The Regalia Titan marched across the valley of the Reveries Mountain. But even the giant's thundering footsteps dwarfed in comparison to the loud smash that came from behind them. Arnold stopped in his tracks and Shou, from the back of the Regalia, ordered for his Titan to halt its movements. The duo turned around to look across the Seracue Dominion and towards the Leviathan's Helm to their north-east.

Shou asked, “Do you think those three made it?”

Arnold replied, “Doubt it. No one has ever crossed the Helm. Not even golems and mechs.”

“Can't you be a little more optimistic?” Shou replied, taking a sip of cola from his drinking pack.

“Maybe you shouldn't have asked me.”

From the front of the pack, footsteps pattered as one of their fellow soldiers ran up to the duo with heaving breaths.

The female soldier asked, “Kenta! Wyndham! Is everything okay? Why have you stopped?”

Arnold turned away from the Helm, replying, “Everything's fine. Hotaru, mind telling the captain to slow down? The mech's too damaged to move fast.”

She answered with a thumbs up before waving goodbye to Shou and leaving the two. She jogged forward to rejoin the rest of the squad.

“Bye Miu!” Shou waved her farewell. He turned for one last look at the Helm before telling Arnold, “You think we'd ever see them again?”

Arnold did not reply. Instead saying, “Let's get going. It's a long walk home.” He continued to walk on.

“Hey!” Shou shouted after. He patted the Regalia mech, playfully commanding it, “Onwards, Reggie!” The Titan continued its stomping swagger.

***

Josh sat within the makeshift cave, the last thunderous slam of the Ohmir diving back into the water continued to ring in his ears. Luce knelt at the mouth of the cave, staring blankly out at the Helm at which her fiancé had lost her life in. She had not cried a single tear since Jacques's death. He wished there was something he could do for the girl. Anything. Even a hug. But he had the inkling that if he took even a single step closer to her, she would throw him into the water as well.

From his distance, out of arms reach, he asked, “Would you like to jump down and join her?”

Surprisingly, she replied almost instantly in monotone. “Yes. If my legs had not fallen asleep, I'm sure I would have jumped by now. Good thing I knelt down, right?”

He stood up straight, mind clearing from his rest. “You numbed your legs... on purpose?”

Answering indirectly, she replied, “When you were carrying me up, I had the thought that even if Jacques died, I had to keep going. Because if I did not, everything she did would have been wasted.”

He was saddened by how hurt she must be, but at the same time, impressed by the amount of clarity the girl could muster in a situation such as that. “Do you... want a hug?” he asked uncertainly. He was not sure what else he could offer. He was not the lover she had lost, and he was far from her parent. He was just some weird old man that needed to cross the river. “Or... I don't know, me to comfort you in some way?”

“I would like that,” her tone continued to be flat. “But I'm afraid if you do, I'm going to start crying and kicking. And that's very unsightly of me.”

He found it strange that even at this time, his respect for the girl continued to grow. She was, quite possible, one of the most mature girl of her age. Don't let her hear you say that. He could hear Jacques reprimanding him. Come on now, old man. On your feet.

Though his back still hurt from the climb up the sheer cliff face, he stood achingly up and walked to the girl. On closer look, her body was shivering, and she had yet to dry herself since the climb. He took off his coat and gently placed it over her shoulder.

Softly, Luce replied, “Thanks. But no hugging.”

“Can't do that,” Josh told her, getting to his knees so that he was on her level.

“Please don't,” Luce begged, still facing away.

Ignoring her pleas, he placed his right arm around her, her small frame easily covered by his larger physiques.

Stolen novel; please report.

“No...” she whimpered.

She elbowed him hard, and he flinched, but pulled her in for a tighter hug with both arms. Another elbow. And a third. She packed a hit for a girl her size. Her legs kicked out from under her as she twisted and flailed to get out of his hold. She seethed curses incoherently, her nails clawing at his arm. The first drip of hot tears seared his skin. Luce started screaming, long and loud. A body aching shout that stung all the way into his heart. She shouted for Jacques in pain, kicking at dirt and smashing at his ribs as there was nothing else around her to hit. Her screamed echoed through the cave and out into the Helm, and he was sure that the whole world could hear her. At that moment though, he felt that the whole world was between him, Luce, and the dark cave walls, and the skies of their pocket universe must be closing in on the girl.

After uncountable minutes, she came to a quiet, motionless sob. He pulled her away from the ledge and turned her to cry into his chest, which she continued to beat into with her fist, clenched so tightly that her nails had dug in and her palms were bleeding.

His parenting skills may be rusty, but he was glad that at the very least, he could do a hug right.

He wasn't sure how long they stayed that way, with her crying and him holding her tight. The wind outside the cave picked up, and her cries were echoed by the wail of the gale. Waves continued to crash below, and dirt from the ceiling of the makeshift cave crumpled down.

She cried till the wind died down, and continued to do so until it picked up again. By the second time the quiet returned, the sobs had turned into slow, heavy breaths.

Luce mumbled through his shirt, “I'm okay now.”

“Are you sure? Not going to jump, are you?”

“What are you? My dad?” She gently pushed away from him, rubbing her eyes, red from crying, and gave him a reassuring smile. After returning his coat, she got to her feet and grabbed her pack, climbing picks, and rifle. She checked the chamber for her last shot of grappling-lance ammunition. “I'm going ahead.” She stepped back to the edge of the cave, looked up, and fired the grapple up the side of the cliff.

“Hang on!” he scrambled to pack his gear and get to his feet. But by the time he turned around, she had already disappeared onto her ascend, her rifle left dangling precariously behind for him. “Damn it.”

He packed as quickly as he could, deciding to discard a few more articles of clothing to make the long climb more tolerable. The grapple had managed to get them almost halfway up the cliff, with another half to go. It was a climb they had to do in one take, as there were no other rest points on the cliff. Jacques had given them a miracle by creating the cave indent in the last moments of her life, and he was not going to waste it. Luckily for them, Luce was a better shot with the grappling-lance, and she had managed to shoot it all the way to the top.

He looked out and above the ledge. Luce was already a quarter a way up the rest of the cliff, climbing solely using her picks at breakneck speed. He was worried that she would tire herself out, but it seemed the girl was using her pain from Jacques's death to climb, and using the climb as an outlet for the pain.

With pick in one hand, he grabbed onto the riffle and started the retraction. Even with just his weight, the machine pulled slowly. Much slower than Luce was climbing. However, he did not have the physical agility of the girl. If he went with just his picks, he would take a whole day to make the climb. He managed to get his feet on the cliff-face. Digging his pick into the wall, he started to pull himself up with the aid of the grapple, hoping to catch up to the girl before she climbed too far.

However, Josh was barely halfway up the remainder of the cliff when Luce disappeared from his sight. He looked down to the water worryingly, expecting to see a splash that told him she had fell in. But after a quick survey, he deduced – he hoped – she had just made it to the top. He doubled his efforts in the climb.

By the time he reached the top, he was huffing heaves of heavy breaths. “I'm... too old... for this... shit!” he cursed.

He managed to retrieve the rifle, untangled the grappling hook, and retracted the contraption. With one final look back down the Leviathan's Helm where the winds were howling and a heroine rested, and a long glance back to Katoki behind, the land he had spent a dozen years in, he threw his pick down into the raging water and turned away from the dystopian landscape...

...and faced the openness of Leviathan's Past. “Oh my, Titans...” he let out, feeling his eyes watering up.

Luce stood still in the middle of the rolling dirt highlands that let to the grass filled lower basin of the Valley of Titans. Her red scarf had come loose, fluttering along with her shining hair in the cool of the wind. Beyond her, giant, onyx, humanoid sentient class Titans stood unwavering within the basin of Leviathan's Past, like statues within a bathtub, towering at the height of the mountain ridges on the far side and around them. The creatures were the height of the peaks, but swayed gently and slowly against gravity and wind. Their marble grey armour glinted off light from the Twin stars above. Their heads were like bulbs that silhouetted the cerulean sky behind. Flocks of bird fluttered across the sky as they migrated through the cooling season of fall.

The tears rolled down his face. He had forgotten what blue skies looked like. He had forgotten what green grass looked like. He had forgotten what clouds looked like. Taking his first step back into his home, he headed to Luce.

At the girl's side, Luce told him through weeping eyes, “I wish Jacques was here to see this.”

“Life's a one-way trip,” he quoted Jacques words. He placed an arm around Luce and was glad to not have received an elbow to the guts for it. “The only thing we can do is keep walking towards where we want to go.”

Shou Kenta, Arnold Wyndham, and Miu Hotaru, will return in...

The Chronicles of Tearha: The Titan War