"What did you hear Mikasa?" asked Armin.

"I heard that it's possible that this island might possibly relate to the Essen Genocide a.k.a The Rumbling."

Armin's eyes widened "No fucking way."

"Trust me, even I didn't believe it at first, but I can't deny it when big names like Rico Brzenska supported the idea."

"Why wasn't this published?"

"Like I said, it's only an idea. We need concrete evidence to show that this place is related to the Rumbling."

Eren intervened "Um…uh…don't mean to interrupt but what's the Essen Genocide?"

Mikasa and Armin stared at him like he was alien

"What?" asked Eren

"You don't know what the Essen Genocide is?" Mikasa asked in surprise

"How the fuck did you become an archaeologist, Yeager?!" Armin asked him point-blank

Eren flinched. Armin called him 'Yeager' only when he was absolutely disappointed in him

"What's that supposed to mean?! I just asked a question"

"A question the answer to which every archaeologist is supposed to know! We learned it in the first year!" Armin lashed out at him

Mikasa then sighed while placing her palm on her eyes "Eren, I can't believe I'm asking you this, but what's the full form of AE?"

"Um…After…there was that weird word…E…S…S…E…N. I always get it confused with my name so I remember the spelling instead"

"You're hopeless Eren. Let me guess, were you sleeping when the lesson was going on?" asked Armin

"He was, believe me. He was right next to me the whole time. He spent that whole night gaming and I couldn't get him to wake up. I told him to get it done after going home but you never listened did you?"

"Hold on was it the same chapter 13 you told me to complete?"

"Chapter 13?" Armin intervened

"Yes Eren the very same. You never opened that chapter again, did you?"

"Firstly, I had my gaming tournament finals that whole day. I didn't have time to worry about stupid chapter. Secondly, that chapter had just 19 goddamn pages. AND it was optional. Thirdly I never imagined that I'd go do my project on that topic that day."

" I can't believe you'd prioritize a stupid game over studies." Muttered Armin who was really pissed with him now

"I wouldn't blame him though." Said Mikasa

"Huh?"

"I remember, Mikasa gave me an earful that day for like an hour. She didn't calm down until I told her I needed to do it to pay off my tuition fee."

"Tuition fee?"

"Well, by the final date, I was already at third place, the prize money of which was ¥500,000, which was enough to cover up the fee for one year. I worked a bit more that day and I got first place which was ¥2,000,000. Using that I could pay for the next two years for both of us so that my parents wouldn't have to sell their cars for our sake. You should see how depressed Mikasa gets when she thinks of that."

"I still can't believe you did that for me." Said Mikasa

"I didn't do it for you. Well, partly true I couldn't see you all depressed like that. You'd kill me with all the negative energy. Secondly, if my parents sell the house, they'll stay in my apartment and that's gonna be a nightmare."

"Why, cause you're afraid they'll discover your secret porn stash?" she asked in a teasing tone

"Mikasa! I told you not to talk about that!"

"Did you just admit that in front of Armin?"

"Don't worry, he knows. He has quite a collection himself. "

"EREN!" Armin said with a blush on his face

"Armin. I thought better of you." Mikasa said stupefied

"Hey you can't blame him! He's a 21 year-old man with a sex drive! You can't expect him to ignore testosterone being pumped into his head!"

"You're just excusing yourself for your own damn collection! You're just a stupid, reckless…"

The two of them kept bickering with each other. A few minutes later, it basically became a lovers' spat.

Armin then looked at how close they were in the way they spoke openly with each other. After sometime, the two noticed Armin staring at the two of them

"What?" they asked at the same time

Out of the blue, Armin said

"So it is true, huh?"

"What's true?"

"That you two…are…going out?" he pointed to the two of them

The two of them had blushes which they avoided showing each other.

"What the hell gave you that damn idea?!" asked Eren nervously

"Y-Yeah."

"Well, I wanted to ask about it after the assembly but never got the chance to. I don't know about Eren, but I know Mikasa would not take a step like that without being sure. I'm not surprised though. I mean, you two have known each other since forever and Mikasa's pretty much always overprotective about you Eren. I'd think you'd be a really good couple."

Both faces were blushing crazy right now

"Damn it Armin! Are you trying to kill me of embarrassment?!"

"Armin Stop…Please. I'd pass out with a red face if you said anything more."

"Like I said Armin, we were only playing video games that night, honestly!" Mikasa said

She wanted to give him a scary look, but she couldn't because she was too flustered

"Mikasa please…I've known you two for a long time and it's pretty clear th-"

Just then Eren remembered what he wanted to ask

"Oh yeah, I forgot to ask, what IS this Essen Genocide or whatever? It has something to do with this site right?" he asked to divert the topic which he was successful at since Armin was sometimes an idiot

"Oh…Yeah, right, I totally forgot! The Essen Genocide or the Rumbling, as some scholars call it, was an event that happened 2019 years ago, in 0 AE. In this event, an estimated 2 billion people died in a mass extinction event. It's one of the most controversial events in history"

"T-Two billion?!" Eren exclaimed

"Yes. What's more, till date, no reason has been found for this event. About Eighty percent of the world's population at that time was killed"

"Seventy percent." Eren said unknowingly

"What?"

"Huh? Oh nothing. You were saying?"

"There are a slurry of theories around the event. It literally split the archeologists of the world based on their opinion of what happened. The people who think it happened due to natural calamity like floods, earthquakes etc. or maybe an asteroid call it the Rumbling; those who think it happened due to warfare and weaponry call it the Essen massacre or Essen genocide. We call it Essen because in most culture's records in relation to the Rumbling, only one name was mentioned everytime as the cause of the rumbling in different forms: Ezen, Eren , Asen, ,Azen, Essen. So that's why the Rumbling's called the Essen Genocide. Guess your dad was pretty wild naming you after a mass extinction."

"No, my name's a completely different story. It means 'Saint' in my father's language"

"Which you definitely aren't." Armin deadpanned

"Tch. Anyway, which theory's winning as of now?"

"Honestly, based on the evidence we found as of now, neither of them."

"What?"

"Yup. Both the theories were logical but they each had their own set of inconsistences. The Rumbling theory doesn't work because usually if there's an asteroid impact, the destructive effects dissipate with increasing distance, but throughout the globe, the impact was equal. As for natural disasters, that doesn't work as there was no evidence of people dying from floods or earthquakes.

As for the genocide angle, there was absolutely no record of any sort of use of weaponry. I mean there were a few instances of gunshots, but the few is extremely small compared to 2 billion. It's really strange…the way those people died….they were just…crushed under some huge pressure."

"Crushed?" Eren was getting really interested now

"Yeah, most of them had their whole bodies crushed, like an ant crushed by a human. Some bodies took weeks to piece up. When they were carbon-dated, all of them had the same time-stamp: nearly 2000 years prior to current events.

Some people suggested a gravitational anomaly, but that was declared scientifically inaccurate. Although there still is a cult which believes in this theory, mostly because it agrees with the evidence. However…"

"What?"

Armin giggled for a second.

"Just last year, there was another controversial theory. A really absurd and improbable one, but it weirdly agrees with all the evidence present."

"Which theory?"

"Oh now you're interested huh, Eren?"

"Dude, don't leave me hanging there like that! Just tell me already!"

Armin then took a deep breath and started " Ok here's the theory. This person's a historian who suggested that it's possible that …t-there existed g-giant humanoid beings who-" Armin then began to laugh loudly as he fell to the ground

Mikasa also began giggling a bit

Eren paled a bit on hearing this "G-Giant…H-Humanoid…B-Beings?"

He then began to remember the being he met in the void and other beings like that seen in his dreams