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The battle against the alien horror was a desperate, losing affair. Leech-Ghoul was unlike anything they had ever faced. It was fast, its multi-jointed legs carrying it across the forest floor with a skittering, unnatural speed that defied its size. And it was smart.
The Jaw Titan, a whirlwind of animalistic fury, was the first to engage. Ymir was a blur of motion, a five-meter-tall demon of claws and teeth, leaping onto the creature's back and trying to find purchase on its slick, chitinous armor. But the monster was ready. Two of its whip-like tentacles snapped out with blinding speed, not to strike, but to wrap around her smaller form. The barbs at their tips sank deep into her Titan flesh with a sickening squelch, and a profound, draining sensation washed over her. Her movements, once so frenzied and powerful, became sluggish. Her muscles, which could tear through Titan flesh, suddenly felt weak and unresponsive. The creature was feeding on her Titan energy, a parasite draining its host dry.
The Female Titan, Annie, moved in, her movements a precise, deadly ballet. She dodged the lashing tentacles, her crystal-hardened fists and feet slamming against the creature's armored hide. But her blows, which could shatter stone, barely seemed to scratch the alien carapace, sending up showers of sparks that did no real damage. With a frustrated roar, she focused her Ki, her entire leg glowing with a brilliant, diamond-like energy, and delivered a devastating axe kick to one of the creature's spindly legs.
CRACK!
The leg shattered, and the monster shrieked, a high-pitched, chittering sound of pain that grated on the nerves. But the victory was short-lived. The other tentacles whipped around, a storm of barbed lashes, forcing her onto the defensive. Their tips scored deep, steaming gashes in her hardened skin, and with every touch, she could feel it—a cold, draining sensation, as if her very life force was being siphoned away.
The soldiers of the 104th were almost useless. Their blades, which could slice through the nape of a Titan, sparked and screeched against the alien's armor, unable to penetrate it. They were reduced to a desperate, harassing force, firing their ODM gear to distract the creature, to draw the attention of its lashing tentacles away from the two struggling shifters.
"Its armor is too thick!" Jean screamed, his blades shattering as he made a desperate pass at the creature's head. "We can't get through!"
"Aim for the joints! The mouth!" Armin yelled from a high branch, his mind racing, trying to find a weakness, any weakness, in the monster's design.
But it was a battle of attrition they were destined to lose. The Jaw Titan, her energy almost completely drained, was flung from the creature's back like a discarded toy, crashing to the ground in a steaming, weakened heap. The Female Titan was slowing, her movements growing more desperate, her crystal armor cracked and faltering under the relentless assault.
Then, the creature's objective became horrifyingly clear.
Its eyeless head swiveled, its unseen senses ignoring the weakened shifters, ignoring the harassing soldiers. It had sensed a new source of power: a faint, flickering, but incredibly pure light.
With a triumphant, chittering roar, Leech-Ghoul abandoned the fight and scuttled with terrifying speed towards the one thing they had all been trying to protect.
The cart.
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"NO!" The scream ripped from Mikasa's throat. She fired her hooks, a black-clad angel of death, trying to intercept the monster. But she was too far.
The creature slammed into the wooden cart with the force of a battering ram, obliterating it in a shower of splintered wood and twisted metal. The unconscious body of the boy with light blue hair was thrown from the wreckage, rolling to a stop on the cold, unforgiving earth, fragile and exposed.
The monster loomed over him, its circular maw opening wide, its writhing tentacles raising for the final, fatal strike.
In that single, horrifying moment, every soldier on the battlefield, friend and foe alike, was united by one, desperate, and utterly hopeless thought.
We've failed him.
Mikasa, her face a mask of pure, heartbreaking agony, landed on the ground, forming a desperate, final human shield over his body. "AKIRA!"
Jean, his face a twisted mask of terror and a surprising, fierce loyalty, landed beside her. "Get away from him, you bastard!" he roared, his voice cracking. Connie and Sasha landed on his other side, their fear momentarily forgotten, replaced by a final, suicidal act of camaraderie. Even Christa, her own terror a cold fire in her veins, stood her ground, her small frame a defiant, trembling barrier. They would die here, protecting the boy who had always protected them.
The tentacles whipped down.
The raw, desperate hope of his friends, their love and terror, was a physical thing —a torrent of energy that washed over his unconscious mind. It was a jolt, a desperate plea from the world he had sworn to protect.
And he answered.
His eyes snapped open.
He wasn't healed. He was in agony. But he was awake.
With a guttural roar that was more pain than power, he shoved Mikasa and the others out of the way with a weak but desperate burst of Ki. He rolled onto his back, taking the full, brutal impact of the whipping tentacles himself. He screamed, a raw, animal sound of pure agony as the barbs sank deep into his flesh, and the creature began to drain his already depleted life force.
---
He could feel it. The cold, parasitic pull siphoned away the last flickering embers of his Ki. He was empty. Broken. The darkness was a welcoming, painless void, calling him home.
But then he saw their faces. Mikasa, her eyes wide with a terror that was all for him. Jean, his hatred forgotten, his face a mask of horrified shock. Christa, Sasha, Connie... his friends. His family. The ones he had sworn to protect.
He remembered the dungeon. The pain. The promise he had made to Mikasa. I will not die... not until we win.
He looked at the sixty-meter-tall monster looming over him, a mountain of alien flesh and hunger. He had no power left. His Ultra Core was a shattered ruin in his soul. His Ki was a dying whisper. Transforming now, forcing the light into his broken body... it wouldn't just be a strain. It would be suicide. It would burn away what was left of his very soul.
He made his choice.
"I'm sorry, everyone," he whispered to the uncaring sky, a single, perfect tear tracing a path through the grime on his cheek. "Looks like I'm breaking my promise."
He slammed his fist into the ground.
The transformation was not a brilliant flash of light. It was an agony. The light that erupted from him was a flickering, unstable, and angry crimson, a painful, desperate scream of defiance against the dying of the light.
He didn't grow to sixty meters. He couldn't. He didn't have the energy. He forced his broken body upward, rising to a desperate, seventeen-meter height. His iconic Base Type, but it was a twisted, horrifying mockery of its former glory. The light in his color timer was not just blinking red; it was a frantic, sputtering pulse, on the verge of extinguishing completely. And across the familiar silver and purple of his body, dark, ugly cracks of chaotic red energy were visible, like veins of poison, a physical manifestation of the strain on his shattered core.
He was a dying star, forcing itself to burn one last time.
The battle was not a graceful duel. It was a brutal, ugly, and heartbreaking brawl. Akira was slow, wounded, his movements clumsy, fighting on pure, raw instinct. The sixty-meter Leech-Ghoul dwarfed him, a true monster against a broken god.
He was an underdog, and he was losing.
The monster swatted him away with a casual flick of its tentacles, sending him crashing through a line of ancient trees. He struggled to his feet, his giant form trembling, only to be slammed back down by another blow. The soldiers could only watch in horror as their hero was torn apart.
Mikasa screamed his name, her voice a raw, broken thing. Annie, her own Titan form too weak to stand, watched from the ground, her heart a shattered mess. They were watching the man they loved sacrifice himself, and they were utterly helpless to stop it.
But Akira was not just a brawler. He was a warrior. He was a survivor. He couldn't win with power. So he would win with his will.
He took the beating, letting the monster grow overconfident. He let it drag him closer, its circular maw opening wide to consume him. And in that moment, when he was at his absolute weakest, he saw his opening. The one that Armin had called out. The unarmored, fleshy interior of its mouth.
He had one attack left. One final spark in the dying embers of his soul.
He channeled everything. Every last drop of his life force, every ounce of his borrowed Ki, every flicker of the dying light within him, into his right fist. It began to glow, not with a brilliant, explosive energy, but with a soft, pure, and incredibly dense cyan light—the light of his very soul.
"This... is for them!" he roared, his voice a distorted, breaking sound that was both a war cry and a final goodbye.
As the monster's jaws began to close, he drove his glowing fist forward. It was not a beam. It was not an explosion. It was a single, pure, and beautiful punch.
"CELESTIAL... SHATTER!"
The impact was silent. For a single, eternal moment, the world held its breath. Then, a brilliant, pure cyan light erupted from within the monster's body. It shone through the cracks in its armor, a star being born in the heart of a nightmare.
The monster froze, its chittering shriek cut short. Then, with a deep, groaning sound, its entire sixty-meter form began to crack, to splinter, to turn to dust from the inside out. It didn't explode. It was simply... unmade.
The victory was absolute. And the cost was everything.
Akira's giant form, its purpose served, could hold together no longer. It didn't fade. It shattered. Like a pane of glass struck by a stone, his body broke apart into a million motes of fading cyan light, dissolving into the night air.
His human body, no longer supported by the light, fell from the sky, hitting the ground with a soft, final thud.
He was not just unconscious. He was still. His chest did not rise. His face was pale as death.
Mikasa's Ki sense, which had been a raging inferno of his pain a moment before, was now a dead, silent void. The flickering ember of his life force... was gone.
She screamed his name, a sound of pure, animalistic, and soul-tearing grief that echoed through the silent, haunted forest. She scrambled to his side, her hands trembling as she reached for him, only to find his body cold, still, and utterly, terrifyingly lifeless.
He had won. He had saved them.
And it had cost him his life.
---
•To Be Continue•
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