Creation began on 03-18-24
Creation ended on 03-26-24
Attack on Titan
The Dark Titan: I can (not) stand you
This mutual dislike of each other was as common knowledge as their respective disillusionment towards the military and dismissal from the Cadet Corps. But this reckless sense of standing out in front of the Sogen house, just being present to the people that lived within it, it was disturbing the peace the three people had. This was why Kaede was after Eren; she wanted him to stop, and the only way to make him do that, something she believed that he wasn't going to do willingly, was to set him straight. But she had no intention of crossing the line with him, oh, no, no, no. No, she was going to make him see that, even if she could do something to him that would be permanent and likely a one-way ticket to her own execution, she wasn't going to because, unlike him, she possessed more restraint than what you would get from other people capable of harming or helping others.
"Hey, Kaede," greeted one of the men that had once lived in Shiganshina but was now living in Trost to make his living as a baker.
"Hey, Clarence," she greets back as she continues going after Eren, who ran.
"Welcome back, Kaede," greeted a woman with a little boy.
"Hello, Mrs. Ceres," she replies. "Have a good day, Luke."
"Bye-bye," the boy says, waving to her. "Is he the bad boy?"
"Something like that."
"Bad."
Eren didn't like that some of the people had nothing but nice words with this girl; she was a monster that didn't deserve to walk among them, and they treated her like she was a good person without any measure of malice towards them. He suddenly lost his footing and fell to the ground in front of him and several people that saw him running.
"Ouch," he says as he slowly gets back up.
A hand wraps around his neck and raises him almost to his full height…but bent over and in the grasp of his would-be captor.
"Eren Yeager," he hears Kaede's voice beside him, and tries to get free, but the grip was like stone or metal, keeping him bound. "Oh, no, you don't. Not this time. Enough is enough. It's time to put an end to this."
"What are you going to do, kill me?" He challenges her, but then felt her arm around his neck tighten. "Gaaaurgh!"
"Please, don't tempt me with such a displeasure," she tells him.
-x-
Knock-knock! Carla hears a knock at the door and gets up from the kitchen table to answer it.
"How may I…" She utters, but then stops at the sight of none other than the Sogen girl…holding her son's head under her right arm in an attempt to restrain him. "Miss Sogen."
"Missus Yeager," Kaede greets. "I hope this isn't a bad time right now, but I really need to speak with you."
Carla looks behind Kaede and sees several people looking at them.
Kaede notices this, as well and says, "Oh, don't mind them. They just want to see something unnecessary on my part, which is only…should all sense of reasoning fail, and my restraint is undone. I'm simply here to talk."
"Right."
"First up, I wish to apologize to you personally for destroying your home in Shiganshina five years ago. My recollection of that day returned while I was with the Survey Corps to reclaim the abandoned district…and I meant what I said during my trial. It was never to hurt you. It was to show your son here that each and every one of his actions, just as any one of our actions, have consequences for himself and others around him. I do hope that you can forgive me for my transgression towards you."
"I…I can overlook your actions."
"But…can you forgive me for such actions?"
Carla looks at Eren, seeing Kaede's hand over his mouth, likely to keep him quiet.
"Yes," she tells her. "Yes, I can."
"Thank you. It's not completely public knowledge yet, but during the course of reclaiming Shiganshina, the Colossal Titan attacked again and decimated the entire district with fire from the heat and steam it generated, burning everything to the ground, including the buildings I had hoped could be salvaged and made livable once more."
"Mmm!" Eren reacted to this knowledge, struggling to get loose from her grip. "Hmmm!"
"Oh, dear," Carla replies.
"Naturally, I blame myself for this outcome, as it will take longer to rebuild the district from the ground up. Still, the district has been retaken and people will hopefully begin relocating back to in order to aid in rebuilding it. But I didn't come all this way just to tell you this. I have come to understand that there is a problem between your family and mine, one that I wish to resolve without further unnecessary conflict. I'm not a violent or vindictive person, you see. If I have a grudge against someone, I don't want to have it consume me or be a bane for other people to put up with. I am sorry for putting your son on the registry and for almost killing him that day. I understand that it has cost you considerable peace of mind to know that if he does something else that is unjust because of his actions two more times, then his future will be grim and lightless. But please, I am not telling you how to deal with your son. I am begging you to keep him in line. I don't need him causing me to do something that I fear will be the cruelest of things I might do to anyone and be seen as a monster when I am simply a person that just wants to move on with her life and be left alone with her family and friends."
"I can respect that, Ms. Sogen."
"I thank you. However, earlier this evening, Eren tried to tempt me into crossing the line in front of people. I will not lie; I was momentarily tempted…but I refuse to let someone else get the better of me be my undoing. If he harasses my parents by simply standing outside my home again, whether or not it's not viewed as a crime on his part, I will take offense to his behavior. But I will not cross that line. Even if tempted, even if someone tries to coerce me into doing so, I will not take away any life just to resolve a dispute that seems one-sided."
"Grrrr," they hear Eren growl under her hand.
"I already have terrible fantasies of doing so in my head that I refuse to act upon," Kaede continues. "But I justify those thoughts by saying something like them is only likely to occur should my parents suffer a grim fate that was someone else's doing, including your son's. I would be consumed by anger and grief over their suffering and endings. I would come after Eren…or someone else that was responsible…and I wouldn't question my forsaken morality after what happened. I…would likely finish what began long ago or settle the dispute in the grimmest of ways. I'd break their legs, break their arms, break their mouth, stomp on their back until their spine breaks. But I won't do any of that to Eren. Why? Because, like I said, I'm not a vindictive person. I don't like to hold grudges against others. So, again, I am begging you, Mrs. Yeager… I don't want this one-sided feud to escalate any further. I just want to get on my life, however much of it I may have left."
"I understand, Ms. Sogen."
"Thank you."
Kaede then releases Eren from her grip and he falls to his knees and palms, looking up at her with anger. She sighs and bows her head to Carla.
"Thank you for your time," she tells the woman. "I apologize if I disturbed you. May the rest of your evening be a pleasant one. Good night."
She turns around and walks away, looking at her right hand before closing it into a fist and lowering it to her side.
"Eren," Carla says to her son, "we need to talk. Now."
-x-
After dinner with her parents, Kaede retired to her room for the remainder of the night. But sleep eluded her as she lay in her bed. How could she sleep after what she did earlier today? She didn't outright threaten Eren's mother, but she implored her to get her son under control before he did something to cause her further distress. She might as well have told her that she could not stand him as a person, but even saying such was too much.
Knock-knock. A knock at her door was heard.
"Kaede?" She hears her mother say outside her room. "Are you asleep?"
"No," she responds.
"You were quiet all through dinner. Did something happen with the Yeager boy?"
"All I did was take him to his mother and expressed how I felt. My good thoughts…and my bad thoughts. I begged her to get her son under control before he caused more trouble for people. But I think I might've been overbearing towards Mrs. Yeager."
"But you didn't hurt her, did you?"
"No. I only said what I felt needed to be said."
"You did what you needed to do. There's nothing wrong with doing that."
"Then why?"
"Why, what?"
"Why do I feel like it wasn't enough?"
"Because you're a good person, Kaede. You don't want to do the wrong thing to hurt someone else, even if they hurt you."
"I still know how it feels to want to, though."
Kaede wouldn't deny this truth. She carried this dark feeling of wanting to cause pain and suffering to others when she felt crossed by someone that more than likely deserved it in the end. But she kept herself in check to avoid staining her hands, her heart and her soul with blood. She now possessed a power that she didn't ask for, that she believed Grausam forced on her during the time she was left alone with him, and as much as he feared being reduced to a weapon or a subject with no rights to live her life on her terms, she felt she could use this power to help the people be free from the Titans.
"Just hang in there, Kaede," her mother tells her. "Just hang in there."
-x-
"…If you go near that girl or her parents in the future, I will have it considered as another strike on your record, Eren," Carla tells Eren, threatening him with a grim penalty; she was fed up with his behavior towards Kaede and wanted it to stop. "Or worse, it becomes two strikes, and you already have one strike against you. Do you really want to be locked away?"
"How can you just side with her?" Eren questions her. "She's not even human!"
"She is human! She never asked for any of this, and she hasn't harmed anyone in the slightest! Yes, she smashed up our house, and yes, it was because of you, but she apologized for it! I don't blame her for doing that! It's as she said, it was to show you that your actions have consequences! Consequences that you don't seem to be able to understand because you don't have any restraint!"
"There's no way I will ever forgive her for existing."
"Well, I'm sure the feeling is mutual with her, but she's not going to do something stupid, like come after you. Leave her and her parents alone. She's not out to get us, so drop the attitude against her. She just wants to move on. Is that too much to ask?"
"With her, everything, no matter how small…is too much to ask."
-x-
Defeated. The end result was final: Annie, Reiner…and the war chief…were going back to Marley to get reinforcements. It didn't matter if they had an army of Titans to unleash here, the fact that this Dark Titan was unlike anything they had encountered before, there was no telling what she was capable of. So here they were now, on a ship heading back to the mainland.
"So, you were forced to retreat due to a Titan that was different from what you were told to expect on that island?" A male soldier questions the two teenagers that had spent five years there. "What kind of Titan forces the Armored and Female Titans to retreat and abandon the Colossal Titan, which was the biggest threat?"
"An eighteen-meter Titan with dark skin and long hair," Reiner confesses; he didn't even care if they were ridiculed for telling their superiors about this.
Instead of being laughed at, however, the soldiers aboard the ship had serious looks on their faces, like they were in disbelief over what they heard.
"Eighteen meters?" Another soldier questions. "Is this true? Eighteen meters?"
"We saw it with our own eyes," Annie answers.
"That's bigger than the Beast Titan," a third soldier states. "Dark skin and long hair? What could it do? Did it possess any abilities that were unusual?"
"It could use its hair like a whip to cut things," Reiner reveals. "There was something else about it, too. The girl that can become it…"
"A girl?"
"Yes. Once she becomes this Titan, she can't seem to get out of it. She's in that form for less than twenty hours."
"What the Hell? That's not possible. Out of the seven of you, the majority can't be in those Titans for more than a few hours at a time. Only one of you can last more than a month. Any longer than permitted, you risk being absorbed into those Titans. But less than twenty hours? A Titan that can be controlled for that length of time can do…"
"Whatever it wanted without any fear of reprisal," the blond-haired man with a beard expresses; he was the Beast Titan, a seventeen-meter Titan that, up until now, had been the second worst Titan to encounter after the Colossal. "Maybe it was the Jaw Titan."
"No Jaw Titan is larger than five meters," Annie reminds him. "Name one of the Nine Titans that is eighteen meters tall, can remain active for twenty hours and can move at speeds superior to those of the Jaw and Cart Titans, able to circle Wall Rose in less than an hour?"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Another soldier gasps. "A Titan that can run that fast could lay waste to over half the motherland!"
"I don't know whether to be impressed or horrified that a Titan like this exists on Paradis and none of you were able to deal with it," the man in charge of the boat tells the three that went to Paradis and came back with defeat and very little information.
But what neither Reiner or Annie said about the girl behind the Titan was how it seemed unlikely for her to seek conflict with Marley or any other nation in the world that despised Eldians; as the girl had stated during the tribunal against her, she was simply a girl that was more focused on living her life than being condemned by anyone within the Walls as a research specimen or a living weapon against others. If anything, the girl was just unusual, which made her all the more disturbing and dangerous to them.
-x-
"What?" Kaede utters as she finds herself standing in the streets of Trost at night. "I… What was I doing? Wasn't I…sleeping?"
"Kaede Sogen," she hears her name being uttered by a man behind her, and turns to face him, seeing that it was Keith Shadis. "What are you doing out here at this time of night?"
Kaede looks around them before turning back to face Shadis.
"This…isn't a dream…is it?" She asks him.
"If this were a dream, I'd rather see you in your casual clothing instead of your nightwear," he tells her, reminding her that she was dressed in her beige nightgown and barefoot.
"I…I don't know how I got here, sir."
Keith removes his cloak and offers it to her.
"What do you remember?" He asks.
"I was…running through a forest…and then I was running atop one of the Walls…before jumping off it onto the ground," she answers him; earlier this evening, after she had finally found herself able to sleep, she had been able to dream of something as tranquil as running through a forest. "Probably sounds rather crazy, doesn't it?"
"No," he tells her, walking with her down the street. "You sound like you dream of things that are more benevolent and beautiful than anything we have seen or done while awake. You prefer peaceful settings and harmless adventures over unpleasant places and dangerous situations where people are bound to get harmed. And I heard you saved most of the squadron that went with you to reclaim Shiganshina District. There were only…what, two people that didn't come back?"
"Yes…but…that's what really seems strange, though. Nobody saw the two that didn't come back with us die or go anywhere near the Colossal Titan. Annie Leonhart and Reiner Braun. Annie Leonhart was the girl that was in the Titan I faced prior to getting the squadron to Shiganshina. Bertolt Hoover is the Colossal Titan. From what I learned from the members of the squadron, these three are often seen together when they're not with others. If Mr. Hoover is the Colossal Titan and Ms. Leonhart is a Titan that appears a little more…developed in terms of its appearance and all…then what if Mr. Braun is one, too? What if he was this Armored Titan? It would make perfect sense, wouldn't it? That's how they got in. That's how they got around people unnoticed."
"Well, hopefully, the Survey Corps will find out some things from Hoover if he values his life. You took out the Colossal Titan. That's a feat that can't be rivaled by anyone right now. Is it okay to ask…how you felt during that time you faced Hoover…before you discovered it was him?"
"How did I feel? I was afraid of the monster he had become, that he used to devastate Shiganshina. But…I was more upset than afraid. I was upset that he destroyed my hometown, that he tarnished my memories of my days walking up and down the streets, my safe place from the horrors within the day. I wanted to know why he did it. Why did he do what he did to everyone? Was the first time an accident…or did he do it on purpose? Not knowing why really…really bothers me."
"Yeah. Not knowing why any of this has happened bothers a lot of people. Nothing makes sense without clarity, and the only ones with the clarity to make the confusing questions coherent enough to be relevant…are the ones that refuse to answer the questions we have."
"The unforgivable hoarders of the truth."
"What?"
"Something my mother once called people that kept certain things from people. She used to tell me that there are people in the world that have two types of secrets. They are the ones they keep from others…and the ones that are kept from them. Basically, we keep secrets from the people in our lives…and are barely aware of the secrets that are being kept from us. Either way, the secrets we keep…come with a cost. The longer you keep quiet about something you know, the harder it becomes to keep paying for it."
"But…you're not trying to keep secrets from anyone…are you?"
"No. I mean… I think my step-grandfather is responsible for what I can do…but I don't know why. And…I'm not sure if I want to remember what he did to me."
Keith sighs and places his right hand on her left shoulder.
"I don't blame you," he tells her. "You've been put in a difficult position…and all you want is to move on with your life. I only wish Eren would do the same and accept that he won't get what he wants from anyone around him. He almost went down a horrible path when he almost lost Carla. But you saved her life that day. You made sure that he still had his mother, someone to come back to. It's almost a wasteful shame if he can't appreciate that one act of kindness and mercy."
"I'm guessing that you are aware that I spoke with her earlier this evening when I brought her son home?"
"No…but I'm bound to find out later on. You show restraint when people think you're going to cross the line because of him. Sometimes, I think your restraint is your greatest strength because you don't like it when people push you around. A lot of people don't know how much it means to have restraint, to not go too far or get ahead of yourself. Those that are quick to anger, quick to blame…can never see the wrong they cause others over the course of their lives. Why do you think that is, Ms. Sogen?"
"I think it has something to do with their upbringing half the time. Whether it's because of their environment…or who their caregivers are, they turn out in some way that is wrong, they become a bane instead of a boon. Even so, there should be other ways to deal with people like that instead of just…deciding that they're a waste of space."
"You value life."
"I wouldn't recognize myself if I didn't value life. I mean, I value the lives of those around us…even those that I can't stand. Though…honestly…I do want to believe that some people would be better off if some people were simply not around them."
"Like Eren?"
"And my step-grandfather. People like that are…people that can't seem to belong."
"Yeah."
They came across a fountain and Kaede sat down on its edge to rest her feet.
"So…you used to be in the Survey Corps, right?" She asks Keith.
"That's right," he replies.
"Why'd you leave?"
"A long time ago, I thought I was meant for something greater than what I was doing. I thought I was special…only to be proven wrong, time after time."
"Everyone is special, sir."
"But some more than others."
"If that were true, then everyone would be capable of happiness if they desired it. If people aren't happy, then how can they be special?"
"You mean, you're not happy?"
"Of course, I'm happy. I mean, I have my parents, my health, my freedom to walk around, to know that people don't have to fear me because of a…a darkness that I keep locked up until it's needed to do something helpful."
"But…what about in ten years? Or twenty years? What do you want in order to keep being happy in your life?"
"The same things that everyone wants, one way or another."
"Which are?"
"Family, friends, stability, love. Who would we be if we didn't have those?"
"Who would we be if we didn't have those?" Keith repeated her question in his mind. We'd be the ones we despise more than anything else in existence.
"Sometimes, I have nightmares about a Titan I've never seen before," Kaede expresses to him. "A very ugly Titan. The ugliest I've ever seen."
"How ugly?"
"Brutal. Extremely dangerous. Pointed ears, uneven jawline, muscular. The kind of body you'd get from exercising under intense conditions for a long time. But it was the face that was the ugliest thing about it. Its eyes glaring, full of spite, full of arrogance. If Titans were people, then this one would not be a people person, the same way some people push others away when they want to be left alone for selfish reasons."
"How uneven is the jawline? Is it like, the front part of it is downward while the sides are where they should be? If it was capable of speaking, it wouldn't be able to because of the way its mouth is shaped?"
"Yeah, exactly like that. How'd you know?"
"Just a feeling. Just a feeling."
To be continued…
A/N: I think the next chapter will be a different twist in the tale. Why do you really think Keith asked Kaede that question? My favorite part of this chapter was Kaede's restraint in her conversation with Carla Yeager; she had Eren in a headlock, could've killed him at anytime she chose, but she didn't. And as for Reiner and Annie keeping quiet about Kaede's lack of violent tendencies and aggressive behavior towards other people, it's likely something that is going to be problematic towards Marley in the future because of their behavior and likelihood to disregard the possibility that not everyone is capable of violence and those that are capable of not likely to act on intimidation unless provoked, and only then under controlled circumstances.