A/N: SPOILER WARNING: I'm sure you've gotten the idea by now, but if you haven't watched the first half of season 4 or read chapter 112 of the manga, reading this will contain spoilers.
This is a short little chapter that touches on the bit of time where Mikasa and Levi aren't together (I know, first time in this whole fic) in the windup for the final events. Hence why it's so short, but otherwise, I felt the time skip was simply too great and we would miss how they each react to some pretty major events.
As always, I'd really love it if you would leave a review or shoutout, no matter how short. It really helps motivate me to keep writing and given we're so close to the end of this story, I could definitely use the motivation to just get it done.
Disclaimer: I do not AOT/SNK or any of the characters used in this fic.
CHAPTER 15: TRUTH AND LIES
They were bound for Shiganshina. "Where it all started," in Eren's words.
At least they would be once Eren finished giving last-minute orders to the Jaegerists. In the meantime, Mikasa and Armin had been left alone in a locked room to stew over all the hurtful and cruel things Eren had said.
"Mikasa, are you–?"
"I'm fine, Armin, and I don't want to talk about it," she snapped, but then added when she saw the hurt look cross his face, "Please. I just need to be alone right now." He looked ready to cry and one of his eyes had already swollen all the way shut, but he nodded and crossed to her opposite side of the room, laying on the bed with his back to her. In the dead silence, Mikasa could hear Armin's quiet sobs muffled against the pillow.
You bitch. You weren't the only one he hurt, she cursed miserably to herself, thinking back to the beating Armin had just taken all because he had stood up for her. Eren wasn't just your best friend. Armin deserves to mourn, too.
Mikasa tilted her head back against the wall and squeezed her eyes shut until she saw stars, willing the tears not to come. But even amid the kaleidoscope that pulsated behind her lids with each anxious heartbeat, she couldn't stop seeing the cruel, cold expression on Eren's face as he told—no, ordered—her around. "I said keep your hands on the table." That look in his eyes…there was nothing left of the Eren he loved and admired in them.
His words continued flooding back to her in a tidal wave of taunts. A slave, he had called her. "You only cling to me because of your instincts as an Ackerman."
Had she fought that day—this whole fucking time—only because he ordered her to? Was he right in saying the real Mikasa disappeared in that mountain cabin? That that sad, pathetic nine-year-old girl was the last true version of herself? Though she supposed the more important question was this: how much of what he had said was true?
"Ever since I was a kid… Mikasa, I've always hated you."
She didn't care if the rest of it were true if only that single thing was a lie. Mikasa suddenly felt very weak and allowed her back to slide down the rough-hewn wood until she slumped over her folded legs. Her head was killing her. Was it psychosomatic or was that something else Eren was right about?
It was too overwhelming and Mikasa felt her walls cracking and noticed wet droplets dotting her black pants.
Amid the suffocating darkness that threatened to swallow her, a bleak spot of light needled its way through: Levi. If there was one person in the world who could actually soothe her sorrows, it was Levi. But that hardly mattered because he was nowhere to be found.
The harsh truth was that Eren was gone and Levi was off who-knew-where guarding Zeke. In one fell swoop, it felt as though she had lost the two people who could actually adhere her fractured being together into some semblance of a real, functioning person.
Without them, Mikasa didn't know who she was or why she continued to fight. But still… When the tears were dry and her self-pitying had exhausted itself, she knew she would rise and continue to fight. For Armin, for Hange, for Historia, for Sasha and all the other friends and comrades who had died. For those who still summoned the will to keep fighting. For the faint chance that she would live to see Levi again.
She would fight for herself, no matter who that person was or how much she hated her.
And, if for no other reason than the fact that somewhere along the way, fighting itself had become a reason to continue doing so. A self-propelling mechanism Mikasa didn't have to like to let it govern her and provide a mindless, instinctual sense of purpose.
Eren had at least been right about one thing: In the end, she was an Ackerman and fighting was one thing no one could take away from her.
Levi was going to cut him up, that much he knew for certain. The only thing he wasn't yet sure was when. If he kept bitching about the way he was being treated, it might be in ten minutes.
As Levi stormed away from Zeke, all he could think about was how much he hated that smug bearded bastard, if not for everything else he had done, then now most certainly for whatever shit plan he had twisted Eren's mind into becoming a party to.
I've saved Eren's life again and again. And each time so many of my comrades died. I did it because I believed he was the best hope for humanity's survival. And this...THIS is where that belief has gotten me. It's almost like...one big awful joke.
As much as he pitied himself, he couldn't stop his thoughts from straying to Mikasa. f Eren had really betrayed them, betrayed her, it would crush her, he knew. As strong as she was, Eren had and always would be her fatal weak spot, and that terrified Levi more than anything.
Mikasa.
He missed her so damn much his bones ached. What he wouldn't give to have her in his arms right then and there, to kiss her, to trace her body's scars with his fingers. Not only had she been absent from them a whole fucking month—longer than she had at any point since they started seeing each other—but she was also in who knew what kind of danger now.
And there Levi was, babysitting a bunch of drunk idiots and keeping the man he had sworn an oath to kill alive in the middle of the fucking forest while the only person he truly cared about could be dead, for all he knew.
Levi raked a hand frustratedly through his hair and took a sip of cold tea, though it did little to calm his nerves or stop his skin from crawling.
His cigarettes had run out last week and he was dangerously low on tea now. If that went, there was nothing stopping him from cutting Zeke into pieces to stave off the boredom. He was starting to really wish he hadn't passed on the opportunity to drown some of his ills in that wine they'd offered him before it was gone. That's what I get for trying to be responsible.
Suddenly, the silence was split with a horrifying scream. Something that wasn't quite titan but also wasn't quite… human. Levi dropped the teacup, spilling its precious contents and shattering the cup against the stony forest floor, and sprinted back to where he had left Zeke.
Too late.
The canopy above Levi suddenly exploded in a dazzling display of neon light. The sound of dozens of thunder booms vibrated down Levi's spine and rendered him temporarily stunned. He regained his senses just as a ten-meter titan crashed to the ground at his feet.
That was hardly the most horrifying part, as Levi realized it wasn't alone. All around him, titans were raining down, a storm of devastation and death.