Hey there, here is chapter 3 that focus on Sasha. Hope you'll enjoy.
854
While the airship flies over the night sky of the wealthy neighborhoods of Liberio, a large part of which was destroyed by the explosion of the Port. While Floch and the new recruits of the Survey Corps rejoice in this victory, Sasha looks at them, with a pessimistic look "I wonder what future awaits us after this attack…". Then she heard a crash coming from the entrance to the compartment, as if something had hit it.
"Did you hear a sound just now?" she says
"Hey! Quiet Down" Jean reacts as he approaches Floch
Floch continues his uproar "Make some noise! Victory!", ignoring Jean's orders.
"Jean, where's Lobov ?" says Connie
"I think he came abroad" replies Jean. Then suddenly, a person, probably what hit the hull of the airship, enters the nacelle to the great surprise of all those present inside. They don't have time to react that the person points a gun in the middle of the crowd and fires. The bullet pierces Sasha in the abdomen. Sasha then feels a horrible sensation, she doesn't even have time to look completely at the assailant who seems to be a child that she loses her balance and falls on her back.
She bleeds out as she hears Connie and Jean at her bedside, screaming as she slowly loses consciousness.
"You're so damn…loud" she says
They kept crying and bawling all over the place. When Sasha was starting to feel a bit peckish, the festival food wasn't enough for her. She spoke her last words as the pain intensified in her chest and she felt her body go cold.
"Are we…eating soon?"
She heard Jean shout something, but she couldn't make out the words. She then hears Connie say "Sasha! Make it to the island"
She then manages to mutter, despite the loss of blood "Meat…" before slowly losing consciousness. The last thing she can make out after being wrapped in bandages is Mikasa, Armin coming to her bedside. She also thought she heard Jean yelling at Yelena and Levi venting on Zeke a little earlier but it was so far away. Then she closed her eyes, her breathing stopped forever… Everything went black.
Sasha woke up with a start, her head against a tree. She's still a bit stunned and not really conscious. She hears voices in the distance, which seem as distant as Mikasa and Armin's sobs were. She no longer feels any pain, no more shivers caused by the haemorrhage… "Why was I in pain already ?" .She just feels a bit knocked out after those long 5 hour naps she took after a rabbit hunting session with her dad. "It's his voice I hear in the distance….Who is he talking to?"
She opened her eyes, she rubbed her eyes frantically, trying to regain consciousness little by little. She then gazed at the trees in her forest, it seemed so familiar…almost too familiar. She felt like she was in a trance, as if time had stopped for a moment before resuming. An image came back to her, that of a stretch of sand going as far as the eye could see with a sky like she had never seen, which was overhung by an enormous structure with thousands of turquoise branches. She remembered having dreamed about it. It was weird, she remembered hunting with her father but it seemed to be more distant than that. "What was I doing just before falling asleep? "she says to herself. She slowly turned her head and saw the cabin they lived in with her mother and father. "Oh I must have been hunting…" she thought before seeing the dead geese lying on a tree trunk at the entrance. "I was right"...
She managed to regain enough consciousness to be able to spy on the two men who were having a conversation a little further in the woods. One of them is indeed her father…Arthur Braus. He was talking with someone else…a middle-aged man…who was vaguely familiar to her, though she was pretty sure she had never seen him. He is wearing a Military Police jacket… "What is this stranger doing in our forest?". Suddenly she smelled a delicious aroma emanating from the reserve
"A month and a half you say? But will it take much longer to prepare everything? Finally, there are a little more than 30 of us living off the resources of these woods, can't you ask us to leave everything in such a short time?" said Arthur.
"I have already explained to you that the king was kind enough to relocate you all to the area. On the other hand, you will have to convert to horse breeding." replies the soldier looking annoyed.
"Livestock? But anyway, our families have lived from hunting for almost 100 years, as far as we can remember, we have always hunted to live…" protested Mr. Braus.
"Listen to me, you could live like badgers when humanity wasn't in danger of imminent extinction…You know what you risk by violating Charter 6 of Humanity? If I remember correctly, one of yours died mysteriously for daring to invent a diabolical device that endangered the life of the king? This will be your last reminder" he says with the intent of being menacing without being to explicit.
Arthur, with a sweat on his face, understood that it was clearly a threat "He must be talking about old Sabri and his steam harvester….He who had just converted to agriculture for them….." he thought
"Very well, we will discuss it seriously as a family and we will send you our answer….Have a good day."
The soldier fixed him with a murderous gaze, did not answer him in any form of politeness and turned towards the convoy where his driver, a recruit from the Military Police, was waiting for him.
"So they accepted? Sergeant Sannes." said the new recruit.
"These dicks better have to" replied Sannes as the convoy pulled away from the Braus barracks.
Arthur sighed and turned around only to see Sasha shred a piece of smoked meat. He exclaimed "Sasha!" and rushed towards her to try to take the piece back from her.
"Sasha you been nabbing snacks again!?"
"Stop! Spit it out"
"We fixin to smoke that for winter, you moron!"
"You damn dumb girl"
They argue for about thirty seconds before Arthur gives up, giving Sasha the opportunity to take refuge behind a tree. She had a strange feeling of deja vu "It seems so familiar…"
"Sasha. Have you asked yourself why the world is a-changing? Why these past few years the forest been shrinkin' and game harder to find?"
She was about to answer but something seemed off to her, as if she knew what she was about to answer was not correct. She says to herself "No! I am right"...
"It's cause more people be comin' and takin' food and game from the forest. That's why I'm hungry!" she says
Arthur looks at her "That's true…But hey. They lost their home and got nowhere to go. They got no other choice…"
She retorts, still with the same pang in the heart "Their fault for losing it. They oughta leave ours"
"Titans took it from them!" replies his father, annoyed.
Sasha looked puzzled, as if what he just said was wrong, or at least partially. She had the strange feeling that something was missing.
"They knocked a hole in Wall Maria. Where else can they go?" which made Sasha look down.
"Maybe it's time for our family to leave the forest and give up hunting for good. They said they would pay us…"
Sasha gets angry "And you are going to trust the words of Sannes!?"
Sasha's father wondered "How do you know his name? This is the first time he has set foot here, and I hope the last…."
Sasha paused "It's true it's weird, how come I know his name…..I didn't hear any of them say it"
"Anyway, we're going to start raising cattle or horses, it will make more money in our pockets... That's how villages further south like Ragako and Kortrijk have managed to avoid the influx of refugees and the harassment of the Military Police"
Hearing the words horses and Ragako, Sasha's brain made a connection, a connection that seemed way too natural for her.…"Connie…..Jean!" she said aloud.
"Jean, Connie, who is that?" said his father
She herself didn't know it, but she was sure she had known these names for a long time…She just needed faces to visualize…"Where are they? Who are they?" She came to her senses
"Mom would never agree to that! She would never dream of giving up our customs for people who don't give a damn and laugh at us….What would she say if she heard you?"
Arthur sighed "You can go ask her directly, she has gone further north to welcome some of the villagers who will soon be settling here. She too agrees Sasha. The only one I worry about is you, you are so afraid of meeting strangers and being mocked by others that you take refuge in hatred….Sasha, the world is changing, and you have to change too."
Sasha stuck out her tongue, and went to join her mother to talk to her about it.
Arthur watches her go and says to himself, "She's behaving very strangely today, the little one..."
A few hours later, while the afternoon sun shines on the forest, Sasha joins her mother whom she finds with a group of strangers who seem to be preparing construction materials, her mother was helping them.
Sasha walked towards her but saw a mother and her family together, the little girl must have been 4 or 5 years old maximum, she was blonde and had big eyes which stared at Sasha. Beside her was the mother of that little girl, a woman a little older than her mother and rounder too. "Here's where our food is going" she thought. She cringe at what she just dare to think as she know its so wrong.
Lisa Braus, who was busy explaining to the workers how to deforest the surrounding trees to connect the future village to the main road which will connect the forest to the main axis of the District of Ehmrich. She saw her daughter approaching and said, "Sasha? What are you doing here?"
"Mom, is it true that you accepted their request to raze most of the forest to make fields and villages there? It's not their place here"
Those present stared at Sasha, embarrassed to hear that, they didn't feel welcome that's for sure.
"Sasha. Not here, please be polite!" his mother retorted.
She pointed to the mother and daughter "I present to you Madame Weber and her daughter Kaya, they will settle in the new village."
Sasha then felt an electric shock in her body, a memory suddenly came to her mind as she looked at the mother and her daughter. Sasha arriving on horseback in front of a house and seeing a huge monster…a titan? devouring this poor lady. She saw herself approaching the house, trying to kill the creature with an ax, to no avail before taking the girl with her and trying to run away. They ran to try to escape the titan, far too slow. The last thing she saw was an image of her thrusting an arrow into the titan's eye before escaping his grasp and running.
She froze, "I…I've never experienced this…Why am I fighting a titan? But why do I remember it then?"
Lisa says "Sasha are you okay?"
Sasha didn't answer, trying to come to her senses. Then one of the workers approached Mrs. Braus with a gun and said to her "Mrs, to thank you for your help and your welcome, here is a gun used by the men of Military Police in Mitras. It never serves them so my nephew gave me his. I give it to you, it will be useful for killing the pheasants. It is the least we can do after you agree to provide us with part of your forest so that we and our families can have a roof over their heads."
"And then we won't need a gun to kill the cattle anymore, the local wolves will take care of it." retorted a second worker
The adults present laughed as Lisa thanked the man for the gift as he demonstrated to her by shooting up into the sky. A thud was heard, that of the "Bang" bullet resounding through the wood.
Sasha froze, sweat slid down her face, she couldn't move. She remembered a scene, where she took a bullet in the abdomen, a bullet fired by a girl of the same age as her today. She remembered two faces screaming at her bedside as she falls and bleeds out. She recognized them instantly, almost automatically, as if she had spent whole years alongside these two men. "Connie, Jean," she said out loud, tears streaming down her face much to the confusion of everyone present.
"Why are you crying?" said Kaya
"Sasha, what's up with you?" Lisa exclaimed.
Sasha panicked and ran towards the center of the forest like she had never run before. She sat against a tree, she remembered absolutely everything….All the memories came back to her in one fell swoop when she remembered her death. "I died then," she said sobbing. "Connie, Jean…"
Night fell on the forest, the hoots of the owls covering the silence of the night as Sasha returned home.
Her parents were waiting for her in the room, prepared to eat the pheasant that Lisa managed to hunt with her new rifle.
"Sasha, come to the table, you're going to love it, it's…" her father said before being interrupted by Sasha who answered him a sentence that he absolutely could not believe before going back to her room….Never he would have thought his daughter could utter such words in a single sentence. Arthur and Lisa were wide-eyed in shock… Their daughter was not well. They had never heard Sasha utter the words "I'm not hungry."
Once she got back to her room, Sasha lay down on her bed, thoughts filling her head "Connie, Jean…. Mikasa, Armin, Eren….Nicolo…I don't understand, I really died at that moment, I felt my soul leave me, so why am I here, it's not possible….I don't understand…" she said as tears streamed down her face.
"I am alone….with all these memories in a past that is no longer mine….these memories of a future where I participated in the attack on a city and killed children….before to be killed by one of them… When did I become such a piece of trash? At what point I failed to make my parents proud and abandon them like that… Basically I would have been the scared little girl until the end. she cried...
"And now, I'm alone, I don't have anyone anymore" she thought before falling asleep, exhausted after the battle and the long day she had just had.
In the next room, Lisa and Arthur are still worried about Sasha after her strange behavior today.
Arthur says to himself "But what is happening to her?"
Lisa "Do you think she's sick?"
"I don't know but she's so weird she's screaming names of strangers," Arthur said.
Lisa wondered, and asked "She did that with you too? She screamed …"
"Connie" Arthur finished, his eyes wide
"And Jean" finished Lisa. "Who could these people be? Do you think she's delirious? Maybe she ate some cotoneasters berries ?"
"No, she knows enough about the berries that grow in the forest not to eat the poisonous ones…And then those berries would not allow her to guess the name of an officer she has never seen, especially when one knows that she has never left the territory of our forest. No it must be something else. You saw how her look changed today, the look she wore today was that of a tired and traumatized girl… It doesn't make any sense. "
"But what happens to our daughter then? Do you think she still can't stomach the fact that we're going to have to give up our way of life? It must be disturbing to give up everything like that. Then it's our fault for not being careful for her feelings..." exclaimed Lisa, trying to hold back her tears.
"I don't know Lisa…One thing is for sure, we'll do everything to make her feel better…But first, let's give her some time, maybe it's just a passing fancy, you know? is common at that age. And then this sudden change is difficult for her." he concludes, looking like he wants to reassure himself about the mental well-being of his darling daughter.
They hugged each other as an owl's cry echoed through the forest.
The days passed and Sasha barely left her room, the memories coming back to her little by little, one at a time, making her suffer terribly…She can't even think about what to do, it's just too much for her. To see herself dying like that before finding herself back in the past completely destroyed her…She knows that there are less than two weeks left before the start of the training of the 104th Brigade but she did not know if it was a good idea to go back. She thinks a lot about what she can do, one thing is for sure, she has never been very good at keeping secrets and responsibilities on her shoulders, as far as she can remember she has always shared everything that with her classmates. But there, even if she hadn't seen them yet, she knew they weren't the ones she knew. She told herself that she needed a confidant, someone to share all this with. "My parents will end up getting seriously worried, I've eaten very little these last few days….What would I give to see Nicolo again and his delicious yellow pieces that he was preparing for me?". she thought "I have to pull myself together and think about what to do, but first I have to…"
She was interrupted by her father who entered her room "Sasha, can I come in?"
Sasha looked at him "He was always so kind" she thought to herself. She nodded and he walked in and sat down on the chair across from the bed.
"Sasha, I think we need to talk you and me. Know first that I apologize for imposing all this on you…I should have taken it more gently with you…."
"Dad, if I ever did anything horrible, would you be disappointed ?..."
"But Sasha, what are you talking about?"
"If I killed people."
Arthur's face contorted, how could his daughter have such thoughts in her head? And he remained calm nevertheless, he knew that his daughter had not killed anyone, she never left their land. But he knows very well that something is not right with his daughter and that it concerns things that escape him.
"Sasha, know that your mom and I will ALWAYS be there to support you. We know you more than anyone and we know you wouldn't hurt anyone. I don't know what makes you imagine such things, maybe our conversation earlier, but as soon as you're ready to talk about it, we'll be here to listen. If it's getting out of the forest that scares you, we'll be there to talk about it." he told her before leaving the room. Sasha smiled at him, moved by her father's words.
Sasha stood there thoughtfully "He's right, I can trust them." she said before getting up and leaving her room. She cried, "Daddy, I'm ready to talk. "
Her father smiled at her but she added "But only in front of a good roast pheasant" she said salivating.
An hour and a half later, while the Braus family dined eating a dish of roast pheasant accompanied by potatoes. "We're going to have to tighten our belts for the next few weeks," he said to himself, looking at the dish.
Sasha opened her eyes in fascination, she hadn't eaten so well since the diamond-shaped pizzas at the Liberio Festival, the vendor must have come from one of the southernmost countries in the Middle East.
As she devoured her plate without paying attention to her surroundings, Sasha's mother opened the discussion "Sasha, tell us what's wrong?"
Sasha stopped eating and took a long look.
"I know you think giving up our traditions means giving up who we are but think about it, us and all of humanity are a part of the same world. We humans have always been pack animals. We are all different but when space is this short, we gotta join the group and do what's best…You really want to stay behind here along with the people who think, are you.."
"Dad, stop. I know everything you gonna say. Are you willing to die for that choice? If you're not here for them, don't except them to be there for you…You have to show me how the world's connected and everything….And yeah, I am still much of a scaredy cat after all that happened"
Arthur's eyes widened in shock as Lisa stood there staring, confused. He says "But how? How did you manage to?..."
Sasha's gaze darkened and she frowned… Lisa said to her "Sasha, please tell us everything."
She was silent for a moment…She looked them both in the eye and sighed.
"I come from the future." she finally said.
Her parents looked at her confused, "From the future?" said Lisa.
"I lived until I was 19, in the year 854, then I don't know how, I was taken back in time, today…I had amnesia at the beginning but then everything from my past life returned."
"Sasha, what are you telling us ? We don't understand" retorted Arthur, who understood absolutely nothing of what his daughter was saying to him.
"Dad, Mom, please. Listen. What I am about to reveal to you must absolutely not leave the walls of this house. The government and the king will send the interior police if they ever learn what I told you and kill all of us. If I'm about to tell you this, it's because I absolutely trust you and I know you won't betray me. I don't want to be alone…I need you" Lisa and Arthur looked at each other, they understood that the situation is much more serious and complicated than they thought. Lisa got up and locked the windows and the door. She sat back down and said, "Sasha, whatever you're about to tell us, it's not gonna get out of here." Arthur nodded to his wife's words. He says "Tell us"
Sasha sighed "In a little less than two weeks, I'm supposed to join the Southern Boot Camp to begin my military training. After 3 years, in 850 I managed to climb up to the top 10 of recruits. I originally wanted to join the Military Police but right the day after we graduated, the Colossal Titan destroyed the Trost Gate and the Titans entered Wall Rose."
Her parents' eyes widened "The titans will invade the Rose wall"... exclaimed her mother on the verge of a panic attack.
"Thanks to the help of Eren, one of my comrades from the 104th who will transform into a Titan, we will succeed in filling up the Rose wall breach and preventing the catastrophe"
Arthur exclaimed "Your friend…Who turns into a titan?"
Sasha looked at them "Indeed, the titans were all humans to begin with. However, there are 9 titans that have the ability to alternate between human form and titan form. They therefore retain their intelligence unlike the Pure Titans that we know.
Arthur tried to understand "Titans are humans….Wait….If there are 9 of these…."
"The Titans Colossals and Armored are part of the lot yes. And that's not all, they were part of my training brigade.
Arthur and Lisa continued to listen, shock visible on their faces, but they continued to listen to their daughter nonetheless.
"After the Attack on Trost, I decided to join the Survey Corps."
"What ?" exclaimed her mother
Sasha continued "A month later, one of the nine titans used his power to turn all the people of Ragako village further south into titans….They were all killed by the army but one of them succeeded to devour Kaya's mother whom you met earlier…"
Lisa almost collapsed from this news "And what happened to little Kaya?"
"You adopted her."
The Braus parents could not believe their ears.
"Along with 3 other children who have lost their parents, Emile, Suzia and Oscar". For the Braus, it was the most shocking news, to learn that they are going to have 4 more children.
"You are going to try to prevent all these deaths, is that it, with the knowledge you have?" he asked
"I don't know yet….But if it is, then these children will never join the family."
"I'd rather they never have to go through the horrors you're describing and be able to stay with their families," Lisa exclaimed, tears in her eyes.
Sasha nodded, also shedding a few tears before continuing." We manage to discover that the government and the king are lying to us and doing absolutely everything so that we continue to be dominated by the titans. And that they pass on to each other the ultimate titan power called the founding titan, one of the 9, which allows the possessor to erase the memory of all humanity… well, you will see afterwards. We succeeded in overthrowing the government and establishing a monarchy that thinks about the interests of humanity. Oh yes ! I forgot, the walls are made from sleeping Colossal Titans!"
His parents shouted "WHAT?". His father added, "The walls that have been protecting us all this time are actually made of titans?"
Sasha nodded before continuing "The king who built the walls used the power of this Founding titan to build the walls by creating these titans. He passed it on to his descendants, until Grisha Jaeger managed to steal it and pass it on to his son, Eren, of whom I told you."
"That poor kid, ending up with such power must have been horrible." said Lisa.
"After overthrowing them, the Corps managed to retake the territory of Wall Maria and discovered 3 books in Grisha Jaeger's old cellar. Books that contain the truth that the government was hiding from us."
"And what did they contain?" asked Arthur.
"There are hundreds of millions of humans living outside the walls"
"What ?" they exclaimed. "You mean that humanity is not about to disappear?"
"A few millennia ago, the ancestor of our people obtained the power of the Titans and oppressed, plundered, and conquered dozens of other races without scruple using this power. This empire, the Eldian empire lasted until a hundred years ago, when the dominant nation on Earth today, the Marleyans managed to defeat King Fritz. He was forced to flee here, build the walls and settle. He took refuge there with our ancestors on this island before erasing our memory to tell us a bunch of lies that we have always believed.
Lisa and Arthur's brains spun like a cog about to give way. This influx of information that changes their entire vision of the world requires a lot of energy from them. Lisa asked "What is an island, honey?"
Sasha smiled and replied "There is a body of salt water called the sea that covers 70% of the world… An island and a piece of land surrounded only by sea as opposed to a continent. I believe there are 5 continents in total."
They exclaimed in surprise, the world is so much more complicated than they thought. They didn't know where to start. Arthur continued "And I guess it's those Marleyans who sent the Colossal Titan and they're also the ones who turn people into titans…The humans on the outside hate us, that's it. We are at war with them."
"Indeed, after ridding the island of all the titans that the Marleyans sent us, we went to war with them. There are still many Eldians like us all over the world who suffer discrimination for the crimes of our ancestors…And when they dare to do something that the Marleyans deem treason, they are sent here and transformed. in Titan."
"Oh my god, poor people, it must be abominable" said Lisa
"And the other "nations ?" ?" asked Arthur
"I don't really know, we met a family of refugees from a foreign country called Jokos … It was part of a coalition that was at war against Marley and these families were lost, they had nothing left and still welcomed us and offered us delicious food." She says drooling before continuing " They were so warm, there was this child who was forced to rob Marleyan merchants to support his family. But from what I understand, governments and military institutions around the world are not ready to cooperate with the Eldians." said Sasha with a smile on her lips, this experience being by far the best she had had with people from the outside. She took good care not to mention Nicolo, on the other hand, her parents shouldn't start teasing her with him. Or what happened in the airship.
"If the rest of the world hates us, that means you had no choice but to go to this war and...," his father added.
Sasha looked down, Arthur and Lisa understood very quickly what that meant and the implications. They hugged their daughter and Lisa exclaimed "But you have a second chance now."
"You're going to join the army, right Sasha?" his father said.
Sasha remained pensive for a long time, on the one hand the fact of knowing that she was going to die told her to flee with her parents and never to get involved in this whole story again. But then she thought of Jean and Connie. "I can save Marco, and I can save Ragako, I have to do it for them."
"Yes, I'm leaving in less than two weeks." she says, with a determined week. She gonna get back to them after leaving them in that airship. "I gonna change the future that awaists us".
Hope you liked it. I'll begin to answer to reviews here.
To Traitors of all Traitors "Yes, that's some of the plot points that I plan to explore."
To Butterbeer8 "Yes I'm also excited to get to the outside world part. Yes a lot of time travel stories focus on Eren, Mikasa or Armin. There's one with Floch called "seeking the devil" by uberkreisler and it's so good it inspired me for this story."