Chapter Text
As ginormous waves of steam fly in every direction, Mikasa can’t do anything but brace herself against them, clinging for dear life to the straps and hilts of her ODM gear nailed to the wall.
Reiner and Bertolt’s monstrous transformations are the equivalent of a hundred cannonballs hitting all at once, the debris shooting out of the wall sharp as arrows. Left and right, the Scouts lose the battle against the blast and are hurled off the solid structure, flying off as if they weighed nothing. Even when most have their gear strapped on, almost none have the reflexes to anchor themselves to the stone— only the most experienced soldiers react fast enough and even then, they struggle to hold on. There is nothing Mikasa can do for them but to watch, and a familiar sense of uselessness invades her. Trying to reach out and save them puts her in danger, and she is strong enough to fight off these destructive bursts.
In the midst of all chaos, Mikasa manages to squint and see the Armor Titan sliding on his back down the stone, the massive volume of his frame destroying the structure and decelerating the fall. And, with horrible clarity, she can also see how inside the left fist of the titan Eren is tightly captured.
The sequence of events happens in slow motion, Eren’s face scrunched in what Mikasa imagines is both anger and pain. It does not last long, though, as he reacts and lifts his left hand and traps it inside his teeth, followed by the strike of lightning that illuminates the whole scene.
“Traitors!” Eren’s voice booms as his body begins to be surrounded by flesh created out of thin air, ripping the Armor Titan’s fist apart as the Attack Titan completes its transformation.
The piercing roar of the gigantic beast shakes her deep within her bones, and she is frozen in place witnessing the nasty punch Eren delivers straight to Reiner’s head. Both titans tumble down in a vicious exchange of punches and kicks midair, grappling to see who is going to land at the bottom. When they both collide against the ground, a huge cloud of dust rises, forcing Mikasa to cover her eyes with her sleeve.
“Eren!” Calling after him is second nature to her, although she knows he can’t hear her voice. She’s too far away, and the growls and thunder from every hit are deafening. Her eyes follow the titans to analyze the fight patterns and movements, waiting for an opening for her to help Eren. Unsheathing her blades, she switches her position and hangs lower, boots firmly placed against the surface of the wall.
Another roar, coming from above, breaks her train of thought, and Mikasa realizes she is not the only one intently looking at the two titans brawling below them. The Colossal Titan is not completely transformed— the torso’s ribs are anchored to the wall, providing support to the partially completed body consisting of arms and a head. Steam spirals surround the titan, who intently watches the fight happening meters below him, and it shocks her to see how utterly different his appearance is from the Attack and Armor titan. The flesh-looking creature swings its left arm around, provoking havoc to keep the rest of the soldiers at bay. However, his right first is tightly secured around someone.
It's Ymir.
It occurs to Mikasa that this was their angle all along, the reason they broke character here out of the blue and decided this was the moment when they unveiled their cover. Having both Eren and Ymir at their arms’ reach to capture may not be something that would happen in the future, a rare occurrence that probably led (or forced) them to this harsh ambush against the Survey Corps.
Grinding her teeth, Mikasa curses internally. This disaster could have been avoided if she had managed to do the one thing she should have done: kill Reiner and Bertolt when she had the chance.
If only she had done it right and lopped both their heads off with her blades moments ago, this would not be happening. For better or worse, this opportunity was their best chance to get rid of both Reiner and Bertolt without any further collateral consequences, without putting Eren in any more danger. And she should have been able to do it— her military training may have taught her a thing or two, yet she’s killed humans way before it, at a tender age. Even in her inexperience years back, she had managed to dispose of her assailant. From that day on, her skills as a fighter and as a soldier were unleashed and refined under regimen and discipline. She’s learned all of this with one goal in mind: to protect her loved ones.
But here, when two traitors were threatening to take Eren away from her, she just couldn’t complete the deed.
Why?
Reiner and Bertolt’s frightened faces flash in front of her eyes.
An uncomfortable feeling twists inside of her chest. Closing her eyes hard, she tries to wish away the gut-wrenching sensation caused by being the source of their fear. Reiner and Bertolt… they were right to fear her. And she is right in her hatred and killing intent towards them. All that’s happening should reassure her that her decisions in the last couple of months were the smart thing to do— her gut had always been wary about the danger that Reiner and Bertolt represented. They had never been honest with the other Trainees, never honest with their intentions.
Whatever they shared about themselves had been nothing more than a meticulously woven net of lies to get on the better side of everyone around them. Once more, Mikasa finds herself trapped and constrained on a web of crafted deception that blinded her long enough.
Still… when the time to act and amend her mistakes finally came, she let sentimentality take over her rational thinking… again. Apparently, even for her, it is hard to compartmentalize her memories of fond moments from the last three years. After all, Reiner and Bertolt took a lot of space in those memories: two pillars that led Eren, Armin and Mikasa every step of the way to survive training camp.
To think of someone so close as an enemy is as taxing as Eren has shown her it could be. Could she really be holding back against them because of her heart? Mikasa has insight that she is mostly driven by feelings and not logic, against her better judgment. She’s aware of her fault in how her actions sometimes are triggered by mere flares of her mood. The last couple of months she’s been an exposed nerve waiting to shortcut. The past twenty-four hours had not only been physically taxing, but she was pretty sure she was about to lose her mind.
It’s all because behind her aloof persona, hides a young woman that wears her feelings on her skin. She can’t avoid letting her mind wander and thinks Annie is responsible for her to have this much resentment and pain oozing out of her. Was her own sentimentality the reason she felt gutted because of what Annie did?
Every time she has hesitated, it has cost her greatly. Today, it cost her the last chance she had to dispose of Reiner and Bertolt. As titans, she won’t have another chance if they fight together.
There is no time to duel over it. Straining her head up, she sees the Colossal Titan smashing its fist against the wall, forcing once again for the soldiers to disperse.
“All soldiers, retreat!” Hange’s voice is both alarmed and piercing, evidently frustrated with their current state.
“No, wait! She’s got Ymir!” One of the soldiers struggles as he glides midair, trying his best to keep his hold around Krista, who scrambles in her concern for Ymir. It gets worse when the titan throws the stretcher and the unconscious titan shifter into his mouth, “No! She ate Ymir!”
Mikasa is tempted to climb up and help, as it seems the squads are starting an attack on the Colossal Titan. However, the crushing sound of trees and bones breaking makes her whip around in an instant. Her heart drops when she finds Eren lying on his back, the head of the titan partially mutilated. His jaw is wrecked and locked open, more than likely dislocated. The titan is missing his nose and frontal teeth, blood and steam pouring heavily out of the wounds.
Towering over him, Reiner loomed victorious.
“No, don’t you dare, Reiner!” Mikasa unhooks herself from the wall and allows her body to dive pulled by gravity, getting low enough that she can change her trajectory by using her ODM gear to glide to a nearby tree.
Reiner has done a number over the landscape, most of the pine trees ripped off the ground. To her luck, there is still enough for her to swing and gain altitude, blowing gas to reach the height of the nape of the titan. She twists her torso and shifts her blades in position, her aim is perfect to hit the spot that will guarantee victory.
Or would have, if her blades hadn’t snapped in shards the moment they made contact with the titan.
“What!?”
Forced to retreat, she uses the branches of a tree to conceal herself as she changes her blades, clicking them in her hilts. Her throat produces an exasperated growl. Well, Hange had dubbed Reiner as the Armor Titan for a reason. No attack seemed to work on him: not Eren’s and certainly not hers. The hardness of the body reminded her of the Female Titan’s hardening. But unlike her, Reiner was able to stay in that hardened state all over his body for prolonged periods.
When Reiner starts marching towards Eren, Mikasa panics. What could she do? The one thing that could take a titan down was the one thing Reiner had a perfect shield for. Repeating what she just did would prove fruitless and sooner rather than later she would end up with no blades to fight. Her mind starts spinning and breathing becomes hard, she’s so scared and angry at the same time… she feels at her wit’s end.
However, she had forgotten something— and that’s how stubborn Eren was. On the verge of her anxiety, somehow, Eren stands up again and hurls his fist towards Reiner’s face. There’s an awful cracking sound that she is unsure whether it comes from the armor around Reiner’s face or from Eren’s fist. Yet the second time she hears it she perfectly knows where it comes from, as half of Eren’s titan face flies off and scatters around the scenery at the incredibly hard punch it received.
The Attack Titan falls to the ground… yet somehow, he stands back up.
Half of the Attack Titan’s face dangles by strips of skin ripped to shreds, his right eye out of its socket and the tongue limp against whatever was left of Eren’s chin. His right arm is also oddly placed, the shoulder seemingly out of its bone pocket. But the titan stands as tall as he is able to, not backing down. This is Eren’s real strength: his resilience.
“Eren! You can’t win this!” The scream is faint in her ears, yet she recognizes Armin’s voice coming all the way up from the wall, “Going hand to hand with him won’t do any good! You can’t fight him, Eren, run!”
Running seemed like a good idea. Both friends knew Eren didn’t think the same way.
“Eren!” Is the only word that comes to her at the moment.
Slowly, Eren raises his fists (or what’s left of them) to each side of his head and twists his hips to have a foot in front of the other. Mikasa would recognize that stance anywhere, a silhouette on the other side of the ring she’d see all too often. Every line of that stance tells a story, and so she can anticipate what Eren will do. Eren lunges with a battle scream, fist recoiled and ready for impact. And as intended, Reiner counterattacks with a punch of his own… one that Eren dodges by sinking low just to spring up, wrapping his arms around Reiner’s neck and arm and locking him in place. Mikasa can overlap the image of Annie over Eren’s frame by frame, the sequence of movements one Mikasa has seen countless times. Climbing Reiner on his hip, Eren bends and throws the titan flipping him over in the air.
The impact quakes the earth, Mikasa has to stabilize her footing by leaning into a tree. Just as Annie, Eren holds Reiner in place and hooks a leg over the other titan, Eren pins Reiner down by pushing his knee into his chest. Eren’s victory is short-lived, because Reiner uses his size to push Eren off him and drive him in a circle to be the one doing the pinning now.
It’s awfully close to what Mikasa would do to counter if Annie had thrown her down like that. Probably not the most honest thing to do, Mikasa would use any advantage she had over Annie to win a senseless spar, including her size and brute muscle strength. Eren, having been Annie’s student, pushes Reiner by his hips, using the power of his legs to maneuver the body on top to be able to wrap his legs around Reiner’s arm and neck. By lifting his hips, Eren has Reiner immobilized once more with a textbook arm bar.
Try as she might, Mikasa could not help but draw the parallel between Eren and Reiner, Annie and herself. With the understanding that the background of their relationships was different, Eren had relied on Reiner in a similar fashion Mikasa had relied on Annie. Reiner was everything Eren aspired to be: trustworthy, confident, strong, talented. In Reiner, Eren had found a role model, someone who inspired him to be better, and that encouraged him to actually work for it.
Where Annie taught Eren how to fight, Reiner had taught him how to be a soldier.
Mikasa wonders how much of this new surge of strength from Eren comes from the pain of knowing that after all this time, he always had it wrong. The hurt of being played with for so long is one Mikasa can relate to. Eren’s wrath shows in the way he squeezes mercilessly Reiner’s head with his thighs and uses his torso to wrench the trapped arm back. And it’s probably that same wrath that allows Eren to crack the hardening around the shoulder and neck.
Shifting his hips and hooking the back of his knee to Reiner’s throat, they spin again, Reiner pressed face-first against the ground. With the arm lodged between his legs, Eren is finally capable of inflicting real damage on Reiner by ripping off the entire limb.
“He did it,” Mikasa mumbles to nobody but herself, rather impressed by how fast Eren caught that opening and exploited Reiner’s weaknesses. It was all proof of how much he had matured as a fighter during his time in the Corps.
“Eren!” Armin manages to startle Mikasa as he clumsily lands in front of her, running towards the titans, “Run for now! Get closer to the wall! Their goal is to kidnap you, we must keep him from doing that!”
Wishing it were that simple, Mikasa jogs to catch up with her friend, placing a hand on his shoulder to slow him down, “Armin, Reiner is not going to let him get away.”
Frantically, Armin bobs his head up and down, as if he were reassuring himself, “Yeah, but there is strength in numbers. We must try.”
The whole demeanor of the Attack Titan changes as if what Armin said clicked on his head. Eren’s stance turns defensive, dragging his feet back as he follows the recommendation.
“Hey, you! It’s dangerous to be this close! Fall back!” Mikasa is too focused on Eren to be aware that one of their fellow Scouts is behind her until they tug from her cloak with little to no hesitation to force her to retreat.
Armin stumbles back as he is being guided back as well, yet he doesn’t resist. Neither does Mikasa. They follow their lead back until they are close enough to trees that serve as their starting point to initiate their climb back to the safety of the wall. Regrouping with the rest of the Scouts, they manage to reach enough altitude to be in level with Eren’s head.
Eren is not the only one following the soldier’s instruction, though.
“He’s coming back to his senses,” Mikasa observes as Reiner steadily steps towards Eren. His right arm is steaming, meaning that soon enough it will be healed.
“It’s like you said,” Armin is hanging right by her side, eyes on both of the titans, “running from Reiner is not an easy task.”
Before any of them can think of a way to stop Reiner, Hange lands on Eren’s shoulder, securing themself to his nape, “Eren! Listen to me!” The titan turns his head in acknowledgment, and that would be exciting for Hange would they not be in imminent danger, “For you to get away, you’ll have to immobilize Reiner again and crack his armor to buy some time! We can slow him down if we can attack his legs, but our blades won’t work unless the armor is stripped off. Can you break his armor again with one of your holds?”
The titan nods and Hange visibly gasps at the mental prowess of the titan.
“Mikasa, here!” Armin unsheathes his unused blades, presenting them to Mikasa, “You can attack Reiner’s legs once the armor cracks again.”
Taking the blades into her hands and storing them in her holsters, she readies herself for her upcoming attack.
Hange glides off Eren’s shoulder just in time to avoid being tackled alongside the Attack Titan. Reiner’s muscles didn’t just make him incredibly strong, but also fast as he used his legs to impulse his large form. He slams Eren against the wall back first, to then force him into the ground. While lying down, Eren manages to wrap his legs around one of Reiner’s thighs, and holding the ankle with his armpit, he straightens his torso, forcing Reiner off his feet and into the ground as well.
Eren stands up before Reiner springs up, having Eren walk backward. He seems out of ideas as to how to get to Reiner’s legs, his moves barely deflecting Reiner’s attacks.
“Dammit! Why can he suddenly move so fast!?” Armin, closely tailed by Mikasa and Hange, is shocked by this twist of events.
“It doesn’t make sense if his whole body is rock hard, he should not be able to move this fast.” With Hange right next to her, Mikasa watches as their eyes jump all around the Armor Titan’s body, inspecting it, “Back in history, humans used iron armors in wars. The armor could not cover all the body, because of the human body’s structure. All armors had openings to allow the joints to flex and bend. For Reiner to run this fast… he would need the back of his knees to be free!”
Hange instantly points to the tendons of the Titan’s legs, and Mikasa can perfectly observe how they are, in fact, uncovered. Finally acquiring a target, Mikasa takes the lead in their pursuit as Reiner tries for another tackle. This time, Eren expects it, so he dodges to the side and with the palm of his left hand he drives Reiner to his side, arms locking around the nape of the titan. Eren rolls to his back and Reiner is forced to kneel, giving room for Eren to wrap his legs around Reiner’s knees.
Struggling, Eren holds the titan in place. In the spots he is applying pressure, the armor starts to crumble. However, Reiner still is physically stronger than Eren, so he starts to try to release himself from Eren’s hold. He plants the ball of his feet on the ground and pushes, crushing Eren under him.
“No, you won’t do that, Reiner!” With the position of the legs, Mikasa has a clear opportunity to slash off the tendons at the back of the titan’s knees. Shoe does a clean work of going in an out fast, spinning in the air while her blades cut deeply into the titan’s skin. When she lands on the wall again, Eren seems shocked to see her and instantly tugs on Reiner’s head as hard as he can using the momentum to yank the Armor Titan’s head off.
“Get him, Eren!” Armin encourages, face red from all the screaming.
With one final tug, the armor on top of the nape of the Armor Titan gets destroyed, Reiner’s weak spot is now open for the take.
Something is off, though.
“What’s he— He gave up.” The lost expression on Armin’s face reveals he’s confused. This was not a simple match with a winner and a loser, but a battle for their life. For Reiner to be willing to concede so easily there had to be a specific goal in mind. All the sudden, Armin’s eyes widen, “He’s right under—”
The guttural scream leaving the Armor Titan is like nothing she’s heard before. For some reason, it felt more humanized than the average titan roar. It felt… desperate. Still, Eren had not let go and kept on trying to get Reiner’s head off. Mikasa thinks he’s about to succeed—
“Heads up! Move!”
All soldiers have about a second to look up and come face to face with the Colossal Titan diving headfirst toward Eren and Reiner. The carcass of the humongous body crashes against the two titans, rising a blinding expansive wave. Steam explodes everywhere, and Mikasa doesn’t manage to fight off the push of the wind and is sent flying backward all the way to the top of the wall. Without any means of control, her descent starts before she knows it, rolling head-first against the rails on top of the wall.
That’s the last thing she sees before everything turns black.
-
The wind whistles in her ears, fallen leaves dancing between them as the air blows gelid. Her lips pull in a saddened smile, as her fingers touch the ice-cold skin of Eren’s resting body right under the oak tree.
“See you later, Eren…”
-
With a start, the coldness of her fingertips forces her back to consciousness, her eyes blowing wide open. Slowly, the blurry outlines come back to sharpness, eyelids blinking away the last remnants of the haziness engulfing her surroundings. Noise comes back second, and she hears faint chatter to her right. Sitting up in one go, she turns to her left and right to find the same dreadful scene: dozens of soldiers lying flat on their backs, carried and grouped together by those who managed to stay as unharmed as possible. Medical attention is provided where possible, but with little supplies available there is not much that seems possible to do.
Even worse, there is no sight of Eren anywhere.
Her head begins pounding, a pointed shot of electricity surging through the right side of her face.
“…Mikasa! Wait! You should not move yet…!”
Armin’s advice is reasonable, but not for Mikasa. When Armin is at arms’ reach, she clasps his cloak within her fists, yanking Armin to be face to face with her, “Armin! Eren, where is he!?” The vivid image in her mind made her restless, Eren’s eyes closed and tranquil while his whole body was numb and cold. It’s a peaceful image of death that Mikasa abhors.
“Calm down, Mikasa! We don’t know how serious your injuries are!”
Calm is not what Mikasa wants to do now, so she pushes Armin off and crawls all the way to the edge of the wall. She knows she blacked out for a while, but she remembers: the fight, the titans, Eren and Reiner and then the Colossal titan falling on top of all of them. When her eyes meet the floor, however, there is no trace of the titans she hopes to see, only a few low-class stranglers dumbly trying to climb up.
“Where is he!?”
Her friend doesn’t need to articulate a word for her to know, Armin’s blue eyes tearing up almost immediately, shining in uncertainty and shame, “Eren and Ymir were… taken away…”
The world around Mikasa fragments, cracks drawing around her as the background spins and makes her dizzy. Her eyes hyperfocus on Armin’s pale skin, scratched and bruised from the forceful pressure and heat that followed after the Colossal titan hit the ground. The force of the explosion was so strong it seemed nobody could fight it off, incapacitating many. Both Armin and her were lucky to be in one piece. Ears ringing, Mikasa’s gut summersaults and threatens to have her dry heave.
Eren had been taken. She failed to protect him once more.
“Reiner and Bertolt… I managed to stay guarded from most of the explosion, but I was able to see how Reiner defeated Eren.” With his scorched cloak, Armin dabs away the glistening salty drops rolling down his cheeks, unable to keep eye contact with Mikasa, “Reiner was the only one able to withstand the force of the explosion. He bit into Eren’s neck and tore it off with Eren inside. When the hot wind started to calm, Bertolt got out of the remains of the titans with Ymir in his arms. He was wearing vertical maneuvering equipment, probably it belonged to some other soldier he ate. He jumped onto the Armor Titan’s back, carrying Ymir with him as they left.”
Lowering to his haunches, Armin kneels in front of Mikasa, placing both his hands on her wrist. His hands look tiny, and fragile… more so as they trembled and were clammy to the touch. It’s never been a secret that Armin was no fighter, which never meant he was going to be the one to escape a fight. Right here, right now, Armin may wish he could run away.
Mikasa does.
“It’s been five hours since then.”
Five hours. The cracks inside her soul grow and fragments of her reality fall and shatter, a huge knot settling behind her ribs. Her voice is tiny, she can only gather her thoughts into one idea, “Did anyone… go after them?”
“No.”
She can’t control what takes over her, nor can’t control the way her hands fly towards Armin, grabbing him by his shoulders and rocking him back and forth, “What!? Why not!?”
“The horses.” Mikasa blinks twice as it makes no sense to her at first, which Armin seems to realize, “We can’t get Eren back until lifts arrive so we can move the horses to the other side.”
It finally clicks on Mikasa’s brain: Armin is right, they need the horses. Even when Reiner is not the fastest titan they’ve seen -that title still belongs to the Female Titan-, it’s impossible to catch up with Reiner by foot. With no foliage they could use maneuver with their ODM gear, the only option would be to run, and they wouldn’t stand a chance of catching up with Reiner.
In other words, they are trapped with no possibility of pursuit.
Armin sees the profuse defeat inside of her because he changes their grip, now stroking her upper arms in calm circles, “We are working on it, the lifts are coming.” He looks down before inhaling long and steady, to then flash her a confident smile, “You need to be ready when they arrive. Squad leader Hange and other ranking officers are severely injured and can’t move. We need every available soldier if we want to create even a small-scale enemy scouting formation. Especially good soldiers. Understand?”
She does. Yet, a part of her feels that it will be of no use. Falling back, Mikasa pulls her knees to her chest, chewing mercilessly on her lower lip. Her mind races with deep, dark thoughts of how much she has failed lately, everything that she missed that may have avoided all of this. It’s her fault they are stuck in this situation. It’s her fault that Eren got taken away. Not once has she been able to prevent Eren from being kidnapped, nor has been able to retrieve Eren by her own means, “When the Female Titan kidnapped Eren… I went right after her and fought her with Captain Levi. And the Captain actually got him back. If five hours have passed already…”
She’s not sure how much hope there is. Months back, Annie almost succeeded in her plan. Today, they are dealing with double the trouble as they are up against two titan shifters. Captain Levi is not there to save the day and Mikasa questions if she is strong enough to win. It all seemed… pointless. Would Reiner and Bertolt have what it took to complete the traitors’ plan? Would they finally manage to take Eren away from Mikasa?
Gingerly, Armin produces Mikasa’s scarf from inside his cloak, and she is fast to get her finger woven in the red material. Robotically, she ties it around her neck in a couple of loops, covering the lower side of her face. The past twenty-four hours translate into her own tears, brimming at the corner of her slanted eyes.
“Armin?” She’s not crying yet her voice is hoarse, almost unrecognizable, “Why is it that Eren always goes to a place where we can’t follow him?”
It’s simple, really. Mikasa is aware that she has always been searching the impossible. Her simplest wishes are too much to ask, it seems, because her pleas are never heard. What she so desperately wants is for her friends to be okay, for her to be able to be by their side. For their little family to stay together.
Perhaps Armin is the only person in the world able to understand her, as he recoils into himself and wistfully looks to the horizon, where he imagines Eren is, “Eren has always been running off on his own, leaving us behind. Whether it’s his own will or not, he always does it. I guess… that’s just his destiny.”
Why? That’s the question that assaults Mikasa. Why is it his destiny? Why is it theirs to only be able to watch Eren’s back, never being able to stand right by him? “All I want is to be close to him.”
She’s recognized before that she is selfish, and that her deepest desire is to get what she wants. Painful as it was, she had let herself crumble and presented herself naked in front of Annie, acknowledging how she ambitioned to have things her way. Things have gone downhill ever since then, and Mikasa blames it all in the jinx she threw to the wind when she spoke those thoughts. Because ever since then, she’s been closer and closer to losing Eren, to the point she is convinced it is inevitable.
Eventually, she’ll have to part ways with him. And today might be the day.
“Hey, you two— you must be hungry.”
The heavy steps of worn military boots join their silence, and Mikasa barely lifts her eyes to find a familiar face walking toward Armin and her, carrying various packages in his arms and a leather canteen strapped to his shoulder.
“Mister Hannes?”
The blond man looks exhausted, and a little worse for wear, and still, he gifts them a cheeky smile, “Here, eat. All I have are the same old field rations, but… It’s better than nothing.” The Garrison soldier extends his hand with a small package bundled in craft paper for her to take. Shyly, she reaches her left hand out to receive the bar of grains, using the other hand to shield her tears. Turning on his heel, Mister Hannes casually marches to Armin, “Here, Armin.”
The older man sits beside them, flopping unceremoniously over the hard surface of the wall. Resting his elbow over his left knee, Hannes unwraps the dry bar from its packaging. He doesn’t push the conversation, staying there with them and letting them be while he loudly chews, “Eh, not bad. Certainly not good.”
Mikasa turns the bar in her hands several times, the knot in her throat preventing her from eating. There is no way that she could swallow any kind of food. She’s not alone; Armin’s eyes are empty, and unfocused while firmly fixed on the stone.
“You two… You are no different from all the other times.” Hannes's resigned voice calls her attention, mainly as there is a sadly amused ring to it. Turning to look at him, she finds him to be tired, not only because he has been patrolling all night, but because of the years starting to show on him. He looks wiser, something that clashes with her memories of a drunk soldier betting his money away instead of patrolling the walls.
Running his hand through his face, he clears his throat, “You’ve always had to take care of the messes that little brat got himself into, right? You are stuck with him for better or for worse.”
The blond, old man reaches around and unshoulders the canteen, removing the cap and taking a long swig out of it. Using his sleeve, he dries the water dampening his lips, hazel eyes set on them, on the Scouts crests on their jackets, “Sheesh, so much has changed since then, but you’re still doing the same things you did as kids.”
Armin snorts, “There is a bit of a size difference between neighborhood bullies and titans.”
“Still, that idiot never seemed to care that he didn’t know how to fight. He’d still charge right in, even against groups of three or five. And by the time you or a soldier stopped him, he’d already be in shambles.” Memories of groups of bullies ganging up against Eren, only to be chased away by Mikasa flash when she closes her eyes. It was true, Eren has never been able to measure his ability or to weigh his options before jumping headfirst into a fistfight. With time, Eren had learned how to fight… but his judgment wasn’t any better. Hannes sighs and looks away from them and over the wall, “I never saw him win a fight, but I never saw him admit defeat, either. He’s so tenacious that it even scared me from time to time. Do you really think he’d let himself get carried off without a fight? No, sir. That’s not who he is…”
Hannes stood up resolutely, slapping his hands over his thighs, “Eren would fight with everything he had. And so will we. We’re only up against two guys. Eren will keep giving them trouble until you or I get there. Eren’s always been like that, right?”
This was probably the most serious Mikasa had seen Hannes, besides the day Wall Maria fell and he was the one taking Eren and Mikasa to shelter. It was quite an unusual sight, which made it the more inspiring. If a soldier like Hannes was willing to give it his all to save the kid he looked out for years back, why couldn’t she do the same for the most important person in her life?
“I liked those days…” Hannes tightened his fist, nails digging into his palm, “Being a good-for-nothing, drunk soldier was enough for me. I’d do anything to get those quiet days back, no matter how long it takes. And as long as you three aren’t together, I’ll never get those days back.”
The three of them together. Mikasa had gotten so tangled in her feelings of betrayal, anger, and sadness, that she had forgotten her mission: keep Eren and Armin safe. Nothing else mattered, not even her own life. Her emotions were unimportant as long as she was able to continue fighting.
Military rations were not known to be the most appealing meal, yet the dryness of it as her tongue tasted the cereals mixed on it was blocked and pushed to the side. Hannes was right. So was Armin. She has to be ready to attack.
Out of the three traitors, Annie was the complex opponent. And Annie didn’t manage to get away. So wouldn’t Reiner and Bertolt.
-
“Soldiers, charge full speed!”
Commander Erwin’s voice booms throughout the formation of riders running towards the Titan Forest that Hange suggested was Reiner and Bertolt’s location. Dozens of horses galloped in unison, stomping over the huge footprints that led them easily enough. Hange has been right; the Titan Forest was the place Reiner and Bertolt had chosen to lay low.
Right in front of them, Mikasa could count at least eleven titans waiting for them, creating a wall of death they were bound to crash against if they wanted to enter the forest. It seemed to be the least of their problems when blinding light emerged from the trees’ canopies.
“A flash!?”
“Soldiers, listen up!” Somehow Erwin’s voice was clear as thunder as he led the group, not even the sound of their ambush interfering with it, “We must assume that light it’s from a titan transformation! All troops deploy, our goal is to find and retrieve Eren! Do not engage, even if that cost your life!”
“Understood!”
The titans start to run in their direction, a second of absolute silence hitting the soldiers the moment the titans are within their reach. Ordered not to engage them, women and men were snatched off their horses by gigantic hands and jaws, each passing minute claiming the lives of more and more soldiers.
“Another Garrison soldier!” mutters Jean under his breath, dodging the small-sized titan that captured the men by his left. It was evident which soldiers had the experience in navigating swarms of titans, the Garrison and the Military Police that had joined the Scouts being the biggest part of their casualties.
“Forget about them! Don’t forget Eren is our priority!” Connie, for his part, secured the belts around his body as he prepared to use his ODM gear.
Connie was right, Mikasa had no time to worry or feel sorry for the fallen soldiers around her. Setting both her feet over the saddle of her horse, she used her ODM grips to shoot hooks that nailed into the ancient trees. With a click, she lifts off, leaving her horse behind to start the real pursuit.
“Phil! Keep the horses together!” Hannes orders, as she imitates Mikasa and glides among the treetops of the Titan Forest. More soldiers followed suit, leaving others behind guarding the horses that they would need to get back to the wall when this was all over. “The enemy should be headed out of the forest! Soldiers, scatter!”
A guttural growl echoes around each and every leaf they navigated, chilling everyone’s bones. It was unmistakable, it was a titan roar. The fight was about to begin.
The titan they find ahead is small, Mikasa notices, hanging from a tree branch by its long arms. The titan had long dark hair, and teeth that showed from its lips. It stood there, unmoving, only observing the soldiers.
“A titan here!?” a soldier unsheathes his blade as he gets closer to it.
“Please wait!”
Connie lands beside the titan, right next to its head. Inexplicably, it doesn’t move. Doesn’t even look bothered by Connie’s presence at all.
“This is Ymir! She’s one of the shifters they took! This is her titan form!” Ymir’s titan looked nothing like Eren, Annie, Reiner, or Bertolt’s. Its shape is primal, beast-like. The way Ymir hung from the trees reminded Mikasa of vermin. Connie stands on her cheek, yelling right to her face, “Ymir! Why are you by yourself? Where is Eren? Where is Reiner and Bertolt?”
Ymir ignores Connie, turning her head from side to side frantically, eyes scanning everyone around her. Whatever she was searching for, she was not finding.
“Ymir! Did you get away from Reiner and Bertolt?” Jean joins Connie, landing beside both of them, pulling at a strand of hair from Ymir’s head to get her attention, “Can you even hear us?”
“Come on! Say something!” Connie jumps from the tree and swings back to it, using the movement to kick Ymir in the head, “Say something, ugly! We are in a hurry here!”
“Ymir!” It’s until a newcomer screams out the name of the shifter that the titan perks at the voice, lashing her head to the left to find Krista joining the group. “Thank goodness, you are safe!”
Krista beams with that innocent and sunny happiness of hers, eyes shining with tears of relief. They all knew how important Ymir was to her, some even getting to know the deep nature of their relationship. So Mikasa is nothing else but baffled when Ymir leaps forward, opening her jaws and capturing Krista inside of them.
“She just ate Krista!”
Jean is the first to move, chasing after Ymir’s titan as it swings from branch to branch, escaping from them. “Do not just stand there! We must go after her!”
Mikasa follows Jean’s lead, tailing the titan. Something was not adding up, the Ackerman was aware that Ymir would never hurt Krista, “Why would Ymir…!?”
“I’m assuming she’s not on our side, she’s just taking what’s important to her.” Jean finished for Mikasa, as he blew another puff of gas to increase his speed.
“She’s clearly hostile, helping Reiner and Bertolt!” Before Mikasa could ask why, Armin answered for her, “She just lured us in.”
It is impossible for any of the soldiers to match the speed she moved with, her body’s design clearly adapted to rely on her swiftness and agility for combat. The complete opposite of Reiner’s titan and the perfect one to make a grand escape on the forest. Ymir increases the distance between her pursuers and her, climbing up to the treetops.
Another flash of light explodes inside the forest, and gravel lifts off the ground when the Armor Titan lands on the ground, fist-pounding the earth around him. Immediately after, Ymir falls onto Reiner’s back, securing her grasp over Reiner’s shoulder. Bertolt, for his part, uses the stolen ODM gear to hook himself to the titan. Reiner then, dashes off, leaving the forest behind and running into open ground.
“Oh no!” Mikasa stops dead in her tracks when she reaches the last tree available to grab onto. They were too late.
Hannes reaches them, and points down, “We’ll follow them on horseback! Descend!”
On cue, Erwin and the soldiers guiding the horses appear below them, letting the reigns of the solo horses go for them to find their riders. Soon enough, Mikasa swings her leg over the saddle of her horse once more, and rides behind Hannes, who takes the lead of the first squad back into the pursuit, “We’ve got to get Eren back! Even if it cost my life!”
That is a feeling Mikasa felt, too.
Erwin regains the front position of the pack, raising his left blade to the sky, “All teams! I don’t care if you’ve got titans tailing you, follow me!” Pulling his horse’s reins and bridle back, his horse neighs in a war cry as Scouts, Garrison and Military Police charge once again, with a horde of titans of all classes on their tail.
Mikasa rides in between Jean and Armin, who argue about how fast the squad can make his approach. “They are not going too fast, our horses can catch up with Reiner,” Jean argues, as the group manages to shorten the distance with every passing minute.
“If the Armor Titan sheds the hard skim around his joints, he’s going to be able to go way faster.” It is a valid concern for Armin, they have experienced it before. If Reiner lets go of his armor, the soldiers are outmatched by him in speed. However, Reiner seems a bit more careful this time around, not risking losing his shield for the time being. “The question is what to do when we catch up… we can’t stop Reiner without Eren.”
Reiner not stripping from his armor means he has zero weak spots the soldiers can attack with their blades. For as hard as they are, they are no match against Reiner.
“I’ll find a way. This time I’m not going to hesitate.” Mikasa lets her wrath flare, flowing from her chest to the tip of her fingers and toes. She sees red, a hunger for violence multiplying tenfold. Mikasa is going to defeat them, “I promise to kill them, Ymir included if she gets in our way.”
Both Armin and Jean go silent to her statement, which causes her to peek at Armin by the tail of her eyes. She senses the way Armin stares at her, full of concern, “Mikasa…”
It doesn’t matter. She’s made up her mind. Now it’s not the time to hold on to sentimentalities or ideas of capturing prisoners. Eren lives or dies as a result of what she does next, and she’s not inclined to let Eren slip from her hands. Focusing sharp eyes onto Bertolt and Ymir, Mikasa figures that if she can’t take Reiner down first, she can take Bertolt and Ymir. “I don’t care what it takes… This time, I’ll make it right.”
Hannes and other members of the Garrison make the first strike, hooking their gear to the scarce open flesh on Reiner’s ribs. When their blades make contact with the rest of the body, they shatter as if they were fabricated out of crystal. Mikasa knows better than to do the same, instead, she targets Ymir. Shooting out her hooks, she climbs up with increased speed, twisting around in a second and slashing Ymir’s eyes off.
The titan roars, her free hand covering the bleeding wound across her entire face. Blinded, Ymir can’t attack Mikasa, so the Ackerman uses her hooks once more to grasp onto Reiner’s neck, and lunging forward, she beelines straight to Bertolt.
Bertolt has a couple of seconds to react, leaping off just in time to dodge Mikasa’s blade by the skin of his teeth. When Bertolt turns his back around, Mikasa is able to spot Eren limbless, strapped to Bertolt’s back. This ignites a new fire in her, and she charges again in an expert attack, tensing all her muscles to put everything into the cut.
“Reiner, protect us!”
Mikasa grinds her teeth as her blades snap against Reiner’s hand, the titan covering both sides of his neck with hardened fingers. There is a small gap between the middle and index finger, that serves as a window for Mikasa to fully see Bertolt press against Reiner’s neck, putting Eren's face first against the flesh of the titan. She probably has the eyes of a killer when she does this, as Bertolt is absolutely terrified by the way he is sweating and shaking.
He should be afraid. They’ve never met this side of Mikasa before. The one that knows no mercy but death.
The hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and Mikasa drops from Reiner’s neck in time to avoid Ymir’s claws. Her healing capabilities are more developed than Eren’s, regenerating one eye first to join the fight. The fact that Ymir is attacking her is the confirmation she needs to know that Ymir won’t be spared, “I knew it, you were on their side all along, too. I’ll have to kill you first!”
She shoots her hooks Ymir’s back, and using her fast reflexes, she’s right up to Ymir’s face with a new set of blades when a dash of yellow blonde gets into her field of vision, “Mikasa, wait!”
Clicking the triggers in her blades’ hilts, Mikasa diverts her path at the last moment to land on Reiner’s head, hooking herself to the scalp of the titan. Having the higher ground, she leans forward, resting her weight over her right knee and left-fisted blade, “Krista, move aside!”
“No! Don’t kill Ymir, please!” The light body of Krista lands on top of Ymir, who grasps Reiner’s shoulders once more. With Krista on top of her, Ymir is stone-cold still.
Mikasa doesn’t have time for this, “Not to kill her? That depends on her! If she’s helping Reiner and Bertolt then I’ll kill her! I’ll kill anyone that gets in my way!”
“Wait! Let me explain!” The way Krista yells is improper of her, such a sweet girl has to resort to a desperate plea. Her watery eyes threaten to appease the Ackerman, being Krista someone that Mikasa has protected before, “Reiner and Bertolt will kill Ymir if she doesn’t do what they say! She doesn’t have a choice!”
Was Krista telling the truth? Was she saying it to fool Mikasa?
She doubted it, Krista was not the type to lie and deceive. This means that Ymir has no option but to fight her. She stops for a second, mind racing. Did she care about Krista enough to listen to her? Should she spare Ymir? Killing Ymir meant hurting Krista, deeply… Was Mikasa willing to hurt a friend?
“There are only so many lives I can value, Krista. And I decided who those people were before I joined the Training Corps,” In all reality, Mikasa was ready to hurt Krista if that meant saving Armin and Eren. It is naïve to think that in a world like theirs, people could get attached to others without being hurt in the process. Hunger, theft, illness, titans… many factors around them took lives each day. One had to be careful about who were those that mattered the most. And to be completely honest, nothing in this world weighed more in her heart than Eren and Armin.
The acquaintances she’s made on the Training Corps, her teammates… were just a blur of names and memories that she appreciates yet is willing to let go of if necessary. The one time she thought she could have someone else in her life to occupy one of those spots in her heart, she almost lost Eren because of it. So, yes, she was ready to hurt Krista, “Don’t ask for my pity, as I have none to give. I don’t have time to spare nor room in my heart for anybody else. So, tell me, are you going to get in my way, too?”
“I thought you would understand! Out of everybody, you know what it is like to have someone you care for on the other side of things!”
“Shut up, Krista!”
“No! You know that there is more in the line for you than Eren and Armin! Don’t lie to me, Mikasa! We are in the same situation!”
Mikasa’s breath hitches at Krista’s insinuation. By now, all the Scouts had been informed that Annie was the Female Titan. A traitor to Paradis. A prisoner rotting in a dungeon thanks to Mikasa. Krista had no ground to even compare that situation to Krista helping Ymir save her skin and kidnap Eren in the process. Not for one second will Mikasa entertain such an idea, “Unlike you, I know where my loyalty lies. And it lies with my only family left. You’ve left me no other option than to—”
Shining claws shoot straight to Mikasa, the woman climbing up to the top of Reiner’s head, looking down her nose at Ymir.
“Stop Ymir! Don’t fight back!” Krista blocks Ymir’s vision by placing her body right in front of Ymir’s eyes, who is trying to shake her off. Bucking her head, Ymir manages to bump Krista to her hairline, the girl hanging onto strands of hair for dear life.
Before Ymir attacked again, Connie, Jean and Armin joined Mikasa, circumventing both the titans while they assessed their enemies. Clicking her tongue, Mikasa jumps off Reiner as well, moving close to Reiner’s hands. From behind them, Mikasa could clearly hear Eren kicking and screaming, trying to get off the harness strapping him to Bertolt.
“Stop, Eren! Hold still!” Bertolt sounded winded, probably smooshed against Reiner’s neck at Eren’s frantic movements.
“You are asking for too much, you know it is impossible to calm him down.” Jean hung from Reiner’s jaw, trying to use his blade as a lever to pry the fingers blocking Bertolt open. “He’s loud and hopeless!”
Wouldn’t Mikasa know that. Particularly, that was something she hated about Eren. It was not the time or place to think about it. “Bertolt, give him back!”
Connie flew around, to land atop the interlaced wrists of the Armor titan. His fist pounded on top of the hardened skin over and over, Connie yelling loud enough for both Reiner and Bertolt to hear, “You bastards! Tell me it’s not true. Tell me you were not deceiving us all this time! How could you do this to us? We are your friends! We spent three years laughing and crying together, under the same roof!”
“Bertolt, you made bad sleeping posture into an art form! We predicted the weather with each posture. I can’t believe that a guy like you was a murderer! That we slept right next to the enemy this whole time!” Jean’s face hardens, growling his words trying not to let his voice break. They have been friends, good friends even. Most of the boys in the Training Corps looked up to Reiner and Bertolt as role models.
“Was it all a lie? What you said about surviving together? Growing old? Tell me, what were you thinking all this time!?”
“None of that matters anymore,” Mikasa cuts off Connie’s pitiful rambling, running out of patience at their lack of progress. They were speaking to Bertolt and Reiner as their friends when they were the enemy. They could skip the niceties and go back to business, “Focus on taking their heads off. If you hesitate because of your feelings, we’ll never get Eren back. They were never your friends. They are a threat to humanity, and that’s all.”
Jean and Connie freeze at Mikasa’s words, dedicating very conflicting expressions to her. It’s funny how Eren might have rubbed on them more than what they realized because their conundrum in regards to killing Bertolt and Reiner was the same one that Eren experienced with Annie. But just like Eren, they would have to get over with and start fighting seriously.
“Do you think that anyone wants to kill people!?”
Four pairs of eyes land on the slivers in between Reiner’s fingers, allowing them to see Bertolt’s frenetic grimace, “What kind of person would do this for fun? Who would want to do this? What we did, of course, you despise us and want to kill us. We’ll never be able to take it back! We have sinned!”
Reiner, consciously or unconsciously slows his pace a bit. For his part, thick tears roll down Bertolt’s cheeks, carrying the grime stuck to his skin, “When we pretended to be soldiers, we could pretend we were not killers. It was never a lie, Connie. You were really our friends! We deceived you, but it wasn’t all lies!” Bertolt goes mum as he desperately sobs, shivers jolting his body at the edge of a panic attack. Grasping his black hair, he falls on his knees over Reiner’s clavicle, “Please, someone save us… I’m begging you! Save us!”
“Bertolt,” Mikasa has heard enough of that pathetic soliloquy. Not a cell on her body cared about the fact that Reiner and Bertolt felt guilty about what they’d done. Black pupils fix themselves on Mikasa’s, desperate eyes growing darker at the frozen indifference with which Mikasa was looking back at him, “Cut the crap. We’ve heard enough of your lies, don’t try to play the victim card here, because you are not. The truth is you’ve killed hundreds of citizens of Paradis. That blood is in your hands and will never go away. Don’t try to ask for forgiveness or salvation. Accept your defeat and give Eren back.”
“I can’t do that.” Bertolt’s whisper is almost imperceptible in between all the noise around them, “Someone has to do this, and we can’t go home unless we do.”
“Then prepare yourself to die a painful death.”
“Mikasa, wait!” Armin shooshes her, with that determination of his whenever he has a plan, “Bertolt, are you sure about this? Taking Eren and fleeing, leaving Annie behind? You don’t even care about what happened to her?”
“What?” In two strides, Bertolt presses himself against Reiner’s fingers, face centimeters away from Armin’s, “How do you know about Annie?”
“We managed to capture her. The Scouts figured out she was the Female Titan and her background with you guys made you suspects. Annie made a huge that blew your covers.”
Bertolt’s face dyed in scarlet, the veins in his temples protruding, “That’s a lie! Annie doesn’t make mistakes!”
“Well, she did this time.” Armin delivers the information with such certainty that the lie is impossible to detect. Reiner and Bertolt had no way of knowing of Annie’s whereabouts after the raid on Stohess as they had been uncommunicated for over 48 hours. For all they knew, Armin was right. "It was not a smart move to join the Military Police. Her alibi after the 57th expedition fell rather quickly, and being the only trainee who was close to Eren joining the MPs we had all the information we needed to bust her. We have her deep underground in Utopia district, far up North.”
“No! That’s impossible! Annie would never lose a fight!”
“Well, she lost to me.” Bertolt turns to stare at Mikasa with his mouth slightly open, a drawn-out whimper falling out of his lips. Mikasa’s willing to roll with the lie to taunt Bertolt, “I finally set the record straight with her. After she lost, I cut her titan body into pieces one by one until I pulled her out of it without her arms and legs. I guess she felt exactly as Eren feels right now.”
“This is not true!”
“I don’t think you care much about her if you are willing to leave her behind. It’s okay, she’s not alone. I’ll admit she’s tough to crack, but even though her wounds heal I don’t know how much torture she’ll be able to withstand. We’ll find out.”
“You nasty bitch! Child of evil, I’ll kill you!”
Reiner hands lift and smack right into his collarbone, forcing everyone to scatter and take cover. Mikasa is about to drop down when Bertolt slams his chest to her side, arms securing his grip and forcing her to fall. She struggles against his grip, sliding her hands enough to get to the triggers of her blade hilts and shooting her anchors to grasp into Reiner’s scalp again. Metal chirps as her wires swung them without control, both colliding against Reiner’s shoulder. Using her knee to create space, Mikasa kicks Bertolt with the sole of her boot right in the middle of his chest, knocking him back, both Eren and Bertolt grunting in pain.
“It’s all your fault. Ever since she met you, you’ve corrupted her! You made her weak!” Bertolt trembles with unaltered rage, covering his left eye with his hand as he stands back up, “You messed with her brain, you used her as a puppet! All along you knew you could use her to get us!”
As evident as Bertolt’s contempt towards her was, Mikasa centered her attention on how Bertolt was freaking out about Mikasa using Annie and Mikasa finally beating her. His reaction is way beyond what she would expect from a comrade willing to flee without his friend. She pushes aside the uneasiness that it causes her, the bitter taste of thinking of Bertolt as more than a friend of Annie… If it kept destabilizing Bertolt, Mikasa had no qualms about messing with his psyche, “If anything, she was the one using me. Distracting me from Reiner and you, pretending to be one of us. But she’s not a great liar, is she? She got cornered by the Scouts and got thrown inside a cell like the rat she is.”
“Don’t talk about her like that!”
“You cannot stand to think that she got played on her own game, that she thought she could come on to me and use me for her advantage.” Pointing her blade towards Bertolt, her expression became gelid, “She’s just scum that I had to wipe out.”
The clash of Bertolt’s blade against hers was expected, but Mikasa underestimated Bertolt’s real strength. She is forced to take a sidestep to create an opening, crouching down to sweep the boy off his feet. Landing on his side, he’s unable to stand up fast as Eren shuffles and kicks in every direction, weighing Bertolt down.
“Too bad you won’t get to say goodbye.”
She doesn’t get to swing her blade to cut Bertolt’s head off as Reiner stumbles, making her lose her footing. Looking over her shoulder, she finds the cause: a swarm of titans are surrounding Reiner every which way, biting into the armor and clinging to him. The rest of the soldiers try to pull back, the number of titans gathering around them increasing alarmingly fast.
“Mikasa! Pull back!”
Deliberately, she deafens Jean’s screams as Bertolt manages to get back to his feet. Without thinking twice about it, she chases after him- as he seeks cover again in one of Reiner’s hands as Reiner fights off the wave of titans attacking them. She follows Bertolt as he circles around the Armor Titan’s neck and doesn’t pay attention to her surroundings, laser-focused on getting to Bertolt.
“Look out!”
When her brain registers the warning coming from Jean, her skin stands in goosebumps and her vision tunnels on Eren’s bulging wide eyes, the way he mouths something gag muting him. It is already too late. Her eyes widen as a shadow engulfs her, a hand materializing behind her back. As soon as her back meets the palm, fingers wrap around her without any restraint. She hears the crack of her ribs breaking before she registers the pain, acute and piercing like needles all across her chest and abdomen. Her lips open to let herself scream from the pain, but she can’t hear her own voice, ringing overtaking her ears in deafening volume.
“Dammit! Let her go!” Somebody yells, and they do something that gets the titan to weaken his hold. They also take her hand and guide her to fall safely back into a horse, her body completely slumping over the back neck of the horse. Barely conscious, she blinks fast to clear the fog clouding her senses.
Because of it, she doesn’t register the voice right next to her, “…re you alright?”
“Huh?”
“Are you alright!?” Jean repeats as he guides Mikasa’s horse away from the titan by its reins.
“Where is Eren?” Is the only sentence she can form right now.
“Still with Betholt, they are fighting off the titans.” Over her shoulder, she sees how Reiner and Ymir tag-teamed, finishing as many of the titans surrounding them as possible. At the same, other soldiers were galloping full speed at Reiner, attracting more and more titans to overwhelm the shifters.
“We have to get back, we need to retrieve Eren.”
“Are you nuts? You can’t fight anymore. I’m pretty sure you’ve broken every single one of your ribs.”
Stubbornly, she tugs at the reins of her horse for Jean to let them go. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t let them get away.” The boy clicks his tongue but concedes. Mikasa sits up straight, and has to bite her tongue to avoid groaning from the pain,
“Are you willing to risk that much just to save Eren?”
“Yes.”
Jean watches her for a moment, taken aback by the certainty in her. It doesn’t last more than a minute, but it reminds her of every time she has had to defend her need to protect Eren. And like everybody else, Jean doesn’t seem to understand, “I hope he is aware of that.”
The Survey Corps entered one of their classical formations, a triangle led by Erwin Smith himself. Mikasa and Jean regroup with their fellow Scouts and hurry their horses to gallop full speed toward the titans taking on Reiner and Ymir. His plan is rather obvious: use this moment in which the shifters had their hands full to subtract Eren.
“Soldiers advance!” Ordered Commander Smith, his blade aimed high as a war torch igniting the light of their fight.
It didn’t come without a heavy payout, as more and more soldiers were being snatched out of their horses and mercilessly chewed out by multiple regular titans. The agony in the screams of the men and women who were losing their lives was gut-wrenching, but there was nothing anyone could do. The idea was to come as close as possible, whatever it took.
However, when Eren Smith is the one captured by a titan, the Scouts falter on their march seeing their commander hanging from his right arm from the jaws of a titan.
“Commander Erwin!”
“Advance! Eren is right there, advance!” Erwin Smith was known for not fearing death, so now that he was in imminent danger he gave clear instructions to his soldiers— he came second, third, last… Eren was always first.
Following his guidance, Mikasa and the others continue their trajectory, a few soldiers pulling back to try to save Erwin. The platoon screams their war cries as they get closer, and when the distance is short enough, they switch to their vertical maneuver equipment to climb up through Reiner.
The Armor Titan was holding up again the see of regular titans surrounding him, and it’s interesting that while most titans would not attack each other, these titans seemed fixed on attacking both Reiner and Ymir. This provided a decent cover for the soldiers, as they were not the main point of interest.
Mikasa and Armin, gliding side by side, find Bertolt on Reiner’s left clavicle, Eren still attached to his back. Landing on Reiner’s head, they both see below how Bertolt has not noticed their presence yet.
“I’ll distract him, you make sure to free Eren. This is our only chance,” Armin urges Mikasa, as they see their defense lines diminishing.
Jumping from the head, Armin lands right in front of Bertolt. He seems startled, yet he doesn’t make a move to attack Armin.
“Bertolt, let’s get this over with. Let us help you,” Showing the palms of his hands, Armin indicates that he means no harm to Bertolt. Bertolt is smart, he knows that there is no way Armin could possibly win a fight against him, “If you surrender, we can protect you. We can help Annie. Didn’t you want that? Don’t you want to be saved?”
Keeping his position, Bertolt doesn’t lower his blade but remains still. His eyes are fixed on Armin, without blinking, “Don’t lie to me, Armin. There is nothing you can do to save us. There is no way Paradis would not condemn us.”
“You are wrong. If you help the Survey Corps understand what’s happening, you could fight alongside us.”
“That’s it, Armin. If you only knew what’s really going on here, why I am here, you would not let us join you.”
Armin gets quiet, trying to comprehend what Bertolt means. He takes a step closer, and Bertolt aims his blade higher, “Bertolt, you said it yourself. We are friends.”
“I don’t think you’d want to be friends with the Titan that opened Wall María six years back.”
Mikasa dives headfirst, quickly getting in between Armin and Bertolt. With her left hand, she pushes Armin off the ledge of Reiner’s clavicle, and with her right, she uses her blade to draw a cut diagonally on Bertolt’s chest. This releases the harness he was using to strap Eren to him. With no means to anchor himself to anything, Eren falls, and Mikasa is right with him. She catches up with him and hugs him by his waist, guiding both on their way to the ground and the horse waiting for them.
Once both are settled over the horse’s saddle, Mikasa presses the stirrups on each side of the horse to gain speed, as Reiner is now aware that Eren has been taken. The Armor Titan kneels and roars, reaching out to try and grab Mikasa’s horse. Checking her surroundings, Mikasa sees Armin and Jean riding on her right, and surprisingly, and armless Commander Smith right by her left, near Hange.
“Soldiers, retreat!”
As critical as the operation is, if they don’t make it back with Eren alive, all of this is going to be worthless. Soldiers gather around her horse, and she understands that they are acting as a shield for Eren. The boy is compliant, without the means to hold onto Mikasa as his arms are still tied out together, he rests his whole body weight on her. The touch of his body against her back shifts her ribs, each stride of the horse shooting electroshocks as her broken bones move and bounce. There is no time to slow down or hesitate. She has to get Eren out of here and fast.
“Watch out! Incoming!”
“What!?”
Something impacts against the ground, frightening the horses or even smashing the raiders. When Mikasa takes a proper look, she sees the body of a titan that fell from the sky.
“Is Reiner throwing titans at us!?”
As more and more titans rain down on them, it’s hard to run in a straight line. Eren leans closer to Mikasa as she attempts to navigate around the falling projectiles until one finally hits the side of her horse, sending both her and Eren flying. Landing on her stomach, her body experienced excruciating pain all over, making her dry heave and shiver. She curses herself, if only she had paid attention, she would be okay to fight harder. Like this, there is only so much she can do.
Getting herself under control, she looks around until she finds Eren. She can’t stand up but manages to crawl to him. He seems unconscious, reason Mikasa places her hand on his shoulder to shake him, “Eren! Wake up!”
Eren comes to, lazily opening his eyelids to meet her eyes. The dumbfounded expression lasts too little, as loud steps behind Mikasa startle him. Doing her best to turn around, she finds herself face to face to the one titan she faced so many years back when Wall Maria fell. Its ominous smile pulling taut across its whole face shows sharp teeth that back then had crushed Carla Yeager in two. Her eyes have a sardonic glee to them, as if all of this was highly amusing.
The titan keeps on strolling towards them and Mikasa has no means to fight. She orders her body to stand up and finish off the titan, but none of her limbs obey her. Her body is in a critical state, one that she can’t ignore. Without any resources to fight, she decides to do the only thing she can. She pushes Eren onto his stomach, flopping on top of him to shield him with her body.
She’s not going to let herself give up. If she can’t fight, she’ll protect Eren any way she can.
However, when the titan’s hand is about to reach them, a man gets in between them and the titan, cutting the fingers of the hand.
“Mister Hannes!”
“How often do you get a chance like this? You two just watch! I’ll avenge your mother’s death! I’ll butcher this thing to pieces!”
He takes off, using his vertical maneuver equipment to anchor himself to the titan and start some basic maneuvers circumventing flailing arms, “How I wanted to see you again! You’ll pay for everything you took away from those kids!”
The blond man glides around the titan, who uses both its arms to repel Hannes as if he were nothing more than a fly. He is not necessarily a bad user of his gear, but to someone belonging to the Survey Corps, it shows that his movements are ineffective and not offensive at all. The cuts he gets done are not strategically placed, a Scout would slash major tendons first to restrict movement before trying an all-in attack, but Hannes’ are random at best.
If he keeps it up, he’s going to get eaten. Mikasa won’t allow that, she can’t let the man who saved her die a fruitless death. Using her left blade to support her body’s weight, she raises to her feet with difficulty. She takes two steps before her vision becomes hazy and makes her sway on her feet.
“Mikasa, you can’t fight like this! You are severely injured!” Eren worms to her side, and scowls at her for her crazy idea of getting into a fight in her current state. She stares at him as he manages the way to sit up and wiggle his arms, “Untie my arms! Hurry! I have to be the one to do this! I need to be the one who kills that monster!”
Eren’s expression is unhinged, raw wrath pouring out of every pore of his body. His pupils have basically disappeared from his green irises, his eye ticking without control. She’s not sure if it is the best idea, Eren is not in his best shape to fight, and she thinks he’s still healing. Ever the same, she complies, using the tip of her blade to cut Eren’s restraints.
He springs up and runs closer to where Hannes is combating against the titan, raising his right hand, and biting into it.
Nothing happens, though.
This is shocking to both, and Eren tries again with the same result. “What?” Eren mutters as he proceeds to bite repeatedly his hand, fingers, and wrist in an attempt to transform. The blood staining his mouth also covers his shirt and rolls down his mutilated arm. Being unsuccessful, he tries again with his other hand, biting into his skin and tearing apart shreds of his skin, which he pulls from his hand. “What’s happening!”
“Eren…” Mikasa watches him inflict more and more wounds on his hands until they are split open completely. His desperation breaks her heart, and the way he continues on hurting herself makes her eyes brim with tears.
Hannes makes a clean cut on the titan’s back ankle, the titan falling to its knees at the lack of support. This unexpected movement is too pronounced for Hannes to dodge, and the titan uses this opportunity to capture the Garrison soldier. The titan follows the same pattern of actions as it did years before, leading its hand straight into its mouth. Hannes struggles and kicks his legs, but it is useless.
When the titan gets Hannes legs and hips inside its mouth, Mikasa knows it is over.
“No!” Eren’s roar accompany the crunching sound of a body being cut in half, blood and viscera spilling from the half that’s on the titan’s fist.
Eren collapses to his knees, fists banging the soil below them. He yells unintelligible words, his voice breaking over and over. As he laments on the ground, he out of nowhere starts shaking and laughing. The laugh is obtuse, so out of place that’s only proof that Eren is losing his touch with reality. Unsure of what to do, she keeps on watching how the titan finishes engulfing Hannes.
“Nothing has changed! I’m still completely useless!” In between hiccups and sobs, Eren pulls at the hair on his head, forehead pressed down, “I’m sorry Mom, I’m still a boy who can’t do anything!”
Mikasa hates to see this side of Eren, the one who has no pride in himself and doesn’t appreciate who he is. There are steps again behind her and it only means that the titan is up again and ready to keep on eating. This was it; this was as far as it went for them.
Surprisingly, this doesn’t alarm her. If anything, she embraces the fact that she got to this point. She survived the murder of her two families, she survived Training Camp. She got to experience life at the hands of her two best friends. There is a myriad of cherished moments that she got to treasure, even if they were in a limited amount of time. The world is beautiful because it is cruel, it allows you to navigate through it knowing that one day, you will die. Sooner or layer, everything in life is finite.
She’s done the best that she could with what she had, and death would take care of the rest. Everything she’s been carrying with her, the pain and the anguish… it will all go away in an instant. And a part of her is almost happy about that.
Yet, there’s still something she must do, “Eren.” She calls to him softly, and the boy sits up to look at her, with tears in his eyes. A small smile paints on her face, and she rests her fist right over her heart, “That’s not true. Listen to me: Thank you for saving me. Thank you for teaching me how to live.”
Eren doesn’t say anything, he lets the tears roll down his cheeks as he stares at Mikasa. She’s not sure where she’s going with this, what does she want to convey as a message to him. Only knows that she needs him to know that she owes her life to him. This beautiful and cruel life she’s lived… It’s all thanks to the boy who rescued her, “Thank you for wrapping this scarf around me.”
Her own tears gather at the tail of her eyes while she tugs the red scarf he gave her so long ago. It’s a token of his doings, of the one time it was him who motivated her to give it her all and to stand up and fight. Not sure of what else to do, she leans forward, hiding her face on his shoulder. If she has to die today, she’s glad at least she is right by his side.
“Don’t thank me yet.” Mikasa is pushed off Eren by his hands, getting to be at arm’s length from him. His face has changed, all traces of defeat erased leaving only his stubborn scowl. In one go, she is surrounded by steam, and Mikasa notices that his hands regenerate in a second, something he has never managed to do. With resolution, he stands up and walks towards the titan, “I’ll wrap that scarf around you again after I save you. I’ll do it forever.”
Although Eren is known to be impulsive, Mikasa never expected to see Eren throwing a punch at a titan. Strong as he is, he had no real change unless he was in his titan form. The smiling titan reaches out, hand going directly to grab Eren.
To her surprise, the punch actually deflects the titan’s hand.
When he recoils his fist to throw another punch and extends his arm again, a titan leaps over both and starts beating the smiling titan into a pulp.
-
From within the complete darkness, a blinding ray of light touches the earth and branches out right at the top.
In a second, everything is illuminated in a blueish tint. The next moment, everything is pitch black.
There was a jolt of something that ran through her body, a feeling so out of the ordinary that woke her consciousness up.
“…can you believe it?...”
“…well, the proof is inside this crystal, no?...”
“…Yeah but… It’s crazy…”
Annie faintly perceives voices around her— two, definitely male, and not ones that she recognizes. She’ll have to take a look to see if she can identify who’s there with her.
Who’s there with her… where?
Where is she?
Everything is so dark it appears that she has been out of it. What was the last thing she remembered?
Oh yeah, the wall, her attempt to escape. Her failure.
Probably, she was left unconscious. So, she needs to open her eyes and move to evaluate how fucked she is.
The thing is… she can’t open her eyes.
Nor move her fingers. Or legs.
No part of her body responds to her commands, even when she frantically tries over and over. Try as she might, her mind is not being able to control any single part of her body.
The darkness is the only thing she can acknowledge.
One idea is the only glaring thought running through her mind: she's trapped.
-