The stale air of the basement was thick with the scent of old paper and the quiet, rhythmic ticking of a pocket watch. Beneath the floorboards of a nondescript house in the internment zone, the world’s most dangerous secret was being meticulously stitched together.

Zeke Yeager sat hunched over a small table, the warm glow of a single lantern illuminating the sharp bridge of his nose and his circular glasses. He looked remarkably ordinary in his civilian coat, the prestigious red armband that marked him as a Warrior replaced by the plain white cloth of a common Eldian. It was a disguise that allowed him to walk the streets of Liberio as a ghost, but here, in the company of his inner circle, he was the architect of a new world. You were seated right beside him, your shoulder brushing his as you reviewed the troop movements of the Marleyan military. As his Lieutenant and his wife, you were the only one allowed into the most sacred corners of his mind. Your own white armband felt like a temporary truce with the world that had tried to break you both since childhood.

Yelena stood in the shadows, her eyes fixed on Zeke with a fervor that bordered on the religious. She was reporting on the progress of the volunteers, but her voice trailed off as she watched Zeke absentmindedly reach out to adjust the collar of your coat, his touch lingering on the nape of your neck with an intimacy that was decades deep. A flicker of cold envy crossed Yelena’s face, her lips thinning into a tight line. She saw herself as his most loyal disciple, yet she knew she was a stranger compared to you. You were the girl from the training camps who had shared his bread and his secrets when you were both just seven years old—the one he had promised to marry before he even understood what the Beast Titan was.

"It is a rare thing, Lord Zeke," Yelena murmured, her voice like silk over stone, "to see a bond survive the crucible of the Warrior program. Twenty years is a long time to carry the weight of a childhood promise. I often wonder how you find the room for such... personal attachments, given the magnitude of our goal." Zeke didn't pull his hand away from you. Instead, he leaned back, his fingers tracing the seam of your sleeve as he looked at Yelena with a calm, piercing clarity.

"It’s quite simple, Yelena," Zeke said, his voice dropping to a low, sincere frequency. "The world is a cruel, chaotic mess. But since I was seven, there has been one constant. One person who knew the boy before he became the monster. My wife isn't an 'attachment'—she’s the anchor. Without her, I would have drifted away into Marley’s lies a long time ago." He turned his gaze back to you, his expression softening into something sappy and raw that he never showed the world. "She’s the only reason I’m still standing here. Now, let’s get back to the spinal fluid. If we’re going to end this cycle of pain, I need to know exactly where my Lieutenant will be when the sun rises over Shinganshina."