Eren and his friends were already halfway across the water and a good thing too, given that the sky was beginning to darken. Gone was the bright sunlight he'd traipsed through just a short time ago, replaced by collection of purple, then navy-blue clouds. Looking back the way they'd come Eren could see the lights in the restaurants beginning to wink on and he wondered if there would be any costumers tonight. If there were, he hoped they enjoyed themselves. Come tomorrow the bathhouse might be a very different place.

"You realize we're all going to get killed for this?" Jean groused as soon as they'd set off. "Seriously. Irwin will literally have our heads. Why am I helping a squirt like you anyway?"

For all his complaints though Jean had quieted down when Eren began to speak. The trip across the water took longer than any of them had expected—Irwin's influence spreading farther than they would have liked; Hanji's arms tiring from paddling them along—but it did give Eren plenty of time to explain. So he went over everything since the night before, when they'd all so happily eaten dinner together along the railing. He started with the strange dream about Krista, Ymir, Bertolt, and Reiner; the cut he'd woken up with that helped steer him towards Corporal. Marco gave him a funny look then and, touching his cheek, Eren realized that the cut had disappeared. He shrugged. No one there doubted him.

From there it was easy to slip into describing how he'd found Corporal being chased by Irwin's paper titans, all those horrible images dimming now that he knew his friend was safe. Nothing else was easy though: learning that Armin was the guest terrorizing the bathhouse, sneaking into Irwin's office, finding Annie trapped within the crystal. By the time Eren got to the part about Irwin having a brother he didn't think he'd ever seen his friends so pale. Hanji looked the part of a true spirit, poised in front as she rowed. By then, with his own voice growing sore, Eren tried lightening the mood by describing the joy he'd experienced when he heard his name spoken for the first time in days, the relief of healing Corporal, the triumph over Irwin's curse, the hope at finding some of Dot's medicine left in the bottle, and the different—but no less equal—relief of realizing that he could give it to Armin (if not his family).

Eren hesitated in his tale only once… when he got to the titans. In the end though he realized that he could hold nothing back, not now, not when everything was coming to a head. So he described the loss of limb with equal fervor. He only realized he was rubbing is right arm when Marco gently reached over to stop him.

"I understand that," he said simply and gestured to his own missing limb.

"Right," Eren croaked.

Jean didn't take to the info dumb quite as well. Mouth catching flies he looked at Eren, then Armin, then the two tiny animals clinging to his shoulder—Annie gave a squeak that might have been a greeting or a threat—before returning to staring at Eren. When he did manage to speak, what tumbled out wasn't anything like what Eren had expected.

"Holy hell," Jean whispered. He grimaced. "You're really going to do it then, aren't you? A skinny human twerp is going to save all our asses and fuck if I'm ever going to live it down."

Marco stroked Jean's arm consolingly, hiding a smile.

It wasn't true of course. The only people Eren intended to save were his family. Anything else he set in motion was just a happy accident. Eren knew he wasn't the hero here. Heroes didn't ignore one friend's plight because helping wasn't convenient, or lose two limbs to a bout of stupidity, or—he looked out at the barn—fail in his quest again and again. Eren didn't deserve, or want, the slack-jawed look that Jean was giving him. And so:

"Better a human twerp than a horse-faced giant."

Instantly Jean's awe was replaced with a familiar, cocky expression. Eren's shoulders relaxed.

"Giant? That's an insult now, is it, kid?" Jean smirked at his use of the forbidden word. "At least I could literally go toe-to-toe with Irwin; sock him one in the jaw if I wanted. Can you even reach his jaw? Without a footstool I mean."

Eren snorted. "As if you'd have the balls to punch Irwin."

"… You doubting me?"

"Yep."

"I would."

"You so wouldn't."

"…I will."

"Oh really?"

"Yes really."

"Then do it."

"I will."

"Fine."

"Fine!"

Eren was flashing a shark's grin when Hanji said, "We're almost there."

They settled, the humor drying up. Hanji was the only one who hadn't bought into the performance of their 'argument.' As Marco laughed and even Armin cracked a smile, Hanji gazed stonily out over the water, her face as grave as when Eren had first admitted to nearly dying. Now she turned, letting the current carry the boat the rest of the way to shore. The gathering shadows made her appear far more serious than anyone of her natural disposition had a right to be. She threw her arms wide though, proving that her energy was simply muted rather than gone.

"Look how alone we are," she said. "So alone! Well… kinda-sorta-maybe alone. You're never totally alone around here. But isolated on the water is a pretty good start; Irwin panicking back inside is even better…" She trailed off. "You're…you're going to be gone for a while… aren't you, human? But only a real little while, right?" Hanji gave him a hard look.

"Right," Eren echoed. "Back before you know it."

"I'm holding you to that." Hanji seated herself next to Marco, her feet propped up on the 3-DM gear. "Almost alone… seems like as good a time as any for a story."

"A history maybe?" Eren asked, his lips twitching.

"A historia," Hanji agreed.

"What are you two idiots on about?" Jean said but he was quickly shushed. Marco leaned forward in his boyfriend's lap while across from him Armin mimicked the movement. Petra and Annie nuzzled close to Eren's neck.

"Once upon a time…"

"You can't be seri—ow!"

"Once upon a time," Hanji continued, drawing her hand back from Jean's ear. "There was an awesome little squirrel, who got hit by a car, and died, and wandered as a teeny spirit for a good long while, but then she got a human body, and a job, and lots of equally awesome friends, BUT—" Hanji took a deep breath. "She was still really good at a lot of squirrely things."

"Like annoying people," Jean muttered.

"Like climbing trees," Hanji sniffed. "Anyway, she's in this bathhouse, yeah? Working and learning. She's loving the human-spirit bit… but she's not so sure about her boss." Hanji's face clouded again, staring at them each in turn. "It was easy for her to see that he wasn't kind. No, not at all, but this spirit heard lots of rumors about how he hadn't been in charge of the bathhouse for forever and always, like he'd like everyone to believe. Some even whispered that he'd taken control not long before she'd arrived, just a few decades ago… and that he'd stolen magic to do it. Which gets the awesome squirrel-spirit thinking: what magic? And who owned the bathhouse before? The sad thing was, no one seemed to know. Or maybe, no one was able to tell. Lots of spirits came and went and they lost lots of things along the way—things like knowledge or names."

Eren nodded.

"So one day this spirit found herself up a tree. An apple tree. Looking for apples."

"No. Really?" Jean pinched the bridge of his nose.

"And if I wasn't surrounded by meanies we might actually get to the part about this apple tree being directly across from Irwin's office."

They all perked up at that and Eren saw the storyteller bleeding out of Hanji. She settled back against the boat's side, the last of the light hitting her glasses and her voice, when it came again was clipped—strained.

"The tree was huge." Hanji sighed. "It was one of the oldest around these parts, not including the ones in the forest. It just goes to show what we're up against, that he was able to wipe it all away so easily." She gestured sadly to the expanse of water around them, not a tree in sight except for the ones they were heading towards.

"Not anymore. He can't do that again, Hanji. Not without the Annie. And the seal." Eren was surprised by how reassuring his voice sounded.

Hanji smiled. "Right-o. Anyway, so there I was, up in this tree, looking straight into the lion's den and all that. It's pretty stupid, huh? All these locks and magical traps and it never occurs to the guy that someone could just get high enough to peak in. Probably because it never occurred to him that a squirrel-turned-spirit would have awesome tree climbing skills. AND," Hanji continued before Jean could cut in, "I saw Krista there."

"Krista?" Marco pursed his lips. "You're sure?"

"Of course I'm sure! C'mon. She's smaller than Corporal; can you say 'distinctive'? Besides, she was screaming at him—I know, right?—and yeah, the window was closed and all but that girl's voice carries like a thunderclap. At one point she clearly said, 'You have no right to this place.'"

Silence.

"Then who the hell does?" Jean demanded at the same time that Eren asked, "Well what happened then?"

Hanji looked between them, startled. "I don't know," she answered both. "I… uh… kinda fell."

Eren gaped at her.

"Hey! You try keeping hold of a branch after a shock like that! Teeny tiny Krista reaming Irwin out? I'm surprised I held on as long as I did. All I do know…" Hanji's temper dropped. "Look. All I do know is that the next day her closest friends and girlfriend were turned."

Jean, Marco, even Armin, all of them hunched suddenly as if they'd consumed something foul. Eren felt Annie and Petra responding in kind against him and it was pretty damn obvious that he was missing something big.

"Turned?" he ventured.

"Into titans," Marco explained. His hand touched Eren's knee, soft as a feather. "It was one of Irwin's earliest forms of intimidation. One night, about an hour before we opened, he summoned us all to the bridge and he just… turned them. Bertolt, Reiner, and Ymir. One second they're fine, called forward for what we assumed was a normal demand on Irwin's part… the next there's three titans making grabs at the rest of us. Everyone panicked, as I'm sure you can imagine. Luckily Irwin transported them to the barn before they could do any damage but… well, there were rumors that he let them eat the humans, the ones who wandered here during those years."

Eren grabbed hold of Marco's hand, still there, and squeezed until he felt the bones grinding together.

"We don't know that happened for sure though," Marco said.

"But it's a 'probably.'"

"… Knowing Irwin? Yes. A 'probably.'"

A high-pitched whine escaped Eren's throat and he felt a cool touch at the ends of his hair. Armin.

"The good news is they don't remember much, if anything at all. Irwin eventually turned them back and we took the whole experience as a generic warning—which it certainly was—but now I'm thinking it was also a warning leveled specifically at Krista." Marco glanced at Hanji. She nodded.

"And there's her name," she added. "She told me it once—just once. We'd been scrubbing floors together for decades but it was only after Corporal's team was punished…" Hanji froze, then bent to look directly at Petra. Eren could feel her shaking ever so slightly.

"I cried for you guys," Hanji admitted to her. "A whoooole lot. Enough that I think Krista was pretty freaked out when she found me hiding in a supply room. She's really good at comforting, did you know? But you know what else she said? Oh wait. 'Course you don't, you weren't there, but basically she said that the best thing I could do for you guys was to remember what had happened because someday we'd need to draw on those memories and all the really awful emotions that came with them. 'History is power,' she said. 'It's why my father named me Historia.'"

There was silence in the boat.

"I really am sorry," Hanji murmured as Petra gave a peep.

"So…let me see if I've got this." Jean gripped his hair spastically. "The fucker takes names, right? But he never took ours because he didn't consider us a threat. My pride is fine with that, don't worry." Two-thirds of the boat was included in that assessment while Eren got an eye-roll. "So what's up with Krista then? Something gave her the balls to ream Irwin out and… she was 'Krista' even before that, yeah? So what made her dangerous enough for a name swap?"

"And how did she manage to get her name back?" Marco said.

"And how do I get mine?"

They looked to Eren. He was tipped forward, palms to his chest in an attempt to absorb it all, become it and force it to make sense. With his left hand over his heart Eren could feel the erratic thrumming and beneath it the less tangible beat: the constricting of Irwin's chains. They'd break when he had his name back and he'd have his name when he finally had his family. Yes, Corporal had returned a part of it, Erwin had spoken it, and a few of his friends had heard it… his name was out there, but Eren still couldn't give it freely. Even now he opened his mouth in the guise of a sigh but it would not come. He was forced into silence.

"These are the questions," Hanji murmured.

Then Eren felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned and found that Armin was nearly lost amidst the darkness. Only his blond hair and the white markings of his face could be seen. Still, Eren could feelt the familiar gesture he made and within moments there was a new book in his hands. Dimly he heard Jean's appreciative whistle but the majority of his attention was given to the near luminescent pages. There, in a script as dark as the night around them, Armin spoke for the first time since losing his voice.

'We'll need to answer them later,' the book read. 'We're here.'

Behind this time was a spirit—swords drawn, who in his attempts to go unnoticed had yet to actually leave the bathhouse. Behind him was another spirit, one who had no such qualms about keeping silent.

When Irwin Smith was angry the ground itself shook; glass shattered, the walls pushed forward, and any flames in his vicinity flared up with a vicious heat. Luckily for the inhabitants of the bathhouse, his magic was too low—too valuable now—to waste on such displays. Thus it was only a wary Gunther and Erd who faced the sorcerer's wrath. And his screams.

"WHERE ARE THEY?"

The yell shot out from behind the desk and cut across Gunther's ears. The only thing that hurt more was his knees. They'd been kneeling for well over an hour now and if the slight trembling that ran along Erd's thighs was any indication, he was feeling it too.

"Where are they?" Irwin asked again, much quieter this time. This was as much a test as anything else in their lives now. After the human boy had fled with the rogue spirit Irwin had removed the bonds on their speech. Now it was an endless guessing game of when he wanted their agreement, when they dared to give actual advice (pulled from them, unwillingly), and when silent supplication was the safest route of all.

Gunther had never been one for playing it safe.

"I'm sure Oluo and Mike will return shortly, sir." He said. "They—"

"I don't care!" A porcelain cat yowled in fear as it was shattered against the far wall. Irwin dove out from behind his desk and, seeming to flit across the space, ended up down in front of Gunther. Then he turned to stare at Erd. Neither of them flinched.

"You think I care about those fools?" Irwin asked. He cut them off, voice shaking. "I don't. I well and truly don't. If they never returned that would simply be two less mouth for me to feed; four less eyes shifting, just waiting until they see the opportune moment to stab me in the back." Irwin grinned cruelly and it was clear to Gunther that their own four eyes boring into the sorcerer did not go unnoticed. Irwin took an easy step back.

"I want Petra." He spread his arms like he expected her to materialize, step forward and embrace him. His fists clenched. "My sweet Petra. Of course you'd be the first to draw your blade against me. My sweet spirit… I want you to answer for that… oh yes. You know what else I want?" Irwin tossed his head at the door where the remains of a crystal still lay, its occupant long gone.

"I want my power!" He roared. "I want that cold bitch back where she belongs! I want what she stole: dear faithful Corporal—" a spit, a sneer, "—and I want what he stole in turn—my seal!" Irwin was heaving now. "But do you know what I want most of all? That boy. I want that stupid, filthy, rude human boy and I want him RIGHT NOW. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? GIVE ME HIS HEAD. GIVE ME HIS HEART. WHAT ELSE ARE YOU FOOLS GOOD FOR IF—?"

Irwin suddenly cut himself off. There, outside the door the three of them could hear footsteps… as well as what sounded like muffled cries.

Gunther tensed his shoulders and hoped that Irwin wouldn't notice. Beside him he felt Erd doing the same. Truthfully, nothing good could come from the cries they could hear distinctly now. The only spirits who would dare to come up here right now were Oluo or Mike, and they'd been given explicit instructions not to return unless they'd caught one of the traitors.

'Traitors,' Gunther thought. 'Right. What a bunch of filth. Please…please don't let it be Corporal…'

For the first time in centuries a prayer of his was actually answered. Oluo came barging in and tossed over his shoulder he bore a squirming, furious frog. He threw Moblit onto the carpet next to Erd and though Gunther knew that Irwin expected such violence, he couldn't help but wince at Moblit's painful landing. To his credit he sat up in a jiffy, straightening his tunic as best he could.

"Well, well, what's this now…" All trace of Irwin's former rage was gone. Now he bent to regard Moblit intently, one finger curling and almost touching the frog's chin. Moblit hopped back against Erd's knees.

"Found him in the lower levels, sir." Oluo reported. He was chewing on his tongue though, his lips a bright red from where he'd no doubt bitten it at least once tonigh. "Greenie was sneaking around down there…"

"Sneaking!" Moblitcried. "I wasn't sneaking."

"Oh? Then what were you doing down?"

As Irwin moved to again take hold of Moblit's chin, Gunter felt a cold wave run down the back of his spine. He didn't know Moblit personally but he knew him to be a goody-two shoes, someone whom Irwin could count on to get out of his way even if he didn't happily wave him off. He was a pushover. Why worry about what Moblit might say because surely, someone like him couldn't have anything to say at all… right?

Yet Moblit wasn't cowering. Trembling yes, but his eyes never dropped even as Irwin's fingers stroked along his skin. Perhaps the confidence came simply from knowing that he had nothing to hide…

Or maybe it meant that Moblit had changed.

Like a floodgate Gunter was suddenly awash in memories: Moblit spending time with the odd-ball Hanji, him standing proud at the front of the line as they pulled muck out of Dot, standing even prouder before the human boy and gifting him with the respect that Irwin had never—would never—be able to earn. If Moblit had truly changed than that was wonderful.

It was also very dangerous.

Gunther squirmed as a bead of sweat trickled down his neck. Why had Moblit been down in the lower levels? A natural dusk was upon them, the customers would be arriving any moment, and after all that had occurred the last few days Moblit had more than enough work to occupy his time, work that in no way required him to venture downstairs. Not unless he'd started working for someone else…

"Well?" Irwin prompted. His voice sharpened down to a point. Moblit opened his mouth and Gunther closed his eyes, fearing what might come out.

"I was eaten," said the squeaky voice. Gunther's eyes popped back open. He saw Moblit hanging there in Irwin's hands, his green legs kicking and his gaze steady.

"Eaten?"

"Yes, sir! It was that spirit, sir—the black one with the white face. He jumped me yesterday, sir, swallowed me whole and I swear, I really swear, I didn't know a thing until he spat me back out just a few minutes ago. Really, sir. Really."

This was familiar. Moblit's eyes had grown wild during his explanation, moving to match the speed of his speech. Gone was the leveling stare and in its place two orbs rolled up, down, swinging from one corner of the room to the next, all of it in fervent panic. If Gunther hadn't seen the look that had come before it, witnessed it himself, he would have never believed it now.

"I was confused, sir!" Moblit blubbered. "Really! One second it's so dark and the next I'm in the dirt, covered in some sort of slime." Irwin removed his hands from the frog with a grimace. "I just started hoping away from that place. Oh please, sir. Please believe me. I didn't even realize that I'd been in the tunnel until your servant found me." The eyes rolled towards Oluo. "I know better than to go down there—we all do! I'm sorry, sir. Well and truly sorry. Please, sir, please. Don't… don't…"

"Shut. Up." Irwin said and Moblit obediently snapped his mouth tight. The five of them took a moment of silence together: Oluo hovering, Moblit twitching, Erd impressively still between them, Irwin pressing the heel of his palm against his head, and Gunther watching the frog, trying to ignore the ache in his knees in favor of seeing who'd come out on top.

"That creature vomited you back up?" Irwin finally snapped.

"Yes, sir!"

"Down in the tunnel?"

"That's where I awoke, sir…"

"Did you see him then?"

"No, I—"

"Did you see the human boy?"

"No—"

"The Corporal?"

"N—"

"Gods, did you see anything of use?" Irwin roared as Moblit ducked into a crouch.

"No?" he questioned and Irwin raised a hand as if to strike him. Before he could though Oluo took a step forward. He cleared his throat.

"Uh, sir? There was… something down in the tunnel where I found him; seems like he's telling the truth."

Irwin raised an eyebrow. "Something?"

Oluo mimed vomit spewing from his lips and the four of them winced.

"Do save me from such imagery, Oluo. You!" Moblit straightened into something resembling a salute. Irwin pointed manically to the door. "Are you of use to me? No? Ah yes, haven't we established that? Of course if that's truly the case… THEN WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?"

"Sir!"

Moblit sprung for the exit and the door slammed open to accommodate him.

Gunther watched as the frog hopped away, thinking that maybe his movement didn't portray quite the level of terror that one would suspect. Subtly, he looked to Oluo. His friend was no good at conveying silent messages but that was okay, because Gunther was good at reading his friend. He'd stopped chewing on his tongue. He was still. Something about their odd little encounter with the frog had calmed him.

Gunther glanced at Erd. He was still too—calm.

Logically. Logically Gunther knew that things had probably happened exactly as Moblit said: he'd been a victim, he'd escaped, and he still knew nothing about anything. Like the rest of them he was trapped under Irwin's thumb and that exit was every bit as frantic as it had seemed.

Or…

Or. And here Gunther relied on his instincts, an intuition that had yet to steer him wrong. 'Or' meant that the challenge he'd seen in Moblit's eyes had well and truly been there. 'Or' implied that he'd lied, right to Irwin's face, about his involvement with the spirit and that boy. If so, why?

The answer came easily enough: because they were up to something. Something grand. And if that crazy human boy who got jobs in the spirit world and freed sorceresses was really still playing this game, then Corporal couldn't be far behind. Gunther wasn't stupid. He'd seen how his boss—his true boss—looked at that kid. Corporal believed in him, which meant that Gunther did too.

Irwin gave a sudden bark of laughter. "The tunnel," he crooned. "I do wonder if Shifter knows where it leads. If the stupid brat wasn't going after his kin then he's in for quite the surprise…"

Gunther gazed in awe at the hatred he saw there. Irwin basked in it.

"I wanted to kill him myself." He hissed. "But I must admit, getting torn apart by dear Mom and Dad is a fitting end for that imp. Or maybe it was his baby sister who did the deed."

'Corporal,' Gunther thought. 'Keep away from him.' But at the same time he was thinking, 'please help.'

Irwin laughed again. "Beautiful. At least one of them is dead."

"He's not," came a voice and Gunther's stomach dropped. Breaking Irwin's orders he rose to his feet and was proud to see Erd doing the same. Oluo's mouth was pursed in a tight line while Irwin's, despite the news, had spread into a grin.

"Well, well," he said.

Corporal stood in the doorway, Mike behind him with one hand resting on his shoulder. There was no doubt that Corporal looked a fright—his hair standing on end, blood splattered all across his torn clothes—but for all that he edged a sword out of its case with the same-old confidence, letting just an inch of the blade gleam.

"The brat is still alive, sir." Corporal said. "Shall I take care of him for you?"