Creation began on 01-09-24
Creation ended on 02-07-24
Attack on Titan
Not Everyone Agrees
As the fire slowly died out from burning its wood all over, Kaede, laying on the ground, looked up at the sky that slowly went from dark with small specks of starlight to a grayish-blue hue. She thought back to the days of her childhood where she tried to stay up all night with her parents, only to fall asleep after being up for only a few short hours. Or when she came close to seeing the sky change its color just a little, her body would defeat her drive to see the sunrise and she would spend the rest of the morning asleep. Oh, back then, life was simple and carefree for her as the town of Epilogés was being built, cleaned and refined. Back then, the people of the post-Rumbling world were forced to rebuild their homes from nothing but the garbage heaps that the Titans left behind…but even that was better than nothing at all.
Your childhood seems very simple to your mindset, Kaede, she hears the Dark Titan say to her, as she finds herself in the dark realm where they met to engage in conversation again.
"My childhood memories are part of my treasure trove of passions," she told the Titan that stood in front of her. "My moments spent with family and friends are part of my treasure trove of joys. My time spent with Shinji…is my hall of romance. My life is a labyrinth of complexity that not many people can navigate through, but I dwell within that labyrinth, and I know every way in and out of it."
"Heh," the Titan chuckles. "This should be another reason why you were best suited to carry out the promise made long ago. You know what you want for yourself and why you want it, and you don't care what others think of you because of them."
"What about you? What do you want?"
"What do I want? What am I allowed to want?"
"Well, you must want something besides what you're here to do. And you must be capable of personal desires; everyone in the world has this capability, to want something they don't have. I don't really remember where I heard this from, but someone said once that there are six desires beside the seven unholy desires that make our souls susceptible to corruption. They are…"
"Life, knowledge, love," the Dark Titan says, "sensation, resurrection and power. Any one of these would be a desire that is grand to the one that seeks them out. Each one promises a measure of fulfillment, but which one is the one desired most of all?"
"I don't have the answer to that. Maybe nobody does. But still, you must want something, Dark Titan. What do you want?"
"I don't know what I want right now."
"But if given the time to think about it, would you be able to come up with a personal interest?"
"It's possible."
"Then…I'll wait for you to come up with your own desire, whatever it is."
"Much appreciated."
Kaede was then back on the grounds of New Rückzahlung, looking up at the sky…until she sighs and sits up.
"Morning, ma'am," she hears the scarred Anti-Yeagerist man speak to her as she turns to face him. "Are you hungry?"
"Uh, famished?" She replies.
-x-
"…Even so, just going over there to that village is a violation," a female Yeagerist says to her commanding officer. "If we do this, it will destroy the truce and risk leading to another infraction like the one that led to the creation of the Anti-Yeagerists. Are we really willing to risk this over a handful of escaped prisoners?"
"It's not just the escaped prisoners," he tells her and the rest of the squadron. "It's the principle. If we let the prisoners escape, it ruins our credibility as a military power tasked with defending Paradis against the world."
"But sir, none of the prisoners were of any strategic value," a male Yeagerist states. "None of them have ties to any political parties or families with resources. They're just regular people we picked up off the streets."
"The orders remain the same: Recapture the prisoners if at all possible, and kill them only if absolutely necessary," the commanding officer orders them.
While the order was heard, the handful of Yeagerists that were in the squadron weren't sure if the order was even reasonable due to the seemingly unnecessary requirement of such aggression. As they were entering the woods, the mere idea of killing former members of their military felt…unsettling due to the handful that didn't want to cross the line unless it truly was necessary.
-x-
"…So…you're dying?" Shinji asks Armin, noticing that the elder seemed like he was having a difficult time breathing.
"Yes," Armin answers him. "A few days ago, I received a terminal diagnosis from my doctor. If I gotta go out this year, I might as well go out knowing that I was trying to do the right thing, which is making sure these people get off the island and go home."
"Thank you for helping them. And…I am sorry for your failing health."
"It's okay. I'm the last of the so-called ambassadors. Some good that did."
"Peace only works when everyone wants it. If there are people that don't want it, that don't really think about it, then it's most likely the other thing they want. Death, carnage, war. So, for the rest of the world, we're still picking up the pieces and trying to move on. We just…don't want to move on with Paradis. We don't even have an exhibition at the Epilogés museum about any specific individual. We just have…the Garrison, the Military Police and the Survey Corps. The list of villages and the districts. The type of tools developed over the decades… Since a lot of people were killed and nobody can recall their names or who they were, who they were to the people that cherished them more than they cherished themselves, nobody bothers with individuating people. Except that hurts them."
"Hurts who?"
"The people that were forgotten. It doesn't matter who they were or if they were important or not to the people that don't bother to care about their lives that were cut short in a heartbeat. The dead and forgotten have to suffer with the knowledge that nobody alive knows about them. Was this woman a teacher? Was that man a carpenter? Was this little boy dreaming to become a florist? Was that little girl going to grow up to be a baker? I don't know. Nobody will ever know…and that hurts. Before I abandoned my country, when I was little, my mother would tell me there was a song that everyone hears in the silence…and it's about people trying to tell you their names and who they were or what they wanted to be when they were alive, each of them bitter and resentful of having their lives taken away from them. Of course, my parents were trying to turn me into a leader when I had different interests than leading people, so I'm always hearing the song that will never be heard. Do you ever hear it?"
"Yeah…I think I hear it now. You can't block it out, can you?"
"No. We can't block it out. We don't deserve to block it out. The people that died…they won't let us forget they existed."
Armin could hear the voices, like screams and echoes in the darkness, seeing people that used to cover the Earth like an infestation, now reduced to just a handful, and the ones that died, forever lost and forgotten about by the people left alive. Just another reminder that he was among those that were condemned for their actions and denied peace for their sins.
"Does redemption exist for those that remain?" He asks.
"I abandoned my home because I wanted a better life than what my parents had planned for me. For some, redemption is making right whatever wrongs were committed in the past. For others, redemption is doing one more good thing before your final breath. Those that seek redemption must forsake vengeance…and those that seek vengeance must forsake redemption."
"Well-spoken," said a female Anti-Yeagerist. "To want one is to forsake the other. We dream of angels, but we live with demons."
-x-
"…So…your boyfriend is…or was…some kind of nobleman or something?" A female villager from New Rückzhalung asks Kaede as she was washing her face.
"Yeah, something like that," she answers her.
"How did you meet up?"
"At the museum where I work at. Uh, worked at. It was burned down by Yeagerists."
"They do that sometimes. They keep thinking that a war is coming, and they intend to be the ones that win it."
"Maybe a street war, but not an actual war. They're just making trouble for people that want nothing to do with them. If their unnecessary violence escalates any further, they're gonna get more people killed for the sake of a stupid war they want to have with the world. You…you were going to ask me something else about my boyfriend?"
"Yeah… How long have you two been together?"
"A little over a year."
"He…looks like a good guy."
"Thank you. He's a gentle soul."
"That's why he's a good guy."
"What about you? Boyfriend? Husband? Someone?"
The lady held up her left hand to reveal no ring, but a nasty, jagged scar on her wrist.
"Whoa," Kaede reacts. "What happened there?"
"A member of the Yeagerists wanted me to be his woman," she explains. "I told him that wasn't going to happen because I was involved with a neighbor back then. You…don't have any prejudices against same-sex relationships, do you?"
"I'm told I'm a tolerant woman to most concepts excluding violence…and three of my friends are into romances with people on the same side of the fence as them. It doesn't really bother me so long as it's mutual. Were you happy?"
"We were very happy. I saw myself wanting to spend the rest of my life with her. It didn't have to be like what most people fantasize, but so long as we were happy, I didn't care what others believed about how my life was supposed to be like. Unfortunately, because of the Yeagerists and the people that support and enable them, what some people want doesn't really fit in their views. Everyone on Paradis must fit in some sort of order that aids in preparing the island against an external threat. If there's someone that can't or won't conform to the order they chose for the people, they're the ones that get disposed of. But when I refused to comply with the Yeagerists because I was not attracted to men on any romantic or survivalist level, they murdered her. I will never support or join a system as cold and heartless as the Yeagerists or the royal family that enables them to be the monsters that they are…simply because there are people that don't agree with how they choose to operate or try to control others. I refused to have anything to do with some guy that wanted me to be his…and he kills the woman I loved in cold blood. Butchered like a pig…for everyone to see…because she loved me."
Kaede covered her mouth to hide her woe.
"I'm sorry," she tells her.
"It's okay," the villager responds. "Not everyone understands or accepts these truths. The ones that do can choose to be tolerant if not accepting. The Yeagerists are just people that can't be tolerant of the harsh truth that they're preparing for a war that will never come for them because the rest of the world wants nothing to do with this little island that is nothing more than Hell on Earth. Everyday…the Yeagerists are the ones that bring Hell upon the people because they want to fight."
Kaede could've asked why the people of the village didn't just leave the island and relocate to other parts of the world, but she was reminded that when her parents and some other people made that choice to abandon Paradis all those years ago, the Yeagerists attacked them as they made their escape across the ocean. If the Yeagerists suspect anyone of trying to leave Paradis, they would take action to make sure that they don't. Whether they saw it as a sign of weakness or disrespect, the Yeagerists were to make sure that none of the Paradis people could ever leave the island, even if it meant crossing the line. But this island was not the little paradise it could've been once upon a time, just a garbage heap adrift in the water, ignored by the masses.
"Tell me something," the villager asks her, "is it better on the continent than on this island?"
"I've lived in Epilogés for most of my life, but the continent is better. If I had to wager it, I would say that anyplace on the mainland that you can't find on Paradis is the place one should go or be. With the sole exception being the disgust with the Yeagerists and whoever supports their actions, everyone has the right to whatever they believe in. Everyone can do something with their life besides fighting an enemy that may not even exist…so long as they put in the effort to try and make something of themselves."
"Then…could you promise me something?"
"What?"
"If there comes a time when the Anti-Yeagerists are outnumbered and overwhelmed…please…help us all get off Paradis."
She didn't expect to hear such a request, but she didn't put it past someone to make if they found life on the island to become difficult due to the way the government was running things that made the lesser masses uncomfortable.
"Aaah!" They heard a scream and looked down the road, seeing a young girl running away from some men in uniforms that were similar to the Anti-Yeagerists, but clearly different from theirs.
-x-
Armin had to refrain from gasping due to his weak heart as he saw some Yeagerists walk right into New Rückzahlung like they owned the place. The reason they were here was anything but accepted by the people of the village and their protectors.
Shinji had never seen a Yeagerist before, but from the looks on the villagers' faces, these soldiers were nothing but trouble in every sense of the word.
"Hard to believe that we have an uneasy relationship with the people here," one of the Yeagerists uttered. "Look, we're just here to resolve a matter that was started a day ago. As soon as we handle it, we'll leave."
Three of the Anti-Yeagerists approached them and made their choice of words heard.
"What do you want?" The man with the scar over his eye questions.
"Some prisoners of ours escaped from our custody and we have reason to believe that they sought refuge here," the other man states. "We demand that you hand them over."
"There are no escapees here, just some people that don't like that you're here harassing them."
"Then why is that disgrace here (the Yeagerist points over to Armin in the small crowd)? It's hard to believe that he'd be here unless he were trying to do something insignificant."
The Anti-Yeagerist looks over at Armin and then back to the three Yeagerists.
"His reasons are his own," he tells them. "I could care less, so long as he doesn't go looking for trouble. Your reasons for believing that some people that escaped from you would come here are beyond foolish."
"What is beyond foolish is that you people would stand against those that would lay their lives down to protect the freedom of everyone on Paradis. We used to be on the same side."
"That's just it. We used to be on the same side. Past tense. And that wasn't even a choice. So now, the tide has turned, and we make sure the people of New Rückzahlung have the option of making their own choices that you go so far as to make sure there isn't any other choice but to either fight or die for a belief that doesn't even make any difference to the people here."
"You would dare to defy the government?"
"What government? You mean, the Yeagerist Movement? That's the only government that even exists on this island, since your predecessors usurped power from the old system because it didn't work for you like you wanted. If there were branches like the Garrison or Survey Corps or the Military Police that were in business, I would've liked to enlist in one of them, but instead, all Paradis has is the Yeagerist faction, which isn't even a true military power."
"What did you say?"
"Freedom of speech, something you seem to take offense to whenever anyone says something you don't agree with. I'm allowed to speak my mind about whatever I want. You can't stigmatize people for saying what they want about other people, places or groups. That's the equivalent of taking their right to be what they want and forcing them to commit to your practices."
"You are a traitor to the cause."
"What cause? Most of us were kids when you decided to fill in your empty ranks with new recruits, but our parents or guardians didn't want that for us. So, you went and had them killed, just to remove whatever opposition existed at the time. Fight or die. That's not the only choices that exist in the world, you know. It's a half-assed option, and not everyone wants a two-choice system that sucks."
"So, you would let the rest of the world reprise their hatred of us…simply because you choose not to fight?"
"You keep saying that the world would reprise their hatred and exact retribution on this little shit of an island for what your predecessors allowed to have befall them and because the ambassadors failed to uphold whatever peace that could be had because it was your predecessors that didn't want peace. Even to this day, you don't want peace, you just want bloodshed and pain. The only thing that waits for you at the end of your life is emptiness. You preach about freedom, but you teach only murder."
"In the end, we'll save Paradis."
"From what? In case you can't comprehend, the rest of the world wants nothing to do with this place. As far as I'm concerned, this island doesn't even exist anywhere on the world map. That's how much the world wants nothing to do with us. Hell, that's how much I want nothing to do with the Yeagerists or the royal government that supports your heartless goals."
The Yeagerist man frowned.
"We don't have any escapees from your encampments here, and even if we did, we wouldn't hand them over to you. You want to be free, so you take freedom from someone else that wants nothing to do with you? Well, guess what? You're practically free because nobody wants anything to do with you. You're free to walk away. You're free to look the other way. So, walk away. Look the other way. There's nothing for you here."
Among the small gathering of people within the village, Kaede watched the battle of words between the two men on opposing sides, one representing a flawed structure…and the other taking a stand for others to pursue their own interests instead of giving up their lives before they could even live them. But as she watches the battle of words and beliefs press on to its conclusion, she begins to see the Yeagerist man glowing with a red outline, like a smoldering flame, while the Anti-Yeagerist man glowed with a blue outline, looking like a calm wind blowing around him.
What is this? She wonders.
This is how the strength of their convictions show, the Dark Titan reveals to her. Everyone's conviction, what they believe in, what they choose to believe in, has a measure of strength behind it. The greater one's faith in their conviction is, the greater their commitment to it. That Yeagerist believes in what his group is doing, which clashes with the Anti-Yeagerist's views, which are equally valid. Neither man wants to relent to the other without having their beliefs eroded.
Like a howling wind that can't make a mountain bow down to it.
Yes. These two are opposing forces, unwilling to bend or accept the other's views as the choice most righteous. But whose conviction will drive him to cross the line against the other?
Kaede saw the way the Yeagerist was looking at the Anti-Yeagerist, as though contemplating every alternative that existed between persisting and relenting. For one instant, she thought she saw him turn away to leave…but in another instant, she saw him raise up a firearm and shoot him in the waist in front of everyone. Something was telling the gray-haired young woman that the Yeagerist, simply due to her own past experience with a different member of the same group, was likely going to perform the latter choice over the former.
Is there a way for me to stop him from harming anyone? She asks the Dark Titan.
If you can think it, you can do it, the Titan responds to her. I am the plan, no matter how random it shifts at every moment.
Kaede may have not possessed the accursed ability to see events before they transpire, and this ability to see the convictions of at least these two men was something that surprised her, but she wasn't about to let a man that turned against those that went too far for a belief that didn't affect those in a way that actually matters.
I see…a wad of flesh like a tentacle…latching onto an arm in order to disable, she thought, imagining this happening in front of her, just as the Yeagerist man made his next move.
Her eyes widened at the sight of the object he had pulled out of his uniform. It was a firearm!
-x-
As a Yeagerist, he was willing to die for freedom, but against this traitor, this…Anti-Yeagerist that represented this nonsense that had no place on their island home that needed to be protected against their enemies across the ocean…he was willing to end anyone that could become a threat later on, and this man was a threat.
"Just die," he tells the Anti-Yeagerist, who was prepared to brandish his blade against this man.
Grip! Some sort of…dark, fleshy tentacle latched onto his arm and twisted it, forcing him to drop his gun to the gun.
"Aaaurgh!" He groans, looking at where the tentacle had come from, and saw something he wished was impossible. "Aaah!"
Approaching the three Yeagerists was a larger-than-human creature that was humanoid and had all the features of some sort of feminine being, but was dark and gave off a sense of disgust.
"What in the name of…" The Yeagerist female utters, unable to believe her eyes. "Who… What are you?"
"You Yeagerist ever come here again," it utters in a female voice, raising the former gun-wielding Yeagerist's right arm up, causing him pain as he yelps, "or so much as come within spitting distance of this village full of people that don't look to you for their protection, and I will find you, each and every last member, and tear off both your arms and then both your legs, and I might even tear off half your little faces while I'm at it. Do you understand?"
The two Yeagerists that had been questioning their orders took three steps backwards from the being that was clearly intelligent, leaving their commander to try and stand up for himself.
"Yes, so you will be these armless, legless, half-faced beings that are just barely able to tumble down the road…like the pieces of shit that I see you as. Do you feel me?" It continued.
"Aaaurgh! Who are you?" He demands weakly, and is lifted off his feet in front of its face, which opened on its left side, revealing the left side of a woman's face.
"We…are a promise being kept," the woman told him alongside the dark behemoth, which then replaced her face with its restored façade. "On second thought."
Squelch! The creature grabbed his other arm and covered him in a shell of darkness that resembled crystal, all save for his face, allowing him to see, breathe and hear.
"Aah!" The other two Yeagerists gasp as he was set down on the ground in front of them.
"What exactly are your orders?" The creature questions them.
"Capture the escaped prisoners if possible," the woman answers. "If we can't, kill them if necessary. But I…really don't agree with such orders, ma'am. Sir. Whoever or whatever you are. I really don't agree with those orders."
It then raised its right foot up…and rolled the trapped Yeagerist over to them.
"Are there any other Yeagerists with you that I should know about?" It asks them.
"There are fifteen more on the way here," the other man reveals, "each with the same orders."
"And if given a choice between living with your dignity or your life, which would you choose over the other? In one hand, your dignity means you walk away from this encounter with me, unscathed and without the mere thought of me coming after you. In the other, you still get to live…but without a number of your body parts still attached to you, making you less than soldiers…if that's what you can even be considered as right now. Because I don't see soldiers. I see bullies, thugs and wannabe heroes that don't deserve the recognition they seek to obtain. Which choice will you make? It's no longer fight or die. It's live or be scarred."
"Yeagerists do not negotiate!" The trapped man expresses. "Negotiations are for the weak!"
Suddenly, the dark crystal casing generated a patch of it across the man's mouth, silencing him.
"Mmmmmm!" He reacted, angry at being gagged.
"I'm sorry, does he speak for the both of you?" The behemoth asks the two lesser Yeagerists. "Or do you speak only for yourselves? If you had the choice to live beyond today by walking away, would you accept that choice…or lose what you have, what you could have…today?"
The female Yeagerist looks down at her trapped superior, and then looks back up at the dark humanoid that was giving them a choice. She carried a rifle, but she doubts it would have any effect on a creature like this, especially if it was some sort of Titan, a being none of them had seen since after the Rumbling which destroyed the world. And if this being was a Titan, it had to be under the control of a person inside it, meaning it was someone that obtained power and was exploiting it to do things. She took up her rifle…and threw it aside to the ground.
"Nobody speaks for me," she tells the creature, removing her coat and throwing it to the ground. "If I have to choose between fighting an enemy I can't defeat and walking away if given the choice to, then I'd rather walk away and live than stay and fight only to die."
She turns and leaves, followed by the other Yeagerist man, who throws away his rifle and removes his coat.
"Honestly, I don't like being a Yeagerist," he claims. "I have no idea what's wrong with these people. I would much rather be a storyteller than a soldier."
"Hey," the creature stops them, and then rolls the trapped Yeagerist over to them. "Please, take that sack of crap back to wherever it came from. We don't want it."
"Mmm!"
Using some rope, the two disgraces pulled the dark crystal with them, surprised that it wasn't so heavy due to its smoothness and left the village without any conflict.
"So, um…what did you want to be before you were drafted into this?" The guy asks the girl.
"Homemaker," she answers him. "If I ever met the right person, that is. Lately, there doesn't seem to be that many potential suitors left on this island; if nobody's a Yeagerist, they're just…out of my reach."
"I had a cousin that wanted to be a painter before he was drafted. Maybe I should pay him a visit after my discharge."
"Best of luck with that."
-x-
The villagers looked at the Dark Titan and were surprised that she was standing in front of them, and then watched as she returned to being Kaede Sogen.
"Kaede?" Her sister, Sumairu, expresses. "What was that?"
"Yeah, I…uh… I ended up having to carry out a promise made long ago. Yeah." Kaede tells her.
"You can turn into a Titan?"
"Kind of?"
"Is that how you survived that night at the museum when that jerk shot you?"
"Yes."
Sumairu then hugs her sister tightly.
"You lucky-as-Hell lady jerk," Kaede hears her say; she was fearful of losing her big sister, but was relieved that she was alive, just not expecting this to be the reason she lived beyond that night of unnecessary bloodshed.
To be continued…
A/N: Another overdue chapter from another overdue story this year. And for those that hadn't thought about it, there may not be much in the way of murder, but there will be much in the way of misery towards those that seek conflict and get exactly what they ask for, just not in the way they want it. Wait and see.