Attack On Titan Fanfiction

The Road Through Mighty Walls

By Trudyann B.

Even if they never get there, the journey to the basement was perhaps all the three friends needed. (Begins as Eren blocks cannonfire by becoming a titan. Centers around Armin, with some shifts in POV.)

AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Hello, everyone! I hope you enjoy this. As long as I am inspired, I will keep writing. If I'm particularly slow to update, I may be most inspired by a review. ;) I appreciate constructive criticism, too. Please note that this story is about a journey, and not a destination, and while I am proud to take on the task of making it a good one, the basement will remain a mystery for as long as Hijami Isayama feels it should be. The story may end at the door of the basement, or sooner, but not through it. With that in mind, enjoy the road!

CHAPTER 1. In Which our Heroes Cross Wall Rose

The cannonfire was still ringing in Armin's ears as he wondered, not for the first time, how he could possibly still be alive. He was sitting, breathing, thinking, and his heart was beating rapidly. Mikasa, who sat beside him, seemed to the rest of the world as un-phased as she would be in a queue at the market, but Armin knew that behind her disinterested expression, her eyes shone with gratitude toward her continued existence, and that of her friends.

A rotting Titan carcass decomposed quickly around them, likening the two to a couple of steamed dumplings in the summer heat. He gazed with astonishment at the anatomy around him. He had never seen anything like it. A brilliantly skewed specimen, so much like the pictures in his grandfather's anatomy books, and yet misrepresented in size and shape, like a twisted dreamlike version. The atmosphere was suffocating, which made it no easier for the panicked young man to breath.

"Mi…Mikasa, what happened?" He asked, eyes wide as saucers. He knew what he thought had happened, but surely it couldn't be right. He must be hallucinating a vision of safety. Perhaps he was dead. But as he gazed at the quickly evaporating ribcage and muscles surrounding him, Armin realized he could never really dream this up.

"Eren saved us," Mikasa answered curtly, as she always spoke. A smile played across her lips before disappearing completely. "That's all we need to know."

"Eren…" Armin said under his breath, looking up, around, everywhere. He had seen his best friend emerge out of the body of a violently aberrant titan before, but his usually open mind had refuted the possibility that he could do it again. It had been a fluke of nature. Perhaps Eren had controlled a titan out of sheer willpower, used its abilities to grow back and arm and a leg. His was an incredible willpower, after all. But this? This strange body around him had fabricated from the very air. Just when he felt he could process no more information, another curiosity caught his eye. Purple flowers had sprouted from the earth between the cobblestone cracks.

Those weren't there before, he thought to himself. Where did they come from?

Eren dropped down from somewhere above. It was difficult to see exactly where he had come from, with all the thick steam that surrounded them, but Armin guessed that he originated at the neck. The boy looked exhausted, but the fire in his eyes was unmistakably pissed-off-and-ready-to-rip-someone-a-new-one-for-it.

"We need to escape. Now," Eren said simply. Mikasa stood, and prepared the handles of her maneuver gear. Armin, on the other hand, continued sitting on the floor, flabbergasted.

"What?" The blonde boy's voice was higher than he meant it to be. "Escape where exactly?" He paused, but he knew the answer already, and his friends knew he knew. "Into titan territory? How much longer do you think we'll last out there than we will in here?" He waited to be laughed at; to get an explanation that made sense. There was surely another option he hadn't thought of.

"Armin," Eren reasoned, throwing his hand toward the direction of their earlier threat, "I didn't just block a fucking cannonball to sit here and get hit with another one. That officer is an unreasonable asshole who just tried to kill two of my closest friends, and we need to go." At his final word, Eren pointed his thumb behind him, directly at the wall. Armin opened his mouth, then closed it again. His head was buzzing with a thousand possibilities that might ensure their survival, and a thousand more reasons that leaving the walls was not one of them, but they were too numerous to process.

"I'll protect you, Armin. I'll protect all of us," Mikasa added.

"Hey," Eren butt in, "I can protect myself."

Mikasa politely ignored him. Now was not the time to bring up the fact that the last time she left him alone, he was devoured by a titan. Whether or not they lived was a nonissue when it came to what was really important: not letting her friend and brother face trouble alone in the first place. "We must leave before the steam clears and they have a clear shot."

"And do what? Waste away until we slip up and get eaten?" Armin fired back. "You're good, Mikasa, but everyone makes mistakes."

"We need to go to my father's basement. You remember the one, Armin. The locked door we always wondered about. I'm sure it will answer a lot of questions for us. Don't ask me to explain how I know, but I know it as certainly as I can make a titan," He motioned toward the body around him, "We can learn how to control it, so we can win against the titans for good."

Mikasa walked over to Armin and held out a hand to him, as she had so many times in the past, "We're not leaving without you." Armin was reminded of the countless times the two had helped him up out of sticky situations with the many dimwitted but strong bullies in Shinganshina. How was it that he had stumbled across such capable and loyal friends?

He stood up on his own. Mikasa's hand fell by her side. The boy never allowed himself to be helped up, but Eren and Mikasa would never stop offering either. He unhooked the handles of his maneuver gear and surveyed his friends with unease. Was he really going to follow them into almost certain death?

"Reload the cannons!" He heard someone shout.

Yes. He was going to follow them. Better a purposeful death than a meaningless one, he reasoned.

"Eren, get on my back," Mikasa instructed. Eren groaned, but did as he was told. Armin smiled in self-deprecation, knowing he could never carry someone up a fifty-meter wall with maneuver gear. He'd probably be the first of the three to die, he realized with heavy dread in his gut, but at least he could help as much as possible in the meantime.

Mikasa shot her grappling hooks into the mist above, and flew off, even with someone on her back, she was quicker than a lightning bolt. Armin positioned himself, pressed down on the triggers, which shot out his grapples, and then pulled down on the clutches that sent him flying off the ground. It had taken him much longer than anyone else to learn the coordination he was practicing. He had been desperately afraid of falling. Yet now, he drew in the grapples, got to his maximum height, shot them out again, and then fell two meters in mid air before they connected with a higher point on the wall. He had to admit, it was exhilarating.

He was about twenty-five meters up the wall when the fog got unsettlingly thin. Mikasa and Eren were about ten meters from the top at that same time. The cannon operators had spotted them and swiveled the cannon as quickly as possible to point straight at the two. Of course they were moving too fast to be hit with a cannon, but then, they heard revolver fire. Armin gulped. He was beginning to think he would not get the chance to be helpful at all before he was shot through with a bullet. He began zigzagging up the wall. The good news was, soldiers were not trained all too well in revolver fire. As Jean had mentioned earlier that day, titans weren't too fazed by bullets, so most of the stationary guard never bothered to become proper marksmen.

Armin glanced up and then stared, petrified at an alarming sight as Eren disentangled himself from Mikasa's back and freefell. It was not a stormy day, yet a bolt of what looked very similar to lightning suddenly sliced through the air, landing straight on Eren. What must have been a fifteen meter class titan was once again fabricated, and a large foot slammed against the wall, only three or four meters below Armin, who fell directly onto it. Once again amazed, he quickly dug his grapples into the calf of his behemoth friend, who was holding onto the top of the wall with a strong, determined grip.

The titan squabbled, his toes digging into the brick. He was able to pull himself up to his shoulders, then his waist, before the cannon fired again. It hit him straight in the ribcage. He yelled ferociously in pain, and crumbled back onto his elbows, but then he was moving upward again, just as stubborn as the human buried below his suboccipital.

The hip on his uninjured side hiked up to sit on the wall. He then threw his legs over the wall, which dizzied Armin at its speed and arch. Eren could have been a kid sitting on a fence, if the scale were not terrifyingly gargantuan. From this distance, they already saw three titans. Attracted by Eren's presence. Eren pushed his hips off the wall, and Armin plummeted what felt like thirty meters all at once. The titan's hand still gripped the top of the wall. Armin watched Mikasa jump off of Eren's shoulder and swing down past him on her maneuver gear to the ground below. Armin followed suit. The cannon fired again, strategically aimed this time at Eren's fingertips. The titan flailed in the air, and fell a little more than twice his body length, before hitting the ground with several cracks. Two of which definitely emanated from his ankles. He then lay, lifeless. Armin and Mikasa flew over to his side. He was on his back, but thankfully the curvature of his neck worked in their favor. Mikasa seemed just a bit hysterical as she pulled out her blades and jabbed into the flesh of his neck, carving in much larger strokes than she might have had to.

"Eren, please be okay!" She yelled. Armin watched, unsure of what to say or do. Had it not been for him, Mikasa and Eren would have been able to get over the wall so easily. It was his curse. He wasn't just unhelpful, he was often the problem.

The carcass began to dissipate, and Eren, fell headfirst toward the ground, pulling taught his tendon-like connections to the titan body. He gasped and opened his eyes quickly as he regained consciousness; he looked at his two friends, healthy and safe, and his expression relaxed. His eyes hazed, and fluttered shut again. He fell limp. Mikasa supported his head and body.

"Armin, help me cut him out!" she said. He drew one of his blades and began carving. Soon, their friend was free, and the blood from the operation stained all three of them. It was slow to evaporate. Armin held two fingers to Eren's neck and sighed with relief as he felt a healthy pulse. But when blood began tricking out of the unconscious boy's nostrils, a worrisome expression resurfaced. All around them they heard gigantic footsteps. Mikasa gave her companion a meaningful look.

"You take Eren to that house over there and hide. Clean him up and get him comfortable for when he wakes up. Try to find food and drink. I'll be quick." Should she be as quick as her words, he would see Mikasa again in no time. Armin frowned and nodded. He did not want to leave her alone, but she was much more capable than he was, especially without him. He did as he was told. Mikasa grappled to a nearby building and sped off toward the footsteps.

Armin looked back up at the wall, but all signs of the commotion they had escaped were gone. The high command seemed to have approached their situation with a "good riddance" attitude.

Mikasa grappled to a nearby chimney and was soon on a rooftop, surveying her enemies. A five meter to the southwest and a five and three meter class in the western direction. There was a 10 meter class much farther away, but he seems preoccupied, wandering in the opposite direction. She tapped her gas cans, which gave off a tinny confirmation that she had about half of each tank still left. She withdrew some blades from her sheathes. This would be easy.

The solitary five meter was closer, so she zipped over to it. It greeted her by slightly opening its mouth in a wicked grin, its eyes bulging and its lips literally splitting its head nearly to its ears. What did Mikasa feel when she faced down a Titan? She felt a calm numbness, and the constant and beautifully resilient beating in her veins. She knew what these creatures did to her, her friends, and her species, but a fight was not the place for emotions. Violence was best accomplished with a clear conscience, and clearing her mind to focus was what she specialized in.

As soon as it noticed her, she tested it for its reflexes by zigzagging slightly in her approach. This titan was normal, dull, slow to turn, at least compared to her. Mikasa ran to toward the Titan's right side, but still stayed a safe distance away. She calculated her angle of approach intuitively and shot her right grapple to its temple. Its expression showed no signs of pain. She jumped in a wide arch around its right shoulder. It was turning toward her, but she had expected this and applied the gas to keep a decent height and angle throughout her turn. She then pulled on the clutch on her right sword with such force that her trajectory shot her up right past the nape of the monster's neck. Her momentum was great enough to easily cut through its callus flesh.

Mikasa flew threw the air in a high curve. The fall toward the next roof could hurt her if she didn't roll it out. She re-sheathed her blades and plummeted toward the red tiles of someone's long forgotten home. Her strong ankles took very little of the impact as she collapsed into a modified roll, careful not to disturb the gear around her waist too roughly. She skidded to a halt back on her feet, expression blank as the titan's carcass all but splattered against the cobble road behind her. "Two to go."