To face monsters, one needs to be able to leave behind their humanity — for someone who can't throw away anything, will never be able to change anything.
What was it that he would have to give up to face a monster who killed thousands? This monster who had lived among them for years as if he was one of them, who had wanted them all to die, who had come within a hair's breadth of becoming his murderer, who had succeeded in becoming the tormentor who kept him up for months?
Would it be his own humanity — to do what Hange had done months prior, to force compliance out of said monster — and in the process become a monster himself?
Or would it be his self-preservation — to swallow the fear that currently washed over his body in waves, almost paralysing him when Bertholdt's breathing stopped after calling out his name and there was no longer a way out of this situation — at the cost of losing his emotional integrity?
How would he face such a monster like he had in Shiganshina when his mind was currently ablaze, no matter how powerless the shifter lay before him in his current situation? This wasn't Shiganshina. This wasn't the battle he had already won, the battle he had already survived. This was different. This was a situation where he was in full control — if only because of physical factors; at the very least, he knew his opponent was much too weakened to contest his words and actions.
There was no reason to feel so on edge, but that thought failed to calm him down.
Another spike of anxiety surged through Armin's chest when Bertholdt squeezed his eyes shut harder, then cracked them open, clearly annoyed at the source of light in his normally dark makeshift cell. The shifter inhaled sharply, then groaned under his breath as he parted his lips slightly. The strain on the arm still wrapped around him loosened until he let go of his shoulder and let it fall next to his body instead. His hand was turned upwards, wrapped in tight bandages that bound it into a fist as a safety measure to prevent him from prying at his equipment. There was a slight tremble to him now that he was awake, but he didn't seem to have taken note of Armin just yet.
Armin took a deep breath. The only way to get results was to go forward with self-confidence. His nerves steadied now that he'd had a moment to reflect on what he was here to do. There was that determination he needed to go on.
"Bertholdt," he repeated, a little bit louder now.
This caught the shifter's attention. In one swift motion, his eyes fell onto Armin's, widening for a couple of seconds as he made sense of the situation.
"I want to talk," Armin continued, tone too soft for his own liking. Bertholdt remained quiet, his eyes narrowing again as he closed his mouth. There was a brief glimmer of fear on his face, but it went as soon as it came, replaced by something indifferent, almost defiant as he stared back at Armin.
It looked like he'd go down the route of silence, expression coated in a subtle venom. Armin almost felt himself falter, but before it showed on his face he chose to keep his own expression collected, not giving into these tactics to get himself swept away by the adversity of a glaring match. Better to show who was in control here than to let himself be played in the first seconds.
When the taller male didn't answer, Armin knew what lay ahead of him.
"It has been some time since we last spoke." This time, he succeeded in speaking in a solid, controlled tone. He looked down at the ground for a brief moment. "Four months and three days, to be exact. Since September." Making eye contact again, he waited very briefly for a reaction, but apart from the subtle changes in Bertholdt's facial expression as he processed the information, he didn't get anything. He hadn't exactly given Bertholdt anything to respond to, what was he supposed to reply to anyway?
"Things were a bit different back then than they are now. You didn't have the intention to have a conversation, only to tell us to die." A slight frown, no response. "I understand, though. The odds were uncertain, your plan just failed, you worried for Reiner," the frown faded, replaced by the slight widening of his eyes, "you didn't have much of a choice but to do what you thought was best given the messy circumstances. Isn't that right?"
Breathing steadily as a tremble periodically ran through his body, Bertholdt remained quiet, not breaking eye contact even once. Neither did Armin. He waited it out, wondering if the uneasy silence would compel him to answer. When the situation didn't prove tense enough yet to convince the shifter to speak, Armin decided to continue his monologue.
"I wanted to visit you sooner. I would have if I hadn't been in the hospital for the past months." Armin held up his bandaged hands, backs turned towards Bertholdt. "This is permanent damage. It took me long to recover from your burns and the process was painful. It may take me years before my skin is fully healed, and even after that, you'll have left a mark on me."
He let down his hands again, resting his palms on the edge of the crate. He only got the same, serious look in return — unmoving, unblinking, staring him down like a caged predator would its prey. Armin quickly banished the thought from his mind, translating it into confident words.
"I think you're lucky you will never know this pain. I've often imagined how convenient it would be to have healing." The muscles of Armin's fingers tensed at the memories that entered the forefront of his mind and he tilted his head just a bit. "No battle scars, no painful recovery, all evidence of anything that ever happened to your body gone after a day. It's practical. Enticing."
Maybe the look of disgust on Bertholdt's face was warranted given the implications of Armin's words. It was good for him to know the damage he had done, but this was a little too much without something to soften his words. Putting his hands back over his knees, Armin slightly tilted his head forward.
"… Though I suppose there are some wounds that even your healing cannot mend. Your mind, for example. Neither can it prevent you from feeling pain when it's dealt to you or let you take back the things you did to others and undo the things that were done to you. We haven't found the extent of damage that will kill you yet, but I'm sure that it can't bring you back from the dead every single time, can it? It must be exhausting. It isn't all just convenience."
A soft, uneasy sigh. The right moment to get back on track.
"But that's beside the point. Had you chosen to talk, maybe you wouldn't be here right now. Maybe things would've played out differently and you'd be on the surface. Or you'd be back home already."
That's when Bertholdt finally broke eye contact, glancing down for several seconds. Then, looking just beyond Armin's right side first, he looked him back in the eyes, urging him to continue.
"Our nations could've been at peace if any of you had come forward to talk instead of killing us all without communicating," Armin stressed. "Now, we are locked in a cold war with an enemy whose movements we cannot even begin to predict. They can be back tomorrow or in ten years, with no way for us to anticipate when it'll happen. Because we don't know, we have no choice but to be prepared to meet them with all-out military action. We can no longer trust that diplomacy is a viable option if our odds are even lower now than they were in the past."
Bertholdt again didn't react, and this time it was Armin's turn to turn his gaze onto the ground in front of him. He could feel his own neutral expression sink, but given the subject matter, he allowed it to happen.
"… At least, that's Paradis' official position. The fact is… We have no way of knowing. If we close off the avenue of peace through negotiation, then we have already dedicated ourselves to solving this conflict through violence. Even if we open ourselves up to the possibility of talking to Marley, most of the military wants to invest in our defences and nothing else."
Armin looked up at Bertholdt again, eyes meeting once more. "I think you and I both agree that this is a horrific attitude."
He tried to read the shifter's expression at the mention of violence, but besides an impatient disinterest, not much more was legible. Where else could he pry?
"The Survey Corps still believes that peace through negotiation shouldn't be off the table. That is also my own stance. Reviewing Grisha Yeager's journals about the outside world, there were so many opportunities to solve our conflict through deals and talks. I don't believe that what happened over the past five years has ruined those opportunities, but it will be more difficult now that it's just you on the island. Still… I don't believe it is impossible."
Grabbing the notebook and uncrossing his legs, he placed it down in his lap and scribbled down a couple of keywords on what he was saying, continuing as he wrote.
"As things are, our only option is to take a shot in the dark. We have the journals to base ourselves on, but those are over 20 years old by now. And as detailed as they are, they just do not live up to a personal account. Not to mention that Marley's outlook on us may have changed entirely in recent years because of the harbour incident, not to mention how what happened in Shiganshina and your mission failure changed things. We have no way of knowing any of this, neither do we have the necessary insights to anticipate Marley would do next, and it's hampering our ability to prepare ourselves for the type of opponent we might face. Every enemy dies the same when hit with a bullet, but in negotiation, there are so many different factors to keep in mind depending on our opponent's attitude. Factors that would make the difference between peace and war. Factors only you know from lived experience."
Finishing scribbling down the details, Armin looked over at Bertholdt again, his head no longer tilted Armin's way, hooded eyes looking straight at the ceiling of the mineshaft with not much interest nor engagement legible in his expression. Armin wasn't sure if he should read it as apathy or as sadness.
"We're not in Shiganshina anymore. We have time to talk without endangering our lives. We can make well-thought out decisions that benefit not only our own, but the other nation as well. We don't have to be enemies anymore the way we were back then."
Armin shifted his position ever so slightly, making sure to straighten his back. "I've come to talk to you because I think you can be a key player in ensuring the freedom and safety of the Eldians of Marley and Paradis, Bertholdt."
Nothing for a few seconds. No shivering, no breathing, nothing. Then, Bertholdt's eyes fell to a tighter squint before they closed entirely.
"This," Armin continued, folding his hands over the notebook, "is a way for you to contribute to international peace without any bloodshed. In fact, you'll be preventing many innocent lives from being taken. Isn't that better than knowing your silence contributed to the slaughter of a million?"
Bertholdt resumed his breathing, but aside from that, everything remained the same.
Nothing? Not even after that? Armin had half expected it, but was also half surprised that this didn't cause any reaction in the shifter. He had to pry deeper, try just a little harder to go after his ideals and make it more personal. He thought for a second, but didn't need more than that to figure out where he wanted to go next.
"You once said someone needed to have blood on their hands, that this was why you did what you did. That you didn't want to kill, that it hurt so much. I still believe that you were speaking the truth. But no one needs to have blood on their hands. Not if you are there to make sure we have the up-to-date information we need to negotiate peace."
Armin's eyes narrowed, head tilting just slightly. "Isn't that exactly what you want?"
A gentle nasal sigh proved to him that Bertholdt was still listening, but there was no answer. Armin wasn't sure if he was just tired or if he wasn't buying anything he was saying, but so long as he received this information, he could mull it over in his head, possibly change his mind on staying silent. It was unlikely Hange told him much about what was happening on the surface, so what he heard now was the largest barrage of new information he'd gotten in a long time. He would think it over, whether he wanted to or not.
Despite everything that had changed, Armin was rather certain that he'd used exactly that which Bertholdt valued to sway him. He didn't expect it to be easy, but it still didn't sit well with him the way he stubbornly kept up his silence. Armin wringed his hands, mildly frustrated despite this being one of his most expected outcomes. It looked like he was going to have to wait it out and see if Bertholdt changed his mind anytime soon.
"I understand that I'm not giving you an easy choice here, Bertholdt," Armin finally said after a few minutes of quiet observation. "What I'm asking you to consider is not a betrayal of Marley. You don't need to defect or switch sides. See it as a promotion to a Marleyan diplomat on a mission to ensure peace with a foreign nation. That sounds a lot better than Paradis' prisoner, doesn't it?"
He paused, not because he still hoped for a reaction, but because he wanted the shifter to have the time to consider what he was saying. It would be bad to overload him with too much information and risk him not processing it all. Every word Armin said was pivotal to convincing him, he had to process it all properly.
"It's exactly what you came here to do, except it leaves more survivors with a better outcome. There are no downsides to this. If you agree, I will have it arranged for you to be taken to the surface to talk to the upper military branches. Instead of staying in this dark mine and being treated like something less than human, you'd get to sleep in a real bed, eat real food. You'll be a lot more comfortable up there. I don't have much authority so long as you're down here, but on the surface I can lobby for you to be pardoned for your crimes against our nation and put you in a position of neutrality rather than hostility. Better yet, one of diplomatic immunity."
Answer or not, Armin felt he was getting through to him by the increase in his respiration rate and the subtle changes in his facial expression. No matter how painful it would be to turn to an enemy who harmed Bertholdt in the past, Armin knew that the offer he was presenting was too good to decline. There was only one barrier left for Bertholdt to cross, and that was to accept that he would have to talk to the enemy. Something not even torture could convince him to do truthfully. If pain didn't convince him, would the promise of comfort?
Maybe that was something Armin had to prove if he didn't get any work done today.
He went back to taking notes of what he'd just said. He'd remember, but Hange would want to know what he said at the end of this and he wasn't going to disrespect that request. He hadn't told anyone about this deal. If Bertholdt agreed, they'd be another person he'd need to convince of the merit of bringing Bertholdt on-board as a diplomat, and the better their standing, the easier this would be.
That was a bridge to cross once he had Bertholdt's cooperation to prove that his idea could work. For now, though, he had to focus on his target ahead of him. He had no guarantee yet he'd be successful.
Finishing with a few more ideas on what he could say or ask next, Armin closed the notebook and placed it aside on the crate together with his pencil. Bertholdt still had his eyes closed, his breathing once again barely noticeable, and Armin wondered if he'd really gotten enough sleep that night, as Hange had said. He could've just as easily fallen asleep again. If he was too tired to stay awake, Armin was just watching a man sleep instead of persuading him to reconsider through a refusal to back down and leave him be.
"Bertholdt?"
The taller male's eyes cracked open, a questioning hum escaping from his mouth before rolling his head to face the wall, his arm draped over his eyes.
Oh. Right. No point staying around if he needed to catch up on sleep, Armin figured.
"I know that Hange's research is putting a lot of strain on you. You should go back to sleep and let your mind rest. But do think about my offer when you wake up again. You wouldn't want to miss a chance like this and regret it later," he said as he stood up, picking up his coat again and putting it on. Sitting still for some time cooled down his body temperature significantly and made him aware of how chilly it was down here. Bertholdt's trembling wasn't out of the ordinary taking into account the light clothing he wore.
Armin finished putting his material back inside his backpack and grabbed the lantern before walking through the gate again, looking over one last time at Bertholdt, now awake but not reacting, as per usual.
"We will speak again at a later moment. Maybe in the evening, maybe tomorrow."
With that, he pulled the gate closed behind him.
"What!? You're back already? Did something go wrong?"
The other three MPs seated at the table with Hange seemed equally speechless to see Armin return only twenty minutes after he was dropped off. Unlike Hange, who looked astonished, it was legible that the MPs hadn't exactly expected much different than for him to book no results. It wasn't them who decided Armin's permissions, though. He had more important things to worry about than their disapproval of him.
"To the contrary. Everything went as I had hoped it would."
That left the room silent, the MPs now just as surprised as Hange.
"You got the Colossal to talk, then?" Hange followed up.
Armin shook his head. "Not yet. But I got him to listen. That's all I need for now. I'm right on track to make him talk later."
"Listen?" the smaller of the MPs asked. "That's what we get it to do every day. Is this some kind of joke?"
"So you think you have made progress?" Hange immediately followed, not allowing the MP to undermine Armin. It must've been a daily occurrence for the Survey Corps and the Military Police to clash like this, but Hange's authority seemed to override the conflict, so their quick action shut the policeman right up.
"Solid progress."
That put a smile on Hange's face. "Then we continue building on that. What needs to happen next?"
Armin placed down his lantern on their table, opting to remain standing so as not to invite himself into the group. "I left to let him rest. I don't think he slept well tonight, he looked tired and was falling asleep while I was still talking to him. I decided to give him time to think, but I want to return again soon. I was hoping to come back either this evening or tomorrow."
"Does tomorrow work for you? I was just about to leave, that way we don't have to send someone up with you again this evening and I can hitch a ride on the lift."
"Tomorrow's fine with me, Commander. But I'd like to ask you to postpone any tests you may have planned for today. Give Bertholdt some time to recover, tomorrow will be important and I need him awake and lively."
Hange looked over at the MPs. "Got that?"
"No tests today," the taller one replied. "But you'll get behind schedule that way. Kid might start demanding things if you give it a day off."
"I'm sure you're competent enough to handle that if it happens," Hange said. "Give me a moment to finish up here and we'll return to the surface."
Armin chose not to sit down while he waited for Hange to finish up, a choice he came to regret after five minutes, when they were still discussing the results of the previous day's tests. The whole talk could be summarised as 'same healing rate as always but he started showing convulsions that led the test to its conclusion', yet, somehow, they managed to stretch it to twenty minutes before finally joining him, at which point Armin's legs were starting to complain that he was still standing up when there were chairs right there.
"So, what happened down there?" Hange asked as soon as they were out of earshot of the MPs.
"I talked to him. I gave him reasons to have a conversation. He listened to me and I'm giving him time to consider what I said."
"Armin, you're killing me! Still no details?" they responded in an exaggerated tone, putting in no effort to contain their excitement.
A small, nervous smile tugged at the corners of Armin's mouth. "I'll fill you in when it works, or after it fails. It's a little… embarrassing to tell you with conviction and then book no results. I'd rather wait until I know a little bit more myself, you see?" Those last words trailed off slightly and he hoped that Hange wouldn't catch onto his bluff. It would be more useful to him if they didn't know what he was trying to do.
"Now you're just teasing me," they chuckled. "Your main strategy is to use your prior friendship to get to him, isn't that correct?"
"It plays a role," Armin responded, keeping his answer short on purpose.
"Ah, I almost feel bad for him when you finally pull out the rug from under him. Do I have to expect him to become even more of a nuisance once that happens?"
Armin thought for a moment. He may not have to pull out the rug from under him at all, so to speak. If he could avoid it, things would be easier. "It's hard to tell ahead of time," he concluded. "There is a chance that he will already feel less inclined to cooperate with you, just because I visited. My apologies if that is the case."
"Ah, don't sweat it," Hange responded, waving a hand towards their shoulder. "It's not like he isn't already being difficult with us, what's the harm in just a little more resistance? Can you believe he still thinks we don't notice when he keeps quiet about half of the effects he experiences when we test stuff on him?"
Armin wasn't sure what to answer, so he simply walked on ahead chuckling awkwardly at the anecdote. Hange waved their hands around as they continued, increasing the pace at which they walked. "Now, I've told him multiple times that he needs to speak up if he wants to be sedated. I'm so generous as to take with me all sorts of expensive drugs to take away the pain, but does that mean he'll tell us when it hurts? No, of course not, because he enjoys that illusion of control over us. Well I ain't letting him have the pleasure of getting to hear us demand he tell us the full story! It's his loss if he wants to play games."
Did everyone play games with each other down here? First the MPs seemed to be locked in a petty struggle for authority they couldn't win against a Commander, now Armin learned of just how little Bertholdt cooperated even when he agreed to cooperate.
"How can you tell that's what he's doing?" Armin asked.
"Ah! For that," Hange's smile widened into a grin, looking straight ahead like they focused on something very interesting just beyond their nose, "I don't need him to tell me that he's in pain when he can barely hold still and he needs to clamp his jaws shut tight to cope. It's so transparent, he isn't fooling anyone with that little façade of his. And it isn't just his body."
They looked at Armin, pointing at their glasses. "It's all in the eyes, Armin. He can lie all he wants, play that stoic game of upholding a brave image while he lies still and pretends he ain't shivering, but when I look into those eyes…" Their eye widened, pupil constricted as they stared at Armin intensely and he couldn't bring himself to look in front of him to watch for bumps in the tunnel. "… Those can't lie. When I interrogated him back in September his silence was all the same, but to explain to him what was about to happen and see him turn from defiant to terrified out of his mind in seconds? Oh, that paints a full picture, alright. If you ever find yourself in doubt, just stare deep into those eyes of his. You'll know everything you need to know."
Expressive eyes as a window to the soul. When Armin recalled them, those predatory eyes locked onto his own were all that came to mind. Regardless, it was correct that throughout his talk, there was this constant subtle change in his eyes. Half a year prior, those same eyes had looked positively tormented, hiding nothing. If Bertholdt remained quiet, this would be an important factor in estimating the effectiveness of Armin's words.
"Thank you, I will keep it in mind. I did notice that, but I wasn't consciously paying attention to it." He offered Hange a smile, at which theirs only broadened. "And I was wondering…"
"Yes?" Hange asked when Armin fell quiet.
"I was wondering about our relation to the policemen down here. They seem… turbulent and angry, more so than usual for a policeman." That was putting it lightly, but he couldn't call them jerks in front of his superior, now could he?
"Ah," Hange mused. "It's a interesting story, really. With the Survey Corps on its last leg, we had to outsource security here to the Military Police. I needed all of you to be with me to pick up the pieces of our regiment, so I wasn't going to post any of you here to waste your time doing what any policeman could easily do. In the public's eye, the Colossal's under our control, but according to the paperwork, it falls under the Military Police's jurisdiction."
"Huh, really?" Armin asked. If the rest of the 104th knew about this, they hadn't told him.
Hange's tone was calm and serious for once. "Yes. I managed to regain some control through my expertise, so the Military Police and the Survey Corps have joint custody over it, but it's an administrative nightmare. As a result, I technically have authority over the policemen down here as well, but they don't care. Their superiors lack the discipline to do much about it unless I talk to them personally. Do I look like I have time for that? It leads to disputes like the one you saw. I have to nip them in the bud early on if I want to avoid them evolving into a conflict. The police are still quite the headache to deal with despite all the changes of the past half year."
That could've been useful to know ahead of time. Before Armin offered Bertholdt deals that he thought he'd only need to convince Hange of. If the Commander of the Military Police entered the picture, he might have a hard time convincing either of the merits of bringing Bertholdt to the surface.
"I see. What does that mean for me? As a matter of knowing what I can and can't do around here, I mean."
"Well," Hange clapped their hands together. "You're in that grey area as well, but I told them not to interfere with your process. If there is anything you need them to do or anything you need them to stop doing, they've been told to follow those instructions. You can report to me whenever they're difficult with you and I'll make sure the issue is dealt with swiftly. I won't allow them to interfere with something this important because they're in a bad mood."
What gave him the honour of being protected like this? Hange was putting a lot of trust in someone who had been in the Survey Corps for less than a year, regardless of what had happened since. Did that experience he built up in just a few months really warrant this amount of faith in his skills? If Armin ended up failing, it wouldn't reflect well on him.
All Armin responded with was a quick thank-you, and the rest of the walk back was spent on small talk and light gossip about the policemen — nothing that was of use to Armin, as far as he could tell. He had to slow down near the end of their walk to the lift structure, so he was so glad to finally sit down on the floor of its cabin, letting his legs and back recover from having to endure more activity than they had in the past weeks combined. He was surprised that his heart hadn't stopped in his sleep yet, with the shape he was in after months of being bedridden. Gods, did he need exercise.
But what Armin needed now, though, was rest. The walk back from the mine was already overdoing it, so when he returned to the living quarters and Hange assigned him a room to occupy for the night, all he could do was collapse on the creaking bed before dozing off. Only after one of the policemen entered to ask him if he wanted to join the rest for lunch did he decide to get up, but he didn't intend on leaving his room again until he got hungry enough to join for dinner. It was rare for him to skip a meal these days, but he just didn't feel any appetite at all.
What he counted as getting up was really just lying on his back staring at the ceiling, mulling things over. The events of the morning still kept his mind occupied. They invaded his imagination and woke him up more than once when he was resting, and he wasn't quite sure why, considering everything had gone well. The longer he dwelled on it, the more he regretted having seen that glare. Like the shifter would crawl out of the mine all on his own to strangle Armin at night — irrational absurdities Armin wished he could shrug off, but failed to.
If his mind wasn't going to offer him rest, he might as well do something he intended to do anyway. Reaching for his backpack, he took out the binder with Bertholdt's file and the notebook Hange had given him. Armin was glad that he hadn't stayed around in the mine to do this. The cold and dusty environment would've been terrible for him and he'd be passed out for half a day from exhaustion had he only returned in the evening.
He got back under his covers, his pillow placed against the headboard so he could sit upright with the binder on his lap, and the words 'reading material' flashed through his mind. There were far more appropriate places to read a morbid file like this, but the hard wooden surface of a chair would only wreck his body more if he had sat down at a desk. Since Shiganshina, he did most activities while lying in bed — be it eating, getting briefed on recent happenings, or just taking time off to relax. It didn't look like work, but he needed it if he wanted to get through the day.
"What can you tell me?" he murmured to himself, unaware that he was voicing his thoughts out loud as he flipped open the cover of the thick stack of paper on his lap. It was an old habit of his when he was alone, one that had only increased as he grew older — especially after he was hospitalised.
Going through the file, he was already familiar with most of the documents at the front. They were allowed insight into Bertholdt's and Reiner's files to better determine if Armin's theory about their true identities was correct. None of these would help him much right now, but it was interesting to compare what the two had claimed was their history to the truth that came to light later. They claimed to be from the same mountain village, which should line up with the internment zone. Armin had considered bringing up the concept of Reiner or going home, but the chances that Paradis would allow him to ever return to Marley even after being granted a full pardon were even more non-existent than him being granted a full pardon at all. The risk of Marley using the Colossal Titan for its military exploits again was too large, and Bertholdt would come to learn quite a few things about Paradis' military if he cooperated. Information that couldn't fall into Marley's hands. He needed to stay on the island.
"Is there anything I lose if I don't tell you that?" Armin placed his hand on his chin. That lure to go home, the promise that Paradis could assist him with achieving this goal… Couldn't that form a good way to get the shifter to go along with their plans? If he helped them make peace, he could go home and find his loved ones again. What an alluring promise that would be. Armin had mentioned the topic once today, to elicit an emotional reaction in Bertholdt, and its success only proved the topic was on his mind now more than ever. He opened his notebook and made note of it, muttering a "yes, that'll be useful" under his breath.
Armin recognised some of the next pages by his own handwriting, and a flattered panic surged through him at the thought that his jumbled notes were integrated into such an official document. He couldn't suppress the drawn-out groan that followed as he tilted back his head, covering his eyes as he felt his cheeks heat up. Had he known, he might have put more effort into his chicken scratch so that someone that wasn't him could actually read them, too. Would what he would write in the notebook these next few weeks be integrated in the file as well? He looked over to his notes from today and needed a moment to tell what he'd written. That was something to put effort into.
He focused himself on the file in front of him again. He could always feel flattered about where his notes went later. Reading back into his and Hange's handwritten documents, there was a plethora of information to be found. Notes on Bertholdt and Reiner's behaviour during their training days. Notes on their fighting styles. Notes on their intelligence. Notes on the Colossal Titan as observed atop Wall Rose. Notes on their relation to Annie.
"What do you know about Annie?" Armin mumbled, his question lost in the silence of the building.
Did Bertholdt know about Annie's crystallisation in the first place? If he were to take Armin's word for it, she was suffering the same fate that he was, and Armin wasn't sure if Hange had offered him the comfort of answering his pleas to know if she was okay. After all, Bertholdt now was well-aware that Paradis wouldn't shy away from torturing the enemy if it needed to do so, so why would they spare her? To add to that, he was so easily fazed by Armin's comments on her torture that he couldn't help but wonder if he was aware of her ability to crystallise herself in the first place. Did he still question if they really had Annie? That they were hurting her? Was he still of the opinion that they could feed her to the pigs, for all he cared?
"No way. Why don't you tell me?" With the current information void they kept Bertholdt in, a mutual exchange of knowledge could be a strong strategy to learn more about his opponent. Armin could only hope that no one had divulged Annie's fate to Bertholdt, or that they contradicted themselves to the point of confusion. Every fresh bit of info could help.
Armin went through the notes carefully, penning down any thoughts and ideas that came to mind. Things he could ask Bertholdt. Topics to bring up. Ways to break his silence and compel him into saying at least something. He managed to fill a couple of pages before he reached the segment of the file that detailed the Battle for Shiganshina, printed rather than handwritten, and from quickly rifling through it in the morning he remembered it was a wordy report.
While he could extract some useful information from there, Bertholdt knew about as much about the battle as Armin did considering how soon after Armin lost consciousness, Bertholdt 'died'. If he had to read the report now, he'd be done long after sundown and likely wouldn't have the right mindset left to read the documents detailing his incarceration afterwards. Between the two, the latter sounded far more relevant.
As much as it hurt not to get to scratch that four-month-old itch of getting to know what exactly went down that day, it was better to skip it for now and come back to it tomorrow. If by tomorrow, he hadn't convinced Bertholdt, was what he told himself, but he knew that curiosity wouldn't allow him to leave the report unread when Hange had given it to him so freely.
A bit annoyed at himself, he turned bundles of pages until he found himself at the part he was looking for: the interrogation logs detailing Bertholdt's first weeks down in the mines. He took a brief moment to breathe in and out before getting into the gritty details.
Unlike the file that was delivered to him in the prior week, these documents were far more thorough and detailed. The exact start and end time of each session. The duration of breaks. Bertholdt's mental state before, throughout, and after the sessions. The intended questions and what they led to. The projected and actual methods — sometimes written with so much detail that Armin found himself nauseous. Transcripts of what Hange and Bertholdt had said to each other. Further speculation on what certain things he said meant, what they could lead into, or how they could use this information. It wasn't complete, but it was much more useful than anything Armin had read before. Each account was so much more detailed that it helped him shape a picture of Bertholdt's psyche as he spent longer down in the mines.
Hange carried out most of the work, leaving very strict instructions for the MPs when they finally ran out of energy and needed to leave things into their hands so that they could rest. Anyone else could mess with their process. Armin could relate to wanting control over what he was doing. They had used brutal techniques from the start, without bothering to pry any answers out of him. Had Armin not overheard Hange interrogate once before, it would puzzle him why they'd chosen to do that, but the motive was clear. Hundreds of good scouts died in a second, including one of immense value to Hange. On top of the losses of the first Wall breach and the attack on Trost, it wasn't hard to imagine why those first hours down in the mines looked the way they did.
The rest of the first and second day showed the payoff: dead silence, despite the earlier abundant promises to speak. Nothing they did could get him to open up anymore. It was apparent what had happened, but to think that he actually changed his mind on being willing to talk and was prepared to endure such pain based solely on spite? Armin wasn't sure if even he could go to such lengths.
"So pain does nothing for you," he mumbled to himself. Maybe it was for the better that Armin was dissuaded from using cruelty. These were the things that gave him exceptional insight into how Bertholdt's brain worked, so Armin wrote down his thoughts in great detail, writing and then underlining 'Discomfort and pain will NOT work' at the top of his current page. "… But how would you respond to the opposite?" followed immediately after. What would the offer of comfort and the promise to alleviate his suffering do to break his reluctance? Or could he offer small comforts and use those to win his trust?
Continuing, the desperation was almost tangible when there was a sudden shift from torture to refusing Bertholdt food and keeping him awake whenever he risked falling asleep. Bertholdt's status during these five days was noted down as confused, mistrusting, delirious, and always anticipating something else on top of what they were doing to him. After a good day or so spent in these conditions, barraged with constant questioning that was designed to tire his mind, signs of disorientation set in. On the second day he finally broke his silence to ask for food, and shortly after he became receptive to Hange's more casual conversations in an attempt to confuse him into giving them relevant details.
With a total of five days before they let him rest again, the logs were over a hundred pages long thanks to the constant conversations they forced him to have, and most of it was cryptic nonsense. Here and there, Armin could recognise some familiar bits where he could guess what Bertholdt was trying to say, and they showed just how disoriented he had become. Most showed that he wasn't sure if he still was undercover or not, with him referring to his days in the 104th and the Survey Corps. He said some things about their betrayal, most of which sounded apologetic and regretful in nature, but he remained aware that he was talking to the enemy and not Reiner or one of his allies and kept important details to himself.
Those hundred pages showed why it wasn't working: these were obviously the ramblings of someone who desperately wanted to go back to sleep and get something to eat, no matter what it would take him. He seemed disheartened that when he told Hange that he didn't know the answer to their questions, the response was that he wouldn't be fed. At that point, Armin would've suspected him to say about anything just to get his basic needs fulfilled, yet he was just as closed on the fourth day as he was on the second. His confusion may have forced him to let his guard down, but it also made him entirely unreliable.
Why they continued this for five entire days was a mystery. It was such a huge waste of their time, especially since Hange had places to be and a hard set deadline for when they had to leave again. Maybe the fact that he was constantly talking blinded them to the fact that nothing he said could be trusted, not because he was lying but because he himself likely lost the ability to tell the difference between reality and delusions anymore. After that, a sunk cost fallacy might've kept them going — he might just give the answer any moment now, and why waste three days of hard work when the answer lies just ahead of them?
There was one last day before Hange ran out of time and had to leave for the capital again to carry out their task as the Survey Corps' new Commander in times of uncertainty. If this information weren't this pivotal, they wouldn't have been able to set aside the time to come down to the mines. The desperation was already tangible in the last days of sleep deprivation where they occasionally strangled or punched him to motivate him to stay awake and answer, but that last day, those final 7 hours after they let him sleep and then went back to work and neither Bertholdt nor Hange got any rest… It wasn't a mystery why those finally broke Bertholdt.
When he agreed to answer their questions was when things got worse. He dropped all defiance, showed the will to cooperate, and yet they kept going — had to keep going — under the presumption that what he said was all self-preservation when there wasn't enough certainty that he was speaking the truth. They had proof of that: he contradicted much of what was written in the journals, chose to lie. Still chose to repeat his strategy.
By the end, Hange had run out of time and had to stop their efforts, not trusting the policemen to continue their work for them. Some notes discussing what they learned followed, clearly written after the fact, but they were limited in length, capping off that section of the report.
Armin closed the folder and the notebook, deeming that to be enough new information to mull over. He sat in silence for a few more minutes, setting things straight and double-checking his recent notes. A loud bang on the wall startled Armin, and when he heard enthusiastic yelling and laughter outside like there wasn't a pane of glass separating him from the people outside his window, a wave of self-consciousness washed over him to think anyone who passed by could hear him rambling to himself.
Placing the folder and the notebook on his nightstand, Armin then arched his back as he stretched his arms above his head. He must've spent hours combing through that file, but it was still too light out to be evening. It was for the better. He had a lot to think about, things he might forget certain details about if he were interrupted by dinner.
He stood up, walking towards the window to look outside, the group of trees a dozen meters removed from the building instantly catching his eyes. Running one hand over the windowsill, his eyes trailed over to the snow – freshly disturbed, multiple sets of footprints spaced out far enough to indicate that people were running around the building's perimeter, and a larger disturbed patch showed exactly where one of them crashed into the building earlier. Maybe they lost their footing, maybe someone pushed them. They sounded like they were having an awful lot of fun for being on the job. As if the Survey Corps wouldn't be the same if there were enough of them left to be stationed for months as guards at a post no one ever attacked.
A weary sigh escaped Armin, but his melancholy quickly evolved into a sad smile. Where were the days where they all wasted time like this? Those freezing cold winter days where they could barely even walk because of how much snow had fallen that night, yet the usual suspects always found the time and energy despite being overworked to turn it into a game and start a war. Armin usually spectated, but he wasn't immune to lure of fun when they all turned on him in an effort to drag him into their game and he was forced to retaliate. If his recovery went well, he might one day be able to plunge his hands into snow again without suffering a negative impact on his health.
Come to think, whenever he was standing back to avoid those snowball fights or whatever else the cadets were up to, Bertholdt was usually in the vicinity doing the exact same thing, but the taller male was harder to entice into joining in. Sometimes they'd have a laugh together about how rowdy their friends could be as they walked on before they could be dragged into it. Before he could continue that thought, Armin prohibited himself from thinking about it any further. Unless he wanted to evoke a sense of nostalgia in the shifter, it wouldn't work.
He leaned his hips against the windowsill, turning far enough so that he could comfortably peer outside, latching onto something to banish the memories from his mind. Three MPs came dashing into sight again a story below – a man and a woman chasing another man, snowballs hitting him in the back as the two seemed to have turned to a pact against their friend. The one pursued tumbled into the snow as his friends mercilessly pelted him, then managed to get up again and flee while his friends were reloading.
The woman's eyes suddenly fell onto Armin, and she stopped gathering snow. Her ally soon stopped too, and before long their other friend came walking back, asking what's the matter before he caught sight of Armin as well. Armin couldn't help but sheepishly smile down at them as they nervously looked to each other.
"Hey! Don't tell on us! Please?" one of the policemen yelled at the top of his lungs. Armin found it almost comedic how the volume of his voice was enough to tip someone off. He brought his hand to his mouth, making a turning gesture with his fingers before tossing the imaginary key away.
"Thank you!" the other policeman yelled back, sticking up his thumbs. The policewoman thanked him with a waving salute, and their victim already resumed dashing off as soon as he was off the hook. Now they owed Armin a favour. Might come in handy in the long run.
Armin pressed his forehead against the cold glass to get a better view of who exactly it was that owed him a favour through the slightly foggy window, placing an arm above his head for support. As they made off, Armin noted just how young the three were — if their behaviour weren't an indicator of that yet. Not men and a woman, but boys and a girl, possibly new recruits from the previous batch of graduating cadets.
It was so easy to see them running around in the snow like regular teenagers and forget what they were here to do. Which of these amused faces he just saw had been present in the dark, asked to record as they listened to cries of anguish and desperate pleading in an attempt to distinguish anything of value to note down? The same way the 104th had been present that day when they were overthrowing the government, hidden in a cellar and barely older than the policemen who worked at Tourze. Which of them were chosen to witness what went down there to make sure it was all documented at the cost of their night's rest? Armin could only hope that the older policemen were utilised for this grim task, but he couldn't imagine anyone would be very comfortable with such a task regardless of age.
Not to mention the victim. If any of those young policemen were sent to the mines during those initial nine days, they would've witnessed the torture of someone their own age. Someone Armin's age. These days, with how rough around the edges he looked with his long hair and his unwashed skin, it was so easy to forget he was just 16– no, 17 since a few weeks ago, just about as old as most policemen stationed at the mines. What did it do to those who had witnessed a relatively young human being in so much distress, treated like a beast and not a man? What did that do to one's faith in the system, even if they agreed with what they were witnessing?
But would any sane person be able to witness this and still agree with the practice, or would it fracture them just as much as it did its victim?
The nausea from earlier returned. What had happened was so incredibly brutal — exactly as he'd expected it would be, yet it still unsettled him to read the details and know this isn't just a story, but something that actually happened to a real person who was once close to him. The thought had occurred to Armin when he was reading the file, but he had suppressed it in favour of getting through the whole thing in one piece. Now that he's had time to breathe, he could only think of how it was all so irresponsible, to say the least. These were in no way justifiable methods of trying to obtain information. It was barbaric, unfitting for their society's advancement. If the shifter was going to give them useful information, he would've done so on the first day. To push it beyond that wasn't just unprofessionally crude, but the chances that he'd cooperate with them and give them valuable information decreased with every day they continued.
None of this should've happened. There were far more effective methods than blindly inflicting pain and making that pain worse when it yielded no results. He brought a hand up to his face, resting one side against his palm as he rubbed his temple. To think that if Armin had been there and not in the hospital, things wouldn't have needed to become so bloody. He could've made a change, but he didn't. All because he got wounded, he cost Paradis a valuable asset. What a disappointment.
Not to mention that he could've made things better for Bertholdt, too. None of the remaining 104th members wanted him to be tortured. Even after everything that he had done, there were still some remnants of their camaraderie that made them feel disgusted to think about what could be happening to someone they'd once considered a friend. But all of them also knew that they had missed their window of opportunity for humane treatment, that it was a necessary evil to extract information from the only person who could offer it to them, so no one ended up talking about it given the difficult moral debate of whether what was happening was really the right course of action. Armin had his suspicions that several of his friends were against it but didn't speak up because they knew they had no valid arguments that weighed against Paradis' survival. He couldn't imagine that either Sasha or Connie much agreed with it, either.
Even at times, especially during those moments where Armin's infected skin sent fire through his veins and he was comforted by the thought that he wasn't the only one suffering after the battle, he still couldn't bring himself to be completely comfortable knowing that Bertholdt was treated this way. There were moments where he had to banish the thought from his head, justify why this was happening and why they were driven into this corner. Ultimately, it was all down to Bertholdt's own choice, and all Paradis could do was work with what he was giving them.
"Why didn't you give us a choice?" he whispered, hot breath condensating against the glass. He shifted in position, turning his back on the window when the policemen came around for a third time and Armin decided he wasn't in the right mindset anymore to watch a couple of teens play in the snow.
There was no doubt about how powerless they were. The lives of one million innocents far outweighed the integrity of one person who would never even scar. That didn't mean that the treatment he received wasn't sadistic and undeserved, though. But at what point does that assertion become false? What if this was about three people? One hundred? One thousand? One million people they had to slash through, each life they destroyed representative of one they saved on Paradis? What if they needed to sacrifice more people than were on their island? Was the scale really relevant to determine how acceptable their actions were?
Armin could sympathise with Bertholdt. Had it been up to Armin, it wouldn't have gotten to this point. He wouldn't have dragged the shifter onto a table and cut away at him for hours before even considering asking a single question. He would've opted to check how willing he was to talk now that he was defeated, neutralised, and no longer obligated to fight for his life. It wouldn't exactly be a leisurely talk over a cup of tea, but he'd get the chance to talk in a no risk environment. Maybe he could get him to explain exactly why he wouldn't talk.
The scenario was so clear inside his head. With all the time in the world to question him, pry into every part of a mind that was not yet fractured by the disdain that torture brought about, he could do so many great things. To plant the seeds of just enough terror about what could happen if he didn't cooperate with Armin — with Hange hovering menacingly behind him waiting for their turn, the contrast alone could entice Bertholdt into giving up information to the one who wasn't tentatively waving around a pair of blacksmith tongs. If all went well, Armin might even keep relations between the island and their only outside source intact.
But if he needed to, if he could verify that it increased his chances to get answers, he knew very well that he'd be capable of turning himself into the exact same monster Hange had. If necessary, he could even plunge the blade himself. His gut felt cold to think back about the time Mikasa slashed deep into Bertholdt only seconds after it was confirmed that he and Reiner were traitors. If she was capable of such violence when it was needed of her, then so should Armin.
Of course he would resort to trying to break his psyche over his body first, but if that truly didn't work, he wouldn't be afraid to inflict pain as a means to an end that was this important. He suspected low doses would work far better than to hurt him to the point where he couldn't talk anymore and would use it appropriately as a support to his interrogation, not as its main driving force. He had such a clear idea of all the ways he could be useful in this investigation, that he was annoyed he hadn't been present from the beginning.
Armin could never fault Hange for doing what they thought would work when he was no different. It was still pain. It was still cruel. He had to keep his sight exactly on which parts of his humanity he was ready to reject to get results.
Everything he had read was already in the past. Nothing could be changed about it anymore. There was no point in lamenting what he couldn't prevent when he could still change the course of the future.
He was surprised to find himself invigorated, his confidence renewed thinking about how useful this all was for him right now. How he'd read exactly what he'd hoped to read in these logs. They'd been so brutal with him, tried to shatter him to the point where he was barely even coherent anymore, and pushed even beyond that. And he couldn't suppress a smile at the thought of what that treatment implied.
Hange and the MPs had made themselves such a dangerous enemy to the shifter that if someone — anyone at all — came in with kindness and respect, he might just trust them a little easier. Maybe not on his first visit, but he definitely would eventually. Given the choice to spend time with his tormentors or with someone who showed him respect, would he really reject Armin out of spite even if he knew he was being manipulated?
It was hard to tell. Spite and disdain were definitely strong motivators, strong enough to cause Bertholdt to choose his worst option when it gave him the chance to defy those who had wronged him. The Bertholdt Armin used to know would never resort to such a toxic mindset, but the events of the past half year made Armin question whether he ever knew the real Bertholdt. His silence only proved that whoever he had been before everything happened was gone. Armin only had one choice, and that was to work with the Bertholdt who existed now.
One afternoon left him with dozens of pages of notes scribbled down to consider when he returned to the mine later. Tomorrow, but Armin was pretty sure he wouldn't just book results in two days. He could count himself lucky if he got the shifter on-board within a week. It wouldn't be easy, but he wasn't opposed to a challenge like this. It gave him something to do in the month where he wasn't allowed to pick up his more intensive training yet.
Looking behind him, the sky had a hint of darkness in it. Dusk would come around soon. He'd been isolated long enough, and it showed when a dizzying daze ran through his head as he stood up again, forcing him to hold onto the windowsill so as not to fall. Armin had been focused the whole afternoon, and only now did he notice his hunger. After all that, after he was done thinking it through, he wanted nothing more than to distract his mind from what he'd just read. If he wanted any sleep tonight, he'd need to get his mind off of it for a while.
Tomorrow would be an important day. Many of his future results would depend on the second contact, so he had to let his thoughts simmer and distract himself from overthinking it all. Yet as he went about the rest of his evening — when he found the policemen far more amicable up on the surface than they were down in the mine — he couldn't help but feel a haunting presence weighing on his mind, like there was always something right around the corner there to get him but he just couldn't perceive what it was.
He wondered how long he could pretend this was nothing to worry about.
A/N: More author's notes and artwork over on the AO3 upload - /works/26989504/chapters/70275729#workskin