Victory was sweeter than she could have fathomed. Her Titan's tongue folded and kept Eren there and safe. His blood flooded over the cavern of her mouth but it did not concern her; soon he would heal.
She straightened up. And who else should appear right in front of her, bursting out of the foliage at that very moment, but Mikasa Ackerman. For once, the other girl was paralyzed with incomprehension and sick, brutal fear, and she could do nothing for it. Ironic, how she froze and stared into the eyes of the beast that had, at last, laid claim to her brother. Annie's Titan stared back, impassive as its master. It wiped its mouth of blood and saliva and turned away.
She had only been running for a minute or two when the first blade cut her. A shallow wound, followed in quick succession by more. All over her body, and they kept coming like the tiny white scratches of wild trees. Annie was not a fool. Quick to admit that Mikasa Ackerman's capabilities in the heat of battle were a few steps above many soldiers when it came to precision and speed and skill. But she had no discipline, no control. There was nothing but emotion guiding her hand. She was, in many ways, exactly like her brother.
And that was why she would lose this battle.
"GIVE HIM BACK!" Mikasa roared, and her blades sank deep into her Titan's calves.
Annie fell to crouch on her feet, then knees. Sliding along the earth, but she was always a step ahead, always first to defend herself, so when Mikasa came swooping in, when she swung down with her weapons, Annie's hands turned to crystal around the nape of her neck. The blades connected, then shattered with a sweet, high note, ringing through the air and shadows. Slowly, it faded. Ackerman cursed her. Annie watched out of the corner of her eyes whilst she departed, latching onto a tree with her maneuver gear. She was shouting again, but whatever words Annie could decipher were comprised of vengeance-driven nonsense.
Within the safety of her shell, Annie was smirking. Ackerman was a fool to allow her time to reciprocate; and she tired of the other girl's idiocy faster than she finished healing, struck out at the tiny thing as one might swat at a fly.
Then Annie was running again, running with her prize clamped firmly within her Titan's jaws. Her heart was racing and her spirits hovered with cautious optimism. She could get away. She would get away.
So it seemed. Ackerman brought another with her. Captain Levi.
Failure came when she tired. Failure swooped in upon her weary form and cut her Titan down faster than blinking. Failure was the enemy, ripping Eren Jaeger away from her desperate embrace.
And in that instant before the blades sliced her jaw and she was done, Annie wished, as she had never wished for anything, anyone, that she could only save her quarry. Wished, like a child, that perhaps if she was to die alongside her companions, a traitor to humanity, that at least Eren could be allowed to know the truth that the world had kept from him for so long, and perhaps then she wouldn't have to kill him.
Perhaps.
But of course she could not. The world was not fair, and it did not take kindly to her desires, her fancies. And so it was that Captain Levi ripped her apart and stole him away, and left her to die a soldier's death.
.
.
.
Annie rose from the mass of steam and blood and found herself alone. Her heart was thudding violently in her ears. She was sluggish. She tore herself free of the meat clinging to her, rose to her knees. Her lungs were raw and her breath was shaking and there was a heavy constriction in her throat. Panting, she looked down and saw more blood and the ruined shell of her Titan. She remembered the fight. Remembered her failure. She blinked slowly, staring down at her own hands. Skin burnt, clothes singed and tattered, the stolen green cloak clinging to her body, drenched with scarlet and residue.
Breath was sudden agony. She was shaking and did not understand why. Something, some dark and silent part of her, kept secret for so many years, hidden deep in the crevices of her cold and broken heart, fractured. And her pride cracked, drifted apart like the melting ice in spring.
She was alone.
Annie closed her eyes, opened them. Breathing evenly. Controlled. She would have to Shift again and she was already so tired of running. But she could do this. She was still young, still strong. She was a Warrior.
She had failed.
Her face twisted. She bowed her head, clutched her blood-sticky scalp in her hands and lifted her face to the heavens and screamed.
It came out violent, wordless, a harsh and wretched sound exploding from her vocal chords. She reared back, drove her shaking fist against her Titan's disintegrating body and broke through the vulnerable flesh with ease. She let herself crumple into its dead embrace. And she wept. Allowed herself the privilege of emotion for the first time in living memory, wrought with shame. Her hand was burning, bleeding inside the Titan's carcass. She did not care.
Father, she thought, overwhelmed with anguish. Please, forgive me.
How easy it would be to die. How pathetic. Effortless, virtually painless. Let the Titans come to her and devour her tiny, defenceless body and no one would know, no one would ever miss her. What had she to lose? Mina was gone, Eren was gone, and Reiner and Bertholdt could get on well enough without her. And as for her father...it was anyone's guess as to what had become of him.
Except that wasn't true, was it. Her father needed her, still, because she had promised him she would come home, and Bertholdt and Reiner needed her because they were weak-willed and unsure of themselves, and even Eren, foolish, hopeful boy that he was, needed her to find him because he was the last thing standing between freedom and certain death at the hands of their government. It was as simple as that.
There was work to be done, and she would see it finished. With this thought fresh in mind, Annie now made it her priority to regain order of herself. The process was not, as many were likely to assume, as simple as flicking a switch. It was achieved in sections. She cut herself out from the rest of the world and all its stimuli, gradually stopped shaking, stopped weeping, dismayed all thoughts but those of returning back to Hitch's room, and how she might recuperate, redouble her efforts. She focused on this and this alone, until she was utterly still, silent. No longer impassive, but hollow, rife with resolve.
Annie rose to her feet, silent and steady—she would not need her ring; she was already bleeding—and prepared to make the jump.
.
.
.
Hitch departed, leaving Annie with her injuries and thoughts. She watched the door close, waited until the sound of her footsteps had faded before forcing herself to her feet. Immediately her limbs screamed in protest. Annie grit her teeth and forced her weakened body to obey her. She staggered to the bathroom, almost collapsed upon the floor once or twice but recovered, opened the door and clambered along the entryway into the tiny bathroom. Once inside, she shut the door behind her, locked it, and discarded her tattered cloak and gear by the closed door with a muffled clattering of metal on cloth and wood, unsteady on her feet from the sudden loss of weight. The floor would surely be tarnished, but she did not care. Her legs quickly gave and she sank back against the wall for support, cursing.
Upon attempting to remove the rest of her clothing, she was met with resistance, then sharp pain. It occurred to her that her clothes must have stuck to her healing body, melding with her flesh during the night. Her spirits, already dampened from the catastrophe of the previous evening, now sank a level further. This was not going to be easy. But when in this life had anyone ever promised her that it would be so?
She got the water going, resolved to get this over with quickly. Annie braced herself, stepped under the stream of water. It was with great difficulty that she remained silent, but froze at the rush of sensation, biting back her gasp of pain. Temporarily numb with shock, she resisted the temptation to slump back against the stall wall, instead letting the water sweep over her, eyes shut. The blood flowed from her clothes and her body incrementally, and she steeled herself for the waves of pain that would soon follow.
To hasten the process, Annie thought of other, pressing matters. She would, for example, most likely have to kill Hitch after everything that had happened. Another innocent. It was Marco Bodt all over again...or was it, after all? Hitch did not ask questions, did not even acknowledge that anything had been off this morning or the night before, but Annie had not been conscious for more than a minute after the return. Besides, what right-minded human would dare entertain the idea of normalcy, now, especially? The fact remained: Hitch could not be trusted.
Having dwelt upon her uncertainties long enough, Annie tested her shirt and found the resistance between saturated cloth and skin was easing. She stripped off the fabric without much trouble, managing to disguise her pained wheeze as a kind of cough. Her skin was raw, irritated, but not torn. Encouraged, she set to a proper wash, unyielding to the fresh sting that accompanied the touch, despite how her head was spinning, because it was nothing, nothing at all. There would be worse things. Annie had just extricated herself of the rest of her clothing before she realised she had no idea how she was going to kill her roommate.
And for a single, ludicrous moment, Annie didn't want to kill Hitch anymore. What was the point? Another death, more blood on her hands and inconvenient questions, not to mention the trouble of the actual killing, then hiding her body. And it was completely unnecessary; Hitch was simple in mind, easy to predict. But she had thought the same of Eren Jaeger, and look where that had gotten her.
Annie scowled to herself. Turned off the shower and watched the water drip onto the floor.
She would make her decision today, plain and simple. And then she could rest a little easier.
A/N: And hence ends the tale! Nearly a year in the making, I can hardly believe it, but it's DONE! A hearty thank you to all you readers out there for sticking with me!