"Sir."

"What."

Her voice sounded so weak. The smell of sweat and blood was wrapping them up like the bindweeds around the trees they passed by. He hardened his grip on her thighs and kept walking, slowly, waiting for her answer though he already knew what she wanted.

"I ask for permission to stay here."

He sighed.

"And having those royal pigs bitching at me for your loss? I don't think so." Bullshit, he thought.

A pause. Too brief for his taste before she broke the silence again.

"What about you, sir?" she asked. He wanted to laugh. Since when does she even care for him?

"Don't worry about me. Focus on your breathing."

He was tired, his ebony hair being a mess between sweat and stains of blood. She was wrapped on his back, his green cloak resting protectively over her frame with big, dark spots blooming from her open wounds. Needless to say the brat wasn't a lightweight, and he felt himself trapped in the musky heat of the woods; in the stench of dead grass, open flesh and destruction.

But he was used to these things anyway. And he believed (hoped) it was the same for her.

It was almost a good thing she didn't feel as heavy as she usually was.

Almost.

"I... want to see him... please."

A branch cracked loudly under his boot and a sudden shot of pain raced through his leg, but he ignored it.

"You will... but not now."

"Please..."

She never asked him for anything before. She never begs and he's well aware of that. He's pissed.

"If you want to live... or die..." he starts, shifting her weight on his back carefully, ignoring the sharp pain it spreads through his spine. "...that's not my damn business, brat."

He felt her leaning closer, probably making a lot of effort to hear him in her messed up state. Though he wasn't much better.

"...But I never let down my word, Mikasa... and I'm sure as hell I'm not starting today."

He doesn't expect her to understand, but he's glad when she does anyway. Her black eyes opening wide at him in disbelief gives him the answer he needs.

"You mean..."

"Yeah."

"...what did he asked you...?"

His vision blurs for a second, but her voice wakes something inside of him and he doesn't stop walking.

"...To take care of you."

Another pause, the last one before she silently breaks down. He said nothing when she wrapped her arms around his neck; her hair now tickling his cheek and tears staining his jacket. He just kept walking.

Minutes felt like hours, and at some point on the twilight he reaches his limit. His legs give up on him and he stops listening. He stops feeling. Anything aside from her tears and her warm blood and her soft hair and her body covering his own like a blanket. He sees her hand slightly touching the piece of blade that was piercing his side all this time, but he's too numb to feel any more pain. He wonders what she's saying now, but she makes sure to get close enough for him to read her lips:

Thanks.

Tch. Brat.