Attack on Titan: The Berserk Titan

With time, my relationship with Frieda became so close that we were almost siblings. 

My parents were more proud of the byproducts of my relationship with Frieda than of how much profit I had brought to the business (which was a lot). She'd come to play at our home very often, and I would also go to her mansion to play in the fields.

That meant that Lord Reiss and his wife would come to our house often to talk with my parents, about business, about life... about whatever the fuck they wanna talk about, it doesn't matter... the point is that an influential man is giving our family a lot more weight and societal status. Sometimes he'd come with friends, and those friends would do business with my parents. 

All while Frieda and I cuddled upstairs and 'played'.

This girl either sees me as her little brother, or she doesn't see me as a boy at all, because she's so cuddly with me all the time, and kisses me and hugs me. 

I was starting to like her, to be honest. Let alone, she was a genius. This girl was so smart... I had been teaching her algebra, trigonometry, calligraphy... she didn't question anything and absorbed all that knowledge like a sponge. 

"Arthur, you're so smart!~" She would say all the time as she hugged me, and then followed by the typical: "Once we're both adults, you will marry me, right? Promise me again!".

"Of course..." I would answer every time without question. There was a long way to go before we reached that point, there was a catastrophe in between, and I don't know yet how things will turn out.

But I wouldn't mind marrying her in the future. In fact, I'd love to. 

She's pretty, she's smart, she's bright, she has a lovely personality... she's marriage material personified. There are a lot of young masters, rich kids, who are trying to court her, but I don't feel threatened at all.

Not because I am confident in myself. This girl doesn't even bat an eye. She'd much rather spend the day studying with me than going to a tea party with whoever the heir of the Weiss Family is.

One day, we set up in a carriage towards the place she called her 'special place'.

"We're going to meet someone very important to me, Arthur... I hope in the future you're going to take care of her and protect her, okay?".

"..." I didn't want to answer and lie to her before I knew who we were meeting. 

The carriage took us to some fields in Orvud, lands belonging to her father, Rod Reiss. We eventually found something like a small hut surrounded by plains. Somebody lived here. 

Frieda took my hand and led me in. The carriage left after... for a second, I thought she was intending for us to sleep here... but the coach told her that he'd come back in three hours. 

No one allowed us in, we just opened the door and we were inside a relatively small house with very scarce furniture. It felt... desolate. 

Frieda led me to the back of the house, where we saw a girl sitting on the grass. She looked as young as I was, no... younger. Her expression looked desolate and abandoned sitting there, but when she saw Frieda, that countenance brightened up. 

I gasped because that girl looked very similar to someone I knew from the show. 

Krista Lenz.

"Historia!~"

"Sis!".

They weren't the same person. Frieda let go of me and hugged that girl. After a bit of bonding, both of them walked up to me. 

"This is my little sister, Historia".

"... nice to meet you", I said politely, immediately running movies in my mind. This is Frieda's sister, but they don't have the same mother... so is uncle cheating on aunt or what? didn't have him for that kind of person. To even have a child outside of marriage and keep her away from home.

"Historia, this is the boy I have been talking to you about", Frieda said to the shy girl.

"You're going to marry big sis?" Historia asked me even before she introduced herself.

'What have you been telling the girl...?' I sent Frieda the 'glare' and she did a 'tehee~'.

"Yes, that one~ I want you two to get along, okay? You may need each other in the future".

"Nice to meet you".

Historia was a sweet girl, obviously a lot younger and lacking in knowledge compared to a grown-up Frieda, but she was like a very cuddly doll you could never let go of. I didn't know her background, but her mother was hardly present in her life... in fact, every time we went to play with her, she either wasn't there at all, or arrived after, just when we were about to leave. 

I didn't see the intricacies, I didn't ask... and Frieda seemed to appreciate that. 

Historia liked to read mostly; she was a very valiant girl, and we quickly became close. However, Historia was not allowed to leave her house. We could only visit her; she couldn't leave. When I asked Frieda, she just told me those were the 'rules' and begged me not to ask too much.

She said it was for Historia's safety, that her father had enemies, and they could try to harm Historia to get to him. It didn't make sense to me. If that was his rule and he was trying to prevent someone from getting to him through Historia, why didn't he do the same to Frieda?

One of the times we visited her was bound to be different, and it changed the course of my life forever. 

Historia hugged me hard and begged us not to go and instead stay playing with her through the night. Frieda could have stayed, but I couldn't because I had work to do at the office. When I told her that, she told me to stop lying, that we were too young to be working. 

This girl doesn't believe I am a seven-year-old branch manager, marketing advisor and data analyst. 

Frieda and I were reading a book in the carriage heading back from Historia's house when Mr James, the coachman, stopped all of a sudden. We heard some mumbling and blabbering, then a loud thud like a smash. 

!!!

Both of us perked up, we tried to see outside the carriage, but it was very dark, only the candles lit inside were shining out, and the moon had a hard time reaching because of the trees of the forest. 

The gate opened, and a man with a long trench coat and a cowboy hat looked at us. 

"What do we have here? A pair of lovebirds?~"

"U-Uncle Kenny?!" Frieda recognised this person. But I looked to the side and the coachman, Mr James, was holding his bleeding nose. 

"Now now, you can't be exposing me like this, Frieda... this is a bit of an inner job. Besides, this brat is a clever one, isn't he?".

Kenny reached to pull Frieda out of the car, but I held his wrist. He was going to touch her with the bloodied hand he had punched the coachman with. 

We both stopped when he saw that, and he even gasped and laughed. 

"Boy, you know I am an adult".

"Yes".

"And you know I am bigger than you".

"Yes...?"

"... and you know I weigh a lot more too?".

"Of course".

"Cool".

He punched me in the face the next second with everything he had. Me, a six-years-old kid. He didn't hold back at all, and I know because I was sent flying against the other end of the carriage, smashing the window and almost creeping out. 

"Arthur! Uncle Kenny, what are you doing!? Apologise right now!".

"I am sorry, Missy, but... I follow your uncle's orders, not yours... at least until you become the monster that he is. Besides, my mission today is to take this kid. The military police are looking for him, but he is the kid of that merchant family now, right? The Borg~" 

He grabbed my wrist and yanked me. When Frieda jumped on him, he pushed her back into the cart. 

"Don't make this difficult. You're going to be sent back home in a bit. Apologise to your coachman for me, will you? He was just talking a lot of shit, I couldn't be arsed".

"K-Kenny, let go of Arthur right now".

"Are you deaf, little princess? I just told you I am going to take him away. I will ask his family for some money while I am at it. And once I have the money, I am still going to leave and hand him to the military police~".

"... you're the worst scum, are you?" I said nonchalantly. When he looked at me, he was surprised I didn't have a bleeding nose at least, a smashed jaw at most. 

"You're very resistant, are you? A pity that nun wasn't~"

!!!

"What did you say?".

"They told me a thing or two. You're a kid who comes from outside the walls... the commander of the scout regiment brought you in. The Church of the Wall adopted you, but the military police had their eyes on you the entire time... that girl, Vanessa was her name? She was supposed to keep an eye on you, but I guess you were so annoying that she even had to get rid of you and sell you out. I feel bad for you, actually... those things happen often around here, people getting sold".

"W-What happened to Vanessa? D-Did YOU kill her?".

I didn't want to imagine it. But the more he talked, the more I put the pieces together.

"Kill her? Hehe, she's dead but it wasn't me... oi, why are you looking at me with those eyes– ahhhgg!!!"

I punched this bastard as hard as I could in his balls. He writhed, and I lunged on him for some more. 

"You little shit!".

He punched me in the face again and shoved me away. Frieda came trying to help me, but I pushed her away just in time. 

Kenny took out a gun and shot me. 

*BAANG!*

The loud bang resonated, but I felt no pain... that's when I realised that I wasn't only thrown arbitrarily into the world of Attack on Titan.

I looked at my flesh stretching for several metres from the point of impact, the ball of steel didn't pierce my body, it stretched it to the limit. Suffice it to say, the three of us gasped at the surreal thing that we were seeing. 

"Y-You too–"

Eventually, the skin retracted with that characteristic noise I remember from One Piece. And the steel ball shot back at Kenny with a vengeance. 

He moved his head just in time for the ball to scratch his cheek and impact a tree behind him, exploding.

"Now, you're coming with me, boy..."

He shoved the protesting Frieda back into the carriage and closed the door against her wishes, carrying me on his shoulders while staggering, the pain in his groin must still be mind-numbing. 

I was so absent in my thoughts that I didn't even fight back as he took me away. 

'Vanessa... is dead?'.

'I have the powers of the Gomu Gomu no Mi?'.