Companions to the End Chapter 3
Mid-Summer, 850 – The Attack on Trost
Things happened pretty quickly after the appearance of the Colossal Titan.
After the gates where completely smashed, Titans began flooding in, dozens of giant man-eating monstrosities that mimicked and mocked the human form, all with one desire: to devour whoever they came across.
The Garrison was able to hold them off temporarily, their use of nearly a dozen cannons set up near the gate able to buy the rest of the military a few minutes. But only, a few minutes. Because not even five minutes later, they had to either abandon their position (and most likely get caught and eaten), or be eaten on the spot.
It was all so hectic for Eren to keep up with. The moment the gate had been breached, the 104th had been summoned to the barracks, to allow them to gear up and be debriefed on their objective for this mission.
As Eren was fumbling with the straps on his ODM gear that went around his legs, Mikasa walked into the room carrying two pairs of gas cannisters for their ODM gears, presumably for her and him.
Placing them down near where he was sitting, Mikasa bent down and slapped away Eren's hands.
"Let me do it, it takes you too long to do it."
"I can do it myself Mikasa!" Eren yelled back, not appreciating how she had basically said he was being inefficient. He was going to be the one who slaughtered all the Titans and helped to free humanity, he could handle a few fucking straps.
At this Mikasa sighed, looking up to glare at him.
"I know you can, I'm not saying you can't. But the fact is, I can do the straps quicker than you, so I'm going to do them. If you want to be helpful, prep the cannisters, you seem to have a knack for doing those quickly." And with that, she bent her head down and continued sorting Eren's straps.
This seemed to placate Eren, as he realised what Mikasa was doing.
'She's not putting me down, she's being efficient. We're more efficient if we split the tasks into what we're good for. She's not trying to show you up'.
After mentally reassuring himself that he wasn't being mocked, he set to work sorting out the cannisters for his and Mikasa's gears. She was right, afterall. While he did always struggle with the fiddly parts of the gear, like the straps, he was very good with the parts that needed a bit of force to sort out. The cannisters were a prime example of this, with the cannisters needing their lids tighten to an extreme before they were connected to the gear, lest the pressurised gas escape and leave the soldier in question dry in the air.
After sorting both sets of cannisters out and placing them back down next to him, he took a deep breath before turning back to Mikasa.
"Hey Mikasa, I'm sorry."
At this Mikasa looked up at him, brow raised slightly in confusion. While they were on much better terms than they were shortly after the fall of Shiganshina, it still normally took a lot of coaxing from Armin to get Eren to apologise, yet here he was doing it of his own free will.
"What for?" She said dumbly, though deliberately as she tried to coax Eren into explaining his surprising calm nature today. She figured today of all days (the day when he'd see the Colossal Titan again) would be especially bad for him, yet here he was trying to collect himself. She wanted to find out what was going on in his head.
"I'm sorry for yelling at you. It was uncalled for. I know you're just trying to help. Its just, seeing that Colossal bastard again has me on edge, and I trying to keep calm but I'm like this close," he placed two fingers incredibly close together, with maybe a hairs space between them, "to losing my shit, and I shouldn't let you be my outlet. Not when you have just as much reason to be as angry as me."
Despite not explaining further, Mikasa didn't need him to. She understood fully. The last time the Colossal Titan had struck, Eren's mother, the women who took her in when she had nowhere else to go, had been eating by the Smiling Titan. And it was one of the worst days of her life. To lose not only her parents and Carla had been hard on Mikasa, even if she tried to hide it for Eren's sake.
But it would seem that Eren was as dense as people thought he was, noticing at the very least her controlled rage over the death of his mother. The fact that he was being mindful of her feelings was a big development for Eren, even if he still had a long way to go before he could be considered 'stable'.
A small smile graced her face, appreciating his effort to try and be calm for her sake, even if it isn't necessary.
"It's ok Eren, we'll get through this. We'll survive this attack, we'll find the Colossal and Armoured Titan, kill them both, and then us two and Armin will finally go and see the ocean. Like we always said we would, right?" Mikasa coaxed, letting her defences down just a little bit around Eren.
He was always the one she could open up to, even if he was a pain in her ass sometimes. He was the one who saved her all those years ago, and he was the one that wrapped the scarf she still wore to this day around her neck. While he had the emotions of a bull, he could be very caring when he wanted to be. Like when she started having nightmares about Carla's death.
Mikasa had been freakishly strong for her age ever since the incident with her parents. She couldn't explain it, but she had retained the superhuman like strength that she used to stab the third kidnapper through the heart. She had never questioned it however, and assumed it would be enough to help her protect the people she cared about, primarily Eren.
But that day, when Carla was pinned under the rubble of her own home, her strength had been useless. No matter how freakishly strong she was, she was still only a child, and wasn't capable of saving her. When Hannes had dragged her and Eren away, to allow them to escape while Carla was eaten, Mikasa had blamed herself.
It haunted her for a while, the guilt weighing heavily on her conscience. She had several nightmares where Carla, and sometimes even her parents, would come and haunt her, questioning why she didn't save them, why she didn't try harder to do something. This began affecting her sleep pattern, which was how Eren noticed something was wrong.
When Eren found out that Mikasa blamed herself for what happened to his mum, instead of exploding in her face, demanding to know why she felt like she should shoulder the blame when he was the one who should be blamed, all he did was hug her. That's it, just a quiet, simple hug.
No words were exchanged, no deep discussions were had, and no one played the blame-game. He just embraced her and let the action speak for itself. It's safe to say that Mikasa didn't have any more nightmares after that.
Through they are rare, these moments are what remind Mikasa of the little boy who was willing to risk his life, and wilfully kill another human being, just to protect her. These moments reminded her of the boy she had slowly been growing a crush on.
But now wasn't the time for that, they had Titans to deal with. A lot of Titans by the sound of it.
Nodding his agreement, Eren began pumping himself up, like he normally would whenever the discussion of Titans came up.
"Yeah, we'll kill them all. You and me, side-by-side. We'll slaughter them all!"
Chuckling at his usual outburst of Titan-slaying bravado, she just nudged him as she stood up, walking to the courtyard where they'll be getting their orders. Realisation dawned on Eren's face as he suddenly remembered that they hadn't been given orders, and quickly jogged to catch up to Mikasa.
The battle was about to begin.
Reiner was waiting just outside the barracks, claiming that he needed air before the briefing, but was actually waiting for Bertholdt. If the two of them were to avoid any suspicion, they both needed to be present for the briefing, or the entire plan could go to shit.
At this, Reiner growled to himself. He hated remembering that it was only the two of them now.
'That fucking bitch left us, and I can't even do anything about it. I'll make her pay for his insubordination.' He thought to himself, still seething at how Annie had betrayed them.
While he wasn't worried about her revealing their secrets to the Eldians, even she wasn't that stupid, the fact that they were now two Titan Shifters down was beginning to put him on edge.
The loss of Marcel and the Jaws Titan was bad enough, but now they had lost Annie and the Female Titan? They needed to come back either with them in chains, the Founding Titan or with the Eldians completely wiped out. Or their mission would have been a failure.
And Reiner was not about to fail his mission. Not while he still drew breath.
It was then that Bertholdt suddenly jetted in, his stolen ODM gear allowing him to come from above.
"Hey, everything ok?"
"What took you so long? I've been talking so much shit in the last hour that my mouth is gonna stink for a week!" Reiner hissed, annoyed at how relaxed Bertholdt was. Did he not realise what was at stake?
Raising his hands in a calming gesture, Bertholdt retorted. "Easy, I had to take the long way, or else I would have been caught by the garrison. Don't want them catching onto us, do we?"
Seeing the sense in his words, Reiner calmed down. "Ok, right. Good. Got to stay unnoticed. Good thinking."
Seeing how stressed Reiner was, Bertholdt slung his arm around his friend's back, his only friend now.
"Listen, we're in the clear now. The Mindless Titans are pouring in now, and all we have to do is survive long enough for the retreat to be sounded. When that happens, we'll be in the clear. We just slip in with the other survivors, wait for everything to calm down. Join the military police, and use our newfound authority to nose around. And once we find the Founding Titan, we can finish the final Wall and go home. Right?"
Breathing in and out a few more times, Reiner began nodding his head in agreement.
"Yeah, you're right. We're good. Ok, we should probably get back to the briefing now, we don't want anyone to get suspicious."
"Sweet. And by the way, what did you say to people who were asking for me."
"I told them you had the runs."
While Bertholdt began choking on his spit at Reiner's nonchalant mentioning of his cover for him, they failed to notice a tall, dark haired girl who was hiding just around the corner.
Scratching her freckle covered cheek, Ymir decided to head back before they spotted her, taking in this new information and trying to make sense of it.
"So, I'm not the only one in the 104th. I need to be careful from now on if that's the case." And with that, she began jogging, wanting to be back at the barracks before the two boys made it.
Eren was angry. No, he was furious.
They had just finished being debriefed by the local commander, and they had been informed that the Colossal Titan had disappeared as quickly as he had appeared, just like last time.
The coward had run before they could even get a chance to fight back! Something which annoyed the ever living shit out of Eren.
Glossing over this, he headed over to his squad, consisting of himself, Armin, Thomas, and two others he didn't know. A five-man squad to patrol the streets and take out any Titan that they came across.
However, as he neared his assigned squad, he couldn't help but notice a brief flash of red as he looked over the people in the local area. Sighing as he figured out who it was, he finished his trek over to his squad.
"Mikasa, what the hell are you doing here? This isn't your squad." Eren couldn't help but allow the annoyance to seep into his voice. As much as he and Mikasa had shared a moment earlier, he wasn't in the mood for her babying him right now.
"I requested that I be in your squad, I'd feel better knowing that I can watch your back."
"You did what?" Eren was starting to lose his patience. "What do you mean you requested that you change squad? How did you manage that?"
"Simple, I pointed out that I work best when fighting alongside you. They want us to fight at our best, my record shows that my performance peeks when working with you, so they agreed. I'm now a part of your squad. This was the smart thing to do."
Before Eren could explode at Mikasa for going so out of her way just to allow her to baby him, Armin stepped in, as always being the mediator in their trio.
"She has a point, both of you do better when fighting together. You just keep pushing yourselves past what is healthy."
Breathing heavily from his near-outburst, Eren thought this over. He was telling the truth. Whenever they were paired together or in the same squad while training, he did push himself harder to keep up with her, though that typically led to him getting frustrated when she topped even her own best scores. Looking back now, he realised it was because she was pushing herself just as hard.
Nodding to himself, he looked up at Mikasa. "Right, it makes sense. We work well together. We can kill more Titans that way. Don't try and get in my way though, you won't be able to stop me."
Signalling to show she understood, she began acquainting herself with the rest of her squad, though it was more for politeness than for efficiency. While they may have been assigned together, she wasn't that concerned with whether or not they lived or died. Her main concern was Armin and Eren, especially Eren. She would make sure they all made it out of this alive if it killed her.
Although, that didn't mean she planned to lie down and accept her fate. She was going to fight, just like Eren told her too when they first met. And fight she will.
