When I grow up I want to be tough.
Elizabeth activated her 3DMG, leaping across the rooftops in pursuit of the two. The Military Police, probably to protect Kenny from her, came at her from her right side with her clinging to a roof as she swayed from one to the other, suspended in the air. Her reflexes allowed her to see the man in time, who fired a pistol at her. She was able to quickly pull the blade out and use it to avoid getting hit, but not enough to deflect it completely, and she was injured in the arm.
The cut created by the passage of the bullet began to bleed, soiling the white shirt she was wearing, but she decided not to care. Instead, she used that same blade to hurl herself at the enemy, changing direction and passing by him, instantly piercing him as he still tried to shoot her, more casually and with less precision.
The man was on the ground in a short time and it was not difficult to identify where Levi had ended up, dragged to a tavern surrounded by other ones from the Military Police Brigade, all armed.
"Shit..." she whispered leaning against a roof chimney and tearing her cloak off to create a temporary bandage that could cover her wound and stop her blood.
"Vice Captain you're injured..." Jean murmured, coming up behind her after seeing her pass by. He knew he had to follow orders but everything seemed to be exploding and he no longer knew how to behave, he was panicking.
Kenny was thrown out of the tavern with a chair in his hands, maybe because of a Levi's shotgun, as he fled the side window.
The Captain first used a chair and then the hook of his device to drive it into one of the enemies' head, and use his corpse, to protect himself from gunshots directed at him.
Elizabeth was quick to finish her improvised bandage and she used an abandoned gun on the roof as a signal. Her luck would have it that there was still a bullet in the weapon, enough to let Levi know where she was.
With a sharp blow she grabbed the forehead of another one who was about to shoot behind the Captain, causing him to see her and catch up with her.
"Amazing aim..." Jean murmured shocked by such precision, without even taking aim as it should.
"Go to Mikasa." Elizabeth ordered, trying to get the young man away from the shooting as much as possible. Jean went away and in his place, a few seconds later, was Levi who immediately fixed his gaze on her arm.
She certainly couldn't fight as best she could in those conditions...
The Vice Captain shook her head, begging him not to worry, at least for the moment.
"Didn't they ever tell you that you shouldn't keep your woman waiting?"
"I'll be forgiven." Levi answered with a half grin when he realized that at least she was fine and her mood was intact. If she wanted to joke, it meant all that blood didn't come from something deep and too serious.
"Yeah, you will."
Elizabeth and Levi activated their devices again, running away from the Military Police Brigade and going from roof to roof. When they were stopped by two other enemies clinging to the roof in front of them, the two passed through them, using the blades to pierce them without batting an eye and with a coordination that would be the envy of anyone.
"Chase the wagon!" Levi ordered the rest of the team that was finally reunited.
"Yes sir."
"Listen up. They're used to fighting other people, they already got three of ours. If we're gonna get those two back you can't hesitate. If you get the chance, you kill. Got it?"
"Yes."
Reaching the carriage, Levi ordered Jean and Armin to go retrieve the two companions but a soldier pointed his gun at Jean, knocking him down. Armin, surprising Elizabeth, fired in cold blood to save his companion but his gaze made her sorry.
The Vice Captain already had the blade ready, it would take very little, a single movement, to kill that soldier but it was also true that they had to grow and, at least in that area, they could not do it until they would really make themselves realize what was happening around them and how much they really were in danger.
Levi managed to catch the two young men on the fly before they were shot from afar and Elizabeth jumped to where the shooter was, coming up behind him and slitting his throat with a sharp blow.
The carriage managed to advance with the soldiers still intent on shooting and Mikasa started to chase him, with a desperate look on her face. It was Levi who stopped her too, to prevent her from going after them and surely being killed.
"Don't do it! Fall back!"
The young girl struggled slightly against the Captain's arm, until she gave up.
"Eren!"
"Are you done?" Levi asked Elizabeth, intent on tightening the knot used to tie the man they had captured.
"If the friend here had kept himself from squirming so much I would have finished much sooner."
"How's the arm?" he then asked in a low voice, showing the concern he could afford without revealing too much of their relationship. However, he was sure that their feelings were so obvious that even the young guys had noticed. Or Eren had spilled the beans on what he had seen that day...
"I'm fine. I also changed the dressing and it doesn't bleed anymore." she replied, instinctively touching the wound with her hand. They were all sitting next to them eating around a fire to keep warm, except for Mikasa who had decided to stay outside the door alone.
"What's wrong? This grimy place kill your appetite?" Levi asked as he saw Armin's sad gaze. Elizabeth understood immediately what his problem was. He, who had felt guilty even for a single report on his companions as if he was betraying them, now had to live with the weight of another person's life.
"No... Jean there's something I don't understand."
"What's that?" Jean asked Armin, intrigued by that attitude.
"When I shot to save you... I honestly thought I didn't make it in time, sorry. But why I the one who shoot first?"
"That's..."
"Because the other person hesitated." Levi broke in.
Armin looked down even more guilty.
If that person had not hesitated Jean he would have died but this Armin did not take it into consideration because he still found it a terrible gesture. While Elizabeth… well, it wasn't the first time for her that she had to take another person's life.
"Unfortunately we have to do some horrible things and try to live with it, but if it helps to prevent someone from dying then never regret it." Elizabeth exclaimed, then getting up to join the only one on the team who hadn't sat with them. "Hey, worried about the little titan?"
"Vice Captain… sorry. I'm not very hungry."
"Yeah... neither do I." she murmured, leaning against the door next to her and looking straight ahead at a vague spot. "You may not believe it but everyone tells me that I have an infallible sixth sense. It won't be reassuring but I don't think anything has happened to Eren, at least not yet."
"I can't stand still while he is who knows where to suffer who knows what."
It was evident all the frustration that Mikasa was feeling and Elizabeth could not help but wonder how Levi had dealt with it when she was kidnapped.
Her old team had told her how grumpy and intractable the Captain had become, he didn't leave his office until he needed it and didn't want to see anyone. He must have suffered a lot, worried about her and unable to act.
"I understand you. It is terrible to remain helpless in the face of danger when the one we love is involved."
"Oh- I..." Mikasa began blushing slightly, slightly embarrassed. But Elizabeth found nothing wrong with that feeling and smiled affably at her.
"We'll go and get him back, it's a promise."
"Thank you Vice Captain."
"Liz!"
Levi's voice reached their ears and the woman called winked at her before moving away from the door.
"The Captain is calling..."
The two women joined the captain, in front of the gagged man, removing the cloth that prevented him from speaking.
"Wait, I'm just an old man used for moving wagons around the..."
"I met this man before." Mikasa noted, recognizing him. "In the city people were calling him 'boss'"
"Yes I know. Dimo Reeves, right? " Levi added.
The man was trembling in fear and Elizabeth felt a little sorry, in the end he was just a pawn.
"We were just following orders the Military Police forced on us. And failed big time... They'll plunder the Reeves Company for all that it's worth. They won't stop with me and my dumb son. They'll make sure all my employees die in so-called accidents."
"So you'll die without a fight? Trost should have collapsed by now, but it's persevered. That's because the Reeves Company brings people and work together. But if the company was gone for good, just how few would survive the winter?"
If there was one thing Levi hated it was giving up.
"Are you suggesting I team up with you?" Dimo Reeves asked as confirmation.
"We just need to know where Eren and Historia are. If you're supplying the Military Police we can figure something out."
"But can you stop my city and employees from dying of starvation?"
"I can't guarantee it, however you can trust that we'll move towards that end."
He raised himself on his knees, in front of him, reaching his own level. Elizabeth, on the other hand, still standing with her arms folded, smiled at him just making a nod with her face. That was a yes.
"Besides... we are all much nicer than them." exclaimed the Vice Captain, easing a little the tension that had been created during the conversation between Levi and Reeves. Then she turned right to the Captain. "Well, almost everyone."
The man was untied so that he could carry out Captain Levi's orders, while Elizabeth turned to the younger ones.
"Mikasa, you're going with Reeves, you need to distract yourself. Jean I want you to react, as soon as they arrive you will aim the gun at them and this time do your duty."
"Yes, miss."
When Dimo carried out the orders under Mikasa's supervision, the team was there waiting for them.
One man in particular stepped out of the wagon, looking around to see that those faces only meant that they had just been duped. And Elizabeth smiled at him.
"Hi..."
For the second time that day Elizabeth found herself having to tie a person, but this time he was in the chair. Sannes was trembling but made no mention of speaking.
Levi put on an apron to avoid getting dirty, while she didn't care much for what she was willing to do.
Hange was furious with them and she knew it; he and his partner had pulled out all the nails from Minister Nick, then killed him for lack of words about it. A disgusting gesture in her opinion.
The knot was tight and she walked around the seated man to stop in front of him with her arms folded.
"You are good with ropes..." Levi murmured in his same posture, but leaning against the wall, before starting to advance to reach her.
"Yeah ... I should try to tie you up sometime."
"Tsk, you'd like it."
"Oh you have no idea." she concluded with a half-smile, forgetting for a moment what they were supposed to do. Levi's gaze was so hypnotic that it made her forget anything.
But Sannes was still there with them.
"Are you flirting with him?"
"I wanted to make it less hard to you, but..." she said then slapping him on the face and completely changing expression. She had to be strong, for Hange and for Nick, but above all for the feelings of Hange who was still alive and next to her. "... maybe it's a wrong method."
"Are you sure you can do it?" Levi asked worriedly. After going through torture, having to do one of her own could be a bad experience for her and he didn't know how she would react.
"We don't know if I don't try, do we?"
Yet, in the end, Elizabeth fared exactly as Levi expected. She followed his rhythm, causing as much pain as possible for Sannes screaming and crying, but never saying a word about it, but sometimes he saw her clench her fists, keeping her humanity and her feelings. Yes, the torture she suffered for those months had left an indelible scar on her and Levi was sure that what she saw from her other than her was nothing more than the emulation of those gestures, without personal inventiveness. Something she did because she had to.
"It's weird to be on the other side..." Elizabeth murmured taking a fright and analyzing the situation. Sannes persisted in not speaking as she prayed that he would do it just to put an end to the torment. And a thought also went to the guys upstairs who surely heard the screams, still too innocent to be able to fully understand that something that not even she and Levi were able to grasp in every facet. The torture remained something that, despite their own personal scars, neither of them interested. It caused them no joy.
The Vice Captain looked at the man for a moment and had an idea, but she couldn't talk about it in front of him or it would have been useless. She couldn't even afford to leave clues because Sannes might have understood them. Thus she limited herself to walking away and pretending to tinker with the instruments of torture while instead she quickly wrote her idea on a small piece of paper, managing not to be seen by the man who had decided to close his eyes to rest a few moments.
"Sorry, I'm late. You're still going at it?" Hange exclaimed just as she finished writing, entering the cell where they had tied the man.
"Yeah, I'm pretty new to this." Levi answered in a bored and unconvinced manner.
"Sannes, you should know I'm also a novice at human torture, so pleased bear with me."
"Wait, what do you even want..." Sannes began to whimper at finding Hange, more angry than ever. "Who the hell tortures without asking questions?"
"I'll leave you to have fun, I'm going to see how the boys are." Elizabeth exclaimed, wiping the blood of Sannes from her hands and approaching the Captain taking him by the hand.
"Liz ..." he murmured holding her gaze, as if they were lost for a moment, a small moment just for them. Until he felt something in that hand which Elizabeth had then let go of.
"You're right, we do have some questions for you. Where are Eren and Historia? Why are you after Historia? What's the Reiss family? " he resumed talking about her when she left, waving two fingers on the forehead to Hange in greeting, and exiting her cell.
"Too slow!" then shouted Hange, again paying attention to the bound man. "Can't you see that we're in a hurry?!"
Elizabeth went up the stairs calmly, taking her time to calm down. That scene had reminded her over and over again of that damn laboratory and she now needed to catch her breath, overwhelmed by those emotions. Her heart was pounding in her chest but she had to calm down.
And she did when Armin's voice, sad and dejected, reached her ears.
"We have become criminals by now. Right now we are not killing monstrous enemies who want to eat us, but army soldiers just because we think differently from them. We kill for this..."
The guys were all at the table, with their heads lowered and terrible thoughts in their heads, it was evident.
"We're not good people anymore."
"I understand your turmoil Armin, but there are some things that still escape you. Which is a shame because you have a brilliant mind."
"Vice Captain ..."
"You are far too good for this world. But it doesn't have to be a bad thing. " Elizabeth commented as she entered the room and took a glass of water.
"How... how do you live with this, Vice Captain?" Armin asked, raising his head and trying in every way to hold her gaze, convinced that there was nothing evidently because Elizabeth sees his eyes widen. "Those screams were inhumane and you tortured him without the slightest remorse..."
"Do you think this? Do you think we felt nothing when we beat him?"
"But you kept doing it..."
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean we liked it. I limited myself to doing what once happened to me, yet I didn't feel the slightest pleasure. I should have felt good, right? A kind of personal revenge. Instead I have not experienced any of this."
"Have you been tortured Vice Captain?" Mikasa asked almost softly, perhaps to thank her for the support she had given her before her regarding Eren.
"It's an old story." Elizabeth replied hastily, returning her attention to Armin who definitely needed some right words at that moment. "Armin that day I chose you it was because you have a good heart. The last thing I want is for you to stain it with all this darkness, but you also have to understand that there are necessary things, at least as long as the world is like this. We don't have to feel remorse for all of our bad deeds. There are times when you have to decide: you or them?"
"And you always ask yourself this? Without ever feeling remorse?"
"Some of my orders have been fatal for men. I live with the terror of seeing Levi and Hange die in front of my eyes or of dying and making them suffer. But this is what it means to be a soldiers: first reason and then feelings, even if it seems cruel."
And Armin surrendered, now having all the information he needed, he lowered his head again with a guilty but lighter heart. They were doing a horrible thing but they hadn't become monsters.
"I'm sorry. I had no idea, I criticized without even knowing you."
"No need; on the contrary it shows that you are still the kid I chose that day despite everything. And that's how your soul has to stay." concluded the Vice Captain, stroking the young man's blond hair with affection.
Then it was Hange's voice that distracted her, calling her back downstairs.
The blonde just took a deep breath, not even trying to hide those emotions from the rest of the team. It was right for them to see.
"Liz, will you join us?"
"I'm coming..." she replied as she walked down the stairs again to reunite with Hange and Levi. "So...?"
"I think your idea worked, now we'll see." Levi explained in a low voice so that no one could hear them, touching her shoulder to give her some support.
"You were good." then added Hange, referring clearly to the piece of paper she had previously left to the Captain. It was her way of putting an end to Sannes' torture, she couldn't take it anymore.
Having reopened the cell, Sannes was definitely depressed and disappointed, so much so that he didn't even raise his head when he saw Hange approach him. He did it only after he heard her talk. And finally it was him who spoke.
"Ready Sannes? Let's try again. This is though for me too, but I'll do my best to..."
"Reiss is the real royal family."
The next move was to disseminate information: the first one to the boys on the true nature of Historia, thus hypothesizing that the two kidnapped guys could have been brought by Rod Reiss; then to Sannes about Elizabeth's plan for using Ralph to get him to confess and that the latter, in reality, had limited himself to reading a text written by Hange; and finally back to the boys but this time about the contents of the letter that Eren left Hange before leaving for Trost.
The most plausible hypothesis, after he overheard a conversation between Ymir and Berthold, for Hange and Elizabeth was that the reason for Eren's kidnapping was to have him devoured by another person capable of turning into a titan to get the scream that controls all the titans.
But one person in particular did not like this explanation at all, on the contrary she became even more agitated.
Mikasa started to leave, unable to sit still and do nothing while Eren was in danger of being eaten alive by someone else, but Levi's hand grabbed her and prevented her from continuing.
"Calm down Mikasa. Even if you go on a rampage, they're not going to give Eren back to us." Levi was the only one who could truly understand Mikasa's feelings. He knew how she felt, he knew what it was having the knowledge that the loved one is in danger, the desire to save her and the inability to act. It was destabilizing. Several times he had thought of taking a horse and going to the underground to get her back at any cost and that the mission would screw up. "Anyways, we head for the lands of this Rod Reiss. Get ready to leave at once."
And that particular gesture did not escape Elizabeth, who looked down at the floor.
The youngest left the room, leaving behind the three superiors who waited to walk down the stairs.
"I'll go tell Erwin what we learned about the Reiss family. I'm sure he's waiting to hear from us." Hange said confidently. She had noticed how her friend had looked down when Levi had stopped Mikasa, but not for the gesture itself, because it was right, but for the sentence pronounced. He wasn't just talking to her but also about himself. It was what he had been through in those six months.
"Yes."
"We can meet up on Reiss' land. Hear from me at the usual spot." she concluded, accelerating her pace to leave the two alone, but not before having left a last eloquent glance to her friend.
Elizabeth slowed, pausing between ramps and swallowing hard. Only then did she realize that she had never done it; she had told him so many things about that mission, they had spent many nights embraced talking and consoling each other for what had happened, but there was one particular thing that she had not yet said but that she now felt obliged to do.
"Levi..." she called him, waiting for him to turn and go back those few steps that divided them. "I'm sorry."
Levi looked at her tenderly. He didn't answer her, he didn't need it. Maybe he should have used different words with Mikasa but in the end she was too smart not to understand what he was referring to, and he knew perfectly well.
He raised his right hand, resting it on Elizabeth's cheek and pulled her against him, bringing their lips together until they kissed.
He didn't need her apologies, they were unmotivated; he only needed her.