-1 to what will be one of my favorite chapters, I'm a lot excited about it.
However I have officially finished writing the Shiganshina battle part and it devastates me every time I see it.
I am slowing down a bit with the updates because I have reached the fourth season and I would like to catch up, then following the episodes instead of directly the manga. Besides there are too many spoilers that might annoy and I'm not even sure it's legal to write it before the episodes come out. (The manga is not even on par here in Italy yet, so...)
Anyway, I really want to thank you. who are following my story, with all my heart. You have a special place in my heart.
When I grow up I want to be thoughtful.
The cave where they had held Eren prisoner was now completely open and visible from the outside. Traces of Eren's hardening covered the ground, coloring it a light blue, and the few supporting columns that had survived the mighty bulk of the titan Rod Reiss, now held what was left of the ceiling.
"Don't you ever get tired?" Levi asked, rifle in hand and cloak over his shoulders to identify, like Elizabeth, as members of the Scouting Legion.
The Vice Captain, after having climbed over some boulders on the ground so as not to trip over them, looked up at the man next to him, curious.
"To do what?"
Levi rolled his eyes with a slight snort. "To be always right."
"I don't always like it, you know..."
Levi raised the corner of his mouth in a small grin, something he allowed only her to see, and walked over. She had speculated that Kenny might still be alive and had been ordered to search for him. Levi did not immediately understand why she was so anxious to find him before the others and she believed it was for her own personal gain, maybe she wanted to confront him and ask him for things or explanations. He still didn't know how wrong he was.
He understood the true nature of her action when another soldier hastily called them, alarmed, informing them of the discovery of Kenny Ackerman.
The man led them over some trees, where the criminal was sitting with his back against a log, visibly dying.
"Kenny." Levi called him, observing him carefully to evaluate what to do.
"Oh gee, it's you?" he replied weakly, without raising his head. No one in the underground believed that the famous Captain Levi, who shone with intelligence, strength and courage, was the same Levi who had caused so much damage down there. For a while, even Kenny hadn't believed it.
"Your comrades we fought... they all ended up getting crushed. Are you the only survivor?"
"Seems that way." Kenny murmured, then shifting his gaze to the blonde to the Captain's right, with those eyes so special not to recognize them. "Hi Elizabeth."
"Kenny ..." she replied seriously. She felt trembling, just looking at him brought her some memories back, for a few moments; the tortures she had suffered long before, but then she felt Levi's presence. Now the only thing she cared about was him and that was something he had to do alone. "Let's report back. Levi's fine here alone."
And Levi understood the reason for that haste. She wasn't doing it for herself but for him.
"Yes miss." answered the other soldier, thus following the Vice Captain.
Levi watched him for a moment, grateful to Elizabeth. He had so many questions on his mind that he didn't even know where to start, but he had to hurry because the man was obviously dying.
"With those burns and that blood loss there's no helping you now."
"Yeah? I wonder... I swiped this little one right out of Rod's bag. Seems if I inject this... I'll turn into a titan. One of those dumb titans... unfortunately. For a while... it should extend my life."
Kenny showed him a syringe, still in its case, filled with a strange liquid and lying on the ground next to him. Levi's eyes widened as he felt his breath fail in his lungs.
Hange had seen it right, the titans were nothing more than transformed people and he had just given him confirmation. Suddenly he felt guilty for all those shattered lives.
"You've had the time and strength to inject yourself. Why haven't you?"
"I wonder... if I don't inject it right I might end up like he did... all messed up."
That phrase awakened something in Levi. He knew Elizabeth well enough to know that the news about her experiment had frightened her, she didn't talk about it anymore and tried to avoid the subject even with Hange. So there was something he could do for her. At first she would be angry but eventually she would understand.
"Is this what you did to Elizabeth? Was this the goal?"
"Yes. Giving a human the power of a titan, without making it transform. I would say that I almost succeeded, more or less. If she had given me more time I could have replicated the formula and perfected it, making those powers complete." Kenny stopped, pressing his hand to his abdomen, out of breath. "But still I gave her resistance to pain and reflexes. I wasn't very lucky."
"You caused her a lot of suffering." he replied in a calm tone. It made his blood boil. In front of his eyes he had Kenny but in his mind the things that she had told him were constantly appearing.
He knew very well how much she had suffered, how much those memories still hurt her, but he also knew that she, in a sense, had moved on. And she was proving it to him by leaving him with Kenny in his last moments of life. That was one thing that belonged to him; they shared the same surname and he needed answers.
Kenny just chuckled.
"She was just born, she wouldn't even know if I hadn't told her. And from the face she made that day it is really like that, her brother kept her in the dark about everything." he murmured with difficulty, then shaking his head and giggling again "Of course... I never imagined that you would fall in love with her and you are even reciprocated... how stupid. "
"Hm?"
"Don't play dumb. I saw how you protected her on that roof. You would sacrifice anyone to save her." Kenny answered looking up at him, aided by the tree trunk that held his head still covered by his usual hat.
And he was also right.
"I know you're not sitting here waiting to die. Don't you have a better excuse?"
"I... I don't wanna die. And wanted power. But... I see... I think I understand why he did it, after all this time.
"Huh?" Levi murmured curiously, without understanding what he was referring to.
Kenny laughed again, this time better and straining harder until he felt his breath fail again. He felt life slowly leave his body.
"Everybody I've met... was all the same. Drinking, women, worshiping God, family, the King, dreams, children, power... everyone has to be drunk on something to keep pushing on. Everyone was a slave to something. Even him..."
The criminal paused for a moment, coughing and spitting blood. "And what are you? A hero?"
Levi took him by the shoulders, aware that he would have to hurry because the man in front of him didn't have much time left.
"Kenny... tell me everything you know! Why doesn't the first King want humanity to survive?!"
Kenny continued to keep his eyes down, after that little moment, in which he gave it to him, he no longer found the courage to look into his eyes. Ironic on his part, that he had done everything and handled any weapon without ever fearing anything, neither law nor death.
But that brat was still someone important to him and he owed it to him. He owed it to her.
"Beats me... but... we Ackermans... opposed him for that reason."
"My last name seems to be Ackerman, too. You... What were you to my mother?"
The fateful question. The one he had always avoided, purposely choosing not to use his surname when he met that skinny brat who was watching over his mother's corpse. But at least now he could be honest.
"You idiot... just her brother."
Levi remembered the day when he saw him go away, covered by his long brown coat and his inseparable hat, while he stood in the middle of the square with a knife in his hand and the knowledge that he was left alone in the world. That day was the beginning of everything for him, it was the beginning of what led him to be the man he had become. Perhaps it was also the reason why he feared abandonment so much. He had trusted Kenny with every part of himself and had seen him leave and never return.
"That day... why? Why did you leave me?"
Kenny hesitated, looking up at him to make him see and understand him. This was the first time in his life that he wasn't lying.
"Because... I'm not meant to be someone's father..."
As a final gesture, he raised his hand and lightly tapped the Captain's chest with the box containing the syringe, knowing that he would make better use of it.
And his breath left him completely.
"Kenny ..."
Levi entered the carriage in utter silence. They had to return to the capital, not only to bring Historia there and prepare her for her imminent coronation, but also to return to their own work. As the superiors of the Survey Corps, they was expecting a lot of work that would have taken away at least a whole day, while for the rest of the team Erwin had decided to give them a day off. After all they deserved it.
The Captain leaned his head back in the seat, closing his eyes and enjoying for a moment the silence of the carriage, occupied only by Elizabeth. He was grateful to Erwin for leaving them alone, he missed her and needed her too. But it wasn't just a physical need for her, it wasn't just sex that he missed but everything, even just having a normal conversation with her without having to worry about being overheard by foreign ears.
That conversation with Kenny earlier had been mentally exhausting. He felt the weight of Elizabeth's sweet gaze upon him, too sweet for what had happened.
Why wasn't she mad? Why hadn't she insisted on staying with him? Why hadn't she asked him anything, leaving everything to him?
He actually had the answers to these questions and, ironically, they were also the reason he was so grateful to her, but part of him still wondered how she was able to did it. Sure, it hadn't been easy.
Sometimes he woke up in nightmares, but she was always there when he had them, so he would always stay for her.
He didn't know how long she waited to ask him that question, but he waited for her to talk about it. He couldn't find the strength to do it, he didn't even know where to start.
"How are you?"
"I should be asking you." he replied instinctively, without thinking too much, referring to her leg still injured. It was no longer bleeding and had stopped limping but if she exerted too much effort, like the one against the titan, the pain was impossible not to feel even for her.
"No. And you know it very well."
Elizabeth's voice was calm and sweet, it was like coming home. She was giving him all the time he needed to analyze everything. "Kenny is dead. He is still the person who raised you."
And she was the only person he would talk to. He wasn't going to tell Erwin this either.
"He was my mother's brother."
"Oh." she murmured quite shocked, although a part of her was already thinking about it since that man had told them that Kenny's surname was Ackerman. And she knew Levi enough to know that this new discovery would only lead him to blame himself for what had happened to her. "I guess then that question was really useless."
"I don't know how I feel."
Levi opened his eyes, looking intently at her, sitting opposite him. "I am angry with him, sad for his death, disappointed ..."
Emotions were just something Levi struggled to deal with. Many times she had preferred to close everything in a drawer and pretend not to feel anything, but she had ruined his plans and had become not only the woman with whom he had chosen to share his entire life but also the only person with whom he let himself go completely. Erwin and Hange had seen him suffer, they had seen him in the worst part of him, while... she brought out the best.
"You don't have to feel just one thing. It's normal."
Elizabeth's hand lightly touched his, then intertwining their fingers together. It was cold and slightly shivering, perhaps still from the pain in her leg, but her gaze seemed to care nothing but the man sitting across from her. Those two-colors eyes saw only him.
"And I'm sorry too."
Elizabeth squeezed Levi's fingers a little tighter between hers, stroking the side of his index finger with her thumb. As she had imagined, he kept blaming himself. He had been thinking about those things for too long now and, although she had repeatedly told him that he couldn't do anything about it, he still hadn't stopped doing it.
"You must not. It's gone."
"Liz I..."
"That doesn't change anything, Levi." she interrupted him leaving him no chance to reply. "You are not Kenny. And you're not responsible for the torture or that experiment either."
"But it was still my uncle who had you..."
"Levi." she called him seriously. But if her gaze was tense and determined, her voice remained sweet and calm. She had never been angry with him, not even for a moment. He had brought her home. "It was just a coincidence. Nobody could know. He couldn't know we were going to end up together and you couldn't know what he did to me. I'm not angry."
"He told me things."
The Vice Captain waited for him to continue, perhaps even finding the words he thought best or the right way to express himself about it. It wasn't an easy conversation for him but she could lighten the weight she carried on her shoulders by helping him slowly let go.
One step at a time.
"The Ackerman opposed the first King." was the first thing he said to her. He preferred to start with the military aspect of it, leaving aside the personal one. This information would allow Elizabeth to start thinking about what to do and give him a way to rearrange his ideas on what to say and how to do it.
She just tilted her head to the side, which seemed a gesture of vanity, while he knew she did it every time she started thinking about something without having the slightest information about it.
"So there's a lot more to this story that we don't know. It would also explain why Mikasa's father was persecuted. "
"They know what my surname leads to. Hiding it was a wise move, it seems. " Levi added referring to anyone who was also informed of the true nature of the walls and of the titans themselves. There were too many things they still didn't know and regaining the Wall Maria became an ever greater priority. There was information in Shiganshina that would give them, perhaps for the first time, a real step forward. He felt he didn't understand too many things, now even about the true nature of his surname, and this annoyed him. Of all the things he could be unaware of, he was ignorant of his own origins.
"Oww... I was hoping to be able to flaunt it as your wife with pride." she joked with a hint of a smile, which made him smile barely. It was nice to know that, despite everything, she remained his Elizabeth, the same one who had entered his office that day and had called him her friend without even asking. And to think that it all started from there. She was still there. She still joked with him the same way, heedless of the people who watched her every day in shock after three years of doing it. Certain things were obviously difficult to get used to.
But that sentence made him smile for another reason too, one he couldn't wait to make it come true.
"Who knows, maybe one day..."
Elizabeth smiled at him fully, leaning out of her seat to give him a kiss on her lips, slowly savoring his taste and losing herself a few moments in his mouth that responded with the same enthusiasm, almost eating her as if it were oxygen.
Only when she sat back in her seat, still holding Levi's fingers in hers, she become serious again. Outside she could hear the sound of the horse's hooves hitting the ground and a few people screaming, busy with their own things. From the small window came the light of the sunset that was finally putting an end to that immense day for them, lighting their faces orange through the white curtain.
"If the Ackermans were so opposed, though, they must have known this secret that few know."
"I think so too." Levi replied, looking at her and scrutinizing her carefully. She could clearly feel the flow of her thoughts by the intensity with which she was struggling to find a lead to follow.
"Maybe somewhere I can find something about it, discreetly of course."
"Yes. You are good at getting information."
"Cheating people has become useful." she concluded with a half smile, joking about that part of her life that she had always been ashamed of. She didn't like cheating on people but, if she could came back, she would do everything the same way.
"He apologized to me for abandoning me." he then admitted after a few seconds of silence. Elizabeth smiled sweetly at him. That was why she got over it, why she wasn't mad at Kenny anymore. She had no reason to. She didn't want to stick to the past when she had a present and a future with Levi.
"Despite everything he loved you. Even if he had a very weird way of showing it."
"He also asked me if I am a hero now."
"You are a hero." she murmured, rising from her seat to go and sit on his lap, immediately greeted by his hands.
"I'm not."
"You are my hero." she concluded, lowering just enough to bring their lips together.
Levi was looking for Elizabeth. It was almost an hour that she seemed to have disappeared, everyone was looking for her but no one could find her. Still, Levi knew exactly where she was.
When he found her she was sitting next to those small tombstones that had been erected in honor of the fallen, specifically those of her old teammates, next to each other.
He slowly approached her, watching her as she toyed with a flower in religious silence.
"I knew I found you here."
"I haven't been there for a while." she answered without looking up lucidly. She had been crying and he saw it right away. "I know their corpses aren't here but... that's all I have left."
Her voice was low and slightly broken with sadness, enough to hold the captain's heart. He wanted to take all that pain off her but he also knew it was right for her to feel it. He sat down beside her, stroking her arm with his hand.
"You have nothing to justify."
"There are also those for Farlan and Isabel there." Elizabeth said, not knowing what to talk about. When it came to them she never knew what to say, everything seemed wrong and useless.
"Yes. I don't come here often and with everything that's going on I don't even have time."
"I don't think they were offended."
Elizabeth let herself be embraced, resting her head on his shoulder who began to caress her head gently. It had helped her to be alone there for a while but now her presence had become a great help. She wasn't going to make it yet.
"No. Not them." Levi answered, passing his gaze from the graves he was addressing. "Neither do they."
"They would be proud of you." murmured the Vice Captain closing her eyes to hold back the tears. She didn't usually break out like that but she felt overwhelmed, without even having had time to mourn them properly. She felt guilty. "You are now a respected Captain."
"And they would be of you. And Max."
"For Max, I can understand... but why should they be?" Elizabeth answered keeping her gaze fixed on that little flower that was almost completely without petals.
"You haven't lost yourself despite the pain. You remained the same Elizabeth I learned about all those nights on the roof."
"I miss them so much." Elizabeth finally looked up at Levi, her eyes were swollen and red from crying and her cheeks were still shiny, but she didn't have to hide from him. "I would… I don't know I would like to go back and not make them move forward. Keep them there with us and prevent the female titan from killing them."
"Maybe it should have been like this. The fact that they are dead does not mean that the affection we feel towards them is also dead." Levi stroked her head again, squeezing it against himself again and this time letting her sink her face into his chest crying silently again.
"It's so unfair..."
"I know."
With one hand he squeezed her shoulders, which jumped for her sobs, while with the other he caressed her head, consoling her in silence. He left a kiss on her hair, letting his pain also flow into the grip Elizabeth was giving him on his back. That wasn't for herself, no, and he had immediately guessed it. She was telling him to let go, that it was just the two of them and that he too had the right to allow himself to suffer for his friends and for the people he had lost in his life. And they remained embraced like that for other interminable minutes, one the consolation of the other.
The next day Historia was crowned Queen. She was acclaimed and already well-liked by the people, and she too seemed determined enough to do things right. She was a girl who had seen hunger and suffering with her own eyes and only she could understand what people were feeling, thus remaining on their side.
In the corridor there were only the Captain and his Vice talking to each other with their backs to the window, wearing the uniform for official ceremonies.
"Now that Historia is queen she will have to beat you." she giggled Elizabeth dangerously close to Levi's lips, but only to avoid being overheard by anyone who might decide to pass by.
"Mh?"
"Mikasa asked her before the strategic meeting in Orvud." she explained, thus revealing that she clearly heard the young Ackerman whisper those words to the newly crowned queen.
"Would she like to hit me?" he asked raising an eyebrow.
"I think Mikasa was looking for some sort of revenge for Eren."
"You almost strangled him at the trial. She should be angry with you too. " he exclaimed underlining something quite obvious, yes, but in reality he was just amused by that statement. Until then, the only person who had had the courage to hit him or use a tone other than the one he imposed had been her.
"Nah, I've done my part. I made myself forgive."
"Are you serious?" he answered raising the corner of his mouth and approaching it, but retreating as soon as he heard footsteps and voices turning right into the corridor where they were.
"Oh they're coming." she murmured waiting for them to get close enough before moving away from their position just enough to go in front of them.
"If I can't do this, how I can call myself Queen?" Historia exclaimed with determination.
"Hell yeah Historia, that's the spirit!" Jean muttered proudly, thus going against her at Eren's previous attempts to dissuade her from doing so.
But Historia's determination, for a few moments, wavered in front of the Captain's impassive gaze, making her tremble with fear before releasing a liberating scream and punching Levi's side, before retreating again frightened and waiting for his possible reaction.
But if her former teammates continued to tremble with fear, Historia's reaction changed once again as she only needed to look at Elizabeth's amused smile to feel her adrenaline flowing through her veins and giggling with satisfaction.
"How'd you like that? I'm the Queen! If you got a problem..."
Levi surprised everyone. Motivated by Elizabeth's sweet smile, he gave the youngsters one too, shocking them.
"Thank you... all of you." he concluded, taking advantage of the fact that there were only them there and reached out to interlace his fingers with Elizabeth's ones and go away from there with her. Now there was one thing to do; an extremely important one to him.