"Are we ready to have ourselves a party?" You asked, opening the door to the boys' bedroom and raising an eyebrow at the chaos inside. For some reason, everyone had chosen to inhabit this room instead of your room – or even the girls'.
"Are you entirely sure we're leaving tonight?" Sasha said, pulling the strap of her bag higher on her shoulder as she kicked a pair of Connie's shoes away from her.
"Entirely," you said, baring your teeth at her. "Now, Petra, I think I asked you for something?"
Petra dug around in her neatly-packed bag and threw a few packs of dye in your general direction. You snagged them easily. "Dare I ask why you need hair dye?" Petra ventured, leaning towards you. You were nearly about to answer before Connie cut across you.
"She doesn't like to answer things outright – don't believe anything she says."
Isabel snorted, eyeing Connie with a frank disgust that was amusing to see. Sasha merely nudged the boy with her foot, flicking her brown eyes deliberately to Marco – who was merely standing against the wall, as he had been for what you'd predict to be most of the night. Right – they had all come to the decision that this was Marco's fight to pick with you. Not anyone else's. "As charming as that notion is," you replied, bagging the dye that Petra had brought, "I just need it for some children in addition to Mikasa and Christa. To keep them safe, and all."
"You're dying Christa's hair?" Ymir repeated, her eyes flickering in warning.
"It's only temporary," you said, waving a hand. "It's only meant to last long enough to get her out."
"So she gets out, but not Jean," Marco hoarsely muttered, before nodding to himself. Ymir shot him a look of pure dominance, signalling to find some other topic to grouch about. You straightened at the quiet doubt, more than ready to go up to the boy and fight about it. You were sick of being doubted and sick of being snapped at.
As you opened your cruel, smirking mouth to begin making Marco suffer, though, Petra caught your eye and raised an eyebrow.
That one movement stopped you dead in your tracks. It said that she understood, she really did, about what you were thinking. It was hard to have people hate you – she would know. But with the lift of one slender eyebrow, you heard the unspoken question of 'do you really want to do this?' as loudly and clearly as if she'd said it out loud. So instead of going to fight, you merely took a long breath and forced your posture to relax.
Your allies were few and fragile. Already, they were splintering from you – and that was the last thing you wanted to happen. So you would not prove them right in your hot-headedness. You would let them think whatever they'd like – but you would not prove their misguided thoughts correct.
Petra relaxed at the same time that you did, falling further into what must have been Armin's pillows. You shot her an impudent glance that you knew would amuse her and began walking back to the door. Isabel shied away from Ymir to walk with you, her steps light and quick.
"Why do you need dye? Really?"
You looked at Isabel with an exasperated sigh as she closed the door to the girls' room behind her. "I literally just said – I need to get Mikasa and Christa disguised. We're all leaving tonight."
"All of us?"
"I'm going with you," you nodded, making your way towards one of the children's rooms. It took you three steps to realize that Isabel was not at your side any longer; you turned slightly, eyes finding her easily enough. She'd only stopped a few steps back.
It took you a beat longer to realize that when she'd asked if all of you were leaving, she wasn't really asking about you. For a moment, you weren't sure how to feel about that.
Then that moment ended, and you began to get angry.
"You're more worried about Jean," you stated. "I forgot you only liked me when you needed something."
"Don't be so shallow," Isabel snapped right back. "You know how I feel about you because I'd wager that it's the exact same way that you feel about me. But that means that you know well enough that I'm acting so stubborn because I cannot stand the fact that you might leave Jean here whilst we all leave tomorrow."
"I said," you repeated, beginning to walk back away, "that we are all leaving tomorrow."
"Can we trust what you say?"
That pulled you up short. "I've only lied very few times – all of them to protect myself, none of them to hurt others." You shot her a jaded glance, pleased to find that she was at least nodding at your words. She saw that you were still walking slowly away and nodded – to you or herself, you didn't know. "Jean is mine just as much as he is yours," you said. "And I've already said – we're all leaving tomorrow."
With that, both of you turned to go into separate rooms – Isabel to go back to the team awaiting her, and you to go and see which children were the fastest runners.
***
You threw a few more clothes into the bag, coughing at the scent of smoke wafting out of your window. All the pages of writing had been burnt – now only a pile of ashes in the fireplace, the only mark to all of your plots. You were throwing in the same things that you'd brought here in the first place. So many things you'd bought whilst you'd been down here – and none of it truly for you.
They'd do their jobs working for you, those items that you'd bought. In the long term, it would all be worth it.
You got dressed, as well. Gone were the ratty, wrecked clothes of black. Instead, you pulled on the brown leathers that were fine enough to hint at wealth, but practical. The only thing that you allowed yourself to take that was truly decadence was the ring – the seal ring that told everything who you were.
Ruler of the Underground.
Collecting titles was rather a nice hobby, you decided. Princess of Titans, Ruler of the Underground, Pride.
There was a light, hesitant knock on the door as you finally finished your packing, placed the last knife into a sheath inside your jacket and took a breath. You swaggered over to it, not quite ready to open it – because opening it meant that all of your plans would be put into place.
Olyver didn't wait for you to open the door, though. He came through, his hair slightly greasy and skin waxy, as if he'd forgone a night of good sleep in favour of stressing throughout the dark hours. "Good morning," you dryly greeted him, leaning back against your desk. Olyver took a few beats to scan you and the way that you were dressed, the bag that was on the desk behind you, the tidy and clean room.
"You're really leaving, then?"
"That's what I said I'd do," you replied, trying to ignore the way that your throat tightened. The tawny-haired male swallowed and shut the door behind him. "Do you know what I'm going to ask you to do?"
"You're going to ask me to stay here," he said. You didn't expect to feel the guilt that you did as he said those words. Leaving him here meant that he still would not see the sun or the sky; leaving him here meant that he was still trapped within the Underground, without passes or hope of freedom.
But leaving him here meant you had someone to oversee the changes that you'd made in just two weeks. It meant that you actually had someone here to trust with information coming in and going out, that you could rely on him making the right decisions when it came to the children and the house and the rules.
So you lifted your chin and looked Olyver straight in the eye, forbidding yourself from going back on this decision that needed to be made. "Yes. Will you stay here?"
Olyver let out a trembling breath and leaned against the doorway, brushing his arms with hands that might have been shaking slightly. "I have a choice?"
"We always have a choice – but there is a right one in this situation. And that's to stay here and be my ears, my mouth, my mind. It's to stay here and be mine when everyone will try and break what I've done here, when they'll try to overthrow and twist what little good has been done."
Olyver blinked.
"All of the people here – the Seven Deadly Sins. They're all mine, whether they accept or know it or not. I claim them; they're my friends, my team and would be my court if I were royalty to humans. You are a part of that – a part of Team Sloth. As such," you continued, smiling gently at Olyver drawing himself up, "you answer to me, because you are mine. And whilst that means that you do have a choice, it also means that you have to think about other people other than just yourself. The Seven Deadly Sins do not operate as you're used to in the Underground; we were unstoppable as a team because we functioned both as individuals with strengths, but because as a team we looked out for and cared for each other."
"You and your pretty speeches," Olyver snorted, but you caught the glimmer in his eyes. "You knew that this was going to happen the moment you broke me out of jail, didn't you?"
"I knew it would probably lead to us having to part ways," you said, turning and rummaging in your bag for a few moments. "But it's better to have had and lost, rather than never had at all. Right?"
You chucked something at him, and he fumbled with the small thing before holding it up to the light and grinning widely at what he saw. "I'll stay here."
You bared your teeth at him and nudged him away from the door with an elbow. "You're a bad thief, and a slightly better cleaner. But you're mine, Olyver." Your eyes flashed to your side for a moment, and your heart was lightened to see him fasten the leather bracelet around his wrist with a sense of pride. Two charms hung from the band – the smooth blue stone shaped as a 'S' as well as the silver star. "I thought the star really connoted the sparkling of those staircases after you cleaned them," you supplied, grinning at his infuriated look.
"And the 'S'?"
"To remind you of your good old team Sloth, of course. Now, I've made a deal with this guy called Kenny. He said he'd help run the place, so you won't be alone. But send letters to me at this address and not through him – he could read them and alter anything." You handed him some wedges of paper, with the address you planned on going back to.
You'd reached the staircase, and it was then that you fully turned to him and hugged him tightly. For a moment, he was tensed solid – but then he softened, as if realizing that this would be the final moment he'd be seeing you for a long, long while. "Goodbye, Ruler of the Underground."
You sketched a bow as you disentangled yourself from his arms and took a few steps down the stairs. "Goodbye, Olyver of Team Sloth."
***
"I hoped that you'd at least look super pale," you said, your voice verging on annoyance as you looked inside the room. "But no, you still look gorgeous."
Christa blushed and made shooing motions with her dye-stained hands, taking a lock of dark brown hair between her fingers and twisting it around, eyeing it bemusedly. "I've never actually dyed my hair before," she said, scrunching her nose. "I don't think brown's quite my colour."
"You think brown is bad?" Mikasa's cool voice said, before she too came around the corner. "Try having this colour."
You nearly choked as she came around the corner. The dark red of Mikasa's dyed hair did not work in her favour, but it turned out that red was the only colour that would function with her pitch-black hair. But in that moment, when Mikasa Ackerman came around the corner, she wasn't your classmate anymore. The hair was the exact shade of red that brought back a tidal wave of emotions and memories.
You missed her ebony hair.
But that was not the memory you wanted to have – ebony hair linked so closely to red meant someone else.
But Orion's mother was no longer here – and she most definitely was not Mikasa Ackerman.
Christa stuttered a few times, trying to find the positives of having dark red tresses, but forwent any true attempt. "It's only for today," you tried, strolling up to her and ruffling her locks, "not for the rest of your life."
The girl set those unforgiving eyes on you with a brief promise of death if you continued the touch. You quickly removed your hand, holding them up in what you hoped was a picture of innocence.
Mikasa's sharp eyes went straight to your left hand, where you were clutching something. She met your eyes with slight surprise.
"I made these in one of the rare free afternoons I had," you said, holding the leather bracelet from a finger. "It's a different leather from everyone else's, but it's still... You know."
Mikasa took the bracelet, and Christa's eyes shone as she watched the impassive girl study the charm. "It's a pomegranate?"
"I just tried to make a fruit," you confessed. "I think it's the thing that symbolises life and pleasure and the small things. I think you should grasp them for yourself, fight for it – you know?"
"And the red L?" Mikasa probed, fastening the bracelet around her slender wrist. Christa cocked her head, searching the charms and indeed finding the ruby 'L' hanging from a ring. You smiled at her and lightly chucked the other charm at her, watching as she fumbled with it before setting it on her own bracelet without a second of hesitation.
"To remind you of dear old Team Lust and the fact that you are part of something bigger."
Christa sighed and smiled at the sight of her rose charm alongside the 'L'. You almost didn't want to begin talking, begin the process of ordering them around. But there were more important things to do today besides give out pretty charms. "So, now that you two have successfully got the guards running around after you, thinking that if they found you then they'd find the stolen passes, I have one last job for you to do."
Christa raised a delicate eyebrow, concentration layering her looks. Mikasa merely smiled thinly, coming to stand behind her. You shot a quick look behind you, checking that Team Wrath weren't near. It had only been seven in the evening as you'd arrived, smirking at them all desperately snatching at sleep, napping in the kitchen on blankets and pillows that they'd undoubtedly stolen from somewhere. The girls had been given the bedroom.
You'd sent Team Wrath to drop off the weapons with everyone, before heading towards the south part of the Underground, with strict instructions. They weren't due back here – if all went to plan, they shouldn't come back here at all – but you weren't going to take any chances.
You smiled winningly at Mikasa. "Do you remember that empty wallet?"
Mikasa's answering baring of her teeth was striking. "It wasn't empty."
"No, it was not," you agreed. "And you're about to find out what was in it."
***
A few hours later, you knew that the time to start your operation had come.
You were still in Levi's house, taking in the last moments of peace. Around you, silence was ruling your friends, who were all a mass of tension waiting to explode. So many things could go wrong – and if all of those around you thought that they'd break Jean free without it severely impacting their chances of survival, they were wrong.
All of you were crammed into Levi's small three-roomed house, although Team Wrath and Lust were away. You stood up, ignoring the way that the house seemed so empty without all of the clutter of someone living there.
"Okay," you said, the word holding all of the power as it broke through the dominating silence. You held up a small bag first, taking all of the differently coloured stones in their varying shapes and passing them out to each person. The yellow 'G' for greed, the pink ones for gluttony. The green 'E' for envy and the blue 'S' for Ymir. "We're going to go and cause some hell."
"I hear it's very nice this time of year," Armin said, elbowing Sasha idly as they both fitted their new charms onto their bracelets. He fiddled with his other charm – an open book – before letting it swing freely.
Petra turned from where she was gazing out of the window, her own bracelet showing a sun. "Sorry, I wasn't paying attention. Where's nice?"
Connie didn't bother to play along with the playful mood. "Hell."
"Ah."
You coughed lightly, pointedly. Then you drew the swords that Gunther and Eld had given to you, motioning for people to draw their own as you opened the door and you all pooled into the street, the brown cloaks marking you all as people not to be tested. You locked the door behind you – not that it would stop anyone in the future from entering and doing what they wanted.
As you led the way through the street towards the south of the Underground, you murmured the information to the rest of your group. "I discovered that there's a pit of titans that have infiltrated this area, and I know where it is. We're going to go and slaughter them all."
You didn't blame Sasha for turning steadily pale. Petra didn't flinch; she just gripped her swords tighter, her mouth straightening into a grimace. "How'd you find it?" Ymir asked, her voice carelessly blunt.
You didn't want to think about the little tip that Kenny had given you. Instead of telling them all the truth, you hedged your next few words. "The guards know where it is – they're just too scared to actually go and face them all. I found it out because I knew their patrols like the back of my hand, after all of the children had told me all of the routes. Did you know there's an area that they specifically avoid? I went to go and snoop around and found it immediately." You snorted, shaking your head at the ease of it all.
"I wondered what you were always doing when we were out," Sasha grunted.
"What is Team Lust doing?" Ymir asked again, although she may as well have been asking straight about Christa.
"They're going to be in two places at once, really. First and foremost, they're the bait. We need the guards to help us slaughter them all," you said, smirking at Isabel as she rolled her eyes. She didn't like the idea that you needed help any more than you yourself did.
"But you've dyed their hair," Marco said, his first words in a while. "How can they be bait?"
You whistled sharply, and two children raced from the archway that you were all steadily approaching. Ymir swore as she saw underneath their dark hoods and saw hair that had been dyed Christa's shade of blond, and Mikasa's shade of ink black. They ran past you, heading towards the guard's quarters to raise the alarm.
"They're two of the fastest children that we've had," Ymir remarked – she'd know.
You hummed in agreement. "The guards' tensions have been the highest these two weeks because everybody knows about the two beauties that had them falling over themselves and then stole passes from them. I needed a reason to drag the main might of their numbers towards a certain area that they'd rather not go – and two beautiful women, who have stolen from them, who have humiliated them to the public? Perfect."
"Why do they need to be there at all?"
You didn't blame Isabel for the prideful question. "If we did it on our own," you answered, taking a left pathway that was mercifully empty, "then the people would fall over themselves to respect us. They'd mock the guards and soldiers for being weak – maybe even rebelling, if we played it right."
"What's the problem with that?" Connie, this time, was the one at Isabel's side and asking the sort of questions that you may have once done.
"We're leaving," you said, simply. "We won't be around for them to worship and follow; the guards will. The guards will be following our rules and laws from now on – Armin and Sasha have made sure of that, by altering the laws over the past week and getting them official. So why would we get rid of the miniature army that – whether they are aware of it or not – are following us?"
"You've managed to scheme yourself into an army, the laws and an official title." You winked at Petra as she summed it up. She slid her wide eyes to the boy at her side, but Marco did not seem to be in the right mood for admiring your plans.
"All of the money that Wrath and Greed have amassed through legal or illegal means is going into either maintaining my own house, the children, and the food market. The Underground will soon become safe, self-sustaining in food, and soaring in economy if it all plays out well. Gluttony made the laws for the city to follow, and we're about to win the guards' approval by securing them a victory against the titans, so they'll be willing to enforce it. Lust became the bait and were the figureheads, and Envy secured our way out."
You all walked in tense silence towards the south side of the Underground. It wasn't until you halted in the middle of a narrow alley that the silence was broken. "Team Wrath, once I give the signal, are ready and in position to begin riling the titans up. They're going to lead them down this very narrow alley – where an open mouth will be filled up by us."
"I hate fighting titans," Sasha groaned.
"Luckily," you said, "they won't be at their full strength."
Armin sighed. "What do you mean by that?"
"It's eight in the evening, and I can assure you that they're all spectacularly drunk. That, and they're fighting us. We are the Seven Deadly Sins," you said, softly. "We are not afraid."
You lifted the two swords that Team Wrath had stolen from the guard houses. They were heavier than your daggers or knives; the extra reach that they provided, however, were necessary in the close quarters of the alley.
Sounds of people running very, very fast approached you, and you gave one last cursory glance to the people around you. You held Sasha's gaze. "You take three people and you hold that line. No matter what happens to anyone else, you hold that line. The titans must not be allowed to escape from this slaughter, otherwise this'll just get worse. This ends with you."
Sasha nodded, her mouth falling into a flat line. She jerked her head at Connie, who in turn motioned to Armin. You winked at the blond boy as he blew out a breath of air, walking to the back of a very large group of people. He could strategize and bellow orders from the back, you realized. And Connie paired with Sasha – those two would not allow that line to break. Armin and Connie drew their swords, Sasha unwinding a cruel whip from her belt as if she, too, knew the power in her group alone.
Nothing prepared you for the soft exclamation of Petra as Eren dropped down from the roof. At the little shriek, you were already whirling, wondering how something could have crept up on you. Isabel had raised her rapier as well – not to strike the incomer down, as you had attempted to do – but to block your blow.
Eren blinked as he came to the realization that the only thing separating your swords and his chest was Isabel's lightning reflexes, paired with rapier that she'd drawn in a heartbeat. "Come to think of it," he said, his voice surprisingly steady, "I should have probably warned you all before I dropped in like that."
"You think?" Ymir snapped, watching as Isabel lowered her blade and looked at him disbelievingly. "Anyone would have taken your head off."
Eren shrugged, and you could practically hear Armin grinding his teeth in annoyance of his lack of caring. "Team Wrath is in their positions on the roof, ready to take on titans from that position. The guards are thirty seconds away from running into us, the majority of titans on their tail."
"The children?" Ymir asked, to which you started for a moment.
"They're safe and hiding, ready for their next part," he answered, coming to stand beside Isabel and take up a battle stance. "The guards really thought they were the two girls they'd been searching for."
"People see what they want to, sometimes," Ymir remarked.
With that, you all clutched your weapons tighter as the squad of guards sprinted around the corner. Most of you parted, allowing them to run past – but Sasha and her team did not move from their positions, blocking the narrow alley. "There are titans coming," one of them panted, pleading with the impassive Connie.
"And we're going to deal with them," you said.
"You can't, girl, there are too many of the-"
You didn't allow yourself to turn around, to watch the realization of who you were creeping upon the guards' faces. Instead, you watched the titans round the corner, their own weapons flashing and cloaks flying behind them in a cloud of black. "Too many for you, perhaps," Isabel replied, her rapier flashing in the meagre light as she angled it towards the left.
The titans weren't going to stop, to take in the sight of new enemies.
So you started the run towards them as well, heading straight for the middle. Isabel took up position on the left, Eren and Marco on the right. At the last possible moment, you whipped your body to the right of the middle, dodging past their guard and swiping low, aiming to slice and tear rather than stab and seriously wound. Distantly, you could hear the sounds of swords clashing and people shrieking – but you couldn't focus on that.
No.
You'd seen the red of the titan's blood and suddenly, it was everywhere. You knew perfectly well what this urge was, what was making you move your feet with such brutal simplicity. The slight throbbing in your head as you rolled on the dirty floor and slashed at tendons in the leg was not due to lack of sleep or dehydration.
The blood lust was awakening.
Everything was tinged in red. The titans kept pushing forward, and you realized what the tang in your nose was.
Alcohol.
The beasts were drunk off of their faces, and it made them so deliciously easy to kill. You didn't bother glancing behind to see if anyone else picked up on it – picked up on the fact that Team Wrath had done their part in stealing the alcohol and Team Envy had done their bit in smuggling it right to the titans' doorstep.
Normally, perhaps a shred of decency would make you pity the things that were probably seeing two of you instead of the one monster. But the urge to dance faster and swipe harder was pressing on your lungs and chest, tightening it so that you were forced to take gleeful, sharp breaths. There was an end to the onslaught of titans; you'd reached what had been the end of their wave, and now turned back to fight the ones that you'd injured and run around like they were little more than novices figuring out which end of the sword to hold.
Your friends were fighting like hellions, and now that the red tint to your vision was fading, you could appreciate and notice how far they'd come in a single year. Isabel's rapier was little more than a blur; she was following the opposite of your style – stabbing briskly and surely into any place that she could. Rapiers were not built for slashing; only the fastest and slightest people could wield them with as much skill as Isabel was doing right now. The titans she dealt blows to didn't die fast – they made it twenty more seconds, fighting other people that were ready to cover Isabel's holes in her defences, not knowing that they'd been fatally hit until they likely fell to the floor and wondered where the pain was coming from.
Marco was more built for defence. He parried blades that the titans were throwing, forcing them off-balance so that Eren and Petra dove in for the kill without a second thought. Ymir's style was blunter, more of a reluctant 'get away from me' swipe of her sword. She was driving the titans towards the others, you saw, dividing them into sections so that no single person was being overwhelmed or standing around doing nothing. As you watched, she even sent a few titans stumbling their way towards the guards, who clearly felt inspired enough to try their luck against titans who had clearly been drinking not ten minutes before.
The slashing in your hearing was not from blood lust, you quickly realized as you drove a sword through an unsuspecting titan's throat. Sasha's wrist would flick for a single moment, and then a titan would be down on the ground before an assailant, the kill easy. Connie was normally the one to venture a little further from the arch, swiping across the fallen titan with a mere disgruntled look that informed you of his awareness that the kill had been too easy to be normal.
Titans were killing machines, bred and educated for war. And yet here they were, dying as easily as flies, their bodies littering the already dirty alley floor. You had no qualms about killing the ones that had suddenly decided that they were indeed too immobilized to do anything but provide targets for the swords that came together.
Cloaked bodies were also dropping occasionally from the rooftops, the team that you couldn't see but were still doing their job. You were sweating now, the effort of constantly ducking and dodging wearing on you.
And fighting back that blood lust.
You knew that if you let it take over, then Belua would take over too. And she would wreck whatever you'd built. The blood lust was a titan attribute, drilled into you from birth – if you accepted that titan within yourself, then it could overpower you.
As much as you'd finally accepted that your past did exist and that you were indeed who you were, you didn't want to own it just yet.
You turned from the titan you'd just stabbed, watching as Marco downed the final one with a look of scared disgust. He gripped his arm in the way that told you he'd been hurt, and a brief pointed glance at Petra had her stepping lightly over to him to see his wound. The rest of your team stood still, chests rising and falling with the effort of pulling off that slaughter as they had. They allowed you to look them over, scanning for any and all injuries that had been bestowed. Eren was sporting a slice on his neck that likely wouldn't scar if he looked after it properly, and Armin had a bruise dusting his cheekbones. Sasha was flexing her wrist, although you supposed that it was more due to strain than any hurt caused by a titan.
The guards didn't speak until Team Wrath dropped from the roof, their swords splattered with blood. Levi's lip curled as he dove into his pockets for a handkerchief, wiping the blades with a cloth that he dropped on top of the bodies once he was satisfied. His eyes found you, then slid around the group as yours had done.
"There are still some left in the actual pit," Eld said, kicking a body to the side. "I'm assuming we're going in for them as well?"
Ymir snorted as Connie stretched his arms above his head. "I'm ready for round two," he groaned, rubbing his neck as though it were a mere chore.
"You – you're all – going back and fighting more?"
You shot the guard who had spoken with a grim look. "Not exactly. The ones that are left are the drunkest. You are going to fight the ones left."
"We were just trying to follow these two thieves," another one piped up, eyeing a body of a titan that Ymir had likely led to him to kill. "But we stumbled upon them – they were being angered by something, and it had caused them to crawl out of their usual hideout."
Your lips set into a thin line of disapproval, ignoring the fact that the "something" they were being angered by was Team Wrath acting on your orders. "We've already practically destroyed the nest," you said, stepping closer to the huddle of guards, lightly and pointedly stepping on the little floor that was not covered in blood or cloaked bodies. "You just need to call reinforcements and take care of the stragglers."
"What?"
The word was echoed by the guards, whilst all of your friends merely roused themselves and got ready to set down the road that would lead them into more death. You shrugged. "Tell everyone that you destroyed the titans, or don't. I don't really care – all I care about is that you make sure every guard knows what we started here for you, what is owed to us. People will give you respect – respect that you'd been struggling to get for quite some time. So own it, take it – but never forget who gave it to you."
The guards looked too stunned to nod, but you could pinpoint the exact moment when they came to a unified agreement anyway by the way that their shoulders slumped and eyes lit up. Then Ymir's eyes fastened on something behind them, and they turned.
You allowed yourself to widen your eyes in shock, as you saw a pretty blond-haired girl and a black-haired, slightly taller girl peek around the corner. The guards' mouths gaped in shock and glanced at you.
For permission.
You waved a hand. "We'll deal with the thieves for you. You guys call for your other soldiers to come and help you finish up here."
The guards didn't wait. A couple of them splintered off to indeed gather reinforcements, and the rest began heaving the bodies into the gutter. You and your team turned and started to run after the two girls, who both thankfully did not react to the subtle wink you gave them and flew away on wings of silence. You elbowed Isabel, who huffed in annoyance.
"We're heading to the courthouse," you panted in between breaths, knowing that the rustle of movement behind you was everyone joining your team. The two girls twisted themselves down an alley that you knew would eventually lead them back to your house, where Olyver was surely waiting for them with cups of soup. "Hang a left here."
Isabel didn't bother answering as you both cannoned down the left road, heading towards the main square.
By the time you all reached the courthouse, all of you were out of breath. Connie was hanging off of Sasha's arm, looking like he would topple over any moment. But you were slightly impressed, despite yourself – a year ago, back in the start of Assassination Academy, none of them would have even managed half the distance you all just covered.
But there was no time to compliment them on it.
You and Levi met eyes as he opened the doors for you to all troop inside, the sizeable crowd inside instinctively parting for all of you, with your blood-spattered cloaks and weapons peeking out from their covers.
"Why are we in the courthouse at this time?"
"It's time for Jean's trial," you answered.