Creation began on 06-11-21

Creation ended on 07-01-21

Attack on Titan

Attack on Titan: Reclamation Complete

The next expedition was to begin in two days. This left Eren, Mikasa and Armin with time to relax and reminisce about how they got to where they were now. As they walked down the streets of Trost, seeing that the damage caused by the handful of Titans that got inside a few days ago was minimal at best, as none of the buildings were destroyed and there was no loss of life, Armin sighed at how it seems they were all going down different routes now. It wasn't everyday that you find out that your best friend, who was interested in exploring the world like you were to suddenly have a change in priority and stay close to the community while his foster sister and yourself go to join the one group that would be venturing out into the world beyond the Walls. Even though Eren had explained why he suddenly felt the need to stay within the Walls, it was like Armin was talking to someone that was only there half the time.

"It seems like it's been a lifetime since we've had time to think about what we're going to do," Armin told them.

"Yeah," Eren agreed with him, "it does feel that way. Tell me, even after all this time, do you still believe that the ocean exists out there? This large body of water that contains so much salt that people could spend their whole lives collecting it and still wouldn't get it all?"

"Yes, I do believe it still exists out there. Will you ever come to a day where you want to see it for yourself, Eren?"

"Someday," he expressed. "When there are no more Titans trying to get inside and there are no more Titans out there…yeah…I will definitely look forward to going to see the ocean for myself. Just make sure you come back alive when you go out there to reclaim Wall Maria. Both of you."

Mikasa smiled and nodded her head in the positive.

-x-

It might've been a coincidence, but Krista needed to confront Eren about the issue before she and Ymir left to Wall Sina where the Military Police were stationed. It was just for an instant, but when she touched his shoulder that night, she…saw things that made no sense to her at first, but after thinking about it over the last few hours, it started to. And if Eren knew something she didn't, she expected him to tell her.

He lost people, the same as everyone else that day, she thought as she went looking for him in Trost. But as depressing as it seems to have lost people because of the Titans, he doesn't…seem all that upset about any of it.

Before, anyone that suffered because of the Titans would've desired vengeance or salvation from the man-eating giants. Other times, they would just want to forget that they existed beyond the Walls and pretend that everything was fine, that there was peace so long as they stopped venturing out past them. But with Eren, the one person most would've expected to want to cause a ruckus by wanting to leave the safety of the Walls…seemed unusual by wanting to avoid leaving at all. This, along with what Krista saw in the brief moment she touched him, made her suspect that there was something wrong with him…or at the very least, there was something he wasn't telling anyone.

There he is, she thought as she saw him walk away from his two companions. He joins the Garrison, they join the Survey Corps, and he suggests that I join the Military Police so that I don't throw my life away. Why do I get the feeling that he has an agenda or something?

She called out to him and got his attention.

"Oh, Krista," he greeted her. "How are you this after…"

"I need to ask you something," she cut him off, surprising him with her boldness. "I'm going to say some words to you, and I just want you to tell me what you think each time I say one, okay?"

"Uh, sure. Go ahead."

"Okay… First word: Colossal."

"Outer breach."

"Second word: Armor."

"Interior breach."

"Jaw."

"Your friend, Ymir."

"Female."

"Beautiful…but mysterious and potentially deceptive."

"Beast."

"A vicious predator that must be taken out."

Krista looked around them and saw that they were alone; there were no familiar faces with which to wonder about.

"Okay. Cart."

"Support to carry immense loads."

"War Hammer?"

"An absolute last resort when all else fails."

"Attack?"

"An unprovoked assault by an immoral individual."

"What about 'Founder'?"

"She who… She who carries her guilt wherever she goes."

When Eren said that, it sounded as though he was conflicted by whatever it meant to him. And when Krista said 'Attack', she noticed how he sounded just as conflicted saying what he felt about that.

"One more word, Eren," she told him. "A name: Frieda."

His facial expression slowly contorted into one of rage crossed with grief. A feeling that didn't feel right to him surged through his hands as he raised them up and grabbed the girl by her shoulders. A face he was certain he had never seen before, a woman with dark hair and an unearthly prettiness to her, then replaced by a similar face full of malice and torment. A man he hadn't seen in over four years…and a larger man with a crueler face and pointed ears…the cold words of a younger man that only echoed the woman he never met from a distance…making an unnecessary act of violence result in bloodshed and tears unseen.

"A…a…" He tried to speak, his voice sounding wracked by some sort of trouble. "A goddess among mortals…who never abused her power…because she was a good person deep down."

"Eren…do you know something about…what happened five years ago?"

It was the way she asked the question that made Eren rethink much of what this girl had said to him. Her tone, her gaze and her conviction.

"What do you think happened five years ago?" He asked her, wanting to hear her assumptions, whatever they were.

-x-

Thud! The Titan that hunted down other Titans had slaughtered the last three that were of mediocre sizes, barely ten meters, and panted over its victory.

They've been cleared out, thought the young man within the Titan. Freedom is near. Freedom is the great reward. Freedom is…

"I think your father was forced to do something that carried repercussions," he heard a girl's voice say to someone. "I believe you had a hand in what your father did, although…not you at the moment, but…you did do something that was wrong."

"If I did do something wrong," he heard a voice, similar to his own, but nowhere near as full of conviction as his was, "then I had no awareness of the wrong committed…but I do feel remorse for the repercussions."

"What do you see?"

"I see…my father…standing in front of a young woman…and then, there's another man. A bitter and angry man. I think he's angry at everything and everyone."

"Why is he angry?"

"Because he wants the world to change…but his way of changing it is not a good method."

"He wants the world to change? What is it about the world that he wants to change?"

"Everything. He's…obsessed with something he feels has been denied to him…and he refuses to back down, no matter who stands in his way."

"I think this man is somehow related to you."

"What? No. No, I… He does things that are… I did something back then that was so terrible that I have to live with it everyday for the rest of my life, but I was trying to save someone I know. If I could take it back…if I could take it all back…I would."

"Why?"

"People are people, no matter what anyone says. We're flawed, we're naïve, protective, vengeful, selfless, selfish, driven, committed, motivated, possessive, expendable. We're a finite existence in an indifferent universe where nothing will last forever. We may think we'll outlast everyone else, or that what we have makes us significant…but we only matter to the ones we have the most impact on, those we have a connection with."

"Like the two of us?"

"Yes…and no."

"Okay. Still, what do you think is currently wrong with what's now?"

"The question of peace in a chaotic world. Those that see no point in there being peace unless there's freedom. But as much as I believe in freedom, I don't want to obtain it at the expense of other people's lives. If there's an opportunity for chatting, there's an opportunity for negotiations. But if nobody's interested in negotiations, then that means they're too set in their own beliefs on what should be done."

"That's awful."

Somehow, he got the impression that he was among the conversation being had between these two. A talk of how there was no peace without freedom. All that really mattered was freedom. Without freedom, there was no future. People needed to understand that.

"I think there are two of you," he heard the girl voice say.

"What do you mean, two of us?" The other voice questioned.

"Whatever happened in your past, it caused you to be divided into two people, and while you're here, there's another you out there, doing whatever he wants."

"Like an…an evil twin or something?"

"Well, yeah…when you put it that way."

Evil twin? Like that's true, he thought as he made his Titan walk through the ruins of Shiganshina District. I do as I please because I am free to do so. Those that still cling to their strings aren't free by any means. Those without strings are the ones truly free to do as they please. No strings equals freedom. Freedom equals a future beyond this life.

He came to the outer breach and took notice of something that was new…and in his way. It was a Titan the likes of which he had never seen, standing at seventeen meters, covered almost completely in brown hair or fur, save for some of its head and the upper and lower torso area.

"Hmm?" He heard the Titan react. "I've never seen a Titan move away from the Walls."

A Titan that could speak…meant that someone was controlling it. This was no regular Titan, just another obstacle between himself and his objective.

I had strings, he thought, charging towards the Titan, but now I'm free.

-x-

Krista couldn't see Eren as the misunderstood bad guy. At least not in this case…and not with him. He just seemed the least likely to want to cause anyone pain for something he didn't want that much; he believed in peace and freedom, not peace through freedom. And going further, if what she suspected was true, then it was possible that Eren wasn't entirely at fault for what occurred five years ago; if people could be forced to split between their good and bad sides, like some sort of weed being cut from a flower, it was anyone's guess as to how far the theory of someone being split between their light and dark sides would stand without actual proof.

"So…what do you intend to do about me?" Eren asked her as they stood on the top of Wall Rose in Trost District.

"For now," she responded, "nothing. What proof do I have? What proof does anyone have? If it were possible, then somewhere out there is someone like you, but only in appearance, not in behavior. And if so, what really makes you a threat to others? Is it your unwillingness to act in the face of adversity…or your willingness to cause unnecessary bloodshed?"

"I'm not a…madman."

"No, you're not…but maybe out there…some form of you may be mad…if not bad."

"Every once in a while…I feel like hurting someone, but I don't know why."

Since she and Ymir were heading to Wall Sina in a while to begin their duties as members of the Military Police, Krista had to accept that Eren would be left alone since he was not joining the Survey Corps. All she could do was pray that he wouldn't get in trouble.

"Can I trust you not to do something crazy until we meet again?" She asked him.

"At this point in my life, I can't guarantee that I'll get kidnapped by anyone," he told her.

She caressed his right cheek, making a selfish thought of her half-sister to come back. Maybe then, there would be a further explanation to why it felt like something was wrong with the current state of things. But even that would be unlikely.

Still, she thought, one can think about the impossible, even for a while.

-x-

In the darkness under a great light, a hand burst from the shadows of a glossy surface, pulling themselves up from an unholy abyss. A woman with long, ebony hair, in her late-teens perhaps, laid on the ground and looked up at the ceiling of her surroundings.

"I'm…I'm alive?" She wondered.

-x-

There was no way this battle could be overturned in favor of the enemy Titan. Whoever was controlling the fifteen-meter Titan with the irregular jawline, they were a savage and vicious fighter. It was like they could see what was going to happen before it could happen, even with all their great strength and greater size. And because there was no record of this Titan in history, the larger Titan had to do the only logical thing: A tactical retreat.

SLAM! Something large struck it on its head, destroying its vision.

What?! The man inside the large Titan reacted, unable to see until the head regenerated.

He tried to harden his back, but something was wrong. A large hand had gripped him from behind and pulled him from out of his Titan. It was the Titan he couldn't harm, looking more vicious than earlier.

"Rrrrrrraaurgh!" It roared at him, and then threw him as hard as possible, sending him towards the wall.

The man, in his early-twenties, with blond hair and glasses, yelled in agony as he was about to hit the wall.

"Aaah!" He yelled.

Slam! He hit the wall with enough force to knock him out.

"Oh…" He groaned as he fell to the ground; his Titan power already beginning to regenerate his body. Who is this person that wields the power of the Titans?

The Titan came over and reached down to pick him up.

"Grr," it growled at him, and then squeezed him.

"Aaaurgh!" He howled.

The Titan's green eyes glowed bright as the man lost consciousness.

-x-

"Gah!" Eren gasped, waking up from a nightmare that felt so real. "Ah…ah…ah…"

"Eren?" He heard Armin say to him. "Are you alright?"

"Uh, yeah," he lied; he didn't want to worry him over what might've been nothing more than a nightmare from his subconscious mind. "It's nothing. Just a bad dream."

He saw, from the view of a spectator, the fifteen-meter Titan that had come to Trost and wiped out the other Titans that were inside it before sealing the breach and leaving, fighting against another Titan that was at least seventeen meters, a nightmare among Titans smaller than the Colossal Titan, and then ripping out someone inside it after smashing its head. It was a battle between two heartless behemoths where only one could rise above the other, and then something happened that he didn't see. The fifteen-meter Titan opened its mouth…but then he woke up. He didn't see it eat the human, but he got the cold feeling that something else was going to happen that was beyond his realm of morality.

He was starting to get the feeling that this Titan was exactly as Krista had suspected of him, a sort of…evil twin…but there was something wrong with the way that the man behind the Titan did things. Some people viewed the Titan as a sort of hero, others as an abnormal because of its behavior, but Eren had to consider the Titan was more of the latter and less of the former. There were these former thoughts of violence and hatred, the wanting to cause harm to others, to fight without restraint, but he never acted on these feelings because he didn't want to jeopardize whatever future he possessed. But if Krista was right, while he didn't act on these thoughts, someone that was his opposite, and therefore very violent…acted on these thoughts all the time.

"What are the chances of there being two people that look alike and have different behaviors?" He had asked her earlier in the day.

"Twins with different personalities?" She replied. "It's not always an exact understanding, but in some cases where families have twins, almost all the time, the designated good twins exhibit no desires related to violent behavior, almost completely pacifistic in all that they do, only being violent in defense of others."

"But in the bad twins?"

"In the bad twins, there's said to be nothing but an unexplainable need to cause harm to others. It's like, for them, they have a space in their souls that is devoid of any compassion, sympathy or basic humanity. They're forced to make do with rage, savagery, discord…"

"Vengeance."

"Yeah."

"Whatever happened to the twins themselves? How did they get along?"

"In every case that I've read, twins of this sort had to be separated because of the bad twin trying to pin certain incidents or mishaps on the good twin. Other times, the bad twins try to kill the good twins, feeling a sense of superiority and inferiority. One common belief is that they were both one and the same person, and the twin that kills the other takes the other twin into themselves to become whole. But that's just a belief that came from the bad twins questioned by doctors for over fifty years."

Even if it was nothing but a belief, it was probably the only one that Eren suspected a violent version of himself to act on if they were to ever meet. He didn't want to kill or be killed by someone like himself but was warped in a cracked mirror. Life has a future so long as it's lives to its fullest on one's own volition, not on someone else's terms or beliefs, and Eren wanted to enjoy his after Wall Maria was reclaimed by the Survey Corps.

Father, he thought as he got up and left the living quarters to clear his head, what did you do five years ago? What were you doing? Why did you do it? I still only recall bits and pieces, but nothing that adds up completely.

-x-

Slap! The glasses-wearing blond man awoke and found himself bound tied to an old chair, without his arms, in front of a young man with long, unkempt hair, early signs of facial hair and eyes that were the coldest he had ever seen.

"Who are you?" The man asked him, and the younger man held up a knife and cut the left side of his face. "Aaah!"

"I'm the one that asks the questions here, not you," he told him. "I have a basic understanding of what we're capable of, so I know exactly how to deal with you should I have no further use of you. Now…what is your name?"

The man looked at where his arms should've been, but saw pieces of wood in place that halted his regeneration.

"You grow back your arms, I'll just cut your legs off," the guy threatened him. "I won't let you turn back into a Titan any time soon. I had strings, but now I'm free. I got no strings, so I have fun. I'm not tied to anyone. You're the same way; you don't have any attachments to people, so you do as you desire. But you're not free. You're not free."

"What are you talking about?" The guy raised the knife again, making no hint that he wasn't going to cut him a second time. "Zeke. Zeke Yeager."

"Zeke Yeager, huh? Where are you from?"

"Liberio, Marley, across the ocean."

"So, there is an ocean after all. I look forward to seeing the world beyond the Walls."

"You can't see the world beyond this land. The world despises you just for existing. Leaving is a death sentence."

"If the world hates me just for living, then I'll hate it back. Either way works for me. Next question: Why did the Titans attack five years ago?"

Zeke was silent.

The man then stabbed him in his side, just under his heart.

"Aaah!" Zeke howled as the knife dug in deep.

"Why did the Titans attack five years ago?" The man repeated. "I'm not going to ask a third time, Zeke Yeager, so I suggest that you make your words count."

-x-

Today was the day that was the promised day for the Survey Corps. The day they would return to Wall Maria and retake it. This, combined with the decrease in Titan activity, the mysterious Titan that was reported murdering other Titans, gave the people hope that Wall Maria could be reclaimed.

"This is it, soldiers!" Erwin told the squadron. "This is the day we take back our land from the Titans for good!"

And with that, they galloped on their horses towards the faraway land that Wall Maria resided with the goal to reclaim Shiganshina District. The latest members of the Survey Corps had to hope that the Titans were few or none rather than many and laying in wait for new victims. The veteran soldiers, those that had been out and back, again and again, hoped that the Titan they had seen would be around; this expedition was only possible like the previous few because of it going after other Titans like an exterminator of sorts. If it hated the Titans as much as some of them did, then it was hoped that they could come to some sort of understanding or a truce, a means of coexistence between them.

Armin and Mikasa, looking back at the top of Wall Rose as they could see Eren there to see them off to their destination, could only hope that they would meet again at a later time.

"When this is over," Armin had suggested, "let's have lunch together."

"Yeah," Eren agreed with him. "I can go for that. Mikasa? How about you?"

"Sure," she added in. "We'll see you later, Eren."

Atop the wall, Eren prayed for their safe journey and return from Wall Maria.

"No! Please!" He thought he heard someone scream, followed by a loud crunch sound, like someone took a bite out of something.

What was that? He wondered.

-x-

Even if he had told him his name and who his father was, he didn't trust the man as far as he could stand to look at him. Even if this man had allies across the ocean, in many different places, he still wouldn't trust him. Trust wasn't in his nature if he didn't know anyone out here where it was everyone for themselves, and it was everyone for themselves. In order to survive, he would crush all that stood before him, and this Zeke Yeager was just another obstacle in his way to obtaining freedom.

"The Nine Titans," he uttered to himself as he vacated his Titan body, sighing. "Pieces of Ymir Fritz's soul, given to nine of her descendants to make use of her power to govern the race of Eldians. The Titans that attacked five years ago were the Colossal and Armored Titans, accompanied by the Female and Jaw Titans. I guess to ensure freedom, these Titans must be acquired from those that possess them. Now, I have two Titans…which leaves only seven left to obtain. No matter who has them, they are now living on borrowed time."

-x-

It took less than a day, but by the time the Survey Corps arrived to Shiganshina, they were surprised by what they saw. The city looked as though it had taken a small beating, with a dozen or so buildings demolished, poor vegetation growth over whatever it could spread on…and no Titans present. But what had the group concerned about whatever happened here…was the outer gate. In place of the large gate that had been destroyed by the Colossal Titan were several large rocks piled together, making it incredibly difficult for anyone to get through.

"It's like…someone covered the breach already," said Hange.

"Could that Titan have done this?" Levi pondered.

"We're still here with a job, people," went Erwin to them. "Spread out. Check everyone. Leave no building uninvestigated. If there are Titans still around, we must either capture or kill them."

They spread out across the district, searching high and low for signs of Titans. But after three hours of widespread searching, a yellow signal flare was seen in the air, letting the entire group know that their mission to retake Wall Maria…had been ended.

Something doesn't add up here, thought Armin as he stopped with Mikasa where Eren's house used to stand. It's like someone was here…but nobody was here. The outer gate has been blocked, preventing any more Titans from getting inside…and the Titans that were already inside had all been killed, mostly by that strange Titan. Do we have an ally…or do we have another enemy? Who could've done this?

But Mikasa had different thoughts running through her head. With Wall Maria reclaimed, this meant that Shiganshina could now be repopulated with people to rebuild and resettle. The house she and the Yeager family once lived in could be rebuilt. The three of them, Armin, herself and Eren…could venture out once a further investigation could be made to see if there were more Titans beyond the Walls.

Eren, she thought, wanting to believe that an impossible dream was now possible, we can come home now. We can come home.

To be continued…

A/N: Probably not what some of you expected, but you have to ask yourselves the strangest questions, like what you would do if you were divided between and light and dark sides and possessed a power that could be used by you to face dangerous obstacles. In this case, someone that lacks any positivity and is driven by a simple goal they can't trust others with acts as a soloist out to change the world while another person with a similar power just wants to protect those he can without dictating their lives because he lacks the will to do what others believe is necessary for the good of the people. But hey, I'd like your opinions of Attack Titan Eren and Founding Titan Eren some more, and who do you think was that woman? Surprises, surprises.