Creation began on 05-28-24
Creation ended on 06-26-24
Attack on Titan
The Dark Titan: Let Love set you Free
It was late in the evening, and Eren Yeager was in the hot seat because his mother was upset with him for the umpteenth time. Earlier today, she heard that Kaede Sogen was kidnapped…and that some kid had pointed her out for the Military Police to apprehend. While none of the rumors she heard from people that either heard or witnessed some of the kidnapping indicated that Eren was the person to point the girl out for the MPs to take away, she had to assume that it was her son. There was just too much hatred in Eren to let go of whatever it was that the Sogen girl was involved in, willingly or unwillingly.
"…If I find out that you were involved in any way, Eren," she warns her son after informing him that Kaede was missing and several people were hurt, "I swear to God that you will answer for it. Do you understand?"
Eren didn't answer her, but he understood his mother. He was then ordered to go to his room; Mikasa was on her way back from her sentry duty with the Garrison, and when she returned, Carla hoped that she could clarify anything to indicate whether or not Eren was involved. In all honesty, Carla hoped that it was just another coincidence and someone else had a problem with the Sogen girl. Her repeated dealings with her son's misbehavior were starting to become overwhelmingly taxing.
Shutting the door to his room, Eren fumed over his mother siding with the gray-haired girl over him. All he could do was hope that someone would eventually kill her.
-x-
The statue of the woman cradling the small child didn't give Christine and Sig much comfort in the Reiss chapel, but the mother of Kaede Sogen sighs and prays silently for her daughter's safe return. Beside her was Julietta and Charlotte; being a mother herself, Julietta could sympathize with Christine over wanting Kaede safe.
"We'll find her," she tells Christine. "We're gonna find her and she's gonna be in one piece."
"Yeah. I keep hoping."
"That's a good thing."
Then, Charlotte, just after Julietta set her down on the floor, went over to the statue and tapped her left foot on a section of said floor. She then walked away from the statue and stomped her feet on the floor there, and then back to the statue again.
"Floor sound different here, Mama," she says to her mother.
"Different?" Erwin questions, curious, and walks over the statue.
The girl might've been right. As he stood atop the rug that was present, he did feel a difference between where he had been and where he was now.
"Could you step off the rug, please?" He asks Charlotte, who nods and goes over to Delilah, and Erwin pulls up the rug, revealing a trapdoor underneath. "You have a very smart girl, miss."
Julietta smiles at Charlotte.
"She's my pride and joy," she says.
Hange and Levi lift up the trapdoor and find a flight of stairs leading down.
"Where do you suppose these go?" Connie asks.
"They go down," Jean responds.
-x-
The more Kaede saw of this cruel and bitter future that Ymir Fritz had foreseen that hadn't happened yet (and may not happen), the more she was bothered by the events that hadn't come to pass yet. She saw the Colossal Titans in their march against the world, a Titan of bones that was leading them towards an enemy that she wouldn't have wished this upon for any reason, bodies of men and women mangled beyond any recognition, and in the aftermath, she couldn't see any of the people she had met so far as being the same because of what they either witnessed, did or all of the above. And despite these events having yet to transpire (and may not even do so), most of them seem to connect, relate or just lead to this one person, this one being that appeared to be so broken and incapable of being swayed by any sense of compassion for others that didn't ask for any kind of despair. And in the end, she knew she couldn't accept any of this, no matter who was right or wrong; if she stood by and did nothing to change it, knowing full well what could happen if she didn't even try to, then she could or would lose what she valued above herself.
And you see this all happening because it's what you have intended to have happen, she thought as she laid on the sand of this strange realm. You have made no attempt to defy anything because you don't want to believe in anything good that can happen in the here and now. What kind of person chooses to let these horrible events transpire when they have the ability to change the outcome of a situation by choosing to change something relating to it?
Everything and everyone must follow an order to every design, Ymir Fritz' voice utters to her. Those that can't follow this order must be removed and disposed of!
But that's terrible.
It's for the greater good! In the end, the order of the design must be followed! You are an abomination to the design! Just die! Begone! Return to the nothingness that you came from!
Balding her fists, Kaede rose up to look at Ymir Fritz, her face contorted with anger.
"No!" She yells at her, getting up to her feet. "I will not follow you or anyone else's order or design! My life is my own, and it has to be lived however I choose! I have to live it to its fullest and not have it be manipulated by anyone that dares to stand in my way and tell me what I can't say or do because they claim it doesn't follow some kind of design. I am sorry that you got dealt a bad hand in your life, but if you're capable of returning to life, then you can live again and pursue a better life. You could have a better life. Real love, actual friends and happiness, something to make up for the lack of the life you had previously. Nobody's really holding you here. I don't see any restraints or walls or anything of the sort keeping you bound at all. It's as I said before: That Fritz guy that enslaved you…doesn't have to keep doing so if you don't let him. The fact that you're still doing so for something he won't even give you, even after dying, is proof that you're allowing him to own you, to control you. He can't give you real love or affection. He didn't know how to show it, even if he was the father of your children. You asked me before if I had ever been in love with someone…and I told you 'no'. But what I didn't tell you was that I do believe in love, that love comes to those that wait for the one they're supposed to be with. I'm old-fashioned that way; I'm waiting for the one that I'm supposed to be with. The one who will love me for me and who I will love for who they are."
You dare to defy the order that has been set since before your time?!
"I dare to defy anyone that tries to decide my life! You don't get to decide my fate! Not you, not the man who wronged you…and who you still allow to wrong you, nobody! Nobody gets to decide my life! I don't care about whatever order or design you've seen."
Ymir Fritz, or rather, the Titan form she assumed upon obtaining power in the form of the creature that had latched onto her when she was near-death, appears before the gray-haired girl and looks down at her.
You will be buried in the darkness for your insolence, you unimportant waste of space! Ymir Fritz tells her, her emotional response to Kaede's refusal to walk away permanently inciting her desire to dispose of her. You will not be missed…and all who have seen you will be disposed of!
"I have to accept and embrace the darkness to be free from it," Kaede says as her Titan stood behind her, its size paling in comparison to the little girl's Titan. "I accept the Dark Titan as a part of my life. I accept that my step-grandfather, Grausam Zanki, is the one that gave me the Dark Titan. I accept that I can use the Dark Titan as a boon for the people…and embrace that it has become a part of me. I don't know what else it is capable of, but so long as I am alive, I will not be shamed by anyone because of it. So…do your worst, Ymir Fritz…because I don't hate you for your insistence on following some order or design that relates to events that have either occurred or haven't yet or ever. No, I find myself unable to hate. I just pity you."
Suddenly, the little girl in rags shifts from her initial appearance to the one she had prior to her death, her face contorted with anger. She walks over to the gray-haired girl and grabs her by her neck, surprising her with her strength.
You dare to pity me?! Ymir Fritz yells at her, tightening her grip upon her neck. How dare you!
"My parents…were best friends…before they got married," she struggles to speak, feeling her feet being lifted off the ground by Ymir Fritz. "My mother and stepfather…are also best friends…and after my father died…they got married. My friends…still accept me as I am. One of them…Julietta…has a kid of her own…and she's adorable. I love them all…and I value them above myself."
Her grip tightened on her neck as she felt the windpipe and bone. She was going to snap her neck and take her head off.
"Those that can't follow the order must be removed from existence!" She yells at Kaede. "Those that don't belong to the order must not live at all!"
"And those that view a form of enslavement where their tortured viewpoint deludes them into thinking that someone does what they do out of love has to face the cold reality of their beliefs," Kaede utters, raising her left hand up…and delivering the strongest punch her body could muster at the other girl's face, freeing herself from her grip and falling to the ground.
Ymir Fritz fell to her back…and was reduced to her previous form in front of her Titan form.
Refilling her lungs with air, Kaede looks at the other girl and simply pities her further.
"Please, don't make this harder than it already is," she pleads to the girl as she gets back up, her right eye bruised from the punch. "I was asked to save you…and I want to save you."
The Titan of Ymir Fritz, if it had any eyes with which to look at Kaede, would have likely been glaring at her.
"If he really did love you, he wouldn't have done any of those things to you," Kaede tells her. "If he was truly capable of love, he would have shown you concern on the day you died. But he didn't show you any concern. He didn't even try to comfort you when you were in distress after being harmed protecting him. Why didn't he do anything to show his actual love for you? If it had been me in your place, I'd want him to prove his love to me. I'd want him to ask me how I'm feeling after being hurt that way. I'd want him to promise me that he will take care of our family. I'd want to hear from him what truly matters to him, whether it's power or family, and if he could prove that we both thought of those that matter to us…then I could probably go peacefully into the next world. Yes, I would go peacefully into the next world."
That's you, not me.
"And no amount of bloodshed, no amount of cruelty against the people of the world will ever change the hearts of those that have to live with the repercussions of the suffering that had been caused. If you keep trying to go down this path of violence and pain…then I will not stand aside for you or anyone else that chooses this path."
You can't change what has been foretold to come.
"And you can't delude yourself into thinking that this is the only way to live. If you persist, then…I will stand against you, Mrs. Fritz. For the people I love, for the people I want to protect, I will stand against you. Come what may."
-x-
"Waah," Charlotte expresses as they all looked up at the pillars of crystal light. "It's so…so pretty."
The entire chamber was covered in crystal that was so bright that it could serve as its own form of daytime.
"This place must have been here for years," went Delilah as she examines one such pillar with Hange. "Or decades, even…and we never knew until now."
"But why?" Erwin questions. "Why hide something like this from the public? And does the Reiss family have something to do with it?"
"If you wish to know for yourself," a man's voice utters as they all turn to see a group of men and women with guns raised at them, led by a man with a hat on his head, "I suggest that you come with us."
"Kenny," Levi says, angry to see he was here.
"Hello to you, too, Levi. You're all here for the girl with the gray hair, aren't you? It never ceases to amaze me how this one girl has gotten everyone's attention in different ways. And quite honestly, even the ruler behind the scenes is intrigued by her. I kept expecting her to turn Titan like everyone says she can and make her escape, but she refuses to endanger anyone that might be nearby to harm. What kind of person refuses to escape if it means getting away from danger?"
"Someone who has a conscience," Christine tells him. "Someone who's against spilling blood for the sake of something personal or selfish."
"Impressive. Very impressive. Probably the most restrained of people that possess such a power unlike anything else in the world."
-x-
Kaede was a girl with considerable restraint that she exercised to the fullest extent when she feared that she might harm someone unintentionally, but her restraint with Ymir Fritz was something else altogether different, because this otherworldly individual was wearing down at her resilience. It felt like she was trying to tear down her mind with different possibilities of what the future could bring her, and she was trying to hold her ground against her. Each moment feeling like a lifetime, and each lifetime feeling like a nightmare. She saw the people she loved die young before her, these places that she had never seen, had never been to, falling apart in seconds at the march of many hundreds of Titans, and one such Titan being the worst of them all because of the face it wore like a ridiculous mask, making her feel disgust and anger.
It's not real, Kaede, she keeps telling herself. None of what she's showing you is true. They're just possibilities of what could've been. Bug you, Kaede, you are real. You are true. The people you love are still around, and you need to return to them, to let them know that you're not going to let their lives end for anyone's ambitions for anything. Get up now. Get up and defend what you believe in!
Rising up, the gray-haired girl stood in front of the ghastly girl with confidence on her face.
"Just give up and accept your fate!" Ymir Fritz yells at her. "You can't stop what's to come! Those that don't fit in the order I have seen will be removed from it! This includes people like you! Give up and return to nothing!"
"I can't believe in this, Mrs. Fritz," Kaede replies, walking over to her. "I will not believe in this! So long as I have the will to live and believe in what I choose to believe in, nothing you say or do will ever change that. You want people to fall in line like good, little soldiers or something, like they don't have an opinion about anything that they might be against, and that is wrong. You want people like that stupid Eren Yeager to persist in his stubbornness and manipulate others to believe in what he wants them to believe in, you want people like Ms. Lentz to have no joy or hope for a life that she may want over what others want for her, and you want people like Mr. Springer and Mr. Arlert to be alone! I do not like people like that. I do not like people that think that their way is the only way. I'm sorry that you suffered for such a long time, and at the hands and words of a man that never showed you an ounce of true love or compassion, but for the sake of the people that I love, that I'm willing to give up my life to protect, I will stop you. Even if it means being branded a monster, broken and at Death's door…I will not let you or anyone else hurt the people in my life, today, tomorrow…or ever!"
Slowly, Kaede reached out for the girl, who frowned her disgust towards her unwillingness to stand aside and allow the future she had foreseen come to pass.
"And what will you do to stop the order?" She asks as Kaede places her arms on her shoulders. "You're going to kill me?! Oh, oh, oh, you poor girl. I don't think so."
Kaede then smirks at Ymir Fritz.
"Whoever said anything about killing you?" She questions her, and then traps her in an embrace. "I have you now!"
Ymir Fritz then felt Kaede push her body weight forward on her, forcing her to fall backwards, onto the ground. She tried to move, but the gray-haired teen refused to budge.
"What are you doing?!" She demands to know. "Do you know who I am?!"
Kaede lowers her head against left shoulder, beside her neck, tightening her hold on her.
"I don't care who you are or who you think you are," she responds. "I don't care whose prisoner you once were. You're now my prisoner of a different sort, and I'm never letting you go!"
Ymir Fritz saw her Dark Titan approach the fallen pair, kneeling down on its legs…and then looking as though it were falling forward.
"No!" She yells, trying to get free from the gray-haired girl. "No! You can't do this! You can't do this! Let me go!"
"Love is supposed to set people free," Kaede says as she feels a different sort of darkness closing in around them. "But you have never felt true love from anyone except your daughters. Until you feel true love from the people in my life, let's stay together in the eternal darkness of my current existence forever!"
The Dark Titan then fell atop them, shutting out the light.
"I will never let you go," the Titan spoke, just as the Titan belonging to Ymir Fritz started to waste away. "I will never allow anyone I love to suffer because of you or anyone else. Welcome to the darkness that is my life."
-x-
"Ah!" Several gasps were heard coming from the people in the crystal chamber under the chapel, causing a halt in the progress towards their destination.
"What was that all about?" A woman asks the others.
"It felt like a jolt in my heart," says Kylie to her friends and Kaede's parents.
"Yeah," Christine agrees as Julietta holds up Charlotte.
"This way, please," utters Kenny to them as he raises his firearm at them.
They followed him through a small tunnel and ended up in another chamber where some stairs were located, occupied by several people that looked like a family…and a man bound and on the floor. Up above on the balcony-like structure near the stairs was a pair of legs dangling over the edge…and a nearby arm dangling several feet away from the legs.
"Who are they?" A woman dressed in white robes questions.
"Members of the Survey Corps and civilians affiliated with the gray-haired girl," Kenny kept the answer simple, disregarding the fact that Julietta was affiliated with the Garrison, not the Survey Corps, since it didn't matter.
"Well, she did something to my daughter up there (the woman points to the dangling limbs above, and then notices Krista Lentz with them)…and what is she doing here?"
The big guy looks at them (or rather, at the young girl) and wonders the same thing.
"Your orders?" Kenny asks the man.
"They've already seen too much," he states. "Kill them."
Charlotte, afraid of these people, cowered behind her mother, who worried that they were going to die here and now.
"Stop," a female voice utters, getting their attention as they look up at the stairs. "It's unnecessary to do that."
"Yeah," adds another female voice, and they see the two women that were above walking down the steps. "It's over now. Well, this matter that I was brought here to resolve is over, anyway."
It was Frieda and Kaede, looking like they had just woken up from a light slumber.
"I was right about you, Ms. Sogen," went Frieda to Kaede. "There is truly something special about you that is overlooked by many. Thank you. For the first time in a long time, I feel more like myself than I did five years ago."
"Frieda?" The big man utters, concerned.
"It's over now, Father," Frieda says to him as Kaede walks around them towards her parents nearby. "No more secrets…and no more lies. Nobody else has to die for something that will not benefit anyone except those that won't live to enjoy anything."
"Are you okay, Kaede?" Christine asks her daughter.
"Yeah, just confused by why you're all here," she answers, seeing her parents, her friends and the members of the Survey Corps present. "How did you find me?"
"They didn't stop looking," Sig tells her, pointing to her friends. "They worried about you as much as we did."
Frieda approaches Krista, who was guarded by Ymir, who felt protective of the younger girl.
"I'm sorry," Krista says to Frieda, feeling as though she knew her from some time ago, "but have we met somewhere before?"
"Yes," Frieda answers her. "I'm sorry the truth had to be kept from you. It's great to see you again…Historia."
The girl's eyes widened in shock to hearing that name being spoken in front of her.
Historia? Kaede wonders, confused. Her name is…Historia? Not Krista?
-x-
Returning to Paradis on his own was not something Zeke enjoyed because he was the only one who possessed the power of the Titans, and how this Kaede Sogen might've been more powerful than he was due to her Titan being a meter taller than his own. But now possessed an army that would fight and die for him, and his orders were simple: Capture the Sogen girl if possible, along with the recapture of the Jaw and Colossal Titans. Once they were captured, resume the operation to capture the Founding Titan. As he stood on the shore of the island, Zeke had to wonder just what kind of a person this gray-haired girl would be like when he met her. And he couldn't deny any further that he was becoming a bit curious about her, wanting to see for himself if her hair was as gray as Reiner and Annie had claimed.
A girl with gray hair, he thinks as several Marleyan soldiers were dragging the bound men and women that would serve as his expendable army. Sounds like a load of nonsense to me. But a Titan that is eighteen meters tall and is faster than the Jaw and Cart Titans, and able to take on the Colossal Titan…is not nonsense if something like this exists and is not under Marley's control. Such a Titan would be a considerable force to be reckoned with.
-x-
Some of them were surprised while others were upset with the fact that such knowledge of things had been kept secret for far longer than any of them have been alive, but Kaede was simply among those trying to understand and appreciate that what they knew now was what they knew because they were still alive and were fortunate.
Krista Lentz, whose real name was Historia Reiss, was the result of Rod Reiss' affair with a servant girl of the family, and he had tried for as long as the girl had been alive to hide her existence from everyone because he didn't want a public scandal. But somehow, Frieda knew about Historia, and, while still under the influence of the Founding Titan's former vow renouncing war, kept her safe from being killed by those that were set against the possibility of her trying to exercise her birthright to the throne.
Frieda Reiss, now free from the influence that had been placed on the Founder by Karl Fritz, had revealed all that she had learned from inheriting the Titan power from her uncle, Uri Reiss. The reign of the First King, the exploitation of Ymir Fritz when she became the first Founding Titan, the Titans that lay asleep within the Walls to serve as the Rumbling meant to destroy the world and the people in it, the Nine Titans, the cruelty behind their own existence, nothing was held back from them.
"But why?" Mimi asks, seesawing between being upset about all of this and trying to make sense of it all. "Why would the people of the world hate us for what some other people did? We weren't alive when any of this occurred."
"Guilt by association," Kaede expresses. "Because of what the people of the past did, the people of today are holding onto a grudge born out of blood and resentment for what had been done by those that had the power of the Titans and misused it for dominance over others."
"And all this time," went Hange, just as upset by all of this, "we've been fighting people that had been turned into Titans against their will."
"Subjects of Ymir," Erwin spoke, "Eldians, Marley and the world not being ruled by Titans… I was seeking the truth, but not… I didn't expect for this to be the truth."
"I don't think anyone here expected any of this, sir," says Christine to him. "The truth is a matter of perspective. Just because you find out about something that you didn't know about in the beginning, it doesn't always mean it's something you wanted to find out about in the end."
One of the few things that they had to acknowledge and accept from learning of all this was that Frieda, her uncle Uri, along with anyone else that once possessed the Founding Titan for thirteen years, had been unable to use its powers to make it so that they could live beyond the Walls so long as the vow renouncing war had been in effect. No matter how much she wanted to, even to protect Historia from a cruel fate, Frieda would not have been able to turn any of the Titans back into humans or remove the power of the Titans from those that had it, not even the thirteen-year death sentence for those that had the power, either just recently by a few days or over ten years. But now…now, Frieda had been released from the vow, set free from the prison she had been only mildly let out of almost five years ago, and she felt like she could do whatever she could now. And she had Kaede Sogen to thank for freeing her.
For freeing all of them from the dark fate that she originally saw years ago and had been unable to do anything to prevent.
"So," Levi expresses to Frieda, still suspicious of her, even after being informed everything the public had been lied to for decades, "you're really free from this…vow that renounced war that prevented everyone that ever possessed this Founding Titan from doing anything with it to help the people?"
"That's right," she answers him, looking at Kaede. "Miss Sogen is stronger than she seems."
In the last moments of her being under the influence of the vow, Frieda had seen Kaede do the most extreme of unexpected acts against the soul of Ymir Fritz, who refused to break from an order she had been a part of, and she took her soul into her Dark Titan. Even now, without the influence plaguing her mind, she could see Ymir Fritz in an alien setting, stranded in a dark place one could easily get lost in…and the former slave could do nothing but yell out at how she felt wronged by Kaede, who did what she did because she believed in what she was doing to protect the people she loved.
"I don't understand how she could be able to do anything to help you."
"Because her Titan power is unique. There's no other Titan in existence like it. Miss Sogen is the only person with such a power who has ever lived…and will ever live."
Armin, after hearing that much about Kaede, watched as said girl was embraced by the girls that helped to find her, wondering why, if they were able to get along with Kaede without any difficulty, couldn't Eren put aside his dislike of her and be friendly.
"I know what you're wondering," he hears Shadis say to him, "and the answer's not a simple one because of your friend."
Armin looks at the man and replies, "Why?"
"Because Eren Yeager…only sees one way…and that way is the only way for someone like him to see. He can't see being open to any other possibility that exists. And with Ms. Sogen, his perception will only get worse."
"So, then…the chances of them ever being friends or civil with one another…are impossible?"
"I'm afraid so. They will never be friends or civil with each other. But with Ms. Sogen, I'd rather see her live to see old age and happy, not forced to suffer because of someone's unwillingness to leave well enough alone."
"Great."
What Shadis didn't tell Armin, however, was that he saw something terrible yet to happen…because he wanted to keep it from happening. He wanted to prevent many things from happening because of what Grisha had confided in him before he died. But what he didn't see happening…was what happens after they all left this place. If what he had read from Grisha's books was true, then the Founding Titan's power included a greater clarity of the past and future than the Attack Titan ever held, meaning Frieda likely saw what was to come. All he could do was hope for the best if he couldn't see what was to come.
To be continued…
A/N: Always striving to do something a little different than what I did in previous story situations, and this time, it was a shift in how Kaede meets Ymir Fritz and has to do something different that still affects the story in a way that can still be positive. With Kaede, it's not a matter of imprisoning someone that refuses to be open to the possibility of positive change without negative actions, but rather trying to show how someone else is capable of having a positive life, despite the measure of issues that exist, because they don't want to accept that life is hard, just challenging and not everyone has that capacity to view light in the darkness. There is hope the world that some don't have the ability to see.