The night was dark. Krista was riding horseback along with her squad leader Nanaba. The torches the two females were holding, were the only source of light as the moon had hidden behind the clouds. They strode alongside the wall in hopes of finding the breach. Suddenly the two saw some other lights. They were approaching quickly. When they got close enough, Krista could see her fellow scouts.

"Did you follow the wall here, too?" Gelgar asked them.

"Yeah" Nanaba replied "where's the hole?"

The other squad looked flabbergasted. Seeing that, Nanaba continued:

"We took a detour and followed alongside the wall starting from the far west, but we didn't find anything strange. If we didn't find it, then surely you must have?"

Gelgar was looking at them with wide eyes.

"No" he finally responded, "we haven't seen a hole either."

As the two soldiers exchanged words, Krista thought back to what had happened during the last few hours. After the survey corps' expedition outside the walls, most of the recruits had been stationed in one of the bases between Krolva and Trost. They hadn't been given their equipment and none of them seemed to know why. Then Sasha heard the footsteps of approaching titans. Momentarily an evacuation operation had been launched. They rode to all the nearby villages to inform everyone about the breach. As they went back, they were supposed to localize the actual hole.

This however, seemed just not meant to be.

Krista didn't know what to think. Did the titans somehow appear within the walls? Either that, or they finally learned how to climb. But even that seemed implausible.

"What should we do?" Gelgar asked "do you want to check again?"

"We should" Nanaba replied "but I think both we and our horses are near exhaustion. We'd just be even less focused than before."

"If we at least had some moonlight…"

As if by their wish, the clouds suddenly revealed the full moon. It shone down on the whole area, and now the scouts could see ruins of an old castle nearby.

The scouts chose to stay there for the night. There were some signs of activity around the castle. Crates with goods signified a bandit outpost. Nevertheless, they were tired and needed some rest.

"The sign says Utgard castle."

The ruins consisted of broken walls, an old stable, a few broken buildings and a well-preserved tower. It didn't seem all that special, but Krista thought it was really mysterious during the night.

When they lighted the bonfire within the tower, their superiors went to search for anything of use. It turned out that the crates within the castle still contained a few articles. Gelgar even found a bottle full of some unknown alcohol.

"You recruits rest up" he said as he finally stood up "the sun has been down for a while now. I doubt that any titans will still be moving, but we'll take turns keeping watch. We leave four hours before sunrise."

"Um…" Krista started before the man walked off "if it turns out that the wall really hasn't been breached, where could the titans have come from?"

Gelgar pondered on that.

"Determining that is our job for tomorrow" He finally said as he started walking up the staircase "focus on resting for now."

Krista was thinking hard. It did seem like the titans appeared within the walls. But how? She suddenly remembered that Eren's titan appeared pretty much out of thin air.

"The number of titans does appear to be small" the officers chatted "it'd be hard to say for sure that they've really broken through the wall."

"The only time we've seen any titans so far was when we first discovered them."

Krista looked at her colleagues. They all seemed pretty down right now. However, out of them all, Connie seemed to be the most depressed.

"Connie" she asked the boy "did something happen? How is your village?"

"It was destroyed" Connie responded looking down "the titans had already trampled through the entire village."

"Oh…" Krista exclaimed in shock.

"No one had been eaten" the boy continued "it looked like everyone managed to get away."

"Wait, didn't you just say it was destroyed?" Krista asked him.

"Houses and everything were damaged, but there were no victims from the village. If they had been eaten, there would have been blood or other remains, like back in Trost."

Connie looked up.

"There's only one thing that's been bothering me ever since I was in the village. There was a titan in my house. It wasn't able to move on its own."

"It somehow… kind of resembled my mom…"

"Connie" Reiner suddenly interjected "are you still going on about that? You're tired and you must've thought that way because you've seen it in your house."

Connie closed his eyes.

"Yeah" he replied "you must be right. I was just seeing things…"

As they were resting, Krista couldn't sleep a wink. The thoughts were raging in her head like crazy.

'If the titans really appeared within the wall, could it be that it has to do with what happened in Connie's village…?'

Before she could think of anything else, Lynne suddenly ran down the spiral staircase.

"ALL TROOPS, WAKE UP!" She shouted, waking everyone up "GET TO THE ROOF! EVERYONE, NOW!"

Once on the roof, Krista finally saw what caused the alarm. A horde of titans was marching right on the castle.

"Why are they still moving?!" Gelgar cried out "Hours have passed since sunset!"

"What's going on here…?" Krista asked herself.

"Hey!" Connie cried out as he pointed in some direction "look at that!"

A giant ape-looking titan was walking in the distance.

"It's huge!" He exclaimed "what the hell is that thing?!"

"It's heading towards a wall!" Krista exclaimed when she saw where the unusual titan was going.

BOOOM!

One of the titans slammed into the tower. The building shook in its place but didn't fall over. Krista went over the edge to get a better look. A few titans broke into the tower.

"You've got to be kidding me…" Gelgar exclaimed.

"DON'T FUCK WITH ME! 'CUZ OF YOU BASTARDS I CAN'T EVEN GET A DRINK!"

"Stay back recruits!" Nanaba cried out as they got ready for battle "it's time to switch to vertical maneuvering!"

"LET'S GO!"

The scouts jumped down. The titan which slammed into the tower fell quickly, as the scouts began slashing at every foe around. It wasn't a fair battle, as there were only four of them.

"Titans have entered the tower!" Lynne yelled as she came back to them "get back inside and put up barricades to stop them!"

"Our maneuvering equipment will be useless inside. If you can't stop them, then worst case… escape to this rooftop."

"I can't promise that we'll come save you. I don't even know if we'll be alive or not. But do what you always do. Give it all you've got as long as you're alive!"

"Got that!" The recruits exclaimed.

They instantly ran down to reinforce the tower.

"Bertholdt! Let's see how far the titans have come!" Yelled Reiner "Krista, Connie! Gather up everything you can! Boards, poles, whatever you can find!"

She went to the upper level to look for anything useful. There was a single knife laying on one of the crates. She was sure it wouldn't work against titans, but she still pocketed it.

'Just in case.'

"Hey, Krista!" She heard Connie call out "look at this!"

It turned out he found an old cannon.

"Too bad there aren't any shells…" She spoke.

"DOWN HERE!" Both of them suddenly heard Reiner cry out "BRING SOMETHING! ANYTHING!"

They instantly began dragging the cannon to the stairs. When they finally reached the door, Connie and Krista saw Reiner and Bertholdt trying to keep a small titan from entering through a broken door.

"LOOK OUT!" Krista yelled at the two.

They pushed the cannon down. It tumbled down the stairs and brought down the titan.

"Looks like it actually worked…" Connie exclaimed looking down at the rubble.

"It can't get out from under that" Reiner said, "not at its size."

Krista lighted another torch and motioned for them to come up.

"For now, let's retreat back upstairs. More than one might've made it inside."

As she said that, a giant mouth reached for Reiner from the door hole.

"REINER!" Bertholdt cried out.

As the light-haired boy turned to face the titan, it bit right into his arm.

"Arghh!" Reiner yelled in pain.

Krista was standing on the stairs, unable to move.

Then, Reiner did something unbelievable.

He threw the titan over his back and strode towards the window, his face twisted in pain.

"Reiner! You're not thinking of jumping down with that thing, are you?!" Connie cried out.

"A little help would be appreciated…!" Reiner yelled as he stood in the window frame.

Krista quickly ran up to him, pulling the knife out of her pocket.

"It'll let go if I just cut the jaw muscles!" She exclaimed as she plunged the knife into the beast's mouth.

The titan let go of Reiner, but now it was standing right in front of them. Suddenly Bertholdt and Connie slammed into the titan pushing it out of the window.

"We won't get that lucky, next time a titan breaks in" Bertholdt exclaimed breathing heavily.

As Krista tried to treat Reiner's wound, the other boys barricaded the entrance with whatever they could find.

"How are they doing outside?" Krista asked.

Connie walked to the window.

"Hah. That's the survey corps for you!" He exclaimed happily "They cleared it all pretty…"

BOOOM!

The tower shook once again as it was hit again. The recruits ran back up, just to see Henning and Lynne laying there dead.

"What was that!" Reiner asked the officers.

"A boulder came flying from over there, toward the wall" Gelgar said "That's what got them."

"From the wall…?" Krista asked.

"That thing!" Connie cried out as he pointed towards the horizon.

"There was just one titan that was walking towards the wall… It was that beast titan that did this…"

"Aghh!" he exclaimed in shock.

They all looked towards the direction Connie was pointing at. Another horde of titans was approaching the castle.

"This timing makes it feel like the titans are conducting some sort of strategic operation" Nanaba said.

"It almost seems as if they've been toying with us from the start…"

"We have to fight" Gelgar said as he stood up once again.

This time, the survey corps officers didn't do as well as before. With their numbers halved, the titans quickly overpowered them. The tower was shaking yet again, as a fifteen-metre titan broke the support. Gelgar and Nanaba's cries of agony filled the air.

Krista looked towards the rising sun.

'Is this how I die?' She asked herself.

It was hopeless. The tower was slowly falling down, but within her heart, Krista accepted her fate.

This was the day Krista Lenz would finally die.

She never had much of a life anyway. Her final regret was that she never got to know Dina's secret.

The tower finally began to fall, as the titans swarmed around it. When it suddenly turned over, the floor disappeared from under her feet.

She was falling.

'I never actually got to live for myself…" She thought as a single tear escaped from her eye.

Krista Lenz closed her eyes for the last time.

Suddenly she felt something intercept her fall. Someone was holding her.

"I got you!" A familiar voice exclaimed.

As Historia Reiss opened her eyes, she saw the face of her savior.

"Eren…"