone when he decided to answer their pleas for help because the Eva he got displaced with was the only thing that could protect them! Didn't you once try to persuade him to return? Only he fell in love with a native over there that can become a giant that's about the same height as the Eva and chose to stay there? What, you thought he couldn't resist your charms or something?"

Asuka found that to be a ridiculous assumption! Anyone that either suspected or expected her and the Third Child to get involved with one another was both foolish and pathetic! That was never going to happen because she desired better than some lowly boy that questioned nearly everything…and more than likely, due to the extreme sense of naïveté that he possessed, knew next to nothing but the basic gist of what everyone else knew, meaning that if SEELE and his father were truly going to genocide the human race, he was deliberately left in the dark from the very start. And yet, it was partly due to his naïveté and the fact that he and his father were estranged from one another and the latter now wanted to kill his only son, that idiot had, more or less, screwed his old man without doing much beyond making his own choice to reject the situation he had previously been obligated with, something some people would've called him a hero for doing.

Even if this was a fate he brought upon himself by abandoning us all in favor of those Eldians and their previous problem with the Titans, she thought as she made the Eva advance towards the base, even if he chose that gray-haired tramp that was damned by some old man that became genocidal and power-hungry… I still have a score to settle with him for humiliating me like that the last time we saw each other.

"Stop, girl! We'll blow this base to pieces!" The man yelled over the intercom, but Asuka continued to approach the building on the surface that would lead down to the rest of the base. "Are you stupid?! Stop walking!"

Suddenly, from behind a mountain, a large flash of light appeared, shaking the ground and enveloping the mountain in a pillar of fire.

"What the Hell was that?!"

"We just lost communications and control of the explosives!"

That was the point of using an N² bomb; the EMP would disable all electrical equipment within a the radius and expend for a few miles. This way, Asuka and NERV will have had the time to retake this facility and apprehend everyone within that didn't belong.

Soon enough, Asuka lost contact with the base and took that as her cue to stomp down on the underground base until the foreign personnel called it quits.

-x-

"…What do you mean, we lost contact with the Nevada branch?" Lorenz demanded from one of his lackeys as he monitored Grausam producing more of his refined Jaeger Titan Serum.

"I was keeping contact with the Nevada branch, and then communication between us was severed. The last thing they informed from over there was that an Eva attacked."

"NERV. No doubt they had contact with the Third Child and he requested aid from them. Ikari, is there anyone that your son hasn't convinced to side with him over letting him suffer over the choice he made to defect?"

Gendo, who didn't admire the fact that NERV was coming to help his son, responded, "I have been denied a multitude of information ever since the truth behind Second Impact was revealed to the world and I was removed from NERV. Whatever the reason or reasons for them to come to his aid is entirely their own."

Meanwhile, in the lab he was setup with, Grausam had completed another stockpile of his blood for further production of his serum; with his increased regeneration, he didn't have to wait long to replenish his blood like regular people did when they donated the limited amount they could without killing themselves in the process. He had achieved completion of more than eighty vials and syringes of the serum…and had a syringe at the ready in case he needed another fix.

NERV, SEELE, Marley, Eldia, he thought as he began to filter and refine the blood to create his serum, they're all the same the more they engage in conflict: Blind, deaf and hopeless.

-x-

Bang! The last of the non-NERV personnel was shot in his right leg and sent falling to the ground in agony; the man had tried to run from the NERV security personnel that came with Asuka, and he ended up with two bullet holes in his legs.

"Aaaurgh!" He groaned as his brain responded to painful sensation from the injuries to his legs.

Within Unit-03, Asuka sighed at how futile the man's attempt to flee was…and reminded of how Shinji had managed to flee without much effort thrown in and of how he now made things go around here in this world, barely on the road to recovery with the world governments still disorganized after SEELE was outed and removed from power. She found the futility to be almost as messed-up as the previous situation with the Angels that the boy had unintentionally walked away from by getting lost…and then purposely walking away from after he was found. And yet…to see people still fueled by a sense of desperation that drove them to attempt to run from an inescapable fate, she had forgotten how it felt to just want to get away from it all, not really caring for where your destination was, just that you wanted to escape where you were.

"…Non-NERV personnel has been neutralized," one of the NERV members announced. "The Nevada branch has been reclaimed."

"Good work," they all heard Fuyutsuki's voice over their radios.

The sooner we can begin preparations for heading to the Titan dimension, the better we can end this madness that SEELE has started because of that boy's father and his ego, Asuka thought.

-x-

So far, there were at least one-hundred-seventy vials of his Jaeger Titan Serum, meaning that one-hundred-seventy people from this other dimension could be endowed with the power of the Titans for at least an hour once injected, and despite Grausam having enough blood leftover from his stockpiles to work with, the other chemicals SEELE had possession of were limited. There might've been enough left for at least ten more vials, but at a lesser degree…unless he decided to shoot up with what was left that he could produce.

But do I need to after my last injection? He wondered as he got to work on the one-hundred-seventy-first vial. I'll keep two injections on me in case I feel the need to.

-x-

"…So far, there's nothing so far from the last time Shinji used the Eva to indicate that SEELE has attacked yet," Maya informed Misato, unable to find any recent memories recorded inside the purple Eva's Entry Plug.

Searching through the more recent memories of the last time Shinji got inside the Eva, all NERV could ascertain was that the boy had used the purple behemoth to aid in surveying the coastal areas of Paradis Island to ensure that they continued to have the advantage of knowing when and where the forces of SEELE were likely to strike, since the majority of the island's population was comprised of civilians that were either too young, too old, too frail or even just inexperienced to fight anyone. The only other memory that they discovered surprised them to find Shinji had was the discovery that his girlfriend was similar to the blond-haired girl they both served as advisers she wanted to trust, being that she had a connection to the same royal family Ms. Reiss and her father did.

It was…pretty surprising to Misato to find out that her former ward had a girlfriend that had a connection to an ancient family that became a ruling body of a nation after coming into power…and stood out because of their gray hair color rather than their eyes or skin pigmentation. As much as she could've thought of teasing Shinji to no end about Ms. Sogen being descended from royalty, she was certain that doing so in their presence could've ended up with her being penalized for poking fun at them, despite how Kaede thought of herself as being the same as she had been before the revelation, nothing more than a simple commoner.

So long as one of them survives, the royal family will still exist, she thought, but that won't mean anything to Shinji if either of them ends up getting killed because he wants everyone on that island to be protected from SEELE and his father.

"So far so good?" She heard Yui Ikari behind her and Maya, and turned to face her.

"If by that, you mean your husband and SEELE haven't made a move on Paradis yet," she told her, "then yes, everything's still good."

"Personal question, Mrs. Ikari," went Maya to Yui. "Why is your husband such a… Well, such a vindictive person towards your son? They haven't even had one positive meeting since he had Shinji brought to Tokyo-3, and now it's a full-blown vendetta that's completely one-sided because your husband is the one that's out to hurt him for several reasons that aren't even justifiable to high degrees. First Shinji defects from NERV in favor of helping the Eldians, and Mr. Ikari sees that as an excuse to run away. Then Mr. Ikari discovers that Ms. Sogen, your son's girlfriend, can turn into a Titan of unmeasurable power, and decides to send Ms. Soryu over there in order to capture her and manipulate your son into coming back, which didn't end well when Shinji decided to destroy Unit-02 to keep Ms. Soryu from harming the people that lived in the coastal city she attacked. And when neither would listen to his demands, he decides to send an air strike to massacre the island with N² bombs if they didn't surrender, something some of us felt he was going to do no matter what choice they made, surrendering or resisting, and now he and SEELE have released an Eldian exile your son helped to imprison in one of the deepest locations underwater in their world…with the full intention of waging war on the people…out of nothing but spite towards him for making his own choice to refuse to return here because he's happier over there."

Now Misato wanted to hear Yui's response to this question, too. Why was Gendo so vindictive towards Shinji? Why did he really feel the desire to cause him pain when he was the one causing the pain? Surely, Yui had an answer that would satisfy the two women to hear.

"He's not a…" Yui tried to say, but in truth it felt like she was defending her husband's actions towards their son. "I can't answer why. He's always been this way…with everyone."

"I mean no disrespect, Mrs. Ikari, but I have always found it hard to believe, impossible even, that your son and husband are related," Misato confessed. "They have nothing in common, they barely speak to one another, and not once since he arrived has your husband shown any actual concern towards Shinji. And then he tried to kill him because he told him that Paradis had become his home and might as well be his grave and that he wasn't going to surrender himself or Kaede to NERV."

And that was the absolute truth; there was nothing Shinji and Gendo had that was in common. Neither one could associate with the other on any level, whatsoever. If there was a competition between them, it was one-sided, with the father trying and failing at every chance to one-up the son, who had nothing to prove, except be his own person and make his own decisions that nobody could unmake because they were against them. Even Yui had to accept that her initial agenda of them being together again like before was not going to happen because the son hated the father, had no idea that his mother was alive again, and the father was out to get him. The more that happened to cause a degrade in her family, the more she had to accept, with a heavy heart, that her family was irrecoverably damaged due to strained or nonexistent relationships.

"In the end, I'd rather burn away into nothingness than to live another life of pain and suffering because of people like you," she thought she had heard someone sounding like Shinji talking to her at some point in time, only he sounded colder…and not as alive as he did when around people that wanted him around them.

"He never recovered from having the world reject him," she thought she heard a woman's voice just now, "and rejection is like a ravenous parasite: It just eats you up for the longest of times…until there is absolutely nothing left."

"Your bright future for all of humanity," a little girl's voice was now heard, "didn't include the boy you left to suffer in the darkness that he can't distinguish from the light that now hurts him as much as you two did in the beginning."

Then…for just a brief moment, Yui had seen something that was impossible for her to believe was real. She saw Shinji, alone somewhere in the darkness, his face showing signs of wrinkles as a result of premature aging, his hair stripped of its ebony pigmentation, whiter than a bed sheet, and his eyes were as hollow as a black hole that led into a deep darkness where light couldn't shine through.

"I see you, Mother," she heard him say, his voice stripped of all emotion, "and your very presence has left me empty to any hope that is as poisonous as your beliefs."

Then…he was gone, leaving her feeling a sense of dread that she hadn't felt before.

Beep! Something on the console acted up, and Maya checked it.

"It looks like Unit-01 is being used again," she confirmed.

-x-

It was just a crazy attempt because Hange couldn't ignore the part of the Eva's back that held a socket for what Shinji had referred to as an Umbilical Cable, a device that sent electrical power to the Eva for as long as any generator could cope with its power needs. Of course, Shinji had to reason that ever since it was discovered that discarded Titan bodies could provide longer power than a cable and enable freedom of movement that the cable restricted, such a device was no longer a necessity, but this was just to see if it could still receive electricity from an external source, keeping it from exhausting its internal power supply for even just a minute.

Who else but Hange could think of something this insane? Shinji thought as he looked at the device that resembled the Umbilical Cable apparatus that connected to the back of an Eva, finding it unusual that the Eldians had been able to fashion something like this in just three days…unless… What if they didn't make this device? The way it looks is just…too much like the ones they use at NERV. It can't be a coincidence.

With a fashioned cable that ran fifty meters, Kaede, who was present in case something went wrong or nothing happened at all, examined the device that Shinji had explained provided external power to the Eva…and had to ask Hange about it.

"Say, Hange, how'd you make something like this in just three days?" She asked her.

"We didn't make this thing," Hange explained to her. "We actually found it one day when we left the Walls a few months back. It must've been attached to the Eva while Shinji and it were still in their world and became detached from the Eva before they crashed into our world. It must've crashed into one of the forests areas between Maria and Rose that were Titan-free when they arrived and managed to avoid being stepped on by the Wall Titans when you let them out all over the island. I wasn't thinking about it at the time and just left it there. It doesn't weigh that much for something mostly made of lightweight metal."

As the Eva reached for the device and raised it up, the Dark Titan Shifter had to hope that the device simply did not meet up to Hange's expectations of working. It wasn't that they needed another power source, but that they needed to stop treating the Eva as though it were only as strong as the power they supplied it with to enable it to fight…and because she didn't tell Shinji about a recent nightmare she had about him inside the Eva two nights ago.

He doesn't strike us as the type of person that would scream out in insanity, she heard the Dark Titan say to her as they watched the Eva attach the cable to its back.

That's because he hasn't gone crazy yet, Kaede told her. He hasn't lost all that he cares for, that gives him stability and strength to fight for what he believes in rather than what others want him to fight for.

For a few seconds within the Entry Plug, Shinji watched as the timer went from displaying the enhanced amount of time it had that would not hit zero for over two months to showing nothing but zeroes, meaning it was now drawing external power from somewhere on the island. While it might've been a helpful advantage, he couldn't help but be reminded that using a cable limited his mobility against more nimble threats, which was why he was grateful to Kaede for providing him with her Titan husks to keep him from having to devour other Titans that had no conscience because they were people stripped of all free will. It was as though the cable just represented a metaphorical anchor that tied him to NERV, to his father, to his past and everything else he could no longer go back to because it was just a pitiful existence in a country that had nothing but summertime, flooded cities, few friendships and bad memories.

"How is the connection, Shinji?" Erwin asked him over the intercom.

"It's working fine, sir," he answered back.

Outside by the carrier, Erwin and Levi had noticed the sound of Shinji's voice to be…less than enthusiastic, like he was bothered by the mere fact that they were using another piece of technology from his world that was meant to fight an enemy he had very little understanding.

"How is the power output?" Levi asked one of the technicians looking at the power output on a laptop she was holding.

"Eighty-seven percent stable," she answered him, but then she noticed something. "The stability in the cable is decreasing by seven percent now."

The section of cable that was new and attached to the salvaged started to smoke up.

"Aw, this is not good," Hange realized; it seemed the cable was barely able to put up with the energy requirements for the Eva, though it was more likely the salvaged cable was the issue because it had been damaged for too long.

The Eva then ejected the cable and it fell to the ground.

"Good idea, Hange, just a bad device," Kaede expressed.

"Yeah. You know, if this had worked, it would've taken a load off of you."

"Not everything I do is a heavy load. Not everything I do is something I'm uncomfortable with doing. Titan flesh is expendable and comes from a realm outside of time and space, molded by the hands of the original leader of the Eldian nation…until she was released from an eternity there after her passing."

"You mean, Ymir Fritz? Ymir Fritz was the one responsible for the generation and manipulation of Titan flesh?" Hange asked Kaede, looking like she was going to have a sense of euphoria all over again. "Did you meet her while you were on Gigante Island? Did she explain how she came to possess the Titan power, how she was able to create the Nine Titans or even regenerate their injuries or how they can do what they do?"

The Dark Titan's head emerged from behind Kaede and uttered, "Take a breath and calm down, Ms. Zoe. You're asking too many questions and not waiting for any answer Kaede won't be able to explain if rushed. You calm down now."

Hange then calmed down in front of them.

"Do you feel better?" Kaede asked her.

"Yes," she answered.

"Good. Now, in answer to your first question, yes, I did meet Ymir Fritz while I was on Gigante Island. And yes, she did explain how she came to possess the power of the Titans. It was fate that ended with her being blessed with a power that could reshape the world and could help her people who were without a compassionate and enlightened leader. When she passed away, she entered a place where all things associated with Eldia integrate into one path leading towards one nexus…and she spent all that time constructing Titans out of the sand there until she was released from that state of purgatory."

"Incredible."

Meanwhile, away from Paradias City, back at the orphanage village, Historia and Ymir, trying to get over the fears the children had informed them of when, just a day ago, at least three of them had informed the young queen that they started recalling some sort of calamity caused by one of the members of the Survey Corps, but now it appeared that all the children were recalling memories of another lifetime that can't echo itself in this new one where the person they were now afraid of was just a regular person.

"I actually thought I could entrust your safety to him," Ymir told Historia as they sat down at a table in the living room of the house, unable to drink her tea. "The crazy thing is, I never could trust him because of his unchecked rage and stubbornness. He was going to get himself and everyone else killed because he wouldn't show restraint."

"Even so, that was when he had possession of two of the Nine Titans," Historia expressed, her cup of tea rattling atop the saucer in her hands; she was unsteady about what she recalled herself. "He doesn't have any power this time, though. Kaede made certain of that when she took the Nine Titans into herself. They're gone now, and they're never coming back."

"But can he still be trusted? If we knew for certain, that would ease the children's minds to know that he can't hurt anyone this time, that he's…no different from a regular person."

Historia wished she knew for sure. And there was no doubt that everyone would be demanding the same thing: Could Eren Yeager be trusted to still protect the people of Paradis from harm after receiving memories from another lifetime where he unleashed the Wall Titans with the intention to destroy the world? If it were truly up to her, she would leave his fate to be decided by Kaede, who was, for all intents and purposes, a member of the Fritz royal family, the same as she and her father, meaning she could decide what was to become of Eren Yeager, whether he could be trusted to go on with hi life or not.

"Why did we all have to recall such a bad and questionable memory at the worst time?" Historia questioned. "We're trying to protect ourselves from a war waiting to be sparked by an enemy from the world Shinji came from, aided by an exile that's willing to wage conflict in the pursuit of vengeance, and now we have to wonder if another one of our own is still trustworthy."

"They'll find him," Ymir assured her. "Paradis has been modernized significantly in the following months. Eren can run, but he can't hide forever. He's not being hunted down to be executed for his past actions. We just want to know if he can still be trusted. When we know that much…then we move on from there."

-x-

They were barely an army, more of a militia because they lacked a lot of manpower, but Grausam wasn't too concerned. Even if the Titan power he gave them was temporary, he no longer had anything to fear from the Eldians; his Titan power had progressed over the last three days to the point where he, the second longest to possess a variation of such power, couldn't lose it, no matter what the Eldians did. He had versed himself in his Jaeger Titan abilities and streamlined them to the point of where he could now echo the abilities of some of the Nine Titans' strongest members.

You may have blessed the Eldians with your life, Kaede, but I'll be your damnation, he thought as he gazed out at the ocean in front of him on the ship as it started to move away from the frozen tundra he had been condemned to. Now…it is the Devil's turn to inflict the pain.

To be continued…

A/N: Which of the Nine Titans do you suspect Grausam can echo through his Akuma Titan?