Despite knowing exactly what the acoustic round meant, Armin was still somewhat shocked when the first member of his squad burst through the brush below him, shocking him into a ready position before he had even realized what had happened.

This shock didn't last long though, as he was able to breathe out a sigh of relief once the familiar blue and white wings came into view and lowered his swords.

He hooked both of his anchors into the tree ahead of him and began lowering himself down slowly, legs far shakier than they had been before. By the time he'd made it to the ground and all had all but collapsed the rest of his team had arrived, all looking none the worse for wear.

Or at least physically, as even though many of them kept up a cold stoic expression Armin could see that they were still fairly panicked. He could see it in the way that their hands shook as they continued to grip their swords despite no obvious threat, the way that they kept glancing over their shoulders at the slightest noise.

He probably should have expected that, considering the fact that at the moment they should have been preparing to meet back up with the supply carts and finalize their mission objective, but it was obvious something was wrong.

The air felt heavy around them as they began to mimic Hanji's actions in silence, the said person being far quieter than what Armin was used to.

Placing blades away, untacking horses, and hopping on their backs as they prepared to leave was all done in silence, the air feeling heavier by the minute.

Moblit was the first to speak up, surprisingly, questioning the other members of the group on what they'd seen, heard, and known up until this point, however as expected everyone was coming up blank.

Though this in itself was telling.

While the thick forest surrounding them wasn't exactly conducive to titans and wasn't expected to hold many, the fact that every person in their group was able to split off into different directions and not see or hear a single titan-excluding the Female-was absurd.

It was something that Armin normally would have never believed, chalking it up to a distracting atmosphere or simple unwillingness to fight even with the considerable experience of his squad members, however it almost seemed par for the course for this mission.

If there were no titans out in an open field, there certainly wouldn't be any in such a dense forest.

And if the reasoning for the lack of titans was what Armin believed it to be, there was most certainly no reason that there would be any titans around here. Around where the Rogue titan was most likely to be.

But Armin's focus wasn't on the amount of titans, the empty reports from the rest of his team, or even on Moblit himself. It was on Hanji.

Their movements carried a certain precision and weight that he had never seen before, the movements of a true professional. It almost struck him as odd for a moment, before he remembered exactly who Hanji was. A high level ranking official from the Survey Corps' research division.

They'd been on more expeditions than Armin could probably ever hope to survive though and come out almost unscathed, so of course they were a professional. Of course they knew exactly what they were doing.

But it still seemed off to him.

Armin knew that it wasn't just his imagination. Hanji was acting different, as if they had discarded that energetic and silly attitude of theirs in favor of a more serious mask, reminding him more of Captain Levi than the Hanji that he knew.

Though they'd been serious for this entire trip Armin couldn't help but feel as if their words were...colder somehow. The familiarity that he'd gotten so used to suddenly gone and replaced with a mask of impatience.

"Artlet, anything to report?" They asked, roughly pulling the red fabric back towards themselves and pocketing it before much else could be said.

"Yes sir!" He responded, pulling himself into a salute. Something was off here. Something had happened between the time that he had last seen Hanji and now, and while he had some theories...nothing was really all that substantial. "While waiting within the trees I came into sight of the titan I suspect to be responsible for the devastation of our back squads."

"Do you engage?"

"No sir, I stayed put."

Hanji narrowed their eyes at him as Armin began to sweat. "Did this titan, the Female titan I'm presuming, simply not notice you?"

So they had seen that abnormal at this point, if the name was anything to go by. It wasn't that surprising, all things considered, as Armin knew that Hanji and Moblit had both flown off at least vaguely towards the carts, but from what he knew he thought Hanji would have been excited by the discovery of this new titan.

Malevolent or not, they'd always been enthusiastic about any new information concerning titans, though he supposed he hadn't actually seen much of how they acted on the field.

"No sir, it um...it saw me."

Hanji paused for a moment, halting their horse's movements but motioning for the rest of the group to continue forward. "And you did not abandon your position, correct?"

"No sir."

By this point Hanji had begun moving once more, having their horse canter alongside Armin's as they let out a loud sigh. They dragged one of their hands across their face before turning to him, at which point Armin realized just how tired Hanji looked.

It wasn't the same sort of tired that he'd experience while working with them before, after multiple all-nighters which substituted sleep with tea. This was a bone deep exhaustion that he could almost feel just by looking at them.

Walls, what had happened?

"Look, Armin, not that I've doubted you before but I have to let you know that at the moment you have to give me your account of what happened back there with the utmost honesty." They told him, not breaking eye contact. "I don't care if it sounds insane, improbable, or whatever other reason you could have for keeping information to yourself but now is not the time to do so."

Armin blinked back at them. It wasn't as if he'd planned on keeping any information to himself but the more he thought about it the more impossible his encounter with the female titan seemed.

Just ignoring him was one thing but to actually grab and release him…

"Armin." Hanji stated firmly, snapping him out of his thoughts. "What happened back there?"

"I…" he took a pause to catch his breath and gather what he wanted to say. "I was waiting in the trees, just listening for the acoustic round and watching to see if anybody came back but it, well she , appeared first."

"She was looking around, at the red ribbon and horses and I didn't really know what she was doing and I thought-I thought that maybe if I stayed still she would notice me. I mean it's not like I could fight, you saw how fast the support teams behind us dropped and those were fully skilled teams I stood no chance-I couldn't-"

Armin took a deep breath. Now was not the time to be panicking. "And then she looked at me. Directly at me and I couldn't do anything."

"Couldn't or wouldn't?" Hanji asked.

"I-I tried to move but my arms aren't working. It felt like...it felt like I was back in Trost."

"I see."

Armin placed a hand on his chest to settle his heart, noticing that his palms were far more shaky and sweaty than before. He had to calm down. All he was doing was repeating his part of the story.

But fuck, he knew exactly how impossible everything that he had explained so far had sounded and that it was going to do nothing but get worse, more improbable.

Yet he still had a duty to fulfill.

"And then she…" Armin paused, making a grabbing motion with his left hand. "She just plucked me out of the tree."

He saw Hanji raise their eyebrows at that, the most emotion he'd seen from them since the start of this conversation. "And what do you believe she was trying to do?"

"Huh?"

"You aren't injured are you?" Hanji continued, expanding on their statement. "Normally being grabbed by a titan results in a minimum of bruised ribs, leaving even the strongest of our troops out for days, but you've reported no pain or injury."

Armin paused. It was something that had been bothering him ever since he had been set down, arguably more than the fact that he had been set down at all, but he had pushed it to the back of his mind.

He had done his very best to forget that small detail and focus on the larger picture before him, not because that part didn't make sense but because that was the piece that let everything fall into place.

Because if he let himself think about that small fact in relation to everything else it made too much sense.

"I don't...I don't know." Armin lied as he wrung his hands nervously. "I'm still trying to wrap my head around why she let me go at all, much less why I came out relatively unscathed."

Hanji stared at him for a moment, and Armin knew by that point he'd already been caught. He knew that he was far too shaken up about this event for it to just have been a case of odd titan behavior and Hanji could tell.

The only thing he could do was pray that Hanji wouldn't call him out on it.

He stared back for a second longer, feigning innocence as he waited for them to call his bluff but surprisingly after a bit they turned away with a sigh.

"As much as I would love to continue this little chat of ours, I believe we both know that now is not the time or place to do so." They stated, and Armin was suddenly once more aware of the trailing sound of hoofbeats both ahead of and behind him as they continued to traverse the landscape.

A landscape still unnervingly bare of titans.

"Ah, I'm sorry." Armin quickly apologized as he realized that he had inadvertently been keeping them from their duties as a squad leader. "I'll try to think about the Female titan's reasons so that we can have a proper discussion on this once we arrive back to base."

That is if they would arrive back at base.

While the path looked totally clear now, and had for most of the expedition there was still no telling what could happen.

And there was still a sick feeling of paranoia sitting in his gut, reminding him that anything could happen.

Still, he grabbed the reins of his horse, preparing to urge them onwards to catch up with the group before Hanji abruptly stopped him once more.

"And one more thing," They said much more quietly than they had previously been speaking before. "You'll likely hear about this later, however I think it is imperative that you find out as soon as possible, before the rest of the Survey Corps"

Armin tilted his head in confusion, opening his mouth to speak before Hanji continued.

"This mission was a catastrophic failure."

He snapped his mouth shut. Of course he'd had his suspicions but to hear it like that…

"The Female titan was able to deliver a killing blow to the Rogue titan before we were able to contain it, biting through the Rogue titan's nape. We were not able to retrieve the Female titan either."

Ah.

He could see why that was not immediately shared with the entire squad.

Although there had always been a fairly high chance of failure for this first expedition it came with the caveat that it was unlikely for there to be no chance of a second, that the Survey Corps could simply attempt again and again until their target was captured.

That the Rogue titan was unlikely to really go anywhere.

But if what Hanji had said was true…

"That is not all however."

Armin's head snapped up. Not all?

"Upon attacking the Female titan and destroying its jaw muscles Captain Levi and his squad were able to discover and recover a boy reportedly wearing a training corps uniform."

Hanji turned towards him, their expression turning cold once more. "According to Cadet Ackerman the boy bears a strong resemblance to her brother Eren Jaeger, enough to the point that she insists that it is him, despite his current KIA status."

A resemblance to ...Eren?

No. That couldn't be right.

There was just. No way.

He'd watched Eren die right in front of him.

He'd watched uselessly as Eren threw him out of the titan's mouth with strength that even Armin didn't know he possessed. Watched in horror as he noticed Eren's ruined 3D maneuver gear along with the stump of a leg that did nothing but gush blood.

Did nothing but watch as Eren struggled to keep the roof of the titan's mouth open with one arm while bracing with the other, knowing what was about to happen, what was happening at that moment.

And he'd watched as Eren's arms gave out, the titan's jaws snapping down with an audible clack as it swallowed Eren whole. Knowing that it wouldn't matter if he was able to kill the titan at that point, that Eren was a lost cause.

Even if he was able to kill the titan and by some miracle retrieve Eren it was already far too late.

With broken gear and a leg like that...it was just hopeless.

So then why?

Why did Mikasa think it was him?

Despite what the others may have thought he knew that Mikasa was far stronger than him when it came to loss, that she had handled Eren's death far better than he had and accepted it far quicker. So there was no way that she had decided whoever they had found to be Eren out of some fictitious delusion.

She would have been the first to deny it if the person they had found bore even the slightest of difference to Eren, likely finding it insulting that anyone would even attempt to pass off some sort of imposter as the person she'd basically grown up with.

But there was just...no way.

"Do with that information what you will." Hanji said before she urged her horse on ahead, leaving Armin behind to process the information he had just heard.

But there was still no real way for him to process.

Eren, a person who he'd known basically all his life, a person who's death he'd fully accepted, was now back?

Don't fuck with him.

Eren was dead. He'd been dead.

Armin had watched him die, Armin hadwatchedhim.

And there was no way that he could have survived, no possible conceivable way between his injuries and the situation Armin had last seen him in.

'Except there was' a small voice whispered in his head.

'There's a way he could have survived, a way that he could have more than thrived regardless of what happened to him.'

'And you've seen it. You've seen it for over a year and continued to ignore it because you don't even want to think of it as a possibility. Because it can'tbe a possibility.'

'Because that would mean he's been lying to you this whole time, possibly even longer, and you can't admit that.'

So Armin shoved his thoughts down, forcing them back into the deepest recesses of his mind, just between the thought of exactly why the Female titan did what she did and why the Rogue titan knew how to do a salute.

He pushed it down until he knew that there was no longer any reason to be thinking about even the slightest possibility of it.

Eren was dead.

There was no changing that.

He didn't know what Mikasa saw, or if Hanji's story was even true, but neither of those ideas would change the truth, the reality.

Until he saw it for his own eyes, Eren was dead and he wasn't coming back.

Mikasa couldn't believe it.

Or rather, she could, because the proof was right in front of her. Wrapped haphazardly in a Survey Corps cloak as a blanket and thrown into one of the now empty supply wagons was undeniable proof that someone who she had once thought dead, was still alive.

He was still alive, she was certain of it, as she watched his chest rise and fall steadily with each breath. Still, every few minutes she stopped to place two fingers on his neck, just below his jaw bone, to give her some absolute concrete proof.

She could still feel his heart beating.

It was a relief in some ways, and an absolute headache in others as for as much as she would have loved to believe that everything would pan out nicely and end up with Eren being able to complete his dream of joining the Survey Corps without any further issue, at this point that really wasn't an option.

Despite the fact that she fully believed that Eren was on the side of humanity-and even if he wasn't she'd still probably defend him-she knew that where he had been found was more than suspicious given the circumstances.

And she'd already seen what even the barest amount of suspicion had done to Armin, the stress of the trial still fresh in her mind, so what they would likely try to do to Eren was unthinkable. A trial for his placement would be the least of her worries if her suspicions were correct.

"Ackerman." came a stoic voice from behind her, accompanied by the soft hissing of wires and a solid thump on the back of the cart. "Not that I'm doubting you, but you are one hundred percent sure that this is Eren Jaeger right?"

Mikasa turned back to look at who was addressing her, though she was certain she already knew. "Yes sir."

She watched Levi pause for a moment, running one of his hands through his hair before sighing.

"And just to confirm, this is the same Eren Jaeger that enrolled with you into the 104th training corps, correct?" He asked, glancing down towards the boy in front of her. "The one who Artlet reported as killed in action?"

Mikasa glared at him for a second, not caring if he was a superior officer or not, because how dare he. How dare he question if she knew what the person who'd she'd practically grown up with looked like. How dare he question if she could determine who one of the last remaining members of her family was.

This man had never met Eren, never even seen or heard of him up until the Tragedy of Trost so who was he to question her identification.

(Though if she was being honest with herself she knew that his questions were valid, and made far more sense than she was giving him credit for.)

"I'm absolutely certain."

Other than the slightly longer hair which now came close to reaching his shoulders and the missing pant leg and boot on his left leg, everything was the exact same as how she remembered him.

She'd even pried one of his eyes open just to check, just to be sure.

Not because she doubted her ability to tell Eren apart from some imposter, but because given the circumstances she almost didn't want to believe that this was Eren.

Because if it was, if this truly was the Eren that she knew and loved, that she'd grown up with, that she'd depended on during their time in the refugee camps and far beyond, everything fit just a bit too perfectly.

Armin's account of his death, the appearance of their savior during Trost, and even the place that he was found fit just a bit too perfectly for everything to be a coincidence. Everything just made sense, in a horrific sort of way.

After all, Mikasa wasn't stupid nor was she blind-despite what some people may say about her when it comes to Eren-she knew that despite it's improbability-no, near impossibility, there was a perfectly clear line of events when given all the information that she had.

The only thing left to do was to assume that the impossible was possible to let everything fall into place, and a part of her was already being forced to do that. She knew that Eren was now alive, having survived being eaten by a titan and then somehow transported an absurd distance from Wall Rose, something that she would have assumed impossible if not for the direct proof ahead of her.

It was normally difficult to traverse through the titan infested bounds of Wall Maria even with a fully trained and heavily equipped team of Survey Corps soldiers, this mission being the exception, so for what was essentially a barley trained child to be able to do so…

That was improbable to say the least as well.

Then there was also the issue of Armin's account, which the more she stared at Eren, blissfully unconscious and unaware of the world around him, the less she began to doubt.

Armin had no reason to lie to her, especially not at that time, and furthermore Armin was a notoriously terrible liar. If he had been lying about this, something this big, she would have noticed.

Yet she didn't.

Every time she saw Armin after Trost it looked as if he was wracked with nothing but grief and regret, no matter how much he tried to convince everyone else that he wasn't. He had taken Eren death harder than she ever could, despite everyone's assumptions, and there was no way to fake that.

Plus there were far too many things that also added up if she considered Armin's statement to be the truth.

The main one being that missing pant leg and boot.

She had thought it odd when she had gotten her first good look at him, back when she had first identified him and began checking, searching to make sure that she was right. To expel even the slightest bits of doubt she had left.

It was odd given the circumstances-not having a boot meant it was much more likely for the straps on your feet to slip off upon landing, as well as for those landings to absolutely destroy your foot-but the cut itself was odd too.

It was a clean cut. The fabric and the belts sliced evenly across his lower thigh, just below the knee.

It was a cut that she knew not even a skilled seamstress would be able to make with absolute precision using the government issued blades that they had been given, and certainly not with any of the pocket knives that she knew Eren possessed but thought she didn't know about.

And besides, this was Eren that she was talking about. He most certainly was not a skilled seamstress to say the least and considering the fact that the straps were cut as well meant that there was no way that this was a conscious choice that he made.

With just a quick glance at the gear that they'd removed from him before he was set down, Mikasa could see that it was damaged, likely inoperable in its present state considering the heavy damage to the left side cable compartment and the rattling noises it emitted every time the cart jostled it.

There was likely no hope of Eren ever being able to operate that gear again and it was likely that he knew that, but still, to decide to cut off the belts would have been a last ditch effort at best and actively suicidal at worst, and she just couldn't see him deciding to do either.

His gear was inoperable, so he didn't cut the straps to get himself free, and by that logic couldn't have ripped the straps or his pants in a similar way either. He couldn't have used the straps or cloth to make an emergency tourniquet or bandage as he didn't have any major injuries either so the reasoning for the missing clothing and clean cut there was hypothetically a mystery.

Hypothetically.

Because there was something that would have caused such a clean cut in the fabric and leather. Something that wouldn't have cared whether a boot remained on Eren's leg or not, and wouldn't have cared about the deficiencies that it would have caused him later down the line.

It wouldn't have cared about leaving his left leg exposed because it would have taken his left leg with it.

Part of Armin's account had been how his team had been overwhelmed by titans, two of the members dying before Eren had gone in to save them, ever the hot-headed hero.

Only to get his left leg bitten off by a titan.

And looking at him now that was really the only explanation for what could have happened.

The cut was far too clean and far too familiar, bringing back memories of the dismembered bodies she'd had to catalogue and move after Trost. The memories still fuzzy with grief but clear enough that she was sure she wasn't mistaken.

And she was sure that Captain Levi had noticed it as well.

He had been there during that trial, had heard Armin's account of what had happened to Eren and had likely already put together everything that she had, just without any of the bias that she knew she held.

From a completely objective point of view, this situation looked absolutely horrific.

If they were to believe that Eren truly did have his leg taken off, the only really believable scenario in this situation, it would have to mean that he was able to get that leg back.

Another impossible scenario if not for exactly how Captain Levi claimed he'd found Eren.

As much as Mikasa didn't want to believe it, she suspected she knew exactly how Eren had ended up in the Female titans mouth. From the day his died-no disappeaded , to now there was only one line of thinking that made sense, that would lead them to the situation that they were in now.

From the distance he'd traveled despite his broken gear, to the fact that he'd somehow miraculously regrown a leg, to the fact that she knew the Female titan had had nothing in her mouth before fighting the Rogue titan, having gotten uncomfortably close to those killing jaws when she'd first seen the titan.

Despite its impossibility everything seemed to fit, almost as if a jigsaw puzzle was coming together to form a full story.

The only thing left to do would be to take away any assumptions about the impossible and face reality head on.

Yet she didn't want to do it.

Not because of the consequences he would have to face if her thinking truly did turn out to be correct, not because of the implications that that possibility held, but because it would have meant that Eren had lied to her.

He had lied directly to her face without any restraint and like a fool she had believed him. Had believed that there was no possible way that he would keep anything this large a secret from her.

Because she had believed that she had proven to him that she was worthy of her trust and yet he had lied to her.

And now that she knew the circumstances of what had happened there was no way for him to hide it anymore and Walls how could she have been so blind? She'd known he was lying during training about something but had trusted Eren enough to drop it when he'd claimed it wasn't a big deal.

She'd trusted him enough to ignore all of the little odd things that had stuck out to her, like the lack of bruises from his straps and the times blisters on his hands she'd known were there from training seemed to disappear within an afternoon.

She'd ignored more than abnormal body heat that hadn't been present before and she'd ignored the nightly excursions he'd gone out on, carrying a knife hidden within the toe of his boot.

(He always thought he was so secretive about those too, believing that nobody else had seen him subtly shift the knife or walk with a slightly different gait, and maybe nobody else had. But he couldn't fool her.)

She'd ignored the absolute exhaustion he always seemed to face afterwards combined with what was admittedly a mess of his mental state-not to say that it was ever truly a good one. But thinking back there was a clear point in time, around a year and a half into training when it really took a nosedive.

It was odd at the time, sure, however like everything else she had ignored it. Falsely believing that Eren would have told her, would have trusted her enough to let her know if something serious was happening.

But of course he hadn't.

He hadn't trusted her one bit and now here he was, not even conscious and causing far more problems than he ever had while awake.

She softly brushed back his hair from his forehead, feeling the heat that poured off of him in waves do nothing but continue to further confirm her suspicions as tears began to form in her eyes.

"You idiot." She forced out from behind her teeth, not caring of who was around or how much suspicion it may cast on her in the future. All that she cared about was the fact that like always Eren had tried to shoulder everything himself, not even trusting them enough to give himself a break.

"You fucking idiot."

There was a man in front of him, a man that he had never seen before yet felt like he knew. Like an old friend that you haven't seen since you were a child but without any of the cushy nostalgia that an interaction like that would bring back.

Instead he felt nothing but hollowness, like an indescribable entity had forced its way into his body and ripped out all meaning, leaving nothing but the husk of a broken human behind as it continued to indiscriminately claw its way through others.

The man ahead of him was talking, he knew that, but there weren't any words he could make out. Rather than reaching his ears and providing him with information the words seemed to coil around him like a thick smoke, sitting patiently at his feet.

They were useless in this way though, as he felt himself nod without truly understanding a word as he glanced down at his hands and-

Ah.

Well maybe hands would be a bit of an overstatement.

Resting patiently on his knees was nothing but bandaged palms, both missing his fingers and still bleeding slightly, but the pain was somehow foggy. It radiated through his palms, spreading up his forearm in a way that felt distinctly familiar.

He couldn't dwell on it for long though, as he felt his head crane up involuntarily, the man ahead of him now holding a small knife, and yet he didn't feel threatened. Afraid, certainly, but for some reason that fear wasn't coming from the person ahead of him.

It came from something behind him, a fear that swirled over his shoulders and wracked him with anxiety, but he couldn't do anything to turn and alleviate those fears. His eyes were glued forward as the figure ahead of him took the knife and swiped it across his palm in one quick motion.

The blood dripped sluggishly across his hand as the man turned back to him, and despite the fact that he could still hear nothing, he got the impression that whatever the man had said was important.

Struggling to his feet he watched as the man walked towards the edge of the platform that they were one, glancing over it quickly before going stealing a glance back at him.

And then he jumped.

He ran to the edge, looking down upon the large boats that adorned the water's surface. Both familiar and not, they gave off a feeling of danger, a feeling of hopelessness that he wanted absolutely nothing to do with and here this man was jumping directly into the fray.

Half of him expected the man to die, to simply fall to the ground with nothing more than a sickening splat before being turned on but the ships, but once he was halfway down something odd happened.

Lightning struck on a sunny day and then suddenly the man was twisting, contorting as thick flesh and steam enveloped him, growing and beginning to take a familiar form as it crashed into the water below.

Steam blasted upwards in a geyser as screams rang out through the air, the one clear thing that he had been able to hear so far as a hand emerged from the cloud. It gripped onto the side of one of the ships, barely gripping the side as it broke a chunk off.

The boats rocked as people scrambled upon them, grabbing guns, harpoons, nets, and whatever else they could but he knew from experience that it was futile. There was nothing you could do with human weapons that would harm the beast ahead of them.

As the steam began to peter out a large figure came into view, rising upwards and dragging one of the ships with it, people spilling over the side and into the water below. Yet he didn't feel the slightest bit of remorse for them. For some reason a wicked satisfaction spread throughout his body as he watched the beast, no titan , wreak it's havoc on these people.

It served them right. Served them right to finally know what helplessness felt like. To be faced with a beast that is far bigger than yourself with absolutely no means of fighting back.

It served them right.

The satisfaction was fleeting though, as every twitch of his hands reminded him of his predicament, the fact that regardless of what happened to them now the past could not be changed. He could not get back what he lost.

Still, there was a sick sort of pleasure to be had in staring at the broken hull of ships ahead of him floating through the now pink tinted water that compelled him to keep staring even as the titan came to an abrupt halt, keeling over until it's forehead touched land.

The beast exploded in steam once more, flesh falling off the bone and rapidly decaying as the figure continued to shrink and shrink, only leaving that vaguely human figure behind.

A name popped up in his head, not the name of this man, but rather the name of what he was, what people like him were.

Titan shifter.

They were called titan shifters.

The fact that he knew that didn't matter much at this point either now, considering the fact that he had just destroyed their only escape off of this island, but it wasn't like heading back would have made anything better. The only thing waiting for him back there was hell.

A different sort of hell compared to being taken to this island, but hell nonetheless.

So he simply sat and waited, waited for the man to climb back up the wall and watched as he casually pulled a cigarette pack out of his back pocket, wordlessly offering it to him before lighting one up for himself.

Despite the simple casualness of the action he could help but feel it was cruel considering the current situation.

Regardless he couldn't do much about his current situation but sit and wait anyway, so he tore his eyes away from the smoking man in order to look back out at the ocean one last time, watching as the sun began to dip lower and lower, creating a bright reflection over the water.

Watching as time continued to slip away right in front of him, without any input or actions of his own. The sun just continued to lower on the horizon, uncaring of what was happening beneath it.

And not for the first time, he truly wondered why it all mattered.