A Promise (An Attack on Titan Fanfic: Erwin Smith)

The Squad

Isanna stepped out from the room where she had been assigned to stay in along with some other female cadets in the Training Corps. Donning their standard training uniform, she walked down the hallway together with Adalaide and Chiara, heading outside towards the training grounds for another series of training.

"Wonder what hellish training regime the instructor's gonna make us do today," Adalaide wondered out loud with her arms crossed behind her head as they treaded out of the building where the girls' dormitory was located, the light rays of the morning sun dousing their figures and casting shadows on the earthy ground.

Chiara pondered. "There's no rain so that's good in case she'll be ordering us to a run inside the muddy forest while balancing rocks. And I don't think she'll want a repeat of a dozen of cadets with broken bones so I guess there's no chances of us tree climbing racing without our gear."

Their head instructor was a woman with sharp facial features and a personality of a tiger. As one of the few older women who was fiery enough to train cadets, Gricelda Koch was everything a Training Corps head instructor should be: terrifying gaze, terrifying face, terrifying personality, and a terrifying training regime. 'Devil's Spawn', the cadets would often call her behind her back.

Adalaide recalled a certain training routine their instructor had executed months ago and visibly shuddered, her face paling at the memory. The Tree Climbing Racing incident. It was a haunting memory among the batch 95th, which ended in more than dozens of broken bones and trauma.

There was an unspoken agreement to never bring up the Tree Climbing Racing incident.

When the trio reached the training grounds, they wasted no time and immediately lined up along with the rest of the cadets in a square platoon formation as their instructor walked up to the front. She wasn't one to be patient when it came to schedules, so even a second late was never an option. The cadets learned this the hard way on the first day of training, when they were just as fresh as a newly-arrived stash of vegetables on the supermarket with no idea of how horrifying it would be once sales' day came.

"You all look like shit, as always," their instructor spat as she scanned the weary faces of the cadets. They all stood in attention, expressions serious and rigid, unflinching at the vulgar words their instructor had just let out as if this was normal to them (it was).

"But I'm in a good mood, so no broken bones for the day," their shoulders relaxed upon hearing the good news. "However!"

The cadets tensed as they waited with bated breath for their instructor to continue, each passing second becoming more agonizing to bear.

Gricelda's eyes squinted at them. "I passed by the boys' bathroom earlier this morning and it smelled like shit. Tell me who among you didn't flush after shitting."

Isanna swore she heard an audible gulp coming from the majority of the boys, but none of them said a word to answer their instructor. Everybody knew that if no one raised their hands, all of them would be receiving a punishment.

"I'm training ya'll not to become titan food but it doesn't mean you should leave your shit lyin' around, ya twerps!" Their instructor scoffed. "So no one's answerin'?"

Some of the cadets closed their eyes and prayed for there to be no Tree Climbing Racing incident 2.0.

"Tch. Fine. Like I said, I'm in a good mood so I ain't wanna see any broken bones comin' from ya, so here's what you gonna do," she pointed to a faraway hill. "Boys, pick a girl partner an' carry 'em through the hill, through the forest, through the swamp, and through the river. Then circle around the whole grounds and come back here. No shortcuts, no breaks, no cheating. Winner won't clean the bathrooms for a week. Those who lose will clean bathrooms of both the boys and girls dormitory. Do ya hear me?"