"Mom!" Eren was horrified to see rubble flying toward his home. He tore free of Arthur's hand and sprinted toward it.
"Eren!" Seeing Eren's desperation to save his mother, Arthur hurried after him.
Mikasa saw Arthur chase after Eren and quickly followed. Armin watched the three run off, then headed toward his own home.
He needed to make sure his grandfather was safe, too.
As Armin ran, he watched the people around him fleeing in panic. He even caught sight of the enormous hole in the city gate. The Titans once held outside by the wall were entering again.
Their hideous faces stared at the fleeing residents like wolves eyeing lambs.
"The Titans are inside! Run!"
"Don't eat me!"
The residents were terrified to see Titans entering the city. They wished they had another pair of legs to carry them away from those enormous hands faster.
Titans kept grabbing people near the gate, crushing or tearing them apart before tossing them into their mouths.
"Is humanity finished?" Armin said in utter terror.
Mom, please be all right! Eren raced through intersections and alleys toward the home he knew so well, praying as he ran that nothing had happened to his mother.
Arthur and Mikasa followed close behind, their brows furrowed.
Arthur had a terrible feeling.
The three soon reached Eren's home, only to find a house crushed beneath a massive rock.
"How could this happen..." Seeing his once-warm home reduced to ruins, with his mother nowhere in sight, Eren sank to his knees in despair.
"..." Arthur and Mikasa stared at the scene in shock. They had never imagined that the boulder would land squarely on Eren's home.
"Damn it!" Arthur gritted his teeth and ran toward the house, still clinging to a shred of hope for Carla.
"Aunt Carla, are you there?" Arthur shouted her name amid the wreckage, hoping to hear an answer.
His persistence paid off. As Arthur shouted with all his strength, his sharp ears picked up a faint cry beneath the rubble.
"Arthur, I'm here..."
Overjoyed to hear a voice beneath the wreckage, Arthur hurried toward it and began digging away the debris. As he worked, he turned and shouted to the dazed Eren and Mikasa.
"Aunt Carla's here! Come help!"
Mikasa immediately rushed to Arthur's side and helped him clear the rubble.
"Mom!" Hearing that Carla was alive snapped Eren out of his daze. He stood and stumbled over to Arthur and Mikasa, then began digging as Arthur directed.
Their three pairs of small hands soon cleared the rubble covering Carla.
Carla's upper body emerged, and Arthur looked her over.
Fortunately, aside from being covered in dirt, Carla seemed unharmed.
"Mom, are you okay?" Eren asked anxiously.
"I'm fine. What happened?" Carla shook her head. She had been doing housework when a boulder suddenly fell, catching her in the collapse and burying her.
"The wall's been breached. Titans are pouring in." Arthur explained what had happened while trying to pull Carla out.
"What?!" Carla was horrified. She had never imagined the wall would be breached.
"It's no good. Aunt Carla's legs are pinned under a beam and a stone slab. I can't pull her out." Arthur tried several times, but he could not free her.
"Then hurry and run! I can't let you stay here because of me." Hearing that, Carla told the three to leave without a moment's hesitation.
"No!" Eren refused flatly. How could he abandon his mother here to the Titans?
"I won't leave you either!" Arthur would not agree, straining to move the slab and beam pinning Carla's lower body.
But several hundred kilograms was more than Arthur could handle. Even with Eren and Mikasa helping, they could not move them.
Instead, their efforts only injured Carla further.
"Eren, Mikasa, hold the slab steady until I get back." After telling them that, Arthur hurried off, frantically searching for a thick, sturdy wooden pole he could use as a lever.
He soon found one, grabbed it, and rushed back to Mikasa and Eren, who were still desperately trying to help Carla.
"Move aside!" Arthur sent them out of the way, wedged the pole beneath the slab, found a fulcrum, and heaved with all his strength.
He strained so hard that his entire face turned red.
Thud, thud, thud! As Arthur desperately levered the slab up to free Carla, heavy footsteps rang out, making the ground tremble.
Mikasa and Eren looked toward the sound and were horrified to see a tall, blond Titan with an unsettling smile slowly approaching them.
"Arthur, hurry!" Seeing the Titan closing in, Eren urged him on anxiously.
"I'm doing everything I can!" Arthur gritted his teeth and kept levering the slab. Under his efforts, it slowly began to shift.
"Eren, is a Titan coming?" Hearing those heavy footsteps, Carla questioned her son with remarkable calm.
"It's okay, Mom! We'll get you out any second!" Eren desperately pushed against the slab.
"Eren! You have to leave now!" Seeing that the three children were about to be endangered because of her, Carla hurried to persuade them.
"I won't!" Eren would never agree.
"Eren, can't you listen to your mother just this once?!" Carla shouted angrily at her stubborn son.
"I won't leave you here for them!"
"Arthur, the Titans are inside. You're the oldest of the three, so hurry and take them away! I can't feel my legs anymore. Even if you get me out, we won't outrun the Titans!"
Unable to persuade Eren, Carla turned to Arthur with tears streaming down her face.
She already knew how she would end. All she wanted was to see the three children safe before she died, rather than eaten by Titans because of her.
"Aunt Carla, I'll carry you!" Arthur shook his head in refusal. To him, Aunt Carla was family, just like Yumiko and Kane. However slim their chances were, he would never give up.
"Move, damn it!!!" As though his resolve and conviction had unleashed a burst of strength, Arthur let out a roar.
The slab finally lifted.
"Mikasa, now!!"
At Arthur's shout, Mikasa, who had been waiting beside him, reacted instantly and pulled Carla free.
Crack! Crash! Under the immense strain, the wooden pole snapped, and the heavy slab slammed back onto the ground.
"Hah... hah..." Arthur panted as though all his strength had drained away. His arms ached and tingled, clearly strained beyond their limits.
"Arthur, are you okay?" Mikasa asked, pained to see him so exhausted.
Seeing Carla freed, Eren hurried to hug her. Mother and son held each other, savoring a brief moment of warmth.
"I'm fine. We need to get out of here..." After catching his breath, Arthur looked at Carla's legs and found that they were just as she had said.
Carla's legs had suffered severe crushing injuries. They were a mangled, bloody mess, and blood was still flowing from them.
Rip! Arthur tore several strips from his clothes and wrapped them around Carla's legs to stop the bleeding, then hoisted her onto his back.
"Quick! Run toward the gate!" Arthur glanced back at the blond Titan, which was now dangerously close, and shouted to Eren and Mikasa before running toward the gate with Carla on his back.
"Arthur, put me down! You'll never make it to the gate like this!" Carla knew that a twelve-year-old boy could not possibly carry her all the way there.
"How will we know unless we try?"
But just as Carla had said, three children and an adult with injured legs could not keep pace with a Titan whose single casual stride covered a dozen of theirs.
Damn it, why won't that bastard stop chasing us?! Arthur cursed inwardly as the Titan drew closer and closer. He wanted to run faster, but he had almost no strength left.
At that critical moment, a figure using Omni-Directional Mobility Gear landed in front of them.
"Uncle Hannes!" Arthur was overjoyed when he recognized the newcomer.
Carla, Mikasa, and Eren were equally delighted, a spark of hope rising within them.
With Hannes there, escaping this Titan would be no problem at all.
"Thank goodness you're all okay." Hannes let out a relieved breath at seeing all four alive, but then he saw Carla's injuries and the Titan relentlessly pursuing them, and drew in a sharp breath.
Hannes acted immediately. He took Carla from Arthur's back, gathered her in his arms, and addressed the three children.
"Follow me!"
Then he used his Omni-Directional Mobility Gear to fly toward the gate with Carla.
The three quickly followed. Without Carla's weight on his back, Arthur could run much faster.
They soon left the blond Titan behind.
Rather than escaping it, however, they had been spared because other people caught the blond Titan's attention, making it abandon its pursuit of Arthur and the others.
They soon reached the inner gate, and thanks to Hannes's connections, they managed to board an evacuation boat.
"Whew... we're finally safe." Arthur held Mikasa's hand, his body trembling uncontrollably.
All that intense exertion had drained his strength far beyond its limits. Only his desire to survive had kept him going until he reached this place.
Now that he was finally safe, Arthur's taut nerves relaxed, and he collapsed straight into Mikasa's arms, unconscious.
"Arthur!" Mikasa cried out when he suddenly fainted and gathered him into her arms.
"What happened?" Eren and Carla also looked anxiously at the unconscious Arthur.
"I don't know. He just fainted." Mikasa was so worried that she began to cry. She did not want anything to happen to Arthur.
"Let me take a look." A man aboard the boat stood and kindly began checking Arthur's condition.
After a brief examination, the man smiled.
"Sir, what's wrong with him?" Carla asked anxiously.
"He's fine. He just passed out from exhaustion. He should be all right after some rest."
"Whew..." All three breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing that Arthur was not seriously hurt.
"Thank goodness... thank goodness." Mikasa smiled through her tears, wiped her eyes, and rested Arthur's head in her lap so he could sleep.
For a moment, she had truly thought she might lose Arthur, a member of her family.
With the wall breached, huge numbers of Titans poured into Shiganshina District.
Humanity, comfortable for so long, had been caught completely off guard. Many people had not managed to board the evacuation boats.
All kinds of despair hung over the boat carrying Arthur and the others.
It had been a cruel day. Everyone had lost so much.
Family, relatives, loved ones, and the homes they depended on.
Seeing that his mother's injuries had stabilized after a simple bandaging, Eren felt relieved. He pushed through the crowd to the railing and looked toward the inner gate.
As Eren watched the inner gate begin to close, he thought that once it dropped into place, the Titans would be shut outside.
But a deafening crash rang out the next moment.
Boom!
The noise drew the attention of everyone aboard. A cloud of smoke and dust billowed up around the inner gate.
Within it appeared a strange Titan, its body packed with muscle and seemingly protected by armor. It had smashed straight through the inner gate.
That meant Wall Maria had fallen completely.
"We're finished!"
"Are the Titans going to devour all of humanity?!"
"Wall Maria's been breached too! Where are we supposed to go now?!"
Panic immediately swept through the boat.
"I'll drive them out! Out of this world! Every last one! I'll drive them all out." Eren stared fixedly at the Armored Titan, his eyes filled with murderous rage far beyond his years.
His face twisted and his teeth clenched as he swore to drive out every Titan.
The events of that day had planted a seed called revenge deep in the boy's heart.