The Dark Titan: Grief and Betrayal

by Traitor of All Traitors

Post-Rumbling. It was bad enough that the Rumbling was implemented, but worse to come was the aftermath revelation of how lives are shattered and the pieces can't be put back together. Enter Kaede Sogen of the Dark Titan, who abandons Paradis and everything she used to believe once she loses what she values above all else, leaving others to be concerned about what she could do.

9. Reckonings of Reunion

Creation began on 08-15-24

Creation ended on 08-29-24

Attack on Titan

The Dark Titan: Reckonings of Reunion

Ymir sighs as she walks down the ramp onto the docks of Paradis. From a distance, the island didn't seem all that different from what had been when she left years ago, but after coming back for personal reasons, it felt off to her.

Paradis, she thinks as she carries her bag with her up the path to the train station where she could buy a ticket for Mitras; as far as she knew, Historia never left the center of the island. Just how much has changed since we separated?

Upon reaching the station, Ymir notices a series of posters that are directed towards some people she knows. They were of Connie Springer and his family, Kaede Sogen, herself, Carla Yeager (they obviously didn't know her current last name after she remarried and started over with a clean slate), and Sasha Blouse.

"What?" She gasps.

The posters read things like, "These people are all traitors to the cause that Paradis stands for!", "They refused to dedicate their hearts!", "Traitors to Paradis!" and "These people betrayed our empire!"

Ymir is at a loss for words until the ones most associated with denial come to mind.

I don't believe this shit! She curses to herself, ripping off the poster with her face on it. How am I a traitor?! All I did was leave after a dispute with Historia! And Sasha?! The Yeagerists murdered her husband and the father of her son, and she gets labeled a traitor for leaving afterward?! And Carla is a traitor for renouncing her son for trying to have her killed thrice?! What the Hell happened here?!

There was nothing about her personal history even written on the poster, just her name, gender, and the so-called official status of her life by the Yeagerists, which was just her being considered a traitor to their cause and the people of the Eldian Empire.

"There's no such thing as an Eldian Empire," she recalls Sasha say when she was in the seventh month of her pregnancy. "The Yeagerists are more like a militaristic dictatorship. I can't support them in any measure of their ideology."

I'm only here because I want to know if I still have a place in Historia's life, she thinks as she crumples the poster, not because of anything else.

She goes to the booth and greets the guy working.

"How may I help you, ma'am?" He utters.

"One ticket to Mitras, please," she tells him.

-x-

The desire for revenge was one thing most had in common with one another, but whether or not one chose to act on it…was another thing altogether, as the representatives of the recovered world met together for the first time since the radio broadcast to feature the interview of the late and infamous Dark Titan known as Kaede Sogen. Each man and woman handpicked to be the representatives the rebuilt nations of the world that were destroyed and maimed by the Rumbling were each of them, without any doubt, bothered by what had brought them together to discuss the current state of affairs they have.

"Who wants to go first?" A man asks the rest.

A woman raises her left hand in presence.

"Yes?"

"We all heard the same broadcast," she says to them, "we all heard the same responses from Ms. Sogen, and why she did all that she did. She was under no obligation to rebuild our lands, from any of us or from Paradis. She chose to do those acts because she seeks redemption for her soul after taking her own life, driven to suicide by her grief at losing her loved ones. I am sure we all can sympathize with her when it comes to personal grief. But we're not here to talk about what Ms. Sogen may or may not do to us in the future. We're here to discuss where we stand with Paradis Island…and what may or may not happen in the future."

"But we all understand that Ms. Sogen, in life and death, severed her ties with Paradis after her falling out with the current queen, Historia Reiss, because she knew that Eren Yeager, the usurper of the Founding Titan, had known all along what he was going to do, and failed to deal with him before he could carry out his actions. However, her choice to sever her ties relates more to the death of her loved ones more than Yeager's actions, which she clearly didn't support. As a result of severing her ties, she truly has no concern, whatsoever, for whatever happens to that island or its people that support the Yeagerists. In the end, should the people of the world seek revenge against Paradis for the Rumbling, she left the final choice to be up to the people themselves. This act, in turns, leaves us to wonder whether or not to leave Paradis to live in fear of retaliation."

"If they live in fear, then they are less likely to do anything against us for being the perceived favorite of Ms. Sogen, as only the allies of Paradis and Paradis itself did not receive the blessings of the Dark Titan in the five months it spent rebuilding our lands."

"I'm all for letting that island of wannabe freedom fighters live in fear, but who is to say that they will stay put?" A different man questions. "We just don't want anything to do with the Yeagerists in our towns and cities. They want Paradis all to themselves, they can have it all to themselves. After Ms. Sogen built the food gardens and rebuilt the buildings, we started gathering materials salvaged from the aftermath of the Rumbling and started rebuilding our vehicles with technicians and engineers that survived all those years ago. While we're capable of restoring our weaponry, what's to keep the Yeagerists from coming in the dead of night to kill us while we sleep?"

"Most often," went a different woman, "fear is the surer bet."

"We just need to make sure that they stay put," a fifth man says. "So long as they stay away from our territories, we'll keep away from their island."

"Yes," a third woman agrees. "So long as Paradis stays in line, we can guarantee that we'll do the same with them."

Of course, this didn't stop any of them from wanting to question something else they heard from the broadcast.

"Despite her falling out with the queen," the second woman had spoken, "Ms. Sogen still believed in someone reconciling with her romantically. Was this Historia Reiss ever involved with anyone romantically?"

"From what some sources claim, there was one person, but they left her after a few years due to a dispute of their own," the fourth man reveals. "There's nothing beyond that information."

"So, we don't know who the guy is?" The second man questions.

"Or girl," the fifth man states, confusing everyone present at the round table. "There was one source that claimed the queen was close to a former Titan Shifter."

"Are any of these sources credible?" A sixth man asks.

"Unfortunately," went a fifth woman, "no, none of our sources are credible. The only credible source that actually knows anything is Ms. Sogen, and most of us don't want to bother with asking her for the truth."

"Why not ask her?" The first man suggests.

"All she asked for was the town named after her to be left alone. The people that defected from Paradis after losing their loved ones because of Eren Yeager and his Yeagerists have no other ties to the society that dwells on that island. They don't have any strategic knowledge or value to offer. They're just civilians that want to be left alone to live out their remaining years peacefully…and I'm inclined to leave them be."

"I second that notion," a seventh man agrees.

-x-

Kaede found some things to be confusing with her damned state of being. One of which was the way she casts a reflection in mirrors…but lacks a shadow, even in limited lighting. The shadow-lacking aspect didn't really bother her that much, but when in the company of Carla, who had nobody else to talk to this evening, it was getting to her due to the fact that the woman had a lantern with her.

"You really don't have a shadow," Carla realizes upon raising her lantern in the air and seeing Kaede, although unaffected by the lighting, having no shadow except for the ones cast by other things around her. "But…you have dark parts on your clothes and face, similar to how shadows are made when exposed to light."

"But it's my lack of a body," Kaede states, "my lack of actual flesh, blood, and bones…that prove I'm anything but alive."

"But…you give off a reflection in mirrors. And…I took a photograph of you last week. How does this make you feel, knowing that you can be captured in mirrors and photos…but not give off a shadow?"

"It feels…different from when I was alive."

Carla had to admit that her interaction with Kaede's ghostly form was something else due to everything being a learning experience here. Her disembodied state had its advantages and disadvantages, which varies from time to time.

"So…you don't ever feel the need to eat or drink?" She asks Kaede.

"No," Kaede answers her; ever since she returned, she has not felt like she has to consume any sort of sustenance to replenish her energy reserves. "If this were a common practice, you'd save on groceries."

"Well, you can take something unusual and try to look at it from a positive perspective. But what about sleep? You don't need to worry about getting your clothes dirty or being harmed by anyone, but don't you ever feel like you need to sleep for a while?"

Kaede sighs and looks up at the night sky.

"No," she tells Carla, "but lately, I… Can I ask you something that is a bit different from what I have been going through since I returned?"

"Of course."

"Does hearing the voices of the people you love and lost from time to time telling you to do something you can't do make you crazy?"

"I'd want to know whose voices are the ones telling you what they want you to do."

"Every now and then, every other day, I have been hearing my parents, my friends, Charlotte…and they keep telling me to…wake up. I keep telling myself that that is impossible to do because I'm dead. I mean, I buried myself alive and waited for my death. The dead can't wake up if they have no body to even go back to, right?"

"Do you…believe these voices are the people that you love and lost?"

"Well…part of me does believe them…but why would they keep telling me to…wake up? I'm not even asleep."

"I don't have a definite answer for you, but…let's say you were asleep, and you were hearing their voices that tell you to wake up… Why would you think they were telling to do so, over and over again?"

"If I were actually asleep? Maybe because…something happened to me. Something…bad…and then I went down…and likely didn't get back up again."

"Like what, exactly?"

"I don't know, like a…like some sort of attack…or a beating, even."

"Like, perhaps…someone snuck up behind you and hit you on your head?"

Kaede then felt the back of her head for a moment.

"Yeah," she says as a potential possibility. "The question, however, would be who would do such a thing…and why?"

"And if you were the victim of such an attack…and you were left barely alive, and help came to you, but you weren't saved completely…that would imply that you were likely left in a state similar to being asleep for a long time. Not dead…but not so much alive, either."

"Like a coma?"

"Yes."

"A coma, akin to sleeping longer than necessary, unaware of what transpires in the world around you, slipping somewhere between dreams and the world that exists beyond the waking world."

"And…if you were hearing such voices, then what would imply you were asleep in some sense…and that would suggest that, only as a possibility…that what you're experiencing right now…is…well…"

"Except that it doesn't feel that way to me," Kaede stops Carla from finishing her theory. "If such were true, then everything I say or do here is meaningless…and that's not true. I know I'm dead here. I know I killed myself because of my grief and desire for revenge, which isn't the same as wanting justice for what was done against the people I loved and lost, and now I'm in this purgatorial state of existence. If I ever come to find out that none of this even matters, that none of this is even real, then…what, am I doing this to myself? Am I tormenting myself in some dream I can't imagine being anything but a dream?"

Carla had to admit that the suggestion she was going theorize seems farfetched, even for her. If everything Kaede experienced by far was nothing more than a dream, a hallucination invented by her subconscious mind playing tricks on her, then it was the worst feeling to have, to delude oneself into believing that none of what they have gone through, none of these pains stemming from the Rumbling, the Yeagerists, the people that failed to do right by any of them…didn't really exist. That none of them were real to begin with. It was truly a cruel thing to consider as a possibility for someone that has suffered…and continues to suffer because of the actions of others that incite her own actions to self-harm instead of harm.

"You're right," she tells Kaede. "It's crazy to think such."

"But…what if…what we perceive to be a dream in one sense…is not a dream in another sense?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"What if…it's a two-way street? Dreams and reality…are one and the same?"

"Dreaming is just another plane of reality…and reality is another plane of dreams?"

"Yes."

"Then…it's hard to imagine one side being real and the other being…an illusion. You can't tell which is which without condemning the other for being something impossible to believe in being true. That would…that would hurt."

"But if this is a dream…I can't wake from it. At least not yet."

"Not yet?"

"It's not just a dream. It's a life I have not lived to its end yet. Yes, I'm dead, but I'm stuck in a purgatorial state of my own making. The goal is still the same: Atone for my sin to obtain absolution. If I can do that, I can look back on this with a smile."

Again, Carla had to praise Kaede for trying to see something positive in something negative. Or just as odd about her, trying to take something negative and turn it into a positive.

"Don't give up," she tells her.

-x-

"Urgh!" Ymir grunts as the sackcloth is pulled off her head, exposing her face and eyes to her immediate surroundings, seeing seven Yeagerist soldiers.

"What are you doing here, traitor?" The male Yeagerist soldier demands from her.

"None of your business," she responds.

"You left the island almost nine years ago," a female Yeagerist states. "You betrayed us. What gives you the right to return after all this time?"

"I'm not here for any of you. I'm here for me."

"We don't have time for any foolishness," the male Yeagerist says. "Who knows that you're here? Who from the outside world knows that you're here?"

Ymir notices that the two women and five men were all armed with rifles, reminding herself that most of them started carrying weapons shortly after a number of former Garrison soldiers turned in their resignations due to the younger Yeagerists dissolving the military branches left. And that symbol they had to brandish all the time just so people knew who they were, it was sickening to her every now and then.

"I'm only here to see her," she says to them. "I got nothing else to say until I speak with Historia Reiss. That's all I'm saying until I see where the ceiling limit is."

-x-

Dreams that serve as an alternate form of reality…and reality serving as an alternate form of dreams. Not very suggestive, but something Kaede couldn't stop thinking about as she lays up on the branches of the Dark Tree by herself; as of late, in the bizarrest sense, she found herself to be the only one that ever uses the branches to lay down and ponder many thoughts, seeing that nobody else would ever climb the tree to do anything. And for a while now, she wasn't hearing the voices of people telling her to wake up, if she was really dreaming this all.

Even if this is a dream, I can't wake from it, she thinks as she feels the back of her head with her left hand. A dream that is as real as the world I knew of before all of this…is not a dream here. I feel pain. I hurt. I suffer…and can make others suffer if I choose to. But…I am not a vengeance-driven person. Revenge will not undo the pain in my heart or my soul. I am broken, in my heart and soul, but I will not let vengeance consume me. Vengeance is hollow, bitter…and leaves you with nothing but the pain and suffering you want to put an end to…but can't.

"Mommy says you have better dancing feet than she does," she recalls Charlotte say to her one day on a grassy hill. "Where did you learn to dance the way that you do?"

Kaede smiles at the memory of the little girl asking her where she picked up her skills. As she pulls her hand to the front of herself to examine her illusionary injury, seeing that she had blood and brain matter on it, which made her think that she suffered a head injury of devastating proportions at some point in the past. But she had been unconscious for such a long period after the attack on her by the Yeagerists that she wasn't sure when it could've occurred…or even who could've caused it to happen. But she never put it past the Yeagerists to want to take a crack at trying to maim her.

-x-

"…Come on," went one of the two female Yeagerists to Ymir, trying to get her to talk, "you must know something useful about the Sogen girl. What her limits are, why she's back, stuff like that. Tell us. You know, you could help us deal with her by telling us what you know about her."

But Ymir stays silent. It didn't matter what she could say to them, there was no way she was going to help them go after Kaede simply because they felt screwed by the fact that they would never possess the Dark Titan, no matter how much they desire to have it.

"If you still long for her, regardless of the distance you have placed in between you," Kaede once told her after discovering that when Historia had come to the previously nameless village that she rebuilt upon her own return from beyond the grave, Ymir had hidden away from her, "there must be some part of you that wants to be reunited with her in the end. Distance should only be a temporary measure, letting just enough time pass for the both of you."

"I fear that I may have let too much time pass," she had admitted to her.

"When the time comes that you decide to want to see her again, you'll know for certain that too much has passed."

I just want to see you again, Historia, she thinks. Did you even think to wonder if I was even there? Do you ever wonder when I would come back to speak with you?

"You used to be the Jaw Titan?" The other female Yeagerist says to Ymir. "I fail to see what the queen ever saw in you…or why you would think she'd ever want to see you again."

Ymir looks at her with understandable scorn. She has been away from Paradis for almost a decade, and it was only a few days ago that she found her motivation to come back just to see if she still had a place in Historia's life. How dare these people that knew nothing about her say such garbage. And then, she sighs.

"Unlike any of you," she tells her, "I know better than to hold a grudge against someone that doesn't even give a damn about any of you, especially when they're a ghost you can't fight with and expect to win."

"She used to serve Paradis, and she abandons us because of some stupid principles? Some stupid principles?! What kind of person chooses to abandon her people because she doesn't believe in what we have done to protect our empire?!"

"That's just it. She didn't believe in any of you being some stupid empire. A nation, maybe. But not an empire. She believed in peace and coexistence, but anyone that believed that peace meant killing innocent people that had nothing to do with Paradis, she didn't believe were interested in peace. And she was right about freedom. It's not worth having if you live in a broken world where relationships are broken and can't be fixed. You stupid Yeagerists. You may have not had anything to do with Ms. Sogen losing the people she loved most in life, but it's because of you that she could no longer call this island her home. It's not her home, anymore…and there's nothing any of you can do to make it home to her again. She lost everything she ever loved. That kind of grief makes life not worth living. That kind of grief makes living without the people you hold most dear a different sort of Hell."

"She killed herself because of some people that didn't even deserve to live," a male Yeagerist utters. "Those that don't dedicate their hearts don't deserve to live, and those that won't fight are unworthy of the Eldian empire."

Ymir shakes her head in disgust; these young people, these…irresponsible souls…sounded just like he did before he died. They each, in their own way, sounded like Eren Yeager. It seems like, despite him being condemned to Hell, he left a legacy that just wouldn't stop acting on his beliefs on how to live. She believes that even if Kaede had come back here, she would not hesitate to try and erase his legacy as best as she could.

"I hate having to go back to that island," she remembers Kaede revealing to her, Carla and Sasha. "From a distance, it doesn't look different, but once I'm on the shoreline, it's just a dark, sickening feeling in my spine and skin. I'm fortunate that I can bear it just to dispose of those kids that think they're heroes when they're not."

"I'm starting to see now why they hate you so much," she says. "Why she hates you."

The Yeagerists look at Ymir like she crossed a line.

"Still, my reason for coming to Paradis is still the same: I'm only here to see the queen. I could care less about the military here that doesn't fail to disappoint in every sense."

"Well, we can't let you see the queen and endanger her life," a second male Yeagerist replies. "Most people that want to see her are traitors to the cause, which includes you. So, again, tell us what you know about this bitch of a ghost with gray hair?"

"There's nothing left to say…and nothing left to know. Whatever it is you know about Ms. Sogen…is whatever you've heard about Ms. Sogen. Nothing more, nothing less."

-x-

She had felt the motivation to sculpt their identities so that the people here would know their faces and their names the way she remembered them at their best. At least with her recollection of them, she didn't have to worry about colors; her ability to manipulate Titan flesh always working to her advantage, changing to her will, as if the flesh generated from her hands, hers and those belonging to her Titan, constantly moved in accordance with her intentions, becoming what she wanted or needed it to be before it could harden into the shape permanently. The first sculpture was that of her mother, followed by her stepfather…and then her father, the only other member of her family to have had gray hair since childhood. By the time an hour had passed, Kaede had sculpted everyone she loved, everyone she lost…and sat down on the ground in front of them, just reminiscing.

"I miss you guys," she says to the sculptures, "each and everyday."

The next thing Kaede knows, the light behind herself becomes brighter, and she turns around to see several people standing several feet away, holding lanterns. She could see Carla and her daughter among them.

"They're amazing," Carla says to her.

"They always were to me," she responds.

Sasha and her son approach the statue of Charlotte and were stunned by the details that went into creating it.

"They look like they could come to life at any moment," Sasha expresses as Niccolo reaches up to the Charlotte sculpture's right hand.

"Beautiful," he says.

"Thank you," Kaede praises, feeling like she needs to cry a little.

-x-

"…A woman with freckles on her face?" Armin questions as he overhears chatter from some people about some Yeagerists apprehending a woman that had arrived from the port the previous day and was trying to get to Mitras. Ymir?

He was making his plans to leave Paradis in order to fulfill his original aim to explore the world while he was still alive, but now something had interfered with that drive: His curiosity and sense of morality. If this person that had been apprehended by the Yeagerists was Ymir, and it was Ymir that had returned to Paradis, it was most likely that her reason for doing so was to see Historia. But he had to check and see if Historia knows Ymir has come back.

"Damn it," he curses as he picks up his bag and turns around to leave the port. What is going on here, anyway?

-x-

It was a new day, but for some reason, Kaede feels like something terrible was coming. She couldn't predict the future, as such a power was what ruined people that exploited the power of the Attack and Founding Titans…or were just dealt ungrateful hands that led to agonizing atrocities, but something in her ghostly heart was telling her that an omen was upon someone. A viciousness…a reckoning. Just something bitter…and awful…waiting to be unleashed. Sitting under the shadows of the Dark Tree's branches, the disembodied girl looks to the sculptures of the people she mourns from the night before the sunrise, wishing she could ask them for advice on what to do about what she was feeling.

"What do I do?" She utters.

To be continued…

A/N: What if it is possible that dreams of another life are just another life being lived each time we go to sleep or become trapped in because of something that has happened to us, and we can't differentiate between reality and fantasy because they are one and the same? And what if, simply because of a sense of obligation or lack of ambition, we find ourselves in a life we can't or don't want to let go of just yet because we need to see them through? Does anyone see where this could be going yet? And as for Kaede, even when she's not trying to be the heroine, she has to rise to the challenge within her predicament because she's the one with the power to do the things nobody else can or will do.