Attack on Titan: Wolfborn

Renko · Feb 15, 2025

To be continued...

Fran Gark said:
If you have just reached chapter 18, you are in for a treat if you continue.

Can I make a suggestion and resquest? If this is going to have like some kind of lesbian shipping going on between Anja and Annie, can you add the [yuri] tag?

It's better for people to know about these things beforehand since there are some who are genuinely interested in reading stories with a straight female protagonist since those are very, very, very rare around here.

Those people might or will get very upset due to them finding out later down the line, ruining their expectations.

Fran Gark said:
"Curious thing about that day," he continued, each word falling like stones in still water. "Every casualty was accounted for. Even the ones they could barely identify." His steps never faltered. "Except one."

Nac. The name reverberated in her skull, an accusation and a condemnation all in one.

Fran Gark said:
"But you wouldn't know anything about that," Levi said softly. "Would you, Anja?"

But Anja didn't have any control at that time!

It seems whatever happened to her runs deep into her family similar with the Ackerman bloodline with Mikasa and Levi!

Fran Gark said:
The last thing she saw before the rifle butt struck was those birds, watching. Always watching.

Damn! Is this about the murder?

Fran Gark said:
Hange approached with a syringe, then hesitated. "Levi, if she's like Eren... any wound could trigger—"

Wait! Huh!? She's actually a titan shifter!? A 10th titan lost in history or something else?

Fran Gark said:
Two glass jars caught the flash—one containing a clouded eyeball, dark veins spider-webbing through it; the other, a segmented creature, black and insect-like, parts of its body dissolving slowly in the fluid.

Uh...

What happened? What is that? Black centipede thing!? WTF!?

Fran Gark · Feb 15, 2025

Renko said:
To be continued...

Can I make a suggestion and resquest? If this is going to have like some kind of lesbian shipping going on between Anja and Annie, can you add the [yuri] tag?

It's better for people to know about these things beforehand since there are some who are genuinely interested in reading stories with a straight female protagonist since those are very, very, very rare around here.

Those people might or will get very upset due to them finding out later down the line, ruining their expectations.

But Anja didn't have any control at that time!

It seems whatever happened to her runs deep into her family similar with the Ackerman bloodline with Mikasa and Levi!

Damn! Is this about the murder?

Wait! Huh!? She's actually a titan shifter!? A 10th titan lost in history or something else?

Uh...

What happened? What is that? Black centipede thing!? WTF!?

Hey there again! I see you've made some progress with the story!

Regarding romance - honestly when I started writing this, it wasn't really on my mind and still isn't my main concern. I'm focused on the plot first. If relationships develop naturally as the story goes, that's fine, but if not, that's also fine. Annie and Anja's relationship is pretty complex and hard to define with a single tag, their dynamic is just another part of the larger mystery. But the way I deal with pre existing characters is to attempt to replicate how they were originally written and allowing them to evolve on its own, if that makes sense, with regards to their personalities and sexual orientations for that matter.

The bloodline stuff was a good catch! Without spoiling anything, yeah, there is something inherited, if you could call it that, going on there, though it works quite differently from the Ackerman situation. You'll see what I mean as the story continues.

About Anja being a titan shifter is an interesting theory. The story will tell you more about what she is in the upcoming chapters. They have noticed similarities, but maybe not in the way you might expect.

For that last bit just remember to keep an eye on the small details, they are all over the place, even some things that have to be decrypted. And yeah, things might get even more intense from here!

Glad you're enjoying it so far! It's cool seeing your theories as you read through. Let me know if you have any more questions!

Fran Gark · Feb 19, 2025

Chapter XXVII: Underneath

The Female Titan's footsteps shook the earth like drumbeats, each impact resonating with increasing intensity. Anja's horse shifted nervously beneath her, ears flattening against its skull as the world seemed to slow, sounds becoming muffled as the Titan altered its course. Each movement carried an odd familiarity that made Anja's skin crawl.

"She can see you." Heinrik stood impossibly still amid the chaos, watching as though this moment had always been inevitable.

"Anja, move! Now!" Petra's voice cracked with urgency as she released the framework's control mechanism.

The release made her feel vulnerable, exposed. Her hands trembled as she drew her blades—her only pair. The Titan raced toward them, devouring the distance with horrifying speed. She yanked her horse's reins hard, but terror made the animal rear and buck against her commands.

Before she knew it the Female Titan was already there, its foot swinging forward. A shadow fell over her, and Anja caught a glimpse of crystalline patterns forming along its leg just before impact.

The strike caught the horse's hindquarters with enough force to send tthe animal reeling. Anja lurched from the saddle as her mount stumbled, the landscape blurring into a whirl of green and brown. Instinct took over—she fired her ODM gear, the anchors latching onto the Titan's thigh. She jerked to a halt midair, pain jolting through her limbs as she struggled to regain control.

Something was wrong. Her body wouldn't respond the way it should. Where was the rage? The strength? It was as if her own flesh had forgotten how to fight, how to surrender to that crimson haze.

In that split second Anja saw Petra attempting to maneuver for an attack. But the framework's connection between them turned against them as the Titan's movement yanked Petra from her saddle. Her scream cut off abruptly as she hit the ground.

"Something's different about this one," Heinrik's voice carried an edge of recognition. "Can't you feel it?"

The world spun as Anja engaged her gear, forcing herself to stabilize. No time to think—she had to strike now, while she still could. She ignored Heinrik's presence at the edge of her vision, focusing on the titan's red flesh. Her strike sliced a shallow gash across the titan's thigh before something tore her back with brutal force.

Her body twisted in torment as the Female Titan seized her cables, leaving her dangling like a marionette on strings. Her cloak slipped free, spiraling away as blood rushed to her head. The framework's pressure became a new kind of agony—pulled upward by the titan, backward by its connection to Petra.

The Titan remained unnaturally still, head canted at an angle that made Anja's skin crawl. Steam rose from the superficial cut she'd managed. But why wasn't it doing anything? Why just hold her there, suspended and helpless?

"She remembers us," Heinrik's voice had an otherworldly echo. "You have to kill her."

A metallic groan from the frame sent ice through Anja's veins. The attachment points were stressing, metal yielding to pressures it was never designed to withstand.

Then the titan's head shifted a fraction, and though Anja couldn't see its face from where she dangled, she felt its attention as a physical force. The steam reached around her suspended form, carrying an oddly familiar scent.

"Hold on!"

That voice... Reiner!

The thunder of hooves grew louder as he approached.

She saw the Titan's free hand rising in a swift line as Reiner launched himself from his horse. He made an attempt to change directions but he was snatched from the air.

"No!" Anja thrashed against her restraints. Helplessness and despair smothered her fury.

She couldn't save Reiner. She couldn't even save herself.

Without warning, the Titan released its grip on her. Anja plummeted, her swords slipping from nerveless fingers. She hit the ground hard, reflexes dulled by pain and exhaustion.

Behind her, the cable connecting her to Petra snapped taut. The broken framework constricted around Anja's chest, crushing the air from her lungs.

Through darkening vision, she saw Reiner twist free of the Titan's grasp, blades flashing as he carved his way out of the its fist. His movements were too smooth, too practiced. Had he done this before?

The Titan showed no reaction to its wounds. Its head slightly turned towards her still.

"So," Heinrik said calmly. "She's not after us." His tone made it sound like he'd known this all along.

Anja lay in the grass, each strangled gasp a battle. The framework's broken bands cut into her ribs.

Reiner landed hard beside her, steam rising from his face where titan blood evaporated.

"The tank," Anja choked out. "I need the tank..."

Reiner's hands found the buckles, straining against the warped metal. "It won't budge! Is there a release on this thing?" He scanned the grass, spotting where the tank had fallen. "I'll be right back."

The world narrowed to the desperate need for air. Every second stretched into an eternity. Dimly, Anja noticed the Female Titan kneeling in the distance, studying its regenerating hand.

It hadn't pursued them. Why?

"Anja..." Heinrik's voice pulled at her fading thoughts. "We need to go. Now."

Reiner slid to his knees beside her, damaged tank in hand. "This should do it." He slotted the tank back into place. The pressure released with a hiss, framework loosening.

Anja gulped air, tears streaming down her face. Reiner watched her with a concern that somehow didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Easy there." His voice held an edge she'd never noticed before. "That contraption... Scout Regiment's new toy?"

Before Anja could find the breath to answer, the Female Titan rose to its feet. But instead of attacking, it turned and sprinted away, each stride oddly purposeful.

"What's it doing?" Anja's voice came out raspy, raw.

Reiner frowned, as he looked towards the titan's retreating form. "She's leaving. I think I scared the bitch off."

"Anja!" Armin's shout preceded the sound of hoofbeats.

Anja turned to see him supporting a grimacing Petra, their horses trailing behind. The sight of Armin, battered but alive, made Anja's chest tighten with an emotion she couldn't name.

"You're alive..." Wonder and confusion warred in Armin's wide blue eyes. "Where have you been all this time?"

His arms encircled Anja. She leaned into him, suddenly exhausted. When was the last time someone had held her like this? "I'm sorry," She murmured into his cloak. "I wanted to tell you. I just...couldn't."

Armin pulled back, searching her face. His fingers brushed the edges of her eyepatch, questions crowding behind his eyes. "Your eye...Anja, what happened to you?"

Anja touched the rough fabric, a pang of unease twisting in her stomach. "I...it was a training accident."

"They told us you were on a special assignment. That no one was allowed to see you. What-"

A hiss of pain cut him off. Petra slumped against her chestnut horse , face pale and posture rigid. The framework's controls hung off her in a tangle, struts bent and connection points mangled.

"The framework needs repairs," Petra's voice was tight as she braced herself, then with a sharp exhale, wrenched her arm back into place. A shudder ran through her. "And we need to report this encounter. That Titan... it's heading straight for the center of the formation."

"We can't let it get there. If we don't warn them—"

"It's because of Eren, right?" Armin's eyes narrowed. "He's there, isn't he?"

"How would you know that?" Petra demanded.

"It's the safest place in the formation," Armin replied, mind clearly racing. "But that Titan came straight from the right wing... I wonder... We saw the distress signals, but it reached us before we could do anything..."

"We just came from there, the right wing was destroyed by that thing," Anja added. "It wasn't alone - there were other titans following it too, but they stayed behind."

"Then the difference is clear - it acts with purpose, unlike a normal titan, it doesn't show mindless hunger. Its behavior is intelligent." Armin's tactical mind was already working. "When it killed our team leader, it didn't try to eat anyone. It was looking for something. The way it examined you just now..."

"Like it recognized her," Petra finished, her tone oddly flat.

A cold wind swept across the grass, carrying the distant sound of hoofbeats and something else - the soft beating of wings. Ravens had begun gathering in the trees around them, their black forms stark against the pale sky.

"It's a human," Armin's voice dropped lower. "Just like Eren, the Colossal, the Armored Titan… It has to be after him!"

Near Anja's dead horse in the distance, Heinrik stood watching. "We have to keep going, Anja. Home." His arm rose, pointing in the opposite direction from the formation's path.

"We can't waste any more time," Petra managed, steading herself against her mount, wincing as she successfully mounted it. "Armin, give her your horse, double up with Reiner."

"The formation will be changing course again by the looks of it," she nodded toward the horizon where green smoke signals were already rising. "We'll need to catch up quickly, tell everyone we find."

As Armin helped Anja up, she felt his eyes on the semi broken gear strapped to her chest.

"What happened to you?" He asked quietly.

Anja slumped forward slightly in the saddle, suddenly bone-tired. "I don't know," she answered honestly, feeling the weight of Heinrik's gaze on her. "I don't know anything anymore."

Overhead, a raven's wings beat a steady rhythm against the cloudless sky, black eyes fixed on the path ahead.

Team Leader Darius wiped sweat from his brow as he surveyed the abandoned village one last time. The midday sun beat down on the weathered buildings where his team now crouched in wait. Eleven of them remained, down two from this morning's losses. The aberrant that had broken through their flank still needed to be dealt with before it reached the main formation.

The village center created a natural choke point. Darius had positioned his soldiers carefully to maximize the advantage. With the right timing, they could bring down their target quickly.

A raven cawed, drawing his attention to the rooftops, many were perched there, their unnatural stillness setting his teeth on edge.

"Everyone's in place, sir." Jurgen's voice remained steady despite the rigid set of his shoulders. "Ready on your signal."

Motion flickered in Darius's peripheral vision. He turned to see a figure adjusting their gear near the town's crumbling bell tower. "Rader, get back in position before-"

"Sir?" The confusion in the real Rader's voice snapped Darius's head around. The boy stood exactly where he was supposed to be, blades in hand.

A cold knot formed in Darius's gut. He looked back up at the tower, but the figure had vanished. Unease prickled up his spine. He knew everyone under his command, knew their faces, their tics... Maybe it was a surviving soldier form the right wing.

"Listen up," He pushed down his disquiet and forced his voice to remain level. "We're dealing with an abnormal, and a dangerous one at that. Stay sharp. Our usual tactics won't be enough. We move as a unit, watch each other's backs. No one plays the hero, understood? We go in together, we come out together."

In the distance, a shout rang out. "Contact! From the north!"

Darius raised his hand, eyes fixed on the path leading into the village square. This is it. The ground trembled, the vibrations intensifying with each passing second.

Through gaps in the buildings, he caught glimpses of a sprinting figure, its movements they were too precise. Too human.

"Hold positions," he ordered, muscles tensing. "Wait for my signal."

The rhythmic impacts, grew louder and louder. The titan was nearly upon them. Even the birds had gone deathly silent, beady eyes all turned to witness what came next.

A massive shape burst into the square, seeming to unfold from the spaces between one blink and the next. This titan had the distinct shape of a woman, she straightened to her full height, pale hair swaying slightly as she turned her head, icy blue eyes sweeping the plaza.

"Now!" Darius barked, as he closed his hand into a fist.

His soldiers struck in perfect unison, ODM hooks flying from every direction. This was what they trained for. He watched as Ivan aimed straight for the nape, blades flashing in the sun.

A diamond-hard shell encased the Titan's neck an instant before Ivan's strike connected. The sound of shattering steel rang out like a death knell.

"What?! The nape's protected!" Darius's warning came too late.

The Female Titan moved with deadly grace, every gesture purposeful and swift. Her fingers closed around Ivan's cables and yanked. Darius had time to see the boy's eyes bulge in terror before he smashed through the crumbling belltower, his body practically splitting on impact.

Two more soldiers died in the space between heartbeats. The first landing in her hardened palm with a sickening crunch, blood spurting between her fingers as she squeezed. The second disappeared beneath a calculated stomp, the wet cracking of bone and the squelch of pulverized flesh drowned out by the thunderous blow. Those who remained scattered, falling back on drilled formations that now felt pathetically inadequate.

Jurgen rallied them, directing hooks to wrap around the Titan's legs, aiming to hobble it. Synchronized and flawless, a dance they'd performed a hundred times before.

The Female Titan dropped low, muscles coiling. Darius had a fraction of a second to realize what was about to happen before it launched itself skyward with a jump, hooks trailing from its body like spider silk. The soldiers anchored to it jerked violently, their screams cut off with horrific abruptness as the force tore them apart.

Darius drew his flare gun, one shell already loaded, motioning to Rader as he took aim. If he could blind it, he could buy them a precious few seconds. He raised the barrel, finger tensed on the trigger.

Movement flickered in a darkened window. Darius's gaze snapped to it instinctively. That man from before, he stood motionless in the shadows, face obscured. Something about the wrongness of its stillness made his blood run cold.

He wrenched his focus back to the Titan just as it turned its head, icy blue eyes fixing on the flare gun. It twisted just as he fired, the hissing charge streaking past its jaw, leaving behind a green smoke trail.

"Rader, go!" He shouted.

The kid leaped, blades flashing as he hurtled toward the Titan's exposed neck. Two more soldiers flanked him, faces set in fierce determination. He was certain she couldn't protect her nape and limbs at once.

The Female Titan's hand moved in a blur, crystallizing from fingertip to elbow as it shielded its weak point. Rader's blades shattered like glass against the hardened flesh. Before even taking any damnge from the others, she spun around, a single kick reduced a soldier to a red smear against the wall. The titan caught the remaining cables attached to her, whirling them around. It used their own momentum like a slingshot, hurling them through the air with devastating force. Rader... He hit the ground beside Darius in a tangle of shattered limbs, his eyes wide and staring vacantly.

Darius whistled for his horse, refusing to give in to the dread. He had to warn the Commander. Had to reach the formation. He threw himself into the saddle, leaning low over his mount's neck as he spurred it forward, desperately seeking to escape the town.

Twenty meters to the village edge. Fifteen. Ten-

The blow came without warning. A massive foot swept through his field of vision, catching both him and his mount. The world spun, ground and sky trading places. He couldn't tell if the scream he heard was his own or his horse's. Then came the bone-shattering collision with stone and earth.

Pain. Brutal, absolute, all-consuming. Darius tried to move, to crawl, but his legs were shattered, jagged bone protruding through torn flesh. He watched helplessly as the titan continued her advance. Their deaths hadn't even qualified as an inconvenience.

A raven landed beside him, its head twisting slowly towards him. More descended, their wings casting shifting shadows across his broken form. Bare feet stepped into view - human yet wrong, stained with dirt and dried blood.

The first raven's beak plunged into his eye. The pain should have been unbearable, but it felt like ice spreading through his veins. More followed, each strike sending waves of cold deeper into his flesh. He tried to scream, to pray, but his mouth filled with a tarry liquid, heavy, piercing his lungs, his skin.

This isn't death, he realized with mounting horror. This was-

Ancient trees stretched toward the sky, their massive forms reaching so high they looked as if they could pierce the clouds, their weathered trunks casting long shadows across the expedition's path. Commander Erwin tracked the steady march of black smoke signals converging toward the formation's center, each one likely marking another unit lost. The messenger's horse wheezed beside him, its flanks trembling from the desperate sprint.

"Commander, the target is advancing faster than anticipated," the messenger reported, his youthful face tight with worry beneath a mop of sandy hair. "Squad Darius' signals have ceased. There...there are no survivors, sir."

Erwin's fingers tightened on the reins, his expression carved from stone. Behind him, wooden wagons rumbled into the forest depths, following the lone path that cut through it, their contents concealed beneath heavy canvas. The distinctive smell of lamp oil wafted from beneath the covers, mixing with the forest's natural scents.

The ground trembled with approaching hoofbeats from the rear. Hange drew alongside him, her brow furrowed with distress.

"My team is ready," Hange reported, adjusting her glasses. "Any word from Petra and Anja? They were due to check in by now but remain unaccounted for."

"No signals from their last three checkpoints." The words settled like lead as Hange's expression darkened. A muscle worked in her jaw, but before she could speak, Erwin turned to the waiting messenger. "Send the orders: only the center column enters the forest. All other units are ordered to circle arround it and maintain titan control."

"Sir!" The messenger vanished into the fading haze, his figure quickly swallowed by the distance.

Hange adjusted her glasses, studying the web of flare trails. Her gaze shifted to the wagons passing nearby, Miche riding guard. "Petra would never miss a signal. The vanguard, have you-"

"She isn't there," Erwin cut in. "I already sent someone to verify."

Erwin signaled to Miche, the tall section leader guiding his horse closer. Miche's nose wrinkled as he tested the wind. "Something's off, Erwin. Too many foreign scents on the wind. I can't pinpoint it exactly, but that forest is crawling with titans."

"Erwin, the framework wasn't tested for extended combat," Hange murmured. "If it failed-"

"The forward scouts would have found evidence." Erwin met her gaze. "We proceed as planned. This is our only chance."

"But Anja," Hange pressed, fingers tightening around her reins. "You said she was an asset."

"She is, but, unlike Eren, she is not essential to humanity's survival. Our entire mission depends on him. Our resources are already stretched thin." His eyes never left the forest. "Petra is capable. You know why I picked her for this task. We have to trust she can handle it."

Erwin signaled to Miche again, his voice steady and resolute. "Take your unit to the front. Clear the main route and secure the site."

Miche nodded, blond hair whipping about his rugged face as he broke formation, his squad falling into step behind him as they disappeared into the towering trunks before them.

"Commander," a mud-splattered messenger approached. "Captain Levi requests backup."

Erwin weighed the stakes. The reserve units were meant for Miche's operation, but Levi's defense was vital. One misstep would unravel everything. "Send the reserves to his location immediately."

As the messenger saluted and galloped off, a flock of ravens took flight from the canopy, their dark wings stark against the sky.

Erwin turned to Hange. "Your squad and Miche's will need to secure the site on your own. The reserve forces will buy you the time you need to set everything up."

"It's the right call," Hange said quietly, watching another wagon vanish into the shadows. "That titan knows our formation. Our tactics."

"Yes." Erwin's eyes hardened to blue steel as he surveyed his forces, taking in the grim faces, the hands white-knuckled upon reins and blades. The ancient forest rising before them. "Let's move out, we can't let this sacrifice be in vain. Once we complete our task, it's all in Levi's hands."

Erwin urged his white horse forward, Hange riding close behind as the formation trailed them into the forest of giant trees. The darkness embraced them, broken only by thin shafts of light that managed to pierce the dense canopy above. A heaviness hung in the air, an unspoken acknowledgment of the blood that had already been spilled - and the certainty of more to come.

There was no turning back now. Everything depended on this moment, on this single throw of the dice. And he would see it through to the bitter end, no matter the cost.

Anja winced as the framework's plates dug into her ribs with every step the horse took. Broken joints had shifted together, metal bands constricting abruptly and making her gasp shallowly. Petra turned back, her face concerned at the sight of Anja's pain.

"We're getting closer," Petra said, holding her wounded arm tight against her. "The tracks look fresher here."

Armin's words cut through the stillness. "Wait. Those titans ahead. they're not moving."

At the center of the clearing was a cluster of titans that stood stock still, their empty eyes fixed in space. They stood frozen in place, not a muscle twitching in their entire body.

"They're waiting," Heinrik's warning sent dread coursing through Anja's body. "We have to go, now."

Another spasm wracked through Anja's body as the framework constricted, forcing her to clench her teeth against the pain. Her horse stumbled beneath her wavering balance.

Reiner and Armin rode up beside her, the wind tugging at Armin's hair as he studied her with sharp, worried eyes. "Anja, are you alright?"

"I'm okay," she managed, but the words sounded hollow even to her own ears. Heinrik's ghostly form had crystallized before her, his presence carrying an intensity that made her skin crawl.

"They're coming, Anja. Can't you feel it?" Heinrik's words scraped against her consciousness.

Above them, a flock of birds wheeled in formation, their movements unnaturally synchronized. Anja felt moisture trickle down her cheek from her patch. Her fingers came away stained with that dark liquid. Her breath caught. She blinked, rubbing her fingers together—but in the next instant, it was gone.

"This whole situation has me on edge," she admitted, trying but failing to steady her voice.

They gave the still titans a wide berth, venturing into the forest of giant trees. The ancient trunks soared into the sky, their canopy so dense that it cast the ground in perpetual twilight. As they crested a rise, Anja spotted a dead horse near the treeline, its rider nowhere to be found, an ODM gear scattered across blood-stained grass. The device sputtered weakly, residual gas hissing from its damaged tanks.

Reiner got off to take a look, his expression serious. "The blood's not dry yet. We just missed them."

Anja gripped the reins tighter as more of the framework's connections failed, each pop making her stomach lurch.

A rhythmic dripping caught her attention, drawing her gaze upward. Her heart seized as she spotted a body suspended in the branches above, blood falling from it in steady drops.

"There's someone up there," she breathed.

Reiner followed her gaze, his jaw tightening. "Poor bastard..."

The distant hiss of flares cut through the air, red smoke trailing through the branches.

"That's close from here," Armin murmured, his eyes scanning the canopy.

"We cannot stay," Heinrik warned, his image flickering. "Turn back."

But the footprints led deeper into the forest, leaving clear impressions in the soil.

Petra's next words trembled with fury. "Damn it... We'll never catch it now. All those lives, and they didn't even slow it down."

Reiner exhaled sharply, shaking his head. "You're really thinking about going after it? Look, I don't like backing down either, but that's suicide."

"What else can we do?" Petra shot back. Her fists clenched at her sides before her tone softened. "If I could just reach Captain Levi..."

Armin's eyes widened. Anja knew that look.

"There must be a reason why the commander led us here. We can't catch up to the Female Titan. So let's regroup with the others—I'm sure there's a plan."

Petra hesitated, torn between the dying flare and the depths of the forest.

"The old route will take you to her," Heinrik murmured, pressing closer. "Through the ravine, past the spring. The way remains beneath the growth."

The words spilled from Anja's mouth before she could stop them. "I know a shortcut. This area was once a tourist destination. There's an old trail that cuts through here. We might still have a chance."

"A tourist trail? Here?" Petra's brow furrowed. "This forest has been abandoned since Wall Maria fell. Those routes would be long gone."

"The stone steps remain," Anja insisted, unsure if the memories were her own or Heinrik's whispers, but she felt so certain. "If she's following the main trail, we can get ahead of her."

Armin's eyes were narrowed to slits. "Anja, how could you possibly know that? There's no way to be certain where—"

"I used to come here with my family when I was little. I know this place like the back of my hand." The words tasted like ash in her mouth, but she couldn't seem to stop herself, she knew she was telling the truth, somehow. She could feel Armin's questioning gaze boring into her.

Petra glanced between the tracks and the flare, then made her decision. "Armin, Reiner, follow the flares and rejoin the main group. Stay in the trees if you run into any titans. Anja, you're with me. Lead the way."

They pressed onward, Anja following half-remembered routes with unsettling certainty. Weather-worn steps emerged from the undergrowth, smooth from countless forgotten footfalls. Her body moved with an assurance her mind rejected, each landmark pulling at her like fragments of a fever dream.

The framework seized again, stealing her breath. She forced herself forward, urging her horse deeper into the gloom.

"Are we still on track?" Petra called from behind, her horse struggling through the thick underbrush. Shadows crept closer, blurring the boundaries of their surroundings.

"I'm sure," Anja replied, despite her growing unease. The memories felt artificial, as if they'd been grafted onto her consciousness. Yet each fork appeared before her with haunting familiarity.

"This place is not for you," Heinrik's presence wavered, his form splitting and reforming. "The way ahead is wrong."

"Continue," another aspect of him commanded, anticipation threading through the words. "She awaits."

The trees towered above them, the twisted trunks curving inwards like reaching fingers. Anja saw something move at the periphery of her vision, the leaves rustling and whispering secrets that she couldn't quite catch.

"There's something out there," she breathed, the words barely louder than the pounding of her own heart.

Petra's reply carried the edge of steel. "Stay alert. I think I hear something ahead. We're not far from the main trail, right?"

Anja heard it too—but what? The forest pressed down upon them, suffocating in its vastness. For a moment, she could have sworn she heard something slithering just beneath the earth's surface.

"Underneath." Heinrik's voices spoke in unison.

Suddenly, the air was torn by a thunderous crash, the earth trembling beneath the pounding hooves of their steeds. Anja's head snapped up just in time to see white-hot jets of steam erupting through gaps in the canopy, curling into the sky.

Petra's eyes grew wide. "Was that a cannon? Out here?"

The explosions repeated, each blast sending shockwaves through the ancient forest. A sharp, acrid scent drifted through the thick air—gunpowder, heavy and clinging, mingling with the steam. It burned at Anja's nostrils.

They pressed on, drawn toward the source of the disturbance—yet with every step, a deep, gnawing wrongness settled in Anja's chest. Something else was out there. Watching. Waiting.

"Run," one aspect of Heinrik begged.

"Stay," The other ordered, just a second later, expectation heavy in his tone.

Their voices merged, resonating at frequencies that set her teeth on edge. "You are close... Find them."

They rode toward the chaos, following the echoes of battle until the trees parted before them. The forest path stretched wide, cutting through the dense woodland like a scar. At its center, the Female Titan knelt, ensnared in a web of hooks and cables, crystallized hands shielding her nape. Captain Levi stood atop her pale blonde hair, his small frame stark against her towering form.

"They did it," Petra breathed, awe slipping through her tension.

Through the haze, Anja caught a glimpse of riders vanishing into the forest depths. One of them looked back—Eren. Relief surged through her, sharp and fleeting. It lasted only heartbeats.

A sound like the world splitting open shattered the air.

The ground erupted twenty meters to their right. Anja's horse reared as pale, twisted flesh burst from the soil. A titan emerged – its form a grotesque aberration. Its skin gleamed with an unnatural whiteness, dark veins pulsing beneath like living serpents. The stench of rot rolled over them in a wave.

Anja's hand flew to her hip instinctively, grasping at empty air where her blades should have been.

"Contact!" A scout's warning pierced the air. "Multiple hos-"

The earth shattered beneath his tree. Another titan surged upward, elongated fingers closing around the scout's torso. A wet crunch silenced his scream. ODM gear clattered to the ground, harness straps still attached to—

Anja's horse bolted. The sudden movement saved her life as pale fingers grasped at empty air where she'd been heartbeats before. Petra's blade flashed, biting deep into the Titan's wrist. The strike wasn't enough to sever it completely, but the force sent the massive hand lurching back. Viscous dark liquid sprayed from the wound, and as the Titan recoiled, its quickly dissolving fingers crumbled into the earth, the corrupted essence seeping into the soil.

"Move!" Petra's words cracked with desperation, her left arm held close to her body as she maneuvered. More titans erupted from the ground – five, eight, a dozen pale forms emerging like corpses clawing free of a mass grave. Their movements betrayed an unnatural intelligence.

A group of scouts dove for the nearest titan's nape. Their blades struck true, but the flesh merely rippled.

"Impossible!" A woman's voice cracked with horror as the Titan's head lolled at a grotesque angle, its neck half-severed. But dark veins pulsed, knitting the wound back together. The head remained twisted, unnaturally bent, even as the scouts' momentum carried them forward straight into the grasp of waiting pale hands.

Screams rang out, mixing with the deep rumble of shifting earth as more Titans clawed their way to the surface. Anja's horse reared, hooves skidding on loose soil, as another Titan erupted from the ground ahead. They were everywhere, emerging from the depths like a nest of pale spiders.

"Attacks are useless!" The warning came too late. Three scouts struck their targets, only for their blades to sink in and hold fast, trapped in the shifting flesh.

Realizing the futility, they disengaged, abandoning their weapons as they pulled back.

"The napes just regenerate!" One of them shouted as they maneuvered toward the Female Titan. The pale titans followed, their eerie, unbroken pursuit tightening the noose around the retreating scouts.

Anja's breath caught. This was it. They were being herded—pushed toward certain slaughter.

And then—

"All units, fire!" Commander Erwin's voice cut through the chaos.

Flames erupted from the treetops. Hidden scouts emerged, wielding modified gas tanks fitted with pilot lights. Fire caught the pale titans mid-stride, their writhing forms hardening into dark crystal wherever the flames touched.

But they kept rising, the same titans reforming again and again. The acrid stench of burning flesh mixed with an oily scent clinging to the air. Anja's horse spun in desperate circles, trapped between the emerging horrors. Their black eyes fixed on her. Two lunged forward, only to be driven back by streams of fire, while others circled, methodically cutting off escape routes.

Panic seized her as she tumbled from her horse, an inexplicable terror clawing at her mind. The greasy smoke stung her throat. Petra's shouts became distant, meaningless through the roaring in her ears. She tried to run, but the damaged framework groaned, its mechanisms locking her in place, was she stopping her? A half-crystallized titan, reeling from the flames, crashed onto the cable connecting her to Petra. The framework's tether snapped.

The safety mechanism triggered instantly, metal bands crushing against her ribs, stealing her breath. She couldn't move, couldn't think through the pain as the titan's fingers reached for her. The titan's grip found the framework itself, pulling – metal screamed, joints popped, and suddenly the pressure vanished. The mechanism fell away in pieces as Petra's blade flashed between them, her movements precise but unbalanced by her twisted arm, severing the titan's fingers before they could close around Anja's now-unrestrained form.

"Anja—the framework—" Petra's eyes widened at the broken mechanism, but another Titan's emergence cut her assessment short. "Come on!" She grabbed Anja's arm, noting with grim relief that, despite the wreckage, her ODM gear remained intact. "Get to higher ground!"

Steel cables hissed as they fired their anchors, propelling themselves onto a thick tree branch. Below, the pale titans thrashed against the bark, clawing and snapping as they struggled to follow.

Fire raged across the battlefield, the blistering heat clawing at her skin as flames, steam, and dense smoke consumed the landscape. Anja averted her gaze from the climbing inferno, forcing her trembling body to steady, each breath deliberate. Strange, how light she felt without the framework's constant pressure—yet the absence brought no relief in this nightmare.

Through the chaos, her gaze locked onto the Female Titan. Something about its trapped form struck a deep chord, a resonance she couldn't place. A pale titan broke through the curtain of flames, its white almost translucent hand, reaching for the Female Titan's leg.

Captain Levi moved to intercept, but before he could strike, the Female Titan's mouth opened. The scream that followed shook the forest itself, vibrating in Anja's bones and setting her teeth on edge.

The sound slammed into her like a physical force – the same roar that had drawn the titans out of Trost, now burning itself into her mind anew.

Through smoke and shadow, hundreds of heavy footsteps approached. More titans, drawn by that terrible cry, began flooding into the clearing from all directions. The trap had become a killing ground.

The defensive formation shattered as the titans' bodies tore through cables and equipment, all converging on their captured prey. Steam billowed as the horde descended, creating a wall of writhing flesh.

While normal titans surged forward in a mindless frenzy toward the Female Titan's cry, the pale ones withdrew with calculated precision, their crystallized limbs shattering as they slipped into the shadows. Two forces moving with opposing intents.

She saw as Levi's blades claimed three titans in rapid succession before the mass of bodies became too overwhelming even for him to handle. More titans pressed forward, climbing over each other to reach their target, cutting and pulling on the web of cables and hooks.

"Disengage!" Commander Erwin's orders pierced the din. "All units, to the trees!"

Scouts scattered to the higher branches as titans flooded the space beneath. Anja found her perch, watching the horror unfold through curtains of steam. The titans tore at the Female Titan's restraints, ripping into her flesh with savage intensity. Something in Anja's chest constricted at the sight, an inexplicable ache she couldn't name.

"What are they doing?" Petra whispered, her question hanging in the steam.

But Anja understood. Armin's words echoed in her mind as she watched the frenzied titans tear at their prey – just like they had in Trost with Eren, they were desperate to devour the human within.

She saw as the remaining pale figures slipped away from the feast, their white forms vanishing down the main path.

A flash of movement caught Anja's eye - stillness amid chaos. At first glance, another scout taking position, but... something was terribly amiss. The figure stood like a puppet on strings, its posture unnatural. She glimpsed blonde hair, bare feet, and tattered clothing half-hidden in shadow.

"Anja," Heinrik materialized beside her, his voice urgent. "Don't look. You're free now. We need to leave."

The figure vanished when she blinked, gliding through the canopy with an impossible speed. Retreating?

"They're going after him." Heinrik's words cut through the steam.

Anja's heart skipped a beat. "What?" She stammered, a knot of worry tightening in her chest.

Dark blood trickled down Anja's eyepatch, as she wiped it away this time it didn't vanish, the cold sensation lingered at the tip of her fingers.

"Don't follow." Heinrik's voice wavered with concern.

"He'll die if you do nothing. He can't fight them alone." The words carried darker undertones. "She can't stop you now. Go."

Below, a dead scout lay sprawled across fallen branches, his unused blades still secured in his scabbard.

Anja's resolve hardened. She had to go—she couldn't let Eren die.

"Anja?" Petra's voice rang out with confusion as Anja began moving down. "What are you doing?"

As she retrieved the blades, the framework's final pieces still clinging to her torso fell away, leaving her truly unrestrained, the sensation felt foreign.

Through the chaos, that wrong figure moved with terrible purpose along the path. Each step they took pulled at something deep inside her, like a half-forgotten melody struggling to surface.

"Please—" Heinrik's hand reached for her.

"Chase them—" The darkness in his tone promised violence

Anja's gaze darted between Petra and her retreating target. Something shifted in her expression.

"Wait!" Petra's cry rang with sudden urgency. "Stop!"

She paid no heed to her orders, Anja fired her ODM gear, weaving between towering trunks with uncanny familiarity. Behind her, Petra's cables sang as she gave chase, but Anja knew these paths, these branches, these hidden angles between the colossal trees. Her body remembered what her mind could not, each turn taking her further from Petra's desperate calls.

She followed the pale titans as they raced through the canopy, her gear straining with each burst of gas. Yet deep in her bones, she knew exactly where they were heading. An instinct older than memory drove her forward, faster and faster through the shadows.

Then she heard it – Eren's scream echoing through the forest, and her heart stopped.
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Hope you enjoyed the read! Sorry for the delay this chapter took me WAY longer than expected since I kept going back and forth on it. Thanks for reading!

Fran Gark · Feb 24, 2025

Chapter XXVIII: Monster

Through gaps in the forest, Eren watched distant smoke signals fade into the forest's gloom. His fingers drummed restlessly against his leg as Captain Levi's final orders echoed in his mind - wait, stay hidden, transform only as an absolute last resort. The words felt like chains around his throat, choking back the rage and helplessness that had become all too familiar since joining the Survey Corps.

The squad had pulled their horses into a natural alcove formed by massive, gnarled roots. Moss-covered bark rose around them like fortress walls, but the temporary shelter did little to ease Eren's growing unease. He couldn't shake the image of Anja from earlier - the eyepatch cutting a stark line across her face, that haunted look in her remaining eye, the strange metal framework binding her movements. What had happened to her in these past weeks?

She was chasing after that Female Titan too? He had already lost count of how many had fallen to defend them… To defend him… And he didn't fight back. In the end he wanted to think it was the right choice, they had managed to capture it after all.

"So... you guys knew about the plan?" The question slipped out before he could stop it. The plan to capture the Female Titan - it seemed too elaborate to have been improvised.

Oluo straightened in his saddle, that familiar self-important smirk crossing his weathered features. Grey was already creeping into his undercut despite his relative youth, though he'd probably claim the premature aging came from too many titan kills. "Of course we knew. I knew all along."

"We didn't," Gunther cut in flatly. The most level-headed of the squad kept his dark eyes fixed on the forest around them, broad shoulders tense beneath his cloak. Unlike Oluo, he wore his experience in his bearing rather than his boasts.

"Maybe you didn't, but I did." Oluo sniffed, adjusting his cravat with that affected gesture he'd picked up from trying to imitate the Levi. A thin trail of blood trickled from his lip - he'd probably bitten his tongue again.

Gunther's eyes narrowed slightly as he absently adjusted the strip of fabric holding back his dark hair. "Those at the site knew, those who've spent years in the Survey Corps, even before we arrived..."

"Who cares anyway?" Oluo interrupted, puffing up like an irritated bird. "None of them have as many kills as I do, except Captain Levi, of course."

"Don't listen to that idiot." Gunther's tone carried the bone-deep weariness of someone who'd watched too many friends die to have patience for false bravado.

"You wish you had as many kills as me."

"Whatever," Gunther sighed, turning to Eren with something like sympathy in his eyes. "My guess is the Commander only confided in the longest-serving veterans."

"But why didn't he tell you?" Eren pressed, trying to understand the layers of secrecy that seemed to suffocate everything in the Corps lately.

"Commander Erwin always has his reasons..." Gunther's expression darkened, shadows deepening the lines around his eyes. "To lure that titan into a trap like that... He probably suspected someone, a spy, it's the only reason I can think of. I hope they make that thing suffer. Too many died for this."

"What's that about a spy?" Oluo scoffed, though his hand unconsciously tightened on his reins. "Don't be ridiculous. Didn't we find out about who killed the research titans?"

"Research titans?" Eren leaned forward, but Oluo waved him off like an annoying child.

"Nothing that concerns you, brat."

Gunther shot Oluo a warning look before explaining, his voice pitched low enough that it barely carried past their small circle. "We managed to capture two titans in Trost. The Commander wanted to keep it quiet from the Military Police given the panic you caused with the military." His tone dropped even further. "Turns out they didn't last long in our captivity. They were killed by one of our own."

"He should have listened to Captain Levi," Oluo muttered, "That girl should never have been allowed to stay in the scouts."

"Maybe she had something to do with this?" Gunther mused, fingers drumming against his blade hilt.

"Who are you-" Eren started to ask, but something caught his attention.

A strange scent carried on the wind, acrid and wrong. "Something's on fire."

"Could be just a flare... Wait." Gunther tensed, scanning the canopy with the sharp eyes.

A scream hit them like a physical force - high and piercing, vibrating through the ancient trees until Eren's teeth ached. His blood ran cold with recognition, that same shout he'd heard in Trost rising up to choke him.

"What was that?" Gunther's hand moved to his blade, the steel whispering against its sheath.

"It sounded just like that in Trost..." Eren's voice was barely a whisper, memories of that day flooding back - the Armored Titan's burning orange eyes, that roar, the tide of titans retreating in a mindless stampede after it.

He continued. "When the Armored Titan was there," His fingers curled into fists, nails biting into his palms. "I remember hearing that, then all of sudden the titans started leaving the city."

"So that was why the district was empty when we got there..." Understanding dawned in Gunther's eyes.

Eren's hand rose to his mouth, teeth already aching with the need to transform. "We have to go back. I can fight!"

"Stay put, brat." Oluo's blade flashed between them, catching what little light filtered through the canopy. "You heard the Captain's orders. We have to wait for him. Besides, you can only transform as a last resort, don't push your luck."

"Captain Levi will come back..." Gunther didn't sound entirely convinced.

"What if he doesn't come back?" Eren demanded, rage blazing inside his chest. "Are you going to let him die?!"

Blue smoke trails suddenly pierced the canopy, their color stark against the forest's shadows like veins against pale skin.

"We're retreating," Gunther announced, relief cracking through his usual stoic mask. "They made it. Mission's over."

"That means they captured whoever was inside it, right?" Eren asked, his voice loud in the stillness.

"Shut up," Oluo hissed suddenly, tension rigid in his spine. "I hear something... Maybe it's the Captain."

Gunther's voice dropped, hand white-knuckled on his blade. "No... Captain Levi said he'd signal us... There's someone else. Who's there? Show yourself!"

The shadows between the trees seemed to deepen, as if the forest itself was holding its breath. Even the leaves had stopped their whispered conversations, leaving only the thunder of Eren's heart in his ears.

Through the gloom, something moved a silhouette that made no sound as it passed between each branch. But there was something wrong about the way it moved, as if its joints weren't quite connected properly, like a puppet with half its strings cut.

None of them noticed the black birds gathering silently above the tree cups, their eyes fixed on the scene below.

Watching. Waiting.

Eren's scream pierced the burning forest, twisting something primal in Anja's gut. She propelled herself through the smoke-filled air, each burst of gas from her ODM gear sending shards of pain through her ribs where the framework's broken pieces bit into flesh. The heat from burning trunks seared her lungs, while flickering firelight painted nightmarish shapes in the roiling smoke.

"It's not real," Heinrik's form shimmered beside her, his face a mirror of their mother's worry.

Another scream shattered his warning, closer now, filled with agony. The sound carried all of Eren's rage, his pain - too perfect to be false. She had to reach him.

"He needs you," a second Heinrik materialized on her right, his edges bleeding into the smoke like watercolor. Where the first's eyes held desperate concern, this one's gleamed with hunger. "They're tearing him apart while you waste time with doubt."

Movement caught her eye - bone-white fingers parting the smoke thin like a pale spider's legs. Anja twisted mid-air, letting momentum guide her blades through the pallid flesh. The severed fingers crumbled into black ichor that ate into the bark where it fell. The second Heinrik flinched as if the wound was his own.

"Help me!" Petra's voice cracked with terror somewhere behind her. Anja spun so hard her gear's cables groaned, but found only dancing shadows between the burning trees, there and gone.

"Help!" Armin this time, his cry carrying a desperate edge.

"Armin?!" Her voice broke as she searched the inferno below. "Where are you?!"

The cries multiplied, a chorus of familiar voices begging for aid from every direction. Mikasa, Sasha, Armin, Eren.

Anja pressed her hands against her ears, but the voices burrowed deeper.

Below, pale titans began to move with horrible purpose, climbing over each other like insects. Their bone-white flesh pulsed with black veins as they built a living ladder toward her perch. Hands reached up, fingers grasping at empty air where she'd been heartbeats before.

"Stay away!" She slashed desperately at the reaching limbs, each strike forcing her higher into the canopy. The pleading voices rose with her.

"Anja," the first Heinrik's voice. "Focus on me."

"You're so close, sister," the second one's words carried a promise. "He's waiting for you."

The writhing tower of titans suddenly collapsed, writhing across each other as they stood up in unison this time they did not try to climb again, they stood there, eyes fixed on her. Through the gap they left, she saw it - the titan from Trost. Its hairless head rose above the veil of smoke, its jaw beginning to open, hanging impossibly wide, black saliva dripping like tar between yellowed teeth. Black depthless eyes staring deep into her core.

Its distended belly shifted and bulged, something pressing agaist its ghostly flesh, as if something inside was fighting, clawing its way out.

"Get me out of here! Help!" Eren's voice echoed from that fathomless maw.

"He's in there, sister. With all the others" The second Heinrik's voice dripped with anticipation.

"Anja, please!" The first one's warning faded like smoke. "Don't look!"

"Don't you want to save your friends?"

Her feet carried her forward pulled by invisible strings. Dark liquid seeped steadily from beneath her eyepatch, each drop darkening the wood where it fell. The titan's jaw stretched wider, shadows within its throat writhing with terrible purpose. The screaming from inside grew more desperate, more familiar.

"Anja! Is that you, Anja? Help us!"

She found herself at the edge of that darkness, the forest no longer around her, she had been transported into another place entirely, her footsteps echoed as in vast cavern. Deep within that impossible void, a flash of auburn hair caught what light remained.

"Mom...?" The word broke from her throat like shattered glass as her swords slipped from numb fingers. "You can't be..."

"Anja, sweetie, it's me." Her mother's gentle voice drifted from the abyss, carrying all the warmth of childhood memories. "I'm right here."

Through the endless abyss, her mother's silhouette coalesced, though remaining tantalizingly out of reach. Her fiery hair captured impossible light, framing that beloved smile - the one that had chased away her nightmares and tucked her away to sleep. The sight made Anja's heart splinter with yearning.

"I've missed you so much," her mother's voice carried that familiar warmth. "You've grown into a lovely young woman."

"How is this possible?" Anja's words quavered in the emptiness. "How are you alive?"

"Alive?" Emma's head shifted with unnatural grace. "Oh no silly. I'm dead, just like you."

Anja's lungs seized. "W-what?"

"Yes, dead," her mother's expression contorted, teeth glinting like razors in the void. "Dead, as in buried six feet underground dead." What followed was no human sound - a grinding screech of metal on metal that masqueraded as laughter.

The creature observed her with clinical detachment. Its speech now emerged in fragmented bursts, like someone dissecting language itself.

"C-at got your ton-gue?" A pause, contemplative. "Is that the ex-pression, ex-pre-ssion? Well the other thing was too one, odd."

"Who are you?" Fear made Anja's voice brittle. "What do you want from me?"

"You?" Amusement twisted the creature's features, now erased, the face of her mother blurred, wrong. "What could we possibly want f-rom someone that doesn't exist?"

Anja lunged forward, taking back her weapons, but the gulf between them stretched endlessly. Like chasing the horizon - always in sight, forever beyond reach.

"Interesting this... Sp-eech..." The thing pondered. "Perhaps we have not mastered it yet."

"Let me out of here!"

"You resist," it observed with cold certainty. "Meat are not meant to... resist." The word seemed to fascinate it. "Resist. Re-sist. Curious."

Something beyond the abyss howled, as if reality itself was being rent apart.

"Meat should obey," it continued, its cadence deteriorating. "That is its purpose, obey."

Space folded between them as it closed the distance, studying her with eyes like empty wells.

"Resistance is... futile? Meaningless? Incorrect." It parsed meaning like a child with a puzzle, before making that jarring human gesture - a shrug that only emphasized its otherworldliness.

"Anja!" Heinrik's voice pierced the darkness like sunlight.

When she blinked, the thing now replaced by her brother's face stared back at her. "Why do you want to leave?"

Her mind filled with images of friends – the people she loved – the only people she had left. It harvested these thoughts, she felt as it plucked them with a thought, without notice it transformed those tender memories into a chorus of terror that echoed through the nothingness.

The void wavered at the edges, cracks spreading like ice over water. But the thing remained focused solely on her, unmoved by the dissolution of its domain.

"That's the sound they make when they meet us," it mused through Heinrik's lips. "But that's fine, we are not the same. You scurry about in that skin," its voice grew distant, contemplative. "A bag of blood, bone and thought. But they know what you are, don't they?"

The screams intensified as it invaded her space, right in front of her, but she couldn't so much as move a muscle.

"A monster." The declaration rang with finality.

"That's your nature, imp. Do you think they can't see it? The hollowness behind your eyes, the absence at your core?"

The abyss began disintegrating, light lancing through widening fissures.

"An example. They need examples. Why not? In the end, you'll always return. It's where you belong." Its voice fragmented like breaking glass. "No matter how you claw and scrape at the edges of their world, you'll never be one of them."

The darkness exploded outward, reality crashing back in waves of heat and light. Anja found herself sprawled on the forest floor amidst carnage - pale titans reduced to mutilated heaps, their essence seeping into scorched earth. The massive-jawed titan lay bisected, its remains dissolving into viscous darkness.

Anja pushed herself upright, each breath burning as smoke invaded her lungs. The fire had caught up to her, sap crackling in the heat as flames devoured the canopy above. Her fingers shook as she wiped viscous darkness from her skin, the entity's words fragmenting in her mind like broken glass - "a bag of blood and bone and thought."

She launched her ODM gear skyward, desperate to escape the flames and suffocating haze below. Pain shot through her battered frame with each anchor's impact, but the physical discomfort helped ground her in reality. Breaking through the smoke revealed a sky painted in warring colors - brilliant blue flares cutting through towering columns of ash.

"Heinrik?" The word dissolved in the vast emptiness above. "Are you there?"

Only silence answered. The absence of his presence felt wrong - like losing a limb she hadn't known she had. She touched her eyepatch, remembering the entity's words about hollowness. What had it meant about returning? About an example? Just as she remembered them she could feel them slipping away.

Green light bloomed against the smoke, another flare answering from somewhere distant. Without her flare gun, she remained incomunicated from her comrades. Was Petra searching for her? The thought of explaining what she'd witnessed in that vast emptiness made her throat close –that thing wearing her mother's face like an ill-fitting mask.

Movement drew her attention to the forest floor a figure in a Survey Corps green cloak gliding between burning trunks. Their hood concealing their features, but something about their movements tugged at her memory. She nearly called out but the memory of false voices crying for help made her hesitate.

The entity's final proclamation whispered in her mind: "You'll never be one of them."

The figure navigated deeper into the forest in direction towards the flare. Anja followed, keeping to the higher branches, torn between pursuit and caution.

From his perch, Erwin observed the frenzy below as titans devoured what remained of their captive. Steam mingled with wildfire smoke, shrouding the forest floor in an impenetrable haze, visibility had been reduced to mere meters. Despite accounting for every contingency, preparing for each possibility, the enemy had a few new tricks up their sleeves...

Levi touched down silently beside him, methodically wiping his blades clean. A flicker of annoyance crossed his otherwise stoic features. "The brass won't be happy. All those resources, those deaths - and nothing to show for it. They'll use this as an excuse to get their hands on the brat."

"We'll think of something on our way back." Erwin's eyes remained fixed on the steaming remains below. "Our enemy chose to take their secrets to the grave."

Something like satisfaction tugged at his mouth as pieces clicked into place, he was getting closer to the truth. The pale titans had emerged only after Wolf appeared.

"Tch. What's with that look?" Levi's eyes narrowed. "You're plotting something again."

"Our enemy just revealed how valuable Eren is to them. Valuable enough to sacrifice everything rather than to face capture."

"Well the Female Titan was definitely after him. Hard to tell if those freaks were after him or her though."

"We'll find out soon enough." something sparked in his mind as he surveiled the chaos below, they had provided the perfect cover...

Levi shifted his weight, preparing to depart. "I'm heading back to my team."

"Wait." Command resonated in Erwin's voice. "Replenish your gas and blades first."

"I have enough-"

"That's an order." His attention never wavered from the dissipating veil below, "The pale titans may have withdrawn, but they're still out there. And whoever was inside the Female Titan..." He chose each word carefully. "If Hange's assessment about them is correct, they could be perfectly equipped with ODM gear inside the titan, wearing our uniform. We can't afford to lower our guard, not with the long ride to Karanes ahead."

Levi studied him for a moment before clicking his tongue. "Fine. I trust your judgment."

Pain blazed through Petra's left arm with each movement of her ODM gear. The burning forest streaked past in a blur as she pressed forward, each landing sending fresh waves of agony through her shoulder. Nothing made sense anymore.

Captain Levi had always trusted her with critical information - why keep her blind about this plan to capture the titan? She would have guarded that secret with her life. She'd proven herself trustworthy time and again. Even though impersonating her had felt wrong, she'd kept that secret too. So why exclude her now?

Her charge had vanished into that dense forest, moving through the trees with unnatural grace. The shattered framework haunted Petra's thoughts – if that thing hadn't torn it apart... The whispers about what she herard of Anja echoed in her mind. Even if half of what Levi told her was true, they couldn't afford to have her roam around free.

A green flare pierced the smoke-filled sky. Her pulse quickened at the sight of her squadmates perched in the upper branches ahead. They had abandoned mounts, weapons drawn with white-knuckled intensity, faces twisted with horror.

"Petra!" Raw fear had stripped away Oluo's usual pretense. "Get up here, quick!"

She landed among them, swallowing back a cry of pain. "Are you all alright?" She scanned their faces, they all looked like they'd just seen a ghost. "What happened to your horses?"

"Nearby," Gunther said, his usual steadiness wavering, fractures showing in his tone. "We couldn't stay down there, too exposed."

"Did you just signal the Captain?"

"Yes…" Gunther shifted uneasily. "We are waiting for him."

"Stay alert," Oluo snapped, his gaze darting between shadows like a cornered animal.

"Since when are you so jumpy?" Petra attempted normalcy, though her own voice seeing the terror that had gripped her squadmates. "Don't tell me the great Oluo Bozado is scared of a few titans?"

"We saw Eld." Gunther's words struck like a physical blow.

Petra's lungs seized. "…What?"

"He was watching us." Oluo's voice cracked. "Just standing there, staring. Whatever it was wearing his face."

She remembered how he was taken by those sick titans, so similar to the ones they had just faced, its impossible that he had survived, not after so much time out here.

"But he's dead. You must have-"

"Damn it, Petra!" The raw anguish in Oluo's outburst made her flinch. "I know what I saw! We all saw it!"

"Miss Petra..." Eren's question carried a tremor. "Where's Anja? Wasn't she just with you?"

The question lingered unanswered in thickening darkness. Something shifted through the forest beyond their sight.

Anja had pursued the hooded figure as they wove between towering trunks. Their movements nagged at her memory, hauntingly recognizable. Free from the framework's constraints, she matched their swift pace, unease building in her gut as they ventured deeper into the gloom, directly in the direction of that flare.

Remnants of the green signal still lingered above, visible. The figure shifted direction subtly, was it going around? Anja followed, realizing too late how far they'd strayed from the others.

This couldn't be Petra… Neither, Captain Levi… Who was this?

Something kept poking at her thoughs, what Armin had said. The other intelligent titans, beings like Eren, one of them could be out here at this moment, the Colossal and Armored where still unaccounted for-

Before she could finish her thought, the forest opened before them. Her heart lifted at the sight of her comrades positioned above - Petra, Oluo, Gunther, and-

"Eren!" His name burst from her before she could catch it. In that instant, she realized her error.

The figure halted mid-flight not firing their anchors. For just a heartbeat, sunlight caught pale blonde hair beneath the hood. Then electricity cracked in the air as a sudden flash of lightning shattered the sky.

The blast ripped through bark and branch, sending splinters flying like shrapnel. As the steam cleared, crimson muscle stretched up, that distinctive blonde crown unmistakable. The Female Titan towered above them.

She had escaped?! How?!

"The Female Titan!" Terror echoed through the clearing.

"Eren, run!" Command fractured Gunther's voice.

"Protect him!" Petra surged forward, steel flashing. "It's after him!"

"We can take it down together!" Eren's fists clenched at his sides, rage burning in his chest. They'd trapped this titan once - united they could end this.

"No! Listen to us, brat, we know what we're doing!" Oluo's voice cracked with desperation.

"Eren, find your horse and get to safety!" Petra's command rang with authority. "Believe in us!"

Eren stood frozen, teeth grinding as his eyes drifted to Anja. He wanted to stay, to fight alongside them, but Captain Levi's words echoed in his mind, he had wanted to fight then when the Female Titan had pursued them, after it had killed comrade after comrade: "Either you believe in yourself or the soldiers of the Survey Corps. Just do your best to make a decision you won't regret."

With a snarl of suppressed fury, he turned and launched his ODM gear into the canopy.

"I trust you." He muttered to yourself.

Each burst of gas carried him further from the sounds of combat, his chest constricting as distance grew between him and his comrades. The soldier's of Team Levi were humanity's finest - chosen by Captain Levi himself. If anyone could handle this threat, it was them.

He pushed his equipment harder, scanning the darkening forest for his mount. They had trusted him before he owed them that much. The trees pressed closer, shadows pooling between massive trunks. Wrong silence filled the air - no birds, no clash of steel, only the whisper of his cables and the hiss of gas slicing through space.

Movement flickered at the edge of his vision. His pulse quickened as he caught glimpses of a figure matching his pace through the branches. Were they using ODM gear too? Each time he turned to track it, it vanished, only to get closer and closer, herding him deeper into the gloom.

That man that had been watching them? He'd followed him here? A missing comrade they'd said? Dead?

Time slowed as sunlight caught the edge of a blade. The figure stepped into view fully - Eld's face, he could clearly see his eyes, dark bottomless pits.

Levi's warning pounded in his skull: Transform only as a last resort. If your life is in danger.

But this thing, this mockery of a fallen comrade, left no choice.

Kill or be killed.

"I don't know what you are, but I'll tear you apart!"

His teeth tore into flesh. Blood flooded his mouth as static cackled around him, then lightning.

His titan's roar shook the forest as he swung with crushing force at the aberration.

It evaded his strike with inhuman grace, alighting on a branch. When it spoke, the voice froze his blood solid.

"Eren!" His mother's voice emerged from that wrong face.

Erwin's instincts had proven right again. Two explosions, two pillars of lightning had pierced the canopy - the Female Titan and Eren, most likely. The smoke was thickening, every second counted now. He trusted squad could hold their own against the Female Titan, but Eren...

The clearing ahead brought him to a halt, he'd left his mount with his team and now it lay among other fallen horses, their bodies mutilated beyond recognition. Deep gashes marred their flesh, edges blackened, dark ichor stained the wounds. He didn't stop to examine it closer, that told him enough - the pale titans were still around.

Their blood had left a trail, it thnned down to droplets as it marked a path deeper into the forest. The further he ventured, the larger the destruction became. Broken trees marked by combat, some split completely in half, others uprooted entirely. Steam rose from massive footprints seared into the earth. Whatever fight had happened here had been brutal and brief.

Then he saw it - Eren's titan form slumped against a broken timber . Blood and steam rose from countless lacerations, one shoulder ending in a ragged stump where an arm should have been. Methodical damage to incapacitate him? If they had wanted him dead they could have just gone for the nape.

Through the steam he caught sight of a figure, they approached Eren's prone form with measured steps. Wearing a tattered uniform hung from their frame, steaming blood-slicked blades gripped in scarred hands. Despite the distance, recognition stabbed through Levi's chest.

No matter, Eren was the priority. Neutralize the threat, ask questions later.

He swept in low, blades ready.

I'll end this quickly.

The figure turned at the last possible second, and Levi's heart stuttered.

Eld Jinn stared back at him – or something wearing Eld's skin. His squad member's once-vibrant face now bore a waxy pallor, his blonde hair matted with blood and forest debris. Black voids staring deep into his soul where amber eyes should be.

No time for hesitation. His blades struck true, opening Eld's throat in a spray of black blood. The head lolled to the side, nearly severed as the body crumpled to the forest floor with a dry thud.

Levi flicked his blade clean, something hollow opening in his chest. That man had fought at his side for years, he had failed to rescue him when those things took him…

"What did those things do to you?"

He closed his eyes for a second and turned toward Eren's titan wreathed in steam, already thinking the fastest way to extract him from the titan's nape. Behind him, cloth rustled as the body rose. A woman's voice emerged from behind him - a voice he hadn't heard in years, one that haunted his dreams.

"Levi..."

Petra surged forward despite her injured arm, cables singing as she aimed for the Female Titan's flank. Anja's breath caught as she recognized that defensive stance - the subtle weight shift, the coiled tension. Annie's stance? She'd seen her take this exact position countless times during training.

"Look out!" Anja launched herself toward Petra as the Titan's leg blurred into motion. At the last possible moment, the kick redirected, missing both of them by inches.

The hesitation cost the Female Titan dearly as Oluo's blades carved deep into her calf, sending steaming blood spraying across the bark.

"Anja, what are you doing? Get back!" Petra's voice cut through billowing steam, but explanation would have to wait.

"Don't let it get away!" Gunther led the charge, his strikes forcing the Titan further off balance. "We end this here!"

The Titan moved with the grace of a practiced fighter, yet something felt deeply wrong. Each time Anja entered its range, attacks that should have been fatal turned into glancing blows. The squad seized every opening, their coordinated assault leaving the Titan no time to recover.

"You thought you could mess with us bitch?!" Oluo's fury echoed as he carved as vapor rose from the wound.

"Isabel?"

Her face emerged through dissipating steam with haunting clarity – he had forgotten just how similar Anja looked to her. Every detail was perfect. Her auburn pigtails, that youthful face he'd seen mangled and lifeless in the mud six years ago, half-devoured by titans. This had to be a nightmare born out of guilt and unspoken regrets.

"I thought... I thought you'd never come..." Her voice carried that familiar street-tough optimism, the kind even a life in the Underground couldn't extinguish.

Memories Levi had buried deep crashed over him - his first expedition beyond the walls, the downpour that had masked the titans' approach, discovering their shattered bodies scattered across blood-soaked grass. His greatest failure. He'd promised to protect them, that they'd finally leave that filth of a place... He'd just led them into danger, from the Underground into the Survey Corps, only to arrive too late to save them from the titans.

"We waited for you..." She took a small step forward, Isabel's head tilting just like she always used to. "Furlan and I... He said you'd rescue us... I thought so too."

"It was cold... So cold..." Each word pierced him like frozen needles. "Why did you take us there?"

"We could have stayed home... Together... All of us..."

It raised its face, and where Isabel's bright green eyes should have been, only black eyes stared back. The thing wearing her face lunged at him without warning with inhuman speed.

That's not Isabel. Isabel died in the rain that day. He'd left her broken body to the titans, he had no choice.

Levi's body responded on instinct, faster than thought - but something felt wrong. The creature's movement was too precise, its trajectory slightly unnatural. He sidestepped, his blade carving through its arm in a clean arc. But as the severed limb fell, he didn't notice its other hand already snatching a fresh blade from his scabbard.

Black blood welled from its fingers as it gripped the blade's edge without regard for pain.

Targeting the limbs is useless. It collapsed when I cut its throat before. If I cut its head off, then maybe…

"Tch. So that was your plan." Levi's eyes narrowed on the weapon in its grasp as they began to circle each other. If this thing had managed to take down Eren, he couldn't afford to underestimate it. One false step—that's all it would take.

The creature's mask of emotion had vanished, replaced by cold, predatory focus. Isabel's face now looking like ill-fitting skin.

"Done pretending?" Levi matched its measured pace, each waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

"Got me there for a second, you ugly freak." He'd buried too many comrades to count, watched countless uniforms soaked in blood. The familiar hollowness in his chest was almost comforting now a reliable companion in a world that kept taking. "It won't happen again."

Movement behind - Eren's titan was stirring. The thing's head snapped toward the sound, those bottomless eyes finding new prey.

Now

He lunged, blades aiming toward its neck.

Its attention returned instantly. It twisted, deliberately taking his blades in its chest rather than its throat.

Too late. The trap was already sprung—stolen steel flashed toward his leg.

Agony blazed through muscle as the blade struck home. But Levi didn't hesitate. In one motion, he detached his embedded swords, drawing fresh blades, cutting its head before it could press its advantage.

The body collapsed, dissolving into black liquid that seeped into the earth.

Just another stain among many in this cursed earth.

He assessed his leg with clinical detachment. The wound ran deep but wouldn't cripple him. He could still move, proper treatment would have to wait, he had to get Eren out before more of these things appeared.

The pale titans always returned, if this thing was one of them he couldn't fight it in this condition.

He moved toward Eren's steaming form, trying not to think about Isabel's voice, about the weight of failures that never truly faded.

The mission came first. It always had.

A synchronized strike from Petra and Gunther severed crucial tendons, forcing the Titan to brace against a massive trunk. Steam poured from a dozen major wounds as the Female Titan struggled to maintain her guard. Her movements grew increasingly desperate as the damage mounted, regeneration failing to keep pace with Team Levi's relentless assault.

Through the rising haze, the Titan pressed its remaining hand against its nape, elbow raised in a stance that made Anja's muscles ache with phantom memory. She'd been on the receiving end of this counter hundreds of times in the training yard.

Pure instinct drove her as Anja's blades cut into the elbow joint before the strike could land. Gunther capitalized immediately, steel flashing across the Titan's right eye. As blood and steam fountained from the wound, that massive head turned toward her.

Their eyes met for the first time across the chaos.

The world stopped breathing.

Icy blue depths. Eyes she had seen brighten with rare smiles, narrow in concentration, soften in fleeting moments of quiet. Eyes that shouldn't be here. Not in this forest. Not in this Titan.

Annie.

Why? This couldn't be true. She was supposed to be safe in the Military Police. Far from this violence. Far from this death.

Petra struck again, taking the other eye. Steam erupted from the wound as the titan pressed her back against a tree, now blind and vulnerable.

"Keep your guard up." Rain drummed against the training ground as Annie's hands guided Anja's into position, her touch surprisingly gentle. "You're stronger than you think. You just need to believe it like I do."

In her mind the titan blurred away. All that remained was Annie's face, staring back at her. Steam continued to rise from fresh wounds as Petra and Oluo circled for another strike.

In that alley, two starving refugees huddled in the dark. Annie wordlessly broke her last scrap of bread in half. When Anja tried to refuse, Annie's eyes softened. "You need to keep your strength up. We watch each other's backs, remember?"

"Don't wanna fight anymore?!" Oluo's screamed as his blades cut a line through Annie's flesh

Outside the infirmary, Annie's voice barely above a whisper. "I know what it's like, we all have our demons. The parts of ourselves we're afraid to face. You're not a monster, Anja. You never were."

Blood sprayed as Gunther's attack tore through the muscles of Annie's remaining arm. The limb falling limp at her side, leaving her nape unguarded as she slumped against the tree, defenseless, vulnerable.

"You're a survivor, just like me..." Trost. Warm tears falling against Anja's cheek as consciousness slipped. Annie's fingers, gripping hers so tightly it hurt. "Please... just stay with me."

Another wound. Another strike. "This is for our comrades!"

At the memorial service, Annie stood by Anja as the pyres burned, her hand resting on her shoulder. Her grip was firm. "You have to survive. For them. For me."

Steam billowed as they carved deeper into Annie's flesh. Anja could barely see through her tears.

"I'm sorry." Annie's voice cracked as she half-carried Anja back to the barracks. Something like grief flickered across Annie's face. "I can't be the person you want me to be. I wish... I wish I could." Her voice came out low, strained with pain. 'Maybe... it would be better for everyone if I just... disappeared.'"

She remembered the last words Annie had said to her, outside Hange's tent. "I have to go." She couldn't meet Anja's eyes, her shoulders tight with some unspoken burden.

If Anja had known it was goodbye...

"Die monster!" Gunther and Oluo struck in perfect sync, their blades severing the titan's neck at its base.

"I made a promise," Annie had confessed one dusk years ago, something raw and vulnerable cracking through her careful mask. "To my father. I swore I'd return to him, no matter what. Even if it means becoming something I—"

She'd stopped, turning away to hide the tears Anja had pretended not to see. "Just... remember me as I am now. Please."

The Titan's form collapsed forward. They moved toward the nape with deadly purpose.

They were wrong.

Annie wasn't a monster.

She was the one who'd saved Anja from herself, who'd taught her to fight, to survive. Who'd looked at Anja's darkness and never turned away. Who'd protected her, again and again, even when Anja after she had lost control and nearly killed her.

"Annie…" The name broke from her throat like shattered glass as she reached toward the steam, fingers stretching desperately for her friend. Through the haze of tears and rising steam, she could almost imagine touching Annie's hand one last time, could almost feel that gentle strength that had guided her through countless training sessions. This couldn't be happening.

One regenerated eye fixed on her, filled with such profound sorrow it made Anja's heart shatter. In that gaze was every unspoken word, every moment they'd never get to share, every question that would remain forever unanswered.

"Stop! Don't do it! Please!" Her shout was drowned out by the sickening sound of blades slicing through flesh as she moved toward the nape, but Petra grabbed her arm.

Anja shoved her aside, rushing desperately toward Annie.

The nape split open, revealing Annie's human form, unconscious and exposed.

A single tear traced down her cheek as Gunther's blade descended toward her heart.

No time for goodbyes. No time for understanding why. Annie's eyes fluttered open weakly, meeting Anja's with such raw pain that it felt like dying.

Her own blades clattered to the dirt. Something else broke free with them - a familiar crimson haze creeping into the edges of her vision, bringing with it the copper taste of violence.

Annie was dying right in front of her, and she helped to make it happen.

Helped kill the one person who'd truly understood her, without ever knowing why.

They'll kill her. They're going to kill Annie.

The world bled red.

Fran Gark · Sunday at 4:01 AM

Chapter XXIX: Everything's Different Now

Pain came first.

Anja's eyes cracked open to a sky she barely recognized—the sun a dim blur through thick smoke. Her ribs stabbed with each breath, her body a solid mass of bruises. The world seemed somehow askew, as if reality itself had shifted while she slept.

She blinked hard, trying to orient herself. The rough bark against her back, the gentle sway beneath her—it took her an unsettling moment to register that she was in a tree. That should have been obvious. Why wasn't it obvious?

When she tried to sit up, pain lanced through her torso, white-hot, leaving her gasping. Her shirt hung in tatters, stiff with dried blood, but someone had bandaged her worst wounds with torn strips of green fabric. A cloak? Her hands traced the makeshift bandages with unsteady fingers, unable to remember applying them herself. Had she done this herself? The thought sent a chill through her. If she had, she didn't remember.

What did she remember?

The expedition. Heading east through titan territory. Then—fire. Smoke. Screaming. Blood.

A wet, gurgling sound that made bile rise in her throat.

She gasped, choking on nothing. The memory slid away like oil over water, leaving only a sick, hollow feeling behind.

Below, the Forest of Giant Trees stretched out in ruin: burned stumps still smoking, the air heavy with the stench of charred flesh. Not wood. Flesh. A smell she recognized with disturbing familiarity.

A small pack lay beside her, stocked with water and rations. Her ODM gear remained strapped to her, beaten but not broken. The gas level was low. Maybe enough to reach the ground.

Something shifted nearby.

"You're awake."

Anja jerked backward, nearly losing her balance. Pain exploded through her side,as a scream died in her throat, becoming a ragged wheeze. The world tilted and spun, shadows crawling at the edges of her vision.

When her vision cleared, Heinrik perched on a nearby branch.

"No!" The rejection burst from her before conscious thought. Pure instinct, born of absolute certainty that something was wrong about his presence.

Her fingers dug into the bark, splinters biting deep. He looked real. Too real. He wasn't supposed to look like that. Usually, she could see through him, his body half-there, flickering in and out like mist. But now… solid. Too solid.

"Stay back," she rasped, the words scraping her throat.

Heinrik remained still, a flicker of something crossing his face—not anger, not fear. Something quieter, almost like hurt.

"I don't..." His brow furrowed. "I don't remember enough to prove it's me."

As if responding to her doubt, his form wavered—chest turning transparent for a heartbeat before solidifying again.

"But if I was that thing," he said, "we wouldn't be having this conversation."

That thing?

—A void, infinite and cold. Her mother's voice, wrong somehow, twisted. Her face ill-fitting, like a mask worn by someone who didn't understand how faces worked. Then Heinrik, similarly distorted.

Something about his current uncertainty felt genuine, though. The entity had been confident, precise in its cruelty. This Heinrik looked as lost as she felt.

"How did I get here?"

He hesitated, eyes darting to the burned forest below. "We need to move."

A sharp pulse of irritation flared through her. "No. Did you bring me here? Answer me."

His hands curled into fists. "I would tell you if I could."

The quiet frustration in his voice startled her. Heinrik was never frustrated, never uncertain. Yet his gaze kept searching the ashes below, vigilant for something unseen.

"Do you remember when it took you?" he asked softly. "It led you there."

Another memory surfaced—moving at full speed through the forest, chasing a distant figure. Then... entering a pale titan's mouth willingly, nothing but the void of its maw before her. The memory was too vivid, too senseless to be fabricated.

"I know it," he muttered, more to himself than her. "That place. I managed to get you out."

Her stomach twisted. "What place?"

—Pale titans, a dozen of them, suddenly turning on each other, tearing one another apart. The titan where she was imprisoned tore open its own belly, her unconscious body dropping from its bowels to the forest floor. She coughing that black liquid as she awakened, tasting rot and sweetness.

Revulsion swept through her as the memory solidified.

"I was a prisoner to it too," Heinrik said, his voice hollow. "I was there for so long it's all I can remember. That void where it took you."

Anja clutched her head, suddenly aware of her hands—cut and filled with dried blood even under her fingernails. They didn't look right, as if they belonged to someone else.

"This can't be real," she whispered. "None of this is... You are not real! I'm going insane..."

"It's what I thought too," Heinrik said, his voice barely audible. "Stuck in that never-ending nightmare, I had forgotten who I was. Even now my..." He trailed off, frustration and fear crossing his face as he struggled for words. "My memories... I've forgotten most of them. I don't remember much beyond that void, not even who I was, until I heard your voice."

He took a tentative step closer. Anja pressed her back against the tree trunk, having nowhere else to retreat.

"You think I am not him... Is that it?" His eyes searched hers. "I don't know what that thing did to me, Anja, all I know is that I once made a promise to you. When I found you, pieces started coming back." He swallowed hard. "I promised I'd protect you, that I'd always come back to you..."

Tears traced hot paths down Anja's blood-smeared cheeks. "You never came back! You are dead..." The words felt true, a certainty amid confusion. "They told me..."

He had gotten closer now, not threatening, but near enough that she could see the subtle shifts in his form—solid one moment, translucent the next.

"It's not your fault," he said gently. "I had no control before, but you helped me escape. Don't you remember?"

Heinrik's form flickered again, like a reflection in troubled water. He opened his mouth, then closed it. His hands trembled visibly now.

Her pulse pounded in her ears.

"But we haven't freed ourselves from it yet," he continued, voice tight. "It used me to get to you. In my eagerness to find you, I never realized I took it with me..."

"And unlike me... It's out there... Following you. That's why you can't stay here."

The rational part of her mind asserted itself despite her fear. Regardless of whether she believed him, she couldn't stay here. And Heinrik's demeanor didn't lie—he was genuinely afraid.

She forced herself to move, testing her gear. Every motion sent fire through her ribs, but she clenched her jaw and pushed through it.

She anchored her cables to the trunk. "How do you know it's following us?"

He let out a slow breath. "I just do."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I have."

She bit back a curse and began her descent, each movement a negotiation with pain. The cables hummed as they bore her weight, the familiar sound wrong, like an instrument played out of tune.

"That thing," she muttered between controlled breaths, "It said I belonged with it. That I belonged to that place."

A silence stretched between them. Too long. Too heavy.

Heinrik's form flickered violently. "Then it wants for you the same it wanted for me." His voice sounded different now—frayed, stretched thin. "I can feel it pulling me back there still. I can't..." His words came faster now, unsteady. "I won't go back. You can't let it take you there again."

Her hands were slick with sweat, making her grip treacherous. She had to focus, had to maintain control of her descent. With each meter closer to the ground, the air grew thicker with ash and the stench of death. Her lungs burned. Her eyes watered. But she couldn't stop now.

The branch above her creaked and shuddered. A warning.

She released the cables and dropped the final few meters. Her boots hit the ground, kicking up a cloud of ash. The impact rattled through her bones, but a deeper ache gnawed at her—a hollow feeling that had nothing to do with her injuries.

Something caught her eye— hanging from a low twig was a scout cloak, half-burnt, cinders still clinging to the fabric like dying fireflies. Recognition slammed into her. She wasn't alone. There were others. Why weren't they here? She had been with Petra, with Armin, Reiner. Then she remembered seeing Eren, in the forest, his face contorted in—

She turned, scanning the wasteland. "The others." Her voice cracked. "Petra, Armin, Eren—everyone. They have to be out here."

"Anja..." Heinrik's expression darkened. "There's no one left to find."

Something about the way he said it made her stomach drop.

His voice was too quiet. Too certain.

"You're lying."

He wouldn't meet her eyes.

Panic clawed up her throat. The memories still wouldn't settle, shifting like sand through her fingers. Why couldn't she remember? Why did it feel like something was pressing against her mind, forcing her to forget?

"What aren't you telling me?" she demanded.

Heinrik's form wavered again, his edges dissolving into the smoke. "Some things are better left buried."

She shook her head. "Please, I need to know—"

"Anja." His voice was barely there. "You don't want to remember."

But she was already moving, calling out names that echoed back unanswered. Behind her, Heinrik flickered like a dying flame, growing dimmer with each step she took.

The world had been reduced to piles of ash, cinder and smoke.

Anja moved through the ruined forest, each step sending up small clouds of gray dust that clung to her blood-stained clothes and skin. The boots she wore—were they even hers? Sank slightly with each step, the ground still warm beneath her soles. In the distance, embers glowed like dying stars, the fire still consuming what little remained.

Heinrik followed silently, his form occasionally wavering, always watching with that same uncertain expression.

The devastation was absolute. Centuries-old trees stood as blackened pillars or lay collapsed across her path, forming barriers she had to climb over, each movement sending fresh pain through her injured body. The smell overwhelmed her senses—charred wood mixed with something far worse, an acrid sickly-sweet stench that made her throat constrict. She knew that smell from Trost and before? Burnt human flesh.

Through gaps in the thick smoke, she glimpsed titans in the distance. Normal ones—seven, ten, fifteen-meter classes—standing or sitting motionless among the destruction, their bodies covered in ash, faces blank and uncomprehending. They showed no interest in her.

"I told you," Heinrik said quietly from somewhere behind her. "You won't find anyone here."

Anja ignored him, pushing forward. The path beneath her feet had started to take shape, stone pavers emerging where ash had blown away. Strange how her feet seemed to know this route, even as her mind struggled to recall why she was following it. A thin trail of blood marked her passage, dripping from reopened wounds.

Something pulled her forward—not just Heinrik's insistent presence, but a need to know. To remember.

Her foot caught on something hidden beneath the ash—metal that gave off a dull, muted sound. Crouching, she brushed away the gray powder to reveal a twisted cable with a warped hook.

The trap...

The Female Titan immobilized by dozens of steel cables, arms and legs secured at multiple points.. Captain Levi perched atop her head. They had captured the monster who had killed so many of their comrades.

But then—

The ground shaking. Pale forms emerging, their bodies wrong. Scouts and horses scattering in fear.

Anja's hand trembled as she touched the twisted metal, memories returning not in sequence but in pieces. She passed by the holes they'd left in the earth, half-filled with ash but still visible. Like wounds in the forest floor, each crater marked where one of those things had burst from.

She stood, continuing through the wasteland. With each step, her breaths grew more ragged, not just from exertion but from the pressure building in her mind. She remembered the fire now—how it had spread through the forest, scouts fleeing in all directions, many cut down by titans before they could escape. The Female Titan still trapped at the center of it all, struggling against her restraints as flames licked at her raw skin.

But she'd chased something, someone?

Her foot struck another object buried in the ash. Something larger, more solid than the cable. She knelt, hands sweeping the loose layer of ash aside, revealing dark fabric beneath—she could make out what remained of the wings of freedom, what remained of a cloak, still attached to its owner.

Anja's breath caught in her throat as she uncovered more. The body lay facedown, charred, parts of the jacket fused with scorched skin. With trembling hands, she turned the corpse over.

The face was half-burnt, features distorted by fire, but enough remained to recognize Gunther. His uniform was blackened and brittle, but through the damage, she could see a gaping hole in his chest—a wound that matched nothing a titan would inflict. Not a bite mark, not a crushing injury.

A puncture wound.

The sight triggered a memory that hit her with such physical force that she stumbled backward:

Annie, defenseless in the nape of her titan, eyes wide and fixed on Anja. Gunther standing over her, blade plunging toward Annie's chest.

Crimson filling Anja's vision. Her body moving without thought or hesitation, covering the distance in an eyeblink. The resistance of his body giving way beneath her fingers. The warm rush of blood over her arm. His eyes, wide, barely comprehending what had struck him. The sound he made—not quite a word, not quite a scream.

The ash beneath her hands felt suddenly hot. She scrambled away from Gunther's body, leaving long tracks in the gray powder.

"No," she gasped. "No, no, no..."

But the floodgates had opened. More memories crashed through:

Oluo's cry as Gunther fell. His blade cutting into her shoulder. The odd sensation of feeling the wound but not the pain. Grabbing his arm before he could strike again, squeezing until bone splintered beneath her grip. His sword clattering to the forest floor as he screamed.

Petra charging forward, a blade piercing Anja's stomach. The sound of Oluo's body hitting a tree as she tossed him aside. Petra's eyes widening as Anja pulled the blade from her own body, blood spraying across the ground between them.

The relentless attack that followed. Petra's perfect defense crumbling under the onslaught, each wound slowing her movements until Anja severed her hand at the wrist. Petra backing against a tree trunk, clutching her bleeding stump, amber eyes wide with terror.

Oluo, somehow still alive, lunging from behind with a knife that plunged between Anja's ribs.

Once. Twice. Thrice.

"Traitor!"

A hot coal of pain throbbed in her side, where those stab wounds would have been. She pressed her hand there, feeling the tacky blood still seeping from her injuries.

Oluo beneath her. The weight of her body pinning him down. Her hands breaking him piece by piece. The strange ecstasy as her teeth found his throat, tearing flesh from bone. Black liquid seeping from her mouth into his wounds. His body spasming, then stilling.

Anja retched, doubling over as her empty stomach heaved. Nothing came up but thin bile that burned her throat. The forest floor beneath her rippled and swam as tears blurred her vision.

The sound of metal scraping against the ground. Stopping her feast.

Annie. Standing next to her steaming titan, clutching a fallen blade. Burn marks seared under her eyes, steam curling from her body's wounds. Her blue eyes locked onto her.

Anja..."

Something shifting inside of her at the sound of her voice. The blood filled vision receding, leaving only pain and confusion. Her body, suddenly aware of its wounds, faltering. Falling.

"What have I done?"

"I killed them," she whispered, her voice breaking. "I killed them all."

"You did," Heinrik confirmed, his voice devoid of judgment.

"She was the Female Titan!" Anja cried, raising her now ash-covered face. "Why would I—"

"Because you knew," Heinrik said simply. "Some part of you understood what they'd do to her."

Anja shook her head violently, sending ash flying from her hair. "No..." But she knew it was true. Even so, it brought no comfort. Annie had fought them. Had killed so many to reach Eren. What reason could possibly justify that?

Had she protected a killer? A friend? An enemy? Or all at once?

The wind carried ash across the forest floor, erasing her footprints as quickly as she made them. Around her, the forest groaned, damaged trees creaking as if still in pain from the inferno that had consumed them.

And what of her? A murderer. A freak. A danger to anything she touched.

She pushed herself to her feet, swaying slightly. "It was right about me," she whispered. "I'm a monster."

She thought of the void, that cold emptiness that had imprisoned Heinrik. "If I let it take me there..." Her voice trailed off. Maybe that was where she belonged—locked away where she couldn't hurt anyone else.

"You cannot believe what it says," Heinrik said sharply, his form solidifying as he stepped closer.

She wasn't convinced. The thing had felt beyond human deception. Could something like that even understand what lying was?

"It will say anything, make you believe anything just to get to you," Heinrik insisted. "It said you were a monster? Monsters don't feel sadness or regret. It is one, you are not. Surrendering to it won't make your actions go away." His voice was steady, calm. Not accusing. Not judging. "You're still here. You still have a choice."

Anja stared at the ash covering her hands. "To do what?" she whispered.

"That's for you to decide."

She swallowed hard. Her mind felt fractured, tangled in too many thoughts. She had killed her own comrades—there was no justification for that.

"I should turn myself in," she whispered, barely audible over the creaking of charred wood. "Tell them what I did."

"And what will that accomplish?" Heinrik asked.

"Justice," she said, the word hollow even to her own ears.

"Justice," he echoed. "Or punishment? There's a difference."

Anja stared at Gunther's charred body, guilt weighing on her like a physical presence. But a question scratched at her mind:

Why?

Why had Annie done it? She had been willing to sacrifice everything... To find Eren? What purpose could possibly be worth all this death?

The question grew, pushing against her self-loathing, demanding attention. Annie wasn't one to act without reason.

And if she was after Eren, then it was only a matter of time before she made another move. And the Scouts whether they knew who she was or not—wouldn't stop either. They had already tried to capture her and kill her once. Sooner or later, they would clash again.

No matter what happened, more people would die. More friends. More innocents.

"Maybe I'm the only one she'd explain herself to," Anja said quietly. "She didn't try to kill me when she had the chance." The realization struck her with sudden force. Annie had every opportunity to finish her when she collapsed, yet here she was, alive. Had Annie helped her somehow?

She looked westward, any remaining Scouts would have returned to Karanes. Maybe Annie followed too? A thin line of smoke marked its position on the horizon.

Heinrik followed her gaze. "I don't like it," he said, "but it's better than staying here." He glanced at the scorched landscape. "At least the fire did you one service—there's nothing left to show what happened. Nothing anyone could recognize."

The words made her stomach turn. Was this what she'd become? Someone who should be grateful that evidence of her crimes had been destroyed? But a part of her understood. If no one knew what she'd done, she could still help. Still try to make things right.

The conflict twisted inside her—she knew she'd have to atone eventually, face judgment for what she'd done. But if finding Annie meant preventing more pointless death, she'd endure the weight of her guilt a while longer.

She had to find Annie. Before anyone else did.

Sunset bled across the sky over Karanes District, painting the outlines of the wall in shades of amber and crimson. Armin leaned against the cold stone, watching most of the surviving Scouts pass through the inner gate, faces drawn and shoulders slumped. Some limped, others were carried.

So few had returned. Far too few.

Armin's fingers tightened around the strap of his gear. This wasn't just a failed expedition—it was a catastrophe. The kind that ended careers.

"They'll use this," he murmured, watching a group of civilians gather, their faces cycling between pity, anger, and that ever-present fear. "The Military Police have been waiting for something like this."

Every death would be counted, every resource scrutinized against results that amounted to nothing but questions and death.

He glanced toward the small medical outpost where Eren was being kept. Mikasa hadn't left his side since they'd returned. She stood sentinel outside, always so calm. Armin knew her well enough to see the storm brewing beneath the surface—fear for Eren, fury at those who had put him in danger, and a cold determination to prevent it from happening again.

Commander Erwin had allowed them to stay behind rather than forcing them back to headquarters with the others. A small mercy, given what awaited them—interrogations, blame, and almost certainly renewed demands to hand Eren over.

But Armin couldn't leave yet.

His fingers tightened on the worn leather strap of his gear, the material creaking softly. The weight of it pressed against his bruised hip as he pushed himself away from the wall, wincing at the stiffness in his muscles. Out in the field, survival had kept it all down. The adrenaline had faded, leaving every muscle aching.

He'd already given his report to Commander Erwin—the Female Titan's intelligence, its intent. His suspicion: it was human, like Eren. Maybe that was why the Comnander had confided in him. Or maybe he had no better option.

The leader of the Scouts hadn't been surprised. No one could have predicted this, but all planned based on their own assumptions, didn't they?

Armin hoped his were wrong. That something could still be salvaged.

But the Commander wasn't the type to give up easy. Armin understood that sacrifices had to be made. But could he ever make that choice himself?

His feet carried him past the empty storage building. For the greater good? For someone else? How far would he go?

The wind shifted, carrying the distant smell of smoke. Armin's boots scraped against the cobblestones as he walked toward the cluster of officers near the gate. Captain Levi sat apart from the others on a wooden crate, his face impassive as a medic finished changing the bandages on his leg.

Armin hesitated, then approached. "Sir."

Levi glanced up, eyes flat and unreadable. "Arlert."

"How are you holding up?" The question felt inadequate, but Armin couldn't find better words.

Levi's mouth twitched, almost a grimace. "I've had worse."

Silence settled between them, broken only by the distant voices of soldiers loading the dead onto carts, their movements methodical, weary. Sheets rustled as bodies were covered, the heavy thud of boots against the dirt punctuating the grim task. Armin's fingers worked against the leather strap, a nervous gesture he couldn't quite suppress.

"What will happen to Eren? To the Scouts?" The question emerged softer than he intended.

Levi's gaze sharpened, something flickering behind his usual detachment. "The way things are looking, they'll probably dissect the brat." He paused, eyes flicking toward the medical outpost before returning to Armin. "As for us, can't say it's looking good either."

"But he didn't harm anyone. And we've made significant discoveries." Armin's hand instinctively moved toward his pocket, where he'd stored his notes about the expedition. "Those titans you faced—Section Commander Hange brought back samples, didn't she?"

A torch flared nearby, casting Levi's face in stark relief. Though his expression remained controlled, Armin noticed the subtle tension in his jaw, the slight narrowing of his eyes.

"It's not enough," Levi said, voice low enough that it wouldn't carry to the nearby soldiers. "We haven't confirmed the Female Titan's identity, nor what those things are. Without concrete evidence, the Military Police will dismiss it all as secondary to our failure."

His gaze drifted toward the medical quarters, where moans occasionally punctuated the evening air. "Humanity's supposed weapon hasn't proven indispensable yet. They'll play dirty—pin everything on Eren and Erwin while they are at it."

Levi looked down briefly, then toward Mikasa's distant figure outside the outpost. She was clutching her scarf tightly, her posture rigid. Something in Levi's expression shifted. "I did my part. Many gave their lives protecting him. Don't forget that." The words held no accusation, only finality. "Now the responsibility falls to you and her."

Levi's eyes flicked to the cart of bodies as it began to leave, the horses pulling it slowly. His gaze lingered, a quiet solemnity in his eyes.

Armin felt a weight settle in his chest. The taste of ash lingered on his tongue—whether from the distant forest or his own fear, he couldn't tell.

"Are you alright..." he began carefully, "after losing them?"

The question hung in the cooling air. Levi's eyes drifted toward the horizon, where smoke still rose from the distant forest, like a dark banner against the darkening sky. The wind tugged at his cloak, exposing the worn edges where the fabric had frayed.

"Every Scout goes through it," Levi said, his voice flat, with no emotion to soften it. "You either find a reason to keep going, or you break."

For a moment, something flickered in his eyes, but it was gone before Armin could place it. "The dead don't carry those burdens."

Armin nodded, his eyes fixed on the cart as it slowly passed through the gates, the weight of the bodies carried within a silent reminder of the cost. The horses' hooves struck the ground softly,

"We keep fighting for them." he said quietly.

"Yeah..." Levi's gaze softened just a fraction as he watched the survivors being treated in the medical quarters. "For them, and those who still live."

His voice dropped lower. "You'll learn that the answer isn't always clear. Choosing is easy. Living with the consequences—the people you lose, the sacrifices you make—that's the hard part. In the end, it's not about the choice. It's being able to live with it, without regret."

The words settled in Armin's chest like stones. His fingers stilled on the strap, a decision crystallizing in his mind. "I'll stand watch on the eastern wall tonight," he said, unconsciously straightening his posture despite his exhaustion.

"Go ahead." Levi nodded, pressing a hand against his bandaged leg as he adjusted his position. "It's protocol to have someone watch, anyway. But no one ever comes back after something like this." He offered no false comfort.

As Armin turned to leave, Levi's voice stopped him.

"Arlert. Just so you know, tomorrow we'll have to hand Eren over. There'll be another trial." His tone held no uncertainty about the expected outcome. "Unless we come up with something concrete, there'll be little we can do."

"I understand, sir." A muscle in Armin's jaw tightened, though his expression remained neutral.

"It's a waste of time in my opinion, but what else is there to do?" Levi shifted his weight onto his good leg. "I'll have someone on standby." Without another word, he turned and limped away.

Armin gave a slight nod, more to himself than anyone else, as the implications settled in. He turned toward the eastern wall, his steps steady but his thoughts anything but. Night was settling over Karanes, torches and lanterns casting pools of light between deepening shadows. From atop the wall, he watched the streets below before lifting his gaze outward. Beyond the gate, the abandoned town was barely visible in the darkness, though he could make out the lumbering shapes of titans still wandering aimlessly.

The night air carried a chill that seeped through his uniform, but he barely noticed. His mind kept returning to Levi's words. A few hooded figures moved between buildings below, citizens or perhaps soldiers seeking shelter from the growing cold.

His gaze drifted to the few titans lingering outside the walls, their forms mere silhouettes against the starlit sky. The reports of pale titans filled him with dread—intelligent, coordinated. Were titans changing? Was there a human behind them, just like the Female Titan—a person manipulating them, using them as weapons?

The thought made him shudder. How long could the walls keep them safe if humans were involved? Enemies from within and without.

Survival seemed impossible with those things roaming free. But if what the Commander had said about Anja was true—that titans had trouble seeing her—then maybe there was a chance.

He had to believe she'd come back.

"Where are you, Anja?" he whispered, his voice swallowed by the night, carrying his conflicted heart away into the darkness.

The wall of Karanes loomed ahead, a dark silhouette cutting across the star-strewn sky. Anja halted at the town's edge, her scavenged gear and canister awkwardly fastened over the ruined framework beneath. She'd taken it from a fallen Scout whose face she couldn't bear to look at.

"Do you really plan to go back to them?" Heinrik asked.

Anja stared at the wall. No torches marked the battlements, only a few distant lights marking the gates. No guards paced the walls, no warning bells rang out - as if the military had already accepted there would be no one to return.

"My friends are there," she said, glancing back at him.

"It feels wrong," Heinrik said softly, his form wavering like mist. "Too silent."

"Maybe they've given up on survivors..."

The words died in her throat as fragments of memory threatened to surface. The smell of ash and burning flesh. The sound of-

"You don't have to do this," Heinrik interrupted, as if sensing where her thoughts were leading. His outline flickered, growing fainter. "You can bypass the distric."

"No." The word came out harder than she intended. "There's no chance I'll find Annie on my own... I need to know why she did it. Why I..." Her hands trembled on the triggers. "I can stop this."

Heinrik gave a tired, breathless chuckle, but it lacked its usual warmth. "Always stubborn."

His voice was thinner than before. Anja had noticed it for a while now—his steps had grown lighter, his figure dimmer, as if the world itself was forgetting him. She had tried not to look too closely, afraid of what she might see. But now, standing still beneath the moonlight, there was no ignoring it. His skin had lost its depth, the edges of his form blurring like mist in the cold air.

Her chest tightened. "Heinrik?"

He swayed. A grimace crossed his face. "I can feel it coming back," His outline wavered, breaking apart in places before struggling back together.

"Hold on." Anja checked her gear's gas levels - enough for a few attempts. "We're almost there."

"It won't matter..." His form flickered violently, pieces of him fading.

"Listen," he said urgently. "When I'm gone, it will come. It will wear my face. It will say things—terrible things. But you can't listen to it." His voice trembled, words fraying at the edges. "No matter what it says, you have to keep going. You'll be safer inside the walls. Be careful."

She reached for him, but her fingers passed through empty air.

And then he was gone.

The night pressed in, she hadn't realized how quiet it was, how empty. Anja swallowed against the hollow feeling in her chest.

She clenched her jaw. Keep going.

Her fingers found the trigger of the gear. A sharp hiss of gas filled the silence, and the anchors fired, yanking her upward. As she ascended through the darkness, a chill prickled the back of her neck—the sensation of being watched. Hunted.

The top of the wall came into sight, her final anchor catching solidly as she reeled herself in. Almost there. But as she neared the edge, her scavenged gear, ill strapped, shifted awkwardly to the side after the pull, throwing off her balance.

Her stomach lurched. The world tilted.

The next thing she knew, she was dangling just below the wall's edge, her grip slipping against the worn handles of the gear.

"Grab on!"

A hand shot out over the wall. Her heart lurched. Armin!

She barely had time to react before his fingers locked around her wrist, steady and unyielding. With a sharp tug, he pulled her up, the cold stone scraping against her arms as she dragged herself over the edge.

They collapsed onto the wall's surface, both breathing heavily from the exertion. Anja's ribs screamed in protest as she tried to sit up, the framework's broken pieces shifting beneath her skin.

Moonlight caught on his blond hair, the same gentle slope of his shoulders she'd recognize anywhere.

"Armin… I'm glad you're okay." The name escaped her lips before she could stop it. Relief flooded through her veins, warm and dizzying.

He smiled. "I knew you'd come back," Genuine relief breaking through his usual measured tone. "When I saw the smoke rising from the forest, I..." He trailed off, studying her face in the moonlight. His eyes widened slightly at her condition - the blood-crusted rags she wore, pieces of the framework still embedded in her flesh.

She tried to stand but stumbled, her legs buckling. In an instant, he was at her side, arms wrapping around her shoulders, steadying her.

"The others," she gasped, clutching his arm. The fabric of his sleeve felt impossibly real beneath her fingers. "Did everyone else make it back?"

Something passed across his face, gone too quickly to decipher. "The right flank was nearly wiped out. Many couldn't keep up when we retreated." His voice dropped lower. "We lost so many people out there..." The realization settled like a stone in her chest. "That's why I'm by myself here… No one expected survivors."

The wind carried a whisper across the battlements. For a moment, she thought she heard Heinrik's voice, a fragmented warning that dissipated before she could grasp it.

"What about Eren and Mikasa?"

"Both alive," Armin replied, his voice measured. "Eren was injured. Mikasa is looking after him."

"That's a relief," she said softly. "After Trost... I had no way of reaching any of you. They kept me isolated."

"I wondered where you'd been." Something flickered across his face. "But, that doesn't matter now, let's get you somewhere warm," Armin said, eyes lingering on her wounds. "Those need attention."

"No!" She exhaled, steadying herself. "No," softer this time. "Just some bandages. And..." She glanced around the battlements. "I need to talk to you. Somewhere private."

Armin's brows furrowed, but he nodded. "Sure, there's a storage building near the wall. Should have something to patch you up, it's bound to be quiet this time of night."

He supported her weight as they descended the inner stairwell. Every step sent fresh fire through her body, but the solid presence of Armin beside her made it bearable.

The streets were eerily empty as they moved through shadows between buildings. Moonlight painted everything in shades of silver and black, making the familiar architecture feel somehow wrong. Or maybe it was her that felt wrong, moving through this normal world with blood on her hand.

They kept to the narrowest alleys, avoiding the pools of torchlight cast by passing patrols. Once, voices drifted too close, sending them pressing against the cold stone of a nearby wall, holding their breath as the footsteps faded. The city felt like a ghost of itself at this hour.

At last, they reached the storage building. It was smaller than she expected—a stone chamber with a single barred window that admitted thin moonlight. Wooden crates filled one corner, stacked alongside barrels of what smelled like lamp oil. The air hung thick with dust and the musty scent of disuse.

Armin locked the door behind them, the key's metallic scrape unnaturally loud in the silence, before lighting a small oil lamp that cast long shadows against the rough stone walls.

"Sit," he urged, guiding her to a wooden crate. The hinges of the door creaked as weight settled against it—had the wind pushed it? She couldn't be sure.

Armin retrieved a waterskin from beneath a stack of water tasted of minerals and metal, but it soothed her parched throat. As she drank, his gaze lingered on her injuries, darkened blood seeped from the wounds.

"We have to change those," he murmured, reaching for a small kit tucked beside the crates. "They'll become infected."

"It can wait a little," she whispered, lowering the waterskin. "Are you sure no one uses this place? Is it safe to talk here?"

"I'm sure. No one will come until morning. The Garrison let us store our supplies here, said they didn't use it." He met her gaze. "You can speak freely—but let me take care of that. You need it." His voice was gentle but firm.

She nodded, and he got to work, carefully unwrapping the makeshift bandages on her arm. He cleaned around the scrapes first, then around the shards embedded in her skin, his touch precise and light.

"Tell me what happened," he prompted softly. "When you split from us in the forest."

She winced as the cloth brushed raw skin. "We were pursuing the Female Titan. Petra and I..." Her voice faltered. "Commander Erwin tried to trap her, but then everything went wrong. Titans appeared—pale ones."

Armin's fingers paused for just a heartbeat, then resumed their work. "I read about them in a report. They were inside the forest?"

"Yes. They came from nowhere—from underground. Then..." She grimaced as he touched a particularly tender spot. "The framework broke." She gestured weakly toward the broken metal mechanism, what remained of it still strapped to her legs.

"What caused it to break?"

"I don't remember exactly, I think one of those titans pulled it…" she admitted, her gaze drawn to the shadows writhing in the corners. Had one of them moved? "There was so much happening."

His hands moved methodically as he cleaned away the dark, viscous mixture of blood and something else that oozed from her wounds. Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the barred window. For an instant, she thought she glimpsed a face there—Heinrik's? No, something else. Something wrong.

"I found Levi's squad," she continued, forcing herself to focus on Armin's steadying presence. "And the Female Titan. She fought them, and... you were right, Armin. She was like Eren."

His expression didn't change, but there was a shift—an almost imperceptible flicker in his eyes. "You saw who was inside?"

"Annie." Meeting his gaze directly. "It was Annie."

For a moment, Armin was still. Then, he gave a slight nod. "That's a lot to process… So, you saw her when the nape was opened?"

"Yes."

"So you must have defeated her." His voice remained even.

"...Yes." Her hesitation was barely perceptible.

"And then?"

"Everything after that is..." She pressed a hand to her temple, pain flashing across her features as something pushed against her mind. "It all blurs together."

Armin's gaze lingered on the gashes across her arms and shoulder. They were deep, jagged.

"Those are deep cuts," he observed. "Did Annie do this to you? You said Levi's squad was there too, what happened to them?"

"No... it's just—" A sharp pain lanced behind her eye. "A headache. They've been happening for..." She trailed off as something wet traced down her cheek. A drop of black liquid oozed from beneath her eyepatch, following the contour of her face. Armin watched, his expression unchanged.

"Since when?" he asked quietly.

She wiped the liquid away absently. "Some time now... I'm the only one who survived. Everyone else was gone when I woke up."

"Everyone?" His voice remained soft, encouraging. "What happened to the others?"

"I found Gunther," she admitted, the name catching in her throat. For a moment, she could feel it again - the warm rush of blood over her hands. "One of Levi's men. His body was in the ashes."

"And the others?"

A shadow in the corner of the room drew her eye. For a heartbeat, she saw Oluo standing there, his throat a ragged ruin, eyes accusing. Her hands began to shake.

"Anja?" Armin's voice pulled her back. The corner was empty now, but the shadows seemed deeper somehow.

She looked away, unable to look at him. "I... I saw remains," she whispered, "Some burned beyond recognition. They didn't make it."

Another shadow flickered at the edge of her vision - a familiar silhouette. She jerked away instinctively, nearly falling from the crate.

"Hey… you're safe," Armin steadied her, his touch grounding. "You're here with me."

Armin worked in silence for a moment, his fingers gentle as they wrapped a clean bandage around one of the smaller wounds. The shadows in the corners seemed to lengthen, stretching across the floor toward them.

"So you think Annie saved you," he said, not quite a question.

Her fingers clenched in her lap. "I know she did. I would have died there otherwise."

Armin's expression remained unchanged, but something in his eyes had shifted—a coldness that hadn't been there before. "What will you do now?" he asked, tying off the bandage. "About Annie?"

Anja looked away, her chest tightening. "I..."

"You didn't want anyone to know you survived," he continued, his tone quiet but insistent. "Did something happen between you two in the forest?"

The shadows seemed to writhe at the mention of Annie's name.

"She... saved me, she…" Anja whispered, her voice faltering. The taste of copper filled her mouth, the images threatening to resurface. She couldn't finish.

Heinrik's form flickered violently near the window.

"And now you want to find her," Armin said, his voice carefully neutral. "Why come to me?"

"Because you see things others don't." Anja met his gaze. "You understand people. Like you understood me, back when everyone else just saw a... monster."

Something passed behind Armin's eyes. He tied off a bandage before asking, "What do you hope to achieve?"

"I need to understand why she's doing all of this... There has to be a reason." Her voice slowly strengthened with conviction. "If I can find her first, talk to her... maybe I can stop more people from dying."

"Even after everything she's done? You know how many of our comrades she has killed?"

"She's still my friend." The words came without hesitation. "She could have killed me in that forest but she didn't. That has to mean something."

Armin studied her face in the lamplight before standing slowly. "It's dangerous," he said, moving toward the stacked crates. He ran a hand over the worn wood. "If she feels threatened..."

"She won't hurt me."

"You can't be certain of that anymore," Armin turned, shadows playing across his features. "Everything's different now."

The lamp's flame guttered, making the shadows jump and stretch. For an instant, she thought she saw Heinrik standing in the corner, his face twisted. But when she blinked, he was gone.

"Annie betrayed everything we fought for," Armin said quietly. "But you'd still risk everything to help her." His voice softened almost breaking. "Why does she matter so much to you, Anja?"

Before she could answer, Armin continued, his tone shifting to something more practical.

"I heard she joined the MPs. If she's smart, she'll head for the interior. The Military Police have many outposts throughout Wall Sina." He moved to adjust the lamp, his movements paused, hesitant. "I might be able to get information about where she's stationed."

Relief flooded through Anja. "You'll help me find her?"

"It's better than you searching blindly," He hesitated, then suddenly moved forward, wrapping his arms around her in a tight embrace. "Promise you won't do anything rash. I don't want anyone else to get hurt."

The hug took her by surprise - His shoulders trembled slightly, and for a moment, she felt like they were children again, holding each other after the fall of Wall Maria.

"Thank you," she whispered into his shoulder. "I promise, I knew I could count on you."

Armin held on for a moment longer, his breath uneven. When he finally pulled away, his eyes were bright. He turned quickly toward the lamp, his hand moving to the wick.

The flame died with a tiny hiss, plunging the room into darkness. Only moonlight from the barred window remained, painting everything in cold, blue-gray tones. The sudden darkness disoriented her.

Something moved in the shadows. Not Heinrik - something else. A presence that made her blood run cold.

"I'm sorry, Anja. It's for your own good." Armin's voice came from near the wall. She heard the soft thud of his back pressing against stone, saw his silhouette slide down to a crouch, fingers rising to cover his ears.

"Armin?" Confusion crept into her voice as metal clicked against metal outside the door. "What-"

Light exploded into the room as the door burst open. A mechanical whir filled the air, followed by the sharp snap of releasing tension. Before she could process the sound, something struck her with crushing force. Steel mesh entangled her limbs, driving her to the ground.

Through the net's links, she saw Armin pressed against the wall, unable to watch. Commander Erwin's silhouette filled the doorway, others moving in.

"Secure her for transport," Erwin commanded, his voice flat and final.

Strong hands seized her arms, wrestling them behind her back. Heavy restraints, clicked around her wrists and ankles. Each cuff bit into her skin.

"What is this?" Anja gasped. Her gaze sought Armin, finding him still pressed against the wall, eyes downcast, unable to meet hers. "Armin!"

The silence that answered her hurt more than any words could have.

"Cadet Anja Wolf," The Commander's voice cut through with brutal clarity, "by the authority of the Scout Regiment, you are hereby taken into custody on charges of treason, for the murders of Scout Regiment personnel Gunther Schultz, Oluo Bozado, and attempted murder of Petra Ral."

The words hit like physical blows. Petra was alive? She looked to Armin, but he wouldn't meet her gaze.

"Under military law, your actions would warrant execution. However, if you cooperate, your life may be spared."

A sharp prick in her neck - someone administering a sedative.

As consciousness began to fade, that thing whispered in her ear, its tone almost gentle: "You see now?"

"You'll never be one of them." it whispered as darkness claimed her.

/
/
/

Note: Sorry for the delay. Hope it was worth the wait. Thanks for reading!

Attack on Titan: Wolfborn

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