In a secluded manor beyond the bustle of the capital, Lock sat across from Rod Reiss and Kenny Ackerman. The room was quiet, save for the low murmur of men who had earned the luxury of few words.
"That's the situation," Lock reported evenly. "Except for the hardest-hit Shiganshina sector, which won't be reclaimed quickly, the territories inside Wall Maria are under control. The next step is to organize supply convoys and help the people return to their homes."
Kenny, who never bothered to hide the sharpening edge in his voice, grinned. "You did well. I thought you were sending those men to die. Turns out you brought them back. If the interior gets stabilized, daily life should resume sooner rather than later, right?"
"It will take time," Lock said. "At least three years of reconstruction, at a minimum. The loss of population, structures, farmland, and military manpower is too great for a single season of work. Even with stability, recovery will be slow."
Rod's expression tightened at that. He glanced at Lock, then fixed the conversation with a question that betrayed both worry and calculation. "Did you encounter any intelligent Titans during the operation?"
"No intelligent Titans in the recent sweep," Lock answered. "In the prior engagement, we captured one, and two others escaped our trace. We don't know where they will surface next. That uncertainty keeps us reactive rather than proactive."
Kenny's reaction was a half-laugh, half-curse. "Intelligent Titans. Of all the surprises."
"Careful with your tongue, Kenny," Rod said softly.
Kenny shrugged, the movement casual enough to be unreadable. His eyes flicked to Lock and back again. Something like approval passed in that glance—curiosity, perhaps, at the man who had managed to tip a desperate campaign.
Rod leaned forward. The studied calm in his voice hid something like intent. "Lock, you made a crucial contribution. Would you like to aim for more?"
The question was an offer and a probe wrapped together; Rod measured his words, seeing whether ambition could be shaped into a useful tool.
Lock didn't hide his answer. He had learned that ambition was the currency of power. "Yes. I want to go further."
Rod's smile widened, but not with pure warmth. "Good. Rest for now. We will make the proper arrangements. Your reward will be fitting."
Lock bowed and left the manor with a steady stride. Only when the door had closed and the hallway swallowed the echo of his steps did Rod turn to Kenny and ask, quietly, "What do you think of him?"
Kenny's answer was a near-imperceptible nod. "A useful man."
Lock did not return to the barracks that evening. He went home instead—straight back to the modest house where the threads of the life he'd left behind still held. Children who had not seen his face for months were waiting; their greeting was raw and honest.
"You're back," one of them said, voice full of the mixture of wonder and relief only a child could show.
Lock's hands moved to the heads of the youngsters and ruffled hair that had grown while he was away. He asked them the simple things—about their food, their chores, their small mischiefs—and for a while the world narrowed to that small, warm circle. It had been a long time since he'd been able to inhabit such ordinariness without a blade softening at his hip.
Later that night, they sat with Grisha in a quiet room, cups of tea cooling between them. Outside, the district slepuneasilys and still, the distant creaks of city life are a reminder of the fragility beneath the calm.
"You've earned the trust of many officials," Grisha said, voice low with equal parts pride and urgency. "Some of the powerful have no doubts left about you. Once we identify the target, we can move."
Lock felt the pressure behind those words—Grisha's expectancy was not mere arrogance or hope. It was a countdown. Power moves faster when a man knows his time is limited.
"Don't worry," Lock replied. "I'll see the plan through before time runs out."
Grisha's face, lit by lamplight, showed both the strain of too many secrets and a fierce belief in what they were trying to resurrect. For him, this was not only a strategy. It was redemption—for lost comrades, for ideals that had been buried beneath cowardice and bureaucracy. Grisha had the strength of conviction that could make men dangerous.
"But plans have risks," Grisha added, carefully. "We can't anticipate everything. When the moment comes to take a risk, you must be willing."
Lock acknowledged the warning with a measured nod. He knew that Grisha judged him capable but cautious—that seeing the danger did not always mean stepping into it. That patience was both a virtue and a chain. Lock had learned to keep one eye on survival and the other on leverage. He had one life to lose; he intended not to waste it.
When the conversation turned, Lock's glance drifted toward the open window. The night air was cold; the streets below were dim. He watched the faint silhouette of towers against the sky and spoke, almost to himself, "More than a hundred thousand lives lost in this operation. Rod sat like a man who watched ants die. No visible remorse. It's as if those deaths are necessary dust for a greater plan."
Grisha's hands clenched. "At first I had hope for those who rule," he said. "But I learned their corruption and stubbornness. If change is to happen, it must be made. We cannot wait forever."
Grisha's voice trembled with memory—of the idealism that had once filled the Restoration movement, of friends now silenced. The names of those who had fallen—leaders, conspirators, ordinary dreamers—haunted him. Their sacrifice stitched itself to his bones.
"Have you found her?" Grisha asked suddenly, eyes sharp. "The one we spoke of—Dina Fritz?"
Lock's expression tightened. Dina Fritz—an indispensable piece in the game of coordinates and power—was vital. If she could be subdued, restored, and aligned to their cause, everything might change.
"I saw her near Shiganshina," Lock said carefully. "She's not gone far. I will watch for an opportunity to secure her and… restore her."
Gratitude, brief and raw, passed over Grisha's face. "Good. We need her. Whether out of loyalty or plan, she is key."
Lock kept the other contingency close in his mind—Historia Reiss. The girl with royal blood, whom the world either pitied or sought to manipulate. She was a lever, too: small now, but with weight to be pulled when the time came.
Plans are fragile things that shatter if handled without thought. Lock moved through the next weeks with the measured steps of a man who understood both the value and danger of influence. Soldiers returned. Walls were repaired. Markets tentatively reopened. Yet in the quiet rooms of power, old agreements were reexamined and new arrangements drafted with pen strokes as sharp as blades.
Promotion was inevitable in the wake of success. Rod would see to that. But Lock knew the title could be a gilded cage as much as it could be a key. Power attracts those who would use it, and every favour costs someone allegiance. He would accept advancement only on terms that preserved his autonomy—to keep his force independent, effective, and answerable first to the goals he held.
He thought of those he might coax into his circle—men like Darius Zackly, whose ideals balanced pragmatism, or other officers whose horizons were not yet fully sold to the status quo. Allies were not only hearts to win; they were instruments to shape the state itself.
Late one evening, Lock walked the city lanes alone. The reconstruction was visible in small ways: a repaired roof, a child selling bread, men hauling stone. Life warmed little pockets of the Wall. Yet Lock's mind kept returning to the dangers that remained beyond the cheerful veneers—the intelligence of certain Titans not yet accounted for, the fragile loyalties of nobles, the unknowns that lay in the dark between plan and action.
If change demanded a push, as he had told Erwin weeks before, then the push had to be precise. Not a reckless shove that toppled everything, but a calculated prod that set things in motion.
He had made allies, earned rewards, and garnered suspicion in equal measure. He had a plan and the patience to watch it grow into action. For now, the world could breathe a little easier. But Lock—quiet, watchful, and ambitious—already planned how to turn this fragile peace into the platform he needed to shape the future.
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