Pretty Little Liar (Aruani Element Shifter AU) ✔️

Part Two: Thirty Three

Sasha walked home early that morning. The second and third legions were allowed a few days off to recover and to see family while the first legion prepared for another expedition. Sasha had one thing in her mind that she wanted to do that day.

As she walked down the hill from the trainee camps to the city, she couldn't help but feel slightly on edge as to what was going on. Three teenagers had disappeared from her school in the space of a few years, all unexplained and all completely ignored by the council. When she joined the military however, they were told that these element shifters killed the kids that trespassed on their ground, and that's what happened to the ones that had vanished in the city. She remembered the two that were in her school year from a few years ago, but not their names. There was one boy that dissapeared when she was in primary school too, but she wasn't sure.

She had a friend called Mikasa who, two years ago, moved away because her parents were so afraid of what was happening. She often thinks about doing the same.

She barely noticed that she'd reached the council building until a woman ran past her. She looked stressed and tired. As she passed Sasha, she turned and stopped her.

"Excuse me? Are you from the second legion?" She examined Sasha's jacket that had the military emblem, with the number two stitched underneathm

Sasha nodded. Again, the woman looked familiar. All passing faces, but people she recognised nonetheless. She could just be a council member she'd seen around the building, Sasha thought.

The woman desperately looked her straight in the eye.

"Did you find any? Shifters, I mean."

Sasha blinked. "Umm... yeah, there were four. At least there was when I saw them. I heard people talking this morning though about a fifth one, and now a sixth one apparently. The fifth one came later and defeated Levi's team. They won't tell us anything, only that it was really bad and we lost. But we're planning another expedition. The scientists have a new plan or something." Sasha surveyed the woman's pleading expression. She was desperate to know what happened. "Umm, I really don't know much about it, but they all seem pretty confident that it's gonna work. I'm sorry I couldn't be of any more help."

"But you saw them? You know where they are?" The woman urged her to continue.

"Well, yeah. We have a pretty good idea."

The woman nodded.

"I'm sorry, I really have to go..." Sasha started walking away, but the woman turned around, flustered.

"Wait, wait! I know you from somewhere. Aren't you Hamish Braus's daughter?"

Sasha turned. "Yeah, I am."

The woman smiled slightly. "I'm sorry, it's just... you went to school with my son. I don't suppose you remember him? Armin Arlert?"

Sasha's hands went cold and her heart stopped. She blinked.

It can't be, she thought. He died. The council told us...

Without warning Sasha gasped loudly.

"Mrs Arlert, I'm so sorry, but I have to go," and before she could say anything else, Sasha ran down the street, through the park, and made her way down to her house in record time.

She gasped for air by the front door, before opening it and rushing upstairs to her bedroom. There, she spent the next hour looking through old boxes until she found what she was looking for.

Her high school year book, along with an old primary school photo album.

The first photo of the year book, the class photo, was enough evidence to justify what her and Connie had though about.

The air shifter they had fought yesterday was Armin Arlert. No doubt about it, there he was, standing next to Christa in the back.

Sasha bit her lip. Christa joined because Armin had been killed. Sasha wondered if Christa knew, if maybe she'd figured it out and she was with him right now. She looked through at another girl who stood next to them, called Ymir, although she didn't recall seeing her yesterday. Maybe she was the fifth person Sasha hadn't seen. The thought sent a shiver down her spine.

They weren't killed by shifters at all. They were shifters.

Sasha thought about the two for a very long time. They were always so quiet. Only kept to themselves, only hung out with Christa. Armin was new to the school, or at least that's what Sasha thought, and so was Ymir.

Armin was in other photos, though. In the yearbook was a picture of their year-group from every year, from the seven years they were in high school. Ymir isn't in any of them, but Armin was in four more, the first one, from their first year, until the last one in their fourth year, when they were fifteen. He wasn't in the one for their fifth year, which was Sasha's last year at the school before she joined the military. 

She stared at their fourth year photo. He was right in the front, smiling. Christa wasn't in that one, though. There was another girl, one Sasha couldn't remember anymore, she could only recognise the people she still knew today. She didn't spent too much time looking at the photographs. They were frightening to her now.

She moved on to her primary school photo album, and skimmed through the photos. There, in the middle of the book, she stops on a page where she's sitting in a sandpit with a brown haired boy with green eyes. His eyes are extremely green, unnaturally green, just like the eyes of two shifters she saw yesterday. Something was scribbled underneath.

"Sasha and Eren, February 2009."

There were no pictures of Eren after that point. Sasha closed the books, and stared at the floor for what seemed like a decade.

The council had been lying to them all along. She didn't know what to do. She couldn't tell Mrs. Arlert; she'd never believe her. She couldn't say anything to the council; they'd just lock her up.

One thing was for sure, the council was trying to hypnotize the soldiers into killing the element shifters. And now Sasha knew the truth.