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The world shattered into a million pieces of sound and fury.
On the high ramparts of Wall Rose, the monstrous confession was a lit fuse, and Mikasa's rage was the explosion. She was a blur of motion, a black-clad angel of vengeance propelled by a fury so pure it was terrifying. Her blades were not aimed to disable; they were aimed to kill, two silver streaks of death arcing towards Reiner's throat.
"TRAITOR!"
Her roar was a raw, primal sound of heartbreak and betrayal, the cry of a soul being torn in two.
Reiner, his face a twisted mask of desperate resolve, barely had time to react. He threw his arms up in a cross-guard, the thick leather of his vambraces groaning as he blocked the furious assault. The force of the blow was immense, the impact like a physical shockwave that sent him stumbling backward, the steel of her blades biting deep into his guard. This wasn't the top student from the 104th. This was a demon, her Ki a raging, incandescent inferno, and she was fighting to tear him apart.
The other soldiers were frozen for a heartbeat, their minds completely broken by the revelation. But the sound of Mikasa's war cry, the shriek of steel on leather, shattered their paralysis.
"MARCO!" The name was a choked, agonized scream from Jean's throat. The image of his friend's half-eaten corpse, an image he had tried so hard to bury, flashed in his mind's eye, the friendly, smiling face of Reiner now superimposed over the monster responsible. A guttural snarl ripped from his lips as he launched himself forward, his blades a blur. "YOU BASTARD! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"
He attacked from Reiner's flank, a wild, grief-fueled assault. Connie, snapping out of his stupor, let out a confused, terrified yell and followed, his movements clumsy but full of a desperate, newfound hate. The duel on the wall devolved into a chaotic, brutal brawl—a desperate 3-on-1 assault against the man they had once called a brother.
Reiner was a trained warrior, one of Marley's finest. Even in his human form, he was a force to be reckoned with. He grunted, the muscles in his arms bulging as he shoved Mikasa back, then spun, using the pommel of his own blade to deflect Jean's wild swing. He was on the defensive, a cornered animal, but he was surviving, his superior strength and brutal training allowing him to weather the storm of their collective rage.
Only one other person on that wall was not lost to the chaos. Ymir, her usual cynical smirk gone, replaced by a look of sharp, analytical fury, had instantly moved to stand in front of a terrified Christa, her own blades held ready. But her eyes weren't just on the duel. She could feel it. Even amidst the storm of her friends' rage, a faint, almost imperceptible flicker of protective Ki from the battle below reached out to her, a silent promise from the wrestling giant that said, I haven't forgotten you. In that moment, her choice was made. Her loyalty was forged.
---
Down below, the world was a cage of muscle and fury. Akira was trapped, his seventeen-meter Lightning Form locked in a brutal, grinding grapple with the Beast Titan. Zeke was laughing, a deep, cruel, rumbling sound that vibrated through Akira's very bones.
"Do you hear them, Ultraman?!" the Beast Titan mocked, his powerful arms like bands of steel, crushing the air from Akira's giant lungs. "That is the sound of your world breaking! The sound of your precious little friends turning on each other! Look at them! So much hate! Is that what you taught them?"
Akira roared, a sound of pure, impotent fury. He tried to channel his lightning energy, sending a controlled, million-volt burst through his arms. Zeke's body convulsed, his fur smoking as he grunted in pain, but his grip, fueled by his own immense Titan strength, held firm.
"Is that all?" Zeke taunted, his grin widening. "A little tickle? You're weakening. I can feel it. All that speed, all that power... and you can't even save one little girl!"
The cyan crystal on his chest was blinking red furiously now, a frantic, desperate alarm screaming that his time was almost gone. He could feel his Ki, his very life force, draining away with every passing second, burned away by the strain of the transformation and the poison of his own rage. He could feel Mikasa's incandescent fury, Jean's bottomless grief, Erin's terrified confusion, and the colossal, familiar energy of Bertholdt about to erupt. And he couldn't do a damn thing.
---
The god of destruction rose from the wall.
Bertholdt's transformation was not a simple flash of lightning. It was an apocalypse. The sixty-meter Colossal Titan materialized in a blast of light and superheated steam, its iconic, skinless skull towering over the battlefield like a monument to death itself.
It did not move to attack. It didn't have to.
With a deep, groaning sound that was like the world itself tearing apart, the Colossal Titan let out a massive, omnidirectional blast of searing hot steam. It was a wave of pure, scalding force that washed over the top of the wall. The stone itself began to glow red, and the air became a shimmering, deadly haze.
The brawl on the wall ended instantly. Mikasa, Jean, and Connie screamed as the heat hit them, forced to fire their ODM gear and leap from the wall to the ground below or be boiled alive in their own armor. It was pure, unadulterated chaos, the perfect cover.
---
In the heart of that scalding chaos, Reiner made his move.
"NOW!" he roared, his voice a distorted, inhuman sound.
Another flash of golden lightning erupted on the wall. The Armored Titan stood in his place, its skin of hardened, organic plates gleaming in the hellish light.
Mikasa, landing gracefully on a nearby rooftop, her face a mask of grim determination even as the steam burned at her exposed skin, was not done. With a scream of pure defiance, she launched herself forward for one last, desperate attack. She fired her hooks into the Armored Titan's face, her body a spinning whirlwind of death as she unleashed a furious volley of strikes. Her blades, glowing red-hot from the heat, slammed against his impenetrable armor.
SHING! SHATTER! PING!
One by one, her blades broke against his hardened skin, shattering into a thousand useless pieces in a shower of sparks.
The Armored Titan ignored her. It tanked the blows, its single-minded focus absolute. It reached out with a massive, unstoppable hand and closed its grip around Erin, who was still frozen in shock, her mind unable to comprehend the scale of the betrayal.
The prize was secured.
With Erin held tight in his grasp, the Armored Titan turned and leaped from the wall, a fifteen-meter cannonball of hate and duty, landing with a ground-shaking thud on the plains below.
The betrayal was complete. The traitors had won.
---
Down below, trapped in his cage of fur and muscle, Akira saw it all. He saw the steam. He saw the Armored Titan emerge. He saw the flash of Mikasa's shattered blades. And he saw Erin, his friend, his student, the girl he had promised to protect, being carried away like a spoil of war.
Something inside him, something deep and fundamental, snapped.
The bargain with Erwin. The orders from Levi. The secret mission to save them all. It was all gone, burned away in a single, clarifying moment of pure, untamed agony.
"ERIIIIIIIIIN!"
His roar was not the sound of a giant. It was the sound of a man's soul being torn in two.
It was no longer a controlled power. It was a supernova. A massive, uncontrolled, and utterly violent explosion of pure, violet Ki erupted from his body. It was not a beam or a blast; it was a chaotic, omnidirectional wave of pure, destructive energy that tore the very air apart.
Zeke, caught at the epicenter of the explosion, roared in shock and pain as the raw power blasted him, sending his massive, seventeen-meter form flying backward, tumbling end over end like a discarded toy, his fur scorched and his body battered.
The light of the Lightning Form flickered violently, but it did not die. Not yet.
Fueled by a final, desperate surge of pure, unadulterated rage, Akira's body began to change. The sleek purple armor dissolved, replaced by a canvas of crimson red and stark white. Jagged, demonic-looking armor of black and gold erupted over his shoulders and left arm. He remained at his seventeen-meter height, but his entire presence had changed, swelling with a raw, brutal power that was somehow even more terrifying than the Colossal Titan's sheer size.
This was Ultraman Power Type. And he had one second left.
He ignored the fleeing Reiner. He ignored the towering Bertholdt. His burning cyan eyes, now filled with a terrifying, heartbreaking emptiness, locked onto the one who had orchestrated it all. Zeke.
The Beast Titan, still recovering from the blast, looked up just in time to see the crimson god of war descend upon him.
Akira didn't use a beam. He didn't use a fancy technique. He pulled back his massive, armored fist and delivered a single, brutal, and beautiful straight right punch.
BOOM!
The sound was an explosion that dwarfed all others. The punch connected with the Beast Titan's head, and the world seemed to go silent for a single, horrifying moment before Zeke's entire skull detonated in a shower of gore, bone, and vaporized brain matter. The headless Beast Titan stood for a second, a grotesque monument to absolute power, before it collapsed to the ground with an earth-shaking thud.
The single, incredible act of destruction shattered the last of Akira's energy. The red light on his color timer went dark. The brilliant crimson armor flickered and dissolved into a shower of fading particles.
And in the center of the newly formed crater, Akira's human body collapsed to the ground. He was on his hands and knees, his uniform shredded, his skin smoking and blistered from the backlash of his own power. Blood poured from his nose and the corner of his mouth. He was panting, gasping for air, his vision swimming in a sea of black spots.
He forced his head up. He tried to stand, to take a step, but his legs buckled beneath him. He could only watch, his blue eyes filled with a profound despair, as the Armored Titan disappeared into the distance, carrying his friend away.
He had failed.
He had failed to protect her.
A shadow fell over him. He looked up, his vision blurry, to see a ten-meter abnormal, its dead, smiling eyes fixed on him, its grimy hand reaching down to scoop up the easy meal. He had nothing left. No Ki. No strength. This was it.
CRUNCH!
A flash of blonde hair and hardened skin slammed into the abnormal from the side, a fifteen-meter cannonball of controlled fury. The Female Titan, her movements a blur of deadly, precise martial arts, drove her crystal-hardened heel through the abnormal's nape, killing it instantly.
She landed silently, her Titan form steaming and battered, but she didn't run. She didn't look back at the chaos. She turned and stood, a silent, unreadable sentinel, placing her own giant, damaged body between the broken boy on the ground and a world of monsters.
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•To Be Continue•
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