How Attack on Titan Should Have Ended

by Isil'zha BLZ

My personal head canon for how the final volume and final episode should have gone instead of the mess we got.

Niccolo flinched as he heard another scream echoing through the house, his heart going out to the queen as her labor continued to drag on.

He walked out through the front door and entered the side entrance of another nearby building, where the Braus family was waiting for him.

Mr. Braus looked concerned. "How is she?"

Niccolo shrugged half heartedly. "Not too good, but the doctors said that everything seems normal. Well, as normal as it can be when you go into labor two months earlier than you were supposed to."

Mr. Braus pulled his wife into a side hug, while Kaya and the other children looked at the floor sadly.

Niccolo had barely managed to escort the Braus family back to their home when they had received word that Historia had gone into premature labor. As Sasha had been close friends with her, and she had looked after the children for a time at her orphanage before Mr. and Mrs. Braus took them in, they had wanted to be there for her to do what they could to help.

Unfortunately for them, it appeared that the situation, while unexpected and stressful, was already under control, leaving them with nothing to do apart from waiting.

Niccolo forced a smile. "Well, I saw that this place has a decently sized kitchen. We never did get to finish our meal celebrating Sasha. If you would like, I can put something together."

Mrs. Braus let out a smile, one that appeared genuine. "That sounds lovely. We can celebrate Sasha's life, and the birth of Historia's child."

As Niccolo and Mrs. Braus entered the kitchen, Niccolo found his thoughts returning to the young queen, knowing that she was still at that very moment in great pain, and this pain would continue until her child was born.

It was one of the many cruel ironies of this world that joy and sorrow were always so intertwined.

Back at the main house, Historia continued to cry, the midwife and numerous aides by her bedside. Just outside were several MPs to keep her safe, just in case anyone tried to attack for whatever reason.

Unseen by all of them, a young girl in tattered rags stood just outside of the window, looking in and watching silently as Historia's body convulsed in pain.

At the same time, the young girl was also standing on top of one of the Founding Titan's spinal columns, staring down at the people who had just landed on the gargantuan skeletal back.

The remains of the Beast Titan lay underneath the Armored Titan, as Reiner had pinned it down against the surface of one of the Founding Titan's many enormous ribs.

They'd expected more resistance, and were surprised when the Titan went limp almost immediately after Reiner had tackled it.

As they examined the nape more closely, they were able to see why.

Levi scowled. "No wonder there was no response. It's just an empty shell."

Armin looked down at the dissolving husk of the Beast Titan's body from his perch on Reiner's left shoulder with a frown. "It's the same technique that was used when we fought the Warhammer Titan. Zeke's real body must be somewhere else."

Jean tapped his foot impatiently against Reiner's right shoulder. "So we're supposed to find a single human body hidden somewhere among this heap of bones? That's impossible."

Jean turned to look at the 15th commander of the Survey Corp seriously. "Armin, there's no other way."

Armin gritted his teeth. "I know."

He raised his voice. "I'll blow this place up using the Colossal Titan! All of you get out of here!"

Mikasa looked at him anxiously. "Armin…"

Sensing her fears, Armin tried to reassure her. "Eren is expecting this attack, it won't kill him. But if we blow these bones apart we might be able to figure out Eren and Zeke's real location!"

Mikasa nodded reluctantly.

Armin descended to the surface of the rib, while Reiner began to move away.

Jean called down to him. "If anything happens, don't worry about us, just blow it up immediately!"

With that, Reiner, Pieck, Levi, Mikasa, Jean, and Connie began to flee toward the front of Eren's Founding Titan, running along the edge of his spine to get clear of Armin's transformation.

As he watched them leave, Armin found his thoughts turning to the man who had held the reins of the Survey Corp before himself and Hange.

The man who had been willing to give up everything, even his own life and dreams, for the good of humanity.

Someone who can't sacrifice anything can't change anything. Erwin knew that. Eren clearly does too.

Armin's grip on the thunder spears tightened. Eren...I understand why you're doing this, I really do...but I can't just stand by and let millions of people be trampled without at least trying to change the outcome.

He slowly began to raise his right hand up to his mouth. So I have to throw away my sweet, naive dreams, and accept that there is no other way. We have to-

Suddenly, a burst of steam came from behind him, and the next second he found himself tumbling into a Titan's mouth.

Before he could yell in shock, the Titan's tongue wrapped around his body and forced itself into his mouth, preventing him from biting down on his own tongue.

Armin briefly caught a glimpse of a young girl in rags standing a short distance away, her cold eyes fixed on him, before the jaws of the Titan snapped shut, shrouding him in darkness.

"Armin?!"

Jean's yell got everyone's attention, and they all turned around in time to see Armin being eaten by Eren's Attack Titan.

Mikasa stared at the Titan in disbelief.

No way. Is that Eren? But...I thought we were standing on Eren...what is going on?

Its goal of preventing the Colossal Titan from appearing completed, the Attack Titan began to run back toward the rear of the Founding Titan.

The first one to recover from this shocking turn of events, Jean readied his ODM gear. "We can't let him get away!"

"Above us!" Pieck yelled.

They all looked up, and saw that the Beast Titan had appeared again, and was drawing its arm back. All of them dove behind a nearby spine pillar just before it threw more projectiles that would have killed them instantly if they hadn't taken shelter in time.

Levi soared up through the air toward the Beast Titan, an enraged bellow exploding from his lips.

"ZEKE!"

Connie looked back and forth frantically between the Beast Titan and the Attack Titan.

"What should we-"

He spotted some movement out of the corner of his eye, and was just barely able to dive out of the way of a massive hammer before it slammed into the side of the pillar that he had just been resting against.

The Warhammer Titan pulled back its hammer for another strike, but before it could Reiner rushed up behind it and tore out its nape. The Titan instantly collapsed to the ground.

"Behind you!" Jean screeched.

A massive, burly 15 meter Titan with a thick beard rushed at Reiner, tackling him from behind, its arms wrapping around Reiner's shoulders and shoving him into the nearby spine pillar.

Mikasa readied her thunder spears, but was unable to help due to the sudden appearance of another Titan right next to her.

Shrouded in a cloud of steam, this one was a fourteen meter class with feminine features and black hair, a furious glare on its face.

Mikasa was able to dodge its attempt to grab her, but was unable to get in close enough to finish it off.

Fortunately for her, Connie fired a thunder spear at the Titan's foot, causing it to stumble and giving Mikasa the opening she needed to kill it.

Before the burly Titan could do Reiner any real harm, Pieck had swooped in and torn out its nape with her hardened fingertips.

A golden mist began to leak out of the bodies of the Warhammer Titan and the other two Titans, and the mist was quickly absorbed into the nearby bones of the Founding Titan. Before their original bodies had fully disintegrated the three Titans reappeared a short distance away, looking slightly more wary.

Jean stared at their foes in astonishment. "What the hell is going on? That's the Warhammer Titan, but what are the other two?"

Pieck eyed them cautiously. "I think I know. We know that Eren has three of the Nine Titans: The Attack Titan, the Founding Titan, and the Warhammer Titan. These must be the forms of the people who held these Titans before Eren, the people that he ate."

Mikasa peered at the three Titans, and realized that Pieck was probably right. The Warhammer Titan she instantly recognized from the battle at Liberio. As she looked carefully at the bearded Titan, she realized it did look a bit like Eren's father Grisha. And the feminine looking Titan did resemble some of the paintings she'd seen done of Frieda Reiss, the last member of the royal family to hold the Founding Titan.

She frowned. "But Eren didn't eat Frieda, his father did!"

"Well, the Founding Titan never manifested itself in Eren's father, plus from what I understand Eren's father possessed the Founding Titan for such a brief time that it makes no real difference."

"Then what about the Titan that took Armin?" Jean asked. "And the one that Levi is fighting right now?"

"If I had to guess, since Eren held the Attack and Founding Titans the longest, he can summon each one independently and simultaneously, so his Founding Titan form is what we're standing on, while his Attack Titan form is the one that captured Armin so that he couldn't use the Colossal Titan against him. As for the Beast Titan, I can only assume that Zeke's real body is embedded somewhere in this pile of bones, and Eren is forcing Zeke to help him."

Connie grimaced. "Then the only way we're going to be able to find Eren and Zeke in time is if we get Armin back."

Pieck smiled bitterly. "Yes, but the Titans are in our way. And haven't you noticed? They aren't dying. Levi has already killed the Beast Titan twice, and yet it keeps coming back. And it looks as though the same is true of the others."

Connie looked at the approaching three Titans nervously. "Then how are we supposed to defeat them?"

"Simple. We aren't."

Turning away from their approaching foes, Pieck began to run straight toward the front of the Founding Titan as fast as she could, which for the Cart Titan was quite fast.

"Eh?!"

"What are you-"

Pieck?

"Wait!"

Connie, Jean, Reiner, and Mikasa tried to go after her, but the three enemy Titans intercepted them, forcing them to fight once more.

As Pieck raced along the edge of the Founding Titan's spine, her gaze hardened.

I understand you all still have feelings of affection for your former comrade Eren, just as I still harbor some feelings of affection for Zeke. But there's too much at stake for us to let our emotions dictate our actions. Eren himself said that the only way to stop him was to kill him. That's what I came for.

The Beast Titan swooped away from Levi after coming back to life again, and tried to chuck more projectiles at her. Unfortunately for it, the throw was rather hasty and sloppy, and Pieck was able to dodge it with ease.

This was my target from the start. The nape of the Attack Titan!

Pieck wrapped the explosives she had been carrying around Eren's nape so that they curled all the way around.

She then exited the nape of her Titan and grabbed hold of the detonator.

"Now perish, nightmare!"

But before she could push the detonator all the way down, her Titan was impaled by a massive trident, causing her to yelp in shock and pain and inadvertently drop the detonator.

"No!" She cried as it fell out of her reach.

She turned around, and saw the Titan that had impaled her.

The Titan was pure white, and appeared to be wearing a large hood that covered most of its face, including its eyes. The only features that were not obscured by the hood were a few strains of black hair peeking out of the sides and falling to the Titan's shoulders, and the Titan's massive mouth full of sharp, serrated teeth.

Her eyes widened in horror.

That must be Eren's Warhammer Titan form.

Without warning, Eren's Warhammer Titan swung the trident around and hurled Pieck into the nearest spine pillar, fracturing multiple bones in her Titan and knocking her unconscious in the process.

The Beast Titan peered down at Pieck's motionless form, and before Levi could stop it hurled more projectiles at Pieck.

Fortunately for her, Jean swooped in, grabbed her, and just barely managed to avoid the projectiles that utterly shredded Pieck's Titan body.

Jean eyed Eren's Warhammer Titan warily, but it made no sign of moving from its spot near the Founding Titan's nape, though its gaze was fixed on him.

Further back along the Founding Titan's spine, the battle was slowly but surely turning against the alliance. Lara Tybur's Warhammer Titan had formed a defensive perimeter of spikes around itself, and was providing weapons for Grisha and Frieda's Titans. Reiner, Mikasa, and Connie were holding them at bay for the moment, but given that the enemy Titans wouldn't die they didn't know how long they could keep it up.

As Jean came back to the group, he looked anxiously at Pieck's still unconscious form, unsure of how he was supposed to protect her and fight at the same time.

High above them, Levi continued to fight the Beast Titan, but Levi could tell that he was in trouble. He'd been able to kill the Beast Titan no problem, but since the Beast Titan wouldn't stay dead, it was quickly turning into a battle of attrition that he knew he couldn't win. As strong as he was, he had limited stamina, limited gas, and limited blades. Add in his injuries which were handicapping him, and he didn't know how long he would be able to last.

Then, as he killed the Beast Titan for the eighth time (or was it the ninth? He wasn't sure) the situation became worse.

As his blades sliced through the nape once again, he suddenly spotted a cloud of steam emanating from one of the distant spine pillars, and appearing from it was another Titan.

At first glance it looked just like the Beast Titan, but a second glance enabled Levi to see several distinct differences. While it had roughly the same type of furry body, the proportions were slightly different, with arms and legs that were shorter but bulkier. The fur was also a darker color.

But the most glaring difference was the head. While Zeke's Beast Titan had apelike features, this Titan had the head of a wolf.

And as Levi looked at its face, his eyes widened in disbelief.

No way...is that...Eren's Beast Titan?

The second Beast Titan drew back its arm, took careful aim, and hurled a cluster of projectiles at Levi.

So shocked by this new Titan, and with his injuries slowing his reaction time, Levi was just barely able to dive out of the way. And as he did so, he briefly lost control of his gear, and slammed hard into the side of the spine pillar, breaking two ribs in the process.

Lara's Titan looked up. Seeing that Levi was on his last legs, it swung its hammer up, and slammed it against the side of the spine pillar.

A series of cracks ran all along the spine pillar until it reached the area where Levi was, and an entire section of the pillar detached and began to descend down onto the area where the alliance was fighting against the Titans.

All of them looked up in alarm, and the pillar smashed against the ribs, sending tons of dust and debris flying in all directions.

The people at the fort looked at the Founding Titan fearfully, unable to tell how the battle was going.

Forced to suddenly scatter, all the members of the alliance ended up below the ribs of the Founding Titan, their gear being the only thing preventing them from plummeting to their deaths.

Pieck looked slightly dizzy. "Ugh...I...I just need...a minute or two...to heal...and then I can transform again…"

Jean looked down grimly as he held her. "I don't think we have a minute or two."

Frieda's Titan made a grab for them, but Mikasa quickly sliced through the nape before it could.

Levi was bracing himself against a nearby pillar, the pain of his injuries overwhelming him.

At the same time, Connie was holding onto Reiner by one hand, just barely preventing him from falling.

Reiner looked up apologetically. "Sorry. My ODM gear has been damaged."

Connie grimaced. "Mine too. I can't pull the trigger."

Grisha's Titan tried to pounce on them, but Mikasa twirled through the air and killed it once more.

"Connie!" Reiner called up. "Let go! I can transform into a Titan again!"

"Oh yeah?" Connie smiled sarcastically. "And what the hell will you do down there apart from getting trampled by the rumbling? You're supposed to be the Armored Titan, but you're completely useless! It's a miracle you've survived this long when all you do is get your ass kicked! By Eren, by Levi, by Mikasa, by Zeke, hell even by me and Jean that one time! The only thing you ever did right was break down a wall, and I bet you would have fucked that up too if it hadn't been a stationary target!"

Reiner let out a reluctant chuckle. "Do you still think we have a chance to win?"

Connie's smile became resigned. "No. But at least we will fight to the bitter end. We're all crazy after all, that's why we joined the Survey Corp, right?"

Mikasa killed Lara's Titan once more, and got ready to fight Frieda and Grisha's Titans again. But she could see through the ribs that both Beast Titans were slowly but surely descending toward them, and that as soon as they had a clear shot on the alliance they were finished.

If this really was the end…

Mikasa brandished her blades at the advancing Titans. "Come at me! I am strong, and I will keep on fighting no matter what!"

"Mikasa, you're acting a little crazy!"

Mikasa turned around in shock. "Huh?!"

The others were utterly stunned at what they were seeing.

Coming directly toward them was what appeared to be a gigantic bird, its wingspan so long it would have almost matched the length of the airplane's wings.

"Got you!"

Putting aside their confusion for the moment, Mikasa, Reiner, Connie, Jean, Pieck, and Levi quickly got onto the bird, grabbing hold of the net that had been placed on its back.

The Beast Titans hurled more projectiles, trying to take down the bird and its passengers, but the bird dove down and managed to dodge the attacks before flaring its wings out and soaring out from under the Founding Titan's massive body.

"I didn't think this Titan could fly, but here we are. Since it flies, I had no choice but to come."

"Annie!" The others cried.

Annie let out a small smile. "But...I'm glad I came back."

Reiner's jaw dropped when he saw who else was on the flying Titan. "Gabi?! What are you doing here?!"

She looked at him angrily, one of her hands resting on an anti-Titan rifle. "What did you expect when you left us behind like that?! You know that we can fight too!"

Connie stared at the Titan's wings in awe. "But how is this even possible?"

---

Annie leaned against the railing, her arms folded across her chest as she stared down at the two eager children in front of her.

"So, you think your Titan might be able to fly."

Falco nodded. "Yeah."

"And you're saying that you want to go back and help the others, right?"

Gabi nodded. "Yes."

Annie rubbed her forehead with an exasperated sigh. "Are you out of your mind? You've only transformed once, and you lost control near the end. What if you go on a rampage and destroy this ship? Even if you can control your Titan, what makes you think that you'll be able to fly right away? A skill like that would take time to master, time we don't have. And even if you somehow are able to fly immediately, how on earth do you think we'll be able to find the others again?"

Falco turned toward the horizon. "That last thing shouldn't be too hard. I can't explain it, but for some reason, I can sense where they are. They're that way, far off."

He pointed out to sea, in the direction of the continent.

"If we head that way, we'll find them again. I know it." Falco said confidently.

Gabi looked at Annie anxiously. "As for the other things you brought up, we admit that it's a long shot, but we have to at least try."

"I agree."

They all turned to look at Kiyomi.

She looked at them solemnly. "I don't care if the ship gets wrecked. If your friends don't succeed, it won't matter."

Annie hesitated, but after a moment slowly nodded.

---

"Falco boarded one of the lifeboats and rowed a short distance away from the ship before transforming." Annie explained. "Luckily for us he retained control this time, and was even able to fly almost immediately after a few false starts. We then boarded, and here we are."

"And it looks like we got here just in time!" Gabi cried. "We were right, you guys did need our help!"

Reiner looked at her uncertainly. "Gabi…"

He leaned down and lightly punched the nape of the Jaw Titan.

"Falco...do you remember your promise to me?"

Falco's gaze hardened as he recalled that moment on the train.

Of course I do Mister Braun.

Annie froze as she realized someone was missing from the group. "Wait. Where's Armin?"

Mikasa bowed her head. "Armin's been captured by Eren. He was swallowed by Eren's Attack Titan, which then fled to the tailbone of Eren's Founding Titan."

She looked up desperately. "Annie, please help us."

Annie sighed. "Your childhood friends just love getting kidnapped, don't they? Of course, I'll help get him back."

Pieck tilted her head thoughtfully. "I think I've figured out what's going on. Eren now has the power of four Titans, the Founding Titan, the Attack Titan, the Warhammer Titan, and the Beast Titan. He can summon both his own forms of these Titans, and the forms of the people he's eaten who held these Titans before him."

Levi felt his heart sink, as this meant that Zeke was likely already…

Pieck continued. "So not counting Eren's Founding Titan form, we're up against seven powerful Titans. And it seems that Eren can use the Founding Titan's power to endlessly revive these Titans even when they're killed, so we'll have to cripple them and go around them instead."

Annie nodded slowly. "I see."

Jean spoke up. "Pieck also managed to wrap some explosives around the nape of Eren's Founding Titan form, though she wasn't able to detonate them. Removing them would be a delicate task that I don't think the Titans are capable of, so they should still be there, ready to be detonated if we can reach them."

"Both...we're doing both."

Everyone turned to look at Levi.

Levi glanced at them seriously. "One group will rescue Armin so that we can use the Colossal Titan's transformation. The other group will go after the nape and try to trigger the explosives. We'll split into two teams and do it simultaneously."

Mikasa eyed him nervously. "Captain?"

"We're not in a place where we can be concerned about Eren any longer." Levi's gaze fell. "No...we never were to begin with."

Mikasa protested. "But-"

"But?!" Connie cried. "But what?! We would have died back there if it wasn't for this flying miracle we're on right now!"

"Yeah…" Jean murmured quietly. "Without having accomplished a thing…"

Mikasa looked at him fearfully. "Jean…"

Levi gritted his teeth. "There was a whole lot I wanted to tell that idiot, but...damn it…"

Connie nodded sadly. "I'm the same! I don't want to give up on Eren! But this is the Founding Titan we're up against! Did you really think we would be able to go easy on it?!"

Jean closed his eyes, his face anguished.

"Mikasa. We need to...kill Eren."

A look of utter despair came onto Mikasa's face, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes.

Deep down she'd known it would likely come to this. And yet despite everything, she'd never given up hope that they would find another way, that they could bring Eren back. But now…

Annie roughly pulled Mikasa around so that she was facing her.

"Mikasa, just focus on saving Armin! You don't need to think about anything else!"

Mikasa was silent for a moment before quietly responding.

"...okay."

A somber silence fell over the group. Falco's Titan was circling around the fort and preparing to head back toward the Founding Titan.

"I wonder…"

Annie turned toward Gabi. "What?"

"I shot Eren's head off with an anti-Titan rifle right before he managed to touch Mister Zeke. When I did, something jumped out of Eren's spine. It looked like a shining centipede or something and it connected to Eren's head."

Annie winced. "What? Gross."

Gabi frowned thoughtfully. "If that's the true nature of the power of the Titans...we always knew that the Founding Titan was the coordinate from which all the other Titan powers came. But we don't know what would happen if the Founding Titan died without the power being passed on. For the other Titans the power gets passed on to a random Eldian child. But in the case of the Founding Titan...if it was destroyed, would the power of the Titans cease to exist?"

The others pondered this.

Reiner shrugged. "I guess we'll find out soon enough."

As Falco flew over the fort, he looked down at the people below with his keen Titan vision.

Wait a minute. Are those…

Without warning, Falco swooped down toward the fort, jostling his passengers slightly.

Pieck looked at him in surprise. "Falco? What are you doing?"

Falco flapped his wings and landed near the edge of the fort. A moment later, a small crowd of people gathered around them.

Reiner froze in shock. "No way."

The Warriors quickly jumped off of Falco's back and ran toward some familiar faces.

"Mom! Dad!" Gabi cried.

She ran up and embraced her parents, tears streaming down all three of their faces.

"Gabi!"

"We never thought we'd see you again!"

Pieck threw her arms around her father.

"Pieck!"

"Dad! I'm so glad you're okay!"

After being told where Falco was, his parents clambered onto his back, where he partially emerged from the nape.

"Falco!"

"Oh thank goodness you're alright! But what happened?"

Falco rubbed his head nervously. "Um, long story short I inherited the Jaw Titan from mister Galliard."

Further back, Annie froze as she spotted someone she thought she'd never see again.

"Annie." Her father breathed.

"Dad." She whispered.

They stared at each other for a moment, unsure of what to say.

She smiled weakly. "Well...I made it back alive."

He held up his arms as the tears began to flow. "My daughter…"

They hugged, and Annie found herself crying as well.

He sobbed. "I'm sorry for the hell I put you through. It must have been awful on that island."

She let out a watery chuckle. "It...it actually wasn't as bad as you might think. Despite what we were told, there are good people there."

She looked back at Falco, where she could see Mikasa, Levi, Jean, and Connie still sitting on his back.

Jean smiled softly as he saw all the heartwarming reunions. "This...this is what we're fighting for."

Connie nodded. "Yeah."

"Heh. It would be nice if we were given one last chance to say goodbye to our families before heading back into the fire."

Connie snorted. "Yeah. But that's just not possible."

Jean glanced away from the crowd of Eldians, and as he did so he spotted a little girl standing a short distance away.

"Who is-"

Suddenly, without warning, Connie and Jean found themselves in the paths once more.

"What the hell?!" Connie exclaimed.

The little girl was still standing in the same spot, but behind her they saw three people further away.

As he peered at them more closely, Connie froze in shock as he recognized one of them.

"No way." He whispered. "Mom? Mom!"

Without hesitation he ran toward her.

As Jean looked at the other two people, he could see that they were his own parents.

He scowled. "Tch. Eren really should stop eavesdropping on our conversations, it's getting to be a bad habit of his."

But Jean had to admit that he felt relieved that he was getting the chance to say goodbye.

He slowly walked up to his parents.

Connie embraced his mother tearfully. "Mom, is it really you?"

"Of course it is. What kind of question is that? I'm not getting that old yet."

Connie pulled away, laughing nervously. "N-no, of course not."

She sighed sadly. "I wish your father and siblings could be here, but they're out of town for the week visiting your uncle in Karanes."

Connie blinked. "Huh?"

He looked around, and for a moment the sandy terrain faded and he could see what his mother was seeing. They were standing in a recreation of their old house, before Ragako was destroyed and everything was taken from them.

He realized that Eren must have provided her with this illusion rather than explaining the truth of what was really happening, as that would be both confusing and traumatizing.

Not wanting to burst her bubble, Connie decided to play along with the fantasy, as it was one he himself had often imagined.

"Oh. Th-that's okay. I'm...I'm just glad to see you again."

She smiled warmly. "It's good to see you again too sweetie. You've grown a lot since your last visit. And now you're a full fledged soldier."

She looked out of a nearby window, her smile fading.

"I...I won't lie...I was rather frightened when I got your letter...saying you had joined the Scouts. And that fear has only increased with time. Your friend Eren...he dropped by earlier and told me a little about your upcoming mission. Apparently this next expedition will determine the fate of humanity."

Her hands began to tremble. "But...there's a very good chance that most or all of you won't make it back."

Connie felt a lump in his throat. "...yeah. But...I can't just stand by and let humanity get destroyed, not when I could do something about it. I don't want to run away anymore. I...I've already tried that."

He remembered with shame how he had tried to feed Falco to his mother, and how he had considered turning a blind eye to what Eren was doing.

It would have been so easy to just ignore it, and live the rest of his life telling himself that the outside world had it coming, and there was nothing he could do. But…

"I want to be someone you can be proud of."

She smiled softly. "You already are. I know how hard of a decision it must have been, not only to join the Scouts, but to remain with them even after all the death you've seen. You're a brave young man."

She looked at him fearfully. "Just...if it's not too much to ask...please...come back alive."

He smiled ruefully. "I'll do my best...but I don't want to make a promise I can't keep."

"I understand. I love you so much sweetheart."

"I love you too mom." He whispered.

He wrapped his arms around her, determined to hold onto her for as long as he could.

Eventually, though, he knew this moment would have to end.

After quite some time had passed, she reluctantly pulled away.

"Well...I guess you'd better go."

He nodded dismally. "Yeah…"

"I'll be praying for you. Now, go and save humanity."

"Right."

He savored what could be the last time he got to see his mother for as long as he could before he pushed open the front door and left the house.

And suddenly he was back on Falco's back as if none of it had ever happened.

Mikasa looked at them in concern. "Are you guys okay? Why are you crying?"

Connie touched his cheeks, and realized tears were running down his face.

"Nothing." Jean interjected, even as he wiped his eyes against his sleeve. "It's nothing."

Mikasa looked unconvinced, but didn't push it. Levi, meanwhile, had his gaze fixed on the approaching Founding Titan.

Connie felt bad for the two of them, knowing that since their parents were dead, the only way they would get to speak with them again would be if they joined them.

Reiner looked down at his mom seriously.

"Mother, it's good to see you. But, we can't stay. We've got a job to do."

She looked up at him fearfully. "Reiner...I…"

He raised his voice. "Everyone, get back on Falco! We need to go!"

"Hold it right there!"

Several Marleyan soldiers had surrounded the small crowd of Eldians and were pointing guns at them.

"You lot are Eldians, aren't you?! What are you doing here? And you! Some of you are devils from that island! Have you come to finish us off yourselves?!"

Mikasa looked at them anxiously, while Levi let out an irritated sigh.

"For the love of God, we're on your side!" Reiner shouted impatiently. "Don't you recognize me?! I'm Warchief Braun! We came to stop the rumbling!"

"Then why'd you run away, huh?! You were on the Founding Titan's back, and instead of killing it you came over here! I bet you're in cahoots with it!"

"We were trying to kill it, but our initial attack failed and we left to regroup and try again! And we really need to-"

"A likely story! We won't fall for your tricks you filthy-!"

Without warning, a gunshot ripped through the air.

Everyone flinched and looked around wildly, trying to see who had fired and if anyone had been hit.

Everyone quickly spotted Muller, who had fired a blank straight up into the air.

He lowered his gun and looked at his soldiers angrily.

"Enough of this nonsense! For the love of all that is holy, the apocalypse is right at our doorstep and instead of focusing on stopping it we're pointing guns at each other? Maybe we deserve to be trampled if this is the best we can do."

The Marleyan soldiers were stunned by this statement.

Muller gestured at Reiner. "All of you know Warchief Braun and Pieck, you're well aware of the bravery and loyalty they've shown serving our country. Why are you so quick to turn on them when all along they did what we asked of them?"

The Marleyan soldiers looked at the ground uncomfortably.

Muller glanced at the people on Falco's back. "And as for those from the island...well, it should be obvious to anyone who gives it a moment's thought why they are here. They are here to stop the rumbling and save humanity. If they weren't on our side, they would have stayed on the island and let Eren destroy us. They helped Reiner and the others reach this place, and they've fought alongside them, all while abandoning their home and people. The sacrifices they've made-"

"That's all well and good, but we don't have time for this!" Jean interrupted. "You can kiss our asses later if we make it through this alive, but for right now we need to go!"

Crude as his comment was, it did remind everyone of the reality of their situation. The Founding Titan was still far away, but the distance between it and the fort was shrinking with every passing second.

"Everybody on board!" Reiner shouted.

Falco's parents clambered off of Falco's back while the rest of the alliance climbed back on. Gabi's parents had wanted to protest and stop Gabi from going, but they knew that she would never agree to stay behind, and realistically the fort wasn't actually any safer.

Annie and Pieck said farewell to their fathers, grateful that they'd gotten to see them at least one more time.

As the alliance prepared to take off, Muller looked at them seriously. "All of you, every one of you, has my utmost respect."

Levi scowled. "Whatever."

One of the Marleyan soldiers shouted. "Now go and kill that monster!"

The crowd cheered, while Mikasa looked away, her eyes empty.

After spreading his wings, Falco took off, and the group was once more in the air.

As they left, Muller turned toward his soldiers.

"Now then, don't think we're just going to sit here and watch. We have a few cannons here, and while they won't be able to stop the Titans, they might slow them down. Hurry to battle stations!"

"Sir!"

As the Marleyan (and a few Eldian) soldiers prepared for the incoming Titans at the fort, Falco closed the distance between them and the Founding Titan.

"Falco!" Reiner called out. "Watch out for projectiles!"

As they neared the Founding Titan, they spotted the two Beast Titans near the top of some of the spine pillars. The two Titans pulled their arms back.

"Here they come! NOW!"

"Hold on!" Levi yelled.

Falco dived and dodged the Beast Titans' attacks, soaring right above the nape of the Founding Titan.

Jean pushed himself off. "Let's go!"

Levi readied his gear. "I'll distract the Beast Titans!"

Reiner sliced his hand. "We're leaving Armin to you!"

Levi swooped down and got to work distracting the two Beast Titans. Ignoring his usual instincts, he avoided the napes and instead sliced up their hands and eyes.

While he was doing this, Jean, Reiner, and Pieck descended down toward the nape, the latter two transforming into their Titan forms once more.

As they landed on the ribs, they could see that the enemy was waiting for them. Eren's Warhammer Titan was still standing near the nape, while Grisha and Frieda's Titans appeared in front of it.

Just as Lara's Titan had done, Eren's Warhammer Titan formed several weapons that it then gave to its comrades. It gave Grisha's Titan a mace, while Frieda's Titan was given a sword.

Reiner immediately began to grapple with Grisha's Titan, while Jean tried to go for Frieda's Titan.

However, it ignored him and went straight for Pieck.

Pieck rushed at it, but Frieda's Titan was prepared, and swung the sword down.

"No Pieck!" Jean yelled. "Get away!"

The Cart Titan's face was sliced in half, and for a moment Jean thought she was dead.

But then he spotted her flying through the air behind Frieda's Titan, and realized she must have used the steam from her Titan body to propel herself into the air and out of the nape before the fatal blow was struck.

"Jean, if you think I'm a Titan that's only good for odd jobs and not fighting, you're dead wrong!"

She bit her finger, and immediately the Cart Titan appeared once again and clamped its jaws onto the nape of Frieda's Titan. Its body went limp, and the sword slipped from its hands and tumbled to the earth below.

The gold mist appeared from its body once more, and was absorbed by the Founding Titan's bones. A second later, Frieda's Titan appeared again behind the Cart Titan, its claws bearing down on its quadrupedal foe.

But just as before, Pieck used the steam to propel herself into the air and dodged the lethal strikes.

"With the Cart Titan's endurance, as long as they don't take me out, I can fight until we win."

She transformed again, and killed Frieda's Titan again.

"They can come back again and again, but so can I! So don't worry about me!"

Realizing that she had the situation under control, Jean turned away from her and headed further down the spine and toward the nape.

With Frieda's Titan distracted by Pieck and Grisha's Titan occupied by Reiner, all Jean had to do was slip past Eren's Warhammer Titan, and he would be able to detonate the explosives.

Unfortunately, this was proving to be easier said than done. It had conjured a protective barrier, and it had summoned a cat o' nine tails as its weapon of choice. The range on it was quite high, and it was all Jean could do to avoid being killed.

It also refused to be baited into leaving the spot it was guarding, and wasn't budging an inch.

Jean wiped the sweat off his brow.

Damn it, how are we supposed to get past this thing?

With Levi keeping the Beast Titans busy, Falco was able to fly toward the rear of the Founding Titan without worrying about any further projectiles.

As they got close to the tailbone, they spotted Eren's Attack Titan below.

Mikasa's face was grim. "There he is."

"Go Falco!" Annie cried. "Let's get Armin back!"

As soon as they were close enough, Annie, Mikasa, and Connie leaped off of Falco's back and descended down to the tailbone. As they neared the bottom, Annie transformed, with the other two flanking her on either side with their ODM gear.

As they stared down Eren's Attack Titan, Annie found herself reminded of the last time she and Eren had fought.

She glanced at Mikasa out of the corner of her eye. It would seem that fate has a rather ironic and twisted sense of humor.

Then, without warning, a massive hammer was swung at Annie's head.

Connie and Mikasa were able to dive out of the way in time, but Annie wasn't fast enough and her head was sent flying by the impact in a mess of blood and gore.

Lara's Warhammer Titan pulled the hammer back, and swung it down with full force onto the nape of the Female Titan.

Mikasa was just able to pull Annie out of the nape and soar out of the way before the hammer smashed the Female Titan's body into a pulp.

Before it could resume its attack, Connie fired a thunder spear into the eye of Lara's Titan, distracting it and impairing its vision.

Doing her best to not appear shaken by her close brush with death, Annie transformed once more, while Mikasa returned her gaze to Eren's Attack Titan.

While Lara's Titan was behaving very aggressively, the Attack Titan stood further away, and showed no signs of joining the fight.

Mikasa realized that this was most likely because the Attack Titan was holding Armin in its mouth, and if it was killed or injured that could enable Armin to escape and transform.

As she looked at the Attack Titan, she felt a sharp pain in her head. Old memories of Eren came flooding back.

Eren plugging the hole in Trost with that boulder. Eren using the Founding Titan for the first time to save her. Eren defying Levi to try to save Armin…

I'll always wrap your scarf around you.

I've always hated you.

Tears welled up in her eyes. Why did things have to turn out this way?

On top of the spinal pillars, Levi's strength began to run out, and he was only able to keep Zeke's Beast Titan occupied. During one pass when he incapacitated Zeke's Titan once more, Eren's Beast Titan made a run for it, and began to head toward the back of the Founding Titan.

The only one still on Falco's back, Gabi instantly spotted Eren's Beast Titan as it made its way toward Mikasa's group.

"Oh no, the second Beast Titan is heading toward the rear! We have to stop it! Falco, if you can fly in at the correct angle, I might be able to hit it with this rifle."

Hearing her, Falco complied with her idea, and flew in at an angle that would enable Gabi to shoot down Eren's Beast Titan.

She lined up the shot, and fired.

Unfortunately for her, while her aim was good, her target was moving too much, and she only managed to shoot it in the ear, which had no effect other than to make the Titan angry.

Letting out a furious roar, Eren's Beast Titan summoned one large stone in its hand, and chucked it at Falco.

The stone punctured Falco's left wing, causing him to swerve and lose altitude. The sudden movement caused Gabi to lose her grip and fall.

"AAAAAHHHH!" She screamed.

Falco leaped down and managed to catch her with his left claws while gripping onto a nearby spine pillar with his feet and right claws, saving her from plummeting to her death.

Got you!

The rifle continued to fall and disappeared from sight.

He gently deposited her onto his back, and she grasped the net with trembling fingers.

"Th-thanks."

But as they looked up they could see Eren's Beast Titan readying more projectiles, and Falco realized there was no way he would be able to dodge them.

But before it could kill them, Levi swooped in and sliced through the Beast Titan's ankles, causing it to lose its balance and fall.

However, because of his slowed reaction times, Levi was unable to retract his hook in time, and as Eren's Beast Titan fell off the spine pillar, Levi ended up being yanked down with it.

As they descended, Levi caught a glimpse of the other Beast Titan in the distance, steam rising from its body as it healed.

Damn it...no matter what we do...they'll keep coming back...I don't think we can win...unless a miracle happens…

---

Armin stared down at his body in horror, somehow seeing it from the outside. It was lying still and immobile, with no visible signs of life at all.

He knelt down behind it.

"Why? Why won't my body move?"

He leaned over it, staring at it desperately. "Please, you have to move. Everyone's going to die. Reiner. Pieck. Gabi. Falco. Jean. Connie. Levi. Mikasa. Annie. Don't you get it?! They're all going to die! Wake up you useless idiot!"

Nothing happened. His body remained as unmoving as a corpse.

"I hate you!" Armin screamed. "I always have! You've never done anything but betray me! You should have died back then! Your life was given back, and with that came immense responsibilities and expectations that you had to live up to! But you haven't been able to give them a damn thing in return! So why are you just laying there dead like that?! Move! I SAID MOVE!"

Silence.

He collapsed to his hands and knees, tears of despair falling from his face onto the ground below.

As his hand curled into a fist, he realized that the ground was made of a coarse, rough substance.

He opened his hand.

"Sand?"

He frowned. "Think. If I really was dead, how would I be able to think with no oxygen coming to my brain."

He clenched his fist. "This isn't a dream. It's not a vision. It's not even the afterlife. This is the path. This is reality!"

He looked up, and in the distance he saw the coordinate, its vast form rising into the heavens like a massive tree made of light.

"I'm supposedly inside Eren's mouth right now. So why do I know what everyone's doing? It must be because all Eldians are connected through this path. In that case…"

He slowly stood up and looked around.

"There might be something I can do here. Yeah. Think. Think!"

He turned around, and froze when he realized that he wasn't alone.

A short distance away, a man wearing clothes that looked like they hadn't been washed in centuries was sitting on the ground and shaping the sand into some kind of mound.

Armin slowly walked over to the man and knelt down next to him.

"Hello Mister Zeke." Armin said quietly.

Zeke didn't take his eyes off of his task. "Hello Eren's friend. So Ymir ate you too."

Armin recalled the strange girl he'd seen right before he'd been swallowed by Eren.

"So Ymir is the one behind all this?"

Zeke shook his head slightly. "Ymir...Eren...it doesn't really make much of a difference at this point."

He continued to shape the sand, and the mound gradually got bigger and bigger.

Armin frowned. "What are you doing?"

"At the moment I'm making another Titan body for Pieck. She's gone through several already, but I suppose it's a good sign, as it means she's still alive and kicking if she can still request her Titan form."

Armin blinked. "Huh?"

"I suppose I should start at the beginning. It's not like there's anything better to do. The Founder Ymir. She's been one of the greatest mysteries of the last two thousand years. Who was she? How did she get her powers? Why have they persisted all this time? The answers to these questions have been obscured and twisted by myth and propaganda, but the truth is here in the paths if you know where to look. Ymir was once just a normal person. However, one day her village was burned down, and all the survivors including herself were enslaved by the first Eldian king."

Armin looked at him sharply. "What?"

Zeke nodded. "Yes. It would seem that Eldians truly are descended from devils, but not because of their Titan powers. During her time in captivity, Ymir developed a slave mentality, coming to believe that she had no choice but to obey the King's orders. And this slave mentality remained even after she awakened the power of the Titans. So while she had the power to defy him, she didn't have the will. So strong was this slave mentality that it persisted even after her death, and for the past two thousand years she has remained here, in this realm she conjured from the coordinate, continuing to follow orders. Every time a pure Titan was created, every time one of the Nine used their abilities, every time the Founding Titan used its power, Ymir was here to build the Titan bodies and fulfill her role as a slave. Not because she wanted to, but because she felt that she had no choice."

Zeke's eyes dimmed. "When Eren and I first arrived here in the paths, I made the mistake of continuing to order Ymir around without any regard for her as a person. Eren, though, was able to understand what I could not. He could see that she was a human being who had been suffering for so long, who just wanted to be free. He treated her with compassion and broke her slave mentality, and that is why she went with him."

Armin looked around the paths with a thoughtful frown. "So...everything that's happening is because of Eren?"

"Yes and no. It's Eren's will, but Ymir's power. Eren is carrying out the rumbling in order to ensure the safety of the people of Paradis, while Ymir is doing it because it's what Eren wants. Though I suspect in her case she's also unleashing two thousand years worth of repressed rage upon a cruel world that never gave a damn about her."

Armin looked down, and he could now recognize the mound as the head and shoulders of the Cart Titan.

"So...Ymir isn't making the Titan bodies anymore?"

"Correct. Ever since Ymir went with Eren I've been making all of them. Both the ones for Eren and Ymir, and the ones for your little alliance. Eren was definitely surprised by that development. He suspected that you guys wouldn't be happy with his plans, which is why he didn't tell you about them, but he never dreamed that you would go so far as to try to stop him. However, I think secretly he does want to be stopped, which is why he gave me permission to keep making the Titan bodies for you all, just to leave that possibility, however slim, open."

Armin looked bewildered. "Why are you helping Eren? Why don't you just stop making the Titan bodies?"

Zeke sighed. "It's not that simple. Time works differently here. If I refuse to help, Ymir simply freezes time in place, and I'm stuck in limbo until I do what I'm told. As long as I keep obeying, the sooner this nightmare will end."

"Why not just kill yourself to stop helping Eren?"

"You honestly believe I didn't think of that during all the time I've been stuck here? It doesn't work. All my attempts to kill myself failed. Ymir won't let me die."

Armin fell silent.

Zeke began to sculpt the Cart Titan's chest. "Still, being here all this time has given me a lot to think about. Everything that's happened can all be traced back to the dawn of time. Long, long ago, when nothing but mere matter existed in this world, countless masses of unknown things appeared, disappeared, then appeared again, until one of them eventually survived. We now know it as life. The reason that life ultimately survived was because it was in its nature to multiply. Life took on new forms in order to multiply, adapting to every kind of environment and eventually leading to us as we are now. It sought numbers, it sought spread, it sought abundance. And so, at bottom the purpose of life is to multiply. This sand, these pebbles, the water, they don't seek to multiply. But life never stops in its frantic quest to do so. Above all, death and the extermination of the species runs counter to the goal of multiplying. That is why we face the punishment known as fear."

Zeke began work on the Cart Titan's back, while Armin found himself feeling baffled by Zeke's tangent.

He stepped forward. "You have to tell me! Isn't there some way of getting back to the outside world from here?!"

Zeke shrugged. "Who knows. In my case I think it's impossible, because while I'm not technically dead yet, I'm pretty sure my physical body perished when it was absorbed by Eren. You might have a chance of returning to the real world if your friends can somehow win against Ymir's power, but I doubt that's possible."

Armin looked at him seriously. "I haven't given up yet."

"Why? Are you fighting to continue to multiply? Is the continuation of your species that important a task to you?"

Armin was once again taken aback by how detached and dismissive Zeke was being.

"What's happening now could be called the miserable sight of lifeforms controlled by fear. A fear brought about by completely pointless vital activities that-"

"My friends are fighting right now! Because we can still save so many people from terror! What we're doing is fighting fear!"

"What would be wrong with losing that fight?"

Armin's eyes widened in shock.

Zeke spoke quietly as he started to sculpt the Cart Titan's thighs. "Even if the rumbling succeeds, there will still be plenty of life left on the planet, including humans. What's more, your people would inherit a new world free from people like me, who wanted to take away your ability to multiply, and steal your freedom. Conversely, if you stop the rumbling, it will only be a matter of time until Paradis is destroyed. I came to understand what Eren realized. Ultimately no one is in the right or wrong. Whoever wins will determine the course of this world, and they will decide the meaning of justice. That's why Eren has withdrawn into himself and left the outcome up to us. He's ruthless enough to go through with the rumbling, but he's still human enough to feel the enormity of what he's done. Thus the rumbling will continue until either it's completed, or he's killed. And so Ymir is doing her best to fulfill Eren's will, your alliance is doing their best to stop Eren's will, while I'm in the middle, building the Titan bodies for both and seeing how this will all end. Not that it really matters. After all, you know that to live means to one day die, does it not?"

Armin said nothing.

"Who knows." Zeke murmured. "Perhaps one's final moments bring relief. The end of your days being manipulated, all in the name of multiplication, without ever knowing if it means anything at all. Sounds like freedom to me."

Zeke finished up the Cart Titan's feet. His work completed, the Cart Titan body sank through the sand and disappeared. He sat down cross legged with a weary sigh.

Armin walked over and sat down across from Zeke.

As he did so, he noticed a small leaf half buried in the sand.

Armin's eyes widened as the leaf sparked a memory.

Zeke looked up as Armin began to speak softly.

"The sun was starting to set. We were running to a tree on the hill. The three of us were racing. Eren brought up the idea and took off out of nowhere. Mikasa ran too, but stayed behind him on purpose, and of course I was dead last. But the breeze was nice and warm that day. Just running with leaves fluttering everywhere felt good, and for some reason, I thought then maybe the reason I was born was so the three of us could be racing there."

Zeke was silent, unsure of what to make of this.

Armin continued. "I thought the same thing when I read books at home on a rainy day, when a squirrel ate some nuts I gave it, when we all walked around the market. I felt it. That these trivial moments might actually be precious."

Armin reached down and gently picked up the leaf.

His gaze softened. "Even when I was making love with Annie back on the ship...yes I suppose you could say that would help with 'multiplication' as you put it. But that's not the reason why I did it, and I don't think that's why Annie did it either. I just...I wanted to experience closeness, intimacy, with another person. Just the sensation of being a human holding another human...that was enough."

He looked at the leaf more closely.

Zeke's eyes widened, as to him the leaf appeared like a baseball.

"That's…"

Armin held it up. "This? It was buried in the sand."

"Why is that…"

"Who knows. But to my eyes, even if there's no need for something like this in order to multiply, it's still something incredibly precious."

Armin handed the baseball to Zeke.

As he looked down at the ball, Zeke's face melted as he remembered Mr. Xaver.

"Yes. You're right. Just throwing, catching, and throwing again. That simple repetition. It doesn't mean a thing. But...you're right. I would have much rather just kept on playing catch."

Armin looked at Zeke carefully. "I don't think you're as weary and resigned as you're acting. After all, if the outcome doesn't matter, then why are you even bothering to help us by providing Titan bodies? And I doubt very much that Falco would have been able to fly and find us again unless he had a little extra help, am I right?"

Zeke paused, knowing Armin had a point.

As he contemplated this, several memories stirred within him that began to shake off his nihilism. Memories that he'd seen, memories that he'd overheard. Memories he'd tried to ignore.

I'm sorry...I know I was never the father you deserved…after everything I put you through, you have every right to despise me…but Zeke…I love you…if only I'd let you be my son instead of forcing you to be a soldier…please Zeke…you have to stop Eren.

I think I understand Eren. Maybe he wants us to stop him.

The only way to stop me is by ending my life. You are free to do so.

Armin's eyes hardened. "That's why we're fighting. I know that everyone will die someday, but everyone deserves to live their lives as they want, and to find joy where they can. The rumbling has already robbed so many people of these precious moments. Let's not let any more be lost."

Zeke stared down at the baseball for a moment before placing it in his pocket.

"...alright. I'll stop making the Titan bodies. But...in order for it to stick, you'll have to kill me."

Armin frowned. "Can I?"

"I think so. You're still connected to the real world in a way I'm not, so I think you'll be able to succeed where I failed. Of course, you realize that once you do that, your side won't be able to summon their Titans anymore either, right?"

"I'm aware of that. Which is why I want you to help me with one last thing. Help me sculpt the Colossal Titan one last time."

"Okay."

With that, they got to work sculpting Armin's Colossal Titan form. As it was significantly bigger than the Cart Titan, it took quite a bit longer to complete.

Not that it mattered. In the paths, they had all the time in the world.

As they finished it up, Armin knew he would still need the others to rescue him and allow him to draw blood before he could summon this Titan body.

Zeke turned toward him. "By the way, I heard your self loathing rant earlier."

"Oh." Armin said, feeling rather embarrassed.

Zeke looked away. "I know you feel that Levi should have chosen Erwin back then. But the way things have turned out, I think Levi made the right choice."

Armin looked at him sharply. "Really? What makes you say that?"

"Well, in all the time I've been here I've done some poking around here and there in the paths, and seen quite a few different memories from various people. And from what I've seen I have a pretty good idea about what kind of person Erwin was. He was an inspirational leader to be sure. But he had a darker side to him."

Zeke rubbed the back of his head. "Obviously I can't say for certain since he died before learning the truth about this world, but I'm not sure he would have opposed Eren's plan. In fact, given how coldly ruthless and pragmatic he was, I think there's a good chance he would have sided with Eren if, like Eren, he became convinced it was the only way to ensure Paradis's safety."

Armin's eyes widened.

Zeke looked at him with a faint smile. "Yes, you may not have been able to replace Erwin, but you don't have to. You're going to be able to do something he never could: save humanity."

Armin felt a small smile appearing on his face as well. If Levi's worst enemy thought that the captain had made the right choice, then maybe, just maybe, he actually had.

Zeke turned away. "Well, maybe. I suppose we'll see. Or rather, you'll see. Go ahead."

Zeke knelt down next to Armin's Titan. His smile fading, Armin began to sculpt something out of the sand.

If Zeke concentrated, he was able to use the paths to see things through the eyes of his Beast Titan, though he couldn't control the Titan anymore. And as he did so now, he was struck by how gorgeous the sky looked.

A sense of awe and wonder filled him.

What a beautiful day it is. How many years has it been since I just stopped and appreciated these small joys of life? If only I'd realized that earlier. Part of me wishes I could spend more time enjoying what I missed.

He smiled sadly. But...after all the killing I've done, that's asking for too much.

He closed his eyes. Behind him, Armin finished sculpting a gun out of the sand. He pointed it at the back of Zeke's head, and pulled the trigger.

Elsewhere in the paths, Ymir tilted her head and closed her eyes, knowing the end was near.

---

Eren's Beast Titan landed hard on one of the Founding Titan's ribs, shattering several of its bones and temporarily stunning it.

A short distance away, Levi landed on the unforgiving hard surface and broke his spine, his consciousness momentarily leaving him.

High above on top of the spine pillars, Falco's wing had healed enough that he could use it again, but Zeke's Beast Titan had recovered, and was attempting to kill the young holder of the Jaw Titan.

With her rifle gone, all Gabi could do now was cling for dear life, feeling useless and terrified as Falco's body twisted and turned to avoid the Beast Titan's attacks.

After dodging several volleys of projectiles, Falco managed to close the distance and clamped his jaws around the Beast Titan's head, instantly crushing it and destroying the nape in the process.

He flew away, but as he did so he noticed something strange.

Wait a minute...that golden mist isn't appearing from the Beast Titan's body. Does that mean...did I somehow permanently kill it?

Near the nape of the Founding Titan, Pieck slashed out the eyes of Frieda's Titan, but was too slow to dodge the sword swing that lopped off the right arm of her Titan.

Pieck jumped back and looked at the stump in dismay, and was just about to eject herself out of her Titan once again when she noticed several things.

The first was that Frieda's Titan was flailing around blindly, and no steam was rising from its eyes.

The second was that there was no steam rising from her own stump.

Realizing what this could mean, she circled around Frieda's Titan, still able to move quickly despite only having three limbs, and tore out the nape of Frieda's Titan.

As it collapsed, the golden mist didn't appear.

Her eyes lit up. "Reiner! Jean! The Titan powers seem to no longer be working for friend or foe! We can no longer transform or heal, but neither can they!"

Hearing this, they quickly used this knowledge to their advantage.

After getting Grisha's Titan in a chokehold, Reiner gave Jean the opening he needed to permanently kill the former Attack Titan. The Titan collapsed and fell down through the ribs into the abyss below.

With two Titans down, it was just Eren's Warhammer Titan left, and Reiner was able to barrel straight through the barriers it had put up and tackle it, finally giving Jean the chance to slip past and go for the explosives, with Pieck not far behind to back Reiner up.

Near the tailbone, Connie and Annie managed at last to distract the Warhammer Titan long enough to let Mikasa slip past it and face off against Eren's Attack Titan.

The Attack Titan swung its fist at her, and as she dodged this attack she got a good look at its eyes.

Just like when it had attacked her at Trost, the eyes looked almost empty, vacant, as if Eren wasn't in control.

She frowned. Back then, it was just blind instinct. Now, though, it seems that something else is controlling the Titan. Something, or someone. Possibly Ymir?

She dodged a second swing, and after taking what little comfort she could from the fact that this wasn't really Eren, she swooped down and sliced through the Attack Titan's nape, killing it.

It stumbled forward and its jaw fell open, ejecting Armin's now very wet body.

"Armin!" Mikasa cried.

Seeing him about to fall, Annie reached out and managed to catch Armin in her hand.

Armin!

Armin spat out some of the Titan drool that had gotten into his mouth, and looked up at Annie and Mikasa.

"Thank you...sorry for worrying you."

Falco's Titan swooped down near them, and thanks to Connie's distractions tackled Lara's Titan and ripped out its nape, killing it.

Armin stood up. His gear was broken, but he still had one move left to play.

"All of you, get out of here! I'm going to use the Colossal Titan!"

However, further back they could see Eren's Beast Titan stirring, and they realized that it would throw more projectiles at them before Falco could get away.

Connie readied his gear. "All of you get out of here! I'll distract the Beast Titan long enough to let you all get away!"

Armin looked at Connie sharply.

"No!" Mikasa cried in horror, "We can't just-"

"There's no time!" Connie shouted. "We have to stop it, and fast! I knew what I was signing up for! Now go!"

With that, Connie used his ODM gear to zoom toward the Beast Titan. Annie and Gabi dragged a protesting Mikasa onto Falco's back, who promptly took off, leaving Armin behind.

Armin turned away from Falco and the others and looked at Connie's retreating form sadly. I'm sorry…

Connie smiled softly as he fired his last thunder spear into the Beast Titan's face.

Mom...I'm glad to know you're proud of me. I'll be sure to say hi to Dad, Martin, and Sunny for you.

See you soon Sasha.

Near the nape, Eren's Warhammer Titan had been so occupied with trying to stop Jean from reaching the detonator that it hadn't paid close enough attention to Reiner, which gave him the opening he needed to kill it.

As Jean reached the detonator, he found himself thinking back to all the stupid fights he and Eren had had back when they were cadets.

How far away those innocent days now seemed.

He grabbed the detonator and pulled it out of the range of the explosives.

He let out an anguished yell. "You stupid suicidal bastard!"

He pushed down the detonator, and the explosives blew up, destroying most of the neck and causing the head of Eren's Founding Titan to detach and plummet to the ground.

Near the middle of the Founding Titan, Levi lay there dying. He'd regained consciousness in time to see Falco permanently kill the Beast Titan.

He smiled weakly. Well, I helped the kid take out Zeke's Beast Titan...so I think that counts...heh...I've never bungled one of his orders...not even once...but for some reason his final order was the one that gave me so much trouble…

His smile faded as he remembered Erwin and all of the other comrades he'd lost over the years. Though I suppose...getting those brats to the sea may have been the extent of our role. Tell me...when you guys devoted yourselves...was that in order to trample the hearts and lives of others? No...when we dreamed of a world without Titans...I'm pretty sure that was an absurdly innocent and idealized world. Because if it wasn't...it wouldn't have been worth what they devoted.

Levi looked over, and spotted Armin a fair distance away, a massive light engulfing his body.

Erwin...I didn't pick you...and I have no regrets about that...about entrusting the future...to that kid who had the same look in his eyes as you.

Levi closed his eyes, a satisfied smile on his face.

"Goodbye, Eren." Armin whispered.

The Colossal Titan's transformation obliterated the body of Eren's Founding Titan, and killed Connie and Levi in the process, as well as Eren's Beast Titan.

At the fort, the people watched the explosion with awe, certain that the battle had been won.

Muller, however, didn't relax, as all of the Wall Titans were still moving toward them.

After saving Jean and Pieck from the long fall and shielding them from the Colossal Titan's explosion, Reiner slowly stood up and eyed the immobile head of the Founding Titan warily.

Jean looked over the Armored and Cart Titans. Both looked pretty beaten up, and their wounds weren't healing, but they were still functional and able to fight. However, if Pieck was right, they wouldn't be able to transform again if they exited their Titans.

And if that was the case, they would need to avoid doing that until they were certain it was truly over.

Reiner gestured at Jean and Pieck to back off. Pieck placed Jean on her back and retreated away from the head of the Founding Titan, knowing that if Eren wasn't dead he might transform again. Reiner's armor would protect him, but if they were too close the resulting explosion would likely kill them.

Armin stood up in his Colossal Titan form, and with the Founding Titan gone he could see that the Wall Titans were circling around them and heading for the Fort. Realizing this must mean that Eren was still alive, he turned toward the head and began to walk toward it, knowing that they had to finish it.

High up in the air, Falco circled around and headed back toward where the Founding Titan had been.

Mikasa, Annie, and Gabi spotted the Founding Titan's head, and were wondering if it was over when a massive light engulfed the head.

The next second, another Colossal Titan with the Founding Titan's head on its body appeared, glaring as Armin approached it.

The explosion had sent Reiner flying, but his armor protected him, and he quickly got back up.

After the rush of air from the explosion had subsided, Pieck began to run back toward the newly transformed Founding Titan, with Jean perched on top of her head.

As Armin observed Eren's new form, he briefly wondered how this new Titan body had appeared when Zeke was dead. But as he thought it through, he realized that the Founding Titan was probably the one exception to the rule of needing someone to make its body, seeing how there had been no one in the paths during Ymir Fritz's lifetime.

Armin raised his fists. Okay then. I'm not sure if Eren or Ymir is the one in control. But either way, this ends now.

Eren and Armin clashed, their fight shaking the ground and air around them.

At the fort, the Wall Titans had reached the foot of the mesa, and were beginning to climb up.

"FIRE!" Muller bellowed.

The cannons roared to life, and fired round after round into the horde of Titans below. They knew that they had almost no hope of hitting the napes dead on, and so instead aimed for the Titans' hands. This proved effective, as it caused them to lose their grip on the rock and fall back to the ground, often slamming into their fellows on the way down.

But while many fell, they kept getting right back up and resuming the climb. To ease their climb the Titans were crawling on top of one another, using each other as a living ladder. While the cannons caused many of the Titans to fall, they also merely injured others, and the increasing mass of steam was making it harder and harder to aim and fire down.

Muller knew they couldn't stop the Titans, and only hoped that they would be able to hold out long enough for the alliance to finish Eren.

Reiner ran toward Eren's feet, while Pieck closed the distance between herself and the two Colossal sized Titans. Meanwhile Falco flew toward Eren's head. All of them were trying to go as fast as they could, as Eren seemed to have the upper hand against Armin in their battle.

Unseen by anyone, Ymir stood on top of the Founding Titan's head, stoically observing them all during the final clash.

Mikasa clutched her head as an agonizingly bad headache threatened to split her skull open, tears appearing in her eyes from the pain.

Gabi looked at her in concern.

"Mikasa!" Annie cried. "Pull yourself together! We have to finish it!"

Mikasa clenched her eyes shut.

I can't...take this...anymore...I want to go back...back...to our home…

---

The noises of the battle had faded, and were replaced with the sound of birds chirping and the nearby rustling of water, most likely a river.

"Mikasa, get up."

Mikasa opened her eyes, and saw Eren standing in front of her, a fishing rod in his left hand.

He looked at her in concern. "You'll catch a cold."

"Eren." She whispered.

She looked around, and realized that she was sitting on the front porch of a cabin in the middle of some gorgeous looking wilderness. A short distance away was a picnic table with several plates and utensils set on it.

She blinked. "Huh? When...did I fall asleep?"

Eren smiled at her fondly. "You must've been really tired."

She yawned. "It feels like I just had a long dream."

Eren set the fishing rod against the side of the wall. "Let's just rest today. I managed to catch a big fish."

He looked at her in concern. "Mikasa...why are you crying?"

Mikasa reached up and touched her cheeks when she realized there were indeed tears on her face.

"Huh? I'm...I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be here."

Eren looked down. "Well...we can't do anything about it. Since we abandoned everything and ran away like this."

Mikasa looked confused. "What?"

"It's been two months since the war against Marley ended. Now that the Mid East Allies are gone it's only a matter of time before they invade Paradis. We'll all die if we don't run. Armin and the others are probably looking for us, but I doubt they'll be able to find us."

Eren looked at her seriously. "I couldn't make up my mind about what I should do. Let's just live the rest of my four years peacefully. Just the two of us. This was what you said you wanted Mikasa."

A moment of silence passed between them.

Mikasa looked at the ground. "No. It wasn't. I wasn't able to be honest about what I wanted. I lied and said you were just family to me. I'm sorry."

She looked at him sadly. "This isn't real, is it?"

Eren shrugged. "Depends on what you mean by real. It's not in the physical world, but that doesn't mean it's not real. If you want to, we really can spend the next four years here, just the two of us, and forget about the troubles out there."

Mikasa smiled regretfully. "But the real world will eventually reassert itself, won't it?"

"Yeah." Eren murmured. "And I suppose you're not the type to run away. I was hoping you would. I was hoping that the horrible things I said in the restaurant, things I didn't mean, things I never wanted to say, would be enough to push you away, to not have to be a part of all this. But I underestimated you. You're stronger than I thought."

Mikasa's eyes widened.

Ever since Jean had first mentioned it, she had suspected that Eren had been lying during that confrontation at the restaurant. Even so, it was good to know for certain that the hurtful words he'd spoken at that time didn't reflect his true feelings.

But then, what were his true feelings?

She remembered the question he'd asked her in Marley.

What am I to you?

She swallowed nervously. "If I'd told the truth back then...would things have turned out differently?"

Eren nodded dismally. "Yes. Four years ago I discovered the Attack Titan's secret power. It has the ability to see the future."

Mikasa froze. "What?"

Eren turned away from her, looking slightly lost. "Rather, it can see glimpses of the future. Everything that's happened...I saw bits and pieces of it. And I knew that I would eventually use the rumbling to destroy the world."

He closed his eyes. "I didn't want to do it. What sane, decent person wants to become the worst mass murderer in human history? But as things unfolded, as more and more of my future memories came to pass, even when I tried to alter the outcome, and as the situation with the outside world looked more and more hopeless, I gradually came to believe that I had no choice but to pursue the future I'd seen."

He opened his eyes and turned back to her. "When I asked you that question in Marley, that was...my last chance. I'd foreseen that moment, and your answer, and I was desperately hoping that your answer would be different from what I'd seen in my future memories. But...it wasn't. That, along with the disastrous conference the next day, convinced me that the future was indeed set in stone, and that there was no other way."

Mikasa stood up, tears in her eyes, and she hugged him tightly.

"I'm so sorry." She whispered. "I failed you."

Eren wrapped his arms around her. "It's okay. You couldn't have known. And you did prove me wrong in a different way. I saw some of the future, and the furthest I saw was myself using the rumbling to destroy the world. But I didn't see you and the others banding together to stop it, and never giving up on me despite everything. You were willing to fight for humanity, even if it meant going against me, even if it meant sacrificing your home. I'm so proud of you. You are a better, more hopeful person than I could ever hope to be, and I can never thank you enough for showing me that the future isn't actually written in stone."

Mikasa was silent. While hearing Eren praise her would normally have filled her with joy, now all she could feel was regret.

If she'd only been honest about her feelings, how much better might things have turned out?

Eren looked down at her solemnly. "Can you promise me one thing? When I die, throw the scarf away. You'll live long after I'm gone...and forget about me...and be free. Please...Mikasa...forget about me…"

---

The cabin, wilderness, and Eren faded away, and Mikasa found herself on Falco's back once again.

Her eyes hardened.

"Sorry."

She pulled the scarf out of her pocket and wrapped it around herself.

"I can't."

Mikasa readied one of her blades, and raised her voice.

"Eren is in the mouth. I'll kill him."

Falco took this information into account, while Annie and Gabi looked at her in shock.

"How do you know?" Gabi asked.

"I know." Mikasa said firmly.

"Are you sure?" Annie asked anxiously.

"Yes."

Eren was holding Armin at bay, and had dealt several serious blows to his Titan form, causing injuries that weren't healing.

But before Eren could finish Armin, Reiner grappled with Eren's right ankle. He latched on tight, hardening his fingers and digging in his heels to restrict Eren's movements.

Finding his movements hindered, Eren responded by lifting his leg and shaking it up and down. The motion was violent enough that Reiner lost his grip, and fell hard on the ground. Before he could recover, Eren's massive foot descended down.

As the enormous foot rushed toward him, Reiner only had one thought.

Finally.

The colossal foot completely crushed Reiner's Titan, killing him almost instantly.

While Eren was occupied by Reiner and Armin, Pieck neared Eren's left ankle, and Jean leaped off of her head and used his gear to soar up Eren's massive body.

Jean glanced down at Eren's left foot, just barely able to see a few tiny chunks of the Armored Titan scattered on the ground nearby.

He laughed bitterly, tears in his eyes. "Who would have thought that I would actually feel grief when you finally kicked the bucket you stupid bastard."

Jean turned his gaze upwards, flew in front of Eren's face, and fired a thunder spear into Eren's left eye, destroying it.

This created a blind spot, and Armin took the opening to punch Eren in the face, knocking out several of his teeth.

As Falco flew by Eren's head, Mikasa dove through the gap in between the teeth and entered the mouth. Towards the back she saw Eren's disembodied head, kept alive by the Titan powers.

She surged forward, and Eren and Mikasa looked at each other sadly as she swung her blade forward and severed his head from the Titan.

See you later Eren.

On top of the Founding Titan's head Ymir closed her eyes and disappeared.

---

Armin looked around in shock.

One moment he had been in his Titan form battling Eren in the middle of a barren plain, the next he found himself in Shiganshina.

But it wasn't Shiganshina as he knew it in the present. Instead, it looked exactly how it had appeared when they were kids, before that fateful day.

He also noticed that his body seemed much smaller than it had been.

"Hey Armin."

Armin turned around sharply, and saw a ten year old Eren standing a short distance away.

Eren forced a smile. "Well, it looks like you won."

Armin stared at Eren for a while. A thousand questions ran through his mind, but in the end he chose the one that had been bothering him the most, and one for which he had yet to come up with a satisfactory answer.

"Why did you say and do those hurtful things at the restaurant?"

Eren flinched and looked away, his smile fading.

Armin took a step forward. "Was it to push us away? For our safety?"

Eren reluctantly nodded. "That was part of it. But the main reason…"

He sighed. "I already told Mikasa, but...the Attack Titan's special ability is its power to see into the future."

Armin's eyes widened. "What?"

"Four years ago...after I kissed Historia's hand...I received years worth of future memories that provided glimpses of things to come...including the rumbling."

Eren sighed. "By the time of the battle at Liberio, I'd become convinced that I had no choice but to follow the path that had been set before me in my future memories. When it came to the incident at the restaurant...I hadn't seen all of it ahead of time. What I did know was that I would make Mikasa cry and that I would beat you up. So I just said the most hurtful things I could think of to cause Mikasa to cry and to provoke you into attacking me."

Armin remembered how cold Eren had seemed at the time, how his face had been almost masklike.

But he also remembered when the mask had, for a brief moment, cracked.

Was that the freedom you wanted? The freedom to hurt Mikasa?

Armin looked at Eren sadly. "So...you didn't want to do it?"

Eren violently shook his head. "Of course not. I never wanted to hurt you or Mikasa. But…"

"But because of your future memories you felt that you had to." Armin finished quietly.

"Yeah."

Armin looked at the ground dismally. "So...all of this...was inevitable?"

"No."

Armin looked at him in surprise.

"I...the furthest I saw was when my Founding Titan arrived on the continent, and the rumbling began to eradicate the world."

Eren's eyes glistened. "But...I didn't see you guys banding together to try to stop me. I was shocked, but at the same time...I felt relieved. I couldn't just stop what I was doing, as the people of Paradis were counting on me to secure their future. But at the same time...it gave me hope, knowing that there was at least a chance that I would be stopped before I made it to the end of the horrible path I was on."

Eren began to walk away.

Armin started to follow him. "Where are you going?"

"Let's walk while we talk."

Armin wasn't sure how, but a few minutes later they were suddenly far away from Shiganshina, and were observing the aftermath of a volcanic eruption from a distant hill.

Armin's eyes widened in awe. "So this...is flaming water. It really is flowing like a river."

For a moment, neither of them spoke, and they simply watched as the lava swept past them.

Armin turned toward Eren. "So...if you'd wanted to, you could have stopped us?"

"Yes." Eren murmured. "Zeke told you about the Founder Ymir. After freeing her from her slave mentality, Ymir was incredibly grateful to me, and would have done just about anything I asked of her. It would have been easy to take away your Titan powers, or to erase your memories and render you unable to fight."

Eren began to walk away. "But...I didn't want to steal your freedom. And I wanted to leave open the possibility of the rumbling being stopped."

Armin followed him, and the next moment they found themselves in another very different environment.

In front of them a land of ice and snow was spread out as far as the eye could reach, and above them they saw a series of lights glowing in the sky above, shining even brighter than the paths they'd seen in the coordinate.

Armin felt himself filled with wonder once more, but Eren barely seemed to notice.

"I...I claimed back then that I was free. That was both the truth, and a lie. I did want freedom for the people of Paradis, and for you, my precious friends. And I was willing to do whatever it took to obtain that freedom, even if it meant stealing the lives and freedom of others."

Eren's voice had dropped to a whisper. "But...at the same time, I was a slave to fate, to what I had seen in my future memories. Early on I'd tried to find another way, but eventually I gave up, and let it all play out the way I had foreseen. But...if I'd known it would turn out this way...if I was given the chance to do it all over again...I wouldn't have followed this path. I never wanted to become a monster. I just wanted to be with you and Mikasa. But it's too late now."

They continued to walk, and suddenly ended up at the ocean.

As Armin looked over at Eren, he realized that, all during their conversation, the two of them had gradually been growing up, and now had finally reached the adult bodies they had in the real world.

"So...you've been keeping this all to yourself...ever since that ceremony?"

Eren slowly nodded. "Yeah."

Without warning, Armin punched him in the face, sending him sprawling into the water.

Armin glared down at him furiously. "And you thought you could just carry this burden all by yourself? Even though you knew full well that it would involve us, and have real lasting consequences for us? What the hell gave you the right to decide all on your own that murdering the entire world for our sake was the only way?!"

Tears began to pour down Eren's cheeks. "I didn't. I'm sorry."

His anger fading, Armin knelt down next to Eren in the water, his face melting into a look of concern.

"Listen to me, Eren. It's not too late. We can still find another way."

Eren shook his head, the tears flowing more freely now. "No. This is the end for me. My body has already died. And even if it hadn't, there's no way I could ever be forgiven for what I've done. I don't want to die, but neither did the millions of people I've killed."

Armin paused, noticing that they were no longer kneeling in the ocean, but instead sitting on dry land, with countless gigantic footprints in the flattened soil as far as the eye could see in every direction. Aside from a few insects on the ground and a handful of birds in the air, there was no sign of life anywhere, only the grim aftermath of the Rumbling.

Eren turned toward Armin. "But...I think I can rest in peace, knowing that the future is in your hands. You'll be remembered as the heroes who saved the world."

Armin leaned forward and hugged him. After hesitating for a moment Eren returned the embrace.

Armin spoke softly. "You became a mass murderer for our sake. I promise I'll do my best to make the most out of your mistake."

Eren smiled. "I always knew...that you would save humanity."

---

Steam began to pour out of Falco's Titan, and it quickly glided down to the ground. The moment it landed, it began to dissolve, much to the shock of Annie and Gabi.

The area where Eren and Armin's Titans had battled was obscured by two massive clouds of steam.

Armin woke up on the ground. He quickly sat up and pressed his hands to his face.

He didn't feel the telltale sensation of shifter markings on his cheeks.

"Armin."

Armin turned his head, and saw Mikasa walking slowly toward him.

His eyes widened in shock as he realized she was cradling Eren's head.

Both of them broke down crying, mourning their friend.

Jean and Pieck slowly approached the remains of Falco's Titan as Annie and Gabi pulled Falco out of the dissolving flesh.

Pieck looked around. "Is...is it over?"

"Looks like it." Jean said quietly.

They turned to look at the fort, and saw that the Wall Titans had just barely managed to reach the top of the mesa, but all of them had collapsed before they could destroy the rest of the fort and the people within the fort. Most of them had fallen back down to the ground far below, while the few that had reached the very top were lying still on the surface of the mesa as their bodies dissolved.

All across the plain, all around them, all of the Wall Titans were dissolving into a massive cloud of steam. The rumbling was over.

Jean folded his arms. "So...Eren's dead. And it looks like the Titans have disappeared from the world."

Annie nodded silently, while Gabi and Falco stood nearby.

A moment later, Armin and Mikasa joined them. Mikasa had wrapped Eren's head in a cloth so that it wouldn't be recognized for what it was.

After verifying that they were the only ones of the alliance left, the seven survivors slowly walked back toward the fort.

It was a long walk, both to reach the mesa, and to ascend it, but in a way it was somewhat relaxing. Ever since the rumbling had started, all of them had been overcome with an almost unbearable sense of urgency, with barely any time to rest or think.

Now, though, for better or worse, it was finally over.

As they reached the top, they were quickly spotted by the Marleyan soldiers and Eldian civilians.

"It's the heroes!"

A cheer rose from the crowd. Armin wearily raised a hand in recognition of their praise, while Gabi, Falco, and Pieck ran forward to hug their respective parents, who quickly broke down in tears of relief at seeing that their children had made it through the battle alive.

Armin felt his heart sink as he realized that some of them wouldn't be so lucky.

Reiner's mother came forward and looked at them fearfully.

"Where's Reiner?"

Jean bowed his head. "I'm...I'm afraid he didn't make it."

Devastated by the news, she collapsed to her knees and began to sob profusely.

Annie stiffened as she noticed another missing face.

"Where's...where's my father?"

Reiner's mother looked at her tearfully. "I'm so sorry. He...he was killed when the Titans reached the top of the mesa."

Annie's eyes went wide with disbelief, and the second Armin gently touched her arm she turned around and buried her face in his shoulder, her body wracked with sobs.

Muller approached the group, a tired smile on his face.

He bowed. "I cannot begin to thank you all enough. You saved not only us, but millions of other people. We are forever in our debt."

Jean stepped forward. "Since Eren is dead, and the Founding Titan was destroyed, the Titans are gone from this world. Eldians are now no different from other humans."

Muller nodded. "I believe you. Though I know not everyone will."

From a side building, a familiar face with a bandage on the side of his head appeared.

"Onyankapon!" Armin exclaimed. "You're alive!"

Onyankapon grinned. "Thanks to you. Thank you for keeping your promise. I...I can't even begin to express how much it means to me to know that my family and my homeland are safe."

Muller glanced at him with a frown. "Yes. Marley is finished, but many other nations have survived. Best to look at the positive side of things as much as we can."

Muller returned his gaze to Armin. "If there's anything we can do for you, don't hesitate to ask."

Armin smiled feebly. "Honestly...we'd just like to go home now."

"Are you sure? You're probably considered traitors now."

"I know. But it's still our home."

Muller nodded. "Understood. I'll do my best to let the rest of the world know that not everyone from the island is a devil, but after what's happened I don't know how keen people will be to listen."

Armin shrugged. "No harm in trying."

Annie let out a watery chuckle. He knew that she probably thought he was still rather naive, but at the same time he also knew that she admired his optimism.

"Well said." Muller gestured behind them. "As it happens, we have one airship left. It will take some time to fully refuel and repair it, but once those are complete you can use it to return to the island."

He frowned uncertainly. "Um, do any of you know how to fly an airship?"

Onyankapon shot his hand in the air. "I do."

"Very well. And once again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you."

Muller left to give his soldiers orders, while the rest of the crowd watched the survivors with awe and reverence.

They did keep their distance though, something which Armin was grateful for, as he was already feeling a little overwhelmed by the day's events.

Armin gently squeezed Annie's shoulder. "You okay?"

"No." Annie sniffed. "But...I will be. At least I got to see him one last time."

As it would take some time to get the airship ready, the surviving members of the alliance found a place inside one of the buildings to sit down and rest for a bit.

Onyankapon, Armin, Mikasa, Jean, and Annie planned to use the airship to return to Paradis, while Pieck, Gabi, and Falco were staying with their families.

Gabi looked at them anxiously. "Are you guys sure? I remember Miss Kiyomi saying something about providing you guys homes in Hizuru if you survived. If you go back to the island, you'll probably be in big trouble."

Mikasa gently cradled the bundle of cloth that concealed Eren's head.

She smiled down at the younger girl. "Thanks, but Paradis is our home, and we have to look after it."

---

Ymir stood in front of the coordinate. Zeke and Eren were dead, and she was once again alone.

But now, she was free from having to follow the orders of a dead king that had never given a damn about her, free to make her own path.

However, she wasn't entirely sure what she should do with this newfound freedom.

If she was honest with herself, she desperately wanted to leave this place forever. She'd been trapped there for far too long, and she just wanted it all to end. That was part of why she had gone with Eren in the first place.

It's up to you whether you want to stay here forever, or end it.

She'd gone along with Eren's plans with the understanding that once they were completed, she would be allowed to leave the coordinate for good. This would spell the end of the Titan powers, but with everything outside of Paradis eradicated that wouldn't be a problem.

But then, something unexpected happened. Eren's friends had joined hands with his enemies in an effort to stop the rumbling. And rather than stopping them, Eren had allowed them the option of continuing, which had ultimately led to his death and the premature end of the rumbling.

Part of her was utterly bewildered by Eren's actions, but at the same time she'd done her best to respect his wishes. And it wasn't like she didn't somewhat understand where he was coming from.

When Eren had touched her, he had seen all of her memories, and she had seen all of his. The two of them had felt each other's joys and sorrows more deeply and completely than any other two people in human history.

So she understood how much he cared for his friends, and especially Mikasa. She also knew that he had hated going through with the rumbling, and had only done so because he felt he had no other choice. And she was aware of the relief he had felt at the prospect of being stopped.

If it had been her, she would have prevented them from enacting their plan to stop the rumbling before they even reached the harbor, and done her best to keep them safe, even if they didn't like it. But Eren had wanted to respect their right to choose, and so had not interfered with them. And this decision on his part had ultimately cost him his life.

Now it was up to her and her alone to decide what would happen next. She still wanted to leave the coordinate. But she couldn't just leave things as they were.

The rumbling had stopped before it was completed, which meant that a significant chunk of the world was still intact. And by doing the rumbling, she and Eren had created thousands if not millions of more people like him. People who had done nothing wrong, people who had had their homes and families taken away from them, people who would now be crying out for revenge.

And the target of their revenge would inevitably be Paradis island.

Would the knowledge that Eren was dead, and that the group that had stopped him were from the island be enough to appease these people? Perhaps it would for some of them, but others would still cry out for blood.

While the disappearance of the Titans might be enough to get the world to be kinder to Eldians as a whole, the rumbling would only have exasperated the hatred the world felt toward the islanders, a hatred that was born out of irrational prejudice but would be fueled and intensified by the legitimate feelings of anger and fear that the rumbling would have caused.

It would take years for the world to recover from the rumbling, so the retaliation against Paradis wouldn't happen immediately. But it was only a matter of time before it did. And with the disparity between Paradis and the rest of the world in terms of population size and technology being as wide as it was, with the disappearance of the Titans there was only one possible outcome.

And so, in order to minimize the amount of death and suffering that would occur in the future, Ymir knew there was only one course of action she could take.

She was aware that Eren would not have liked what she was about to do. But as he had told her, she was free to choose how to end it.

---

The Braus family was enjoying the meal that had been prepared for them by Niccolo. Mrs. Braus had helped a little at the beginning, but toward the end Niccolo had insisted that she sit down and relax.

As Niccolo was preparing the dessert for the evening, Kaya entered the kitchen with her glass to get some more water.

After filling up her glass, she glanced at Niccolo.

"I'm sorry."

Niccolo looked at her in mild surprise. "What for?"

She tapped her fingers nervously against the glass. "Well...considering what Eren's doing...Marley will be destroyed. It might even be destroyed already by this point. I understand that we need to defend ourselves, but...this is going too far."

Niccolo sighed. "Yeah, well, there's nothing we can really do about it now. While I feel bad for the people out there, if I'm perfectly honest, all I can think is 'better them than me.'"

She frowned at him. "But don't you have family in Marley?"

He winced. "Well, yeah, but no one I'm really that close to. Even my parents...our relationship wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. They were always incredibly strict, and they're the ones who pushed me into joining the military despite my wishes. Though that seems to have worked out in my favor."

He rubbed the back of his head. "I guess at a certain level I don't really care what happens as long as I survive."

He glanced at her nervously. "I know that makes me sound like a selfish prick."

She shook her head. "No, I get it."

She retrieved her glass and left the kitchen, feeling slightly troubled.

---

In the nearby building, Historia's labor had finally come to an end. The doctors and nurses had left the room to give her some privacy with her infant daughter.

Historia looked down at the newborn as she began to breastfeed for the first time.

A familiar freckled face flashed in her mind, and she let out a small smile.

"Hey there little one. Your name is Ymir."

Suddenly, without warning, the room was gone. Historia froze.

She quickly realized she was once again in the paths. The first time it had happened had been when Eren announced to the world his intention to eradicate everyone outside of the island. When it had happened then, she'd seen countless other people dotted throughout the sandy landscape of the coordinate, including a strange young girl in the distance.

Now, however, she could see no one else at all.

She swallowed nervously. "Eren?"

Then, a hoarse female voice spoke, sounding like it hadn't been used in centuries.

Historia. Eren is dead. Armin, Mikasa, and the others have achieved their goal. The rumbling has stopped. Marley is gone, but the rest of the world has been saved. However, by choosing to save the world, they have damned Paradis. As a direct consequence of their actions, it will only be a matter of time before the full uninhibited wrath of the world falls upon Paradis island. I cannot allow this to happen. Since we have failed to secure a peaceful future for the people of Paradis, all I can do now is end their suffering.

Then, as suddenly as it had happened, it all stopped, and Historia was back in the same room as before, holding her infant daughter.

A feeling of icy dread filled her.

What does that mean?

---

A loud crash came from the nearby room.

Niccolo groaned. "Great, sounds like someone dropped something."

He went around the corner, then abruptly stopped, his face overcome with shock.

"What the hell?"

The entire Blouse family had gone limp in their seats. Mrs. Blouse's head was on the table, while the glass of water Mr. Blouse had been holding lay shattered on the ground below his limp arm. Kaya had fallen out of her chair, with her plate right next to her, its contents spilling onto the floor. The other children were also in similar positions, as if they had suddenly been knocked out without warning.

Niccolo walked over to the table anxiously. "Mister Blouse? Are you all right?"

Niccolo grabbed his shoulder and gently shook him, but Mr. Blouse gave no indication he had heard him, his head lolling limply around.

After failing to wake him up, Niccolo pressed his fingers against the older man's neck.

Niccolo's eyes widened. "No way. He's...he's dead."

As if struck with a horrible realization, he checked the others pulses as well.

He stumbled back in disbelief, his hands shaking. "This can't be happening. They're all dead. How...how?"

He ran out of the building and toward the one where Historia was to try to find some help, but as he did so he was met with a dreadful sight.

There had been a number of MPs standing guard and patrolling outside of the building in order to protect the queen. While the MPs were normally rather lazy and corrupt, they at least took the job of guarding the queen seriously.

But now all of them, without exception, were lying on the ground, unmoving, like puppets that had suddenly had their strings cut.

Not wanting to check to see if they were still alive, as he feared he already knew the answer, Niccolo burst into the building.

"Hello!" He shouted. "Is there anyone here?!"

He heard the faint cry of an infant. Relieved at this sign of life, he hurried into the room the noise was emanating from.

He walked through the door, and froze.

On the other side of the room Historia stood holding her daughter, her eyes wide in horror.

And before her, all of the doctors and nurses that had been helping her lay motionless on the ground, as still as the Braus family and the MPs had been.

"What...what happened?" Niccolo whispered.

Historia felt a lump in her throat. "I...I saw a vision...I think it was from the Founder...and it said...that Armin and Mikasa had stopped Eren...they had stopped the rumbling...and in order to spare the people of Paradis from the world's wrath…"

Niccolo's eyes widened in horror as he realized the full implications.

They stood there silently for quite a long time, the only sound being Ymir's soft breathing.

"Well…" Niccolo said hoarsely. "We...should probably get out of here...try to find...survivors…"

By survivors, they both knew he meant non-Eldians, as those were the only ones who would have been unaffected by the Founder's power.

As they left the building and headed for the stables, doing their best to avert their gaze from the deceased, Historia wondered if this was her punishment for remaining silent.

She knew she was the worst girl in the world, and didn't deserve to be the only one who was spared.

---

Ever since the rumbling began, all throughout Paradis there had been countless parties, feasts, and banquets, as the people celebrated their good fortune, knowing that they had won the war, knowing that they had a future.

Now, an unnatural silence had fallen upon the island, the sounds of life and joy swallowed by the morbid quiet of death.

In the Garrison headquarters of Trost Anka lay quiet and still next to the desk that had once belonged to Commander Pixis. In the dining hall on the ground floor the bodies of countless Garrison soldiers lay strewn about, having just finished what would be their final meal, among their number the cowardly Kitz Weilman and the valorous Rico Bryzenska.

Elsewhere in Trost, Flegel Reeves lay dead in his own home, his body slumped against the couch he had been sharing with his two guests, the journalists Peaure and Roy. Never again would they do business together, never again would they investigate another story, and never again would they print another paper.

In Stohess Hitch's body was still and silent on the street, one of many who had been going about their business as usual, in relatively good spirits knowing that they were finally safe.

In Shiganshina Holger's body lay on his bed. In life he had dedicated himself to Eren and to Floch, and had been disturbed to learn about the attack at the harbor. He had doubted that the traitorous alliance had any hope of killing Eren, but he was one of the few people on the island who had felt uneasy rather than cheerful before the Founder struck.

Surma's body sat next to his fellow cadets. Having taken Keith's words to heart, he and the others had hoped that someday they would be able to stand up to the Yeagerists. But now, that day would never come.

Further north, Marie Dok lay dead in her home, along with her three daughters. Unlike most of her neighbors, who had been celebrating their victory, she had been grieving the death of her husband Nile. She knew he had died so that they could have a future, but this knowledge had done little to comfort her, and secretly she wished she could be reunited with the love of her life.

In a high security prison all of the guards and inmates were dead. Among them included Djel Sannes and his old friend Ralph, who had once dedicated themselves to protecting the King and the walls, but after the coup were doomed to spend the rest of their lives in prison, with no company but each other and their regrets.

Even the abandoned town of Ragako was quieter than before, as the Titan that had once been Connie's mother had decayed and disappeared.

In every district, every city, every town, every village, every place on Paradis where a subject of Ymir dwelled, none were spared. Men and women, young and old, healthy and sick, all had been struck down.

The only sign of life that could be seen was the large wagon heading south. Driving the wagon and guiding the horses was Niccolo. In the back Historia held her daughter Ymir, and sat alongside all of the survivors they had been able to find, namely what was left of the volunteer soldiers, and a few Marleyan prisoners of war.

All of them sat in a stunned silence, deeply disturbed by what they had witnessed. Lacking Historia's vision, most of them were blindsided by the sight of everyone around them suddenly falling dead, and many had been utterly confused and terrified.

Niccolo and Historia had done their best to try to find and help as many survivors as they could, but it had taken longer than they expected, and they had been forced to search through many places that were teeming with bodies.

Seeing these places was far more horrifying to Historia than anything she had witnessed when she was a soldier. As grim and bloody as war was, you expected people to die on a battlefield. But to see entire cities of people who had been celebrating, enjoying life, going about their daily routines, suddenly dead and lifeless, was even worse.

She knew that all of them would be haunted by what they had seen for the rest of their lives.

Once the wagon was full, and it seemed unlikely they would find any more survivors, they found they couldn't take the sight of all of the dead bodies any more, and none of the others objected when they decided to head south to the harbor to leave the island forever.

They skirted around and away from any areas that had once been heavily populated, and now that the walls were gone this proved to be fairly easy.

But they couldn't avoid every town or village, and as they passed by most of them averted their eyes as best they could.

The knowledge that they wouldn't have to worry about bandits or thieves along their journey was a hollow comfort.

A few days later the party of survivors made it to the harbor, which to their surprise was in a state of ruin, as if a massive chaotic battle had happened recently.

More surprising still was the massive airship that was up in the sky heading toward them.

Historia wasn't sure what to think. It would be a problem if the airship was full of enemies. But she dreaded the idea of it being full of friends or allies even more, knowing she would have to tell them the dreadful truth about the island.

Everything was gone.

---

FIVE YEARS LATER

The sun was casting its warm rays on the land below, with only a few clouds dotting the gorgeous blue sky above. A pleasant breeze was blowing through the backyard of the modestly sized house, and the grass was swaying gently. In the woods just beyond the yard birds were singing, and bees were lazily floating from one flower to the next.

Ymir leaned against the picnic table, her youthful face lighting up in excitement.

"Yah, cake!" She cried.

Historia smiled before scooping her up. "Hold on sweetie, we have to wait until everyone takes their seat first."

Ymir let out a long sigh. "Yes mommy."

Historia pressed her lips against her daughter's forehead. "Very good."

The picnic table was set, with Ymir's birthday cake resting in the very center, five small candles on top to signify how old she was.

A moment later everyone had gathered around the table, and Armin, Annie, Gabi, Falco, and Onyankapon took their seats, while Historia, Niccolo, and Ymir sat at the end of the table.

"...Happy Birthday to you!"

Ymir blew out the candles with a giggle, and the others clapped, her cheerfulness being quite infectious.

Ymir looked at Historia anxiously. "Can I have some cake now?"

Niccolo smiled as he cut her the first piece. "Of course you can."

Her eyes lit up as the cake was placed in front of her.

Gabi giggled. "She's so adorable! I can't wait until I have kids of my own!"

Falco shook his head. "I think perhaps you should wait until you've finished growing up yourself."

Gabi grinned slyly at her boyfriend. "Oh, so we should stop doing certain activities until then?"

Falco's face went red. "Er…"

Armin laughed. "It's fine. You'll know when you're ready."

Armin gently squeezed his wife's hand, and Annie smiled back at him, her other hand resting on her slightly swollen belly.

Onyankapon smiled. "The baby is due in five months, right?"

Annie ducked her head. "Yeah. I just hope it doesn't decide it wants to come early like Ymir did."

"Sweetie, remember to use your fork." Niccolo chided Ymir.

"Okay."

Armin smiled at the cute young girl, and reflected on how much had changed over the past five years.

Things had been very difficult at first. Being forced to kill his comrades, and losing Hange, Levi, and Connie was hard enough. Having to kill his best friend in order to save the world was even worse. Knowing that millions of people were dead, and millions more were homeless, seemed like the worst thing of all.

But arriving back at Paradis only to find that the Founder had mercy killed the island's entire population, with the only survivors being Historia, her daughter, Niccolo, and a handful of the volunteers and Marleyan prisoners of war was on a whole other level of hell.

And yet...life went on.

With their home destroyed, the surviving members of the alliance had ended up accepting Kiyomi's offer of sanctuary. True to her word, Kiyomi had gone above and beyond in doing her best to help Eldia, and using her influence in Hizuru found homes for as many of the Eldians who had been displaced by the rumbling as she could.

Just as life had been difficult for the people of Paradis after Wall Maria fell, so too had life become difficult for the people of the world after the rumbling. While some people had been able to flee from the rumbling, many others had been less fortunate, and it was estimated that the rumbling had killed off between 50% and 70% of the world's population. They didn't have an exact estimate, and they probably never would. And even those who had managed to flee were left adrift, having lost their homes unrecoverably.

But there were some silver linings. For one, they weren't all crammed inside a set of walls, and for another, the threat that had wiped out so many people was truly gone for good. Relieved that they had been spared, the nations that hadn't been destroyed by the rumbling had come together and done what they could for the countless refugees, doing their best to rebuild a new world out of the ruins of the old, and showing that human compassion could shine even in the darkest of times.

And as the heroes who had saved the world, life had actually been fairly good for the surviving members of the alliance.

As traumatizing as it had been, the process of leaving Paradis had helped Historia and Niccolo bond. And with Ymir's father dead, Niccolo had done his best to help Historia raise her daughter, with the two of them eventually getting married shortly after Armin and Annie had also tied the knot.

Gabi and Falco were still too young to marry, but had started dating four years ago, and were quite happy together.

In gratitude for what they had done, Onyankapon was doing everything he could to help his Eldian friends, and made fairly regular trips between Hizuru and his home country.

While the world had generally become friendlier to Eldians now that the Titan powers were gone, and had recognized that it was people from the island who had saved them from Eren, they still tended to deem the heroes who stopped Eren as 'the good ones', and were content to see the destruction of Paradis as a righteous purge cleansing the world of the island devils who deserved to perish alongside the monster Eren had become.

Armin was working on writing down an account of his life and battles, with the intention of releasing it to the general population when it was finished, and it was his hope that with time the world would come to understand that Paradis had just been an island of people, not devils. But he also understood that the wounds from the rumbling were still fresh, and it would take time for people to be able to stand back and see the bigger picture.

But as flawed and cruel a place as it was, the world could still be very beautiful.

And as he held his wife's hand and watched Ymir eating her cake, he felt it again, that maybe the reason he had been born had been simply to enjoy this moment.

---

Ymir's birthday happened to fall on the same day as an annual holiday, a celebration of the day when the Titans finally vanished forever.

On this day throughout Hizuru and all the surviving nations people did their best to put their troubles aside and focus on the end of the era of the Titans, and the bright future humanity had ahead of it.

Jean, however, didn't really feel like celebrating, and as he walked down the street carrying groceries, he kept his head bowed in the hopes that no one would recognize him.

On his way back to his house he passed by a large statue. It was a smaller replica of a statue that was located in the Hizuru capital, and had become an iconic symbol of the holiday.

The statue depicted fourteen people holding an enormous trident and plunging it into the gaping mouth of the demonic looking Founding Titan. It reminded Jean of some photos of statues of Helos he had seen. But where Helos looked like he was almost effortlessly impaling his weapon through the Titan's head, in this statue it looked like the fourteen people were struggling to hold the Trident, but were still determined to finish the battle.

The fourteen people consisted of Magath, Hange, Reiner, Levi, Connie, Kiyomi, Armin, Mikasa, Annie, Pieck, Jean, Onyankapon, Falco, and Gabi. Thanks to some of the surviving photographs from Marley and Paradis they were a fairly close likeness, and with the benefit of testimony from survivors who had witnessed the Battle of Heaven and Earth the Titan head was also pretty close to how it had actually looked.

But Jean found he didn't like the statue very much. He knew he and the others were technically heroes, but he didn't feel like one. They had won, but with half of humanity dead it didn't feel like a victory.

A short while later Jean arrived back at the house he shared with Pieck and their three year old daughter Hannah.

He quickly checked in on them, and found that both were asleep in the main bedroom. They had both come down with a nasty fever a few days ago, and since he was the only one unaffected Jean had done everything he could to help them. They were already on the mend, and he was confident they would recover soon.

He smiled at them fondly before leaving the room and heading for the kitchen to put the groceries away.

Once he was finished he went to the living room. He sat down in his favorite chair and poured himself a glass of wine. He drank it in one gulp, and sat silently for a moment as he listened to the birds chirping outside.

It was funny how his life had turned out. He and Pieck had tried to kill each other the first few times they had met, but with the threat of the rumbling they had been forced to put their differences aside and work together. And when it was all over and they were trying to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives, the two of them had found that they got along really well, and before long fell in love.

Ironically he now had everything he had ever wanted. He had a wife he adored who also adored him, they had a beautiful child together, they lived in a nice house with the latest luxuries and comforts, and they were set for life. In many ways things couldn't have turned out better for him.

But he knew that these positive results had come with a very steep price.

The rational side of him knew that they had done the right thing. There was no good justification for global genocide, and their actions had saved millions of lives.

But at the same time, a small niggling voice in the back of his head constantly reminded him of what saving the world had cost. And that small voice often came to him in his nightmares in the form of Floch's dying words.

Don't go...please don't go...everyone...on the island...will die...our Devil...is...our only hope...

For all his faults, Floch had been right. Their actions had led to Paradis being destroyed. Even if the Founder hadn't directly interfered and killed everyone on the island, it would only have been a matter of time before it happened.

The world had already hated Paradis before the rumbling. This hatred had only increased a hundredfold after the rumbling, and would have resulted in cries for bloody revenge if Paradis had survived. That the world had backed the island into a corner, that they had shaped Eren into becoming what he was, that they shared some responsibility for what happened, never occurred to them.

And Jean couldn't entirely blame them. They had believed that Paradis was an island of devils, and by unleashing the rumbling and slaughtering hundreds of millions of people, Eren had proven them right. And was it really the fault of the people outside of the island that they had been born into a world that forced certain prejudices and biases onto them that they had almost no chance of correcting?

In the end, all of them were victims of circumstance.

Jean often wondered what they would have done if Paradis had survived. He and the other surviving members of the alliance would almost certainly have been branded as traitors, and likely been killed the moment they arrived back on the island. After all, the Yeagerists had seized control of the island, and they had the support of the people. There was no way the new regime would ever forgive them for killing their savior Eren.

And Jean knew that as a group the Yeagerists had succumbed to a tribalistic mentality of the worst kind, branding everyone outside of the island, ironically, as a devil. With Eren dead, there would have been no one left to rein in this awful mindset, and they likely would have set about trying to finish what Eren had started and either destroy or conquer the rest of the world. And they wouldn't see it as a horrible but necessary evil like Eren had, but rather as the divine right to rule that they held as Ymir's descendants.

Such a goal was, of course, completely delusional. Even after the rumbling the outside world still had the edge over the island in terms of development. The island was at a severe disadvantage, and with the Titan powers gone the only way they would have a chance of catching up with the rest of the world would be if they received outside help, help that would obviously never come.

While the Scouts had more or less been absorbed by the Yeagerists, Jean knew that there had been a few remnants of the Garrison and MPs that still held some power and influence in Paradis. These members of the old guard would likely realize the futility of trying to fight the world, and so would want to at least attempt peace talks with the world. The Yeagerists, of course, would never agree with this, and so what was left of the old government would be forced to either bow to the Yeagerists warped and delusional ideology, or else try to fight them and take back control of the island.

So that was what would have been in store for Paradis's future. It would either be taken over by a racist, fascist regime, or else it would be plunged into civil war. And either way, the outside world would eventually come in and destroy them in retribution for what Eren had done.

Perhaps Ymir had known that this is what would have happened, and rather than letting this tragic course of events play out, she had chosen to end it all in one fell swoop.

Even so, finding out that almost everyone he had ever known or cared about was dead had been a disturbing revelation, one that he still had nightmares about to this day. Seeing his fellow comrades die on the field of battle one by one was bad, but having everything he had ever known ripped away was far worse.

He was grateful that, at the very least, he'd gotten a chance to see his parents one last time and say goodbye. But at the time he'd assumed that he would be killed by the Founding Titan and that his parents would need to find a way to move on, not the other way around.

In the end, there were no winners, only survivors. Paradis was gone, Marley was gone, hundreds of millions of people were dead, and millions more were stranded. Those who had managed to flee the rumbling now either had to find a new home in one of the unscathed nations, or else begin the slow and painful process of resettling the scorched and barren continent. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Jean sighed, set down his wine glass, and stared out of a nearby window.

Was there another way?

The rational part of him knew that the answer was no.

But the rest of him didn't have an answer, and he wasn't sure if he ever would.

---

Mikasa sat under the tree that overlooked the Hizuran wilderness. Her scarf was wrapped around her, and her gaze was melancholy.

After being forced to leave Paradis and flee to Hizuru, Mikasa had ended up burying Eren's head underneath a tree near the edge of Kiyomi's estate that reminded her of the one she'd often seen Eren sleeping under when they were kids. Curiously, despite carrying the head around for several days it hadn't decomposed at all, even though it was unmistakably dead. Mikasa could only assume that it was some lingering effect of the power of the Titans. But she doubted it would last forever.

The grave was not marked aside from a stone with a vague epitaph written on it, as they didn't want to risk having anyone disturb it if they saw Eren's name.

Mikasa rested her hand on the stone. "Eren...everyone will be coming to visit you soon."

Her scarf came partly unraveled, and tears began to stream down her cheeks.

She sniffed. "I...want to meet you again...someday…I hope I will…"

A bird flew overhead, chirping cheerfully.

She used the scarf to wipe away her tears before slowly unraveling the scarf and removing it from her head.

She draped it around the stone and slowly stood up.

She faced away from the unmarked grave, her face solemn.

"But…I know you wouldn't want me to spend the rest of my life pining after you. You wanted me to live. To keep moving forward into the future, not remain fixated on the past. So…that's what I'm going to try to do."

She walked away, leaving the scarf behind.

"Goodbye, Eren."

---

Author's Note: If you enjoyed this story, and if it gave you the closure that you weren't able to get from the canon ending, I'd really appreciate it if you could share this with other Attack on Titan fans who were also disappointed by the canon ending.

My intention with this story was to try to stick as close as possible to the spirit of the canon ending, while also changing it so that it wasn't dogshit. Whether I succeeded or not will be up to you to decide.

Now right off the bat I'd like to address what will undoubtedly be the most controversial aspect of my version of the ending, namely my decision to have Ymir kill everyone on Paradis except for Historia and her daughter. Some might see this as excessively dark or tragic, but I have my reasons for why I did it.

Some people thought that Attack on Titan would have a Zero Requiem type of ending, where Eren made himself out to be a threat to the entire world, and everybody including the people of Paradis united to stop him, thus redirecting the world's hatred of Paradis onto Eren specifically, and redeeming the people of Paradis in the eyes of the world. However, such an ending became impossible after Eren announced his intention to use the rumbling to destroy the world, and then immediately followed through with it.

At that point, there were broadly speaking only two possible endings. Either Eren would win, or the Alliance would win. And either ending could have worked. The key issue with the canon ending wasn't that Eren lost, it was that it was done really badly.

Since I was trying to remain mostly faithful to the canon I kept it so that Eren lost and the Alliance won, and therefore the rumbling ended. This meant that the darkest ending, where Eren had to kill his friends and completed the rumbling, was no longer on the table. So that only left a few options.

The first option was to have the world and Paradis forgive each other and move on. This is extremely unlikely, and would require an entire other arc in order to be even remotely believable.

The second option would be to have the world and Paradis eventually clash again, as the world would understandably be absolutely furious about the rumbling and want revenge. So either Paradis would eventually be destroyed, or someone else would have to finish what Eren started. This would prolong the conflict even longer, and again would require another arc in order for the story to end in a fully fleshed out and satisfying way. And frankly it would be pretty anticlimactic after the final battle between Eren and the alliance.

Which leads to the third option. There are only two ways that a cycle of hatred can end. Either both sides give up their hatred and heal, or one side is wiped out completely. Ymir could see that the first option was not plausible at all, and since Paradis would almost certainly lose any future conflicts, she stepped in and simply ended it once and for all, ending Paradis's suffering and preventing the world from taking revenge.

It's dark and tragic, but it does neatly tie things up without any dangling loose ends. It also gives the surviving characters a very bittersweet victory, as on the one hand they will be forever remembered as the heroes that saved the world and their lives going forward will be fairly easy, but on the other hand they'll be haunted for the rest of their lives with the knowledge that it was their actions that destroyed Paradis, albeit indirectly.

So basically, the main reason why I wiped out Paradis was because it was an extremely efficient way of tying up the plot and not leaving any unsolved threads that would need to be dealt with later, thus making it an actual conclusion with no ambiguity.

I can understand if you didn't like it, but remember Paradis was destroyed in canon too. I just made it so that the destruction came sooner rather than later. At least this way the surviving characters don't have to spend the rest of their lives on some doomed endeavor trying to find a diplomatic solution between Paradis and the rest of the world. And I think what I did is still infinitely preferable to the way the canon handled it, namely depicting the destruction of Paradis decades later in one fucking panel/one fucking short clip with almost zero context, which is just unbelievably shitty and lazy.

Now, the second thing you may be wondering is how on earth could I have gotten this story out so quickly after the final episode aired. Well, the truth is this is a revamped version of the ending I wrote back when the manga ended, so it was actually fairly simple to have it ready for when the final episode aired. It's mostly the same, but with a few tweaks and added details. A small part of me was hoping that the anime ending would redeem the manga ending, and I wouldn't have to publish this, but in order for that to happen the anime would have needed to make some pretty significant changes to the ending. I didn't think that would happen, and indeed it did not. In fact I'm slightly baffled by just how faithful the anime was to the manga despite the controversy surrounding the ending. I thought that at the very least the rough edges would be sanded off, but nope. Every single cringey, embarassing, what-the-hell-were-you-thinking moment from the manga ending was preserved in the anime ending. At least the anime watchers get to suffer just like the manga readers.

Ironically one criticism that was leveled at the original version of my ending was that I didn't change enough, and I suppose that criticism could still apply to this version. Well, sorry, but I don't see why drastic changes are always necessary. Ultimately the issue with the canon ending was that it had some good ideas, but a completely garbage execution of said ideas. I kept the ideas mostly the same, and just changed them so that the execution was better. So sure, the broad plot beats are the same, but I don't see why that's a bad thing. I think the real reason why people were mad that my ending wasn't completely different from the canon one was because they really wanted the ending where Eren "won", the alliance was annihilated, and the rumbling completed. Personally I've always felt that that ending would be too grim, depressing, and nihilistic even for AOT, but if executed properly it could work. But I'm not really interested in writing that sort of ending, and while some of the fan attempts at this ending I've seen are reasonably good, if rather depressing, others are frankly just as cringy and badly written as the canon ending.

Now, if you've read this far, and are still interested in me rambling, allow me to explain why I made the choices that I made. Ideally my writing should speak for itself, but if not maybe this will help clarify why I did what I did.

For the final battle, I won't deny that the idea of fighting an entire army of the Nine Titans from times past is pretty awesome. But the problem is that it really doesn't work in the narrative. Despite all the fantastical elements AOT has always tried to remain somewhat grounded and realistic, and for the most part I think it succeeded in that. But all of that goes completely out the window for the final battle.

I mean, in the RTS arc you had 200 human soldiers and one Titan shifter VS four Titan shifters, and the 200 human soldiers were utterly slaughtered, and just barely managed to survive and win by the skin of their teeth. Now you have five Titan shifters and half a dozen human soldiers VS hundreds of former Titan shifters, and we're expected to believe that the alliance stands a chance? Bullshit. When the odds are stacked so ludicrously against one side the only logical outcome is for them to lose immediately and badly. The fact that they didn't destroys the narrative tension, as it becomes painfully obvious that the plot just won't let them die. I guess Reiner figured out a way to amplify and share his plot armor.

So that's why I changed it so that Eren, or rather Ymir, only had access to eight Titans, seven if you don't count Eren's Founding Titan form. That way the odds are still stacked against the alliance, but not to the point where them winning defies all belief, and their victory feels plausible rather than like blatant authorial bias.

One minor change I made was to make Gabi a little more useless during the final battle. I mean, she already managed to have impeccable aim and shoot Eren and Floch, so I figured realistically she should miss this time. She still helps the others out in small ways, but this way she no longer seems like an infallible aimbot.

I also changed it so that Zeke was making the Titan bodies, and him ceasing to make the Titan bodies is what gave the alliance the chance to win, because honestly I think that makes a lot more sense than the nonsense that actually happened in 137. I did like the conversation between Zeke and Armin in 137, but it felt a little odd and out of left field, so I tried to change it to sound more natural. And of course I got rid of the dead shifters inexplicably coming back to help the alliance, as that doesn't work on so many levels and only raises more questions.

I also cut out the whole bit in 138 where all the Eldians at the fort are turned into Titans, because not only was it a bizarre and dumb way of making the climax last longer, but since all of them turn back into human in 139 it was entirely pointless. And the worm thing doesn't make an appearance, because it was attached to Eren's real head, not his Titan head, so I really don't see why cutting off the Titan head would cause it to appear.

And of course we get to Eren and Armin's final conversation, which to me is by far the worst part of the worst chapter of AOT. It is so confusing, nonsensical, and dumb, and I have no idea what the hell Isayama was trying to do or say. It makes no sense, runs counter to previously established character moments and motivations, introduces new narrative elements that had little to no precedent, the dialogue is clunky and embarrassing, and on the whole it raises far more questions than it answers, which is a really fucking stupid thing to do when you're writing the last chapter of any story. So I'm confident in saying that my version was better. Of course that's not really saying much given how garbage the original conversation was. Hell, I've seen tons of fan edits of the manga that make the conversation actually bearable, once again leaving me wondering if Isayama had a stroke while writing the last volume, because how else do you become such a terrible writer in the final stretch of an otherwise near flawless masterpiece?

On a similar note, I hope I did a decent job of conveying Ymir's character and motivations, and that at the very least it was less confusing than whatever the fuck was going on in the last three canon chapters. Personally I don't find the idea of Ymir being in love with the King to be all that strange, as obviously her slave mentality would have had an emotional component to it. But I'll concede that the way the final chapter handled it was clunky and dumb, just like everything else in that chapter.

One notable change I made from my old version of the ending was that Pieck survives in this version. I think when I first wrote my version of the ending I was really pissed off that none of the alliance members died in the final battle, so I went out of my way to up the body count, because it was downright insulting for there to be no cost to their victory. But I may have gone a little too far, so I changed it so that Pieck survives. Levi and Connie I think have good arcs that are concluded satisfactorily with them dying, and of course Reiner really wanted to die, and given how many times he's tried to die but failed, it would be downright cruel if he didn't get his wish during the final battle. I know Reiner's death was a bit sudden and quick, but considering that he's one of the most well developed characters in the entire narrative and he already had several fake out death scenes that further fleshed out his character, I felt that drawing out his actual death scene would have been redundant.

I also made it so that while Annie does get to see her father again one last time, he also dies immediately afterwards. That way she gets what she wants, but there's a cost. After all, during her conversation with Hitch she made it clear that not only were her motives for killing all those people rather selfish, but she would do it all again if it meant getting back to her dad, and I think she deserved to be narratively punished for that.

I know some people aren't fond of the Armin X Annie ship, and I'll admit the way it was handled in canon was a little clumsy, but I think it works decently well, and it's what canon was strongly hinting at, so I stuck with it. I also added in Jean X Pieck, because while there's really nothing in canon to support it, there's nothing in canon that explicitly contradicts it, and I think it's a cute idea, plus I think both characters deserve a happy ending, especially Jean.

Finally, I altered the bit where Mikasa visits Eren's grave. My original version stuck pretty closely to canon, but for this version I changed it because I realized it wasn't really fair to Mikasa. For most of the story Mikasa's main focus and motive has been Eren, and the final arc focused on Mikasa trying to get away from that and be her own person, even going against Eren by the end. So I think it's a little off for her to still be pining at his grave years later, and the extra pages were extremely disrespectful, as they show that not only did she never get over Eren, but she was even buried with that fucking scarf, which is just a huge fuck you not only to Mikasa's character, but also to whoever her husband ended up being, which was probably Jean but not necessarily. So I changed it so that Mikasa, while she still remembers and cares about Eren, and does hope to see him again if there's an afterlife, is going to move on and be free like he asked her to, which I think is a much more satisfying ending, both for her and for the story as a whole.

Oh, one last thing, like canon I kind of forgot to clarify what happened to Yelena. Uh, let's just say she committed suicide, as frankly that's probably what she would do now that Zeke and his dream are dead.

So, congratulations if you actually made it through all my rambling. Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you thought, and like I said, if you liked this story, I'd really appreciate it if you could share it around, as I'm sure a lot of people could use some copium right about now, and hopefully this will do the trick.

Also, thanks to Rowboat Girlyman for beta reading this.