Chapter 2
With the steps of the Rumbling leaving Shiganshina and the Island, the Yeagerist Soldiers are now standing in front of Eren, and behind him are Floch and Jean. Mikasa is standing at the wall and Eren starts to speak.
"4 years ago, we of the Scouts retook Wall Maria from our enemies. At the award ceremony, that was when we gave back the memories of our history to all of you! Now let's look back in time."
He says, "In ancient times, the people of Eldia existed as a primitive tribe. The Eldian tribe pillaged and raided opposing peoples, even cutting out the tongues of those they took for their slaves and gouging out the eyes of disobedient slaves. Around 2,000 years ago, a slave girl named gained the power of the Titans. The ruler of King Fritz of the Eldian tribe used Ymir's newfound powers to war against enemy nations such as Marley, and he would later take our Founder Ymir to mother his children: Maria, Rose, and Sina."
13 years later, Ymir Fritz died in defense of her king, before her last moments, she gave the power of the Titans to our three goddesses. Her powers would spread until there were Nine Titans. With their Titan powers, we, the Subjects of Ymir, established the Eldian Empire."
"So the Titans were OUR power!" "Those people took them from us and used them to kill our people!"
"The Eldians used the Titans as weapons of mass destruction to conquer other nations, wiping out countless cultures in the process. It is estimated that the number of people the Eldians have slaughtered is over three times the world population right now. Eventually, the Eldians ran out of enemies and began fighting each other. Eight of the nine royal families with the Nine Titans remained in a state of conflict, but the Fritz, or should we say the Reiss family maintained order with the Founding Titan. After 1,700 years, the Founding Titan came into the possession of Karl Fritz, the first Reiss King.
The King believed that Eldia's sins cannot be atoned for and that Eldians and Titans should not have existed in the first place. He pitied the Marleyans and devised a plan alongside the Tybur family, the keepers of the War Hammer Titan, to end the Eldian rule. The King abandoned the internal conflicts, and without the Founding Titan to keep order, the Eldian Empire collapsed. The Eldians fought and weakened themselves during the Great Titan War, while the King and the Tybur family presented the legend of Helos, a Marleyan hero who joined with the Tybur family to defeat the King. The Tybur family fought to restore Marley in the war; other noble families would evidently follow suit. They succeeded and Marley gained eight of the Nine Titans as a result. The King moved the capital to Paradis Island, Eldia's last remaining territory, and gathered as many Eldians as he could on the island."
Eren frowns as he takes a deep breath. "However, all I told you was just the version of the history that the outside world gave you. Those who inherited the power of the Titans knew the true history, and right here, right now, I will tell you the history that was within the Attack Titan and also the other Titans.
In real history, the Eldia Empire did use Titans, but all they did first was use them to cultivate lands, build bridges, and amass wealth. Eventually, Eldia became the strongest nation in the world. It was true that the first King Fritz was violent, and he tried to conquer Marley, but just as he was accepting the surrender of Marley, they backstabbed by throwing the spear at him, and that's how our Founder Ymir was killed, she protected the king from Marley. The King's daughters, Maria, Rose, and Sina became the new rulers after the first King Fritz was killed, and they never intended to follow the same path as their father. What they wanted was for the people of Eldia to be happy.
The other Nations were jealous of our power, they were the ones who initiated the fight. They sent a lot of armies at us, hoping they would get the Titan Power to make them strong. That's why to defend the Eldians, the kings and queens from generations would fight back. In my opinion, if the former Titans did wipe out the nations in the past, then Marley and some of the nations shouldn't exist right now. It would just be us.
However, the only naive thing that the other nations did was not give up trying to take power. They would rather let Eldians slaughter that many people if that meant they would eventually get the power for themselves. And they did it, Karl Fritz couldn't bear the deaths, even though the other nations were the main culprit who let the Eldians slaughter them. And the rest was the same, he teamed up with the Tybur Family as they tried to create the Great Titan War and let the power of the other 8 fight against each other, and eventually gave the power to Marley."
This caused the uproar to become more fierce, and Eren can see that the people are angry.
"On our Island, the King used the Founding Titan to cause Colossus Titans to form three concentric Walls around their territory: Maria, Rose, and Sheena. Afterward, Karl Fritz, now known as the First Reiss King, used the Founding Titan once more to erase our memory of the Great Titan War and all of history before the raising of the Walls. We all believe that we are the last humanity in the world, and Titans are monsters who tried to eat us. As for the outside world, since they got the power from the Eldia and now Eldia was not the major threat to the Titans, they decided to cover up and blamed all the fault on us."
Then Eren closes his eyes and continues, "My father was one of the Eldians living outside of this island. Ever since his birth, he had been suffering inequality just because we were Eldians. Marley continued to feed their propaganda of how we terrorized the world, but they were doing the same thing as our ancestors! My father's sister was killed by the abuse of the Public Security Authority! She was just 6 years old, and yet she was fed to the dogs because she's an Eldian like all of us!"
This caused a large uproar from the people in the military. Eren continues, "My father joined the Eldia Restorationists, hoping to prevent the same thing from my aunt from happening again. However, the Eldia Restorationists were betrayed by Zeke Yeager, and that's how my father came to Paradis Island. The leader of the Eldia Restorationists, a spy named Owl, saved my father at the last minute and gave him the power of the Attack Titan. He let my father come to your side and the goal was to take the power of the Founding Titan from the Royal government who wanted all of us to die from the Titans."
Eren closed his eyes as he knew that the next part was going to pain him a lot. "9 years ago, Marley sent 4 of the 7 Titans to our island, although one of them was eaten by a pure Titan that they sent to our island, the remaining three still broke Wall Maria, causing a lot of people to be killed in the process by the Pure Titans. The victims also included my mother. My father begged the Royal Government to save our people, but with the vow of Renouncing war, they refused and wanted all of us to die. That's why my father finished what he started, he took the power of the Founding Titan and gave both Titans to me, hoping that I could bring the best of Eldia to all of you."
The islanders cheered for Grisha's work because they thought that the Royal family didn't deserve the power if they weren't going to use it to save them. "4 years ago, the Warriors from Marley broke Wall Rose in the same way as Wall Maria, and that was also my first transformation as the Titan Shifter and having the power of both the Attack and Founding Titan. Because of this, the Royal government wanted its power back by killing and arresting the Survey Corps. They want all of our elimination, we refuse to let it happen. That's why we planned the Coup d'etat! Overthrowing the government and having our queen Historia Reiss on the throne, and it was also because of it, we would be able to retake Wall Maria, solve the food problem of our people, and regain the memories of what our first Reiss King stole from us."
Eren lowers his head and says, "We've suffered a lot of defeat, we've lost a lot of talented soldiers because we've never given up, that's why we managed to become who we are right now. Four years ago, by contacting our queen Historia, who has royal blood, I got the memories from the future. I see the island's doom because of the world, I see all of you die from the attack greater than Titans. With the true history, we've always been the victims.
I still believe that the Rumbling shouldn't be happening, that's why we try negotiating with the other nations. However, all of the nations, that also includes Hizuru, want our demise. That's why we have no choice but to do the Rumbling. The former Military still believes that the negotiations will work. All they did was try to hide from reality and they wanted to sacrifice the queen and me, they were all punished to death thanks to Zeke's Wine."
After the military talk to each other for a while, Eren takes a breath and continues, "I'm sure that all of you have already known about this, Queen Historia and I have been married for a year the queen has been pregnant with our child. And since there is a change of plans I don't need to die from the Rumbling, as the King of Eldia, I will protect the people on this island."
Just then, a soldier asks, "Aren't we safe because of the Rumbling? Why do we still need to be protected?"
Eren says, "I know that a few survivors will try to use their Titan powers to stop the Rumbling, if there are people who survived the Rumbling, then they will fight us and doom our island."
This causes everyone to be terrified, "Shouldn't we try to stop those people from chasing after the Rumbling?"
"You won't be able to win against them. I suggest that we let them do it. We will stay here and get stronger so that when they come, we can fight back without losing more people."
The other soldiers cheer as Eren adds, "Now I want all of you to dedicate your hearts!"
Then they start to cheer with the words, and Eren leaves with Floch. "Eren!"
Eren turns around to see Mikasa and Jean rushing to him. He asks, "And what do you want?"
Mikasa asks, "You and Historia... why?"
Eren says, "It is simple. When I told you all about the Rumbling plan, you all immediately gave up on me. However, Historia is different, she never gave up on me."
"We didn't..." Before Mikasa can say anything, Eren says, "You didn't? When Floch spread to the crowd that I was detained, what did you do? When I heard that, I felt that Floch and the Yeagerists are more like friends than you did."
Mikasa is about to cry again, and Jean notices it and he tries to punch Eren, "Oi, Eren! You take that back now!"
Eren just grabs his fist and says, "I don't really want to fight you, so don't give me a reason to do that."
Then he turns around and says, "I know that you two are probably going to team up with Reiner and the others to stop the Rumbling. As I said, I won't stop you."
Eren and Floch leave, with Mikasa and Jean frowning while watching their backs.
Here is the speech, and I hope you like it. The next chapter will be back to Armin and the others.
