I really cannot describe how much thankful I am for everyone of you. I'm seeing here numbers I've never done on another site, and on this fanfiction in particular.

I love you with all my heart. I dont' really know what to say.

Thank you.

When I grow up I want to be skillful.

Levi's squad had entered the chapel, without waiting for Erwin with the other soldiers to join them. Time was too short and they had to be fast in saving Eren and Historia. It was not difficult for Elizabeth to find a particular passage that led to what appeared to be an underground cave. Everything had already been outlined: first they would detonate the door and then they would attack, using the smoke flares to hide their view and act in the shadows. Their enemies' weapons were good but they had several weaknesses, which Elizabeth intended to all use against them.

Armin was briefly surprised to see how good she actually was at turning situations to her advantage, and it wasn't difficult for him to understand why Erwin consulted her before each mission. But now Erwin was gone and it was all in the hands of the Vice Captain.

They were all in position, just waiting for the order to act. Armin concluded by placing the gunpowder and communicated it to the Captain, crouched next to his Vice.

"Is everyone ready to get their hands dirty, too?" Levi asked precisely by virtue of those feelings that the young people had experienced during the failed rescue attempt. Armin was the most injured of all and Elizabeth had given him a more marginal role to make him fully recover from the shock.

Nobody answered the question, they looked at each other, scared but without doubts. Eren was their priority. "Guess so."

After creating an opening to enter, each of them activated their ODM Gears and launched themselves at attack through the smoke. In the general confusion Kenny's squad could be heard screaming, aiming their guns at them to try to hit them, but the younger ones positioned themselves high to launch the smoke flares.

At the center remained only Elizabeth, Levi and Mikasa for the direct attack, each armed with their own blades and anger.

Mikasa had no intention of staying on the sidelines covering the backs to her superiors and she had asked help to the very one of them who would listen and understand her, and in fact Elizabeth gave her permission to join them.

Levi passed quickly, observing with his keen eye all the armed enemies.

"Twenty-four, thirty-two, thirty-five enemies! They're gathered behind the pillars!" he yelled, warning his companions. They were a great number but they could count on their skills. "Continue the plan, we'll take them all out right here!"

"All troops, spread out! Surround them one at a time!" ordered a young blonde woman, angry and resolute.

Sasha aimed an arrow at a crate, causing it to explode to create even more smoke, while Armin helped her with more rockets.

Elizabeth's idea was to take advantage of the fact that enemy weapons took time to reload, taking advantage of their smoke-obscured vision to take them by surprise. Plus they couldn't aim behind her and that was where she would hit.

Jean managed to kill a first enemy, Connor a second and Sasha covered their backs with her arrows. Hange launched an assault with her own blade, piercing any enemy that came against her.

Mikasa passed smoothly between a group and Elizabeth could observe her for a few moments. She was hesitating, not only because of yet another malaise that had hit her at just the worst moment of all, but also because she was seriously worried about Mikasa. She was so desperate and eager to save Eren that she would do anything, but she was in danger of losing her mind.

However, her time to fight came too. After stopping near a pillar, she threw herself again in the midst of two enemies that were pointing right at her, spotted by the first inspection. They were agile but too slow in movements and Elizabeth took the opportunity to pass by them and, dodging four shots, cut their necks with a single movement of the blade. Her passage stopped against the opposite pillar, where she paused a few moments before spotting three others who tried to see through the smoke. She came down behind them, grabbing first the one in the center and piercing him in the back, and then the two, defending herself with they're companion's body nearly dying as a shield from the bullet.

The blow put an end to the pain of the young man, taken right on the forehead, and Elizabeth dropped the corpse before piercing the latter as well.

She repeated the same gestures with other enemies, until in her field of vision, aided by the smoke that was beginning to dissipate, Levi and Kenny entered and faced each other.

"You're a spunky one, damn. And Elizabeth? Where did you leave her?" Kenny exclaimed just after using the barrel of the gun to defend himself from Levi's blade. That sentence had the power to make Levi even more nervous; ever since he had found out about him being an Ackerman, he had been looking forward to a sort of revenge. He had decided to put his hand on the only woman he shouldn't touch. Sure, he couldn't know about their relationship but his reasoning disappeared when she was involved.

"Don't you dare even mention her!"

Levi and Kenny continued to fight each other, ignored by anyone else, which suggested that the latter was the target.

Elizabeth took another breath, ignoring the sharp dizziness she felt suddenly and dodged a bullet that hit the stone pillar right in front of her face.

The Vice Captain threw herself against a woman, who seemed to be frightened for a moment by the look she had. She saw her hand shake as she gripped the gun but before she could even realize it Elizabeth ran past her with her blade, piercing her mercilessly.

She hated killing, those were all lives wasted in her eyes, but she also knew how necessary it was. Just as she had told Armin: they had to choose between them or themselves.

Then, when she saw Hange being thrown against a pillar, her anger took hold of her completely. Levi was fine and everyone else hadn't been hurt either, but Hange was on the ground unconscious and she wouldn't forgive anyone. Two others found themselves walking past the squad leader and Elizabeth slipped past them quietly and quickly, ending their lives.

She was furious, she no longer reasoned. She was looking with her gaze for that same blonde who had given the first order and who had dared to hurt her best friend and she saw her but only when she had headed towards what looked like an adjacent room.

"Stay out of the way, you little runt... ouch." Kenny yelled as he headed straight for that room along with what was left of his team. And behind him a large net divided the two sections, thus preventing Levi's team from reaching them.

Now trapped, they just had to think how to get out of there. Levi noticed an opening at the top but it was blocked, which could mean a way out, but the flow of his thoughts was interrupted by Elizabeth's leg which was bleeding with a bullet lodged inside it. She must have had such high adrenaline that she didn't feel pain either.

"Vice Captain you are injured." Sasha murmured, noticing just Levi's gaze landing on Elizabeth's blood-red trousers.

"Oh... It's nothing."

"We don't have time now to remove the bullet, you would bleed to death, but we still have to plug the wound." Levi murmured worriedly. He hated seeing her hurt and couldn't help but wonder what could have distracted her so much that she ended up in that situation. Elizabeth slipped the shirt off her pants, tearing the bottom flap and letting her belly remain uncovered, but she didn't care much. The material was enough to be wrapped around her thigh and dabbed at least for the moment. But now Levi was even more in a hurry to get out of there.

"Are you sure it's enough?" Levi asked helping her with the knot to prevent her from bending and, consequently, trying too hard. Elizabeth nodded but before he could ask more, a strong yellow light flooded them, followed by a strong burst that nearly swept them away.

Everyone squatted on the ground and Levi shook Elizabeth's hand with his to make sure she stayed with him and that nothing happened to her. She had a weaker grip than usual and that was the first alarm bell for him: something had happened to her and he was beginning to suspect that it was again having to do with those symptoms that Hange's treatment was causing her. He was glad to have the hope of having children with her someday, but not at the cost of endangering Elizabeth.

On the other side of that huge network, one particular thing then caught everyone's attention, managing to upset them.

"That's... that's a titan." Levi murmured, tightening Elizabeth's hand.

"I'll bet all my money, that's Reiss." she answered letting himself be protected by him. Her dizziness began to get stronger, perhaps also due to the blood she had lost, and now she was also starting to feel the pain of the wound in her thigh, but she wasn't going to get out of there without the two.

"Eren!" Mikasa shouted worriedly. And Elizabeth could not help but feel a lot of empathy for her: if Levi had been there she would have jumped through hoops to get him back.

Armin realized that all that blast had managed to open the passage for them and pointed it out to the Captain, who immediately ordered him to leave with Moblit taking Hange away.

"Go with them too." he then murmured in a lower voice. He wasn't ordering but asking, almost begging to keep her safe, but he knew how stubborn she was.

"No."

"Elizabeth..."

"I'm fine, really." she concluded, looking intently into her eyes. She needed to do something, she couldn't sit idle, especially when Kenny was right in the way. Now that she knew they shared the same surname, she felt even more the need to be close to Levi and to support him. And he understood this because he accepted on the only condition that she did not step away from his side for any reason in the world.

Quickly they reached Eren, who was on a pillar, right in front of that titan undergoing transformation, kneeling and bound by long chains.

Levi, Connie, and Jean hurried to free the young man as Elizabeth headed over to Historia to make sure she was okay too. One look into those blue eyes and she saw so much guilt.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, thank you very much Elizabeth." Historia replied, then hesitating to wonder if she would understand her or not. "I..."

"Come here, it's okay." the Vice Captain concluded, pressing her shoulder to comfort her and tell her, in that silent way, that she wasn't her fault and that none of them were angry with her. What Elizabeth still didn't understand was what, in particular, she felt guilty about.

The titan took shape more and more, making the air hot, until it rose with the risk of collapsing the ceiling. A stone boulder collapsed right in Eren's direction and the three managed to move it backwards before they were hit. Elizabeth felt her heart beating wildly in her chest as she saw the boulder go right in their direction. Her movements were slowed by the pain in her thigh and Levi had risked a lot in that point. But seeing him in front of the rock instead of below was still not enough to alleviate the blonde's pains.

"Hey, hey, hey Rod! You done goofed up big time!" Kenny exclaimed passing by, taking advantage of the 3DMG. "You thought you knew titans more than the rest of us! Now I know you don't, you dumb shit!"

"Told you..." Elizabeth exclaimed leaning on her Captain's arm, being then immediately kidnapped by his side to support her. "You owe me money."

"Let's get out of here and I'll give you everything you want."

Kenny's team managed to escape from there but for them the climb was much steeper; they could do it but not easily, especially because of all the heat that the titan's body emanated and because of the increasingly perilous ceiling.

Eren was intent on letting everyone escape but, after all the road they had taken to save him, none of them was an option.

Historia looked for a moment for Elizabeth's gaze who had already found the right words of her to comfort her once, just when she had revealed that she was Reiss's daughter. And now she needed her again. The Vice Captain's two-colors eyes looked at her without the slightest accusation in her gaze, encouraging her to act as she preferred.

"It's useless, we can't escape." Eren was now hopeless, discouraged by the whole situation. Historia instead had found new courage.

"So do nothing? You wanna sit here and hold hands till we're crushed or burn to death? Because we're enemies of humanity?"

"You know, I hate doing this to you every time but... Eren, you've gotta make the choice." Levi added, turning his gaze on Elizabeth's and holding her closer as if to underline those words for her. He too had made that decision some time ago, refusing to deny his feelings for her at the expense of everything, and now it was up to Eren to act as he thought best. Eren watched them for a few moments; it was clear that, if not everyone, at least their team was aware of their relationship and that they weren't hiding it at all, although it could seem like a single support for her injured leg. And he knew what he wanted to do: he wanted to protect his friends.

Without further ado, Eren ran to meet Rod Reiss, first biting his hand to transform himself into a titan and then starting to use a particular power that would stop the fall of the ceiling.

"Everyone! Get underneath Eren!" Levi ordered when he realized what the young man was doing. The team crouched behind Eren's titan body that screamed at the top of his lungs with all his fury and determination until he completed the task. The fact that Reiss had escaped had become momentarily irrelevant because they were all safe thanks to Eren.

The ceiling stopped shaking and the cave filled with a peculiar calm, silent for a few moments. Elizabeth felt particularly proud of the young man, eventually, during the trial, he had understood her words even though it had taken him a long time for him to put them into practice.

"Sasha, Connor, go see what the situation is like outside. Report anything. " Elizabeth ordered as Levi helped her to her feet without letting her go. Eren was freed from the titan's body and for a while they could catch their breath, resting their minds for a few moments. It wasn't over yet but at least they were no longer in danger of being crushed.

"That's what I call hardening." Levi explained as soon as Eren was completely out of the titan and new to himself, albeit somewhat confused. "Even after cutting you away the titan hasn't disappeared. Pretty impressive, yeah?"

"That bottle." Eren observed, reflecting on it for a moment. "Oh yeah! Right! Before I turned into a titan I drank that 'armor' bottle."

"Yeah. You couldn't do it at all before now but you used the hardening power and saved all of us. In the blink of an eye you devised and built all this. Yeah, the construction look shoddy but I bet that's how the walls were made too. In other words... it's possible for us to plug that hole in Wall Maria now. A lot of enemies and allies have died on the way and getting this far hasn't been pretty but, for as ugly as it's been, look at the position we're in now."

Sasha and Connie dropped back inside the cave, telling them the passage was safe and that the three who had come out before were fine. Elizabeth was relieved to know that Hange had recovered and that she was in no danger, she could not wait to hug her again and also to take her back for having made her so worried, but she was sure that she would take the lecture too for that injury.

When they managed to get out of the cave, now out of adrenaline to anesthetize her, Elizabeth fully felt all the pain that the bullet was causing her, and found herself moaning in pain when Levi helped her up.

The titan was dragging himself, leaving a trail of fire that did not go unnoticed even by Erwin who had finally arrived there.

The Vice Captain's leg gave way in pain and Levi immediately took her in his arms, taking her to the same wagon where Hange had been laid down.

The squad leader immediately tried to sit up, alarmed to see the captain carrying his woman in his arms.

"Give me a clean knife and bandages. Fast." Levi yelled, already knowing what to do. If before he had allowed themselves to hesitate, now that bullet had to be extracted urgently.

"Liz."

"I'm fine, don't worry." she answered in the throes of a new dizziness and Hange reached out her hand to rest it on her shoulder.

"Did you get hurt out of solidarity with me?"

Elizabeth just chuckled, making the rest of the team who had gathered around them to help the blonde smile as well. Levi burned the tip of a knife with a fire lit just for the occasion while Elizabeth, albeit with trembling hands, removed that improvised bandage with her shirt and tore the pants around the wound to give the Captain room to maneuver.

The pain had become such that she didn't even feel the cold on her abdomen.

Levi pulled her hand away from her wound and wiped it from her partially stale blood around her before using the tip of the knife to extract the bullet from her thigh.

"My God..." Jean murmured when he saw Elizabeth grind her teeth and close her eyes but not scream. It was something absurd. He thought that perhaps, when she was tortured, she must have suffered much greater pain but that was something absurd in front of their eyes.

"How can she remain impassive?" Sasha wondered aloud, then turning away as the knife pierced the Vice Captain's flesh, opening it slightly to allow the metal to get out.

When the bullet was finally out of her leg, Elizabeth seemed to breathe again, opening her eyes and swallowing before casting a grateful look on Levi's gray eyes, which had not abandoned her for a single moment, attentive and precise.

It was an operation that she could have done alone but her hands were too shaking to do it and he, even though he didn't want to cause her any more pain, was the only one who could do it, with Hange in those conditions.

"Thanks." Elizabeth murmured without strength but with a more regular heartbeat, despite the strong throbbing around the now perfectly healed wound. Levi left her a little kiss on her forehead, without answering, and completely oblivious to the sweet smiles of Sasha, Connie and Armin that came from that gesture. They knew they had to shut up about it and if they talked he would do to them what he did to Eren during the trial. But in the end they were just happy for the two.

Erwin approached him shortly after, while Elizabeth caught her breath with her forehead resting against Levi's shoulder, first to make sure of their condition and then of the identity of the titan. He gave the order to return to Wall Sina, letting the titan continue to drag itself towards Orvud to give them time to come up with a good plan. But this time, he promised himself, he would take care to give much more weight to Elizabeth's concerns and notes; while partially useful, the Shiganshina incident had caused them a lot of trouble and this time he would not have made the same mistake.

Eren and Historia got on the chariot with Hange, forced to lie down due to the blow to the head, while Elizabeth got on the same horse as Levi, in need of support to be able to ride. Levi took her in his arms as if he were limiting himself to helping a companion, his Vice, in the eyes of the other soldiers, but her team saw in it all the apprehension he was putting into helping her and keeping her in his arms. For a moment he had feared losing her, that she had bled too much from her wound and she would close her eyes and never open them again, but in the end she was alive and in his arms. She was exhausted, but her heart was beating and he asked for nothing more.

With her head resting on Levi's shoulder, Elizabeth began to listen to Hange's words, also looking for something that would mentally distract her from all that weariness she now felt. She had pushed herself beyond her limits but the stuff she had in her body, just like the team leader had been able to study, had raised her adrenaline and endorphin levels to such an extent that she didn't even feel the pain anymore.

"Let's put this all together... Basically Rod Reiss was after the Founding Titan, the Titan power inside Eren. However, unless it's in someone with Reiss blood, you won't get it's true potential. Though, even if a Reiss obtains the Founding Titan's power, they're controlled by the Firts King's will and refuse to liberate humanity from the titans. Eh? Well, isn't that interesting... According to the Firts King, this is true peace? Now that's a weird way to look at it."

"In other words... we still have an option." Eren answered. "If that titan eats me, Rod Reiss will return to a human. Which means it's still possible to have a true Founding Titan."

"You can't..." Mikasa began, then stopped by Levi who gave a hidden caress to Elizabeth's side while she held the horse's bridle.

"Seems that way. We could capture Rod Reiss once he becomes a human, undo the First King's brainwashing. If we could do that it might open a path to save humanity. Plus, Eren... are you saying you're fully prepared to let that happen?"

"I am."

"Eren you can't..." Mikasa added worriedly, then smiling gratefully at Elizabeth when she too joined the conversation.

"Not to go against you, but honestly I would prefer the Founding Titan to stay in Eren. I don't trust Reiss very much and, with all he has done, even if we arrest him he would still be dangerous for us."

"You're forgetting our other option." exclaimed Historia with seriousness. "First of all, the current plan is full of flaws. One, there's no proof that you can undo Rod Reiss' brainwashing. No matter how you restrain him, if he alters humanity's memories, it's over. Basically there's too many factors about the Founding Titan that we just don't know."

Armin agreed by making Elizabeth smile. That young man was very close to her heart and they were all so willing to help Eren that they didn't even care at first that he was what they should have been fighting instead. She was really proud of that team, even though there wasn't a day she missed the one she had lost.

"Even if we Rod Reiss eats Eren, we have no guarantee that he'll return to normal."

"On the other hand, all we've ever known is destructive pacifists but, as it stands, the Founding Titan was taken from them. This is a once in a lifetime chance for humanity. Yes, your father was trying to save us and humanity from the First King. He stole the Founding Titan from my sister, murdered all of the Reiss children, because he had no other choice."

"That's right! The Dr. Jeager I know wouldn't do something like that for no reason at all."

To Armin and Historia was added Mikasa, and finally Jean who listened carefully to everything before making his own assumptions.

"Right. Even without having Reiss blood there must be a way to save humanity. That's why he left you the key to the basement."

"We've finally got a way to plug up the wall. The way I see it, there's only one choice."

"That makes life a little easier." Levi murmured calmly, avoiding raising his voice also because of the proximity to Elzabeth's head, which was still in difficult. Her head was pounding and she felt the need to close her eyes for a few moments but she preferred to talk and distract herself.

"I agree. If the Founding Titan stays with us, with Eren, whom we can trust, we have greater hope. Furthermore we would also have the opportunity to discover something more thanks to our little titan. However Historia, I believe there is something that you have not yet considered and I would like you to."

"What?" Historia asked Elizabeth, but it was Hange who answered her.

"If it means anything, I agree with that choice. And Elizabeth is right: are you sure about this, Historia? We can't exactly have a titan like that wandering around inside the walls. One that big, we can't restrain. Meaning... we'll have to kill your father and there's no way around it."

Historia hesitated for a moment then turning her gaze to Elizabeth and letting the Vice Captain finally guess that what she was about to say was the reason why she first looked at her apologetically.

"Eren, I'm sorry. Underneath the Reiss chapel I really considered becoming a titan and killing you. What's more, not even to save humanity. Only because I wanted to believe in my father. I didn't want my father to hate me... but now it's time to say goodbye."

Elizabeth smiled at her proudly, nodding to let her understand that, just like before her, there was no anger towards her, but her tiredness got the better of her and, supported by Levi's grip, she fainted.