"And now, it is time for us so execute these two volunteers who dared to turn against the Eldian empire!" Floch says to the gathered crowd of the Eldians of Paradis.
My head is now wrapped in a thick gauze, which is probably completely soaked with my blood, and a few other wounds have opened up again, I didn't know healing was reverse-able. It's scary but I honestly don't care.
Floch points his gun at Yelena. "This criminal is named Yelena! She went against Marley and helped Eldians but her true intentions were to support Zeke's Euthanasia Plan!"
The crowd yells profanity and curses at her, calling her rude names and cursing her family. "Any last words, Yelena?" Floch says, cocking his pistol.
"Are you going to shoot yet?" Yelena asks monotonously.
Floch moves on to Onyankopon. "This is Onyankopon! He worked hard for Eldia, ignorant of the Euthanasia Plan. He dared say he'd choose death over a life serving the Eldian empire!"
The whole scene was sickening. What's the different between Eldians and Marleyans if we're going to be just as oppressive?
"If you've changed your mind, now is the time to-"
Floch's sentence gets cut off by Onyankopon's laughter. "I assisted Eldia in order to save my homeland from Marley! To help all of you as well!" He cries, eyes glistening with tears. "And because of my assistance, my homeland and family will be slaughtered!"
I glance to my right, at Jean, who has stepped closer to Onyankopon. His hand grips a gun. I don't know why he insisted on having me stand close to him.
"Every one of you here has to know! The outrage that is sudden, indiscriminate murder! Why do none of you understand?!" Onyankopon turns his head around and Jean raises his gun to his head. "Say something, Jean! (Y/N), please!"
I turn my head away from him to keep from acting irrationally. The tears and desperation in his eyes made me want to save him but I couldn't. I'd probably get killed.
Jean fires his fun four times. Boom, boom, boom, boom. I flinch and keep my eyes glued to the cloudless blue sky. So vibrant for such a ruthless, morbid day.
"Damn, I missed..." Jean murmurs from beside me, causing me to look back at Onyankopon and Jean.
I raise an eyebrow at him. You never miss, Jean. He glances at me and intakes sharply.
"What... Are you do-" Floch gets cut off by screams and yells of panic. I turn my head to see the Cart titan flinging Jeagerists left and right.
Jean grabs my wrist and pushes Floch back just as the Cart leaps forward, opening its abstract mouth and clamping down on me, Jean, Onyankopon and Yelena.
"It smells so bad..." Onyankopon gags and I resist the urge to follow suit when the bad stench of the Cart titan's breath reaches my nostrils.
At this point, I'm bathing in its saliva, but I don't care about that. I can feel Jean's grip on my hand tighten as he pulls me closer in the dark.
The four of us gently rock back and forth as the yells and screams of soldiers fade away, replaced with the Cart's heavy breaths.
"Was this planned, Jean?" I ask him quizzically.
"Yes, ma'am," he says overenthusiastically. "Didn't get time alone with you so I couldn't inform you."
The rocking stops and then the Cart's mouth opens up. Pieck drops us into a pond and I gag, trying to wash off her sticky saliva from my body.
"I'm never getting in a titan's mouth again..." Jean grumbles, hunched over and coughing his lungs out.
"The Cart can stay in titan form for months at a time right?!" I hear a familiar voice. "Don't you ever think to brush your teeth?!"
I whip my head around laid my eyes on the unbelievable: Hanji, standing tall and firm, in front of the Cart, scolding her.
"H-Hanji!" I resist the urge to cry as I get up and stumble towards her.
"Aw, my little (Y/N)!" She giggles and engulfs me in a hug without hesitation. "You're kind of stinky but that's okay! I love you anyway." She swings me side to side in a comforting manor.
"What about Levi?" I ask as I pull away from Hanji. She gestures behind the Cart titan and my eyes widen.
I turn around quickly but when I'm met face to face with Theo Magath, I deadpan. "Well, if it isn't Sasha Amana," he mocks.
"Theo Magath." I click my tongue and push him aside, desperate to see the only one that grants me hope.
He lay on a makeshift wagon attached to a horse, a blanket thrown over him and half of his face bandaged. I walk closer to him and realize his eye is wide open and he's staring at the blue sky, blinking slowly.
"Levi...?" I couldn't believe my eyes. Perhaps it's an illusion? Maybe I fell asleep or passed out?
But when he turns his head and his eye looks me up and down, the feeling I get is too realistic to be fake.
"(Y/N)..." His voice is muffled but coarse and followed by an abrupt hiss, causing me to rush forward. His brow turns upwards, he's obviously in pain.
"Levi, you're alive!" I cry, refraining from touching him in case I hurt him unintentionally.
He hums and doesn't say anything further than that, but his eye stays on my face studying me.
He slowly raises his hand and I quickly notice that his index and middle finger is gone. His whole hand is trembling, bandaged and bloody, but he delicately presses it against my cheek anyway.
"You must think I'm..." He heaves a heavy breath. "So ugly and... Pathetic." He grimaces, his hand shaking even more from the pain he's in.
"Levi, you need rest." I speak as softly. "I don't think you're either of those things and I never have."
His thumb grazes the skin under my eye gingerly and I cover his hand with my own, finally feeling at peace.
I take off the gauze from my head as the wound heals shut and my blood evaporates.
Levi's hand falls to his chest, where he rests it with his other hand. I smile down at him and though I can't see his lips because of the gauze, I know he smiled back by the way the apples of his cheeks swelled pink and the corner of his eye crinkled.
It felt like I hadn't smiled in ages, and I'm glad Levi is the reason why I'm smiling right now.
He continues gazing up at me with affection but also sadness. I let out a sigh of relief and rub my tired eyes. I hadn't gotten a blink of sleep last night, but I didn't know if it was because I was forced to sleep in the same room as Floch or because he had confirmed Levi's death.
Either way, I'm just thankful to have him back.
After a few hours, when the sun started to set, a few horses appeared in the distance and Hanji cheered when they finally stopped in front of us.
"Annie?" I look her up and down. Today's just full of surprises, isn't it?
Her blonde hair is longer now and no longer in a bun, she looks weak and frail but I hug her anyway, as softly as I can.
She sniffles into my chest and hugs me surprisingly tight.
"(Y/N)!" Falco yells, who stands behind Annie. His head is bandaged and he looks weak as well. Connie stands beside him, wearing a sheepish look.
Annie's grip on me only tightens but she pulls away after a few seconds. As soon as she does, Falco wraps his smaller arms around my waist and hugs me tightly.
Mikasa hands Annie a waterbottle and she hungrily drinks from it.
"Is Colt safe?" I ask Armin and Mikasa. They both nod in unison and inform me that Colt was transferred to an infirmary.
Reiner looks down at me with a smile, studying my now-healed wounds. "Glad you didn't give up, (Y/N)." He tells me, rubbing his tired eyes.
I continuously steal glances at Levi's sleeping form as I help Hanji set up a fire. She had caught a rabbit in the forest and offered to make us stew with the little resources the Cart had on her.
When the fire was finally ready, everyone sat down around it and I pulled the makeshift wagon Levi lay on towards the fire.
He stirred a bit as I did, but he quickly fell back asleep after humming incoherently.
"He has a fever," I say to no one in particular. "Did you guys bring painkillers?"
They all stay silent and I frown, sitting down on the slightly damp grass beside Levi's wagon.
"Instead of staring each other down, could one of you help me?" Hanji says as she unevenly slices a carrot into the cauldron above the fire.
"Sure, Hanji!" I say cheerfully and begin to peel vegetables for her.
"To think we'd all be here, eating a meal together after all the time we spent trying to kill each other." Magath sighs, shaking his head.
"It's interesting," he continues, reaching for a bottle of liquor. "What changed your mind? You know you'll get the world you want if you just let Jeager go. Heaven for you island devils."
"Like I explained, General," Hanji sighs. "None of us want genocide. We wouldn't have scurried off to a forest to lay low and make stew if we did."
"So you're saying you finally understand whose side justice is on." Magath states calmly. But it hits a nerve in me.
"Justice?!" Jean and I yell in unison. "So we were the bad guys for fighting the titans you kept sending over to us?!" Jean continues.
"This is all Marley's fault to begin with!" I exclaim, flailing the knife in my hand around. "All we wanted was to survive. All we wanted was to not be eaten alive until that one fucking day where Marley decided to send innocent brainwashed children!"
"Yeah, and you're calling us devils?!" Jean's voice is as loud as mine.
"Yeah, you do look like devils to me. All our concerns about Paradis have come true and now you're working on destroying the world. This is the result of all your hard-fought battles, is it not?" Magath just continues to run his mouth.
"No, because if Eren's mom hadn't been eaten alive, he never would have done this!" I continue to bicker with him, but as I say the words, my hatred for Eren bubbles away as well. It really isn't his fault.
"You're the ones who backed him into using the Rumbling!" Jean supports.
"Oh." Magath leans forward, setting down the liquor bottle that was in his hands previously. "So, now you wanna talk about history? You understand that Eldia were the first to devastate Marley and its people, right?!"
Jean stands up abrupty and glares down at the dark haired Marleyan, "How long are you all going to play victim over something that happened two millennia ago?!" Jean growls.
"Ugh, it's like I'm talking to a child."
"Excuse me?!"
"Hey, stop it," Hanji interrupts and I glance at Levi to see him stir in his sleep a bit. "No one wants to hear you bicker about something none of us saw two thousand years ago."
I let out a sigh and draw Levi's blanket higher up his chest to keep him warm.
"The General is baffled by our mere existence. The existence of us strange devils who are so desperate to save the people that wanted us dead."
Annie stands up suddenly. "Does that mean you can kill Eren?" She asks. Everyone stays quiet. I discreetly pour the vegetables I had cut up into the large pot and Hanji stirs it silently.
"Killing Eren isn't the only way to stop him." Replies Mikasa.
"Yeah, I thought you'd say that." Annie says blatantly. "Then what? Are you going to convince him? I don't think someone that commits mass murder will change his mind easily."
"We don't know," Armin interjects. "Not until we talk to Eren."
"Okay, then say you're able to speak to him. What if he doesn't listen?"
"I'll eat... him...?" I ask, a bit unsure.
Annie turns her icy eyes to me. "He's the founder. What if he takes away your powers?"
I sulk, biting down on my bottom lip, trying to think of a solution.
"Mikasa, I doubt you have ever even considered something to be more important than Eren." Annie continues.
Mikasa growls, stepping closer to Annie. "So you're saying I should die?!"
Before she can get any closer, Annie raises her hand to show her ring, which she previously used to transform before being locked into a crystal.
"I... Understand how you feel..." Says Annie. "But I only want to stop Eren so I can see my dad. I don't want him to die."
Mikasa turns on her heel and walks back to her spot beside Jean and Armin. "Okay." She murmurs.
Hanji stirs her stew one last time, "Alright guys! Stew is readyyy!"