Creation began on 06-01-20
Creation ended on 10-08-20
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Hope from the Sky: When Bones Break
The last memory Kaede had access to of Eren's life was from the alternate lifetime where he still had possession of the Founding Titan and all of its power. It was a horrible sight, what she saw him capable of with the Titan that was the strongest of the Nine Titans. He had unleashed the Wall Titans from the Walls of Paradis Island and declared war upon the world, creating a Titan body that was grotesque and severely deformed, outclassing even the Colossal Titan in size, being mostly a skeleton with a large ribcage that served as a means of locomotion for Eren, as his Titan's legs appeared useless, and the upper body of the Titan, just as deformed as the lower body, with a head that was the only part with flesh, but with a demonic visage as Eren refused to consider any possibility for peace and chose to enact war and destruction. And while she had the small belief that she could do what he had done, Kaede refused to follow in line with anyone that desired death and destruction to achieve freedom over peace and cooperation that were a better way. But none of that warranted what Grausam had done to Eren…and what he was doing now.
As she saw Mikasa and the other members of the Garrison and Survey Corps present in the city take charge towards the Akuma Titan that was here, Kaede made her Dark Titan expand to its Colossal Titan height; her intention was to break the Akuma Titan's bones and then extract Grausam from it.
You killed someone that wasn't even a threat as a regular human, Grausam Zanki, she thought as she looked down at the fifteen-meter Akuma Titan. You had no right to decide his fate.
Mikasa flew around the Akuma Titan's arms and towards his nape.
"Do you honestly think I would leave myself vulnerable like the previous times?" Grausam questioned as he turned his Titan around to face the girl. "When will you learn? I am not the same Titan Shifter I once was. I have evolved. I'll show you more of what I can do."
Mikasa senses imminent danger beside her as she prepared to stab the Titan's nape and backed away, just in time to avoid a series of spikes that jutted from its armored carapace that formed around the torso area.
"Size is no longer an issue," Grausam told them, "and neither is mass or what limits mobility."
Then, like something beyond what they already knew, the Akuma Titan moved its upper body faster than how they saw a regular Titan react or how their previous enemies moved, similar to how a human could, unhindered by weight. It reached out…and grabbed Mikasa and a Garrison member like flies.
"Aaaurgh!" The man in his left hand groaned as he struggled to break free from his grip.
"Give it up," Grausam expressed. "You might be a Subject of Ymir like every other worthless soul on this island, but I am superior. I have gone further in the pursuit of power that only those with nothing left to lose can obtain."
The Akuma Titan tightened its grip on the man, causing him to scream in agony.
"Aaaaurgh! Aaah!" He yelled.
SLICE! The Akuma Titan's left arm was hacked off…by a spinning discus, freeing the man before Grausam could crush the man to death.
Looking up, Grausam saw that it was the Dark Titan that had unleashed the discus from its own body, its right arm raised and showing several tendrils on its palm.
You put your eyes on me, thought Kaede. You shouldn't have put your eyes on me.
PIERCE! Several large tendrils pierced the Akuma Titan's back and out its front, particularly through the neck.
Kaede had felt the left foot of her Dark Titan stand atop a manhole covering and seeped her Titan flesh through the sewer system to reach the manhole covering three feet behind the Akuma Titan and form a series of tendrils to penetrate its hide.
Mikasa felt the Titan's grip on her body weaken and got loose, running up the immobile limb towards its head.
Grausam twisted his Titan's head and looked at the girl.
"You won't get me that easy," he spoke, and then released steam from his unarmored spaces. "Where am I?"
The Titan body evaporated and Mikasa jumped and grabbed onto one of the Dark Titan's tendrils. As the steam dissipated, she saw a man running down the street.
"Grausam!" She yelled, and the man stopped, turned around, and exploded into light and heat, replaced by another Akuma Titan.
The Dark Titan then lowered its right arm to slam down onto the Akuma Titan, but the fifteen-meter Titan leapt backwards, over ten feet away, avoiding the large limb.
"This is kid stuff!" It declared, and from its arms conjured six claws on its wrists, three on each side. "Let any who challenge my power fall to my might!"
"You're just one Titan, Grausam!" A Garrison member insisted. "You can boast all you want, but you're not in any position to defend yourself against an army, are you?"
"Yeah, we don't see any of your Jaeger Titans coming to help you!" A Survey Corps member added. "You're ancient history."
"Heh-heh," Grausam laughed within his Titan, and rather maniacally, too. "Is that what you think? I grow stronger with each passing moment."
From behind his Titan came a large stream of Titan flesh, more than its own body should've possessed, and it fell to the ground, taking on new forms.
What the Hell? Kaede thought, realizing that her step-grandfather was crazier than they had thought he was.
Now, instead of facing one Akuma Titan, they were facing ten!
"Ah-ha-ha!" The Akuma Titans all laughed.
"Son of a bitch," Pixis gasped.
-x-
Hey, Kaede, what's going on over there? Shinji wondered, unable to move his Eva from where he was, lest he interfere with the AT-Field that was expanded through the Wall Titans keeping these enemy Jaeger Titans from getting onto the island.
Oh, it's…it's a work in-progress, he heard his girlfriend respond. How are things on your end?
I'm seeing a lot of uglies trying to step foot on Paradis that are getting shot at by allies.
While the Jaeger Titans were riddled with bullets from the Pellet Rifles wielded by Unit-02 in the air, several were still standing, no doubt because the backs of their necks were intact.
"Asuka, random parts of their bodies will only slow them down," he informed the redhead in Unit-03, seeing Unit-00 show up now. "You have to take out their necks. That's where they're most vulnerable."
"Are you sure?" Asuka questioned. "These monsters could be different from the ones you're used to facing."
"With the exception of my girlfriend, who possesses a power that enables her, and those that came before her, the ability to remove herself from the nape of her Titan, there's nobody else alive that possesses such a power."
Of course, there was the Tybur woman that Kaede had faced to obtain the War Hammer Titan, but Shinji referred to people currently in possession of the Titan power. He wasn't going to risk someone looking for previous possessors of Titan powers in the hopes of trying to turn them into guinea pigs.
Asuka looked at the Jaeger Titans that she had shot at and saw some of them recovering while the ones that stayed down started wasting away.
Shiest, she cursed, realizing that Shinji was right about these Titans, since he had learned about them from people that had to fight them before he showed up and became their resident hero. Okay, attack them on the neck. Attack them on the neck.
Her Eva came closer to the ocean, and she realized that her jetpack was running out of power.
"Aim for their necks, Wonder Girl," she told Rei.
"Copy," Rei responded, and brandished the replica lance at the closest Jaeger Titan that was near her Eva, swinging it aside the head, knocking it off.
From what was left of the nape, a human body without a head started decomposing rapidly. The Titan body fell to the water below and evaporated.
The other Titans surrounded her Eva, but their movements were slower than before.
-x-
Not a single one of these duplicate Akuma Titans were falling when Mikasa and Kaede struck them in the nape. Not even other members of the Survey Corps and Garrison could befall these large cretins.
"Go ahead," they kept saying to them as they got back up. "Sever my necks, cut off my arms. It doesn't matter. You can't kill me. No one can. I am beyond any of you."
"This guy loves to hear himself talk," said a Garrison woman, zipping by and cutting off one of his Titans' arms. "How is he able to do any of this?!"
That's what I want to know, thought Kaede as she formed more tendrils and hurling them at the Titans. Even if he overdosed on his Jaeger Serum variants, time and again, there's no way he'd be this strong. It's like he's surrendered all semblance of what passed for humanity in exchange for something far worse than the power Ymir Fritz left her people with after she died. What the Hell did he do?
I evolved, Kaede, she heard him say to her. Unlike you and your precious Eldians, I have gone further on the path that leads to ultimate power and freedom. All of my strings have been severed…and I am now free.
Still crazy as ever, Grausam. Even if you say you're free, you're never free. Nobody is ever free from everything. We're all bound to something or someone, including you.
Oh, be honest, though, isn't there a part of you that is…relieved that Eren Yeager is no longer around? Aren't you the least bit…glad that he's been dealt with?
No…because his fate was to be decided by the Queen of Eldia herself, regardless of other people's beliefs. To cast judgment on your own accord, to play the role of judge, jury and executioner…is to decide one's fate without permission from a ruling authority. And if, by some miracle, he's still alive, despite the way he was vacated from the island, he will still face judgment for his previous actions…just as you will face judgment for all of your actions.
I doubt that.
I don't.
The tendrils unleashed by the Dark Titan pierced through the Akuma Titans with relentless fury, but one by one, each Titan was reduced to evaporating pulp. There was no sign of Grausam Zanki in any of them.
"What the…" Dot Pixis uttered, confused. "Did anyone see where he went?!"
Mikasa looked down on the streets…and saw a lone figure standing amidst the evaporating Titans, looking almost without a sense of dread or cowardice.
"There he is!" She yelled, pointing towards him.
"Even if you did manage to stop me," they heard him say, "and I doubt any of you ever could, there's very little you can do, anymore."
Then, raising his left arm up to his mouth, Grausam bit into his wrist.
BLAST! Another Titan transformation was triggered…and the Akuma Titan returned, only this time as a thirty-meter version of itself with thicker limbs.
"You really think making yourself bigger than your previous Titan husk will do anything?" The Dark Titan questioned.
"Watch me," the Akuma Titan responded, and charged towards her.
SLAM! Almost like a rampaging rhino, the thirty-meter Akuma slammed into the one-hundred-meter Dark Titan and sent her falling backwards onto the ground.
Okay, that was unexpected, Kaede thought as the Akuma Titan ran over her head. Bastard.
"Catch me if you can, fools!" He yelled at them, running down the street and turning a corner.
What?! Now, he wants to play hard to get with us? Kaede questioned as she got her Dark Titan back up and walking.
-x-
Gendo couldn't believe his disgust when Unit-00 struck his Titan with its lance.
"Rei, how could you turn against me?!" He demanded.
"Ikari-Kun has made his choice to stay here and he has people here that he chooses to protect over the previous failed order for him to return to NERV," Rei explained. "Also, NERV has been re-tasked, so there have been no further Angel attacks. Many have presumed that NERV will eventually be shutdown. The only problems that currently exist…are the dispute between these two nations that Ikari-Kun is involved with trying to quell…and the unrest caused by the people you're affiliated with. You released a madman that was sentenced to life buried at sea in an icy abyss because he was deemed too dangerous to allow to be free…because you wanted the power he sought after for yourself…and now you're waging a war against people that have nothing to do with what you're doing."
"That boy betrayed us for a pretty face!"
"He is allowed to establish a personal relationship with someone else."
"How can you defend his decisions?!"
"He hasn't done anything wrong to justify your decisions to harm the people he protects."
"He doomed us to a dead end."
"Not many people see it that way."
Gendo looked over at Unit-01, unable to look past the fact that his son had betrayed them all for a life here in this world that he didn't belong.
"You must surrender, immediately," Rei ordered him, "otherwise, we'll have no choice but to execute you."
"Would you really kill me, Rei?"
"If you don't, I have no other alternative."
"And you'd really kill me in front of him?"
"There's nothing left to say between us, Father," Shinji told him, still keeping his AT-Field erected to keep the enemy Titans from trespassing onto Paradis. "Surrender and go back…or stay here and die."
Slowly, Gendo's Titan body protruded a spike from its right hand, and he willed it to charge towards the purple Eva.
"I'll kill you first, you worthless, spineless coward!" He yelled.
SPLAT! His Titan never got near Unit-01 due to the enhanced AT-Field and the Wall Titans surrounding the island's edges.
Shinji shuddered at the disgusting sight of his father's remains and the remains of his Jaeger Titan sliding down the AT-Field like wet noodles thrown against a wall. If anything, it was suicide by Evangelion, not a reckless attempted murder move. This was something that would undoubtedly mark the downside of Gendo Rokubungi-Ikari's legacy; his desperate attempt to get back at his son for making his own decisions that went against what he wanted him to do. As he looked at what remained of his father, Shinji could see only an evaporating human skeleton, stripped of its flesh and organs, even the orange-tinted glasses.
"Ikari-Kun," went Rei to him. "Your father…"
"There was nothing left to say, Ayanami," he told her. "He made his choice, just as I made mine. He brought his end upon himself."
Unit-03 had befallen several more Jaeger Titans, reducing them to evaporating corpses.
"All these Titans have going for them are their size and numbers," Asuka told them, and then grabbed a Jaeger Titan behind her and crushed its head to pulp.
"You get rid of the remaining Jaeger Titans, all that leaves is Grausam Zanki," Shinji informed her; if the enemy was reduced to just the Akuma Titan possessor, the threat against Paradis Island wasn't much of an actual threat…and Grausam Zanki wasn't as dangerous as he probably thought he was when he realized he was on his own.
-x-
"Ahh…" Grausam growled within his Akuma Titan, hiding behind a building, realizing that the majority of his Jaeger Titan forces were either dead or near-dead because of these outside forces that were rivaling the power of the Titan power he gave them. Fools. Even with free will, they have no hope of winning. They can't even think of hardening their flesh to block a punch or kick.
He looked up at the tall buildings around, not enjoying the fact that he never explored them before escaping the island five years ago. It was a foolish belief to never once allow himself to be curious as to how these buildings were capable of being made so tall. More than half of them had to be taller than the trees in the Titan Forests on the island, at least ninety meters or so, so high that they practically enabled one to touch the sky while still on the ground.
What he didn't anticipate, however, was that much earlier during the time they helped to reclaim and reinhabit the city, the Survey Corps and Garrison had learned to make use of the buildings in ways that aided in their use of their ODM gear. Because many of the buildings were so close together that they permitted the creation of new access halls that allowed the two groups to run across the halls to get to where they needed to go faster.
"Thirty meters now," went Jean as they ran to the windows and looked down two feet at the inhuman enemy. "God, he's really twisted."
"Tell me about it," added Petra. "I wish we had those jets to use against him. No matter how strong he is, Grausam Zanki can't withstand the shredding power of a missile."
Even Mikasa, looking down at the Akuma Titan's head, held her blades at the ready and awaited the signal from Kaede.
"How do we know this plan is going to work?" Levi asked.
"I don't," Mikasa expressed, "but I have faith in Kaede Sogen."
-x-
Kaede walked out onto the street and found where the thirty-meter Akuma was hiding.
"I see you, Grausam!" She yelled at him, and he looked down to her. "I don't know what makes me sicker: The fact that you can be such a maniac without a conscience…or the fact that your Titan looks like a filthy, misbegotten piece of turd that not even a mother could love! All it's missing is an undersized ding-dong to give it a sense of masculinity!"
The Titan tilted its head to the size and walked towards her, frowning.
"Yeah, and the name of your Titan," she continued. "Don't even get me worked up on it! You do know that the Devil was originally an angel that fell from grace! Most believe that he's the brother of the one we know as God, but the truth is that he's actually one of his children, an angel that was cast out of Heaven for rebelling against his father, tasked with ruling Hell for all eternity! The thing about angels when they fall…is that they can rise back up if they choose to! But you don't have wings, do you?! Your Titan is nothing more than a perversity of yourself! So long as you commit to the life you've chosen to lead, you'll never be absolved of any of your sins that will condemn you to a fate worse than death, which will come for you as it comes for us all in the end! And you know why?!"
As the Akuma Titan closed the gap between them, Kaede smiled.
"Because in the end," she went on, "we just gotta break our bones sometime!"
"Break our bones?" The Titan uttered. "That doesn't make any sense with what you just said."
"No, but our bones do eventually break under pressure."
"People with soft bone conditions are the most brittle of us all. Heh, you think you can make my bones brittle with your power? You think you can hurt me the way you can hurt these people if you chose to?"
Then, as if by some sort of magic, some of Kaede's hair strands rose up and made her appear almost intimidating.
"No," she told him, "I couldn't affect you with my powers, even if I wanted to. But…there are other ways to deal with you. Days, hours, minutes, they can end up enabling one to learn many things on the fly. Of course, I think you'd be familiar with some aspect of that, being that you have spent the better part of your whole time trying to make yourself untouchable, unstoppable. But you couldn't be further from the truth than you could actually imagine."
Then, as if to compete with her display of intimidation, the Akuma Titan's chest opened like a closet with two sliding doors, revealing the older man's head, covered with veins and his spinal column exposed; there was no trace of the rest of his body.
"I'm as immortal as they come now, Kaede Sogen," he spoke to her. "There is nothing you can do that can kill me."
It was a sickening sight, the way her step-grandfather appeared, and Kaede suspected that, because of his overdosing on his Jaeger Titan Serum variants, time and again, in the years passed since his abandonment and return from Titania's Abyss, Grausam had gained the ability to shed away as much of his human body as he desired, probably to avoid any damage to his organs by removing them if he deemed them unnecessary. The fact that he was doing this reminded her of what she had seen of Eren due to the misuse of the Founding Titan and his own temperament and convictions to do as he believed needed to be done.
"Ugh," she groaned as she looked away from him. "I should let you know something, just because it stems from my being a woman."
"And what is that?" He questioned. "Oh, let me guess, you're going to say that the mere sight of my being reduced to a talking head is the stuff of nightmares to you?"
"Nope. I was just going to say that the bough breaks from the intense weight of one's arrogance, resulting in an uneasy fall from the tree onto the ground…and getting hit by every other branch on the way down."
From his point of view, Grausam felt his step-granddaughter was becoming a bit unhinged, saying things that made no sense.
"You sound like you're going crazy," he had to let her know.
"That's just how I needed you to think I was while my boyfriend snuck up behind you."
Grausam quickly looked behind himself, but there was no sign of that purple behemoth he understood from his saviors from his eternity within Titania's Abyss as the Evangelion, and then back to Kaede, who smiled as she sank into the street through a sewer.
"Now!" He heard her yell from within the sewer, and he looked up again, seeing something that was unlike what he had expected to see.
There were eight Titans! Five and ten meters in height, with avian characteristics instead of the usual human features they often possessed, and they were flying! They were flying, using their arms as wings due to their limbs featuring the necessary proportions that enabled flight.
"What?!" He gasped, and the eight Titans jumped him to the ground. "No! This isn't possible! Get away from me!"
Poking her head out of the sewer, Kaede watched as the new plan was now taking effect against Grausam as the Titans were tearing through the Akuma Titan with their clawed feet, arms and serrated teeth.
Kaede, she heard Shinji speak to her, is everything alright?
Grausam surprised me a little by turning into a Titan form that was thirty meters and could knock my Dark Titan down like a cannonball, she told him, but I had a surprise for him with the Garrison and Survey Corps. How are things on your end?
Right now, it's just cleaning things up. These Jaeger Titans were…not as dangerous as they probably thought they were. My father is dead among their casualties.
But are you okay with that?
I'll be alright. There was nothing left to say. How about you?
As she watched the Titans ripping away the Akuma Titan's left arm and right leg, she could only ponder at how Grausam would try to get away in whichever direction he could.
So long as Grausam's alive, I can't let go of the likelihood that he'll cause more pain and suffering if he gets away. If he's killed Eren, he's already killed one person too many.
If he's killed Eren…then he's past the point of being granted further mercy, Kaede.
Yeah, Shinji.
Then…the Akuma Titan spat something out of its mouth…and Kaede saw that it was Grausam, restored of his human form, staggering to get up to his feet and run.
Coward, Kaede thought as she climbed out of the sewer and chased after him.
To be continued…
A/N: And there you have it. This chapter was long overdue. The manga update helped to influence how this chapter turned out, and Kaede revealed some new ability that she hadn't used, just as Grausam did. What do you think will happen next? There will be another poll that will help with the next chapter, so be on the lookout.