Once In A While

Chapter 34: The Truth At Night

"I never imagined he'd planned to slaughter everybody outside the walls... But if they all disappear, so will all the hatred..." Jean murmured softly as he tied a scarf around Falco's mouth, to make sure he wouldn't transform anytime soon.

"All the enemies that have ever threatened our existence, flattened. Blank, empty land is all that will be left. What the people on the other side of the sea feared most came true... And it's because they labeled us devils and tried to kill us all." He looked at us, his expression grim.

"But that doesn't mean it's good! So what if the hatred perishes? There will be more hatred amongst ourselves in a while. And all this empty land... What does it matter if there are no people to live on it? Sure, we have been cornered for a long time for crimes we never committed... But a genocide shouldn't be our answer." I brought a hand up to my forehead, wiping away the sweat that had broken out.

"(Y/n)'s right... This is going too far." Armin backed my thoughts up, terror written all over his face as he realized the scale of Eren's planned massacre.

"Then, do we stop him? Eren... He rejected Zeke and his plan to castrate us all, and he rejected sacrificing Historia in order to maintain the Founder's powers. In other words... To protect us, Eren sacrificed all of humanity beyond the walls... And the ones who'll benefit from this massacre... Are us." Jean said looking down.

Before anyone could reply, as always, something happened;

"Is that titans?" Connie asked, looking in the distance.

"Are they... Eating our comrades?" My eyes focused on countless of our ranks being devoured by once Paradisians who had made the mistake to drink the poisoned wine.

"That's it. We're going in." Jean declared, getting up with Falco still knocked out in his arms.

"Jean, wait!" Mikasa tried to stop him.

"My guess is that he inherited the Jaw Titan. We can use him to bring someone useful back... Like Commander Pyxis..." Jean explained his plans,

"No. We are feeding him to my mom, in Ragako Village. Alright?" Connie said, voice firm with certainty that his mother would be brought back after years of being turned.

"Jean, Connie... According to Zeke, the kid's a warrior candidate. Feeding him to one of our own would lead to more conflict between us, Reiner and the Cart Titan. That's the last thing we should be going after. If Marley's done for, there's no point in continuing our feud with Reiner and the others..." Armin tried to reason both of them out of their idea, but to no avail;

"So you're saying that my mom isn't worth it? How do you think I feel going back again and again, to the village where my mom lays? You are saying you don't get it? You ate Bert, didn't you?! And here you are, alive and with us! I am bringing my mom back to life, and you can't stop me! None of you can!" Connie screamed in rage and frustration, yanking Armin by his collar.

As Connie took Falco from Jean's arms and fled away, we were faced with a new terror ahead of us; the titans we hadn't fought with in a while, were back at our throats.

"Forget about Connie for now, we have to stop these first before they devour more of our soldiers!" I said to the rest of them as we started the counterattack.

The fight went on for long, though it seemed to pass by in an instant. In the midst of being covered in evaporating Titan blood, locating and helping rookies out of certain death, I couldn't help but notice the familiarity settling in; in this gruesome scenery, we were taken years back, back when we were the rookies with the task to save the world at hand.