Kaneki stood on the large branch, staring down at the swarm of titans below him, each of different sizes and their own strange, mutated faces. There were approximately 20 titans directly below him, with another group of titans nearby, all of them clawing at the tree trunks, trying to get at the humans who were far out of their reach. Ymir stood next to him, observing the half-ghoul closely, "He's full of openings. If I wanted to, I could kill him right now. I wouldn't even need to use my titan form. One quick slash and it's done, nobody would be any the wiser"
"Ymir, I advise against trying anything" a cold voice interrupted her thoughts "I could kill you in less than a second. However, I'd like to avoid that, if possible"
"Did I release my bloodlust?" she asked, genuinely surprised by how easily he picked up on her intentions
"Just a little bit, but it was enough"
"What would stop me from killing you right now?" Ymir gripped her blades tightly, ready to slash him at a moments notice
"Nothing" Kaneki walked up to the girl calmly as he instructed her "If that's what you want to do, go ahead"
Immediately, Ymir's blade found it's way to Kaneki's throat, this was it, now he dies and Ymir's secret was safe. At least, that was what she had planned. Unfortunately, reality was not so convenient, her blades had been stopped. How? He hadn't moved. The blade hit him straight-on but he remained unfazed. "It probably would be useful to know, blades and bullets will have no effect on me" Ymir's face seem to twist up in fear "It's my turn now"
Kaneki approached the terrified girl and raised his hand slowly, bringing it up to her face. Ymir closed her eyes, expecting the worst, only to be lightly flicked in the forehead. She looked over at Kaneki, who had a gentle smile on his face and was slowly backing away from her. "I have no intention of harming you" he assured her
Ymir lowered her blades, knowing there was no way she could kill him and that he wasn't going to be killing her anytime soon. Ymir watched the white-haired ghoul with a cautious eye, "Do you have any weaknesses? I feel like your strength is a little unfair"
"How so?" Kaneki asked honestly
"Well… isn't it obvious? You're physical abilities are far beyond everyone else, going so far as to be able to face off against humanity's strongest soldier. Next, as you said, you can't be harmed by blades and bullets. Finally, you have those weird red tentacle thingies. I mean, what are they?"
"Huh, I see. So that's how it is" Kaneki's mind felt weirdly clear, he had always thought of himself as rather weak, that's why bad things kept happening to him. The idea that he was thought of as strong was almost unthinkable for him.
His train of thought was interrupted by the sound of cannon fire, coming from the forest. He hadn't seen them bring any cannons or such like with the cargo. The fact that they had fired worried him a great deal, it meant that they were firing at something, and that something was probably Annie.
"So damn noisy" Ymir complained, "Where's Christa?"
"I'm not sure, but if I were you, I'd get ready to move out at a moment's notice" Kaneki warned her
"What? Why?"
"Just do it, you wanted to see Anteiku in action, right?"
Touka was readying herself to move out, those cannons really concerned her. Had they set a trap for Annie? Did those cannons mean that she was captured or dead? Her mind filled with questions such as these, but she had no answer for any of them.
"Touka, get moving already!" Jean instructed her. Looking down, she noticed a titan that had managed to climb pretty high up, the branch she was on was almost within its reach. Not worried about the titan in the slightest, she jumped onto its head, causing her comrades to worry for her.
"TOUKA!" Armin called out to her, however Touka ignored him, instead focusing on the titan she was standing on. Said titan began to shift, moving both its arms to grab at the person on its head, it released its grip on the trees it was holding onto. The titan fell to the ground, Touka jumped off as it began to fall, back onto her branch to continue her train of thought. Jean flew over to her as soon as she climbed back up
"Are you insane?! Even for you, that was way too reckless!" he scolded her
"He's right, why didn't you just go to another tree?" Armin agreed
"It's fine, isn't it? Nobody got hurt or anything like that" she reasoned, to which Jean sighed
"You know, I really envy you. Do you not feel fear or something?"
"What do you mean?"
"Does your strength mean that you've got nothing to fear from titans?" he rephrased his question
"Not really, they're not intelligent or anything, nor are they that fast. The titans' strength is in numbers, so one titan with limited manoeuvrability really isn't much of an issue" she replied nonchalantly
"What about that female titan? Even you couldn't beat her, but I think that, based on those cannons, the commander and the others have probably captured it" Jean responded
"Yeah, that sounds right" Armin agreed. No sooner than he did so, an almost deafening scream came from the forest. The screaming lasted for a solid twenty seconds before stopping.
Below them, the titans' attention was drawn by the scream, all of them turning towards the source of the noise and suddenly, they all sprinted towards it.
"What?! Why are they all ignoring us, all of a sudden?!" Jean complained
"Armin, take care of my horse! I'm going to find out what's happening!" Touka jumped onto the head of one of the sprinting titans, stabbing her blades into it's head and using them for grip as she rode the titan towards the cause of the commotion.
"If Annie is calling out for help, then something went wrong and we'll have to intervene" Touka panicked internally at the thought of harm coming to her friend
"Are you serious?! Talk about reckless!" Jean watched his friend ride off into the forest, "Who does she think she is, Eren or something?"
"Yeah, even with her strength, getting out of that will be almost impossible" Armin agreed "Don't you think so too, Reiner? Huh? Where's Reiner?"
"Damnit, him too?!" Jean complained, noticing Reiner following after Touka with his ODM gear
Kaneki and Ymir flew after the titans as quickly as they could, Kaneki pulled his mask from his pocket and began to put it on. "You should probably keep your face hidden beneath your hood and keep a bit of distance between us, if you don't want the military to see you" he warned her
"Yeah, I guess that makes sense" Ymir complied and pulled her hood over her head "So, are you going to tell me what's happening?"
"Something went wrong with a plan we made, so now we have to go and deal with it" he admitted
"So, what exactly are we heading towards?" Ymir asked as a lightning bolt hit the ground in the distance.
Kaneki pointed towards where the lightning hit the ground as he spoke "There, that's where we're going" he flew off towards the lightning bolt, followed by Ymir as a second lightning bolt hit the ground in almost the same location. Neither of them noticed the cloaked figure following them both from a distance.
It took the duo a few minutes to reach where the lightning hit, where they found two titans, a 14m and a 15m class, the 15m flailing at the 14m, attempting to kill it. Kaneki instantly recognised them as Eren and Annie, he quickly turned to Ymir "Come on, we are to watch from above for now"
The two stood on a branch and watched the two fighting titans from above, it was a really strange sight to behold. "The bigger one is Eren, right? He seems to be winning against the other one" Ymir observed, seeing that Eren was on the attack, launching a rapid flurry of punches at the female titan.
"Is that what you think?" Kaneki knew very well what was happening, he could see deep wounds on the female titan's shoulders and eye. She was seriously injured and she was still managing to avoid all of Eren's attacks.
The female titan kept backing away from her opponent, eventually slipping up and landing on her back. Eren quickly took advantage of this, mounting the 14m titan and launching a powerful fist towards her face, only for her to dodge it, causing his fist to collide with the ground. His arm was ripped apart by the force of his own attack, but it didn't cause him to hesitate for a second before he launched his other fist at his opponent, only for it to have the same result.
"Hey, you two!" a familiar voice called out to the two observers. A rather short, cloaked figure hopped onto the branch with Ymir and Kaneki, wearing a mask of a white rabbit
"Yo, Rabbit" Eyepatch greeted her with a wave
"Did you really involve Ymir in this?!" Rabbit skipped greetings and went straight to scolding him, "I thought we were going to leave that for a while, at the very least you could've let me know you were gonna do that!"
"Sorry, the opportunity arose and I took it" the two spoke nonchalantly, completely ignoring the two giants fighting on the ground below them.
Rabbit then turned to Ymir, "Anyways, I assume he invited you to join us?"
"Um…yeah, that's right…Touka?" Ymir queried as to the identity of Rabbit
"Yeah, that's me. Didn't he tell you? Well whatever, did you accept his invitation?"
"No, I wanted to see what I'd be doing if I did join, so I tagged along with him"
Rabbit turned to Eyepatch and stared at him for a second before punching him in the stomach, hard. "Why would you take her along for this?! We weren't planning on doing anything this time!" she berated him
"Sorry sorry" he apologised before a loud roar interrupted the conversation. Looking down, they noticed that the female titan was fully recovered, laying close to the ground as Eren roared at her, looking positively feral. He launched another punch at his downed opponent, which she dodged again, entering into a combat stance. Eren launched a series of punches at the female titan, she was able to avoid each of them expertly, waiting for an opening. She soon found what she was looking for, Eren charged at her again launching another punch that was far from hitting her, she took the opportunity, hardening her fist, she slammed it into his jaw, ripping it apart. However, Eren was not giving up that easily, he quickly launched a surprise attack on the titan, punching it in the stomach, sending her flying up in the air towards the trio, who quickly dispersed to avoid the flying titan.
"That was close" Ymir remarked
"Yeah, that's a lot of power he's packing" Touka agreed
"Was that just dumb luck, or did he know we were here?" Kaneki wondered
The trio landed on their own respective branches, Touka and Ymir on one, Kaneki on another nearby.
"Should we interfere?" Touka asked Kaneki, seeing how the fight between Annie and Eren was escalating
"Or we could start placing bets" Ymir joked, "My money's on the female"
"Eren's on the road to losing, sure, but what should we do once she wins? Do we take him off her hands or what?" Touka needed an answer from him now
"If we do interfere and take Eren away, that would put us and especially her in a dangerous position" Kaneki pointed at Annie's titan form, "After all, the other shifters are closing in on her, if we interfere, they may know she betrayed them. Plus, we'd have an even bigger target on our back, from both the shifters and the military"
"So, what do we do?!" Touka persisted, rather panicked, however Kaneki had no answer for her, he closed his eyes and tried to think of a solution. It was at this point that he heard a slight hissing from nearby, looking to the source, he saw a figure behind Ymir and Touka, using ODM gear. "Behind you!" he tried to warn them, but it was too late, the figure kicked Rabbit from the branch she stood on. They then turned their attention to Ymir, slashing at her arms, severing them from her body as Ymir screamed from the pain.
The figure stopped for a moment after severing Ymir's limbs, apparently they hadn't expected to be able to wound their enemy. "Whatever, I'll use this chance to go and help the-" Eyepatch's train of thought was interrupted as a second figure arrived on his branch, moving incredibly fast. This second figure slashed upwards at Eyepatch's chest, however, much to the ghoul's surprise, their blades cut straight through his skin. They carved deep wounds into his chest and cut his ODM gear's straps from him, causing his gear to fall to the ground. Jumping backwards, Eyepatch unleashed his kagune, ready to fight as he got a good look at his enemy. They wore a Survey Corps uniform, they wore normal ODM gear, but their blades were slightly darker. Looking up at their face, Eyepatch recognised them, they were humanity's strongest soldier, Captain Levi.
Levi looked down at his weapons before looking back at Eyepatch with his usual cold expression "I guess that four-eyes' new toys work against you, huh? It also appears that you can heal, like Eren. Then I hope you don't mind if I cut you up a bit" he spoke before rushing at Eyepatch again, in response, Eyepatch swung one of his tentacles towards Levi, who blocked it with his blades
Rabbit was falling towards the ground at a frightening speed. She quickly corrected herself and launched herself back up to Ymir and the attacker. Upon her arrival, she noticed Ymir's arms falling to the ground as their attacker kicked Ymir in the chest. Her body went into autopilot, she charged straight for Ymir, knocking the attacker out of the way as she grabbed Ymir's leg, just in time to stop her from falling. She pulled Ymir back onto the branch before turning back to the attacker, who was hurtling towards her at a frightening speed. Unable to dodge, Rabbit charged forwards towards the assailant. The two clashed, the assailant's blades against Rabbit's forearm. The two pushed against each other for a moment, giving Rabbit a clear look at their face. The assailant was none other than Mikasa, and her eyes were filled with bloodlust.
"Shit! I have to keep Ymir out of the way or they'll see her face" Rabbit figured out her first priority was to protect Ymir, so she tried to make sure that Mikasa's attention was focused on her. She pushed Mikasa away before going on the attack, launching a powerful kick to her side, knocking her from the branch. Rabbit looked to Eyepatch for assistance, only to see him completely occupied with another opponent.
"Fine, I'll deal with Mikasa" Rabbit jumped down to Mikasa, where they clashed again
Ymir could only watch, feeling a bit out of her league. Below her were two titans, each one significantly bigger and more powerful than her own, fighting each other as they smashed everything nearby. Even if she did transform to intervene with their fight, one hit from either of them would spell her end. Next up, in front of her was Mikasa fighting against Rabbit, both of them swinging at each other with inhuman speed and power. Mikasa's blades were not able to break Rabbit's skin, but that didn't stop her from trying. Ymir had taken just one of Mikasa's attacks, and that took of both of her arms in one swing. There was no way she could take on either of them, let alone the fact that Rabbit was not trying her hardest to kill Mikasa. From what Ymir could see, she was just keeping Mikasa's attention on her. "Is she trying to keep me safe or something?"
However, what terrified her, was the fight going on above her, between Eyepatch and Levi. It was truly a once in a lifetime sight to witness, if your eyes could keep track of them. Eyepatch had four of those weird tentacles out and was using them to propel himself through the air, as Levi followed him using his ODM gear. Every couple of seconds, she could see them clashing, it was the only time she was able to see them clearly, if only for a moment before they disappeared again. She couldn't help but compare herself against them, she knew that her titan form was quick, but if she transformed and involved herself, she would be dead before she even realised it. But it wasn't like she was in any state to fight anyway, her arms had only just started to heal, steam was emerging from the wounds as she healed slowly. She could only watch the three battles in front of her, so she resigned to that.
"Yeah, if this is normal, there is no way I'm joining them" she spoke to herself, deciding to watch until she was healed up enough to leave
Rabbit was persisting in keeping Mikasa occupied while Eyepatch fought Levi. She couldn't see all of it, but once they were in her field of vision, she couldn't help but admire the two fighters, they moved with such speed that she had never seen before. However Mikasa was nothing to scorn at either, aside from Levi, she was probably the strongest humanity had to offer. Her speed and strength were certainly impressive, but she was still not a match for Rabbit yet. Deciding to end the fight quickly, she unleashed her kagune, her single wing stood proud for all to see. She charged towards Mikasa, who could barely bring up her blades in time to block as Rabbit's wing smashed through her blades. Mikasa had no choice but to back away, as she tried to equip new blades, only to find that they were gone. Looking back at Rabbit, she saw her holding the blades in her hands.
"You took them as you attacked me with your wing?" Mikasa requested confirmation
"Yeah, well done" Rabbit applauded her, "You can't fight me now, so can we stop for a while?"
"What were you going to do with Eren?!" Mikasa demanded an answer, her eyes consumed in bloodlust again
"Is that why you attacked us? Because you thought we were going to do something with Eren?" Rabbit asked, shocked that she would attack them for such a trivial reason
"Was I wrong?"
"Not entirely, but I would've thought that you'd attack the titan that was fighting him first, rather than me. Or do you just not like me?"
"I don't like you, you keep appearing with Eren and you're not trustworthy at all!" Mikasa admitted
"Yeah, but did you really need to cut her arms off? She's not even a proper member of Anteiku" Rabbit pointed towards Ymir's tree
"She's not? No matter, she would've interfered too, wouldn't she?" Mikasa didn't bother hiding her distrust of them
"I doubt it, but more importantly, what about Eren? I would've thought you'd be more concerned about him than me" Rabbit reminded Mikasa of what her priority should be. Mikasa instantly turned her attention away from Rabbit, and looked down at Eren, who was still in his titan form, keeping his distance from the female titan as he watched her with a wary eye.
"He's lasted a lot longer than I would've expected" Rabbit drew Mikasa's attention back to her, "She's really good at hand to hand combat, so it's rather impressive that he has held up so well against her"
"How can you be so carefree about this? Eren's in danger!" Mikasa yelled at her
"Because, I don't think he's in any real danger from her"
Mikasa stepped forwards towards Rabbit, clearly aggravated, "And what do you mean by tha-" her question was interrupted as two figures, moving absurdly fast, came between her and Rabbit. The two figures seemed to clash against each other, in front of them, and quickly separated, one heading towards Mikasa and the other towards Rabbit. The one that went for Mikasa jumped towards her and buried it's foot in her abdomen in a powerful kick that instantly knocked her out, the figure then used her as a footing to jump back towards it's opponent. Whereas the other went for Rabbit, she was able to follow them with her eyes, but her body couldn't keep up at all, she recognised the one that went for her as Levi, who brought his darkened blades up to her and gave her four deep cuts, one on each of her shoulders, rendering her unable to move her arms, and one on each of her knees, rendering her legs useless as well. He then turned away from Rabbit and flew back towards the other figure, Eyepatch, all before she could even let out a single sound.
Collapsing to the ground, Rabbit let out a scream from the pain of her injuries, how did he even pierce her skin anyway? Blades shouldn't work on her, right? Her scream instantly caught the attention of Eyepatch who rushed to her side as quickly as he could, completely ignoring Levi. Upon landing next to her, he saw her injuries, they were deep, she would need medical attention, that and flesh to help her to heal quickly. A familiar hissing could be heard from behind him, however he did not turn around to face his enemy. Instead he allowed his kagune to manifest, all four tentacles merging into one that was considerably larger, it flew at Levi who tried to block it with his blades, only for them to be smashed to pieces by the large kagune. Levi spun out of the way of the kagune and put some distance between him and the ghoul, who had finally turned to face him, completely furious. His one visible eye was glaring daggers at him, with a few tears escaping from the edge of it, but Levi remained firm and equipped new blades, ready to continue.
"Bastard! I'll kill you for this! Do you hear me, you son of a bitch?!" Eyepatch screamed at him, using his kagune to propel himself to his opponent
Levi flew toward him and readied himself to fight again. The two clashed and separated again, Levi landing on a tree branch, Eyepatch landing nearby. Eyepatch did not give up in pursuing Levi, landing on Levi's branch within moments. Levi rushed towards Eyepatch again, slashing at his chest again, creating deep gashes that started to heal instantly. Eyepatch launched two of his tentacles at Levi from above, which he dodged by charging forward as he tried to slash at Eyepatch again, only for Eyepatch to use those two tentacles as a pivot point to haul himself out of the way as his other two tentacles tried to strike at Levi again, to no avail as his blades blocked the attack, yet again. Eyepatch then tried to use all of his tentacles to take him down from above, but Levi just dodged between them all and used his ODM gear to fly up to Eyepatch and slash at his face, which Eyepatch was barely able to block with his arms, once again causing deep wounds that began to heal instantly. Levi then let himself fall downwards, and Eyepatch followed after him. The two of them found themselves right in between the two fighting titans, Eren and Annie, each one going for punch on the other. Levi landed on Annie's arm as Eyepatch landed on Eren's. Instantly, Levi began to move up Annie's arm, cutting it up as he did so, until he reached her face, where he slashed up her eyes before moving down her body, slashing up every inch of her body, rendering her immobile and unable to see. While Levi attacked Annie, Eyepatch ran along Eren's arm and jumped to his face, using his kagune to sever Eren's arms at the shoulder as he pierced Eren's eyes with his arms, Eyepatch deemed that sufficient to keep Eren out of the way as he jumped back to Levi, who had finished his attack on Annie and was flying towards him as well.
"It's time to end this!" the two of them declared
Levi released his two blades and threw them at Eyepatch, who barely blocked them with two of his kagune, causing them to go limp in the process. "He's down to his last blades now"
"That deals with two of his tentacles"
Levi equipped his last blades and flew at Eyepatch as fast as he could, Eyepatch launched his last two tentacles at Levi, and for once, he managed to hit him, each one managed to land a heavy hit on Levi's knees, breaking them. However, Levi's momentum kept him moving forward and he ducked under Eyepatch's arm and embedded his blades in his back, where his kagune were emerging from, causing his kagune to dissipate. The two of them landed on the ground, not too far away from each other, both exhausted and heavily injured.
The two fighters were left kneeling on the ground beside the remnants of two large titans. Eyepatch was barely retaining his consciousness, while Levi was gasping for breath as he clutched at his knees.
"You really are humanity's strongest, well done" Eyepatch complimented his opponent
"Yeah, and I'm really hoping that you are the strongest member of Anteiku. I don't think I'd be able to deal with anyone much stronger than you" Levi admitted
"Yeah, no need to worry on that front" Eyepatch chuckled as he fell to the ground, out cold. He had taken some serious damage that would take ages to heal.
"Thank fuck for that" Levi spoke as he himself collapsed
Rabbit was watching in stunned silence, the two of them were beyond inhuman. Their abilities were incredible. Rabbit tried crawling towards the edge of her branch, looking for a way down. Unfortunately there was none, and she was too heavily injured to use her ODM gear. Then she noticed one of the titan shifters below them began to twitch, Annie was healing. Once Annie was healed up, she stood up and looked around her, and she was certainly surprised by what she saw.
"BLONDIE!"
At the mention of her "codename", Annie looked up, where she saw Touka, lying on a branch, very high up. "CAN YOU PICK THOSE TWO UP AND PUT THEM UP HERE?!" Touka requested and Annie looked down at the two wounded fighters on the ground. Scooping them up in one hand, Annie tried to climb one of the trees, barely reaching high enough to place Levi and Kaneki on the branch with Touka. Once she had them up there safely, Annie's nape began to release steam as Annie climbed out, fully equipped in ODM gear. She jumped from her titan form onto the branch with Touka and the three unconscious soldiers. "Care to enlighten me as to what happened here?" Annie prodded Touka for information
Touka recounted all of the events of the past ten-fifteen minutes, and Annie was definitely surprised. "So, basically you, me, Mikasa and Eren all got caught in the crossfire of the fight between those two" she pointed to the unconscious Levi and Kaneki
"Yeah, in a nutshell"
"So, what do we do? We can't just leave them here, but we can't just go up the military and say 'here are your friends that we beat up', can we?"
"No, besides, we need to recover for now. Could you cut Eren out of his titan for me?" Touka reluctantly requested, she didn't like being overly-dependent on others
"Sure" Annie jumped down to Eren, who still wasn't healed yet, and cut him out of his titan body
"Come to think of it, where's Ymir?" Touka wondered, looking around
"Up here" Ymir replied from a higher branch, waving with half of an arm
Annie re-joined the others, with Eren in tow, and lay him down with Mikasa, who, almost instantly, wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close to her, like he was her favourite teddy bear or something. "Aww, isn't that cute?" remarked Ymir from above
"So, what do we do?" Annie reiterated
"What else can we do right now? We can only wait until our injuries heal up, once we're healed up, then we make a plan"
"Hate to interrupt, but we've got company!" Ymir called out to them
"Is it the Survey Corps?" Annie asked, and soon found her answer, as approximately twenty soldiers were flying towards them.
"Annie, grab me and Kaneki and take us up to Ymir" Touka instructed and Anne complied, with some difficulty
"This is not the job of a weak and fragile girl such as me" Annie complained once she took the ghouls up to Ymir
"Quit complaining, and hide!" Touka ordered her
"Over there, look!" they could hear some of the Survey Corps' soldiers voices from afar
"No way! Even Captain Levi and Eren?!" another soldier yelled in disbelief
"No, they're all still alive. Oh, but Levi broke the weapons that I spent so long making!" another voice moaned
"Section Commander Hange, we need to go now, the titans could be upon us at any moment" another soldier complained
"Fine, grab them and let's get out of here. Damn, I spent ages on those weapons" Hange complained before they all flew off, allowing Touka and the others to relax
"Ymir, how long do you need before you're fully healed?" Annie asked Ymir once they were sure the soldiers were out of earshot
"I don't know. I guess, ten minutes should be enough" Ymir made a guess
"Okay, how about this? I'll take Ymir back with me to where she should be, then I'll come back for you guys and we'll find a way to get back on our own, sound good?"
"Fine by me" Touka agreed
"No complaints from me, let's go" Ymir jumped onto Annie's back and they flew off, leaving the two ghouls on their own
Touka shifted and looked over at Kaneki, he looked so peaceful. It was hard to believe that a few minutes ago, he was fighting so viscously. He shifted a bit before reaching out his arm to Touka and pulling her closer to him. She could hear him whisper a little bit in his sleep, just two words, but they caused Touka's face to turn bright red, "My Touka"
Kaneki held her closely but gently, as though she would break if he held her too tightly, and given her injuries, that wasn't too far from the truth. Allowing herself to relax a little, she snuggled closer into him and within minutes, she found herself in a blissful sleep.
This took a while to write, I had some other business to attend to, sorry :(
Let me know what you think of this chapter, I'm not completely sure how this turned out, especially the fighting parts