It had all happened so fast. In the blink of an eye. It was too fast. It was too surreal.
He had seen it all unfold in front of him. It was a scene that he wouldn't, couldn't ever forget.
She had launched herself, head on, to the titan that had grabbed Eren's unconscious body from his titan form. Jean didn't expect anything less. This was Mikasa after all, and although he worried immensely over her actions 110% of the time, he knew that she would be okay. She was the strongest in their class, she graduated at the top, second only to Corporal Levi.
But this time, she was just a little bit slower, just a little more tired, just a little less stronger than she usually was.
With little effort, the titan had caught her in mid air. The wire attached to her 3DMG had snapped and her body was stuck inside the giant hand.
A loud cracking sound resounded throughout the forest. It was a sound that kept replaying in his mind, torturing him.
And just like that, she had died.
If Jean had blinked, he would have missed it.
There was noone to scream, noone to cry. Her death had been unceremonious. The world did not stop spinning and the sun didn't stop beating. The rest of the soldiers around him paid little mind, not knowing her as personally as he did. They merely grimaced at the horrific sound and launched at the titan.
In the end, it had been Jean who had slayed the titan, saving Eren in the process.
He had done it with little consciousness of his actions, even now he didn't know what he was doing. His feet had lead him to her. To her broken form.
Her eyes were half-lidded. She still looked alive, if it wasn't for the blood that seeped her clothes everywhere except her face. Without warning, his knees gave out and he ended up kneeling over her.
His hands, reach out to hold her still, lifeless, body, and he could see them shaking in the process.
Her body was still warm. It was still so warm. Her chest was shaking and a little bit of hope rose within him that maybe, just maybe, she was still alive, she was still gasping for air, she was still fighting because she was strong as she was beautiful and that was why he had loved her so.
But then he realized that her chest wasn't heaving and that was only his hands that were holding her so tightly.
There were strands of hair that were covering her face, and as tenderly as he could, took a shaking hand to push them back behind her ear.
Her silky black hair that he had so longed to touch for years. He could finally feel just how soft it was.
For a second he smiled, for a brief second he chuckled.
He finally had her close to him, could finally hold her in his arms, finally so close that he could smell her scent. Her metallic blood-drenched scent.
Suddenly he heard a terrible wail that hurt his ears. And it took a while for him to register that that sound had come from his own mouth.
He crushed her form to him, burying his face into her shoulder, making unintelligible sounds, half of which he didn't even know were coming from him. Jean held onto her so tightly, so tightly that she could break, but he didn't care anymore because he knew that she couldn't. She was already broken. She was already dead.
He was unaware of the soldiers who were looking at him in pity. All he saw was her and her ensanguined form.
"I love you, I love you, I love you…" The words kept spilling out of his mouth. The words that he had known, the ones that were always on the tip of his tongue, the ones that he never had the courage to tell her.
Now it was too late and she would never hear them.
Jean wanted to die right then. If he did, maybe there was a chance of seeing her again, there was a chance of escaping this hell that they lived in.
At least now she was safe. She didn't have to live in fear or in suffering.
Jean cried her name one last time, sobbing into her lifeless body.
