When Takashi and the others encountered Instructor Keith, he was lecturing to a group of recruits and almost sprayed spit all over them.
Familiar accent, familiar vocabulary, but some people like Nelson, Mina and Marco, will never come back.
Keith invited Hange Zoe, Levi and the group of his old students to his office, and asked them all to sit down. Of course, Sasha found her seat where she usually sat when she was summoned for scolding and Takashi sat next to her.
Takashi knew that Keith called Sasha to his office a lot, and then scolded her to the point that she couldn't lift her head, of course this didn't stop her from continuing to steal the food. Of course, Keith remembered the sweet potato girl who shared her stolen food with him at the ceremony.
Takashi whispered, "You don't want to go visit the kitchen, surely you miss that place."
Sasha smiled nervously and said nothing, she didn't want to be scolded by instructor Keith just now that she was a Survey Corps soldier.
It was then that Instructor Keith was asked about her past, more or less Keith knew what they wanted to find out
Instructor Keith began to tell his story. It was the story of a bystander, but also the story of a person who thought he was special and the "protagonist of humanity."
With Takashi's additions, the story is more complete.
Grisha Yeager possesses the power of a titan, probably Marley, fought his way to the city wall, turned back into a human, pretended to be a fool who accidentally ran off the wall after being drunk, and entered the wall with Keith and the Survey Corps.
Also, pretending to be stupid, after Keith showed up at the hospital, he went back to his old business and cheered Keith up, saying that Survey Corps are a bunch of heroes.
After hearing this, Keith happily went to participate in the investigation outside the wall, full of energy, he is the "pride" of human beings, the protagonist of a legend, he will turn bad luck into good luck, make good luck in every disaster, and achieve the understanding of ordinary people who only know how to eat, drink and spread a great unstoppable cause within those imprisoned hearts.
Grisha himself gets together with Eren's mother who at that time was a waitress that Keith was in love with and with the role as a savior in the midst of a plague, he secures his foothold within Shiganshina.
He also had a child who will inherit his power and named him Eren.
However, on the other side, Keith discovered his truth. When he turned around and discovered that the woman he was in love with had married, he felt very depressed and went to great lengths to die, successfully killing many titans.
He was lucky not to die, he did not hang himself or drown himself in some vice, by virtue of his qualifications and good record, he reached the position of regimental commander, the mortal leader.
He has a strong style and will charge when he encounters a titan. Every time a large group of his men die, he sees the team with minimal losses under the leadership of Erwin and Levi. Eventually, he gets discouraged and admits that he is no one special in this world.
So he relinquished the position of Survey Corps commander to Erwin and became a training corps instructor himself.
5 years ago, the door that had just broken down. After Grisha wiped out the Reiss family, with the power of the two titans, the attack titan and the founding titan, he returned to find his son and passed that power to him by force.
Because the basement was occupied by titans, he gave the key to his son and told him to return to the basement.
Eren somehow inherited the power of the two titans, but for some reason he forgot about all these things, thinking that his father disappeared in the chaos.
Did Keith know that Grisha had searched for Eren after that, and did he know that he took Eren into the forest and then "disappeared"?
In fact, Keith probably knew that Grisha had a special background, but didn't say anything about it.
"I mean, you didn't quit because you couldn't produce results. You simply realized that you are not special, so you gave up everything to become an instructor.
"How inferior and ridiculous you are. Regardless of whether this information is useful or not..." Hange Zoe was angry, she couldn't believe that the other party was so ridiculous.
"Stop..." Levi tried to stop her.
"Is this what you call donating your heart for humanity?" Hange Zoe asked loudly.
Keith's face was grim, "It's ridiculous, right, I'm just a..."
Takashi interrupted him, "Don't say it, you are not someone like that."
Everyone was stunned, looking at him in surprise, Takashi stood up, "When I was a kid, I dreamed of becoming a great person who would wipe out the titans, I thought I was special but still my strength hasn't saved everyone."
"I kept fighting and when I was about to give it my all, the world around me changed completely. At that moment I wanted to just kill all my enemies, once everyone inside knew the truth, I would fight with my remaining strength to finish off the titans."
Takashi pointed to himself, "Instructor Keith, you are not the only one who thinks like this, I also thought I was the protagonist of the story, but I have only lost friends, deaths and more deaths are piling up in my dreams. Maybe now I am considered strong, a powerful being but only I know that not everyone can be saved."
"Now I just want to eliminate my enemies and live the rest of my life with peace of mind, I will give everyone a chance to win and when we have the spear, everyone can fight for a new path without titans."
"Until now, I have trained hard so that no one else would die. I fought desperately and did my best. I have given it a lot of thought and our situation is still bad, I have to admit even though it pains me I don't think I can save you all."
Everyone was silent when they heard the words, and Takashi sat back down feeling ashamed to know the first events that shook this world, but he couldn't change anything.
"I feel like I'm ordinary too. I'm just the son of someone special" Eren broke the silence.
"You are the son of a foreigner, I fail to understand his purpose as well as I fail to understand what he was looking for by giving you that power." Takashi thought to himself.
"Your mother told me that too, she..." Keith looked at Eren and said quietly.
In this world, most people are just ordinary people, with ordinary backgrounds, ordinary strength and wisdom, and sometimes even if they sacrifice everything and put everything of their being, they achieve nothing in the end.
Instructor Keith is like that. Takashi doesn't think he is ridiculous. He doesn't have out of this world power, special blood or superhuman talent, he doesn't have the power of a titan in his body but still he keeps fighting, contributing to humanity.
Instructor Keith is the best instructor of all, his love for his students requires him to make decisions that no other can make.
Takashi and Eren said goodbye to instructor Keith and left this place.
Armin looked at Takashi with an indifferent expression and said with a smile, "Takashi, do you think the lives of those people you don't know, whom you may not be able to name, are important?"
"Every life is important Armin, they all leave their grain of sand in our fight, they are the ones who die giving their all and the duty is ours to continue that fight."
"I don't want to control your decisions, just remind you that your ideas are extreme and seem eager to make some drastic changes. In fact, there is still time, and change is not just about changing the situation and the fate of the people around you!" Armin said earnestly.
"Really?" Takashi looked at the clouds in the sky and sighed, he felt a bit tired.
Eren suddenly interrupted, "He made our present, but he also ruined our future."
"What?" Takashi was confused and looked at Eren with surprise, "Why would you say such a thing?"
Eren froze for a moment and scratched his head. "It's nothing, it's just a sudden feeling."
Frowning, Takashi found that everything had recently become a bit strange and unnatural, and he couldn't understand Eren.
After saying goodbye to everyone, Takashi and Sasha ran back to their village, accompanied by Connie, who was going to visit the mother who had become a titan.
Connie remembered the time with his family and sighed, "I don't understand, why did Reiner and the others come to destroy our village, to take power away from the founding titan?" she asked.
"Maybe what I want to grab is not Eren's titan, but the power of his founding titan. Just imagining how terrifying it would be to face millions of those colossal titans gives me goosebumps." Takashi wondered if his perfect Susanoo could defeat all those millions of titans.
"So, do you think if Eren can wield the power of the ancestral giant, he can transform my mother back?" Connie asked depressed. He was a little desperate now.
"He can't. At least there is no other way to return your mother's body to normal, he can only eat the body of a person with a titan in his body."
Takashi didn't know what else to do, for now he just wanted to distract his mind and try to win the next battle with maximum gains.