Chapter Ten: The Waiting Game
The trip to Wall Maria went relatively smooth.
They had not come across any infractions with the military corps upon their departure and since Titans were unable to move during nightfall, they easily maneuvered their way towards Wall Maria in a matter of hours.
Though they were grouped altogether as a collective for the moment, they would soon have to break away into their own formations.
Unfortunately, Bertholdt was put on one of the defensive support squads that consisted of himself, Reiner, Eren, two veteran officers, and Mikasa. He had not interacted with her yet, but he sure was dreading for the time when they would eventually have to. He was a coward, he knew. He was every bit of the "spineless coward" Mikasa made him out to be—and more. However, he could do nothing to change his inherent apprehensiveness. It was ingrained.
It took merely three hours to arrive at Wall Maria at the rate they had been traveling and Hange ordered them to set up camp upon the top of the walls.
He immediately fell by Reiner's side and the two had propped their sleeping bags together far off in the side. Armin and Eren had also decided to set their sleeping arrangements next to theirs.
Mikasa chose to sleep elsewhere and he was completely fine with that. If the mere sight of her had him completely undone, what more if she were in close proximity while they were sleeping.
He shuddered at the thought.
Having made it to their checkpoint, the scouts had sparked a small bonfire and surrounded it while they ate their provisions. Usually at this time of the night, it was considered dinner time and Hange had ordered the soldiers to fuel up before dawn.
Bertholdt sat next to Reiner as per usual and since they were in fairly unfamiliar territory, the 104th scouts flocked together in their own circle.
Bertholdt began to sweat when he peered up and saw Mikasa casually sauntering towards their area. She sat down next to Armin allowing her to be distanced away as far as possible and he knew she had done so deliberately.
They'd been avoiding each other for so long, he could only feel a tense awkwardness envelop them despite the fact that they were so far apart.
He wondered if she felt it too.
Although he once always assumed she had been oblivious, seeing as she remained emotionally devoid the majority of the time, he knew he was wrong ever since he grew closer to her. He had a feeling that she might have felt just the same.
Trying to prevent himself from looking at her, Bertholdt began to drown himself in his thoughts.
Earlier this evening, commander Hange had told them the objective of the mission in full detail. Her words resonated through his mind as he chewed lazily at his ration bar.
"I've studied the walls countless times before, enough to fully gauge the depth and width of its foundations. It's weakest spot, enough for us to be able to chip away some material, can be found near the base. It's a good thing that the walls are naturally formed that way because if we were to directly try to extract material from the top or the innermost parts of the walls, we could potentially allow the titans, if there are any, to resurface from direct contact from the sunlight. Tarp can only hold its place for so long before being weathered down by the external environment. Now, that's something we don't want. To begin with, the abnormal Titans who managed to breach Wall Maria all those years ago must have known that as they deliberately broke in through the base. It's ironic really, because who would've thought that we'd be using that information for the advancement of mankind's future," Hange had explained.
"The goal for today is to extract material from this wall and to test Arlert's hypothesis of a titan-formed wall. If it is correct, as my suspicions have been warning me, we will finally get one step closer to the truth about our walls. My team will only be able to work at the base during daylight. As you all know, there will be Titans roaming the area and thusly, the defensive squads have been set up in such a way, that you can help protect the researchers as we cave away at the wall. I'll be setting you all in different formations to guard particular sides of the area in which we will be focusing our extractions. If things get too out of hand, we may resort to having to use Eren in his titan form for defense. However, that is if and only if worse comes to worst. And I really don't want to have to resort to that. I'll be providing you the layout to study for the time being, so take into consideration of all the little details—everything counts. Commander Erwin has entrusted you soldiers to give your all tomorrow and I expect you to do so."
He looked out towards the darkened expanse of the fields that stretched beyond the bottom of the wall and sighed. An intuitive pull of foreboding tugged at his conscious and he knew best to take heed of the warning signs.
There was something in the air tonight.
The stars glimmered in the black ebony sheets that were the sky, twinkling bright like diamonds. Above it all, the moon scintillated with its dim glow—a jeweled orb above the many fragments of sparkling stardust that littered the sky.
It was beautiful, but something felt wrong and he just couldn't quite figure out what was.
He remembered long ago another starry night like this, it was just before they began their first mission as warriors. They were journeying to Paradis to destroy humanity, to destroy the wall. He traveled with Reiner, Annie, and...with Marcel. The thought of their fallen comrade made him feel a small twinge of pain in his chest.
Perhaps this was why he felt so off.
In the firelight, surrounded by the closest friend he had, the girl that he loved, and the friends he made who were supposed to be enemies; Bertholdt tried to engrain this image in his mind. He wanted to sear it into the deepest depths of his innermost thoughts so he could make it last forever—just as the memory of he, Reiner, Annie, and Marcel once huddled over a campfire in waiting had been. Sentimentality was the malediction of a warrior, but he was young and he felt he had that right to feel the need to hold on regardless of his circumstances.
From a distance, when he concentrated really hard, he could hear Mikasa lightly humming to herself and it tugged at his heartstrings. He longed to be near her, but his cowardice was preventing him to do so.
"When this is all over, we're having another lake trip," Reiner grinned. "We can raid the officer's commodity storage again, get some booze, decompress."
"Sounds like a promise, Reiner. You better hold up," Eren said with a smirk before turning towards Bertholdt and nudging him on the shoulder. "And this time, you better come with, Bert. It's not the same without you."
"Yeah, it's true. Going to the lake feels a bit odd now, Bertholdt. Last trip was great, don't get me wrong, but it's not as fun when you're the only sober one," Armin said sheepishly.
"...Oh...alright, I guess," he muttered as he rubbed the back of his head.
Unconsciously, his eyes drifted off towards Mikasa as she silently sat in the corner, never once speaking a word. Suddenly, the image of him and Mikasa taking a trip to the lake by themselves came to mind and he blushed.
"You okay, Bertholdt?" Reiner smirked as he nudged him with his shoulder.
"Y-Yeah..."
Eren leaned into the fire and frowned. "Do you guys think there might really be titans in all the walls?" he questioned in all seriousness.
Reiner and Armin glanced at him, their smiles disappearing.
"I have a feeling there are," Armin said softly.
"How do you know for certain?" Reiner queried, crossing his arms.
"I...I just know. I'm not usually wrong with these things," the smaller boy reasoned.
"Yeah, Reiner. Armin accurately predicted Annie's identity. He's intuitive enough to know whether or not something's true. With a little observation, he can literally predict even the most unthinkable things. Maybe there just might be titans in all the walls," Eren shrugged.
"I have my doubts. Did you even see the Titans in Wall Sina during the time when you captured Annie?" Bertholdt felt himself saying.
He knew better, but he couldn't help but want to maintain his skeptic facade.
"Well...I didn't...But, Mikasa was the first one who did," Eren turned towards her and flicked her hair to grab her attention. "Right, Mikasa?"
Bertholdt frowned at how easily Eren was able to interact with her, silently wishing he could do the same. Mulling the boy's words over, it became a cause for concern when he discovered it was she who had first spotted the wall titans.
"Yes, when I cut Annie down, she tore a rather large chunk of wall from the top..." Mikasa said quietly and his ears zeroed in on the soothing lilt of her voice. Oh, how he missed hearing her voice. "At night, before recollecting my senses, I realized that I had fastened myself up next to the hole that she had torn and a titan was gazing out from within."
"Really?" Reiner questioned, his brows raising in curiosity.
She nodded stoically. "It was a large one, perhaps as large as the abnormal titan that breached this very same wall five years ago." Bertholdt winced silently as he noticed the pained expression that appeared on her face at the mention of the fall of Wall Maria.
Reiner's mouth gaped open. "You saw the titans? How did they look?"
"I...I don't quite remember one of them, but I distinctly remember the large one," Mikasa faltered and he felt his chest hurt knowing that it was he who had been the one she remembered. Could it have traumatized her that much to completely overlook Reiner's titan form? "That was the one that first broke into the wall. It hovered over us—"
"Like some demon with its frightening face, peering over the wall all smugly," Eren continued in disdain, gesturing wildly with his hands.
"Or some harbinger of death," Armin muttered scornfully.
"I'm sorry," Reiner said before patting the two boys on their shoulders. "I can't imagine how terrifying that could've been."
"More than that. It was like we were stuck in some nightmare. One of those twisted, ugly nightmares that never cease to leave your memory," Eren said with a shudder, turning to Armin and Mikasa he searched their eyes. "Do you remember that day? We were all just sitting by the river, the other kids were playing around like any usual day; it was so peaceful."
"You guys just saved me from getting hurt again," Armin recalled with a wistful look upon his face. "Those guys...the ones who bullied me back then...I-I wonder if...if they survived. I like to think they did."
"I remember the sunset, it was so beautiful," Mikasa whispered almost inaudibly, but Bertholdt managed to catch her soft voice.
The look of pain that crossed all three of their features made him feel...sympathy, the deepest kind of sympathy he knew he shouldn't be feeling. What was worse was how sad Mikasa's face had been. The look of pure, unadulterated hurt that marred her pretty features made him want to cry.
He wanted to cry for her.
"I'm going to go to bed," Mikasa said suddenly.
He watched as she quickly stood up and gathered her scarf around her neck. Within seconds, she had stalked off into the darkness and all four of them watched as she disappeared without a word.
"You should go check on her," Armin suggested as he poked Eren on the arm.
"Nah, she's fine," the other boy waved it off and Bertholdt silently fumed at his nonchalance.
He knew he had no right to feel this way, but the fact that his own cowardice prevented him to reach out to her made him frustrated. Coupled with the fact that Eren could easily access her and reach out to her with no inhibitions made him feel the frustration ten-fold.
"You know, I think we should start heading to bed too," Reiner spoke up. He threw his arm over Bertholdt's shoulder and gave him a coaxing look. Bertholdt took this as a sign to get up now, and so he did.
"Goodnight, we'll see you in a few hours," Bertholdt muttered before giving them a slight nod.
"Yeah, goodnight guys. Better not sleep in, else you'll be hearing it from our squad leader," Reiner chimed in.
The other two boys bid their parting wishes in tandem before he and Reiner made their way to their sleeping bags. At dawn, they would be having a long day and he wasn't quite sure if the knot of dread in his stomach indicated anything at all.
But if it did, he sure hoped they would all be prepared for when the time comes and they would have to face whatever it was that was coming.
It was morning, just at the peak of which the sun was about to rise.
The skies were still a light blue and all of the soldiers had been waiting for the sun to rise from the horizon with bleary eyes.
Already, he had geared himself up in his full equipment, as did the rest of his squad. They all convened together at the edge of the wall, Commander Hange standing in the midst of it all wide-awake and already buzzing in preparation. She reiterated the mission objectives once more and proceeded to draw out the formal squad placement.
The formation was to go as follows: His team guarding the center field as support, while two other veteran squads would be delegated the left and right fields respectively.
The 104th scouts were to be placed on the center as their most able-bodied soldier being Eren could could shift if in the case things fell towards dire situations. Mike Zacharias would be leading the forward scouts squad, whereas Dita Ness oversaw the support squads—which is where he and the 104th scouts fell into.
All the while, Hange's research team would be excavating the walls for titans using a prototype of some "special tool" she had developed that was able to break through material as tough as crystallized titan skin.
The sun began to rise from beyond the trees and they all tensed at the sudden vibrations that emerged with its coming.
Far down below from their position on the wall, Titans began to roam around the abandoned city's edges and emerge from beyond the broken hole. It was a small amount that trickled in first, but they sensed more would be on their way by the time the day rolled in.
Bertholdt stood next to the boys with Mikasa far off at the end. He glanced at her with a longing look, saying a small prayer to whomever was up there. He prayed she would remain safe. As capable as she was, his heart still wavered at the thought of her safety nonetheless.
"Alright, let's move out!" Hange bellowed.
The soldiers fell into formation and just like that, they were off.