Creation began on 02-10-23
Creation ended on 02-12-23
Attack on Titan
Attack on Titan: Rebirth of Peace born from the Darkness
A/N: "Paradis may be the land of my birth, but it has not felt like my home in a long time. And if these two choices are the only choices I'm given, then I will forge my own choice and take that over all others."
It wasn't much of a choice, but to them, it was the only one they were content with making because it was their choice to make as they closed the doors to their home in Yarckel District in what used to be Wall Sina. They didn't even bother to look out the windows; the sight was always the same…and they dreaded that symbol that promised them nothing they truly desired, only the pain of the choices being offered. While they might've had their affiliations with the former government because they made their decision to avoid chaos at all costs, this new government made them uncomfortable with the way things were progressing on Paradis…and they wanted nothing to do with it.
"…The last of the Military Police are gone," the husband said to the wife. "All three factions have been erased from existence."
"So, it's true, then?" The wife questioned as she sat in a chair. "These…Yeagerists…have taken over the island?"
"Yes. We need to leave."
"And go where? The Rumbling decimated the world beyond Paradis. There's nowhere else left to go. It's…all gone."
"Not all of it. And anywhere with you two is better than being here. We don't need freedom. And we don't need to fight for what we don't believe in. We just need peace and alternatives."
The wife turned to look at a framed photograph of the current queen of Paradis, Historia Reiss…and grabbed it and threw it against a wall; once upon a time, she and her husband had supported her when she decided to gather up the orphans and give them a home, but when they learned that years later, those same orphans were being recruited into the Yeagerists to fight, they severed their ties with her in disgust. If this was what they were going to do with children for the sake of a belief, they didn't want to be a party to such a cruel ideal.
"I used to admire the young queen," the wife told her husband. "I used to see her as representing a passion for the people of Paradis that surpassed the authority of the government. But now…I don't see that passion being represented by her, anymore."
"There was a rumor that she supported the Yeagerists. While I didn't believe in it, she didn't do anything to stop that man. Maybe she was threatened, maybe she was weak, but whatever the case, she didn't do anything, so I can't believe that she will keep the Yeagerists in line. A handful of others within the district don't want anything to do with the new government or the Yeagerists, so they're getting ready to leave within the next week. We'll find a boat and go somewhere else. Somewhere where we don't have to worry about needing to fight…just to see the next day."
"No matter what happens to us," she tells him, convinced that they needed to leave the island as soon as possible, "we can't let her fate be decided by these people. She deserves a life she can be proud of, where any choice she makes is hers to make, without regrets to what could've been."
She places her hands on her abdomen, heavily swollen with their first child; she must've been seven or eight months along. Her husband comes over and places his hands over hers.
"I won't let anything happen to either of you," he swore. "We'll find a new home out there. Wherever we end up, as long as we're together, that will be home."
She smiled at him and held him to that.
"I already know what I want her name to be," she told him. "Kaede, after your stepmother."
"Why her?"
"She loved the forests on Paradis. I hope she'll love the forests elsewhere."
Her husband smiled and kissed her deeply.
-x-
One week later
In the night, across the terrain of Paradis as they traveled to the coast where a boat was waiting for them, a handful of people from around the former districts made the choice to leave the island in favor of a life elsewhere where they could be free to make their own choices instead the ones these Yeagerists and the new government had laid down.
"Are you sure you can make it, miss?" A man from Shiganshina asked the dark-haired woman sitting beside her gray-haired spouse.
"The worst is behind us," she responded.
"True, but I mean, are you sure you can make it onto the ship in your condition? You look like you went through an ordeal some time ago."
"We did, but she was worth it."
In her arms was a small bundle wrapped in a cloth that protected it from the air around them. She moved away some of it and the light from a torch revealed a newborn with wisps of gray hair; just as the sun had gone down, the mother-to-be had gone into labor and delivered an hour later. It was only two hours later that they had left Shiganshina and headed to the coast.
"She's adorable," he told her.
"Thank you," the gray-haired father replied.
They reached the coast and saw the large boat where other people were boarding. As they boarded up the walkway, the new mother and father took one last look of their former home. No matter where they ended up, it was hoped to be better than this place used to be, for they would never come back.
Bang! A sound of a gunshot was heard, followed by the whining of some horses.
"Yeagerists!" A man on the boat yelled, and the people wanting only to leave this place felt fear.
"Move!" The new father urged the people. "We need to leave! Now!"
People ran as fast as their legs could take them as the ramp was pulled up. From across the distance between the pier and the trees, they could see people on horses galloping towards them, wielding either torches or rifles. These were the Yeagerists, the people that believed in freedom at the cost of everything else, including the right to choose for oneself whether or not it was even worth fighting for.
"Fight or die!" They heard a man yell at them. "Fight or die!"
Except this was not what they wanted. If they were to live, it had to be on their terms, not the terms of some man that died destroying the world.
Blast! A small explosion occurred, rocking the boat a little as the escapees saw fire ignite on the pier as the boat began to move away.
"You can't live by running away!" They heard the man yell at them on the boat. "Cowards! You will die! One way or another! You! Will! Die!"
The new mother held her child close to herself as she turned away from the island that was no longer home.
One day, she heard a voice in her head, you'll have to go back…if only to reclaim what was taken…and set the wrongs right.
"Did," went her husband, "anyone else hear that voice?"
"We can't go back there," a woman said, holding her two children under her arms. "They wanted to recruit my children into their structure. I don't want that life for them. I want them to live and be what they want to be for themselves."
"We're not going to teach history of this sort," a man holding his eldest daughter's hand expressed. "The Yeagerists are not worth anything they say."
"They want to protect Paradis by having people train to fight, they can have it," his daughter added. "I want to believe in there being a better place than what it used to be."
"RRRRRRRRAAAURGH!" A loud roar caught their attention, and they looked back at the shore they had fled, seeing a dark figure within the flames that engulfed the pier.
"What the Hell is that?" Another woman asked.
-x-
It was…a Titan. But it should've been impossible; all of the Titans were gone, and this was incomplete, missing its lower body from the waist down. Bathed in flames, it gave off a dark glow, like it was made of the flames themselves.
A Yeagerist got near it with a rifle, only for the creature to slam its right hand onto the pier in front of her, forcing her to step back.
Never again, the Yeagerists heard a voice in their heads. The people that chose to leave have every right to abandon this island to its fate in favor of forging their own path. You, the people that choose to stay and live by the words of a fallen false king, your fate is yours to decide, but those that desire more than what you choose to offer…are not yours to go after. They are the ones who are truly free. You…are the condemned.
"What the Hell are you?" One of them questioned the being in the flames.
I am…only what is necessary…when the final choice is decided upon, it expressed. The one that needs us the most…will be all that matters in the time it takes to begin anew. They will decide…what was…what is…what will be…and what will be once more.
"What does that mean?"
The end comes to us all. All that comes from the nothingness of existence…shall return to nothingness. Live however you choose to live. You, your successors…and their successors…for as long as you choose…and you will never have what you desire in the manner you seek it. Pray that we never meet again, for if we do…you will wish we had never seen one another. Let live those that dare to desire…a life that they can never regret. Within the soothing darkness…is a light that promises more than what is to come…and what was never.
The flames died and the creature disappeared from sight.
"Was that a Titan?" One of the other Yeagerists asked. "A Titan made of flames?"
"Titans don't exist, anymore."
"Oh, yeah, well, how do you explain what we saw just now?"
"An hallucination, maybe?"
"A talking Titan made of flames? How do we hallucinate something like that?"
The Yeagerists were arguing over how confusing this situation was to them. So much so that they failed to notice they were being watched from the shadows of the trees nearby by someone cloaked in the night.
"Something tells me that this is going to be quite the predicament for Paradis and its people, both the people that chose to abandon it and the people that have given up on the benefits of having choices and the freedom to make them. But still, the question that is the most likely one tonight is this: What is to become of Paradis in the future yet to come?
-x-
Two weeks later
The entire land was destroyed and there had seemed to be no signs of anyone making any attempts to rebuild, and this was where the people who were formerly from Paradis came to in order to get away from the Yeagerists.
"…After being here and seeing what the Rumbling has done to the world," said a man that used to live in Trost as he looked down at the ruins of where he stood, "we were fools to believe in that man who caused this. We should've looked for another way to resolve our differences."
"In the end, I don't think anything we decided on would've kept him from doing what he did. Even if it was to be free, too much blood was spilled. There's no way to wash that away." A woman from the Utopia District spoke. "I used to think that a world where Titans roamed through it was Hell. But the ruins of a place where people once lived, where they could do anything, be anything… This is Hell. And that island I once thought of as home…is also Hell."
"We can't ever go back to that place," the new mother told them, sitting on a piece of debris so she could feed her daughter. "Not as long as it only lives with giving only two choices when we always have the right to want more. Not ever."
"Then…this is where we'll live," went her husband. "We'll forge our own life here and do whatever we can to ensure that we have choices…every day of our lives. That's the only way to live. The only way we should live."
"No fighting others just to live, no dying just because we chose not to fight."
Everyone that used to live on Paradis…and chose to abandon it because they didn't want to live under the rule of the Yeagerists…could all silently agree and accept that where they were now…was where they wanted to be. It was not what they had expected of it, not even what they had hoped for, even when they heard of the Rumbling…but now, it all came down to them…and how they chose to move forward. All they had with them was the most meager of resources they took with them, along with their promises of a better life. It wasn't much of anything…but there was no turning back now.
-x-
He watched with a great sadness in his eyes, looking at the ravaged landscape these men and women had come to in order to escape from their would-be oppressors. There was a strength in their hearts that hadn't faded away the way the light had gone away on Paradis; they dared to hope for more than they had ever dared to, to escape from a fight or die situation and be able to live the way they wanted to, without any regrets because they were able to choose for themselves what they wanted. It was because of their conviction that he could at least smile a small smile.
Who would want to be told that if they don't fight, they don't deserve to live? He questioned. There is always a choice between living and what one wants out of life.
Some will not see it this way, he heard that voice from before, and looked down at his feet, seeing a dark hole with a pair of eyes. The Yeagerists are not a group that will be content until they are assured that Paradis is able to protect itself against any threat. And yet, some threats just don't exist for them…until they choose to cross a line and go looking for one.
And did the Rumbling not decimate any that would seek their demise?
It did…but some wounds are often self-inflicted by the ones that create them. The Rumbling, in and of itself, is just another wound that sows another self-inflicted wound. Hatred begets hatred, even in attempts to eradicate hatred. So long as hatred exists within the hearts of those that cannot let go of their animosity toward others…hatred is forever. Hatred is everlasting.
Who are you?
Someone like you. Someone that exists within the gray, between the day and the night. My existence will not matter…until it needs to by those that need more than a right to choose for themselves. They will need more than a promise of freedom to live and die on their own terms.
Are you that promise? Are you that right?
Maybe. Maybe not. My existence does not matter right now. I don't exist yet…until I need to.
Then, the dark hole vanished, leaving only rubble. The stranger could gaze into the unknown…and saw that which made no sense at the moment: A darkness, deep and inescapable, and within this darkness…a light, held by hands that knew no drive to cause bloodshed.
Oh, dear, I don't know what is to be expected from this, he accepted, unsure of what was to come.
-x-
She was not happy about hearing that the Yeagerists led an unprovoked attack on some people that made a conscious decision to leave Paradis of their own volition, but she doubted that they would listen to her; the loss of control over them had been nothing short of problematic for the government and the public that raised concerns about their lack of restraint and accountability. If this continued, she wasn't sure if there was any more reason to make sure that the people were safe.
Ten years of this, she thought, looking at the last letter she had received from her friends just a few days ago, and it feels like nothing is getting better.
But it surprised her to hear that people from the former districts of the Walls had made the decision to leave Paradis because of the disbandment of the remnants of the Garrison and Military Police; she had believed that they would come to accept the Yeagerists as their new protectors, but she was proven the opposite reaction by a large number of civilians, including members of the nobility, severing their ties with the royal family and taking what resources they could with them. It was anyone's guess as to what these people would do out there in the world, but she was certain of one thing: They were never going to come back to this island. At least not willingly. Not if they wanted what they couldn't have here.
As hurtful as it may have seemed, she missed the old days. These new days were not so easy, especially when it seemed that people were being forced to choose between the lives they were trying to keep stable…and the lives they could have only when they contributed to the new regime that was established. There might've been no Walls, but there was no sense of understanding or respecting one's own drive.
"I don't know what you expect from people, anymore," a former subject told her before walking away a month ago, "but I don't think I can continue to work here with the way things are. I don't know if I can live on an island like this, anymore. I believed in just causes…but I don't believe in these people you allowed to do as they please towards others that want nothing to do with them."
Looking out her window, she saw the logo that had been the symbol of the Yeagerists…and could only sigh at how uncomfortable it made some people.
To be continued…
A/N: This is the first attempt at a post-Rumbling fic, so bear with it for now. The idea is that not everyone is accepting of the Yeagerists on Paradis, so they decide to abandon the island, only for the Yeagerists to feel that they are traitors and attack them, but something that won't happen for a while will have them unnerved. And there will be some original characters that have been used more than once in this. Just expect things to get out of hand before better hands are put in place.