Family

Chapter Eight; Injury

"Eren, open up! Quit hogging the bathroom!" Jean shouted, banging on the door loudly.

No answer came from inside.

Mikasa and Armin exchanged worried looks, and the stood, walking towards the door.

"Jean, let us through." Armin said, gaze fixed worridly on the door.

"Fine. If you think you can get the idiot out, be my guest. He's probably crying or something." Jean muttered.

"Eren, ope-" Armin started, but was cut off by Mikasa placing a spinning roundhouse kick on the perfect center of the door, splintering the wood and sending it flying off the hinges in a crash of broken wood.

Sasha whistled.

"Damn. You're scary." She complimented.

Looking inside and seeing the cut and removed window screen, Armin and Mikasa shared another exasperated look.

"He's up to something." They both muttered in union.

******

Eren was, indeed, up to something.

He was flying through the air on his Manuver Gear, feeling the wind whip through his hair and the adrenaline pump through his veins. Everything seemed to be in sharp detail, and it just made the dusk look more inviting and unwelcoming at the same time. Every star, every tile on the roofs, they seemed so clear. It was like Eren was seeing everything again for the first time. He was high on his exhilarating freedom, the feeling that he was flying, like he was a bird, and he could just spread his wings and fly away, over the walls and the titans and the dangers of the world. Eren had always longed to see the outside world; the white crystal sands of the deserts, the salty oceans, the dense forests, the rolling plains. Someday, Eren vowed, he would see it. He would rid the world of Titans and go outside the walls without a care in the world and explore.

But, thinking of leaving made Eren think of his family, and friends, the people he'd have to leave behind. And that made him think that maybe his life inside the walls wasn't so bad. Maybe he'd go visit the outside world, then he'd come back. His own version of an expedition.

Smiling, Eren sped towards the city. He couldn't wait. He was going to bring down a titan before he'd even finished training. He was going to make Levi proud.

******

But in the city, Eren's happy atmosphere quickly changed.

There were bodies littering the streets. Bloodstains on the concrete. He heard a scream, and saw somebody get bit in half by a titan, swallowed in two bites. A fine spray of blood rained down from the titans mouth, and suddenly Eren had a faint recall of a blurry, faded memory. One of bloodshed and death. A white cloth partially blocked his view, but he saw a glint of a silver blade, a scream, two familiar looking people-a man with emerald green eyes and a woman with chocolate brown hair-failing. He saw a glimpse of a cruel smile and insane eyes.

Eren didn't know it, but he was remembering his biological parents death, which he had blocked from his mind unconsciously to prevent further emotional trauma. Their murder.

Shaking the memory off with wide eyes, Eren realized he had it wrong. He'd always had it wrong. Fighting Titans wasn't the thing he'd pictured it to be, easy and almost comical in his mind. Something inside him changed, then, as the warm blood fell to the pavement. He hardened. Eren understood, then, why his father hadn't wanted to expose him to this cruel world. He understood why his father always had an emotionless mask.

Sterling his nerves, Eren dove into a running leap into the air, the steel cables of his Manuver Gear sinking home in the nape of the titans neck. In a flash of silvery steel, the titan fell, dead, along with a wedge of flesh, and Eren emotionlessly wiped the hot blood of his swords before shooting off again.

******

Thud.
Thud.
Thud.

Three titans fell, in almost perfect union, and Levi wiped the blood off of his swords, even though they were sticky and hot with blood seconds later and another titan fell.

"Petra, Oluo, I'm dispatching you two to Wall Maria's gate, where the Colassal Titan broke the wall. Stop as many as possible, but I don't want any heroics. If they start to overwhelm you, fall back. Gunther, Eld, you two protect and evacuate citizens to Wall Rose." Levi said, earning four simultaneous calls of "Aye, Sir!", in response.

Then he casually stepped off the side of a steep-roofed building, falling at an almost suicidal rate towards the concrete. Without even blinking, his Manuver Gear leveled him out and he shot forward at an extremely low altitude. Wrapping the steel cables around the titans legs, causing them to crumble, Levi sliced the necks of them all before they could even hit the ground.

Four more dead. A thousand more to go.

******

Fourteen titan kills later, Levi was running out of blades.

He was still good on gas, but he only had one spare blade left, and he was about to head back when he spotted it.

An Aberrant.

It had a soldier in its grasp, and looking at the mangled body, Levi knew whoever it was, they were dead.

Deciding one more kill wouldn't hurt anything, Levi raced forward, cloak fluttering slightly in the rapid speeds at which he moved through the air.

He whirled, planing to slice the nape of the neck and finish it fast and efficiently, when it turned, faster than Levi had anticipated.

Levi made a split-second choice and had to sever his own lines, so he fell to the concrete in a roll. But the minute he landed, he felt it. A searing pain, a tearing of muscle and ligaments in his left ankle. Letting out a mixed cry of startled pain, Levi felt his leg give way beneath him.

The titans did fist came down, ready to pluck Levi from the ground where the pain was clouding his ability to think, when a flash of silver and the shh-chink! sound of metal brushing metal reverberated through the air.

A boy who looked much to young stood defensively in front of Levi, having just severed the titans right hand from its arm.

The boy had close-cropped black hair, sunkissed tan skin, and wore the uniform shared by both trainees and full members of the military. The boy looked much to young to be a member of the Survey Corps, yet he wore the green cloak to prove it. He was strong, yet agile too. There was something familiar Levi couldn't place about him...

The boys back was to Levi, and Levi could not see the boys face. But through a hazy cloud of pain, Levi managed to get to his feet, leaning heavily against the crumbled wood of a now-collapsed building.

The boy had just begun to turn, and he did not see the titans other hand flying towards him, not to grab him, but to seat him to the side. Levi did, though, and he tried to call a warning. But he was too late.

The titans hand connected with the boys small form and sent him flying into the nearby brick building with enough force to make the entire brick wall collapse on him.

That cleared Levi's head, pain or not. The young boy had just saved him, and it was time for Levi to repay that favor.

Using a tricky move, Levi whirled sideways and up the titans arm, cutting deeply the entire way. When he reached the nape, Levi cut and the blades fell with the titan to the concrete.

Hobbling as fast as his leg would allow, Levi hurried to the brick wall and began to dig the soldier boy out.

When he froze.

Laying half-out of the shoulders brown jacket pocket was a simple, black pocket knife. Engraved with the letters E.J.

Turning the boy around so Levi co Yu of see his face, Levi's heart leapt in fear and excitement.

His sons green eyes gazed back at him.

But they were glazed over.

When suddenly, the black-haired boy with his sons eyes let out a shuddering breath and a racking cough, eyes fixing weakly on Levi.

When he uttered something that made Levi's blood run cold and would haunt him forever.

Gripping Levi's hand, the black-haired emerald-eyed boy whispered, "Papa?"