This fic is an offshoot of my canon divergent AU longfic, Who We Are Today, where Bertholdt survives Shiganshina. This fic works perfectly as a stand-alone fic but there is more context if you've read Who We Are Today. It explores both Hange and Bertholdt in-depth in the face of misery and drafts a character study of them. Content warning for explicit gore, torture, dehumanisation, bad mental health, and canon-compliant bigotry.
Three seconds. That is all it takes.
One, light.
There's nothing to see until there is. Layers of red melt into orange, then white — a distorted halo surrounding his body like the air above a fire, until he emits a blinding lightning bolt flash that disorients the nearby scouts zipping through the air. One slams into a building, the rest initiate a maneuver to avoid a similar collision.
Two, sound.
A compressed wave blows out their eardrums, similar to a fast-paced flight up a mountain but magnified tenfold. The shockwave reverberates through their bones, knocks them out of their trajectory, shakes the very foundation the city is built upon, makes every inch of skin tremble long after it has rolled over them. It comes with a thunderous sound so loud, so foreign, so much like immense metal structures grating together that they would wonder if they'd hear again, if only they had the time to think.
Three, heat.
No one is prepared for the intensity. When his figure whites out, it's like standing in front of a furnace even from so far away. When a spherical wave erupts from him, they might as well have pressed their body against its metal shell bare. Even from the deep well they are pushed into and they now tumble down, its force remains beyond imagination.
One moment, Moblit is there to push them away. The next, a wave of fire has already washed over him, leaving not even dust in its wake.
The water below is near its boiling point when their body collides back-first with the surface, but maybe it is exactly that which protects them from burning to ash like the others. Warm water douses all the same. Reflexively, they shoot their anchors up into the stone walls and manage to pull themselves out of the scalding water, coughing and retching to save their mouth and lungs.
Everything around them rumbles, still settling after the shockwave but now supporting the weight of something gargantuan. Stuck in this dark well, they can't see a thing, hot water dripping out of their clothes. Amid the chaos, the intense burning pain in their eye registers and they let go of their handles. Clamping both hands over the broken frame of their goggles, they crash against the wall, remaining held up by their hips, and finally, they scream.
Three seconds is all it takes for the world to be taken from them.
They're too far away to act in time.
It's their own fault for leaving before the coast was clear. How long have they known Eren for? This could've been prevented, like so many things today, they think as they stand frozen in place, watching with helplessness as Levi, desperate tears in his eyes and face contorted into a raw grimace, tries to pull the evaporating liquid up into the syringe but only tracks dust, before he finally, after minutes of fumbling, falls into a resigned stillness they know is the calm before his storm.
Eren has already raked his hand in threat, but his defensive stance betrays how afraid he is. Even he knows he has crossed a line and Hange has conducted enough tests to know that he can't transform again.
Levi is faster than Eren is, punching him so hard that teeth fly. Mikasa has no regard for Armin's injuries when she throws him aside and rushes over, and only then does Hange take action, tackling her before she can intervene.
Mikasa lets Hange keep her back, her hand covering her mouth as she processes what just happened, what they just lost. Eren will heal, but he is the only one who is so lucky today.
"It's your own fault, you should've given it to Armin!" Eren shouts before a strong kick dislodges his jaw and sends him into the dirt. No one steps in, every bystander too shocked to even pull Armin out of the dirt that's getting into his wounds.
Something stirs in the corner of their eyes, and Hange lets go of Mikasa, who stays.
"Wait, Levi–"
"Stay out of this," he growls back, but Hange clutches him by the arm and gets a feral glare in return as they try to pry him off of a broken Eren.
"Erwin."
He freezes. Then, he looks over his shoulder, to where Erwin lies on the ground in a puddle of blood that has seeped out of his open stomach, torso twitching as he pushes back his head against the terrain.
Dropping Eren to the ground, Levi dashes over to the Commander and falls to his knees next to him. He's mumbling something as he throws an arm overhead, but Hange can't hear it from this distance. Then, the life drains from his eyes.
The two of them stay with Erwin for a long time, even after the youngsters have snapped out of their daze and wisened up enough to pick Armin off the dirty ground and return to rinsing and tending his wounds, even after Eren has healed enough to regain consciousness, even after everyone has decided to take refuge closer to Wall Maria to keep Armin's blisters out of the sun.
When Levi is reluctantly ready, they carry Erwin's body inside, to a building where he can be placed in a bed and get a soft temporary resting place.
Levi needs more time and space than anyone can grant him. Back outside, it's just them and the dead body of the titan shifter who evaded the Survey Corps' grasp by the skin of his teeth.
Levi hasn't explained it all, but the injuries to Bertholdt's mangled body do the talking. Only he had the means to chase him through the city after the Armoured Titan, the Beast Titan, and their quadruple carrier titan got driven out and Bertholdt tried to escape over Wall Maria to chase the comrades that abandoned him in the hopes that they'd come back. Somewhere along the line, Levi successfully struck him with his 3DMG's anchor, fracturing his spine and ripping out his heart and lungs, leaving nothing but a cavity in their place. He fell to his death, breaking the right side of his body on the ground, which left most of his surface soaked in blood.
Much too swift. Ideally, he'd have long been taken apart and put back together before he got to live the horror of being crushed between the jaws of a titan. Ideally, he'd get even a fraction of what his helpless victims lived through reflected back at him. Ideally, they'd have time, knowledge, and luck on their side.
There is a presence behind them. They look over their shoulder, hands ready to grab their blades in case the other titan shifters came back for their friend, but instead find the only surviving new recruit standing behind them. Floch Forster, they think his name was.
His presence now noticed, Floch licks his lips, then steps closer.
"Is he really dead?" he asks and stops next to Hange, visibly taken aback by the sight of the gore in front of him. Cushy Garrison boys don't come into contact with these types of injuries.
"He doesn't have a heart or lungs and there is no steam. We lost him."
He doesn't seem so convinced, the way he has his eyebrows raised, but it could also be disgust. The stench of rot has set in and in the sun, flies are gathering to get their share of decomposing flesh. It's not the tamest sight in the world.
Floch has just survived the death of all of his friends. Seeing this corpse so up close could be deepening the trenches that he's digging in his mind to deal with what he has lived through. He may have been naive in thinking he'd be safe in the Survey Corps, but that doesn't mean the price to pay for that should be this steep. All the others before his generation simply got hazed, why should it be different for him?
He dedicated his heart to the Survey Corps and when push came to shove fought for Erwin's revival. Vengeful as his intentions may have been for that, it also was the only right choice. Now, he seeks the company of the people who have lost rather than staying with those who don't seem to understand they are in the process of losing.
He should've stayed home. They all should've. The new blood wouldn't have made the difference. Now look at what blood on their hands Hange has inherited.
"Floch, I need you to do something."
Floch looks Hange's way, puzzled.
"We will need horses to return. Do you know if any survived?"
"Right, right…" Floch whispers to himself. "We left behind the ones with supplies and the spare horses."
"Can you go see if there are any that are still around and tie them down somewhere they have access to water and grass?"
It's a request made to help him busy himself and anchor his mind through a traumatic event. That doesn't make him any more considerate when he balls his fists, and then turns around.
"Why don't you ask the people who did this?" he hisses before he storms off, and Hange can only sigh.
It's not Floch's fault. It's not anyone's fault but Eren's.
Anyone but Eren and Bertholdt's.
They look deep into those lifeless eyes in front of them, miraculously still implanted within Bertholdt's skull and long dried to the air despite his brain laying well-exposed out of a splintered skull. He barely looks human anymore. Haemorrhaged from the fall, those eyes are entirely red, almost black. Like a devil's pair of snake eyes, mocking them for how he took the Colossal Titan with him and left them with nothing.
They want to study everything about him, but nothing they say or do can justify harvesting this body and taking back the remains. Not when they have wounded. Not when they need to leave behind even their beloved.
Now he is fated to become detritus. Fertiliser for the weeds and the worms. Animals will fight over his flesh and leave him a forgotten pile of rot and bones, not even offered any final rites or a grave to be remembered by. Nothing that acknowledges him as once human, once something more than the Colossal Titan which the people of the walls will never forgive and never forget.
As far as death goes, maybe this is one of the most fitting fates he could've been dealt after all.
There's nothing else they can do to help the other scouts, so instead, they take care of the worst of their burns and do what little can be done about their emptied eye socket in the field before they make their way through a levelled Shiganshina to search for survivors.
The youngsters know how to take care of such wounds, but it doesn't really matter. Hange has seen burns like Armin's before, after the Colossal Titan's transformation back on Wall Rose. Three scouts had been peeking over the wall when its body fell. Two of them held on for half a day before they died, but not without their fair share of screaming and begging for relief. The third died a week later in the infirmary from infected wounds. It's no death they would ever wish upon anyone. No one had been brave enough to put them out of their misery when they were suffering.
But fine. If Eren wants Armin alive, then he can put his friend through hell instead of giving him a swift death. He can taste what his arrogance has bought him.
A groan sounds to their right and they stop in their tracks. Nearby a ruined house there lies a scout who got caught in the blast but who was far enough to be spared from evaporation, covered in debris. He has reacted to Hange padding through the unsteady remains of the city.
They dash over but only find a gruesome sight when the debris has been removed. His leather jacket has turned to ash and his shirt has been burned off, leaving red flaky skin in its wake, dried in most places. His legs are less lucky. The blast has seemingly melted the fabric of his pants into his skin, leading to a bloody patchwork that cannot be separated again without also stripping him of his skin. Not even the hair remains on his head, his nose and ears scorched away entirely alongside one of his eyes.
"Please… Squad Leader…" he groans.
The voice reveals his identity. Dennis Steyer.
They kneel. No patch of skin remains untouched by burns, no place where they can offer him one final human touch to comfort him. Still, they place their hand on his chest and are met with a panicked gurgle when the wet skin sticks to their palm.
Nothing they do will save him anymore. They refuse to allow this.
Standing, they take out a blade. One swift slash across the throat and yet another good scout is on his way out. It is not a worthy death, nor is it one any of them deserve after dedicating their hearts to such a noble cause, but neither is slowly succumbing to harrowing burns.
There is no virtue in suffering.
It's the only thing they can do anymore for their colleagues. For their new subordinates, who now all suffer and die under their command.
They wait around until all movement has ceased before they move on. The other survivors they find are in the same shape, branded by their gear and burnt too badly to feasibly make it, and it's no difficult decision what they have to do with them.
When they finally make it back to the wall, Armin is crying out the same terror as the dozen they have just relieved of their anguish while his friends fruitlessly try to calm him down. The youngsters can't decide whether they should keep the tight, blood-soaked bandaging on to keep his wounds dry and compressed or if they should cool him down with water.
Hange does not guide them in their choice. He's in only a slightly better state than those survivors and they give him three days before it's over. Burns of this calibre won't take him out, but the infection and the pain without a doubt will.
It's torturous for Hange's blades to remain sheathed, but with pity for the poor fucking soul, they decide that Armin's death will be more educative if it's slow rather than swift.
Eren can have his wish. He can learn the hard way.
Everyone is ready to travel down to the Yeager household's basement and find what secrets hide inside, but it takes Eren until Armin finally passes out from pain to let himself be pried away from his side and accept there is nothing more he can do that the care and watch Jean and Connie won't provide in their absence.
Underground lies an entire world, unfathomable from just text descriptions alone. There truly are others out there, and from the sound of it, they far outnumber the people of the walls.
They will not let the world stomp them out because they are inconvenient.
They will not let Marley destroy them.
They will not let their losses be their defeat.
They are Eldians.
They are Paradis.
They are proud.
And they're not sure how long they will keep quiet every voice in their head that screams that they are living their final days.
Shouts echo through the city, carrying far and wide bounding off the empty city. Jean screams like his life depends on it and when he catches the others' attention, he directs them back to the river, to where Erwin lost his life and where they left Bertholdt's body behind.
Jean is taken aback, rambling on as they fly through the city too fast for him to be comprehensible. When Hange can get him to slow down and return to the ground, he stops dead in his tracks as soon as his boots make contact with the overgrown stone pathway, turning their way with a grim expression.
"He moved. His eyes followed me, he was talking to me, he's not dead."
Hange does not immediately process his words, but they're up in the air again soaring toward that river by the time they do, paying no mind to the others who left their post as they delay in their response and engage Jean to figure out what's going on. That's not where Hange's priorities lie.
A well-aimed upward swing throws them straight towards Bertholdt's supposed corpse once they reach the end of the rows of houses, but with all the blackened blood that coats him, it's hard to make out the details until they land right in front of him, blades drawn.
What immediately catches the eye is the skin that lies beneath Bertholdt's bloodied shirt, pale and clean against the harsh reds that have stained the textile. This is not the cavity that was there when they last left him off hours ago, and it's only now that Hange condemns themselves for not sticking a cautionary blade through his chest to avoid this kind of risk.
Jean took the precautions to cut off his arms before warning the others. One, the closest to the ground, is still attached by a muscle and the thought occurs whether that's enough for the bone to reconnect should he try to heal. There's no steam, so he's not healing, but there clearly was a time, very recently, when he was.
A twitch has them jumping backwards. Jean was right, he is indeed back, somehow. If he hadn't gone for a walk to clear his head, this could've ended in catastrophe.
There's no rhythm to the twitching. Though crusty red residue coats his face, the structure of his face has returned to a more human shape and his sclerae have whitened out again, shivering as they stare up at nothing.
Kneeling in front of him, they push their thumb deep into the skin above where his collarbones meet, and find no pulse. None in his carotid artery either. The amount of blood that has pooled on the ground beneath his shoulders is the likely culprit. His chest doesn't move. Placing their hand before his mouth, there's no sign of exhalation, and waving it in front of his eyes yields no reaction.
Somehow, he bounced back from the dead even without a heart or functional lungs.
This sets a dangerous precedent for any future titan shifter they may fight and teaches them a lot about a shifter's natural limits.
Footsteps sound behind them, panicked, and they stand again, whipping their head around.
"Levi, I need–"
Approaching is Jean, running as fast as he can with his blades drawn and Connie and Mikasa a little behind him but no sign of Levi. Looking up at the wall, they see the silhouette of Levi standing atop it, harshly outlined against the bright sky as he surveys the situation from high up without interfering.
It's not like him to ignore a call for help from his comrades.
Jean stops dead in his tracks a few paces away, panting, looking down on a now unmoving Bertholdt with a grim expression.
"No, I… I swear that he…" he trails off.
"I saw," Hange reassures him, shaking their head. "He was moving, but he's gone now. He bled out."
Jean's eyes widen. His teeth grind together and he sheaths his blades, staring at Bertholdt's once again lifeless body with desperate eyes.
"No… No, come on… Come ON!" he shouts, throwing his hands back in frustration before turning around, grasping his head. "How could I be so STUPID? I'm the reason we lost Reiner, and now Bertholdt too? What's wrong with me?" he shakily laments under the pitied looks of Connie and Mikasa.
Hange lays an intervening hand on his shoulder and feels him freeze.
"You did the right thing. What if he was capable of transformation and he did it while you came to get us? I prefer him dead over creating another one of those explosions and taking the rest of us out. You thought quickly and did what was safest, which is all that matters anymore at this point."
Jean doesn't turn around, keeping his head bowed forward. "But… We could've asked him so many things about what's in those books. We could've taken his titan."
It's true that Bertholdt's death is a good thing only in the short term and it jeopardises their future, but now's not the time to let personal insecurities blind them.
"What did he tell you?" Hange diverts.
"Huh?"
"You said he spoke to you."
"Oh…" Jean blinks a few times, frowning as he averts his eyes. "It was more like these, um, groans. It was hard to understand. But… I think he was asking for help."
Hange hums under their nod. Not much they can do with that, but it was worth the shot. They need to be stern if they want to nurture their new underlings.
"Safety takes the highest priority right now. We need to get this information back to the city, no matter what it takes. And honestly…"
They let go, turning back Bertholdt's way. He still hasn't started steaming again, but they know better now than to let what their eye tells them deceive them.
"There is no safe way to restrain him and take him back. Not alive. We don't know what he's capable of, especially after he did something none of us could've seen coming."
"But if he came back once, that means he'll do it again. Right?" Connie raises, having stepped closer to look down at Bertholdt as well with serious eyes.
"That's my current concern," Hange sighs. "The plan was to leave him behind. If he can apparently regenerate from the dead… No, we have to assume that he will be back again. There's no way we can leave him here now that we know."
"What about the nape? If he keeps healing from all other injuries like they're nothing, then he's like every other regular titan and his nape is his weak spot. Shouldn't he… you know, die from that?" Jean suggests, a hike in his voice revealing his emotions about the matter.
Hange shakes their head. "He might. The fact that we don't know means we can't assume he will. We have no choice but to take him with us."
"That'll be dangerous," Connie points out the obvious.
"What do you suggest we do, Commander?" Jean asks.
The question sends shivers deep into Hange's stomach and they want to retch. They grind their jaw from one side to the other to subdue the feeling of nausea and focus on the problem ahead.
"We prepare him for transport back home. It's our only option."
Levi finally joins them halfway through devising a method to keep Bertholdt under tight lock. Hange sends the youngsters away to go fetch the necessary gear, and under the silence that reigns between them, Hange can only stare at that one muscle fibre that still connects Bertholdt's left arm to the rest of his body. When they kneel and hold their hand over it, eventually it gets damp. He's healing, but only at a slow pace, and they swear that that muscle has gotten thicker since they found Bertholdt.
The ghost of an urge to yell at Moblit to note that down immediately douses their spirit in cold water and they pull back, standing again with a sigh that doesn't go unnoticed by Levi but that doesn't get commented on.
They're both thinking it. They both know that they may have gotten their hands on one of the people who have done this to them. Maybe it's not the one who's at the root of it all, but it's enough.
It will never give them back what they have lost.
Hange loses their cool and turns, kicking Bertholdt in the chest hard. He lands on his back, staring straight up at the sky. The thin muscle fibre that connects his arm with his body snaps in the movement and his arm tumbles to the ground from the force of the kick before coming to a definitive halt.
They're panting, hands balled up in fists before they can even process what they've done. Levi doesn't judge. He'd do the same.
After losing Erwin, the duty to do this has fallen on their shoulders.
There's no guarantee that he will come back a second time, but they have to assume it. The steam has to mean something. There is no room for error.
They cannot waste this opportunity.
He's theirs.