Creation began on 10-08-24
Creation ended on 10-16-24
Attack on Titan
The Dark Titan: Minus One Becomes Plus One
She felt hot…and damp. It had been a long time since she felt hot and damp. She was laying on the ground, surrounded by steam emissions, looking up at the dusky sky.
"Kaede…Kaede…" She hears her name being called, but the voices calling out to her were muffled, almost nonexistent.
What… What happened? She wonders as she tries to move her limbs, but she feels weakened.
"Here she is…"
"Whoa…"
"Help me get her…"
The next thing Kaede knows, she blinks…and she finds herself under a lantern…inside a tent.
"Is…is someone there?" She asks.
"Yes," she hears a male voice. "It's Armin."
She slowly turns her head to the left, seeing the pretty boy that took a chance at talking to her.
"What happened?" She asks him.
"You passed out after twenty-four hours."
"Twenty… I was the Dark Titan for longer than twenty hours?"
"We were all surprised because you usually start to emit steam after the nineteenth hour begins. What's the last thing you do remember?"
"I… I was… I was clearing the rest of the debris out of Shiganshina…wasn't I?"
"That's right. It took you less than four hours to clear out all the burnt wreckage. But you dug a large hole for it all."
"I did?"
"You don't remember?"
Kaede nods her head in the negative; she only remembers clearing out burnt debris, but not what she did with it all.
"I can't remember much of anything after dealing with Ms. Fritz-Yeager," she confesses, but her expression turns to worry. "Did I hurt anyone? Did I do anything that caused someone to get hurt? Please, tell me."
Armin could sympathize with this young lady. She possessed a power that was unlike anything they had ever understood before or would ever see at a later time in the future of their lives, and ever since she came to use it to help them, she was just terrified of harming people because she couldn't recall everything she did while she was the Dark Titan, something she couldn't forgive herself for doing if she did cross that line without meaning to.
"You didn't hurt anyone, Kaede," he tells her. "You were just deep into clearing out the debris and digging the hole and then sorting out the compostable materials from the non-compostable materials, such as the metal. You have very prehensile hair as the Dark Titan. It's like, it can do the work of several dozen workers without the crowding of individuals. And you knew what you were doing. It was…amazing."
"My father. He was amazing. Everything I learned about building, I learned from watching him."
Armin gets up and vacates the tent, seeing everyone else present sitting out there waiting for him.
"How is she?" Historia asks him.
"Awake," he answers, "but exhausted, physically and mentally. She barely remembers anything from the previous day. Her biggest fear, though, was the thought of harming people."
"Well, even when she has no conscious thought, she still has a conscience," Frieda expresses. "She's still a moral person when she does things. Still, this is a little unprecedented. She didn't return to her human form until twenty-four hours had passed, which is four hours longer than previously observed."
"Not to mention that when she did return to human form, her hands and feet were withered from dehydration," Julietta states, the most concerned about Kaede because of this new predicament. "I'm worried that she's biting off more than she can chew right now."
"There's still one other good thing out of all of this," went Connie, trying to lighten the mood. "We turned a Titan back into a person because of Ms. Sogen, and we learned that physical contact works better on a Titan that used to be a member of the royal family."
Across from where they were sitting, in another tent on atop the wall, housed the recently released Dina Fritz-Yeager from her years of torment as a Titan, in a similar state of rest as Kaede currently was.
"So, what now?" Jean questions.
"We're basically making things up as we go along now," Frieda explains; after losing Ymir Fritz to Kaede, the curse of the Founding Titan, its clairvoyant ability to know every possibility of the future, came undone, meaning Frieda couldn't see what could happen before it happens, with only her knowledge of the previous future prior to Ymir Fritz being taken away from the realm of the paths by Kaede. "Nothing is happening the way they were made to happen by Ymir Fritz. The future as it was originally established…is no longer in play. We have to reshape it so that it turns out better."
"One step at a time," Armin says. "One step at a time."
-x-
After a little more rest, and some water, Kaede awoke the next morning feeling a little better than the last time she was awake. Crawling out of the tent, she found that they were atop Wall Maria, overlooking the terrain beyond it. She could see the sunrise beyond the horizon, and it put a smile on her face as she stood up.
"How long was I asleep?" She wonders.
"Most of yesterday and last night," she hears Frieda's voice, and turns around to see her and the others. "I guess we should've practiced with your Titan power than just winging it."
"I was the Dark Titan for an entire day and then asleep for most of the day after?"
"That's right."
"Oh… That's…quite unusual."
"If it's becoming too stressful, Kaede, you know you can take more time to recover."
"I can't just relax when there's more work to be done."
"I believe that, as a friend and ally, not just a fellow Titan Shifter, you are more than entitled to a leave of absence to sort yourself out."
"I'd feel restless waiting for myself to recover. And… Oh."
Frieda tilts her head to her right, wondering what Kaede was now concerned about.
"Do you still see her?" She asks Kaede. "Ymir Fritz, I mean? Do you still see her?"
Kaede sighs and replies, "Yeah. I even saw during the time I was in the coma and thought myself to be dead in that other lifetime. Except right now, she isn't talking to me. She's just…standing nearby…looking at me with scorn."
Even though Frieda couldn't see her, she understood the resentment her ancestress had towards Kaede for being a deviation from what originally established was an order that had to be followed, forever destroyed by her mere existence. And while she couldn't see or hear her, she could still feel her presence, like a splinter in her mind's finger, driving her mad with discomfort.
"In the end, she has to live with the fact that she was the one to fall in love with a man that was incapable of love," she tells Kaede. "People that do that are lost to themselves and those around them. She could've just let him die that day she died, choosing her daughters over their father. But she didn't choose them at all. At least not in that lifetime…or any of the other lifetimes that might've been. And she has to live with that."
"Yeah…but even so, and probably because of her attempt to keep me asleep with that alternate lifetime, I just feel sorry for people like her. Instead of trying to move on and move past what won't be or even shouldn't be, she tries to push people in the direction she wants them to go in, knowing that it may not be with the best of intentions…or not having any remorse towards the danger she's knowingly sending them into. Who does that?"
"Those that believe in order, a system that needs to be obeyed at all costs, like everything in the plot of a play being made, and all the actors portraying the characters must follow their roles to their extent. But what people can never take control of is the one thing that makes people unpredictable in life."
"And that would be?"
"Deviation."
"Oh?"
"Every once in a while, people will deviate, change their minds about something, break from a tradition or something of the sort. Instead of going left on a path, they'll go right. Instead of reading a book, they'll go see a play. Instead of trying to court someone they have no chance of being with, they will meet with someone new and establish a new bond. Everyone does it when the chance to do so presents itself."
"Deviation…and deviance."
"Yes."
Kaede looks over past Frieda, at the ghostly presence of Ymir Fritz, her expression no different from Eren Yeager's, full of hate directed towards her for refusing to get with their ambitions…and still feels nothing but pity towards her.
-x-
Something was wrong. That much Reiner and Annie suspected. It had been over a month since Zeke Yeager took a squadron of Subjects of Ymir that would serve as his expendable muscle against the Eldians of Paradis to try and capture the Dark Titan, but they had received no update on whether or not the mission was a success or failure. If the mission had failed, then it left Marley with only the Armored, Female, Cart and War Hammer Titans.
"I think we underestimated the girl," Annie tells Reiner as they sat by the pier in Liberio. "If she was strong enough to overpower me and take on the Colossal Titan, she could take on the Beast Titan and prevail."
"We don't know, for sure," Reiner responds. "Maybe the operation is just taking longer for Zeke to do…or he went behind enemy lines to look for a vulnerability to exploit. It doesn't exactly mean that he got defeated or something of the sort."
"But say that he did get defeated, what do you think they're going to do with us?"
Reiner didn't want to consider what Marley would do to him if Zeke did fail and turn up dead. Or worse, something went wrong and the world would soon be at the mercy of the Rumbling.
Flash! Reiner and Annie found themselves in a vast meadow near a river, in the presence of the gray-haired girl, Kaede Sogen, and a tall brunette woman that seemed unusually serene, just like the former girl.
"We don't want conflict," the brunette utters to them.
"I'd like for us all to talk," the gray-haired girl adds.
Flash! They were then back at the pier, slightly confused by what they had experienced.
"What was that?" Annie asks him.
"I don't know," he responds.
"What the Hell was that?!" They turn around and see a man questioning another man, looking confused and irritated.
"Who were those two women?!" The other one utters.
"A girl with gray hair?" They hear a woman say. "That's not possible! She looked like she was barely grown up."
"This…could be bad," Annie says.
"Yeah," Reiner agrees.
-x-
It was a lot to take in, but the one thing about Dina Fritz-Yeager that they all appreciated most right now was her patience and tolerance of understanding their current situation. The recent developments in dealing with the Titans, the defeat and apprehension of her son, the former Beast Titan, the power-shift provided by Kaede, the revelations of the world not being the way everyone on Paradis had been led to believe for over a century, the cold knowledge that her husband and the father of her child was dead, everything. It was a godsend that Dina was taking this all very well and not trying to make a scene in front of the people that greeted her upon waking to the new day. After less than twenty years wandering around as a Titan, she could extend to them the courtesy of self-control.
"Despite all of this," she says to them, "I really feel like I need to throw up."
"Whenever you need to," Julietta replies, sympathetic, extending her left hand to the woman wearing only a shawl and trousers, offering a cup of water.
"So, you're the Founding Titan?" Dina asks Frieda.
"That's right," she answers her, and Dina looks at Kaede.
"And you're the one that set her free from the First King's ideology?"
"Yes," she responds.
"You're also the one that defeated my son when he was the Beast Titan."
"He…kinda made the option of talking first impossible until after he was apprehended."
Dina drank from her cup and then had to say something of a different subject.
"I apologize if I sound out of line, and you've probably heard of this many times already…but…why is your hair gray?"
Everyone present atop the wall sigh over Kaede being asked that question.
"A trait I inherited from my father," she explains. "If it's still confusing, then simple is simply not enough to explain to most."
"I've never met a young person who had gray hair before. You stand out well. Very beautiful."
"Oh, thank you."
Still, the fact that this young lady with gray hair could become a Titan at will that was eighteen meters in height and demonstrated common abilities in regular Titans that were unlike anything else seen by members of the Nine Titans…or a combination of what several of the Nine Titans were capable of, just made Dina wonder how a girl like this could ever move on to a regular life. A Titan Shifter without a thirteen-year lifespan would be a force to be reckoned with, but one that possesses a conscience and knows remorse and does not suffer from delusions of grandeur or godhood would be an invaluable ally to any noble cause.
"Will you be alright?" Kaede asks her.
"Not entirely alright…but eventually," Dina says to her. "Things have really changed around here, haven't they?"
"Not a lot," Frieda states, "but we're making progress. Steady progress."
"And everyone knows who you are?"
"Not everyone, but a handful of us," went Julietta. "Slow and steady."
"One thing I don't understand, though: Why do you use terms like minus one and zero?"
"Because five years ago, when the Colossal Titan kicked a hole in Wall Maria, we were forced to abandon Shiganshina District," Armin explains. "Just the district, not the whole wall like other people suggested, because most of the Titan activity was focused in the south at the time. But even with the loss of just one district and a handful of villages, the influx of refugees had forced us into a sustainability state of zero and slowly towards minus one. When it attacked a few months ago a second time, we were in minus one…until Kaede appeared as her Dark Titan and cleared out the Titans we couldn't deal with."
"One of my worst moments on one of my craziest days," Kaede states.
"Why worst?" Dina asks.
"I was trying to avoid having to have anything to do with other people because, during that time, I hated this power I possess, believing it ruined what I had wanted out of my life."
"And what do you want out of your life?"
"What any girl wants out of life, really."
"Oh. Yeah, that is true."
"Mostly, what I'm missing is the one everyone calls Mr. Right."
"Also known as the one meant for you."
Kaede chuckles as she nods.
"They exist," Dina encourages her. "Either looking around…or waiting to be found."
"I do wonder where mine is sometimes," Julietta says.
"Maybe waiting for you," Kaede suggests. "The first guy you were with did do one thing right with you, though."
"Oh? And what was that?"
"You know who?"
Julietta smiles.
-x-
"…And neither of you can explain why several of the Subjects of Ymir complained of seeing a girl with gray hair that is exactly like the one you described being this Dark Titan?" Magath asks Reiner and Annie as they sat in front of him in his office.
"No, sir," Reiner replies. "We just saw her with another woman, heard them speak, and that was it. We're not sure why."
"And what did they say to you?"
"The woman," Annie utters, "the brunette, said that they didn't want conflict. And then the girl with gray hair said she would like for us all to talk."
"Which is exactly what Finger said when she gave her statement earlier," says another man in the room against the wall, looking at the two. "Of course, she described the gray-haired girl as being…forthcoming. You said that her name was…Sogen?"
"Yes, sir," Reiner responds. "Kaede Sogen."
"And as far as you know, she's the only person you've encountered on that island that has gray hair? The only young person you've seen with gray hair?"
"The only one. Anyone else with graying hair is older or elderly. Everyone else we saw on that island is either a blond, brunette or some other hair color."
Magath and the man have looks of concern on their faces. It was as though they were afraid of the girl, simply because of her hair color.
"With the exception of her gray hair and her Titan ability," went Annie, "I fail to see why there is a need to be concerned about the girl. If she says she wants for us to talk, can there be any reason beyond such a desire?"
"If this were any other person?" Magath states. "But this girl you saw on Paradis…may be a larger threat than you know from your previous encounters with her. And with your war chief having failed to report in, we have to consider the possibility that he has been disposed of by her. Any young people with gray hair, even Subjects of Ymir, are an abomination that needs to be eradicated. If she's the only one on that island with gray hair, then she must be dealt with."
It was now becoming apparent that, simply because the Sogen girl has gray hair, these two men of Marley believe her to be dangerous, which was a possibility if she ever got off Paradis, but Reiner and Annie were clearly missing something more here. If she was seen as a threat, why did they see her as someone that simply wanted to talk?
Something isn't adding up here, Reiner thinks.
Who is this girl to these men, Annie wonders, and why do they see her as a monster because of her gray hair?
-x-
There were many other questions to ask, but Dina just wanted to know this one before she returned with these people to Wall Rose: If things were changing because Frieda Reiss was no longer under control by the king's ideology, then what would become of the Rumbling threat that she believed was still possible?
"We took care of it so that it doesn't happen unless as an absolute last resort," Frieda explains to her as they were in the wagon behind two horses. "It exists only as a deterrent now…and control of it has been removed from the Founding Titan."
"But…that seems reckless," Dina claims.
"Only in the wrong hands," Armin states. "It's not any of us, though. Control has been placed in the hands of someone trustworthy enough not to exploit such a power."
"And now, comes the next challenge that exists between us and a new future," Kaede says.
"Which is?" Dina questions.
"Removing the danger of the Titans that still exist on Paradis and across the planet," Frieda reveals. "For the time being, the Titans have only been held back. But now that you've been returned to human form, the same should apply to the rest of them. It doesn't matter what their crimes were, whether they were actual criminals or just in the wrong place at the wrong time, nobody should be condemned to the fate of a giant that is forced to wander about without their soul. So, let the return to humanity and live once again."
At those words, all across Paradis, with the exclusion of the Titans within the Walls, the Titans that had been held in check by Frieda started to relocate from wherever they were across the island to a single location in the eastern parts of Wall Rose, ignoring any villages or people nearby. Once they converged upon a location, they would return to human form. And in addition to this, at the same time, all Subjects of Ymir would be free of the bane of their collective heritage of being subjected to life as Titans, leaving only whoever the remaining holders of the Nine Titans were left alive with the power of the Titans…and Kaede Sogen. Some might've seen this as the wrong choice to make, but it was Frieda's choice to make, and it had to be done to eliminate the animosity that stemmed from the misuse and abuse of the power of the Titans for warfare and genocide…and keep those that had ulterior motives behind their actions from crossing lines that couldn't be undone.
"…So, you were assaulted over a month ago?" She hears Dina question Kaede.
"It was nothing more than bitterness and unnecessary anger by someone that hates me enough to seek out a reason to want me out of the way," Kaede replies to her. "I'm not entirely over the incident, but I'm getting there. The only thing that hurts about it was that I was out of it for that long, dreaming of a future where the Rumbling did happen and I lost people I loved because of that person. The outcome of that lifetime was negative for Paradis, but for the rest of the world, they were just looking to move on without the concerns of a small island that had nothing to offer the people that wanted nothing to do with it. Most of that outcome was because of me."
"Why you?"
"Because in that lifetime, I crossed a line of my own making and was condemned to a purgatorial state of being where I had to help make things right for the majority of the world maimed by the Rumbling…which I did for the most part in a timespan of less than six months."
"Purga…torial?" Armin speaks.
"Put quite simply, Mr. Arlert…in that lifetime, in that dream…I took my own life to keep from taking anyone else's when plagued by despair and unwilling to succumb to the desires of vengeance against people that were blindly seduced by false promises of a future in which they were free only if they fight, which…isn't so much of a future if that's all you live for."
"Sounds like a nightmare a little," Dina expresses. "Not everyone wants to fight for something…and not everyone seeks to be free."
"Not unless there's a specific type of freedom they're seeking. There's more than one type of freedom that exists, but you have to be specific about it. If you're not, then anyone can misinterpret it for something that isn't what you're after. But yes, people can seek a different type of freedom. The freedom to go wherever you want to go…to be whatever you want to be…to involve yourself with whoever you want to be involved with…to hate…to love…to like…to believe."
Julietta places her right hand atop Kaede's left shoulder and smiles.
"How did it end for you?" She asks her. "Before you woke up?"
"After Historia reconciled with Ymir and renounced the throne after learning how little control she had over the fight-crazed men and women that believed in fighting to be free, I realized that I was not dead and needed to wake up, hearing your voices telling me to wake up at random times…and having to put up with the unwelcome presences of Eren and Ymir Fritz, both of whom were angry with me because I refused to listen to them or do what they asked of me. And as I walked away from Ymir Fritz, I started waking up."
"Hard to believe the ghost of a woman that died for someone incapable of love tried to make you believe you were dead…and you kept resisting her because you couldn't believe you were dead. I'm glad you resisted her and woke up. It was terrible, not knowing when or if you were ever going to."
"I have each of you to thank for keeping me motivated to return. Didn't Charlotte ask if I could teach her to do a handstand?"
"Yes, she did."
"She should wear trousers, though."
"Ah-ha-ha!" Jean laughs, getting their attention. "Yes, she should."
Kaede looks away from everyone in the wagon with her, out to the open terrain around them…and sees Ymir Fritz in the distance, her face marked by scorn towards her. But just as she has no control over the woman that once possessed the power of the Titans and lost her life to save a man that didn't love her, said woman held no control over her and couldn't force her to fall in line with her ridiculous beliefs of there being an order in which everyone everywhere suffers and her own existence being a mistake. She was here, alive and doing what she could to find her place in the world, and no tormented individuals were going to change that.
-x-
"How was he today?" Carla asks Mikasa that night in Trost.
"He was…bothered by the possibility of facing the death sentence," Mikasa explains to her as she sits at the table. "He also feels the same about Ms. Sogen."
Carla sighs; this update was the same as every other update she got from Mikasa ever since her son was incarcerated for his crimes.
"And what of Ms. Sogen?" She feels the need to ask.
"She paid Eren a visit earlier this week and informed him of how he would need to choose his fate in due time. She also mentioned that she feels sorry for Eren because of his actions."
"She feels sorry for Eren? Why? She didn't make him do what he did to her last month."
"No, but she feels sorry for his choices that led him to where he is. He could've walked away, but instead of doing so, he chose to come after her. He chose to hate her to the point of trying to kill her. And he feels like he's competing against her in a strange way, because he asked her as she left him alone, what was it that makes her better than him? Of course, she didn't answer him. Maybe she doesn't have an answer to such a question."
"She wouldn't need one, because she's not in competition with him. She never was in competition with him."
As Carla sets out the plates, Mikasa pours some water into the cups.
"Has Ms. Sogen made any attempts to come see you?" Mikasa asks her.
"No," Carla replies. "Not yet, at least."
"Are you…expecting her to?"
"No. I don't really expect her to pay me a visit. I wouldn't blame her, though."
Carla, since the month Kaede was attacked by Eren and left for dead, had been the victim of vandalism by random people that marked up her home with negative comments about Eren, about how he was a menace to society or how he refuses to change his behavior. She has put in requests to get the graffiti removed, but nobody has come to clean it. She doubts it will ever get removed, not that she was making a major fuss about it. Even if it did get resolved, someone would just do it all over again to remind her that her son is a problem for them because of his behavior, an unresolved issue brought upon by stigma.
Knock-knock. A knock at the front door came, and Carla goes over to it.
"Who is it?" She asks.
"Kaede Sogen," the person outside replies, and Carla sighs.
"What do you want?"
"To talk."
"Couldn't it wait until tomorrow?"
"It could, but I'd like to speak with you this evening, please."
Carla sighs and opens the door, seeing the gray-haired girl, looking like she had made a full recovery from her son's attack on her.
"I, uh…was in the neighborhood and decided to pay you a visit," Kaede states.
"But to do so at night?" Carla questions.
"I also need to exercise my legs more, but coming here isn't an excuse. How are you?"
"I'm coping."
"For whatever it's worth…I just want you to know that whatever fate the MPs decide for your son in the end, I made the choice for either life without parole…or banishment once Shiganshina has been completely rebuilt."
Carla looks at Kaede with some confusion.
"Life or banishment?" She questions. "Why not the death penalty? I mean, he tried to kill you."
"Because, like I said before the night I brought him back here when I last spoke with you," Kaede clarifies, "I'm not a vindictive person. And if I were to choose to take someone's life just for something as hollow as vengeance…then I would have to live with that choice. With life in prison, he'll live, and with banishment, at least he'll be out there in a Titan-free wilderness where what he does with his life will be up to him…and be someone else's problem if he raises a fuss."
"Because once he's banished, he won't be able to return here."
"Yeah."
"I'm trying to comprehend which fate is the gentler fate."
"Personally, I find life in prison to be the gentler fate, because we at least know where he is and that he can't get out. There are many things that can happen out there that we have no control over…and nothing is promised to us beyond the day."
"Can I ask…why you're not trying to be vindictive?"
Kaede sighs and responds, "If I wanted to get revenge on someone, my methods would be predictable and everyone would know it was me. If I acted on jealousy or anger, I'd be making myself a monster by discarding my own soul. I believe in justice, not vengeance. I haven't lost the people in my life yet, so I haven't lost my morality. In an insane world, the sanest choice is to keep from going mad with beliefs of revenge."
"And in an insane world, the hardest thing to do is forgive the people that have wronged you."
"It's only hard…if you lack the strength to forgive. To forgive is to be released from hatred. Those that can't forgive…are those that don't wish to be released from their hate. Maybe someday, if he's lucky, that is, Eren Yeager will let go of his hate."
"Maybe someday. Thank you, Ms. Sogen."
"It's as I have said, I'm not vindictive. I don't want to be vindictive. I can't give in to hate or vengeance…and don't want to be without my soul, my heart, my morale. Enjoy the rest of your evening, Mrs. Yeager."
Kaede then walks away from the building…and Carla notices something about her footwear.
"Um, Ms. Sogen," she stops Kaede for a moment longer, "did you…step into something muddy while you were out and about?"
Kaede looks down at her boots and chuckles.
"No, my boots, like the rest of my clothes, get damp after being the Dark Titan for a long time. I just walked around and my boots got dirty as they didn't dry off. Thank you for noticing."
Kaede walks away…and Mikasa steps out to see her leave down the dim-lit streets…and looks up at the building.
"I believe she lied to you, Mrs. Yeager," she tells Carla.
"What do you mean?" Carla responds.
"The graffiti is gone."
Carla steps out and turns around, seeing…not a trace of the red and black paint that had been smeared across the sides to express bad comments about her son and her relation to him. In addition to this, Carla could smell the hint of a fresh coating of paint. If this had been Kaede's doing, she was grateful to her.
"I can't give in to hate or vengeance," Kaede had told her.
-x-
"…None of them are going near the wall, sir," Pyxis was informed by a Garrison soldier as they all saw Titans walking around at night just outside Trost District, something that seemed impossible up until the day they encountered the Dark Titan and learned who was the will behind its actions. "They're all moving eastwards."
"I wonder what's in the east that has their attention?" Pyxis wonders.
-x-
"Something on your mind, Reiner?" Reiner was asked by his mother as they ate dinner.
"Something about what Magath said that bothers me a little," he replies. "We all saw the two ladies, but he seemed to be bothered by the one with gray hair, as though he were afraid of her…simply because she has gray hair."
"Young people with gray hair are unusual," his mother says. "They're abnormal. More so than the devils of Paradis, and this one is from Paradis, yes?"
While he complied that the girl was the only one he had seen with gray hair, he also implied that, despite keeping to herself when she was revealed to be the Dark Titan, she was…disturbingly attractive to some people. But unlike the other people there on that island, she was not as most would describe.
"Miss Sogen…despite her gray hair…isn't completely a wicked person, Mother," he tells her.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Unlike the other devils on that island, she doesn't believe in…violence. In fact, even when she fought against Annie, it wasn't so much with the intent to kill her…and she spoke as a Titan for the first time."
"She spoke? In Titan form?"
"After Annie attacked her throat. I'm only guessing that talking isn't natural for her Titan to do. And as a Titan, she seemed more at home building things."
"You only saw her from a distance…and you're sure she's not like the other island devils?"
"One of them actually hated her enough to want her dead. Other people look at her…and only had nice things to say about her…simply because she was nice. She seemed like…for her…the only thing off about her…is her hair. A mysterious beauty. Or…the queen of nice."
"Queen of nice?"
"A nice devil? That's not only impossible, it would also be ridiculous. You're either a devil…or an angel. But a devil with gray hair being nice? That would be unlikely to be true."
Except to Reiner, it did seem true…and it just puzzles him not understanding why it seemed like Marley's leaders were…fearful of her…or any young person with gray hair. Unless she were the Founding Titan, she would be a questionable figure, but from what what he understood from Marley, the Founding Titan was thirteen meters, not eighteen meters. And based solely on what he and Annie had seen or experienced when trying to confront her, Ms. Sogen, despite not having any apparent self-defensive qualities, probably having never had to fight anyone a day in her, and this was disregarding what Eren once or twice claimed about her, the girl could pretty much compensate with a handful of other abilities that made her a challenge if confronted. And then, there was the Dark Titan's hair; he never once heard of a Titan with prehensile body parts other than their limbs. Half the time, the hair functioned like a dress for the Dark Titan, and the other half of that time, it functioned like additional arms, each strand doing the work of an entire unit.
"I will be honest, Reiner," his mother tells him. "In the brief moment that I saw the girl, I did think that, for a second, she was beautiful…in a strange way. It makes me wonder how someone like that could've been born on that island?"
"Maybe bad luck."
-x-
The Garrison and Survey Corps had gathered at where the Titans that were walking in the east within the space of land between Walls Maria and Rose, and they watched in awe as the Titans evaporated and collapsed onto the ground. In the space of five minutes, all of the Titans were gone…and left behind were these people that had been them for an undetermined number of years.
"Unbelievable," one of the Garrison soldiers utters.
"Believe it," a Survey Corps soldier says.
To be continued…
A/N: And here is where things turn for Paradis and the rest of the world. Looking forward to the next chapter in the future. Maybe an explanation for why there's a bit of fear surrounding Kaede's gray hair. I hope y'all enjoy this chapter if you read it. Peace!