"Will I ever see Dad again?"
The words echoed in Zeke's skull like a curse. For a fleeting moment, he saw his own regrets in Annie's tear-streaked face—people he longed to see, but would never again.
Then his lips curled into a sneer.
"Tch. Crying because you lost? Do you think pity will save you?"
With ruthless efficiency, the Beast Titan sank his teeth into Annie's lower body. Flesh tore, steam hissed, and he spat the ruined remains onto the street like refuse.
"AHHH—!" The girl screamed, her voice piercing, raw with agony.
But there was no sympathy in Zeke's eyes.
For the defeated, this was the only fate.
Death was mercy.
Maiming her—robbing her of her ability to transform again—that was strategy.
In the distance, the Armored Titan stirred. His battered form, riddled with holes, shuddered back to life as his armor regenerated. With a guttural roar, Reiner pulled himself up and lunged toward Wall Maria's inner gate.
"Get down, Reiner!" Zeke roared, seizing what was left of Annie's Titan skeleton. With monstrous strength, he hurled the smoldering carcass across the street.
BOOM!
The wreckage crashed into the Armored Titan, flattening him against the stone.
Zeke strode forward, dragging Annie's mangled human form in one hand. He ground his heel against the Armored Titan's face, his voice dripping with mockery.
"Is this Marley's great paper shield?
So fragile. So pathetic. You can't even—"
SNAP!
Suddenly, Reiner's eyes blazed open.
With desperate strength, the Armored Titan latched onto Zeke's leg and bit down.
"Bastard!" Zeke snarled. This time, he hardened his limb before retaliating, swinging a brutal kick into Reiner's jaw. The impact echoed like thunder, sending Reiner crashing into the wall, shards of his broken teeth raining across the battlefield.
"Oh my… The mighty Armored Titan, not so armed after all." Zeke laughed, low and cruel.
Enraged, Reiner charged again. His armor gleamed with renewed hardening as he slammed into Zeke's waist, tackling him with bone-shattering force.
The impact made Zeke's chest cave with pain; Annie's limp body slipped from his grasp and tumbled aside.
"Ugh—!" Zeke grunted, hurled against the wall. Dust showered down, and for a moment his vision blurred.
"…The instructors at your training camp were kind," he muttered bitterly, lifting his long arms. "They told you I was weak at close combat. You believed them. That's the difference between us."
His fists hardened into obsidian-black weapons.
CRACK!
The blow shattered Reiner's armor like brittle glass.
BAM! Another punch followed. The Armored Titan's head caved under the merciless strikes. Blood splattered the stones.
Zeke pounded his fists down again and again, each strike more violent than the last. Yet, despite the savage beating, Reiner clung to him with unyielding arms, refusing to release his grip.
"What the hell—"
Then he saw it.
Lightning.
Golden, violent lightning splitting the heavens.
"Reiner, you damn fool!" Zeke realized too late. Reiner's sacrifice was deliberate—holding him down to give Bertolt the chance to strike.
There was no time to hesitate.
Zeke roared and brought his hardened fist down on the Armored Titan's neck.
SMASH!
Even through Reiner's hardened plating, the impact broke flesh and bone. Blood gushed as the Armored Titan's arms finally slackened.
But it was too late.
The shadow of a colossal foot blotted out the moonlight.
Good news: the Colossal Titan hadn't kicked through the inner gate.
Bad news: his target was Zeke himself.
Sixty meters of burning muscle and boiling steam came crashing down.
BOOM!
The Colossal Titan's foot buried the Beast Titan into the earth, flattening him into a crater of shattered stone.
But Zeke's grip remained locked around Reiner.
If Bertolt wanted to crush him, then he would crush Reiner too.
The Colossal Titan twisted its massive foot, grinding downward with the intent to pulp them both.
But then—hesitation.
"…Why does it hurt?" Bertolt's brow furrowed inside his sweltering cockpit. The soles of his Titan form throbbed with unexpected resistance.
Had the Beast Titan been crushed? Surely no one could withstand that.
Steam hissed and boiled. The Colossal Titan shifted its foot aside. Below, thick smoke billowed upward—proof of a Titan's transformation ending.
The Beast Titan had vanished.
"Zeke Yeager is dead," Bertolt muttered, almost relieved. The thick smoke marked the end of a shifter's power. He squatted awkwardly, thirty meters above the ground, trying to glimpse the pit below. Even lowered, his height was still absurd—too far to see clearly.
So he lay flat, peering through the haze.
There, within the crater, lay the unconscious Armored Titan, still steaming from wounds that regenerated slowly.
"Reiner!" Bertolt gasped. "So that's what hurt me. His armor…"
But something didn't add up.
The steam rising wasn't from Reiner. It was too dense, too violent. It came from Zeke.
Yet—where was Zeke's body?
The pit was empty.
Bertolt's heart skipped. Slowly, he turned.
Fifty meters away, at the edge of the street, a figure crouched. A man with glasses, muscled arms still slick with steam.
Resting a weapon against his shoulder, Zeke Yeager grinned with sharp teeth.
"Grazie a sorella di Pieck," he sneered. Thanks to Pieck's sister.
The trigger squeezed.
...
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