Creation began on 04-08-24
Creation ended on 04-29-24
Attack on Titan
The Dark Titan: My Worth, My Soul, My Life
Sometimes, Keith Shadis hated Grisha Yeager. Honestly, undoubtedly, he hated the man. With every fiber of his being, since the day they met. But it was only because of Grisha that he was in this predicament, and because of Ms. Sogen, he was in a different predicament that had nothing to do with the promise he was sworn to uphold before Grisha died. And honestly, undoubtedly, he found his ability to tolerate Kaede easier than his ability to put up with Eren.
"A few days ago," he remembers Grisha telling him after leaving the shelter with him once he learned his wife and son were alive, "I almost did something bad. Something I was going to regret. Until a stranger came to me and told me that I didn't have to do it. If I had done it, a lot of people were going to get hurt. In that moment, everything came down to my next choice. I went against my original intentions and returned to find my home in ruins…but my family still alive…because of some Titan with dark skin and hair."
They just didn't know that the Dark Titan was Kaede at the time, never anticipating that Shiganshina's kindest of young ladies was the Titan that survivors saw as a sort of savior because it killed several Titans that were trying to eat them. It was really the damndest thing to ever happen since learning of the Titans. Never in their history have they ever known of a Titan that elected to protect the people from the Titans that wanted to eat them. And never before did any of them ever think that it was possible for a human to become a Titan at will, even by accident.
"I don't have long to live, Shadis," Grisha had told him when they were in the woods. "And I can't allow what I was shown going to happen long after my death to happen at all. Originally, I was going to bring Eren out here, but now that I see that everything is dependent upon our choices, and that we can change what can happen into something else entirely, I'm putting the future in your hands. You get to decide for yourself if you're capable of showing you have what it takes to do something better than most."
At first, Keith didn't believe anything that Grisha informed him about, thinking that he was simply delusional, another man gone crazy. There was no way that there were people across the world that hadn't been killed by Titans…or that the history they knew was in fact a lie. It was impossible…until he cut himself on his left wrist…and he watched the cut heal itself.
"My son, Eren… I made one terrible choice after another for as long as I've been alive, and each one cost me more than I was willing to sacrifice for the sake of the greater good, but I can't have my family die for a future they won't live to be a part of. So, I'm asking you, Keith Shadis, can you protect my family by keeping them away from danger? Can you make it so that Eren doesn't go down the path I took? Can you…move forward without having to take risks?"
As much I wanted to say "no" to him that night, Keith thought as he led Kaede down an alleyway to a different location within Trost. As much as I wanted to leave him there…I chose to accept his proposition because I wanted to be able to do something great.
"I had tracked down the royal family behind Wall Sina," Grisha revealed to him. "It's the Reiss family, the former Fritz family that holds in their possession the Founding Titan, the one Titan that can control all others. I was going to meet with them and try to convince them to use the Titan's power to restore the freedom of the Eldians across the world, but they won't do it. Not while the ideology of the one that made a vow renouncing war controls them. But even if I made a choice to steal the Founder from them, I wouldn't be able to use it. Only those with royal blood can use it. But I saw at least one thing that seemed possible, but it required something else to happen that was also impossible: I saw two Titans standing before the people of the world."
And Keith saw that vision of the two Titans standing before the people, as well. To him, it seemed impossible…but it seemed possible at the same time. Why, he was uncertain, but it seemed possible. Reflecting back on that vision and what it meant, he turns to face Kaede Sogen and stops running.
"Can I ask you something, Ms. Sogen?" He utters.
"Feel free," Kaede responds.
"Does your Dark Titan possess any other abilities that you know of?"
"Besides the ones that I've confided in the leaders of the Survey Corps? I'm still learning, sir. I don't know what else I'm capable of. Even in dreams, I don't know exactly what else it is that I'm capable of. But I'm learning to accept what I am capable of…and embracing it all."
"No insight or feelings of knowing more than you should know?"
"No. Not so much insight as I do hindsight."
"Hindsight?"
"Yes. Insight requires hindsight sometimes; to know what could be, one has to understand what was before."
"And hindsight was part of your reasoning for why the Survey Corps never encountered the Colossal Titan in the five years that passed since the Shiganshina attack?"
"Yes. To understand something that has happened, you have to revisit what you already know about it…to get a better understanding of something else about it."
"Your simple mind is something else, Ms. Sogen. It'd be nice if everyone saw you the way your friends and family see you."
"Sometimes, I'd like to think that…if everyone else in the world were more like the good people that I see every now and then, there wouldn't be so much hatred and anger. But the only way that can happen is if people were to own up to their faults and change of their own accord. You can't force people to change, no matter what you feel is the best for others, not just yourself."
Suddenly, Keith reflected on that vision he and Grisha had seen once before, except now, he was seeing more of the two Titans than the people that stood in front of them. The one on the left was about eighteen meters, with dark skin and long hair that covered its androgynous body like a false dress or something, just enough to mask the nudity it gave off. This was the Dark Titan, and the other one, the one on the right, was probably thirteen meters, less feminine in its appearance, with dark hair and muscular limbs…if not somewhat petite. They were standing before the people…outside confines of what appeared to be Wall Maria!
Then, he was back in the alley with Kaede.
"Daydreaming?" She asks him.
"A little," he responds.
"What about?"
"Having a family that could've been…if I had met the love of my life and settled down years ago," he lies to her, not wanting to say what he really saw.
"Nothing wrong with that," she replies, accepting his answer as the truth. "This love of your life…even if they're only in a daydream…they have a name?"
"Believe me, you've already met them before."
"Then…the less I know, the better. Everyone's entitled to at least a few personal secrets so long as they don't hurt anyone."
"Any secrets you have that haven't hurt anyone?"
"No, because the one secret I have isn't so much of a secret to anyone…except those responsible for being the cause of it being mine. I'm the Dark Titan…and everyone knows who I am…and I try each and every day since I learned of this power that I possess…not to hurt anyone that doesn't deserve to be harmed by a person that walks a narrow line between being a human…and being viewed as a monster without a soul."
"Except you're not a monster…for the most part."
"Oh?"
"You don't make demands for anything from anyone. You don't expect compensation in exchange for your protection. People that have seen and known you for years see you as this simple and peaceful young lady…and despite having an edge to you that is violent, your heart remains pure, untainted by a drive towards harming other people for something."
"Thank you."
-x-
"…So, this Keith Shadis took Kaede with him and left when the MPs came looking for her?" Christine asks Julietta upon her and Sig finding Kaede's friends while running down the street. "He was trying to keep her out of their hands?"
"That's what it seemed like, Mrs. Sogen," went Kylie to her. "We don't know why they're looking for her. We just hope that they don't find her."
"Except that the MPs aren't exactly known for giving up when on assignment," said Sig; he knew enough about the Military Police to know that, even if he had an opportunity to re-enlist in the Cadet Corps, he wanted nothing to do with that branch of the military.
"And she stands out because she has her father's hair," added Mimi. "Finding her will be like looking for a needle among screwdrivers."
"Wait," said Levi, thinking about something the ladies had mentioned earlier, "you said that the MPs were told to look for a girl with gray hair by a young man?"
"Yeah," Julietta answers. "I didn't see who it was, but from the sound of their voice, it had to be that Yeager."
"Eren Yeager?" Hange questions. "Why him?"
"It's no secret that he hates Kaede," Delilah explains, "but he takes her very existence way too personal for it to be a simple grudge."
"I heard that during his time in the Cadet Corps, he would mention Ms. Sogen almost as much as he would bring up his hatred towards the Titans. Maybe with the revelation that she is the Dark Titan was enough to push him over the edge."
"Hardly," Sig states. "He's been temperamental ever since he was little. The only time he ever demonstrated how incorrigible he seemed to be was when he pushed Kaede to fight him to make him step out of her way. She nearly killed him. That act of provoking unnecessary violence was what earned him his first strike and put him on the registry."
"And your daughter?" Levi asks.
"She barely recovered from that incident," Christine reveals. "We moved past it, but Kaede wasn't the same. It was the first time she ever hurt someone that was being that mean to her."
"I don't mean to step on anyone's toes, but he did deserve that thrashing he got from Kaede," said Kylie. "If it was him that told the MPs, and only because he wants her to suffer for his shortcomings, real or fabricated, we need to find her before they do."
"Can you think of anywhere she might go?" Hange asks Christine. "Anyone she might turn to for aid or…anything?"
"With all due respect, Ms. Zoe, anyone Kaede would turn to for any kind of help…is all right in front of you," utters Rachel to her. "Kaede's always been the quiet and friendly girl that doesn't go looking for trouble. If trouble went looking for her, she would turn to any of us for help. But she wouldn't come to any of us unless she absolutely had to. That's just who she is."
"Mommy," Charlotte utters to Julietta, getting her attention, "what about the big rock?"
"What big rock?" Levi asks.
"You mean, the Atlas Stone, Charlotte?" Amanda questions the little girl.
"The big rock," Charlotte says again.
"What is she talking about?" Hange asks.
"The big rock in Trost," Salina answers.
"Oh. Why?"
"Kaede likes to go by it sometimes," Christine reveals.
-x-
"…Are you sure that nobody is likely to find you here?" Shadis asks Kaede as they stood beside the large rock.
"I sometimes like to come here to be by myself," she explains her reasoning for by the large rock. "It's quiet here. One can hear their thoughts if they wanted to. And who'd want to sit around a boulder like there's nothing wrong out in the world?"
Shadis found Kaede's mindset to be very different from what he expected to know about other girls. But then again, this was a girl that stood out among the rest because of her hair, her unwillingness to enlist in the military…as well as her unusual Titan power that made her an uneasy ally to the people. He hoped that her wearing a sun hat would keep her hair out of sight, despite the discomfort it brought her; he couldn't understand why any girl would take pride in their hair being long.
"Does it ever scare you sometimes?" He asks Kaede. "What you can do, I mean."
She looks over at him and sighs.
"Sometimes," she answers, "but mostly because I know what could and would happen if I lost my temper over any insignificant issue. Insignificant because any minor problem can be blown out of proportion or taken out of context…or even a major problem that can be treated as something worse than what it actually is."
"Such as?"
"I say something, anything, either as a joke or even how I feel…and someone decides to report me out of fear or spite. Or I'm in a situation that requires me to be a Titan, except someone is placed in danger and I can't do anything that may cause unintentional harm to them."
"Titans are claimed to possess no feelings of any regard towards humans…but the one that is identified as the Dark Titan…the same Titan that has been reported to be harmless around people because the young woman inside it doesn't seek to cause harm to people she would rather protect. You can always hope that whoever endangers others will be intimidated by your size and eyes; you can be scary if you were to…glare or pout or…something."
"Maybe…maybe."
"Is it alright to ask you something else that's personal?"
"Feel free."
"It's about Eren."
"What about him?"
"You don't like him…like…at all…do you?"
"Isn't it obvious?"
"Well, of course, it is, and the reason to why is clear…but…do you ever see the both of you working together for…something bigger than yourselves? Ever?"
"No. Never. It's hardly personal for why I don't like him, anymore, even though I don't like him…as a person."
"It's the aggressive attitude and harassment that he does towards you, isn't it?"
"Me, my parents, my friends. It's like, he can't stand people that want nothing to do with what he wants or can't stand to see someone else happy with what is or was over what couldn't or shouldn't be. Me? I'm content for the most part; I don't whine about what I can't have or don't even want. It's people that want something more than what is already that bother me a bit."
"Oh?"
"Well…why want what you can't have or get when all you should have is whatever you need to get by?"
"You really are a simple person."
"I don't have dreams about wealth or living in a castle or wanting to marry someone of power or influence. I just want…to live my life as happily as I can before it ends someday."
Shadis found this girl to be very, very intriguing, even for someone who put Carla's son on the registry for his foul behavior years ago. She was not only blessed and damned to walk a path of unforgiving pain as a Titan-empowered human, but she was not plagued by desires of wealth or power like some people were. But did she possess other desires that she didn't act on that he didn't know of yet? Like vengeance?
-x-
"…I think Ms. Sogen could lift that rock up and carry it a few feet towards the outer gate breach, Mrs. Sogen," Hange claims to Christine as they walked down the street to where the Atlas Stone was situated.
"Now, what makes you think that, Ms. Zoe?" Sig asks the goggles-wearing woman.
"Eighteen meters tall, fastest Titan ever encountered, was able to take out the Colossal Titan, the largest Titan ever encountered, without assistance, and is crafty with her hands and fingers. Miss Sogen is very capable."
"That's because she's her father's daughter."
"What the…" They hear one of Kaede's friends speak as they look up ahead, seeing several people on the ground, some just laying around, others barely moving because of several injuries.
"What the Hell happened here?" Kylie questions as they approach some of the people nearest to them. "Excuse me, sir, do you know what happened here?"
"Aaugh! Some crazy guy in an ugly hat came flying around, shooting at people!" A man holding his injured left arm claims. "He had six other people with him, and they took these two people with them against their will."
"Two people?" Rachel repeats. "A man and a young lady?"
"Yeah. Aaaurgh!"
"A crazy guy wearing an ugly hat," Levi utters, fearing the worse. "If he's who I think he is, then your daughter's not in the district any longer."
"Do you know this man?" Christine asks him.
"Are any of familiar with the stories about a man known as Kenny the Ripper?"
"He's supposed to be an urban myth," Amanda says, "a monster meant to frighten little kids to go to bed at night."
"That's not what I heard," went Mimi. "He's supposed to be affiliated with the MPs, has his own squad or so, and everyone in it is as cold and heartless as he's supposed to be."
"Our parents tried to suggest that we join the MPs," Rachel reveals something about herself and Amanda, "but because we heard rumors that they were corrupt, we were against the idea."
"Is he a myth…or is he real?" Delilah asks Levi.
"He's real," he answers. "Whatever you've heard of him is whatever he might've done."
Sig looks at the young man that was considered to be among the best in the Survey Corps…and got suspicious of how he knew about this man that was stated to be a serial killer.
"You know this man, don't you?" He asks him.
"Barely. I lived with him for a few years…and then he up and disappeared on me."
"Is there a chance that he might…hurt Kaede?"
"Not unless he was getting paid to do so by someone that wanted her gone. He's mainly murder-for-hire. If he's not going to silence her, then it's likely someone else wants her."
"The question is…who would want Kaede?" Julietta states. "And who'd be willing to endanger innocent people to get her?"
-x-
Fear held an unusual place inside Kaede. As she lay in the darkness again, she found herself assaulted by thoughts and memories that were so out of order that she couldn't keep them straight for any length of time, and she wasn't sure how long she was even here…or if she was even conscious.
"You're a lot more powerful than you realize, Kaede," she hears her step-grandfather say to her. "Much more powerful than even I had hoped to become myself."
"You…are…crazy," she expresses, sounding incapacitated; she was either drugged or injured.
"Crazy, delusional, desperate to escape from a life behind those misbegotten Walls…and not to mention dead."
"Dead?"
"Yes, dead. Unlike yours truly in front of you, I didn't live to embrace the freedom of escape. Stupid Titans got the better of me with their numbers, despite my intelligence…and they killed me in less than an hour. Now, I say an hour because it took my body was dismembered in an instant, but it took my brain longer to succumb to the death of my body; it's true what some believe, that it takes different lengths of time for the body's systems to bite the dust."
"What if…you're lying to me?"
"Now, why would I lie to you?"
"Con…tempt."
"Oh, I have contempt, but mostly for when things don't go my way. I never had contempt towards you, Kaede Sogen. In fact, I was enamored by your tenacity. You nearly killed that Yeager brat that provoked you. Personally, I would've vouched for you if I had paid any interest in the short brawl you took part in; he actually had it coming to him, the trouble he's always causing other people because he can't have his way. But after the woeful wound you inflicted on his pride, he's especially resentful towards you."
"You'll…say anything to…be heard."
"But it's true. What that Yeager hates about you the most is that you have all this power that you barely use…and he's jealous of your status as the common people's favorite."
Kaede looked at the elder with a hint of confusion. What did he mean by Eren Yeager being jealous of her?
"It's true what some people believe," he goes on, "that in death, all your questions are answered. Eren Yeager…is jealous as Hell of you. In his mind, you have it all…and he wants it for himself. And if he can't have it, then he'll go to extremes to make sure you lose it all. How pathetic can one get when they themselves are to blame for their shortcomings?"
You tell me, she thought.
"I wouldn't really know, of course. I never cared much for other people's issues, but I will say this: If you're the light of the future, then anyone like Eren Yeager is the one that strives to be the darkness if they can't be the light. But you, Kaede…you're the light of the future because of a completely different reason represented by your restraint, your virtue, your very joyful spirit. Even in the darkness, you still hold onto the light inside your soul. In the midst of despair, you hold onto the hope that pushes you to keep living towards what you desire most out of life. You don't crave the things that certain people desire because of a sense of lacking. You desire what your heart longs for as you live each day, the things that people take for granted."
Love, family, friends, a life.
"And you want it all on your terms instead of having to cross a line and taking it from someone else. You don't believe in taking in order to have. But Yeager…that's his darkness because he longs for what he'll never get, either because of you or because of anyone else that stands in his way. Eren Yeager. Always wanting…to the point where he's willing to kill in order to take it."
Then…he should be in prison for such desires if he acted upon them.
"Then you should put him in jail, because he will not stop unless you deal with him."
Kaede then realizes that, even when she's just thinking about things, her step-grandfather was aware of her thoughts. Nothing she thought of was hidden from him. Was he truly dead? Was she dead and her mind was just tricking her into thinking she was alive?
"Girl, you're far from dead," he tells her. "Not even close to it. You're…just incapacitated. You and that Shadis guy that ate the brat's father to obtain his dark power that has changed into a gray position. Some very powerful people are interested in you, but for different reasons, one of which is likely your only chance of keeping the people that love you safe from harm."
Why…are you telling me this?
"Because as much as I envy you for living, as much as I despise the fact that you get to see each new day with hope in those wretched eyes of yours…you're a different legacy I had a hand in creating. So long as you live, people will know that I had a hand in what you're capable of achieving. It's not immortality or the recognition I sought after, but it's still a legacy I can accept. Even if you try to hide it, to bury my existence from the world, the fact that you know will be enough for me. The fact that you're living proof that I was able to create Titans with intelligence and power that could rival other forces in existence…will be my last achievement."
Kaede couldn't believe this. He had attempted to create Titans with intelligence, maybe endow humans with the power she possessed, even gave himself the same powers…and he was using her as an excuse to make sure the world knew who he was and that he had managed to pull it off. Even if she was the only one, she feared that what he did to her…robbed her of a future she was only able to dream of having later on.
"I didn't rob you of any of your childish ambitions, Kaede," she hears him say to her. "The power to become a Titan, or in your case, a Jaeger Titan, a human that can become a Titan at will, complete with your intelligence intact, is a power that, once given, can't be taken away or even passed on to a new generation. In other words, the power I gave you before that uneventful day Shiganshina was attacked…is yours until the day you die. It can't be taken from you, no matter what anyone attempts…and you can't pass it on, no matter what happens to you. The truth…is absolute…and I can't lie about anything I say, even in death."
So, then…I can have children one day…and they'd be like everyone else?
"Yes."
"Do you…mean it?"
"Every word of it."
"Thank…you."
"You're thanking me?"
You have no idea how much comfort knowing this brings me. I want the simple things like those that people take for granted. To fall in love with someone that loves me back, to get married and have a family one day. I don't expect you to understand, but those desires, those ambitions, are what I strive for in my own way.
The elder wipes away something from his face and sits down beside her.
"As smart as I was in life, I never could understand human behavior for the most part. I could never understand the factors or circumstances regarding unpredictability or the nature of one's sense of hope or faith."
I have always believed that…we're not supposed to understand them. We're just supposed to have them, to believe in them, to accept them. To try and understand them is to admit that we know nothing about them…and that we're not supposed to. Hope and faith are…a matter of one's belief in them.
He nods in accepting her way of thinking.
"If you can reach the will enslaved by the Founder, to break it free from the chains that still bind it to a deranged sense of pacifism where they stand by and watch as others around them die for the sins of those that were never at fault for committing them, you may have a chance of saving the people you love that love you," he tells her. "Free her from his influence…and you will gain an ally that will help eliminate the status of zero and minus from where you live."
"Free…who?"
"You'll know…when you meet her."
Then…he vanished from her perception. The next thing Kaede knew, she was sitting up someplace, surrounded by adults wearing strange equipment with pistols in their hands. Beside her was Shadis, tied to a chair. She tried to move her arms, but they were bound. Blinking her eyelids multiple times, her perception corrected until she could see better the people in front of them, seeing them with better clarity.
"You try to change, we'll shoot you," a man with an ugly hat tells her, pointing a gun at her face. "Do we understand each other, miss?"
"Why would I want to change when I know doing so will hurt people?" She responds. "What is this about? I recognize that insignia. You're the Military Police. What do you want with me? I haven't caused any harm to anyone since the reclaiming of Shiganshina, which is going to need to be rebuilt completely, by the way."
"This has nothing to do with Shiganshina, miss," a woman tells her. "You're a very unusual person with an unusual Titan."
Even if she wanted to get away from these people, Kaede couldn't risk turning into the Dark Titan without harming Shadis, and she didn't want to risk endangering other people that might've been around, assuming she was even in a building somewhere. She wouldn't endanger innocent people for the sake of escaping confinement.
"As much as I'm certain a girl like you will fetch a fine price for some unscrupulous individuals," the man with the hat expresses, "our employer has other things in mind towards you…and the order was to bring you in alive and well."
Kaede looks over at Shadis and asks, "And what will you do with him? If your orders are to kill him, please, don't do it."
"Be that as it may, we weren't order to kill anyone, just to capture you and bring you to our employer," the man reveals.
"And who is your employer? Who is it that wishes to see me?"
"Oh, you'd be surprised."
Kaede lowers her head in defeat; even if she could stall for time, she doubts that anyone she knew would find Shadis and she, and she couldn't and wouldn't endanger people if it meant saving herself from these people that captured her. For now, she would have to bide her time and wait for an opportunity to escape with Shadis. For now, she would cooperate with these people, whoever they were.
"Just one question, miss," the man says to her. "Is gray truly your natural color?"
"Yes," she answers.
"How odd. How…unusual."
"It's my life, and only I'm the one that can decide how unusual anything and anyone I encounter in it truly are."
Quite possibly what she just said…made her the most unusual of all the people these adults have ever met before.
To be continued…
A/N: The conversation between Kaede and Grausam practically evolved on its own; in a sense, Kaede was having a final chat with the man she blames for her misfortune as a Titan Shifter and learns that he didn't survive, but has accepted his fate and informs her of things that she needed to know that not knowing plagued her for five, long years, along with things that she had yet to find out about. And I do like to believe that upon death, the questions that one has in life, including questions yet to be asked, receive answers from the beyond. I'm not sure how the next chapter will open up, but I'll know when I know. Until next time.