Creation began on 08-02-24
Creation ended on 08-06-24
Attack on Titan
The Dark Titan: Mistakes and Retribution
The mistakes made by the Yeagerists that decided to come to this town to try and dig up a grave they had no knowledge of where to even find…were their decision to come here to start with when the people that once lived on Paradis chose to defect…and they hounded them for doing so. An additional mistake on the Yeagerists' part was that they chose to come here at night instead of during the daytime, as they had no clue as to what the Dark Titan was capable of, relying only one the tales spun by those that had brief encounters with the Titan…or simply from Historia once stated about the Titan after its holder chose to leave the island.
"Aaaahh!" Several Yeagerists could be heard behind the wall that was intended to keep out people that were from Paradis with the aim to harass and hound the defectors that named their new home after the young woman that gave them hope to live again, and the residents simply remained in their homes, ignoring their cries, because they brought whatever fate they were being dealt with upon themselves. "Aaahh!"
Laying in her room, Carla could hear their screams…but voiced no opinion of them beyond her thoughts of chastising them for their arrogance in thinking they could come here for something that wouldn't be theirs.
"Mom?" She hears her daughter speak up as she raises her head and sees her standing in the doorway. "Are you asleep?"
"No," she answers her.
Outside, away from the wall, Kaede watches as the Dark Titan grabs three Yeagerists and crushes them in her hands before laying them down, still breathing, but their limbs mangled.
Bang, bang! A Yeagerists shoots at the Dark Titan's face, but the bullets just go right through, as if hitting nothing but air.
"Hasn't it been understood that shooting is useless?" Kaede asks them when one tries to shoot her with a gun. "You can't kill me. You can't even hurt me. I'm dead already. You can't harm what's already gone!"
"Rrraaurgh!" A male Yeagerist yells as he charges over to Kaede, holding a bayonet in front of himself, aimed at Kaede's waist. "Die, traitor!"
Kaede sighs and stands her ground…and the Yeagerist goes right through her like she wasn't even there. Then, the Dark Titan steps on him, breaking his legs.
"You really are a devil," a female Yeagerist says to her, and Kaede walks over to her.
"I'm a devil?" She questions her. "I don't believe you're in any position to say anything about who's a devil or anything. The actual devils…are the ones that live down below. Do you want to see them? I'll even pay for your one-way ticket."
The soldier's eyes widen in response to Kaede's choice of words.
"Go to Hell," she tells her, and the Dark Titan brings its left hand over her head.
"After you," Kaede replies, and the hand slams down on her, burying her in the ground up to her neck, letting her breathe while she still could.
As Kaede walked away, the defeated Yeagerists present could see that she was as dead as she was unstoppable, just as the Dark Titan couldn't be harmed or impeded in any way that a living creature could be.
"Why have you forsaken Paradis?!" A male Yeagerist with his limbs mangled dared to question her. "You used to live on Paradis! It used to be your home! Why condemn it to the threat of reprisal from its enemies in the world?!"
Kaede turns around and looks at the beaten soldiers…and responds, "Paradis is not my home, anymore. The people whose beliefs you follow…took away the sense of home I once felt for it and sacrificed it for something I don't believe in. And if the people of the world choose to come after Paradis for what was done to them by the Rumbling and the people that wanted it to befall them…then that is the fate Paradis is to be dealt with. All I've done…is try and give back to the world some of what Paradis chose to take from it. It's up to the people to decide if they want to visit Paradis and seek retribution. I merely gave them back buildings to live in and gardens to grow food. I didn't give them a single thing that could be used as a weapon. Even though part of me believes that I could, that would defeat the purpose of what I was asked to do. I returned a semblance of what was taken away. What the people choose to do with it all, however…is for them to decide. I have no say in any of it. You have no say in any of it. If you think possessing the Dark Titan will make any difference, then you're sadly mistaken. You're just wasting your time…and you're wasting your life."
-x-
Ymir watched from the safety of the wall with the other sentries as the Yeagerists were getting brutalized, left and right, by the Dark Titan that they couldn't even harm. She watched as the young men and women that had no right to even be here were stripped of their mobility and drive to fight by their so-called enemy when they were the ones to refuse to leave. And on a personal level, it wasn't all that different from when she saw Kaede face off against previous adversaries when Marley had been the threat with their stolen Titan powers being used to harm them when they lived on Paradis, only now it was just regular people. Regular…misguided…people. It seemed very…mundane.
Slam! Stomp! Bash! None of the Yeagerists that decided to show up were being shown much mercy if they were getting mangled by a Titan they were not prepared to face and were not going to get what they were here for.
Even if they did manage to get through, there would be nothing left to take, Ymir thinks as she feels this was a waste of time and manpower. Historia…is this truly worth risking everything for? Is it hopeless as what could've been?
Slam! In less than thirty minutes, the Dark Titan had decimated the entire squadron of Yeagerists present, leaving them dead, dying, alive and crippled…and as unhappy as they were earlier when they showed up unwelcome.
"I don't know whether to feel sorry for them or not," a man says as the Dark Titan begins to gather the defeated youths.
"Pity them," went a lady. "It may be all they deserve."
Then, the Dark Titan drops one of the Yeagerists as it turns around and walks to the wall, going right through it, surprising the sentries atop it.
"Okay, something has her riled up," another woman says.
-x-
"…What the Hell?!" A young man yells as he and eight other Yeagerists, a separate group from the main one that would keep the Dark Titan distracted, had went around the wall on its other end and gotten to the Dark Tree to dig around its trunk.
They had assumed the estimated depth to dig was six feet, the normal depth for a human grave. But upon reaching that depth, they were met with resistance, for the ground was harder to penetrate with shovels and didn't resemble any kind of rock they had encountered before. And it was a large hole, too, since they weren't sure where the body was located.
"Maybe it hardened its body upon burying itself," suggests a female Yeagerist.
"No, you'd be wrong," they all hear a voice say, and looked up to see a man looking down at them. "I was here when Ms. Sogen took her own life because of your predecessors, and she never hardened her Titan body. Several days after she killed herself, we dug up where she buried herself alive. She probably doesn't even know…or even cares much for knowing, but her body was preserved, not even a bruise on her skin. We did what we thought was best…and sent her off in a proper version of how your predecessors sent off her loved ones…because it was exactly what people with loved ones deserve when they die, not the cruelty you chose to inflict."
The Yeagerists looked at him with expressions of shock and contempt.
"You…cremated her?" A male Yeagerist demands to know.
"We did…and scattered her ashes across the ground you just dug up. And then, we planted the Dark Tree…and it grew to the great height you see before you in the years after her death. You won't find her body…because there's no body left to find. Miss Sogen only exists…in our hearts and memories of her…as well as a ghost that has come back to give back to the world whatever she can give back, but she owes you nothing. She never owed any of Paradis a damn thing."
They were beyond angry with this discovery. The people of this pathetic town had dug up the would-be grave following the girl's suicide…and cremated her remains. There was no body to dig up, and therefore no spine to salvage to try and acquire the power of the Dark Titan. This venture was for naught from the very beginning…and the traitors of this town knew it. They have always known.
Stomp! They looked up at the tree and could see the Dark Titan.
"You have two choices right now, seeing as you haven't harmed anyone yet," it tells them. "You can either leave this town and never return…or you can be buried, right here and now, and become permanent compost for the flora. You decide."
They looked at one another and knew the choice was obvious.
"We'll leave," they all gave in, and the Dark Titan gives them a small smile.
"That's the smartest choice you've made all evening," she tells them.
-x-
Historia was getting tired of this. The Yeagerists that decided to act without her authorization…had been returned to Paradis by the Dark Titan at night…and most were mangled, leaving only nine of them unharmed…but with bitter resentment as the Titan disappeared beneath the waves in the distance.
"I'm guessing your self-proclaimed mission didn't go as well as you had hoped it would?" She asks one of the nine that was unharmed.
"It was for naught," he responds. "Not only was the traitor dead, but the people that defected with her went and cremated her remains after she killed herself! There was no body to dig up at all! No body, no spine, no Dark Titan!"
Historia, despite hearing of this, wasn't all that surprised to hear of this. She had suspected, ever since she met Kaede, that her Dark Titan power was not transferable in any sense, meaning that once Kaede died, that power would go to the grave and beyond with her. Even if she had told the Yeagerists, there was little doubt that they would leave the issue alone.
"Look, you really need to just leave the people of that town alone," she tells them. "They want nothing from us, and we have nothing to offer them."
"That town they named after the traitor?" A female Yeagerist questions. "It's their fault we're in this mess! All of their fault! They motivated that bitch's ghost to go out there into the world and enable our enemies to begin rebuilding their own forces! It's only a matter of time before they decide to come here and kill us!"
Historia didn't doubt this, but they didn't have any say in what the people of the world were going to do now that their society was back to a semblance of how it was prior to the Rumbling. If they decided to band together and decimate Paradis, it would be up to them to defend themselves against an invasion. But she didn't believe that Kaede would enable anyone from any part of the world to build weapons so soon to do anything against Paradis; the girl was more in control of her emotions than Eren had been, with the sole exception of taking her own life. And based off what she learned from Hizuru, nobody seemed to be doing anything of the warfare kind in the rebuilt towns, mostly just trying to put back together their lives as best as they could with the blessings they had received from Kaede and her Dark Titan, blessings that Paradis and Hizuru would never receive because of the loss of trust the girl once had in them.
"There's something else you should know," a different female Yeagerist, her legs severed from her body, informs Historia. "The girl with the gray hair… She's going to attempt to broadcast her voice when the people of the world repair their radio network. She's waiting for every town and city she visited to rebuild to regain their access to radios so she can make her voice heard across the world."
"Did she say why?" Historia questions.
"Only that she needed the world to know where she stands," a different male Yeagerist says. "Where she stands is clearly not with Paradis. That much is true."
But if she's waiting for the world to reestablish their radio broadcast network, Historia wonders, then she must've rebuilt the global society better than most here suspected of her.
-x-
What is time to one who was dead? What was an eternity to one that had nothing left to live for? These were questions that often go unanswered throughout time and history. But for Kaede Sogen, these were questions that were answerable to some extent; time was still time to someone that was dead, and an eternity was an eternal time to someone who had nothing left to live for, such as herself. Except that in this case, the time it took for people to rebuild their radios and tune in for some musical bliss or to hear about other things…was a bitter and brief agony for her to endure so long as she could finally speak her truth to the world…so that all the people of the world would hear her voice, know her name…and understand why she did all that she did.
As she sat against the trunk of the Dark Tree, beside her Dark Titan, Kaede watches as the world of the living passes by her, seeing the people of her namesake town go about their business like anyone else anywhere else in the world. During the daytime, she was limited to the shadows because she couldn't do much of anything like she could at night, as a wandering ghost with very few advantages. It was also a pain for her to know that she didn't feel tired from sitting around and doing nothing; she had to assume that due to being dead, she no longer possessed a body that understood the meaning of fatigue, exhaustion or any other means of physical distress. But it was her mind, her consciousness, that still felt the boredom of having to wait around for something to happen or for someone to do something of significance.
Of real significance, not the kind that resulted in heavy losses.
Wake up, Kaede, she hears again, just after closing her eyes for less than a minute, the voice sounding like one of her friends, Delilah. Please, wake up.
What is going on here? She wonders, looking around and seeing nobody near her to speak with. How can I wake up? I'm not even asleep, just dead.
She laid her head back against the trunk and closed her eyes. While sleep would never come to her, it didn't require her to be active most of the day until the sun went down, leaving her free to do as she pleased at night. If mental fatigue was possible, even in a damned state, then Kaede would need to let her mind rest until later on.
Please, wake up, she hears another voice from her past, sounding like Charlotte's, and her eyes snap back open. Please, wake up, Ms. Kaede Sogen.
Wake up? She questions. I can't wake up if I'm dead. The dead can't wake up. Why am I starting to hear voices now?
It seems that for an hour, every few minutes or so, Kaede was hearing the voices of people that have been dead for over a decade since before the Rumbling occurred, and each one of them saying the same thing, over and over again, to "wake up", which carried no sense to the girl. She would hear the voices of her parents, her friends, Charlotte, even the deceased people that she used to aid before the Rumbling occurred. People she almost considered to be friends like her childhood ones, like Julietta's daughter, even the civilians that saw her as a person and not as a monster. Oh, how she missed them all, each and every day that came and went in her life after she abandoned the island of her birth and failure, making her wish, with all her heart and her soul, how much she would gladly trade her undesired future without them…for one where she was with them, smiling, laughing, crying happily to see them all alive and well.
"Miss Sogen?" She hears a male voice call out to her, and she opens her eyes to see one of the men that came with her when she defected; it was the father of the little boy he and his wife lost because of the collapse of the Walls. "Some news to lighten your mood?"
"Any news is worth hearing to change one's mood," she tells him.
"A stranger from the town of Liberio has come to see you. He calls himself Reiner Braun…and that you met him in the past."
Reiner Braun? The last person to wield the power of the Armored Titan before it vanished from existence forever had come all this way…just to see her? What reason could he possibly have to come here?
"It's hard to comprehend," she hears him say as he approaches the tree, "but I can see it as clear as day. A ghost in the safety of the shadows in broad daylight."
"To what do I owe the unusual manner of your journey from your home to the land where my life met its premature end at my own hands, Mr. Braun?" She asks him.
"Because of your rebuilding of Marley's towns, the people have been able to reestablish the radio network," Reiner informs her. "So…wherever you choose to go, whenever you choose to go…people will be ready to hear your voice, know your name, your story, your truth."
"My truth…is not the same as anyone else's."
"That may be, but the truth from one that uses the power of a Titan to create instead of to destroy, to return as much as possible what had been taken away years ago…is the only truth that matters to the people that saw you at work. And quite frankly…I want to hear your version of why you do as you. I want to know what drove you to become the person that you are."
"I am an enigma to most people. A fiend to some, a saint to others. I have always referred to myself as a simple girl with simple desires."
"I think the world needs more people like you. Simple people with simple goals. What were your goals in life? What did you want more than anything else in the world?"
"What I wanted more than anything…was a future where I was happy with the people around me. It didn't have to be with wealth or power, just family and friends, love and hope. The boring things that some take for granted were the things I chose to cherish…and would have gladly given up what I didn't want to have back again. What did you want out of life, Mr. Braun? What did you desire with all your heart?"
"My parents to be together…but it was an empty dream."
"Why?"
"Segregation…and my parents…weren't really in love with one another."
Kaede sighs and rests her head against the trunk.
"Don't pity the dead," she tells Reiner. "Pity the living. The dead are beyond pitiful…and those that live without love or friendship are the ones that need it more. Those that are the result of loveless unions have to do better…and be better than those that came before them. While I can understand the sentiment behind the wanting for people to be together, I can't wrap my head around people that don't want to be together. If people that do love one another choose to risk everything to be together, they deserve to be together, but those that don't love one another's, or worse, don't try to be honest with one another…are the ones that often lose what they do love without even realizing it."
"Well said, Ms. Sogen."
And yet, it feels like everything I say something, I'm somehow contradicting myself. It feels like I'm making a difference between everything I say…and everything I do.
"People are best defined by their actions," she recalls her stepfather saying to her at one point in the past. "It's not just what they say that show other people who they are. It's how they choose to do things. You do, not just say, therefore you are."
Kaede feels like the only thing that was going to get her through this grim future of her damned present and future were her memories of the past…and the people that still believe in her.
"Tell me something," she then says to Reiner, "do you believe that Liberio can endure my presence a second time in the darkness of the night?"
-x-
Curiosity bespoke to many people on Paradis as they often sat near radios to listen for any sign that people from across the world had returned to the so-called normality of what society possessed. But most on Paradis only wanted to hear the one thing that was their minds: What would the ghost of Kaede Sogen of the Dark Titan have to say when she made her debut across the broadcast network. Even Connie and his family have been waiting for signs of what the gray-haired girl had to say, and they had yet to leave Paradis for other parts of the world rebuilt by the Dark Titan, preferring a better life than what was no longer present on the island.
"…It's still static," his father expresses as he and his mother sat by the radio.
"…Are we broadcasting now?" A male voice asks as the static cleared a little over the radio. "People of Liberio, across Marley and the rest of the world. It has been a remarkable five months since the return of the Dark Titan and its positive actions across the land. Whereas the majority of the Titans of the past were capable of immense destruction, the Dark Titan has demonstrated only the opposite, using its power to create, to regenerate, to rebuild. It turned ruins back into towns and cities and wastelands into gardens. And here, right now, we get to hear from the spirit of the young lady that made all of this possible. Please, identify yourself for the world to know. Who are you?"
"My name," they hear a female voice that is unlike any they have ever heard before…and yet they have heard it before, "is Kaede Sogen. Kaede Maple Honey Sogen, in case anyone needs to know my full name."
"Her full name," Connie's mother went, surprised to hear such. "That's a lot to hear from a young lady."
"But she's not exactly young, anymore," his brother claims; if someone is dead, no matter how old they were before they died, there wasn't a way to get around the fact that they were late for their birthdays to come.
"She's not even thirty-five yet," he tells him. "Don't start up."
"And your designation?" The man on the radio asks.
"I am the Dark Titan, then and now," Kaede answers.
"Can we ask you some questions?"
"You may."
"Why are you here? I mean, why are you here doing all of this? You have been showing up at night and clearing away the ruins of towns and cities, paving the roads and building gardens. And many people, in the beginning, were terrified at first because of the fact that a Titan appears after more than a decade since the Rumbling, but after watching you do nothing but pave roads and build buildings and bridges, their fear of you waned. What was the reason behind you doing all that you did during the months you were wandering across the world?"
"Well, to understand that, you would have to hear the reason behind my current state. As you can all see, I am barely present, despite being present. You can see right through me, and as your assistant has demonstrated earlier, I can't be harmed like people alive can be. I am a ghost, an earthbound spirit, condemned to walk between the living and the damned. It is a long story."
"We're all ears to hear your story."
"It all started the day after the Rumbling ceased. I was recovering from a brutal attack on my parents, my friends and myself by the Yeagerists. I was the only survivor due to my Titan power of regeneration; it is not easy to perform any measures of defense when people take you by surprise, ambushing you so that you don't know what is going on. As soon as one of my legs had healed up, I approached the young queen of Paradis…and confronted her about what I had perceived to be her lack of awareness and control over her soldiers, and found myself enraged by her responses."
"You were…enraged by Historia Reiss?"
"Anger doesn't fade, even with the passage of time and life. I am angry to the point where I don't speak her name."
"My apologies."
"Don't be. To understand where one resides in the present, you have to learn where they were in the past."
"So…what happened after you confronted…the young queen?"
"She revealed that she knew what the instigator of the Rumbling, Eren Yeager, had informed her what was to come before it even occurred, and I became further enraged with her awareness of the truth. Or rather, the truth as she was told by the very young man that despised me for no other reason than existing, blaming me for his shortcomings. Oh, she tried to apologize for the deaths of my loved ones, but I didn't want her apology; it's pointless to apologize for what you knew was going to happen and expect forgiveness from one that had no forgiveness left in her heart."
Connie was surprised to hear of this! He knew that Kaede had a falling out with Historia, but to know that the queen knew what was going to happen to them…made him feel nothing but sympathy for the gray-haired woman.
"That's a cruel blow to the heart, Ms. Sogen," the man on the radio expresses. "Who were they? Your parents and friends?"
"My mother, Christine Sogen. My stepfather, Sig Zanki-Sogen. My friends, Julietta Pritchard, Mimi Hayes, Salina Jade (Ha-day), Rachel and Amanda Polaris, Kylie Pierce…and Delilah Lance. Another friend, one that admired me at such an early age, was Charlotte Pritchard, Julietta's daughter. Eh-heh-heh. I was considered her favorite because of my gray hair and kind personality. They all gave me hope."
In Mitras, Historia, also listening to the radio broadcast, was moved by the choice of words Kaede used to identify the people she lost because of the Yeagerists…and herself.
"…They all sound like the kind of people you could call best friends," the man on the radio says to Kaede.
"They were," she responds. "There was nothing I would trade for each of them. There's nothing I could want except them."
"What happened…shortly after?"
"The queen expressed words I can only view as something Eren Yeager would say, and anyone that chose to follow his way of living: 'What's done is done, Kaede Sogen. There's no turning back now. It had to be done for the greater good of Paradis'."
The way Kaede echoed Historia's words… You could tell that she hated the way they were spoken, hated the way Historia chose to utter them…and where she stood on the choice to let what happened happen. Some of the people looked at Historia as though she had deliberately made an enemy out of Kaede Sogen when she spoke those words.
"…And you didn't like where she stood over any of this?" The man asks Kaede.
"I didn't like the fact that she sounded just like him when she said that to me," Kaede expresses. "And when I looked at her for the last time, it was like looking at him, only worse. In the end, I knew where she and anyone that chose him and his way stood…and I wasn't going to put up with any of it. I wasn't going to accept their beliefs that what happened had to be done. I said my last choice of words to the queen, that I wished her the best of luck with her reign and hope that the rest of her life was lived with integrity, something I needed to live what was left of my life with. And that she could tell her followers whatever she wanted to about me, because anything she said would no longer matter to me."
"What did you mean by that?"
"Are you familiar with the phrase that people use when referring to bridges burning?"
"Don't burn down bridges?"
"That's right. Well, that bridge was burned down, and once a bridge is burned down, it's forever branded in one's mind that not even a new bridge can truly replace. In short, I was done with the queen…and anyone that follows her, which, in turn, meant that I was done with Paradis. I packed what I could carry with me and left. Although, I was accompanied by less than three-hundred people that no longer felt that Paradis was home, exactly as I felt. We left the island…and we didn't look back. To this day, none of the people that left with me that day have ever gone back to that island, not even for a brief visit. Among them was the former mother of Eren Yeager, who renounced her son because he tried to have her killed on three separate occasions, viewing her as an obstacle in his way…and she couldn't stand the stigma of her former son becoming a soulless murderer and monster full of hate."
There were several gasps on the radio.
"That's horrible," the man utters.
"It's bad enough for certain parents to despise their children, but it's a different kind of hatred that drives any child, for better or for worse, to want their own parents dead. It doesn't matter what the reason is, be it hatred, vengeance, or even because of a delusion of freedom or grandeur, it's a terrible and unforgiving sin to decide your own relatives need to die for something they have nothing to do with."
Sitting in front of a radio in her small home, Mikasa felt condemnation for not knowing that Eren tried to have his mother killed three times, which drove her to renounce him as her son.
"Eren…" She utters.
"And after you left?" The man asks Kaede.
"We reached the mainland and wandered inward until we setup residence within the ruins of another town next to a mountain. Several days went by, and I felt my anger towards the people of Paradis reach a breaking point. Everyone has their breaking point, and you never know what someone is going to do until they break. But grief was just as powerful as vengeance, and while I felt hatred towards the people responsible for taking my loved ones away from me, I didn't want to inflict unnecessary bloodshed like those that believe in violence…so I did the only thing I could do to keep from harming those that didn't deserve my fury. I found an open space, dug a large hole…and signed my own death certificate."
Most people couldn't believe what they were hearing from the gray-haired girl! To think that she took her own life…just to keep from hurting other people…was just insane to comprehend.
"You…you buried yourself alive? But suicide is a sin, Ms. Sogen," the man tells her.
"So, too, is murder and genocide," Kaede expresses. "They are worse if you have every intention to carry them out on others, guaranteeing you a one-way trip to the darkest afterlife where the devils lay claim to your soul. To keep myself from spilling innocent blood, I chose the lesser of the three evils that exist. Who grieves for those that are lost? Who chooses to live alone when they know they are unhappy with the immediate state of their existence?"
"…If I may, Ms. Sogen," went a female voice on the radio. "It has been brought up several times that, during the time you were rebuilding the lands destroyed by the Rumbling, you neglected the nation of Hizuru. You were reported to have been there at least once, but you didn't do anything while you were there. Can I ask why?"
"I was finishing a building in a neighboring country of Hizuru's and lost track of time," Kaede answers. "I was forced to shelter in place in the shadows of Hizuru until sunset, but Hizuru is an ally of Paradis, putting them in the same boat of shame that island has for allowing the Rumbling to happen. That's why the people of Hizuru didn't receive anything from the Dark Titan."
"And…your thoughts on the likelihood of what may or may not befall Paradis in the future?"
"If you're talking about the threat of reprisal towards Paradis, why would I have any thoughts toward that island? Why should I be concerned for whatever happens to anyone still on that island? It's…no longer my home…which therefore makes it no longer any of my concern."
"So…you don't feel anything for your former home? No remorse? No feelings of guilt for the people that may resent what you've done in the months following your return from the beyond?"
"Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, and whatever the people of Paradis wish to think of me…is whatever they wish to think of me. What they think or feel towards me…is no longer of any interest to me. I washed my hands of Paradis. It's no longer the place I once called home."
"So, then…if people across the world felt like they needed to exact revenge upon the island…you wouldn't feel the need to protect them at all? Not even a little?"
The listeners could hear Kaede sigh as she prepared to speak her next choice of words.
"I've severed my ties with Paradis," they hear her say. "If you or anyone across the world feel like you need to exact revenge towards Paradis and those that supported the Rumbling, then that is your choice. If you want revenge, I won't even stand against any of you. In the end, it's your choice, the same with those people still on the island. All I would really ask of you…is that the small town that was recently named after me…be left alone in all of this. The people that live there just want to be left alone. They don't have anything further to do with Paradis…and Paradis has nothing to offer any of them. Well, that's not entirely true. There is one person in the town that wants something from Paradis, but what they want isn't even a thing in the material sense, and I, for one, despite my personal feelings, have always been a supporter towards romantic affections…so long as they are mutual."
"Oh?" The man on the radio went. "What romance is there to be sought after, Ms. Sogen?"
"Only mutual romance. Out of respect for the one that longs what they felt they had to leave behind on Paradis because of the differences in beliefs, I won't say their name, only that I hope that one day in the future, there'll be a time where they do go back to Paradis…only to see if there's still hope for their romance. Even if I don't care for the people left, I do care about how their relationship progresses…should it ever resume."
Historia clutched her chest with her left hand. Even after all these years, Ymir was still carrying a torch for her? Despite the years of distance, the former Jaw Titan still loved her? And Kaede, despite her disassociation with her, held onto the hope that they would eventually reunite?
"Your Highness?" One of her guards question her.
"It's nothing," she says.
"But…if you had something you wanted to say to anyone still on Paradis," the woman on the radio speaks, "what would you say to them? What would you want to say to them?"
"If I had something left to say to them?" Kaede utters. "I would say… Paradis, while you might've been my home and the land of my birth, that was a long time ago, and in the here and now, you chose conflict and hatred by creating the Yeagerists, these despicable youths that have taken the Survey Corps' Wings of Freedom insignia that Charlotte adored…and defiled it with false beliefs that fighting and killing will grant you the freedom to live, and that was among your greatest of mistakes made after the Rumbling. Another of your mistakes was thinking that I would return and be your ally like before the Rumbling occurred. That will never happen because you took the lives of the people that mattered most to me. And to the queen? Your choice of words that you used to echo the words of that youth that threw his heart and soul away, they hurt more than my own words can describe, and that hurt hasn't ended for me, even when I'm dead. While I might understand why you felt I had to hear those words…I can never forgive you for saying them. Should you ever come to the day where you meet your end, just know that I still hope you live it with integrity. That is what I would say to Paradis if I had more to say to them."
"Damn," Jean expresses as he stands before his own radio. "I knew Ms. Sogen was angry with Historia, but I didn't expect to hear her say shit like that before."
"Yeah, we gotta leave Paradis," Connie's mother states. "Like, now. Like, after the Rumbling. We need to leave now!"
"Well, uh…thank you for your time, Ms. Sogen," the man on the radio says to Kaede. "Your presence tonight was…deeply appreciated."
"And I thank you for having me, sir," Kaede replies. "Have a pleasant evening."
"Uh, you're not going to vanish into thin air?" Everyone hears him say.
"I thought I'd use the door like I used to in life," Kaede states.
"For whatever it's worth, Ms. Sogen," the woman on the radio says, "while I do believe your namesake town should be left alone by everyone… I am sorry for the wrongs you were dealt for the loss of your parents and friends. Truly, I am."
"Thank you. That means a lot to me to hear that from you."
Click. Historia turns off her radio.
"You knew!" She recalls Kaede's anger at the revelation of her knowing what Eren was going to do before he even did it. "You knew!"
"What's done is done, Kaede Sogen," she remembers her own words, not realizing until now how much she sounded just like Eren when she used them against Kaede.
The way Kaede looked before she left Paradis, the anger and hurt she had felt from learning where she stood, the agony of losing the people she had loved more than anything else in the world…and the revelation that Ymir, shortly after Kaede had left with some broken grieving parents, widows and widowers, chose to leave her because of their differences…but still carried a torch for her heart. And then, there was the fact that the ambassadors of Paradis, the co-called heroes that stopped Eren and the Rumbling, relinquished their status after failing to get people to be more accepting towards Paradis…and the ghost of Kaede that still carried resentment towards the people she held responsible for her loved ones' deaths…
"…That was among your greatest of mistakes…"
"People are going to be split between this, you know," another of her guards informs her of the radio broadcast Kaede took part in.
"I know," she says, but was still thinking of what had been said about Kaede's personal feelings and the fact that Ymir was still pining for her.
-x-
"Kaede," Reiner stops the ghost of the Dark Titan Shifter before she left down the lonely road in front of them exiting the rebuilt Liberio. "What you said back there for everyone in the world to hear…"
"I meant every word of it," she tells him as she turns to face him. "Not very becoming of me, is it? Still, I own it. I own all of what I said back there for all to hear."
"It was…right that you were honest. Tell me, though…is it that hard to forgive and forget?"
"Before or after you're dead?"
"Either."
"The attack on Liberio orchestrated by that crazy man…the retaliation by Marley… It would've been easy to forgive and forget if people during those times had just stopped trying to kill one another and simply spoke to one another, but people like him, they don't believe in talking…and people like me…don't believe in violence being the solution. If it had been me that day, maybe if we had stopped and talked for a while, these atrocities could've been avoided altogether. But only for me, so far, it is hard to forgive the ones responsible for your losses…because doing so would mean that I have to accept that they allowed for those deaths to happen, that the people closest to my heart…and the people I'll never see again in life…and I want to see them again…more than anything. So, I…I can't forgive them. I can't forgive her. Oh, sure, she tried to apologize for their deaths, but I doubt she meant any honesty for them no longer being alive, and I didn't want her to apologize. 'Don't start! Don't start! Don't start with sorry', I told her when I told her that her Yeagerists had killed them. I think if I had really given into my anger at that exact moment…I would've likely killed her…and then I'd have her death on my conscience…and I didn't want that. Killing her…wouldn't have brought any of them back…and I wouldn't be forgiven if I had traded her and the Yeagerists for them to be brought back. A life for a life doesn't equal anything except more pain and suffering. In the end, walking away from Paradis…was the only rational choice I could make to spare others my rage."
"But still…you still carry that feeling inside, don't you, to want to make them suffer? To want them to know all of how you feel about what they did to you?"
"And that's a feeling I'll never be free of, even if I were to act on it. So…whatever hatred others have for Paradis…will have to suffice for the world. My own is…something I don't want to let out in fear that I'll go too far. Until we meet again, Mr. Braun."
She turns to leave…and her Titan follows her into the night on that lonely road.
"Yeah," he says, "until we meet again."
-x-
"…So," went Carla to Ymir by the wall's eastern entrance, noticing that she had a bag on her right shoulder, "what are you up to?"
"I should at least try to see where my future might be if things go sideways," Ymir says to her. "Kaede may never forgive Historia, but she still believes that I have a shot with her. I gotta see for myself if I do. I won't know unless I try, right?"
"And if you do have a shot with her?"
"Hopefully, this won't be the last time you see me."
"Well, then, I will say this: Good luck with her."
"Thank you."
Ymir then walked away, going through the five-meter-tall opening, leaving the town to return to Paradis in the hopes that someone she loves was there waiting for her as the sun rose in the distance, signifying the new day.
To be continued…
A/N: Yeah, I really needed to point out that this version of Kaede, despite her negative qualities, still has a conscience when it comes to people and beliefs; she believes that people are entitled to whatever they believe, but she won't really involve herself in any feuds because of her own morals. And while she doesn't forgive Historia, she won't condemn the possibility of romance between her and Ymir, something Ymir has to try and see if it will try and progress. The radio broadcast had to be the strongest point of this chapter, because everyone listening had to know how and why Kaede chose to abandon Paradis and the people, and how her decision was justifiable, given her emotional state at the time. What do you think so far?