The first thing Daniel Cross learned about the end of the world was that it had terrible timing.
The second was that it apparently knew his full name.
“DANIEL CROSS.”
The voice came from somewhere above them.
It came from the walls, the floor, the pale roots stretching across the ceiling, and the enormous skeleton buried in the darkness beyond the chamber.
It came from every Titan in Trost.
And every time they spoke, Daniel felt something inside his chest answer.
His second heartbeat quickened.
Thump.
Thump.
THUMP.
Daniel pressed a hand against his sternum.
“Okay,” he muttered. “That's new.”
Nobody laughed.
He looked around at the people in front of him.
Mira was crying silently, her small hands clenched against her white dress.
Cross-01 stood beside the opened cylinder, staring at Daniel with an expression that was becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from his own.
Dr. Elias Voss held a black device in one hand. His pistol hung loosely in the other, forgotten.
Beyond them, the ancient chamber shuddered.
Dust drifted from the ceiling.
Then the system appeared.
[FINAL CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL INITIATED.]
[PRIMARY HOST: DANIEL CROSS.]
[SECONDARY HOST: CROSS-01.]
[ORIGINAL ENTITY: THE FIRST.]
[WARNING: THREE CONSCIOUSNESS SIGNATURES DETECTED.]
[ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL CONVERGENCE: 00:09:31.]
Daniel stared at the countdown.
“Convergence,” he repeated. “That's a lovely word. Sounds scientific. Very professional. Doesn't sound nearly as bad as 'three minds enter, one mind leaves.'”
Elias finally moved.
“We need to separate you.”
“Brilliant. I was just thinking the same thing.”
“Daniel, listen to me.”
“No, I don't think I will. You have a pistol, a suspicious little gadget, and enough secrets to fill a library. Every time you explain something, three new nightmares crawl out of the walls. So here's what we're going to do.”
Daniel pointed at the countdown.
“You are going to explain exactly what happens when that reaches zero.”
Elias's jaw tightened.
“If convergence completes, the distinction between the three consciousnesses will begin to disappear.”
“Disappear how?”
“Your memories will merge. Your personalities will overlap. Eventually, the boundaries separating you from Cross-01 and the First will cease to exist.”
Daniel looked at Cross-01.
Cross-01 looked back.
“So I become him?”
“Not precisely,” Elias answered.
“And he becomes me?”
“Not precisely.”
“And the giant skeleton becomes both of us?”
Elias hesitated.
Daniel slowly nodded.
“Wonderful. The one time I want a simple answer, the universe gives me a bloody philosophy lecture.”
Cross-01 stepped forward.
“Stop wasting time.”
Daniel turned toward him.
“Gladly. Start making sense.”
“The system is attempting to stabilize an impossible arrangement.” Cross-01 glanced at the floating countdown. “It recognizes me as the primary host, you as the active host, and the First as the original biological intelligence. Under normal conditions, those designations should never have existed simultaneously.”
“Yet here we are. A beautiful family reunion.”
“I was never supposed to wake up.”
Cross-01's voice had changed.
The anger remained, but something had surfaced beneath it.
Fear.
“When I designed the transfer procedure, I intended to move my consciousness into a compatible body. The First's biological network was the model. I believed I could reproduce its ability to preserve consciousness during extreme cellular transformation.”
Daniel frowned.
“You wanted immortality.”
“I wanted to survive.”
“Those are usually the same thing when people start doing terrible experiments.”
Cross-01 ignored him.
“The transfer failed. You woke up instead. The system adapted to your consciousness because it had no other choice. I remained suspended, and the First remained dormant beneath us.”
“Until I came downstairs and ruined everybody's day.”
“Yes.”
Daniel spread his hands.
“At least somebody appreciates my talent.”
Another tremor shook the chamber.
This time, the floor rose beneath Daniel's boots.
Not much.
Perhaps a centimeter.
But the stone beneath him was unmistakably moving upward.
Elias looked at the black device in his hand.
“No.”
Mira suddenly screamed.
The sound was so sharp that Daniel flinched.
She had been staring at the floor.
Now she was staring at him.
“It's pulling you back!”
Daniel barely had time to react.
Something seized his spine.
His body jerked backward.
For one terrifying instant, he felt as though invisible hooks had been driven into every vertebra, dragging him toward a destination buried somewhere beyond the walls.
His knees buckled.
Mira ran to him.
“Daniel!”
She grabbed his hand.
The pulling stopped.
Immediately.
Daniel collapsed onto one knee, gasping.
Mira's fingers were ice-cold.
The system flashed.
[FOREIGN NEURAL SIGNAL DETECTED.]
[EXTERNAL ANCHOR ESTABLISHED.]
[WARNING: ANCHOR IS NOT HUMAN.]
[NEURAL STABILITY: 16%.]
Daniel looked at the girl.
“Mira.”
She refused to meet his eyes.
“What did you just do?”
“I'm holding you here.”
“Here being where?”
“Here.”
“Excellent. Very specific. I'm beginning to see why the First needed a better public relations department.”
Mira's grip tightened.
“I can't hold you forever.”
Daniel's smile disappeared.
“How long?”
She shook her head.
“Mira.”
“I don't know!”
Her voice broke.
“I don't know how long I can keep you here!”
For a moment, she looked less like a mysterious child who could communicate with an ancient biological network and more like an ordinary little girl who had been frightened for far too long.
Daniel swallowed.
Then he squeezed her hand.
“Okay.”
She looked up.
“Okay?”
“Okay. We'll work something out.”
“You don't understand.”
“No. I really don't. But I'm getting very good at pretending.”
He tried to smile.
It wasn't a particularly convincing smile.
Mira looked as though she wanted to cry harder.
Cross-01 crouched beside them.
“The anchor is interrupting the convergence.”
Daniel glanced at him.
“Can we use it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the network will recognize the interference and attempt to remove it.”
As if the ancient structure had been waiting for permission, the walls began to pulse.
The pale roots tightened.
A deep vibration rolled through the chamber.
Mira gasped.
Her knees struck the floor.
Daniel caught her before she fell.
The instant he touched her shoulder, something passed between them.
A flash of memory.
A white room.
A little girl sitting on a metal table.
Daniel, younger and thinner, standing beside her.
A man in a white coat speaking through glass.
And a voice Daniel recognized.
His own.
*If they come for me, don't let them take her.*
The memory vanished.
Daniel stared at Mira.
She was looking at him with wide, terrified eyes.
“You remembered,” she whispered.
“Something.”
“You remembered me.”
“I'm trying.”
She lowered her forehead against his shoulder.
“Please don't forget me again.”
Daniel had no answer.
Because beneath the fear, beneath the pain, beneath the second heartbeat that was threatening to tear his identity apart, something inside him recognized the promise.
He had said those words before.
He had failed her before.
And whatever had happened in that laboratory, whatever Elias had erased from his mind, the guilt had survived.
Daniel closed his eyes briefly.
Then he opened them.
“Elias.”
The doctor looked up.
“Tell me how to stop this.”
Elias glanced at Cross-01.
Then at Mira.
Then at Daniel.
“There is one possibility.”
Daniel sighed.
“Of course there is.”
“The system is an artificial imitation of the First's biological framework. It was designed to maintain your body's survival by adapting to whatever threatens it.”
“I'm familiar with the general idea.”
“The convergence is not simply an attack. It's a biological process. The First is attempting to rebuild a unified organism from the fragments of itself that survived.”
Daniel looked toward the enormous skeleton beyond the chamber.
“And I'm the missing piece.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
Daniel stared at him.
Elias's expression hardened.
“I know what we discovered. I know what we attempted. I know what the records said about you. But I do not know why the First recognizes you as its lost body.”
Cross-01 interrupted.
“Because Daniel isn't simply compatible with the network.”
Elias turned toward him.
“Don't.”
“Tell him.”
“Not now.”
“Especially now.”
Daniel slowly stood.
His injured legs trembled.
He ignored them.
“What aren't you telling me?”
Cross-01's eyes remained fixed on Daniel.
“The transfer wasn't the beginning.”
A strange silence settled over the chamber.
Cross-01 continued.
“You were already connected to the network before the experiments began. The researchers didn't create that connection. They discovered it.”
Daniel's mouth went dry.
“How?”
“The records were incomplete. Most of the earliest files had been destroyed or deliberately altered. But I found references to a subject recovered from the original chamber.”
Daniel felt his second heartbeat stumble.
Cross-01 lowered his voice.
“You.”
A memory flashed through Daniel's mind.
Cold stone.
Pale roots.
A woman's hand gripping his shoulder.
A wooden horse.
Then darkness.
He staggered.
Mira caught his arm.
The system flickered.
[NEURAL STABILITY: 15%.]
[MEMORY RECONSTRUCTION DETECTED.]
[WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED MEMORY ACCESS.]
Daniel pressed his fingers against his temples.
“Stop.”
The memories did not stop.
A voice spoke inside his head.
Not Elias's.
Not Cross-01's.
The voice from the ancient chamber.
*You were the body I lost.*
Daniel's vision blurred.
For a heartbeat, he was no longer standing in the chamber.
He was somewhere else.
Somewhere vast.
He saw a human figure standing beneath a black sky.
Dark hair.
Black eyes.
Glowing markings crawling beneath pale skin.
The figure held out a hand.
*Come home.*
Daniel recoiled.
The vision shattered.
He stumbled into the glass cylinder.
Pain exploded through his injured ribs.
“Daniel!” Mira shouted.
He caught himself against the cylinder's rim.
Blood dripped from his palm.
Cross-01 moved toward him, but Daniel raised a hand.
“Don't.”
His voice sounded wrong.
Too deep.
For a fraction of a second, another voice had spoken through his mouth.
Cross-01 heard it too.
The expression on his face changed.
“It's already happening.”
The countdown continued.
[00:07:42.]
Seven minutes and forty-two seconds.
Daniel looked at Elias.
“Your possibility. Explain it.”
Elias swallowed.
“The system can sever hostile signals. You've done it before, although the attempts damaged your biological stability.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you could attempt to sever the connection between your consciousness and the First.”
“And what happens if I succeed?”
“The convergence should stop.”
“Should?”
“The system was never designed to encounter this situation.”
Daniel nodded.
“Of course it wasn't.”
Cross-01 stepped between him and Elias.
“It won't work.”
“Why?”
“Because the First isn't merely transmitting a signal. It's using the network to reconstruct its own identity inside you. If you sever the connection now, you could destroy the parts of your mind that have already begun to merge with it.”
Daniel stared at him.
“How much?”
Cross-01 didn't answer immediately.
“How much of me is already gone?” Daniel demanded.
Cross-01's silence was answer enough.
Daniel laughed once.
It sounded ugly.
“Right. Fantastic.”
He turned toward the countdown.
Seven minutes.
He had survived Titans, secret laboratories, an eyeless nightmare that knew his name, and an ancient skeleton with a god complex.
Now his greatest enemy might be the fact that his brain had apparently become a badly managed apartment building.
Three tenants.
One body.
No eviction policy.
“Fine,” Daniel said. “We'll sever the connection.”
Mira shook her head violently.
“No!”
“Mira—”
“You can't!”
“I'm running out of options.”
“Then find another!”
Daniel crouched in front of her.
“I would love to. Truly. But the universe has been extremely unhelpful today.”
“You'll die!”
“Possibly.”
“You promised!”
The words struck harder than they should have.
Mira grabbed his jacket.
“You promised you would protect me!”
Daniel stared at her.
The memory returned.
Not in fragments this time.
A little boy in a laboratory.
A little girl sitting beside him.
A woman kneeling before them.
The woman's face was blurred, as if someone had deliberately scraped it from the memory.
But her voice was clear.
*Daniel, you have to look after Mira.*
The boy nodded.
*I promise.*
Then alarms.
Shouting.
A door opening.
Hands dragging the girl away.
The boy screaming.
And a final memory.
A needle entering his arm.
A man's voice.
*Erase the attachment. It is interfering with compatibility.*
Daniel's breath caught.
The memory vanished.
He looked at Mira.
She was watching him.
“You remember,” she whispered.
Daniel's throat tightened.
“I remember promising.”
Mira's face crumpled.
“Then don't leave me again.”
For a long moment, Daniel couldn't speak.
He wanted to promise her he wouldn't.
He wanted to tell her everything would be fine.
But the first would be a lie, and the second would be an insult to both of them.
So he did the only thing he could.
He rested his forehead against hers.
“I'm going to try very hard not to.”
Mira closed her eyes.
It wasn't enough.
But it was honest.
A violent impact shook the chamber.
The glass cylinder behind Daniel cracked.
Cross-01 spun around.
“Move!”
The crack widened.
A black vein spread across the glass, branching into dozens of smaller fractures.
Then something struck the cylinder from the other side.
Daniel stumbled backward.
The entire structure shuddered.
Inside the cylinder, the remaining fluid had turned dark.
Not red.
Not green.
Black.
The glass bowed outward.
Elias raised his pistol.
“What the hell is that?”
Cross-01 looked at the cylinder.
His face had gone pale.
“The containment system.”
“What's inside it?” Daniel demanded.
“Nothing.”
The glass cracked again.
Cross-01 took a step backward.
“That's what it was supposed to contain.”
The cylinder exploded.
Glass fragments tore through the air.
Daniel threw himself over Mira.
A sharp piece sliced across his shoulder.
Another struck his back.
The impact knocked the breath from his lungs.
When the debris settled, something was standing where the cylinder had been.
It had Daniel's face.
Almost.
Its skin was pale and translucent, stretched over a skeletal frame. Dark lines crawled beneath its flesh, pulsing in time with the roots surrounding them.
Its eyes were empty sockets.
Its mouth hung open.
And beneath its ribs, three separate hearts beat in a single chest.
Daniel slowly pushed himself upright.
“Oh, come on.”
The creature tilted its head.
Then it smiled.
Its teeth were human.
Its tongue was black.
And when it spoke, Daniel heard three voices layered together.
His own.
Cross-01's.
And something ancient enough to make the air feel cold.
“FOUND YOU.”
The words echoed through the chamber.
Mira screamed.
Cross-01 went rigid.
Elias fired.
The bullet struck the creature's chest.
It barely reacted.
The wound closed around the projectile, swallowing the metal beneath a ripple of pale flesh.
Elias fired again.
And again.
The creature advanced.
Each step left a wet imprint on the stone.
Daniel's system flashed.
[UNREGISTERED ORGANISM DETECTED.]
[CLASSIFICATION: INCOMPLETE RECONSTRUCTION.]
[GENETIC COMPATIBILITY: 98.7%.]
[WARNING: ORGANISM SHARES PRIMARY BIOLOGICAL SIGNATURE WITH HOST.]
Daniel stared at the numbers.
“No.”
The creature stopped.
Its empty sockets turned toward him.
A second heartbeat thundered in Daniel's chest.
Then a third.
The pain was immediate.
Daniel dropped to his knees.
Something inside his body was trying to answer the creature.
The system flooded his vision with warnings.
[NEURAL STABILITY: 12%.]
[BIOLOGICAL STABILITY: 29%.]
[CONVERGENCE ACCELERATION DETECTED.]
[ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL CONVERGENCE: 00:05:58.]
Five minutes and fifty-eight seconds.
The creature opened its mouth wider.
A sound emerged.
Not a roar.
Not a scream.
A sob.
Daniel froze.
Because beneath the layered voices, beneath the inhuman vibration, he heard something familiar.
A child's voice.
His own.
*Please don't make me forget her.*
The creature's body convulsed.
Its translucent skin split along the chest, revealing a mass of pale roots intertwined with human organs.
Cross-01 grabbed Daniel's arm.
“Don't listen to it!”
Daniel barely heard him.
The creature reached out.
Its fingers were too long.
Too thin.
Too human.
And as it stretched toward Daniel, a memory surfaced from somewhere deep inside the system.
A laboratory.
A glass cylinder.
A man standing beside a younger Daniel.
Cross-01.
Alive.
Terrified.
And behind him, a second cylinder containing a body that looked exactly like Daniel's.
The man in the memory turned toward the glass.
He spoke with Daniel's voice.
*If the First finds the original body, it will try to return.*
The memory changed.
The body inside the cylinder opened its eyes.
*If it returns, there won't be enough of us left to stop it.*
Then darkness.
Daniel gasped.
Cross-01 stared at him.
“You saw something.”
Daniel looked at the creature.
“Yes.”
“What?”
Daniel struggled to breathe.
“That we might be the least of our problems.”
The creature lunged.
Cross-01 shoved Daniel aside.
The creature's claws tore through his shoulder.
Blood sprayed across the floor.
Cross-01 screamed.
For the first time, Daniel saw him bleed.
For the first time, he understood that whatever the man had been before, whatever his connection to the system, he was not untouchable.
He was flesh.
He could be hurt.
He could die.
And if he died, Daniel had no idea what would happen to the connection between them.
The creature lifted Cross-01 off the ground.
Its fingers tightened around his throat.
Daniel moved before he could think.
He drove his shoulder into the creature's side.
Pain detonated through his injured body.
His bones felt as though they were grinding together.
The creature barely shifted.
It turned toward him.
Its empty sockets seemed to deepen.
“THERE YOU ARE.”
Daniel swung.
His fist struck its jaw.
The impact nearly broke his hand.
The creature's head snapped sideways.
Then it laughed.
A horrible, wet sound.
Daniel stumbled backward.
His system flashed.
[EMERGENCY ADAPTATION AVAILABLE.]
[PROPOSED TRAIT: STRUCTURAL REINFORCEMENT.]
[COMPATIBLE MATERIAL DETECTED.]
[WARNING: INTEGRATION WILL REQUIRE CONSUMPTION OF LIVE TISSUE.]
[ESTIMATED BIOLOGICAL STABILITY AFTER INTEGRATION: 11%.]
Daniel stared at the prompt.
“Eleven percent?”
The system offered no clarification.
“That's not an adaptation. That's a suicide note.”
The creature dropped Cross-01.
He struck the floor hard and rolled onto his side, choking.
The creature advanced on Daniel.
Mira screamed his name.
Daniel looked at the prompt again.
He could feel the system searching through his body, identifying every weakness, every damaged muscle, every fractured rib.
It wanted material.
It wanted to survive.
It did not care what survival would cost him.
For the first time, Daniel understood the warning Cross-01 had given him.
The system would keep him alive.
Even if it had to turn him into something that no longer deserved the name.
He closed the prompt.
“No.”
The creature lunged.
Daniel ducked beneath its arm.
Its claws tore through the wall behind him.
Stone shattered.
Daniel seized a broken shard of glass and drove it into the creature's side.
The glass snapped.
The wound sealed.
The creature struck him across the chest.
Daniel flew backward and crashed against the remains of the cylinder.
Something cracked inside his ribs.
He couldn't breathe.
For several seconds, there was only pain.
Then the creature approached.
Slowly.
Patiently.
As though it knew there was nowhere left for him to go.
Daniel tried to stand.
His legs failed.
The creature crouched in front of him.
Its face hovered inches from his own.
Beneath the translucent skin, dark lines pulsed like veins.
Its mouth opened.
And Daniel saw something inside.
Not teeth.
Not flesh.
A tiny wooden horse.
The same wooden horse from his memory.
Daniel stopped breathing.
The creature whispered.
“YOU LEFT HER.”
The words pierced him more deeply than its claws ever could.
Daniel's hands trembled.
The creature leaned closer.
“YOU LEFT US ALL.”
His vision blurred.
The countdown flickered.
[00:04:37.]
Four minutes and thirty-seven seconds.
Daniel could hear the three heartbeats now.
His own.
Cross-01's.
And the First's.
They were falling into rhythm.
The creature reached for his face.
Mira stepped between them.
“No!”
Daniel's eyes widened.
“Mira, get back!”
She raised both hands.
The roots surrounding the chamber erupted.
Pale tendrils shot from the walls and wrapped around the creature's arms, legs, and throat.
It shrieked.
The sound shook dust from the ceiling.
Mira's eyes turned completely black.
Her small body trembled.
The roots tightened.
For one brief moment, the creature was held in place.
Then it turned its head toward her.
Its mouth stretched into a smile.
“LITTLE WITNESS.”
Mira went still.
The creature's voice softened.
“YOU REMEMBER WHAT HE DID.”
The roots began to wither.
Mira staggered.
Daniel saw the blood trickling from her nose.
“Mira!”
The creature pulled.
The tendrils snapped one by one.
Mira screamed as something invisible tore through her connection to the network.
The system flashed.
[EXTERNAL ANCHOR DESTABILIZING.]
[NEURAL STABILITY: 10%.]
Daniel felt the pull return.
Harder than before.
His spine arched.
His vision split into three overlapping images.
The chamber.
The ancient skeleton.
A black sky beneath which a human figure stood with its hand extended.
*Come home.*
Daniel clenched his teeth.
“No.”
The figure tilted its head.
*You are tired.*
“Yes.”
*You are afraid.*
“Obviously.”
*You have spent your entire life running from what you are.*
Daniel laughed weakly.
“Funny. I don't remember signing up for this life.”
The figure's expression did not change.
*You do not remember because you were made to forget.*
The pull intensified.
Daniel's hands clawed at the floor.
*Return to me.*
The words reverberated through his bones.
And for one terrible instant, Daniel wanted to obey.
Not because he trusted the First.
Not because he believed it was right.
But because the pain was becoming unbearable.
Because he was exhausted.
Because some part of him wanted the memories to stop hurting.
Because he wanted to know who he had been before the world took everything from him.
Then he heard Mira crying.
He heard Cross-01 struggling to breathe.
He heard Elias shouting something he couldn't understand.
And somewhere far above them, he heard the faint, distant sound of a cannon.
The world was still turning.
People were still fighting.
Eren, Mikasa, Armin.
Arlen.
The civilians Daniel had helped.
All the people who had absolutely no idea that the ground beneath their feet was trying to become a living organism.
Daniel drew a ragged breath.
“I'm not going home.”
The figure's eyes brightened.
*Then you will be remade.*
The chamber exploded with light.
Daniel screamed.
And the system finally revealed a message he had never seen before.
[HIDDEN FUNCTION UNLOCKED.]
[DEVOURER SYSTEM: ROOT ACCESS.]
[AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.]
[PRIMARY HOST: DANIEL CROSS.]
[ORIGINAL HOST: CROSS-01.]
[ROOT AUTHORITY: THE FIRST.]
[WARNING: ACTIVATION MAY PERMANENTLY ALTER HOST IDENTITY.]
Daniel stared at the prompt.
Three authorities.
Three consciousnesses.
One body.
The creature was tearing free of Mira's restraints.
Cross-01 was struggling to rise.
Elias had dropped his pistol and was reaching for the black device.
And the countdown was falling toward zero.
[00:03:51.]
Daniel swallowed.
“System.”
The interface flickered.
[AWAITING COMMAND.]
Daniel looked at Cross-01.
“Can I take control of the system away from the First?”
Cross-01's face drained of color.
“You can't.”
“That's not what I asked.”
“The root authority belongs to the First. The system was built using its biological framework. You cannot simply take it.”
Daniel looked at the creature.
At Mira.
At the countdown.
Then he smiled.
It was a terrible smile.
The kind of smile a man wore when he had exhausted every sensible option and was preparing to do something catastrophically stupid.
“Good thing I've never been particularly qualified to follow instructions.”
He placed his bleeding palm against the floor.
The ancient roots beneath his hand pulsed.
The system opened a new interface.
[ROOT ACCESS REQUESTED.]
[CURRENT AUTHORITY: THE FIRST.]
[SECONDARY AUTHORITY: CROSS-01.]
[HOST AUTHORITY: DANIEL CROSS.]
[WARNING: FORCIBLE TRANSFER WILL REQUIRE A BIOLOGICAL OFFERING.]
Daniel stared at the final line.
“What kind of offering?”
The answer appeared.
[COMPATIBLE BIOLOGICAL MATERIAL.]
[ALTERNATIVE: CONSCIOUSNESS FRAGMENT.]
Daniel's smile vanished.
A consciousness fragment.
A piece of his mind.
A memory.
Perhaps something more.
Cross-01 dragged himself closer.
“Daniel, don't do it.”
Daniel looked at him.
“Any better ideas?”
Cross-01 opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
“That's what I thought.”
“Listen to me. If you sacrifice part of your consciousness, the system may not return it. You could lose memories permanently. You could lose parts of your personality. You could lose the ability to distinguish your thoughts from mine.”
Daniel glanced at the creature.
It had finally broken free of Mira's restraints.
The pale roots recoiled from its body.
Its empty sockets fixed on him.
“YOU WERE THE FIRST.”
The words struck the chamber like thunder.
Daniel looked back at the system.
“Which memory would it take?”
[UNKNOWN.]
“Very reassuring.”
[THE OFFERING WILL BE SELECTED ACCORDING TO COMPATIBILITY.]
Daniel's stomach tightened.
He knew what he should do.
He should stop.
He should find another way.
He should avoid sacrificing pieces of himself to an artificial intelligence that had repeatedly demonstrated the ethical standards of a starving crocodile.
But the countdown kept falling.
[00:03:12.]
Daniel thought of the wooden horse.
Mira's frightened face.
The promise he had broken.
He could lose that memory.
He could lose the only evidence he had that the person he had been before all this had ever cared about anyone.
Or he could lose something else.
His anger.
His fear.
His sense of humor.
His ability to recognize the people standing in front of him.
There was no guarantee the system would take something he could afford to lose.
That was the point.
It was not asking him to pay a price.
It was asking him to gamble with the person he was.
Daniel closed his eyes.
Then he opened them.
“Authorize.”
Cross-01 lunged for him.
“DANIEL!”
Too late.
[ROOT ACCESS REQUEST ACCEPTED.]
[BEGINNING FORCED AUTHORITY TRANSFER.]
[CONSCIOUSNESS FRAGMENT REQUIRED.]
[SELECTING COMPATIBLE MEMORY.]
Daniel felt something seize the back of his mind.
A memory tore loose.
He gasped.
The laboratory disappeared.
The wooden horse vanished.
The woman's voice faded.
And then—
Mira.
A little girl sitting beside him.
Her hand in his.
Her face turned toward him.
Her voice, small and frightened.
*Promise you'll come back.*
Daniel screamed.
The memory shattered.
The system consumed it.
[CONSCIOUSNESS FRAGMENT ACQUIRED.]
[ROOT AUTHORITY TRANSFER: 1%...]
The creature shrieked.
The roots surrounding the chamber convulsed.
Cross-01 collapsed, clutching his head.
Elias dropped to his knees.
Mira stared at Daniel.
Her black eyes widened.
“Daniel?”
He looked at her.
He knew her face.
He knew her name.
But something was missing.
Something that should have been there.
He could no longer remember the promise.
He could no longer remember why the sight of her crying made his chest hurt.
He knew he cared.
He just couldn't remember why.
And somehow, that was worse.
[ROOT AUTHORITY TRANSFER: 4%...]
The creature lunged.
Daniel raised his head.
His eyes began to glow.
Not blue.
Not black.
A pale, shifting color that seemed to contain both.
The creature stopped mid-stride.
For the first time, it looked afraid.
Daniel stood.
His broken ribs ground together.
Blood ran down his chin.
His body trembled under the strain.
But the roots moved when he moved.
They curled around his fingers like obedient animals.
The creature recoiled.
Daniel looked at it.
Then he spoke.
His voice was his own.
Almost.
“Get away from her.”
The chamber fell silent.
The creature stared at him.
Then, slowly, it bowed.
Not to Daniel.
To something inside him.
The system flickered.
[ROOT AUTHORITY TRANSFER: 7%...]
[WARNING: ORIGINAL ENTITY HAS DETECTED THE TRANSFER.]
[THE FIRST IS RESISTING.]
Daniel's smile returned.
“Good.”
The ground beneath Trost split open.
Far above, in the ruined streets, Eren Yeager stopped in the middle of a shattered road.
He had been running toward a group of trapped soldiers when every Titan in sight suddenly turned toward the same point.
Toward the ground.
Toward the place beneath the city where something enormous was waking.
Armin Arlert stared in horror as the stone beneath his feet rose and fell like the surface of a living sea.
Mikasa grabbed Eren's arm.
“Eren! We have to move!”
But Eren wasn't looking at her.
He was staring at the nearest Titan.
Its mouth hung open.
Its eyes rolled backward.
And from its throat came a voice that did not belong to it.
“DANIEL CROSS.”
Eren's face went pale.
He had heard that name before.
A boy with bloodied hands.
A strange system.
A warning that had made no sense at the time.
A man who had looked at a Titan and said something about the world having terrible customer service.
Eren had assumed Daniel was insane.
Now the entire city was speaking his name.
Armin backed away from the trembling street.
“Whatever is happening beneath us,” he whispered, “I don't think the Titans are the ones controlling it.”
The ground split.
A pale root burst through the stone.
Then another.
Then dozens.
The roots spread across the street, twisting around buildings and shattered cannon carriages.
One of the Titans screamed.
Its body collapsed as the roots pierced its flesh.
A second Titan fell.
Then a third.
Their bodies began to dissolve into pale strands that sank into the ground.
Eren stared.
“What the hell is that?”
Mikasa drew her blades.
“I don't know.”
The roots surged toward them.
“Move!”
She shoved Eren aside.
Armin stumbled backward.
And somewhere beneath the city, a voice echoed through the ancient network.
Not the First.
Not Cross-01.
Not the creature.
Daniel.
“THIS IS MY BODY.”
The words rolled through every root beneath Trost.
Every Titan went still.
Every pale strand tightened.
And for one impossible second, the entire city seemed to hold its breath.
Then the system delivered its final warning.
[ROOT AUTHORITY TRANSFER: 9%.]
[HOST IDENTITY INTEGRITY: COMPROMISED.]
[THE FIRST HAS INITIATED COUNTERMEASURES.]
[NEW OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE YOURSELF.]
The countdown stopped.
The numbers vanished.
And from somewhere deep beneath the ancient skeleton, something answered Daniel's claim.
A fourth heartbeat began.