Special chapter. Days after the Rumbling. Alternating POVs.
The repetition of illusions.
Mikasa slowly drifted back to the world of the living with sorrow etched on her bones.
With mangled body and clouded mind, she ran through the halls, screaming the names of her friends. Armin, Levi, Jean, anyone, anyone who was still alive. She screamed until her throat ran dry and she wheezed scarlet onto the pristine marbles.
They tried to restrain her, but Mikasa was strong, she was so strong and she was going to get out from there and find the others. She'd survived the Rumbling for some twisted reason, she'd held on from dangling too close on the pit of death, she'd known that Eren was still alive, and she'd swore she was going to bring them all home. Wherever that home was, she'd make it there.
So Mikasa kept on going, coils of reality escaping beneath her feet like smoke mocking the fire, not caring about anything else.
A few steps from the door, and she slipped on her own blood.
She didn't wake up until five days later.
The palace was as grandeur as it was grotesque, the place where a lie of a hundred years was kept alive by traditions of sons tearing their fathers' fleshes.
Long live our savior!
Where false kings ruled over falser people. Where the poor polished its floor with the tears of their dying babes.
Long live our lord!
Where whores carrying the king's bastards were left in their puddle of blood. Where scholars sew their lips shut with iron threads for secrets that shouldn't even existed.
Long live Eren Yeager!
Where Eren would be spending his life from now, where the crown upon his head was heavy with bones and the throne he sat on was burning with fire. Where he was finally able to rest after mastering his freedom, and saving an entire island and its people.
But his friends were injured and gone and dead.
If Eren didn't care, their demise will only be like the rip a bandage. Painful, but necessary. The ghost of a scar, there but fleeting. Funny that he'd never worn a bandage long enough for it to be painful when taken off, he'd always regenerate enough before that happened.
But he did. He cared.
And his friends remained injured and gone and dead.
Coping was like trying to glue broken glass, with each revelation two shards merged into one truth, and soon the glass would look beautiful again.
Until it truly ends, there is no end, Mikasa thought long ago, where hope and dreams still meant something.
There was no truth to any of this. The rest of the world was dead before it could reveal itself. The rest of the world was dead before they even had the chance to understand. The rest of the world was dead before her, and because she always thought she'd die young, the reality became too burdensome for her sanity.
She tried to cope, she truly did. But coping meant she was looking forward to healing, to peace, to remember herself before all the pain.
Now she only looked forward to forgetting. And what better way to forget the pain than to forget she was even alive to feel it.
Weak, he heard her say to herself, you're so weak, you can't save Armin and the others, and now you can't even save yourself.
First it was her screams. She attacked every guard who approached her, and she even got close to killing one who restrained her from her third attempt in escaping. She demanded to see the rest of their—her—friends. She destroyed her room and scraped her nails on the walls.
But it was her whispers and cries that impaled him with guilt. She was always so invincible to him, but now it was as if she wanted nothing else than to be invisible.
His advisors argued against it, but after seeing her little smile upon seeing Gabi, he decided he couldn't care less about protocols.
He remembered years ago when Mikasa told him she wasn't ashamed of crying. The tears that stained her cheeks made her look strong, made her survive, and she'd wear it proudly. She'd wear it proud.
Eren doubted she still thought that way.
The wet rust from the window railings stained her pearl white hands. She stood there, the harsh rays of a dying sun cast a chilling glow in the room. The air was too warm for this spring night and it smelt of ashes. In front of her, spanning the entire sky and ocean, the world was burning.
He wrapped his arms around her, his cool touches didn't even alleviate the blistering heat on her skin.
"Go back to bed, Mikasa. You shouldn't be walking around. You need to rest. Whatever it is that you want, I'll have it for you. Just sleep, please."
The girl stared at him with uncharacteristic hollowness.
"Please, Miki. Look at me. I can't lose you too."
"I want Armin. Sasha. My friends. I want you to die."
His breath hitched. "You don't mean that."
"Millions died. They are someone's children, parents, friends, lovers. All of them are someone. They have dreams. They have names. They are somebody just like us."
"They're going to kill us. Us, Mikasa. You and me and Armin and the others. They have dreams and names, but so do we."
"I don't think you have a dream or a name anymore."
"I am still Eren. I am still human. I still have feelings."
Mikasa turned around in his embrace and Eren took her lips in desperation. He tried, tried so hard. He did this for them. So they all could come home. But when he'd arrived at the doorsteps, they were already gone. She wasn't supposed to leave.
"You love me," he said. "Didn't you always want to save me with your love?"
"I supposed," she answered at last. "That love counts for nothing. Even for you."
He didn't expect it to be so painful. No, he truly didn't. He kissed her again and again, trying to coax something out of her.
"Then you're just going to stop? Like a fucking coward?"
She gazed at his tired eyes and realized they mirrored hers. He was a victim, a villain, a monster. She would save him, though only if she could.
"I wonder, Eren, when you will finally figure it out that the only one who can save you is yourself."
Once upon a time, she'd thought that her and their friends' dedication to humanity were enough to save the world. Enough for Eren. But as the bitterness slowly flooded her senses, she realized it would never be enough for him, and maybe even after all this time, despite everything, she would never be either.
The end, she thought, was the best place to start. So Mikasa wiped her tears, and started to let go.