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:

I'm back on track with a shiny new plot, and it's looking like this will be a fun ride. Here's chapter 4 complete with two Armin flashbacks! Woot!

CHAPTER 4. In Which Our Heroes Face a Storm

Something had been bothering Armin about his titan theory. According to his grandfather's books, aerial elements such as Nitrogen and Oxygen would never solidify at normal temperatures, because they preferred to bounce around by themselves. Not even water vapor would condense into ice unless it was much cooler. Not superheated like in a titan, cooler. He vividly recalled the precious lessons of his youth:

"I wanna see the outside world too, Grandpa!" A blue-eyed child, scoffed at the indignity of it all. "Why won't mom and dad take me with them?"

Armin's grandfather sighed, mulling over his precious answer. He never spoke before he knew exactly what he was going to say, which often took a great while. "But Armin, everything about the outside world is right in front of you," he replied after serious thought.

"What do you mean?" The boy was, fortunately, easily distracted from emotional turmoil by new ideas.

"We are made of the same stuff as the things around us," his grandfather explained, "and can experience everything the world has to offer right here. I read about it in a very secret book." That caught the boy's attention. It was not long before the two were enjoying their favorite hobby together, sifting through dusty Arlert heirlooms in the secret room in their cottage, below the rug and under the floorboards. Candles lit the pages, though not quite as eagerly as the gazes of those who read them.

"Why are these letters arranged in boxes like this?"

"This is one of my favorite pages," His grandfather responded airily. Moments of contented silence followed, but the little boy grew impatient.

"Why?" Armin provoked.

"Oh, yes. It's actually quite remarkable. At some point, someone believed that everything in the world could be made of just a handful of building blocks, called elements," the man said, "and here's a list of them."

"Is it true?" the boy inquired.

"No one really knows, but lots of people wrote about experiments they conducted where it seems to come true." He leafed through the first half of the book, and Armin made a mental note to read it all later. "Of course that's not even the best part! Whoever wrote this book, also wrote a lot of facts about each of these little elements. Like these," He pointed to a box on the left, and four on the right, "Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus. They're the building blocks of life! We're made of them, livestock, trees, and the wheat in fields are all made of them." Armin remembered when his mother first told him that all plants were alive. He was stunned and asked her very urgently if trees could hear him when he talked. He looked at his hands.

"I don't see boxes," he observed.

"That's because they're too small to see."

"Are Titans made of them, too?" Armin asked soberly.

"According to this book, they very well may be."

Satisfied with that answer, Armin, looked back at the building blocks on the page, and then the candle that lit it. "What's in fire?" He couldn't wait to tell Eren and Mikasa what he had learned.

Long dismissed by Mikasa and Eren as a fun theory, the elements inspired Armin to this day. If they were true, then titans would be made of them too, and titans seemed nearly indestructible, but what they were made of couldn't possibly be. He pondered this long and hard as he walked through the late night with his friends. They were more than halfway to wall Maria and, graciously, the worst that happened to them the previous day after taking down that aberrant had been a 3 meter titan in an alleyway, followed by the joyful discovery of some rare beef jerky in a cellar, where they napped that evening. Back out by midnight, the three were eager to travel while the titans could not bother them. They lost track of time as the clouds swept overhead that night. The stars and moon were barely ever visible, and so even with developed night vision, they could not see much. What they wouldn't do for a torch. It was a peaceful, humid summer night. Crickets buzzed and they could even hear the occasional bat twitter above them. Later in the night, it started to drizzle. The sky grumbled with the sound of something natural and powerful.

"Listen," Mikasa whispered to the others urgently. The boys heard nothing peculiar and conveyed their confusion with furrowed brows.

"A thuderstorm's coming?" Eren observed, not understanding the significance.

"Birds are calling," the girl clarified. Her two companions remained confused. "Morning's coming. We shouldn't be out—"

A hazy blue burst of dawn flooded over the horizon from the east and a titan wasted no time in landing its large palms just meters from the three. Its face hovered above them for only moments before falling toward them.

"Go!" Mikasa shouted, her gear was already in her hands and her arms were wrapped around Eren. She shot off to the Titan's right. Armin took a bit longer, but managed to dodge just in time. The Titan paused with its face just a meter from the ground. It seemed to already be aware its prey had escaped. It looked up.

"It's fast," Mikasa observed. The titan quickly focused on them again. "And sharp." They headed for a nearby rooftop, but the height advantage left them in the sights of another titan behind the advancing one and separated by a building. Rain pattered on the roof tiles beside them, an irregular war drum that got steadier and heavier with every beat of their anxious hearts.

"Can I please take care of those assholes?!" Eren pleaded of his friends.

"No. Stay here." Mikasa answered. She was already running to the right and soon grappled to a nearby chimney. Using it as a pivot point, she dove toward the ground like a raindrop, then defiantly back up into the air, past the first titan's ear. She grappled to the second one's collarbone as she passed it and curved around, catching its neck with her blades. She seemed content to follow it to the ground, but at the last minute, tried to pull her grapples away from the slain beast and jump off. It was too late. She plummeted past Armin and Eren's line of vision, behind the building. The first titan kept moving toward them, eyes fixed, mouth grimacing.

"Armin, we have to kill this big one!" Eren shouted.

Armin's knees locked. "That's not even the worst of the problem! Judging by Mikasa's hesitation to fall, there are at least two smaller titans on the other side of that building, or possibly an abnormal one."

"Shit." Eren said, "I'll help."

"No! Please, Eren, that'll only bring more in!"

"So you want Mikasa to di—" Once again, Eren felt the full force of the little blonde push him to the side. Armin's maneuver gear pulled them out of harm's way as the titan hunting them flailed its arms backward, around, and over its head and then down toward the roof. As soon as they were safe again, Eren continued protesting, sick of his friends having to drag him around. Lightning struck violently and very close to them, hardly noticed.

"I can help, damnit! I'm not some useless runt! We—"

"Well I am!" Armin yelled back, startling his friend. "And I can't kill a titan! I'm awful at it, and this angle sucks! You know what I don't want, is more titans to remind me how much I can't kill them! If you wanna become a titan, go ahead, but it'll spell the end for us and you know it!"

Eren's jaw closed and set, processing the verbal assault. And then, auspiciously, he nodded. "We need to make sure Mikasa's alright." More thunder.

Armin nodded back. They clumsily swung toward the ground, Eren jumped off of his friend as soon as he could, but the blonde scraped his knees on the cobblestone all the same. They ran through an alley too tight for the titan pursuing them. The rain was slowing to a stop now, but the sky still threatened them with thunder. They looked around panicked for Mikasa, but they shouldn't have worried. She was grappled with poise to a wall, two titan carcasses sizzled and steamed in the rain on her left, and a particularly lively five meter was scrambling for her feet, which were just a meter out of its reach. She launched herself off of the wall, flipped her feet over her head, and shot toward the titan, pulling into it and killing it with ease.

"Mikasa!" Eren yelled after her when she had dismounted from her prey. The girl shifted her head in the direction of his voice. Her eyes widended.

"Watch out!" She yelled back through the crashing sound of another nearby lightning bolt. They whirled around. The other titan had already somehow found its way to them. It was approaching them and would soon throw its hands backward for another of its strange flailing grabs.

Armin saw a red scarf out of the corner of his eye. "Mikasa, NO!" But it was too late. One of the titan's arm hit her square on the left side. She spiraled in the air. Armin jetted through the titan's legs after her, but it was no use catching her from this angle. His stomach plummeted as he watched his friend do much the same.

He didn't even notice himself falling at first until he was nearly dead himself. He shot his maneuver gear and sloppily hit the ground and tumbled slightly. Already skinned knees, then hips then lanky elbows and shoulders met the unforgiving pavement. Thunder rumbled. The blonde looked up. Eren appeared as if he had tried to get away on foot, but he was pinned by the mad titan's grasp. His legs looked to be crushed between the street and its hand. The brunette boy was cursing like a sailor. By all accounts he should have blacked out, but Eren didn't give so easily.

"Try to eat me, you fucking piece of shit, and see what happens to your ass! Goddamn it that hurts fucking fuck! Rot in hell, you cocksucker!"

And that was when the stomach which had once fallen in his gut wanted to push itself right up into Armin's throat. He didn't want to look backward and see Mikasa lying there on the road, banged up and maybe even dead. He didn't want to see Eren get eaten again, or his titan form pulverized by an enemy onslaught while Armin watched and waited for some 3 meter to gobble him up as well. Lightning struck again behind him and Armin instinctively looked for it. A market stall, having been dry underneath its awning, had burst into flame from a lightning strike just behind—

Mikasa was kneeling a few meters away from the embers. She was trying to stand, but kept falling over, still partially attached to the walls on which she had stopped herself. She was either dizzy, injured or both. She was too weak to fight but persevered because somebody had to. She raised her head, face covered in hair, and her eyes met his. "Save him!" She yelled.

As the titan had just picked up a screaming and writhing, mangled Eren, its forgotten opponent surveyed the situation, with dread and a slightly dangerous amount of hope.

His time in the military academy came back to him, weeks and weeks of work were recalled in a single moment, as Armin stood, and walked to a spot he was familiar with.

Years ago, having had no success that day in mock titan killing exercises, Armin waited until nightfall and snuck out into the training grounds. He was quite near the bottom of the class in this skill, and he would pay dearly if he were unable to accomplish this task in the final.

The forest was nearly black, with only a quarter moon filtering through the trees. The night was cool and invigorating. Armin checked his gear one last time as he sized up the cutout he was after. In his head, he was trying to calculate the perfect three-dimensional angle, but he wondered if it would really help his muscles perform anyway. They never listened to his brain. At twenty meters away, he positioned himself at a thirty-degree angle, and plunged a grapple into its mock occipital. Trying not to think, Armin lunged forward, pulling his clutch in order to speed toward the target. It came up fast, too fast for him to contemplate, and his blades clanged off the edge of the wood, not penetrating anything, let alone something important. Keeping one grapple in place, he shot another toward a nearby tree and fell to the edge of the wire's triangular slack. The leather straps around his waist and the arches of his feet dug painfully into his skin, which was not yet used to such large falls. He lowered himself to the ground in defeat. This would be a long night: one of many to come. By its completion, the only thing he had become sufficient at was remembering where he started. A week of very little sleep later, and he could fail to cut the titan's neck, and recover gracefully afterward. Luckily, he still had six months until the final.

Presently, he planted his feet. This was the angle he had practiced most, and the height he knew well as analogous to the mock titan he worked so hard to carve up. His friends were in danger, and he had a strategic advantage. Before he had even decided to go, a grapple was buried in the beast's cranial tissue. He pulled, trusting his muscle memory, and for once, letting his mind go blank as he pulled his blades back over his right shoulder.

The problem came when, having perfectly pulled back his blades, ready to use his body mechanics to their full advantage, he thought. He thought about what it would feel like to slice through an actual titan. He thought of how his friends would react to his achievement, how maybe he wasn't as useless as he thought. He thought about failing and letting down the two people for which he cared most. Thinking was his downfall. His joints froze in the fear of possibility. He dug his blades halfway through the back of the titan's neck before sticking like a fly to glue. Armin's target was indeed distracted. It threw back its head in frustration, leaving Armin hanging relatively upside down, feet on its neck, and swords jammed in its most sensitive region.

It's going to end like this. The boy thought to himself, eyes wide with regret, hands holding on for dear life as his enemy pulled his head up again and reached behind him. It would pull the sad excuse for a soldier off the back of its neck, like the minor nuisance he was, and devour him.

"Fucking hell, Armin, is it time for plan Z yet?!" Eren yelled, hanging, forgotten, from the titan's other hand.

No. The blonde thought. He stopped himself from spiraling into his usual self-loathing and surveyed the situation for an armchair-like advantage. He thought back to his mother's book about animals said that every creature, from snail to human would react predictably to certain stimuli. The titan was presumably getting used to the pain, which allowed it to search for the source. A behavior like this might be reset with a noxious stimulus such as twisting a blade?

The titan's head fell backward again in agony and Armin was once again hanging from his gear handles. Now for leverage. He shot his grapples to a nearby wall and gripped tight, allowing the sudden thrust of the taught wires to do the majority of the work. Blades cut through flesh once again, and blood gushed out, covering the now free soldier, who rushed toward the wall, and stopped himself against it with his feet. He unhitched, and his feet hit the ground solidly at about the same time as his prey's head. Never in his life had Armin truly believed that he was capable of killing a titan.

Drenched from the rain and caked in boiling hot blood, Armin's attention immediately shifted toward his friends. Eren had managed to fall onto the titan by grabbing onto its hand while it died. Mikasa had managed to stand and was walking carefully toward Eren.

The familiar burning sensation of decomposing titan surrounded them as they helped Eren off of the titan. The brunette himself seemed to be letting off similar aerial elements as his legs began to miraculously heal themselves. "I'm sorry I couldn't help you both," Mikasa said. They could both tell that she was incredibly upset with herself. "I'll be less reckless next time."

"It was my fault, Mikasa." Armin said quickly. "I should have told you about its strange behavior."

Mikasa looked up at the blonde. "Good job killing it." She said it as if he had figured out how to spread peanut butter, but Armin knew how much it meant from her.

Armin blushed, embarrassed by his handiwork, or lack thereof. "Oh God, it was clumsy as hell. I don't—"

"No offense," Eren cut him off, "but I was pretty sure I was gonna get to kill a titan before you."

Armin laughed, caught off guard. "Not counting the fifty or so you've punched and stomped to death!" he replied.

Eren smiled as well, "Damn, I wish I remembered that."

The air was once again pleasantly still as the rain slowed to a drizzle once more. The storm had passed, and the thunder was rumbling farther away from them. All they could hear were distant footsteps, the birds, and the crackling of fire behind them. Armin watched with wonder as his friend's once unrecognizable legs slowly patched themselves back together. What he wouldn't give to know how it worked.

"Are you alright?" Mikasa asked Armin, noticing for the first time his heavily blood stained elbows, hips and knees. He smiled back at her. No he was not alright. Everything hurt like a bitch.

"My legs weren't crushed," was his short reply. "You feeling okay?"

"I'll be fine," said Mikasa.

The nearest alleyway was beyond the burning market stalls, and so they supported their regenerating friend and made their way toward it. Mikasa seemed to be getting steadier with every step. It seemed, thank goodness, that her dizziness had only been temporary, suggesting that whatever injury she sustained was not severe. Beside the flames, something caught the smaller boy's attention. He stopped walking.

"It's hot," he said aloud, to no one but himself.

"No shit, really?" Eren joked, but Armin wasn't listening.

"I'm sorry, I need to get closer," the boy said. His friends, slightly curious and a bit worried for Armin's mental health, hobbled toward the flame with him. It was an inferno. Armin quickly passed his hand through a tongue and then stared at his hot and stinging palm.

"Are you crazy?" Eren exclaimed.

"What is it?" Mikasa asked impatiently. The longer they were out in the open, the worse.

The boy looked up at his friends. The memory of titan's blood was fresh on his skin, and this feeling was contradictory.

"Doesn't it feel different?" he prompted them. He was just as afraid he had gone off the deep end as Mikasa and Eren were. He needed them to notice. "Doesn't it feel different from a titan's blood, I mean? Eren, Mikasa, you should both know better than anyone." Revelation flickered in his companions' eyes. They stared at him, then at each other.

"It burns," Eren said.

"They both burn," Mikasa said.

"But not in the same way," Armin finished their thoughts, glad they might just be catching on. They walked over to the nearest titan carcass and touched it. Compared to the fire, it was cool. In fact, it was colder than snow.

Mikasa puzzled over the feeling, so sure it was wrong. "It can't be."