Shards In Your Heart || AOT x Male Reader

Primal Desires

C.W: slightly heavier chapter, contains a more vivid description of gore. Also important A/N at the end!

(Y/N) squinted down at the scene below. It looked like the Garrison Commander had made his way over and they had not gone through with killing Eren and the other two. (Y/N) felt much relieved that Eren wasn't going to be dying today, a relief he instantly quashed down. Eren could still be a traitor, and he would not take Eren's side no matter what comes, at least, not until a proper explanation could be brought up for the events that transpired in the last couple of hours. He stayed up on the ledge watching the scene unfold. In one loud command, Pyxis had ordered the cannons to stand down. With another, he had them bring all three of the kids up to the top wall. A low rumbling diffused across the inner walls of the city as Titans filtered in through the hole at Trost, aimlessly trying to break the inner walls. (Y/N) was thoroughly shaken up. He didn't know how to feel, or rather he didn't want to know. So many things had transpired in such short period of time; it was overwhelming in all honesty. First there was the possibility of Titans transforming into humans (or the other way round but truly, he couldn't be certain), then Eren was a Titan, much unlike the other Titans. That makes three "special" Titans they'd seen so far; the colossal Titan and the one with the hard armour. Then Eren had tried to make a run for it only solidifying the wall of allegations that had been propped up against him. Armin tried to save Eren's life, but that just pushed the breeze of suspicion in Admin's direction. Did that mean Armin was in on it too? After all it was him who had gotten them out of their earlier predicament and all throughout the ordeal (Y/N) felt that the blonde boy had read the Titan's movements a little too well. Or was he overthinking the whole situation? After all, Eren looked just as confused as they were when he emerged from its nape. Was the nape where all the humans resided? Were humans controlling the Titans from the inside? It was entirely possible that Eren was only a pawn in someone else's game, that he had maybe been turned into a Titan against his will and that he was set free in Trost to hinder the working of the military. But then who was the mastermind behind it all? The other Titans? Were they even capable of thinking like this? (Y/N) wasn't even sure they were entirely capable of speech but what with the current situation, it was not entirely out of the realm of possibility.

He thought back to that strange event that occurred years back. The children then, outside the wall, the possibility of them being real was all too high, more so now that they could've been Titans in disguise. That would explain a lot of the newfound abnormalities in this world. All of this had started recently, he was sure. His time in the capital (more specifically the underground) meant that news travelled especially fast amongst communities; nothing like this had ever been heard of before. Of course there was the secret police, but (Y/N) had interacted with them before and it was unlikely they knew any more than he did. The memories of his time in the underground, the ones he had tried to forget came flooding back, washing over him and setting a dull weight on his heart. Somehow it was his fault that she was killed, that his younger brother had been murdered that way. He shouldn't never have let her join them.

There was a loud thud as the cannons were defused and turned over to face the outer gate, the sound of which startled (Y/N) out of his thoughts. He turned his attention back to the scene where he saw Rico, perched at the top wall waving vigorously at him; beckoning him to join her at the wall as well. He moved quick, only fumbling a bit with the new gear, letting his hooks fly and then falling sharp on his feet, walking briskly after to match her already moving pace.

"I saw you up there." Rico spared his face a glance, "so you're up to speed now with the situation, yes?". (Y/N) nodded wordlessly, trying to process the events of today and walked silently beside Rico. It hadn't been long before the dead silence between them was broken and she spoke again, "The old man's summoned all the elite guard, including that young girl of course, and the rest of the garrison soldiers. He never really said anything much to us after that, but I'm sure he has something planned..." she paused, inhaling sharply and then picking up the pace of her talking, "If I'm being honest... I think the situation's way out of our control now. With all the destruction in the city, it'd be impossible for us to pull ourselves out of this. We don't have enough soldiers, we don't have enough gear. Our cannons cannot kill a Titan instantly, they keep coming back, they keep coming back to hurt us, to eat us, to kill us. Us Garrison soldiers: we've never seen anything like this, many of us have never even seen a Titan in our whole fucking lives and now we're going to die to one- "