Parallel World : The Other World’s Animator

The sense of oppression conveyed through the image was almost unbearable.

"Do you even understand what you're saying, Reiner?"

Bertholdt's expression changed visibly.

"Our goal was to wipe out all of humanity. But now… we don't have to do that anymore," Reiner continued calmly.

His tone was relaxed, almost careless, as if they were merely discussing what to eat for breakfast the next morning.

"Eren, if you come with us, none of this will be necessary. Do you understand? Are you willing to come with us?"

At that instant, Kaiba felt as though his head might burst from rage.

Just who did Reiner think he was insulting?

Leaving aside, for a moment, the possibility that those words were nothing more than delusions spilling out of a mind already on the verge of collapse… even if everything he said was true, he was the Armored Titan. Bertholdt was the Colossal Titan.

In other words, those two were the murderers responsible for Eren's mother's death.

So why the hell should Eren go with them?

"Where would we even go?" Eren himself asked, completely stunned.

"I can't tell you that right now. But I suppose it's my hometown… So, what do you think, Eren? Not a bad offer, right?"

Kaiba was just as frozen.

He no longer understood the plot. For a moment, he even wondered whether he had missed some crucial part of the story, some hidden detail that would explain the absurdity of that conversation. But the animation quickly shifted, plunging into one of Eren's memories.

Before his encounter with Reiner, the members of the Survey Corps had held a meeting.

After Annie's identity as the Female Titan was exposed, the Corps began investigating her background. That was when they discovered that Reiner and Bertholdt came from the same hometown as her.

That flashback, then, existed to gather Eren's and the other cadets' impressions regarding the relationship between Reiner, Bertholdt, Annie, and another person connected to the case.

In the memory, Armin also recalled something strange: Reiner's abnormal concern over Eren's location during the Female Titan's attack.

And after Reiner was seized by her and had his hand injured, the Female Titan immediately changed direction and ran toward Eren.

With frightening certainty, Armin deduced that the cut on the Female Titan's hand had not simply been a desperate escape maneuver. The truth was something else. Reiner had likely carved information into her palm, giving her Eren's location.

All those details, all those hints planted throughout the first season, were only now, in the second season, finally being revealed.

And the most terrifying part was that many viewers had felt, back when they watched the first season, that certain doubts did not quite fit. They had seemed like small plot holes, strange details, mildly uncomfortable choices in the writing.

At first, Kaiba had also thought they were just minor flaws.

He had been wrong.

All of it had been foreshadowing.

A chill ran through his entire body.

The plot had been hidden far too deeply.

The flashback ended, and the story returned to the present.

Eren remained stunned, unable to believe what he was hearing.

"Besides, if you really are the Armored Titan, responsible for killing countless people, why are you telling me all this? Do you honestly think I'll follow you after hearing a few words?"

Reiner's expression, which had previously been clouded by that strange mental confusion, slowly returned to normal.

"That's right… What am I doing? Have I gone insane?"

Reiner's words made Kaiba and countless anime fans across Japan realize one thing: his mental state was far from normal.

A flag fixed atop the wall was torn loose by the wind and dropped over the outer side. The dry sound of its fall drew everyone's attention back to Reiner.

On the surface, everyone seemed calm.

In reality, they were all already watching the suspects - Reiner and Bertholdt.

The atmosphere of the animation changed abruptly.

The soundtrack entered in a different way, heavier, more suffocating.

"It must be because I stayed here too long. It must be because I spent three years living with this bunch of idiots. We were children. We didn't understand anything. If I hadn't known that people like you existed, maybe I never would've become this worthless piece of trash, unable to decide anything…"

Reiner's expression turned terrifying. He began tearing the bandage from the arm that had been bitten by a titan, and thick steam started rising from the wound - the characteristic regeneration of a titan.

"Reiner… are we doing this right here?" Bertholdt asked, his face visibly altered.

Kaiba felt his blood boil as well.

Was it real or not?

Was it true or false?

Never before had he been this deeply pulled into the story of an animation. Never had he felt such intense anger.

Reiner. Bertholdt.

Did you have any idea how much Eren trusted you?

He treated you like older brothers. He shared his secrets, his pain, his fears, his hopes.

And in the end, the brothers he trusted most were the very murderers who had killed his mother?

At the decisive moment, Mikasa moved.

With a single strike, she severed Reiner's arm.

Her blade also pierced Bertholdt's neck.

Any ordinary person would have died on the spot.

But those two were not ordinary people. Blood, for them, did not mean the end. It was merely the trigger for transformation.

"Eren, run!"

Mikasa was overwhelmed with tension. She wanted to kill both of them right there, but her priority was getting Eren to escape.

Then two golden lights exploded atop the wall.

A brutal gust of wind swept across the scene, and dark clouds swallowed the sun.

The pressure conveyed by the animation seemed to mirror perfectly what Kaiba was feeling.

In the background, a woman's voice began to chant.

The melody seemed to pierce through his soul. His scalp tingled, and his fingers trembled uncontrollably.

The violent wind hurled Eren away, but a gigantic hand caught him in midair.

The Armored Titan knelt on one knee, gripping Eren tightly.

As for the Colossal Titan, whose lower body had not fully transformed, it used its own ribs to pierce the surface of the wall and stabilize its upper body.

The solemn, devastating soundtrack carried the scene forward: the Armored Titan capturing Eren, the Colossal Titan taking Ymir.

The Armored Titan seized Eren and leapt from the wall, making it clear that he intended to flee.

Eren stared at him with tears in his eyes.

He remembered once overhearing Reiner beneath the moonlight, speaking about his dream of returning to his hometown.

Betrayal.

Rage.

Hatred.

Everything twisted together inside his chest.

All of it had been false.

Kaiba could only watch the animation. The anger, the sense of betrayal, and the resentment transmitted by the scene were already crushing, yet they were still only a fraction of what Eren himself felt within the story.

And that was enough.

"Eren, transform! Kill those two beasts!"

Kaiba spoke with tears in his eyes.

He too had been consumed by the fury of the plot.

Two weeks earlier, he had still been impressed by Reiner. How could someone capable of shoving his own arm into a titan's mouth to save a comrade not be admired?

But now…

Damn it.

They were all traitors.

The final scene of the episode was Eren's furious roar. His body began to grow inside the Armored Titan's hand until he fully transformed, throwing a punch at him in midair.

Then the ending song began.

Kaiba's emotions were in chaos. His heart was pounding violently.

As he listened to that final song, an even more intense, almost inexplicable rage rose inside him.

That was it?

That was barely enough to survive.

"That bastard Reiner… that traitor is disgusting enough already. But you're no better, Sora, you miserable old devil! How dare you end the episode right there?"

Kaiba was genuinely devastated.

With Mikasa and the Survey Corps helping him, would Eren, in titan form, be able to fight the Armored Titan and the Colossal Titan?

How would the story continue from there?

He had no idea.

That night, many anime fans, including Kaiba, were left with a bitter, twisting feeling in their stomachs.

Everyone had believed the highlight of the episode would be the investigation into Ymir.

Who could have imagined that the true monsters had been hiding right beside them all along?

Reiner was the Armored Titan.

Bertholdt was the Colossal Titan.

That outcome was something no passionate fan on the Japanese forums had truly predicted.

The two characters had disguised themselves far too well from the very beginning. Even with so many clues scattered throughout the story, how many people had actually dared to think in that direction?

The sudden revelation struck anime fans like a direct blow to the mind.

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