When Sawatari Mikasa was four years old, a great earthquake struck Japan.

During this time, she’d been walking alongside her older brother, Sawatari Kou, as he’d been forced to walk her home from school as a punishment for a fight the two of them had that morning.

When the earthquake struck, Mikasa fearfully clung to her older brother, understandably frightened. However, Sawatari Kou was frightened as well. So frightened, in fact, that he abandoned his little sister at a bus stop and ran for his own life. Mikasa watched as he fled into a nearby construction building for shelter.

And she also watched as that very same building collapsed before her eyes.

Unable to fathom the idea that the brother she looked up to had left her for dead, she instead ran, stumbling her way over to the building in the midst of the earthquake to make sure he was alright. As she frantically dug through the rubble, the earthquake subsided shortly after. In total, it lasted for four and a half minutes.

Soon after, Mikasa was discovered by pedestrians, still digging through the rubble with her bare hands as tears streamed down her face. They managed to calm her down enough to hear what happened, and when they called 119 for her, rescue teams were dispatched to search the rubble.

After two hours of searching, Sawatari Kou’s body was discovered by rescue teams, crushed to death by debris.

In the news, he was labeled a hero for having protected his younger sister at the cost of his life. Mikasa had chosen to keep silent about what really transpired and instead decided to honor her brother’s memory by having the world remember him as the admirable older brother she always saw him as.

Mikasa had forgiven him for what he did. But she never forgot.

The very next year, Mikasa would come to meet her most important person—her baby brother, Yuu.

-----

Shaking. Violent, ferocious shaking.

*Sp’lurch*

“G… GYAHHHHHH?!?!?!?!”

“Brother?! Gah!”

“Hahaha! My old man’s given me worse hits to the face than that, you dumbasses!”

Dark brown eyes, staring down at her in fear as the world rumbles.

“Miriam, you madwoman! You were the one who suggested we combat her in the first place!!!”

“I only did that to get you idiots in a position to be my bait! Everyone knows demons can’t resist the smell of blood and fear, so sucks to be you assholes, but I’m outta here!”

“Damn it…! MIRIAM!!!”

The figure of a back as they turn and run. Run away to save themselves. Run away to live, and to continue living, only for themselves.

Like a coward.

“She’s right, you know.”

“E-Eh?!”

“You guys did have this coming for what you did to my family. But you know what I hate even more than conmen...”

“Huh…?”

“E..h… Wh...a… W...hy… m...e...e…. Gllggh…!”

“Fucking cowards. I hate people like you the most! Cowards who run away when things get a little tough! Coward!”

Shock. Terror. Disbelief.

“Why do we have to die for your selfishness?! Do you think that’s right?! Do you honestly think it’s okay to sacrifice others so that you can continue living?! Well, do you?!

Panic. Despair. Confusion. Grief.

Loneliness.

“Coward, coward, coward! You fucking COWARD!!!”

…

…

…

“...And if you would honestly put your own life over the lives of others; if you really are the kind of person who doesn’t have anything worth protecting other than their own selfish interests...”

I love you, Onee-chan. No matter what, that won’t ever change. Okay?

Yes… I have someone worth protecting. I’ll never be like him.

Because if you’re like him...

“...then you should just go and die like the coward you are.”

-----

In a paltry, secluded part of Halloway’s dark alleys, hidden from view of the streets, a small hut of simple construction sat. Inside the walls of rotted wood, with dirt and trash scattered about, on top of little more than a filthy, torn mattress stuffed with paper, were a pair of children. Scruffy, ragged, but with wide grins on their faces, the brother-sister pair giggled to themselves, speaking in whispers.

“What’re you gonna buy?”

“A comb, obviously! There are bugs stuck in my hair again, but my old one broke so I can’t get them out. What about you?”

“Me? Um… I wonder if Big Sis will take us to that inn down the street. I heard the hotcakes there are reaaaally yummy!”

“Ehhh~? You wanna spend your part on both of us? That makes me look bad!”

“Hehe, I’m just doing what a good brother would do for his little sister! No need to thank me!”

“We’re twins, dumb-dumb! And besides, they prob’ly wouldn’t let us in there anyway, cuz we look like this.”

“Hmm, I guess you’re right… Then! I’ll tell Big Sis to buy one night there too! So we can use the bath and get clean.”

“You can’t do that! She said we only get ONE thing each, remember? Even though Big Sis is finally getting a biiiig raise for her job, she said that we should spend the money carefully, and not waste it.”

“I knowwww… But Big Sis is always working so hard to take care of us. Whenever she’s around, I feel like she’s just faking how tired she is to not make us worry. I wanna make her have fun so I can see her smile for real again instead of all those fake ones.”

“U-Uuuu~ Then… m-maybe I’ll use my part for that too… I’ll just pull the bugs out with a stick.”

“Ehehe! Big Sis will be soooo surprised when we tell her what we wanna use our parts on! I can’t wait for her to get back!”

“Me neither! I can’t wait to see her face when we tell her! Ah, maybe we should do it at the same time!”

“Yeah, yeah! We’ll say, ‘Big Sis, Big Sis, guess what? We wanna spend our parts on all of us!’”

“Her face will be priceless!”

“Hehehe, I can’t wait to see Bis Sis again!”

The two children once again fell into a mess of giggles as they eagerly anticipated the arrival of their older sister, completely unaware of the fact that they would never again see the smile which they held so precious.