The Real Author's Note: Please read "Another Damn Prologue" before reading this chapter. I EXPLICITLY REVEAL THE STORY'S ENDING THROUGH THE VOICE OF HEINRICH. It also marks the start of Part 3 and it explains some things.

If you skip it, you're skipping stuff that I'm I purposefully revealing early on. Also, some things from here onward won't make sense.

An Eldian's Journal

Wartime Shenanigans

Chapter 13: Three Flavors of Blood

When I reached home that morning, I opened my door and caught a glimpse of my parents getting ready to leave and head to the bar.

I stood in the living room with a pair of bloody hands and a pair of tear-drunken eyes.

"Papa…Mama…" I said those words with my vision smudging with tears.

My parents rushed over to me. They didn't say anything with their mouths, but their faces yelled with worried expressions and confusion on their facial features.

It was ok.
It was ok since words from the journalist caused me enough trouble that morning. I didn't need any more words for a while; all I needed was some ripe warmth.

Even then, with the iron woman's melting warmth and the barkeeper's embraces my eyes weren't tamed. All the events that transpired that morning tore through my emotional/mental stability when I saw my parents' faces again.

And then there was the blood…
the blood on my hands…

Reiner's blood had evolved from a crimson to maroon for the air must have dried it up as I ran back home. It was a thin crust of dried fluids that disturbed the unbalanced equilibrium of my mental state.

The journalist had led me on a treacherous tightrope of misfortune. The end of this tightrope was his finger. One conniving claw. I was a piece of string that was tied around. He controlled it so masterfully.

The evening of that day, I found myself sitting in the alley between my house and Viktor's house. It's a place where I used to go to think and spin memories in my head uselessly.
Sadly.
Pointlessly.

I used to wish that the string and yarn that made up these tragic memories would re-knit themselves to something just a tad bit more beautiful.

But no.
My memory is a mostly blue scarf. A nice and luscious blue. But some spots are simply black and knitted in crimson red.

With a sigh, I looked up above.

The clouds were stumbling about in the sky. Some shot through each other but they would re-heal.
Great obese clouds.
Dark and plump.

Taking a break from depressing memories, I thought back to the very first day that I arrived in section F. The day I met the fighter and his gang of "titan shifters" that dressed in titan costumes.

Speak of the devils…

I woke up from my day nightmare-ing to hear the taps of shoe-covered devil feet over the backdrop of tuneful whistling. A fleet of feet that belonged to a gang of "titan shifters".

Their leader?
A boy you haven't seen for around 10 chapters or so; a boy whose fate would be to die within a year.

"Viktor…" I looked up at the square-jawed fighter and his so-called gang.

Viktor Dassler evolved interestingly in the time skip that occurred before "another prologue".

***VIKTOR DASSLER'S DEVELOPMENT***
His legs grew to an exaggerated approximation of 2/3 of his body
('Tis the wonders of puberty)
With his baby teeth falling out he learned peculiar ways to whistle
His personal revolt of inside-out armbands transitioned to drawing mustaches on propaganda
There is another that you will learn soon enough…

"Mr. Heinrich Steiner." He asked a question in a mocking political leader voice that he probably prepared just to annoy me with. "I believe I saw you with bloody hands when you ran back home through the street yesterday. Is that correct, sir?"

I returned him as happy as a face I could muster.

"Okay, damn. Why're you so upset?" He raised his hands in mock protest.

Viktor and the "great titans of Ymir" (without their costumes this time around) stood around me in a distorted circle.

"So…what happened?", the 'warhammer' asked.

It took a few seconds for the sentence to crawl up to my tongue. I released it a few seconds later.

"It wasn't just anyone's blood…It was Reiner's blood."

I revealed that secret upfront because I knew that I could trust them. Trust is a part of section F's indoctrination amendment that we wrote on the back of a tissue paper: 'if you're a snitch, you're a bitch.'

Simple enough.

I was about to begin my rendition of the events until I heard a snicker.

This snicker multiplied between all the devils until they transformed into chuckles and then full-tier laughter.

"Great joke Heinrich." One of the titans said.

Viktor raised his arms as if he was trying to quiet everyone down. "Guys take this seriously—" The gang grew quiet.

Viktor continued. "…Heinrich didn't reach the punchline yet."

The Titans continued their chittering.

"What happened to the trust amendment?! Don't you guys believe me?"

"We stopped following it when Viktor accidentally sneezed into it.", the 'warhammer' said.

Viktor defended himself. "Hey, tissues are meant to be sneezed on."

The 'attack titan' had to join in the humor. But as usual, he stretched it too far.

"Haha…Heinrich's punchlines are like peace for Eldians, they both never arrive."

Everyone's joy was shot dead with that one comment. At least the crickets laughed.

"Shut up, Fred."
Everyone said it in unison. "Shut up, Fred."

The rest of the gang proceeded to remind Fred about how his name is an instant female-repellent.

I dropped an anger-filled comment onto the pavement. "Screw this." I was prepared to walk out of the alley and back home until someone grabbed my shoulder.

It was the death-cursed boy, Viktor.

"We're just screwing around. You know how it is. We just need to laugh now and then, even when what someone says doesn't warrant it."

I gave him a nod before he continued. "I'm sorry about your dad."

"…Thanks."

He lowered his voice, but I could feel a hint of seething undertone in it. "Is it really Reiner's blood?"

"…Yes…"

"Did you kill him?"

I was surprised how Viktor cut to immediately asking if I had killed him. He didn't even bother to ask how I found Reiner or even how I injured him.

"No, thankfully…it's a long story but…I shot him underneath the ribs."

Viktor took his hand off my shoulder. His statement left a bite mark before he walked away. "…I wish you killed him."

When I returned to the group, their faces were quieted. Yet, it was obvious that they were curious about something for it was written on their faces in bold characters. They didn't hide it well enough. They sat down on the alley pavement despite all the spots that the dust and dirt reserved for themselves.

Thus began an evening cursed with storytelling.
The story was told through the mind of an almost 15-year-old rather than written down by an almost 19-year-old as you see it now.
Each event of the story was packaged in different flavors and different colors.

"I met a young kid named Falco he's an honorary Marleyan…"

That event was the only event to carry a reserved sweetness to it. It was golden.

"…I met a journalist…he had the face of a harpy eagle. Cunning with a hooked nose…"

When mentioning that event, I noticed the slow change in the expressions of my petit audience. I couldn't help but remember the day of the broadcast where Reiner talked on the radio. Viktor and the gang's faces moved along a similar path to the audience that day as my story grew murkier.

"…that bastard journalist…no…thief…ran away. Reiner laid on the ground bleeding out. This was all because the thief left a gun inside the camera and…I didn't notice."

Re-telling that the last event tasted like regurgitating acid from my throat. It didn't hesitate to burn.

Viktor Dassler stood up with the blinds shut over his eyes but an unreserved seething in his voice. "I hate Reiner."

"Viktor?"

"Reiner failed us all. That 're-assuring' broadcast just scared everyone. So scared that they broke my sister's arm."

"That was your own sister's fault…She's the one that said that the islanders aren't devils and because of that people hurt her."

"And you didn't help her." He looked back at me. "Of course you couldn't have helped her, you obeyed that journalist like a good little dog. How can someone like you help anyone?"

I went through so much self-berating that day, that there was nothing that Viktor could say or do that was worse than what I had done to myself. Or so I thought…

"Viktor…do you know about anything that happened on that island? If you had the armored-titan, do you think you could have improved the image of Eldians and gotten us out of here?"

"All I know is…we can't trust these Eldian military officials to help free us from these walls."

"How can you blame them for everything?"

"I can blame them because of what they're going to do to us! It's just a matter of time until some other country notices Marley's loss in military strength…"

"Don't say it."

"There may be a war…we're going to get drafted."

The air wrung out every drop of silence from a towel made of tension.
The 'warhammer' enlightened us as the voice of reason. "But we're not 17 yet."

"Do you think those bastards care?!", Viktor replied.

He pulled a cigarette from his pocket. A wonkily rolled one. And lit a single match by scratching it on the pavement.

"We always have to pay for their mistakes…their crimes…their idiocy."

He took a drag on the cigarette but the smoke jumped out of his mouth along with a blitz of coughing and gagging.

"Dammit just one time…I wanted to say something smart and then breath out one puff of smoke…Lina does it so easily."

He threw the cigarette on the ground and smothered it underneath his foot as if using one wasn't worth more than looking cool for a moment.

"Heinrich, remember that moment when you first moved here, and we fought together here?"

"Yea."

He turned around and a faint smirk made its way onto his face.

"I want you to do a favor for me. Hit me as hard as you can."

"Not this again—"

"The physical pain will help me forget my troubles…" He tapped his cheek. "Hit me right here."

"I'm not in the mood for this."

He continued tapping on his cheek as if he ignored me.

***A SLIGHT CONTRADICTION***
Viktor hated it when the people in the bar fought
Viktor enjoyed it when people fought him
I guess the enjoyment lies in the reasoning

I let out a sigh and put my fists up. They didn't have an unusual lightness in them like before. They carried the weight of blood for I was an assassin. I threw my blood shadowed fist towards his jaw. Rather than dissipating and blowing away into the alley,

it landed. It shot him.

Viktor landed on the ground. He managed to sneak out a few words through the pain. "Oww…this is good."

I threw another punch. "Heinrich, what are you—"

Viktor's face morphed into the cabbage man in my vision. I could see the wrinkles. The flame-imprisoned eyes he once looked at my father with.

I threw two more.

The face morphed into the journalist. I could see the hooked nose of the man who hooked me into his scheme.

"That's enough, Heinrich!" The gang of titan-shifters tried to pull me away.

It didn't work.
I threw more punches.
A total of 12 punches.

***A "PORTRAIT" OF VIKTOR DASSLER***
Blood coated his facial features as a cruel mask
Wounds birthed wounds
His mouth laid open, letting some of the blood fall in
His eyes were shut

My fist was a paintbrush made of flesh and bone. The can of paint was Viktor's devil blood, and his face was a canvas to apply my hatred on.

I wanted him to say one sentence: "Now this…this is pain…I can handle."
He didn't say any sentences.

A ran out of the alley and into the bathroom in my home. I closed the door behind me. I then opened the tap and the tired water fell over my blood-veiled hands. Swirls of blood and water ran into the drain.

When I washed off all the blood, I asked myself. "Why is it not coming off?"

Fear and all its synonyms laid in my throat curling at my vocal chords and windpipe. Their cynical tendencies took advantage of my already damaged emotions.

My fingers were as cleansed as they could be. There were even wrinkles in them from the excess water. "Why is the blood still here?!"

I dug my nails into my hands, scraping off the blood that supposedly didn't come off.

A voice peered through the door and knocked at my back. "Heinrich?"

It belonged to a certain barkeeper with a forehead lifting a stitch.

"Heinrich? You okay, boy? Heinrich!"

Without waiting for a response, the man pushed through the door. I turned around and captured the look on his face; I preserved it in the back of my retinas. His eyes became two giant O's and a dash made of stitches was accentuated on his forehead. I could only say one thing:

"Papa… his blood won't come off…"

He fell at my knees and grabbed my hands.

"Heinrich…look at what you've done to your hands…"

His words landed on the wounds I had dealt myself. They stung.

An iron-woman came pounding her feet to the door. It was my mama. She didn't give herself much time to react. Instead, she threw a sentence at papa. "Go get a towel." When papa returned, I told my mama what happened and used as many details as a flustered mind could muster. She looked back at papa. "Go check if Viktor's safe."

She walked me to my bedroom with towels hugging my hands. She turned out the wheezing light and sat me down on the bed.

"Heinrich, you already told me and your papa—" I told them everything in the morning of that day. "—but I didn't know this was going to happen..." The rest of things she must have wanted to say bunched up at her cheeks.

It turned out I had washed off all of Viktor's blood in my bathroom. But I scratched my hands so much that my blood came out to play.

***THREE FLAVORS OF BLOOD***
The two-faced warrior's
The fighter's
The narrator's

Papa knocked at my bedroom frame. Then came a nod. Up, then down. Words of confirmation followed next.

Viktor was ok.

A sigh of lukewarm relief let itself out of my mouth.

"I wish we still had that guitar…", mama said. "That damn cabbage-man had to go and ruin everything." Her syrupy words dried into a mild-tar when she looked back at papa. "Now all we have is this fool's singing."

Was she expecting a chuckle from me?

How can you stitch up the mental wounds of a boy tricked into nearly killing a man? I wanted them to say something to make me feel better but nothing left their mouths. Instead, their eyes looked at me like I was a foreigner. Something they didn't know how to deal with.

Looking back at all this, I can't blame them. It took time and the words of a street-dweller to solve these issues.

I can personally attest to that (because I am me)

Mama continued her reminiscing about the guitar. "Remember the first time I taught you how to play guitar? We sat right here and we all played a song…it wasn't great music but still…" A silver tear tripped from her eyelid.

"…yes…mama…"

"When we had music, it just made life a little bit more bearable."

Music always makes life better, doesn't it?