Disclaimer: I don't own Attack on Titan, Devil May Cry, or any of its characters...
*SLASH!*
Mikasa took a deep breath as she landed on the ground, killing another titan along the way. She had ended up as the last living member of her squad, with everybody else becoming nothing more than titan food. Since she was left all alone, she was on her way to regroup at the HQ with other soldiers who ended up being the sole survivors.
Right now, she just saved a mother and her daughter from a fast-moving abnormal as she turned around to face them.
"Thank you, miss!" The little girl look up at her in amazement.
"Me and my daughter are safe thanks to you." The mother said, with some tears falling from her eyes. "I'm very grateful."
Mikasa saluted them before turning her back, about to take off once again. "Both of you should hurry and follow the other civilians evacuating this town while there are no titans. I will try to look out for more and handle them to give you time." she told them and the mother nodded, grabbing her daughter's hand before they ran off.
However, the little girl couldn't take her eyes off her hero who just saved her. She… suddenly had the desire to be like her someday… a hero.
Mikasa took off and immediately, her eyes darted towards her own gear. "I said that, but… I'm not sure if I even have enough gas to kill even a few titans… I better get to HQ fast and replenish my supply." she thought, traversing through the roof before she heard the sound of a bell, causing her to quickly land and listen carefully to its sound. "That's… That's the bell signalling for a full evacuation…! Everybody is going to pull out… however…" she looked at her own gear once more. "It'd be suicide if I follow through and leave… if I'm not sure that I have enough gas." While narrowing her eyes, Mikasa continued her journey to the HQ in order to replenish her supply.
Inside the military HQ however, things weren't in a good light for the cadets who were there. Some of them were grouped together, using tables that were turned over to hide themselves from the titans that swarmed the HQ from outside.
"That's it…"
"We're done for…"
"Help… us…"
All signs of hope were truly gone for those who were stuck inside, that one of the male cadets there smiled when he had gotten a pistol from the armory, only to use it to shoot himself by placing the gun in his mouth and firing.
When she landed on the rooftop of a building that was slightly taller than the other normal ones, Mikasa was able to get a clear view of the HQ all the way from there. But what got her attention first was a group of cadets like her all gathered on two rooftops, sitting around as if they were waiting for their own deaths.
"What's going on? They must have heard the bell too just now…" she thought in confusion. "Why aren't they heading for the wall…?!" She didn't know why the cadets weren't making a move or anything, until she saw the titans that swarmed around the HQ. "I see… they're planning to do the same as what I have in mind…!" Firing her gear, she headed for the rooftop where her comrades were all situated so she could regroup with them.
Things were not going well for the cadets indeed. None of them could do anything but stand and watch the titans that surrounded the HQ, which most likely trapped everyone inside. "Damn this! What do we do?!" Connie complained, as he couldn't bear to stand around and do nothing. He didn't want the same incident from earlier to happen again.
"There isn't anything to do…" Jean said with a pained smile. "The order to evacuate this town finally came… but we're unable to climb the wall since we're out of gas… I guess we're all dead… thanks to those cowards!" He looked at the HQ. "I can understand their feelings, though… they lost the will to fight… but they shouldn't have abandoned their supply mission and holed up in HQ! The titans are gathering, so we can't get over there to replenish our gas!"
"That settles it, then!" exclaimed Connie. "The only thing we can do is risk it all to kill the swarming titans over there! The results will be the same if we just sit around! The titans will be all over us here, too! Especially if one of those armored bastards show up again…" he trailed off while gritting his teeth and Jean raised an eyebrow upon hearing what he said, before he simply thought that Connie was talking about the Armored Titan. "And if we keep trying to pointlessly escape, it'll just waste the last little bit of gas that we have! Once our mobility is totally gone, only then will it be all over!"
"You're using your head for once, Connie…" Jean said, before looking at everyone else around them. "But do you really think we can take them on with this many troops? Most of the vanguard has been wiped out… you're not in good condition, Armin's been sulking ever since he regrouped with us, and Krista's moping around for who-knows-why. Who among us in the Training Corps can take command of a desperate operation like that?"
Connie wanted to say "Eren" since he knew that he wasn't truly helping with the elite Garrison troops, but he knew that that wouldn't make a difference… especially with what happened earlier… yeah, what a waste…
"Well… I guess that doesn't matter, since even with a leader, we wouldn't be able to do anything against the titans… I bet there are 3 to 4-meter titans in the supply room too. Obviously, it'd be impossible to even move around in those conditions."
Connie couldn't say anything as a response, silenced by those words as he could only think of that scenario in his mind. "No way… you really think…?" he finally muttered out, only for Jean to cut him of with a deep sigh.
"It was a boring life." He mumbled as he looked down while grabbing his head. "I guess if it's really gonna end like this… I might as well say…"
Sasha immediately cut their depressed mood by walking up to them with a huge smile. "Let's do it, everyone! Come on, on your feet!" Despite her nature, she was still feeling fear deep down inside, but she didn't want to show it. "If everybody's working together, I'm sure we'll make it! I'll take vanguard!"
"E-Everyone…"
Her words alone weren't able to get through her fellow cadets. They felt as if all hope was truly lost for them, and that they'll get eaten by the titans one way or another. Sasha grew a little worried before turning to Armin, who was looking out of it as he plainly stared into the distance with a blank look.
"Armin…" she called out to him softly. "Help me fire everyone up…"
Luckily the blonde boy did, in fact, heard her but all he could do was look up at Sasha and shake his head slowly. Despite him looking completely out of it, he was listening to everything Jean said and further killed any signs of hope for Armin. "I'm sorry…" he muttered sadly. "I'm too weak to even be considered helpful… maybe it's best for me to just sit here and wait for the titans to eat me…" Sasha grew worried and began comforting the poor teen, all while Reiner was keeping an eye on them both from a distance.
"Reiner… what should we do?" Annie asked as she stood beside Reiner, Bertholdt, and Marco.
"We wait… at least until they gather 'round," The big man responded with a little smile.
"There's no way… no matter how you look at it…" Marco said with widened eyes. "We can't get out of town and we'll be exterminated…"
The sound of someone landing on the rooftop made them all turn their heads to see who it was. "Annie!" Mikasa called out, walking up to the blonde girl who looked confused.
"Mikasa? Why are you here? You haven't scaled the wall yet?" Annie asked, only for the raven-haired girl to glance once again at her gear before shaking her head sadly.
"I… I'm not sure if I have enough gas left for that… I came to head back to the HQ and replenish my supply but… that seems too far off now…" Mikasa said, taking note of how the military HQ had titans all over it while Annie only shrugged, not knowing how to feel about that. It was then that she suddenly remembered something. Something important. She couldn't find him anywhere, so maybe he was able to evacuate with the civilians but just to be sure… since… she didn't want to assume the worst happened.
"By any chance, have… have you seen Eren around?" she asked, and Annie raised an eyebrow.
"Yeager? Why would he be here? Wasn't he with the rear-guard, protecting the civilians while they evacuate?"
"He… He wasn't…" Mikasa explained, shaking her head again. "One of the soldiers did tell him that he was assigned to the rear guard, but… he ran off since he wanted to fight the titans himself…" She remembered how he gave her a small hug before leaving, and she couldn't get her mind off it afterwards… thinking that it was probably the first and last time that it would happen. "So… have you seen him somewhere?" she had a slightly hopeful tone in her voice.
"No, we haven't seen him anywhere…" It was Reiner who answered her question, while furrowing his eyebrows slightly. "But speaking of Eren, Armin is there…" He pointed to the blonde teen sitting while hugging his knees. "Maybe he can answer your question."
"O…Okay… Thank you." She turned towards Armin for a moment before looking back at Reiner and Annie, bowing her head as a sign of gratitude.
While Mikasa was conversing with Reiner about Eren, they were unaware that Armin's hopeless eyes suddenly lit up at the mention of his white-haired friend. Upon hearing his name, nearly all thoughts of his low self-esteem and being useless in the face of danger left his mind, as he went back to what he found out earlier when… Eren… revealed… what he really was. Sure, he may not be a human but… his mind went back to how he was saved… saved by a demon like him. And with ease! When he asked Eren for an answer on why he did that, his friend gave him an answer that only the 'Eren' that Armin knew would be able to give.
As much as it was crazy… Eren might just be their only hope to kill those titans at the HQ. But first of all, where was he?
"I GOT IT!" He screamed out loud, getting the attention of everyone there, and Mikasa stopped in her tracks. Armin's outburst surprised her all of a sudden and not only her, Jean was also caught off guard with him. Probably because Armin has been silent ever since he joined them here.
"What exactly did you find out, Armin? I sure hope it has something to do with getting into the HQ without getting mauled by multiple titans…" Jean asked with his face resting on his hand, since he didn't want to hear anything right now that didn't have anything to do with solving their titan problem.
"It is!" Armin cried out again, causing Jean to slightly widen his eyes as he straightened his posture, now paying full attention to the blonde boy and listen to what he had in mind. The other cadets also paid close attention, while Mikasa took a few steps closer to him. "Eren can do it!" he told all of them as if it was a known fact.
"Eren…?" Jean blinked for a few seconds before sending a look towards Armin that meant he didn't really buy that plan of his. He could almost treat it like it was a bad joke. "No offense, but… while we know he's the best of us, I admit… I don't think even Eren can handle that many titans…" he pointed to the number of titans surrounding the HQ, possibly about six to eight. "And besides, hasn't he already left this place? He's fighting with the rear guard, right?"
"No, you don't understand." Armin told him, quickly shaking his head. "Eren… I think he can really do it! I… I saw him being able to kill multiple titans all at once earlier!" That was a lie… somehow. He thought back to how he saw Eren slaying multiple scarecrows, as he called them, before killing a titan with ease. Plus, there was also that strange ability of his that allows him to teleport to where he wanted, which he first showed after Thomas died. Of course, he couldn't just say that Eren was a demon all along, so… he had to change some of it so that everyone can understand what he wanted to point out. "A-Anyway, I know he's not with the rear guard…! He was —!"
Mikasa cut him off by placing a hand on his shoulder. "Does this mean you've seen him, Armin?" she asked with hope in her eyes, only to lose it when the blonde teen looked down. She didn't need more than that to know that Armin had no idea where he was.
"But… he must be here somewhere!" Armin quickly said just to prevent that one ray of hope from dying. "He hasn't scaled the wall yet, we still have hope!" His words seemed to have gotten through with some of his fellow cadets as they began looking at one another and nodded. There may be some hope left for them indeed, until somebody ultimately killed that feeling with his words.
"Armin, forget it!" Getting everyone's attention, Connie then looked down on the ground and gritted his teeth. He hated to be the bearer of bad news, but his comrades will just be hoping for a lost cause if he doesn't say anything. "Eren… Eren can't help us in this… he's… gone…" he muttered with a grim look on his face.
Silence befell the place, and everyone's eyes became wide. All of the cadets there heard him clearly, but now they were even debating whether or not they heard him right. Eren was… gone? Did he mean…? No, no, maybe it was a misunderstanding… after all, he was the best in their class right? Nobody couldn't beat him in any sparring session before and… he even let himself lose against Annie, who was the second best fighter after him. And… in maneuvering too… there was just no way…
"C-Connie… what do you mean by that…?" Armin said with widened eyes, and fear was already evident in his voice. He had a good idea of what Connie meant when he said those words, but… he didn't want to assume or even assume for the worst.
"Eren… he's… he's dead…" Connie kept his head down for a few moments before looking at all of them with an equally devastated expression.
"Dead…?!" Even Jean couldn't believe what he was hearing right now. Were his ears even functioning properly? "Wha… What the hell are talking about, Connie…?! This isn't the time for you to skip to conclusions again! Use your brain and think for a moment! How can Eren get himself killed? We all know he's a reckless bastard, but he ain't idiotic enough to sign his own death warrant…!"
Connie narrowed his eyes at Jean. "I'm not kidding around, and why would I? Even an idiot like me knows that Eren is stronger than all of us… but I can't do anything about it. Neither of us can. He's gone… and… we'll have to accept that fact." He spoke in a serious tone, shutting up Jean in his place.
"D…Did… Did he get… eaten by a titan…?" If Sasha was being enthusiastic and cheerful earlier, that was long gone the moment she heard Connie's first message regarding Eren. She felt as if a part of her was crushed into pieces, but she didn't show it. Sasha simply clutched her chest with her right hand to suppress that pain she was feeling inside… but it did nothing to lessen it.
"No… No, it wasn't like that…" Connie frowned, as he struggled what exactly happened before he regrouped with the others here. "Damn it… why can't I remember it…?" he mumbled to himself, before a sudden detail popped into his mind. "Oh, if you want to know…" he gestured over to the short blonde girl standing near the edge of the roof with a tall brunette beside her. "You can ask Krista… all I remember is I got knocked out cold… then when I woke up, Eren was suddenly there and he wasn't moving… and I had to save her from getting killed by a bastard wearing an armor."
If this wasn't a situation wherein their lives could end at any second, some of them like Reiner, Annie, Jean, and even Mikasa would ask Connie to elaborate more on what he said about a "bastard wearing an armor", but their attention could only be focused on Eren now. It didn't help that Krista turned to them with her eyes full of grief and sadness while Ymir just rolled her eyes, in an attempt to hide how she somewhat felt bad for what happened.
"I…It's true… I'm sorry…!" Krista looked down as she sobbed, doing nothing to stop the tears that were streaming down her face. Wow, who would have thought that they would see the so-called 'goddess' of the 104th crying her eyes out? They normally see her smiling and lending a helping hand to everybody else, but never have they seen her like this. "Eren is… gone… b…because of me…! He… saved me when he didn't need to… I'm… I'm sorry, everyone…! I didn't want him to… to… come and risk his life…!"
Ymir sighed and pulled the sobbing Krista close to her chest, attempting to comfort the grieving girl while everybody else had the same look of shock. Of course, Connie was already grieving so he didn't count. If it was possible, they tried to look and listen to Krista; maybe, just maybe, there was a hint of a lie in her voice, but there wasn't. She was being truthful, the truth hit the other cadets like a storm.
While most of them were speechless and couldn't even make a simple response, their attention was quickly brought to Mikasa, who was shaking her head as she looked down in fear. She seemed to be in denial of what she heard, yet her mind was telling her otherwise.
"No…" she whispered to herself, her voice filled with fear. "This… This can't be… This can't be real… H…He can't be dead…!" She tried to internally deny what she heard, but she couldn't. In fact, she felt a piece of her heart shatter as soon as Krista admitted what happened. Tears were already forming in the corner of her eyes.
The person who was able to make her smile again…
The boy who gave her reasons to live after she lost her family…
That person… that boy… Eren… who was really important to her… especially in her heart… was gone.
That hug he gave her before all this… it was really… the last…
"Mikasa, calm down…!" Armin was the first to do something about the mumbling girl, and thankfully it got her attention. "I know it's sad for all of us, but if Eren's really gone, then we've got no choice but to accept it! We can't do anything about it now… except move on and honor his sacrifice…" He said, with tears in her eyes as well. Like Mikasa, at first he tried to internally deny what he heard from Krista, but not to her extent.
Mikasa looked at him for a few seconds before turning around and quickly running off in a rush, intending to find Eren and prove that he's not really dead.
"Mikasa! Don't…! You'll be noticed by the titans…! They'll come after you…!" Armin called out, before running after her. In all honesty, he was at the least expecting her to become like this after hearing what Krista told them earlier. Throughout the years, he knew that Mikasa was pretty fragile, that it could be considered a miracle that Eren and his mother were able to break through her depression after losing her parents. And he also wasn't dense to not know that she developed an attachment to Eren, although she didn't know how to show it due to her introverted personality. "She doesn't know which street Eren is, exactly… I don't think she even plans on checking everywhere… as long as she sees Eren still in good shape…" he thought sadly.
"Hey! Come back here, you two!" One of the other cadets shouted out to them, as they all stared at Armin and Mikasa taking off with their gears. They didn't know what to do after that. They couldn't move, speak, or even process anything in their minds. Earlier, they had a plan to get to the HQ with Eren's help, but now that particular plan has gone up in smoke.
"Damn you, Eren… you made the girl cry and now she's hopelessly asking for you to come back…" Jean muttered, narrowing his eyes at his two fellow cadets traversing through the rooftops before he saw that some of the titans in the HQ have finally noticed them. "Now it's up to me to clean up this mess you made…"
Jean turned to the rest of them and raised his sword. "Hey! Were we taught to let our fellow soldiers fight alone?!" He shouted out to all of them. "All of you really will make cowards of yourselves! If you can't fight, then you guys aren't soldiers at all! You're just pretending to be one!" Jean said, his mind flashing back to the time when Eren informed him about what a real soldier was.
The top cadets of the 104th were the first to answer back to him, as they slowly picked up the courage needed to raise their swords and prepare their gear.
"Well, who'd have thought?" Reiner said with a smirk, as Annie and Bertholdt looked ahead at the HQ with serious expressions on their faces. Connie and Krista shook off their depressed moods and prepared to fight as well, with Ymir rolling her eyes but doing the same nonetheless.
In a surprising move, Sasha ran past all of them and prepared to fly off, but not before looking back one last time. "H-Hey coward8s! I'm going to fight!" she shouted to all of them with a look of determination, just like how Eren does it, before finally taking off. Like Mikasa, she had the sudden urge earlier to find Eren and prove that he was not dead, but she somehow knew that that wouldn't be what he wanted her to do if he was still alive. She grew up as a natural-born hunter back in her village after all, and a hunter always comes for his prey no matter what.
The rest of the top ten followed after her, leaving the rest of the training corps at the rooftop on their own. "Look at them go…" One of them said, as he raised his sword with a shaking hand. "Damn it… I'm game…"
"YEEAAAHHHH!" The rest of the cadets cried out in unison. With that, they all followed after the top ten as they flew off.
While they could still see Mikasa and Armin flying through the air, the other cadets followed them closely with Jean leading the way. "Hurry! We'll follow them both to get the attention of those few titans after them and head for the direction of HQ!" He said, while taking a quick glance at his fellow trainees behind him. "Don't engage the titans or you'll run out of gas! We have to get to HQ before we crash to the ground or something!"
Connie then moved ahead of Jean, staring at the direction of where Mikasa was headed. "I'm going after them and I'll tell them your plan!" he said in a serious tone.
"Are you mad?! That's exactly why we're luring those three titans away from them!" Jean looked at Connie as if he had lost his mind, if that hasn't happened already. "Mikasa's bound to calm down sooner or later, and Armin's smart enough to figure out on his own that they need to get to HQ!"
"I don't have time to listen to you! I'm going now!" Without another word, Connie changed direction and kept his eye on Mikasa and Armin, while doing his best to get closer to them.
"Tch… what an idiot." Jean scoffed lightly, before continuing on with his plan anyway.
Meanwhile, Armin was doing his best to calm Mikasa down, and he hasn't shown any sign of success so far. Every time he got closer to her, she would make some distance between them just so she could avoid getting stopped. With every attempt Armin made in trying to lessen her grief, she would shake her head violently to deny it and cry out in anguish. It hurt Armin to see her like this, but it was inevitable.
"Mikasa, please…!" He tried once again. "It's not gonna change anything! Just please, calm yourself down and maybe we can still make it out of here alive! Eren wouldn't want you to come find him as a corpse!"
She couldn't cover her ears since she was focused on finding Eren, or maybe whatever's left of him. Yeah, that last part from Armin almost made her want to stop and break down, but her heart told her otherwise. Shaking her head, she shook off the growing pain inside of her and continued to search the streets for Eren.
"He's alive… I know he is…! He… He promised he will come back! He… He promised me! He has to… Please… Please come back, Eren! Y… You promised me…! Right…?" she thought internally, becoming more desperate to find the white-haired teen as she used more of her gas to go faster.
Armin's eyes widened when Mikasa began to fly a lot faster. "Oh no, she's burning up too much gas! Why won't she calm down? At this rate, she's going to…" Like what he predicted in his mind, Mikasa's gear started to get faulty just as she was about to fire her hook again, causing her to fall and land on the roof of a market stall.
"I've… ran out of gas…" she said to herself, before realizing what this meant. She failed, that's what happened. She failed to find Eren, and… she failed to see him alive and well. Her tears flowed from her eyes as she rolled over to the ground, keeping her head low to hide her face from the world. "Again… I lost someone important to me again… Eren… he's… really… no…!" She couldn't bear to even think of that horrible thought. "Was it my fault…? I… I let him go here in the first place and…" she trailed off, her tears dripping to the ground just as she felt giant footsteps approaching.
Looking up, a ten-meter titan was on its way towards her, and Mikasa couldn't find it in herself to do anything about it. She didn't even notice that Armin was running through the rooftops to avoid getting seen by the titan as he headed towards her in panic. Mikasa then let her arms fall to her sides in defeat, while thinking of the white-haired teen despite her red, teary eyes.
The titan stopped a few meters from her as it bent down slowly to pick her up. She could only watch, powerless to do anything since she felt that there was no hope left for her now.
"I… I never even… got… to tell him…" she thought, as the titan's hand reached for her. "...that I —"
*WHOPPAK!*
A massive spectral demonic arm then came out of nowhere and punched the titan straight in its jaw, sending it staggering back. Mikasa's eyes slowly widened. What the hell did she just see? Whatever it was… she found it… weird, but… it just saved her. She slowly turned around to see, only to have her eyes widen further.
"From that day forth… my arm changed…" Eren growled out, his voice sounding more like a real demon as he gripped Yamato tightly in his right hand. "And a voice echoed, 'Power… give me more power! I need power!'" He walked forward, passing by the wide-eyed Mikasa before stopping by the titan he had punched earlier as the spectral demon from behind him let out a roar while his eyes glowed red. "And if I become a demon in their eyes, then so be it." With speed similar to that of his father, he unsheathed Yamato and teleported to the back of the titan's neck, where he sliced through its nape effortlessly before it fell to the ground dead. "I'll endure the exile…" he placed the katana back in its scabbard, before turning his attention to an 15-meter titan. "Anything to protect them!" He walked slowly towards it, as his right arm glowed in resonance with the Yamato.
"Is that…" Mikasa muttered to herself, watching the white-haired teen walking fearlessly towards the titan before him. "...Eren…?"
That's it for this chapter! Not much happened except for that ending, however, I did change a few things from canon. One is that Mikasa reacted immediately after finding out Eren was dead; before you complain, you have to know that I did that in order to emphasize how fragile she is when it comes to her emotions. I mean, in real life, who wouldn't react the same way as her when you find out one of your loved ones was dead?
Another thing is that it was Krista who told them about Eren's death, not Armin. I think it's obvious why. Anyway, next chapter, the Devil Trigger has indeed been pulled and Eren has been let loose! What could this mean for Jean and everyone else?! Will they finally know about Eren's secret? Tune in next chapter!
Goodbye… and good night! BANG! *too sweet gesture*
-Lance
