Eren stood still for what felt like hours.
His eyes locked on the empty sky where she vanished.
His heartbeat thundered in his skull.
And then—
POP.
A rush of static flooded his ears like water being sucked out of them.
"—eren! ER—N! Ghh— You there?!"
Jarro.
Eren spun around. His comrade lay half-buried under bent metal and collapsed scaffolding, blood pouring from a deep gash in his side. His helmet was cracked in half, his rifle snapped clean.
"Jarro!"
He dropped to his knees, pulling debris off him.
"Still… alive," Jarro groaned, coughing wetly. "Barely."
"You have your earpiece?"
Jarro nodded weakly, already slipping in and out of consciousness.
Eren ripped the piece from his ear and jammed it into his own.
BEEP. STATIC. CONNECTED.
"This is Echo Unit! Come in, command! We are down! We are down!"
"Repeat: outpost Echo has been compromised! We've lost multiple men, and there's been—there's been an impact. A strike from above. I don't even know what it was—SOMEONE FELL OUT OF THE SKY AND TOOK OUT THE WHOLE ENEMY RIDGE IN ONE HIT!"
Static.
Then a cold voice:
"…Echo Unit, repeat that last transmission?"
"I SAID SOMEONE CAME DOWN LIKE A MISSILE. A WOMAN. SHE TOOK OUT THE ENEMY ENTIRELY—SHE… she took something from the ground. Then flew away."
Pause.
Too long of a pause.
Then:
"Echo Unit, please remain in position. We have no intel on any friendly airstrike or authorized asset matching that description."
"What? What do you mean you have no idea?! She wasn't with us?! What the hell was she?!"
"We are dispatching a recovery team to your coordinates. Hold position."
"But—"
"Echo Unit—hold. Position. That's an order."
CLICK.
Silence.
No explanation. No answers. Just cold protocol.
Eren looked down at Jarro, whose eyes were fluttering shut again.
He looked back at the crater in the distance. Still smoldering. Still glowing with that faint, unnatural shimmer.
He looked at the sky.
Whatever just happened… wasn't part of anyone's plan.
And whoever she was…
She didn't come to save them.
She came for something else.
And now she was gone.
The hum of the med-drones buzzed low over the ward. Jarro was unconscious, his body suspended in a vertical stasis pod, wounds stitched and sealed by auto-surgeons.
Level 4.
It was cleaner here. Colder. The walls weren't rusted or scorched like down on 3. Everything was sleek, sterile, silent.
Eren sat on the edge of a bench in the debrief room, still in his dusty uniform, dried blood cracking on his arms. His ears still rang faintly from the blast—phantom echoes.
They hadn't let him sleep.
Two hours of questioning. Two different commanders. One AI overseer.
Same response every time:
"Unknown contact."
"No intel matches the description."
"Unidentified anomaly."
"Do not pursue this line of inquiry further."
And yet…
He knew what he saw.
He saw her tear the sky open.
He saw her land like a god's hammer.
He saw her vaporize an entire enemy outpost in a single flash of light.
And he saw her look at him.
Once, in the smoke.
Then again, right before she flew off.
Like she knew him.
Like she recognized him.
She didn't say a word. Didn't come for them. Didn't offer a hand.
She just looked… picked up the crystal shards—all of them—and disappeared into the sky.
And now command wanted to pretend none of it happened?
The debrief room door hissed open.
A man stepped inside—higher rank, black gloves, face unreadable.
"Eren Morvain," he said. "You're dismissed from questioning. You're to remain on Level 4 until further notice. Med-checks and psyche-evals are mandatory."
Eren looked up slowly. "What was she?"
The man paused. "There was no 'she.'"
Eren's jaw tightened.
"That's BULLSHIT. You saw the crater. The footage. We were there."
"I saw debris. And your squad was caught in a black-market detonation. That's all the report says."
Eren stood, fists clenched.
The man didn't flinch. He leaned in close.
"You've seen something you weren't supposed to. Do yourself a favor—forget it. And don't go digging."
He turned and left.
The door hissed shut again.
Eren stood there, breathing hard.
Forget it?
He couldn't.
Not after the way she looked at him.
Not after everything she did without a single word.
Whatever just entered his world…
It wasn't done with him yet.
Jarro's room was dim, lit only by a single blue pulse from the monitoring screen above his bed. Bandages wrapped half his face, and a brace pinned his left arm in place. Tubes ran from his side into the wall—stabilizing, feeding, numbing.
Eren stood there, arms crossed, a faint shadow under his eyes from lack of sleep. He didn't speak for a moment. Just stared.
Finally, he stepped forward and pulled a chair beside the bed. Sat down.
"…You awake?"
A groggy grunt came from the bed. Jarro blinked hard, squinting through swollen eyes. "Eren…?"
"Yeah. You alive or just pretending?"
Jarro gave a half-laugh, followed by a wince. "Feels like I lost a fight with a railgun."
"You did."
They sat in silence. Eren glanced down at his boots, then back at his friend.
"Hey," he said, lowering his voice, "did you see her?"
Jarro furrowed his brow. "Who?"
"That… woman. The one who came down like a missile. Blew up the whole enemy camp."
Jarro's face twisted in confusion. "I was face-first in the dirt, bleeding out. I didn't see shit."
"You didn't hear her? Even before—"
"Eren," he cut him off gently, "I was out. I don't remember anything after the blast… just waking up in this damn tube."
Eren leaned back in his chair, jaw locked. "She looked at me."
Jarro blinked, trying to process. "What are you talking about, man?"
But Eren didn't answer. He just stood up and left the room.
—
The night passed slow and quiet.
Eren sat in the hallway alone, eyes locked on the LED clock that flickered at the far end of the corridor. He didn't move. Barely blinked. Just waited.
Then, just after dawn, the door opened.
A woman walked in—black suit, silver badge, and a clipboard. Her hair was tied back in a knot so tight it looked like wire. No name tag.
She nodded at him. "Eren Morvain."
He stood.
She handed him a sleek tablet.
"Read and sign. Acknowledgment of Level 4 Protocol Violation and Non-Disclosure Agreement."
Eren didn't take it right away.
"What happens if I don't?"
Her face didn't change. "You won't be discharged. But you will be reclassified. Psych eval. Memory therapy. Possibly moved down to Level 2."
His eyes narrowed. "This ever happen to anyone else?"
Her silence answered that for him.
He took the tablet. Scanned it quickly.
Cold language. No mention of "woman," "anomaly," or "crystal." Just vague words like "encounter," "event," and "containment."
He hesitated for a long time.
Then he signed.
She took it back without a word.
As she turned to leave, she paused in the doorway.
"Some advice," she said quietly, without looking back. "Some things… they're bigger than any of us. You don't want to go looking for something you'll never be allowed to understand."
And then she was gone.
Eren stood alone in the hallway.
The contract was signed.
But his questions?
They had only just begun.