❝𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖, 𝑰 𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒂𝒏 𝒐𝒃𝒋𝒆𝒄𝒕.❞
— 𝐋𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐀 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐓𝐎𝐍
꧁꧂
FOR THE THIRD TIME IN THE PAST TWO MONTHS, Eren once again found himself abducted.
Groaning quietly, the boy cracked open his eyelids to the glowing underground cavern he was currently imprisoned in, the blinding sky-blue crystal loudly echoing even the slightest of sounds. From time to time, the cold wind that snaked through the cavern elicited a shiver from his half-naked form, making the chains binding his arms behind him clatter. The cavern lacked the disgustingly humid stench all caverns seemed to have, but that didn't make it any more comforting. If anything, its vastness unsettled him, making dread coil tightly in his chest.
The sound of whispering echoed his way, and Eren's eyes flickered around until they found the source of the sound: a stout, dark-haired man with dark hair.
Rod Reiss—the man who'd schemed this all.
Rod paced around, mumbling incoherencies to no one in particular. The man—an unsuspecting nobleman residing in rural Wall Sina—was Historia's father. The first time he'd seen him, Eren had been bordering on consciousness, observing wordlessly as he'd pulled Historia to his chest. When Eren awakened again, he was gagged and restrained on a crystal structure that resembled the plank of a ship.
As Rod padded around, absorbed in his own dialogue, Eren wandered his own thoughts. The first time he'd awakened, Rod and Historia had pressed their hands to his back, and through some unknown power, they'd roused his father's memories—including the one where he'd slaughtered most of the Reiss family in the very same cavern he was in now.
He didn't want to think about that.
To entertain himself, Eren took advantage of his father's newly awakened memories and tried summoning one. It wasn't precisely easy—trying to nail one down was like trying to grab hold of water—but Eren was more than determined to tap in to his father's recollection. And many flowed by—trips around the Walls, dinner time with the family, even the night Mikasa was taken into the Jaeger household—but Eren never managed to fully visualize any of them.
Just when he was about to give up, a certain memory swirled from the back of his mind.
Eren's first instinct was to chew on his lip, but the rod forced between his teeth held his jaw in place. In this memory, Valen in no way resembled the hard-nosed soldier everyone in the Scout Regiment was familiar with—she was merely a sickly, fragile girl, pale and ailing. The smallest details didn't evade him. He saw the way she trembled, the way her body violently rocked back and forth as she fought through a neverending coughing fit.
It was a fact that little knew, but being the son of Shiganshina's most famed doctor, Eren was more than conscious about Valen's then lackluster immune response. With the help of time and medicine, Valen was able to gain immunity and eventually reintegrate into society without worrying about contracting an illness, but the first year and a half following her memory loss, she was always teetering between life and death, whether it was from pneumonia or diphtheria.
Not only that, but she was, in politer terms, weird. Grisha kept it under wraps for the sake of protecting Valen, but her neurological injury had impaired more than her memory. Valen was better now (Eren was reluctant to say normal because Valen, in his opinion, still behaved oddly), but when she wasn't on the verge of death, she would do some unexplainable things—specifically, speak in gibberish.
Of course, she could speak normally—she did so when his father came around—but as soon as they turned around to leave, the gibberish would return. Eren knew it was wrong to be judgmental—especially if someone was injured—but it creeped him out. And if it wasn't the talking in gibberish, it was the singing, which he still had nightmares about. It was the reason he avoided her when he could.
As to why she was always so sick and... loony, Eren never discovered why. Grisha never remarked to him whether he'd found a direct cause, but Eren wanted to believe it was because he hadn't. At the same time, though, he had a nagging feeling Grisha did know but he never bothered to elaborate on it. There was so much his father had hidden from him, and Eren began to even distrust the memory of the man he called his father.
Eren closed his eyes, trying to conjure another memory that'd been teasing at his mind for a while. The first thing to materialize was an inky black sky, twinkling stars scattered across the darkness. In the light of what Eren could make out as a lantern, his father stood in the field just right outside Shiganshina's interior gate, the swaying, frosted grass giving the illusion of gray, rolling waves. Before Grisha was a small oak tree—the same one he'd fallen asleep under the day of the Fall.
At a first glance, there was nothing conspicuous about the tree: it was standing like it always was, and it was barely budding. But as the memory sharpened, Eren discerned a large, bulky lump huddled against the base of the tree, still as a rock. Gradually, Eren recognized what this lump was—more so, who this lump was.
Valen.
She's younger here, but it's definitely her. Valen's then shoulder-length hair peeked out from the hood of her coat. Most of her face was hidden in her arms, but what could be seen of her normally rich brown cheeks was stained a bright red, likely from the cold. Knee-high heavy duty boots protected her calves, and her hands were shrouded in gloves. This, as far as Eren knew, was the first time his father had seen Valen.
Was this the night of her memory loss?
His father's gaze shifted to a hulking duffel bag lying about a meter away from her unmoving form. He spared Valen a second glance before kneeling beside the bag. It was a strange bag, Eren noted—perhaps it was one of the fancier ones the people in Wall Sina toted around—but the more he pondered on it, the more his misgiving grew. What was Valen doing at such a young age sleeping in a field with an overpacked duffel bag? There was always the chance she was orphaned, but most orphans hardly owned enough things to fill a small, makeshift sack, nothing close to the duffel bag his father was going to open.
Grisha ran his hand along the side of the bag, then—
To Eren's dismay, the memory blurred before dissipating completely. In a last-ditch effort to recover the mental image, he scrunched his eyes together, concentrating on the contents of the bag, but his mind never conceived anything discernible—but an icy, prickling feeling rippled inside of him, a sensation that could only be described as fear.
Whatever his father had seen inside of that bag, it'd been unnerving enough to invoke fear in him.
"Rod!" A gangly older man came into sight, lowering himself from a chasm in the cavern's ceiling using an ODM wire. His long, slender legs dangled awkwardly from his body before touching down on the cavern's crystal-like flooring—Kenny Ackermann was his name, Eren recalled. He was the Captain of the Anti-Personnel Squad, the group that'd ambushed Levi Squad in the Trost District. Rumors said he was a ruthless man, responsible for the deaths of over one hundred MPs.
Eren believed them.
"Kenny," Rod greeted. Kenny's wire reeled back in place, and the man gave his thighs a couple smacks, clearing any dust and dirt. "Any updates on Ferreira?" the nobleman asked.
"Ah, her?" Kenny grunted, disgruntled. "Caven's tried killin' her two or three times, but the girl always comes out winnin' in the end. Caven's my second-in-command, mind you." He adjusted the bowler hat on his head. "Gotta hand it to her. Girl's a fighter, and a pretty damn good one, too."
"Then you're going to have to fight even harder," Rod urged. "She poses a danger to the peace we've worked so hard for. I stress: we cannot allow her existence to go ignored. She is as much of a danger as Grisha Jaeger was."
"Yeah, yeah..." Kenny grumbled, clearly uninterested by Rod's sense of urgency. He plucked his hat from his head, revealing a mop of greasy, tousled hair. "So, Rod, mind tellin' me what's the deal with her? She descends from a minority bloodline, that much I understand, but look at Mitras—more than half of those bastards belong to minority bloodlines. In the three or four months we've been trackin' her, you've never cared to explain what in the goddamn hell is wrong with her."
"I'll explain to you what's wrong with her," Rod said, sharply jabbing Kenny's breastplate—the Captain's pronounced scowl darkened. "This woman mysteriously appeared in a field eight years ago with no recollection of who she was or where she came from. There is no record of her birth anywhere, nor of who she descended from. She is the only person inside these Walls who possesses the surname Ferreira." Rod dropped his hand and huffed. "She goes against the natural order of everything. She shouldn't even exist!"
"Hey, calm down, ya' old man," Kenny growled. plopping his hat back on his head. "Look, I don't like this any more than you do, but trust me when I say this: we have her under control." He motioned to the cavern opening. "The Scouts will roll in anytime soon. We can gun 'er down once she's in here."
"Good, because activating the Founder's powers will be fruitless if she's alive," Rod said. "Judging by the intel Sannes and Ralph provided, the woman is too strong-willed for her own good. One way or another, she'll find a way to topple our plans."
"Hold on, hold on," Kenny interjected, waving his hands around. "Alright, she's from a minority bloodline and the Founder can't control 'er memory—that I understand. But explain to me: how does a teenager lose all 'er memories in a single night? I thought that only happened to old folks!"
"Again, it's why she must be eliminated." The hairs on the back of Eren's neck raised when Rod pointed in his direction. "Grisha Jaeger cited a neurological injury, but never once did he specify what condition caused the destruction of her childhood memories." He crossed his arms. "I'm getting the feeling he did know something, but he said nothing, either to protect himself or Ferreira."
Kenny arched an eyebrow. "And why would he do such a thing?" He shook his head. "You know what, Rod? You're one weird bastard. Same goes for the rest of the nobility." He adjusted his hat and reclaimed his grip on his gun. "Anyways, we'll be on the lookout for those Scouts. Can't make any promises, but I'll make sure to have Ferrara gunned down."
"Ferreira."
"Ferreira, Ferrara, doesn't matter to me. Walls, that's one strange surname. Ya' don't hear everyday." Kenny turned around. "See ya' later."
"Do what I've asked of you." Kenny engaged his gas and zoomed away, the hissing of his gas fading as his large form shrinked into nothing. Rod, now alone, continued pacing around, muttering to himself. Historia would likely come around soon—and when that happened, his powers would be yanked away from him, returned to the Reiss lineage.
Nothing else to do be done, Eren closed his eyes and allowed his exhaustion to consume him.
꧁꧂
"Ma'am, you're trespassing!" Anka—a small Garrison soldier who sported a bob of light brown hair—scolded as Valen boldly shoved her way through the building's main doors.
Soldiers stared on as Valen quickened her unceasing pace, paying the woman no mind as she climbed the stairs two steps at a time. She should have been scared considering she'd just barged into Mitras' military headquarters, but any reservations she had toward the authorities had flown out the window. Her determination carried her forward, kept her legs moving swiftly under her while the woman with the roses on her back chased after her. Not even her thighs, aching after a four hour journey on horseback, stopped her from tearing up the stairs at startling speed.
"You do realize you can be arrested for this!" the Garrison soldier cried from behind.
I do know, and I do not care. After having her poorly illustrated face plastered on posters all over the Walls, Valen had grown desensitized to words like 'arrested' and 'detained'. There was something she needed to do, and she could care less for the man in the unicorn jackets.
Upon leaving the tavern, Valen had made use of her newly returned resources, cropping up at the Military Police's local headquarters and taking one of their spare horses and a torch. In the dead of night, she made directly for Mitras. After a heated, short-lived argument that nearly turned physical, the MPs stationed at the city's gate allowed her inside, and from there she pushed her horse a couple minutes more until she located Mitras' own military headquarters, a large building near the city's center that resembled a castle. While settling her horse into a stall, she'd persuaded a greenhorn working the stables into disclosing Commander Erwin's location.
Now she was here, tearing through the second story corridor.
"If it's Commander Erwin you're looking for, he's currently unavailable right now!" Anka yelled. "You cannot intrude on his meeting with Commander Pyxis!"
"This is none of your concern," Valen fired back, marching up the stairs again, this time to the building's third floor. Her rapid, echoing footfalls drowned out Anka's lighter ones. The woman could beg all she wanted, but if nothing had stopped Valen in the four hour ride from Stohess, nothing was stopping her now. "Mind your own business."
"I am acting on Commander Pyxis' orders!" Valen surged on ahead, her eyes darting around the corridor's ornate, bronzed walls until they landed on the room number the stable boy had given her.
As Valen wrapped her fingers around the brass knob, Anka tried wedging her tiny body between Valen and the door. "Unless you have prior authorization—"
"Excuse me," Valen said evenly, shouldering Anka aside. The door opened, and Valen barged inside. It was a standard barrack room she'd stumbled into, furnished with the usual bureau-bed-table-nightstand set. A wheeled chandelier hanging from the ceiling was responsible for the lighting, outfitted with small, burning candles. As for the room's occupants, there were two of them, one old and bald, the second one much younger and missing an arm.
Valen was only interested in the latter.
The older man, who Valen identified as Pyxis, lounged in an armchair positioned beside a bed sitting in a corner, his graying eyebrows jumping high on his wrinkled forehead. Erwin—dressed in a white buttoned shirt and dark brown trousers—stood beside a partially opened window, his visage unchanging. Though she'd entered merely seconds ago, Valen sensed she'd walked in on an extremely important conversation.
They could resume later. Right now, she was sorting out her business.
Anka scrambled inside, her light brown hair disheveled and her jacket collar rumpled. "Commander, I tried stopping her, but she—" she began.
Erwin raised a hand, hushing her. "Thank you, Anka, but there is no need to worry," he reassured. He turned completely from the window. "Would you kindly give us a moment?"
Anka's eyes rounded in bewilderment, flitting around nervously from Valen to Erwin until she reluctantly nodded. She saluted Erwin. "Roger."
Once Anka closed the door, Erwin's expression quickly morphed from unmoved to exasperation, his hues glinting harshly in the candlelight. "What are you doing in Mitras? You're supposed to be at the Reiss Chapel alongside Squad Levi," Erwin scolded.
"And you're supposed to be hanging from a noose, but alas, things have a way of changing," Valen countered, her words icy. Emboldened, she pointed a finger to Commander Pyxis. "You. Vanish."
Pyxis' wispy mustache curved downward, and his equally faded eyebrows flared higher on his wrinkling forehead. "Excuse me?"
"I said—"
"Do as she says," Erwin interjected, making Pyxis' jaw drop in disbelief. "We can resume our discussion once we're finished."
Pyxis appraised Erwin warily, as if questioning his sanity. It took a second for Pyxis to finally cave in, and he nodded his head. "If you say so, Commander," he ceded.
Like his subordinate, Pyxis' departure was quick and remarkably tense. Erwin's eyes followed the old man until the door closed. "I'll ask again," Erwin began, "what good reason do you have for deserting your duties?"
"Don't misunderstand my actions, Commander. As soon as this discussion of ours ends, I have every intention of rejoining my comrades." Valen inhaled, mentally and physically preparing herself for the line she'd been internally rehearsing on her way. "Reassign me."
Erwin cocked a brow. "Reassign you?" he asked. Valen said nothing. "Pardon, but I do not quite understand what you mean by 'reassign me'."
"What I'm asking of you is simple," Valen said. Her stomach betrayed her even demeanor, twisting and churning furiously. "Remove me from the Levi Squad."
"Do you even understand what you are saying?" Erwin questioned, his tone growing angrier. "If I reassigned you to the Levi Squad, it was because I believed that you were capable of achieving great things for humanity. Having you serve on an ordinary squad would be a tremendous waste of talent. A soldier of your caliber belongs where you are, serving alongside humanity's brightest and strongest."
"Commander—"
"Serving on the Special Operations Squad has its advantages," Erwin continued. "Recognition, prestige..." He now hovered behind her shoulder. "Strength."
Valen craned her neck, seething. "What are you insinuating?"
"You may be disappointed to discover that your ambiguity has not fooled me in the slightest," Erwin said. "I've known since we first spoke in your last year of the Cadet Corps. You hold no consideration for humanity, nor the Scout Regiment's cause. You joined the Scout Regiment with the intent of advancing yourself, not humanity."
Everyone nowadays is throwing my motivations back in my face. "And?" Valen challenged, raising her chin. "Knowing all of this, you reassigned me regardless. If anything, you're rewarding my cynicism."
"Of course I'm rewarding your cynicism," Erwin responded, on the verge of chuckling. "It is your very essence, and is exactly why I ascended you up the ladder so early in your career."
For a second, the room spun around her, blurring into a convoluted mixture of beige, brown, and black until sharpening again. Nothing was making sense. "Explain," Valen said.
Erwin regarded her placidly. "Cynics you can find anywhere. Stohess, Calaneth, even Mitras. They'll spend their days criticizing humanity's greed and immorality, but rarely do they accomplish anything miraculous. The truth is that cynics hardly achieve anything. You, however, are the exception."
"Instead of wallowing in your hatred for humanity, you harnessed that hatred and made a name for yourself," Erwin went on. "You graduated at the top of your class, beating your peers by hundreds of points. You challenged Humanity's Strongest and walked out of the fight with your bones intact. Don't you see? Your cynicism has granted you an extraordinary ability."
The unease in her stomach turned into indignation, spreading and setting her whole body ablaze in a raging, white-hot fire. "My cynicism is not a resource," she sneered, on the verge of tears. "It was my way of survival, my bread and water when there was none! How dare you reduce it to a resource for your senseless, altruistic vision!" Losing touch with her composure, Valen acted on her anger and kicked aside a chair, splintering its leg in half. "Accept it! Humanity's destiny doesn't exist beyond the Walls, and anyone who believes otherwise is foolish!" She inhaled sharply. "You're so selfish!"
"No more than you are," Erwin said calmly. "You've deserted your duties to come all the way to Mitras and ask me to remove you from your squad. If anything, we are more alike than unalike."
Her vision was blurring at the edges. "I beg your pardon?" Valen nearly yelled, his last sentence setting alight the remnants of her already crumbling composure.
"You deliberately enlisted into the Scout Regiment with no care for the cause, but only with thoughts of advancing yourself. In that way, you have endangered your colleagues. Albeit you're strong, still, your conceit poses a danger to your comrades. In fact, I even suspect you've already done something to wrong them," Erwin said. "Of course, what I do is on a much larger scale. But we're both endangering others for the sake of our personal interests, and in that sense that makes us both alike."
"You're sorely mistaken because we are far from alike," Valen rebuked. "We are both selfish, but for our own reasons. Do not try this 'we are alike' spiel, because we are not."
Erwin contemplated her, sluggishly nodding his head. "You're right." He languidly moved across the room, stopping at a table. He leaned over and inhaled loudly, his shoulders drooping inward. His dulled, blue hues stayed glued on its polished, wooden surface as he mulled over something. What he was mulling over, Valen hadn't the slightest.
But she'd said what she'd said.
"You give me no choice," Erwin said lowly, peeling his lone hand from the table and straightening. "If you'd like to be removed from the Levi Squad, then your wish is my command—but only under the condition you'll be relegated from the Scout Regiment."
The air vanished from her lungs, and the color drained from her face. "Pardon?" Valen blurted.
"You heard me correctly," Erwin said. "If you choose to be removed from the Levi Squad, you'll be discharged and banished from the Scout Regiment. I reassigned you for a reason, and if you are not willing to cooperate, then so am I. Whether you decide to continue serving in the military is your decision, but I have no need for soldiers who besmirch our cause and do nothing to advance it."
Valen's hands furled at her sides. By accepting, she'd be giving up on her investigation—the very thing she'd risked her neck for. She'd lose access to her resources, and the mystery shrouding her life before her memory loss would never be uncovered. Valen would likely have to entrust her findings to someone in the Scout Regiment and hope they reached the cellar, but even then that solution displeased Valen. It was a discovery she wished to unearth herself because at the end of the day, those were her origins she was investigating. Not only would her investigation be compromised, but what happened between her and Levi would remain unresolved, a stain she would never remove. What happened between the two of them couldn't be mended in minutes—no, it'd take weeks at a minimum to restore what they had before. "You cannot be doing this," she growled.
"You're wrong," Erwin responded evenly. "As Commander, I reserve the right to discharge personnel as I see fit. Contrary to what you believe, your competence does not spare you from any disciplinary action. Choose wisely, because once you have made a decision, there is no going back."
"You..." Valen may have sworn to keep her emotions under lock and key, but between the Commander's icy demeanor and her unresolved feud with Levi, her desperation mounted to searing anger, but toward herself. She'd carelessly entangled herself in this callous game with no escape in sight, all for the sake of strength that hadn't been enough to protect her. She stood precariously on the edge, presented with a chasm too vast to simply step over.
There was a choice: either she'd sacrifice over three years of hard work and dedication for her own sanity, or she could try and salvage from the ruins of her and Levi's relationship and continue her investigation.
It was a hard one to make, but she finally made her choice.
Valen raised her chin and earnestly locked her eyes on his. "Fine then," she said. "Discharge me."