I don't own Shingeki no Kyojin.
Levi felt warm and safe.
An alien feeling. In all his years, he'd never felt safe. Not even when he was a child and his mother would hold him. Not even when Irwin had seen his potential and taken him in and he knew he wouldn't have to steal and break the law.
He almost didn't realise what it was.
-He span and the blades were familiar in his hands, the weight and balance helped him make the strike. It sliced through the flesh easily and the steaming body of the titan fell, slow-motion, to its knees and then there was the crash as it tore through branches and then lay motionless on the ground. Levi halted at a tree, letting the 3-D manoeuvre gear detach as he settled on a branch.
The rain was really coming down now. He rubbed an arm across his forehead, watching the steam from the titan's body rise into the air before the rest of the team came to a halt at various trees around him. Irwin landed on the branch next to him, slightly unsteady and having to brave himself with the sword in his left hand.
"You didn't have to come," Levi said.
"A leader needs to be on the battlefield. I'm not staying inside the walls."
Levi tutted. "So stubborn." But Irwin didn't respond. He pointed behind and Levi turned. "Three fifteen metre classes!" he called out.
"One of them is a deviant!" Mikasa said. She was on the tree next to Levi's.
"You're going to get it, you bastards," he muttered, jumping off the branch and shooting the wires. A turn in mid-air, and then higher, above their heads, dimly aware of Irwin doing the same, compensating for his missing right arm by twisting even quicker.
Levi made quick work of his titan, striking precisely, but...
"Levi, behind you!" he recognised the girl's voice, from months ago, but it couldn't be-
The titan caught him from behind.-
The light was blinding when he opened his eyes. He was already standing up, which was strange - since when could he sleep standing up? - and when he saw the girl in front of him, he knew he had to be dreaming.
"Petra?"
She nodded slowly.
He should have guessed it. Going to the forest of giant trees had probably been a bad idea. He had hallucinated that she had talked to him, just before...
Just before...
The titan.
"Petra," he repeated.
"Heichou?" she said simply.
"This is a dream, right?"
She didn't answer. Levi shook his head. "The titan."
"I tried to warn you."
"Then it's over."
He pressed a hand to his face, the other clenched into a fist at his side. Whatever this weird hallucination was, he didn't want Petra to see how he was feeling. Without him, humanity was doomed. He hadn't felt so close to crying since the night after his group had died, seeing their broken bodies, crowding him and dragging him down into his childhood fears.
"It's over," he repeated.
His face was still covered, so he didn't see when Petra moved closer to him. She touched the hand that was still clenched into a fist. "Maybe not."
He lowered his hand to look at her, the girl who had given up everything for the cause, and he could still see in her eyes what he hadn't felt himself in years.
Hope.
He let Petra lead him away, to somewhere... other and new. Hopeful.