A/N: I'm so sorry that I made all of you wait so long! College got in the way and well, you know, the usual stuff happened, etc, etc. I promise I'll work faster from now on. Once again, I thank you all for your continued support and I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoy translating it.
Warning: Lime
Disclaimer: Shingeki no Kyojin (c) Hajime Isayama / Dachau (c) Jayne Star
The moment the light dazzles her eyes, the mask of serenity that she had been struggling to keep falls to the ground with overwhelming ease, her face breaks into a panicked grimace that, even with all her willpower, she cannot handle. She falls to her knees.
Empty bed. Empty room.
Christa...
Chapter X - Masks II
''This can't be.'' She murmurs with difficulty, despite having recovered the ability to speak, reason itself seems to be escaping from her hands. She hits the floor with all the strength she gained from all her years in military training: one time, one more time, until the longed crimson liquid escapes from her knuckles to irretrievably get lost between the cracks of the wooden planks that make up the floor. ''This can't be!''
She can hardly believe it, let alone imagine it. They've captured the king. Her king.
Checkmate.
''Damn it!''
This time, both her fists collide against the wood in a dry roar, staining her surroundings with the evidence of a wound that will take its time to heal; she hadn't noticed the thick threads moving around her until they were wrapped around her neck.
Did she lose? Did she really lose?
No.
Her mask, depicting a theatrical expression of panic, is replaced by one of pure irascible anger, she just barely has the willpower to quickly get up to her feet.
She spitefully clenches her fists. Shaking like a rabid dog who's about to attack. She's completely furious, more furious than she's ever been before.
I never lose.
It takes her less than the time required to organize a fearsome symphony of erratic and unbearable roars echoing within the narrow walls; things come, things go. Any object of sufficient size to accommodate a human being will be brutally inspected by her growing insanity.
Growling. Hitting. Destroying. The sound of death.
''Christa!'' She shouts with all the strength that her lungs can withstand. ''Don't try to play with me!''
She isn't here. The little common sense she had left points out while she brutally knocks over the closet with just one kick; the sergeant, deaf to her own observation, breathes out threats tirelessly. It isn't the time to keep calm.
''If you don't come out now I'll put a damn leash on you!'' She enters the bathroom like a hungry predator in a desperate hunt, shredding down the curtain imprinted with grotesque floral patterns that, in other times, had the task of concealing the shower.
She should search.
''What the hell do you think you're doing?! Christa!'' She immediately abandons the upper rooms to continue her frantic search downstairs. The treads, damaged by time, tremble helplessly under the weight of her furious footsteps. ''Do I disgust you this much?!''
No. She's not like that.
She knows her. She knows that her arduous search will be in vain.
She knows, she simply does.
No!. She desperately reprimands herself as she rams down the old pendulum clock which looks after the house in eternal rest from a forgotten corner near the dining room. She must be around here somewhere.
Her entire body, tense as never before, is completely soaked in a uniform layer of cold sweat; she got rid of her thick coat along her search someplace, her jacket probably met the same fate.
She searches in the kitchen with similar results. Nothing.
No sign of a struggle. No places to hide. Nothing.
This can't be...
''This is your last warning!''
She unsheaths her fully loaded flawless gun with trembling hands, she bites her lips while she shoots blindly and hits, with excellent aim, the glass of one of the windows of the residence.
''If you don't come out now, I...! I will...!''
Will you kill her? The dark side of her soul who she calls, spitefully, the titan laughs at her maliciously. Do you have the guts to hurt her?
She remains silent, meditating in discord, breathing heavily while a tiny and imperceptible plume escapes from the barrel of the gun.
''No.'' She whispers with disguised surprise. ''I would never...''
Defeated. Hurt. She throws her gun down before resignedly sitting down on one of the many useless gadgets she had massacred minutes ago; the chaos all around her reminds her of a battlefield, where the only contenders are herself and loneliness.
''Christa...'' Regrettable. There is no other words to describe the sound she barely recognizes as her own voice.
What has happened? What has she done?
She tries to convince herself that there's nothing she can do; she tries to convince herself that it was just an insignificant loss in her exciting life; she tries to convince herself that everything, absolutely everything, is over.
She will need a new mask.
You have none. The horrible voice reminds her morbidly. You're defenseless.
''I don't need her.'' She corrects the voice aloud, as if she was arguing with a real person. ''I can protect myself from Reiss... I don't need a naïve girl to...''
You're lying.
''Why would I?!'' She replies indignantly, holding her head with both hands in an attempt to quell the macabre inner monologue.
Your goal was never to run away from Reiss.
She remains silent, watchful, waiting for her mind to show its cards, waiting for the course of her reflections getting nearer to dementia.
Your goal is to protect Christa. The monster laughs sarcastically. Right?
She stands up all of a sudden, as if those thoughts had awakened a mystery that her heart believed forgotten for several years.
She can not deny it. She can not fight it. It's completely true.
From the time she vehemently ordered her men to capture her... No... It started way before that time, long before joining the SS, long before she started wearing that stupid mask.
Ever since they first met in the dark and untamed streets of Munich, in a miserable childhood surrounded by danger and loneliness.
A goddess. She remembers thinking in those years, a goddess she had promised to protect from the shadows.
And she did so.
Always.
Forever.
She carefully wipes the sweat off her face, once again savoring the sweet taste of sanity.
It's my fault. She tells herself as she massages her temples with regret.
She knew it. She should havenever left her alone; she should have never left her side after what happened last night.
She recalls everything with relative clarity. She recalls suddenly waking up from a dreamless sleep, driven by a mysterious warmth that seemed to envelop part of her face as a growing threat.
A good soldier, specially those who have the honor of belonging to the personal guard of the Supreme Leader, should be prepared for any unexpected situation; it was that, or a simple survival instinct, which lead her to turn sharply, subjecting her aggressor under her own body.
''I-I'm sorry.'' A muted voice murmurs.
Ymir, who wanders down the narrow line that separates the dream world from wakefulness, blinks a few times before fully recognizing the delicate appearance of her aggressor: blonde, beautiful sky blue eyes that watch her in confusion.
''Damn it!'' She says with a stupid smile while she rests her weight on the small body of Christa Renz. ''That gave me a scare!''
The girl remains silent, merely stroking the brown hair of the sergeant.
''You know?'' She whispers mischievously. ''If you wish to kiss me you should simply ask.''
She laughs. She laughs with that malicious air with which she enjoys torturing her innocent goddess with big crimson explosions on her face; it's because of that, because of that usual habit, why she's caught by extreme surprise when the thin arms of the small goddess wrap around her neck gingerly.
Surprise? Disbelief? Happiness?
How to define the feeling that cause a woman like Ymir to blush like the purest of maidens?
She manages to merge herself in silence, closely observing the totality of the frail body partially hidden by the shadows: she's naked, stripped of all hindering sleepwear, flatly refusing to cross looks.
Christa clings to her neck tightly, forcing her towards her until their lips meet in a clumsy fleeting touch.
''Make me yours...''
That breathy whisper in her ear, completely alien to what she expected to hear, steals every word from her lips.
Something is wrong. She thinks to herself as she feels Renz' breathing against her shoulder. She knows her well enough to know that she'd never say something like that.
One of the goddess' knees, as if it has life on its own, manages to seep into her crotch, rubbing it with gentle movements that manage to snatch an imperceptible sigh from her lips.
She isn't like this. She has never dared to touch her. Never.
Therefore, those sudden pleasant chills are more than the brunette can handle.
''As you order, my goddess.'' She smiles widely while she claims those sweet lips, as if it were a privilege that only she can have access to, her hands hungrily caress the naked sides of her lover.
Why? Why is she behaving like this?
''You're beautiful.'' She murmurs amid the kiss before allowing her tongue to enter her mouth in search of its dance partner; soon they'll dance together in a frenzy atmosphere.
She doesn't care about her reasons. She doesn't mind those contradictory hands travelling up and down her back with incessant tremors.
She's simply not interested.
She goes down to her breasts, leaving a trail of anxious bites behind, discreetly casting an anxious hand to the moist privacy of her prisoner, slowly roaming it with the tips of her fingers.
It's a mask. She tells herself while she bites one of her breasts with some force, immediately getting a strangled sob that is in no way related to pain. It's all an act.
From the moment she adopted a false name, her whole life turned into a play.
We're not very different after all.
''It's time.'' She whispers hoarsely to her victim, obtaining a shy kiss in response who gets more and more intense as her long fingers penetrate her insides, that clumsy kiss feels like the best she's ever had.
Christa's walls close around her, greedily capturing the quick thrusts of her fingers, which synchronize miraculously with her glorious moans, for a moment, that erotic melody makes Ymir forget all reasoning.
She surrenders to her easily. She surrenders to the fact of pleasing her every whim.
She surrenders to the feeling becoming one with another person produces.
She knows something is wrong, she feels it in the tears soaking her neck, in the anxious tremors and, of course, she completely feels it in that bizarre nocturnal request that, despite it's context, begins to feel like a farewell.
But it matters little now when she can feel how all the masks break with her ferocious sway; the sweat of her goddess permeates her skin as her gasps drown in her neck. Harder. Faster.
She feels her light scratches, proud like war wounds, which make her feel that, including her, will come without any physical contact.
I wonder, Christa. She thinks with some sort of nostalgia. If you enjoy this as much as I do.
It is a vicious bite on the base of her neck, the result of the peak of pleasure of the little blonde, what triggers the chain reaction, leading her to such an intense feeling that it is difficult for her to understand how it came almost out of nowhere.
Only Christa makes her feel that way. So alive. So free.
They don't pronounce a single word, they only emit ecstatic gasps.
Once again she rests her weight on the goddess, receiving an almost motherly embrace as their bodies are fused; she buries her face between the breasts of the petite girl while the latter caresses her brown hair lovingly.
''Somehwhat rude, don't you think?'' She murmurs with a smile while she checks her neck searching for any severe injury.
''I'm sorry.'' The petite blonde whispers almost inaudibly. The sergeant smiles scathingly until her eyes meet the incessant streams of tears flowing from Renz. ''I-I'm sorry...''
That painful expression was more than enough to sever every trace of her lust.
''Everything is all right.'' She kisses her forehead, lifting her up to gently place her on her chest in the position they normally sleep in. ''It's not that big of a deal.''
Christa caresses the folds of her shirt trying to hold back the tears that keep flowing from her eyes endlessly.
Something is wrong.
''I'm sorry.'' She hovers over her face to gently kiss each and every one of her freckles; the tears keep flowing in silence. ''I'm sorry...''
So fragile. So depressing.
It's a mask. Ymir thinks before capturing her in her arms in an attempt to soothe her pain. It's a mask that is collapsing.
''She's gone.'' She murmurs with an empty voice while she wanders around the disaster that is now her home; the amount of chaos she caused in just an hour is surprising.
She cracks up a wry smile: this is exactly how the scene of a kidnapping should look like.
She should have guessed it before. She should have guessed that something was wrong since she offered her the first of many fake smiles, but a sweet lie is always more comforting that the cruel reality.
She was saying goodbye, that last encounter was her farewell.
You dragged her into this world. Her own voice reminds her, the true voice of her sanity.
''I wanted to be with her one last time.'' She replies seriously. ''That was all.''
How selfish is a human allowed to be? To what limit can one depend on greed to seek our own good?
Because it was greed, not the duty, which forced her to drag her into that world blood and death.
A fleeting memory, extremely inconvenient, comes to her head like an unexpected beam of light in the middle of the darkness: a beautiful girl, fragile like no other, standing on her tiptoe to caress her disheveled (And rather short) brown hair.
They were alone. No family or friends. Alone.
''Everything is going to be all right.'' The girl murmurs with the voice of an angel. ''We'll be fine.''
Because such a deep feeling can not emerge out of nowhere.
No. It's always something older, deeper.
''Yes.'' She remembers to have replied at that time. ''We'll be fine.''
But, as much as she wants to, she can not guarantee it.
''Stupid girl.'' She mutters to herself amid scathing laughter; for a moment she wishes to go back in time to show herself to the real world.
Soon, while she takes list of each object that needs to be repaired, a fleeting and unexpected thought floods her mind; it's stupid and improbable... But...
All is not lost, her last hope is a few steps away from there, just across the corridor.
The study.
She runs towards the door amid frantic heartbeats, suddenly it feels as if the air around her presses against her chest to make her falter. The last hope, the forbidden room is her last hope.
Her hands tremble on the knob, It's been weeks since the last time she entered that place and, certainly, the current circumstances do not favor any kind of reunion.
Do it. Her mind shouts in desperation. What are you waiting for?!
''The worst...''
The smell of the old pages warmly welcome their master in complete solitude. Abandoned and depressed, just as she recalls.
She's not there. She's never been there.
Are you sure?
Something is off, she can perceive a scent in the air that wasn't there before; she sniffs her own shirt with curiosity worthy of one of the many hunting dogs she loves so much.
There's something here.
She scans each quadrant of the small office with her eyes, even though she doesn't really need to do it; she knows, she knows where to find what she's looking for.
And she's right.
On the chessboard that she fails to get used to, just underneath the piece of the king, she finds an austere white note with something written on there, the writing is messy as if it were written in a hurry.
She sniffs it like a hunting dog, she sniffs her shirt again.
The note only has two words:
I'm sorry.
She keeps watching the house from the distance. It's been about an hour since she heard the shot, suddenly filling her mind with despair.
What happened? Will he be all right?
Ymir.
Her beautiful blue eyes, without control or any kind of explanation, begin to shed overflowing rivers of unconscious tears; she wants to run, she wants to run towards the house and envelop her sergeant in a warm embrace, making sure that he's completely fine.
But she's afraid.
What if that scandal is the result of anger? And what if he takes her life once their eyes meet?
It's ironic. For a long time she denied that the man was a monster, she denied it with such ferocity that it is now hard for her to believe otherwise.
He would never hurt her. She knows.
A mask. She tells herself amid a sigh. It's as if he wore a mask.
She hears the steps getting closer but she doesn't flinch, not until a pressure invades her left arm; a paradoxically gentle pressure.
''Let's go.''
Christa merely nods in silence. She has made a decision.