Jean smashed through the window and rolled to a stop, turning to look around him, he saw about two thirds of the group that had followed him. Falling to his knees, he panicked "How many of our comrades died on my orders as I took advantage of my comrade's sacrifice?" he thought in despair before looking to his right, under a table, to see two soldiers, one male and one female, the female covered in blood. "Wait, you guys are from the supply depot, right?"

"Y-yeah" the soldier stuttered before Jean grabbed him and delivered a fist to the side of his head "YOU COWARDS, YOU LEFT US ON OUR OWN! PEOPLE ARE DEAD BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T HAVE THE GUTS TO DO YOUR JOBS!" Marco held Jean back as he screamed at the pathetic soldiers

The female soldier sobbed as she ran to help her pummelled comrade, "The titans were coming at us from every angle! They overran the supply room-""IT'S YOUR JOB DEAL WITH IT AND BACK US UP ANYWAY!" he spat back before a voice echoed down the halls "Incoming!"

With a loud crash, the wall of the command centre was blown apart as a titan's face poked in at them. "Damnit, there are too many people here, they can smell us!" Immediately the soldiers descended into panic "Get further in!" "We can't!" "Where are Kaneki, Touka and Mikasa?!" "They're all dead by now!"

Jean stood in front of the large hole in the wall as two titans stared in at him "It's obvious. I guess this is how reality is. I mean, if you stop and think about it, it's obvious. There's no winning, not against them" His thoughts were interrupted by a large fist slamming into the titans' heads, sending them flying, to reveal the culprit, a fifteen metre titan with a weird jaw.

Through one of the windows next to him emerged Touka, Mikasa, Connie and Armin.

"Mikasa! You're alive!"

"Whew, I was running on fumes. We did it though, just barely, but we did" Smiling, Connie patted Armin on the back a little too hard, "You're a certified genius! As far as I know, your word is law! Check it out! We found an abnormal that attacks other titans! The best part, he couldn't care less about us! This thing is our ticket out of here!"

"You think a titan's gonna help us? You're out of your mind if you think this'll work-" "It is working" Misaka interrupted Jean "For some reason, it's rampaging against them. Stand back and watch. In any case, that thing is our best shot at getting out of here alive"

"She's right, you know? You just need to focus on getting our supplies right now" Touka informed Jean as she began scanning the room, "By the way, where's Kaneki? I thought he'd be here with you" Jean froze up at the dreaded question, noticing his reaction, Touka walked up to Jean. She was shorter than him but he felt very intimidated by the girl, well aware of her strength and her tendency to get violent. "Where? Is? Kaneki? "

Hesitatingly he gave his response, "Kaneki agreed to be the bait to lure away most of the titans on the way here…" Touka was silent, her bangs preventing her face from being seen by the taller boy, "…if he hadn't had done that, we'd all have been wiped out indefinitely" he defended, expecting for the girl to hit him

"Did he…say anything… before he left?" Touka asked him

"Y-Y-Yeah, he did" he covered his right eye with his hand, "He said that he's going 'all-out' against them… but I doubt that even he-" "Oh, is that what he said?" Touka's voice was very strained and filled with a mixture of despair and fury, "If that's the case then I feel bad for the titans, after all, he's really strong" she forced herself to respond

"Y-Y-Y-Yeah, he's way too strong to die so easily, r-right?" Jean was panicking now, he'd never seen Touka get like this before and he certainly didn't want to be dealt a blow from the scarily strong girl.

"Armin, think of something to deal with the titans in the supply room" she instructed as she tried to take her mind off a certain white-haired half breed, to no avail "I thought we'd been over this already, no more leaving me behind, shitty Kaneki! What if he gets careless and ends up dead? The message he left was obvious, he's going to be using his kagune, there's no way he could die when he's using that. But what if he gets seen, what would happen? Is he wearing his mask? No, that wouldn't matter as much because of his hair sticking out like a sore thumb. Would he try to leave again to make sure they don't find me out too? NO! I won't let him do that again!" Touka resolved


Armin's plan to deal with the titans in the supply room was risky, using himself and others as bait while the most skilled ones snuck up on the titans and killed them. They just had to wait for the signal, once they shoot out the titans' eyes, they could move out. The waiting was hell, the titans got closer and closer to their friends but there was nothing they could do yet, except watch as Marco and Armin tried to keep anyone from shooting too early

"Wait for it…

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

NOW!" With a fierce volley of bullets rained down on the eyes of the titans, temporarily impairing their vision, just long enough for Touka, Mikasa, Jean, Reiner, Bertolt, Annie, Sasha and Connie to run along the rafters and strike their napes. "Did everyone get their targets?!" The question was quickly answered as Sasha and Connie's titans turned to face them, Sasha backed away slowly, almost paralysed by fear, "S-S-Sorry a-about that" she stuttered out as the 4m titan prepared to pounce on her. Diving out of its path she screamed. Mikasa quickly climbed onto the titan's back and executed it as Connie's titan walked towards him, backing him into a wall. Terrified, he closed his eyes and surrendered to his fate as the titan's arm reached out to him. His body turned numb, he couldn't feel a thing, but he heard a familiar cracking, the cracking of bones that he had heard over and over since the titans had attacked. He assumed that either he or someone nearby had been grabbed and the titan had crushed them between its jaws. Cracking his eyes open to see the fate that awaited him, he was filled with a mixture of relief, admiration and shock. Time seemed to almost stop completely for the bald boy, he watched as the titan's arm that had reached out to him was now bending the wrong way and with his knee buried deep in the titan's elbow was a white-haired comrade that had been presumed dead. "KANEKI!" with a yell, time began to flow again. The titan didn't seem too fussed about its arm being broken and bent out of shape as it's face gave no indication of discomfort, or even acknowledgement that it's arm had been broken, as it continued to try to use the broken arm, to no avail. The white-haired boy ran straight towards the titan, ducking under its arms that tried to grab him, and upon getting close to the titan he delivered one of its knees a devastating kick that shattered the titan's knee, causing it to lose its balance and fall onto one knee, as Annie jumped from the rafters again and cut the titan down.

"Th-Thanks a lot!" Connie thanked his saviours, to which the only conformation he got was a "It's fine" from Annie, while Kaneki gave no response as he fell onto his back

"Hey, are you okay?" Connie asked his saviour, leaning over him to see obvious signs of exhaustion covering him. Kaneki's face was covered in sweat, his chest was rising high with each breath he struggled to take, just what had he been doing? "Oh, yeah! Jean said that Kaneki had lured away all the other titans so that they could advance" Connie remembered before coming to a horrifying realisation of what his presence meant "Wait! You didn't bring back the titans you lured away, did you?!" he screamed

"All… dead" Kaneki spoke between deep breaths

"Kaneki!" Jean ran over to him, "You're alive, how did you…?"

"He killed all the titans that were following him!" Connie answered for his friend, knowing that he needed to rest a bit more

"What?! But there were about 20 of them, at least!" Jean reasoned

"Jean, you just watched him break a 4m titan's limbs with nothing but his own strength, I don't think you're in any position to doubt it" A calm voice forced Jean to accept the explanation, looking back he saw Mikasa standing proud, watching the one-eyed ghoul closely, not knowing exactly how he had managed to perform such a feat of strength.

"Kaneki…" a familiar voice spoke to him, "you moron!" with that, Touka delivered him a fist to his stomach from above, causing him to groan from the pain. Usually he wouldn't have been too affected but he was completely exhausted and therefore very weak. Forcing himself to sit up, he clutched at his stomach "That was a bit excessive, wasn't it?" he asked, his voice was strained and his breathing uneven. The only response he got was two arms wrapping around his back as he was pulled into a hug, "I thought you weren't gonna go off on your own anymore!" she spoke quietly but sternly, Jean set the rest of the recruits off to refill their gas to give the two a moment.

"Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry, Touka" he relaxed his hold on his stomach and let one of his arms snake its way around the waist of his friend

"This is exactly the kind of thing I wanted to avoid" she buried her face in his chest

"Yeah, I know-" "Then why did you do it?!" she all but screamed at him

"Because of the same reason that you went off to follow Mikasa, because I wanted to make sure my friends survived. It would've been impossible for Jean and the others to have gotten here if I hadn't drawn the titans away"

"That still doesn't make it okay"

"I'm aware, but I won't just do nothing and let my friends die when I can help them" his face was serious before it twisted in pain as a hand was brought to his back

"You're a lot nicer than you look, you know that?" Connie interrupted the two with a smile, patting Kaneki on the back a little too hard

"Yeah" Sasha added on, "You look really scary but you're really a big softie, aren't you?"

Kaneki let out a small chuckle, Touka let herself smile a bit as she lifted her face from his chest, "Yeah, Kaneki. You look way too scary to be a softie, you should really work on that" she teased him

"I'll try my best" he smiled at her before moving to stand and offering Touka a hand up, "I found out some useful info while I was out there, I'll tell you while we get our gear ready" he whispered as he pulled her up


As they prepared their gear to leave, Kaneki recounted what he observed when he fought the titans, "…then I entered the building and saw Connie backed up against a wall with a titan reaching out to him, so I quickly took off my mask and ran full speed and tried to make sure the titan didn't grab him"

"And the best way to do that was to break the titan's arm? Not get Connie out of the way?" Touka asked sarcastically

"Point taken, but it worked and that's what counts" he defended "But still, I am a bit concerned. Since the titans can be eaten by us, I think that they may have some connection to humans"

"But it's just the nape that we can eat?"

"Yeah"

"The size of their weak spot is about 1m by 10cm, on a human that's about the size of the area that goes from a brain to the spinal cord" Touka showed off her knowledge in biology

"You think that a human is in there, controlling the titan?"

"It's a possibility, nothing more, but since we can eat them, it doesn't seem too far-fetched, does it?"

"No, but it does mean we have even more questions, how are humans able to control them? Why are they eating other humans? What about the Armoured and Colossal titans? Are they the titans' leaders or something?"

"Who knows, but we might as well try to find out, I don't want anyone else I care about to get killed" Touka remembered Mina and Eren, all the fun little talks they had had together during training, she quickly silenced those thoughts, she could deal with them later

"Hey, Kaneki, can I talk to you for a minute?" Jean appeared in front of the two ghouls

"Yeah, sure. Touka, we can think about it some more later on, okay?" Touka nodded before she stood up and left the two boys on their own.

"Look, I have to ask, when you left me in charge you said that I'm a better leader than you, why did you say that?" he sat down next to Kaneki

"Because you're not as strong as I am. You, like everyone else, are terrified of dying, so you can understand the feelings of others a lot better than I can" Kaneki didn't even look up from his borrowed gear that he was trying to put on.

"That's almost exactly what Marco said" Jean admitted

"Well, Marco is right"

"Okay, fine. Another question, how the fuck did you get a girl like Touka?!" Kaneki froze up before face palming

"In what way have I 'got' Touka?" he asked honestly

"Are you serious? Are you that dense?! And I thought Eren was dense, this is just ridiculous!"

"What do you mean?" Kaneki was completely lost now

"You know what? I'm not gonna say anything, I'm just gonna let you figure it out on your own. Seriously, what is it with them liking the dense ones?" Jean got up and left Kaneki alone to ponder his words

"Kaneki, time to go!" Armin called out to him as he ran past towards the exit

"Right!" he called back and followed, "Where are Touka and Mikasa?" he asked once outside. Looking up, he found his answer, the two were in a rooftop staring at something. Armin flew up to the two, "What are you doing here? We have to go now!"

"Look there" Mikasa issued towards something ahead of her, upon seeing it, Armin gasped and recoiled in fear. The abnormal that had bought them the time to refill their gas was being cannibalised by a by a large group of titans.

"Cannibalism? Can it not regenerate like the others?" Armin asked nobody in particular

"This may sound silly, but I was hoping he'd be the key for us, help mankind break the cycle just enough to give us a little ray of hope" Mikasa admitted

"You're right, he's far too valuable to just let die, there's too much we could learn from him" Reiner agreed, Jean had a bit of difficulty believing it

"Are you serious, we can finally get out of this nightmare and you want to stay?!"

"Think about it, an abnormal would be a far better weapon to fight titans than a mere cannon?" Annie defended the titan

"Do you hear yourselves? He's not our friend, he's a titan!"

"Oh no! It's the one that ate Thomas" Armin noticed the lanky, blonde titan getting closer

Evidently the abnormal noticed it too, as it sprang from its position on the ground and ran towards the aforementioned titan, other titans still holding on to his arms which were ripped off as it ran. In the absence of its arms, the titan used its jaw and grabbed the nape of Thomas' killer, before throwing it around like a rag doll to kill the surrounding titans. The titan dropped the corpse from its mouth and stood tall above the surroundings, despite its injuries, no arms and almost the entirety of its chest had been ripped out, causing its ribcage to become visible. Releasing a mighty roar, the titan collapsed, causing a tremor that all but knocked the soldiers off their feet.

Steam was released from the titan's body, especially from its nape, and through the steam a figure emerged. It was unclear to all of the soldiers, save one, one who would know that figure anywhere. "Please, please, please don't be dead" she pleaded as she approached the figure. The figure began to fall forwards, where Mikasa caught him, and held him close, before putting her ear to his chest and hearing his heartbeat. He was alive, Eren Yeager was alive. Upon this revelation, Mikasa let lose the full force of her emotions as she began to sob loudly.

Jumping down, Armin examined the boy, his clothing was torn, but his severed limbs had grown back. "But this is impossible"

Kaneki and Touka exchanged a look before announcing, "I don't think we should tell anyone about this"

This caused all eyes to be focused on them, "If the military finds out about Eren's ability, they may not think he's of benefit to them. If that happens, he could be killed on the spot"

"Is that really a bad thing?" Jean muttered under his breath, winning him deadly glares from Kaneki and Touka

"Yes, Jean, it is. Eren is our friend and comrade, we all thought he was dead and now we've found him alive" Touka scolded him, "I don't understand why you'd be so pessimistic about this"

"Surely the military would be able to appreciate the value Eren has to humanity" Armin interjected, "They also have more resources than we do, more information on the titans, everything. It would be better to let the military know"

"Armin, are you that dumb? If they find out about his ability, it's more likely that they'll fear him and try to kill him" Kaneki spoke harshly to him, causing Armin to recoil

"This is way too complicated, what do you guys think?" Jean asked Reiner, Bertolt and Annie, who seemed to be huddled together, discussing it separately

"…then if he's the coordinate, we just need to take him with us" Reiner whispered

"Then we can go home?" Bertolt asked

"Yeah, then we can go home"

"If you're going to discuss the matter of Eren, why not do it so we can all hear you?" Kaneki asked them, causing them to separate quickly as Reiner sputtered out a reply

"Umm, we should talk to the military and get their view before we do anything" to this, the trio's faces fell, apparently he didn't speak for everyone, not even himself, he probably misspoke in an attempt to hide whatever they were talking about.

"I agree, Reiner. We should find out what the military's position is, then we can decide on whether to run away or not" Armin reasoned

"I won't let anyone take him from me again" Mikasa's voice was overflowing with bloodlust

"Tch, fine!" Touka resigned before turning to Kaneki, "We're not gonna leave him alone until we know he'll be safe" she informed him

"Agreed"


Once the military was informed of what had come to pass, Eren, Mikasa and Armin were summoned on their own, while Kaneki and the others were forced to the side-lines with everyone else and were ordered to relax. Left alone, the ghouls were given the chance to think about what they had learned. "So Eren can turn into a titan" Touka began

"That means that humans can become titans, like we thought" Kaneki responded

"But Eren didn't turn into an ordinary titan, he turned into one and then rampaged against the other ones, that means he had some control over his titan form"

"Does that mean that the colossal and armoured titans are like Eren?"

"I presume so, but finding them may be rather difficult, after all they could be anywhere, perhaps not even inside the walls"

"That's rather unlikely"

"And why's that?"

"If their aim was to wipe out everyone within the walls, they would've just broken through all the walls already"

"What do you mean?"

"Once the colossal titan appeared for the first time five years ago, it smashed the outer gate to a district named Shiganshina then the Armoured titan broke through the gate to wall Maria"

"Yeah, that's right, so?"

"Why did they stop there? Why not keep going and break through all the walls in one fell swoop?"

"Because that is not their final aim… are they searching for something?"

"I think so, but what are they looking for?"

"…Do you think it's Eren?"

"It's possible, but if that was the case, why didn't they take him during our three years of training? We were untrained and underprepared for it, so what stopped them?"

"…They didn't know… Eren never used his titan power until now!"

"You're right, and since the armoured titan didn't show up, it means they've found him" Kaneki's face contorted as he realised something he wished he hadn't

"What's wrong?" Touka asked, concerned

"Armin said that he watched Eren get eaten, that means nobody could've seen him transform, right?"

"Yeah, what's your point?"

"To have found out that Eren was the shifter, they must have seen him come out of the titan's body"

Touka's face contorted in a similar manner as she realised what Kaneki meant "The enemy is among those who were there, so it's one or more of our friends"

"Yeah"

The two ghouls let their heads fall as despair took over them, not for long though, as cannon firing and a loud crash of lightning came down towards the wall, "What was that?!"

Seeing Reiner, Bertolt and Annie spring off into action towards the site, the two ghouls followed them as quickly as possible, Jean following after them. The two ghouls got closer to the sight and the familiar sweet smell filled their noses, "That's it, it's their smell. Maybe all the shifters smell like that. If that's so, we know who to keep an eye on already" Touka realised as they got closer.

They found the site before them to be rather peculiar, to say the least, before them stood the upper body of a half-formed titan and in its ribcage stood Armin, Mikasa and Eren. Kaneki and Touka observed from a distance with the others, three of which's faces filled with a look of sheer panic. "THERE IS THE PROOF! HE IS NOT A HUMAN, HE IS A TITAN!" stood in front of the deformed titan was a large group of soldiers, armed to the teeth with guns and ODM gear and leading them stood a creepy-looking captain with a beard who appeared completely terrified by the sight before him. The ghouls needed only a single look at the situation before them to understand it, they were right, it wasn't going well for Eren and the others.

The two ghouls noticed Armin coming out of the titan's body with his arms in the air in surrender, they couldn't hear what he was saying to the soldiers, but it seemed to be having the desired effect, as the soldiers began to lower their guard. Unfortunately the bearded freak seemed to yell something that made the soldiers resume their positions as they prepared to kill them. He rose his arm to give the signal to kill them, and the ghouls were left powerless to stop it, all they could do was watch until the captain's arm was grabbed by an older man, presumably his commanding officer. This commander seemed like he was going to use Eren for the military effort, as he had Eren and the others given ODM gear and they climbed to the top of the wall. It wasn't long after that that the order for all soldiers to gather before the gate was given. The commander that they saw earlier revealed himself to be commander Pixis, leader of the Garrison regiment, and behind him stood Eren. Pixis gave instructions as to what to do for the mission to retake Trost district, they were to act as bait and distract the titans as Eren uses his titan power to lift a large boulder and use it to seal up the gate. It was a rather simple plan, perhaps this was Pixis' way of testing whether humanity can rely on Eren's ability. Pixis informed the soldiers that participation was not mandatory, taking advantage of the opportunity, Kaneki pulled Touka away with all the soldiers who wanted to retreat.

Touka was not happy at being dragged away, she kicked Kaneki in the side as soon as they stopped in an alleyway, "What gives?! Why are we not out there, helping out with everyone else?!" she snapped at him

Kaneki hushed the girl by putting his finger to her lips, he whispered, "We could be of more use if we used our kagune's, right?"

"Yeah, but we can't…" Touka realised what Kaneki was planning, "Do you have your mask on you?" she asked

Pulling his black, eyepatched mask out from his back pocket, he responded calmly "Always"

"Well then, Eyepatch, we'd better grab something like a hoodie to hide that hair of yours, anyone who's ever seen you would know who you are immediately" she informed him with a smile on her face as she took out her mask

"Good idea, Rabbit" Kaneki smiled back to her

Swiping a hooded cloak each from a nearby shop, the ghouls snuck their way into the Trost district. Knowing where the boulder was, on which the entire plan depended, the ghouls headed towards it, running along the rooftops, leaving their ODM gear behind, so that fewer people suspected them being in the military. The ghouls found themselves at the boulder rather quickly, Eren and his squad were nowhere to be seen, so the ghouls decided to wait inside a nearby house, looking out the window every now and then to check on the mission's progress.


I ended up deciding that Eren won't join up with Kaneki and Touka, not yet at least, but they will be gaining an ally soon, see if you can guess who it is :P
I felt like if Eren didn't get involved in the military, even just a little bit, it would be difficult for me to include Levi or Hange later on (which I really want to do)
I know what I want to do for the next chapter, but any input would be very much appreciated :)