The Queen of Pain - Levi Ackerman

Chapter 10

"About time you asked." Hanji piped up. "Here's the plan. Anna will go first into the church with Eren. She'll pretend to have captured him and give him up as Hysteria. One of us will be close by to listen in on the conversation she has with Kenny and Elizabeth. I'm sure there'll be lots of other enemies around with that anti-human manuver gear, so half of us need to create a diversion with smoke guns while the other half take down the enemies using the smoke as our coverage. Everyone understand?"

"I just hope Hysteria doesn't grow a mind of her own." Anna sighed, rubbing her temple. "I want all of this over this. How soon can we get there?"

"About an hour-"

"Let me drive." Anna insisted. "I can get us there in twenty minutes."

"Tch! Do you intend on murdering us all on your spontaneous urge to seek revenge? Trust us, Anna, we all want to kill them the same as you-"

"I don't necessarily want to kill them. I just want answers. Answers I've been searching my entire life for. Honestly... I don't quite buy the fact that I'm royalty. I can't be... Historia..." Anna glanced over to the blonde. "She's much more believable to be the Queen. If it came down to it... I would surrender the throne to her."

"You'd give up such power?" Levi seemed a little offended. "What? Are you scared or something?"

"A little..."

"Pull yourself together, Kasahara. This is your legacy! Your birthright! We didn't come all this way just for you to get scared. Understand that so that our comrades don't die tonight."

It was shocking. Truly, to see Levi scold her was an unimaginable sight. Normally she'd be snarky when replying, but she lacked the will to do so. Instead, she nodded and followed his order. "Yes...sir..." and she surprised him by referring to him as sir rather than "Levi" or "darling".

"Goodbye, guys! And good luck!" Ruby waved as she mounted her own horse and rode off towards the docks. "Huh?" Anna hadn't even noticed her leaving until she was already riding away. "Ah- Good luck, Ruby!" she shouted.

"Ready to go?" Hanji asked her. "Yeah. Let's get this over with."

"There it is," Hanji mused as the group of soldiers approached the abandoned church. "It's much smaller than I expected." Anna narrowed her eyes, glancing around the open fields surrounding them. "Huh...no guards. This is suspicious." Hanji and Armin creaked open the door to the church, peeking inside. "All clear," Armin informed.

Anna pushed them aside and stomped in, twirling on her heel as she scanned the layout of the place. "Everyone," she raised her voice enough for the whole squad to hear her. "There's a secret passageway somewhere in here. Check everywhere." she ordered.

It was a small church, so it was no surprise that it only took a few minutes to find a rug near the alter with a corner flipped up. "I found it!" Jean shouted. Hanji was the first one at his side, helping to pull up the rug that was covering the opening. "A hidden entrance," Hanji spoke. "Kenny and Elizabeth should be beyond this. Hopefully the layout is as I anticipated."

Levi and Anna were beside her, yanking up the trap door to the secret passageway. "I hope that taking that roundabout path and bringing along those souvenirs were not in vain," Levi remarked to his friend.

"The preparations are complete, sir," spoke Armin. "I see," Levi acknowledged, sharing a mutual glance with Anna. "Well then...so, are you guys ready to get your hands dirty as well?" Anna snuck one last glance at the squad, all of whom looked nervous but determined. "Looking good," Levi mumbled.

"Let's go, Jaeger." Anna grabbed him by the back of his shirt and hopped down into the passageway with him. "Stay close to me. We need to make this convincing." she muttered lowly. Eren nodded in agreement. "Yes, ma'am."

"There's only 8 of us..." Anna spoke to herself. "There must be at least twenty of them. Dammit...if only Ruby we're here, she could get a reading on how many of them there are before we entered a Battle Royale...." but Anna shook away her thoughts and approached the wooden door before them. "Ready?" she asked one last time.

Eren nodded. "Let's do this."