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Chapter 3

Every Last One

Chaos.

That was the only word to describe it. Everywhere I turned brought me face to face with the chaos and terror wrought by the titans. The streets were filled with the stench of blood and fear and death. The cries from newly orphaned children echoed throughout the district, the sound so very familiar to the ones given by the little girl I had left behind. The girl I had left to die.

Zuko, help me! Don't leave me!

I stumbled in the middle of my run and crashed into a cart that had long since been discarded by its owner. I let myself fall as the images replayed in my head over and over again like a broken record. The deaths, the screams, the look of absolute betrayal as I turned to run to save myself like the fucking coward that I was, they all came rushing back to me like a flood.

Why? Why is it that I constantly prove to disappoint everyone that matters?

Blood oozed from an open wound caused by my fall down the length of my arm. I paid it no heed. I didn't even feel the cut. The wounds I bore were nothing compared to the wound of betrayal. They were nothing compared to being eating alive.

Why is it that everyone I care about ends up leaving me?

First it was my cousin, Lu Ten, who had fallen in battle. He had been the one to first get me hooked on using dual dao swords. Uncle was never the same after his death. Then, my mother disappeared in the middle of the night just a few days later. Vaguely, I recall her entering my room and telling me to never forget who I was, but it still seems like a bad dream. My father had already started acting coldly towards me for some time now and Azula? Once, I had thought us to be close. Back before she was a prodigy and my father started molding her into his perfect little tool. And Uncle… he was like a real father to me. He'd done so much for me, especially in the last few years. He went into exile for me, and I treated him like shit. Now, he was gone and I had no way of knowing what had happened to him ever since I landed in this god-forsaken world.

The resounding booms of the titans shook me back to my senses. In a flash, I jumped to my feet and resumed my mad dash towards the boats that would take me to the inner walls and hopefully, to safety.

Safety…

As if such a thing existed in this world. Eren was right, all we were doing was delaying the inevitable. Sooner or later that colossal titan would return and destroy another gate. Mankind would be pushed back to the last remaining wall where we would be sitting ducks for the titans to freely pluck at their own leisure. There was no hope. There was no escape. There was only the fear of not knowing when you'd meet that unavoidable end, only that it was bound to happen sooner or later.

This world is cruel.

My leg, which still throbbed from being dislocated earlier, chose that moment to give out. With a cry, I fell once again face first onto the hard, cobbled street. A wave of pain circulated through my body. That pain intensified when a herd of people, desperate to flee from the still pursuing titans, trampled over my prone back. Several of the women had heels which dug deep into my back, forcing me to stifle a scream. One particularly heavy boot smashed into the back of my head which proved to be the incentive I needed to finally open my mouth and scream. No one stopped to help me and I was left to gag on something warm and sticky that had entered my mouth in its vulnerable state. The mysterious metallic, coppery taste was soon forgotten in favor of the pain.

The crowds died down, but I just lay there, unmoving. Slowly, I picked myself off the ground and landed on my knees. With unblinking eyes I gazed into the red sky. I ignored everything else around me and simply stared, not really thinking about anything in particular. Something wet rolled down the left side of my cheek. My face seemed to be covered in the wet substance. Dazed, I lifted my hand to wipe the stuff away. Bringing my arm forward I looked down to see smears of red stained all across my clothes and skin. Blood. None of it my own. Mixed in with scattered bits of flesh and bloody inner organs.

Well, that explains what entered my mouth.

Keeling over to the side I retched the remains of whatever was left in my stomach, but I made no effort to move out of the bloody mess. The screams and cries of dying men and women flooded my senses. The air seemed to constrict around me making it hard for me to breathe. My vision blurred putting me in a ghostly world of rapidly darting images and sporadic pulsating blobs. The sounds of the outside world were slowly drowned out in a losing battle against my own rapid heartbeat.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

What's happening to me?

I tried to move my mouth. I tried to muffle out a scream but no sound escaped my lips. At least, no sound that I could hear in my own warped out state. The beating of my heart grew louder and louder with every passing millisecond until it was nothing but a constant, incessant pounding. Then, the screaming started.

It began as little more than a whisper, a softness that contrasted with the heavy pounding of my heart. That whisper soon grew to be a full fledge wail, not unlike the shrill cry of the banshees that struck fear into every true Fire Nation sailor.

Before I had time to process any more than that the voice was joined by another. And another. And another. And yet another until the shrills and cries of hundreds of various men and women overcame the pounding of my heartbeat with all the force of a monsoon. A thousand screams in a thousand voices made me feel like my mind was going to break into a thousand pieces.

And it didn't stop there.

They say that just before you die your life flashes before your eyes, as if to give you one last run through before you finally kick the bucket. I wish I could meet whoever came up with that crazy idea so that I could smash a flame empowered fist into their stomach. One time would have been a godsend compared to what I got.

Replay after replay after goddamn replay of my life flashed before my eyes in what was probably only a few minutes but felt like fucking years. All the things I had done, all the people I had hurt and let down and failed came gushing back. Not a single cut, or scrape, or fucking bruise in my godforsaken life was seemingly left out. The screams of the damned continued to wail against my brain as I was forced to endure the tragedies of my past again and again and again.

No, stop! Please! No more!

My pleas fell upon deaf ears to whatever cruel entity was present.

Please! I'm begging you! Anyone! Just please! Make it STOP!

The screams grew louder in response, the images more vivid.

I can't take this anymore! I'll do anything! ANYTHING! JUST PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!

The replays grew faster and more incessant. The precious few good things in my life became buried under the massive mountain of bad as the good blurred with the bad until only that which cause me strife remained.

STOP! STOP! STOP!

All the times my father rebuked and insulted me. All the times he told me what a disgrace I was. What a failure I was. How meaningless my existence was. A thousand lifetimes of the same pain and verbal abuse. A thousand times I was forced to relive the day I got my scar.

Please… no more… please…

A thousand times I had to watch my mother leave.

No… stop… don't go…

All the times I insulted Uncle. All the times he tried to help me only for me to spit in his face. He was always looking out for me, always trying his best to help. He always had my back, and I never had his.

I'm sorry… I'm sorry… please… just stop…

A thousand times I watched as more of the people I had come to care about as family were snatched right before my eyes and eaten in the most horrifying way possible. A thousand times I betrayed the trust of a little girl who was forced to die alone. A thousand times of having to live with that transgression on my conscience.

Please… please… please…

The sins of my past washed over me, drowning me in my own personal hell. The full weight of all my crimes piled onto my shoulders, pushing down on me with its heavy load. And I endured it all. A thousand times. Each time wishing it to be the last. Each time wishing for sweet Death to finally end my suffering. Each time my prayers fell upon deaf ears.

Please… Just end it. Just let it end. Let it all end…

Pathetic.

The new thought startled me. The hellish screaming and pounding gradually, yet miraculously, began to recede in favor of silence and the lingering thought in a voice that was not my own, yet at the same time it was.

Pathetic.

Again the voice permeated my senses. This time I was conscious enough of it to notice the distinct undertone of rage and raw hate.

Is this really all that I am worth? Crying in the dirt because things are too hard? Too difficult? Grow up.

Was this really me? Did I really carry such rage inside me? I had heard the soldiers on my ship complain about how hotheaded and angry I was all the time, but this felt different. The true volume of the rage I felt now felt like an endless ocean of hate piled upon hate. Hate for my circumstances. Hate for this world. Hate for myself…

Hate that is well deserved. Fucking disgrace. Father was right to throw me out. The weak must be purged from the strong.

You're wrong! I tried to argue. I'm not weak!

And yet here you are, lying down like a defeated dog, scared shitless in the face of impossible odds!

I must have truly been losing it, talking to myself the way I was. Still, I felt I had to defend myself even if it was from, well, myself.

That's right! This is impossible! These things can't be killed! Fire doesn't work on them, it doesn't even slow them down! It's impossible!

Impossible like finding a long lost relic of a forgotten age?

Those words stopped me in my tracks. I knew exactly what he (I?) was talking about. The Avatar.

Impossible like a pathetic, reckless, hotheaded little kid standing up to such a powerful figure?

The words wouldn't come to me. These thoughts were the very thoughts I had speculated on when I was first given my mission. In secret I bore them, not wanting anyone to see me in such a broken, vulnerable state.

As if you ever truly stood a chance defeating someone like that. You understood that. The world understood that. Hell, Father understood that.

I bit back a sob. For so long I had deluded myself into believing that once I captured the Avatar my father would welcome me back with open arms. I neglected to think about why He had given me such an impossible task in the first place. Now I knew. Or maybe I always knew and I just didn't want to believe it.

Father didn't want me to return. He never wanted me back.

For once, the voice was silent. Even so I could still feel the rage. This time, I could also feel sadness.

This world is cruel.

This world is not for the weak.

Are you weak?

Fire welled in my stomach in response. Rage and anger and unbridled hate filled my entire being. This world was cruel, that much I knew. In a cruel world the innocent were taken off the face of this earth leaving the damned to walk it.

I was not innocent. I had no right to die now.

I'm not weak.

The words felt pathetic even as I thought them.

I'M NOT WEAK!

I sounded like a child throwing a tantrum.

"I'M NOT WEAK!" I roared.

Prove it.

Roaring louder I willed flames to burst forth from within me. Fire erupted from every part of my body as I screamed louder than ever before, blowing fire into the air like the great dragons of old. At that moment I didn't care who saw me, human or titan. All I wanted was to release all the pent up frustration and anger that I had been carrying for so long. Eventually, the flames receded but my anger did not. Glancing to my side I saw several titans approaching, no doubt attracted to my little firework display.

Growling, I slit my eyes.

"Someday I'll come back," I warned. "I'm gonna burn that stupid, fucking, dopey smile right off your face. So don't go thinking that things are always going to stay the same. The more you stay on your fucking high horse, the sooner I'll be back. I'll carve fear into your fucking brain even if I have to drag you all down to hell with me. There won't be a corner left on this earth for you to hide. Not from me."

Having finished saying what I wanted to say, I turned around and began to run in the direction of the inner wall, ignoring the pain in my heel. Someday, someday I would be back. When that day came, I would show them all what happens when you play with fire. On that day, the hunter will become the hunted.

-X-X-X-

"It's over."

"The titans will eat us all…"

The crowd of people watched in awe and fear having just witnessed a large, armored titan crash right through the gate of Wall Maria and leaving a large hole for the titans to walk through in its wake.

Eren clenched his teeth in anger. His eyes shut from the pain of watching his mother eating before his very eyes. Armin watched him worriedly. He hadn't been there when Eren had lost his mother, he was too afraid to even move at the time. But the fact that Eren and Mikasa had returned without her told Armin all that he needed to know. And she wasn't the only one. Zuko was nowhere to be seen.

Don't tell me… He couldn't have died… could he?

"Eren…"

"Why…?" They were the first words Armin had heard Eren speak since he had gotten on the ship that was currently taking them into the relative safety of Wall Rose. "I… us humans are weak. Because we're weak, we can do nothing but cry?"

Armin lowered his head in shame. He hadn't even mustered the courage to go after Eren and Mikasa. He had no right to try and console him here.

"Tch!"

With bated breath Armin watched as Eren rose from his spot and began to walk towards the edge of the ship. "Eren…" This time he reached out to Eren, grabbing him by the shoulder. He did nothing, however, as Eren brushed off his hand angrily and resumed his walk. "I'll erase their existence from this world…"

Eren gripped the edges of the ship tightly between his fingers. The wood cracked and splintered, sharp pieces of it digging into his skin and drawing blood, but he didn't care. "I'm going to kill them all!" His eyes shone with defiance, refusing to back down in the face of despair of the current situation.

"Not even a single one will be left!"

-X-X-X-

Zuko gazed at the surrounding devastation from his perch atop the roof of a long since abandoned house. Every which way he looked he saw titans. On a few occasions he saw some people, stragglers who didn't make it very far before they were caught by the titans. Poor bastards. But Zuko didn't have the luxury of worrying about others. Worrying brought hesitation. Hesitation got you killed. Right now, he had to concentrate on his own well-being. He had to survive, even if that meant forsaking the lives of people he didn't know.

Even if that meant forsaking the ones that he did.

They're headed for the river.

It didn't come as much of a surprise. Nearly everyone from Shiganshina had made their way there in the hopes of catching a ship to take them into Wall Rose. As if the titans would leave such a large mass of people alone.

Realizing how pointless it would be to try to escape by ship, Zuko began to plan out his next moves. He needed to make it into the city somehow, but with the river comprised that left him with very few options. Unless he somehow learned to bend air or stone to his will, he was going to have to come up with a way to make it over the wall.

Narrowing his eyes, Zuko glared daggers at a nearby titan that had just snatched a small boy. The boy screamed and cried for help, but Zuko made no movement. Not even a twitch. The boy's mother paused in her running, eyes wide. She screamed something unintelligible, the boy's name perhaps, before she too was grabbed by a second titan. Together, mother and son shared the same fate, another family fallen victim to the cruelty of this world.

I'm going to end you.

Zuko's eyes were steel as he forced himself to watch until every last piece of flesh was devoured by the titans. Until the streets were stained in blood.

I'm going to wipe your whole kind off the face of this planet.

Every last one.

Author's Notes: Annnnd finally done. Damn, I really am sorry for not putting this up sooner. I never meant for it to drag on for so long, but I was having a bit of a block on how I wanted to set things up and then I ended up forgetting about it for a while. Then, when I finally finish writing and try to post it, I get a freaking "Error Type 1" message that prevents me from updating. Oh well, all's well that ends well. That said, hopefully that little block period is over now and updates shouldn't take as long now. I really hope I don't go through that again, at least for some time now, because I don't want to drop this, nor do I plan to.

That aside thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed this story for some time. I'll do my best to post more regularly in the spirit of the new year. Enjoy!