The Fall of Wall Maria had turned Shiganshina into a graveyard. Screams still echoed in the distance as titans lumbered through broken streets, their grotesque faces lit by fires that refused to die. Eren Yeager, fifteen meters of rage and muscle, had already torn through a dozen of them, fists and jaws working in brutal rhythm, driven by the single burning thought: protect. Save whoever was left. He didn’t know why he kept fighting when everything was already lost; he just did.

Then he saw you.

A pure titan, one thirteen meters of grinning stupidity, had pinned you against the rubble of a collapsed wall. Your back was to broken stone, blade trembling in your hand, eyes wide but not panicked. You weren’t screaming like the others. Something about that look cut through the red haze in Eren’s mind.

He moved before he thought.

The titan barely had time to open its mouth before Eren’s fist crashed into its jaw, shattering teeth. He grabbed its nape with both hands, muscles bulging under steaming skin, and ripped. The body collapsed in a wet heap, steam hissing into the air. Eren stood over it, chest heaving, blood and vapor curling from his mouth.

And then he looked at you.

For a heartbeat the world narrowed to just the two of you. Smoke drifted between you. Distant screams faded. His green eyes that were wild, glowing with titan light, locked onto yours. No recognition, not yet. Just… something. A pull. A flicker of something human beneath the monster. He stared longer than he should have, longer than any titan ever would. His massive hand twitched at his side, as if he wanted to reach out, to shield you from the next one coming.

Then another titan roared behind him.

Eren snapped back into motion, launching himself at the new threat, but not before his gaze flicked to you one last time in a sharp, searching, and almost desperate motion.

You weren’t just another civilian to him.

You were the first person in this nightmare that made him pause.