The operation had gone without a hitch, but that never meant that any battle was without casualties. Death happened often in the Scouting Legion; sometimes so much that most of the soldiers didn't have someone's arms to die in. Such was an unfortunate sacrifice in their war, their unending, blind battle where the odds stacked against them with each body thrown on the pile. A losing battle, but a battle they had to win, or every single death that had led them to that point would be pointless.
Streets filled with blood, some human, some not. Rivaille swung by, mood darkening with each stray limb he spotted. His eyes glanced over each fallen soldier he saw, careful to remember which ones he saw so he could report the casualties… when he noticed a woman that was still moving, face down on the cobblestone.
He swung down, hoping that her wounds would be treatable, when he noticed the scarf wrapped tightly around her neck, untouched by the blood pooling beneath her.
Rivaille rushed to the familiar soldier's side just as she started coughing. As gently as possible, he flipped her over and sucked in a quick breath.
Something must've happened, she must've been knocked off-course by a titan and into a ruined building… because Rivaille could think of no other way such a skilled 3DMG user would end up impaled like that, with the remains of a support beam through her gut. She wouldn't survive it. Hell, he doubted anyone other than a Titan Shifter would be able to survive that kind of wound. "C-Corporal…" she choked out.
Rivaille brushed her hair away from her face, ignoring the blood seeping into the knees of his white pants. "The Scouting Legion is losing one of their best soldiers today, Mikasa Ackerman," he told her.
Her eyes widened, a choked gasp passing her bloodied lips. "N-no… I c-can't die yet…!" she tried to sit up, but her efforts only irritated her already fatal wound further.
"You've done well, you can rest now," Rivaille insisted.
Mikasa took in a raspy, strained breath, "No…! I need to…" she struggled to gather the breath she needed to speak, "I vowed… I v-vowed to protect Eren…!" Mikasa cried, reaching up weakly. "How will I protect him if I die?!"
Rivaille wasn't even sure she knew she was speaking out loud anymore. Her eyes weren't focused on anything. Her words sunk into his gut and for a moment, Rivaille was in her place, laying on the ground with blood pouring from him, and suddenly he knew what she needed. He gripped her bloodied hands and looked into her unfocused eyes. "I will keep him safe. Please, put your burden on my shoulders and rest. Eren Jeager will be safe."
Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes. "… P-please… k-keep him s-safe…"
He stayed there a moment after she'd fallen silent, knowing that one of the best soldiers he'd ever met had just died in front of him. Some part of him felt like this would be the one he'd cry over, but he didn't. The tears didn't come.
Before he left, he made sure her eyes were shut.
When Rivaille returned to their temporary base, he overhead Jeager ask one of his comrades a reasonable question.
"Armin, have you seen Mikasa? I lost track of her at about noon…"
"Hm? Actually, I haven't seen her since we left…"
He stopped in his tracks and went cold. It took him a moment before he decided to place a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Jeager."
"Yes, corporal?"
"JEAN!" came the scream that tore his attention from his paperwork. The sound of the scream… he knew something horrible had happened. Of course, then the sound was followed by a crash of breaking wall and loud footsteps. He leaned out the window, and a ten meter class had just sprinted out from the trees and rammed the wall surrounding their HQ. The guards already stationed out there had the titan down before Rivaille could even get to the door.
He rushed downstairs and ran outside to check the situation. "What happened?" he demanded, "Is everyone okay?"
No one answered, but when he saw Jeager on his knees, holding the hand of a fallen soldier, Rivaille ran over as and assumed a similar position at the man's side.
"He was standing guard. The titan… threw him… He pushed me out of the way," Eren began to explain, but was interrupted.
"Hey, corporal," Kirschtein coughed out. The man's legs were crushed underneath fallen rubble and he seemed to have several lacerations over his body, likely from being swatted aside so roughly. "Look's like I'm out of the battle."
Rivaille stood right back up and sighed. "Well, you're not going to die…" he glared over at the other soldiers, still scrambling like insects. "Move it, you brain-dead fools! Let's get this goddamned boulder off of him!" he barked.
As Rivaille began to walk off, a hand grabbed his ankle. "Wait. Since I'm outta commission, I'm gonna need you to make sure this idiot next to me doesn't get into anymore shit," he nearly screamed.
Rivaille shook the wounded soldier's hand off. "Che. I'm already doing that," he dismissed.
Jean Kirschtein growled, "You're the one with legs, Corporal! I can't carry it anymore! I need you to take my burden, damn you!"
He stopped and looked back at him, eyes moving between Jean and Eren, who'd stood up as well. "… Fine," Rivaille began walking back to the headquarters. "Damn it, instead of standing around shitting your pants, someone get this fucking boulder off him!" he shouted.
There was only half of Sasha Braus left, and by the time Rivaille got to her, he doubted she'd be able to say anything back to him when he told her how much help she'd been, that the Scouting Legion was losing a light of hope, a great soldier and a wonderful woman.
It didn't shock him when she spoke, because her words were almost expected at this point. "… Protect… Eren… Mikasa would…"
And she fell silent.
This time, it wasn't some soldier that screamed the name of the fallen; it wasn't some death that Rivaille would be able to brush off. The one screaming… was him.
"IRWIN!" he cried as the commander was knocked off his horse and thrown across the field, and Rivaille didn't think he'd ever shouted so loud before in his life.
He couldn't go to his side, not yet. Not with a battle raging around them. Rivaille turned his attention to the ambushing titans and he made sure to slaughter them. He knew from Hanji's experiments that titan's rarely felt pain, but he would make them. He would force them to feel it. They would suffer.
When the field was finally clear of titans and the dead gathered, Rivaille ran to Irwin's side, where he fell to his knees. The commander lay motionless, and the worse seemed to have happened…
Except Irwin coughed, the commander coughing up what was probably a bit of lung. "I'm sorry…" he managed, "I have t-to put another b-burden on your shoulders, Rivaille."
This was the one. This was the death he'd cry over. Tears that had been held in for years, with each soldier he comforted, each death he'd witnessed… all those tears spilled from his eyes, an equally purifying and destroying purge of emotion. He folded in on himself, the tears heavy enough to pull his face to the ground. "Anything…!" he hissed, "I'll take all of your burdens, Smith, I'll take them and carry them across this earth until I collapse, and then I'll crawl, and then I'll drag myself with my elbows…!"
"Protect… Eren Jeager," Irwin said.
Rivaille sucked in a sharp breath.
"Without that boy, humanity is without hope. That's the only th-thing I…" he coughed, the time he was cut off with a gurgle of blood. He gasped, and Rivaille sat there and watched his superior drown in his own blood.
And when the man finally died… Rivaille curled up into a loose fetal position and he cried. He sat there and cried until Hanji came and dragged him off.
When the time finally came, Rivaille didn't think much other than the one thing that he been his reason to live.
Protect Jeager.
Protect Jeager.
Protect Jeager.
Rivaille didn't even consider the consequences that he knew would result from cutting the boy from the titan's hand. He knew that he wouldn't be fast enough to move out of the way. The thing dropped Jeager, sure, but it's other hand came and grabbed Rivaille.
It didn't bother eating him. It just squeezed him and dropped him. Rivaille felt his bones shatter and his spine snap as he hit the ground.
The titan hit the ground as well, as Hanji swooped by and slashed its neck open, but Rivaille wasn't exactly paying attention to the titan. He was paying attention to the boy who was scrambling over to his side.
"C-Corporal…!" Eren exclaimed.
The whirl of Hanji's 3DMG was the last thing Rivaille consciously processed before his vision started to swim. "Hanji…" he said… he said her name over and over until he heard what sounded like her voice.
"Corporal…" she answered and he could hear the tears in her voice, "The Scouting Legion is losing its best today…"
He reached towards her and grabbed something. He didn't care what it was, whether it was her sleeve or her shirt of her pant leg he just needed to keep her attention. She needed to know how important this was, how much he needed her to listen. "Hanji, I need you… to protect Eren Jeager…"
The Ackerman girl had been the start of something horrible in him. A need. A need to keep that boy safe. Irwin had sealed it. "Protect… E-Eren…" he managed one last time…
Hanji gripped his hand. "Yes… just like you said, I'll protect him. I'll protect him even if I'm half dead on the battlefield!" She sobbed. "I won't let your death be in vain, Corporal…"
Thank you.
Now he could rest comfortably, knowing he could greet them without shame.
He wasn't leaving the boy they'd entrusted to him alone.
And that was enough.