An absolute failure.
That's the only way anyone would describe these experiments if they saw them from the outside: a grotesque display, desperate, almost pathetic.
For me?
Indifferent.
Maybe even boring—if that faint sense of emptiness that comes when something fails to spark anything at all can be called boredom.
I don't see any reasonable path in which Eren Jaeger gains real control over his abilities by repeating failed transformations over and over.
Scream, regenerate, scream, fail, regenerate.
A meaningless cycle.
And yet... it's necessary to observe.
To know his limits.
To understand which parts of him can break, and which can't.
And, to be honest, it's also a good way to narrow down my strategic options.
Knowing what someone can't do is often more useful than knowing the opposite.
It even gives me time to "rest."
I was never the type who enjoyed fieldwork.
Much less that illusory, overrated concept people call effort.
So sitting in the carriage, safely distant, watching Hange spiral into excitement while Mikasa tries not to scream in horror as half of Eren's face melts off... is, and I quote, almost comical.
A good reminder that this world runs on impulses: fear, hope, delusion, madness.
A giant of bone, steam, and blood appears, and people lose their minds.
For better or worse.
...Hmm?
I blink—barely—when I feel a tiny tap on my head.
It was so soft my body didn't even register it. Only logic tells me it happened.
I turn my gaze.
Historia is right beside me, her fist still resting on my head, her expression somewhere between irritated... and hurt?
"What's with that expression, Historia...?" I ask, more out of formality than interest.
She presses her lips together.
"You're ignoring me again."
Ah.
That.
"Oh... sorry. I was focused on the experiment. Didn't hear you."
I say it without emotion. Not out of cruelty, but because I don't know how to soften something that, to me, is simply a fact.
"What were you saying?" I add, trying to sound at least minimally considerate.
She looks down.
Hesitates for a few seconds.
Then answers:
"Nothing important..."
Which means it was important.
And if she hid it, forcing an answer will only create a new problem.
Too much work.
I shift my attention to the soldier beside the carriage, standing stiff and uncomfortable amid the tension.
The thick steam of Eren's regeneration still rises in the distance. His scream still echoes faintly.
"Have the area checked again," I order calmly. "And end the experiments. There's no point continuing today."
The soldier nods immediately, almost grateful to have something to do.
I stand with a bit of effort, feeling the carriage still trembling under my boots.
Levi is a few meters away on his horse, watching the ruined field with that signature expression mixing exhaustion, hatred, and routine.
"Did you get anything out of this?" he asks, voice rough, not even trying to hide his annoyance.
"Hard to say..." I murmur. My eyes return to the rising steam from Eren's titan body—fragmented, incomplete, like a bonfire that refuses to catch.
"...I still need to review the reports."
Levi follows my gaze.
Neither of us blinks.
"..."
"..."
"You didn't expect anything from this, did you?"
He doesn't sound accusatory.
Just... resigned.
...
"Who knows."
—----------
Hours later.
"I was asleep the whole day...?"
Eren says it as if it were an unforgivable crime.
I suppose for someone like him—noise, urgency, frustration with no outlet—losing control must feel like dying without warning.
If I were him, I'd be grateful for the rest.
I lean against the wall while Hange explains what happened, her energy fluctuating between sharp enthusiasm and a chronic headache that has no cure.
If she says "eh" one more time, I'm leaving. Literally.
But for now, I endure.
"Thank goodness you're back to normal..." she sighs, slumping her shoulders as if someone just removed a yoke from her neck.
Eren barely manages to answer:
"Eh...?"
A second "eh."
Excellent.
My patience will be tested today.
I adjust my posture slightly—not out of discomfort, but to make sure they don't notice I'm cataloguing the tension on everyone's faces.
Mikasa keeps her head down: a typical gesture when she blames herself.
Historia clenches her hands, as if she could contain her thoughts inside her small frame.
Levi breathes. For him, that's the equivalent of yelling.
Finally, Hange drops the line like a dull knife:
"Unfortunately... the hardening phenomenon didn't occur after your transformation."
Silence.
The same silence that filled the White Room between a question and the instructor's disappointment.
Eren swallows hard enough to be heard.
"...Nothing?" he whispers.
"We searched for hardened fragments. Any trace. We found nothing."
Hange continues, flipping through papers like they're mute witnesses:
"So we moved to intelligence and endurance tests. No reason to waste another day."
I glance at her out of the corner of my eye.
Her voice doesn't tremble.
Ours does.
"Simple orders first: standing on one leg, saluting. You followed them precisely. Your consciousness was there."
Eren nods, but his mind is elsewhere. Somewhere he doesn't want to revisit.
"Then we tried getting you to speak. Your titan jaw isn't built for that. Nothing coherent came out."
Hange adjusts her glasses, avoiding Levi's gaze.
Interesting.
"Next was construction. Ropes, logs, tools. You built something surprisingly detailed."
I look at Eren.
Frustration, helplessness, fear of not being enough.
Though honestly, no one in history would have been enough.
Powerful and idealistic people tend to be unbearable.
Not a strong opinion... but they tend to be.
"That's when you wrote on the ground."
Ah, yes. That part.
"'I don't know what to do to harden.'"
A pause.
"And then you wrote 'Father'... and after that... 'had me.'"
The reaction is immediate:
"W–WHAT!?"
"After that, your writing turned into an illegible mess. Like something was distressing you. Do you remember anything?"
...
Eren lowers his gaze just as it meets Mikasa's.
A split second.
Enough to destroy him.
Defeat collapses over him like a lead blanket:
his shoulders sag, his breath shortens, his voice shrinks to a rootless whisper.
"No... I don't remember..."
The room stops breathing.
Even moving a finger feels improper.
Hange keeps talking as if reading a weather report:
"After struggling for thirty minutes, you managed to get out on your own. The memories were confused. Your consciousness fragmented."
No emotion.
No tremor.
Not even the illusion of empathy.
Just data.
"You rested and transformed again. The second time you couldn't harden either. The titan measured thirteen meters. You didn't respond to commands."
She adjusts her glasses with a precise, almost surgical motion.
"The hunger was intense. You ate the house you built. Then you lost control. Finally, you ran out of energy."
Eren inhales so deeply it looks painful.
As if trying to hold himself together with borrowed air.
"The third time," Hange continues, lowering her eyes to the notes she clearly doesn't need, "the titan didn't even reach ten meters. Incomplete. Unable to stand. The fusion with your body was deeper and extracting you was difficult."
The silence doesn't fall.
It settles.
It installs itself naturally,
as if it had been waiting for its turn.
Eren is the one who finally breaks it:
"So... this means that..."
His voice cuts off.
Not out of emotion, but exhaustion.
From the confirmation of something he doesn't want to admit.
From the way the world shrinks around a single mistake.
"The mission to retake Wall Maria..."
He swallows.
His own throat feels too big for him.
"...is impossible right now. Because I'm incapable."
The word drops heavy.
Too heavy for someone like him.
Maybe for anyone.
Levi doesn't even take a heartbeat.
"Yeah. You got that right."
He crosses his arms as if he had been rehearsing that posture all morning.
"We're disappointed. Thanks to you, the atmosphere is even more unbearable."
Eren shrinks,
as if expecting another blow.
"At this rate," Levi continues, "time will keep slipping by and nothing good will happen. What's next? Titans coming out of the ground? Falling from the sky? And us, waiting around like cattle. A shitty scenario."
The air shifts slightly when Mikasa tightens her fists.
Her knuckles crack.
Her aura changes.
The room feels it.
I feel it too.
"Eren did everything he could," she says.
A short sentence, tense, dangerous.
Not a defense.
A warning.
It was time to intervene.
Not because I cared about the conversation.
Or the future of humanity.
Or Eren.
Especially not that.
It was...
an opportunity.
"And what part of that changes anything?"
My voice is quiet.
It doesn't need volume.
Calm, when used properly, is a more elegant form of violence.
Mikasa turns her face toward me.
Slow.
Controlled.
As if she needs to make sure she heard me correctly.
I look at her.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
"Eren can't seal Wall Maria."
I don't say it as criticism.
Or mockery.
Or despair.
I say it the way someone reports the temperature:
nine degrees, southern wind, chance of rain.
Her jaw tightens.
That's new.
"Even so—" she tries to begin.
I interrupt.
Not because I'm silencing her.
But because I don't need to hear recycled justifications.
"His inability is his fault."
I don't raise my voice.
I don't load the words.
I don't attack.
But each syllable drops like a stone into a pond.
And the ripples reach her.
Only her.
"But ours," I continue, "is expecting he'd be capable."
Not an insult.
Not an accusation.
A simple observation—
the kind that hurts more than any shout.
The tension loosens slightly when I take a single step back.
A tiny movement.
But enough.
Mikasa breathes.
That's new as well.
Sometimes she holds her breath when she's angry; she stores the air so she doesn't lose control.
Interesting.
"Maybe our problem is perspective," I say. "Maybe we've been looking in the wrong direction."
I don't look at Eren.
I don't need to for him to feel the words sink into him.
Levi nods, expression unchanged.
"Maybe freedom isn't inside the walls," I add. "Maybe it's outside."
Eren blinks.
A trivial detail.
But in his state, it's as if he revived for an instant.
Hange jumps up with so much energy she knocks over her own notebook.
"Exactly! And thanks to these tests, now we have more data: your limits, your range, your adaptability!"
She pumps a fist.
"Let's keep giving it our all!!"
I don't move.
There's no need.
Somewhere along the line, without anyone deciding it, they assumed I was the one keeping the calm, the one seeing the whole board, the one who had to take a stance.
Sometimes I wonder if I truly am.
Or if no one else wants to do it.
Mikasa keeps staring at me.
Not at Hange.
Not at Levi.
Not at Eren.
At me.
As if my words were a test.
A provocation.
A warning.
An invitation.
Maybe they were.
Maybe not.
I'm not kind enough to clarify.
I'm starting to hate you, Erwin.
More than reasonably so.
Because all this...
all these taut threads...
these reactions...
these impulses...
these fractures...
shouldn't matter to me.
But I see them.
And once you see them, ignoring them becomes difficult.
Leaving that aside...
there's a loose end I need to cut.
One that can't wait.
—-----
My steps barely crunch against the damp earth.
I make no noise—though I don't avoid it either.
I inhale the cold air, the kind that clears the mind and, at the same time, exposes everything you'd rather keep hidden.
I would have given a lot for a silence like this in another stage of my life.
Now it's simply...
Even so, I enjoy it.
It's one of the few things I learned to say sincerely.
There aren't many, but over the last year I can say it honestly:
I like food, quiet places, nature, silence, chess...
eh... I guess not much else, though practicing calligraphy in this world was entertaining—especially during the thirty minutes it took to perfect it.
Maybe someday I'll be able to say that about a person.
Unfortunately, my emotional test project failed entirely.
Kei back then, and Sasha not long ago.
At least I was able to identify what Ike used to call "your type of woman"—
the kind that fits with the things I like.
Calm but intelligent, preferably someone strong-willed but polite.
Oh... I guess I already know who fits, though unfortunately I'm certain my type is Asian women if I can choose.
So that's difficult in this world, since the only Asian girl I know is a very clear NO NO.
When I lift my gaze, I reach my destination.
Mikasa moves in the clearing with a precision anyone would mistake for serenity.
But it's not serenity.
Not today.
She does push-ups with determination, lowering and rising in almost an instant to an untrained eye—
but there's a moment.
A micro-pause.
The tiniest break.
A flicker of absence where her focus collapses and then forces itself upright again.
Those kinds of cracks never lie.
I say nothing as I approach.
She turns before I can close the distance, as if the tension in her body sensed me before her actual senses did.
"...Kiyotaka."
Her tone is rough—not from anger, but from effort.
"Training alone again, Nee-san,"
I say, trying to force warmth into my voice and failing completely.
"I always train alone."
"I know," I murmur, stepping closer, "but it's been a while since I saw you doing it."
She hesitates for a second.
"I suppose... it's been a complicated few weeks."
"..."
Silence settles immediately.
Not uncomfortable—just strange.
Her shoulders lift slightly as she exhales, a sign that letting her guard down feels like a bad idea.
I stop at a respectful distance.
"Do you need something?" she asks at last.
"I just wanted to see you."
Her gaze shifts, debating whether I'm simply concerned... or if there's something else.
I suppose she's trying to read my intentions.
"You never visited me when I was in the hospital,"
I say, without a trace of anger in my tone.
"..."
"..."
"You kept a lot of things from me... always... I needed time to think..."
I sigh heavily, keeping my eyes on hers while she lowers her gaze even further.
It's a bit disappointing, but I suppose predictable.
Still... I remember the feeling when I woke up.
Even if it was naïve, I expected to find at least someone genuinely interested in my state.
I thought that maybe in this life, family would mean something.
But it's not that simple.
It's...
hard.
Really disappointing.
Sad, though I guess I'm not exactly the best brother either. It's hard when you're like me.
In the end, I'll always be Ayanokoji Kiyotaka before I'm Ackerman Kiyotaka.
...
...
Mikasa's eyes narrow at me, guilt surfacing for just a moment.
...
"Still... I didn't come only for that."
I change the subject, letting her regain her composure.
"Our exchange during the meeting about Eren."
"That..." She bites her tongue.
"...Why did you treat him like that? He's your friend too... You should understand the pressure he carries... all of that was unnecessary."
"Unnecessary why?"
The answer leaves me before I even finish breathing—
just in time to make her feel I cut her argument before it was even born.
She shoots me a sharp look.
"Anyone would've failed in his place!! His situation is—"
"I don't regret what I said."
"You didn't have to attack him like that," she insists.
"Attack him?" I tilt my head slightly "I stated the truth: Eren cannot seal Wall Maria."
Her jaw tightens.
I take one step closer.
"He said he would. He gave people unfounded hope."
"He said he would kill all the Titans. Where did that get us?"
"He's innocent, childish, useless."
The words spill out, my tone sharpening like a blade being honed.
Soon my face is barely a meter from hers.
I watch her without altering my expression.
She, however, lowers her gaze, fists clenched, shoulders stiff.
"We both know I'm right," I say in a neutral, almost gentle tone at the end "..."
My voice lowers a step further.
"Even so, I won't be able to insult him again. With how useless he is, we should just hand him over to the Military Police. Maybe they'll get something more useful out of him if they dissect him."
The silence breaks.
A blink. A spark.
Mikasa's punch comes with Ackerman speed and fury, her eyes burning with pure rage.
But my hand moves first.
I catch her wrist mid-strike, and with a fluid motion—
no tension, no unnecessary force—
I flip her over my shoulder and slam her against the ground.
"Kh—...!"
The air is knocked from her lungs.
In the same motion, I pin her down, her arms stretched above her head, trapped beneath my grip.
The observation is simple.
It doesn't require emotion.
I was always the best in martial arts in the White Room.
Before I turned ten, I was already defeating world-class fighters.
From that perspective, Mikasa is nothing.
Our physical difference is small...
But technically, we belong to different universes.
"You're getting reckless, Mikasa."
My voice is calm, mismatched with the situation.
I tighten my hold on her forearm—
not harshly, not gently.
Just enough to make it clear escape is not an option.
Our faces are inches apart.
Her breath hits my cheek.
Her eyes avoid mine.
Disappointing.
For a moment, I expected something different from her.
Something I've never gotten in this life or the previous one.
"You really are useless."
A crack appears in her eyes.
Not from physical pain.
From something else—
an emotional fracture.
"I'm trying to see real value in you, Mikasa... but it's becoming difficult."
Her lips tighten, but she doesn't answer.
So I take one step further.
"Are you anything without Eren?"
The breath she holds betrays her control.
She doesn't need to speak.
That silence is already a confession.
"I don't understand..." she murmurs weakly.
"Yes, you do."
I watch her.
She trembles—barely, but she does.
"You're scared, aren't you?" I add quietly.
"A world without him terrifies you. I guess I failed with you... though he must feel the same way."
She clenches her teeth.
Unable to move. Unable to accept.
"L... let me go..." she whispers.
"Hm? Did you say something?"
Silence.
The kind of silence that only exists when someone breaks internally.
I look at her for a few more seconds.
Then release her without warning.
I stand up—no arrogance, no victorious posture.
No emotion.
Just myself.
"What happens to Eren matters," I say at last, as if returning to a practical discussion.
"His failure or his success... both have consequences."
My eyes fall on her.
"I won't let the Military Police take him. But eventually, I'll need your help."
I turn and start walking away.
Behind me, I hear her breath hitch—
just for an instant.
Mikasa hasn't changed.
A girl frozen in the moment she lost her parents.
A girl who, unable to face reality, replaced trauma with the image of a boy wrapping a scarf around her.
An emotional anchor she mistook for salvation.
Her strength, her discipline, her devotion...
None of it truly belongs to her.
It's all a reflection of her fear—
a fear of losing the only person who gave her a borrowed purpose.
It's not loyalty.
It's dependence.
The most dangerous and the most useless kind.
I thought I could expect more from her.
That maybe she'd offer something capable of breaking my own monotony.
But her world is small.
Far too small for me.
No matter.
I can still use her.
But that slight hope I had—
that faint idea she could offer me something different—
was a miscalculation.
And it's strange to admit it, but even so...
I still find it fascinating how far a human can chain themselves to another without realizing it.
If she wants to prove me wrong, she'll need more than Ackerman strength.
She'll need will.
Something she currently lacks.
That's why...
I expect nothing from her.
And maybe, for that very reason, she can begin to be useful.
But if there's anything worth highlighting—
I hate slaves.
---------------
Thank you for your patience!!! I've been really overwhelmed with my studies, so I appreciate your support so much ❤️
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