Chapter 105: Who Volunteers

The decision took three weeks to reach, not because anyone hesitated to help, but because everyone involved had finally, hard-won, learned that rushing an impossible choice only made its cost heavier later.

"I want to volunteer," Ymir said, gathering the group in Historia’s homeland’s council chamber, the Aeldrin stabilization components finally secured and ready. "I’ve done this before. I understand what the ritual actually costs better than anyone else in this room."

"You already carry the Anchorless entity," Annie said immediately, fierce protectiveness cutting through her usual composure. "Adding this on top of it — we don’t even know if that’s survivable, Ymir. Nobody’s ever tried binding two separate resonances into one vessel."

[Compatibility check: Ymir Fritz + secondary binding — Risk assessment: SEVERE. Existing bound entity may destabilize under additional strain. Not recommended.]

"The system agrees," Historia said gently. "I’m sorry, Ymir. I know you want to help. This isn’t the way."

Ymir’s shoulders sagged, old frustration at her own limitations resurfacing despite years of hard-won peace with what she already carried. "Then who? Eren has a family. Zeke’s compatibility is lower. Are we just going to keep taking the highest number, regardless of what it costs the people forced to make that choice?"

The answer, when it finally arrived, came from an unexpected direction — Elian, brought south by Reiner and Annie for a scheduled check-in on his own progress, listening to the debate with the particular seriousness he’d carried since childhood.

"What if it’s not either of them," he said quietly, drawing every eye in the room. "What if it’s me?"

"Absolutely not," Annie said immediately, old protectiveness flaring hot. "You’re twelve years old. You’re still learning to control what you already carry."

"I know that." Elian’s voice carried more steadiness than his age suggested he should possess. "But you said the resonance is compatible with people who already carry something similar. I already carry the same kind of thing this — echo, or whatever it’s called — is made of. Wouldn’t that make it easier for me, not harder?"

[Compatibility check: Elian — Existing partial resonance detected. Secondary compatibility: 71%. Note: Untested theory — partial resonance may reduce ritual strain rather than increase it, similar to established Founder principles.]

"Seventy-one percent," Armin said slowly, reading the projection with dawning, cautious interest. "That’s actually viable. Possibly safer than either Eren or Zeke, precisely because he’s not starting from nothing."

"He’s still a child," Mikasa said firmly. "We are not putting a twelve-year-old through a binding ritual just because the numbers happen to work out favorably."

"I’m not asking to do it today," Elian said, meeting her eyes with unexpected maturity. "I’m asking to be part of the conversation about who eventually does. You keep telling me I’m not just what I carry, that I get to have a say in my own life. This is exactly the kind of choice you said I’d get to make, someday. Maybe someday is closer than any of us expected."

The room fell silent, the weight of a child’s earnest, unexpected wisdom settling heavy over everyone present.

They spent the following days in careful, difficult deliberation, weighing every option against every risk, until finally, Eren called the group together with a decision he’d clearly wrestled with alone before bringing it forward.

"It’s me," he said simply. "Not because the numbers favor it, though they do. Because I have the most experience carrying something like this, the most support built around me to handle it properly, and because Elian’s right that he deserves to grow up before anyone asks this of him, whatever his numbers eventually become."

"Eren—" Mikasa started.

"I already talked to Carla," he said gently, meeting her eyes. "This morning, before this meeting. She’s ten, old enough now to understand pieces of what this means. I told her the truth — that her father carries something unusual, that it sometimes asks hard things of him, and that whatever happens, I love her completely and I’m not choosing this recklessly."

"What did she say?"

"She asked if I’d come back different, the way Uncle Zeke came back different after his own hard choices." Eren’s voice caught slightly. "I told her I didn’t know for certain. Just that I’d come back, whatever form that took, still loving her exactly as much."

[Candidate confirmed: Eren Yeager. Consent verified. Compatibility: 94%. Anchor circle formation initiated.]

The anchor circle, when finally assembled, included faces both old and new — Mikasa at his side as always, Armin steady and determined, Reiner and Annie having rushed south the moment word reached them, even Zeke, insisting on standing anchor despite his own guilt, determined to help correct what his old research had ultimately caused.

"Six anchors," Historia said, reviewing the assembled circle with careful, professional focus. "The strongest bond configuration we’ve ever attempted. If Ymir’s binding proved connection matters more than raw numbers, this should exceed even that success."

[Anchor Stability projection: 96%. Highest recorded configuration.]

The night before the ritual, Eren found himself once more with Mikasa on their familiar rooftop — not the treehouse this time, the actual roof of the actual house they’d built together, Carla’s window glowing warm behind them where their daughter slept, unaware of the ritual waiting mere hours away.

"I keep thinking about the first time we did this," Eren said quietly. "For Ymir. I was so afraid then, but it felt simpler somehow. Less at stake, even though the stakes were technically the same."

"Because this time it’s you," Mikasa said, taking his hand. "I understand that fear better than I’d like to admit."

"Are you angry? That I volunteered, the way I promised I wouldn’t decide things alone anymore?"

"No." She turned to look at him, moonlight catching old, hard-won steadiness in her expression. "You told me before you decided. You included Carla, gave her the chance to understand and ask questions. That’s not the same as the cliffs, Eren. That’s exactly the growth we fought so hard to build, all these years."

He pulled her close, the weight of tomorrow settling heavy but shared between them, exactly the way every hard choice since the treaty had learned to be.

"Whatever happens tomorrow," he murmured, "I need you to know this life we built — the garden, Carla, all of it — it’s the best thing either of my lives ever gave me. Whatever this ritual costs, that much stays true regardless."

"I know," Mikasa said, kissing him softly beneath a sky finally quiet of any countdown’s cruel urgency, just the ordinary, precious weight of tomorrow’s uncertain dawn. "Tomorrow, we do this exactly the way we’ve learned to do everything. Together. However it turns out."

[Active Mission: "The Sixth Vessel" — Ritual scheduled: Dawn. Anchor Stability: 96%. Final preparations complete.]

Above them, the stars wheeled steady toward morning, carrying silent witness to a family gathered once more at the edge of something uncertain, choosing, deliberately and fully, to face it together exactly as they always had.