Watching Commandant Keith Shadis experience a severe psychological crisis was highly entertaining, provided you were doing it from a safe, mathematically calculated distance.
It was the second day of our aerial mobility training.
The 104th Cadet Corps was back in the dense, towering canopy of the training forest, and Shadis was standing on the elevated wooden observation platform, his bald head practically steaming with absolute confusion.
According to his records from the previous week, my squadmates were a disaster.
Eren Yeager was an aggressive, uncoordinated liability who dumped half his pressurized gas canister into the wind within ten minutes.
Armin Arlert lacked the upper body strength to pull his heavy iron triggers for more than a few consecutive swings.
And Sasha Braus was entirely too distracted by the concept of lunch to maintain a proper pendulum arc.
But today?
Today, the covert, midnight mechanic work I had performed in the pitch-black equipment shed was paying massive, undeniable dividends.
Eren shot past the observation platform like a guided missile.
His modified gas regulator hissed with pristine, controlled efficiency.
Because I had installed a restrictive brass fitting inside his primary housing, it didn’t matter how aggressively he panicked and slammed the triggers.
The gear only released the exact, optimal burst of kinetic thrust he needed, entirely preventing his usual wasteful gas dumps.
He looked graceful.
He looked lethal.
Armin wasn’t cramping at all.
I had ripped out his heavy iron springs and replaced them with highly elastic, heat-treated copper coils.
With his new hair-trigger grips, he was effortlessly maneuvering through the lower canopy, easily slicing the napes of the wooden Titan targets without fatiguing his forearms.
And Mikasa…
well, Mikasa was downright terrifying.
Because I had completely dismantled her wire spools, soaked the bearings in synthetic lubrication, and perfectly realigned her internal gyroscopes, she moved through the air in absolute, chilling silence.
She was a phantom.
She would drop from the high canopy, sever a target, and vanish into the leaves before the heavy wooden dummy even hit the forest floor.
“What in the walls is happening?!” Shadis yelled to another instructor, furiously flipping through the pages of his clipboard.
“Did they discover a hidden reserve of talent overnight?!”
“It must be your motivational screaming, Commandant!
It finally broke through to them!” the younger instructor replied eagerly, saluting the angry bald man.
I swung past them at exactly thirty miles per hour, maintaining a painfully average, perfectly middle-of-the-pack trajectory.
I didn’t have to consult any external knowledge or wait for a sudden flash of inspiration to understand the physics of my flight.
The integration was complete.
The knowledge was just there, hardwired permanently into my own synapses.
I looked at the forest, and my brain instantly, effortlessly output the ambient humidity, the wind resistance, the tensile strength of the bark, and the optimal forty-five-degree trajectory for my steel anchors.
At the exact same time, my own deeply ingrained survival instincts were continuously mapping the intersecting flight paths of the other cadets, automatically adjusting my center of gravity to avoid mid-air collisions.
It was incredibly useful, and deeply, profoundly exhausting.
My brain was a supercomputer running on the caloric intake of a half-ration of boiled cabbage.
‘Flight path optimal.
Energy expenditure holding at exactly twelve percent,’ I noted internally, intentionally using the absolute minimum amount of gas required to pass the drill without drawing attention.
‘Target neutralized.
Retreating to safe zone to initiate tactical loitering,’ I concluded, completely satisfied with my aggressive mediocrity.
I landed softly on a thick, sturdy branch near the edge of the designated training zone, sheathed my blades with a dull click, and sat down against the massive trunk.
I tipped my flat cap over my eyes, enjoying the cool forest breeze, completely content to let the instructors think Shadis’s yelling was a magical cure for incompetence.
The real problems didn’t start until dinner.
The mess hall was a loud, chaotic, incredibly humid wooden building filled with the overpowering smell of cheap stew and unwashed teenagers.
I sat at the very end of a long, splintering wooden table, slowly eating my soup and actively trying to ignore my twin brother.
Eren was vibrating with excess energy.
Because his gear was no longer violently fighting him, he hadn’t exhausted himself during training.
Unfortunately, this meant he had the surplus stamina to talk loudly about killing Titans, his burning desire to join the Survey Corps, and how he was going to single-handedly reclaim Wall Maria.
“Did you see me today, Armin?!” Eren practically yelled, slamming his wooden cup onto the table and splashing water everywhere.
“I finally mastered the weight displacement!
The gear felt like it was reading my mind!
I’m going to slaughter them!”
“You did great, Eren,” Armin smiled weakly, rubbing his own hands, marveling at how his knuckles weren’t aching.
“I feel like I had a breakthrough too.
It was just…
easier today.
Everything clicked.”
Mikasa was sitting right next to Eren.
She wasn’t talking.
She was silently cutting her thick piece of rationed bread in half and gently placing the larger, softer portion directly onto Eren’s plate.
“You need to eat more if you’re going to maintain that speed, Eren,” she said softly, her dark eyes entirely focused on him.
Eren immediately scowled, his pride instantly flaring up.
He aggressively pushed the bread back toward her side of the table.
“I’m fine, Mikasa!
Stop treating me like a child!
I was the top of the squad today, I don’t need you hovering over me like a mother hen!”
Mikasa flinched.
It was a tiny, almost microscopic tightening of her jaw and a slight downward shift of her eyes.
To a normal twelve-year-old boy, it would have been completely invisible.
But my brain was permanently wired for hyper-vigilant threat assessment.
It flashed in my mind like a blaring red warning light.
‘Hostile interpersonal dynamic detected,’ my mind analyzed coldly, stripping away the emotion and looking purely at the logistics of survival.
‘Unresolved emotional tension between primary combatants decreases squad cohesion by forty percent.
Lack of communication leads to fatal battlefield errors.
This needs to be neutralized immediately.’
My normal, everyday laziness groaned.
‘They are so incredibly annoying.
If he keeps yelling at her, she’s going to brood.
If she broods, the ambient mood of the room drops to sub-zero, and I won’t be able to digest my cabbage in peace.’
I set my wooden spoon down on the table with a heavy, deliberate clack.
“Eren,” I said, my voice cutting cleanly through his rant with the deadpan, icy authority of a seasoned tactical commander.
Eren stopped mid-sentence, looking over at me with a frown.
“What?”
“You are currently operating at a severe tactical deficit due to your own profound emotional blindness,” I stated bluntly, leaning forward and resting my chin on my folded hands.
Eren blinked, completely derailed.
“My what?”
“Your emotional blindness,” I repeated slowly, treating his relationship like a supply chain issue.
“Mikasa is not hovering.
She is operating as your primary logistical support.
When you push her away, you are intentionally sabotaging your own supply lines out of misplaced adolescent pride.”
The entire surrounding table went dead silent.
Armin stared at me with wide, terrified eyes, afraid I was going to trigger a massive argument.
Mikasa looked down at her plate, her pale cheeks dusting with a faint, barely noticeable pink.
“I don’t need supply lines!” Eren argued, his face flushing with defensive anger.
“I need to kill Titans!”
“You cannot kill Titans if you die of caloric deficiency, you absolute blockhead,” I sighed, rubbing my temples to ward off an impending headache.
“She gave you her bread because your basal metabolic rate is significantly higher due to your aggressive maneuverability today.
You burn more energy.
It’s not an insult to your independence.
It’s a calculated tactical investment in your continued survival.”
I narrowed my eyes, locking his gaze.
“Eat the bread and say thank you, or I will personally dismantle your ODM gear while you sleep and replace your gas triggers with wet sponges.”
Eren stared at me, his mouth opening and closing silently like a stranded fish.
He looked at the extra bread sitting on the wood.
He looked at Mikasa, who was still staring firmly at the table, refusing to meet his eye.
For the first time in his life, my brother’s incredibly thick skull actually seemed to process the cold, logistical reality of the situation.
“Fine,” Eren grumbled, his ears turning red.
He aggressively snatched the bread off the table and took a massive, angry bite.
He chewed loudly for a second before mumbling around the crust, “Thanks, Mikasa.”
Mikasa’s dark eyes softened immediately.
A tiny, relieved smile touched the corners of her lips.
“You’re welcome, Eren.”
The suffocating tension at the table instantly evaporated.
The ambient noise level of the mess hall returned to an acceptable, background hum.
‘[Tactical squad cohesion restored.
Wingman protocol successful.]’ a blue notification quietly flashed in the corner of my vision.
‘I am not a wingman.
I am just a guy who violently hates unnecessary noise,’ I corrected the system bitterly, picking my spoon back up.
I finished my soup in peace, utterly exhausted by the burden of managing my twin brother’s disastrous social life on top of my own survival.
After dinner, it was time for the evening chore rotations.
Because the universe actively enjoyed punishing me, I had been assigned to firewood duty alongside a few other cadets from the outer districts.
I walked out to the supply sheds behind the mess hall, the evening air cooling the sweat on the back of my neck.
My plan was brilliantly simple: use my mechanical knowledge to build a quick, crude wheelbarrow out of discarded lumber, move my entire quota in one single, highly efficient trip, and go straight to sleep.
When I rounded the corner of the heavy wooden shed, I stopped in my tracks.
Christa Lenz—or Historia Reiss, depending on how much treason you were currently factoring into your long-term survival plans—was struggling to lift a massive, splintering wooden crate overflowing with firewood.
She was tiny, even smaller than Armin, and the crate easily weighed sixty pounds.
She was straining, her face flushed red, trying to drag it across the dirt while completely ignoring the fact that she was actively destroying her lower back.
Ymir was leaning casually against the shed a few feet away, her arms crossed, watching Christa with a lazy smirk.
“You know you could just ask for help, Christa.
You don’t have to play the suffering, independent martyr every single day of your life.”
“I can do it, Ymir!” Christa huffed, her fingers slipping on the rough wood.
She lost her grip, and the heavy crate slammed back into the dirt, nearly crushing her leather boots.
My brain immediately highlighted the physics of the disaster unfolding in front of me.
‘Improper lifting technique.
Lumbar spine under severe stress.
Center of gravity completely misaligned,’ my mind diagnosed automatically.
I let out a long, heavy sigh, abandoning my plan to build a wheelbarrow.
I walked over, my heavy boots crunching loudly on the dry dirt.
“You’re going to permanently compress your L4 vertebra if you keep doing that,” I said lazily, coming to a stop next to the heavy crate.
Christa jumped, startled by my completely silent approach.
She looked up at me with her massive, bright blue eyes, instantly adopting her perfectly crafted, radiant, angelic smile.
“Oh!
Kai, right?
It’s fine, really!
I just need to get a slightly better grip—”
She expected me to swoon.
She expected me to politely insist on carrying it for her like a chivalrous, strong knight in shining armor, just like Reiner and the other guys constantly did whenever she batted her eyelashes.
Instead, I entirely ignored her angelic aura.
I knelt down in the dirt, pulled a thick, sturdy branch from the top of the pile, and shoved it directly under the bottom edge of the heavy wooden crate.
I grabbed a smaller, round log and kicked it under the branch, seamlessly creating a perfect Class 1 lever.
“I’m not carrying it for you.
Manual labor is a direct violation of my core beliefs,” I deadpanned, stepping back and pointing at the branch.
“But if you push down on that lever, the mechanical advantage will lift the crate off the dirt.
Then you can slide your grip underneath the center of mass instead of pinching the top edges.
It cuts the perceived weight in half.”
Christa stared at me, her angelic smile completely freezing on her face.
She looked at the makeshift lever, then up at my completely bored, deeply exhausted expression.
Nobody had ever treated her like this.
They either worshipped her as a goddess or pitied her as a weak girl.
Nobody had ever just handed her a deadpan physics lesson and told her to lift it herself with better leverage.
Ymir, who had been glaring daggers at me the exact moment I approached, suddenly burst into a loud, barking laugh.
“Oh, I like this one!” Ymir cackled, pushing herself off the wooden wall.
“He didn’t fall for the goddess routine!
He just told you your form sucks!”
Christa’s cheeks turned slightly red.
She dropped the fake smile for a fraction of a second, revealing a flash of genuine, grounded annoyance before replacing it with a more hesitant, calculating expression.
She stepped up to the lever, pushed her weight down on the branch, and gasped as the massive crate easily lifted off the ground.
She slid her hands under the sturdy bottom, straightened her legs, and hoisted the wood with significantly less effort.
“Oh,” Christa breathed, genuinely surprised.
“That…
that actually works perfectly.
Thank you, Kai.”
“Don’t thank me, thank Archimedes,” I mumbled, turning around to grab my own pile of wood.
“And stop lifting with your back.
My personal survival doctrine strictly forbids carrying injured teammates when they could have just lifted with their knees.”
I didn’t wait for her to respond.
I balanced exactly enough firewood in my arms to meet my strict quota, turned around, and walked back toward the barracks.
Ymir was still chuckling in the shadows as I walked away, and I could feel Christa’s curious blue eyes boring intensely into the back of my jacket.
I dumped my firewood near the mess hall stoves, dusted off my hands, and headed straight for the barracks.
Tomorrow was hand-to-hand combat training again.
After my disastrous, accidental takedown of Reiner Braun the previous week, I knew Annie Leonhart was going to be watching me like a hawk.
I couldn’t afford to look like a prodigy again.
I needed to figure out a highly convincing way to fail.
I needed to let someone punch me in the face just hard enough to prove I was weak, but not hard enough to actually break bone.
‘Calculating optimal facial impact zones to minimize tissue damage while maximizing dramatic bleeding,’ my brain began mapping out the bone structure and capillary density of my own nose as I opened the barracks door.
‘This is my life now,’ I thought miserably, collapsing onto my thin mattress in the dark.
‘I am using a super-genius intellect to mathematically plan getting punched in the face just so I can take a nap.’
If this was what the 104th Training Corps was going to be like for the next three years, I was definitely going to need more duct tape.