Even more reviews!
But in all seriousness I am so grateful to everyone who takes the time to read the story, whether or not they leave feedback on it. It's a delight and amazing writing this and sharing Natalie's journey with you all. So all I want to say this week is thank you!
As always my lovelies, go ahead and enjoy this chapter and don't forget to toss me a little review, to let me know what you think~ ;)
P.S. All Attack on Titan characters belongs to Isayama Hajime. I only own my OCs.
27. Incandescence
~ 850 ~
"Eren... Hange... everyone..." she gasped, instinctively taking a step forward when all of a sudden it struck her that they might have all died in that blast.
The feeling of Levi taking hold of her arm snapped her out of that daze and she turned to see his ominous scowl as he stared at the district wall looming menacingly over them.
"I'm going with you."
"No, they need you here; I'll go." she argued. "Just stay and look after Erwin. Please... he has to survive this."
"Did she say anything to you?" he narrowed his eyes.
"It's not that; I just... it's just a hunch."
She had no idea whether he would even believe her, but she absolutely didn't want him anywhere near Bertholdt.
"Besides, I can't shift anymore... my body can't take another transformation today." she reassured him, reaching to wipe the bead of sweat trailing his cheek. "So I promise I won't do anything reckless; I'll just go see if I can help in any way. I won't get into another fight. If I have to, I'll just grab Eren and get out of there... I promised you that I wouldn't die, didn't I?"
Unable to refute her argument, despite the bad feeling that kept trying to overtake him, the young Captain nodded. Grabbing her by the back of her neck he pressed his lips to her forehead, for once feeling a pang of actual fear at the thought that he had to let her go without him.
"Come back alive... don't leave me alone." he whispered, at last stepping back from her just as Erwin rode up having caught a moment of respite.
"How is it?" the Commander inquired, his gaze taking in the less than ideal state Natalie was in.
"Sorry, Erwin... I let that piece of shit escape." Levi reported. "But at least I carved him up enough that he won't be transforming again today."
"Good. That's more than I'd hoped for. Natalie—"
"I'll go." the redhead interrupted him, knowing in the way his eyes went towards the district that he needed someone to go assess the situation there. "I'm too tired for a large scale fight right now, so I'd be useless out here. I'll try to meet up with Hange-san and the others, and see if I can help them with Bertholdt."
"...Alright. We'll finish out here and join you as soon as possible."
Her ragged state told him that he should have just ordered her to the sidelines, to give her the time to recover. But with nearly twenty percent of their troops dead or wounded, he couldn't spare anyone else in that moment. And so he watched as she walked off to grab the nearest horse, spurring the beast to a gallop across the plains towards the inner gate.
She had just staggered to a stop at the top of the wall, realizing by how her hands trembled on the hilts that she was truly far too tired for another fight. Even just scaling the wall with the help of the gear had left her heaving for breath. But when she turned her eyes to the district to find more than a quarter of it in flames, she clenched her jaw with a scowl. She couldn't see Reiner anywhere, only Bertholdt making his way slowly towards the inner gate.
'If he finds a way past this wall and starts heading for Trost... then this is all for nothing!' she mused, her eyes frantically searching for anyone on her squad.
She couldn't see Hange or anyone on their squad either, but then all of a sudden Bertholdt stopped for a few moments drawing her eyes to Eren. Next thing she knew, she was staring at him as he rapidly grew larger and closer, until her brain processed he was flying straight at her. It was by sheer luck that she managed to leap aside before he came crashing on top of the wall.
"Eren! Can you hear me? Eren!" she called out, jumping onto his Titan's chest to try and check if he was still conscious. 'It's no use... he's out cold. Still, why is he alone? Don't tell me...'
Had everyone else really died in the explosion?! There was no way... she refused to believe no one else was alive in there. Turning back to face the district, she jerked in surprise at the lone soldier who leapt from amidst the houses making a beeline for them.
"Natalie!" he called out, spotting her.
'Armin...' she sighed in relief; if he was alive then at least a few of the others had to have survived.
"You can still save him!" her twin's voice echoed in her mind, making her reach a hand up to her head just before it changed to Conny's voice. "It didn't matter... Eren still ate him, in the end."
"Natalie...? Are you alright?" the boy inquired, having just landed onto Eren's Titan next to her.
Her gasp and the terrified look in her eyes confused him, when he could swear for a moment that the one looking at him wasn't the Natalie he knew. Just a moment later, he felt her arm wrapping about his waist as she dragged him down onto the wall and away from Eren.
"What... what's going on?" he asked, trying and failing to locate whatever danger she had noticed.
Only after a few seconds did she at last stop to let go of him, looking like she had just come out of a daze, and he worriedly reached for her shoulder.
"Natalie? What is it?"
"What am I... what am I doing?" she gasped, staring at her hands before at last looking up as though she had just realized he was there. "Armin..."
He would have asked again if she was alright, now that she was herself again, but the sound of crushed buildings reminded both of them that Bertholdt was still coming for the wall.
"I have a plan... I know how to defeat Bertholdt!" he reported hastily.
"Is he... am I seeing things, or does he look odd?" she replied, narrowing her eyes as she examined the Titan. "Isn't he... weirdly skinny?"
"Yes, he is thinner!" Armin agreed. "The more steam he emits, the more muscle mass he loses. That's how we'll beat him; we have to get him to expel as much steam as possible. And while we do that, Eren can seal the inner gate."
"What are you thinking?"
"I'll wake Eren up and have him try to get down to the ground without arousing Bertholdt's suspicions. If he thinks Eren's still too injured to put up a fight, he won't go after him so Eren will have time to seal the gate. As for Bertholdt... I'm certain that his bones don't get consumed when he expels steam. If I anchor into the bones, I won't get blown away. The most important thing is that he can't move while he does that, so if I can just buy enough time... maybe he'll lose enough muscle that we'll be able to cut him out of the nape!"
"You can save him... you have to save him..."
What the hell did that even mean? Was she... supposed to not let Armin do that?
"If it wasn't for the Captain choosing to make him a Titan... Armin would have..." she heard Jean's voice in her head and then almost at the same time Conny's, again. "It didn't matter... Eren still ate him!"
"I'll do it..." she spoke up, just a heartbeat after she had at last understood what her twin wanted.
Looking over to the horrorstruck expression on his face, she reached to cover his mouth when he tried to reply.
"I'll do it! There's no point in you dying here. Losing you would be a devastating blow to humanity. Your brilliant mind is why we're here, now; why we even have a plan to take Bertholdt down. Let me do it... I can buy a lot more time, because I can keep healing the damage he'll do. I'll wear him down to the bones, I promise!"
By the time she had removed her hand from his mouth, all Armin could do anymore was to heave a sigh. He knew she was right, that what she said made perfect sense. But how could he ever take responsibility in front of Erwin... in front of Levi... if anything happened to her?
"Please don't make me pull rank on you, Armin." she said, reaching to take hold of his hand and startling him with the soft smile she offered.
'Actually... Commander Erwin put me in charge of the squad... for this operation...' he recalled, unable to bring himself to say it aloud – only able to try and gulp down the knot blocking his throat.
But then he blinked upon suddenly realizing his lips were pressed into her shoulder and that she was embracing him.
"You and Erwin have to survive this!" she said, and her reassuring tone only made him even more certain that she was resolved to die. "Without you, humanity doesn't stand a chance. And if worse comes to worst... you can still have someone eat me to get my power. Do you hear me? If you think I can't be saved, don't let this power go to waste. Have Eren or someone else eat me. Armin... do you understand?"
In the way she heard him trying to hold in his tears, in the way he wrapped his arms around her she got her answer.
"Yes..." he at last replied through clenched teeth, his voice mixed with a sob.
"You've done so well. I'm relying on you to make the right call at the end." she smiled. 'I'm sorry for putting this burden on you, Armin...'
Leaving him to go wake Eren and make sure he got the gate sealed, she turned back to Bertholdt and took a deep breath. She was eerily calm in spite of the tears she could feel trickling down her cheeks.
'I wonder how much dying would hurt...' she pondered.
"It's quicker than falling asleep; don't be afraid."
Strangely it wasn't her twin who had delivered that reassuring whisper, but Kasimir, and it soothed her to know that he was there with her. At the edge of her vision she spotted Eren sitting up with Armin on his shoulder, and looked over just when he tried to stand only to slip off the edge of the wall and fall down in front of the broken gate.
"Eren!" Armin called out, hurrying to try and get down to him.
'At least you're a better actor than Eren...' she mused, her lips twitching towards a smile.
It was when she turned her frown upon Bertholdt that the other shifter seemed to at last realize her intention of fighting him.
'What are you trying to do? A diversion?' he pondered, turning his eyes down to where Armin was struggling to wake Eren up again. 'But Eren doesn't look like he's getting up anytime soon. He probably has a severe concussion and can't even stand right now. I don't know what's going on out there, but all that's left is to get through this wall and destroy the Scouts. Then we can retrieve the Coordinate and go home...'
Seeing the redhead drawing her blades, he blinked – she was really planning to fight him?
'Why? You could come with us... why do you fight for these people who have no future? Enough of this! It would be such a waste for you to die here!'
"Come on!" she goaded him, brandishing the swords.
Her vicious expression told him that she would not change her mind no matter how they tried. All he could do, then, was to end her and hope that the power returned to the Continent where Marley could take control of it again. At that he reached out, his hand breaking the edge of the wall as he tried to grab the woman.
'Very well...' he resolved when his sluggish motions gave her the time to use the gear so she could go airborne and leap up towards his face. 'I'm sure it was you who interfered with our plans. You did well with that brain of yours. But it's time to end it!'
Halting in his stride just as she anchored into his face, she saw the moment his body lit up like the sun and her heart quivered.
"Don't be afraid."
At the last second she braced herself, covering her face with her arms and curling into a ball as much as she could, before the wave of scorching heat struck her like a solid wall. It knocked out the breath she had filled her lungs with, and in its place she drew in the boiling air.
'I can't... breathe...' she panicked for a moment, before recalling why she was doing that. 'No... if he gets past this wall... everyone dies! Erwin... Hannes... Armin and Eren... Levi...'
Opening her eyes as much as she could, she looked down to where Armin was still pretending to try and wake Eren up. She couldn't tell through the air shimmering from the heat whether or not he had sealed the gate yet. Then her gaze turned back to Bertholdt and she could only again praise Armin for his intelligence; her anchors were firmly attached to one of the shifter's teeth without any hint that they would come loose unless she released the triggers.
'They need more time...' she concluded, focusing all of her thoughts on healing the outer layer of skin on her body so as to delay the process as much as possible.
'Why?' Bertholdt frowned. 'I can't blow her away... why won't her anchors come loose? Natalie... is this really how you wanted to go out? Was this the best idea you and Armin could come up with? What did you think you'd achieve by getting scorched to death?'
At that his eyes went down to Eren, who still appeared to be unconscious. And he knew Mikasa and the others had their hands full with Reiner. Clearly she wasn't trying to distract him for some ulterior purpose.
'Is there really nothing else to this? Why, then?' he pondered, his eyes moving back to the woman who was so stubbornly delaying him; and he felt such pity for her, for the horrible way she had chosen to die. 'Very well... I'll try to make it quick.'
"I knew it!" Armin gasped, watching the scene from atop Eren's shoulder as he slowly and quietly worked to seal the gate. "The anchors stay put if they're hooked into his bones. And he can't move while he's emitting steam. But... at this rate... Eren, hurry it up!"
No sooner had he said that, than the light coming from Bertholdt's body blinded him for a moment. By the time his eyes adjusted enough so he could look up again, the air itself had reddened from the heat. Even down there he could feel the current burning his lungs as he breathed, the pressure forcing him to hook into Eren's shoulder to keep himself standing.
Trying to calculate the pace of the crystal building into a solid structure to fill the breach, he turned back to Natalie whose clothes and hair – the last bits of protection her skin had – had burned off leaving her body entirely exposed to the scalding steam.
'No... we won't make it in time!' he realized, much to his horror.
It was agony... the crushing air pressure had forced her out of the fetal position she had curled into, leaving her with no more ways to protect any part of her body. The more she healed, the longer the excruciating pain went on when the skin immediately burned away, peeling off to expose the muscle underneath, only for a new layer to take its place and repeat the process. It was incredible to her that she could still even breathe, when her throat felt raw like an open wound and her lungs were numb.
'I'm sorry... I promised I wouldn't do anything reckless.'
It was all she could think of, trying to fixate on protecting Levi by stalling Bertholdt as long as possible. Because, she feared, if she took her focus off that goal for even a second she would succumb to her mind and body screaming at her to let go, begging for relief. But then she felt her arms going numb and cracked an eye open to find that her body was no longer healing, as the bit of strength she had recovered after the fight, had drained completely.
'I'm sorry... just one more time, forgive me... Levi...' was her last thought before her mind succumbed to the shock and darkness took her.
~ oOo ~
'What... is this? A dream...? That's it... I probably fell asleep in my office and I'm having a nightmare...'
It was all Levi's mind could come up with, as he tried to process what he was seeing. There was simply no way that charred body lying on the roof was Natalie... there was no way... no way...
'It's a nightmare... it has to be... so then... why am I not waking up?'
It felt like someone else was using his body to walk towards her. Someone else was using his ears to hear Armin's sobs echoing amidst the clouds of steam rising from the Colossal's carcass, as he begged her to wake up; someone else was using his eyes to see the boy kneeling over her and Eren standing to the side staring in a mixture of horror and anger. Someone else was using his body to heave the breaths he heard leaving his mouth; someone else's heartbeat was pulsing in his head like it was trying to burst out; someone else's tears were stinging his eyes; someone else's heart had shattered to dust in his chest.
That was it... it had to be someone else... there was no way he was there, staring at Natalie's corpse, no way that was Natalie's body in front of him!
The rest of the Scouts had been unable to climb over the wall due to the air pressure, and with Eren having sealed the gate there had been no way for them to enter the district until after the boy had cut Bertholdt out of his Titan. He had even spotted the Beast Titan's shifter talking to Eren as they climbed over the wall, but he was gone by the time they had reached the rooftop.
Even now, it felt like someone else was thinking those thoughts for him, as he finally made it to her side and collapsed onto his knees.
'You promised... you said you wouldn't do anything reckless. Why did I believe you? Why didn't I come with you?' he pondered, still staring at her as though he couldn't believe what he was seeing.
Several times he opened his mouth without a sound leaving his throat, other than a gasp mixed with an utterly involuntary sob. And yet, he was so frighteningly lucid in all of that.
'Is this... what shock feels like? Is this hell?' he pondered, his vision blurring just when he noticed the droplets that fell onto her scorched face. 'It has to be hell. And you left me alone in the middle of it all... you promised you wouldn't leave me alone... you promised!'
"I don't think I'll ever be able to choose humanity over you."
"I knew..." he at last spoke, barely louder than a whisper, when her words echoed in his memory. "I knew it was a load of shit, the moment you said it. You idiot... I knew you would never be selfish."
The sudden commotion nearby startled everyone and drew his attention to Bertholdt, who seemed to have recovered consciousness and was now screaming for help.
"Gag him!" Erwin ordered, his murderous scowl having already frightened their prisoner into silence.
In that same moment his mind registered the young Ackerman walking past him and he saw the glint of a blade in the Captain's hand.
"Levi!" he called out, just as Hannes and two other soldiers rushed forth to grab him.
For a good while they struggled to hold him back, while his pain and anger at last found release in the vicious snarls and the heart wrenching howls echoing over the deathly silence. But eventually he ran out of strength and fell to his knees, reduced to only hoarse sobs now that his throat was raw from the strain, his tears dripping onto the roof beneath them.
"Levi... I understand..." the Commander said, kneeling in front of him and reaching for the man's shoulder. "But we can't kill him like this. We need to take his power... otherwise Natalie's sacrifice will have been for nothing."
Without a word he reached into his jacket to retrieve the injection case, throwing it into Erwin's grasp. He no longer cared who they used it on, whether or not it worked; all his mind could focus on was that she had left him. Like his mother, like his friends, like Kenny... she had left him all alone in that hellish world.
'Why... did you leave me?'
=0=0=
It was the distant sound of someone screaming that brought her back to awareness; more so the mind numbing pain she could hear in the voice that echoed in her head.
'Who... is that?' she pondered, unable to bring herself to open her eyes.
Only when she all too suddenly realized it was Levi's voice did her eyes fly open with a gasp, leaving her to stare in confusion at the dark void in front of her.
'What... where am I?'
The sound of shuffling fabric startled her and she at last processed that she was lying on her back... and that someone was there with her. Lowering her gaze she spotted the tree of light just a few feet away from her and gasped, but Eren was nowhere to be seen. She had just let her head fall back onto the sand with a relieved sigh, when she once more heard the shuffling of clothes mixed with what sounded like liquid sloshing about. Lifting her head again, she looked over to the young girl emerging from within the humming light, carrying a wooden bucket in her hands.
While the child knelt next to her and poured a bit of water from the bucket onto the sand, Natalie propped herself up onto her elbows to find that her lower half was only exposed, charred muscle.
"Who are you?" she asked, looking back to the girl who was mixing the sand with the water next to her.
Without a word, or even acknowledging that she had heard anything, she gathered the clay in her hands and began smearing it over the redhead's lower stomach. For a bit Natalie fell silent, watching her with curiosity and trying to figure out what was happening.
'Wait... isn't this like... that story I heard?' she blinked, recalling what she had told Levi so long ago at the training grounds; about the girl who made puppets out of sand and repaired them when they broke.
"...Are you ...Ymir?" she asked hesitantly, and for a brief moment the girl's hands stopped in the middle of spreading clay onto her thigh, before she went on as though nothing had happened.
"You're not wrong."
The male voice coming from nearby startled her and she glanced over to find Kasimir in the process of crouching next to her, with her twin standing a couple steps behind him.
"You did well... you have won the greatest Titan Power for your people."
"Am... am I dead?" she gulped, trying to swallow the knot that idea had lodged in her throat.
"Not yet. With the Founder's help you just barely managed to cling to your life." he replied, nodding towards the girl who didn't seem to have noticed any of them, focused on her task as she was. "Bertholdt might have been quick in scorching you... but Ymir was faster. Even when to you it might have looked like your body wasn't healing anymore, she was still working to repair the damage. That's why you're still alive."
Again Natalie could have sworn the girl paused at the mention of her name for a brief moment, before continuing her work undisturbed. But then her focus was drawn to her twin, when the woman knelt next to her and took hold of her hand.
"I'll leave you two to talk." Kasimir nodded, as if reading her mind, before standing and walking away with a lazy wave of his hand. "I'll be looking forward to what comes next for you."
"I'm sorry you had to see this." her twin at last spoke once the man was gone, gesturing to Ymir who was still diligently working on repairing her body. "But, now that you saved Armin, I feel like... I may not have that much time left with you."
Seeing the growing worry in Natalie's eyes she smiled encouragingly and shook her head.
"It's bound to happen sooner or later... my disappearance will be the best thing that could happen. It will mean you succeeded in your task; that you're making a better future for mankind. But that means... I have to show you all of my memories; to tell you everything I learned in my years of roaming the Continent. I only hope it will be of some use to you..."
=0=0=
In the deathly silence, broken only by Hange's voice as the researcher reported to Erwin that they had lost Reiner when the other two shifters had taken him, Levi was only half-aware of the rest of his squad having gathered around him. Armin was still somewhere behind them, pleading with Natalie to wake up, having refused to leave her side even when Eren and Mikasa had tried dragging him away. And so the two of them along with Jean had been left standing awkwardly around the young Captain, wanting to comfort him but not knowing how, while a few steps away Conny was trying his best to bind Sasha's wounds properly.
'What do I do now?' he wondered, for once in his life feeling truly lost.
Was that all his life amounted to? As soon as he managed to forge a bond, to find something to anchor him in the ever raging storm that was his life, someone found a way to sever it... to leave him drowning in that ocean of sorrow again and again.
"I promise I won't die. I promise I'll live for you!" he heard her earnest words echoing in his memory, before her sunny smile again appeared in his mind's eye. "Captain..."
Her call reverberated in his head over and over until he suddenly realized it wasn't Natalie's voice, but Armin calling to him.
"Captain!" the boy cried out sounding like he couldn't believe what he was about to say, and the almost crazed smile heard in his tone before he even saw it revived the hope that had withered in him. "She's breathing! She's breathing again!"
While he rose and rushed back to her side, followed by Eren and Mikasa, the others were left to watch in stunned silence waiting for someone to confirm Armin's words; to assure them that the boy wasn't just delirious from his emotional state.
"She's alive!" Levi gasped, hovering a hand over her face to feel her shallow breaths on his skin.
"You fucking lunatic..." Jean huffed, his lips battling to paint a grin on his face as he watched her. "Giving us such a fright like this..."
~ oOo ~
"How is she, Levi?"
Looking up to acknowledge Erwin's question, the young Captain then turned his eyes back to Natalie whose entire body was now emitting a steady amount of steam from beneath the blanket they had covered her with. It had been roughly an hour since they had settled atop the wall to rest and tend to the wounded, after very carefully carrying her there.
"She's healing... it's faster now than it was earlier, and there's more steam. So I'm guessing she's on the right track." he replied, gesturing to the skin that was visibly re-growing to cover her from the head down.
Parts of her muscle no longer looked like charcoal, having gradually returned to a healthy shade of deep red. On the downside, with her nerves healing she was now gasping and whimpering in pain even while unconscious, and that broke his heart worse than anything – knowing he had no way of helping her with that.
Without a word Erwin gestured for Hange and the other officers, as well as the rest of Levi's squad, to join them around her and Sasha who had been laid at her side. With Levi and Armin refusing to budge an inch from there, he had to improvise because it didn't look like Natalie was healing faster than Bertholdt.
"That's good... however, we need to decide who will take the Colossal Titan's power. He's healing too fast for us to wait until Natalie wakes up. We absolutely cannot afford to have him transform again; we'll never get another chance like this."
When instinctually most eyes went to Eren, Armin took a moment to watch his friend shifting awkwardly in his seat. He knew Eren would never want to eat someone, and none of them would be able to do it willingly.
"I'll do it!" he spoke up with determination, much to everyone's surprise.
"No!" Eren retorted, an unsettling quiver in his voice as he stared at Armin with a frightened look in his eyes. "Not you..."
"But!" Armin frowned back. "This was all my plan in the first place! I'm the reason Natalie is like this... if I'd just had the guts to stop her, no matter what she said... I... it's my fault she ended up like this..."
By the end his voice had mellowed out into almost a whimper, and he dropped his head while clenching his hands into fists.
"I was... relieved it didn't have to be me..." he sobbed, failing to withhold his tears. "Commander Erwin put me in charge of the squad; I could've stopped her. I should have ordered her to let me do it. But she insisted the Commander and I had to survive this; that humanity would be doomed if we died. That she could do it because she could heal the damage. So I told myself that she was right... that what she said made sense... that I had no valid reason to stop her. But in reality I was just relieved that I didn't have to do it – I was relieved she took that burden away from me."
While Mikasa reached out to wrap an arm about the boy's shoulders, it was Levi who broke the heavy silence left in wake of his words.
"You couldn't have stopped her, even if you had ordered her to; even I couldn't have stopped her – no one could have." he concluded. "She's just that stupidly kind and stubborn when it comes to things like this. She wouldn't have let you do it, even if she had to force you to sit out. Because she didn't do it just for you... she did it for all of us. There was no chance that the Survey Corps would have survived if the Colossal Titan broke through the wall. So don't feel like you have to take on this burden, because it's not your fault. She knew what she was doing, she knew the risks... and she chose to do it for everyone's sake."
"And if she hadn't done it, you would be dead now." Hange agreed, while the boy stared at them speechless. "Thinking about it like that, I can see why it was such an easy choice for her. I won't pretend to know why, but I do know that she cares about you, Armin... more than she cares about most other people. We can't in good conscience let you do this; it would feel like we betrayed her trust by not taking care of you."
"So then?" Levi inquired, looking over to Erwin. "Who's going to eat the brat? Eren?"
For a moment the Commander examined Eren's apprehensive expression, before heaving a long breath.
"I don't want to fight another child..."
'Why am I recalling this now?' he pondered when Natalie's plea echoed in his mind.
Again he looked Eren over as if measuring the boy from head to toe, his gaze briefly going over to Bertholdt afterwards, and found that her words resonated with him deep down. It was true that he had never really stopped to think about it – but whoever their enemy was, whoever had sent those shifters to them, had likely intentionally chosen children.
'Is it really fair for us to force this burden onto our children like this?' he pondered, his eyes going back to Eren and then to Armin who was wiping his tears on his sleeve. 'Doesn't that make us just as bad as the ones who want us erased from this world?'
"I'll do it." he at last spoke up after a lengthy silence, drawing all stunned stares to him.
"Are you sure, Erwin?!" Hange gasped. "I mean what if—?"
"Why?" Levi cut them off, knowing that Erwin wouldn't explain his reasoning unless someone goaded him into it; and while he suspected why the Commander would do it, the others needed to hear it from him.
"For several reasons; first, it's the most logical option we have. As the Commander and the face of the Survey Corps, I will likely be the prime target for our enemies – whoever they may be. I will be the one they will least expect to possess this kind of power. Being able to heal, I would also have the chance to return to my duties as a soldier..." he said, reaching to grab his severed arm. "Also... in the eventuality that we would ever need to use this power, I would have no problem with that. Arlert... you are intelligent and brave, but you also have a soft heart. If you were to gain this power, would you be able to do what Bertholdt did here? Would you be able to make use of your transformation to kill others? Would you be able to scorch people to death?"
"I..." the boy gasped, his horrified expression giving Erwin his answer.
"I do not want you to have to discard any more of your humanity, whereas I have no problem doing that. I would not hesitate to do it; I'm fine with being a devil."
His stern gaze went back to Natalie lying in front of him and at last his eyes gained a tinge of softness.
"Ever since I lost my arm, I've been a burden on her more than on anyone else. I'd like to, at the very least, make sure her efforts to protect me and keep me alive are not wasted. If I let you do it, Arlert, she would never forgive me. She already has enough sleepless nights and more than enough to worry about; she doesn't need this haunting her as well."
While Armin turned his eyes down, staring at nothing in particular, Erwin looked back to Levi who was still watching him intently.
"You asked me what I would do after the basement, that day. If my gut instinct is true and what I suspect we're about to learn proves to be real, then this will become my new purpose in life. To be the Survey Corps' weapon and use whatever means necessary to protect our people."
"Alright... I'll trust your judgment one more time." the young Captain replied after a long silence; and in the way Erwin's expression relaxed, in the grateful spark nestled within his gaze, he knew it was the right choice.
'I hope you would have agreed to this, too.' he mused, turning his eyes down to Natalie. 'If not, then I'm sorry for adding another burden onto you.'
But when Erwin stood and walked over to him, he was startled to find the man offering him the serum case.
"I'll need someone to do it for me." the Commander requested, watching as Levi hesitantly accepted the item.
He wouldn't have chosen to put this burden on the man, but Levi was the only one he was certain could bear it on his shoulders. Yet for a moment he was convinced the Captain would refuse, going by how he was staring forlornly at the black case.
"Fine... I'll do it." he at last replied moving to stand, though clearly not wanting to be the one to turn his friend into a Titan.
But as he walked away from their group he ordered the soldier who had been guarding Bertholdt to bring their prisoner down into the district and place him on a nearby roof.
"What are you dawdling around for?" he called out, seeing that Erwin hadn't moved to join him. "Don't tell me you got cold feet after that whole pretentious speech."
With a huff and an amused smile the Commander approached him after requesting for Hange to help him take off his cloak and jacket, and together they scaled the wall to reach the rooftop where Bertholdt was whimpering in terror, fully aware of what awaited him.
"Get back on the wall." Levi said to the Scout who had brought their prisoner down. "It's going to get messy down here."
"Sir!" the man nodded, taking off to rejoin the others who were now standing on the edge to watch.
"Well... the truth is we still don't know for sure what effects this'll have when injected. It might turn you into a regular Titan, or you might end up like Reiss did." he said, unbuttoning the man's sleeve and pulling it up to expose his left arm.
"I know the risks and I'm fine with doing this."
"...I hope so." the young Captain retorted after a moment of silence, crouching to open the case and prepare the syringe. "You know... somehow I don't think Natalie's going be happy with this."
"Yes, most likely... I'm sure if it came down to it, she would have rather done this herself." Erwin replied and his tone for once was gentler than Levi had heard him in a long time. "But this is the least I can do, to pay her back for what I made her go through. I forced her to transform in front of everyone; I pushed her into a role she didn't want, into accepting a huge responsibility before she felt ready to do it on her own. And in the end... I never even thanked her for saving my life."
"At least you're just as bad as I am, I'm relieved..." Levi retorted with a hint of humor to his tone, standing and turning back to face the Commander. "Well, try your best to not go on a rampage. I'd hate to have to cut you down."
"Levi... thank you."
"Idiot...!" he snapped back, embarrassed by the fond smile on the Commander's face. "Just have your snack and go to sleep!"
Injecting the serum he took off towards the next roof over, just moments before the lightning flashed behind him casting his shadow on the old tiles. The sound of the explosion reached him just as he turned around, and as the dust started to settle he watched the large Titan rising to its feet.
"Oh... ooohhh... it's a fifteen-meter class! Just like you'd expect from Erwin!" Hange gasped excitedly up on the wall, reaching over out of habit to grab the shoulder of the person standing next to them. "Are you seeing this, Mobl—?!"
The painful yelp startled the researcher and they glanced over to find it was actually Jean that they were clinging onto.
'Oh, that's right... Moblit's gone...' they blinked, all at once their mind refocusing on the fact that their entire squad had perished in the explosion, while Jean stared at them with an awkward sort of sympathy.
"...Hange-san? Are you alright?"
"Sorry, sorry..." the researcher forced a chuckle, patting his shoulder and making him yelp in pain again. "Force of habit, you know... heh..."
Ignoring the rest of the kids watching them, Hange turned their gaze back down to where Bertholdt's muffled screams had abruptly cut off. And once the Titan had collapsed onto its face, the Section Commander switched to their gear and started scaling the wall to help Levi retrieve Erwin from its nape.
Sooo today's replies for my lovely reviewers :D
1. MordredVisor - As always love, thank you so much for taking the time to leave feedback! Combining the replies again, to save space~
(ch. 26) - Oh love don't worry about it. The story will always be here for you to read at your leisure. Uni is more important (I say, as one who went through uni writing her heart out ;P)! I'm always grateful for your feedback no matter when you give it~ As for the chapter, yes I at least hope some more things will make sense, although I'm kind of trying to hold back on giving too many hints as to what I plan to do with the last arc. But Shiganshina is definitely going to be one of the great turning points for Natalie's growth as a character.
(ch. 27) - And then she still lost... :'D But Zeke was far too important for the near future of the plot, to have him captured so easily. It's also kind of keeping in with the theme I've been trying to subtly thread into the story. I'm not exactly sure how much that theme is visible for now; all I can say is that in one of the future chapters one character will state it out directly. I'm actually curious to see how many people will realize that is the theme I've been constantly circling in this story.
As for your question, it's kind of a moot point to answer it after you already read the newest chapter, but I'll do it regardless. No, the Bertholdt part won't be exactly like in the anime, although it will be similar, because I have other plans for Armin~ And yes, Erwin is still alive! Which has been amazing to write, but it's also the bane of my existence because I'm not a genius like him so it's incredibly hard to have him in situations where he wasn't supposed to be, and to have to be constantly in the mindset of "what would Erwin do?" xD Nonetheless, it's so much fun imagining how he would handle everything that came after Shiganshina, I just hope I'll do his character justice.
So these are my replies for today. Cheers, lovelies~ ( ˘ ³˘)❤