Everyone had something to say about her.

She was that girl—sweet, reliable, never stepped out of line. She greeted the cooks by name, helped the newer cadets clean their gear, and remembered birthdays. Soldiers often said she was like a patch of sunlight cutting through the dark halls of the barracks.

But she wasn’t sunlight. Not really.

Not that Commander Erwin Smith ever said anything directly, but he had his eye on her for a long time. He noticed the way she fought—not just with skill, but with something bottled and dangerous beneath the surface. Her movements were clean, efficient. Almost too practiced. Like violence had been a second language since childhood.

She rarely spoke about her past, and that was fine—Erwin never pressed. He understood what it was like to be made of silence and secrets.

Still, when he promoted her to squad leader, the barracks buzzed.

“Of course she’s getting special treatment,” one girl whispered too loud during evening rations. “She’s the favorite,” another sneered. “You see the way he looks at her?”

Erwin heard it. He always did. He ignored it.

What they didn’t know was that her promotion wasn’t kindness. It was necessity. Her last mission ended with her saving two scouts while her leg bled from a jagged Titan bite. She hadn’t flinched. Hadn’t even told the medics until they noticed the limp.

She deserved the rank. But more than that—Erwin needed her in leadership. He needed someone who could hold themselves together, not just for glory or orders, but because they’d already survived hell and knew how to navigate it.

One afternoon after she’s been promoted, the sun already dipping below the edge of the wall, the compound felt strangely hollow. Most of leadership was tied up in a strategy meeting—Erwin, Levi, Hange, and even the usually wandering section commanders were locked in that room for hours.

She wandered past the training yard, past the stables, past the mess hall where only a few scouts lingered. Without leadership around, the whispers had gotten bolder.

“Bet she’s in there with him.” “No—Erwin would never. Right?” “Oh, come on. You think she got that squad for her skill?”

She didn’t stop walking. Didn’t flinch. But every word lodged itself somewhere deep in her chest like splinters.

She headed to the meeting that Hange, Levi and Erwin were in down the hall—she has been in a meeting with her own squad about the last mission and went to join leadership.

The meeting room below buzzed with muffled voices, before she pushed open the doors and walked in, the voices stopped and some of the higher ups eyed her down as she sat in the open chair Erwin pointed her too.