"Wear him down a bit."
Zeke muttered to himself, as if running an experiment.
Right now, he looked at Roger like a lab mouse.
And in truth, Roger was just that to him.
A long time ago, he discovered something strange about Roger's body.
After battles, Roger never wrapped his wounds. Whatever injuries he took never lasted to the next day.
He could be covered in gashes, and before the afternoon was out most of them would have closed.
Zeke didn't know if anyone else had noticed. He had—and he told the predecessor he trusted most, the previous Beast Titan, Tom Ksaver.
Like Zeke, Ksaver was curious about the unknown.
Their thoughts aligned.
During one physical exam and blood draw for the warrior candidates, they stole a vial of Roger's blood.
They took the sample.
Using Ksaver's lab, they began studying Roger.
But they learned nothing.
The blood was plain—identical to an ordinary person's.
They'd expected some markers or indices to be wildly elevated.
The results proved they were overthinking it.
Disappointed, they ended the experiment and cold-stored the sample.
But that trial sparked a new hypothesis and line of inquiry: was there power beyond Titans?
They had no real way to run such tests, yet they were pleased; the process drew them closer.
Zeke regarded Ksaver as the dearest person in his life—kinder even than his own father.
Around that time—
One day, Roger fell off a cliff.
During a mountain drill, he "went over."
Everyone assumed he was dead. After two days of fruitless searching, he came back alive, his whole body smeared in black blood—others thought time had clotted it black, but Zeke didn't.
He watched Roger seize Porco by the collar, those wolfish, furious eyes glaring.
He saw the terror in Porco's face—and Zeke knew, instantly, what had happened.
Then, whether by design or not, the squad leader Marcel stepped in, held Roger back, and kept him from uttering a single word.
Roger's throat had been damaged—he couldn't speak.
Everyone stared at him like he was some feral beast.
Zeke noticed something else.
Every injury on Roger had healed. Not a scratch remained.
His curiosity returned.
But their earlier blood test had yielded nothing, so he took no direct action—just kept collecting possibilities.
Ksaver encouraged that curiosity and hunted with him.
For reasons unknown, they kept drawing interference from an unrelated man—Anderson.
Whether deliberate or accidental, Anderson always managed to stick a foot out at the worst moment, blocking their progress.
Assuming they'd brushed up against some hidden faction's interests, they backed off.
Until the Black Flame Titan Roger transformed into appeared—and they felt closer than ever.
After the black Titan's rampage, Zeke returned to the ruined field and retrieved a chunk of the black Titan's carcass—flesh that hadn't yet steamed away.
Because of its size, the Titan's body was evaporating slowly.
In that window, he searched for a way to preserve the black Titan's flesh.
He searched and searched—and finally found one thing:
Iceburst Stone, from Paradis Island.
Zeke didn't know what Iceburst Stone truly was, only that it powered airships and other large machines.
With great effort, he preserved a little of the black Titan's flesh and blood, liquefied it, and tried injecting it into himself.
Unlike he'd imagined, nothing changed outwardly. No obvious boost in ability.
At first he assumed it was useless.
Then, when he slipped into the Paths and found Ymir, he realized something had twisted.
The Paths—that sprawling, tree-like thing—had grown thicker.
And when he came back out, he could summon more Titans than before—and they were all stronger, uniformly so.
Only one thing was different.
For some reason, he found himself fascinated by corpses.
He went to cemeteries, visiting the freshly buried.
He maintained solemn respect—after all, the dead deserve it.
And yet…
There was a faint, heady sweetness—rich, cloying—that made him feel hungry.
He wanted to eat the dead.
If plainclothes Marley watchers hadn't been on him, he might have dug up a body right then.
In the end, he restrained himself.
He felt sure this urge was tied to the black Titan's blood from Roger. To suppress it, he searched frantically for something to soothe that bloodthirst.
He found coffee.
Bitter to most, it tasted fragrant and mellow to him.
So his mug was always full of it.
Even on the airship.
Now, the man warped by that strange blood had met its source.
Which meant—
It was time to show the source some good faith.
Zeke took a small sip and let himself sink to the deck.
"Roger—thanks to you, I'm a monster now," he said. Then, without warning, he stood and hurled himself out of the airship.
Midair, alongside the dumped recipients, he transformed.
Dazzling light flared—the Beast Titan appeared in the sky.
All around him, like a starfield, the falling masses all burst into Titan forms at his scream.
Boom!
Zeke—now the Beast Titan—landed hard.
"Long time no see, Roger."
He called out, and the Beast Titan spread its arms.
Roger looked at him, ready to speak.
But the Beast Titan raised both hands.
"Come—welcome your kin!"
He bellowed.
Suddenly—
The gold light of those midair transformations shifted!
In a crash of color, it turned dark red—draping the whole sky.
[What is this?!]
The parasite jolted in shock. It could smell itself on those Titans.
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