Alright, so here's chapter 6.

I just ran, early in the morning, alongside the Ackerman boy next to me. While I was exhausted, after running laps for the past 4 hours, the Ackerman boy next to me was just yawning, and rubbing his tired eyes. He looked over at me, and noticed how sweaty I was.

"Hey, if we can resolve our differences, we can just end the run and-"

"I won't talk with those who choose to have my Queen turned into a slave. Much less my friend." I swallowed, as I continued to run past him.

Judas stopped to hissed, frustrated. At himself? I wasn't sure. He ran up to catch up with me, and his tiredness was well masked.

"Okay, I'm sorry, I don't think the queen should become forced into… that kind of thing."

"A breeding sow. That's what you wanted my queen to be, and that's what you wanted of my friend. Is it not?"

He looked to be internally facepalming, as I watched his reaction from behind me.

"No, I don't want that. I was just frustrated last night. I just want to make peace with the outside world, without both sides spilling so much blood."

"That's impossible. Eren has already done enough bloodshed that it would make us monsters in their eyes, for defending ourselves. All we can do is fight to survive."

"We will make peace outside the world." I looked over at him, his determined expression ever recognizable from the first time I saw him. "It's really inside the country I'm worried about."

"Who's this "we" you are referring to, first of all? Your friend's traitorous father?"

He stopped, as did I.

"Uncle Armin… he was just doing what he could for humanity itself. To save the world." He chuckled. "He just wanted to save the world."

"If his goal was to save the world… I guess he didn't have much choice, did he?" I rhetorically asked.

I spat at him, to which he promptly dodged it.

"I'd rather save my country over humanity."

He snorted.

"He wanted to save both, believe it or not."

"But he'd help the outside world over his own country?"

He just straight up laughed.

"That's how I know you've been fed with yeagerist propaganda."

He pointed around, as if he was signaling.

"See all the new trains, the new planes, the ports, everything? That's what the outside world has given us. We didn't come up with it from our, "brilliant eldian minds". The modern odm gear, even, is heavily helped thanks to the outside world. But of course, no one here would say that, no matter how much they were paid."

"I like how you're insinuating that I'm less smart than you are, for wanting to protect my county."

"Why should protecting one's country come at the expense of the rest of the world? Why should you have to choose?"

He ran past me, and I ran up to him.

"In an ideal world, no one would have to choose." I admitted, but he interrupted me before I could say any more.

"Why can't we strive for such a world?" He looked like he had seen heaven's angels descend from above.

"Why do we have to drag all of us back into this hell?" He looked down, unable to look at the devils of earth.

"You're too naive."

He chuckled, again, like he'd never seen the world and its horror.

"Maybe." He snickered. "But I want to try."

I looked down at him, despite the height difference.

"I won't let efforts like that be what brings this country down."

I ran past him, still ignoring how much I wanted to see Historia or Ada have those dreamy eyes, once again. Those eyes were the warmth I had felt after a cold dead night alone.

'She'll get that hope back. Once the outside world is eliminated, she'll be free. She won't have to sacrifice such kindness for such traitors, or such malevolent monsters.'

No matter what we could do, we couldn't resolve any differences. But eventually, it was nightfall, and Commander Surma had dismissed us for the night.

"You'll both be running till you can learn to grow up. You need to put aside your differences in order to serve the queen. I don't care if it means you'll not get a night or two of food."

He looked up, into the night sky, as we both stood and looked forward.

"In a world where we are losing the ability to trust anyone, you need to trust your comrades to have your back."

He looked down back at both of us, with him sternly looking through us.

"Is that understood?"

"Yes sir." We both said those dry, empty words, at least on that day.

He and I both walked back to our respective cabins, and I was greeted by Ada, sitting on my bunk bed.

"Hey, how's it going? Did you make up"

I shook my head, pretending to be distressed about it to keep her from being upset.

"Dang it, Gisela. Why is it so hard to forgive him?"

"Because his living threatens your mother's existence." I dropped all pretenses, as she did.

"My mom doesn't need your protection, Gisela." She chuckled, as my head was awash.

'She doesn't know. She can't know.'

"She's like a mother to me. Why would I forgive anyone who says she should be enslaved?"

"He didn't." Ada narrowed her eyes. "He said it was a better option than genocide, but he said, earlier, that he wants a solution that wasn't harmful."

I raised my eyebrow.

"I overheard him speaking, as you two were running." She smirked.

"He seems like a good guy, why don't you like him?"

I wasn't sure why she was so calm.

"I don't hate him. But I cannot respect anyone who's as childish as him."

She almost spurted out in laughter.

"Why are you acting like you're a 30 year old soldier? You're barely older than me!"

She laughed, while I rolled my eyes.

'This is all for you. These devils will be gone soon enough. Then, you'll have nothing to worry about, Ada.'

I looked outside.

'Historia… I'll make sure you live a long life without having to put your sympathy towards those devils.'

"Hey, Gisela, your name is?" A taller girl, nearly 6 foot, came up to the bunk that Ada and I were on, noticing me looking off into the distance.

"Yes, what's your name?"

"My name's Helena. Nice to meet you."

She sounded as if her voice contained a smirk, and her carefree attitude carried to her offering a handshake to me.

"Nice to meet you too, Helena."

"You're an orphan too?"

I nodded, quickly.

"Yeah. I grew up in a smaller orphanage. Was found by Queen Historia herself. She's a nice lady."

I smiled.

"Unfortunately, couldn't get to the central orphanage. Had to go to another orphanage."

"Huh? There's another orphanage?" Ada joined the conversation, to which Helena chuckled.

"Yeah, Ms. Princess. There's a lot of them. Couldn't have one orphanage for the entire country, could you?" She looked over at me.

"Yes, there's 15 orphanages. Each of them have dozens of kids. Most of them don't have families that end up adopting them, so most of the kids end up here, in military training."

"Right you are, Gisela. Anyways, lived a pretty nice life in the interior, didn't you?"

"Yes, I guess I have."

"Means you've been with Historia a lot, she's like a mom you never had."

"Yes. She cared for me when few others did."

"You want to protect Historia by any means necessary, right?"

I nodded without a shred of hesitation.

She came in close to me, to where I could feel her chest against my own.

"Even from those who are considered her friends, right?"

Despite my shock, I didn't show it to either her nor Ada next to me, who was confused by the whole encounter.

"Well, I hope to see you around. I'll be in the military police soon enough. Hope to meet you there.

She went up to her bunk, and as the lights closed, eventually, my first thought was about what Helena told me.

'If you're one of us… I'll be willing to serve with you, against these traitors.'

I smiled, as I closed my eyes, and went to sleep.

And that's the end of chapter 6. Man, this was a difficult venture to pull, but I did.