Hey all, so with this chapter I have caught up with AO3 and therefore you will be subject to my horrible uploading schedule (average once a month now).
Reviews answers:
David Daniel B: I'm glad I managed to scare you a bit there. Thanks for reading and commenting!
SOS-108: No, this fic isn't an Eren x Petra fic. I imagine Petra as becoming a mother/Older sister-like figure to Eren, especially after all the stuff they've gone through together so far (also with the ages of 14 and mid-20s a relationship would be rather messed up.)
Noob6: It wouldn't be SnK without the survey corp coming to Eren's rescue at the last moment lol.
Traitor of All Traitors: Thanks, I will make that edit now. Yes to the statue and find out below for what happened to Rod.
ColonelJay: Glad you are enjoying it so far. Unfortunately, the upload speed is going to be a lot slower now that I am caught up with AO3 lol. Hopefully, this chapter can tide you over till the next update!
Anyway, hope you all enjoy and let me know what you think!
"Slow?" Kenny asked incredulously, slashing at Levi with his knife. "You've got some balls, runt. Few years with those Titan lovers and you forget your place. Guess I'll have to teach you a lesson."
Levi batted the blow away with his sword. "You talk too much."
"Cocky little shit, aren't ya? Fine then," Kenny brought his gun to the air and fired his hook. "Let's see how you fare without your friends around to help." He taunted, quickly taking off and fleeing the ambush, with Levi in close pursuit.
With the path to Eren now cleared, Armin and Mikasa made a break for him, each of them cutting down at least one MP who blocked their way.
"Eren!" Armin landed on the downed Titan's face, relief flooding through him at being reunited with his friend after so long. Every day since Eren had been taken, Armin had been furious with himself, just like with Trost he had fucked up, but this time it meant Eren had directly suffered from it.
What had his friend, his brother, been forced to endure during his captivity? Beatings, starvation, torture? The notion ate at him from the inside, clawing at his innards and made him feel sick.
"I'm so sorry…" he mumbled, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against Eren's giant face as if trying to press his feelings of remorse into him.
The sensation of euphoria Eren felt at seeing Armin and Mikasa alive and well after all this time was indescribable. For the entire time he had been held captive he had been entirely in the dark about what had happened with the Armoured Titan roaming about and had no idea of their fate.
During the darkest days, when the pain of his empty, withered stomach and the vicious beatings was almost too much, it was only the thought of the two of them, and how he needed to stay alive and escape that place to protect them, that kept him going.
But now they were reunited, and Eren could see with his own eye that they were both fine, and in an ironic twist of fate, they were the ones who arrived to protect him. And for the first time in his life, Eren wasn't bothered by that.
Letting out a low chirping noise, Eren nuzzled his head against Armin, causing the blond to sway side to side, as Eren broadcast his happiness the best he could. The two friends shared this tender moment, seemingly oblivious to the battle raging around them, as rested against each other. They were pulled out of the moment by a familiar voice calling their names.
"Armin, is Eren okay?" Mikasa shouted up to them from the ground, twirling her blades around as she guarded them. As tempted as she was to join Armin on Eren's face, Mikasa had to make sure no one tried to sneak up on her two boys; only one MP had been stupid enough to try, which explained the still corpse at her feet and the fresh blood dripping down her swords.
"Yes… yes, he's fine, we've got him." He shouted back, eyes snapping open as he remembered where he was.
Mikasa let out a tiny sigh of relief. 'Finally.' She thought.
Part of her wanted to just cut Eren out, grab him and Armin, and get them both to safety, even if she had to throw them over her shoulders to do so, but there was something that needed to be done first. As long as Kenny and Rod were alive, they would be a threat, and if they escape this place, they may attempt to capture Eren and Historia again. That couldn't happen.
"Get Eren to safety!" she yelled to Armin, looking towards the two distance blurs of Captain Levi and Kenny. She'd have to move quickly to catch up to them. "I'm going after Kenny." She announced, leaving no room to argue.
Even while submerged in his Titan, Eren felt a cold shiver run down his spine at Mikasa's words. After seeing how fast and dangerous Kenny was firsthand, he didn't want her to go anywhere near him, even if she was one of the best fighters the corp had. But when he tried to shout out his warning, all that escaped his Titanic vocal cords was a high pitch chirp, which whistled through his clenched teeth.
The sound did nothing to stop Mikasa as she broke into a run, firing her hooks into a church's spire and catapulted herself into the air.
Armin watched her go, firing off a quick prayer that she would be safe and wouldn't have too much trouble fighting Kenny. Otherwise, trying to explain the sudden appearance of the Female Titan within the confines of the underground city might be a bit of a challenge, even for him.
When he looked back to his friend, Armin could see the worry in Eren's giant green eye. "She'll be fine, Eren, trust me." Kenny might be tough, but there's no way he could stand up to both Levi and Mikasa, right?
"Come on, Eren. We need to get you out of here." Armin readied his blade in case Eren needed help exiting his Titan. "We've got a safe house nearby; the Commander wants us to wait there until the battle is over."
Eren shook his giant head, nearly dislodging Armin. "What? Eren we don't have time, we've got to-" he trailed off, looking down at Eren's rapidly opening mouth. As soon as his teeth were pulled apart, his long tongue rolls out, pushing something out of his mouth which lands with a soft, wet thud.
It takes longer than Armin is proud to admit for him to realise that the something that came out of Eren's mouth was actually a someone. Gazing down at the person from his perch, Armin couldn't help but notice how awful they looked; their skin was deathly pale, almost translucent in the dim light, and the clothes they wore were filthy and ill-fitting as if they were a size too big. Armin didn't like how many bloodstains were on that vaguely familiar shirt.
When the person lifted their head off the ground, Armin could see their auburn hair, matted and tangled with clumps seemingly torn away from her scalp, was sticking to their face, glued there by the thick coating of Titan saliva.
Spying the emblem of the survey corp on their sodden military jacket, Armin, after an owlish blink, finally realises who this person is.
"Miss Ral!" Armin blurts out the name in surprise, astonished but immensely relieved that she was still alive.
When they had been told about the kidnapping, he had immediately assumed the worse for the veteran scout, doubting Rod would have any need of anyone but Eren and Historia. When he had asked the latter in private if she thought her father would keep Petra alive, she had just looked down and shook her head.
The two of them had agreed not to mention it to Mikasa as they had both noticed the effect Petra's kidnapping had on her.
Despite his best efforts to convince her otherwise, Mikasa held herself responsible for the deaths of the other members of the special operations squad, telling him that if she had been a bit faster, she could have saved them all. So, when she heard that the sole survivor had been taken alongside Eren by that psychopath Kenny, it was like salt being poured in an open wound.
In between coughs and gags, Petra let out a string of curses and furious promises of violent retribution at Eren for throwing her in his mouth, some of which were graphic enough to make Armin wince in sympathy for his friend.
Pushing strands of slime-slick hair off her face, Petra cringes and lets out another curse when her fingertips brush over the cheek, long nails stabbing into the tender skin around the infected wound. Moving the rest of the sticky bangs aside with extra care and blinking away the last remnants of the sludge blurring her vision, Petra finally opens her eyes and looks around dumbfounded at the sight before her.
Carriage-sized chunks of stone from the shattered church laid around her, half-sunken into the ground, as a roaring inferno ravaged its way down a street. While all the while dozens of scouts zipping around, battling the interior squad for control over the fallen Titan, as bodies of fleeing MPs fell from the sky.
Clambering back from the chaos, Petra turned to look at Eren but was herself surprised to see a short blond boy clinging to Eren's face as if he didn't have a care in the world.
Her mouth opened and closed, gaping like a fish's as she struggled to process everything happening around her. There was only one phrase that could do her total bewilderment justice, and she eagerly expressed it aloud.
"What the fuck?!"
When a pair of arms are suddenly wrapped around her from behind, Petra nearly jumped out of her skin and lets out a high pitch yelp. She struggles for a moment, arms flailing about trying to elbow the person, thinking it's one of the MPs trying to grab her. She calms down when a head of familiar cherry blond hair appears over her shoulder.
"Nifa?" Petra choked out, emotions welling up inside her at her old friend's embrace.
"Hey Petra," Nifa said with a worried smile, wrinkling her nose slightly at the pungent smell of Titan drool slavered on Petra's clothing. "Sorry, we took so long. You're a hard woman to find."
They stayed like that for a moment before Nifa caught Armin's eye and nodded to her unofficial squadmate. Even though nothing had been confirmed yet, Nifa knew that squad leader Hanji would happily fight anyone who tried to poach Arlert from her or lead an outright mutiny if Erwin assigned him elsewhere. Especially after all the time they had been working together since Eren's kidnapping.
Hooking her arms up Petra's, she hoisted the women up as Armin clambered over the Titan's face and mounted its nape with his blade drawn. With a series of quick but careful incisions, he had peeled Eren out of the steaming meat and carried him down to the ground.
As the four of them huddled together under the rapidly disintegrating Titan, Nifa asked her young comrade if he was ready. With a resolute nod from Armin, the pair of them grabbed their respective friend and made a run for it, sprinting through the midst of the battle and diving into a dark passageway between the churches, and didn't look back.
The Ripper and Humanity's strongest battled across the city, blades clashing, and shots firing in between well-timed swings. Around them the city burnt, the numerous bombs carelessly thrown at Eren lighting fires which engulfed buildings and people alike.
Kenny threw taunts and insults at Levi, trying to throw him off balance but Levi wasn't going to fall for that trick again, not like he did in Hermina. He kept the pressure up on Kenny, attacking from a new angle every time he got close enough to the man.
Their violent dance through the air was a thing of wonder, as both fought with almost unnatural grace and control of their 3DM gear as they swung across roads and over buildings, and in one case, through one, as Levi dived through the window and sprinted through the house, only to leap out the opposite window, all to keep within touching distance of Kenny.
For all Kenny's immense skill in the air, he only had one hook and tether left due to him abandoned his other gun to escape the chunks of statue Eren hurled at him. That was the only opening Levi could see, but it was the only one he needed.
Using one of the underground's natural stone columns as an anchor point, the legendary scout slingshotted around it and cut across Kenny's path. With a flash of his sword, and a resounding *snap*, the tether is sliced in two.
Spitting out a curse as he plummeted, Kenny reacted fast. Pointing his pistol to the side, he squeezed the trigger, allowing the immense kickback to manipulate the angle of his fall towards a large warehouse which stood above the other structures near it. As he neared the roof, falling with the force of a meteor, he squeezed the secondary trigger, letting out a burst of gas to turn the lethal fall to a merely bone-breaking one, if he messed up the landing.
'If!' Kenny silently scoffed as he landed hard on top of the warehouse, making sure to roll into it to stop his legs from snapping. Coming out of the roll he leapt back onto his feet in an instant, looking unfazed at the death-defying stunt he had just pulled off. His knife was already up and ready when Levi came flying down at him, with murder in his eyes.
Kenny blocked the decapitating strike, halting Levi's blades in an instant. The two men strained against each other; faces separated by a handful of inches.
With a smirk, Kenny took the time to taunt Levi some more, "Well ain't this better, just me, you and the underground. It's about time you came back down here, Levi. I was beginning to think you'd forgotten where you came from."
"I came for my squad." Levi growled, pushing against Kenny's knife even harder as if trying to overcome his defence through brute force.
"I wouldn't bother with that, after all, it's not like you'll be leaving here alive." The serial goaded before summoning forth an ungodly amount of strength and delivered a brutal kick to Levi's stomach, sending the pride of the survey corp flying back across the rooftop.
"Is this all you've got, boy? I thought you wanted to save your team... or what remains of them." He slotted a new barrel onto his pistol and lazily brought it up at Levi, who was still bent over from the bone-rattling kick. "I taught you better than that. Now stand up, and fig-" Kenny span round, the flash of red he caught out the corner of his eye gives him just enough time to block another attacker's blades with his loaded pistol.
His whole arm shakes under the impact, his freshly loaded gun rendered useless by the blade digging into the stock. For the second time that day, someone had nearly gotten the drop on Kenny, and that pissed him off. Now face to face with this would-be killer, he looks at the face of the person brazen enough, or stupid enough, to attack him.
He has to do a quick double-take when he sees that the person isn't some giant hulking beast, as he had expected from the speed and force behind the attack, but was, in fact, a young girl who couldn't be any older than 15.
As quick as a flash, the girl swung her other sword up at him, the tip catching his chest armour with a metallic shriek, tiny sparks flying in all directs. Tilting his head back to avoid having his face carved in half by the strike, Kenny feels a stab of pain as the blade point cuts a shallow line up his chin, causing him to stumble backwards.
On instinct, Kenny brought a finger up to his chin to feel the injury, and when he pulled it away, he stared at the bloody digit in stunned disbelief. This girl had just managed to draw blood from him. How many years had it been since someone had injured him so? How many decades? Kenny couldn't even remember.
Slowly, he looked back up at the girl who was standing only a few metres away and presented the finger to her. "It's been a long time since I've seen my own blood. What's your name, girl?" he asked, wanting to discover the name of the first person to properly injure him in years.
He was still going to kill her, of course, but an achievement like that deserved to be remembered, and Kenny wanted to put a name to the face.
"What did you do to Eren?" she growled out; her dark eyes blazing with fury as she prepared herself for another attack.
"Weird name." Kenny shrugged, deciding he could probably force out a name before she bled out on the floor and lunged forward, slashing at her with his knife.
It would have been the perfect eviscerating strike had she not jumped back, using the gas of her 3DMG to backflip out of his reach, and nearly kicking him in the face with her long legs.
'She's good.' Kenny assessed, doubting there were many people alive who could have avoided that strike and almost hit him while doing so. He thought about shooting her, but a quick look down at his gun told him that wasn't happening.
Her strike had nearly cut the thing in two, the wooden stock had a deep gash running through it while the barrel itself was bent at a weird angle. 'Damn, this was my favourite gun.' Kenny thought as he tossed the now-useless weapon away.
Now there would be no shooting or running from this rooftop. He'd have to finish this the old fashion way.
"Ackerman get out of here. He's mine." Levi could already feel a bruise forming on his chest as he pushed himself up, flipping his blades around, so they were in his customary reverse grip. He didn't know why she was here instead of guarding Yeager with Arlert, but he didn't want to see her getting herself killed; not here, and not to this man.
Kenny looked up sharply, the shouted surname interrupting his silent planning, and turned his head towards Mikasa as if seeing her for the first time. He eyed her up and down before slowly breaking out into a grin.
"Ackerman, huh? Well shit, ain't this a surprise. You must be from the branch down south, right? I thought you lot died out before the fall." He cocked an eyebrow, drawing out another knife from his jacket and twirled it around, as he awaited an answer.
Mikasa gave no indication she even heard him speak, let alone grace him with an answer. Instead, she silently stalked around Kenny, assessing the man for openings like a predator would do to its prey.
"What? Nothing to say, cousin? Well, I don't blame you, after all, family reunions can be such awkward affairs." The spinning knife came to a halt, the hilt firmly secured in Kenny's hand. He watched her as she trailed around him, occasionally glancing back at Levi who, having realised to his immense frustration that Mikasa wasn't going to leave, copied her plan and moved to encircle his old 'guardian'.
Kenny saw what they were doing and started to laugh. Fighting a Titan had been an utterly lacklustre experience for him, especially after everything he had been told about mankind's 'mortal enemy', but facing these two? This might just be the fight he had been looking for, the one to push him to his limits.
He gestured with his knives, beckoning both of them forward.
"Alright then, kids." He chuckled, "Come show old Kenny what you can do."
In the dim light of the underground city, as the fires from the explosions still flared and spread, leaping from building to building which lined the Titan's path of destruction, two of the strongest people on this earth launched themselves at the laughing man.
Both knew they could hold nothing back from this fight.
Both fought with intent to kill, knowing anything else would end up in their own defeat.
And both of them wondered if that would even be enough to win.
Everything had become a blur to Eren as he was pulled from his Titan and practically dragged across the courtyard, into the nearest alleyway. He goes to talk but is firmly shushed by Armin who pulls off his own cloak and throws it over Eren's bare upper body and yanks the hood up to cover his face. Before he can even register the rapid change of clothes, Eren is carried further into the city, through winding narrow paths, pausing and darting across every juncture with the main streets.
Hating the sensation of being useless and helpless, Eren tries to move under his own strength, but almost collapses into a pile; his legs feeling as weak as a new-born baby's. No longer connected to his Titan and its own energy reserves and warmth, all the abuse and starvation his body had endured during his captivity hit him like a runaway horse, as the bone-deep exhaustion of doing a full transformation in his condition robbed him of what little strength he had left.
He stumbles, but the incredible warm arm that slips around his waist prevents him from falling. "Hang on Eren, we're nearly there," Armin uttered, pulling Eren up with one arm and waving to Nifa and Petra to stay close with the other. They were getting close now.
As they dashed through the city, the sounds of the battle; shouting, screaming, gunshots and the occasional explosion, grew quieter as they travelled further away. Eventually, they came to a stop in front of an old wooden door which Armin banged his fist against in a strange rhythm. Seconds later, it was thrown open, and the four of them rushed in, pushing past the scout handling the door and the three others standing guard inside.
As the door is slammed shut and a heavy bolt slid across it, Nifa helped Petra to one of the tables pushed against the walls and gingerly laid her down on it, calling for a med-kit. Not stopping to check on the older scout's injuries, Armin carries the semi-conscious Eren into another room, as per the Commander's plan, and locks the door from the inside.
Together the two boys slump against the back wall and slide down to the floor. Armin wraps both arms around Eren, cringing at how gaunt and skinny he feels and pulls him close.
"It's alright now Eren, we're safe here." He tells the shifter, brushing a hand against his knotted brown hair. "There's food and water here if you need it, but otherwise just rest." Armin jerked his head towards a small crate into the corner.
While his stomach grumbled at the mere mention of food and water, Eren ignores it. He was so tired, that even the thought of eating or drinking was too much, so instead he just shuffled closer to his oldest friend, stealing his warmth and drinking in his presence.
"So warm…" he slurred out, letting his eyelids droop and finally, after days of always being on edge and afraid of what might happen to him in his sleep, Eren slipped into a relieved unconsciousness, content in the knowledge that if Armin said it they were safe, then he was and could finally rest easy.
Some people might think that facing down two of the finest soldiers ever fielding by humanity, alone with only two knives would be a death sentence. An unwinnable battle, which would be over in a blink of an eye.
But those people did not know the notorious Ripper of Mitras, the terror of the Capital and demon of the underground.
They did not know Kenny Ackerman.
The mad killer didn't stop laughing as he parried blow after blow, batting them away with ease, before striking back with blistering speed. His two knives moved with such precision it was as if they were an extension of his own body, as natural to him to use as his own fingers.
From the outside, the fight was a blur of motion; flashing silver and the clashing of steel, as these three Gods of war tore into one another with a vengeance. The relentless screeching of metal on metal grew louder and louder as Kenny danced around the roof, holding his own against his two younger, and better equipped, foes.
As painful as it was for Mikasa to admit, she was genuinely astonished at the sheer speed, and ferocity Kenny fought with. Even as she called on greater depths of her strengths than ever before, bringing down her swords with enough force to cut a person clean in two, Kenny always seemed to move faster to avoid her blows or hit back harder, nearly jarring her arm whenever he blocked her slashes with his daggers.
As she is knocked back by a particular hard parry, Mikasa wonders if this is how ordinary people felt like when they faced her; the shock of what was happening, followed by the sinking sensation of dread, knowing that even when you're fighting at your best, you still can't win.
It reminded her of when she first heard about the curse of Ymir, locked in that cell after retaking Shiganshina. The feeling of hopelessness and defeat, the knowledge that both Eren and Armin would die, that she had failed to protect them.
She didn't just dislike that feeling, she hated it, with every fibre of her being. But she just couldn't shake it, never before had she had this most trouble with a human opponent; Not even shifters gave her this much trouble, and she had fought five of the nine.
Taking a mental step back from haze of combat, Mikasa wracked her brain, trying to think of some way to beat Kenny. Just brute-forcing him wasn't working, and disturbingly she had the suspicion Kenny wasn't even using his full strength yet.
If they're going to beat Kenny, they needed to think outside the box.
'What would Armin do?' Mikasa thought, narrowly dodging a wild slash. After launching a few more fruitless attacks and defending herself from some brutal counterattacks, a plan suddenly clicked together in her mind. With two knives, Kenny's defence was like a fortress; impenetrable and unyielding, but if he only had one knife, maybe they could pry his guard open and take him out.
Her path was now clear. If they were going to beat this man, one of his knives had to go.
And she had just the idea to do it.
Letting out a loud battle cry to draw Kenny's attention, Mikasa swung her blade through the air towards him, aiming at his chest. The man was already moving to parry the blow when she put her plan into action. Pulling her strike back at the last moment, she purposefully avoided missed any of Kenny's vital points, and instead aimed for the knife he went to block her with. More specifically, she targeted the fingers holding it.
With a flash of steel, four severed fingers dropped to the ground, blood spewing from the stumps as the targeted knife was smashed off the edge of the building under the full force of Mikasa's strike, spinning into the darkness below.
Despite the success of her plan, Mikasa's victory was short-lived; while such a painful and debilitating injury would have caused most opponents to falter, Kenny was far from ordinary. Letting the pain fuel his anger, Kenny let out a bestial roar, drew back his wounded hand and punched Mikasa across the jaw with the stumped fist.
Entirely unprepared for such a rapid counterattack, Mikasa had no way to avoid the punch. As it connected with her mouth, she felt something crack and could taste the coppery tang of blood pooling on her tongue.
There was a blinding flash of light behind her eyes when her head collided against the clay tiles, momentarily robbing her of sight. As she laid dazed on the floor, it felt like the whole world was spinning as the small part of her brain that wasn't hazy from the blow, desperately fought to prevent a shift. It felt like a thunderspear had just exploded across her face, but a hundred times worse.
Spitting out the glob of blood, Mikasa tried to move but froze when she sensed Kenny looming over her with murderous intent. Grimacing in pain and anger, Kenny raised his leg aiming to deliver another brutal kick to finish her off, when someone crashed into him, driving him away from Mikasa's fallen form.
"Don't touch her!" Levi shouted, smashing his two swords against Kenny's guard, again and again, trying to break through it.
The singular knife Kenny had left bore the full brunt of the attacks. Already weakened by countless blows during the fight, the small blade started to crack and warp under the tremendous force of Levi's blows.
Finally, with a bellowing shout of determination, Levi struck again, harder than he had ever done in life. Harder than when he cut hordes of Titans apart, harder than when he fought for his own survival in this place and harder than when he cut apart his first Titan, that abnormal which crawled on all fours and took his closest friends from him.
He hit so hard that the knife Kenny held, one he had been faithfully using for years and reaped countless souls with, was shattered completely, sending a hail of metal shards which fell across the rooftop like it was rainwater.
"Wha-" Kenny barely had the chance to express his shock when Levi thrust his other blade forward. The razored edge of it cleaving through his gear's armour plates and pierced deep into the flesh beneath it. He could feel the blade slice through his guts, spilling his own filth into his body, before it burst out his back, tearing chunks of flesh away with it.
Kenny doesn't cry out or scream in pain at the terrible blow, merely gasps as the air is forced from his lungs by the impact. For a moment Kenny doesn't move, seemingly frozen in shock, as blood starts to pour out from around the blade skewering his body, causing a dark crimson stain to rapidly grow across his shirt. Levi pushed forward twisting the blade slightly and forcing Kenny to his knees. The hilt of the broken knife he was clenching slipped out of his twitching fingers and clattered to the ground beside him.
Looking up at Levi with blood speckled lips, Kenny's lips curled into a pained smile. "Th…that's more like it." He coughed out, as a flare of pain blossomed within his core as the act of talking caused the blade to grind against his innards. "You're all grown up now, Levi. I'm proud of ya." Kenny forced out, blood spilling from his mouth as he did so.
Levi crouched down, one hand still firmly gripping the sword handle, and grabbed Kenny by the face.
He knew there were more pressing questions he should be asking; about Reiss and Government, but in that singular moment, Levi didn't care. For years he had wondered what bond they shared for a man like Kenny to teach him how to survive. He knew it had to be connected with his mother, in some way or another, it was the only logical explanation.
He had waited for years to one day find out, and with Kenny on the verge of death, it was time he knew the truth.
"What were you to my mother?" Levi demanded of the dying man.
Kenny let out a something halfway between a laugh and a groan. "Heh, you idiot…" he started, picking up on Levi's silent suspicions, "I'm not your father if you were worried."
"She was my sister." He wheezed out, before a guttural hacking cough erupted from his lips, spraying specks of blood against his nephew's face.
Levi didn't react when Kenny lifted his arm and rested his ruined hand against his cheek, so taken aback by finally uncovering the truth that he didn't care about the man's touch or the blood splattered against him.
"You look like her, ya know." Kenny coughed out, letting his hand rest against Levi's cheek as he remembered Kuchel's face; the pale skin from a lifetime living underground, and those bright eyes which shone with hope, long after Kenny thought she would have abandoned it.
She always was the best of them.
As his strength waned Kenny found he could no longer keep his arm up, and his hand slips from Levi's face, leaving only a bloody smear behind.
As the limp limb slumps down, Kenny's eyes drift over Levi's shoulder towards the girl, still unsure of what her name was. At some point during his familial confession, she had risen to her feet and stood behind Levi, ready to strike if she needed to. For a split second, Kenny thought he saw a wisp of steam escape the corner of her mouth when she exhaled, but he quickly dismissed it as the delusion of a dying man. Only shifter's like Uri steamed like that when injured.
In a twisted sort of way, Kenny was glad he'd finally met someone from the other branch of their clan, even if she had been trying to kill him. For decades their clan were hunted and persecuted across the land by the Government, forced to live in the mountains, forests or underground, like common criminals. Only when he started working for Uri did that change, but it was too late.
The southern branch was gone, and it had been for nearly a year from the report he had found when looking back into them. When he saw the girl had been taken in by a family in Shiganshina, he started looking into her to make sure she was being looked after. But when the city was attacked, and Wall Maria breached mere days after he started, any paper trail ran cold and was forced to assume she had died alongside her new family.
He was glad she hadn't. There was only three of their clan left now, and Kenny knew that number would drop down to two within the next few moments. But he didn't despair, for if those two could beat him, they could beat anyone.
Their family, if such a thing could even be called a family, would survive and carry on without him. He was sure of it.
"Good fight." he rasped out at the girl, before using the last of his strength to pull his head from Levi's grip and look up at the cavern ceiling.
The tiny crystals that twinkled in the growing darkness of his vision reminded him of the stars and those bright streaks in Uri's violet eyes.
'Uri… I'm coming…'
"Kenny?" Levi shook the man, his head lolling back and forth, but there was no answer. "Kenny!" he tried again.
"He's gone, Captain." Mikasa looked down at Kenny over the Captain's shoulder with a masked expression. For all Kenny's cruelty and sadism, he was her blood relative, however distant that was, but still family.
Suppressing a wince at that uncomfortable thought, she still cannot help but wonder that had things gone differently on that day, would it have been Kenny, rather than the Yeagers, who would've taken her in?
She shoves that 'what if?' idea away, for it doesn't matter to her now, and it never has. A life with Kenny would have been a life without Eren and Armin, and that's life Mikasa wants nothing to do with.
"I told you to leave." Levi didn't look up from his uncle's body, his free hand clenched into a fist.
"You could have died if I had." She replied.
Levi said nothing, knowing in his hearts of hearts that Mikasa was right. Had she not arrived when she did Kenny would have shot him, and even if he had avoided that, it had taken both of them to beat Kenny and even then, it was close. He honestly didn't know if he could have beaten him alone.
Mikasa peeled her gaze from Kenny's corpse and glanced around the city, noting how the sounds of battle had dimmed significantly as the last few interior squad members were being cut down or shot out of the sky by the survey corp.
With Kenny now dead, this battle was over, that much was certain. The MPs may have better equipment for fighting people, but they were heavily outnumbered and now outclassed in raw skill. The only thing left to do now was to get Eren to safety if Armin hadn't already done so, then find Reiss and put an end to this for good.
"I'm heading back, Captain. The others might need help."
She turned away, dumping the two chipped and dulled blades from her handles and replaced them with fresh ones. It wouldn't pay to be caught unprepared for another fight, even with a rapidly diminishing number of enemies.
"Ackerman, wait." Levi stood up, unclipping the blade pierced through his uncle, but didn't turn to face her. "About what you heard…"
The question hung heavy in the air, like a dark foreboding shadow pressing down on both of them. It was a conversation Mikasa had avoided having with him the first time, but now it was facing her again.
The question of family.
She goes to say that it doesn't mean anything; that their shared name and blood meant nothing. That they should continue to treat each other as they always had, as a Captain and a subordinate, but something causes her to hesitate.
Perhaps it was the tension in Levi's stance, the unusual tightness in his shoulders and the small hairs on his neck sticking up; the minuscule hints of vulnerability in an otherwise invulnerable man. Or maybe it's this whole situation; for whatever reason Armin, Historia and herself had been sent back through time, and had been given another chance to fix the mistakes of the past.
The first time she had met Levi, he had beaten Eren to a bloody pulp in front of her, and had it not been for Armin holding her back, she would have leapt over that barrier and attacked him. Even when she realised his actions had been necessary to sway Zachary, she couldn't bring herself to openly forgive him for it.
But as they fought battle after battle together; against Titans, the government, then Marley, she had grown to respect the man, and he had grown to appreciate her skills. But there was always that unspoken barrier between them, the unease that tainted their respect for each other's skills knowing that they worked so well together because of their shared blood. Which, thanks to their legendary stubbornness, they had patently refused to discuss after it was first revealed to them.
Perhaps this was a chance for them to try something different, to be something more than just fellow soldiers.
"Family is the most important thing in the world for me." Mikasa started slowly, fighting the urge to fiddle with her scarf. "I will fight for it, kill for it, even die for it. And there are only so many lives I can care about."
Glancing over her shoulder, Mikasa noticed the almost resigned slump of Levi's shoulders and wanted to kick herself realising that wasn't the best start. This was much harder than she'd imagined.
"But…" Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Mikasa fought through her growing desire to flee from this increasingly uncomfortable situation. "There is still some room left in my heart for more. I am willing to try and make something of this if you are… Levi." She breathed out, before walking over to the edge of the building and dropping out of sight.
Suddenly left alone on the rooftop with Mikasa offer still ringing in his ears, Levi looked down at Kenny's body as he ran her words over and over again in his mind.
The offer of a family.
The very word twists his stomach and leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. After all, what was family to him except an endless stream of death, loss and grief; His mother, Isabel, Farlan, Olou, Gunther, Eld, even Kenny, as twisted as he was. All of them had died by his hand or because of his failings.
And now someone else was holding out a hand to him, offering that poisoned chalice. Yet despite everything, despite knowing what would happen if he took it, despite knowing it would only lead to more loss, Levi found himself wanting to take it.
He wanted to take it regardless of the pain he knew it would inevitably cause. He wanted to take it knowing it would likely doom Mikasa to death just like it had to all the others.
'You're a selfish bastard.' The voice in his head sneered.
'I know…' Was his honest reply.
Levi gave a final glance toward the man who had overshadowed his life; constantly residing in the dark depths of Levi's mind, always judging his choices and observing his mistakes. The silent witness to everything he did.
The man might be gone, but the memories of him would remain. Perhaps they would remain for years, perhaps they would stay for the rest of his life. But memories were just that. Memories. Levi could live with Kenny's ghost haunting his dreams if it meant he couldn't hurt anyone else.
"Goodbye, Kenny."
With a muttered goodbye, Levi followed Mikasa off the rooftop back toward the corp, leaving the body of his uncle propped up and alone as his blood slowly dried on the weathered tiles.
Far across the city, a short, overweight man was dragging himself towards a side passage, moaning in pain as he tries to get off the main street. The fall he had from the Titan's chest had broken both his legs, with his left ankle shattering on impact with the ground, and his right leg so badly broken that his cracked femur was sticking out through his skin.
"Help me!" Rod cried out, pleading for someone to recuse him. There was no reply from the multitude of crushed or blown apart bodies which littered the street, only the sounds of cracking and snapping of timbers could be heard as the fires continued to spread.
Sobbing, Rod cursed the day he met Kenny, that treacherous Ackerman scum, and his foolish decision to listen to his brother and not put a bullet in that madman's skull on the day they met. He had told Uri countless times that Kenny was more trouble than he was worth, and he was right. When his family had needed him most, when the usurper's father attacked, he wasn't there to protect them as he was handsomely paid to do. And now, on the precipice of regaining the founding Titan and restoring his family's strength and power, Kenny had betrayed him.
'Bastard.' Rod wanted to scream the word at the top of his lungs, to shout it until his throat was raw and bloody. To yell it so loud that Uri could hear it from the heavens and know he had made a mistake in trusting that murderer.
He pulled himself deeper into the alley, crying out in pain as his broken legs were dragged along the uneven cobbles.
Eventually, the pain becomes too terrible for the man to continue moving, the white-hot agony which tore through his nerves with every small bump and collision reducing him to a bawling mess, tears and snot trailing down his face as he laid there, crying in the dirt. He had no idea how long he stayed there, silently begging for aide, when he felt a presence standing before him.
Through blurred eyes, Rod could see two pair of boots standing before him, and for a brief, fleeting moment he thought help had finally arrived. He reached out, grabbing the closest pair with his maimed hand, desperately clinging to it in the hope of rescue.
He looked up, blinked away the tears so we could see the face of his saviour and gasped. "H-Historia?" he whimpered.
She may have been dressed as an ordinary resident of the underground, with a slightly off coloured shirt and plain trousers, but Rod could still make out the blocky shapes of her 3DM gear hidden beneath her green cloak. And what's more, he noticed the long flintlock rifle she had slung over her shoulder, the standard weapon of the capital MPs.
Historia coolly gazed down at her wounded father, not looking at his mangled legs, or his tearful face, but at the hand touching her boot.
'So that's what they did to you.'
Mikasa had told her they had tortured the information out of Rod, but she had been vague on the details. Now she saw it for herself and was almost disappointed.
After everything he had done, to her and to them, she thought he deserved worse, much worse.
"Is this him?" Ymir asked, snapping Historia out of her musings, and taking a step forward. She looked down at Rod and her mouth twisted into a scowl of barely contained disgust.
At Historia's small nod, Ymir squatted down and grabbed Rod by the throat. "So, you're the sick fuck who abandoned his own daughter and forced her into the military to die. Give me one reason not to choke the life out of you right now?" As Ymir practically growled in her father's face, revealing the true steel and fury that resided beneath the mask of snarky aloofness she often wore.
Despite her demand for an answer, Ymir was already squeezing down on Rod's neck, constricting his windpipe until his face started to turn blue from the lack of oxygen.
"Hi…tor…a… ple…se…" Rod managed to choke out, looking towards his daughter with bloodshot eyes, as the small ocular capillaries ruptured from the pressure.
She was so, so tempted to just let Ymir finish him off, to let her wipe away the stain on humanity that was Rod Reiss. But Historia knew she couldn't; this was her fight, and she needed to finish it.
Taking a quick breath, she placed a hand on Ymir's shoulder and gave it a quick squeeze. "Ymir, could you give me a moment with him? This is something I need to do… alone."
"What?! No, I'm not going to leave you here with this bastard after all he's done." Ymir fired back, tightening her grip on Rod's throat even more.
"He can't do anything to me now; he's alone and can barely move." She tore her gaze away from her father and looked at her girlfriend. "Please Ymir, let me do this."
The freckled girl looked back and forth between Historia and Rod, chewing her bottom lip in deliberation. "Fine," she spat out after a few seconds of silence, "but I'm not happy about this."
She let go of her crushing grip on Rod's throat, who immediately started choking and gasping for air. "I'll wait at the end of the alley, but if he tries anything; yell, and I'll come and skin him alive."
Firing a quick look of concern at the stony-faced Historia, Ymir spat in front of the man's face and 'accidentally' kicked one of his broken legs as she stalked down the alleyway and out of sight.
As her father finished moaning in pain and trying to suck air into lungs through his bruised throat, Historia looked around the filthy passageway, surprised that none of Kenny's soldiers had come back for him or even stopped to help. Perhaps Kenny had already betrayed him when he realised he couldn't use the Founding Titan and saw no use in coming to Rod's aide.
'Good.' She thought. That would make this much more manageable.
"Hi… Historia… my daughter… you're here." Her father croaked out, pawing at her foot.
Finding him in this sprawling overpopulated city had been a stroke of luck for the two of them, especially as Commander Erwin had wanted her to stay topside and stay out of this fight altogether.
She had told him in no uncertain terms where he could shove that idea, her commanding officer or not. If he thought she would do nothing while her friends went into battle and Eren was being held captive again, he had another thing coming.
So, through a series of promises, demands and the threat of outright insubordination, a compromise was formed between the two of them. Commander Erwin wouldn't throw her in a cell for 'her own protection', and she would be permitted to join the rest of the corp in sneaking into the underground, but only if she agreed to stay on the outskirts of the battle, in one of the hunter squads tasked with dealing with any member of the interior squad who might try and escape.
At first, Erwin must have been immensely pleased with himself at Historia's reluctant acceptance, thinking that with his original plan of assaulting the MP's complex that there would be nothing for those hunter squads to do. But with Eren's unexpected escape, the plan suddenly became exceptionally 'dynamic', as Hanji put it.
Basically, the corp was now making it up on the fly, trying to account for the wildly fleeing 15m Titan as they moved into positions to ambush the chasing interior squad, and that suited Historia just fine. With her existing orders no longer applicable, she led Ymir along Eren's path of destruction, looking for any signs of her father. She expected he would be here somewhere, and she was right.
"Are you surprised? You kept sending people to drag me down here after all."
"Drag you here? No, I sent them to protect you, to get you away from those scout extremists. They are dangerous Historia, a fetid breeding ground of rebellious traitors. If I had left you with them, they would have used you to try and take over the government, to seize power for their own-"
"What did you do to Eren?" Historia cut him off, already tiring of the crap he was spewing. "And what did you tell him about us?"
"W-what? The boy?"
"Yes, Eren. Did you tell him who you really are?" The way Historia said it, and the look on her face told Rod that, somehow, she knew the truth.
"How do you…" Rod stopped and swallowed thickly. "No, I told that traitor nothing. We can still salvage this Historia, please, help me get to the capitol and together we can fix this. It's your birthright he has taken, and together we can reclaim what he stole."
"My birthright…" She scoffed in disbelief, knowing full well he viewed it as his own, but couldn't bear the consequences of taking it for himself. Coward.
"Answer the rest," she demanded, "what did you do to Eren?"
When they had been kidnapped together, Eren hadn't been physically harmed, but they had only been held for three days, and she had explicitly asked her father not to hurt him. But this time, she wasn't there, and Eren had been held captive for much longer.
She wanted to know what he had done to her friend.
"The boy's father and his conspirators stole our family's future and left us defenceless. It was my duty to find out what he knew, so they could all be punished for their treason. So, I gave the boy a simple choice; Tell me their names and he wouldn't be harmed. But he stubbornly refused."
"…What did you do?" If Rod had heard the dangerous note of Historia's voice, he might have stopped talking instead of pressing on. The fact he sounded almost proud of himself only made it worse.
"I punished him, and the other one, every day so he would tell me the truth, and know a fraction of the suffering our family has felt. Yet he continued to play stupid, pretending he knew nothing of the people who attacked our family and me. But I know that if they had not escaped, and Kenny not betrayed me, I would have broken him… I was so close."
The temperature of the alleyway seemed to plummet until it felt like ice could form and creep up the stone walls that surrounded them. It was only then; when Rod saw the truly murderous expression on his daughter's face, that he realised his mistake.
"You did what?" The words were cold and quiet, barely above a whisper, yet sounded infinitely more dangerous than before. "You tortured him…"
"I-it was necessary to protect the family." Rod stammered out, beads of sweat appearing on his brow. "I did it for you Historia, for the daughter I love."
"Love me?!" Historia spat the words like they were poison. "You banished me to the military to die. You kidnapped and tortured my friend. And you repeatedly sent your psychopaths to capture me, endangered my comrades time and time again.
"Does that sound like love to you?!" she snapped, body shaking with rage as her hands curled into fists. "The first time I even met you, was when Kenny slit my mother's throat right in front of my eyes. I was ten years old, and you made me watch that. And the only reason you stopped Kenny from killing me, was that you thought I could be of use to you in the future."
"No! I had no choice, the assembly… they ordered the killing because they were worried about the succession. Having you join the military was the only alternative they would accept, so that's what I did; I even made sure there was a place for you in the MPs, regardless of your results. I did everything I could to keep you alive and safe because you are my daughter, my family!" Rod pleaded with wide eyes, tracks of half-dried tears snaking down his face.
"I don't know what those scouts have been telling you about me, but they are lying to you. I love you, Historia, just as I loved Frieda and all your siblings! You must believe me."
Everything seemed to go deadly still for Historia, as all other sounds except for her heartbeat, loudly pounding in her ear, faded into a distant buzzing noise. She could feel her blood boiling in her veins until it felt like liquid fire was pulsing through them.
How dare he…
How DARE he try and throw Frieda in her face!
He had no right, no right at all to use her name as a weapon to try and control her. Did he have even an ounce of shame in his body? What sort of sick twisted bastard would use his dead daughter's name like that?
She clenched her fists even tighter until her fingernails punctured through the soft skin of her palm, drawing out tiny trickles of blood. The sharp throb of pain that caused was just enough to cut through the blinding fury she felt, restoring her semblance of control and pulling her back from the edge.
Historia closed her eyes for a moment letting out a long shaky breath. He wasn't worth it, she told herself. This 'man' didn't even deserve an emotional response from her, let alone one of such overwhelming rage.
She was stronger than that. She was better than that.
As her cold blue eyes flickered open, displaying none of the anger that had threatened to consume her only moments ago, Historia grabbed the strap of her rifle and slipped it off her shoulder, holding the long firearm in her slightly bloody hands.
Did Rod genuinely think she was so desperate for his affection and love that the mere mention of her half brothers and sisters would be enough to make her fall to her knees and beg for his forgiveness, to abandon her friends to his whims?
Placing the butt of the rifle against the grove of her shoulder, with the muzzle still pointed at the ground, Historia looked her father dead in the eye and let the words fall from her lips.
"You're a lying piece of shit."
Rod recoiled as if physically struck, but Historia didn't let up. "You are the biggest coward I have ever met; scum who is willing to sacrifice his own children, so he can live a little bit longer and wield power through them."
"Your 'love' means nothing to me; YOU mean nothing to me. I have a real family now, people who love me because of who I am, not because they want to use me to save their own skin. People you've hurt."
Historia thought about her friends as she clicked back the flint hammer and levelled the gun at her father's head; Ymir, Armin, Mikasa, Eren and the others. They were the people who mattered to her; they were her family now. Not this snivelling, lying, coward of a man.
"Historia, what are you doing!?" Rod cried out; the sting of his daughter's rejection quickly replaced with terror, as he stared down a barrel of her gun.
"What they should have done after they took your fingers. Goodbye, father." She sneered out, disdain dripping from every syllable, and pulled the trigger.
The single shot which echoed down the alleyway like a thunderclap was only heard by one other person. Ymir resisted the urge to run back into the darkness, nervously tapping her foot against the ground as she waited.
Once the ringing in her ears had disappeared, she heard light footsteps coming behind her. As she turned around, Historia appeared out from the darkness, the rifle slung over her other shoulder and tiny flecks of blood marking her dark combat boots.
Historia came to a stop in front of Ymir, and the two girls stared at each other, wondering who would break the silence and speak first. The Commander might have wanted Reiss captured alive, and while Ymir didn't give a damn what he wanted and had no intention of following that order, she was surprised that Historia had refused it as well.
"So," Ymir caved first, looking down the alley then around the area with exaggerated curiosity. "No luck down that alley then?" she asked, loudly.
Historia shook her head.
"Ah… that's a shame. Oh well, let's keep looking." Cocking her head to the side, Ymir pointed further up the main road, far away from their current position. "I don't think we searched over there yet. Shall we?"
As they walked up the deserted street, stepping over rubble and manoeuvring around fires, Historia slipped a hand into Ymir's, interlacing their fingers and giving them a loving squeeze. "Thank you," she quietly mumbled, resting her head against Ymir's toned arm.
Ymir just smiled and squeezed back. Lying to Historia about her true nature tore at her heart, but lying for her?
Now that she was more than happy to do.