Chapter 4: Two Deaths

A/N: Semi-continuation of the last chapter. Annie centric. Also, still not part two of Endless Masquerading. That's still in the making, sorry. And as always, huge thanks to everyone that reviewed.

'I'm losing...'

Another fist caught her in the jaw. Everything was hazy and blurry, spinning around her. Her mind grasped her imminent death with slippery fingers, not quite being able to wrap around it. Another blow, to her shoulder, then another to her head, and then a flurry. It was all so distant, her physical state from her mental state. All she knew was that she was dying.

Piece by piece, she was slowly falling apart. Her hands flew up in an attempt to defend herself, but they were battered away with a fierce blow that rendered them useless. Her large blue eyes glazed over. Her body was falling apart, just as her mind was.

'Both parts of myself...'

The realization hit her hard, and suddenly she was moving frantically, looking for an escape from the inevitable doom approaching her,

She looked around. Tiny humans in tan leather jackets swarmed around her, some even flying above her head. She turned her head to the right, and was met with the wall. Panic rose inside of her.

Eren roared, and swung his fist down towards her chest. Her arms flung up, nearly regenerated, and crystallized.

For a moment she was stuck that way, staring into his eyes. The hate that lay there nearly made her flinch.

He was completely and utterly disgusted by her; no, enraged. The anger his blows came with crushed her in more ways than one, and she felt the sinking feeling of falling once again. A tear rose to her eye.

An image flashed in her mind, and she remembered how she'd begun fighting.

She recoiled, despite all the pain and restraints put on her. 'Father...'

The tear spilled down her cheek, even as her chest was beaten bloody.

'Eren...'

She looked up at him then, his face void of any mercy or kindness, any caring or feeling. Her fingers twitched, and she felt within herself for any feeling, any strength she may have retained.

Her shoulder's collapsed into bloody smithereens, staining her tear marred face as the droplets poured down her cheeks. 'Forgive me, father...' She could hear them all around her, the pesky bugs that would soon take her and everything she held dear. Her throat tightened. 'I have failed you in both lives. I have failed you as a titan, and I have failed you… as your daughter.'

The wall crumbled beside her. She reached up a hand, still staring into Eren's face, remembering when those eyes had invited her, when those hands had waved to her from across the lunch room instead of crushing her slowly. She sobbed, taking him by the upper arm. He didn't even flinch. He was too intent on the kill, too absorbed in his hate. After all, her grip wasn't stopping him from using his fists.

'Eren...'

He roared again, flesh smoldering. She remembered his voice, his human one. She remembered him calling across the courtyard to friends. She'd heard him long before she'd spoken to him herself. She remembered, most of all, those few rare times where she had been the friend he'd called to.

She shook, tears falling freely down her face. She raised another hand, and grasped him by neck, beginning to here the first shouts of worry from surrounding soldiers.

'I'm sorry I was unable to be the cold, uncaring girl you knew...'

His fist raised, and she braced herself for another punch. She remembered, not to long ago, when their positions had been reversed. She'd taught him how to fight, and for the first time in her life, she'd met someone equal to her. Not in personality, she knew. Their differences there were more than blatant. But in something different, something that exhilarated her, thought she'd never admitted it. He'd cared more than Bert and Reiner ever had about perfecting a single move.

She smiled, all the while crying.

'Most of all, though...'

The punch hit her hard, bloodying an eye and leaving her half blind. She sucked in a breath, wondering what the world would be like afterwards, in the place she was preparing to put herself in. Her fingers tightened around his neck.

He turned her onto her back and latched onto her neck, ripping it open. For a moment her senses faltered, switching between the human and the titan.

'I'm sorry I'll have to ruin your plan.'

With her last ounces of strength, she took a hold of his neck and crystallized, feeling the surge of cold going not only along the titan this time, but through herself, through Annie. In her last moments she opened her eyes as Annie, and watched a world of white overcome her.

She has lived two lives, and she'd died two times for both of them.

'It's been fun.'