Everyone, this is my first fan fiction ever. I've written several short stories before, and I've toyed several times with writing novels, but I'm quite new to the fanfic world and to Attack on Titan.
Beware of manga spoilers. Also, definitely beware of feelings. This aint no romantic comedy AU—the world of canon can be sad sometimes, haha.
This is supposed to the first in what I'm hoping will be a collection of oneshots centered primarily on Armin, entitled Just What Needs To Be Thrown Aside? I've learned that I really care about portraying characters correctly (please leave feedback), so in a way these are a series of hopefully compelling character studies that try their best to stay true to the original material we all know and love. The first story/chapter focuses on the reactions of the former 104th trainee squad in the wake of Bertholt and Riener's betrayal. I've always been captivated by the question of whether or not the titan shifters—Annie, Bertholt, and Riener—can be redeemed, or whether the damage and death that they've brought about can be justified.
I'm also a fan of minor characters, so I try to throw in references to relevant ones wherever I can. I also like to fill in back stories and 'world build' a little, adding little tidbits and anecdotes that are hopefully interesting enough to be headcanon-worthy.
Everyone, this is my first fan fiction ever. I've written several short stories before, and I've toyed several times with writing novels, but I'm quite new to the fanfic world and to Attack on Titan.
Beware of manga spoilers. Also, definitely beware of feelings. This aint no romantic comedy AU—the world of canon can be sad sometimes, haha.
This is supposed to the first in what I'm hoping will be a collection of oneshots centered primarily on Armin, entitled Just What Needs To Be Thrown Aside? I've learned that I really care about portraying characters correctly (please leave feedback), so in a way these are a series of hopefully compelling character studies that try their best to stay true to the original material we all know and love. The first story/chapter focuses on the reactions of the former 104th trainee squad in the wake of Bertholt and Reiner's betrayal. I've always been captivated by the question of whether or not the titan shifters—Annie, Bertholt, and Reiner—can be redeemed, or whether the damage and death that they've brought about can be justified.
I'm also a fan of minor characters, so I try to throw in references to relevant ones wherever I can. I also like to fill in back stories and 'world build' a little, adding little tidbits and anecdotes that are hopefully interesting enough to be headcanon-worthy.
I.
The cold wind buffeted Armin's small frame as he made his way back to the cabin. The night was frigid, the sky dark and overcast. Glancing up past the fringe of his hood, he tracked the thick underbelly of the carpet of clouds as it soared past overhead, pushed swiftly onwards by unseen high-altitude gusts.
He wondered how few hours were required for a squadron of clouds to traverse the entirety of the remaining territory under mankind's control.
The chilly night air seemed to amplify every sound, from the crunch of Armin's military boots on the dirt path to the harsh flapping of his cloak in the breeze. He shivered, his body cooled to the core from his solitary watch from the sentry platform downhill. Only his fingers, warmed ever so slightly as they clenched the metal loop of the lantern bouncing at his side, retained any feeling. Turning his head to look back along the path, Armin could spy a twin flame glittering in the darkness. It marked Sasha's lantern where it hung from a long nail next to the flintlock musket and bow propped against the railing of the guard post.
Thrusting his left arm deeper inside the sheltering folds of his cloak, Armin suddenly recalled another dark night from what felt like a past lifetime—a midnight climb by four trainees by the light of handheld lanterns. Smells, revived by his memory, assaulted his mind—the metallic tang of the rusty boundary fence lingering upon his palms… the rich aroma of fallen needles coated in resin... They had reached a clearing overlooking the lake. Almost as if response to their gaze, the clouds had opened, spilling moonlight across the surface of the water as they looked on. He remembered a blanket of tall pines standing in unending ranks that stretched across the hills and ridges as far as the eye could see.
Eren Jaeger, was it? Reiner Braun had asked.
The crunch of dirt underfoot turned to a rattle as Armin crossed the patch of gravel at the base of the cabin steps. As he set foot on the porch, Armin lifted the lamp, flicked the glass door open with his free hand, and blew out the light. The scent of burnt lamp oil fresh in his lungs, he knocked four times on the cabin door.
The harmony of voices in the room within quieted, and a chair scraped against the floor as someone rose. Armin stepped back as the door swung open and found himself looking upwards into Mikasa's familiar face. As light illuminated the porch, Armin caught the tail end of the conversation that he had just interrupted:
"—those assholes…"
"—begin to imagine… Who knows?"
The new members of Levi's special operations squad, drawn entirely from the members of the former 104th Trainee Detachment, turned their heads to greet Armin as he entered the dining room. Mikasa closed the door behind her childhood friend, stifling the frigid draft that had followed him into the building. As he lowered his hood, Armin concluded that he had a very good idea of what the group had just been discussing.
"Hey, Armin," Jean grunted from his seat by the fire.
"Cold out there, huh?" Connie exclaimed. He returned his chair to the floorboards from the angle at which he'd been reclining it a moment earlier. "Dammit, I have the watch just before sunrise, too…"
"Beg Recon Scout Blouse for her company." Levi quipped from his position at the head of the table at Jean's right. "I'm sure she wouldn't object to staying at her post a few more hours to keep you warm."
Connie flushed as he shifted his chair to one side, leaving room for Armin to occupy the stool next to him. Armin set his lantern next to the door, hung his cloak upon the wall, and stepped over to sit down at the table. "Thanks."
The soldiers seated around the table were all dressed simply, in casual civilian clothes. A couple of them-Christa and Connie-seemed to be wearing the sets of clothes they had brought to trainee camp all those years ago. Connie's shirt sleeves were now clearly too short to cover his grown arms. Christa's blouse still fit, but its rose-colored pattern had faded to a dull, bleached red.
"So, Armin," began Jean, "which betrayal shocked you more? Annie's? or Reiner and Bertholt's?"
Levi blinked and turned his uninterested gaze on the new arrival. "We were just discussing the unfortunate implications of your former squadmates' true loyalties, Arlert."
"After all, I guess, you were one of the first ones to suspect them in both cases…" Jean added.
Armin nodded. He had surmised as much. He suddenly remembered the feeling of a pair of strong hands winding a bandage tightly around his head, fastening the cloth wrappings with a firm but gentle set of motions. Suddenly tired, the boy soldier from Shiganshima leaned forward to rest his chin in his hands, elbows braced on the tabletop.
His earlier blush fading from his cheeks, Connie crossed his arms. "I still can't believe Reiner was fighting against us this entire time… and Bertholt? The Colossal Titan? If I hadn't seen them turn with my own eyes…"
At that moment, one of the pine logs burning in the hearth collapsed, sending a spray of bright embers upwards. Levi reached for the poker and pushed the two halves back into the flames.
Connie frowned. "At least Annie had the fucking decency to distance herself from us before stabbing us in the back. She never bothered to talk with us if she could help it, much less make promises or lecture us on a soldier's duty, even if she was just as black-hearted as the rest of them…" His frown deepened.
Mikasa's voice cut through the fireplace's crackle. "That doesn't make her any less guilty. She knowingly sought to capture humanity's best hope for survival, and she practically crippled our strongest military arm in the process." She threw a brief, meaningful glance at Eren.
Levi's expression darkened and his body seemed to stiffen at Mikasa's words. Armin felt cold to his core once again as he reflected on the losses suffered by the Survey Corps in just the past few months. Between the disaster of the 57th expedition beyond the walls, the costly female titan capture operation in Stohess, the unexpected fighting within Wall Rose, and the all-or-nothing battle to recapture Eren from captivity, the branch had suffered a total toll in irreplaceable casualties that it had never experienced in its entire history. The fighting-fit members of the Survey Corps with over three years of experience could now be counted with the fingers of one hand. Armin watched Eren draining his cup of coffee and reflected that by now, perhaps two thousand soldiers had bled or died to protect him. And the end of this great struggle lay nowhere in sight.
"Ymir is the first one of the bunch that I'd forgive, that's for sure," Jean grunted. "She might be a selfish psychopath who doesn't give a damn about the rest of us, but she threw her lot in with us at the castle tower, and she had no part in breaking any fucking walls."
"I'll bet she ate her fair share of humans," Eren exclaimed. "She admitted to killing one of Reiner and Bertholt's friends."
"Did she? Good riddance," Connie spat. He was drumming his fingers softly on the tabletop.
"Didn't you say she was mindless when she was a titan, Eren?" Christa suddenly asked. "I for one can't fault her for anything she did when she wasn't in control of her actions."
At the sound of her voice, nearly everyone turned to where Christa was sitting behind Connie atop a crate of provisions, her back against the cabin wall. She had spoken just a handful of times all day, and her usual bright aura had been cold and distant ever since their return from that trampled plain littered with the broken bodies of men and horses. A year ago, Armin would never have been able to imagine her pretty face with such red, tired eyes. He supposed that her new temperament was something they'd have to get used to, along with her true name.
"Ah, good point… I forgot about that," Eren said.
"She still broke her oath to the Survey Corps and to the king," Mikasa reminded them. She had remained standing after letting Armin into the cabin. "She interfered seriously with our efforts to recapture Eren, and she ultimately abandoned us to assist the Armored Titan during the last battle. She may not be humanity's enemy, but she hardly counts as our friend, and she's a mockery of what it means to be a soldier."
A memory stirred within Armin's mind. What will you do if you're told to die? A question delivered half a lifetime ago from behind a spray of golden hair. You're weak, but you have guts. Cold fingers seemed to close around his heart.
Connie and Christa were now arguing passionately about Ymir's choices during the last expedition by the Survey Corps, though it seemed like most of the group was fairly uninterested. Armin sighed. Ymir's motivations were an enigma, but at least her actions seemed easy to predict. So long as Christa fought on humanity's side, he found it unlikely that the titan shifter would willingly back any plan to bring the walls down.
Eren had raised his voice in order to be heard above the side conversation occupying Christa and Connie's corner of the room. "I think Bertholt and Reiner are well beyond forgiveness. They've shown regret for the suffering they've caused, but that didn't stop them from breaching the gates of Trost or from taking me prisoner. They would have breached Wall Rose if I hadn't surprised them by turning into a titan." He paused, and suddenly his voice seemed softer. "That said, I don't believe that they were ever eager to drive mankind to extinction. Nor do I think they needed much convincing to leave Trost's inner gate alone…"
Armin could almost hear Bertholt's pained, strangled yell, clearly audible even from within the armored titan's fist:
"WHO DO YOU THINK ACTUALLY WANTS TO KILL PEOPLE!?"
Armin heard the sound of a saucer being pushed across the surface of the table. Somebody sniffed. Out of the corner of his eye, Armin noticed Mikasa raise her scarf over her chin and bottom lip, her gaze unfocused. It seemed as though the whole table was lost in reflection, swimming in the memories of that terrible day. He felt a ghost of the violent anguish that he'd been seized with that morning as he'd watched the jaws of the bearded titan close on his best friend, severing that outstretched arm at the elbow… The lump in his throat grew as he recalled Thomas's disbelieving expression as he vanished between an aberrant's lips, and the image of Hannah's tear-streaked face as she struggled to resuscitate Franz's lifeless form. He blinked and wiped the budding tears across the back of his hand. A quarter of their graduating class had perished before the withdrawal was complete, and a further eighth had been lost in the effort to retake the city.
Here they sat, five battles older.
"I don't understand," Jean breathed, his voice aggressive. "Couldn't they see for themselves what destroying humanity would mean? They were with us the whole time at Trost, watching whole platoons get torn apart and consumed, seeing terrified families fleeing the city, cleaning bodies off the streets and rolling them onto the funeral pyre…" The native son of Trost grasped the coffee cup before him with both hands, weaving his fingers around the ceramic vessel. "Reiner and Bertholt were there in Karanes too when we returned from our first expedition. Were they really able to endure the grief and tears of the families of the dead without wondering for even a moment whether they were on the wrong side?"
"Well, who knows what was really on their minds…" Eren said with a sigh.
Upon hearing Eren's comment, Armin spoke up for the first time that night.
"Whatever reasons they had, I'm sure they were compelling. That's almost certain."
Everyone turned to face him, surprised yet immediately attentive, and Armin felt a sudden nervousness that almost made him regret joining the conversation. He privately decided that no matter how much time passed, he would always feel half intimidated and half flattered by the value his friends placed on his thoughts and insights.
Taking a deep breath, he continued, "The reason why Reiner and Bertholt betrayed us had to have been important enough for them to follow through with it despite all their doubts, not to mention despite their friendship with us. It had to be important enough to persuade them to continue acting against humanity in the face of all the suffering and death that they've seen. If you think about it more, their goal also had to be important enough to motivate their secret village to send three children far away from home to break the walls, important enough for Annie to fight to the end and entomb herself rather than surrender, important enough for all of them to choose to kill dozens and hundreds of soldiers and innocents, and important enough for their side to oppose humanity in the first place despite the fact that normal titans are a common enemy."
Another thought suddenly occurred to Armin, and he voiced it as soon as it was fully formed. "There's this as well—whatever their reasons, it was also enough to persuade Ymir to go as far as to abandon Christa in favor of returning to assist them, even at the risk of her own life." He saw Christa reel at his words as though physically wounded by them.
"We know that none of them are cruel people at heart. If they thought protecting humanity was the right thing to do, we have to assume that they would have abandoned their mission by now." he concluded.
Armin had reached this conclusion long ago, yet his imagination had utterly failed since to arrive at an explanation that would justify the deaths of hundreds of thousands. What beliefs, what reasons could possibly be sufficient to condemn such an unimaginable number of people to even more unimaginable suffering?
"I'm not sure if that's necessarily true…" Connie began.
"Are you suggesting that we are the ones fighting on the wrong side, then?" Levi asked with a sarcastic gleam in his eyes.
Jean snorted, chuckling darkly.
"No…" Armin replied. "We may know close to nothing about Berthold and Reiner, but I know that we're fighting for humanity's future—"
"Maybe they're just insane," Eren suggested. "It's not much of a stretch…"
"Well, maybe they have family who would be held accountable for their failure—" Armin suggested, only to be cut off by a second disbelieving snort from Jean.
"That's ridiculous. Most of us have families, but I don't think any of us would be selfish enough to weigh their lives against the entirety of the human race," Jean exclaimed.
Nobody rushed to comment on Jean's assertion. The room was darker now; the flames of the hearth now danced only inches above the glowing logs. The cup of coffee that Connie had poured for Armin sat lukewarm and untouched in the center of the table. He wasn't in the mood for coffee, but he reached for it and sipped anyway, not wanting to waste any.
"Well, I mean, Mikasa, even you would make that choice, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you sacrifice Eren's life to achieve victory for humankind, if you were forced to?" Jean's voice carried a hint of bitterness as he looked up from his interlocked hands at the raven-haired girl.
Mikasa's hand fell from the scarf around her neck to her side, and she looked back and forth between Jean and Eren before matching Jean's gaze once more. She cleared her throat, and her answer was loud enough to startle Armin into an involuntary shudder.
"I would. Of course I would," asserted humanity's second-deadliest soldier. Her voice was surprisingly even and confident.
"I would sacrifice all of you, and myself as well, if it were necessary to buy freedom for our kind. Without hesitation." She took a deep breath, then let out a long, lingering sigh. "It would be the end of me, though, even if I lived… The impact of such a choice would be shattering for any of us. I'm sure you can all imagine it." She moved to step around the table before settling herself back in her chair. Eren was staring at her, his expression unreadable as she seated herself next to him.
It was strange, Armin decided, that someone as strong and driven as Mikasa could coldly declare her willingness to make sacrifices, yet hesitate all the same when the moment came. Her intervention atop Wall Rose had been almost instantaneous—a thing of heartstopping martial beauty. In a fraction of the blink of an eye, her swords had been free of their sheaths, cleaving effortlessly through forearms and neck… only to stop just short of fully decapitating Reiner and Bertholt. Basic humanity, it seemed, was both sides' worst enemy. Eren had hesitated similarly as he had poised himself to rip Annie out of the female titan's neck, just as Annie herself had paused to lift Armin's hood rather than erase his body with a single swipe of her fist, just as Bertholt had exposed himself and his captive, incensed by Armin's bluff that Annie was being tortured for information. Armin thought that even Annie's decision to instruct Eren in her mysterious hand-to-hand techniques had likely been emotionally motivated—a rare moment of weakness in an otherwise perfect masquerade of cold indifference. Had the loneliness of her mission become too much to bear? In a way, she'd been the strongest of the secret titans—silent and unsmiling throughout years of solitude—yet her mere handful of lapses had been sufficient to doom her mission to failure. Perhaps, Armin pondered, it was impossible to truly erase the human factor within a soldier's soul. One could only account for its influence, and plan accordingly to minimize the consequences.
But what consequences!
"Hmph." From the head of the table, Levi chose that moment to lean forward. "If you want to win, Mikasa Ackerman, that won't do." His bangs had fallen in front of his eyes at the sudden change in posture, giving the veteran soldier an intimidating look.
"It can't be the end of you, once you make a choice like that," he continued. Suddenly, he turned his head. "Renz! Or Riess, dammit!"
Christa visibly jumped. "Y-yes, sir!?"
"Put another log on the fire, would you? One will do."
As she rose and moved behind him to kneel by the fireplace, Levi looked back down the table. He was watching Mikasa intently as he resumed speaking.
"When you sacrifice someone, you don't look back. There's no damn use agonizing over a decision you've already made. If you let it break you, then you've already wasted part of the advantage they died for." His expression somehow became several times even more serious. "Do you know how many scouts I've ordered to die?"
Armin shivered at the implications of what Levi was saying. Sure enough, a quick glance around the table revealed nothing but pairs of eyes, all suddenly wide awake at the suggestion that their leader might send them to a grisly fate without batting an eye.
"I ordered a soldier to fight a ten-meter class on foot without maneuver gear once," Levi said grimly to a shocked room. "The bastard surprised us, killing our two sentries while we were in the middle of exchanging our gas canisters. Liesel's death bought us enough time to run for the horses." He kept his narrowed eyes fixed intently on Mikasa. "I sent four recruits younger than any of you lot against a group of titans even a veteran group would have had difficulty with, in order to protect Mike's squad while they dealt with of one of those fucking crawling aberrants."
"Only one made it back," he added, briefly turning his eye on Eren. "Auruo Bossard."
Eren's eyes widened. Levi was fixing his stare on each of them in turn, as though gauging their individual reactions.
Behind Levi, Christa stood from her place by the fire with an expression of shock on her face. Already, the flames were burning brighter and leaping higher, silhouetting the two of them against the orange glow. Across the table, Mikasa was the first to break Levi's gaze. Her mouth had thinned, and she looked thoughtful.
Armin stared at Levi with a sudden realization. Along with Hanji and Commander Erwin, Levi was a five-year veteran of the Survey Corps… which meant that he'd survived the massive attempt to retake Wall Maria in which Armin's grandfather had perished. How many hundreds of untrained civilians, most of them not even equipped with maneuver gear, had Levi watched die? Armin imagined his grandfather amidst the bloodbath. Had his grey head turned in the hour of death to watch humanity's strongest soldier carving a swath through the battle? Had the sight inspired faint hope in his heart even as he stumbled onwards, shoulder-to-shoulder with the ranks of the doomed legion of the year 846?
Armin had no doubt that Levi lived by what he preached. How else had he survived, finding the strength to wrap his fingers around the hilts of two blades battle after battle?
Levi went on, gesturing with one hand. "Of course you feel terrible—that's only natural. You soldier on. It's not enough to be able to make a hard choice without hesitation. You have to give an order knowing that ten minutes or maybe an hour from now, you might be forced to make another sacrifice. And yet another. Without hesitation. You can't allow yourself the luxury of falling apart." His hand fell, resting as a fist on the table's edge.
"Sweet Rose," Connie murmured. "No wonder we're so unpopular everywhere."
A chuckle rolled across the dining room.
Armin briefly wondered whether Reiner, Bertholt, or Annie had arrived at the same creed. Had any of them ever come close to matching this grim, dark-haired corporal in sheer emotionless resolve? Perhaps not… wasn't that deliciously ironic?
"When the Commander made me a squad leader, he forced me to learn the basic principles and workings of military and common law." Levi reflected aloud. "A required step to comply with officer training standards and regulations. He made a noise that expressed his low opinion of the exercise at the time.
"When a court is tasked with deciding which cart-driver was responsible for a collision on the street, or when a tribunal is assigned to determine which military officer is most responsible for a lost battle, the judge applies a concept known as liability. They attempt to determine which person was independently the most responsible for the chain of events."
Armin had always had an interest in law, and followed Levi's words closely, but that interest, it seemed, was not universal—Connie was resting his head in his arms, asleep or close to it. Across the table, Eren was fidgeting with his teacup, rocking it from side to side. The others eyed Levi suspiciously, as though wondering whether he was threatening to court-martial them.
"By that measure," Levi continued, "Reiner Braun is the most responsible for everything that humankind has endured in the last six years. By destroying the inner gate at Shiganshima, he singlehandedly brought about the fall of Wall Maria, condemning to death not only those who were eaten alive during the retreat to Wall Rose, but also the hundreds of thousands who were sent to their doom a year later. Bertholt Hoover, while guilty of breaching the outer gate at Shiganshima, can only be considered directly responsible for a few hundred dead, all within the city itself. While he enabled Reiner's attack on the inner wall, he was not the direct perpetrator."
Levi paused. "As for this Annie… her targets were purely military in nature, and while she was directly responsible for four dozen scout deaths, this is a fairly bloodless butcher's bill compared to her compatriots'. Around a hundred bystanders were killed during the fighting in Stohess, but it's obvious that this were merely incidental." Despite having just attributed the smallest share of the guilt to Annie's actions, Levi's expression seemed to disagree. It bore a mask of cold vengeance.
Levi looked down the right side of the table and raised an eyebrow at Eren. "I suppose we are also somewhat to blame as well on that score. Eren, was it really necessary to throw her into the fucking Wall Cult cathedral?"
Eren visibly flinched, and he looked away. "Yeah… I didn't think it through at the time… I don't really remember much from the fight, come to think of it."
Mikasa had a strange look in her eyes. "She could have kidnapped you…"
"What?"
"I thought it was strange at the time. When she was bashing your head into that apartment building… she could have easily taken you from the titan. It's possible she panicked, but she just stood up and left you lying there in order to try and climb the wall…"
"Well it's a good thing she wasn't thinking things through either, then," Jean muttered.
Armin spoke up. "I don't think she panicked." He straightened in his seat. "Were she acting on fear and instinct alone, she would have killed Eren there and then to eliminate the threat. Instead, she ran for the wall."
His voice cracked as he voiced his conclusion. "I think she just wanted to run home. I think that right at the end there, she decided to abandon the mission. I can't be certain, but…"
A drowsy air seemed to have settled on the scouts seated around the table. Jean yawned, covering his mouth. Eren was flexing the fingers of his right hand absent-mindedly, a habit he had picked up ever since he had learned that self-injury was the trigger for his transformation. Armin drained the rest of his coffee, returning the cup to the table.
He looked around the room. Mikasa, Eren, Jean, Christa, Connie, himself. Sasha was on watch. Seven trainees of the 104th.
He knew that to some of them, Reiner, Bertholt, and Ymir were already as good as dead. Armin personally found it easier than expected to think of them as the enemy. Connie had taken their betrayal profoundly to heart, as had Eren. To others, such as Christa and a small part of Armin himself, it seemed as though their friends' absence was merely temporary. For him, it was as if a fragment of them hadn't quite left yet. He still woke up sometimes half-expecting to gaze blearily across the room to see Marco rigging his 3DMG harness for morning training. Even Annie—Armin imagined that had she walked in the cabin door at that very moment, his first, instinctive reaction would have been to vocalize a friendly greeting.
"Well, this has been fun," Levi droned, "but it's getting late. You lot should all get to sleep. Springer, don't forget to relieve Sasha on watch."
Six chairs squeaked against the floorboards as their occupants slowly rose from the table. In the corner, Christa yawned and left the room first, opening the door to the girls' section of the cabin. One by one, they filed out of the room, depositing their silverware in the water-filled basin by the windows.
Armin followed Eren's long, flickering shadow down the hallway to the men's quarters. Jean was seated on his bunk, squinting by candlelight at a folded sheet of paper that Armin assumed was a letter to his family.
Eren and Armin simply climbed into their respective bunks.
Their last male squadmate entered the room. Armin looked up from his half-unlaced boots in time to notice Connie's twisted expression as the scrawny soldier walked past where Jean was carefully folding his letter. Armin recognized a mix of raw grief and anger, with what he interpreted to be a subtle undertone of envy. The blond quickly looked away as his friend shuffled past, silently wishing Connie a peaceful, dreamless sleep.
Before darkness claimed him that night, Armin had the strange feeling that he was lying in his hard cot back in the trainee barracks. A deep, reassuring voice floated to the surface of his weary mind, conjured from his memory of that midnight hike half a lifetime ago…
Review and recheck everything, starting with your belt. Tomorrow will go fine.
You can do it.