Chapter 35
Meanwhile, the military has undergone a purge, following the coup d'état, but humanity has also gained things in return. The glowing ore from the Underground Chapel can now be used as a light source, and thanks to Eren's hardening experiments, they were able to create a new anti-Titan weapon, which Hange Zoë calls the executioner from hell during a public demonstration.
It works by luring Titans into a narrow corridor to try to reach a human blocked by strands of Eren's hardened Titan material. Once the Titan is wedged into place, the Scout Regiment drops a log on the nape, killing it.
"We did it! That's a 12-meter, crushed!" Hange yells.
"We did it..." Everyone in the scouts is also delighted.
"Hell yeah! With this, we can kill Titans without a single soldier fighting!" Hange says. "We'll hack down the Titans all day and night! Say hello to the executioner from hell!"
"Good thing we have 5 Titan Shifters to do it..." Eren says.
"Yeah, doing this is really tiring..." Katrina says. "But we have to make weapons and get going to Shiganshina."
At the same time, Aya, Dina, and Armin are now underground, they hear from the MPs that Annie finally wakes up from her sleep.
"Where am I?" Annie asks.
"This is the dungeon." Armin says as she notices Aya, Armin, and a woman with blonde hair behind them. "To think you have been sleeping for 2 months..."
Aya says, "We have some good news for you, thanks to the Founding Titan, I managed to get the Female Titan out of your body, you don't need to worry about the Curse of Ymir and being eaten."
"Heh..." Annie says, "Good news, huh?"
"So you're Annie Leonhart, an Eldian from Marley, right?" Dina asks. "My name is Dina Yeager. You probably heard of my son: Zeke. And I'm sorry that I took your powers as I'm the current Female Titan holder."
"Zeke's mother..." Annie mutters. "So what are you going to do with me?"
Aya says, "We're here to inform you what happened during these two months. Mostly Armin, since he has been concerned about you."
"I'm glad you're still concerned about me..." Annie sighs as she finally notices her hair. "So your hair color has become orange... I thought you were green..."
"Maybe because I touched the Armored, Colossal, and the Jaws." Aya says with a shrug.
"So you guys also know about Reiner and Bertolt, huh...are they here somewhere?" Annie asks.
"They escaped after we found their identities." Armin frowns.
"Great. So they've abandoned me..." Annie says, "I'd rather be eaten instead of being taken away my powers..."
"If you do that, what will your father think?" Aya asks. "We know you're doing this so you can reunite with your father. And we promise you, once we take back Wall Maria, we're going to reunite you with your father."
"Whatever..." Annie says.
Armin says, "Aya, Ms. Yeager. I'll talk to her alone, if it's okay..."
"Not at all." Aya and Dina then leave while leaving Armin to talk with Annie.
When Aya and Dina walk back to the scouts, Eren gives her a kiss on the cheeks and says, "Hey, there. Beautiful."
"Shut up, idiot..." Aya mutters as she's blushing.
Then after they meet up with the friends, Peter asks, "So Armin is talking to Annie, huh?"
"Yeah. Without the Titan powers, Annie is not going to be a threat to us..." Odom says, "Though I can't forgive the fact that she killed the original Levi Squad..."
Later on, Marlo Freudenberg shares his exuberance with members of Squad Levi. He is confident that the new weapons will allow them to eliminate the Titans. Unimpressed, Jean says Marlo is the only person who would be this excited about joining the Scouts. After Sasha Braus questions Marlo about why Hitch Dreyse did not try to stop him, Marlo wonders why she would. But he does recall that she told him pretty adamantly not to join and he said he was wrong about her. Jean, Peter, and Sasha all comment on how thick-headed he is.
"Anyways, the only ones as worked up as you are the recruits with 0 battle experience." Jean says.
"Whoa, whoa... Think you're some veteran hero now?" At another table, Floch Forster says to him.
"Compared to you, I am." Jean says.
"How rude. Weren't we in the 104th together?" Floch asks. "Besides, we're not the only ones. Everyone in the walls is pumped up about the idea of retaking Wall Maria."
"Is that so?" Jean asks.
"Still, you all do seem different now." Floch says. "It's your faces, or what... exactly happened?"
"Wanna know?" Jean asks.
"No, I think... I'll ask later." Floch says as they leave.
Then Connie also leaves as he is going to visit his mother, and Eren asks, "So Katrina, how is the serum making?"
Katrina says, "Thanks to Historia, I have some help with the doctors and it is working well. I even got some with me."
"Turning the pure Titans back to humans seems to be great. However, my concern is if Marley will continue to send people here and create more pure Titans for us to fight or kill..."
"That makes us executioners for their criminals, huh?" Aya asks.
"By the way, you said that guy touched you and you also got some memories, right? What did you see?" Peter asks.
"Well... I actually saw the memories before activating the Rumbling..." Eren says. "How I brought Zeke to the past and how I made it happen...because I was against my big brother's plan. My Dad didn't want to kill Historia's family, I made him do it..."
This causes everyone to stare at him in shock. "My Dad...he was afraid of what I've become, and he also wanted Zeke to stop me..."
Katrina says, "But if he was really scared, he wouldn't have tried to bring all of us there and give us the Titan powers... and besides, we've already talked about not using the Rumbling, right?"
"Yeah... with Aya and you guys, we might have a better future." Eren says.
"Though I have a question." Dina says, "How did Grisha, Sarah, Wade, and Jennette get inside the walls? The walls weren't destroyed until Bertolt destroyed it, right?"
Peter says, "I think a man let them in...the thing is, though, I feel like I've met this guy somewhere."
"How about smacking your head and see if you remember?" Sasha asks.
"That's right. You might remember if you stopped holding hands with your mother for once. Get a headbutt from the commandant." Jean says.
Then it makes them realize. Eren says, "That's it! The Cadet Corps Commandant... Keith Shadis!"
The next day, everyone is riding their horses to the training grounds in Trost, Hange says, "Before Erwin, he was the 12th commander of the Scout Regiment. It's been a long while since I've seen him."
After arriving at the training grounds, Eren says, "Commander Shadis."
He turns to see everyone and they all do a salute. After that, they all head indoors to talk. Everyone sits down, with Sasha being the one standing.
"What's wrong, Braus? Not sitting?" Shadis asks.
"No! I'm quite fine standing here!" Sasha says.
"If I recall... Back in the day, I always used to call you in here to chew you out." Shadis says. "And it's only been a handful of months. I hardly recognize you all anymore."
Hange says, "Commander Shadis, rather, Commandant... With preparations to retake Wall Maria underway, perhaps you can guess what brings us here today."
Shadis also notices Dina and asks, "And you are?"
"Sorry about that." Dina says, "My name is Dina Fritz, I was brought into the Servey Corps recently after being saved by them."
"I see." Then he notices Eren and Katrina. "You two resemble your mother so much. However, the fangs lurking deep in your eyes are sure your father's."
"And that's why we're here. Tell me about him! Everything you know!" Eren says.
"And if it's possible, we also want to know about our parents as well." Aya says.
"I know nothing... in the grand scheme of things. However, I can tell you a story utterly useless to humanity. The story of my past... as a mere bystander."
(Flashback)
Twenty years ago, Keith and two of his subordinates, Delia and Emil, were outside of Wall Maria, and they found four people resting beside a tree.
"Hey, you! How did you get out of the walls?" Keith yells.
"Wh-what are you all doing outside the wall?!" Grisha asks. "Don't tell me... you're fighting?"
The four of them say that they couldn't remember why they were outside the walls. All of them lost their memories, except that their names: Grisha Yeager, Sarah Neumann, Jenette Fischer, and Wade Wolff. They were detained by the Garrison since it is a crime for ordinary people to go outside the Walls, but Hannes was ambivalent about keeping him because it was not as though the four of them had hurt anyone. Hannes suggested not reporting them and the three of them agreed.
Eventually, Jenette and Wade decided to join the Survey Corps, while Grisha said that he was a doctor and he would work in the hospital, as for Sarah, she decided to work with Grisha as a nurse.
All of them know nothing about the world and anything, so they were chatting in a bar. "I see. Although there's economic inequality, there's peace within the walls."
"At the least, you don't live in constant fear of Titans." Sarah says. "That's good."
"That's good, huh? You're one of them?" Keith asks.
"Within those cramped walls, as long as there's food and alcohol, some think that's good enough. Not once have they stopped to think how wide the world might be." Delia says.
"Is that why you guys venture outside the walls?" Jenette asks. "Is that what Scouts do?"
"That's right. Does it seem foolish?" Emil asks.
"Not at all." Wade says, "The Scouts are wiser and braver than anyone else in the walls. Your existence signifies the freedom in our souls. You're the pride of humanity."
"Pride? We are?" Keith asks.
And just then, Carla, a waitress at the bar, came and asked if the three of them were trying to recruit for the Scouts again, and Grisha politely said that was not the case as he was unsuitable for it. Only a chosen one could do that kind of work, a notion that Keith took to heart. Besides, Wade and Jennette seemed interested in joining them.
As the Scouts suffered repeated failures under the 11th Commander, Keith began to think he would achieve results if only he was in that role himself. Jenette and Wade also showed their skills while killing the Titans, and eventually, they each fell in love with Delia and Wade as they were dating.
Sarah suddenly disappeared from what Grisha told them, but eventually, she was found with Levi with the Survey Corps in a short amount of time.
Sometime later, a plague gripped Shiganshina and Carla caught it. Keith brought her to Grisha for medical care and when she said her parents were sick too, Grisha assured her he would care for everyone. Keith could see her growing closer to Grisha, and his own promotion to Commander of the Scout Regiment was overshadowed by the marriage of Carla to Grisha.
After returning from an expedition, the Scouts talked around Keith's back about him being a moron who charges into death and wishing that they could change commanders for Erwin since his squad did not suffer any casualties. Keith reminded himself that he was special, chosen, as he walked through town and eventually bumped into Carla with an infant Eren and Katrina in her hands. She asked Keith if he intended to keep this up until he died and began to suggest that he should retire, but this struck a chord in Keith.
He launched into a tirade about how most people live and die without changing a thing. Normal people cannot accomplish greatness. And this caused him to, years later, ask Erwin to take over for him as commander. Keith became certain that special people did exist, but after all of his failures, it was clear he was not one of them. He just did not realize it.
Keith was in Trost District when Wall Maria fell and while there, met up with Grisha, Carla, Jenette, and Wade. When the refugees eventually arrived, the five of them found Eren, Aya, Katrina, Peter, and Odom. The four of them took their children and Aya away, and he asked Keith not to follow. When asked why taking them alone, Grisha told him that they were their children and he should stay out of it.
When dawn came, Keith saw a lightning flash in the woods and heard thunder. He found all five of them on the ground unconscious, he also noticed Aya's hair color change from black to green, and he carried all of them back to the shelter where he put him in bed beside Mikasa and Armin. That was the end of his story.
(Flashback Ends)
"So that's... it?" Eren mutters, and everyone can't believe what they've heard.
"Now we know the real reason you resigned." Hange says. "Not to atone for the soldiers you killed, but because you realized you were never special. That's the childish reason you're here."
"Quit it, Hange." Levi says.
"Screw your inferiority complex. Don't run from reality." Hange says. "Isn't that what vowing to give our hearts was all about?"
"Please stop, Hange." Eren says. "The Commandant was right... we were never special or anything."
Katrina says, "But...we're the son of a special man. That's all it is."
"Your mother... Carla said this..." Shadis says.
"Is it wrong not to be special? I don't think that way. When it comes to my children...it's fine if they're never great. They don't have to be better than anyone. After all, just look at them...they're so cute! They're already special. Because they were born into this world."
"And you, just like your parents wanted... chose to set ablaze your life...which will burn to ashes outside the walls. In the end, I couldn't...I couldn't change a single thing at all. I'm a mere bystander."
After that's done, everyone understands everything, and they all head back to the HQ. With Eren, Aya, Peter, Odom, and Katrina thinking about their parents.
And here is the new chapter, I hope you like it.