When I grow up I want to be exemplary.
Levi was blinded with anger.
That titan had caused a real massacre, no one was left standing. They were all lying on the ground in the midst of blood and dust.
Even Erwin.
That being seemed almost amused by that vision, while disgust rose to him.
Knowing that Elizabeth was behind him, he launched into the attack of the Beast Titan, cutting his hand with all the speed he possessed, harpooning him with the hooks of the ODM Gear, then the eyes and finally the legs. He didn't have to have time to regenerate.
But that awareness soon faded.
Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that Elizabeth was no longer behind him, he didn't see her blonde hair anywhere, he didn't feel even the slightest movement.
There were only the titans lying on the ground on that side, and others standing upright and waiting on the other side.
But where was Elizabeth?
A terrible sensation took hold of his body, the fear of having really lost her made its way into his heart, blinding him with rage.
He wanted him to suffer as he had made all those people suffer.
How he made him suffer.
"What happened to all that fun you were having?" he exclaimed angrily pointing straight at the back of the Beast's neck, which he tried to harden but he didn't have time. "Come on, let's try to enjoy this!"
Now dominated by all that blind anger, he repeatedly began to cut the flesh on the back of the Titan's neck, wanting to hurt him with all of himself. The power that flowed in his veins had become unstoppable, he no longer felt anything around him. It was as if the world had stopped making noise.
There was too much silence.
She was not silent.
When he finally found the host of the Beast, he pulled him out and thrust the blade of the sword into his mouth, thus locking him against the titan's now empty body.
"After transforming, if your body's severely damaged, it's too busy healing to let you transform. Isn't that right? Hey, answer me. Learn some manners."
I can't kill him yet... Isn't anyone out there still alive? If they are, even on the brink of death, this injection will make them a titan. We can have them eat this guy and steal the Beast Titan's power. Someone, just one... I can bring back to life.
Erwin...
Elizabeth...
He only needed one person. He hoped to see his woman's smile again. It would have been enough for him even to have her as a titan, she would have made it, as long as she stayed by his side. He couldn't accept that he had lost her so easily.
He didn't want to accept it.
He hadn't lost her, she was there, somewhere, maybe she too wounded but alive.
He didn't care that another scar could disfigure her body as long as her heart kept beating.
However, the titan with the load on his back threw himself at him, taking the Beast's host from his hands, grabbing him in the jaws and running away.
"Hey, where are you going? Stop."
Levi, turning, trembled with rage.
That damned sensation in his chest didn't seem to stop, a blind pain he had only felt once in his life: when he had lost Farlan and Isabel.
He hardly remembered it anymore. It was a dull, terrible pain, capable of taking his breath away.
She was nowhere.
Where are you, my love?
"I do not believe it." he murmured looking around, almost forgetting the Beast that was fleeing between the jaws of the other titan.
Elizabeth's name repeated itself in his head like a mantra, but there was no trace of her.
He was so blinded that he did not even consider the two hundred soldiers massacred just ahead of him.
It was a terrible scene but in that pile of corpses there must have been hers too.
The pain grew even stronger.
He clenched his fists around the blades, detaching the worn ones and swapping them for new ones, preserved with Elizabeth's help.
The host of the Beast Titan ordered the titans still standing to kill him, momentarily rousing him from his thoughts.
Did he want war? Well, he would have given it to him.
He would have caught and killed him painfully. He didn't even care about stealing that bastard's power anymore, he wanted to kill him with his hands and make him suffer.
Make him regret killing her.
"Wait. I made a promise to them... that I'd kill you no matter what." he murmured now prey to his emotions. He, who had tried to suppress them in combat, even with her next to him. But without her... now they screamed loudly in his chest. "I promised!"
Like a fury he launched himself against into combat, killing one by one all the titans that the Beast had sent to him, going to chase him as soon as the work was done.
Running out of gas and blades, past the Walls to enter Shiganshina District, he found Eren with a charred body beside him and one with a throat blade in his hands.
The titan dragged the Beast away again, completely ignoring the boy, and Levi asked him for blades and gas to refuel. He wanted to take him and had no time to waste.
However, the charred body seemed to move and Eren felt it breathe.
That must have been Armin, and apparently he was still alive.
"Captain... inject him!" the young man asked, begging him desperately with his eyes.
He understood that feeling. Both had lost someone, but he hid that same look better.
He couldn't tarnish Elizabeth's memory like that. But he didn't even want to accept her death.
He could find a way to have her back with him. She was still alive out there, maybe he was so blinded by anger and despair that he hadn't seen her.
He became convinced that it must be so. Maybe...
Maybe she had just gone among the battered bodies of recruits in search of someone still alive.
He took a deep breath and agreed to give him the serum.
Mikasa threw a red smoke bomb, thus marking the results to his companions. So it wasn't a total massacre.
And if there had been hope for them on this side of the Walls after that explosion, then there might have been hope for Elizabeth too.
She was alive. She somewhere she out there but alive.
He trusted her, she wasn't so unconscious as to die.
When he reached out to give the syringe to Eren, the frightened redhead joined them with Erwin on his shoulder, leaving his body on the roof next to the Captain.
"Captain Levi I finally found you. Commander Erwin is badly wounded, his stomach is gouged and his organs are demolished. The blood just won't stop! I thought that injection might be able to help, but... what do you think?"
Levi lowered himself to the Commander's body, just studying him and finding that Floch was right, he was still breathing. It was very weak but it was still there.
"He's... still breathing. He's... alive." murmured the Captain, but looking around and wondering, if the two of them had reached him, why Elizabeth wasn't with them. Why wasn't she there?
The pain in his chest became stronger, more painful, as the idea that she was indeed dead crept into his mind once more. "I'm using the injection... on Erwin."
Eren opposed him, tears in his eyes red with anger, but he didn't want any more losses. He was tired of seeing people die before his eyes. He could no longer bear any more losses, not after losing her. Humanity had to be saved, that was their mission.
Elizabeth had died to save humanity and he would carry out that mission, now for her too.
Feelings were superfluous.
Erwin was still there with them, he had the ability to save humanity, so the serum had to go to him.
Levi punched Eren, pushing him away, but Mikasa threw herself at him, pointing the blade at his throat.
He understood them. He fully understood them. They were about to lose their best friend, he knew what it was like, but he too had just lost a loved one. The difference was that their memory was not to be insulted. They were dead to humanity and that was the priority or it would just be useless. Elizabeth would never forgive him.
Eren cried. He cried the tears that Levi dared not let slip until he shut himself up in his office still full of her smell too, reminding them of all the good ideas Armin had and that he would be able to save humanity. They wanted to take on that brat everything that had previously been placed over Elizabeth, who had agreed to help Erwin. But he also said one thing, which while being right, was also terribly wrong at that moment.
Elizabeth had been the first to see how brilliant Armin was.
"Don't think you're the only ones who had it tough!" Floch then exclaimed in the throes of a nervous breakdown. "You may not know, but... on the other side of that wall there's not a single living soldier. Not even Vice Captain Elizabeth. Everyone died when the Beast Titan threw boulders at us. I didn't think anyone could be saved but Commander Erwin was the only exception. He thought of a plan for us to bite back at the Beast Titan and we did. We were smashed to bits just as planned and I'm sure the last thing they felt was fear. It was Miss Elizabeth, dying, who told me that the Commander was still alive. I was about to finish him off but... that's going too easy on him. I thought to myself that he ought to taste more of this hell. And then I understood... the only one who can lay waste on the titans is a devil! And if I can bring back the devil that must be my mission in life! That has to be why I survived like a coward when everyone else died. So stay out of this way!"
Levi couldn't believe it.
Up until now he had moved on because she was alive, until proven otherwise. Proof that, however, had just been thrown in his face.
With the hand he squeezed the syringe more as his gaze lost any light or emotion. Dark and angry as ever, even Mikasa hesitated for a moment as she looked at him. But the girl then got caught up in sentimentality during Floch's speech and in the end she threw herself at him, stopped only by the arms of Hange who had reached them at that moment with Jean, Connor and an unconscious Sasha in tow.
If the other guys were broken and incredulous, Mikasa kept crying, screaming and resisting. But Levi no longer saw them.
The only thing he could process was the news of Elziabeth's death. He had seen her die before his eyes and had brought him the news. Now it was true.
He had lost the love of his life.
"There are..." Hange continued to speak, looking at Levi out of the corner of her eye. "...people I want to bring back, too. Hundreds of them. I've had to say farewell since the day I joined the Scouts. But... you know, don't you? No matter who it is, there comes a day to say farewell. I know it's impossible, but you have to accept this there will be times you can't keep our sanity. It's tough, very tough. I know. Even so... we have to keep moving forward. Elizabeth was my best friend and Floch broke the worst news I could get; I'd give anything to bring her back. We weren't ready to say her goodbye."
Levi didn't want to hear anything anymore. Nobody had to name her, nobody had the right to say anything. He didn't even want to be told 'I'm sorry' from that 'shitty glasses'. He wanted to see her again. He wanted her. He didn't want anything else. All those wars and fighting, human and titan, were all bullshit. It was something out of the ordinary that made no sense and it wasn't fair that Elizabeth had died even if for such a noble cause.
"Captain, do you know about the sea?" Eren broke in again grabbing the Captain by the ankle.
He remembered it. Or rather, he remembered his promise to Elizabeth the night before. Another promise he hadn't kept yet. Not only was the Beast Titan still alive but he wouldn't be able to take her to see the sea. Inside he was completely destroyed. He swallowed hard as emotions began to slowly flow away from his body leaving only a bitter apathy.
"No matter how far you look, it stretches past the horizon. It's a gigantic lake. Armin said... there's a sea beyond the walls and he said we'd go there together. But that was our dream since we were little, and I forgot it long ago! Avenging my mom, killing the titans... the only thought in my head are full of hate. But he's not like that! Armin cares about more that just fighting, he has dreams!"
Dreams that had been snatched from him once again...
For the last time.
I'll take you to see the sea. It's a promise.
He could almost still smell her scent in his nostrils and the texture of her soft, naked body in his arms.
"Everyone get out of here! I'm going to have Erwin eat Bethold."
Left alone with the two corpses, Levi allowed himself to think back to all the moments spent with Elizabeth, to her smile, to everything Erwin had taught her, to what he had done for them. And finally to Erwin's own dream.
"Good grief. They're all the same... whining like brats one after another..."
Everyone had to be drunk on something to keep pushing on. Everyone was a slave of something.
And it was true. But only in that moment he realize how right Kenny had been. He had gotten drunk on the love he felt for her and how it made him feel. He had been happy until then.
... But there's more than that. The sea!
The smiling and naive voice of Armin that had stirred something inside him. The prospect of starting a family with Elizabeth and taking her to see the sea.
I'll take you to see the sea. It's a promise.
When Levi reached down to take the Commander's arm, intending to give him the injection, Erwin jerked his arm up in his hallucination.
"Teacher... how do we know there's not more humans outside the walls?"
Could a single sentence upset a person so much? What did all this mean?
What was Erwin dying for? What had Elizabeth died for?
A thousand memories crowded his mind, phrases he didn't completely understand at the time, things said for a completely different purpose and happy moments that had now become too painful.
Give up your dream and die. Lead the recruits straight into hell.
Everyone had to be drunk on something to keep pushing on.
… I will take down the Beast Titan.
You are mine and I am yours.
Maybe someday we could have a family.
I would also go to the end of the world with you. And for you.
And when, one day, we get rid of the titans this will become our everyday life.
How many promises he made that he could no longer keep. His heart was now beating for a mere mechanical gesture, there was no longer a purpose in himself other than to at least honor her.
Levi thank you.
And it was that memory of Erwin that made him understand what he had to do. That was the wrong choice.
Elizabeth had seen potential in Armin, she liked that boy and his intelligence. She had chosen him.
Levi understood everything. He couldn't accept that he had lost her, but at least he had to make the right choice. He loved her too much.
And finally he gave Armin the injection, letting him eat Berthold, just before Erwin took his last breath.
The group split in search of any survivors, perhaps with the miserable hope, at least for Hange and Levi, that Floch was wrong and that she was still alive. She ordered the young man to bring him her body.
He wanted to see her.
When Levi returned to the walls he found the young man awake, next to Sasha still asleep, and ordered Eren to tell everything that had happened.
Armin was shocked.
"So... we managed to seal the walls of Shiganshina but Reiner, the Beast Titan and one other escaped, Berthold was captured, then... there was a dispute about using the injection on Commander Erwin or me, and I turned into a titan and ate Berthold..."
Disgusted by the idea of having eaten a person, he began to cough in retching and Jean handed him some water which he quickly gulped down before continuing. "Why did you pick me? No matter how you look at it, wasn't the Commander Erwin the right one to bring back? Captain, why did you give me the injection?"
"Tsk ..." Levi murmured, then kicking Eren, still angry. But he wasn't mad at the insult itself in the end. He was angry about everything that was going on. "I told you to tell him everything! The thing is, it seems your two friends here didn't think that way. They stood up to me... prepared to draw blood."
Hange looked at him with strong empathy. He hadn't talked about it yet and had decided to go alone to do the inspection. He wanted to be alone but he still had a job to do. For the younger ones it was impossible to notice but for her who had known him for much longer it was evident how emotionally devastated he was. Just like her.
They had lost an extremely important person and then Erwin, also important too. They had become a kind of extended family that was then destroyed in the hands of the Commander himself.
"However... the final decision to choose you was mine. No, I chose this to be the place where Erwin dies." Levi then added after Hange told them they would be punished for their behavior.
Armin was even more shocked and now even opposed to Levi's choice, with Hange agreeing perfectly with him. The serum should have gone to Erwin, much more knowledgeable than all of them on what to do. Hange now had the pressure on her shoulders from the Commander's own legacy as well as the entire Survey Corps. However, she also believed to understood why Levi had chosen him.
She disagreed but she understood him. By now it was done and they were in that situation, they could only go on despite the doubts and the pain of the losses.
"Does that mean I need to be Erwin's replacement? No way... I can't!" Armin exclaimed with his mouth and eyes wide open, against it but still trying to show more respect than his two friends.
"Don't get me wrong. You'll never be Erwin''s replacement. But... I know you have a strength that nobody else has but you. I won't regret my decision. However, don't make there guys regret it." Levi concluded taking Eren and Mikasa's heads and turning them towards the young man. "Nor anyone else. And don't regret it yourself either. That is your mission."
Armin seemed to hesitate. He seemed to want to say something but too scared to do so. However in the end the words came out anyway and for Levi it was another cold shower. He did not want to hear those things yet.
He knew that when they came back bearing the names of the fallen, he and Hange would receive condolences upon condolences by virtue of the strong bond they publicly had with her.
And he wasn't ready to take it yet.
"Miss Hange, Captain Levi ... I am so sorry for Elizabeth."
"I know. Don't worry. Rather, Levi… "Hange murmured turning to the Captain, but he froze her in place with the coolest tone he had.
"I don't want to hear anything."
Floch joined them, climbing up the walls next to them and making Levi nervous again. He was empty-handed. Why was he empty handed?!
"Hey brat! Elizabeth. Where's her body?"
Floch shivered at his icy gaze, cringing and trembling even more than when they were under the bombardment of the Beast Titan.
"It's gone, Sir."
"What?" Levi's voice was low and terrifying, and with his gaze fixed on the young man as if to destroy him only with his eyes, he did not notice what was happening around him.
"Liz ..." Hange murmured aloud, but she broke with tears as she brought her hands to her mouth. Upon hearing her nickname, Levi turned to the new Commander and then in the direction of her gaze, from the opposite side.
"Hey… I guess it's not me who you've been waiting for. Right?"
Elizabeth. Her voice, her perfume, her essence. He thought he was starting to live again by just seeing her. She had used the maneuvering device to get up there, she was covered in blood and with her cloak used as a makeshift bandage for some wound; weak but alive.
It was really her, he wasn't dreaming it. So why couldn't he believe it?
His heart began to beat even faster, perhaps to just start beating again, and he walked towards her regardless of everything else.
Elizabeth smiled at him and he felt at home again.
He took her in her arms and kissed her, hugging her tightly against him as if he feared she might disappear. But no, it was all true. She was there with him. It was just a misunderstanding.
It was the first time he had allowed himself such a thing on his own initiative, both other times she had been the one to involve him, but this time everything had lost meaning for him.
Everything could go to hell!
"Aww."
Sasha's voice brought them back to reality, making them detach, but Levi still held her tightly in his arms as they both turned to the young woman who, evidently, had awakened.
"Did I ruin the moment?"
Levi looked at her for a few moments, then back to the woman in his arms. "No, you haven't ruined anything."
Elizabeth held his gaze before raising her hand and pulling herself against the Captain again, bringing their lips together again, a little more softly this time.
"I think it's not so secret anymore." she murmured as oxygen became essential and they were forced to separate.
"I think it too." he conceded without stopping to look at her.
Hange advanced until she reached her.
"Never dare to do such a thing again! And this time I order you!"
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow, barely giggling.
"I didn't respect his authority when I was just a recruit, do you think I respect yours now?"
Hange laughed and opened her arms to welcome Elizabeth in a hug.
"Come here!"
Now Levi could keep that promise.
"Is it possible that after four years you still haven't learned not to overdo it?" Levi asked when the two broke away, mentioning the wounds she had, as well as a probable concussion when he noticed the blood on her head. Her blond hair was stained with blood, down to her right eye and her abdomen was wrapped in part of her cloak as well as her thigh.
Elizabeth turned to him, raising an eyebrow again and giggling. It was good to be back.
"Is it possible that after four years you still haven't learned how the fuck I work?"
Levi's first thought was to fully understand what had happened.
Elizabeth almost felt guilty but she pointed out that she never specified that she was dying, only that she believed it was appropriate to save Erwin. She certainly could not have known that she would put Levi in those conditions but she was proud to know what he had chosen.
She would have done the same thing.
After a few minutes on the ground to catch her breath she decided it was time to get up, despite the severe pain in her head.
The titans were all on the ground so the battle was over, perhaps while she was unconscious on the ground.
Her leg ached, there was a not too deep blade cut, and then another wound on her abdomen a little deeper and bleeding. Her blood was drying and the adrenaline in her body had completely subsided, making her feel all the sting of her wounds.
With a trembling hand she began to tear the cloak from her shoulders. It was not the best of cleanliness but she would cushion the damage until she got inside the walls.
A loud roar came from Shiganshina District, intriguing her a lot, but she soon returned to focus on her work.
Her head was spinning wildly but she braced herself and she covered the two wounds with two very tight knots and walked towards the Walls.
Towards Levi, towards Hange. Towards her home.