Rise of the Titans

Chapter 2: Odd Footprints

Eren felt his watch vibrate, waking him up from his dreamless sleep. He looked at it to see the time, 0300 in the morning.

Eren felt Ai's body next to him. She was dressed in a pair of pajama pants and a long sleeve shirt. Since she was much smaller than him, she got cold easier, so he wore much lighter clothes when they slept. Specifically, his boxer shorts and a T-shirt.

He didn't want to leave the warmth of his bed, but the image of the sun rising over the sea was something he wanted to see again. So Eren began to move carefully out of their bed so he can start getting ready for the day.

Eren felt Ai shift and reach out to him, not wanting him to go, but her back was to him so he was able to get out of bed without waking her.

Eren looked at Ai and was still amazed at how beautiful she looked. Even after ten years, she still looked young, even as young as Ruby. If not for the difference in their hair color, Ai could almost pass for Ruby's twin sister.

Eren bent over the bed and gave her a small kiss on the cheek, making Ai move a bit but didn't wake her up. Eren then put on a pair of workout shorts to get his morning workout in.

Eren got his bag with a change of clothes and his suit that he wore at work. He always had to wear a suit unless they were engaged in a more tactical or espionage mission. Eren primarily was used for tactical missions since he was extremely skilled in fighting and using guns, which was exactly what Gan'an intended when he recruited Eren.

The Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office, or Naich, was the intelligence branch of the Japanese Government. Eren was told it was similar to the United States Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA, which he still didn't understand what that was.

Mostly, Naicho dealt with foreign threats to Japan, such as smuggling, spies, human trafficking, and other such issues. On occasion, agents were expected to serve in Japanese embassies in other countries for tours lasting a few months, which allowed Eren to travel the world basically for free.

It was a good job for Eren, especially since they mostly used him as door kicker and as a fighter. While Eren was intelligent, even with his education, Eren still struggled with modern technologies, so they didn't have him do too much on the technical side of things.

Eren walked into his garage, which was a small one car garage that he used as a makeshift gym for morning exercises. He had a few machines, but mostly just stuff for bodyweight exercises. There was the water heater in the corner taking up space, but it was spacious enough for Eren.

Eren did a quick warm up and and mounted his pullup bar. He started to do his set of pullups and counted each one. When he was in the scouts, he could easily do up to 60 on an off day. The level of physical fitness required to use ODM gear was very high.

However...

"29... 30..." Eren said as he struggled the last few reps.

Eren almost collapsed off the bar. Lately, he's struggled to pass 30 reps in his pullups, and he wasn't sure why. He assumed he just got weaker overtime. Although he kept up with his exercise, Eren didn't have to use ODM anymore, so he progressively got weaker over the years.

It didn't matter though, since he no longer really had to fight. Of course, there were moments he'd have to fight in his job, but by comparison to his time in the Scouts, this was nothing. In the past ten years, only one of his coworkers died and it was due to a disease and not war.

Eren finished a few more things before getting changed into his suit and fixing his tie. He took his modern styled handgun out of the bag and placed it in his holster that was under his shoulder.