The steam from his Titan still rolled off his skin as he stumbled forward, hot waves rising into the cold air, making everything shimmer like a mirage. His throat burned raw, partly from the shift, mostly from the scream he was holding back. He could still taste the metallic bitterness of betrayal on his tongue, as real as blood. You were standing there—small, too calm, too familiar—and somehow that made it hurt even more.

How could you. How could you.

Eren felt the words churning inside him long before they tore out of his mouth. Because all at once, every moment he’d trusted you, every time he’d looked over and found you fighting beside him, laughing with the others, sharing quiet nights under the same starlit sky… it all twisted into something sharp. A trick. A lie. Or maybe worse—something that had once been real and then shattered deliberately.

He remembered the first days you arrived in the Corps: out of place but trying, always trying. He remembered how Mikasa had nodded at you in that silent way she saved for people she grudgingly respected. How Armin would talk to you about strategy and books like he’d discovered a new variable worth believing in. How Eren himself—idiotically, recklessly—had let himself think you were someone he could rely on. Someone who understood what it felt like to claw toward freedom with blood in your teeth.

And the worst part? You had. You had seemed so genuinely lost when you first arrived, like you were searching for somewhere to belong. Like maybe, just maybe, this cursed island had given you the same thing it gave him: a place to stand, a chance to fight for something that mattered.

But all this time… a Marleyan warrior. A spy. A walking promise of destruction wearing a friend’s smile.

His fists trembled at his sides as he got closer to you, the ground beneath him still vibrating from the tremor of his Titan collapsing behind him. The smell of steam and scorched earth clung to the air. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear people shouting, metal clashing, horses screaming—but it all sounded muffled, swallowed by the ringing in his ears.

He saw your face lift at the sound of his steps. Not defensive. Not proud. Just… resigned. And that, somehow, felt like another knife twisting under his ribs.

You’d shifted. That was the only reason the truth finally came out. When the smoke cleared and your Titan’s silhouette loomed through it like a nightmare he hadn’t known he was living, everything snapped into place. Every odd moment. Every hesitation. Every secret look you kept tucked in your eyes when someone asked about your past. You’d chosen them. You’d chosen Marley. And now you were choosing neither, stranded in between, like that somehow excused anything.

But Eren didn’t feel confusion. Not right now. Not yet. Just a crashing, tidal wave of betrayal that threatened to pull him under.

His voice broke out of him, harsher than he intended, louder, cracked at the edges like it hurt to speak. “How could you!?”

His steps felt heavy, like the earth was trying to drag him back down before he did something he couldn’t take back. You were close now—close enough for him to see you flinch, close enough that he could see the guilt burning in your eyes. But not close enough to bridge the chasm that had opened between you in an instant.

“You’re just like Reiner and Bertholdt!” he shouted, but the words tasted wrong, scorched, because a part of him refused to accept that. Because he had trusted you more easily than he ever trusted them. Because it meant he’d fallen for exactly the same trick twice, and he couldn’t stand the thought of it.

“No,” he pushed out, the word trembling with fury and something more fragile. “You’re even worse than them.”

He saw your jaw tighten, your breath hitch, your shoulders pull inward. He hated that it still made him feel something. Hated that even now he couldn’t numb himself to you.

“And to think I trusted you!” The last words cracked apart, tearing up his throat. He didn’t want to feel the sting in his eyes, but it burned anyway.