Creation began on 05-26-24
Creation ended on 05-31-24
Attack on Titan
The Dark Titan: Grief and Betrayal
A/N: When you turn your back on your friends and allies, you end up losing the closest thing you have to a family of your own, and it's a loss that not many are able to handle.
Historia Reiss didn't know what to expect when she saw her approaching the farmhouse, only that she was doing so with the aid of crutches because one of her legs was regenerating. The sight of a battered and emotionally overtaxed Kaede Sogen of the Dark Titan was not who she had expected to see today.
"Kaede," she greets her, seeing her face wrinkled with grief, "welcome."
"Why?" The gray-haired young woman demands from the young queen.
"What do you mean?"
"Why didn't you stop him? Eren Yeager. He unleashed the Rumbling upon the world…and you let him."
"There was no other choice."
"There was no other choice? There's always another choice! There's always a different way to resolve things!"
The sight of her right leg growing back to its original length bothers Historia, but she continues to explain the reason for why what was done had to be done.
"Kaede, if we didn't do it, they were going to kill us," she declares.
"Who was going to kill us? Who had it out for us?"
"The whole world."
"The whole world? The whole… Aaaurgh! You have any idea how stupid that sounds?! How much you sound just like him?!"
"He told me that you wouldn't understand, even if I told you everything he told me."
Kaede's eyes widened to this revelation. What Historia just said to her…indicated much more than what she was starting to realize.
"You…you knew beforehand?" She questions, seeing her hesitation to respond as proof. "You knew! You knew what he was going to do, and you didn't try to stop him! You knew!"
Tears were falling from Kaede's eyes now; even if Historia knew why, there was no turning back. What's done is done.
"Why? Why didn't you stop him?" Kaede asks, no demands from her.
"There was never any stopping him. He was going to do it, regardless of anyone's opinion or intentions. He protected Paradis from reprisal."
As her leg completed its regeneration, Kaede stood on her own, dropping the crutches to the ground, her expression contorted with anger.
"He didn't protect anyone," she claims. "All he did was spill innocent blood and ruin people's lives. And you let him. You let him and those fanatics do whatever they wanted to the people and call it protection."
"What are you talking about?"
"Your damn Yeagerists killed my parents! My parents! My friends! Their families! All dead because of you two!"
Historia was shocked to hear of this.
"Kaede, I… I didn't know. I…I'm sorry."
"Don't start with me about your being sorry."
"Kaede, I…"
"Don't start! Don't start! Don't start with sorry!"
This was the first time Kaede ever had a reason to be upset with Historia. Ever since she learned that she was of royal blood and was made the new ruler of Paradis, she had advocated for Historia because she believed in her to be able to ensure peace within the Walls. But now, the queen wasn't so sure what to expect from the Dark Titan Shifter that had supported her for the last four years.
"Men," Kaede says to her, "women, children, babies…all either dead, dying or maimed because of Eren Yeager. Because of you. Their blood is your hands…and you can't wash those stains away, no matter what you say or think. Whatever you want to say to me about any of it, I don't want to hear, even if it is some kind of truth. The truth is meaningless now."
"What's done is done, Kaede Sogen," Historia says to her, letting her know where she stood over this. "There's no turning back now. It had to be done for the greater good of Paradis."
Kaede looks up to the farmhouse, seeing men armed with rifles and sporting the insignia of the Military Police, several of whom were coming over to where they were, and she decides that now was as good a time as any other to do what she decided she needed to do. She reached for the pouch she had tied to her belt and tosses it to Historia's feet.
"Kaede?" Historia asks.
"I wish you the best of luck with your continued rulership of Paradis, Your Highness," Kaede tells her, wiping her tears from her face, her tone different from earlier. "Whether he told you everything or not, it no longer matters to me. Just understand that this is something I chose for myself. My life has to be lived with integrity, however much of it that is left. Tell your supporters whatever you want to tell them about me. It won't mean anything to me. May the rest of your life be filled with integrity, as well. Good day to you."
She turns and leaves, not even waiting for Historia to respond.
Historia picks up the pouch and opens it, revealing the medal that she had given Kaede for her service alongside the Survey Corps for reclaiming Wall Maria. She had kept this on her the whole time and never said anything about it. Why would she just…discard it? But Historia more than likely already knew why, and there was nothing she could say to undo what had been done.
"Your Highness?" One of the Military Police members utter to her.
Sighing, Historia turns around to look at the men that were assigned to protect her.
-x-
Returning to her home in Trost District…or rather, what remained of her home in Trost District, Kaede reached in a closet and pulled out a knapsack. She grabbed only a few things from her room, including her mother's brush, her shawl and a change of clothes. Even if this was her way of grieving for her losses, there was nothing she or anyone else could do to stop her. This was her choice to make, and she was making it because there was nothing left.
As she stepped out of the building, she saw a couple that looked like they had lost just as much as she had.
"Miss Sogen," the woman greets her, seeing her bag, "what are you doing?"
"Nothing," she tells them. "I…I can't stay here, anymore."
"Neither can we," the man replies. "They called our son's death a necessary sacrifice for the protection of Paradis. He wasn't even six years old. What kind of people call a child's undesired death a necessary sacrifice?"
"What kind of people, indeed," Kaede utters, and closes the door to the building. "Good luck."
As she turns to walk away, the couple make a conscious decision to follow her. Wherever she was going, it had to be better than here, even if it wasn't.
-x-
By the time Armin and the others found a boat that still worked and used it to ferry themselves back to Paradis, they saw a different boat that appeared to be made of crystal moving away from Paradis, carrying over a dozen or so people on with the Dark Titan behind it.
"Hey, it's Sogen!" Jean yells. "Hey! Sogen!"
The Dark Titan turns to look at the other boat, but then turns away and continues to swim away with the boat she was supporting, her facial expression exhibiting grief of some sort.
"What the Hell's wrong with her?" Connie wonders. "Where's she going with those people?"
Levi looks at the people he could see on the other ship and could've sworn some of them were crying out and needing to be held by others. Even if he wanted to suspect something was up, none of them were in any condition or under any obligation to investigate this. The Survey Corps had been decimated and there was nothing left of the world to explore.
-x-
The revelation that they heard from Historia was not something they had expected to hear, but without a witness to say anything to contradict what she said, it was the only truth they had to follow.
Kaede Sogen had lost her faith in Paradis and the queen after losing her family and friends at the hands of the Yeagerists…and left the island with a bunch of other people that probably felt the same way as she did.
"I'm guessing that you two had a falling out before she left?" Armin asks Historia, who continues to look at the medal Kaede returned before she left. "She must've felt betrayed by you when you told her what happened."
"It was inevitable," Historia claims. "It had to be done."
"Did it really?" Jean asks her, earning a little glare from her. "Did it really have to be done this way? She may have had her differences when it came to how to resolve things, but she drew the line when it came to the Rumbling; the very thought of committing genocide, even to protect our home and people, it just made her feel bad, that we were nothing but soulless monsters. And in a way, she's right to believe that."
"Did she say anything to any of you?"
"No," Connie reveals. "She looked right at us…and just kept on swimming away."
"So, you have no idea where she's going, then?"
"It's not like we keep in touch with her," said Reiner. "Whatever she does now is entirely up to her. She's the only one left alive with Titan powers."
"Did Eren say anything to any of you about her?" Historia asks.
"He didn't say anything about her," went Annie. "There was nothing to say about her."
"More like, he had nothing to say that involves her," Jean states; it was as clear to those that knew that Eren and Kaede were on opposite sides in everything they understood, including communication, as Eren was not one to divulge anything he knew to the gray-haired girl, and Kaede had no trust in someone like Eren due to his attitude. "If he knew anything about her, he took that information to Hell with him."
This was the truth as far as they could determine. And the fact that they had no clue as to what Kaede was likely to do now that most of the world was in ruins and she had left Paradis to whatever fate it had. No, she didn't leave Paradis. That would've implied that she would come back to the island at a later date in the future. If Kaede had lost her faith, it was more than likely that she had outright abandoned Paradis; because the Rumbling had been implemented, she no longer recognized the island as being her home, and therefore had no further reason to continue residing there.
"Will you be going after her?" Historia asks them.
"Even if we could go after her, I'm not going to," says Connie, taking a step back. "If she's abandoned Paradis, there's no point in trying to talk her into coming back. And if she's lost the people that she put her personal life on hold to protect with her power, then she has nothing left to keep her connected to this place. Personally, I don't blame her for choosing to abandon Paradis. It's not her home if she doesn't have the people she loved around it. It's the worst sort of freedom because she didn't ask for this. Nobody asked for this."
"If the world is ruined, then everyone that wanted to kill us is dead," Jean adds in, deciding that he wasn't going to go after Kaede, either. "If anything, Ms. Sogen's suffering…has only just started because of Eren, and now she has nothing that actually matters to her, anymore."
"And the Survey Corps has been destroyed," Armin states; if the world was in tatters, there was no longer any use for any of them to explore and report back on what they discovered. "We have no equipment, no leads of where she might go, and no manpower to find any. If I still have any say as the last leader of the Survey Corps, then it would be this: Leave Kaede Sogen alone. She's already lost everything she ever cared about…and we have nothing to offer her. You have nothing to offer her. And her Dark Titan is no longer ours to exploit."
Historia knew that he was right. There was nothing any of them could offer Kaede to return to Paradis. Money, recognition, not even a patch of land would entice the gray-haired girl into returning. There was nobody and nothing that would make the last Titan Shifter alive in the world come back to support the island she once took an oath to protect against whatever threats were once out there. And the worst part is that nobody that once knew her would even try to go after her, even if they could.
The Yeagerists are not going to be happy about this, the young queen thought; the Yeagerists were of the opinion that, so long as they had support from Kaede, Paradis would be untouchable.
But once they learned that this would not be the case, they would have to rethink their strategies.
-x-
The boat abandoned, Kaede and the people that left Paradis walked onto what was once the land of Marley, seeing only ruins and pieces of corpses that were proof that the Rumbling had befallen the world. If she had any tears left to cry about this nightmare nobody could wake up from, Kaede would have shed them, even as the Dark Titan. But all her tears from earlier had been spent on Paradis. In short, she didn't have any more to shed.
"You're not going to support the use of this Rumbling thing that the Titans inside the Walls are capable of at all?" She remembers her mother asking her one day.
"If I did that, would we be any different from those that see us as monsters?" She had responded. "And if we did do it, how could we face the people that were not out to get us? All of those families and friends that were just going about their day and living their lives? I can't be a part of any operation that condones genocide just to protect some people."
In the end, it wasn't her adherence to her beliefs that resulted in the deaths of her parents and friends. It was the despicable desperation of a handful that were willing to sacrifice countless lives to feel safe, whether or not she agreed with them to start with. The people she used to believe in, she wasn't sure she would even recognize them if she saw them again. And honestly, she didn't want to see any of them again. At all. Ever.
Too many people to name, too many names to keep track of and no graves or memorials to remember them by. The Yeagerists didn't even bother to bury the people they had killed, just burning them beyond recognition and calling their deaths a necessary sacrifice in the name of peace and freedom. But Kaede had learned to respect the dead by burying them and recalling the names of those that were taken from the world. However, the names of the people that mattered to her…were the ones she could only keep alive in her memories…and made a silent promise to never forget them, even as she lost herself to the days to come. Sitting against the ruins of a hillside, the Dark Titan rested her head on her left hand with her eyes closed, not wanting to think of anything beyond her misery of supporting the wrong people with her power.
The people that followed her gathered around her Titan sat with her; this was simply a time to process the fact that they had no home to return to that was worth their losses. No home, no families or friends, not even peace of mind. They had nothing but their empty lives. It would take a miracle for them to start over and live again, and they had very few of them.
-x-
Based on what several people saw, almost two-hundred-seventy-five people left with Kaede Sogen, most of which were just people that had their families ruined by the bringing down of the Walls or their friends or loved ones murdered by the Yeagerists. Even if this wasn't a personal loss to be overlooked, the Yeagerists were not pleased to learn that Kaede had abandoned Paradis; they had hoped she would continue protecting the island and the people from the threat of reprisals from the remains of the world. This was not the case for them, as it was revealed by Historia that Kaede had been against the Rumbling from the start and how the deaths of her parents and friends had been the wedge to make her leave the island permanently. Even without the Dark Titan, there were still plenty of them to defend the people from the world, but they felt the addition of the Dark Titan would have been a great boost to their morale.
"Couldn't you offer her money or something?" A female Yeagerist asks Historia.
"No," she answers. "No amount of money or anything else I could offer will make her return. We have nothing to offer her…and there's nothing she wants from us. The loss of her loved ones was the final straw."
"Why did she abandon us?" A male Yeagerist asks. "Why wasn't she supportive of the Rumbling? It was necessary to begin with! It was a sacrifice that had to be made!"
That question was not what Historia expected to hear. Of course, Kaede did not support the Rumbling, as it went against her beliefs. But some of the Yeagerists believed that she had been supportive of the Rumbling and that she left due to a different reason. Those that knew the truth knew why she left…and those that didn't believe the truth assumed that she left because of something else that drove her to leave.
"What if she chooses to side with some survivors that want revenge?" A third Yeagerist suggests.
"That's unlikely," Historia states, but she wasn't sure. "She won't assist in any matters of vengeance or power. She'll likely just go somewhere to be alone."
"But you don't know for sure. What if she does side with someone that decides to retaliate?"
That was also true. Because she no longer had any insight into Kaede Sogen's behavior, Historia was at a loss on what to expect from the girl. But she had her doubts that Kaede would ever come back to Paradis of her own volition. Once she left, she would not return, even for a visit.
-x-
Years Later
Nobody that survived the Rumbling went anywhere near Paradis. What few allies they had from Hizuru had established trade routes, but it wasn't much because the other parts of the world that hadn't been severely affected wanted nothing to do with them. And as for Paradis' ambassadors, the only other order they really had from Historia was to find Kaede Sogen, who likely still stood out due to her gray hair, just to ascertain her status after being away from Paradis for so long. But those they asked around had little to nothing to say about a young woman with gray hair.
Armin felt little cause in finding Kaede…and had little hope in finding her at all. Especially after learning that one of the people that had left Paradis was Eren's mother, Carla Yeager, who only left Paradis because, according to what some people claimed, was nearly killed by the Yeagerists before the Walls came down…on the assumption that she was trying to stop Eren. It made Armin more disgusted with Eren; the discovery that he tried to have his mother killed when the Warriors attacked Shiganshina the first time, only to have it thwarted because he didn't realize that Kaede Sogen had shown up, with her unexpected Dark Titan powers as the unholy gift of her step-grandfather, Grausam Zanki prior to his own demise in an attempt to escape from life behind the Walls, and she saved Carla, not because she sought to undermine his objective, but because the girl was just a good person in a horrible situation acting on what bits of morality she could during the mayhem at that time. And it made Armin grateful that Kaede saved the woman, even when she didn't have to.
Why did he try to have his mother killed again when the first attempt failed because of Kaede? He wonders as he boards a ship destined for Paradis after failing yet again to ascertain any knowledge of Kaede. If he failed the first time, it was likely that he was going to fail again and again because of Kaede. Was she that much of an obstacle to him that he decided she needed to go? And worse, he likely knew the Yeagerists were going to kill her parents and friends and allowed it to happen. If she wanted revenge against the Yeagerists, she'd be justified in wanting to attack the island. But she wouldn't do what the Yeagerists think she would do, no matter what they believe in. It was as she herself once said, the people that despised us, simply because of what our ancestors did, were dead ages ago, and she had no reason to want to go to war with anyone she didn't know personally. Of course, Eren had to go and state that their descendants needed to answer for the suffering committed.
"Hey, Eldian!" He stops walking up the ramp and turns to see a man looking at him. "You can tell your island masters that you're not going to find that girl!"
"What are you talking about?" Jean asks him.
"You're all looking for a girl with gray hair, right? Well, you're on a fool's errand! How do you find someone that doesn't want to be found by the people looking for them?"
"We don't have any choice but to look for her."
"And what, then? Huh?! What, then?!"
That was the question; even if they did find her, there was nothing they could do for her. It was moot to even be looking for her; they had searched the unaffected parts of the world, and nobody they tried to speak with had anything to say about a girl with gray hair or a Titan that was as dark as the night.
"We'll know when we find her," Jean states.
"Bull! It doesn't matter how hard you try to look wherever you go, you can't find someone that doesn't want to be found! Anyone that has nothing left to even live for because of what you did and didn't do has no reason to go on! That was what you gave her! And it was an endless torrent of agony and hatred!"
They boarded the boat and waited for it to depart from the dockside.
"You think he's right?" Jean asks Armin.
"How should I know?" Armin replies. "Why are we bothering with this? She left us. She wasn't exiled or driven away. She chose to leave."
"Because of what Eren and Historia did to her."
"And it's not like she has any reason to want to see us. I mean, what, are we just going to greet her and pretend what happened didn't happen? You can't fake that."
"So, what are you going to tell her?"
"The same thing I always tell her: Nobody's seen or heard from Kaede Sogen. And she's going to say the same thing: Keep looking for her. But not this time. I'm out. I'm done."
"I was done before you even said you were done. If Historia wants to find Kaede, she can either send the Yeagerists out or do it herself. The only thing that even seems to be of interest to some people is some tree near some mountain."
"A tree?" Connie went. "What tree?"
"In the town, I heard some people talking about some tree in the ruins of another town that had been built around a mountain. It was just rumors of how it just appeared one night a few years back. There was once an attempt to go near the tree one other night, but some people got together and said the tree was off limits."
"That…might be worth looking into," Armin suggests.
"Even so, I'm not going to waste my time with it. If Kaede wants to be left alone, I'm all for leaving her alone."
But even if they chose to leave her alone, it was anyone's guess as whether or not the Yeagerists and Historia would. The worst reason for choosing not to leave her alone was because they decided that they were entitled to be in possession of the Dark Titan…simply because Paradis was its point of origin. But Armin knew that was a rotten excuse to go after Kaede. It really was better to leave this alone, no matter what Historia asked them.
"You know what my biggest regret is regarding Kaede?" Connie asks.
"No, what?" Jean responds.
"She protected my village and my family from Zeke when he showed up…and I never gave her my gratitude for doing so. She was my brother's hero…and she didn't know."
Jean thought about it…and realized that it was the same with him; Kaede had saved his parents from the Titans when she was discovered to be the Dark Titan and became the envy of Paradis because of her power, restraint and devotion to protecting the people from the Titans and whoever exploited them…and he never thanked her for any of it.
"A lot of us never thanked her for what she did all those years ago."
Armin nods his head in agreement; the girl's Titan power had, unknowingly at the time, kept his grandfather from being killed by the Titans in a failed attempt to reclaim Shiganshina District, allowing him to die a peaceful death.
"Kaede prefers a simple life over one of difficulty," he remembers her mother, Christine Sogen, say to him about her daughter. "If you do something, anything, to cause difficulties to anyone around her, she will be affected to a degree, and sometimes, she'll try to hold back her discomfort. But she can't hold back her pain forever if someone deliberately causes it and can't or won't atone for it in a manner that she accepts."
"And if the cause of pain were hurting other people?" He had asked her.
"I wouldn't want to be the people that decided to do that or the ones that enabled the ones to do so. She'd likely renounce whatever ties she had with them. That's what I'd do."
A shadow swept across the deck of the ship, and Armin looked up, seeing only a seagull flying by. For a moment, he thought the shadow had belonged to the Dark Titan.
I wish things could've been different, he thought.
-x-
Even if the survivors of Marley were less hostile with Paradis, diplomatic relations were still strained when it came to the knowledge that there was at least one Titan around in the world, but Historia had to stress out that Paradis no longer had any authority regarding the Dark Titan, whose holder abandoned the island shortly after the Rumbling ceased due to…disagreements.
"…Nobody has seen or spoken with Ms. Sogen," she states to a Marleyan representative.
"That doesn't change the fact that she might be out there," he replies. "Why did she leave to begin with? There's no official reason that convinces the people that there won't be a retaliatory strike by Paradis."
"Miss Sogen was against the use of the Rumbling from the very beginning. She didn't believe that it was the right choice to make. But when it was done and when it was over, even before it started, there were…other issues that were happening that caused problems."
"Like the rumors that the Yeagerists murdered her parents and her friends?" A representative from Hizuru questions, and Historia sighs. "That would make anyone angry enough to want retaliation, but it's been over ten years now. Are you sure there was no other reason for Ms. Sogen to abandon Paradis? No dispute over other concerns at the time? Politics? Finances? Anything that would hint at her…wanting to be more influential?"
"She wasn't that sort of girl," Historia says. "She wasn't into politics or even cared about amassing great wealth. She was a…is a simple person."
"A simple girl that chose to walk away from everything she thought she understood?"
"What was done was done."
"Even so, as long as there's even a chance that she's still out there, people are uneasy about a Titan roaming free across the planet."
"People with the power of the Titans only live for thirteen years. There's a chance that she's no longer alive."
"What about the people that used to possess the power of the Titans?" The Marleyan representative asks Historia. "They're still alive…and based off of what had been shared about the Dark Titan, Ms. Sogen was a unique case; the Dark Titan wasn't one of the Nine Titans, but a completely different Titan. That implies that this thirteen-year lifespan did not apply to the girl. Also, you tend to shift between past and present tense regarding Ms. Sogen's possible status, which implies that you don't know for sure if she's alive or dead, having neither seen nor heard from her since she left with a dozen people that also lost their faith."
Historia knew where this was going and couldn't fault the representatives from other parts of the world for any of it. She did have a tendency to address Kaede in past and present tense, simply because she was unsure of her status; she was barely fifteen when they met, and by the time the Rumbling occurred, she was close to nineteen.
"You knew!" She remembers her yelling her disgust at her knowing what Eren was going to do and not divulging anything on the day she left. "You knew what he was going to do, and you didn't try to stop him! You knew!"
And the scariest part of Kaede's fury at the revelation was how calm she became after renouncing her ties with Paradis.
"A young woman that loses everyone she loves might as well be considered dead inside," one of her Military Police guards had told her regarding the status of Kaede's parents and friends. "That kind of pain and suffering… There's no telling what she might do."
"…Leave Kaede Sogen alone," Armin had insisted.
"…I'm officially retired," Levi had stated in his decision not to go looking for the girl to Historia, having the injuries to show that he was in no position or condition to go on an errand to locate someone that chose to leave. "Have one your Yeagerists look for her if you feel you have to have her come back for a chat."
"We're under no obligation to go looking for her," Reiner had declared for himself and Annie, seeing no definitive cause to bother with this matter. "If she wants to be left alone, I'm all for granting her that small need. It's her life. What she chooses to do with it is her choice, not yours or anyone else's."
Standing on the docks of Paradis as the ship carrying her ambassadors returned, Historia looks down at the discarded medal of Kaede's in her left hand.
"Anything new to report?" She asks Armin, Connie and Jean.
"What's less than nothing?" Connie responds, indicating that they had nothing new to say about the potential whereabouts of Kaede Sogen.
"All we got is a rumor," Jean states, "about some tree near a mountain where a town used to be. Nobody goes there because some people say the tree is off limits."
At first, Historia thought the tree could've related in some way to Kaede, but then sighs at how unlikely it could've been.
"And nobody's seen her?" She asks them.
"Nobody we spoke to," Armin answers. "One man claimed that we're on a fool's errand, that we're not going to find her. How do you find someone that doesn't want to be found?"
Historia puts the medal away and utters, "You keep looking, however long it takes. Where is the mountain where the tree is located?"
To be continued…
A/N: Originally, this was going to be a one-shot, but now it may be more than one chapter meant to show how different choices relating to something bad can lead to detrimental effects in relationships, especially so when some people that believe they can trust you become disillusioned with you because of secrets that had been kept. So, yes, Kaede Sogen, my original character, is among those that lose their faith after losing everyone she ever loved to the people that she once tried to protect against people that actually wanted them dead, and makes a choice that was the result of other choices made. But is she a recluse…or is she just gone?