Attack on Titan: Reclamation

Disease

Listening to Infection from Metal Gear Solid V Original Soundtrack Selection

10:51 a.m.

Annie was laying in a medical bed. The heart monitor beeping. A cloth was covering her left arm, stopping halfway up her bicep. She was still unconscious from the fight a few days ago. Armin was sitting in a chair next to her bed. Hanji on the other side, taking notes. Everyone else was standing around the bed.

"She's still out?" Jean asked, "and I thought Mikasa hit hard..."

"This isn't the result of the fight," Armin said, "It's the result of this..."

The blonde took off the sheet covering the woman's arm. Annie's entire forearm looked like her Titan's arm; down to the red muscle on her palm and forearm to the white muscle on her knuckles tracing up to her elbow. The muscles stopped at her bicep, but it darkened the veins in her arm which very creepily spidered up to her shoulder.

"It's some form of infection," Hanji explained, "It started when she joined humanity's side."

"That never stops being creepy," Connie said.

"And the problem to curing her is that we don't know what's causing it," the Scout Commander said.

"But I do," a deep, gravelly voice (think Misha Collins as Castiel from Supernatural) said from behind Eren.

Everyone jumped and turned to see who it was.

It was the hooded man, wearing the cloth over his nose and mouth. It was the Evolved Titan Shifter.

Everyone drew their blades.

"I come here in peace," he said, raising his hands.

"You put three highly-trained men in the infirmary," Eren said, "I say we have every right to believe you're a threat."

"Yet I stand here without a single blade on my person," the hooded figure said.

Everyone hesitated for a quick second.

"You said you could help us," Armin said.

"I cannot help, but I can enlighten you," the rogue Shifter responded, " and it is very unfortunate to say I have seen this before."

"Well, what is it?" Mikasa asked in a threatening tone.

"Your friend here is having a dilemma," the Shifter answered, " and a very serious one too. She is stuck between two worlds; she is stuck from getting over the past and struggling to move on in the future. This mental confusion allows her Titan to take over her human body. It's blood may be the same as her's, but it is poisonous. If she does not resolve her internal conflict soon, she will die."

"How does she do that?" Hanji asked.

"That I do not know," the hooded Shifter replied, "All I do know is that by the time I leave, she will wake up. Take this flare gun, and fire it only when she's having problems with her Titan."

Armin accepted the gun and asked, "Wait, how will you know when to come?"

"I'll be watching," the Shifter answered.

Everyone slowly sheathed their blades and turned to Annie.

"How much time does she have?" Eren asked.

No response.

Eren turned to find the Shifter had vanished once again.