The Dark Titan: Minus One

by Traitor of All Traitors

Even with the abandonment of just one district, what remained of the human race behind three concentric walls was still at a state of zero. A young man driven to anger over having his dreams unfulfilled. A young woman trapped in the darkness of her grim reality. A second attack will force one to confront the ravages of what was and change what can become into something more.

11. A Storm of Emotions

Creation began on 04-29-24

Creation ended on 05-28-24

Attack on Titan

The Dark Titan: A Storm of Emotions

Maybe because of the ease of the way Shiganshina was reclaimed, along with the fury of how the Colossal Titan was defeated by the Dark Titan, Armin Arlert suspected that they were becoming too dependent on Kaede Sogen as the Survey Corps' ally. But even so, he was willing to support the girl because of her restraint and refusal to submit to harsh criticism from other people that were biased against her for possessing such a power she couldn't explain herself for possessing to begin with. And, contrary to what was believed by others, he believed in Ms. Sogen's ability to do right by the people, and that's why he was aiding in this mission to find her and the people that took her. If anything happened to her that resulted in her death because of a biased individual or group of people, they could kiss their hopes for the future goodbye with her.

"Why would someone take her behind Wall Sina?" Jean asks as they were walking down the road towards said wall. "It makes no sense. I mean, the innermost wall is where members of the nobility reside, right, and they're the least likely to get involved in something like facing the Titans to reclaim a section of land taken by them."

"If they took her, it's likely they'll try to execute her," suggests Sasha. "A person with the ability to become a Titan is not something that they would consider an ally like we have because we've spent time with her and don't feel threatened by her and vice versa."

"But they should know by now that we wouldn't have retaken Shiganshina without her," Connie states. "And if there are other people that can turn into Titans, then we need Kaede to help us face them if they come back."

"But if we're dealing with someone that possesses the Founding Titan," Levi informs them all, "and this is a Titan that possesses the power to control other Titans and affect the memories of people that can be turned into Titans at will…there's no telling how much of a Titan like Ms. Sogen's Dark Titan would be considered a threat if it couldn't be controlled."

"A Titan that can control other Titans would be a force to be reckoned with," says Krista as she and Ymir were among those trying to comprehend and accept this new discovery that they had obtained through Bertolt, "and a Titan that simply can't be controlled at all…would be viewed as a threat."

-x-

Shadis had to give Kaede Sogen her due praise. The girl was willing to cooperate with their captors so long as they didn't try to hurt him; her morality was a boon rather than a bane. Even as they were being escorted through an underground tunnel system, the gray-haired girl didn't try to make trouble for any of them. No spitting in someone's face, shoving someone down to the ground, not even threatening to kick anyone.

"You are most unusual, Ms. Sogen," he tells her.

"In what way?" She replies.

"You got some sort of plan in the works?"

"No, sir."

"Are you sure?"

"If there is a plan, it's to stay alive without hurting people. That's my only concern."

So, there was no plan to escape. No hidden tactics to fight back. It was just to stay alive and keep other people safe from harm. While some might've found the girl's reasoning to be flawed and pathetic, Shadis couldn't fault her for being a restrained person. Even he couldn't do anything without risking innocent lives being endangered.

"So, not once have you ever thought of wanting to hurt others?" A woman asks Kaede. "For any reason? I heard of how you harmed that Yeager brat, and I must say, it's not something I would expect from a girl like you. Before I saw you, I was expecting you to be…heftier, not some wallflower of a lady."

"You don't believe in the concept of looks being deceiving, ma'am?" Kaede replies.

"Not with you. With you, it's questionable. You stand out because of your hair color, you become a Titan that's far larger than the standard fifteen-meter variety, you don't know how you came to possess such a power, and instead of wanting to dominate or even kill people, you prefer to live your life the same way you've always lived it. That's just unusual. Very unusual. Why live a simple life when someone like you could have…whatever you want, right at your fingertips? I mean, you could have wealth, a mansion, fancy dresses, servants…"

"Except that's crazy to want those."

Everyone looks at Kaede like she said something ridiculous.

"Even if you were to try to convince me, I'd still rather want a life I can be content with having," she tells the woman. "Maybe you'd want those things because you feel you could be happy with them, but I just want…a regular life. Friends, family, love. Not every girl wants you might think. Maybe not everyone wants what you might think. Some people want things like wealth, power, immortality and superficial things like that, and other people want the things that make their lives worth living because they won't last forever. I'm just a simple girl with simple desires. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Maybe that's why they want to meet with you," the man with the hat suggests. "You're such a simple-minded person."

But who are they that you speak of? Kaede wonders; whatever she could learn from these people could help later on. Who wants to see me? Why go through all this trouble when they could just ask to see me or invite me to meet them?

-x-

"Didn't you use to live behind Wall Sina, Krista?" Ymir asks the petite girl.

"I haven't exactly lived there long enough to actually call it home," Krista says in response. "But yes, I did live behind it…on a farm."

"Really?" Armin asks her. "Cows? Pigs? Stacks of hay?"

"Yes."

"You don't really look like you grew up on a farm at all. You look like…"

"Like what?"

"Well…like you grew up in a big house somewhere."

"I wish."

As the small group moved closer towards Wall Sina, their thoughts of what was happening with Kaede were starting to take hold of them. Some thoughts were of the girl being locked up and tortured to see what made her tick, while others were of her being dragged into a room where men armed with rifles were ready to execute her just for being what she was able to do.

"I don't understand your friend, though," Krista says to Armin. "He sounds like he hates Ms. Sogen for simply being alive, not just for anything else that she did."

"It's complicated," he responds.

"It doesn't sound complicated," Ymir states. "Based on everything that we do know about your friend; it sounds like Yeager is just resentful towards Sogen for everything she does because he can't do anything about anything. I mean, he wanted to join the Survey Corps and couldn't pass the balancing test. She can become a Titan with intelligence and a conscience, and she gets a free pass to aid the Survey Corps with her abilities and we were able to retake Shiganshina within a day and not lose any of our members. And she took out the Colossal Titan on her own. If this were resentment towards her, anyone would want her out of the way. Permanently."

"You suspect that Eren's jealous of Kaede? I don't find her to be the kind of person anyone should be jealous of. She just…prefers a simple life without any drama from people that want to uproot her or make her into something she doesn't want to be."

"If what was done to enable her to change into a Titan at will were to be done to other people, including any of us, then there are those that would seek to do anything they want…to get away with whatever they want."

"The thought of a person being able to become a Titan like Ms. Sogen, but without any of her restraint or compassion," went Sasha, "that's scary. Super scary. I even once had a nightmare about Yeager being a Titan like that, except he was all…wrong."

"Wrong?" Armin questions. "In what way?"

"Everything he did, even for the sake of helping us…just ended up making things worse for everyone else. And a lot of people died because of him. In the end, I saw him kill Kaede…just for trying to rescue some people he was trying to kill."

"That's messed up," Jean expresses. "Sounds like someone that would rather see a friendly Titan dead than have it help the people in any benevolent fashion."

-x-

Rather than try to talk her way out of being blindfolded by these people that took her and Shadis captive, Kaede simply cooperated and let them put the burlap bag over her head, obscuring her vision and leaving her in a dark place where only the inside of her mind granted her light. It felt like she was walking around for hours before she was made to stop and stood somewhere with a measure of fear in her heart.

"Why is she wearing a sack over her head?" She hears a voice say.

"Security measure," she hears another voice reply.

"Remove it, please. Her bonds, as well. She's not meant to be a prisoner."

Kaede felt someone hold up her arms cut her ropes off before removing the bag off her head.

Shine! She closed her eyes for a brief moment to let them recover from the brightness before opening them again, seeing that she was inside a large chamber that didn't seem like anyplace she would find anywhere.

There were crystals as bright as a fireplace everywhere she turned, with some of them sculpted to make a pair of staircases and a small platform above them. In front of her were these people that she had never seen before, dressed in white robes, looking at her with awe and curiosity.

"Welcome, Ms. Sogen," one of them, a young woman with long, ebony hair and purple eyes, greeted her. "I have been waiting for you for quite some time now."

She counted at least five of them, one of them a man with a physique that was on the large side, and his expression was one of concern. While turning to look at the people that had brought her here to this place, she saw Shadis was still bound and his head covered in a similar bag.

"Who…who are you?" She asks the people in the robes in front of her.

"My name," the young lady responds to her question, "is Frieda Reiss. This is my family, the real rulers of the people behind the Walls. You, on the other hand, are quite a conundrum that has puzzled me ever since I came to hear of your recent actions in Trost District."

"And…I'm only guessing that…you want me dead for some reason?"

"Dead? You? Goodness, no. If I wanted you dead, I'd have Kenny Ackerman dispose of you and all that saw you earlier. Even if I wanted to dispose of you myself, I doubt that I could against someone like you. You're very…unusual and unlike those that have ever possessed the power of the Titans, past, present and future."

"If you're not going to kill me, then why am I here? I try to avoid trouble at every opportunity it presents itself because I don't want to cause trouble for others around me."

"Tell me, do you believe in fate? In destiny? That everything that happens in life is for a reason?"

"No, Ms. Reiss, I don't believe in those."

"Why is that?"

"If things happen for a reason, then it would have to imply that people are not in control of their lives, that someone else is in control, meaning that we have no choice but to live within the lives that someone chooses for us, whether we want to or not. But not knowing why is just as bad as knowing why and not doing anything about it. If someone told me that my mother and stepfather were going to die a year from now, that I'd be unable to save them, I would try everything to save them from such a fate because I love them. If someone were to tell me that I was going to kill someone's child, I'd want to know why…just so that I wouldn't do it."

"And if I were to tell you that someone that despises you with every fiber of their own soul, someone that can't let go of their anger, even to the point of blaming you for their own faults, would try to kill everyone in the world, and that only you could stop them by killing them, what would you do?"

"I'd want to know who it is that hates me and why, just to find a different way to stop them."

"And if someone were to tell you that it's impossible?"

"I would find a way to make it possible."

The woman, Frieda, smiles and chuckles as she walks away from Kaede and gestures with her left hand for her to follow her up the steps.

"About five years ago, something very extraordinary happened," she tells Kaede. "Originally, something terrible was supposed to happen, but then it changed completely. A man was supposed to show up here, begging for salvation at the hands of the Colossal Titan's breach of Shiganshina District. While I was unable to do anything with the power I possess, even though I want to, he was going to kill me and slaughter my family, all save my father and paternal half-sister…simply because the disgruntled ghost of his son from a future that is no longer possible forces him to. Fortunately, that never came to pass and we're still very much alive. I came to believe that your mere existence is the direct cause of that deviation."

"Me?"

"Yes. Somehow, you possess a power that is similar to that of the Titans that possess free will and the ability to make decisions of their own, but you lack the apparent weaknesses they have."

Frieda stops by the dead-end walkway in front of them and sits down near the ledge.

"My Dark Titan," Kaede says, "something my step-grandfather gave me because he tried to escape from the Walls the day the Titans got in. To be free from the darkness, I had to accept it and embrace it."

"Your step-grandfather? Grausam Zanki?"

"Yes."

"That man died that day he tried to escape."

"He's really dead?"

"As dead as a person sleeping eternally in the ground."

"He told me some things that I'm not sure were true or not. You're telling me that he's dead, and I believe that…but what he told me about how the power he gave me can't be taken away or passed on… I'm not sure if he was lying or not."

"He was being truthful. Your Dark Titan is a power that he gave to you…and it can't be taken away. His methods of Titan creation, while unorthodox and bizarre, were without equal. He was a man whose genius was beyond his time. If he had survived, there was no doubt that he would've continued this grand scheme to achieve his own ambitions, no matter who they hurt. His Titans, these…Jaeger Titans…were like a gift he had discovered and unleashed upon the world. A gift with repercussions, both light and dark, and some gifts…simply can't be rejected."

"Yeah. Gifts can't be ungiven. There's no retreating once a threshold has been crossed."

"All you can really do…is stop where you are…or search for greater thresholds. Tell me, Ms. Sogen, when all is said and done, when there's no longer a threat to anyone anywhere, what do you want at the end?"

"A happy future."

"And what is in that happy future?"

"The people I love."

"You see yourself with a family of your own one day?"

"Well…yes."

"A simple ambition."

"I'm a simple person."

"There's nothing wrong with such a desire. Your heart remains pure, even when shackled in the darkness. There are no ambitions of greed, power or even revenge in your soul. Someone of your status and strength…must be meant for more than even I can see…and I can't see much of anything now that the future is unclear."

"What do you mean?"

Looking back to face her, Frieda smiles again.

"A bane of the power of one of the Nine Titans," she says. "The Founding Titan, that is, is the ability to know everything, past and future, within the eternity of the present. All those that possess the Founder are condemned to know what the future holds, for better or worse. They saw it in all its beauty and ugliness, but the events they wanted to change…were the events they were forbidden to change, even for the sake of protecting their loved ones. But that day… That day my life and the lives of my mother and siblings present down here should've ended…didn't come to pass. The man whose son forced him to do his bidding made a different choice so that we never saw him that day to begin with. Your existence also created a deviation from what was supposed to happen…and for these deviations, I am eternally grateful. Still, the power of the Founder is a power that I can't make any use of because of a restriction placed on it by one of my ancestors. A power that can change the world and change the people condemned by it that is made inaccessible…is a power that goes to waste rather than brings a new future worth embracing."

"A power that can't be used…because of a restriction placed on it?" Kaede asks her.

"My ancestor, Karl Fritz, placed a vow to renounce war with the power of the Titans on the Founder, making it impossible for those of royal blood to use the power to do anything with it. To this day, we're still incapable of using the Founder's power to do anything that violates the vow. Those that were turned into Titans can't be turned back by us. I can't take away a person's sickness. I can't tear down the Walls. I can't help my little sister. It's a terrible feeling, not being able to do anything, no matter how much you want to."

Kaede sighs, feeling like such a power would be a curse rather than a blessing if it couldn't be used to help people.

"The reason I wanted to meet with you here was because I want your help, Ms. Sogen," she hears Frieda say to her, which was a surprise.

"My help?" She asks her, confused.

"Because of the vow my ancestor made to renounce war, I can't use the Founding Titan to do anything that violates the vow. You, on the other hand, are not bound by such a restriction. I believe that your Dark Titan, the only one of its kind, is capable of breaking that vow."

"But…how am I supposed to…"

"Place your hand on my back, please."

Kaede didn't like this, but she didn't see herself as having any other choice at the moment. Her focus was still on survival, and if complying with the requests of a woman she had only just met at this moment meant living a little longer, she was willing to do so.

"Okay," she tells Frieda, lowering to her knees and raising her left hand to her back.

She wasn't sure what was going to happen, but she placed her palm on her back.

"I don't know what is to be…" Kaede utters to her, but then stops upon realizing that she was no longer in the large chamber…but outside in a strange place. "What? Where…am I?"

All around her was sand and night sky. From a distance, she saw a large light that appeared to be shaped like a tree, its branches extending into the air.

Kaede Sogen? She hears Frieda's voice in her mind. If you can hear me, go to the light that looks like a tree. That's where you'll find me.

Kaede looks at the tree of light and slowly moves toward it. Behind her, a dark figure follows closely, keeping a steady distance.

-x-

"…It's still hard to believe that you have a kid, lady," went Jean to Julietta, who turns to face him.

"Why is that?" She asks him.

"Well, you, uh…don't look like the type to have a kid. That's all."

"Not everyone does. And it was shortly after the Shiganshina breach. Things were hectic after the aftermath with everyone trying to regain some sense of order in their lives."

Jean notices that her daughter, Charlotte, was looking at him with some hint of suspicion, wondering what he was getting at.

"And…you're older than Ms. Sogen," he states.

"What has that to do with me being a mother?" Julietta asks him.

"You know," went Kylie to them, "the way he talks about you, Julietta… If I didn't know any better, I'd say he's trying to make a pass at you."

"What?! No! It's not like that!"

"Oh, really?" The twins ask.

"Some of us are older than Kaede, but we still get along," went Delilah. "Since when does age have to be a factor in anyone's relationships if they're mutual?"

"Even after five years?" Connie asks her.

"If you found out someone you knew from your childhood was being branded a monster because they did something questionable and had no way to confirm or deny the accusations, but you know that deep down, they wouldn't do anything wrong without a justifiable reason for having done so, wouldn't you try to make sure that you were still friends with them, regardless of what other people believe?"

"It would have to depend on the person. But I can see how Kaede is. She seems to value people and their bonds over what they can do much of the time. I mean, what can you do that she doesn't seem to care about?"

"Revolving around beneficial purposes or around personal pleasure?"

"Either or."

"I want to be a doctor with a specialty in children. A soldier with basic life support won't be able to do much when faced with issues they know nothing of how to deal with."

"A…kiddy doctor?"

"Yeah. I'm not embarrassed to say that Julietta is the one to inspire my motivation."

"Look, Mommy," Charlotte speaks up, pointing to a small building nearby on the path.

"A chapel," Julietta responds. "Wait a minute…I think that's the Reiss family's chapel."

"It is," went Krista.

"It is open?" Salina asks.

"Why?" Ymir replies.

"A prayer for Kaede and Shadis. It's never wrong to ask the people we never see to look out for the people that we hope live to see the next day."

"Pray to the flying people," Charlotte utters, pointing to the sky. "They always listen to those that believe in them."

Erwin believed that if this small child was referring to the angels, she was among the handful of them that actually believed in them while still young and full of faith.

-x-

The closer she got to the tree of light, the more Kaede felt uneasy by its presence…and the more she felt like something was trying to fight its way into her. But as she got closer, she saw Frieda on the ground, her limbs bound by chains that reached into the sand.

"Miss Reiss," she greets, but her voice was full of discomfort.

"It hurts for you to be here," Frieda speaks, not realizing that the young lady before her was in distress right now. "My apologies."

"It only hurts when I think about it," Kaede claims, and Frieda looks around her.

"Maybe they can help you," she points to whoever is behind her, and Kaede turns to see who, seeing that it was the Dark Titan. "They seem to follow you here."

The Dark Titan stood several feet from Kaede, standing at seven feet, its feminine face devoid of any emotion. It was the first time Kaede had seen her Titan form from a distance.

"I can see now," Frieda claims. "This Titan is beyond what other Titans are…because you are beyond what other people think, Ms. Sogen. This Titan is an embodiment of your innermost darkness that holds a light yet to be seen by anyone. To be free from the darkness, you had to accept and embrace it. That's why you're capable of the feats you can do…and your limits…are becoming less and less apparent on your path. The Dark Titan…is a key to everything we can do that the Founding Titan's corrupted will prohibits."

Kaede turns back to face Frieda, confused by her words.

"What do you mean?" She asks her, and looks to the tree of light, seeing something closer to it. "Huh? Is…is that…"

"Yes," Frieda says to her, looking at the figure in the distance. "That…is the source of all. The one that resulted in us all being. The original Founder."

Kaede was going to ask if the person they were seeing was a little girl, but based off of what Frieda said, it seems as though this child was not simply a little girl. Slowly, she walked over to the girl, her skin feeling like it was on fire, but her insides stretching themselves across her body. Her Titan moving behind her to keep close, but still far from her.

Who is she? She wonders to herself, seeing the girl's features get clearer with each step she took.

She's known as Ymir Fritz, she hears Frieda's voice say. She's over two-thousand years old, from an age of violence and deceit. She's the primordial mother of all Subjects of Ymir, a race of Eldians that were blessed and cursed with the power of the Titans. Once, her village was invaded by the man that enslaved her people, and he became the bane of us all. King Fritz, the man that sought power at all costs to conquer his enemies, even at the cost of humanity.

But that's…that's terrible.

Those that seek power to do nothing but destroy all that stand in their way are.

As Kaede was three feet in front of the girl, this Ymir Fritz, she then fell to her knees and palms, feeling like she was ready to keel over.

You…don't belong here, she hears a different voice say to her as she raises her head up to look at Ymir Fritz. Leave now. Leave…and never return.

Kaede lowered her head and immediately puked out a dark substance onto the ground in front of her, feeling like she was about to be sick.

"Urgh!" She groans as the Dark Titan came by her and helped her to her feet…and then wiped her mouth clean. "Thank you."

"Save her," the Titan utters in her voice, surprising her, pointing with her left hand towards the girl. "Release her."

"Release her?"

"Embrace the darkness to be free from the darkness."

And then, the Dark Titan vanished…and Kaede felt a little better than she did before earlier. This allowed Kaede to close the gap between herself and Ymir Fritz.

You don't belong here! The voice yells at her.

I am here now, and I'm not going anywhere, she responds to who she believes to be the girl in front of her. I'm just a guest of someone else who invited me in. If this is your house, and everyone's a guest in it, then I'm a plus-one guest. An invitee's invitee.

Standing before the girl, Kaede extends out her left hand to her.

"My name is Kaede Sogen, Ms. Ymir Fritz," she greets her. "It is nice to make your acquaintance in this place."

The girl, her clothing ragged and her skin covered in dirt, her eyes and face obscured by her unkempt hair, looks at her with no emotions to be visible.

Kaede simply takes back her hand and lowers to meet her height.

"I guess you've never met anyone that was being nice for the sake of being nice to another person before," she states a possibility as the feeling of uneasiness starts to return to her body.

How dare you stand before me! The voice yells at her; if this was Ymir Fritz, her vocal emotions were becoming more expressive than her facial expressions failed to show. You're not supposed to be here! You're not even supposed to exist! You're a mistake! An abomination! You and your Titan! Mistakes! Leave this place!

Kaede sees her eyes…and sees only pain in their gaze.

How am I a mistake? She wonders. How am I not supposed to exist? Tell me, please.

You simply weren't supposed to exist! Nobody like you is supposed to exist! You! Your parents! This Grausam Zanki! The Dark Titan! None of you should exist at all! And yet you do! You create an instability in existence! Leave! Die! Go away!

You're telling me to die…simply because you think I'm not supposed to exist? That's wrong, Ms. Ymir Fritz, and you don't get to decide that is true. Who are you to think this, that I'm a mistake simply because I am alive?

I see all and know all! I have to be aware of all things and people! Every possibility! Every outcome! But you…you and the people that made you were a mistake! None of you should exist at all! And yet you do exist, and you change everything with every breath you take! Everything has to follow the order it was set in! Your deviance throws the order off completely!

What order?

The order!

Show me, please.

Flash! Kaede saw a young girl open a pig pen's door to let the pigs out, a man that was so awful that he demanded to know which of his enslaved people released the pig that got out of the pen, with all hands pointing to the girl, the girl being released only to be hunted down like an animal by the man, finding a large tree that festered around the other trees like a parasite clinging to life, falling into a pool within the tree…and emerging as a giant with malformations of bone and ribs protruding from its body.

Flash! The man that had the girl hunted down for releasing the pig took control of the girl with this new power she possessed, courtesy of the strange, worm-like creature Kaede saw latch onto her back, and used her to conquer his enemies, left and right.

She turned away for a moment to calm herself before looking on, seeing the giant humanoid perform feats of nonviolence that were actually very helpful in a grand way, and all of it done within days and weeks instead of years or decades. Then, she saw the girl before the man again, who looked like he was dressing up in better clothing and had fancy jewelry on, but his face, his eyes, they were unchanged by the passage of time; if Kaede had a word for this man, it would be "evil". Evil because he was cruel to those around him, evil because he took from those that had very little to give, and evil because of the words he would use. He took pride in the feats this girl did, claiming them all as his own feats…simply because he had control over her.

In exchange for my services, the voice told Kaede, he rewarded me with his seed.

Kaede saw the little girl that was Ymir Fritz with the evil man, letting him do things to her that no sane woman would allow any man to do, and as months came and went, saw the girl develop into a woman improperly, her rise hampered by the arrival of a baby girl. As more years passed, the evil mad made Ymir Fritz slaughter another army of another enemy, aided by soldiers indoctrinated to serve him, and in the aftermath, he "rewarded" her with yet another child. And when many more enemies fell to him, he made her bear a third child. By the time it seemed Ymir Fritz was barely what Kaede would consider a young adult (if not a teenage girl, based solely upon the likelihood that she looked around Julietta's age), thirteen years had passed…and the evil man had enslaved his enemies' people to build an empire in his image.

Everything he had before he died, it was only because he needed me to obtain them, the voice tells her, and Kaede sees the young woman with three girls standing beside the evil man, a considerable distance. All I ever wanted from him, however, was just to hear him say that he loved me.

She saw a man on the ground among other enslaved people slowly pick up a spear that had been hidden in the ground, aimed at the evil man.

Revenge for the cruelty he had caused to countless people, she believed, but saw the woman that bore his children get in between the man and the spear, taking it through her chest.

"Aaah!"

She fell to the ground, but the evil man simply looked down at her with an expression of displeasure on his face.

"Get up," she hears him say to her. "Pick yourself up, Ymir. Not even a simple spear can kill you. Get up."

It was the sound of his voice that made Kaede pity the woman as she tried to do as he said, but she fell to the ground in defeat. It was as though she had lost the will to live…and slowly succumbed to her injury.

But he… She tried to say about what she witnessed, but she was cut off by Ymir Fritz.

After my fall, he took the ultimate path to ensure that I made his legacy everlasting, she claims, and Kaede was shown the horror of the man's desperation to preserve the power he didn't want to lose at all.

As the woman's soul ended up in this strange realm of light and sand, the evil man hacked up her corpse and forced his daughters to eat the pieces in the hopes of them inheriting their mother's power, which condemned them to live short lives.

"Breed and multiply, my daughters," he told them upon his deathbed, instructing them to keep his empire alive by feeding themselves to their children and their children's children, keeping the bloodline intact.

During the years that passed, Kaede saw Ymir spend what seemed like an eternity within the strange realm, using the sand to sculpt beings that would resemble the monstrous giants that entered the world after her daughters passed away and their descendants continued the cruelty. A mural depicting nine great beings worshipped by lesser people, one depicted as a woman wielding a horn in her hands as she reaches for the sky above.

Since the beginning, she hears Ymir Fritz say, I have used the power to serve him and our ancestors…because I wanted his love in return.

Kaede saw her sculpt Titan after Titan after Titan as time passed, and in one moment of horror, saw her sculpt a legion of Titans as tall as the Colossal Titan, causing her to cover her mouth with fright.

And this is what should've been, she hears her say, but is not because of you.

What? Kaede asks.

Flash! The day the Colossal Titan attacked Shiganshina, she saw many people die that couldn't escape from the Titans that entered through the breach.

No, she thinks, seeing people getting eaten. No…no…

She watched as there was no sign of the Dark Titan to stop this nightmare, then saw the Titan with the vicious smile pick up Eren's mother…and devour her, too.

No!

She fell to her knees and palms again. If this was what was supposed to happen, it disgusted her to know that someone wanted this. But if what Ymir Fritz said was true, then this meant that this scenario was not possible because of her own existence, because she and her Dark Titan had been there to change things.

You wanted people there to suffer and die, she tells Ymir Fritz. How could you want that? How could anyone want that? It's awful.

In the name of love, any sacrifice is worth what one does.

But Ms. Fritz…that's not love. That's cruelty. That's evil…and that man…he's incapable of love. What he did to your people, to those other people he called his enemies…what he did to you and your daughters, that's not love! It's not love! He didn't love you! He didn't love any of you! All he loved was power! He saw you as power, and he did whatever he could to possess it! To keep it! And what's worse…is that you're still letting him do this to you! You're letting him keep you! No matter what you do, no matter how long you wait, he won't tell you that he loves you!

Kaede was then grabbed from behind by someone and came face-to-face with Ymir Fritz as she had been before she died, her pretty face stained by a vicious anger that she had seen before long ago…and it frightened her.

"You can't possibly know what love is if you haven't experienced it," she tells Kaede, gripping her shoulders, her fingers digging into her flesh. "Have you ever been in love with anyone? Have you ever felt what love is, only to have it taken away from you in an instant? Have you?!"

"Aaurgh!" She groans; she didn't expect this woman to be so…cold.

"Have you?!" She demands to hear from her.

To be continued…

A/N: Basically, Kaede has more sense than Ymir Fritz right now, and not because of her intellect. But Ymir Fritz wants to know from Kaede's perspective what love is and why she believes that what happened to her was not love. Can anyone give an explanation for what is love? Anyone at all? What is love?