"The Titan ate Daddy!"
The words tore through the air like thunder. For a heartbeat, silence reigned — then chaos erupted.
"What?!"
"The Titan ate Daddy?"
"Isn't there only one Titan here?"
"No way…"
"He ate his own father?!"
The disbelief spread like wildfire through the courtyard. Even Carla stood frozen, her face pale as paper.
Grisha… is dead?
Not missing. Not captured.
Dead — eaten.
The truth was more brutal than any of them had imagined. She had been waiting — clinging to the hope that Grisha would return and explain everything — that the strange research, the secret experiments, the late nights all had some meaning.
But now… there would never be an explanation.
"His own son… ate him?" Carla whispered, trembling. "No… that's impossible…"
"Impossible?" a soldier murmured darkly. "He's a Titan. What's impossible for monsters like them?"
The thought spread like poison. Once the words "he's a monster" were spoken aloud, reason dissolved. The whispers became crueler, the stares sharper.
"If he's a Titan, then eating someone — even his father — isn't strange."
"Yeah, they're not human. They don't think, don't feel."
"Guess it runs in the family."
Every word struck Zeke like a hammer, but he didn't flinch. His face was blank, empty — because pain like this could no longer reach him. Compared to the loss of both his parents, these insults were nothing.
He had endured worse.
But when he looked at little Eren, standing there trembling, screaming, "I'll kill them all! I'll wipe every last one of them from this world!" — something inside Zeke broke.
That voice — filled with rage, hatred, and grief — was too familiar.
In the end… nothing has changed.
He lowered his head, his breath shallow. The very thing he had tried to prevent had happened again.
He thought killing Eren's mother and saving her later — rewriting the timeline — would spare his brother from the path of vengeance. He wanted Eren to grow up free of hatred, to live like an ordinary boy.
But fate… fate had simply taken another route to the same end.
He had saved Eren's mother, and fate had killed their father instead.
He clenched his fists. What's the point of all of this?
He could still hear his father's words echoing across time:
"Destiny is a circle. No matter what path you choose, you'll reach the same end. You'll realize too late that every choice, every road, leads back here. Nothing changes. Everything you do is wrong."
Back then, Zeke hadn't believed it.
He had laughed, called his father a coward — a man too afraid to make a real decision. He believed he could change the world if he just tried harder.
But now? Now it all seemed like a cruel joke.
He finally understood — his father and Eren, the previous inheritors of the Attack Titan, had seen it all before. They had glimpsed countless futures, countless attempts to resist the loop.
And every single one ended the same way.
Zeke staggered to his feet, silent, defeated.
His movement alone made every nearby soldier tense. Their hands went to their triggers.
They had thought maybe — maybe — this Titan-shifter was different from the mindless ones. But seeing him rise, eyes hollow and ancient, reminded them of what he truly was.
Still a Titan.
Still a monster.
Erwin caught the shift immediately. The air was seconds away from erupting into violence.
He raised a hand sharply. "Restrain them. Both of the Yeager brothers."
"Wait—what?!" Eren shouted as soldiers advanced. "Why me? I didn't do anything!"
Levi's brows drew together. "You're really just gonna stand there and take this?" he muttered toward Zeke. "No defense? No excuses?"
Zeke lifted his gaze, voice flat. "What he said… is true."
The words hit like a gunshot.
A collective gasp rippled through the crowd. Carla's knees buckled.
"Ah—!"
Keith barely caught her before she collapsed completely. She was shaking, her lips white.
Dr. Grisha Yeager. The kind, passionate man who once treated patients for free… eaten by his own son?
A mother's mind couldn't comprehend it.
Her breath came out in ragged sobs. "My husband… my husband was eaten—by his own child…"
The soldiers around her murmured in disgust, unable to hide their horror.
"A son who eats his father. That's beyond monstrous."
"Can anyone like that even be trusted?"
"He's not human anymore."
Levi's eyes flicked toward Zeke. The man didn't react — not to the murmurs, not even to Carla's collapse.
He just stood there, the weight of inevitability pressing down on his shoulders.
Eren struggled against the soldiers restraining him, eyes burning with fury. "Stop it! He's not a monster! He's my brother!"
Zeke looked at him, his expression unreadable. "No, Eren… I am a monster. And you will become one too."
"Shut up!" Eren screamed, thrashing violently. "You don't know anything about me!"
Zeke's voice was low — more to himself than anyone else. "I know enough. Because I've already seen you at the end."
Erwin raised a hand, and the soldiers tightened their grip.
The courtyard fell into silence again.
Above them, clouds rolled across the afternoon sky, heavy and gray — as if even the heavens themselves knew what had been set in motion.
The misunderstanding — one born of grief, fate, and unspoken truth — would not fade. It would only grow.
And the two brothers, separated by blood, destiny, and time itself, could do nothing to stop it.