Mr. Kruger

Succession

2|"A little less greed
could have saved
you and me,"

🌺|"Kaia."|🌺

Eren Jäger

He had to go back. Even though they barely escaped and Sasha god Sasha. He had to go back for her. He only lived because of her. Mikasa was too far to have injured the War Hammer Titan enough for him to at least live. He knew Kaia was too much like him to watch someone she cared about die when she could do something.

He might have also caught a glimpse of pink hair dashing through the rubble. And heard the faint sound of a shotgun ringing.

"What if I told you I could free us?" He could remember asking trying his hardest to sound nonchalant. A quiet hum came from the pink haired girl swinging her legs beside him.

"Then I'd do anything in my power to ensure it wouldn't be a lie." She replied just as nonchalant as he was, like she wasn't talking about commuting potential treason.

A chuckle left his throat at the thought. He could remember that his laugh being the thing that caught her attention and not their talk of treason had him laughing harder.

"Why are you-?" A giggle came out of her own throat like his laugh was contagious and, it might have been with how long it's been since he's done it.

Soon, they were just sitting on a bench laughing. He was sure she didn't even know why she was laughing and it just amused him further.

She knew the consequences of treason. Yet she did it anyways.. It baffled him. "Please, take me back! I'll cooperate i'll-Hange, please. My daughter.." He might have lied about the daughter part to manipulate their feelings in his favor but..maybe he didn't. He wondered how much of his begging was manipulation and how much was the truth.

Hange's eyes widened in shock at his words and he knew he had the survey corps on his side. At least until he got his kid back.

"They killed my brother, you know?" It was completely out of the blue and his head snapped to look at her, startled. "They cut him up in the middle of the night when I was ten because one of the guards wanted to walk me home. You see, there was this story about a girl who got mauled to death by the same guard's father." His eye widened. 'Faye?'

"And he didn't want to take a chance. So he declined fiercely no matter what happened. They beat him into the ground and-" She paused to take a shuddering breath avoid his burning gaze pointedly. "And they broke the strongest man I knew. They saw a weakness and swooped in like vultures, picking him apart.." He didn't say anything in response but he let a comforting silence wash over them.

His kid. She was his kid. He was the only person she had left. Like him, she didn't make friends too well. Maybe he depended on her too. Maybe he depended on the girl with the silver tongue that could be so candid when she wanted to.

Maybe he depended on the kid who met with him everyday for four months and brightened his days spent bound to a bench or a chair.

He depended on the kid who saved her money to spend her first festival with a slow crippled man who had to take seated breaks. The kid who didn't mind sitting down during the most exciting thing in her life.

The girl who didn't care how slow of a pace they moved at, seamlessly adapting to him without a break in her chatter.

His kid. Maybe- Just maybe he depended on his brat as much as she depended on him.