Attack on Titan: Wolfborn

Chapter XXVI: The Long Road Home

Annie's hands trembled as she undid her hair in front of the cracked mirror. The candlelight cast strange shadows across her reflection, making her appear both smaller and larger than she was. She splashed water on her face, watching droplets trail down her cheeks.

In the back of her mind, she could hear the rhythmic thud of fists against wood, feel the ache in her knuckles, already bleeding from countless hours of training. Her father's voice, stern: 

"Again. Until it becomes instinct."

Her breath came in shallow gasps. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to breathe slower, deeper. The way he had taught her.

She remembered sitting in the grass that smelled of summer, watching the sun paint the sky in shades of amber and gold.

A different moment surfaced—Anja's arms around her, steady and grounding, a presence that made her forget, just for a moment, what she was and what she had to become.

Where are you now? What have they done to you?

Annie's fingers found Weiss's ring, tracing the lines around the crossed keys emblazoned on it.

"There's always something worth fighting for," she had said once, her voice carrying that quiet intensity that made Annie's certainties waver. "As long as there are people left we care about, people we want to protect..."

Annie set Weiss's ring down, reaching instead for hers, the metal glinting. The ring was cool against her skin as she clutched it with both hands, fingertip ghosting over the concealed spike on it. Another memory rose unbidden - her father on his knees, tears streaming down his face as he gripped her shoulders.

"Annie... I know I cannot ask your forgiveness."

His voice cracked, hands trembling against her small frame.

"But... all I ask of you... is one thing."

She could still feel the weight of his words, heavier than any training, any mission.

"Even if you turn the whole world against you... Even if the whole world ends up hating you..."

"Just know that your dad is always on your side, so promise me..."

"Promise me... That you will return..."

Annie stared at her reflection.

What must be done... must be done. No matter what.

You will complete your mission.

You will return home.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, the words meant for someone who couldn't hear them.

She turned away from the mirror, leaving Weiss's ring atop a carefully folded letter. By morning, she would be gone.

There would be no turning back.

The candle flickered once, then died, leaving only moonlight to illuminate the empty room.

***

The expedition had been grueling. Muscles ached from a full day's ride, cloaks heavy with dust and sweat. Through it all, Commander Erwin's long-range formation had proved its worth.

They'd spotted titans early enough to avoid most encounters, losing only a handful of scouts to unexpected aberrants. Now, as the sun painted the horizon in shades of amber, Anja could hardly believe what she was seeing.

Shiganshina's walls rose before them, familiar and impossible.

"We made it," she whispered, her voice catching. Her breath should have misted in the evening air, but didn't. Beside her, Petra pulled gently on her reins, the leather's creak reaching Anja's ears a heartbeat too late.

"The main force shouldn't be far behind," Petra said, though something in her tone suggested uncertainty. She shaded her eyes, studying the terrain. "Maybe an hour, given the detour around that titan cluster we spotted." Her shadow stretched long against the grass.

A metallic taste lingered on Anja's tongue, sharp and familiar, like the scent of fresh snow. Strange for such a warm evening. She finally nodded, remembering the group of titans they'd glimpsed in the distance. The formation had swung wide to avoid them.

"You should check the gate," Petra continued, her hand resting on the framework's control mechanism. The metal clasps caught the sunset, glinting too brightly. "Make sure it's clear before the supply wagons arrive." She hesitated, fingers tracing the familiar locks. "You might be useful here. If there are any titans inside the city..."

"I know, I'll spot them for you." Anja finished. The framework had become almost comfortable over the past weeks, but the thought of moving freely again made her skin tingle. A chill breeze whispered past.

Each click of the framework's release echoed strangely in the still evening air, the sound lingering longer than it should, maybe she was tired. Petra helped her unbuckle the straps as the mechanism fell away, leaving Anja feeling strangely light.

The outer buildings stood silent, untouched by the sunset's glow. She stepped forward, and for a moment, it felt like something had stepped in with her. Anja's boots crunched on familiar cobblestones as she moved, muscle memory guiding her through streets she'd walked a thousand times before. Everything looked just as she remembered, as if the past five years had simply... waited.

A path caught her eye - one that led toward the river. Her feet carried her there before she could question why, through alleyways where washing hung on lines, the fabric somehow moving against the breeze. Just like the shadow behind you hasn't moved, has it? She passed window boxes bright with flowers that should have withered years ago, the old oak tree stood exactly where she'd remembered, its branches reaching toward a sky that held the first evening stars, though the sun hadn't dipped any lower on the horizon.

The shadows churned. Something moved. Something moved? Something moved. Did you see that? It was there. It was always there.

Her fingers found the marks in the bark without searching. Crude initials carved by children who thought they'd live forever. H.W. A.W. As she traced the letters, the cuts felt warm beneath her fingertips, though the bark around them had grown strangely cold.

"You always came here when you needed to think."

Heinrik's voice was gentle, familiar as her own heartbeat. The words hovered in the air before reaching her ears, like ripples in still water. She hadn't heard him approach, but that wasn't unusual anymore. His presence felt right here, in this place of memories.

"Most of the time, alone," she said softly, tracing the letters. The carved lines seemed deeper than she remembered, darkness pooling in their depths. "Sometimes with you. Or Armin..."

"When the world was too much," Heinrik nodded. His movements were precise, almost rehearsed, as if he were following marks on a stage. "When you needed somewhere safe."

The breeze carried the smell of summer grass and river water mixed with something sharper. Everything felt perfect, pristine - untouched by titans or time. Somewhere in the distance, she thought she heard voices, but they seemed to come from above and below at once, as if the city itself were speaking.

"The others should have caught up by now," Anja said, her words falling into air that had grown thick as honey. Even her voice sounded wrong, as if the space between speaking and hearing had stretched somehow. The evening had grown preternaturally still - no birds, no distant hoofbeats, not even the whisper of wind that had been there heartbeats ago.

You feel it too, don't you? The way time isn't quite moving forward anymore.

"Maybe they're taking a different route," Heinrik suggested. His voice sounded right, but something in his posture seemed wrong - too controlled, each gesture unnaturally fluid. She noticed his shadow didn't quite match his stance, trailing his movements by fragments of seconds, as if reluctant to follow.

"There are many ways home, after all. Father found his path, didn't he? Through the places between walls."

"What? Father never-"

A sound echoed from the direction of the wall.

She stepped forward, and for a moment, it felt like something had stepped in with her.

Not quite footsteps, not quite voices. Like words spoken through glass, or beneath deep water. Anja turned toward it, squinting through the deepening twilight. The sun hadn't moved, it hung suspended in the same patch of sky, a perfect copper disk that cast shadows in directions that shouldn't be possible.

The air pressed against her skin now, each breath requiring more effort than the last. Cold spots drifted past like invisible currents, carrying brief sensations - metal, frost, the sharp clean scent of winter mornings. The shadows between buildings looked darker than they should, collecting in pools that seemed to breathe.

"Should we check on Petra?" she asked, trying to keep her voice steady. The words felt strange in her mouth, as if they'd been replaced with different ones while she wasn't looking.

"She'll find her way," Heinrik said, that same gentle smile fixed on his face. But his movements had become too practiced - like someone who had rehearsed being human. "Everyone finds their way home eventually. Even those who wear faces not their own."

Anja's breath caught. "Heinrik... What are you talking about? You're scaring me."

"Look," His finger pointed toward the wall. His gestures left traces in the air now, like ink swirled through water. "Can you see it? Just like that day. When I saw what lived between the walls. When I saw the marks they carried."

The wall loomed closer now, though Anja's feet hadn't moved. You didn't notice that at first, did you? But now you have, and it's too late to pretend otherwise.

Its surface rippled like disturbed mercury, reflecting impossible angles of light. The buildings around them began to blur at the edges, their foundations seeming to sink into shadows that shouldn't have been deep enough to swallow stone.

"They wore humanity like borrowed clothes," Heinrik's voice had taken on an echo, as if speaking from multiple throats at once. "They thought we couldn't tell. Couldn't see the ice behind their eyes, the way their movements never quite matched their shadows."

The bell tolled, distorting the air. She couldn't move. She couldn't—

Turn around.

—breathe-

Impossible, the bell tower had fallen years ago. Each ring seemed to bend the air itself, creating patterns that suggested other bells, other towers, other cities buried beneath this one. The shadows writhed now, taking shapes, figures moving with perfect, inhuman grace.

"Heinrik," she whispered, "what's happening?"

But her brother's smile had grown strange, his movements becoming precisely wrong - joints bending, bones breaking. When he spoke again, his voice carried layers of other voices beneath it, some young, some old, some that had never been human at all.

"Don't you want to go home, sister?" The thing wearing her brother's shape asked. "Don't you want to see what they showed me, up there where the air turns to crystal? Where those who wear marks of fire wait with eyes like frozen lakes?"

The wall twisted above them, its surface bubbling like boiling tar. And in those churning shadows, something moved...

"An-j-a."

She turned to look at him, his smile had grown wider stretching past the bounds of what a human face should allow. His teeth looked sharp now, too many of them. His eyes had gone completely black, like windows into that same hungry darkness she'd seen in the buildings.

Look away if you want - but you know those eyes will still be watching, don't you? They've always been watching.

Anja ran. The cobblestones beneath her feet had grown soft, each step sinking slightly before pushing back, as if the street itself was breathing. Buildings twisted around her, their walls bleeding shadows that reached with too-long fingers. Behind her, that thing moved with horrible precision, its laughter carrying echoes of her brother's voice layered with sounds that belonged in no human throat.

The streets folded into themselves, perspectives shifting like a drawing being crumpled. Each turn brought her back to places she'd already passed, but wrong - windows that leaked memories like black tears, doors that opened onto rooms that couldn't exist, walls that pulsed with slow, deliberate heartbeats.

"Anja!" Her mother's voice pierced through the chaos. "Help me, please!"

Her body turned toward the sound before her mind could stop it. Through the twisted streets, she saw a figure pinned beneath fallen beams. It looked like her mother, but its limbs bent at impossible angles, joints rotating in ways that suggested different anatomies entirely. Its face flickered between expressions of terror and hunger, skin rippling like disturbed water.

"Sweetie," not-mother called, its neck extending like pulled taffy, bones crackling as they rearranged themselves. "Come help your mother. Come see what they showed us."

A massive shape unfolded behind the trapped figure - flesh black as tar, moving with the terrible grace. Its face split into a maw that contained universes of teeth, each one reflecting a different version of Anja's own screaming face. She ran again, her mother's cries transforming into sounds that made the air itself curl away in horror.

The buildings had become anatomically correct now - walls of muscle that contracted as she passed, windows like lidless eyes weeping fluid that hissed and smoked where it hit the ground. Blood vessels pulsed beneath translucent surfaces, carrying something darker than blood. Each heartbeat shook the foundations of this twisted reality.

She reached the wall, but it breathed now, its surface rippling with peristaltic movements. Veins thick as tree trunks pulsed beneath skin that had never been stone at all. In desperation, she began to climb, fingers finding holds in flesh that recognized her touch, responding with horrible eagerness.

The thing that had been her brother kept coming, its movements a perfect mockery of human locomotion. Each step left impressions in reality itself, footprints that filled with writhing darkness and whispered in voices she almost recognized.

Halfway up the living wall, Anja looked down. The nightmare version of Shiganshina had become an impossible geometry of meat and shadow, distances into impossible angles, like looking at it through an endless mirror. In the distance, a massive figure moved - crystalline armor now exposed bone, burning orange eyes leaving trails in reality itself as it observed her.

That's when she saw them. Two figures standing on a rooftop that somehow existed both above and below her at once. They moved with precision, every gesture calculated, perfect, wrong. The smaller one's eyes held winter itself, while the taller one radiated waves of wrongness that made the air crack like thin ice.

They looked up at her with eyes that had never been human, and reality tore itself apart with whispers that might have been her brother's voice, might have been her own, might have been the voice of something that lived in the spaces between walls and waited with infinite patience...

The figures watched her fall. as the wall's fleshy surface rippled away from her fingertips. A flash of crystalline beauty caught the eternal sunset, followed by the sensation of something impossibly cold.

Impact came, but not with stone. The ground had parted, swallowed them like black water, and Anja sank then broke the surface again, gasping, Shiganshina had changed.

The city lay in ruins, but wrong - buildings twisted into spiral patterns, streets twisting in on themselves like ribbon candy. Black liquid dripped upward from puddles, forming impossible archways overhead. Through it all, childish laughter echoed, somehow worse than any scream.

A presence moved through the warped streets. It surfaced from where she came from, clawing its way out of the muck. Its footsteps left pools of darkness that spread like spilled ink, each ripple carrying whispers in a voice that sounded almost familiar: "Don't you want to come home?"

She ran, but the streets kept changing. One step she was in the city, the next in dense woods where trees grew sideways and branches reached with finger-like twigs.

A cabin stood in a clearing that shouldn't exist, its windows glowing with a light that cast no shadows. The door hung open like a mouth. A man waited there, face shifting between expressions like cards being shuffled.

The woods bled into stone walls, into torch-lit corridors where familiar cloaks lay scattered like fallen leaves. The pendant swung in firelight, the wolf's head's eyes somehow alive and watching. The flames grew, consuming everything, turning the air itself into fire.

"Home," came the whisper through the inferno, "where all paths lead."

The fire roared closer, hungry, eager. She could smell burning flesh, could feel the heat growing unbearable. Something dragged her toward the flames with inexorable purpose, its form now a terrible mixture of brother and monster and something else entirely.

***

 She screamed and jerked awake on the thin mat in her cell, heart hammering against her ribs. The dim glow of a lantern outside cast harsh shadows through the small window of her cell's door. Her hands found the absence of chains around her wrists - a small comfort in the darkness.

"Another nightmare?" Heinrik sat cross-legged beside her mat, his presence somehow solid and real after the horrors she'd witnessed.

Anja pushed herself up, running trembling fingers through sweat-dampened hair. When he reached toward her shoulder, she flinched instinctively before catching herself. The nightmare's images were still too fresh, too real.

"You haven't dreamed of home in a long time." Heinrik's voice was gentle, understanding. He reached out as if to touch her shoulder, though they both knew he couldn't.

"It wasn't home. Not really." The lingering unease clung to her like cobwebs. "It was... wrong." She drew her knees to her chest, trying to shake off the sensation of falling, of fire against her skin. "Just another nightmare, right? Like all the others."

"Perhaps." Something in his tone made her glance up, but his expression remained unchanged. "Though it's strange, isn't it? Dreaming of Shiganshina now, on the eve of your first expedition."

"What are you trying to tell me?"

"The mind shows us what we need to see," Heinrik said softly, "whether we want to see it or not."

The way he said 'we' made her pause, but exhaustion pulled at her thoughts, making them sluggish.

***

She sucked in a sharp breath, the afterimage of fire still flickering behind her eye. The rhythmic pounding of hooves beneath her and the open expanse of territory around them helped anchor her in reality. Petra rode beside her. Heinrik's presence lingered at the edge of her awareness, less solid in the harsh daylight, but still watching. Always watching.

"Anja! Focus - Titan, three o'clock!"

A seven-meter titan stumbled into their path, its movements jerky and uncoordinated. Its face bore an unsettling vacant expression, like a lost child's, as it lurched across the open field.

"We need to handle this one," Petra was saying, her hands already moving to the framework's controls. "Ready?"

Anja nodded, pushing the lingering unease aside.

She used the rolling terrain to circle around, approaching from behind, her horse's hooves thudding softly against the open ground. The framework's familiar pressure around her waist reminded her of Petra's presence, monitoring from thirty meters back.

Their system had become almost elegant in its simplicity. Anja, undetectable to the titan's senses, would move in close enough to assess weak points. Two sharp tugs on the framework's cables would signal Petra to begin their coordinated attack.

She edged closer, noting the titan's slightly asymmetrical gait - its right leg dragged slightly. A weakness they could exploit. Anja gave two sharp tugs on the cables - their signal to begin. Out here in the open, timing would be everything.

The framework responded immediately, the tension changing as Petra launched into action. They'd practiced this dance countless times - Anja darting in low to hamstring the titan's weaker leg while Petra swung high, using the brief window of the titan's stumble to slingshot upward lining up the killing blow.

It fell exactly as expected, its nape already dissolving as Petra landed beside her. Steam rose from the corpse, curling into shapes that for a moment looked almost like-

Don't think about the nightmare. Not now.

Her boots hit the grass with a soft thud as she landed. Beside her, Petra shook the steaming blood from her blade with a flick before whistling sharply for her horse. The sound echoed across the field.

"Good work," Anja offered, trying to shake off the unsettling image. Petra just nodded, her eyes never stopped moving, scanning the horizon with an intensity that seemed to go beyond normal scout vigilance.

"She's been acting strange all morning," Heinrik's voice whispered.

Anja pushed the thought away. Of course Petra was tense - they were deep in titan territory.

As she reached for her horse's reins, movement caught her eye - flares arcing across the horizon, their green smoke trailing like fingers against the sky. The formation was shifting left again.

Petra unholstered her flare gun, loading and firing in one fluid motion. The green signal streaked upward, marking their acknowledgment. "Third time we've shifted course," she murmured, a slight frown creasing her brow. "But we've cleared the front..."

The Commander must have his reasons, Anja thought, watching the smoke dissipate. Maybe there's difficult terrain ahead, or something else their position prevented them from seeing.

A harsh caw drew her attention before she could mount. A raven perched on a nearby branch, its head cocked as it watched them. More of its kind gathered in the trees behind it. Something about their stillness made her skin crawl.

The birds scattered suddenly, wings beating against the air as a new signal pierced the sky - a streak of purple cutting a ragged path through the green smoke.

"Purple?" Anja squinted at the dissipating trail. The arc looked wrong, uneven - not the clean trajectory of a properly fired flare. "What does purple mean?"

"Emergency." Petra's voice tightened. Her hands gripped her reins as she turned her horse toward the signal. "Must be from the lookouts in the right wing... It could be anything, injury, equipment failure..." Her grip on the reins tensed and relaxed.

"We're close enough to check," Anja suggested. "If someone's hurt..."

Petra's jaw clenched for a moment before she nodded. "Quick reconnaissance only. We verify the situation and signal for backup if needed, then we move back to our post." She spurred her horse toward where the purple smoke still lingered against the morning sky.

***

Routine. Normal. Lisa scanned the treeline, muscles tense but steady. ODM gear a comfortable weight against her hips. The whole squad moved as one unit, things had been quiet but-

Then - movement. Too fast. Too coordinated.

Something massive burst through the trees.

Her horse screamed. Reared. Weightlessness. The world tilted-

Impact.

Sky where ground should be. Can't breathe. Can't- Weight. Crushing weight.

Her horse. Dead. On top of her. When did she fall? How-

Pain exploded through her body. White-hot agony as something cracked inside her. Her leg- she couldn't feel her leg anymore. ODM gear torn loose in the fall, pieces scattered in the mud beside her.

Screams pierced the ringing in her ears. So many screams.

"Titans! Multiple-" Squad Leader Kess's words ended in sudden silence.

Shadows moved between the trees. Massive shapes. Following something. Someone? Her vision blurred with tears and terror. More screaming - was that Maren? Karl? The sound of ripping flesh, of bones giving way.

"Formation... compromised!" Eike's voice broke with fear. "We have to-" A crunch. Silence.

Lisa thrashed beneath her horse's corpse. Each movement sent fresh waves of agony through her chest. Trapped. Trapped. They were all going to die here.

"Some...one..." A weak voice - Meyer? Still alive? "Warn... Commander..." His plea dissolved into wet, gurgling sounds.

Her fingers clawed at mud and grass. Desperate. Searching. The flares. Where were the flares? Death sounds closer now - tearing, feeding, the wet slide of meat from bone.

Metal! Cold against her fingertips. The flare gun. Still intact. Help. Had to signal. Had to warn-

Shadow fell across her face.

She looked up through tears. Dead blue eyes stared down, set in a face carved from nightmare. Something like recognition in those eyes, like it knew exactly what it was doing.

Behind it, through the trees - another shape. Larger. It was leaving, blonde hair streaming as it ran. The one they'd followed. The one that had led them here.

Lisa's hands shook as she raised the flare gun. Pain screamed through her body as the horse's weight pinned her down, but her finger pulled the trigger.

A burst of purple tore through the sky.

Help. Someone would see. Someone would—

Massive fingers wrapped around her torso. Her broken body wrenched free from the ground, the horse's weight tearing away with a sickening pull. The flare gun slipped from her bloodied hands, clattering uselessly against the titan's face.

"Please," she choked out. "Please, no—"

Her mother's kitchen flashed through her mind—sunlight on tile, fresh bread cooling by the window, the smell of home—

Teeth closed around her world.

***

Anja's stomach lurched at the scene before them. Across the field, titans hunched over their prey, steam rising from blood-soaked grass and earth. The metallic scent of fresh blood hung heavy in the air, mixing with the rising titan steam, creating a haze that made her dizzy. Body parts in scout uniforms littered the ground - the right wing's vanguard, completely decimated.

Through the steam, she could make out the shape of a titan with glassy blue eyes, hunched over what remained of its victim. A smear of red ran down its chin, and in the mud beside it, a bloodstained flare gun lay half-buried.

She scanned the carnage, straining to detect any movement. Maybe someone had survived the attack, hidden beneath bodies or debris. Her hands tightened on the reins. "We have to check - there might be survivors-"

"No." Petra's voice was tight, her knuckles white against her reins. "We're too late… There's nothing we can do for them now."

"Nothing can be done for the dead," Heinrik whispered, his voice carrying an odd echo.

Something in his tone made Anja's skin crawl, but before she could dwell on it, Petra pointed skyward. "Look."

Black smoke signals dotted the sky like stark lines against the pale morning, the sign of an abnormal. One after another, marking the path of whatever had caused this bloodbath.

How could one abnormal do this? Anja wondered, studying the pattern of destruction. How didn't they have spotted it coming. Had the other titans followed it here?

The crimson haze tugged at the edges of her consciousness, offering the comfort of rage, of letting go. It would be so easy to surrender to it, to hunt down this monster. She had to maintain control. Had to think.

Movement caught her eye - black birds descending on the slaughter, more joining them with each passing moment. Their wings made no sound as they landed, beaks already reaching for...

"Just like the old stories," Heinrik murmured, watching the birds with an expression that seemed to shift between sorrow and something else. "About the ravens that guide lost souls on the long road home."

Petra's sharp intake of breath drew Anja's attention back to their immediate crisis. Her face had gone ashen as she traced the line of black smoke with a trembling finger. "If it keeps on this trajectory..." She swallowed hard. "The recruits are stationed in the interior of the formation. If this thing could do this to our veteran scouts..."

"We have to warn them," Petra's voice wavered, her hands twisting in the reins. "We can't let it reach the recruits."

Anja studied Petra's face, noting the conflict there. Was that guilt beneath the fear? Knowledge behind the concern?

"The Commander must have his reasons," Heinrik said softly. "For the formation, for where he placed you... for all of it. I wonder if Petra knows those reasons. Why hasn't she told you?"

"Not now," Anja hissed under her breath. The framework tensed as Petra turned sharply.

"Did you say something?" Worry flickered across Petra's face, but there was no time to dwell on it. Not with the trail of destruction stretching before them.

"Nothing." Anja managed. "We should keep moving."

Petra held her gaze a moment longer, her expression a complex mixture of genuine care and something heavier, darker, before turning back to the smoke signals. "We'll follow it," she decided, her voice tight with urgency. "But carefully. Something about this feels wrong. Stay close to me."

"Yes," Heinrik whispered as they spurred their horses forward, leaving the feast of ravens behind. "Stay close to her, Anja. Watch carefully."

***

 They galloped at full speed toward the black smoke signals, hooves thundering against the open terrain. Then they heard it - heavy footfalls that shook the ground beneath them, each impact carrying across the plain with terrible purpose. Different from the stumbling gait of normal titans, these steps carried rhythm, like a massive heartbeat growing stronger.

"Hold position. We need to see what we're dealing with." Petra whispered, but her hands trembled slightly on the framework's controls. "No engagement without-"

A thunderous impact cut her words short as something massive approached, its shadow stretching long across the grass. Birds scattered, their wings beating silent retreat into the gathering gloom.

The titan that emerged towered at least fourteen meters tall, its form a stark contrast to the bloated, misshapen creatures they usually encountered. This one was all lean muscle and exposed tissue, its anatomy precise and purposeful, reminiscent of the Colossal Titan's skinless appearance. Blonde hair streamed behind its lithe form as it ran with impossible grace.

"This is what killed them?" Petra's voice wavered. "I've never seen anything like—" Her words caught in her throat, then added with a mixture of disbelief, "A female titan...?"

The titan's stride never broke as it turned its head, scanning the terrain with methodical precision. It's hair whipped around its features as it moved with relentless determination.

"Don't let her spot you," Heinrik's whisper carried desperate urgency. "You have to go back."

But Anja could barely register his words. Her eye was fixed on the titan as it carved its path across the plain, each step bringing it closer. Through the haze, she could make out hooded figures on horseback pursuing it - other scouts.

"I don't think it's seen us yet..." Anja's mouth had gone dry. The framework's pressure around her waist suddenly felt like paper against steel.

"We have to stop it here," Petra said, her fingers working the framework's controls. "Before it kills anyone else. It's moving too fast... We'll have one shot at this - you'll need to time your approach with the terrain dips. Get in close, strike the ankle, I'll kill it once it's down. Stay on your horse until the last possible moment."

The framework's tension released as Petra loosened the controls. Anja felt exposed, vulnerable. The titan charged forward, each step bringing it closer. Something deep in her mind screamed at her to run, not from the obvious threat, but from something else, something her conscious mind couldn't quite grasp.

Anja tightened her grip on her reins as she thought of the scouts this thing had already killed, of the scouts in its path - what if it attacked her friends, her comrades? The crimson haze pulled at her consciousness.

No! No no no, you can do this. You have practiced, be calm.

Breathe.

Focus.

"Ready?"

The Female Titan's head snapped toward them. In a single heartbeat, it changed course, charging straight for their position with devastating purpose. And in that moment, Anja realized what had been nagging at her since it appeared:

This wasn't just another mindless predator. Every movement, every reaction spoke of intelligence - of strategy.

They weren't hunting this titan.

It was hunting them.