Fandom Attack on Titan: Chapter II

[Two Fives]

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chapter ii:i

wall maria, shiganshina / シガンシナ区

The Scout Regiment arrive in Shiganshina from Beyond the Walls. The ride through Shiganshina's portcullises is as silent as sepulchres, shadows of the 13th Expedition Outside the Walls worn around soldiers' shoulders like burial shrouds. Several days after, a funeral service takes place in the town square. Condolences are offered for the families and friends of hundreds of men and women who died on the expedition. The bereaved wear black as black as the night, holding candles in their hands that cast shadows even blacker. Crows caw cruelly.

For her murder and mutiny of corporal Niklas Dok on the expedition, Mizuki Kohaku is under trial for many months. Following eyewitness testimonials, these crimes are reprieved by the courts. Those outside the courts, however, aren't as forgiving. Information outlets from the Outer to Inner Walls run her name through the dirt with libel, labelling her with nicknames from Reaper of the Redwood to Kohaku Cut-Throat. This so-called traitor's deeds have been the talk of everyone's town. Mothers are known to tell their sons tales of the titans--the big bad beasts--to scare them into behaving. Now, they tell their children tales of Mizuki Kohaku, the Reaper of the Redwood.

During the trial, reports of the 13th Expedition Outside the Walls are collected and compiled. Officials determine who of the Scout Regiment are most qualified for the rank sergeant. Congratulations are in order for Victoria Star, who soldiers remember as coming second in the 88th Cadet Corps, Kane Foster, whose titan kill count was second to only one, and Serenity Alabast, whose innovative endeavours led to the saving of countless lives. All of these sergeants, too, are offered a radio comm, a device derived of the technological breakthrough made from deconstructing the 13th Expedition's find. This device, manufactured by Angel Aaltonen's progeny, allows for sergeants to communicate across long distances.

A year later, morale is low. Lower than ever. Word of the Redwood Massacre has spread as far as the Inner Wall, whispered still on the breaths of pauper and prosperous alike, this feeling of utter calamity reaching far and wide indiscriminately like the bubonic plague. Symptoms include weights as heavy as the world on your shoulders. Gravity in your stomach that drops it pitilessly down. Memories of cold blues that chill your blood like December's snows.

There has been an increase in the Persona Non Grata's terrorist activity this last year, particularly around Shiganshina. For this reason, the Royal Government has decided to employ scouts here, figuring their hardened temperaments from the Redwood Massacre are ideal for the undertaking. Soldiers of the Garrison as well as the Scouts man Shiganshina's streets, keeping an eye on citizens who man the marketplaces and everywhere else in between. For the time being, all is well.

Where are you in Shiganshina this morning?

 

[Flame Demon]

Victoria looks at the sky as she's talking to her younger brother, her hair grown back, but now kept shorter "Big sis, can you show me where you lived with mom and dad?" the young boy asks "I can't" she says kneeling down "And you need to go back home soon, as soon as my uncle is done here" she says with a small smile. She looks towards the inner walls and sighs "Wish I could go home" she says standing up again. She walks off after dropping her brother off by her uncle and she mounts her horse again, the last year was hard, harder then she thought it would be, between training and helping her family restaurant she spend her time reading wherever she can sit comfortable. "Bye big sis!", Victoria waves at her brother before her horse rides off "You can use Yuki to go back to the inner wall when you're done" she calls to her uncle, who looks sad to see her go, but she has to do her duty and keep an eye out, she wasn't wearing her scout uniform under her cloak, but some more comfortable clothes so she wouldn't stand out too much "Let's see what the others are up to" she says petting her horse.

 

[Loki The Trickster]

A year on, Akai is in a graveyard, decorating her husband's stone slab with a bouquet of white-and-red lilies. She's off duty for the time being, thus not in uniform. A fur-lined trench coat sprawls out across either shoulder to keep winter's chill at bay. She wears boiled leather gloves. One of them she removes, wanting to feel the warmth of her son's head.

She had found out she was with child sometime after she reached Wall Maria. She was pregnant, as it were, with her dead husband's son. She didn't know how at first, but realised, with her grandmother's overly blunt counsel, that he must've been conceived some short time before the 13th Expedition Outside the Walls. Whatever the case, she was thankful. The almighty Walls had been favourable, blessing her with a miracle.

Her three-month old son slumbers in a baby sling around her shoulders, bundled up in thick pelts, his cheek rested against her collarbone. She strokes his hair--gently--like her baby is as fragile as ceramic ware, as mothers tend to do. "Your father was a hero," she whispers in his ear, smiling, but faintly, the moving of her lips only slight.

Having lived in Shiganshina before joining the military, the move isn't as hard on Akai as it may be on the other soldiers. She has relatives here, aunts and uncles, the grandmother as aforementioned--who helps her with her son from time to time, usually when she has to work. Maternity leave lasts only so long, especially when the scouts need each and every able-bodied solider. She didn't mind it, though. Being a scout of the Scout Regiment meant that she could make this world a better place for him.

 

[Two Fives]

There's blood on the young woman's hands.

The Garrison soldier is bleeding out, but Vivienne Klein has her hands pressed to the open wound. “Gauze,” commands the doctor and in seconds a nurse has meshes of linen dressing at the ready. Time is essential. Waste it, the young woman muses, and your patient will die.

She's in the emergency room of one of Shiganshina's hospitals, working desperately alongside nurses. Viv asks one of these nurses, “What in Wall Maria's name happened?”

The nurse only looks at her once and this one look, grave as grave can be, is all Viv needs to know. She shouldn't have even asked. She knows what and who and, most importantly, why. The Persona Non Grata. “Sending us a message,” A pause. “No. Not us. Them. The ones who reside in the Inner Wall--”

In a horrific spurt, blood bursts out from the stab wound of the man's leg, turning her white hospital uniform red, the linen of his bedsheets red too, deeper and darker where the blood concentrates around his thigh, a long trail of gory grime leading out the room--evidently the route the soldier came in through when he was being carried to them on the stretcher. She must be fast. One second too late and he'll have lost too much blood, far too gone to save.

She presses the wound with so much resolve--so much resolute conviction to keep this man alive--that her hands start to hurt. But, thankfully, it pays off. “He's stable,” explains the woman, sterilising the sundered flesh, taking the bandages from the nurse only now to wrap the red ruins. “Take over from here.”

 

[sr901]

"So then the titan is looking right at me," Linne found herself sitting against a wall, surrounded by children of varying ages. It was a position she found herself in quite often telling stories. Often times she would be asked about the scar across her nose and would spin the children a wild tale.

"I thought you said there were three?" A member of her audience cut her off. Some of the children had been there before, hearing multiple variants of this story. Linne purposely made sure to not keep many details the same.

"It was one. The size of three. Pay attention next time," Linne admonished the boy, continuing on her tale of how a narrow dodge resulted in such a precise scar. Each time the story would end with her standing victorious over however many titans she fancied at the time. She always felt a bit guilty every time she told it. It wasn't her intention to excite the kids on the prospect of being a scout, rather she wanted to put a smile on their faces for even a moment. She hoped by the time they were old enough to make such a decision they would know the dangers. Even more she hoped they wouldn't have to make it.

"But you know I was really lucky. Next time might not be the same," Linne stood, stretching her arms over her head before starting off down the street. "Maybe I'll come back with a sword for an arm or something. You all stay out of trouble and all that."

 

[Daric J Fender]

"Like a burden, I'm unwanted.
Like a candle, I burn low.
In the end . . ." Oiona frowned as she looked at her poem. That line was one of the hardest because she didn't like the way it sounded. "In the end." It just seemed to lack the right feel. She thought about it, "Here I stand"?
She started again.

"Like a burden, I'm unwanted.
Like a candle I burn low.
Here I stand, needing a heart,
For like a shell, I am hollow.
In a world that's frozen cold."

She held the parchment out and sighed. It was ok. Many would find it sad, but there was something satisfying laying pain out in poetry. She wondered what it would be like joining the cadets out killing the Titans. she folded the piece and placed it inside her sock. She was done with her training. And today, she would be assigned her team. "For Mama and Papa." She said as she left her front door.

Her aunt was asleep in her bedroom and although Auntie insisted the day before that Oiona say goodbye before leaving, Oiona decided not to. To have her Auntie see her leave in uniform was not what Oiona wanted. It would be better that Auntie's last memory of her be the night before, when she danced and celebrated with her friends.

Besides, for all either of them knew, Oiona may not be coming back alive. And that was if she came back at all.

 

[Flame Demon]

Victoria hides a yawn and she stops near a flower stand and she jumps off her horse "One bouquet please" she says, she pays and takes the flowers before leading Yuki along, sure there was nothing she could bury from Lucas, but she got a gravestone anyway, to honor him in death "Don't eat the flowers" she says lightly hitting her horse "I'm going to pay the graveyard a visit" she says passing her uncle "I'll walk back, take Yuki, I want you to go home soon and yes tell my aunt I'll be home in time for dinner, I hope" she says. She was worried about her family being out of the inner wall for too long, for good reasons too since the rumors are becoming more then rumors, her uncle wasn't exactly good at blending in, so her mother had to pick out his clothes if he went to Shiganshina, it kinda amused her.

After getting back from the expedition she had been greeted by her triplet cousins and it had taken all her willpower not to break down in their arms in front of everyone, it had only been after getting home that she just collapsed in her father's arms as soon as she saw him. She snaps back into reality when she reaches the graveyard and she goes in "Here is it" she mumbles under her breath, okay her aunt had made sure her niece's best friend got a gravestone "She may be bossy sometimes" she says putting the flowers down as she sits in front of it on her knees, dusting leaves of the stone, the stone feeling cold compared to her hand, which she had in her pocket the entire time "Wonder if someone else is here. Haven't seen Akai much, wonder how she's doing" she thinks with a sigh "It's not the same" she says looking at the sky, she often found herself wondering how her comrades are doing even after seeing them like 5 minutes ago, a habit she wanted to get rid off as soon as possible, she looks back at the gravestone as tears form in her eyes, she quickly wipes them away though.

Loki The Trickster

 

[Loki The Trickster]

Speak of the devil and she shall come.

The widow finishes her prayers, deciding to part ways with her husband's gravestone following some minutes of silence.

Walking through the cobblestoned roads of the cemetery, Akai sees Victoria from afar in her periphery. She walks through the fields towards her, around and about weatherworn tombstones, and the widow whispers when she draws close enough, "Good morning." Soft, soothing. Like the silence in the cemetery. She strokes her son's head and he stirs under her hand, a faint gurgling coming from out the underneath the hides. She notices the slab in front of Victoria, notices the engraven name she has been told about at one point or another--Lucas Lawrence--and demurely asks, "Not disturbing you, am I?"

Flame Demon

 

[Flame Demon]

"Oh not at all" Victoria says not looking at Akai "Just thought I figured to visit his grave, haven't done that in a while" she says as she stands up, dusting of her cloak and pants, after the expedition she kept her hair in a messy ponytail since it grew back after she had cut it off a year ago, this way it didn't get in the way of her daily routine. She turns to Akai and asks "A soldier isn't supposed to grief over a fallen friend, right?" she asks, she always kept her emotions in check when she's not around her family, yet for some reason after she had comforted Akai a year back when she broke down she slowly started to open up to her "I mean, we couldn't exactly bury him, but my family thought he needed a grave that he can be remembered at, so far I come here the most" she says looking down.

Loki The Trickster

 

[Loki The Trickster]

"Grieve," consoles the widow, turning Victoria around by her shoulder. She sees the tears streaks on her cheeks, the sorrow in her eyes. The fire too. All the emotions she has known all too well. She thinks back to the 13th Expedition Outside the Walls, just before the Redwood Massacre, remembering it all--including the titan that almost caught her, for she was blinded by the utter rage that burned in her heart. The fire over her husband's death.

"Never hold anything inside... It isn't right," explains Akai in a whisper, "I learned that the hard way. Let it all out, Victoria. Otherwise, it'll consume you. Just like fire." Truth be told, her husband's tombestone is empty too; just like Lucas Lawrence's. The Scout Regiment couldn't afford to recover all of the bodies. Not unless they wanted more of them to add to the heap.

Flame Demon

 

[Flame Demon]

"I know, but it's so difficult around people. I mean I already spend a week crying after we got back" Victoria mumbles, not really fond of admitting that "But that was around my family" she adds, she sighs and looks back at the grave "My family was really supportive when we came back, I just have trouble expressing my emotions around people that aren't my family" she admits looking back at Akai, something she rarely did, she didn't want people to think of her as weak. She still remembers the faces of Lucas' family when she gave them Bookworm and quietly told them what had happened, even they had pulled her into a hug, until her cousins showed up.

"Sometimes I wonder if I made the wrong choice, but then I see how happy my family is that I'm out there helping to make the world a better place" Victoria says clenching her fists "And still, whenever I see all the crap that goes on inside the walls I start to wonder why I decided to go outside instead of staying here", truth be told Akai telling her not to keep it all in comes a bit too late, she was on the verge of breaking down, has been for a while now, visiting the grave is probably the last straw for her, it's also most like the reason that her parents keep telling her to let it go and stop visiting the graveyard on her own.

Loki The Trickster

 

[Environment]

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chapter ii:i

wall maria, shiganshina / シガンシナ区

They might smell it before they see it. A sulphuric stink in the nose, a stab of arsenic ash that burns the nostrils, the smell of death. Turn, one might tell themselves, and when they do, they finally see it--a billowing white ash cloud that shoots high above the townscape of Shinganshina. The strings of several more cinder clouds rise to the skyline and the smell, now, is more than strong enough to stir the bile in the throat and send the unseasoned into fits of wheezing coughs.

Flame Demon sr901 Loki The Trickster

 

[Two Fives]

When she witnesses one of the injured men, Vivienne Klein is horrified. She witnesses him from the window of her phaeton carriage as she and several Garrison soldiers arrive at their destination--the town square--and the young woman has trouble taming the bile (along with her breakfast) that stirs uneasily at the back of her throat.

Any and all who work in medicine--who breathe the antiseptic air of a hospital--will always say the same thing. Vivienne Klein is no exception. “You see things in my line of work,” she whispers under her breath, “but nothing like this.” One of the Garrison soldiers sat beside her tells her to stay strong, but the young woman's muscles are stiff as a dead man's rigor mortis.

This is why they called me here, she muses, with a shake of her head, slipping a sash from her waist, then wrapping it around her face, nose to neck, before she steps from carriage to carnage.

This is what you see in your nightmares. Those nightmares that make you so fretful, so frightened and full of trepidation, that you fear the very night itself. Those nightmares that show you graphic imagery of death and dismay in unwanted remembrance, wrenching you from slumber in a cool, cold sweat. Men and women of the Redwood Massacre might be familiar with such a nightmare.

The carriage wheels Viv to the site of the smouldering foundation where charcoal corpses crawl on the cobblestones and men half sinew half smoke sprawl out on the streetway. There are men and women whose limbs have been hacked off, whose blood pools in their navels... whose runny egg yolk eyes, with the touch of hot scorch, simply pop. There are men and woman who are alive, running--not from the fire, but from those who made the fire. Their silhouettes are thrown across the roads by the firelight and the shadows of their machete knives divide the roads with shaded slashes. “The Persona Non Grata,” whispers the woman.

 

[Flame Demon]

Victoria walks over, feeling slightly uneasy in her stomach, but nothing more then that, she's not sure if there's anything she can do to help at this point, so she makes her way to the rooftops to check the situation, when she spots three children climbing a rooftop to get away she doesn't even hesitate to go over, she manages to gets them to safety, one by one and she looks at Vivienne for a second before going back to save people who are either stuck or injured "Something tells me you've never witnissed this before" she says, her eyes cold, but not emotionless "You should tend to the ones who are alive, don't you think?" she asks, but she doesn't give the doctor time to reply as the short but agile girl makes her way to the roofs again. She could live with nightmares of this, but not that anyone had to know that bit "And I thought it was bad outside the walls. So glad my family moved away" she mumbles under her breath.

 

[Loki The Trickster]

When sulphur and smoke mars the morning air, Akai heads not to the town square, but to her home, which is where she leaves her son in the care of a relative. When she throws on her Wings of Freedom, the cloak billows out beautifully around her shoulders, the cotton cloth covering a wingspan that reaches arm to arm. In no time at all, she has her uniform and, in less than no time at all, Akai has one of her grapple hooks in the ebony slates of somebody's house as she flies herself through the streets in the direction of the fire.

From her vantage on a rooftop, Akai sees the Persona Non Grata in wisps of grey and tongues of red, narrowing her eyes to finely tapered slits in the thick of it all. "Victoria!" yells the young woman when she spots her, "Be careful of those people... They're not ordinary people."