FLASHBACK

"You two! Get the civilians behind the gate― And tell commander to send us some damn backup while you're there!" You shouted orders to your comrades and dashed back into the battle before they could say a thing. Diving down from the Wall Maria, you took an aim on the nape of a huge titan below you, slashing the beast down with a clean cut. The victory was short lived, though; You couldn't even catch your breath when half a dozen titans more barged in through the hole on the wall. "They just keep pouring in..!" You still hadn't fully grasped on the situation: Only a moments ago, a massive titan appeared behind the Wall Maria and breached it, giving the titans an entryway to the city. There was no time ponder why or how this had happened― Your first priority was to prevent any more titans entering the city, but the situation was growing more and more desperate every passing second. Shiganshina district had turned into a warzone, innocent people being slaughtered left and right.

"This is hopeless! We have to fall back!" The leader of your squad, commanding officer Cathrin Holtz, landed next to you. "[l/n]! [l/n], did you hear me?!" She called you again when you showed no sign of obeying the order.

"If we leave, who's going to stop them?!" Swiftly replenishing your blades, you couldn't even take two steps when Cathrin prevented your return to the battle. "If the line of defense breaks, we-" You tried to brush her hand off from your shoulder, but she only tightened her grip.

"There is no line of defense!" She screamed furiously. "Look around yourself! It was already over before it even started―" Roughly spinning you around to face her, Cathrin grabbed onto your collar and pulled you closer so you'd hear her words without a doubt. "We can either die here or live to fight another day, I don't know about you but I want to live!" She was right; Even if you'd survive long enough for the backup to arrive, if it ever would, chances of retaking the district would still be nearly nonexistent. "Let's go and try to evacuate as many people as we can." Your squad leader commanded after you reluctantly holstered your blades. "By doing that, maybe we can-" An eruption of bright light from the center of the district made you all stop in your tracks. You had only seen a similar occurrence once before; A second before the colossal titan made its appearance. "N-no way..! No, not again!" Cathrin's face turned ghostly white when she realized what this meant. After recovering from the shock, your squad headed towards the source of light as fast as your 3dmg could take you. By the time you arrived to the scene, the titan was gone, but what you found was even more horrifying.

"The gate has been breached!" One of your squadmates, Wendel, howled in terror when he saw the destruction.

"No..! Not another wall..!" You stuttered in disbelief. Was this the end of humanity? "Over there, there's-"

"We can't stop them all." Cathrin furrowed her brow as she scanned the area. A large group of titans sluggishly made their way towards the breached gate, and it seemed like more than a few had already crossed to the other side. "What the hell we're supposed to do now..?!" Like as an answer to the question, two sets of flares shot up from the eastern part of the city. "Of course..! The waterways!" Cathrin's eyes lit up. "They're evacuating the civilians by boats! Come on, we have to help them!"

"But what if the inner walls have been breached as well? Where would we go?!" Wendel cried out, but followed his leader nevertheless.

"...I don't know." Cathrin said quietly. "We just have to do what we can and hope for the best. Let's go!" The look of determination back in her eyes, she gestured you to follow her. You heard what she had said, but you couldn't make your legs move― Glancing at the broken gate once more, you squeezed the handles of your 3dmg knuckles white as you spoke.

"But… my home village..!" You could only barely hear your own voice over the beating of your heart and the sound of blood rushing through your veins. "My family― They're just outside the-" You couldn't finish your sentence when you felt a painfully hard slap on your cheek. Looking up, you saw Cathrin standing in front of you.

"Snap out of it! You're a soldier!" She shouted on top of her lungs. "Countless lives depend on us― Hundreds and hundreds of families just like yours..! I need you to focus and help us to save the ones we can!"

"But… I…"

"Someone has to fight the beasts while we evacuate people―" Taking a deep breath, Cathrin gave you a meaningful but also a desperate look. "I need you there."

Evacuating the survivals from Shiganshina didn't turn out to be an easy task. Once again, your superior had made a right call by dragging your ass there with her; Where the people were, there also was hungry titans. Thanks to your and your comrades efforts, military police managed to evacuate nearly all of the children before more backup arrived. Even in the midst of battle, you had been keeping a close eye on the Wall Maria― The signal flares rising up from behind it told you the situation was dire, but it also meant there was people putting up a fight against the invading titans. Only when a purple emergency flare was shot somewhere near your home village, you chose to take the matters to your own hands: When the garrison reinforcements arrived, you snatched the first horse available and dashed full speed towards the Deil village.

Back to the present - Levi's POV

Although he couldn't put his finger on it, Levi had been sure he'd seen her somewhere before. Only now when [f/n] stood in front of him, screaming her lungs out in fury, he could finally see it― Last thing you expect after yanking some pathetic brat out of the mouth of a steaming titan corpse was them to try and swung their broken blade at you, but that was exactly what she did all those years ago. "Why the fuck you did that?! Why the fuck you had to-?!" She had screamed with a hoarse voice, coughing between the words due to both blood and tears she was nearly drowning in as she tried to speak. "You should've just left me!" She had again that same look in her eyes, filled with heartbreaking despair and rage. How he could have forgotten something like that? Still, it was only one of the many haunting encounters Levi had faced on the battlefield, not the first and not the last.

"Do us both a favor and get the hell out of here!" [f/n] growled as she spun around, bashing one last wineglass on the floor on her way out of the kitchen. "Fucking ignorant prick!"

He probably should've said something. Or done something. It was too late for that now, [f/n] had already stormed out of the room and the slam of the door told him she was already out of the house. "...an ignorant prick? I guess I am." Levi thought to himself as he glanced down at the glass shard covered floors. The mystery behind [f/n] was what drove him here; Now he finally knew the reason why there was something so familiar about her, but the strange feeling down in his gut still persisted. He still didn't have the full picture about the events that lead to their meeting during the colossal titan attack, and even though he was curious about it, pursuing the subject didn't sound like a smart idea. An awful one, honestly. "...How stupid I can be?" He had gotten overly confident around [f/n], not thinking his words through― In hindsight, bringing up so boldly a clearly traumatic event of her life was nothing but idiotic.