Attack on Titan: Kuklo Unbound

Kuklo heard the cries celebrating the Survey Corps’ return from inside the walls.

***

In other words, these machines were made to cultivate a sense of balance, without which wielding the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment was a pipe dream.

“It took me a bit of time, but…they look good,” Xenophon sang his own praises, nodding over and over with satisfaction.

Since the machines were of simple construction, they’d taken no more than three hours to set up. Xenophon had only supervised, leaving the actual work to his subordinates, but they finished before noon, more or less on target.

He might have made a more groundbreaking machine… Comparing himself to Angel was a bad habit of Xenophon’s that he couldn’t kick. Well, no point in asking for what you can’t get.

Grimacing and scratching his scraggly hair, he complained, “They’re late, though. It’d be nice if they decided to show up soon.” Looking around the grounds he saw greenhorns doing sprints, but Xenophon wasn’t waiting for any run-of-the-mill recruits. He awaited the elite selected by Jorge. The others were no more than part of the scenery, extras who wouldn’t be missed.

He’s probably whipping away at a horse right about now. The gang for whom Xenophon was impatient still hadn’t returned from their excursion. If all had gone according to plan, the viewing of the expedition was over and they were heading back to the academy. They’d be arriving before he became downright irritated.

Just as he thought this, a carriage approached with Jorge in the driver’s seat. Xenophon called out, “You kept me waiting for quite a while. I was about to take a nap out of boredom.”

“I think we’re exactly on time, are we not?”

Jorge’s dubious look forced Xenophon to notice. “I must have finished a little too early…”

“Are you fishing for praise?”

“Perish the thought,” Xenophon shooed, but he did feel fairly satisfied. “Anyway, here are your machines.”

When he introduced the freshly completed machine to Jorge and his students, they all looked at it blankly, confused as to how it worked, but Xenophon had expected this reaction.

“It would be fastest if you just used it. You, my spare. Try it out.” The workshop chief grabbed Cardina, who’d just exited the wagon, and guided him to the machine.

“Um… What exactly is this shifty contraption?!”

“It turned out wonderful, didn’t it? Save the praise for later, though.”

“Hold on, I’m asking you how to use this thing…”

Cardina looked bewildered, but his words went in Xenophon’s right ear and straight out the left. What was important was getting the fellow to use the machine, not anything he had to say.

“This thing has been tested, right?”

“It’s flawless. At least, it worked without a hitch in my mind.” True, none of the experiments using his subordinates had met with success, and a few were in a hospital now. Regardless, Xenophon deemed it to be working as intended. The only problem was the difference in athletic ability between military recruits and craftsmen. Most importantly, it functioned perfectly in his mind, so any problems rested with the users. Probably.

Upon hearing this, Cardina’s face filled with the gloom of a condemned man standing on the gallows. Before he could resist, he was hooked up to the machine and pulled up in the air. All that supported him now were the cables attached to his hips and the hands of one of Xenophon’s men. Cardina’s feet were fully thirty centimeters off the ground. Though the craftsman supported his body for the time being, if he let go, Cardina would have to rely on his sense of balance alone.

“I’m very unstable up here…”

“Just like using the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment, isn’t it? If you can control your posture on this, then some day you’ll be able to master the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment! Or maybe not! It might at least trigger a breakthrough.”

“Okay.”

Having persuaded Cardina, Xenophon locked eyes with his subordinate. The craftsman nodded and let go.

“Gwuh?!” Cardina let out a wild cry as he lost his balance. He flipped upside down and hung in mid-air.

“If you had been using the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment, you’d have fallen and hurt yourself just now.”

“I guess you could call that a silver lining…” Cardina half-laughed, half-spat, suspended.

“I want to try it out,” Kuklo volunteered.

With no reason to say no, Xenophon quickly instructed his men to hook him up to a machine. “I’d love to see you master this,” he said to Kuklo, who was now connected to the practice apparatus. The words were honest ones. Someone had to master the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment to prove its utility to the upper echelons of the military. Having an epochal invention consigned to the warehouse would shame Xenophon as a craftsman.

The subordinate let go. Unlike Cardina, Kuklo held his posture without falling over. His sense of balance must have been better. Still, it was clear to everyone that deprived of the stability of standing on his feet, Kuklo was making use of all the muscles in his body to maintain his posture.

I see it’s placing too much of a strain on the body. Trying to tame the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment by force could end in torn muscles or dislocated joints, even broken bones─mid-air at that. The fate awaiting such an operator was as clear as day. Posture control needed to become as natural as breathing.

“Maintaining your posture on your first try? Impressive.” Though not totally satisfied by the performance, Xenophon clapped and praised Kuklo. If one person got the knack and learned to handle the machine, others might use him as a model, raising the floor for all. The same logic held for the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment, and Kuklo was the most likely model.

While I do feel sorry about his background, I can’t help but be grateful to it right now. It was true that Kuklo’s abilities were outstanding, but he wasn’t superhuman. He didn’t possess powers beyond the ken of mere mortals unlike the Titans. Rather, harsh conditions had brought out his potential, and a comparable aptitude surely slumbered in the others. If Kuklo could learn to master the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment, anyone could with enough effort.

Whatever the case, I’m going to need him to work hard. Briskly walking up to Kuklo, Xenophon said, “I forgot I had a message for you from the young lady.”

“From Sharle?” Kuklo’s body twitched and shook as he tried to maintain his posture.

“She says, ‘Please don’t do anything too crazy, okay?’” Xenophon said, imitating Sharle’s tone, then kicked one of the pillars hard.

The slight vibration this caused rippled out to the entire machine, affecting Kuklo, who struggled to use his entire body to keep his posture intact. He pawed at the air as if he were paddling water in a desperate attempt to stabilize himself, but regaining his balance after losing it was not an easy task. He began to fall over, face-up.

“Agh!”

Despite his cry he kept trying, but his exceptional physical abilities now worked against him. As if hoping to land like a cat, he twisted his body reflexively. While this would have narrowly saved him in actual combat, his body was connected to bungee cords. Flipping over in an awkward position, he slammed his head against the ground and passed out.

“Didn’t I just pass on Sharle’s message not to do anything crazy? You’re going to make her sad, you know.” Xenophon shrugged and sighed, ignoring his own culpability.

It seemed as though a bit of time would be needed before the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment could be mastered.

***

Kuklo and the others─who had the required specs, so to speak─quickly took to the machinery and handled it well enough within a few days. By the time a week had passed, they moved in it freely. Once they had the knack down, their bodies reacted without the assistance of conscious thought. They’d probably be spared any more head-butting the ground and blacking out.

The skills mastered during this training worked for the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment. Though they couldn’t quite fly around with total freedom, they were able to move up, down, left, and right. Tight turns and precise motions still eluded them, however, and they were by no means ready to be sent into combat.

I’m like an ape in this. Using the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment, Kuklo weaved his way between trees. Behind him were Cardina and Rosa, and behind them followed the rest of the team. Compared to back when all they did was move up and down repeatedly, this was a dramatic improvement indeed. Yet, Kuklo still wasn’t tracing the trajectories that his mind’s eye drew. Something is lacking… What is it?

“Monkeys on the move,” the other recruits derided, and in fact Kuklo’s team hopping through the woods must have looked like nothing more. Kuklo bore the mockery since he felt much the same way. Right now, he needed to devote every waking moment to the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment.

He looked straight forward and glimpsed a giant mannequin fifty meters ahead of him.

There! Kuklo inserted both of his controllers into the scabbards hanging on either side of him. He felt a slight but certain sensation in his palms. All right!

He nodded and pulled the controllers back out to reveal slender silver-gray blades─single-edged swords. Their shockingly sharp edges justified Xenophon bragging about them. Kuklo cut away the twigs and branches in his way as he continued to charge forward.

Soon the giant mannequin came into view in its entirety. A large dummy about five meters tall, it was the same Titan mockup Kuklo had taken on in the factory city. Upon hearing that the recruits were now wielding the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment, Xenophon had brought it for them to train with.

Scanning the area around the Titan dummy, Kuklo hammered the positions of everything he saw into his head. Approaching the target wasn’t enough. He had to attack it, then escape safely, and that required a route. More than one route, actually. He needed to prepare multiple paths in the blink of an eye. Unlike the dummy, a Titan wouldn’t stand still for him.

Although Kuklo managed nothing close to his intended trajectory, he somehow found himself closing in on the Titan’s back. He dealt its neck a single blow on his pass and disengaged. His fellow recruits followed suit.

This won’t do. Straying from the path he had in mind meant that in a real fight, he would have exposed himself. Against a Titan, that equaled death. He needed to be able to move more precisely as well as swiftly if he were to ever slay a Titan.

Kuklo picked a towering tree ahead of him, sinking in an anchor and moving in its direction. Managing his controllers and maintaining proper balance, he shot toward one of the branches that stretched from the trunk and landed with ease as if he were stepping over a puddle. The others followed him, each choosing a branch.

The world they saw from ten meters off the ground was breathtakingly beautiful. While the scenery from the top of Wall Maria was pretty grand, getting to where they were on their own via the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment offered a special joy.

“Honestly, I never thought I’d be able to use this thing so well,” Cardina shared from the branch below.

“I guess you can say your hard work paid off,” Rosa chimed in from a different tree.

“The training machine was the trigger we needed. Without it, we never would have been able to graduate from the old Equipment.”

Cardina was absolutely right, but there had to be more to the machine. Wielding it to get to the top of a tree was a major achievement, but not a game changer. The revolution Xenophon talked about hasn’t happened.

“Not yet. I can’t defeat Ogre like this,” Kuklo spat, jumping off his branch without hesitation.

“Hey, hold on! We need to move as a group!” Rosa yelled after him.

But there was no stopping him now. Kuklo set his sights on a nearby tree and pressed a controller lever.

***

The reason for their fervor was clear: they wanted to apply to the Military Police Brigade. While graduating recruits could only apply to the Brigade if their grades put them in the top ten, making a good impression on the brass during an inspection match offered a plausible way in. Recruits naturally dreamed of joining the Brigade.

One particularly fervent aspirant was Xavi, a shoo-in for the top ten. Nevertheless, he didn’t feel relaxed at all and fretted mightily. The cause of his angst was the contest, or to be more precise, the reason it was being held in the first place. Officials and officers wouldn’t care to sit through a contest among recruits. Nor were there any records of such an event being held in the past. In other words, something had happened that necessitated it, and the flunkers with their Vertical Maneuvering Equipment were the most likely culprits.

Why them? Xavi grumbled in his heart, his face a picture of raging frustration. Though he was on guard about Kuklo and Cardina, the flunkers were just a bunch of losers who meant absolutely nothing to him. Just the other day, he’d seen them going from tree to tree and mocked them, comparing them to apes. The other recruits all did the same.

And yet! The situation had been reversed, and the flunkers and their remedial lessons were the talk of the academy. It was even rumored─though it was nothing more than a rumor─that they were almost certain to be among the top ten.

I’m the one who’ll be applying to the Military Police! Clenching his fists, Xavi tiptoed through the darkness.

It was late at night and the barracks were silent, with only the occasional snore wafting out of a room. No other recruits would be awake at such an hour provided they hadn’t slacked off during the day’s training. If they’d taxed their bodies, they were simply too overcome with drowsiness by the time they returned to their rooms after dinner.

He had to be the only one prowling around the barracks. Of course, as someone aiming to join the Military Police Brigade, Xavi had given his training his all. He was tired, and he felt sleepy. Still, there was something he had to do.

He headed to the locker room in the barracks. The soldiers changed into their uniforms and put on their equipment there before heading to training, and Kuklo’s band was no exception. The only difference between them and the other recruits was the harnesses they wore to control the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment.

Xavi reached the locker room without encountering another soul. Once there, he quietly opened the door and stepped into the room. It was filled with a thick, tangible darkness, and he couldn’t see everything in it even though his eyes were adjusted to the dark.

But he was familiar with the room. As long as he minded his steps, he’d reach his target without trouble.

Xavi halted once he arrived in front of a specific locker. He suddenly grew tense and gulped down a glob of saliva. The locker in front of him was not his own. The plate on it read “Kuklo.”

Xavi placed his hand on its handle and carefully opened the door. He examined the locker’s contents and immediately found what he sought: the harness. Grabbing it, he pulled out a knife he’d hidden on himself.

“You’re an eyesore, all right?” Using his knife he cut into a part of the harness. “There we go. There…”