"Annie, you are not allowed to slack off."
Hearing the harsh voice from above her head, Annie trembled all over with fear. She raised her leg high once more and drove a heavy kick at the wooden training post in front of her.
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
Her little calves were already tender to begin with, and now they burned with a piercing pain.
Annie burst into tears. Wiping her eyes, she ran to her father to beg.
"Dad, I really can't kick anymore."
"No."
With a smack, her father slapped her, then yanked the sobbing girl up from the ground and threw her back in front of the wooden post.
"If you can't kick this wooden dummy to pieces, then you'll never get to eat!"
"But Dad…"
"Not another word!"
"Mm…!"
Annie had never felt so wronged. It was the first time she'd ever seen her father this cruel.
She had no idea what he'd gone through.
Ever since her mother died, she hadn't seen her father smile even once.
And now he was twice as harsh with her as before.
Was it because of those Marleyan soldiers who had come to visit?
Little Annie didn't know.
She was still a child; she had no idea how to make sense of the adult world.
But if her father insisted she do this, then she would do it.
As long as it made him happy.
With that thought, she raised her leg again and went back to kicking the wooden post.
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
Until one day, the wooden dummy finally broke.
Annie happily ran out to meet her father as he returned home at dusk.
Instead, she saw him take off his hat in defeat, his face wet with tears.
"Dad, what's wrong?"
"…"
Her father was silent for a long time.
Then he pulled Annie into his arms.
For the first time, Annie felt the soft side of her father.
She hadn't expected to feel something so long forgotten.
"Annie, no matter what happens… you have to come back home, understand?!"
His crying sounded like a child's wail.
Annie gently patted her father's back.
That was the last time she was ever that gentle.
After that, her father grew even stricter, even more brutal.
In the end, to do as he'd told her, Annie stopped holding back at all when they sparred.
She broke her father's shin with a kick, crippling him for life.
"I went to see the doctor today. He said I'll never recover."
Her father's tone was the same as always.
But this time, Annie was no longer afraid—only ashamed.
She understood that her father had grown old.
He was no longer her match.
"I'm sor—"
"Good job, Annie!"
Completely out of character, her father actually praised her.
From that day on, he was never strict again.
From the time Annie inherited the Female Titan onward, he never spoke a harsh word to her.
On the contrary, he became like an overgrown child.
Every day, he experimented with new recipes,
limping around on one leg as he devoted himself to making her a hearty breakfast.
During her days of training, Annie could almost always see her father, apron tied around his waist, bustling about in the kitchen.
And not just that. For matters at home, he slowly began to show a desire to consult her about big decisions.
Even when she accepted Marley's orders to join the "Recapture the Founding" operation—
the day before she left, her father cried again.
This time, in front of her, he seemed very, very ordinary.
Back when he'd trained her, he had been so unreadable, so terrifying.
And now, he was just this frail, helpless old man.
"You must, you must come back, Annie! Promise your dad you'll come back here—come back safe and sound!"
Looking down at her father kneeling in front of her, drowning in his own tears, watching his whole body tremble—
she nodded.
"I will."
She said it.
But the moment she turned around, she realized the scenery around her had changed.
The furniture had become old and worn.
Hunting rifles and wild ducks hung from the walls, alongside straw hats and rain cloaks.
It looked like a rural farmhouse.
Annie stared in amazement and lifted her head.
A woman's smiling face appeared in front of her.
"Well done, Eren. You finished the whole bowl of soup—good job."
Squinting with a grin, she and the man beside her laughed as they wiped the soup from the corner of Annie's mouth.
Annie froze.
"Who… are you?"
She blinked.
Then blinked again.
Suddenly, she was standing in a dense forest.
"Eren!"
A girl's voice came from behind her.
Annie turned and saw Mikasa.
"You're…"
She looked at this unfamiliar girl holding something out in her hand—a stone.
In front of them, several vicious-looking wolves bared their teeth.
All at once, the wolves lunged.
Annie hurled the stone in her hand, then leaped into a side kick, sending one of the wolves flying.
"Wow! Eren! You're amazing!!"
The girl behind her blushed and clapped excitedly.
Annie glanced back at her.
"Eren?"
She remembered.
This woman was one of the Survey Corps soldiers gathered around the Founding.
And the Founding's name… seemed to be Eren.
Memory inheritance.
So I did inherit the Founding, huh?
Annie thought.
Just then, the world around her erupted into noise.
Terrified screams rang in her ears.
Annie's eyes flew wide as the scene before her shifted to a field of ruins.
A massive boulder from who-knows-where had smashed through countless homes and buildings.
And suddenly, she remembered.
This was the tragedy she, Bertholdt, Reiner, and Pieck had created with their own hands!
"What is this supposed to mean?! What does any of this mean?!" Annie raged. "Why are you showing me this?! What's the point?! To accuse me?! To curse me?!"
She shouted, but no one answered.
Only one familiar voice was calling her.
A woman's voice.
Following the sound, Annie walked toward it.
At the corner of the ruins, beneath a house crushed under a giant stone—
the same woman she'd seen at the beginning was being pulled free by her husband.
But her leg had already been crushed by the rock.
"Eren, the Titans are coming. Go! Get out of here!"
"Hurry, Eren," the bespectacled man said through tears. "Take Mikasa and run!! Get away from here! I'm not going. Even if I die, I want to stay with your mother…"
As he spoke, the man gripped the woman's hand tightly.
Suddenly, another tremor shook the Wall.
A Colossal Titan in the shape of a woman appeared outside the Wall, mouth gaping in a roar.
Because of a deformity in her growth, she just happened to fall across the gap Bertholdt had kicked open, blocking the path of the other Titans.
Even so, some Titans remained inside the Walls and began to lumber toward them.
"Eren, while you still can—go!"
The man shouted, turning to face the approaching Titans.
"Go, Eren! Run!"
The woman urged anxiously.
Annie didn't want to die here with these two strangers.
She turned and ran.
But as soon as she did, the woman suddenly began to sob, clapping both hands over her mouth to keep Annie from hearing her.
"I'm sorry! Please… don't go… come back… Eren… If you survive, then… you must… you must come back, Eren! Promise your mother you'll come back here—come back safe and sound!"
She sobbed.
He wept.
The apron of mother/father was still tied firmly around their waist.
All at once, Annie pictured another scene:
A kitchen.
Parents.
Waiting.
—"When Eren/Annie comes home, I've got to let them try my new dish. I can't wait, the kid's going to be so happy, right?"
But right then, a Titan suddenly shambled up, grabbed the couple in its hands, snapped their spines, killed them cruelly, and stuffed them into its mouth.
Teeth crushed flesh; thick blood spurted.
It chuckled wickedly, face twisted like that of a demon.
Annie froze.
Because she could see that the Titan's face—
was the face of the Female Titan she herself turned into.
And it was precisely this Titan
that had committed an unforgivable massacre.
"No!!"
"Stop!!"
She stopped running.
"I'm sorry!!"
"I'm sorry!!"
She screamed.
She drowned in regret.
All this—just so she and her father could live a better life—what had she done?!
Why had it come to this?
They were—
they were all living, breathing humans, just like her!
She grabbed a stone from the ground and, with everything she had, hurled it at the rampaging Female Titan!
If she could—
she wanted to die forever.
To never have been born into this cruel world at all.
Whoosh!
The stone flew.
Faster—
and faster.
Then, in the blink of an eye…
it began to twist, to stretch, to elongate.
Growing sharper and sharper,
cold light glinting along its edge.
—Thud!
As if guided by some precise measurement,
Roger's arrow drove straight into the Female Titan's nape,
piercing Annie's chest,
and nailing her savagely to the ground.
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