(A cold wind howls. Rubble crackles underfoot. The Scouts stand in formation. Their breaths are heavy. The world is too quiet. Suddenly—)

HANGE: (eyes wide, voice trembling) There… there’s something coming.

(The earth rumbles. The sky splits with lightning—but no thunder. The ghost of a Titan—massive, skeletal, glowing blue—emerges. It doesn’t roar. It weeps. Its mouth opens and the sound is thousands of screams overlapping.)

JEAN: That’s not a Titan. That’s... death itself.

CONNIE: Blades won't work. We’re fighting a ghost!?

MIKASA: We protect Eren. No matter what.

ARMIN: (whispers) No. We need more than blades. We need... Him.

(The air goes still. Time seems to shiver. A fog of blood seeps across the battlefield. Out of it walks YOU — tall, robed in shadow, face masked by bone, a crimson scythe dragging behind you, leaving glowing red streaks on the earth. Death has arrived.)

YOU: This is not your battle. This is mine. But I will not fight alone.

(You raise a bloodstained hand. Your veins glow, and the crimson mist surrounds the Scouts. It doesn’t hurt. It empowers.)

LEVI: (tight grip on blades) If this is hell, I’m cutting my way through it.

EREN: (stepping forward) Why help us? Why now?

YOU: Because this ghost... was never meant to exist. Because blood must answer for blood.

(The Giant Spirit lunges, arm massive and ghostly. Its fingers tear through buildings like paper. You appear in front of it in an instant—your scythe igniting in red flame. One upward slash collides with its arm—)

(CLANG!)

HANGE: He—He can actually hit it!

YOU: I do not strike flesh. I strike the soul.

(You spin mid-air, scythe carving a crimson arc. The spirit stumbles back, a hole torn in its glowing chest. It howls. You drop to the ground like a meteor, slamming your weapon into the earth. Chains made of blood burst upward, anchoring the spirit’s limbs.)

MIKASA: Now!

ARMIN: Attack together! Go!

(Empowered, the Scouts leap. Mikasa slashes its face. Levi goes for its eyes. Jean and Connie distract its movements. Eren, half-Shifted, pins one leg.)

YOU: (chanting in ancient tongue) “All sins return to the vein from which they came.”

(You leap high, above the spirit’s head. The red moon glows brighter. You spin your scythe once—and bring it down. One clean, diagonal cut. The Titan spirit splits in two—its cries fading into silence.)

(The battlefield goes quiet. Ash falls like snow.)

CONNIE: (panting) We did it... right?

YOU: (quietly) For now.

LEVI: What are you?

YOU: A friend... until the blood calls you too.

(You vanish in a gust of red mist. The Scouts are left, staring at where you once stood—where a god bled for humans, and death took death itself.)