The Island of Devils

Chapter 21

(Flashback)

Historia, Mikasa, and Eren were walking toward the cell where Annie was located. Armin was already there since he was talking to her.

"You guys are here..." Armin said.

"It's time for us to free Annie from the crystal prison." Eren touched the crystal, and suddenly, Annie lay drenched and limp, surrounded by the broken crystal fragments. She started to cough out liquid. "Annie, it's been a while."

She noticed the four of them and said, "Oh... it's you guys. What do you want?"

Mikasa was about to take action before Historia stopped her. She said, "We're here to talk. That's all. You have been staying in that crystal for over a year, did you know? A year can happen a lot."

Eren said, "We know everything about Marley, and we also knew about your warrior comrades. First of all, I want to ask you about the damage you caused to my teammates or the people in Stohess?"

Annie stared at them with a cold tone and said, "We were praised for killing people. We were taught that once we were beyond our borders, we could kill combatants and civilians alike. We were atoning for our deeds as Eldians and on a mission to save the world. So anything was justified."

Armin said, "Annie, you wanted to stop that, right? Are those people necessary sacrifices for you?"

"No... I don't care one bit about that saving the world stuff..." Annie lowers her head. "I was abandoned by my parents not long after I was born. They say my blood test showed my mother had been having an affair with an Eldian or something. So I was taken into the Internment Zone and lived alone for a few days. And not long after, the man who abandoned me came back to me and he decided to train me into a Marleyan warrior so that he could make his own life better. For as long as I can remember, he was always beating the martial arts techniques of his motherland into me. The only value I had to him was in whether or not I could become a Warrior."

The four of them frown, and Annie continued. "Time passed, and I grew strong, just like he wanted. So I paid him back for all the pain he'd shown me until that point. I made it so that he'd never be able to walk straight again, but...he was happy. "Now you can kill your enemies, even unarmed," he said. And so, it all stopped mattering to me. Who people were, and where they came from. Whether they lived or died. I couldn't find any value in life... including my own. Yes, until then, that is... it was... the morning when we were to head off to the island for the plan to retake the Founder... the man dropped to his knees and apologized to me. He told me... that everything he taught me had been wrong, and that he shouldn't have abandoned me in the first place. He cried and pleaded. He wanted me to come back. My status as a Warrior...our title as Honorary Marleyans... he said that none of that mattered so long as I returned... that man was my father. He saw me as his own daughter."

"I see..." Historia frowned. Remembering about what her father did but only that he never cared about her but her blood.

"I have a father waiting for me. And others have people just as important to them too. I used to not care about anything, but it's different now. I think I've committed irredeemable sins. If it meant returning to my father, I'd do it all over again." Annie sighed.

Eren said, "Retake the Founder, was that the reason why you wanted to kidnap me back then? Because I am the Founding Titan? No, it is not just you, Reiner and Bertolt tried to do the same thing. Heck, even the Beast Titan and the Cart Titan were also here..."

Annie widened her eyes and Armin said, "And Annie... I... I ate Bertolt, and now I am the Colossal Titan now."

Annie looked at Armin since she didn't expect Armin to be a Titan Shifter like her. Eren decided to do the plan and said, "The Cart, the Armored, and the Beast all returned to Marley, abandoned both you and Bertolt on the island. Because of that, Marley was having a war with the Mid-East Nations."