Dangerous Territory

His Own Kind

Eren felt like he desperately needed to be back with his people. He was forgetting who he was: a soldier, a German, a Nazi!

Homosexuality made men weak, and now he knew his weakness.

He was forgetting who the enemy was.

The scene replayed in his mind: Yelena's gun pressed against the side of Greiz's head, the blast of gunpowder, and a red mist mixed with pink chunks as Greiz dropped to the ground.

That's who the French Resistance were. They killed Germans. They blew up German supplies. They existed purely to terrorize Germany.

Terrorists!

He entered the hotel, and right away he saw Kitz Woermann leaning on his cane and Ian Dietrich with his arm in a sling, both men talking together.

His company! His people!

He began to walk up to them, but suddenly he stopped, like he had run into a glass window.

The scene flashed through his mind: Kitz handing him the whip to beat Levi, sticking his gun into Levi's mouth as he forced another Jew to rape him, mercilessly shooting the Jews one by one, and then forcing him to shoot Abel. Levi said Ian had also shot many of his Jewish companions. They both had murdered unarmed civilians.

His people?

Was that what he was expected to become?

He recalled Levi solemnly praying over the dead, including Sasha. She, Krista, Ymir, and Anka had risked their lives to save the Jews, and Sasha paid the ultimate price for the freedom of others. They were not terrorists.

— Yes they were! They're the enemy!

They were a group of people risking their lives to save helpless Jewish prisoners.

— They're Untermenschen, a racial tuberculosis of the peoples, rats that needed to be exterminated!

No! Never! He would never think that!

Yet that rational voice mixed with Hitler's bombastic speeches and his teachers' harsh lectures.

He did not even realize that Holger was in front of him, having called his name many times, now looking concerned at the distant, empty gaze.

"Jäger? Eren Jäger?"

"Let me at him."

Suddenly, Eren was hit hard on the back. His reaction was pure instinct—he spun toward the attacker while reaching for his gun, but huge hands grabbed him, stopping any retaliation.

Eren jolted out of the past and saw the blue eyes looking down at him with worry.

"Reiner?"

The bullish blond shook his head in pity. "You look like you fell into Hell and Satan shat you back out."

"I'm fine."

"Bullshit. You know you can talk to me. We've been friends since Napola. I've known you longer than anyone else in this city."

That was true, but Eren also knew that Reiner was staunch in his support for Hitler. How would he react if he learned the truth about Eren? He could make a good guess, and it wasn't to have an open mind and accept him as a homosexual man with a Jewish lover.

Quietly, Eren muttered, "Do you ever feel like ... like you just don't belong?"

Reiner looked shocked by the statement. "How could you not belong? You're surrounded by Germans, by soldiers, people who have seen the horrors of war and still fight for our homeland, because freedom is always worth fighting for."