---
The order hung in the air, cold and absolute, a shard of ice against the roaring chaos of the battlefield.
"Erase him."
For a single, eternal heartbeat, Akira hesitated. He looked at the monster perched on the ruined tower, the Beast Titan, Zeke. He saw not just a furry bastard, but a commander. An intelligent being. A person. And his true mission, the one whispered to him by a being of light in a void between worlds, screamed in his soul. Save them all.
But then he felt the cold, steel-grey gaze of the man beside him. He remembered the bargain struck in the darkness of the dungeon, the promise made in exchange for his freedom. He was no longer just a hero. He was a weapon. And the weapon had been given its target.
"Nakamura. Now." Levi's voice was a low growl, impatience and fury straining against the leash of command.
With a silent, soul-tearing apology to the future he was trying to build, Akira made his choice. He wouldn't erase him. Not if he could help it. But he would stop him.
He took a deep breath, his eyes closing as he focused his Ki. He had learned from their first battle. Brute force against this cunning devil was a fool's game. Zeke was a long-range threat, a commander who used others as his shield. To win, he needed to be faster than thought, faster than a thrown rock, faster than fear itself.
He snapped his fingers.
It was not the pure, hopeful white light of his Base Type, nor the raging crimson of his Power Type. A pillar of brilliant, violent violet light erupted from the ground, shooting into the sky like a bolt of captured lightning. The air crackled with ozone, and when the light faded, a new giant stood on the battlefield.
It was sleek, sharp, and built for impossible velocity. Its body was a canvas of deep purple and stark black, accented with gleaming silver and gold highlights that seemed to crackle with latent energy. Its side horns were longer, swept back like the fins of a fighter jet, and its cyan eyes glowed with a fierce, focused light.
The seventeen-meter Ultraman Lightning Type had been unleashed.
---
The second round of their duel was a battle of phantoms. Zeke, perched on his crumbling throne, let out a roar of what sounded like surprised frustration. This was not the giant he had fought before. This was something new. Something faster.
He ripped a massive chunk of the tower from its foundations and hurled it with the practiced ease of a star pitcher. The boulder, the size of a small house, flew with deadly accuracy, aimed to obliterate the spot where the giant stood.
But the giant was already gone.
Akira moved like a ghost, a purple blur that defied physics. He didn't just dodge; he flowed around the attack, the wind from the projectile whipping past him as he closed the distance with impossible speed. He ran across the open plain, each step a thunderclap, leaving fractured earth in his wake.
Zeke roared again, this time in pure anger, and began a relentless barrage. He threw chunks of stone, sections of wall, anything he could rip free, turning the air into a deadly hailstorm of multi-ton projectiles.
It was useless. Akira was a phantom Zeke couldn't touch. He weaved through the storm of debris, a lightning bolt carving a path through an avalanche. He was a beautiful, terrifying spectacle of speed and grace.
But on the ground, the war was far from beautiful. The Scouts were fighting for their lives, a desperate, losing battle against the tide of smaller Titans Zeke commanded.
"On your left!" Mikasa screamed, her body a spinning whirlwind of steel as she sliced through the napes of two five-meter Titans that were closing in on Connie. She landed on a rooftop, her breath coming in ragged gasps, her blades already slick with steaming blood. There were too many. For every one she killed, three more took its place.
Not far away, Erin was a force of pure, uncontrolled rage. She fought with a savage fury, her blades hacking and slashing, but her movements were clumsy, her anger making her reckless. She narrowly dodged the grasping hand of a seven-meter abnormal, her ODM gear sputtering as she was forced to waste gas on a panicked evasion. She was a forest fire, burning hot and bright, but she was burning out fast.
From his perch, Zeke saw it all. He was a master strategist, and he saw his opponent's greatest weakness. It wasn't a flaw in his armor or a gap in his fighting style. It was his heart.
With a cruel, intelligent grin, Zeke changed his targets. He ripped another massive boulder from the tower, but this time, he didn't aim for the purple phantom that was now just yards away from him. He aimed for the rooftop where Mikasa was desperately trying to fend off three Titans at once.
Akira felt the shift in Zeke's Ki, felt his murderous intent change direction. A raw, guttural roar of pure, protective fury ripped from his throat. "NO!"
He abandoned his attack instantly. He became a shield. He moved with a burst of speed that was even faster than before, a streak of violet light that put him directly in the path of the projectile. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, taking the full, crushing impact of the boulder.
The stone shattered against his form, the force of the blow sending him stumbling back several steps, his giant feet cracking the very bedrock beneath the town. He grunted in pain, a deep, resonant sound that echoed across the battlefield.
And on his chest, the blue crystal of his color timer let out a single, ominous beep, and began to blink.
---
Levi saw the stalemate for what it was. A battle of attrition they couldn't win. Akira was a shield, but a shield could be worn down. He was fast, but he couldn't be everywhere at once. They needed to end this.
"Nakamura!" he roared, his voice cutting through the chaos. "Stop dancing with him! Pin that bastard down! Create an opening for me!"
The order was clear. The bargain was absolute. Akira's cyan eyes, burning with a new, cold fury, locked back onto the Beast Titan. He obeyed.
With a roar that challenged the heavens, he pushed off the ground, his Lightning Form giving him one last, incredible burst of velocity. He wasn't dodging anymore. He was a missile. He slammed into the Beast Titan with the force of a meteor strike, his armored shoulder driving deep into the creature's furry chest.
The impact sent both giants tumbling from the ruined tower, crashing to the ground in a brutal, earth-shaking avalanche of stone and flesh. They rolled, a chaotic whirlwind of purple and brown, before coming to a stop in a cloud of dust, locked in a desperate, close-quarters grapple. Akira had him pinned, his hands locked around Zeke's throat, the two of them a writhing, roaring knot of immense power.
With the entire battlefield's attention now fixed on the two wrestling gods, a different, more insidious betrayal was unfolding.
---
On the high ramparts of Wall Rose, Reiner Braun, his face pale and slick with sweat, his eyes wide with a terrifying, broken clarity, had cornered Erin.
"Reiner? What are you doing?" she asked, her hand on her blades, a confused frown on her face. "We need to get back to the fight!"
"There's no time," he said, his voice a strange, high-pitched thing she had never heard before. He was panting, his gaze darting around like a cornered animal. "I... I need to settle this. Right here. Right now."
He took a shaky step closer. "It was six years ago... We were on a mission. We were just kids. We didn't know what we were doing." The words tumbled out of him, a desperate, broken confession. "We destroyed the wall. I'm the one who broke through the gate at Shiganshina..."
Erin's blood ran cold. "What... what are you talking about, Reiner?"
"He's the Armored Titan," a cold, quiet voice said from behind them.
They both spun. Mikasa stood there, her blades already in her hands, her face a mask of dawning, absolute horror. Her Ki sense, which had been screaming a silent warning at her for months, was now a deafening, undeniable roar. She could feel the monstrous, familiar energy pouring off of Reiner, the same energy she had felt from Annie.
Reiner looked at her, and something inside him finally shattered. The mask was gone. There was only the desperate, broken soldier underneath.
"Yes," he whispered, a single tear tracking a path through the grime on his cheek. "And he," he said, hooking a thumb towards a tall, terrified Bertholdt who stood frozen a few feet away, "is the Colossal Titan."
---
The confession hung in the air, a truth so monstrous it seemed to suck the very sound from the world. Erin stared, her mind refusing to process the words. Reiner? Bertholdt? Their friends? The ones who had trained with them, eaten with them, fought beside them?
It was impossible. It was a nightmare.
Reiner, his eyes now filled with a grim, terrible resolve, took another step. "Erin. You're coming with us."
He lunged.
At the exact same moment, Bertholdt acted. He raised his hand, a blade flashing in the sunlight.
BOOM!
A colossal pillar of golden lightning erupted from the top of the wall, a sound that was not just a sound, but a physical, world-shaking force. The air itself seemed to split apart as a wave of superheated steam blasted outwards, and the iconic, horrifying shape of a giant, skinless skull began to form, towering over the wall, its empty eyes gazing down at the battlefield.
Down below, trapped in his life-or-death struggle with the Beast Titan, Akira felt it. He felt the colossal, agonizingly familiar spike of Ki from the wall. He turned his head, his cyan eyes widening in horror as he saw the golden lightning, saw the giant skull begin to materialize.
"BERTHOLDT!"
His roar of fury and betrayal was lost in the chaos. He tried to break free, to get to his friends, but Zeke, sensing the shift, let out a cruel, triumphant laugh and tightened his grip, his powerful arms like bands of steel. He was trapped.
The world devolved into a horrifying, split-screen nightmare.
On the wall, Mikasa, with a scream of pure, animalistic rage, launched herself at Reiner, her blades aimed not to disable, but to kill.
And below, Akira, the protector, the shield of humanity, could only watch, helpless, as two of his own students, two of his own friends, betrayed them all.
---
•To Be Continue•
---