From the moment he saw the King of the Walls, or the young dark-haired girl, he had always noticed something odd, something mismatched about her.
Thus, he immediately used his ability to see through and sense the flow. And he saw that the girl's flow was being overridden by the flow of something else. It was constantly assimilating and eroding her thoughts, like a wood-boring worm.
Seeing the flow—the flow of all things—here meant not just the flow of air or matter, but also of life, of thought, of memory. At a higher level, the flow of principles, of space-time, of concepts. Thanks to having experienced quantum awareness once, his ability had advanced.
Because he could see the thing hiding inside the girl, he called it a coward.
Just then, the oldest man in the Reiss family screamed.
"Frieda! Don't hesitate any longer! Drive these people away immediately!"
"They will harm our family! The Royal Family cannot fall!"
The girl named Frieda finally began to show hesitation, her emotions vastly different from when she was speaking with Grisha and Asahi. This further confirmed his assessment.
Frieda was the King of the Walls, but the King of the Walls was not this girl.
"Asahi, enough."
Grisha spoke up, pulling out a surgical scalpel from his clothes. This caused Asahi to frown.
"Grisha?"
"I truly appreciate you speaking up for me, but as long as the Royal Family holds that power, the Eldian people will forever be slaves."
"Grisha, don't do anything foolish! I've read the three notebooks you left behind, we can—"
"This is... the only way!"
Asahi took out a notebook to try and persuade him. But Grisha's mind was made up. He plunged the surgical scalpel into the palm of his hand. This object had helped him save countless lives; for the first time, he was using it to take a life.
"I will devour the Founder."
Blood flowed profusely from his palm. The sudden turn of events caught Asahi off guard. A giant bolt of lightning struck down, followed by flesh and bone forming from nothingness. At the same time, the same situation occurred on the other side. Frieda bit her hand until it bled, and a bolt of lightning struck down, and another gigantic body appeared.
These two bodies were two Titans.
Asahi stood in the middle, dropping the notebook. He radiated a terrifying aura that no normal creature could withstand.
"Don't! Mess! With! Me!"
He roared, leaping into the battle between the two Titans transformed by Grisha and Frieda. He didn't help either side; he intended to strike down both!
The two 15-meter-tall Titans completely overwhelmed Asahi in size. But size does not equate to strength.
Phang!
Sword in hand, he spun in the air, bringing down a full-force strike that severed one of Grisha's Titan arms, to the shock of everyone present. Then, using Grisha's face as a foothold, he bounced toward Frieda's Titan.
She was still flustered, unsure how to react, when she was struck in the eye by the sword and hit by a powerful kick to the forehead, so strong it partially flattened the Titan's head. Losing balance, she tumbled backward.
Two large plumes of smoke rose from the head of Frieda's Titan and the severed arm of Grisha's Titan. The members of the Reiss family, seeing this scene, were dumbfounded. They could hardly imagine that this outsider possessed such power.
"Don't worry, I'll pull both of you out of there quickly."
Asahi said in a deep voice, his figure vanishing from his spot, only to reappear in front of Grisha's Titan, startling him. The remaining arm hurriedly swung up to block the strike, but Asahi had easily predicted the move and sliced off part of the Titan's hand.
Just then, Frieda's Titan sat up. She lunged toward Asahi and Grisha's battling Titan, delivering a forceful swing straight at him. He dodged, causing the swing to hit Grisha's Titan's face.
Swish! Swish!
Frieda's Titan's hand was severed. He used the thrust from the swing to leap toward Grisha's other arm, severing it as well, causing the doctor to roar helplessly. He then redirected his focus to Frieda's Titan, not slicing her arms, but moving down to cut her Achilles tendons, making her lose balance a second time. Then, he systematically severed all her important joints.
CRASH!!!
The massive body of Frieda's Titan collapsed with large cuts on her heels and knees, preventing her from maintaining an upright posture. This caused a tremor, like an earthquake, inside the cavern.
A life-and-death battle between the two Titans, between Grisha and the Reiss family, ultimately turned into a one-man symphony performed by Asahi. Neither Titan could even graze his clothes. Frieda didn't know how to fight, and Grisha was just a doctor. How could they possibly fight him?
He continued to strike, until Frieda's Titan lay flat on the ground. Grisha had given up resisting when he realized the massive gap between them. The people of the Reiss family had long since huddled together, not daring to even look directly at Asahi.
He walked to the nape of the Titan's neck, calculated for a moment, and made two cuts, dragging Frieda out from inside. She looked at Asahi up close, looked at those cold eyes, and couldn't help but tremble.
The battle inside the Reiss chapel cavern ended quickly. Grisha emerged from the smoking Titan corpse and slowly walked over to the notebook Asahi had dropped.
He picked it up and opened it. Tucked inside the first page was a small, exquisite drawing of three people. One was a younger Grisha Yeager, a blonde woman, and a blonde child sitting on her lap.
That's what people inside the Walls would say, because they fundamentally didn't know about cameras.
This small paper was too exquisite to be called a drawing. This was a photograph—a family photograph.
Grisha Yeager came from the other side of the Wall, not just the area beyond Wall Maria, and not just the area where the Titans roamed, but far, far beyond.
A place very distant from here, a place where people enjoyed the progress of development and technology. However, that was not paradise; it was... hell.
"I hoped the first person to open this book would be my countrymen. I didn't expect it to be you, Asahi."
Grisha smiled bitterly. He recalled that time, that past, and how everything began.
Whenever he was asked where his memory began, he always remembered the day he learned the truth about this world.