Creation began on 08-06-24

Creation ended on 08-14-24

Attack on Titan

The Dark Titan: Nightmarish Damnation

It was a radio broadcast that Paradis couldn't pretend didn't happen, because it spoke volumes of an obvious truth. For the people that called the island their home to learn that the ghost of Kaede Sogen, the first and only Dark Titan Shifter that had nothing to do with the past up until more than a decade ago, had stated to the people of what had been left of the world that if they wanted to retaliate against the small island in retribution for the Rumbling caused by them, then it was their choice to do so, only asking them that this town the people that chose to defect from Paradis with her had named after her be left alone…was a sign that the young woman had clearly lost her faith in the land of her birth and her faith in what they were doing to protect themselves. She may as well as told the remnants of the world that Paradis became a place that lived in constant fear of reprisal, because in truth, that was how the people were living, and with several of their Yeagerists maimed by the ghost of the Dark Titan, there were fewer soldiers to protect them against any threat than they could imagine. But the worst was why Kaede had chosen to abandon them; the unwanted deaths of her parents and friends had been the driving force behind her decision to leave after her last conversation with Historia Reiss, and hearing of what her words had been to the gray-haired girl…would make anyone upset with knowing the people they loved were gone and not coming back.

"Not wise words to say to someone that cared for the people she lived for," says one of the helpers on Historia's farm to Historia. "It's no wonder she chose to leave. That would leave a bitterness in anyone's mind. In a way, you're lucky she didn't choose to harm you before she left. She didn't need any undesirable deaths on her conscience."

"You think I don't know that?" Historia asks him. "But it had to be done. Paradis had to be protected from the world."

"And Ms. Sogen's ghost may have just put a target back on Paradis because she did explain to the world that she doesn't feel obligated to protect us, anymore, and the Yeagerists wasted their time trying to take a power that was not going to be theirs to start with. Just tell me one thing before I drop the subject altogether: Did you really mean all of what you said to her that day before she left?"

"All of what?"

"About what was done was done and how there was no turning back. Did you really mean that?"

"It was the truth."

"But did you mean it?"

"I had no choice but to mean it."

The man's expression was readable; he was clearly bothered by her answer…and turns away from her.

"I should finish up my shift before the day ends," he tells her and walks away.

"I didn't know the Yeagerists were going to kill them!" Historia yells at him. "He didn't tell me! I didn't know!"

But it no longer seemed to matter, whether she knew or not. It didn't change the fact that Kaede had walked away from them all, bitter and angry about losing the people she loved, that didn't deserve to have their lives ended, and then killing herself to keep from harming others, becoming trapped in a damned state of existence until only God-knows-when. And for Historia, it made her a subject of some scrutiny since her last conversation with Kaede had ended on sour tones that she couldn't apologize for.

-x-

Needing to be by herself, Kaede sat up in the branches high above ground in the Dark Tree, sheltered from the sunlight, feeling like her head was splitting in two. She was hearing their voices again, the voices of the people she lost, the people she loved, and they were all saying the same thing to her: Wake up. She didn't understand what they meant by that; as a ghost, she couldn't wake up from the eternal slumber of death, even if she wanted to.

Please, wake up, Kaede, she hears Delilah's voice say to her, followed by the twins and her stepfather. Please, wake up.

I can't wake up, Kaede thinks, wishing their voices would silence so she could feel a moment of peace. I'm dead. I can never wake up again.

It didn't make any sense for her to hear the voices now, each one telling her the same thing, which just made her head hurt, despite the pain being just in her mind. As she felt the back of her head, her eyes widened, feeling something wet and sticky in her hair.

What? She wonders, pulling her left hand back, finding…a red and pink, mashed substance covering her fingers. What?!

She blinks, and her hand is fine. Reaching for her head, she can't feel anything that shouldn't be there. And the minor pain she had felt in her head was gone, too. It was becoming really, really strange for her now; first, she was hearing voices, and then she was seeing things…and feeling things. Laying her back and head down on the large branch, she looks up at the dark leaves above her head.

I can't be going crazy, she believes. The craziest thing I did was end my life in grief, but it was also the most rational thing I did because I didn't want to hurt anyone that didn't deserve my anger. What is going on here?

Suddenly, a shadow obscures her view of the leaves. Looking up, Kaede sees a young girl that is dressed in ragged clothing, her eyes grim with defeat. She recognizes the girl as Ymir Fritz, the original Titan Shifter, the first Founding Titan and the ancestral mother of all Subjects of Ymir.

"You're a tragedy in the making," she hears the girl say, in her own voice, sounding malicious and prideful.

Kaede rises up, but Ymir Fritz is already gone, as if she was never there to begin with.

"You're a tragedy in the making," her words reverberate through her mind.

"I'm a tragedy?" She questions. "Eren Yeager was my tragedy. The Rumbling was my tragedy. Losing everyone I loved was my tragedy. This right now…is insanity. I'm hearing voices and seeing things, and the worst part is that I don't even know why."

She lays back down and looks up at the leaves over her. Right now, she wishes, just a while, she had someone she knew to hold her hand and tell her that everything would be fine, even if the truth was that nothing was going to be fine.

-x-

It was believed to be problematic by the people for any of their rebuilt boats to go to Paradis shortly after the broadcast interview with Kaede Sogen, but Reiner vouched for Ymir upon seeing her in Liberio, requesting a boat to take her to Paradis. He had figured that, because Kaede had mentioned someone was still pining for Historia, it had to be Ymir herself, hoping that the queen would still have feelings for the former Jaw Titan.

"I'm surprised to see you here instead of on Paradis, though," Reiner says to Ymir as she boards the boat. "Do you think she's waiting for you to come back?"

"No," Ymir responds, "but I have to know for myself. And…I want to do so before things turn sideways for Paradis."

"If that ever happens."

"Why?"

"Because of the way things are right now, Paradis is doomed to be erased if the rest of the world does band together to take revenge against the people there. Kaede said she wouldn't protect them, but she has no intention of taking sides, deciding that if people want revenge, it's their choice, only asking that her namesake town be left alone. And personally, some people around here feel that fear is the best option to use against Paradis."

"Why fear?"

"Kaede, in a way, said to the world that Paradis basically lives in fear of reprisal. It's believed that as long as they live in fear, they'll stay on the island and away from the rebuilt nations. Personally, I do hope that they stay away. What happened over ten years ago, nobody wants to relive. And the only times those Yeagerists have ever left was to go to Hizuru or attack that town that was built around Kaede's former grave, because nobody wants anything to do with them."

"Yeah, well, they didn't like they learned from the town the last time they were there, either. They wanted to dig up Kaede's grave, only to learn that they were on a fool's errand because as soon as she died, the people dug her out of the ground and cremated her body. They wanted her spine, but there was no spine to take. Nobody's getting the Dark Titan, no matter what they try. The next war that comes, should it ever come, the only weapons that exist will be the weapons people make and find. Nobody can expect help from a guardian angel or beast of fury…and I'm not taking part in any war or conflict. I'm just going to Paradis to confirm one thing only."

"Good luck over there."

"Thank you."

Ymir boards the boat and it takes off seven minutes later, on a course for Paradis. Her only objective was to find out if the queen of Paradis was there waiting for her. If she wasn't, she would leave and go back to the town of Kaede Sogen. And if she was…then she would have to work out what to do when she got to that point.

-x-

"…So, you're really leaving?" Jean asks Connie, he and Armin seeing his family boarding the boat set to leave Paradis.

"Yeah," Connie says as he watches his parents board the boat with their bags. "What are you going to do?"

"Most likely leave myself if I can find a place elsewhere to live. Where are you going?"

"One of the rebuilt nations in the north. We heard they're opening to Eldians from Paradis unaffiliated with the Yeagerists after Ms. Sogen rebuilt their towns and cities. My father hopes we can find a new home over there."

"I take it you're not going to talk with Historia before you leave?" Armin questions Connie.

"There's hardly anything left to talk about, Armin. And what's the point in talking with her? When Kaede used the last words that she spoke to her with before she left, I couldn't help but sympathize with her; Historia sounded like Eren when she said that. And what would Historia say to me, anyway? Try to convince me not to leave? No, siree. And if the rest of the world does decide to exact revenge, then I want to be as far away from Paradis as I can, because I don't want to lose my family. You can tell her I said that, too."

BLARE! The boat's horn goes, indicating that it was getting ready to depart from Paradis, and Connie sighs.

"I've lost my faith, guys," he tells Armin and Jean. "I gotta walk away before I regret anything else by being here. Good-bye."

He runs up the ramp and waves at the two friends as the boat starts to move out.

"What are you going to do, Armin?" Jean asks when the boat is almost out of sight.

"Go see Historia," he answers him, "get her review on the broadcast and her future decisions on how to manage the Yeagerists should there be trouble for Paradis later on."

"Good luck with that. Since we're not ambassadors, anymore, it's anyone's guess if she'll even have time to chat after that night of revelations."

Jean then walks away from the docks, trying to plan his next move of the day. He may as well start planning to look for a new dwelling if Paradis was to be attacked in the future, and he has zero intention of getting involved in another conflict, as the previous one had snuffed out his tolerance towards violence.

Armin sighs and begins to make his trek towards the inner lands of where Mitras resides. He could only hope that Historia would hear from him.

-x-

As much as she tried to find some comfort in walking around the circular wall she built for the town, Kaede still felt like she was becoming slightly unhinged, but she didn't show it. And so, she walks around the wall again, for the fourth time; as a ghost, she had nothing but time to waste in her damned state. Looking behind her as her Dark Titan walked beside her on the right, she sees the spirit of Ymir Fritz a small distance away, as if taunting her a little bit. She was wondering why the girl chose now to show up, as she didn't show up when she killed herself and didn't show up earlier when she was rebuilding much of the world.

If she's upset that I ignored Paradis, she can go to Hell, Kaede thinks as turns around and walks backwards so she can look at the pathetic girl. Paradis doesn't deserve anything from me. You don't like my choice, that's on you. You're the one that enabled that jerk to destroy the lives of all those that had nothing to do with that island. You should suffer the same as him and those people that chose to follow him. I don't care if you are my ancestor, I should've spanked you for all the world to see.

Ymir Fritz raises her head at Kaede, as if offended by her thoughts.

You don't like what I'm thinking, then say something about it, Kaede thinks, suspecting that she could hear her thoughts. Or are you afraid to speak? Maybe you're afraid to speak your mind out loud in front of me. Is that it?

The little girl then walks up to the gray-haired woman.

We're both of us damned, so I see no point in resorting to our fists or feet, Kaede let her know, refusing to echo that disgrace this girl sided with among other like-minded misfits. And I refuse to be compared to the likes of any of you.

Ymir Fritz's face, once the hair strands were removed to the side, was contorted with dislike towards Kaede that the gray-haired woman simply responded to with her own dislike towards her for her actions.

"I had no choice," she hears the girl say. "It had to be that way. Your way was ineffective; a path to peace through nonviolence is pathetic. This way, everyone is on equal ground."

"Bull," Kaede replies. "You just wanted bloodshed and pain, the same as him. You both desired something that doesn't even go your way. In a way, you both screwed yourselves over and screwed the whole world."

"But we saved our people in the process."

"What people? Who exactly did you save? And where are they? Huh? Where are they (Kaede gestures with her arms to indicate that there were no people around them), huh? I don't see any saved people around here. Minus the refugees around the world and the people that abandoned Paradis after losing friends and loved ones, I don't see any people you consider to be saved, Ymir Fritz. All I see…is a disgrace of a person that decided to go down the path of carnage and hatred to sully the world with broken hopes and dreams. All I see…is another soulless murderer…unworthy of any sympathy, whatsoever. You claim that people were saved, but not in the way they deserved to be saved. Many innocents were taken by you and him. You both refused to look for an alternative that didn't require the Rumbling. You were already set in your ways before any of us even knew what was going on. You had already chosen to side with him, and in the short amount of time spent conversing with you…all you've proven to me is that you both deserve each other in the depths of Hell, which makes this damned soul longing for the people you helped to take from her want to tear your ass apart. Now, say something."

The little girl had an expression of woe on her that would make anyone think the older woman had just snatched a piece of victory from the jaws of defeat, and Ymir Fritz was at a loss on how this girl seemed to be so different from the boy that longed for freedom at the cost of dying. At first, there seemed to be a similarity between the two, but as time went by, she saw the differences between the two; the boy simply longed to be free from all boundaries…while the girl simply longed for a happy life devoid of unnecessary anger and suffering, with the people she loved that loved her back. It was something Ymir Fritz found to be…unusual, even for a girl like this; she believed that, in a way similar to that of the Eldian Kenny Ackerman, so long as people lived wanting something they didn't have, they would never feel satiated of their longing. But this dead girl that was condemned to walk among the living until her soul was absolved of her one sin…desired different things that people took for granted…and for different reasons than what she or Eren Yeager committed their own sins for. Not once did the gray-haired girl desire freedom, or wealth, power, a palace, none of these things that most others longed for.

No, Kaede Sogen…simply longed for the life of a regular person, craving regular things that were able to be acquired in due time with effort thrown in. She had longed for a family of her own once she met the right person to share her life with, friends, a home, a job she wouldn't mind having for herself, holidays, celebratory events where people were having fun, things that Ymir Fritz was, in one way or another, denied…and it felt insulting that she was here because of this woman that killed herself because she refused to kill others due to her temperament almost driving her to cross the line.

"Why couldn't you be more like him?" She asks Kaede, which makes the gray-haired girl's right eye twitch.

"I will never be like him or anyone else," she tells Ymir Fritz. "I have to be me, no one else. There's only one me, just like there was only one him or you. You can have people act like the both of you…but they'll never be you. That's asking too much of someone that may want something different from what you want…and not caring how they may feel. If you don't like something or someone, just walk away. Just walk away."

And that is what Kaede did right there and then, turning to walk away from Ymir Fritz, leaving her where she stood, practicing what she had just preached. She didn't like her as much as she didn't like Eren Yeager…or even Historia Reiss after the queen openly stated where she stood in the aftermath of the Rumbling, but she wasn't going to sink to their level just to prove anything. In a way, she had already, albeit unnecessarily, proven that she was better than they had ever been in her own way; she used her Titan power, the gift she had once believed to be a curse, to give hope to the people instead of despair, she had become a being that people knew and had different opinions toward, for better or worse, and she didn't have an axe to grind with them, targeting them or looking to get even with them. Yes, in a way, she had proven, albeit unnecessarily, that she had done better than they had done, and she didn't have to act like a coward, slave or villain to do so.

"It was an order I had established long before your parents were even thought of!" She hears Ymir Fritz yell at her. "Everything I saw, everything that fell into place, it all had to be for the sake of everything! But you! You were an anomaly! A blight of nature! You were never meant to exist at all! You defile everything by existing! You challenge the structure of things! Everything had to be in order! So, lives were taken! So, you lost the people you loved above all else! So, the world was maimed! None of what you think or feel matters! Everything had to be in order! All that matters is the order! And you ruined it with your existence! You made things that were supposed to happen not happen at all! Some people were supposed to die! Some people were supposed to bring new life into the world! But you ruined things! You ruined things! You!"

But Kaede continued on walking away from her. She didn't care what she believed in. Nothing mattered to her if it came at a price she had been unwilling to pay, something this girl seemed more than willing to pay at any cost.

"Come on! Where's your righteous fury?! Where's your brutality?! Come here! Take your revenge against me! Stop holding back! Let it all out! You know you want to do it!"

Ymir Fritz could yell all she wanted to at Kaede, but Kaede wouldn't sink to the level of this woman, that man or the current queen of Paradis. She wouldn't give in to her hatred and become a monster like they did. She had already become enough of a monster by taking her own life instead of someone else's. And on Ymir Fritz's face, a small tear escapes her left eye.

"Aaaaaurgh!" She yells at the gray-haired woman. "You will never belong! Never!"

-x-

Armin was at a loss on how to view Historia right now, even when she was right there in front of him. It was the way she looks at the moment that makes him feel that she was the target of a degree of criticism from her own farmhands. That look of irritability and grief.

"How have you been?" He asks her.

"Not good," she answers him. "Not good at all. Miss Sogen's ghost on the radio that night has put me in a rather uncomfortable position. She may have put all of Paradis in an uncomfortable position with what she said."

"Except all she said that night…was how she felt, how she feels…before and after she took her own life. It was only her truth, not some lie she spun to make people feel sympathetic towards her. Although…"

"Although…"

"Although…I can understand why she would say what she said about you the day she left, the last time any of us saw her alive. It probably disgusts her, that she still remembers it all, word for word, just as it probably bothers you to have said it all to her."

"There was no other…" Historia was going to say to him, but when she raises her voice, she sees his expression turn to concern.

It was similar to the way Kaede had looked at her before she chose to leave.

"I didn't know they were going to kill her parents and friends," she says to him instead. "Eren never told me that they were going to do that to her. If I had known, I would've done something about it. They didn't deserve to die. None of them deserved to die."

"Eren kept many things secret, which is probably why he didn't say anything, even when he knew he should've. But with Ms. Sogen, it was probably his way of getting back at her for all his imagined slights he blamed her for. Just unnecessary grief caused before dying, and we were the ones left to answer for it because he probably knew she was going to be upset with the revelation. That kind of anger drives people to do many things they would find hard to overcome, but she went and… Did you really have to say that to her before she chose to leave us, Historia? Did you really have to…twist the knife she already had in her back when she learned that they were dead?"

"No. No, I didn't have to say it, but…it was already done. She needed to accept that."

"Maybe she did, but it doesn't mean she had to like what had been committed by people from the same place as her. Her mindset, while different from all of ours, was more subtle and not aggressive in any way. There was a saying for it all. She saw the people of the world as one people, meaning that everyone in the world, even the ones that hated us, were one and the same. Someone whose mindset is like that is someone that can't view one person as a type of foe without considering that all others are the same type of foe."

"Her mindset must've changed a little bit after she left and died, because she purposely neglected us and Hizuru when she performed her reconstruction actions around the world."

"Hizuru is the ally of Paradis. Kaede focused only on the parts of the world that had been destroyed and/or maimed by Eren, who was from Paradis, which means that anyone allied with Paradis would be disregarded by her. Probably explains why Marley was rebuilt by her; they saw and heard what she was doing and wanted to be in her good graces in the hopes that she would rebuild their nation."

"I think everyone except Paradis and Hizuru are in her good graces, regardless of whether or not they hated us."

"But there's something else that she said that night. I think she meant for you to hear it."

"Why?"

"Even after all these years, she needed you to know that Ymir, despite having left after she and those that lost people when the Walls fell did, still loves you and wants to be with you. Kaede stated that, despite her personal feelings toward you, she still supports romantic relationships."

"And that there was someone that lives in the town named after her wants something from Paradis that everyone else doesn't."

"It has to be Ymir. You're not a materialistic object to be sought after. Kaede may not have any interest in reconciliation, but she's gotta be hoping that at least Ymir goes out with a happy ending in her life, meaning that she's also still alive. I don't think she knows that Sasha left after Niccolo was…"

"If she had known, would she have said anything?" Historia questions.

It had been five years since Sasha had left Paradis after her husband was murdered by the Yeagerists. Officially, it was listed as an accident, but Sasha had suspected that Niccolo had been killed simply because he was a Marleyan she chose to spend her life with. Unable to get the people responsible for his death held accountable, she decided to leave the island. But before she left, she said something that that some of them had felt was both just and self-righteous.

"The Yeagerists were not protecting the people! They murdered my husband! He was a chef! He'd never poison anyone! The Yeagerists are monsters! It's no wonder Sogen chose to leave!" Sasha had yelled at them before she up and left.

Historia felt guilty for enabling the Yeagerists to gather information on specific individuals, never anticipating that they would go and kill Niccolo, who hadn't been back to Marley or had any contact with other Marleyans for years, which left a broken heart for Sasha and additional relationships prematurely ruined by those that claimed to be protecting them.

"So, what will you do now?" Historia asks Armin.

"Honestly," he replies, "I may leave Paradis myself. Most consider leaving due to the xenophobic attitude of the Yeagerists rather than because of what Kaede expressed during the radio interview she did in Liberio. My reason for leaving, of course, would be to live without any xenophobic attitudes from people that decided that they wanted to protect their country becoming more and more overprotective than dedicated to the point of becoming a threat. What happens when you feel you need protection from the people that claim to want to protect you? What happens when the threat to your life is the military tasked with dealing with threats?"

Historia was unsure about how to respond to such questions. But with the people she knew most either leaving the island or dead, she was afraid to answer.

"Anyway, before any of this, I just wanted to see the world for what it was," Armin goes on. "I wanted to explore places that simply don't exist on Paradis and will never exist on Paradis. If Ms. Sogen has rebuilt the damaged parts of the world, then there's a chance that she left some parts that were viewed as ruins of other civilizations that people need to assess for potential value. With the world as it is now, nobody is looking for ambassadors if nobody wants to talk. And I just want to do what I want with my life that is actually my choice instead of Eren's agenda that isn't working for anyone left."

"Yeah," she finally says. "It isn't working out for us. I should've gone with her suggestion instead of letting Eren do as he pleased. Even if her ideas were ineffective to most, they were still the lesser evil because she wasn't looking for freedom or destruction, just…hope."

"Maybe hope still exists for those of us left. You never know."

As Armin turns to leave, Historia looks up at the sky. The rather empty, clear as day sky. She remembers a time when they were all flying over the streets of Trost District after the Colossal Titan breached the outer gate and let the Titans inside. It had been the same day they all learned that Kaede Sogen was the fabled Dark Titan that had slain eighty Titans or so when Shiganshina District had been breached and abandoned, something that people had been mesmerized by because it was the first time they ever saw a Titan attack one of their own kind in defense of the people that were forced to run for safety. Oh, how she secretly wished for those days and years to come back, when they didn't know about the rest of the world, the human race beyond the Walls, the Rumbling, all of it.

Some of us could've done better if we knew more then than what had been known till now, she believes as she realizes that, with Connie having left with his family, Jean and Armin likely to leave next, a complete lack of presence from Mikasa, her separation from Ymir and Reiner and Annie in Marley with zero interest in visiting Paradis after the ambassador thing was given up on and their need to pursue their own lives, she was alone where she was.

Oh, so very…alone.

-x-

Whether it was on the ground, in the branches of the Dark Tree or in the shadows in between buildings during the daylight hours, Kaede silently cursed on how she despised any perceived order that people follow that stems from some belief that everything that happens in the world is because it was supposed to happen when it came at a personal cost. As she sat on a busted crate in the shadowed alleyway in between two buildings, she cursed that if she believed in such a falsehood as the absolute truth, then nothing she or anyone else ever did with their lives would even matter to those that would or wouldn't be around. It would mean that, regardless of whether she or they lived or died, surrounded by friends, families, regular people, extraordinary people, none of them would matter because of some unseen force that decided, just because of some preset circumstances, a regulation or design, or just a person that refuses to see an alternative to what someone else thought was the only option, and she couldn't allow herself to go down that route, knowing that it wouldn't make any difference to herself or anyone else.

Even if one lives their life, she thinks, they wouldn't be in control of how it goes at all…simply because someone else decided that what they did with it was irrelevant. But none of those lives are irrelevant. The person or persons that decided they were irrelevant were the ones that were irrelevant. The people that decided to end those lives were irrelevant. The ones that choose that sort of mindset are irrelevant.

But even in the shadows of the daytime, this didn't stop the ghost of Ymir Fritz from showing up in front of Kaede, angry with her for ignoring her words. In her mind, Ymir Fritz, despite being free from the cruelty of King Fritz, was just as arrogant as he had been in life, except her arrogance followed her into the beyond and was an echo of his own, just more extreme because of her insane and twisted need for everything to follow an order that didn't have to matter.

"You can't pretend I'm not here!" She yells at Kaede, who just sits there in front of her and turns her head left or right to look elsewhere. "Hey, just so that you know, what happened to your parents and friends, that was his doing! For him, it was personal!"

While her head was looking right, her left eye dots toward the ghost that haunts her every now and then.

"It was personal for him, because he wanted you to suffer," Ymir Fritz tells her. "He told those people to make sure they were dead. Sure, some of them questioned the morality of doing such a terrible thing, including murdering a little girl, but he told them they were enemies to the cause because they were with you. There was no way they would support his like-minded group because of your relationship with them, making them biased and unable to see the big picture, but the truth is, all he wanted was to hurt you! You, the one person he blamed for all of his shortcomings! You, who became the hero the people of Paradis saw and adored! You, the one person that everyone would see as the type of person he could have become! You, the one he hated most of all!"

Although they were both dead, this didn't stop Kaede from turning her head to face Ymir Fritz, her expression contorting into anger.

"I was especially surprised by the mother's ignored pleas for them not to kill her daughter, your precious admirer, after they shot you and cut off your legs," she tells Kaede. "'Please! Not my daughter! She didn't do anything! Don't kill her! Please!' Begging is practically useless against people who have their minds made up on what they're going to do to you, so her pleas fell of deaf ears."

Kaede recalls that day with newfound bitterness stoked by this ghastly girl, remembering the sting of all the bullets the Yeagerists had shot her with. She had felt close to dying, but still far from it, and seething with pain and rage.

"I'm sorry, lady," she remembers a female Yeagerist say to her mother as she had tried to shield Charlotte from their guns, "it's nothing personal. We just don't need people that won't give it their all to fight for what's right."

Bang! If Kaede could've shed tears at that time, she would've shed more than enough to fill a lake before she heard that gunshot that took her mother's life…and the following gunshot that ended a little girl's life.

Despite it being nothing but Ymir Fritz's words, she was incited to feel anger towards the Yeagerists all over again…and just condemnation towards the ancestral mother that left them all damned, one way or another. She then stood up in front of her.

"Oh, did I strike a nerve in your heartstrings?" Ymir Fritz asks her. "Did I reopen old wounds that hardly heal? You look like I did."

Kaede approaches her, but doesn't raise her hands or even tries to assault her. Instead, she just looks at her, letting herself process this knowledge.

"One way or another," she finally says to her, "we're both going to Hell to burn for all eternity. You, for all your ugliness and stupidity for what you did and didn't do…and me…for taking my own life to spare others from a miserable ending caused by grief and rage that threatened to consume me. Or maybe that's where we are now, and we're deluding ourselves into thinking the worst awaits us. My stepfather once heard a saying that made no sense up until now, but I think it's true for the both of us: Hell is for children. Don't you think so?"

As she turns to sit back down, Kaede lets Ymir Fritz process her choice of words in silence; so long as she was limited to the shadows, she was stuck in that alleyway until the sun went down enough to expand the shadows. Oh, she was angry with the ancestress, but knew it was pointless to vent over it with someone as dead as herself and no longer worth the aggravation. Neither she nor Eren Yeager were worth the agony she was feeling. In the end, they were all going to pay for the blood on their hands. Some of them more than most.

-x-

"…So, what is on Paradis that made you want to go there?" A male sailor asks Ymir; as she was the only passenger aboard, she was the only one that had anything to say about her destination and the reasons behind it. "I mean, whatever they do have there can't be worth going there for."

"I'm not going there for a thing," she replies to him. "There's someone there that I left a few years ago, someone I'm hoping is still there waiting for me."

"Oh, my… Are you the person Ms. Sogen said on the radio was hoping would reunite with whoever it is on Paradis because she supports romantic relationships?"

"Do you…look down upon it?"

"No. My mother married an Eldian. It was just fortunate that they met in the east in a nation that tolerated Subjects of Ymir Fritz and didn't believe any of that crud about them turning into Titans and destroying the world. Some jerk questioned why my mother would marry a man they viewed as a monster and not a person like they were, and her answer was if her husband wanted to turn into a monster, he would have done so a long time ago. If any of them wanted to become monsters and destroy the world, they would have done so a long time ago. My mother didn't die because of the Rumbling. She died because of the Devil that was born on Paradis. Even if he's dead, his brood still exist there, which is why I won't set foot on its grounds. It's nothing personal against the people that live there, but one of their own killed my mother and wrecked my hometown. I'm forever grateful to Kaede Sogen and her Dark Titan for rebuilding my town and giving the people back a place to call home…but even she said she no longer sees that island as her home, anymore. How can anyone see anyplace like that as home when some of the very people they once protected against a threat went and… How do forgive the ones responsible for such a terrible crime committed against you? How do you even begin to feel like you can forgive the ones responsible for such a tragedy?"

"If it's the Yeagerists? I don't think you can forgive them for such a tragedy. They act like they're protecting Paradis against reprisal…but they're not all that different from bullies enabled by the government to do whatever they think will make the general public feel safer. But…I knew someone that used to live on Paradis that left because some Yeagerists murdered her husband, simply because he was a Marleyan. Left her heartbroken."

"That's rough. Heartache hurts when it's the ones you love the most that are taken from you."

Ymir understands how heartache feels when you feel like you have lost your connection with someone you gave your heart to. Even after all these years, she still loves Historia…and just wanted to spend the rest of her life with her.

"So, just who is it that you carry a torch for?" The sailor asks her.

"Just…someone I've had my eyes on for over a decade," she states cryptically; just because Kaede may have supported her romantic interest in Historia, it didn't necessarily mean that there were others that would do the same. "I don't know if they have moved on with their life or if they're waiting for me to come back. I'll know when I see them. If I see them."

-x-

Despite being a walking ghost, Kaede was still mired by the state of her damnation and its effects on her social standing with most people out at night. Walking down the street of her namesake town, she looks at the buildings she had built and was reminded of how Shiganshina and Trost were like before she left Paradis, bringing up memories that were both pleasant and unpleasant in her conscious mind.

"You've been walking around for over seven hours since the sun went down," she hears a woman's voice say behind her, stopping her from walking any further. "Don't you ever get tired of it?"

She turns around…and sees a tall woman with long, brownish hair and a sullen expression, carrying a little boy in her arms.

"No," she answers her. "I'm sure you get tired of being asked the same question every other week since you found your way here…Mrs. Blouse."

Kaede bows her head to her.

"Is it really necessary to address me as such?"

"You were married before you got here. Also, you were in a relationship before I left that island. I'd be ignoring such a fact of the past if I didn't address you as such. I mean, you did love him, right? You still do, even after three years came and went, right?"

Sasha, despite her grim misfortune, had found her way to the former shantytown where the other island defectors had relocated to. It was a miracle that she was just able to find her way here, and a second miracle to learn that she was pregnant with her husband's son at the time she left. While it might've been a step down from the stability of what used to reside on Paradis, Sasha knew she couldn't have a good life there, anymore, not after the Yeagerists murdered Niccolo, and after Kaede's ghost returned and started building buildings and gardens to mend the world, she found herself in better spirits.

"Gray Lady," her son says.

"Niccolo," she gasps; she didn't want him calling Kaede names that were disrespectful, but Kaede smiles. "I am sorry, Kaede."

"Why?" She questions. "That's who I am. I'm the Gray Lady. Plus, it's not really disrespectful to hear any child say it if they mean well."

It was a pleasure for Sasha to know that Kaede was not offended by her son calling her such a designation; Niccolo, similar to his father, had found it odd for a young woman to have gray hair and not be elderly enough to have gray hair yet. But when she told him that Kaede was special in that those of her family possessed gray hair from the moment they're born, he was confused by how anyone could have gray hair when they were babies. Her son was also confused by how someone like Kaede could exist with being barely visible.

"Mommy, you can see right through her," he had told her once.

While sympathetic to Kaede's plight after learning that her grief drove her to commit suicide, it was a little odd to Sasha that the Dark Titan Shifter would be given a chance to atone for her sin by performing good deeds to absolve her soul. But even if it meant that her condemned state would last for a decade or longer, she held onto the hope that Kaede would one day become absolved and reunited with her family and friends in the afterlife. Nobody deserved to be punished eternally if they wanted to atone for their darkest actions. But only those that really wanted redemption were the ones that would do next to the impossible to deserve it.

"How goes your evening, Ms. Sogen?" She asks Kaede.

"Sometimes, I feel like I'm going crazy," Kaede says with an honest smile.

"Why?"

"Every now and then, I hear the voices of my parents, my friends, and they're all telling me the same thing, to 'wake up'. It makes no sense to me. The dead can't just wake up."

"But you did," Niccolo replies to her.

"Not exactly. I think when people are told to 'wake up', they're supposed to wake up entirely, body and soul. The only part of me to do so was my soul. My body is…gone."

"Sad."

"Yeah, I guess you could say it like that. It's sad."

"Do you that…Daddy might come back one day?"

It was a surprise question for Kaede to hear, but one that came from the heart.

"I suppose he will one day," she gives him as her answer. "Those who are taken away from us eventually return to us."

Then, for just a moment, a moment locked in time, Kaede saw them again. Her parents, her friends, Charlotte, the people of the Survey Corps and Garrison that saw her as a hero and ally to them, regular citizens that saw her as this dream come true in a child that couldn't or wouldn't stir up trouble for others, and they were all just standing there, in front of her, in the sunset, as if waiting for her to come over to them. It hurts her to see this moment, to see them locked in time, exactly as she remembers them at their best. Then, Charlotte walks over to her, holding a stuffed humanoid that was made in her image as her idol, and her expression is of sadness.

"Miss Sogen," she says to Kaede, "please…wake up."

Kaede blinks, and she's facing Sasha and her son.

"Are you alright, Kaede?" Sasha asks her, bothered by her surprised expression.

"Yeah, I, uh… I should go now. Happy evening, you two."

Kaede turns and leaves, but unlike the living, she sinks into ground like a person wading in water, which doesn't surprise the mother or her son.

"Mommy," Niccolo expresses, "she seemed sad."

"I think she is sad, sweetie," his mother replies. "Kaede is the saddest of us all."

-x-

Crazy. That was the only conclusion she could determine for her current situation. She was going crazy, and it was something she didn't understand how to overcome. As she sat outside the wall with her Titan behind her, Kaede looked disorganized with her hair out of place.

She kept hearing the voices of the people she loved, all saying the same thing, time and again, to wake up. But she doesn't understand what they were telling her. She was dead, not asleep, meaning it was impossible to wake up. Her body was gone, reduced to ashes and scattered across the ground, making any idea of "waking up" impossible to achieve. So, why, why, why was she hearing voices all of the sudden telling her to "wake up"?

Please, wake up, Kaede, she hears her stepfather's voice.

Wake up, she hears the twins say.

Wake up, Kaede, Julietta's voice says, and Kaede lays on her back, looking up at the night sky.

Why? She wonders, really just wanting clarification. I don't understand.

To be continued…

A/N: We're nearing the end of this story. Any guesses on what you think will happen at the end? Any hope of seeing Historia with Ymir? Until the next chapter.