Chapter 152: Multiple Playthroughs — The Rumbling Returns Arc!
Awakening.
This time, there was no sharp pain, no roar, not even the distinct dizziness of a scene change. Eren's consciousness seemed to float up from a thick, colorless liquid. No resistance, no direction.
He felt the faint touch of wind on his skin, heard the monotonous rustle of wind through leaves in the distance. He knew he was back. Back to the starting point of this loop.
The previous failures receded from the depths of his soul like a broken tide, leaving behind only wreckage and uncleansable salt stains. Resisting the Titans, building a fortress, negotiating with Marley, arming the island, deterring the world, clearing the contractees, exterminating Marley…
Every form of resistance he could think of had led to the same destination: the destruction of Paradis Island and the tragedy of his comrades. Hope had long been ground to dust under the crushing weight of repeated loops. His obsession had become cold and pure.
What else… haven't I tried?
He thought back, back to the very beginning, to the "original script" he had designed for the island and his comrades using his memories of the future. The script where the "heroes" within the Eldian people stopped the "devil." A script that traded a catastrophe sacrificing 80% of humanity for a brief peace.
Although he knew that peace was destined to be short-lived and Paradis would eventually be destroyed, at least it would allow his friends to live out their lives in relative tranquility. It would let them be remembered as saviors.
And then, there was that selfish desire. The world outside the Walls in Armin's book, symbolizing absolute freedom. The initial disappointment when he learned there were humans outside the Walls. Through the Rumbling, he would flatten all obstacles. For himself, and for his friends, he would win that… freedom.
Back then, perhaps he hadn't cared what happened afterward. Maybe only this simplest, most violent script could be successfully completed in a timeline where that white creature had not yet descended?
As long as… before Kyubey appears…
"Let's begin."
He knew what the world was like now, knew people's fear and hatred, knew Paradis's predicament. But he didn't care about the outside world's opinion, didn't care if his comrades understood.
Activate the Rumbling. Use pure violence to flatten all obstacles in his comrades' path.
Days passed. The time of his power restoration… was advanced a little more. And because of that, the Rumbling… was advanced.
The three Walls of Paradis Island shattered. The Titans that had slept for a century awakened. The earth trembled, dust filled the sky. The scorching steam of the Colossal Titans swept across the interior of Paradis as their massive bodies began to march toward the world.
The Rumbling, the ultimate power of the Eldians and the vision of the apocalypse, played its dirge ahead of schedule.
He had become a slave to the script once again. But he sincerely hoped that this time, the operation would proceed smoothly according to the script.
The sight of the end of the world was transmitted back to the world at an unprecedented speed. Terror, once again, overwhelmed everything.
However, on Paradis Island, a group of people felt this terror even before any human outside the Walls. Eren's comrades.
Armin watched the Titans rising on the horizon, his ears filled with the distant sound of the Rumbling, his body trembling uncontrollably. This wasn't the world outside the Walls he had longed for, not the peace he had pursued. He painfully realized that Eren had activated the Rumbling. And Eren had done this for them, for this group of friends around him.
Why? Why couldn't we talk to him? Besides exterminating humanity outside the Walls, there should… should be other ways.
Endless confusion and self-blame battered Armin. Despite feeling despair, he still frantically thought about how to stop all this, how to find the Eren he used to know.
Mikasa stood beside Armin, her hand gripping her blade tightly. The tremors of the Rumbling made it hard to stand, but the pain in her heart was far stronger than the shaking of her body. Countless images flashed through her mind: Eren's smile, Eren's tears, Eren's dreams.
Her world was Eren, and her actions were to protect Eren. But the scene before her… the world about to be flattened, the countless innocent lives. She knew this was wrong. Protect Eren, or stop Eren's slaughter?
The other comrades around her, the survivors of the Survey Corps, faced the same internal interrogation. They had followed Eren, trusted his judgment. But the Rumbling was an act of genocide against humanity. They couldn't accept this "salvation" bought at the cost of billions of lives for their sake.
As Eren had hoped, they formed the Alliance to save the world. The Rumbling had begun, the Titans were marching, the end of the world was imminent. Eren's script was unfolding cruelly. They knew that with their own power, they couldn't stop tens of thousands of Colossal Titans, let alone Eren who commanded them.
Despair. But they refused to give up.
Why can't everyone just sit down and talk?
Only this time, unlike when Eren had held back to let them become destined saviors… A small white figure appeared before them.
To stop Eren. For the justice they believed in. To bring a tiny, insignificant change to this world about to be destroyed.
Through the Paths, Eren saw that the "Alliance" was about to make their decision—for him, and for the world. To make the decision he had fought everything to prevent them from making: to become Magical Girls.
In an instant, the calm in Eren's eyes shattered again.
He thought he could make everything run according to his preset track before Kyubey arrived. But he was wrong. He ran with all his might, only to find himself forever trapped in the invisible cage set by that white creature. The script he had devised was destined to fail against his will from the moment Kyubey appeared.
He… had failed again…
Why? Why won't Kyubey let me go, even once? Why does it force me down the path of reincarnation again and again?
He didn't understand.
Numbness. Deep, endless numbness.
His body began to disintegrate, turning into emerald-green points of light. The dirge of the Rumbling seemed to still echo in the distance, but to him, it was already the sound of another world.
The prelude to the loop played once more. He knew that when he woke up next, he would still be back under that tree. Carrying deeper exhaustion and powerlessness, beginning another likely fruitless attempt.
And Kyubey, that small white figure, quietly watched the disturbance in the timeline.
Outside this world, the Incubators were conducting comparisons and observations on every restart of this microscopic universe through the contract system.
"Chaotic Timelines," "Time Shield Fragments," "Hallucigenia."
The tentacles of research were penetrating the barriers of this specific spacetime with unprecedented efficiency. Models were iterating. Connections were emerging. The Incubators' understanding of "time" and the "loop" phenomenon was deepening exponentially.
And everything would continue.