A small hand rose into the heights, very far from reaching the wooden ceiling but its pair joined in the strive nonetheless. The distance between the small hands and the object of their fascination, in spite of how impossible to surpass went ignored by the young will that shifted in his covers.

The youthful green eyes that gazed intently at the lumber that covered the space he was in knew not of the concept of a roof, but from the position they always seemed to be in they stared directly at it. As such, it seemed to the infant boy that touching it was priority number one.

A figure poised itself above him, blocking his view of the ceiling. A pair of hands as big as his torso picked him up, taking him out of the cradle that he never seemed to be able to get out on his own. When he realized his sudden gain in altitude was not helping him get his hands on the ceiling he got upset, and with no way of communicating his desires to the enormous figure, he started crying.

The figure was taken off-guard by the little bundle squirming and crying his eyes out in his hand, and was soon joined by a shorter figure with longer hair of the same color, chuckling at his troubles.

The wet eyes of the baby looked between the two figures and failed to understand the words they were saying, but his attention was soon detached from the people holding him and his beloved ceiling.

A pair of blonde individuals stared directly at him and blue light blinded his vision, he shook violently with his eyes shut and a million scenes played out in disorienting speed that he felt familiar with.

A pigpen, a giant hand reaching for huddled people cowering in fear, a throne, a green figure flying through the air shooting hooks from their hips, a wooden ceiling and a small hand reaching up to it, a human shadow in the waves, a bolt-action rifle, a red foot stomping with a deafening thunder to its step, a blade swinging towards a spine connecting to a head, fire and electricity, a handshake with another blonde man and a quiet view of a scorched wasteland.

The baby blinked, and felt himself doing so. His cheek was pinched by the woman he now recognized as his mother, Carla Jaeger as he felt the pull of her fingers on his tender skin.

He knew who all these people were and what those memories meant.

Understanding what was happening and who he was, Eren exercised control over this vision of a past time, making his parents silhouettes disappear. In what would look like a brief moment passing, the cozy home deteriorated and the cradle's wood collapsed. In the place of the curious baby he now stood.

He pondered about his sudden manifestation of the past and why would he be brought here without himself enabling it. Be it as it may, Eren didn't need to fully understand yet, as long as he could command whatever it was that made him see his memories from the eyes of his younger, ignorant self to revert back to a form in which he could at least speak a word.

But he did notice one thing, he regained conscience by looking into their eyes...

Eren dared to look at the spot the two figures with golden hair were standing and found them again, still looking directly at him. Like the moment never really died, as if that warm Shiganshina evening never ended.

The phantom vision of Armin Arlert stood in between the two coordinates of the subjects of Ymir, the former and the current, and he bore the cold fury of a disillusioned believer in his dead eyes. With a hesitance in his step, Eren trudged closer.

"Armin." The taller of the three present muttered

Those blue eyes, so beloved to Eren. Once a reassurance and a hope to cling on to, the emotions that his best friend displayed in the past were one of the reasons he forced fate to take this grim path were now silently throwing his decision back in his face.

"I wonder, what was the cost of this tragedy for you Eren?

You won. Humanity beyond the walls has been slaughtered, no outside threat can harm Eldia now, and to top it all off, this world is void of titans. But what did it cost you?"

Eren tried to approach the ghost of his friend directly but he somehow was restrained from going further than one step. He knew it was not Armin preventing him from doing so in any physical way, but the look of not quite disgust but something akin to it in his eyes froze him in place.

As if obeying Armin's command, the three of them reappeared in an undistinguishable location, one that was recently charred and flattened. The first of the dreamer boys kneeled to grab a handful of ashen dirt from the ground.

"Answer the question Eren. This world is far too cruel to give you a deal like this without you relinquishing something of great importance."

They both admired the dust in Armin's hand, as if it could tell the tales of the despair it left behind. Eren's felt his insides churn when Armin grinded the hellish dirt in his hand as he let go of the dust produced and continued "We are standing over the remains of the Yurk Nuwin interment zone for Eldians in the southwestern nation of Galthua."

"This internment zone was very special Eren. Want to know why?"

No response was needed, and none was provided. That sensation from earlier was no trick of the mind. Through paths, both could hear the absolute despair the subjects of Ymir of this land felt in their final moments. And everyone else's as well through the Eldians visions as every soul ran towards an impossible safety.

"Eldians here were on the verge of being seen as equals to the general population, progress was being made in the matter of segregation and penalties. Titanization had been outlawed decades ago! This was proof Eren! Proof that we could have gotten peace if we had tried."

"The rumbling made contact and destroyed 9 battleships of the Galthuan republican armada. When I killed Tybur and the Marleyan high command in Liberio, the galthuan ambassador was there, clapping in support of the declaration of war."

Eren could have also pointed out that most countries outlawed titanization because none of them had a Zeke to succesfully control pure titans, and that Marley would have never allowed other countries engaging in titan warfare. Ultimately deciding that his words were enough to prevent this conversation from going somewhere he wished it didn't go.

Armin's eyes expanded in utter shock at his former friend's words and in a rage he lunged at Eren, his fist rocking the left side of Eren's face, sending him reeling backwards. Armin's rage was short-lived though, for he descended further into sorrow for the remains of where they stood. If it was possible for a ghost to gasp for air, that was the sight that met Eren's eyes.

"Decades of dreaming and pushing for change. Galthua was changing its ways, and they weren't the only ones... the road towards compromise and understanding was being paved.

"They...they were just about to be considered fellow humans..."

Armin's aspect seemed so consumed by the terror of the images his mind played for him to bathe in. It shook Eren a little bit to see it, his left cheek throbbing in pain was the last thing on his mind. He had an idea about what was in play, but there was so much he was in the dark about the image flashes he was certain were pummeling the blonde's consciousness

"Is that it? You tossed away your humanity?"

Armin's thought process yanked him away from his own. His hand once again felt smaller weaker in his more fragile body but no words would come to him in this younger form as he looked at a child version of his friend seethe in hatred. Hatred for him.

"Remember that time when we were cadets, when the garrison almost blew us the fuck out of the ground we were standing on? You screamed to that old coward of an officer with all the strength of your vocal cords: 'I'M HUMAN'. Do you reckon you can say the same thing to me right now?"

"...I."

STOMP

There were no more colossals around, but the footsteps of doom trembled on his mind as if he was one more person of the billions he trampled over, about to be squashed for the sake of his.

STOMP

Visions of a baby in a bundle being transferred from hand to hand as the people sought to keep a newborn out of the depths of despair for as long as humanly possible came crashing onto him. Flashes of the millions of his enslaved brothers and sisters in and out interment zones who paid in blood for the crime of their ancestors not evacuating the mainland a century ago.

STOMP

Eren clutched his temples with force as the images kept passing through his mind. Suddenly, the same affirmation that proclaimed this great atrocity was committed by Eren Jaeger wasn't so liberating anymore.

STOMP

In the midst of the whirling images, a single vision made its way into his eyes, silencing the footsteps of the red giants and all the murder.

His body spurred with a flash of yellow electricity, but instead of preceding a titanic tranformation, what followed were the same images that he saw when he regained his consciousness; A hog running free, a small girl, the walls.

The stream of visions that had been playing over and over again, not for the first or second time ever since he inherited the founding titan. This almost incomprehensible wraith had only increased when he devoured the source of the power. A constant cacophony screaming in his ears and for his ears only to direct him how to think, and what to think.

"Like I told you that time, I acted upon my own free will Armin. I robbed those people of their futures. And I think that was the most human thing that I could have done. I am sorry for the fate that befell them, I truly am, but I did what I set out to do."

"For what cause Eren?! Even if the world's government rallied for a terrible cause, does not mean every soul had to be punished! Humanity is never a single, unchanging monolith! If we of the walls, enclosed and herded by ignorance wouldn't even agree to be the old king's paradisiacal subjects, it's clear there would be millions outside in the vast world that didn't deserve this fate!"

Eren's small hand retracted from his cheek, inwardly silencing what tried to direct him, he stared at his friend and collected what wit he could to explain.

"I see eye to eye with you there Armin, most people in Galthua, Hizuru and the entire world, even Marley, were not my enemy. But every single person in the world lived under a power that hated us, it needed us as fuel to maintain power. And it had always been like that, even with us on top.

"The Eldian Empire's power affected every soul despite the billions of people under it who held not a bit of power to change that. And then Marley inherited that position and punished every subject of Ymir regardless of having involvement in the Empire's crimes or not. Thus pointing the world's arms at us, continuing an endless cycle of war and vengeance."

Eren was sure that the source of all those visions, the paths, were as wild as a horse once they had a master, but as he spoke, the source fell silent and showed what his words detailed. A spinning wheel that didn't go forward, human history.

This conflict would chain the species even if Ymir had never encountered the power of the titans.

"If the cycle is endless, why do this at all? Why curse every Eldian to direct their blades to each other in the future?"

"Because I happened to be born in the middle of it. If I found a way to at least disrupt the machinations of a grim fate that repeats itself...I'd take it."

The freest person of the world

"But not yet." A voice replied to the hunter's thought.

First version A/N:I haven't forgotten about Mikasa if anyone was wondering why she wasn't killed last chapter, and no, I'm not going with the idea that guy had in mind.

Retcon A/N: Well, would you look at that. Turns out Yams is not the only one who retcons his stuff lmao. Let's hope this retcon has the opposite effect that it had on canon and it goes from dogshit to peak. Only one way to find out.

Well let's get into what changed. Instead of accidentally writing myself into a corner barely two chapters in, we have coordinate shenanigans. Eren comes to realize there were actually consequences to becoming the paths embodied.

I think the writing is still somewhat sloppy but nothing that practice and more writing cannot improve.