Anime Discussion Thread - Page 2779

Lols at the 250 000 people sent to retake the city. They better bring out some good "ways" of killing those titans, and not just the effect of having OP main chars. Because, if 250k can't kill them, a few youngsters shouldn't be neither ^^

Winter, 8 years ago, she became a shadow. On that silent morning, that girl first touched life.

Her house was snuggled halfway up the mountainside. Around it was an expanse of wilderness, void of civilization. It was so isolated that she couldn't even hope for a neighborhood friend to play with. Even going to school or going out to play were nothing more than inconveniences. But it was a home with beautiful water and beautiful stars, with small worries but great tranquility, with memories. Of course, that was only in the summer.

Winter in the mountains was always exceedingly cold, with mornings especially harsh. Her father would drive her all the way to the station, but the automobile's windows were always frosted over, and it would refuse to start unless the engine had been warmed up for tens of minutes prior.

"__, would you turn the key?"

It was a daily ritual of hers to go outside and turn on the car's engine while her father enjoyed his morning coffee. She opened her home's front door, then crossed the front garden while exhaling solid white breaths, finally reaching the antique sedan to open its door. Then, as always, she thrust the key into the keyhole and turned it fully around.

"Gururururu" the engine resounded, shaking.

And so ended the important job that the little girl took great pride in, having repeated it dozens of times.

"[ ]-----"

A shrill whine slipped through the air. She recognized that tiny, tiny voice, although different from human words, cry out in suffering.

A few minutes later...

As her father opened the hood of the car, there within they saw a single life. There, wedged tightly in that tiny box of a space between the creaking belt and the monstrous engine... the shapes of a mother cat and her two kittens were altogether too out of place. In the engine room, these three cats, as if trying to draw closer to each other, had curled together in a ball.

The mother cat had nothing above her neck. One of the kittens had been so entangled in the machinery that it showed no movement. It had surely died instantly. Half of the face of the remaining kitten was awash with red. It breathed "Hyuu... hyuu..." like a dog wet from the rain. Within that graveyard, the remaining kitten used what few minutes of life remained to earnestly, earnestly seek for its mother's breast, though half of that parent cat was now a mere slice of meat.

"Poor things..."

Father's mournful voice. Last night's freeze had been even colder than normal. After father returned yesterday, the cats must've been tempted by the heat and naively snuck in under the hood. They spent the night in the engine room, and were awakened by the turning of the belt. For an old 80s airtight car, it was likely a common story.

"It's OK. It's not __'s fault."

Father's voice was far away. The cat's fur was frayed to gray. Of course blood covered the mother cat and the kittens from where their bodies had been half shaved away, and through that blood... Ah. She saw the round contour of a skullbone. A small life, mottled in bloodstains. Had the kitten already lost its vision? Shivering, it singleminded curled into its dead mother's chest.

"......? Please wait, __!"

The girl picked the kitten up in her arms and ran deeper into the mountains to where her grandfather lived apart from them. Was she trembling with regret? Or had the simple grief of it all thrown her mind into disarray? Truth be told, even now I do not know. While trying her best to stem the tide of tears from flowing out, she burst into her grandfather's workshop. Her grandfather was a Magician. He could do anything. Of course the girl herself had never seen such a thing as "Magic." She knew such things to be the department of fantasies and fairy tells. Yet on some level, removed from such common sense, the girl knew that her grandfather was that kind of being.

That's why

she thought that surely her grandfather would help.

"To change the very fate of this kitten."

So said the indifferent voice of this Magician who made his home in a cave. "Please help!" She had pleaded. The Magician made no mention of the fact that if he could indeed do such a thing, it would be a great, world-changing event. Instead he merely, mechanically, granted the girl's selfish wish.

"......Ah."

Before she knew it, in her hands was a small body. Chilled fur. The warmth of life had long since departed. The tears she had commanded not to flow now spilled forth from her eyes. A vast regret spread out in her heart like an endless gray sky.

"It was futile after all. To return something to the way it was before."

Whatever had just happened, the girl could not understand. Even after the blank of the last ten minutes, whatever she had experienced, whoever she had met, whatever she had learned, she was as innocent as before. All that was certain was that a dead life could not be recovered, and...

"Umm... is someone over there?"

That day.

That mistake of a girl known as "Me" was born.

......Aah.

In the end, it's all quite nostalgic, yet long-awaited. Just a simple fairy tale from 8 years before now. Whatever Magic you use, you can't take it back. That first day, that first moment, when those girls first met.

You do realize that the vast majority of those 250 000 people were most likely untrained civilians? Not to mention old people (RIP Armin's grandfather), etc. It's really obvious that it was so that the rest would be able to survive with the food production they had. Let 2000 people starve to death or let 1000 survive?

If those 250k had been able bodied soldiers with 3DG training, they would've probably been able to retake the outer wall. Starving civilians... not so much.