I wiped a hand over my forehead, grimacing when it came away with a thin sheen of sweat. Wrestling those two MPs so I could tie them up against a tree was harder than I had expected. They had put up a fight, which was commendable.

But stupid.

In the end, I had to give them each a blow to the head with the butt of the rifle, which managed to shut them up for a few minutes. Straightening from tying up the last knot, I grabbed the rifle again and aimed it in their general direction.

"Now, first, I have to call you out on a few things. One: we're not stupid enough to turn ourselves in willingly. Your government is basically trying to rid of our existence. That is the one and only objective this Interior Military Police squad has. It also seems like the way they're going to do that, is by killing us off. Two: we haven't murdered any innocent people. We don't even know what happened in the city but with us already running for our lives, who would want to complicate things further by committing a homicide? And thirdly, it's not Officer Hazura. It's Special Operations Squadron Leader Hazura."

The looks on their faces was enough to have me mentally chuckling. A wave of relief washed over me. With those horrified expressions, there was no way they knew about my life as an MP investigator. Fuji was safe.

"Now to the most important part of this conversation." I leaned down towards them, eyeing their faces.

"Where have you taken Eren and Historia?"

"The-the Titan Shifter? What would we take him for? Only Captain Levi would be able to control that freak, why would we want him?" stuttered out the woman. I frowned and cocked the rifle, now aiming at them.

"You're lying."

"No! We really don't know where he is!"

"How can the Interior Military Police go ahead and basically kidnap Eren Yaeger from the Scouting Regiment without any of you knowing? If anything, you people started this whole goddamn mess."

"The Interior squad have a new captain! We don't know who he is and where he came from, but ever since then, they've been going off on their own for some secret thing." The man finally broke, refusing to meet my eyes.

"Then it looks like the Survey Corps may not be your biggest concern." I pointed out. Their faces fell at the comment. After all, their own department was keeping things from them.

"Anyway, I'll be taking this." I picked both of the fallen rifles and heaved them over my shoulder. "And…these." Nudging my boot against their pockets, several bullets fell out and clinked onto the ground. Quickly scooping them up, I turned to go.

"You're not…killing us?"

I paused at the statement.

"I only kill for self-defence. With you like this, there's no point in spreading more blood. Like I said, we're not killers per-se."

I left them as they were and surprisingly, they didn't call out for help until I was out of earshot. At least, that's what I assumed. Rushing back the rest of the way, I almost tripped into Steve.

"Hey Hazura, I just found a berry bush around here- where the hell did you get those?" he froze, thumb posed over his shoulder and eyes zoomed in onto the rifles on my shoulder. I twisted my body slightly so he could see the weapons properly.

"What, these? I ran into a few friends just then."

"Friends?"

"Of the Interior Military Police." I shrugged and went to store the new additions to our supplies, tossing one of the rifles into the cart.

"You ran into the MP? What happened?" Steve jogged after me, still holding on satchel, probably full of those berries he was talking about.

"I gave them a lecture, took their things and ran."

"You gave them a lecture? They could have killed you!"

"Don't be stupid. I didn't give them a lecture when they were pointing their guns at me. Anyway, enough about that." I whirled around, giving him a look telling him to shut up. "Are Levi and others back yet?"

Steve shook his head. "Not yet. Should we go looking for them?"

I made a face. "Levi's squad knows how to take care of themselves. We hold down a fort, in case anyone comes running back to us here." I glanced at the sun ass it slowly began to move down the sky.. "However, the light is starting to drop. We better start moving somewhere."

"We're moving out."

Steve and I turned to Levi's voice and we spotted the squad emerging from the forest. All seemed relatively calm, except for Jean, who was now sporting a new bruise on his cheek. I smirked.

"Run into some trouble, did you Jean?"

"Intended, sir." He mumbled back, refusing to meet my eye.

"You get into trouble yourself?" Levi tapped the rifle barrel as he walked past me. I had forgotten I was still holding one over my shoulder.

"Not intended but I managed to snag a few pieces." Listening to his previous command, I whistled Streak over and hopped back onto the saddle. The rest of Levi's squad and Steve did the same, quickly getting ready to head out.

"So where are we going?"

"There's a checkpoint a few miles from here and is supposedly guarded the least. Each checkpoint has a commanding Interior MP so we can continue our interrogations from there."

With a flick of his wrist, Levi's horse bolted forward and the rest of us fell into formation behind him.

"The commanding MP probably has the best idea of where Eren and Historia were taken, so we won't waste our time with the others. We want to be in and out as fast as we can, before any reinforcements can arrive. Armin, Conny, Sasha, Jean."

"Yes sir!" the four chorused over the hooves.

"You four will be the distraction and our escape route. Use the horse cart and ram the front gates open so we can make a quick escape if everything decides to go south. Take out all the MPs from the front and then load up what you can. Mikasa and Steve, you'll each come over the fencing from the sides and then make your way in."

"You got it?" I called over my shoulder. Glancing at my team member, he nodded in acknowledgement.

"Hazura, you and I will attack from the back of the complex. That's where the MP is most likely hiding."

Soon, we arrived at a hill top. We all leapt off our horses, tied the ones we weren't using and then prepared for the attack. Peeking over the grass and into the line of the sun, I realised our position gave us the best advantageous spot for figuring out the outline of the checkpoint. Levi must have been here before, otherwise how the hell did he already know what the place looked like?

"Meet back here when you're done with your objectives. Move out." Levi's authoritative voice rung out over me, snapping me back into the present.

"Yes sir." And then Levi's squad split up. I locked eyes with Steve as he ran past me, giving him a reassuring smile. He tapped his fist over his heart twice before disappearing into the shrub.

"Let's go."

With a flick of his head, I followed Levi down to the checkpoint, unsheathing my blades.

Oh, how the tables have turned.