Chapter Text
Armin didn’t know as much as he thought. He didn’t know whether the world was round or flat, didn’t know how stars were born, and as he held Eren’s head more firmly than he held on to his own life, he realized he didn't know how to say goodbye.
“I don’t have the will to live. Not after all of this,” Eren muttered under his breath, “at least we got to see the outside world. We achieved our dream. So… forget about me, and live happily. Take care of Mikasa. The only one who can save humanity… is you, Armin.”
With the number of things he never knew, Armin thought to himself, there must’ve been a realm completely unknown to them, somewhere at the far edge of the universe, and he prayed that he and Eren would still be together — somewhere, someday, in a world beyond the ocean.
“No, please,” Armin cried, his eyes screwed shut, “please.”
Suddenly, as if a mysterious power answered his pleas from the far depths of the mysterious cosmos, a blinding light had ripped open and swallowed them whole. Before either of them could grasp what was happening, Armin and Eren felt their knees against a hardened floor, the brittle sands under their feet completely vanished. Dust and wind no longer filled their senses, and a cold chill replaced the warm coat of sunlight that sunk in their skin, as if a blanket had been snatched off of them.
Armin’s eyelids fluttered open. He saw whispers of light pervade the darkness of a foreign place, and then he realized instantly.
They were breathing in it. A different world.
Armin carefully let go of his hold on Eren. They both scanned their surroundings, mapping with their gaze the strange things that decorated the walls of what looked like a dimly lit bedroom.
“Where are we?” Armin asked, mostly to himself.
Eren squinted his eyes, wary and unsure for the first time after a long while. He had never seen this place, neither in real life nor in his memories.
There were posters of planets, solar systems, and stars covering all corners of the room, with a pinch of anime and cartoons here and there. Armin narrowed his gaze on a certain space where photographs were taped in a mediocre fashion, some adhesives old and yellow. Unlike the black and white photos they were used to, these were colored. Curiously, Armin walked toward them, tracing his fingers over the white film. He widened his eyes when he realized the subjects of these photos.
“It’s... me and you.”
Suddenly, an alarm went off. The sound came from a clock on the bedside table, and next to it a person emerged under a heap of shuffling blankets.
The two men could feel their hearts pounding out of their chests, both of them frozen in place.
The person who had woken up was a younger Armin Arlert, the one who still had a bob cut, and who, at the present moment, was reaching out blindly for his glasses. In a flurry of hands, it fell to the floor, right in front of Eren. The brunette held his breath in fear.
Young Armin clumsily fell out of his bed with his blanket tangled around his legs, and like a worm, he slithered, trying to feel around for his glasses with his eyes squinted painfully.
“Urgh, not again!”
When he crawled a little further to his left, he heard a disheartening crunch under his elbow. Armin let out a frustrated sigh and then placed his glasses, which had now snapped in half, over his eyes, slowly piecing together a blurry image of a man that sat in front of him.
“Am I... still dreaming?” young Armin muttered to himself before his vision began to focus.
Eren gulped as he met eyes with the boy, and after a moment had passed, young Armin screamed. He instinctively threw his glasses as he attempted to untangle himself from his blanket, hastily crawling backward where he hit something that felt nothing like his wall. He turned around to see a foggy figure looking down at him.
He jumped up, and weakly shielded himself with his blanket, “who are you?! Why are you in my room?”
The older Armin and Eren shared a glance at each other before the boy spoke again.
“I-I’m going to call the police!”
“Wait!” The older Armin reached out hesitantly, “Uhm... we... we’re sorry for frightening you. Please hear us out first.”
Young Armin put down his blanket and approached the blonde man, “you... sound just like me.”
Eren stood up and picked up young Armin’s broken glasses, handing them over to the boy. Still wary of the strangers in his room, he snatched his glasses and jumped back, switching glares at both men.
When he hovered them over his eyes, he gasped.
“You look just like me too!” He exclaimed, “wait... is this really not a dream? It’s gotta be one of those weird ones again.”
“No, it’s not a dream.” Eren said, “I don’t think it is.”
Young Armin looked up at Eren, and furrowed his eyebrows, “you look exactly like my best friend... a grown-up version of him.”
“Your best friend? The boy in your pictures here?”, Armin gestured towards the photographs of himself and Eren, aged differently in each one.
“Yes, uh— he lives next door. The Jaeger household. We grew up together in this neighborhood.” Armin said, scratching the side of his face shyly, “what’s that got to do with the both of you? Why do you look like us- wait! Don’t tell me, you’re from a secret criminal organization disguising as artificially aged-up minors generated from advanced facial recognition technology!”
Armin looked horrified, “No! That —“
“Darling? Is there anything wrong? I heard shouting.” His mom called from behind his door.
Eren and Armin felt their hairs stand up.
Young Armin looked at the both of them, and after a good few seconds of thought, he responded, “no it’s all good! Just uh— giving myself some m-motivational pep talk!”
“Alright, darling! I left breakfast for you on the table. Make sure not to be late for school! I’m leaving for work now.”
Armin and Eren released their held breath, until —
“Oh and don’t forget to lock the door once you’re out!” She yelled once more.
“Yup!”
That was it. Armin combed his hair back and pressed his forehead against Eren’s chest.
“We can’t go like this. We’re going to be figured out. This is bad, Eren. What are we even doing here?”
Eren placed his hands on his shoulders, “calm down. We must still be in paths.”
“What are you guys talking about? Also, if you do anything suspicious, I won’t hesitate to call the authorities. Understand?” The young Armin walked over to his study desk and took out some tape to temporarily fix his glasses.
He then turned around to face the two men. The closer he looked, the more apparent it became how out of place they were.
“What is this paths thing?” He asked, “I can’t trust that you aren’t dangerous people unless you explain everything to me.”
The older blonde sighed, “you’re right. Well, I myself don’t understand completely. But— uh... I’m not sure if this is a good idea.”
He looked at Eren, trying to gauge what he was thinking.
“We’re from a different reality that appears to parallel yours,” Eren said bluntly, “but we don’t know how we got here. We’re also trying to figure that out.”
Young Armin stood still.
“What? Are you guys... okay?”
“It’s not easy to believe, and we don’t expect you to.” Armin said, “but please, don’t report us or anything. We’ll be out of your sight as soon as we find a way back.”
“Wait, you guys are serious? Are you sure you’re not... crazy or something? How am I supposed to take that as an answer?”
The younger Armin looked up at some of the posters that he had scattered around his room, remembering the first time he was fascinated by their vast and unknown universe.
“It can’t be true... but then again...” young Armin started, suddenly reaching out to pinch the faces of his older self and older Eren.
“Ouch!” They both said in unison.
“You guys aren’t wearing masks after all. I guess... I can’t prove or disprove what you’re saying.” Young Armin said, combing his hair back similarly to how his older counterpart just did moments ago, “But if it were true... this is unbelievable. That means, Hawking — multiverses — our plane of existence —“
As Armin tripped over his own words, Eren glanced at the clock that had rung earlier, “Hey, what time are you supposed to be at school?”
Young Armin broke free from his trance and gasped, “oh no! I’ve only got fifteen minutes left before first period!”
The two men watched as the boy fussed around his room, jumping from one thing to another. When he was about to pull his shirt up to change, young Armin glared weirdly at the two, “do you mind...?”
Eren and Armin excused themselves outside the room, and leaned against the wall, each of them unable to catch their thoughts as they came. The blonde took a deep breath and let his eyes travel everywhere they could. They were in a house, a regular home, with a staircase at their side and a hallway with its lights closed. The wallpaper looked vintage, but some appliances beeped and buzzed -- a futuristic feature. Did they time travel? Or was this truly a different reality? There were so many questions that made Armin’s head spin.
“We have to find Ymir.” Eren said, after a few seconds of silence, “that’s the only way we can go back. She’s probably behind this.”
“Why?”
Eren crossed his arms, and looked up at the ceiling, “Ymir has been trapped for centuries. No one could understand her loneliness... until I came. I wouldn’t be surprised if doing this was somehow her idea of repaying me. However pointless that idea is.”
“Living a normal life before everything ends,” Armin said, giving Eren a cautious side-glance, “with your best friend?”
Eren narrowly glanced back at Armin, the both of them fixing a tense gaze on each other. The brunette sighed, “really, this ought to bring more pain than it would have if we just parted ways earlier. Don’t you think?”
Armin felt a sudden weight on his chest from his words. He had begged for more time, and honestly, he wanted to make use of what they were given now. If they truly were still in paths, being here wouldn’t cost a second in their world.
“Where can we find her anyway? This is a whole different place. How are we supposed to navigate our way around here?”
Just as Armin was swimming in his thoughts, young Armin hurriedly emerged out of the room with his backpack and threw his biggest hoodie at his older counterpart, “if you don’t want to be recognized, avoid letting people see your faces as much as possible. Grown-up Eren, maybe let your hair down? And uh... I can lie to some people about you, grown-up me. You’re gonna be an uncle from my father’s side, coming to visit and staying for a few weeks.”
He paused for a moment, catching his breath, and then looked directly at Eren, “And you can be, uhm, his boyfriend or something.”
“B-boyfriend!?” Armin stammered, blood rushing to his cheeks.
“It’s the 21st century, I don’t know where you came from, but in this world, it’s perfectly normal. Besides uh... I think it’ll be cute. Very believable too, in my opinion. Anyways! I’m running late so let’s go!”
As Armin and Eren stepped out, they couldn’t help but gawk at the houses around them. They were in a suburban community, and it was all bright, clean, and green. Armin could feel his heart racing; the sights before him were unlike anything he’s ever seen. The architecture was different, with the exterior designs looking a lot more modern in all its diverse renditions. The clothes of people passing by were also novel to his eyes, with various types of fashion that Armin could only conjure from the deepest parts of his imagination. Despite the cooler temperature, he could feel a gentle warmth spread through his body from all the bewilderment buzzing his senses.
Meanwhile, Eren tucked himself in his jacket more tightly to shield himself from the chilly morning breeze. His eyes glazed in caution the longer they walked past the scenes surrounding them, inching towards Armin almost every time a random person came close to their space. He breathed out a cynical sigh, uncertainty enveloping him to the tips of his cold fingers.
The high school that young Armin studied in was only a few blocks ahead, and as they approached the entrance, he backpedaled towards them.
“Do you have a plan?” He asked, “You can’t come inside without an ID.”
Armin looked at Eren nervously, then suddenly they heard someone yell behind them.
Sasha stormed towards Armin, a huff of desperation seeping through her short breaths, “Armin!” She started, clamping both her hands in a sharp slap, “please let me copy off you! Just for today!”
Young Armin assessed what stood before him. Sasha was crouching, her body passing through Eren who had not moved from his place. It was as if he was an apparition. Eren stepped aside and watched as his body became whole of itself again. He looked at the older blonde next to him, “we’re invisible.”
“Uh-“ Young Armin began, trying to collect his words, “you’re talking about the science homework, right? Just give it back before class starts.”
“You’re an Angel! I cannot thank you enough, seriously Armin,” she said, “you won’t believe what happened last night. So I was up with Connie at my place for the experiment project thingy, but then his mom called and told him he had to be back before 9 PM. But like, we spent the first three hours playing Mario Kart to, you know, mentally prepare ourselves first, because that’s what we do. And then we realized we didn’t have enough time left, and I got super tired from playing, so we just ate, but then I was so full so I decided to take a nap, and then we ended up sleeping in until the next morning. So yeah, Connie is grounded for maybe three days.”
“Huh, well, that’s pretty… eventful,” Armin replied, continuing his quick pace towards the school. He gestured to his older counterpart and Eren with his eyes, follow me .
“Armin, you have to tell me how you and Eren do it. You guys always have perfect scores. Is it because you’ve got that childhood friend synergy or something?”
“Sasha, I don’t think it has anything to do with that,” Young Armin said, and then blushed as he scratched his cheek shyly, “but… you really think… that we do?”
“Speaking of Eren, he was absent yesterday too wasn’t he? Do you know what happened to him?”
“Just a slight fever. Doubt it’s anything serious. We called up last night, and he seemed fine.”
“I swear, you two are such a cute couple.”
Armin jumped, his face completely going red, “Sasha! I-it’s not like that!”
Sasha laughed her head back, “C’mon Armin, anyone, and I mean anyone who looks close enough can see you have a crush on that blockhead.”
Young Armin looked back, trying to see if the two people trailing behind them had heard their exchange. Eren focused on their surroundings, looking at the people passing by him with his hands buried in his pockets. His mind was muddled in a myriad of heavy thoughts distant from the present moment, while older Armin paid very close attention, looking at Sasha with an eyebrow raised.
“Did she just say that you have a crush on Eren?”
Armin did not answer his older counterpart and continued to walk forward as the bell rang throughout the building.
The two men raked through all of the sights that passed them by through the hallway, glancing and examining the faces that appeared and disappeared in a crowd of students. Some leaned against lockers, against people, against walls, and some cried, some laughed, and some appeared as lifeless as ghosts. They overheard conversations they knew they weren’t supposed to, heard gossips from janitors like ears on walls.
Throughout the day, they watched like observers in an impartial simulation, as if they were souls walking metaphysical steps without a body. However, with the scope of their existence narrowed solely to the perception of the young Armin Arlert, the whole experience felt more like a transcendental out-of-body experience, wherein the boy was the body, and they were the mind. And right now, the mind was a storm, and the body expressed it; young Armin was troubled.
He could not focus throughout most of the day, and it wasn’t hard to figure out the reason why. Eren Jaeger did not come to school for the entire morning. The older Armin knew himself; he wouldn’t get distracted from his studies either, and seeing his younger self fidgeting with his pens and fingers, it was obvious that this absence, in particular, was peculiar. In the middle of the last period, however, the door opened abruptly and halted the teacher from his lecture.
“Jaeger, thanks for honoring us with your presence. Take your seat quietly.”
The men from Paradis had sat at the far-end corner of the classroom with their backs against the wall. They watched the young Jaeger enter the room with an aura foreign yet familiar to them. Eren stared at his younger self trodding towards his seat next to Armin. There was a weight in his footsteps, but he tried to conceal it.
“Why’d you bother to come to school if you were still sick!” Armin whispered, pressing the back of his hand on Eren’s forehead, “you’re hot...”
“Thanks,” Eren leaned away from Armin’s touch, chuckling at the red from Armin’s cheeks, “but I’m fine. Just got held up a little. Still wanna hang later?”
“Don’t tell me… you came today for soccer practice.”
“I promised Jean that I’d one-up him. Can’t let that bastard win Mikasa.”
“You do know it’s her say that matters on whether she’d date Jean or not in the end.”
“But still! Not just anyone can take her! She deserves the best.”
Armin looked away, his eyes dropping for a moment before returning his gaze on him with a forced smile, “Mikasa is… really an important person to you, huh. I don’t think any guy could match her, except maybe… you.”
Eren scoffed, “that’s ridiculous, romance is so overrated,” He said, before shyly turning his gaze away from Armin and unto his notebook, “but… if I were to like someone, it’d have to be a person I trust the most.”
“I said quietly, Jaeger.” The teacher called out.
Armin looked down at his notebook, his mind swelling with thoughts about what kind of person Eren liked. He had never spoken about these kinds of things, and it was weird to see his best friend looking uncharacteristically flustered in his seat over something like this.
The bell rang again, ending a day that felt way longer than it should have. Older Armin and Eren followed their younger counterparts and concluded firmly at this point that there was absolutely no one who could see them except the young Arlert. As much as they wanted to figure out why that was so, there were other questions that held them captive.
Where could Ymir be?
Young Eren and Armin set out to the back of the school where the soccer field was. Standing in the middle was Jean in complete uniform. His knees were padded, his socks high and clean, and his hands planted firmly on his hips. His brown eyes locked in on Eren’s emerald ones as he puffed his chest out. Their other teammates hollered at the both of them, excited to witness their showdown.
“Prepare to lose, Eren! No one can beat the power of love!”
“Let’s see about that, Jean-boy!”
Mikasa stood at the side with her books held in her chest. Her eyes were like stone, watching the boys with a mix of embarrassment and why do they have to do this?
Older Armin and Eren approached this high school version of Mikasa, both of them exchanging an odd look at each other. She wore pigtails, black lipstick, and an overall dark fashion that neither of them had seen before.
Young Armin caught them and chuckled under his breath, “what’s this fashion style called again, Mikasa? Goth?”
“Goth?” Older Armin repeated, “I kind of like it.”
“Looks weird.” Older Eren muttered.
Mikasa placed a hand on Armin’s shoulder, “Armin, why didn’t you convince Eren not to play? He’s going to knock himself out.”
“Eren’s head is harder than Mr. Smith’s pop quizzes on a bad day, Mikasa. You know nothing can get through him once he makes up his mind on something.”
The two men scanned the space of the field. There were tall wired fences that separated school property from the sidewalks and other houses. Trees lined along with the fences, like a double barrier, but there were gaps in between where they could see people walking by.
At the corner of his eye, Eren saw a glimpse of a young girl in a backpack trailing behind a group of other elementary school girls. She had her head cast down, and her face darkened like a shadow. Her eyes… were absent.
Eren took Armin’s wrist and ran straight forward, pushing back the branches and leaves and climbing over the fence.
“Eren! What are you doing!?” Armin exclaimed.
The younger blonde turned around in surprise, and he almost called out the two men before stopping himself, remembering no one else could see them.
“Armin, are you okay?” Mikasa asked, “what are you looking at?”
“Ah! It’s nothing, a fly must’ve flown right into my face.”
As soon as Eren and Armin landed on their feet on the other side of the fence, Eren took Armin’s wrist again and pulled him along the sidewalk.
“Ymir. I saw her.” Eren said, pointing at the group of girls walking ahead of them. They were heading towards the intersection of the road, where they’d cross to the next block.
“Really?! Are you sure?” Armin asked, keeping up with Eren’s pace, “how are we going to approach her?”
Eren walked briskly towards the young girl until he was right behind her. Then, she suddenly stopped walking, making the both of them nearly fall back. She didn’t turn around, and for a solid second, Armin could feel as if something terrible was about to happen. He wasn’t wrong.
“Don’t follow me.”
It took Armin a few seconds to realize they were standing in the middle of the crosswalk, but before he could react, a car zoomed in front of them. The blonde screamed and closed his eyes. He tripped backward and would have almost gotten run over by another car if Eren hadn’t pulled him to his body. When Armin opened his eyes again, Ymir had disappeared from their sight.
“We have to be careful! We can still get hurt,” Eren said, as they made a quick dash towards the curb.
Eren took him to the side, and held his shoulders, “Armin, go back to the school.”
“Wait, what? Why?”
“I’ll go find Ymir on my own. It’s too dangerous for you. We don’t fully understand the circumstances we’re in. No one can see us, and if we get injured, no one can treat us.”
“That goes for you too!”
“You don’t know paths, Armin.”
“We don’t know for sure if we even are in paths, Eren. As far as I know, we are both coming in here blind. I’m not just going to sit around while you do all the work. Besides, I… I may have been partly responsible for all of this.”
The blonde furrowed his eyebrows and looked down at his feet. He had begged for death not to take Eren away from him, but he never would have thought that things would end up this way. He just didn't want to lose his best friend.
“What are you talking about?” Eren asked, his voice laced in frustration, “Anyways, it’s clear that Ymir’s hiding something.”
Armin nodded and then leaned against a wall, trying to even his breaths. When he squatted down, he noticed a glimmer from his peripheral vision. There was a small compass sitting against the stoplight post, and it shone under the rays of the setting sun. Its rims were golden and its hands were rusty with a grey steel color. The blonde walked over and picked it up, watching it point to the northeast. He squinted in that direction and noticed a playground up ahead.
"What do you have there?" Eren asked, examining the compass in his hands.
“Eren, she told us not to follow her, right?” Armin turned around to face him, “Then why did she drop this?”
“Let’s go and find out.”
It wasn’t long before the light of day had slowly waned into the dark like a dimming flame. When they arrived, they saw the same group of young girls hanging over monkey bars, climbing on slides, and riding on spring horses. Ymir, on the other hand, was sitting alone on a swing, isolated from the group. The dusky sky cast a shadow over the expanse of the town, and it draped over her frame like a blanket.
Ymir looked up to see Armin and Eren towering over her, “I told you not to follow me.”
“Those girls you were following… they can’t see you, can they,” Eren said, posing less of a question and more of a statement, “Is that why we’re here? So you won’t be the only invisible one?”
Ymir shook her head, “I am used to this. If I were more selfish, however, that would have been the case.”
“Where are we, Ymir? Why did you take us here?” Eren grumbled.
Ymir took a deep breath, and began to push herself back and forth on the swing with a little more energy, “This world is a reality one can access through paths using the founding power, among different other realities.” She started, “Under special circumstances, however, ordinary Eldians can also enter this world of their own power.”
Armin looked at his hands, “our own power? That’s why we’re here? I brought us here?”
“You did, but it was also fate. You were destined to come here.” Ymir said, swinging herself higher as the wind rushed behind her, “Just as Mikasa was chosen to break my curse and help me find freedom, you, Armin, were chosen to break another curse.”
The blonde blinked a few times and then looked Ymir directly at the empty patches where her eyes were supposed to be, “Whose curse is that?”
“Eren’s curse.”
Armin widened his eyes. Both men looked at each other at the same time.
“What’s the meaning of this,” Eren growled, holding the chain of Ymir’s swing, “There is only one curse. Your curse. The curse that prolonged the existence of titans for over 2000 years. Once I die, titans will no longer exist in our world, and that would be the end of it. Right?”
“You were trapped as a consequence of my curse, Eren. You were doomed to die like this ever since you were born. You were fated to become a monster from the beginning. You were never meant to seize freedom, and yet you sought it. You could not realize your dreams nor be set free from your fate. You, Eren Jaeger, with your dreams, your hopes, and your life, are a prisoner to yourself, and that is your curse, ” Ymir explained, “a curse that is massive enough to replace my own, and keep the reign of titans for all eternity after your death.”
“No! That’s bullshit! So many people have died, why would this happen?!” Eren shouted, clenching the chain so hard he had heard it crack in his fist, “My dreams? My hopes? I’ve realized them all! Armin and I… ever since we were children, we wanted to see the outside world, and we already did. We saw them all together. There was nothing else that I needed.”
“Nothing else, you say?”
Ymir looked at Armin, his eyes frozen and his hands shaken, “I was trapped because of love, and I will be set free because of love. Eren was trapped because of his search for freedom, and he will also be set free because of it.”
“How?” Armin muttered under his breath, “That doesn’t… make any sense.”
Ymir stood on her swing and reached out to take one of Armin’s hands in her own, “In order to end the curse, he must break away from his own enslavement. Only you can help him do that, Armin. Either you find a way for him to escape his fate, or help him realize the dreams he could not reach. Only then will he be set free.”
As if struck by a sudden realization, Armin looked up at the sky.
“Ymir, you said that there are other realities aside from this one. There must be other realities where Eren does not die. Eren… Eren in this world. He’s happy and alive. It’s possible. Eren can live.” Armin said, and then took Eren’s hands, enveloping them with his, “We can find a better way where you don’t have to be killed.”
Eren pulled his hands out of Armin’s grasp, looking at the ground, “I told you already, Armin. After everything I did… there is no way I can live. I don’t want to.”
“But the curse Eren! You must live to dispel the curse.” Armin said, “If you die… if you meet your ultimate fate… then the world will still be plagued by the titans’ existence. You need to live, Eren. For the sake of yourself and the rest of humanity.”
Eren clenched his fists, and raised his hands to his head, “I- I don’t deserve to!”
“I don’t care if you deserve to live or not!” Armin exclaimed, holding Eren’s shoulders tightly, “I am going to find a way for you to live if it’s the last thing I do. That’s final, Eren. I’m not letting you go.”
“Look at those creepy guys!”
Both Eren and Armin froze in place. When they turned their heads, they saw one of the girls from the monkey bars stare and point at them.
“This is no place for adults! Go home!”
The two men exchanged confused looks, the same question burning in both of their minds.
"We’re not invisible anymore?"