...Trusting Pt. 2...
Mikasa's screams put an end to your beauty sleep.
Through your blurriness, you could make out two figures. A big, blond one, and a smaller one. Then you watched as the bigger consume the smaller. Yum, you mindlessly thought.
But then you gasped, realizing it was Annie and Eren. You quickly got up on your feet but immediately collapsed back down on all fours.
A shadow loomed over you. "You're the only one left?"
You glanced up at Levi and mustered up a smile. "Moral Support forever, right?"
"Tch. Try not to move around too much." He took you under his arm and sped off. Then by the same way, he grabbed Mikasa. "Stand down for now."
Once she got out of his grasp, she saw your state. "Y/n? What happened to you?!"
"I know, not my best moment. Don't tell anyone."
"Your head!"
"Yeah, I'm becoming a ginger soon."
"Brat, stop talking," Levi told you, then turned back to Mikasa. "Maintain current distance. She's slowed down. Looked like she bit the entire nape off. It's unlikely Eren survived."
"He's alive," you said. "He's not dying that easily."
"For once in my life, I agree with Y/n on her delusions," said Mikasa.
You snorted. "For once in your life?"
"If she wanted him dead, she could've just crushed him. But she needs him for something. And it looks like she's storing him on his tongue because she still needs her hands to fight."
"Or she just got hungry," he suggested.
"Yeah, I'm sure Eren tastes real delicious." That was the last straw your brain needed to click itself back into its normal shape. "I didn't say that," you quickly added. "I'm not in the right mind. No one heard that."
"I said stop talking."
You groaned, annoyed. "I've already got one Ackerman on my ass telling me to shut up every day, and now there's another one? Does it run in the family or something?"
"We're not family," "Never met her in my life," they spoke at the same time.
"And you." Mikasa sharpened her gaze on him. "If this 'Captain' of Eren had only done his job then none of this would've happened!"
"I was preoccupied during this mission. Taking care of your friend was more of Y/n's job. Going to scold her too?" He waited for a response but she gave none. "Tch. Anyway, for the sake of all of us, let's narrow our goals. First, forget about taking her down."
"She's killed too many! She needs to be taken down!"
"She's got defenses none of us are trained to deal with. If Y/n were in her right state of mind and good shape, then perhaps I would've reconsidered. But look at her. She's spouting nonsense, her hair's drenched in her blood, and she doesn't even have her blades."
"I can still take yours if you've got something else to say." You reached out your hand but he held his blades out of the way.
"You, Red Scarf, take Y/n." He handed you to her and she took you under her arm.
"Look at him, trying to compete with me for best attitude-" Your jaw slackened as you watched Levi enter the fight. Now you finally understood why they called him Humanity's Strongest. That man fought like how you killed animals. Easy, quick, without a second thought. Though you still had some ways to go with killing titans, you were sure of one thing: I want to fight like him one day.
Finally taking her down, he slit her jaw open and took Eren out. "I got him! He's alright, but filthy. Let's take the injured lovebirds back to the carts."
"Oh, you tiny little..." You reached out your hands, trying to claw at him, but he was already gone.
"Don't even try to deny it now," said Mikasa, heading back with you. "Even your own Captain thinks that too."
"Not you too-"
"Shut it, Y/n. Rest for a bit or else you might actually die in my arms. And then I'd be forced to tell everyone about your state right now."
You cursed under your breath and closed your eyes.
* . * .
When you awoke, a pair of dark eyes were staring down at you.
"That's creepy, Mikasa. How long have you been standing there?"
The worry that lit her eyes extinguished in an instant. A scowl replaced her expression. "Go back to sleeping."
"I wasn't. I just shut my eyes because they were hurting a little."
"That's literally a sign for you to get some more sleep."
"No it's not. It was because of my stupid fall." Your hand went up to your head, feeling bandages. "You patched me up?"
"Not me. Captain Levi did."
"Oh. Isn't he nice. So are you just going to stand there forever or what?"
"You're not the only one I'm here for. Eren's still passed out."
"Where is he?"
She clicked her tongue, her gaze judging you harshly. "Seriously? You say that you were awake the whole time yet you never realized you're lying right next to each other?"
You lolled your head to the side to Eren, bandages around his own head, sleeping silently. "Oh. Then maybe I was sleeping a little after all." The surface you were lying on was wood, so the two of you were most likely in a cart. "So this is how the mission ends? Damn it, I really wanted to find that blue-eyed bitch that embarrassed me out there."
"Blue eyes?" she questioned, leaning in. "You saw what the Female Titan's human form looks like?"
"Barely. But she had blue eyes. Not like Armin's warm ones, though. They were cold. Like ice. And she was a little shorter than Levi. That's really all I observed back there."
She nodded. "I think that might help us a lot in finding who she is. I'm going to get Captain. He said to tell him when either of you wakes up," she said, then she left.
Moments later, Levi peeked over above the cart.
"What's up, sir?"
He glanced at Eren who was still unconscious.
"The rest of the squad didn't make it?" After a beat of silence, he nodded. "Damn. And I kind of liked them all." You glanced down at a cape covering you as a blanket. "Don't tell me this is yours."
"It was Petra's."
"Oh." You remembered seeing her get crushed into a tree. And the images of the rest of their deaths. "I tried going back for them," you told him. "I really did."
"If you're trying to apologize, don't. There's nothing you can do for them now. Nothing but to stay alive and live on. So rest up. We're heading back."
You were sitting upright during the ride while Eren was still out cold. At one point, red smoke fired up into the air and a few abnormal titans were catching up. The cart behind you decided to throw the corpses of the dead Scouts out to trip up the titans. One of the faces you caught a glimpse of was Petra. Then another one was Oruo. And then Gunther. And then the rest of them.
You clutched Petra's cape on your lap a little tighter. This tiny little wretched feeling boiled in your stomach. Took you a bit to realize what it was. I think I'm finally getting a taste of what it feels like to lose someone.
There were no tears because you had only spent a month at most with them. But you were already hating this feeling. Made you wonder if the consequences of caring about people would make you possibly regret it one day.
By the time Eren woke up, Mikasa was resting with you both in the cart. "Where's the Female Titan?" he asked, frantically glancing around.
"She got away," said Mikasa.
"Butâbut what about the mission?" His eyes set on you. "And what the hell happened to your head?"
"You're one to talk," you said, poking his identical bandages.
"It didn't go as planned," Mikasa told him. "So we're heading home."
Back in the walls, the crowds already had something to say about the Scouts coming back sooner, and fewer. Then something caught your eyeâtwo children, staring at you admiringly. The same kids who saw you from the house this morning.
Shit, that reminds me! You straightened up and raised your chin as if you were a warrior who had just won a war. When you smiled at those kids, they smiled back and waved. It had almost slipped your mindâthe promise you made yourself back in Shiganshina. To show them all what a real Scout coming back from battle looked like.
Eren suddenly took your hand in his. Somewhere along the line, he must've started crying because his other arm was covering his face and the wood underneath him was tearstained. You didn't know if he took your hand because he was just reaching for something to hold, or if he truly just wanted to. Regardless, you tightened your grip, and he tightened his.
Looking at him, someone so close to you, you found yourself understanding why the rest of Scouts had always looked so defeated. You had assumed they were just focused on being losers but really, losing was the last thought in their minds. They were all just grieving for the people they lost.
This won't be me, you told yourself. I won't let myself become like them.