Lara (Long-Fic Levihan | Armin Arlert X OC)

Chapter 40 - Judgment

Sannes looked at Levi.

"You know, Captain... I also have a daughter... She was born eight months ago and it's the reason I get out of bed every day... When I look at her, I can't believe how I could be so blessed with such an angel. The only thing I deserved in my life was pain and suffering, for all I've ever done. But no... Every day, when I wake up and go to see her in her room, I'm greeted with the most beautiful smile I've ever seen."

Hange and Levi couldn't help but think about how this situation has happened to them several times. Lara no longer used a crib like a baby, of course, but every day that Hange got out of bed and looked at her daughter sleeping in perfect peace, for a brief moment, she seemed to forget that she lived in a world filled with the terror caused by the Titans. In those moments, she felt so much intense joy in her heart, that she did not imagine that such a feeling could ever exist.

The same could be said of Levi. Despite not waking up in the same room as Lara, every day, when they met at the refectory, Lara always ran towards his arms, with a huge smile on her face and shouting "Good morning, daddy!". Levi spent the rest of the day remembering those genuine smiles.

For a brief second, Hange and Levi wondered if they were any different from the man who had thrown their precious daughter outside the Walls in the middle of the night, to be eaten alive by the Titans.

Then, Levi ran his hand over his face.

"Time for a pause."

Hange and Levi left the torture room and closed the door. They walked a little down the corridor and stopped, looking at each other.

"Levi..." she began. "What have we don–"

"It's already done," he replied. His chin trembled and he clasped his hands.

"There must be another way..." Hange's eyes were red.

Levi seemed thoughtful for a moment, then, he said:

"Come with me."

Besides Sannes, they had captured another soldier who aided in Pastor Nick's murder, named Ralph. They placed him in front of the door where Sannes was locked in, so he could hear everything.

Levi lightly pressed a knife on Ralph's back and Hange showed him a paper to be read. Under pressure, Ralph read exactly what was written on the paper, which seemed like lines from a play, where each of them three had to say their lines. Ralph didn't quite understand why they were doing this, but with a knife pressed to his back, he read it all straight.

The paper faked a conversation where Ralph said he had already told Hange and Levi everything he knew, because he just couldn't stand listening to Sannes talk about peace and the king anymore, and he was asking them to kill him at once. From inside the torture room, Sannes listened to everything, perplexed by his colleague's "betrayal". Little did he know it was all a Hange and Levi's game.

When they got back to the torture room, Sannes finally told Levi and Hange everything. Their plan had worked.

Hange took Sannes to the same cell as Ralph. When the two colleagues saw each other, they started to slap one another, for Sannes was completely outraged that Ralph had "told" them everything and betrayed him.

Then, while Sannes strangled Ralph, Hange explained to them that it was all a plan, that she had asked Ralph to read a fake text, to make Sannes tell everything and think that his colleague had betrayed him. The two men were perplexed. Hange turned away to leave the dungeons.

"You monsters!" exclaimed Ralph.

Hange stopped and looked at him.

"Maybe we really are..."