As Gale held Eren back, the long-haired Eren walked toward Grisha.
"What are you doing, Frieda?!" Rod Reiss shouted frantically. "Kill that man! The Founder is invincible! Kill him!"
"We can't let this man escape!"
"Kill him now, sister!"
"Our paradise is about to be destroyed!"
"Frieda, protect everyone!"
Grisha closed his eyes, seemingly prepared to face death.
At that moment, the long-haired Eren crouched down.
"What are you doing? Get up, Father."
"Have you forgotten why you came here?" The long-haired Eren placed a hand on Grisha's shoulder. "Didn't you come here to avenge your sister, who was torn apart by dogs?"
"For the comrades of the Restorationists... for Dina... for Kruger... to avenge them."
"You must keep moving forward, pressing on until death, and even after death, continue moving forward."
"Because this is, Father, the story you began with your own hands."
Grisha let out a sharp, anguished cry as the long-haired Eren whispered those words. He picked up his knife and drove it into his palm, transforming in a flash of golden lightning.
Eren covered his mouth. The sight before him churned his stomach.
He looked down at his own hand, remembering the feeling of crushing the Reiss family to death.
"Let's go to the next place, Eren." Gale placed a hand on Eren's shoulder. "You don't need to bear so much, because this happened in the 'past,' and we're now in a future different from the one you once knew."
Soon, the three of them arrived outside the underground chapel. The church was engulfed in flames. Grisha's Titan lay motionless on the ground. He emerged from the nape, staggering beneath the firelit night, the heavy scent of blood clinging to him.
"I killed them."
"I even killed a child that young."
"With these hands..."
"Eren..." Grisha fell to his knees, nearly breaking into tears. "I killed the entire Reiss family... except for their father."
"Is that enough?"
"Is that all?"
"Will this really save Eldia?"
"Why... why didn't you let me see everything?"
"I didn't know the Walls would fall. I didn't know the day they would be destroyed..."
"Is this really the only way?"
"You're here too, Zeke. In the future, your wish won't come true. The one that will come true... is Eren's."
"I saw Eren's future memories, but I never imagined something so terrible would happen."
Grisha suddenly looked up, as if he had just seen Zeke.
Tears streamed down his face as he asked hesitantly,
"Zeke... is that really you?"
"You've grown so much. I'm sorry. I was a terrible father. I made you live in suffering." Grisha embraced Zeke and wept. "Zeke... I love you. I wish I could have spent more time with you."
"What's happening?" Eren clutched his head. "What's happening? Why didn't I see any of this in my father's memories?"
"Gale, where are we?" Eren turned to him in confusion. "What's going on? Who is that long-haired version of me? Why is Zeke here?"
"Is it really okay if I do nothing? Just watch? Do nothing? We won't change anything if we keep living in the future, Gale!"
"The Founding Titan's power is in your hands now! Say something, Gale!"
Eren was trembling with agitation. He grabbed Gale by the shoulders, terrified that the past might change and that everything they had finally achieved would disappear.
"Eren, I told you. This is... a memory of the past." Gale remained completely calm.
A door appeared before them and slowly opened on its own.
"Come on. Let's keep going."
Holding Ymir's hand, Gale stepped through the doorway. Eren clenched his teeth, looked one last time at his father weeping, and had no choice but to follow.
This time, they found themselves at the Training Corps.
Eren, Mikasa, and Armin had enlisted. Wearing cadet uniforms, they were training alongside the other recruits.
Eren stood frozen.
This wasn't anything like the past he remembered.
He had never trained in the Training Corps.
In the year 846, after coming into contact with Dina, he had discovered that he possessed the power of the Founding Titan.
In 846, they should have reclaimed Wall Maria using their anti-Titan Gatling guns.
But...
Why were they training here instead?
Something even more bewildering appeared.
He saw Marleyan soldiers.
Reiner, Bertholdt, and Annie—the three who had left such a deep impression on him. He himself had fought Annie's Female Titan and had watched Dina's Titan devour Annie.
Yet now, the Marleyan Warriors were training alongside him in the Training Corps as though nothing were wrong.
Not only that, Historia and Ymir were also members of the Training Corps. That warrior named Reiner seemed completely captivated by Historia's beauty. No matter what he was doing, his eyes were always fixed on her.
Everything inside the Walls looked incredibly backward and impoverished.
There were no automatic machine guns.
No anti-Titan Gatling guns.
They were still training with the Three-Dimensional Maneuver Gear.
"But how was that possible? Eren hadn't even learned how to use it yet. Of the three of them, only Mikasa knew how!"
Then Eren realized someone important was missing.
Gale.
In that future, neither he, Armin, nor Mikasa had ever met Gale, and there was no trace of the young Gale anywhere.
A deep sense of dread filled Eren's heart.
Without Gale...
When would they ever reclaim the Walls?
"In that future, I died at the hands of my own family. They managed to kill me during my first mission to see the Titans." Gale calmly showed his younger self lying on a battlefield filled with corpses.
"So then..." Eren stared at Gale.
"I suppose that future split into an alternate timeline. I'm the one who changed everything, Eren. I'm the source of all these changes. We're standing on the only path that leads to freedom."
With a faint smile, Gale added,
"But before we talk about that... keep watching."
Some time later, the cadet Eren finally met the young officer.
In the year 850, the year of his graduation, he finally met the man named Gale.
Eren looked up.
Beyond Wall Rose, the Colossal Titan and the Armored Titan appeared once again.
They shattered the Wall once more, and Titans poured through the breach.
In the timeline they were witnessing, Gale had never existed.
During the Battle of Trost, countless people died.
What infuriated Eren most were the Marleyan Warriors. They were the ones who had broken through the Wall, yet they acted as though nothing had happened.
The young Eren even considered Reiner a comrade.
"What the hell is this?!" Eren scratched his head furiously.
"I suppose that, no matter what happens, I'm the one who changes a future filled with suffering. I realized that even if I survived, there were countless paths where different things happened."
"In some of them, I met you much later, and that alone changed everything. Without your power—without your future self unconsciously trying to set things right—I couldn't accomplish my goal."
There was only one thing on Gale's mind now.
He wanted Eren to understand what true freedom really meant.
Like an old hand-cranked projector beginning to play a film, the scenes sped by one after another.
"I suppose you realized that too. That's why, in the future where I survived, you made preparations so that my inventions would somehow make it into that near future. In other words, even if I survived, I could never have made it this far without your support."
"Eren... do you know how many mountains of corpses and seas of blood we've crossed to stand here today?"
Eren slowly lowered his gaze.
He was suspended in midair, while the crimson aura beneath him solidified into countless piled-up corpses.
"Hannes... Erwin... Hange... Grisha... Zeke..."
A cold sweat soaked his entire body.
These weren't strangers.
He recognized every single face.
Those memories returned.
The memories of the past flooded back into his mind.
At last, he understood what Gale had been trying to tell him.
So that was it.
As the holder of the Founder's power, he had been endlessly searching for a way out through the past.
The long-haired Eren sat across from him and asked,
"Are Mikasa and Armin... safe?"
"I've saved many people from a dark future, Eren. I suppose, one way or another, I owed them that." Gale spoke while recalling his own past, as the corpses beneath their feet slowly crumbled into ashes.
The sky turned blue.
Free birds soared among the white clouds.
Eren stood beneath the shade of a tree, looking at the man and woman bathed in sunlight.
Grisha and Carla were there, smiling as they stretched out their hands toward him.
Eren turned to look at Gale, who said, "When Eldians die, their souls sleep within the Paths."
"These aren't memories of the past, nor are they illusions. They simply sensed your arrival... and wanted to see you."
Eren wiped the tears from his eyes and ran out from beneath the tree.
He rushed forward and embraced his father and mother tightly, burying his face against his mother's shoulder.
Like a little child...
He cried at the top of his lungs.
Meanwhile, Gale remained nothing more than a silent observer, like the author of this new future—a future where he, too, might finally find his own happiness.