A/N: I cannot apologize enough for the wait on this! I didn't intend for it to get away from me for so long, but I was super stuck on the beginning on this and real life was a problem :( Ahhhhh I can't believe we're almost at the end though... Only one more chapter! I hope you guys have enjoyed this as much as I have! ;u;
The cry seems to stretch on forever through the space, bouncing and carrying past each branch before fading into nothing against the creeping dawn.
Levi's eyes widened slowly and steadily until she could see the bloodshot red rimming them. His mouth opened and he said not a word. Then, his expression hardened, body jerking to stand up.
"We have to leave."
There were other wordless commands there — no more breaks. I'm sorry. This isn't over. We can't afford to slow down. This is our last shot. I'm sorry. I have to be your commander now. I'm sorry.
Panic bubbled and brought Mikasa lightly to her feet, her second and probably last wind quickly following. Her whole body wracked with the potent combination of nerves and exhaustion, and as her mind clicked into battle mode the tunnel vision set in.
A gentle, calloused hand on hers broke the spell, and Mikasa flinched, eyes wild.
"Hey. Look at me."
She obeyed. Levi looked tired and calm; the face of deep, dark waters asking for a kiss, she thought. She'd read something like that long ago, and felt that she understood it now.
His other hand reached out and just barely brushed her cheekbone. The gesture was unexpectedly intimate, and Mikasa swallowed thickly—
"Stay with me, Mikasa."
She would have been lying if she said she understood the full meaning of his words. Part of her wondered what he was really saying, but her head nodded numbly anyway and then her skin felt the chilly bite of air where his touch had already left her.
Levi stretched for a short moment, rolling his neck with a sharp crack. Then, for the last time, they were off again.
Before, traveling in near-blackness, there was at least the comfort that almost every titan would be asleep. Now, she had to work not to obsessively scan the ground far beneath them for a glimpse of heaving flesh. And sometimes, she saw them — eyes shut, almost peaceful in their foreboding slumber. She hated them for that, sleeping without a care in the world, with no want of shelter or happiness or fear of not having their next meal or losing someone you loved at any moment. Ireful with her resentment, she had half a mind to spit on the next one she saw, but her mouth was too dry to anyway.
Plus, periodically she would blink and reality would vanish in front of her, two leaps ahead of where she had been seconds before, never noticing any of it. She was strong, stronger than almost everyone, but her life was not infinite and her body still very painfully, humblingly mortal. It was not going to last much longer, and it frightened her.
Mikasa had never been one to feel like a rabbit. Even when she was small, she felt too burdenless, too loved to begin to worry about herself, let alone others. And as she got older — read: as she followed in the smoldering footsteps of Eren Jaeger — she would, unquestioningly, consider herself one of the most lionhearted people she knew. She knew no fear, not really. She breathed bravery. Embodied unstoppable. Deep down, Mikasa harbored something powerful and fiercesome, innate in her design.
And now, chasing the dying night into the unrepentant sunrise that the edge of the earth promised, she was small, and afraid, and blindly following the last shred of hope her mind could comprehend.
It wasn't fair that Levi could keep it together for so long as he had. He'd watched a hundred, a thousand soldiers all throw their bodies to death's jaws literally and figuratively, and watched them do it again. Some of them were almost nameless, and others too close for comfort, but she knew each one splintered him like a nail hammered into wood. Every mission began and ended with high hopes and a heavy heart. The permanently dark circles under and in his eyes were not to be questioned, and neither were hers.
She understood. Her only consolation prize was Eren Jaeger, and with that thought, Mikasa's body felt more leaden and crooked than ever. Her heart, strained to its physical limits, ached and pounded at the image of her brother's brazen smile and burning eyes in her head, and her mind dissolved into an incoherent downpour of raw and blistering emotions.
He'd be angry with her, for certain. He'd cry at first because that was just the type of person he was, and then he would be angry. Mikasa hadn't thought much about how this mess was at least partially her fault, but maybe also Levi's in a way, and passingly wondered if things would have been better or worse if it had just been one of them left behind.
The thought of being safe at the base, warm and fed and only appropriately concerned about their infamous Corporal, lacerated her with melancholy and regret that didn't make sense, and with a sickening twist in her gut she wondered just when she had become so attached to the man that spurned ever-forward in front of her.
There was color in the trees now, and the foliage far beneath them transformed from dark, shuddering masses into discernible bushes and shrubs of their own. The air was still tinted a deep blue-grey from the clutches of night, but it was fading every time she blinked.
In her scrambled thoughts, torn between keeping her balance and mindlessly picking out the shapes of the sleeping titans that appear every now and again and wondering if Eren is safe, she tries to identify landmarks. Maybe, just maybe, a tree will look familiar. Maybe a path will appear, trodden with wagon wheel trails and hoof prints. Maybe the never-ending labyrinth of trees will finally end, and the great Wall will be gazing back at her with open arms.
Wind whipping at her stinging cheeks, she remembers that they may very well be heading in completely the wrong direction, and she feels a little more of her sanity slip away through the cracks just as Levi's arm suddenly flies out and he veers to a halt.
The abrupt change in their monotonous hell made her blood rush to her head and nearly knock her unconscious, but she clings to the waking world as she less-than-gracefully lands on the branch beside him.
"What is it?" she asks. Levi, stone-faced, nods at an opening in the trees a hundred yards from them. Eyes adjusting, she finally notices the lumbering movement.
The titan is tall enough that she can't even see its collarbone, and its skin is an uncommonly ruddy color, darker than Ymir's. It's a wonder that Levi spotted it amongst the obscuring trees.
It's walking towards them.
Her heart chokes her throat, and Levi finally speaks.
"It hasn't seen us yet."
His words are matter-of-fact and hollow, providing no real comfort but some solidness, something to hold onto.
"What do we do?" Mikasa whispers back.
Levi is quiet for a long time. Then, he says, "Hide."
They move lithely, hopping unsteadily down a branch or two and then sidling around to the back of the tree's trunk, on the opposite side of where the titan meanders toward them. There's barely enough room on the single branch, but they're pressed tight against the bark and each other, chests heaving as they pant, exhaustion fighting tooth and nail to catch up with them.
It is with great difficulty that Levi manages to get out, "If it sees us... we run. Do you understand? We run."
Mikasa nods quickly, looking more like a ghost than a girl, and slightly unhinged terror grips Levi's heart.
"I said, do you understand?" he hisses into the strands of her hair, and Mikasa finally croaks back, "Yes, sir."
He didn't know why he needed to hear her say that. But the words, obedient and real, were a drop of ambrosia to his fogged psyche, faltering limbs. Half the vision in his left eye had gone an ominous black with little popping white dots around the edges, but he found his lip crooking up at the corner anyway.
This would be an alright way to die. This could be okay.
The shifting of her body startled him from his daze, and he was about to snap at her to quiet down lest the bumbling death monster saw them until her palm rested against the curve of his jaw, feeling like it was a blissful thousand degrees. He wondered if she was coming down with something, but the plain concern in her expression cut him off.
"You're freezing," she whispers. Only after he says it does he realize that he's trembling violently and can't feel any of his extremities.
Stiffening, he tries to play it off — "That should be the least of our concerns right now." — but her hand is suddenly gone and he sees a blur of vermilion before thick, cozy fabric brushes against his cheek and wraps snugly around his neck and chin. It reeks of her scent, making him light-headed and dizzy.
If he had known that he only had a few more stolen moments to look at her face and savour her warmth from her scarf, he would have studied harder. Memorized the exact shade the inevitable sunrise was making her eyes turn, maybe, and how her lips pursed into something like satisfaction and worry.
Instead, as she leans back, the salve that had been tucked into her pocket dislodges from all the erratic movement, and they can only watch in silent horror as it clatters down the branch, bowl breaking and knocking down into separate pieces that bounce off more boughs and impale tufts of leaves and making a distinctly unnatural noise amidst the sounds of morning in the forest.
He feels rather than hears her breathing pitch, and the steady pound of the titan's feet alter. Mikasa is still seething, horrorstruck, at the clump of bushes where the broken bowl landed, unable to look away from its act of betrayal. No real amount of time passes that Levi can measure, his mind is so blank and unmoving, until his body automatically moves on its own and he braces his fingernails into the coarse tree bark, splitting some of them, then leaning around just enough to see beyond the trunk.
A flock of blackbirds, raucous in their flurry, all awaken and pelt away from the surrounding trees, and Levi stares up into the hideous, splitting-smile of the titan, who looks straight back at him.
"Mikasa," he says. "Run."
She didn't seem to register what he said. He knows it's coming, its massive hand reaching to pluck them from the tree like ripe fruit, and with a snarl he twists back and shoves his soldier as hard as he can from the limb. He trusts her reflexes, and she screams, but her gear fires and then he's chasing after her.
They had only a short interval to lose the thing and gain as much ground as they possibly could. They scrambled through the trees with no finesse, fueled only by the most base instincts to flee and live and get away from that which would kill them. It only does so much to mask the pain in Levi's limp leg, the throbbing in his head, the constant piercing in his side that hurts more with every harsh gasp of air. Keeping up with Mikasa is a battle in itself.
The sun seemed to break from the clouds, then; the world turns from a misty twilight to a pale, summer's indigo. The treeline, once invisible a short distance away, sharpens into distinct lines, and he almost — almost — cannot believe what he is seeing only a few hundred yards ahead.
Corporal Levi Ackerman is awarded two more soaring leaps towards the end of the forest and he can see the high grey of the Walls a mile or two away when his right knee buckles and his ankle bends funny with it. His fall is immediate and messy, and knocks the air from his burning lungs as he hits a bending branch beneath him, back-first.
Fumbling with sweaty fingers, he tries to shoot his hooks and stave off the next crash, only minorly successful; one of them catches, but the other retracts, and as he loosely swings something large closes around him and all he sees is darkness.
Possessed, he half-cries out with fury and panic and hatred as he writhes in the titan's giant hand. His ears prick up at the sound of Mikasa's voice, though he can't tell what she's saying, and all he can do is fight to grab his blades and unsheathe them fast enough. He doesn't know how far ahead she got when he fell, doesn't know how fast this titan intends on eating him, and his body isn't working the way its supposed to. Heavy with pain and wounds inside and out and a long, sleepless night, his leg feels like it's not there anymore and no matter how much he sucks in air it doesn't seem to be enough, doesn't seem like it's quite reaching his lungs. Nothing seems to be working. The blood in his ears is deafening, and he doesn't think about dying. He just keeps trying to close his fingers around the handles, and wrench the swords from their binding.
The titan's grip tightens. Something snaps. Something shifts. The blades come loose, and with an inhuman noise and muscles taut and rippling in his shoulders and arms, Levi rips out and up and around, each slick cut finding purchase and tearing open steaming-hot flesh, coating him in blood and freeing him.
"LEVI!"
Strength all but gone, the air whips at his face as he falls again. There's a loud BANG, whizzing, a glinting blur of Mikasa as she hits the gas and makes an absolutely perfect cut through the titan's achilles tendons and then smashes into him on the upswing.
It's all her gear can take. The wires mangle in a particularly thick set of brambles and seem to knot before snapping clean out from their dented casing. They hit the ground with a hideous crunch and more birds and small animals are fleeing the scene, followed by the aftershock of the the titan slamming into the earth, felling one tree on its way down.
"Levi? Sir? Are you alive?"
Mikasa is near-hyperventilation as she stares down at what might be the corpse of her corporal, but his eyes screw shut and his chest swells and he barely manages to hack up a splatter of blood to the side, staining the grass dark crimson.
"Levi? Oh god, no, no, no no no."
He's crippled and borderline unconscious, and behind them she can hear the deep grunts of the deterred titan. Her hands are raw and shaking, still clinging to her blades for dear life, and it isn't until Levi's squinting at her through one good eye and cursing at her through red-smeared lips that she is spurred into action.
"Run, you idiot," he rasps. "Run. Leave me and fucking run. That's... that's an order."
Mikasa stares at him for a moment longer, and then scowls. There's a hard glint in her eye and Levi goes half-crazy when he sees it, coughing up a storm but still trying with vitriol to convince her otherwise.
With two flicks of her wrist, she slices the leather that holds her ruined 3DMG to her waist and legs, and it hits the ground with a metallic thud, dull blades clattering beside it.
"D-don't... god d-damn it, Mikasa, don't...!"
It's too late. She's all but ignoring him as she hauls him up from the ground and gets him onto her back with more difficulty than anything she's ever done before. He's heavier now than he was at the river, and there's a damp heat of blood that isn't hers trickling on her unfamiliarly bare neck, but his strong arms weakly wrap around her shoulders and he begrudgingly lets her take his weight.
"Fool," he froths out, bubbles in his throat as she adjusts him, already moving forward. "You're... going to get both of us... killed..."
But a life is a heavy burden to bear.
"I won't."
Running is difficult, but she manages to keep a somewhat steady jog, constantly struggling to keep Levi balanced on her back. His breathing is laboured against her ear, and she thinks he might be burying his face into her hair, and she's not going to start crying now, not when she can see the break in the trees and a long stretch of grass.
"Mikasa," Levi croaks again. "P-put... put me down."
She swallows hard and the sunlight hits her face as her muscles begin to lock up, the cramping too much for them to take, but she grunts and heaves and holds him anyway. The sun's already clearing up the morning fog, and as she glances back, she sees the titan crawling desperately after them, earnest for its meal, and at her pace it's already gaining on them.
Mikasa snaps back to look ahead and tries to move faster. She realizes that the shape she saw past the fog was the Wall.
She runs. As much as she can, she runs, if it can even be called that.
Levi's weight bounces perilously on her back and more than once she stumbles, thighs searing and calves begging to give out on her. The titan was regenerating already, surely, and she could not — would not — lose this now, would not lose him. They were so close. They had come so far.
Levi was too quiet.
Newfound panic bubbled in her.
"Corporal?" Her voice is several octaves too high. No. He couldn't be dead. He promised — promised her — that she would not carry his body back home, not like this. She couldn't let him die on her back, in her arms. Her resolved faltered, and her voice wavered with her ache.
"Corporal. Corporal, please don't do this. Not now. Not ever. Please, please stay awake."
"Nngh... Fuckin'... Ackerman..."
Her heart stills and then moves like lightning hit it.
"Sir!" she cried.
Levi's head lolls on her shoulder and she constantly readjusts his weight, but he is slippery with blood and seems absent.
"Whhh... what."
All at once, everything Mikasa had preciously kept inside of her, every vicious and valuable memory, every heartfelt feeling and every attempt to rewrite herself into a woman of strength and ability, came crashing down like a summer downpour, thunder and all. Tears burned against her eyes instantly, and spilled, and her already hard breathing turned into hiccups and gasps as she wept, sobbed.
She looks back again. The titan still followed, lumbering and groggy and dragging itself across the field like some fat infant that hadn't yet learned to walk. The ground smeared and crumpled underneath it, crushing wayward saplings not yet strong enough to withstand the brute.
And now, now the sun was alive, too, and the sky was so awfully almost-blue. Every faint, puffy, luminous cloud laughed at her. The sunshine was bright and hot but the air was cool with Autumn looming. The Wall was there — right there, in front of her — and the trees were thinning more and more and she could see the clear path she needed to take to make it there.
"Sir," she bleats, sobbing more. "Sir, don't die. Please not now."
She had to pause to heave him up on her back, but Levi's weight sags and she tilts, barely able to keep herself stable. The tipping seemed to have jolted him a bit, though, and he grunts, taking a deep breath.
"Shut up, Mikasa," he manages to say. His voice was rough against her neck, and the ground trembled with the titan coming nearer, its legs probably finally regenerating.
Her vision is blurred dangerously and she is just as close to passing out and never waking up again, but she can see the Walls, right there, right in front of them, such a short distance away. But there was no gate in sight, and no patrols. Her weak jog faded into a half-hearted trudge, and Mikasa looked back once more, and saw that the titan was on its feet, ankles healed like nothing happened at all.
It was such a beautiful day. It was unfair that she would have to die on it.
Mikasa Ackerman's heart broke at that thought.
Gently, she let her corporal down, and her back sang with relief. Levi was still breathing, but his eyes looked to be rolling back in his head, and her face is the picture of a soldier's quiet resolve as she pried his blades from their holsters and sat him up properly.
"Sir, I... I need you to stay with me for just a moment longer. We're almost there."
There's a deep, wet sound from Levi's chest, and Mikasa grimaces before picking up her speed. Grabbing his triggers, she hurried to place them in his hands, and then braced herself behind him from the ground, trying to eye the perfect point on the battlement. The ground is shaking and it's distracting, but she thinks she can make the shot and get him to safety.
Mikasa takes a last breath and shuts her eyes to keep the taste of pine and tea and dirt and blood, all so distinctly Levi, inside of her, and when she opens them the titan's shadow has just begun to cast over them, and her heart slows and hurts, hurts, hurts.
She says a silent goodbye, and thank you, and prayer, and hopes that they will get to her corporal before the vultures do. She thinks of Eren. She thinks of the woman she was before this mission, and who she became by the end of it.
Squatting so that she can jump back once the gear has fired, Mikasa squeezes Levi's hand in hers one last time before pressing down.
"Oh no you don't."
The hiss catches her entirely off-guard, and it provides enough opportunity for a solid, strong arm to wrap around her waist, fingers biting hard enough to bruise into her stomach before everything turns sideways and the force of a cannon is on her, the sound of the maneuver gear blasting into her ears violently. There's a firm, satisfying CLANG of the hooks finding purchase against the old stone, and then a deafening groan and shrill as the wires strain against the combined weight of them, yanking them up and up and out of the grasp of the titan that paws at them only a few feet beneath them.
Just as they're about to reach the top, the gears jerk to a grinding halt, and Mikasa can feel Levi's grip slipping on her. Her shirt's button are popping and ripping and she can feel his nails cutting into her skin as he tries to maintain his hold, and he growls out a few choice, foul words before reaching up with his free arm and dragging their bodies up the wall.
It feels like the bones in his arms are about to break, and maybe they have. He can't see anything except a bright black and blinding white contrast, and his spit tastes dry and sour, and Mikasa cries out with the last of her reserves as she reaches up, too, and snatches up her own hold on the surface.
An eternity passes in inches. And then, with one last heave, both of them peak and then tumble over the edge, hitting the cold, stone floor in a heap of blood and filth.
