Jixo
patreon
014 The Titan of Fate
🕑 Added 2025-12-22 19:54:23 +0000 UTC"Keith, there are really a lot of good seedlings this year. I think the overall quality of the 104th Training Corps recruits is excellent. As expected, letting you serve as the commander of the Training Corps back then was the right choice."
An elderly instructor followed Instructor Keith, watching the recruits do balance training, looking very satisfied.
Keith: "That's the result of their own hard work. Many of them have very good talent—for example, that recruit Yago and Mikasa. I have a feeling that the top trainee of the 104th class will definitely be one of those two."
The old instructor said in surprise, "Oh? For you to think so highly of them, Keith, those two recruits must be truly remarkable."
Keith didn't say anything.
"Huh, that recruit?" The old instructor looked in one direction in surprise. Keith looked over as well—Eren, head down and legs up, swaying unsteadily while hanging from the training apparatus.
Quite a few recruits had already gathered around. Some had begun to laugh, and Jean Kirstein directly mocked him: "Didn't someone say he was going to wipe out all the Titans? How exactly are you going to wipe them out? By performing this move and laughing the Titans to death? Hahahaha."
At this moment, Eren was frantic. How could this be happening? He couldn't even manage the most basic balance. Words he had once repeated countless times now seemed like a joke. The laughter of the surrounding recruits made Eren both ashamed and furious, especially because of how he had once talked about the Colossal Titan.
Many recruits knew this boy who shouted about wiping out the Titans.
Keith: "Some people just aren't born with the right talent, even if they boast loudly." After saying that, he looked at Eren with a complicated expression. This child shouldn't have come to enlist.
...
The sky was already getting late. Many recruits had dispersed, but Eren was still trying to train. Mikasa, Yago, and Armin stayed with him.
Mikasa watched Eren fall again and again with heartache, his head almost covered in bumps. "Eren, take a break. Continue tomorrow. It's already late."
Armin also said, "Yeah, Eren, don't rush it. Even I managed to learn it—you'll definitely be able to learn it too."
Yago, however, was a bit puzzled. Through his sensory analysis, Eren's muscles were completely normal and should be well suited for this kind of balance training. How could he fail again and again?
Still, he comforted Eren not to worry. But how could Eren not worry? He had no appetite for dinner. After returning to the dormitory, he went around the entire room asking for advice. Any recruit in the dorm who had successfully stabilized the training was questioned one by one. To be fair, everyone was quite sincere. Even Jean Kirstein, though he disliked Eren, honestly shared his own experience.
But in the end, all that so-called experience boiled down to one word: talent.
After asking for a long time and getting nothing practical, Eren felt numb all over. He took off his belt and casually tossed it onto the bed, looking utterly dejected.
Suddenly, Eren thought again of that vague scene in his mind.
"Dad! What are you doing?"
"Eren! Remember this key! You must—must remember it!"
"What are you talking about, Dad!"
"One day! You'll know the truth! Eren! Trust him! Power is not a curse!"
"Eren! Eren! Protect your mother!"
These images were blurry and unreal. Eren suspected that the pressure of these past days had been too great. Right now, the most urgent thing was still how to complete the balance training.
Armin: "Oh right, Eren, we can go ask the next dorm over. Reiner and Bertholdt, and Marco too—they might be able to teach us some tricks."
Hope naturally ignited in Eren's heart. "Huh? By the way, Armin, have you seen Yago?"
"Yago? Oh yeah, now that you mention it, I didn't see him at dinner either." Armin only realized it then.
Connie passed by and chimed in, "Yago? I saw him heading toward the back mountain, I think."
"What would Yago be doing on the back mountain?"
...
At the same time, on the back mountain of the Training Corps, behind a huge rock, Yago was slumped on the ground. Under the faint moonlight, his face looked somewhat twisted, veins bulging on his neck. His ten fingers were tightly dug into the ground, carving ten deep grooves.
"Perfect work, perfect work. I'm not wrong! Haha, I'm the real genius!"
Nightmarish voices constantly echoed in his ears, accompanied by intense pain. Ever since he "first" used the power of the Titan in Shiganshina District, every year around this time at night, Yago would endure this torment. Was this the price of obtaining power?
Vaguely, Yago also understood that if he couldn't endure this torment, he might truly turn into a monster. And that voice in his memories—perhaps all of this was connected to that voice.
In those blurred conversations, the word "weapon" was mentioned most frequently. Could it be that he himself was this so-called weapon? Thinking about it this way, Yago felt it was indeed possible that he was a kind of weapon—a weapon that controlled the power of the Titans.
Then was it possible that the Colossal Titan and the Armored Titan who breached Shiganshina and Wall Maria back then were also humans who could wield the power of the Titans like Yago—or in other words, weapons?
But no matter what, all of this was just Yago's speculation. And these speculations couldn't be told to others. No one would believe the words of an ordinary trainee. Even if someone did believe him, if most people knew that Yago possessed the power of the Titans, their first reaction probably wouldn't be curiosity or excitement, but fear and disgust. The people within the walls had hated Titans for over a hundred years.
After Wall Maria was breached, that hatred toward Titans must have grown even deeper. Yago decided that he would wait until he had grown stronger and possessed sufficient power before investigating all of this.
"Whew..." Finally enduring this bout of torment, Yago's back was completely soaked with sweat. Over five years, he had gradually gotten used to it. The first time he encountered this situation was when he and Lucia were gathering firewood and edible mushrooms in the forest.
Back then, the operation to retake Maria hadn't yet been organized. The population was still large, and food was severely insufficient. Fortunately, it was deep in the forest with few people around. That time, Yago completely lost control and turned into a half-crippled Titan. It was only thanks to his extraordinary hearing—catching Lucia's calls from far away—that he calmed down.
That was also the only time Yago felt he might truly turn into a monster. In the days afterward, he already had a premonition of this sensation—just like today, when he came alone to the back mountain of the Training Corps without letting anyone else see him.
"Well then, let's head back. Sigh, I didn't even eat dinner." Yago regretfully patted his stomach and headed back to the dormitory by moonlight.
As he passed a cliff, Yago heard Eren's voice: "I can definitely do it!"
Curious, Yago walked over. "Eren? Armin, Reiner, and Bertholdt—what are you doing here?"
Armin: "Yago? So you really were on the back mountain. We came to keep Eren company."
Reiner and Bertholdt nodded in agreement. At the same time, a bead of cold sweat appeared on Reiner's forehead. For some reason, based on Reiner's intense warrior instinct, the Yago in front of him was dangerous—so dangerous that perhaps even that power wouldn't be able to deal with him.
Eren, having been encouraged by a hearty dose of motivational talk, was suddenly full of drive again. Yago was hungry at the moment and didn't say much. After offering Eren a few words of encouragement, he went back with them.
...
Back in the dormitory, Yago weakly took off his belt, tossed it onto the bed, and fell asleep as soon as he lay down. He was too tired.
