LAWLESS
Chapter 6. Allies
The ground seemed to sway under the soles of his feet. The table felt unstable beneath his forearms, so Eren grabbed his stein of beer firmly and with a bit of wariness, preventing a possible fall. The golden liquid was barely topped by a thin layer of white foam. It was so faded that the tiny bubbles that used to spark at the contact with the surface had already disappeared.
Sitting in front of him, Mikasa… was smiling? Perhaps she was laughing at him.
"What's so funny?" he asked her, dragging the words and squinting his eyes.
The girl let out a giggle and snatched the glass stein from him with ease. She took advantage and stole a few beer sips.
"Hey!" Eren groaned. His expression similar to the one of a little child to whom someone had just taken his favorite toy. There even was a hint of a pouty mouth.
"You're drunk." Mikasa said as she gave him the drink back with a grimace of repugnance, "It's disgusting and warm."
"Drunk?" Eren felt his tongue sore. He exhaled, making his head go back and then go forward. He pressed his eyelids, feeling the dizziness "Yeah… a bit."
Mikasa seemed blurry, was it because of the excess of smoke? It had to be the smoke. He wasn't that drunk, just a bit tipsy. Eren rubbed his eyes. He was sleepy, his eyelids felt heavy, so he rested his cheek on the palm of his hand for a second. The noise of the place was gradually dampening, until his head fell on the table and it bounced. Eren opened his eyes at once, startled by the sudden voices, laughs and all the yelling that surrounded him. He straightened up immediately into the chair and took a glance around, disoriented and dizzy.
Where the fuck was he and why were they all talking so loud?
There was a beautiful girl sitting in front of him, looking sideways at two men that were speaking to her lively.
He blinked a few times.
Who were these guys and who was that girl?
"You can- us- leave your boyfriend- come- have more fun-" said a dude that was missing half of an ear. What was he talking about?
Eren brought his hands to his head and pressed it. What an annoyance.
That girl was Mikasa, yes. He came with her to drink something, but the two disgusting dudes that were next to her, he didn't know them from anywhere.
"No." Mikasa snapped suddenly, and one of the men dared to caress her chin.
"Don't play the difficult one, beautiful."
Eren's brain started to process what was really going on in an appropriate way, at least for some moments.
"If you put your dirty hands on her again I'll break your damn nose," he threatened the man with what sounded as some sort of babble, trying to stand up. He grabbed the chair and both men laughed at him.
"Eren, sit down," ordered Mikasa and the men laughed at Eren again, calling him pathetic, "I can handle this alone."
The guy who was missing half an ear grabbed her brusquely by the arm to make her stand up and Eren, alarmed, ran around the table as fast as he could to reach them, trying to punch one of them in the face, but he missed him and hit the empty space at the side of the smiling stranger. Some of the people present in that shit-hole den laughed at his failed attempt, though soon the giggles turned into gasps of surprise after hearing a loud crack and a scream of pain.
Mikasa, in a fast move, had entirely twisted the wrist of the man that dared to touch her. The men that seemed to be his friends, astounded, decided to abandon their drinks and surrounded her.
"I don't know how you did it but you're gonna pay for this, bitch," said a fat guy, making his knuckles crack as an intimidation ritual preceding a fight, but a tall man that came from behind ordered him to shut up and to stop calling the attention. He was better dressed than the rest of them.
"She will come with us," he assured with a grotesque smile, showing directly to Mikasa the gun that was hanging from his belt, "If you stop resisting I will not put a bullet hole in your boyfriend," he came closer to her and whispered, "Everything is going to be fine, at most you'll not be able to sit and you're going to hobble for a few days," he grabbed her without any delicacy from the waist.
Eren observed the scene clenching his jaw, without even being able to hear what they just said to Mikasa, whose gaze had turned darker as her face erased any hint of emotion.
"I'll come with you," she said in a loud voice. Before going out of the tavern, she pressed Eren's hand and hissed, calmly: "Stay here, I'll come back for you soon."
Eren shook his head as she went away in company of the five strangers.
"Shit, don't…" he mumbled.
His heart throbbed strongly against his chest. He could barely stay on his feet, but he had to follow her. He had to help her. Damn the moment when he got so drunk. If something happened to Mikasa he would never, ever forgive himself. He wouldn't forgive the rest of the stupid people that have done nothing to stop the group of animals that just took her away either. She was a girl with a bunch of men of doubtful reputation and, however, no one had said nor done anything… He included.
Shit.
People kept smoking and drinking. Some commented on what just happened with a smile as if it was such a small occurrence. Most of the people that was there were men. The only ones that looked concerned and scared because of the situation were the two waitresses and one of them - that had ran to the exit as well - told Eren that she was going to tell the police about it.
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Mikasa Ackerman didn't look worried nor scared in any way though. They guided her to a humid, dirty and bad smelling alley between two buildings, dark as the mouth of a wolf. The light that the street's gas lamps emitted only lit the entrance of the alley, while Mikasa was ordered to walk until the very end of it at gunpoint, where she found herself against a brick wall. There was no exit. She did not even acquired a combat position when the men started to close the distance, laughing between their teeth and talking with luxury of detail about what they were going to do to her. The guy to whom she had broken his wrist in the tavern was asking to be the first one, but the man that had the gun was clearly the leader and everyone else would have their turn after him.
"You know, if you don't oppose resistance everything ends faster," said the armed man once he stopped in front of her.
She had already heard something very similar, about a decade back. She exhaled heavily to clear her mind.
Play the game, she said to herself as she bent down carefully to start unbuttoning his pants.
"Oh, are you one of those girls that take the initiative?" asked the man without hiding his surprise, "You seem to want it, I guess this will be interesti…"
Mikasa had stood up. She was firmly grabbing the handle of the knife she used to carry hidden in her thigh. With it she stabbed the guy that was in front of her in the crotch, as she covered his mouth with the other hand.
"You know, if you don't oppose resistance everything ends faster," she imitated him with a soft but fierce voice.
In the middle of the darkness, she slid the knife out and stabbed him again, this time on the insides of his thighs. She pushed him to the side and stole his gun on the way. The man still didn't scream nor cried because of the shock.
"Who's next?" she asked brusquely. She had blood on the hand where she held the dagger, feeling it warm and slick on her skin.
"Huh? The boss finished so quickly already?"
The echo of a shot overran the small alley and it alarmed the four men. One of them had now a dark and growing stain on his chest. His eyes widened. After a few seconds, he collapsed on his knees as he brought his fingers to the center of his thorax.
At the entrance of the alley, the other three man that were on guard exchanged looks and asked if the boss had gone mad, but then they saw the girl rising up from the shadows completely dressed and grabbing a bloody knife. She also had the smoky fire arm hanging from her waist.
"What the hell?" the one with the broken wrist went backwards, astonished as he stared the young woman's apathetic face and her firm walk.
Mikasa turned the knife on his hand with skill, she moved swiftly and cut the throat of one of the guys that was laying against the wall. The blood ran vigorously from the deep wound and splashed the man that was sitting on the ground, who stood up immediately, uttering a scream.
Eren appeared out of nowhere and threw himself against the yelling guy. They both fell and, as soon as he went up, the young doctor gave him a clumsy head-butt in the nose, which he accompanied with a series of furious punches in the face.
"Eren, stop. Stop it!" Mikasa scolded and grabbed him from behind to make him go away from the guy he was hitting, "You had to wait for me."
The man with the broken wrist, who had been a witness of the scene, took advantage of the distraction the recently arrived provided and ran away, leaving his partner behind. He wasn't able to get too far, though, since he received the hit of the back of a shotgun on his head before he could even turn around a corner.
"Stop there," Jean Kirschtein ordered with certain satisfaction on his voice, pointing the guy with the shotgun and making him lay against the wall of a house.
The suspect, dazed, whined because of the pain and raised both his arms up after a moment.
Jean noticed that one of the guy's hand was hanging in an unusual way. He handcuffed him without any care at all anyways. To him, the motherfucker was damned.
Meanwhile, Annie Leonhardt pointed her shotgun at the second suspect, who was laying on the floor at the beginning of the alley. The guy was crying. He had a broken nose and blood spots all over his face and chest. He was also bruised because of some of the punches that Eren managed to get right.
"How many were they?" asked Annie, throwing a quick and inquisitive look around.
"Five," Mikasa replied. She grabbed the man that was on the ground by the arm and dragged him without any effort to the inside. She made him stand up and put the knife on his hands. She also tore her dress up, messed up her hair and threw the gun to the end of the alley, where the first guy she stabbed should have had already passed out because of the blood loss, "There are two left. Or maybe one," she said, making a vague gesture.
The blonde police officer nodded, inexpressive. "Quick," she muttered.
Mikasa let out a strident yell.
Eren - who had stood up again as fast as he could after he heard her - went back inside of the dark alley and observed everything in complete silence.
"Let the girl go!" Annie ordered the man, even though he was not doing anything else but to bounce his glance between Annie, Mikasa and Eren, absolutely confused and scared.
The stranger let the knife that they put on his hands fall and made a sign of surrender.
"I-I surrender," he babbled, without understanding what was going on.
"Let her go or I'll shoot!"
When Jean was running and about to reach the entrance of the alley, Annie shot the second suspect. It was a clean shot between both eyebrows.
Eren passed by the recently arrived police man, walked some steps away and threw up most of his drunkenness.
"Shit, what happened here?" asked Jean, trying to examine the area. Because of the lack of light, he could only see the corpse of the dude his partner had just shot and another one that had recently gotten his throat cut, "There were three of them?" he doubted, focusing on the deep and clean cut.
Had she done that?
"Five. The other two are back there, at the end" Annie cleared up, putting a hand on the shoulder of a trembling Mikasa.
Annie said she would take care of the declarations of the victim and ordered Jean to quickly come back to the police station, to take the only live suspect and to come back with reinforcements that could help them analyze and, more than anything, help them clean the crime scene.
The young officer did as told, not before looking at Mikasa – who he knew and remembered by the name of Margot – with big concern, while he dedicated a stare of intense disapproval to Eren. He left muttering things only he could understand.
"How was it that you arrived so fast?" the youngest of the Ackerman questioned coldly, fixing her hair up and drying her fake tears with the back of her hand.
Annie put the shotgun down against the closest brick wall and adjusted the silver ring she was almost always bringing with her.
"I was in the middle of a patrol," she said, "Every night there's vigilance in this problematic zone."
"You, just patrolling around here? How convenient," she stretched her dress and wiped off the blood that she still had on her hands, "You've been following me."
The officer held her glare and didn't respond. Her silence was more than enough.
Mikasa opened her mouth to say something else, but Eren came to her mumbling unintelligible things. He had his eyes moist and reddened. The boy surrounded her in a heavy hug and she had to grab him a few minutes after, when he definitely had fallen asleep – or passed out – and was falling down.
"Luck with that," Annie said sarcastically, with a hint of a smile on her lips. She grabbed her shotgun and went in the direction from where she had arrived. She stopped several meters away to wait for the reinforcements, not staring back at the fake couple.
Both girls knew that there was nothing to make up about the declaration, for Annie would edit it to her liking and according to her own experience.
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Eren Jaeger looked upset and fucked up. He had his hair messed up and wet, the clothes untidy and his gaze lost. A white spot went from the edge of his lips to his chin. He was pale.
"Mikasa…?" he talked in a raspy voice, while she shushed him and helped him to sit correctly on the bed.
It was drizzling outside.
Before getting in the room they rented, Eren had returned to his senses and tried to set free, assuring that he would kill 'em all in the middle of a sudden outburst of energy and anger. Mikasa had tried to explain him that they were all already done for, but the boy struggled for some seconds more until she decided to simply carry him to quickly take shelter from the cold and humidity of the outside. It was very late, around five in the morning, and both of them were tired after all the bustle.
The young doctor didn't whine when she cleaned his face with a wet towel and made him drink water.
"I'll change clothes in the bathroom. You can change here. I'll ask if I can come in once I'm ready, okay?" the girl went inside the bathroom with her things even though she didn't obtain a response. "So… are you going to sleep like that?" she asked him minutes later, wearing a long pink camisole and covering her chest with her arms crossed in front of it.
Eren continued in the same position she left him in. At most he had unbuttoned the upper part of his shirt and seemed to have forgotten the rest. He didn't blink. Once she looked at him from a short distance, she realized he had his eyes extremely irritated.
"I'm an asshole," he said out of nowhere, meeting her gaze.
Mikasa sat slowly beside him.
"You aren't"
"Yes, I am. I couldn't do anything because I was-" he pointed himself and let his hands fall on his lap, defeated, "Well, like this."
"You knocked down one of them. You helped me."
Eren squeezed the sheets with his wielded hands. He was still drunk, but he knew she only said that to not make him feel worse. He couldn't avoid the nauseating sensation, not only because of the excess of alcohol that ran through his veins, but also because of his stupidity and uselessness.
"You should take off your shoes and lay down," Mikasa suggested in a kind tone.
"I will puke if I lay down. I'll go to the toilette…"
She stood up to go with him, offering him help with his shoes, but the brown haired boy made a gesture with his hand so she didn't follow him.
"I can go alone."
Once he came back, he clumsily took his shoes off and lied down on the bed. He heard Mikasa warning him about not falling sleep like that - without even covering himself - because he could get a cold. She was already between the blankets of her own bed and seemed to be fighting to not fall asleep so fast.
"Are you fine?" she asked him, with a lazy voice.
"Yeah, I'm better now."
He had threw up for the second time that night and drank lots of water afterwards. He felt like shit because of lots of reasons besides drinking more beer than he should. He sat on the bed and looked at his roommate, who after some moments was already sleeping with such a relaxed face that anyone would think she went through a typical and calm day, as any other.
Eren couldn't remember everything that happened that night. He only knew that Mikasa took care of the dudes that dared to bother her and that she ended committing some murders in the name of self-defense. In the meantime, he had punched one of the guys that seemed to have been just as or more drunk than him.
Wow, he was so ridiculous.
Ackerman or not, Mikasa was a girl, and she had to fight against all these guys alone, while he had been incapacitated to offer actual help to her.
Things could have gone wrong, really wrong. Goosebumps went through his back when he thought about a hurt and sexually assaulted Mikasa.
"Eren," she said, with her eyes closed, and he gave a little bounce in his place, "You have to sleep."
"I can't…"
She opened her eyes slowly and blinked a few times. The only light available in the room was the one given by the little gas lamp on the night table, placed between both beds. Eren was sitting on the edge of his bed and still didn't wear his pajamas nor got in between the blankets.
"If you lay down perhaps you'll feel sleepy sooner."
He looked at her and shrugged, clearing his throat.
"Hey… I know that in general I'd behaved as an imbecile today," he started saying, the tiredness reflected on his voice, "but I'm glad and it relieves me that you're okay after… everything that had happened," he said, raising his gaze up again for it had descended to his lap at some point. He was ashamed.
Mikasa nodded and covered her nose with her blanket. Her sleepy eyes were the only thing he could see.
"If I had been sober, I bet I couldn't have done much either," Eren continued, scratching the back of his head without any gentleness, "I'm still a weakling and worthless… in particular for your standards."
"My standards?" a small smile was kept hidden behind the sheets.
Eren gasped.
"I mean the Ackerman's standards. I guess. I don't know how to explain it. You are extremely strong and versatile," he observed the dim light that the lamp created, "You, specially, are very strong considering your build and, well… for being a girl. I guess the daily workouts must be very tough and exigent..."
"The workouts help, yes," she agreed after a yawn.
How could she act so indifferent? A bunch of bastards tried to abuse her and, just thanks to being an exceptional girl, she kicked their asses and killed almost all of them, but…
"Are you alright?" Eren asked her, "I mean, emotionally fine."
Mikasa settled softly in her bed, feeling pleased by his honest concern, "I am."
He contemplated her for a while, hoping for her to be saying the truth about it. He didn't want to bother her with that subject though, so he decided to come back to the particularity about the Ackermans. "There's something else, right?" he queried.
"Huh? What do you mean?" She let out a yawn.
The image of the man with the cut throat in the alley surged from Eren's mind as if it was a vague old memory.
"I mean that it's not only a thing about training and training, but that there's something else in you, your clan, that makes you stronger than normal."
"Oh, that. Yeah, but I would not know how to explain it, and I'm not going to try to do it now," she replied, tired, "I don't even think there's a logical explanation. Try to sleep, Eren."
"Don't you use some sort of drug?"
Mikasa let out a short giggle.
"Well, in that case… I can say Levi is an addict to tea. He drinks it a couple of times a day, every day."
Eren's lips stretched in a smile and let out a snort with a shake of his head. The movement made him a bit dizzy.
"I'll have to take some samples of that tea once we go back," he turned the light off, changed his clothes and got inside the sheets.
Mikasa had turned around once Eren left the room in the dark. She felt the air a bit heavy. It was a mix between the slight alcohol smell - thanks to the presence of his roommate - and the alteration of her way of breathing. It was the first time she was sleeping in the same room with a boy. Well, she had slept in the same room as Levi and other men before, but it was a completely different experience. Now there was her and Eren all alone. Without Levi, or Kenny, or anyone else.
It seemed that the young doctor had fallen asleep, finally, so she could listen to his encompassed breath. It gave her the impression that he was sleeping right beside her, in the same bed, and the sole thought made her face and body get hotter for a third or fourth time that day. She closed her eyes and tried to think of something else, whatever else, but she was way too nervous and her heart beat so hard that her eardrums rumbled.
She thought she knew what was happening and it embarrassed her. She didn't dare to even give it a name in her mind. She tried to control her breathing, bit by bit, so she could relax.
This damn mission had been qualified as easy and secure, but for Mikasa it was turning into the opposite, and she wasn't even taking into consideration the complicated situations experienced in the past hours, precisely.
"Hey, Mikasa…" Eren had woken up again, or maybe he hadn't fallen asleep as she'd thought.
The girl froze for a while. "What's up?"
"Nothing, it's just I was wondering why you didn't get drunk, when you drank more than me?"
She sighed. At least the question lessened the tension she'd been feeling.
"I don't know, I never get drunk with beer, at least… but you know what? It's already time to sleep. Good night, Eren."
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The darkness, the fog and the drizzle of the morning was good for them. It was not easy at all to get into a private cemetery like that, reserved for the royal family and the closest nobles. Thankfully the poor sight helped them camouflage.
Between big and gorgeous marble statues and a bunch of gravestones, three people dressed almost in drags were wandering on their way to the Royal Mausoleum, which was standing white and elegant in the center of the green graveyard. The zone smelt like roses and wet grass.
The taller and buffed man used a hammer to break with just one hit the lock that secured the mausoleum. He took out the rest of the curvy metal, put it inside a pocket of his pants and opened the heavy door of carved wood.
A feminine voice was heard celebrating once they got inside and were left in complete darkness. The door squealed when they closed it at their backs.
"And then there was light," the woman lit up a little lamp with a smile, as the crystal of her glasses shone.
"We should hurry up," suggested the younger of the two men that were with her.
"Allow me to enjoy this moment, Moblit. I know you would prefer to be drinking right now, but come on!" she raised the small source of light and illuminated the different engravings on the marble walls, "Interesting. Hold this up," she gave him the lamp and took out a little notebook, where she started to scribble, "I'll go with Mike to look for the niche. Stay here on guard for a while and make drafts of the engravings."
Moblit nodded and took out his drawing notebook from a bag, as his partners went further in the shadows of the crypt. He heard the excited voice of Hange flouncing away and let out a wheeze, drawing as fast as he could the curious scenes engraved on the marbled walls.
"Oh, here! It's this one here!" Hange knocked the marble rectangle and ran a finger through the name that was written on it. She read aloud and in a solemn tone: "Frieda Reiss, loved daughter, sister and princess."
Mike got his nose closer to the stone and his nose-tips moved at the same time of his smelling, "I think there's a corpse inside," he said, as he introduced with precision a plain tool between the edges that fixed the stone rectangle in place. Dust fell as he scratched and moved the tool upside down.
"Gypsum?" questioned his partner, rubbing the dust between her index finger and thumb. Her eyes brightened up behind her glasses, "Shouldn't it be sealed with cement?"
Mike hurried the process up. He levered with another tool and started to take the stone out. At least they will not have to use the hammers to break the marble and make lots of noise.
Hange took notes on her notebook, copying everything that Frieda's tombstone said before Mike took it all out and lit up the inside of the niche.
The man pinched his nose. There was a coffin inside the hole. Its wood must had been beautiful at the beginning, even though now it showed up dull and damp. It was decorated with metal that was already rusted in some parts.
"There's definitely a corpse there," confirmed Mike, snorting.
"Moblit, help us," Hange called him.
The three of them took the coffin out as fast as possible and opened it. Moblit gasped when he saw Hange getting way too close to the dead person.
"Is that you, Frieda?" she whispered as she analyzed the corpse in high degree of decomposition.
Wasn't it that they embalmed every member of the Royal family? Were there exceptions in case of suicide? Or wasn't she embalmed because of the reasons they already suspected?
The deceased wore a delicate and high-quality white dress of high collar. The black and long hair rested on her shoulders and reached half of her arms. She had the little hands crossed over her chest and a gold chain was tangled between the phalanges of her fingers.
Hange examined what she could see of her dentition and opened her own mouth in an 'o' shape.
"Bring the fabrics. We take her with us right now."
"We're officially the Legion's body snatchers now," grumbled Moblit in a low voice when he stretched the filthy fabrics on the floor with Mike's help, who was covering his mouth and nose with a wrinkled handkerchief – it was surely his first and last tomb desecration.
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In the Ackerman's lair, a group of men sitting on a table were observing a young girl in a mix of annoyance and admiration. She seemed to have not tasted a bite of food in days. She was on her third ration of lunch and she had already asked almost everyone in the mess hall if they would eat their respective slices of bread. A few had said they wouldn't eat it and gave it to her without a problem, while others gave her half of it or just a bit. Though most of them had refused to give her anything, almost offended by her question.
"This girl will leave us without food by the end of the month," someone commented jokingly.
"Levi had said that we have to give them everything they need for today, especially food," an indifferent Volker explained, drinking what he had left of his apple juice.
"At least the baldy haven't repeated the plate," observed Bernard. He had the hand with which he hit Eren bandaged and immobilized, "Did you notice that sometimes he gives us looks as if he was expecting us to do something to him?"
Volker glanced at both members of the Legion. They accepted them that morning under the pretext that they both needed to strengthen their hand to hand combat. The name of the hungry girl was Sasha Braus, and the close-cropped boy was Connie Springer. Erwin Smith explained to Kenny that Sasha came from a town that survived mostly thanks to the hunting and that she was extremely skilled with the bow and arrow, so she could teach the group the use of that weapon, something that never hurts to know.
"Sasha…" Connie called her in a low voice, a bit tense, "The redhead is staring a lot at us. Perhaps he's angry because you haven't stopped eating."
She helped a bit of bread to pass with a big sip of water and exhaled, pleased, ignoring what Connie just said to her.
"Ah, the food here is delicious. How long ago since we ate grilled meat? I already lost the count."
Connie tugged her from the sleeve of her sweater with his eyes wide open.
"He's coming at us," he whispered, finally getting the attention of his friend.
"Huh, who's coming? The shorty Ackerman?" she asked in a hiss, curving her back forward and letting a piece of bread fall on the plate. She seemed a bit worried and looked at every direction in the dark mess hall.
The shorty one made her nervous, since he didn't have any expression on his face and didn't seem very friendly. In fact, he gave her the impression of being angry and she was scared thinking he was coming to scold her because of her exalted appetite, as many had already done through her life, especially her dad.
However, it was another person that was approaching them. She remembered him as one of the three men that received them among Levi Ackerman in the agreed point of encounter that morning - while her stomach was furiously roaring.
Sasha released the breath she had been holding up without even realizing. She took the piece of bread that had fallen before and put it inside her mouth in a quick movement, before giving Volker a clumsy smile adorned by some bread crumbs.
A/N: hi everyone, it's been ages :x and I hope you're all fine!
I want to thank Nati (aka natiwati) for helping me to correct the grammar mistakes I made when I translated the chapter like, there were even some sentences I couldn't even word properly in English and I was like WTF HALP?! but she managed to give them sense xD thank you so much Nat!
I've had busy months since I live in a new continent and country now, with a language I still don't even manage and all that shit, but I like it. Sadly, in the last few weeks I've barely had access to 24/7 Internet connection and it's been a whole new experience. It hadn't been as terrible as I thought in the beginning, the bad thing is I can't download SnK's episodes to make graphics though :c
Regarding Tumblr, in March I deleted my blog but then I made a new one. You can now find me as kuchenackerman (without the - that I used to have before).
I hope you enjoyed this new chapter with all the eremika moments and the introduction of characters that are already known in the SnK Universe but that were 'unknown' in this story so far ;)
