I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin

A/N: I rewrote chapter 12, please go over it as the plot has changed.

UPDATE 7/26: I have made a few changes, I removed the previous Chapter 10 (containing Hanji's past and a brief glimpse of Rivaille's history), while it is relevant to the plot, I want to push it later on in the story. Sorry for all you LeviHan fans but something pushed me into rewriting it. Please bear with me. Also, the website glitched on me horribly so I had to delete multiple chapters and re-upload everything once more, DX


Her Gear was disposed onto one of the storage racks, along with everyone's.

Hands trembled as she undid the cinch to her saddle. She just finished putting away Annie, Christa, and Ymir's horse.

Knowing that its work for the day was chestnut she had escaped on snorted happily, the chestnut horse head burrowed into the bucket and sloshed the water around. Compared to Sasha, the horse was oblivious to such horrors that the girl had seen.

His voice shot through her ears.

"WHAT DID I DO WRONG!?"

She could still hear...her friend screaming. Instantly, her mind reeled back to when she turned the corner and found him pinned down to the floor with several men, cloaked in the black robes of the Wall occultists, standing by. One had a hacksaw, the other held his decapitated leg. Blood profusely poured from it like a faucet to a sink. Blood. Blood. Blood.

Connie's blood.

Her stomach flipped at the recall and she threw herself against the wall, leaving the saddle on the horse's back. She couldn't vomit again, there was nothing else to release. Tears came to her. Was he dead? Was he alive? He was screaming, surely he'd still be alive. But his leg.

His leg. His leg. His leg.

What they did to him...they would have done to Christa and Ymir, to me if we hadn't fled...I want to go home now.

Sasha sank to her knees and squatted on the floor, convulsing violently with sobs. Her face buried into her forearm as she held her knees close, she couldn't handle this. She hadn't cried this much since she had decided to enter the Recon Corps. Now she was regretting it; she wanted to go back home, to the hunting village and hunt animals, not Titans. She wanted to go home to her father, apologize for what she had said and done, and just live.

She sealed her fate a month ago when she saluted to dedicate herself to the Recon Corps, alongside Jean, Ymir, Christa, Bertolt, Reiner and...and Conn-

A tongue licked her cheek.

Startled by the sudden contact, Sasha yelped and fell to the side, blinded by her tears. She whimpered as a heavy weight came over her, keeping her down. Wiping her eyes, she tried to push the weight off of her. She was met by an onslaught of the same tongue licking away at her face; her meek cries slowly became small giggles, then laughter when her hands felt fur.

"H-hey, down, boy," she half-sobbed.

There was a white dog atop her, she didn't mind it as she playfully shoved its face away from hers. She brought herself to sit up against the wall as the dog crowded into her space, nudging its body towards hers, inviting her to pet him. It was panting with its long, bushy tail wagging and thumping against a saddle rack nearby. Her hands stroked its head, then its ears, and finally its back.

It calmed her significantly as she tried to push thoughts of Connie out of her mind. She asked the dog,"What are you doing here, cutie?"

It gave a whine and leaned into her touch, she only cracked a smile at this and continued to stroke it. It was as white as snow with fur so lush that she didn't feel the skin; its ears were wide at the base of his head and then tipped at the other end; its paws were large with legs with firm muscles; overall, she determined him to be a shepherd's dog.

The sound of a door slamming shut came to her but her focus was locked on the dog accompanying her. Soon, footsteps came, and then a redheaded man popped around the corner. His expression was tense until he saw Sasha sitting with his dog; whatever was on his mind flew out the window and, from his miserable face, came something that was like a smile.

"His name is Weiss," Tobias explained,"hadn't seem him so lively in a while."

Sasha wiped a stray tear from her eye and continued to pet Weiss. Her voice cracked,"He's a good boy..." and then she followed it with a sniffle.

Tobias strode to the chestnut to remove the saddle. The blanket slipped off but he ignored it as he went to the other end of the stable to store the saddle away. While doing so, he said,"You look a lot like my daughter Maike, she used to play with him a lot. He thinks you're her."

"Is your...Maike here?" Sasha asked.

"No, she was kidnapped a year ago. She'd be sixteen by now." He returned with a bucket of grooming supplies. He picked up the blanket and tossed it to the saddle rack next to Sasha. His bony fingers then reached to the grooming box to pull out a brush. "Around your age."

She didn't say anything but she continued to pet Weiss. He laid down and sleepily yawned while Tobias rubbed away the accumulated sweat from the horse's back. After a long silence between them, he told her,"...take him, he'll be happier with someone rather than dying here. He's just three years, he's good, smart too, it'd be a waste for a young one to stay with me."

Sasha gently prodded Weiss's mouth to test his temperament, he merely sniffed her fingers and then licked them. Her hands went to his haunches and forcibly shifted his body left and right to find that he didn't snarl or snap; from this, she reasoned he had a calm and quiet demeanor. Once she was done checking him, she rested her back against the wall.

The loss of a friend and then the gain of a new one. She felt alone at the moment and she needed someone, anyone. She contemplated on having a responsibility but she gave in when he rolled over and allowed her to rub his stomach.

Weiss stuck out his tongue in a silly manner, causing her to to give out a broken laugh.

"I'll take him," she said, tears seemingly gone by now. She stroked him.

Tobias tied the chestnut off in one of the open stalls, he looked down at her and the dog, then stated,"You'll love him like Maike did." A pause, he licked his lips to moisten them. "Where are you from?"

"Dauper Village," she replied.

"My wife was from there...Edith Braus was her name," he sighed heavily. Sasha's hand paused her hand and she brought here to stare at him in disbelief.

"Edith is my aunt," she said, voice hitching,"i-is she here?"

Tobias's jaw dropped.

When she was young and barely to remember, perhaps around three, food had become drastically scarce. Her aunt, along with several others, departed to the main cities to find work; their system worked for a few months when the hunting had gone low, but eventually, the shipments failed to arrive. She had never met the woman personally but her father would sometimes mention his sister and how she stopped sending letters and food after a year of her departure.

Edith was one of the last to send anything. Her father would curse her name from time to time, ranting that she had abandoned their village to starve.

"N...no, she died three years ago. A carriage slammed into her on accident, bled out in the street," he somberly said, getting onto the ground beside her. His limbs crossed over one another, she could see the thinness of his legs through his baggy slacks.

"...my village started dying because she stopped sending for food-"

Tobias interrupted,"That was a mistake on my part. She grew busy with Maike and the tavern here. She told me about her hometown, how they needed food, but our hands grew tied with business." He gave her a contemplative gaze in which she didn't respond. For the first time she had seen him, he gave a genuine smile. "Tell you what...I'll give you and your friends free lodging for as long as you need...and send food to your village in due time, a way to apologize to you and your family."

Sasha couldn't tell whether to be relieved or shocked, overjoyed or angered. All she could do was give him an embrace.

-...-

"Hey, I got your things," Ymir announced her presence when she reached the cellar. She found Hanji sitting on a stool in front of Annie, watching her intently.

She approached her from behind and jabbed her in the shoulder with her index, causing the woman to yelp out. "Why don't you people ever knock- oh, it's you."

She slouched down in her stool as she brought her attention back to Annie. The blond had apparently taken to sleeping and was unresponsive to the noise, though Ymir felt that she wasn't truly in slumber. A cleaver from Tobias's kitchen and gag (a simple cloth that could be stretched) were presented to Hanji. She gratefully took them and finally got from her seat.

"Great, now I can get started," she excitedly said with an odd smile. She went around to be behind Annie, then pulled her head back by her hair, prompting her to open her eyes. Before she could protest, Hanji slipped the cloth around her head, then tightened it at her mouth to prevent her from speaking. Nimbly, she tied it off behind her head and stepped away with the cleaver dangerously dancing between her fingers. "A shame I hadn't gotten this far with experimenting on Eren."

"So you're the Squad Leader I've heard that's bad-shit crazy about Titans."

"The one and only~." Her voice drifted into a sing-song tone as she neared to inspect the no-longer steaming wound from Annie's nose. "Hm, it took a half an hour for her to Regenerate that but then an hour for her to grow back a limb."

Ymir dragged the stool further away for herself and sat down to watch her. "It means you'll have to cut off something every hour."

"No bother," Hanji said as she began to untie the ropes at one leg. Annie glowered at her and, with one limb free, she tried to strike out but the older woman lunged back to avoid her. "She the closest I can get my hands on, so why not take the time to do as I wish?"

Her hand brought the cleaver up high and charged at Annie. The blond was suddenly letting out a squeal of protest as she watched the blade near her body until, finally, it embedded itself into her right thigh. A gut wrenching shriek was muffled by the cloth but it was loud enough to make Ymir flinch in her seat. Sickeningly, like a butcher, Hanji strenuously brought the blade back up.

That smile quickly faded.

Blood followed the cleaver's path and the sound of flesh grazing against metal resounded through the cellar. A disgusting pop came from the separation between metal and muscle when Hanji pulled it away. Once more, she brought the blade back down with enough ferocity that a dull thud resounded from her.

The crimson fluid profusely leaked out to form a pool on the floor, some, by an artery, squirted out and stained the bottom half of Hanji's dress. Ymir grimaced at the sight as Annie let out another piercing scream through the cloth she clenched taut between her teeth.

"...this is your true nature?" Ymir questioned aloud as Hanji, much to her own surprise, effortlessly unsheathed the cleaver from the thigh. No answer arose from her when she brought the blade down once more, pulled it back, slammed it down, over, and over this process went on. The raven haired woman winced when the blade sank into Annie's leg once more.

They came in slow, choppy thuds. Annie's body convulsed with every blow as she struggled in the chair. Soon, the thrust of the blade became rhythmic and purposeful, even more eager when she eventually shattered through the bone.

The girl. Her piece of humanity was proven as she groaned in agonizing pain. Ymir could have sworn Annie was about to become delirious at the horror of dealing with Hanji, her head lolled to the side as she tried to cope with herself. With every swing, Annie cried. It was heart wrenching, it was almost like the dying scream of Connie.

It took...five minutes? Ten? An hour? She had extraordinary strength to hack away at her flesh and bone. Hanji's hand went to the dismembered limb and pulled it away, tearing at the last cloth and skin, thereby separating it completely. The cleaver clattered noisily on the ground as she held the newly cut leg in her hand in wonder. Steam began to emit from the leg and also the stub of which Annie was panting and wheezing like a dying dog.

From Annie's body came the familiar vapors that rose from a typical Titan, though it wasn't a comforting sight to begin with. Ymir got up and cautiously approached Hanji, wary of anything she could do that would count as unpredictable.

There was a murmur from her.

"I think you're done," Ymir told her assertively when she couldn't address the words properly.

No one in their right minds could do this. The whole scene would have been topped off would be if she laughed.

But she didn't. She turned to face her, holding the limb as though it were a child. She whimpered with an blank expression,"So this is what it feels like." She presented Ymir with the leg, in turn, the taller woman backed away. "It's strange...doing it to a human." Her chin pointed to the back wall. "Open one of the barrels there."

Ymir's face contorted in disgust as she went to one of the smaller barrels at the other end of the room, Hanji followed closely. "Didn't we just establish that she's not human?"

"She screams in response, therefore, she feels pain. Much like a human," she distantly told her.

After opening several vine-filled barrels, she found an empty one. Hanji dumped the leg inside and closed the lid, she then headed for the door without uttering anything else, leaving Annie in the care of Ymir.

"I'll be back..."