Her fist crashed into Eren's nose and he went down hard, his head bouncing against the mat. His nose spilled blood.
Mikasa was gazing at her hand as it opened, closed, opened, closed, puzzled, as if she hadn't meant to hit him.
Eren sat up. "Again." She offered him her hand. He took it and righted himself. They took their positions. Eren's head felt stuffed with cotton. Steam wished him well.
Mikasa feinted and Eren fell for it. She swung wide and struck him in the jaw and this time, Eren didn't remember hitting the floor. A kiss of blood printed the mat.
Mikasa was frustrated with him. "I thought you would be able to avoid it."
"I'm glad that you didn't go easy on me," Eren said. "Thanks."
"Do you want to go again?" She looked like she needed to go again.
Eren rose and fell once more. Mikasa stalked over to him, angry. She lifted him by his collar and placed him on his feet.
"I expected more from you," she said.
"Then you should've trained with the Captain," Eren said, dusting himself off.
"Jean, or even Connie, would've made a better opponent," Mikasa said, watching his expression.
"Are you trying to make me angry?" Eren said. His fists closed. He felt pressurized, as though Mikasa was exuding a flattening gravity. Suddenly, it cut off. Mikasa was tossing her sparring gloves to the ground. She walked off the mat and threw open the door and her silhouette was caught and washed away by the afternoon sunlight.
Hours later, he found her outside of the Survey Corp headquarters. A tepid autumn and its rot had claimed the woods. The undersides of the forest were dark like low burning lampshades. Dead leaves fell and shone red orange like sun-infused strips of skin. Mikasa's blade lept from its holster and sliced one in half. She was standing with her back to him.
"Can we talk?" Eren said.
Mikasa's blade thrummed, dragonfly wings, and speared another leaf. "Yes," she said.
Eren fidgeted. "Armin had this idea. He said it would make me feel better if I apologized to you." He blushed. "Not that I didn't want to anyways! I just didn't know how to."
"What for?" Mikasa said. She turned to face him and Eren saw she was still angry.
"For-" Eren ran a finger under his eye; Mikasa's scar. She shivered, as though he had touched her face.
"You don't need to apologize for that," Mikasa said. "You weren't in control. If anything, I should be apologizing to you. I wasn't myself today, and I'm sorry that I took it out on you."
Eren gave her a lopsided smile. "You don't owe me an explanation, but do you want to talk about it?"
Mikasa directed her blade into three leaves at once. She shook their crumbs off, staring at the covered ground where all things went to die in the fall. She hesitated. "Do you… remember that night in the cabin?"
"It's hard for me to forget," Eren said.
"That is what is bothering me," Mikasa said. "It's hard for me to remember." She put a knuckle to her forehead and her blade was alarmingly close to her hair. "You would think every detail would be ingrained."
"I don't know about that," Eren said. "I can't remember anything that happened before and after it."
"But you remember the cabin itself," Mikasa persisted.
Eren nodded. Mikasa sliced at and missed a wine colored leaf. She let out a hot sigh and Eren saw that she was angry again.
"Could you tell me what happened?" Mikasa asked.
"I don't think that's a good idea," Eren said. "Why do you want to know so badly?"
Mikasa's eyes were sharp. "It's when we met." Eren remembered a funeral pyre, a wall of towering flame that reached to the heavens.
"There are happier memories of that. Remember Shiganshina, or our old house, or mom."
"That day is what defines me," Mikasa said. "It is a part of who I am."
"Its-!" Eren stopped. "Are you bleeding?"
Mikasa touched under her eye. There was a small dagger of blood shooting out from her scar. She wiped at it and the tiny fingernail slice filled with red again.
"You are. Did you cut yourself? Here-" Eren fumbled to get a cloth bandage from out of his uniform pocket.
"I'm fine, Eren," Mikasa said.
"No, it's actually pretty deep," Eren said. He held out a cloth. "Let me-!" Mikasa batted his hands away and pressed her sleeve to it. Eren tried again and Mikasa grabbed his wrist and he dropped the cloth. He stooped, fishing it out from the rustling leaves.
"It's fine," Mikasa repeated.
Eren stood. "Did I hurt you during training?" He was still, anticipating the answer.
Mikasa laughed softly. "No. You didn't touch me."
"I was close," Eren protested.
Mikasa shook her head and Eren left her there but did not leave. He took twenty steps and then crept behind a tree to watch her.
She drew her second blade. The wind stirred. The forest drew in a great breath. Trees reared back. The wind swelled. And when it was released, there were leaves everywhere and Mikasa was spinning.
The leaves burst with colors. Mikasa's blades were bright like a flash of white rabbit fur through the undergrowth. Her scarf tails were a dull red blur. Her shadow tipped and twisted. The leaves fell around her and the wind began to die.
Mikasa slowed. She came to a stop. Her dance was over. Around her, the leaves had fallen in a perfect circle.
###
He died once and then spent the rest of his days as a walking remnant. She died multiple times and after each time, she was reborn into someone new.
That's why it was not atonement that made him climb into the machine but curiosity. Curiosity of what could and couldn't be changed about the circumstances of his death.
He was strapped down on the machine with biting metal legs. He lay on his stomach while eight needles were launched deep in between the segments of his spine. His face was a blank paper mask. It crumpled when the needles loaded the Queen's blood into his bare back.
His eyes fell open. The irises were fractured like earthen plates drifting apart in a sea. The pupil was a shattered glass ball. The dead boy made everyone experience the pain of his death over and over and over.
###
This time Mikasa had sought him out. Eren woke to the sound of her tapping on the window. She was bolted there using her ODM gear. He opened it, letting in a cold draft.
"What are you doing?" he whispered.
"You told me to remember more happy memories," Mikasa said. "I wanted to make one. Meet me in the storage room."
"Do you want to wake Armin?"
"We should let him sleep."
Eren met her in the storage room. She was sitting on a crate, testing her left trigger. It sprayed out a coil of wire before retracting it. She opened the crate and handed him ODM gear. "Put this on," she said.
"Why? Where are we going?" Eren asked.
"You will see," Mikasa said.
Eren dutifully strapped on his belts and buckles. He turned around so that Mikasa could check that they were all on correctly.
"It's been so long since I've used ODM," Eren said. He could feel her breath warm on his neck.
"Have you forgotten how?" Mikasa asked.
"I don't think I could," Eren said.
Mikasa led him to the forest. Everything was dark and blue and the moon pulled them in. Eren tested his trigger and gas and he sprang forward. He landed in a heap of leaves. Mikasa looked amused as he got up with leaves in his hair.
"I'm rusty," he said petulantly.
Mikasa waited for him to get the hang of things, making short jumps from tree to tree. Then Eren was flying and nothing had changed. He swung low, brushed the grass and then flung himself out from the treeline. He whooped. He was free.
Mikasa followed him, seamlessly maneuvering through the forest like a gliding ghost.
He landed on a tree branch. Mikasa landed beside him. He felt light.
"I feel…" Eren touched his chest. He thought before speaking. "After what happened with mom, this was the only thing that made it better. Even just for a second."
Mikasa smiled; her scar smiled palely too in the moonlight. "I'm glad."
"Do you want to race?" Eren said. Mikasa dropped from the branch and caught herself at the last second, zipping away. Eren dropped too, firing his anchor points then releasing. Mikasa was going slow for him, he could tell.
He squinted. There was something in the distance. In the dark he could make out a ring of gnarled dead trees. They had no leaves and rotting gray bark. He felt a shiver down his spine as if he was looking at some portal that left the mortal realm. It was a perfect circle of decomposition, fifty feet in radius.
"Mikasa–" he called out in warning right as she entered it.
Her body went limp. Her wires carried her into the air and then she was falling and Eren was squeezing his triggers, launching himself forward. She was five feet from the ground. Eren dove. He caught her, crashing, and his wires caught them, cutting into them in a big snag of silver hoops and coils. They were hanging upside down, chest to chest, inches from the forest floor. Mikasa's eyes were closed. Her scar was bleeding upside down into one eye like a red mercury thermometer line. He slowly lowered them to the grass. Mikasa's eyes were moving under her lids and she seemed to be having a nightmare.
"Mikasa," Eren said urgently. "Wake up." He dabbed at her scar. Then he lifted her and carried her outside the ring of deadwood. Immediately, Mikasa gasped awake.
"You were having a nightmare," Eren explained. "You scared me."
"I dreamt of the cabin," Mikasa said. "But–" she sat up and touched her head. "It wasn't a dream. It felt like I was there, only I was older."
"It was only a nightmare," Eren said.
"I don't think it was. I think it was a memory."
###
Shiganshina was bleeding. Long forgotten scars burst open in flares of red. The blood spattered on the street and splashed on the townsfolk's feet and had them dancing, spinning, celebrating, moving the restless spirits that had awakened during the night. Their heels became soaked in red.
Eren hid his face deep in his Survey Corp cloak hood. His horse followed Mikasa's who followed Hange's and Levi's. The roads were blocked with people celebrating, tossing fresh dirt and dead flower petals in the air in some esoteric ritual. They had painted nightmare faces; white skulls with double-layered teeth and long juts of black like piano keys. Eren saw his own Titan face in them.
"I caused this," Eren murmured.
"Don't let them see your face, Eren," Hange said. "They're worshippers."
"Of course it's Eren's fault we're going to be late," Jean sighed as they navigated their horses through the crowd. The sun wove light through cloud looms onto upturned faces.
"It was Connie's fault last time," Eren said.
"I got lost," Connie explained.
"Yeah, on the way to the bathroom," Jean muttered. He cursed and pulled his horse up as an old couple with their wrinkled faces creased with paint drifted in front of him. There were banners stretched between houses and flags waving in the crowd.
Sasha asked, "What's with these people, anyways? What'd you do, Eren?"
"Historia's blood didn't react well with mine," Eren said. He rubbed his eyes; the pupil was still pulling itself together like a split egg yolk.
"According to reports, it's making people see things," Hange said, bouncing in their saddle with excitement.
"Dead things," Mikasa said shortly. Her face was bloodless, her scar a newborn pink color. Eren watched her carefully.
"Did you get any sleep last night?" Eren asked her.
Mikasa tilted her head as if deciding to answer honestly or not. "Not since we got back."
"Got back from where?" Jean looked between the two. They both stared straight ahead. "Don't tell me you snuck out!" His head swiveled around to see if anyone was as scandalized as him.
"Hey Jean," Eren said. He pointed to Jean's horse. "You're riding yourself."
"Get a new joke," Jean said, sweeping his hand. It caught Eren's hood and uncovered his face. Eren quickly pulled it back into place but the damage was done. A singular roar came up from the crowd and they were all trying to touch Eren. Masses of hands reached. People cried and their tears smudged their face paint. Eren's horse bucked on its hind legs and Eren fell, landing with a whuff on his backside. Hands were on his face, his body, tugging at his cloak. He crawled back, trying to escape. Suddenly, the crowd backed away. Mikasa had parted the sea. Her blades deterred anyone who wanted to keep their extremities. She slid her blades back into their holsters and offered Eren a hand. He rose and–
Mikasa stumbled, and Eren caught her, their positions reversed. She really was pale.
"Sorry," she breathed. "I'm tired from last night."
"Don't apologize," Eren said. He liked saving her for once.
They made their way to a dirty alleyway, where Hange instructed them to strip their cloaks and jackets and gear.
"Here, Eren, this will disguise you," Armin said, his fists full of something. He rubbed white paint on Eren's face and did his best to draw a titan skull. "The teeth are tricky."
"Where are we going again?" Connie said. "I forgot."
"As fascinating as this phenomenon is, we're wanted at the Capitol," Levi said. "There's been a murder and apparently we have information that could help."
By the time they reached the Capitol, it was night. It was different from the crazy celebrations in Shiganshina. The windows were drawn, the people tight-lipped. Thousands of candles were scattered on the eaves, front doors, porches, even roofs. Their flames were tiny fuming hearts. Wax of all different colors. There were spirits dancing in the candlelight, haunts lurking in the shadows. Tonight, they were alive.
"What happened?" Hange asked the Military Police. They were all under a balcony. A body was there too, with guards positioned around it to make sure they didn't get too close. They were holding lanterns.
"His throat was slit and he was tossed from the balcony," one guard said. Levi was kneeling next to it, looking sideways at the neck wound. "I see now why you needed us," Levi said.
"Forensics said it matches the exact style and execution of–"
"Kenny," Levi said. "He's dead." He looked up at the guard.
"With how things are now, who can be so sure," the guard replied. "We need you all to turn in your weapons for inspection."
"You don't think we did this, do you?" Jean exclaimed. There were more Military Police than Survey Corp members bristling in the shadows.
"Makes sense," Levi said. "I had a personal connection to him."
Mikasa was staring at the body.
"I had a dream about something like this," she said.
"About this guy in particular?" Hange nudged the body with their foot.
"No," Mikasa said, sounding far away. "This scene just looks familiar."
"Well, dreams are gateways to the subconscious."
When they turned away, Eren saw that Mikasa's scar was bleeding again.
###
When Eren woke, he was bleeding. There were spots of red in his underwear. He got out of the bed and crept to the bathroom in the boy's barracks. He changed his underwear and returned to his bed, where he drew a small knife from under his pillow. He stared at his reflection in it. He put it to his palm and sliced without much thought and blood welled and it evaporated to steam before it ran. Cramps pulsed through his abdomen. A death wound that even his regeneration couldn't heal. He put on his boots and went for a walk.
Summer had made one final push before succumbing to fall. The sun flushed the town with heat like the wings of a waking firebird. Eren kept his head down, not wanting to be recognized. Lying on the streets, there was a mural of him done in chalk and red mud. People were still celebrating. A funeral of flower petals pelted the mural.
The kids were wearing paper masks of his titan. Eren snagged one that had fallen and put it on. It inflated, deflated, as he breathed. In the mask, the voices were muted as though coming from a long dark funnel. They said that Eren was good, that he saved them, that he obeyed. It was the same thing that the voices said in the room with the shining machine.
"-Eren Yeager," said a voice. He stopped. No one had actually known his name until now. He turned to the voice and followed it down past a house. In the backyard, people were gathered in a small circle. A man sitting in a chair was speaking. He had a shaved head and eyes like thumbed in wax.
"We gather here today to celebrate, not a nameless god like the rest of this town, but a person who has given this gift of sight. Thanks to Eren Yeager, I have been able to see my wife again."
The man held a candle in a silver platter aloft and lit it. It was like the candles that burned at all hours of the day in the streets. "Each candle represents a lost one and when we light them, they can find their way back to us for a brief moment."
Eren stood watching like a melancholy shadow over a picnic. The man noticed him.
"Let me see your face," he called. "You don't need that mask. You're among friends, friend."
Eren inched closer, keeping his mask on. The man smiled at him.
"This is your first time joining us, right?" he asked. "Here, we grieve those that we lost and find comfort in those that still remain. I am Maddock of the worms. We acknowledge that we're among the dirt while others are among the stars."
Eren listened. The group went around introducing themselves and sharing their stories. One woman had lost her children to titans. Another, his best friend. One had run and left his brother behind. He broke down crying. Eren's mask inflated, deflated. They all expressed their gratitude to the person they knew as Eren for bringing the dead back in visions and dreams. It was his turn to share.
"Have any of you actually met him?" Eren asked, muffled by his mask. "You don't know who he is or what he's done. You don't know the first thing about him."
"Have you?" Maddock said. "You're a soldier. I can tell. Did you serve with him?"
"I know that he's done more harm than good and that it's dangerous and stupid to worship him."
"You're mistaken, friend. We don't worship him. We're not like those people in the streets. We are thankful for what he has given us."
"That was a failed experiment with the Founder's power," Eren said. "It wasn't him."
"Even so–" Maddock spread his hands. "Here we are. Got anything else to get off your chest?"
Eren stared at his boots as his insides squirmed with cramps. Maddock didn't push him and the group finished up. Eren helped Maddock with the chairs.
"Join us next time? We always meet at noon," Maddock said.
Eren nodded.
After, he continued his walk, going the long way around to get back. He wasn't looking where he was putting his feet and they carried him down a cobblestone road. He felt a wind stir and stopped. He looked around. The street was deserted. The candles were blown out. No leaves drifted within the radius of a large circle. A cloud shrouded the sun. The wind blew his mask off and carried it away. Eren's pupils experienced cell mitosis, bulging into two twins. In one, Shiganshina was normal. In the other, it was Changed.
In the Changed, newer houses were magicked away. The roads were stripped. Moss and vines retreated. A thousand suns and moons retrograded in the sky. Scars of wrecked buildings, massive footprints filled with water, crushing boulders all disappeared. Shiganshina was made fresh and new. Eren heard familiar laughter. There was a sweet candy ache in his stomach. He turned and saw three children running. Young Mikasa and Armin ran past him. Young Eren barreled right into him.
"Watch where you're going!" Younger Eren scowled. Then he recognized Eren and his eyes widened. He called to young Armin and young Mikasa who had lingered to wait for him.
"I'll be there soon! I need a minute!"
He turned back to Eren, sizing him up. "I have questions."
"Me too," Eren said.
"Did we join the Survey Corp?" Younger Eren asked.
"Yes," Eren said. Young Eren grinned fiercely.
"I knew it," he said. "Mikasa and Armin came with us?"
"They did," said Eren.
"Then we're all together!" said Young Eren. He tilted his head. "Are we happy?"
"We have reason to be," Eren said.
"That's not an answer!"
"It's not much of a question. How should I know?" Eren said. "I should be. But I'm not."
Young Eren pondered this. He suddenly looked shy. "How's Mikasa?"
"She's…" Eren trailed off.
"Is she okay?!"
"We– we hurt her again." Eren ducked his head. "Like we always do."
Young Eren shoved him. "You do! I haven't yet. How did you hurt her?" He didn't let Eren answer. "I would never hurt her. I'm not going to be like you."
"Yeah, you will," Eren said bitterly. He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. "It's why we're here. To hurt people. Mikasa just happened to get caught up in it."
Young Eren looked him up and down. "I don't want to be like you."
Eren shrugged. "I don't think you have a choice. Can I ask you a question now?"
"I guess."
"How's–" Eren broke away then tried again. "How's mom? Can I see her?"
The wind stirred again, flapping his jacket. It twirled around him and Eren's vision was suddenly overlaid with old Shiganshina on top of changed Shiganshina like a focus lens switching between the two, old, new, old, new. He knew he didn't have much time.
"Let me see her!" Eren begged. "Please!"
Young Eren shook his head. "She doesn't want to see you." The wind was a gust now, screaming in their ears. Leaves and flower petals gathered around them, a billowing circus tent flap. "Even though you're kind of a loser now…" Young Eren put his fist to Eren's heart. "You're still a soldier. Thank you." He dissolved with the leaves. The wind died. Eren was back.
He was the only ghost here.