Glimpses

In the blur of chaos, Kaito felt a strange pull, not toward the present but into the haunted corridors of his past. The air shifted, and suddenly, he wasn't in the middle of Titans and battles for survival. He was back in a time where life was a different kind of struggle. The normal sort of struggles.

His father, once a man now consumed by the bitter taste of alcohol, had lost himself after Kaito's mother passed away. Wasting away his life in the dark room, drinking and drinking till passing out and resuming that when he woke up. That man, by all means, had became the biggest burden on their broken family.

The world seemed to fade for Kaito, but there was one flicker of warmth—his sister. The small angel of innocence was the only thing that brigtenened his world when darkness was all he could see.

Maybe because she was too young when their mother died, or her mind suppressed those memories, but anyways she had retained her innocence of childhood.

Time marched on, and his father's apathy seeped into everything, leaving Kaito with a numbness only pierced by the light his sister brought into his life. Forced to earn money at a young age, he toiled his body day after day. Friends, relatives, acquaintances... one by one all distanced themselves from them.

She was his anchor in a sea of indifference.

The memory took a sharp turn to that one fateful day, etched in agony.

As he usually did, one day Kaito was picking up his sister from school. As they walked on the roadside, she jumped around him as she laughingly recounted what happened in school today.

Kaito was smiling faintly as he heard her. A drunkard behind the wheel careened dangerously close, a threat they never saw coming. In a split second, he hugged her, to shield her from the impact.

And then, time froze.

The last thing he remembered was the sensation of his body taking flight. The world spun, his sister's horrified face etched in his mind. The impact, which he cushioned with his body, saved his sister from direct trauma but left him fatally injured. His whole body felt like being being torn apart, even slight movement ensured a soul-wrenching pain. But even then, his mind was focused on his sister, whose head was bleeding as she remained unconsciousness.

As time passed , people came and circled the scene, clicking pictures and what not.

"Somebody..call A-ambulance.."As he begged them to call ambulance while spitting blood, they watched and watched. Finally after many moments, a old man came running and called ambulance.

"S=Save.. her plea-please..." those were the last word he uttered before losing consciousness.

He could remember the sirens of ambulance, the bright light in the operation chamber and many things he couldn't make out anything of.

His life was saved, albeit leaving him disabled, but saved.

"Where ...cough cough.. is my sister!?"

"I am sorry to say it..but she has slipped into coma"

The past became vivid, emotions flooded through his heart as if he was reliving those painful moments. The world seemed to have lost its colors after he heard the news.

Suddenly he was pulled back to present, finding himself sprawled on the ground, his body painted in a vivid canvas of blood. His consciousness flickered back to life, the world a hazy blend of agony and desperation.

His heartbeat, once slowing down, now betrayed a rapid crescendo. Faster and faster it went, drowning out the chaos around him until it became the only rhythm he could perceive. Thump, thump, thump—an erratic drumbeat echoing the urgency of his struggle.

In the looming shadow of the Claw Titan, its face twisted in a sinister mockery of his futile struggles, Kaito felt his mind slipping.

The chains that held his thoughts captive began to break down, the boundaries between reality and nightmare blurring.

"I... ain't dying... alone," he declared, defiance cutting through the maelstrom of pain. The blood pooled around him suddenly started moving by its own. It draped over his broken form like a cocoon.

Meanwhile, as he felt death's fingers brush on his face, Kaito clung to the last shreds of consciousness.

The cocoon, pulsating weirdly, reached its climax. Suddenly, it burst open, unleashing a red mist that hung in the air like a shroud of mystery. The battlefield was now veiled in crimson, pushed back the black mist emanating from Claw Titan's body.

Within the mist, flash of crimson eyes illuminated the shadows.

Something surged from the heart of the mist, hurtling like a cannonball towards the approaching Claw Titan. A collision was imminent, a clash between monstrous forces.

In the precipice of impact, time itself seemed to bow down. The moment stretched into eternity. The form hidden revealed itself, a pale face emerged, its features contoured with feral elegance. A bloody red eyes, from where blood dripped continuously. Long canines peeked from a sinister grin, and a red overcoat formed of blood itself cloaked his naked body.

Just before the impact a voice echoed, soft and deadly, "Surprise Motherfucker"

The world snapped back into real-time as the bloody figure crashed into the Claw Titan with a force that shook the very foundations of the battlefield.

The battle, far from over.

His silhouette, draped in the crimson aftermath of the mist, was an ominous sight. In an instant, he seized the opportunity, piercing the Claw Titan's eyes with one hand.

A relentless onslaught ensued.

Kaito, fueled by this endless surge of energy, began a ruthless mutilation of the titan's body. His teeth broke through the spiky crystal protrusions, hands shredding its hard skin, layer by later.

"Tch...too slow", the damage he was giving was still insufficient, but he kept on going and going.

He seemed uncaring to the injuries he sustained as the numerous shards impaled his body, for the dark blood of the titan fed his endless regeneration.

The Claw Titan attempted to swat away the small bug but Kaito's enhanced senses, now heightened to an inhumane degree, kept him elusive. Every move was a calculated risk, narrowly dodging its hands.

The battlefield became a whirlwind of chaos and fury, the clash between Kaito and the Claw Titan sending many of the titans tumbling . The air buzzed with excitement and tension as the dance of death was being orchestrated. The line between predator and prey blurred. 

A sudden surge of erratic pulsing coursed through the titan's veins. In the blink of an eye, spikes on its body shot out like deadly projectiles, a desperate attempt to repel the relentless assault.

Many of the spikes found their mark, piercing through Kaito's body. The pain, however, seemed inconsequential to him as he continued his ruthless onslaught. Uncaring, he even caught some of the spikes, turning the tables and using them to further aggravate the titan's injuries.

Through this deadly dance, Kaito discovered a chink in the titan's formidable armor. While its outer skin defied most attacks, its own spikes proved to be its Achilles' heel. With a calculated strategy, he exploited this vulnerability, realizing that the very weapons the titan used for defense were the key for damaging it.

Kaito, undeterred by the spikes embedded in his own flesh, pressed on with a ferocity that mirrored the very titan he battled. Concentrating his attacks on a single point, he used the crystal spikes to shred its nape.

A realization rippled through the titan's colossal form, a subtle shift in its strategy. Black mist coalesced on a specific spot in the ground, an ominous focal point that seemed to beckon the creature. In a swift maneuver, the titan crashed into a building, successfully dislodging Kaito. With a relentless determination, it sprinted towards the now void black circle that had materialized on the ground.

The titan attempted to jump into the abyss, but just as it leaped, something struck it from behind, hurling it towards a nearby building. Kaito, tenacious as ever, had once again latched onto its back, resuming his ruthless assault.

In a last-moment choice, fueled by primal instinct, Kaito sank his fangs deep into the titan's neck, right where the previous assault had left its innards exposed. The battlefield echoed with the primal sounds of struggle—the titan's roars mingling with Kaito's ferocious growls. The dance of death reached its zenith as the battle hung in a precarious balance.

As Kaito's fangs pierced the titan's neck and sank deeper, he found the spot and began sucking out its life essence, the very thing that fueled any living thing. Just then, the world around him suddenly plunged into an abyss of darkness. It was as if his soul had been violently torn from his body, leaving him floating in an inky void. Even his vampiric eyes struggled to find a hint of light in this lightless space.

Eerie stillness enveloped him, broken only by the emergence of a single source of light in the distance. A massive yellow eye, suspended in the cosmic void, its center a captivating vortex drawing everything towards it.

"!@$%@^&*," Kaito heard something unintelligible, a cacophony that pounded against his mind, inducing a head-splitting headache. He clenched his eyes tight against the onslaught, waiting for the pain to subside. When it did, he cautiously opened his eyes, finding himself once again in the familiar, battle-torn landscape of Trost.

Beneath his feet lay the mummified body of the Claw Titan, a ugly sight for his eyes.

A yellowish energy crawled over Kaito's body for a fleeting moment, an force weaving through him before vanishing into the ether. A peculiar pause filled the air, and then, as if in response to this mysterious energy, the body of the Claw Titan crumbled into ashes.

"Weird..." Kaito muttered, his voice a low murmur amidst the lingering echoes of the battlefield.