A/N: Ah I really don't know what this is sorry. It's like... a half-assed attempt at angst or something. Also the ending is open to interpretation.
They come to him no longer children, young men and women worn and beaten down from the troubles of war. They are soldiers, veterans, heroes some might say, but heroes fight monsters and battle crime and return with hearts shining full of hope for a better day.
His squad does not dare voice its hope. Its members stain their swords with human blood and whisper in their sleep and shake in the darkness of night. Armin makes ruthless plans that could rival Erwin's, sending hundreds into the open arms of death, and others carry them out with Eren at the forefront as Mikasa kills anything that stands in the way.
They are younger than his first squad, but they are tougher already—they are not the most elite of the soldiers, they are not his sharply honed blades with four gleaming points, but they are killers and fighters and so they live on.
Levi watches them, watches them grow harder and tougher and colder, watches the life drain from their eyes a little more each day, and he wonders how much longer it will be before they all die.
x.
Sasha goes first, between one blink and the other. The others scream and call her name but she cannot hear them through mangled ears on a head crushed between a Titan's teeth, and the others sob over her body for hours afterwards.
Connie is quick to follow, caught in a giant grip as he swings to kick Historia out of the way, and when Levi catches his glance one last time before it disappears down a throat slashed too late, he thinks of a frightened boy with a frightening story and three words: good work, Connie.
Historia is traumatized by the event and spends days locked up in her room without eating, rarely drinking. When she appears again, her hair is limp, blue eyes more hollow than ever, her gait shrunken and body curled within itself, and the others try to coax her into swallowing some food, taking a walk, but she looks like a silent, motionless skeleton.
When she vanishes without a trace a few days later, the others try to track Ymir down but Levi thinks they are both as good as dead.
x.
Jean has always been there—getting into stupid arguments, enforcing his opinions, bickering with Eren like they are an old married couple, but he is also the one to stand up for what he believes is right and protect the others—and somehow no one expected him to go.
"You can't do this," Eren is saying, holding Jean's hand as Armin holds the other and Mikasa strokes his hair. "Why'd you join the Legion in the first place, huh? To fight! So get up and fight, you bastard!"
Jean just laughs; he chokes on the sound and blood bubbles from his lips. "Fuck you, Jaeger," he rasps, and Eren stifles a sob.
They leave his body on the ground when the Titans come chasing after them.
x.
"You… you need to write a book," Armin says. "You need to describe it in detail. For me."
"I will," Eren promises, his eyes wet and lips trembling. "Dammit, Armin—"
Mikasa clenches her fists, sets her jaw, but her gaze is infinitely sad as she takes Armin's other hand in hers as he talks on. "You need to live to see it," he breathes. "It must be beautiful… I've always imagined it would be like looking into a sky of moving stars…"
The light fades from his eyes and his words trail off mid-sentence, mouth half-formed around the word ocean and Levi turns away to let them mourn.
x.
"Don't cry," Mikasa whispers, a soft smile on her lips as she tries to reach for Eren's hand, but her fingers tremble and still. Levi finds it almost amazing how she can still talk with that gaping wound in her abdomen, and though her eyes are glazed and her breath is ragged her voice remains serene.
"You idiot," Eren hisses, tears streaming down his face. "Why'd you do it, Mikasa—"
"I told you," she murmurs, "I only want to protect you. Don't give up, Eren—fight. Fight and win."
He takes her face in his hands, kisses her forehead and her nose and her cheeks and cries, and Levi has to drag him away from her dead body.
x.
"Did I do well, captain?" Eren wants to know. "Was I useful to humanity?"
Even on the brink of death the brat is asking questions, Levi thinks, and he doesn't know if it makes him want to laugh or glower. He has seen so many die, he is no longer surprised when he finds someone he knows well in pieces on the ground, yet he remembers the fierce, determined boy with the eyes like green fire and the Titan that helped them and something clenches in his heart.
"You did more than enough," he says quietly, and Eren smiles and closes his eyes.
Levi buries the boy's body himself next to the empty grave he visits every month.
x.
"It's only fitting that we're going now, huh?" Hanji smirks and coughs weakly. "We shouldn't have outlived the kids anyway."
There is too much Levi wants to say, too much he cannot say, and he settles for taking both hands in his and holding them so tightly he hopes his grip hurts. "Shut up, four-eyes."
"Take 'em down, shorty."
Erwin doesn't say anything, and neither does Levi.
x.
There is a limit to the human mind.
And after a certain amount, it will snap.
x.
Mike was humanity's second strongest soldier, but his death was only a quiet breath in the wind. No one saw him leave, no one said their goodbyes, and not long after he left people began to forget his existence.
Levi is now humanity's strongest soldier but already that title does not apply; if he were as strong as they say he would not be lying here now in a pool of his own blood, clutching a broken blade and trying not to laugh through the hole in his chest. Everyone thought him strong, but in the end he is just as weak as the rest of them, weaker perhaps, and he wonders how long it will be before humanity forgets his name.
x.
(When Levi dies, he dies alone.)