You cannot tell a man he has not lived a full life when he is dying. dead already.

when his own blood is pooling around him, when he asks nothing more than a reassurance of his worth when he can no longer keep on proving it any longer.

my hand is dark with him, and that doesn't bother me. that doesn't. For his blood is pure and honest. He isn't soaked with hate like so many things in this world. He died a good man, and really, what more could you ask from a soldier than that? He was filled with courage. He was prepared to die.

So I tell him all right things.

You did great.

You helped humanity live on.

Your strength will continue in me.

I will eradicate every last Titan.

It's true. Anyone who knows me knows me to be notoriously blunt. it's true. It's all the truth.

Listen to all that shit they tell you. about being prepared to die for your world, for humankind. You listen, and you nod your head. I'm guessing you believe that it's all good and true. that you are convinced that you are prepared to lose everything for… Humanity.

They tell you that you need to act as one machine. That you must lose yourself to stay alive.

In cadet training, they teach you how to use devices that allow you to fly. It feels like magic, doesn't it. yet…

To fly, only to be shoved down to earth with one giant footstep. To be crushed without a thought. to be the flesh between a pair of ruthless jaws.

Where has humanity gone to?

It is gone.

We lose our humanity to fight the demons. And yet, we die as people. We die as fucking people! the fucking irony. Only at the ends of our existences do we regain what we were born to have.

He's gone, Petra says. my eyes fall from his, to our hands. i let mine drop from his, slickly and sickeningly. The arm falls with no resistance, and makes a thud as it lands. The fingers are curled unnaturally, as if I were still clasping them. I swallow, hard, and avert my eyes to Petra's.

I ask her if he heard me to the end.

Yeah, Captain. She says. Look. He looks so peaceful in death.

he just looks desperate to me. But the reassurance somehow makes it... almost bearable.

That's good. I say. What else is there to be said?

Levi!

I turn.

Erwin.

We're pulling back.

keeping composed doesn't matter around Erwin. He knows already. He knows me too well.

so to hell with it, right? To hell with human machinery. I'm not a machine.

Pulling back? We haven't gone as far as we can go. You're going to let my men die in vain? I say.

I cannot change the mind of the commanding officer. Erwin rarely if ever changes his decisions. But I'm going to have my word in first. Because I can.

The Titans have been heading north, as a group. Erwin states the facts.

As if he doesn't see the blood of our subordinate on the ground and on my hand. As if he doesn't see another piece of humanity lost, limp on the pavement like a squashed fruit.

and he does see it. He sees it, he acknowledges it, and he moves on. The perfect fucking soldier.

I see it all. i feel it all.

Do you think unapproachable people are the ones who don't feel pain?

Think again. Its the pain that makes us so unbearable.