Author's Notes: Well, it happened again. I got so caught up in school life and other chaos (exams were this week), that once I got time to actually sit down and WRITE I ended up writing a lot more than I usually put into a single chapter. If I had finished all I had written, it would have likely been at least another half a week before you guys got this, and I am behind on this as it is. So here is Part 1 of a two-part POV section (the second time in this story I have done this), with the already half-done Part 2 likely being your Attack on Aincrad Christmas gift. Now, time for the review replies, as we covered last time:

Victor Janus: As I previously stated, I set up the Titan-SAO player statistics based on Kirito's own abilities to fight boss-type monsters (which I am comparing the Titans to), and taking into account that his own stats far outstrip everyone except the other clearers (who numbered less than 500 even before the Titans, many of whom were killed in the initial wave without knowing how to take one of the creatures down).

Guest: Thank you very much, I'm happy you think so highly of my story! And I kind of have a habit of ending all my chapters on at least somewhat of a cliffhanger, evil I know.

urs-v: I'm glad you liked the beggining of the explanation for how exactly this turn of events came about in the two universes, there's much more where that came from later on in the story!

Mandatory Discalimer time (ugh): I do not own either Sword Art Online or Attack on Titan. Now, I present you with chapter 10 of Attack on Aincrad. I hope you like it!

Year: 850 KS (Kyojin Sekai)

This is all our fault, thought Armin. If we had gotten here sooner, none of this might have happened. He urged his horse on, keeping with the formation as they approached the city. Smoke billowed from its structures, like a grim herald to mark a place of death. We might go insane if the bodies didn't shatter. Even still...he shuddered, trying not to think about what all the blood staining the walls they neared meant. He couldn't deny it, none of them could. When Mikasa had told Kirito and Asuna that their world was protected from the Titans, they had given them hope. Armin couldn't believe it at first, but as he thought back to that look in Asuna's eyes as they left Aincrad four days ago, he realized their words had quieted whatever terrors their story had created within the girl's mind. And hope, if destroyed, is one of the most devastating things to someone's will, Armin thought, recalling once again how quickly Trost had turned from a valiant charge into battle to watching his friends die the most horrible deaths imaginable, before forcing the images out of his head. Still, I can't shake the feeling...that we may have killed them with those words.

A green signal flare went up from Levi's squad in the vanguard, and Hanje, who rode just ahead of Armin, fired her own shot in response. Soon the air was filled with the green flares, though they were not nearly as numerous as those of the full Expedition. They were nearly at the city, and as he took in its size for the first time Armin is truly got a sense that this world was indeed populated by thousands of human beings, or at least their player avatars. I still have a hard time believing that, thought Armin. If this is all a reality entirely within their minds as they claim, then how advanced is the technology in the world they come from? Surely centuries beyond ours, even not considering the taboo against progress. And what are we, then? He looked down at his hand, his body that had come forth from a mother he barely knew. No, we're real too. The portal is the answer. That's the other reason we came back to Aincrad. We want answers.

They came within shouting distance of the city, which, as far as Armin could see, was made of stone and marble and built like some of the more ancient cities he's seen in the few texts on human history before the Titans he'd managed to get his hands on. The low walls, which would have seemed like ants next to Wall Sina or Wall Rose, were smashed in at some points, where the Titans entered to devour the unprepared inhabitants of Aincrad. The boy watched as Captain Levi's squad rode through one of said holes. "Alright, everyone!" Hanje hollered, though only those with her in the command squad, which was composed of her, her regular squad, Armin and Mikasa, could hear her. "We're going to search the city for survivors! Relay the order to the other squads!" The brown-haired woman barked, " And be sure to report back before we run into any Titans, I don't want you to miss the fun!"

"Rodger, Squad Leader!" The scouts under her command responded, and the woman laughed as she raced ahead, while the others fanned off towards the other squads, leaving only Armin and Mikasa.

"Armin." Mikasa said suddenly, and the short blond turned to look at her.

"Yes?"

"Why didn't you put me in the vanguard?"

Armin was surprised for a moment, but only a moment. That's where Eren is. To be entirely truthful, he'd put Levi's squad in the front because it was highly likely any Titans they might encounter would come from that direction, and he wanted their best fighters there. Still, someone had to guard the center, and, though Armin couldn't very well judge having seen Levi in action only once, while the blond was evacuating Eren from his Titan form after they had saved Trost, he estimated Mikasa's skill at killing Titans to be on par with that of the petite captain.

I feel bad though, thought Armin. Eren's at risk in the front, and none of us have really gotten to see each other lately what with our different squads running patrols all of the past few days to lure Titans in for the Commander's plan. Even though they were still separated somewhat, and embarking on a mission that in hindsight Armin considered as dangerous as his plan to save Trost, it felt good to be together with them in a small group. If Armin closed his eyes, he could almost envision them back together as Trainees in the 104th, before the blood and horror of actual Titan combat. Almost.

"Armin!" Mikasa said insistently, and the boy realized he had been letting his mind wander.

"Oh...sorry Mikasa. I put you in the back here because most of our other really strong fighters are in the front, and if we were flanked..."

"I understand, Armin. As long as he's ok." She responded.

Armin rode up alongside his friend, and put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, Mikasa. He has the deadliest squad of soldiers in all of humanity protecting him, after all." Even still, Armin thought, please be okay Eren. Don't do anything TOO reckless. As he thought about his best friend, Armin's hand slipped to his side, and though he kept his horse on track for the city it was evident he wasn't entirely paying attention to the outside world.

Mikasa let Armin rest in thought like this for a minute or so, until Hanje began calling his name. "Armin!" She said loudly, and the boy jerked back to the here and now. "Are you ok?"

"Thank you, Mikasa, I'm fine." Armin responded. I'm reliving memories, both painful and good.

He turned towards Hanje, who was now flanked by her own squadmates and evidently in animated discussion with them. She saw him out of the corner of her eye and beckoned him over. They appeared to be slowing their horses down, and so it was only a moment before Armin and Mikasa rode up to them. "What is it, Squad Leader?"

"Dismount your horse Arlert. I think you're going to want to see this with your feet on so, I'd ground."

"S-shouldn't we wait for the others to make sure the city is safe, Squad Leader?" said Moblit, the second of Hanje's normal squad. "I mean, you ARE the leader of this expedition..."

"Oh, don't you get started! This is a new world, with things we've never even dreamed of, like what I'm about to show Armin here!" Hanje responded cheerfully.

"What is it you want to show me?" Armin said, reassuringly petting his horse as he walked to the front of the animal. It's probably something to do with the nature of the world of Aincrad.

"Just step forward 5 meters from where you are. You'll see." Hanje said, and Armin and Mikasa both did so.

Something flickered out of the corner of Armin's vision, before solidifying into a series of words flashing into existence in the middle of where he was looking. They read: Safe Zone. Floor 75. Collina. "That's new." Could this be like the menu I discovered back in the Expedition camp before we left the rest of the Regiment?

"New and not necessarily safe! We have no idea what this world's norms are. For all we know that whole Safe Zone line means nothing!" Moblit said, Cleary uncomfortable. Given what little Armin had seen of the man since joining the Scouts, the only reason he had joined their mini-formation into Aincrad in defiance of Erwin was out of loyalty to Hanje. To Hanje, and to humanity. The loyalty we need if anyone here is going to survive.

"C'mon Moblit, where's your sense of discovery!" Hanje said, and spurred her own horse onward to the city Armin guessed was called Collina.

"Wait!" The scout cried. "Squad Leader!" but Hanje either did not hear Moblit or chose to ignore him. He sighed and motioned for the rest of their squad to follow them. Armin felt his horse behind him nuzzle his shoulder. He hopped back into the saddle, and nodded to Mikasa. Together they took off for the city.

The interior of the city was an even grimmer prospect than the isolated signs of Titans they had seen outside. The place where the walls had been breached that they rode through was coated in a red that Armin knew was not there a week ago. The entrance to the city was narrow, as where it's streets, so the scouts all entered the city in a line, one squad after the other. After about five minutes of searching, a green flare was shot up by the Special Operations Squad from within the center of the city, and as they rode through the streets Armin noticed they were approaching a massive stone building shaped like an oval. The plume of the flare ascended from within it, indicating that the interior of the structure was open to the outdoors. There were several street-level entrances to it just high enough for the scouts to enter without dismounting, but they were merely short, dark tunnels to whatever lay in the middle of the structure, with stairways branching off from the main tunnel into its sides. The scouts were silent, but one could tell that the building had an eerie feeling, the kind one gets from walking through a house whose owners you knew had recently died.

As they emerged from the other end, Armin blinked at the sudden change in light level. When he opened his eyes, he gasped. "What...is this place?" Mikasa asked in wonder. They were standing on a circular sand floor, surrounded on all sizes by tiered benches that began above the ceiling of the tunnel they had just exited. Armin thought he recognized the general structure from the same book where he had seen the general architecture that comprised the city. It's some sort of stadium, an arena. No, what was the word?! The libraries of the Scout Regiment headquarters behind Wall Rose were filled with so many books, that his first day of leave Armin had not left the room until dinner, and had taken his meal back with him, eating while he read by the light of a candle. But to his disappointment, they had lacked much in the way of human history before the Titans. So he had to rely on the memory of the beloved books of the grandfather the fall of Wall Maria had taken from him. The word he sought seemed so close and yet so out of reach. If only he could grasp it...

"Coliseum!" Armin suddenly exclaimed. The other scouts looked at him strangely. He lowered his gaze a little, realizing they had not followed his thought process. "Coliseum." he repeated, "That's what this kind of building is called. It's an old type of sports arena. Our world had them too, before the Titans came" They nodded, accepting this without asking him to elaborate. Mikasa was by now used to these sudden outbursts of insight when he came to a conclusion about their situation and went with them, which had helped keep them alive in Trost. And, given the tendencies of their leader, Hanje's squadmates were almost certainly used to it by now.

Armin had hoped that the grisly evidence of what had become of the city's inhabitants would end in the arena, but one particular corner of the sandy floor, and the stone walls next to it, were absolutely soaked in crimson. They must have tried to use the arena as a last stand...Armin realized with horror. In his mind, he saw a dozen or so players, equipped like those Knights that Kirito and Asuna were members of, encircling a group of panicked civilians. Titans closed in on them, and Armin blinked the vision out of his eyes before the bloodbath began. He could still hear the screams for a few seconds though.

By the time they reached the center of the arena, the other scouts had assembled, all gathered around Levi, who was scrolling through the menu. The other scouts stared at the hovering display in wonder, but instead of asking questions they watched the short captain manipulate it. Armin had discovered the menu the day after they returned from Aincrad the first time, quite by accident. He'd been staring up at the top of his tent, restless over what to do to convince the other scouts to abandon Erwin's destructive plan, and, remembering his first meeting with the people of the other world, had slid his fingers in the downward motion subconsciously. The resulting chime hadn't woken anyone up, and Armin had stifled the cry that had bubbled in his throat. He had then realized the issue was even bigger than the fate of the players of SAO; it concerned the million inhabitants of their own world as well, and through Eren was able to show the menu to Hanje and Levi.

The function the diminutive black-haired man was using the menu for now was the map, which, while it had trouble providing a clear image on the other side of the portal, seemed to work fine here in Aincrad. "This is as far as my Squad's preliminary scouting mission got two days ago." he said, drawing an imaginary circle in the air over where the city was on the map. "It's the same as it was before. No survivors."

"How many do you think were here when the Titans...?" Jean asked, not finishing the grisly statement they were all thinking.

"From the amount and dispersion of the blood spurts," Eld said grimly, "about 200."

"They had no idea what was coming..." Jean trailed off.

"We told them they were safe." Armin said, thinking back to the assurance Mikasa had given Asuna before they had left. "We told them THAT THEY WOULD BE SAFE. And this is the price..."

"These people did nothing..." Eren said, his fists clenched. "And they were slaughtered. All of them."

"Umm, guys?" Sasha said, her quizzical, sing-song tone breaking up some of the pall that had settled over the scouts, "I think there's a survivor."

"What?! Where?" Armin and the others practically said in unison.

"Up there!" Sasha pointed. Armin followed her finger, and gasped. On the strip of stone wall that rose above the sand floor of the coliseum stood a girl in a white dress, with long black hair. But that was not the most surprising this about her; she looked shockingly young, far younger than anyone else Armin had seen in Aincrad. If I had to guess her age, I wouldn't go above even ten. To be honest, she looked even younger than that.

A breeze rippled through the air, blowing the girl's hair away from her face, and Armin realized that there was not something quite right about the way she was standing. A moment later, Connie completed the thought that had been forming in Armin's mind: "Her eyes are closed. She's unconscious!"

"She's going to fall!" Sasha cried. She was right. There was no way anyone was going to get to her in time on foot, and Captain Levi and most of the other scouts were still either rising to their feet or too far away. Armin reached for the controls of his maneuvering gear, but Eren was faster. Quicker than most times Armin had ever seen his friend move, the brown-haired boy shot forward, rapidly using the tiered stone seating above the girl as anchoring points for his hooks as he swung underneath to catch her. Thankfully, right as she fell, Eren began to stabilize himself and hang beneath. The boy had obviously not been expecting the force of her plummet, and was knocked to the ground himself, though the impact was significantly lightened, and he bore the brunt of it to protect the girl.

Armin ran over to make sure Eren was okay, Mikasa hot on his heels, though to his surprise she never did manage to pass him. "Eren!" He called out, and the boy groaned in response. Armin helped the boy to his feet, with Mikasa supporting him from the other side.

"I'm fine, Armin." he said, though he didn't exactly try to extricate himself from their support. "What about the girl?" Tentatively, Armin let go of Eren, making sure he wasn't injured, and together the trio approached the girl who lay still unconscious on the blood-soaked sand.

"We should move her." Eren suggested, and Armin and Mikasa nodded. That poor girl has probably already seen too many horrors if she was here when the Titans arrived, Armin thought. She shouldn't have to wake up in a pool of blood. As they gently carried the girl over to where the other scouts were, however, another troubling thought tugged at the back of his mind. Who is she, and how come only a little girl like her survived, if no one else did? Several of the other scouts gasped in shock when they too realized exactly how young the girl was.

Sasha bent over the little girl and waved her hands over her face. "Hey! Can you hear us?" She called, but Connie tapped her shoulder and shook his head. Sadly, she stood back up, looking at the child with concern.

Suddenly, the girl's eyes fluttered, before finally snapping open. Her eyes were as black as her hair, and as she looked around at the scouts she locked gazes with each one in turn. When she did so with Armin, he drew a breath. It felt is if she was staring into his very soul. Her small lips parted, as if she was attempting to speak. Eren leaned in close and the girly spoke one word weakly, and sounded as if she was struggling to remember the sounds she needed to make to say it. Eren nodded, and the child seemed to smile a little, before her eyes slowly closed and she seemed to drift off.

"What did she say?" Armin asked.

"Yui." said Eren. "Is that your name, then?" he asked as he cradled her head in his arm to keep it out of the sand. The girl did not respond.

"Is she ok?" Connie asked worriedly.

Armin pressed his head to the girl's chest, and the reassuring thump-thump of a heartbeat filled his ears. "S- she's alive. She's probably passed out from exhaustion, who knows how long she's been hiding here." We saved someone, Armin realized gladly. We may have been too late for this city, but we saved someone.

At that moment, however, the sound that every scout save Hanje dreaded was heard. The sound of a Titan's footstep. The booming footfalls got closer and closer and closer, and they seemed much too loud for a single Titan. Gunther fired his hooks up at the top of the stands of the Coliseum, and shot upwards to the vantage point. When he returned, his face was grim. "There are twenty Titans closing on this position!"

"Already? I figured they would have moved on beyond this point seeing as there's nothing here left to eat?" Hanje began.

"They're probably the stragglers from the last ones who went through the portal." said Moblit. "We should get out of here while we can."

"Moblit's right." Armin said sadly. We can't risk losing anyone this early, and if the Titans moved on to the other floors...we need to get there as soon as possible.

"Armin, what about her?" Eren said, lifting up the little girl in his arms.

"If she's survived here this long, I'm sure she'll be fine. We can't afford to take on a-" Moblit started, before, Levi roughly grabbed him by his collar.

The short captain pulled him down to eye level, and glared at Moblit. "We are not leaving anyone behind. This mission's goal is to save the inhabitants of this world, and she is an inhabitant. Is that clear?"

"Quite." He responded dejectedly, and Levi released him.

"Arlert." Levi said.

"Y-yes?"

"You and Jaeger recovered the girl; until we locate more of her people, you two will be in charge of keeping track of her. Is that understood?"

Armin nodded, and took the girl from Eren's arms. He thought back to the girl's name. Yui? Why does that ring a bell? As Armin looked at her, he realized that there was something strikingly familiar about Yui; he just couldn't place his finger on it.

"Everyone, mount up!" Hanje called, already back on her own horse. "We need to get out of here before those Titans arrive!"

Armin lifted Yui into the saddle, and then hopped in before she had a chance to fall. The boy wrapped the little girl in his arms so she wouldn't tumble out while they rode, and held onto the reins through his grip on her shoulders. I definitely won't be able to fight like this, Armin thought as they left the city and the Titans in the dust. Then again, I probably wouldn't be able to directly help anyway.

Author's Notes: There you go, I hope you guys liked it! Sorry for the relative brevity of this one in comparison to the previous chapters, Part 2 is already half done and will probably be out by the middle of next week. Please leave a review telling me what you thought, happy holidays, and see you soon!