This time, a series of memories, jumbled in rapid-fire.
Control your emotions.
His voice—her father's—as cold and distant as always. Had he not just lost his wife and his son, coffins empty because their bodies had been devoured? Had he not created the monster that killed them? How could he still be so indifferent?
Control your emotions.
A deep breath, empty heart, empty mind. I begin as nothing. If I allow myself to feel anything, then those feelings become my actions, and I cannot control what I become. Another deep breath, and with its release, she was nothing, and nobody. There was no Annie Leonhart, no innocent little brother, no concerned but loving mother, no indifferent father—there were no friends, no family, no village—no meaning—no name—only a mission.
I must control myself.
Her body surging with heat. So much heat…if I move, I might catch fire. It was a foreign body, but her mind existed within it—fifteen meters tall, burning, powerful. A heartbeat against a hardened surface. Her heartbeat.
"Can you hear me, Female Titan?"
I am the Female Titan. I must control my emotions, or I cannot control it.
She nodded and knelt her Titan-body down next to the man who sat on the raised platform. She couldn't speak, but she could hear him. "Good." The man on the platform was, for the time being, nothing and nobody—he wasn't her father, or her enemy, or her creator: he was nothing except the voice that she had to obey. "We are making progress now."
Control your emotions.
And then, back in her own body, back in Annie Leonhart's body—that is my name, I have to remember that, or I'll be found out—running across the field outside of Wall Maria, just meters ahead of Bertolt, Reiner, and Marcel—there was a scream. A blunt force slammed into her side—it was Reiner, who had been shoved by Marcel—and at that moment, a gigantic body, seven meters tall, dark hair, a mouth of razor-sharp teeth, crushing Marcel—a voice, a jumble of voices—"Marcel! NO!" "Go on without me! Run, now!" "Marcel? MARCEL!"
She raised her finger to her mouth, ready to bite it—but it was Bertolt who stopped her—"Annie, we've got to run! If we transform here, it's all over! I'm sorry, but we've got to keep going without him!" Bertolt's voice was astonishingly calm as he grabbed her arm and dragged both her and Reiner away into the trees at a full sprint.
How can you be so calm?
Within the walls, they had new names, a new identity, a new purpose. Forget who you were, on the outside…here, we have a mission…only us…
A mission. That's right, something they must do.
Control your emotions, Female Titan.
I'm sorry. Maybe Annie Leonhart can control her emotions, no matter what…maybe the Female Titan can keep herself controlled…but I cannot control this.