Creation began on 02-26-22
Creation ended on 05-28-22
Attack on Titan
Attack on Titan: Guidance in Control
A/N: Bitter work yields promising results.
It was only due to Reiner, Annie and Bertolt telling them what they knew of Marley's military might, but it didn't afford them much time to do much in the way of training Eren to use his Titan powers, just enough for the basics. Relying mostly on the stolen Titan powers and conquered Eldians as foot soldiers left Marley stunted in terms of actual firepower, and other nations had been at work developing weapons that would become superior to the reckless monopoly of the Titans, including weapons able to defeat the Armored Titan and eventually overpower the Colossal Titan. While it was unlikely that the Attack Titan would have hardening capabilities, it was believed that the Founding Titan, due to its own abilities, including the greatest one it was stated to possess, the power to control other Titans, this would make Eren a formidable opponent once he learned enough to be a considerable threat. But Eren wasn't a veteran of how to use the Titan power like those before him were, including these three from Marley; he was just informed that the first transformation into a Titan was not always the easiest…and it required great strength of will and perseverance in remaining in control…and he needed to demonstrate that level of control.
"How bad is the first transformation into a Titan?" Eren had asked Reiner, holding a knife to cut his own hand.
"It's like there's too much noise in your head," he explained. "Everything around you is out of focus, dark and you can't make sense of any of it yet. Try to keep your intentions simple, nothing really major, like…wanting to walk around…or looking down at people. Don't think about anything else."
Don't think about anything else, Eren thought, slitting his left hand. Only problem is I have to think about everything…and everyone. My other half, he doesn't think…or even cares…about anything other than being free. To him, everyone and everything is either an obstacle or an enemy. When he returns to Paradis, and he will return, there's no telling what he will do if he can see what will happen before it even happens.
As he felt the heat generated by the Titan power he possessed, Eren found himself fused to something that felt like flesh, only stranger and restricting his movement. He could still see the world around him, but it was all different from how he normally saw things and people. The feeling of great height and mass nearly consumed him, the silence around him was overwhelming, but what possessed him at this moment…was the power he felt he had. The sheer, almost-larger-than-life-like power. It was almost as though he could do anything he wanted, but he had to be careful; if he let himself become possessed by such a power, he would risk going against his own conscience.
"…Eren…" He heard a voice speak out to him. "…Eren…can…hear me… Can you…hear me?"
He looked down at the people nearby, seeing Armin and Mikasa among them. Their voices were fading in and out, but he could hear them a little bit. He nodded that he could, but wasn't sure if the Titan head was doing the same as he.
-x-
Eren's Founding Titan was different from what was initially expected by the Survey Corps and the Warrior Unit. It was thirteen meters tall, not as toned out as the muscular Attack Titan, but the face was undeniably Eren's, down to the eyes and hair. It was almost as though Eren had done nothing except grow to larger-than-human size…and lose his balls. As he stood up to look down at them, Armin had to admit that Eren being a Titan was very…nerve-wrecking…and mind-blowing.
"Unbelievable," he uttered as Captain Levi shot up towards Eren's right shoulder with a drawing to instruct him on what to do.
"Okay, Yeager," went Levi as he showed him the drawing. "Can you do this?"
Within the Titan, Eren looked at the drawing and had to believe that he could do what was being asked of him, even as a Titan. Slowly, the Titan body lifted its right leg up as it brought up its arms to balance him.
"He doesn't seem to be out of control so far," Erwin told Reiner.
"Not everyone can control a Titan the first time around," Reiner explained. "It requires a lot of conscious effort and anyone that has no control over their own actions to begin with can become…unsteady as a Titan."
"Has this happened to you three?"
"Yes."
Erwin couldn't blame them right now. They were just children drafted into a war they didn't fully understand by some people that were looking for a reason to continue hating who they were, and using a power they didn't fully understand…and still don't.
Soon after Eren's Titan finished standing on one leg, Levi had shown him another drawing with a specific instruction to follow…and Eren sat back down; apparently, the second instruction was to sit down for as long as possible.
"How long can he stay as a Titan?" Hange asked. "How long can any of you stay as a Titan?"
"It varies from one Titan to the next," explained Annie to her, "but most of us can be active for a long as a few hours as a Titan. The Cart Titan was the partial exception due to its endurance, able to stay active for weeks. If Eren's dark side has eaten the person that had it last, then he can remain active in Titan for weeks, even perform consecutive transformations before he even begins to feel fatigue."
"And if he got the power of this…War Hammer Titan?" Erwin questioned.
"That," went Bertolt, "along with the powers of the Beast, Cart and Attack Titan…would make him the most dangerous person alive right now."
"But there's one thing wrong with him being dangerous," went Hange. "He lacks a crucial aspect in any war or battle."
"Which is?" Annie asked.
"He has no comrades. He has no allies. To his dark side, anyone and everyone is either an enemy or an obstacle. He doesn't differentiate, and this makes him a one-person army, an army of one, if you will. He has to do everything on his own, whereas an army, more than one individual, can do more because everyone is doing their part in ending a conflict."
"But if he's not predictable," said Bertolt, "he can be a dangerous foe."
"If it's any compensation, you can step on him with your big foot," went Levi when he came down from Eren's Titan. "If any attempt to use reason against him fails, you have discretion to take him out if it means stopping him."
Except it has to be me that stops him, they heard a voice say to him, and their eyes directed to the Titan sitting down. Yes, you could step on him, but I doubt you can kill him. No offense.
"None taken," Reiner responded. "It'd be easier to just take his Titan power away from him, neutralizing him."
If we can get close enough to him and hold him, even for just a few seconds, we could probably take his power from him.
"Are you even sure you could do that?" Erwin asked him.
The Titan shook its head in the negative; Eren just wanted to try and contribute to the conversation and offer his services however he could until he could access the total power of the Founding Titan again. While the total power no longer required the royal blood, he still refused to risk putting Historia in danger; just having her go to Wall Sina and be in the Military Police was dangerous enough, alleviated to some degree by having Ymir with her. Whatever he once saw the more he thought about it, he couldn't see that future any longer, just a rewritten future that was still being written. As it was nothing more than a mere memory that will never be etched into anyone's consciousness but his own to be forgotten about, Eren still refused to reveal Historia to the Survey Corps or Garrison, wanting her to live her life without having it being decided by people that could only be trusted to varying degrees.
Suddenly, he saw his dark twin standing in front of him, looking angrier and his eyes colder and with dark circles.
"Can you understand me?" Eren asked his twin.
"I can understand more than you think," he replied, "and I see your fate."
"Do you hate me already? Are you so full of hatred that you see everyone around you as either an enemy or in your way?"
"Anyone that threatens to take away my freedom, I must take out to keep my freedom. It doesn't matter who they are. I refuse to be locked up, buried, burned away or hidden away by the rest of the world to be forgotten about. You, who are so willing to see hope in a world without it, are no better than the people that dared to take my freedom from me…so I took theirs. I will not be a puppet like you have become."
"I'm not a puppet."
"Oh, really? Where's your free will? Where's your drive to fight? Where's your desire to be free from control? I see none of that in you."
"Strange. We're supposed to be the same person, but when I look at you now…you make me condemn the way I was toward others when we were one person. You make me regret being so…stubborn and full of spite towards the world we live in."
"We lived within a cage. We didn't deserve that. We deserve to be free. We deserve more than just a small patch of dirt in the water."
"But to openly declare war on people we don't even know, that aren't entirely out to get us? How can we deserve anything when you choose to behave like a monster?"
"These people brought their own deaths upon themselves. Regardless of whether they were directly involved or not, they paid for their decisions…and still need to pay. I won't stop until every last one of them, men, women, are all dead. Then, nobody can take my freedom from me."
"So, you're willing to murder everyone…just to be free?"
"The price for freedom is high. Always has been."
Eren was not liking where this conversation between he and his dark twin was going. Even if he possessed more than one Titan power to exploit, the one with the Attack Titan was completely devoid of any heart. He had no sense of reasoning, no remorse, no empathy. All he cared for was what he was willing to kill for, and that was just freedom.
Unless…
"What about Mikasa and Armin?" He asked him. "They know about what happened to us, what led to us no longer being the young man they knew years ago, and they know what you've done. Are you even willing to kill them for freedom?"
He was hoping that there was something within his cruel twin that was similar to himself. He was hoping that the both of them, despite being divided by the power of the Titans, split between benevolence and malevolence…still cared about at least these two people that he cared for to the point that he wanted them to live and have a future full of peace and happiness.
"What you're doing is wrong in every sense of the word, Eren," he told the angry boy. "Even if the world is scarred by the past actions of our ancestors, we're not responsible for their hatred because we're not them. You focus so much on pursuing what's in front of you that you can't see what's all around us, past and present. This is all one world, and we're all one people. What affects those in one part of the world affects everyone elsewhere. And there's more to our existence than conflict, hardship and hate, all of which you focus solely on. You destroy the world, you destroy everything else we want besides what you want most. You obliterate people's drive for acquiring knowledge of other places, receiving wisdom from the past or knowing what it means to love others more than ourselves."
The other Eren fumed at hearing this.
"Knowledge?" He questioned. "Wisdom? Love and friendship? Do you really think I'd give a damn for such trivialities when there's freedom to be had and must be fought against others for?"
"Is that the only thing you care for? Is that all that matters to you?"
"And what matters to you? That we seek peace with the world? That we build bridges instead of barriers? Or maybe that we hide behind walls like before and wait for the inevitable? That shows how weak you are!"
"You're wrong," they heard a female voice utter out, and turned to face a young woman with ebony hair and a pretty face. "He may have possession of the Founding Titan now, but he isn't as weak as you believe him to be. He exercises restraint, unlike you. He doesn't want a war with the world…unlike you, just so you can fight for what you desire more than anything. And he raised a noble question that you answered with selfishness. If you won't hesitate to take other people's lives to get what you want, will you even take the lives of people you used to be friends with? Can you answer that?"
"I…don't need…friends," the antisocial twin professed, which made his light twin react with disgust. "If you can't accept that, then you won't survive in this world. And who the Hell are you supposed to be, anyway?"
Both twins looked at the woman…and the light twin felt like he had seen her before, but he couldn't place her wherever it was that they had met.
"A former holder of the Founder," she expressed, "like your positive-natured brother here, except I couldn't have used the power of the Founder to change anything, no matter how much I wanted to, to free the people from life behind the Walls, to tell them the truth."
"Why?" Eren asked her.
"Because of the First King's ideology. He made a vow to renounce war, and it influenced all from the royal bloodline that came to inherit the Founding Titan after his passing. Everyone with royal blood in their veins that inherited the Founding Titan would become subject to his ideology and refuse to do anything to free the people, no matter how much they wanted to. Supposedly, anyone without royal blood that gained the Founder shouldn't be able to use its power because they didn't meet the most important requirement it possessed…but you…you don't seem to be bound by such a limitation, anymore. And…despite you wielding such a power that my family's ancestors couldn't use…you chose to protect someone that has royal blood because you value life over sacrifice, a long future over a short one. There's nothing wrong with wanting a future so long as you know what it is that you want."
"And if it's only a future desired by half of me?"
The woman looked at his dark twin, who looked at them with cold, unemotional eyes.
"Neither can live while the other continues to survive," she uttered. "Neither of you is the real Eren Yeager…and yet both of you are the real Eren Yeager. But you (she points to the unkept twin)…are full of so much…hate. I feel sorry for you."
The angry Eren then walked away, the sounds of people screaming in his ears as he thought of making his brother, his light side, suffer in the most horrifying way imaginable.
-x-
"…So he spoke with his twin again?" Levi questioned Erwin, later that day.
"Yes, and unfortunately, his dark twin appears to be incapable of any reasoning; he's only devoted to fighting for freedom, which puts him at odds against others. Apparently, the Titan he ended up with when his father turned him into a Titan, the Attack Titan, truly is the only one out of these Nine Titans that has a problem with any authoritarian measures…and the person he was before is also an issue; he refuses to show restraint for any reason."
"He believes that showing restraint is a sign of weakness and submission?"
"Yeah."
"Then…we'll be left with the option of disposing him."
"He won't hesitate to harm anyone that tries to stop him from moving forward."
As the two were conversing, Hange was performing another examination on Eren and the three Warriors and was giddy about the fact that their Titan powers seemed to extend to their actual bodies, how they were able to regenerate from just about any injury, including ones that were long before they were even turned into Titans. And then, she had to ask them the important questions regarding memories inherited from the previous holders of the Titans they had.
"…So, in the beginning, right after you return to human form, there's no recollection of anything?" She asked Reiner and Bertolt.
"No," Bertolt answered her, "and due to blood relations playing a role in the memory inheritance, not every memory inherited from the previous holder is shown to the current holder. Every single one of us had to have gotten our Titan powers from an unrelated person."
"Except for the Attack Titan," Eren reminded them. "Blood relations don't seem to factor with it; everyone that ever had it was unrelated."
"And the memories it passed on to its holders?" Annie questioned.
"Constantly looking forward in order to look backwards, but most of its memories inherited are from…different angles, different perceptions. It's like the current holder of the Titan was older before they knew anything, and then sending those memories back in time to a previous holder to affect the future differently."
"But…in order to transcend time…"
"It couldn't do that if it was in the present, only sending back memories of all that the current holder knew at the time to a previous holder, such as knowledge of the next holder. But such power came at a cost, knowing only bits and pieces of the future from the perception of the current holder, which I have to assume was…my dark twin…before the big shift in everything."
"Just how dangerous is your twin?" Reiner asked him.
"If you've seen him, you would probably want to get away from him."
"But if he's stubborn and barbaric," said Annie.
"He could still see into the future and know how you're going to fight him and be a step ahead."
"So fighting him would be difficult?"
"Difficult, yes…but not impossible."
"How to fight someone that can look into the future?" Hange questioned.
Eren thought about it and uttered, "Don't be predictable."
"What do you mean?" Bertolt asked him.
-x-
He hated resting, as it was when he felt vulnerable, but at least he did so while in his Titan body. He could still events yet to transpire, but they were becoming hazy to his perception, as though what he was viewing was being obscured by…something beyond himself. It was unsettling, but not so much. If he couldn't see the future the way it was intended to be seen any longer, then he would just carve out his own future and rewrite everything. He was already doing that, anyway; he killed his half-brother and that woman, took their Titan powers, and was waging his one-man war against this Marley nation that he learned was part of the reason he had been confined to an island for as long as he could remember.
But he wasn't content with just making sure Marley was disposed of; if the rest of the world was no better than this country, then they needed to be disposed of, as well. Take out one enemy, ensure the rest follow suit…and they were all gone. The price for freedom was high, as it always had been, but he was willing to pay for it. In blood, bone, stone, wood and other people's lives. If no place existed for him in this world, then he would just carve himself a place in it once he cleaned out everyone he decided was a threat to himself.
This heat is a bother, he thought as he opened his Titan's eyes to look up at the sky, seeing that the sun had set several hours ago. I will shed this form and wander around in search of food. The second someone tries to take me down, I'll take them down first, reducing them to a forgotten memory from this living.
Pulling himself from the flesh of his Titan, the angry and unkept Eren Yeager vacated his Titan and climbed down the right side of the evaporating husk and staggered for a few seconds as he found his balance, walking the ruined streets in search of food.
-x-
The Founding Titan still possessed a fathomable degree of power that was beyond the other members of the Nine Titans, but one of its former abilities was deemed a bane that they no longer needed to concern themselves about with the removal of the thirteen-year death sentence that befell each holder of the Titans. Its ability to see events as they were already laid out, most likely a direct result of Karl Fritz's manipulation of the Founder when he made it so that his ideology would be inherited by every holder with royal blood in their veins…or even just an extension of it, would cause the holders to just go along with what was happening or going to happen in their lifetime, accepting their fate instead of trying to fight back and change it. With Ymir Fritz's freedom from her enslavement, such a drawback was no longer present; Eren, while initially able to see these events before she was released from her servitude, could no longer see the past or future, making events unknown to him now that the timeline was akin to a canvas that hadn't been painted yet. But even with this loss (something he was personally grateful for), the ability to create and command Titans was still a boon that was considered necessary in the event that his bad side would show up to kill him. However, Eren, even with this power, wasn't going to take away the people's free will; too much of that had already been committed when Karl Fritz decided to build the Walls and take away the people's memories of the past, and it was still a question of the Walls being taken down safely, avoiding the previous calamity that, while no longer in play, still worried him due to there being people nearby the Walls and could still get hurt by their destruction, even for the sake of protecting the people.
In yet another Titan body to demonstrate his ability to perform mobile actions, Eren feared the potential harm towards anyone that lived too close to the Walls if they were eventually taken down. Casualties were a price that came with conflict, but he didn't want to cut down anyone's life just to have access to a horde of Titans able to flatten the world when it was better to return those Titans back to human form. Running across the terrain, followed by the Survey Corps on horseback, Eren saw the houses of a reclaimed village nearby and slowed his pace, not wanting to risk harming anyone that might've been out and away from the settlement at night, even though he could see fine at night through his Titan's eyes. Behind him was Annie in her Titan body, just following to make sure he was actually capable of running such long distances; without the unique abilities of the Founding Titan, Eren would have to rely on strength and speed to do things, such as defending himself.
"Looks like he can run faster than the horses can," said Petra to Levi.
"And this is just him jogging," Levi told her.
"So, he could run faster than this?" Abel asked.
Eren stopped and leaned against a large tree.
"Not bad, Yeager," Levi told the Titan. "It looks like you're in control of yourself more than you know when you're a Titan."
The Titan slowly nodded.
Eren, he thought he heard a female voice speak to him. Eren.
It sounded like it was coming from his left side, and he turned his head…to his mother, Carla Yeager, who seemed alive…but vacant.
Don't let your stubbornness prevail over this side of you, he heard her say to him.
Gasp! He found himself in his quarters in the Garrison HQ; it was after hours and everyone else was asleep.
Did I just imagine that? He wondered; he was feeling bad about what he learned a while back through the Founding Titan, but he didn't show it because he didn't want to raise a potential panic for the Survey Corps or Garrison. Was that my mother?
As the Founding Titan enabled its holders to see everything all at once, Eren had saw how his mother was going to die…but because he was the one that had both it and the Attack Titan, a Titan that would never listen to any form of authority, he knew it was his fault that she would die…just to motivate himself into hating the Titans. But Eren, at least this side of him that was more in control of his actions and emotions, hated that he had condemned her to death. He hated that he had used such a power in a different time to do something as cruel and unforgivable as sacrifice his own mother for himself to move forward. This Founding Titan was still powerful, but if he could take it all back, take back that awful day, even trade his life for his mother's and everyone else that died that day, he wouldn't hesitate from doing so.
"Ahh," he sighed, bringing his head back down on his pillow. My stubbornness is what killed her and every other person that day. It wasn't Marley, or Reiner or Bertolt. It was my damn stubbornness that now has a life of its own…and it won't stop until one of us is dead. The Founding Titan represents control. The Attack Titan represents freedom. They can't be possessed by the same person without there being consequences…and something happened to cause me to be divided into two beings that refuse to coexist due to conflicting beliefs and behaviors. I don't mind freedom, but I want peace. He doesn't believe in peace, desiring only freedom, but there are different types of freedom…and he's not even specific on what type of freedom it is that he wants, just that he wants to be free.
-x-
He was fortunate to find some food and water in these ruins. Not a lot, but enough to keep him satiated for a while. There were still places to go…and people that needed to pay for their sins.
"…He's not even specific on what type of freedom it is that he wants," he heard the voice of his lesser half say in his mind.
I just want to be free from it all, he thought as he downed the last of the bottle of wine he found in the ruins of the restaurant. I just want to be free from all the constraints in the world. To be anywhere I choose, to go wherever I desire and not be judged by anyone.
Tossing the empty bottle away, he walked out of the ruins and walked across the streets. He had a long walk ahead of him until he reached his next destination.
Unknown to him, he was being watched by a man he hadn't seen in many years since the attack on Shiganshina District, with shoulder-length hair and wearing glasses, a look of grief on his face as he saw this young man walk away.
-x-
"How long until your grandfather is ready to fight again?" Willy was asked by Calvi, regarding his grandfather, the current War Hammer Titan.
"He can't fight again, sir," Willy revealed to him. "His age has finally caught up with him. He needs to retire."
"But if that Titan returns again…"
"We'll face it, but it won't be my grandfather that fights it again. It'll be the new War Hammer."
"Who?"
Willy Tybur didn't say who, but he had to have faith in whoever was the fortunate one to inherit the Titan from his grandfather. His father volunteered to inherit the Titan, but he and his sister would fight for it to ensure that there was hope for Marley. Whoever was in this Titan that attacked them unprovoked was just as he had informed them, full of rage. Whichever one of them wanted it more would be the inheritor of the War Hammer Titan in their family and fight to protect their homeland.
-x-
It was not the type of question she had expected Eren to ask her, but it was the question that she had to answer him when he asked her about it: Did she, despite not having any control over any of her actions at the time and was exempt from any actual intention, remember that horrible day his mother was killed by her Titan? When she answered that, despite having no control or intention, she did remember killing Carla Yeager, Eren sighed as he looked down at his cup of tea. But she wasn't sure how he felt about this revelation; was Eren upset with her, that she was alive while his mother was dead, killed by the Titan she had been turned into over thirteen years ago? She wished she knew the answer.
"It wasn't your fault," he told her, and sipped his tea. "What you did when you were a Titan…was never your fault. The one at fault…is the one that chose to influence the past and future, exploiting a power that is nothing more than a curse when you know everything that's going to happen and be unable to do anything to change it."
"You mean…it was…Ymir Fritz's fault?" She asked him.
"No. It was never her fault. My mother dying…was my fault. My drive to be free, to want to live beyond the Walls, to make other people cease living like cattle, it drove me to acts that I never realized were more dangerous than anticipated. And this was because I possessed two Titans that can't exist in one person. The Attack Titan, that only focuses on moving forward and never listening to anyone in authority…and the Founding Titan, that controls others and acts as a balance between others, keeping them in check, keeping the past, present and future in sync. But everything that I do…everything that I have ever done…has a consequence, repercussions that can either make or break others in the world. Even with Ymir Fritz no longer around to keep the power in check, so long as anyone with access to Titan spinal fluid and Eldian Subjects of Ymir to use it on, people's fear and hatred of Titans will never die."
"But…you're the one with the Founding Titan. Can't you just…make it so that people can't turn us into Titans, anymore?"
"I do. I want to…but…"
"But what?"
"My dark side…will return here…and whether or not he'll have the War Hammer Titan's power…is an unknown to me."
During this unscheduled nightly visit to see Dina, Eren refrained from touching her the entire time; just because he had released Ymir from her enslavement, he didn't want to risk the power of the Founding Titan still needing royal blood because he refused to endanger her or Historia for the sake of accessing power. Even as he sat at her table, he refrained from having any physical contact with her.
"Can I ask you something?" She asked him.
"Feel free," he responded.
"If you could have anything you ever wanted in life to happen, what would it be?"
"If I could have anything? I'd want… What I'd want…is to see my parents again…and tell them how sorry I am for being the reason they're dead."
"But…you didn't know until after you got the power of the Titans and realized what they were capable of."
"It still doesn't change the fact that there are two of me in this world…and one of us is a freedom-obsessed maniac willing to kill."
"If he knew the future and decided to just go with it instead of trying to change it into one of hope instead of despair, then he'd be the one that deserves whatever he's got coming to him… But that Eren Yeager would be the one that had the Attack and Founding Titans. That man no longer exists because he can't have both in his possession. You, on the other hand, with the Founding Titan, aren't a maniac…or obsessed with keeping people locked up behind the Walls. If saving the world means your evil twin has to die…then I just hope that you get to have a future where you can live after everything else is resolved."
Eren didn't want anything from the previous timeline he had witnessed to happen at all in this new one; he didn't want a decimation in the global population, the Rumbling or his own death, people he lived with or fought alongside with to die or suffer, and he didn't want who he used to be in that grim future to ever be again. Even if there was a light side to the aftermath of the Rumbling, he didn't care if it took years to get there, if a war needed to happen or if even the island was used as a garbage dump by the people that lived on it, he didn't want for there to be a large death toll simply because someone refused to back off or reconsider the ramifications of their decisions. No matter how much hatred existed in this world, murder and genocide were not the answer, and neither was having a heart or soul full of spite directed towards the people of the world beyond Paradis. If they were all going to die in the future, regardless of what any of them did, Rumbling or no Rumbling, then they were going to die, but they should be able to decide how it was going to be for them, not have it decided for them by some pompous person that had an attitude since before they were capable of speaking out of turn.
"Neither of us can have a future while the other one continues to persist in the present," he sighs as he sips his tea again. "For one of us to have a future…"
"One must kill the other," she cuts him off. "But the question becomes: Which one of you will be the one that survives while the other dies?"
"Yeah."
"It's gotta be you instead of him. He who lives only for freedom is one that has no interest in anything else, but he who lives for other things, even people, then he is one that has everything to gain from surviving. You gain freedom, but you gain peace, hope, a future and whatever else you want. What else do you want?"
Eren thought about it…and really did want more than his dark side desired; there was a desire to rebuild his house, to give the people of Paradis the freedom to decide for themselves whether to travel beyond the island or not, to one day live without the threat of conflict (which seemed impossible for now), and even settle down with someone later on. There was more to life than simply having freedom, something his twin seemed to disregard in its potential entirety.
"I want a life I can be proud to look back on when I die from old age or natural causes," he told her after giving it some thought.
Dina smiled.
"Then don't give up," she told him.
To be continued…
A/N: Well, when I made the Founding Titan form of Eren that is different from the one depicted in the manga and anime, I wanted it to be more human and not monstrous, so having it look like Eren as he currently is with just a lack of muscle seemed like the best way to depict him without his dark side, which still resembles how the Attack Titan always looks after the final season started depicting him as being a bit uglier and not so much a savior with that ugly jaw. The conversation between the two halves of Eren Yeager further divides them based on how their behaviors have altered as a result of not having the other to keep them in check, with Attack Titan Eren Yeager being obsessed solely with being free at all costs, not caring for anything or anyone else, and Founding Titan Eren Yeager just wanting to protect who and what he can without being in control of anyone, and having to develop his drive to fight for what he believes in. I may put up another poll in a few weeks to have the next chapter be decided upon, and it'll have a big shift in the plot between the two Eren Yeagers and their conflict towards each other. Until next time, stay sane, healthy and creative with this path of fiction that goes multiple directions. Peace.