Yes, it's only been a week, but I've had this done for a while, and I edited it today, again - two last times - and I just wanted to.

Chapter 11: What They Say About Curiosity

The following days went down without any hiccups or major events; Nora could hardly believe it. Each day, the nine Scouts explored different parts of the city, their ventures gradually becoming riskier; they'd all agreed it made sense to save the less-touristy places for as close as possible before their ship back to Hizuru would depart. Two days before the end of their short stay, they walked by the internment zone, and the day after it was the area near the Warrior Headquarters. In both instances, they didn't learn anything new; Nora would have rather stayed behind, in hindsight. Unlike the others—except for Eren—not even the sight was completely new to her, courtesy of Bertolt. She didn't need to see with her own eyes that yes, Marley had a lot of soldiers, and that the Eldians were shunned and spat at, crammed and abandoned inside a too-small, dilapidated area. What they'd been able to see through the gate had been enough.

Each night, they would dine at the estate with Kiyomi Azumabito, discussing world affairs and their progress within and outside of Paradis. But the only thing of real substance she could report was the current state of the conflict between Marley and the Mid East. As of now, all Marleyan Warriors as well as the bulk of their forces were engaged in a vicious battle just beyond the national border. Which was why there was barely any word from Zeke Jaeger.

"It's still too early on both sides," Kiyomi said. "You're still occupied with the expansion of your infrastructure and the development of new weaponry. Moreover, you—" She hesitated, then corrected, "we are barely even at the beginning with our diplomatic efforts. You need more time before taking drastic actions, or you might shift Marley's attention to you before you can defend yourselves accordingly. The conflict with the Mid East is still in full swing."

"But for how long?" Eren asked into the round after she had taken her leave and it was only the nine of them in the sitting room. "Right now, they are weakened. We took the Armoured, the Colossal, the Female Titan from them. If they lost the Beast Titan on top of that, maybe the Mid East would be able to deal them a major blow."

"Zeke is the Warchief. Whatever the hell that exactly entails." Hange's brows were furrowed, and she had that expression she always got when the gears in her head were going into overdrive. "He probably wants to gain more intel and use the influence he has on Marley's plans for as long as possible. It makes sense, really."

"It does," Nora said. "It also makes him more likely to betray us, the longer we wait." When Hange opened her mouth—probably to point out that there was nothing they could do about it right now—she quickly amended, "Just something we should keep in mind going forth. Also, we shouldn't ignore that a shifter with royal blood on Paradis would provide us with a countermeasure in case Marley launches a surprise attack. It wouldn't be the first."

Eren nodded in agreement.

The slight crease between Levi's brows deepened. "I'm not sure it would be any safer to have the shitbag on our island for longer than necessary."

He had a point. But so had she. And so had Hange, and Eren. Nora wanted to pull out her hair, it was so frustrating. No matter which option they went for, there was no guarantee. Either way, the cons always seemed to outweigh the pros.

But these were future headaches; for now, they couldn't do anything but wait and continue working as fast as possible. There sure weren't lots of unemployed people left in Paradis ever since the beginning of this year. Besides, Zeke was as far out of reach as he could be.

"There's another thing that's been bugging me, though," Nora said after a few seconds' silence. "What about the Armoured? Does it reappear, is it gone for good, or what? I mean, the Nine Titans have been around for an eternity, so I think, the longer we wait, the more likely—"

"Shit. I didn't even think about that." Hange sighed out a long, heavy breath, pinching the bridge of her nose beneath her glasses.

She had probably been too busy coordinating the trip with Kiyomi Azumabito. And developing that new ODM gear with the engineers. And organising the construction of the railway—it was maybe halfway done, as of now—together with the government. And a million other things.

Nora didn't envy her. Sure, she helped Hange with research. And Levi, as second-highest-ranking soldier, often helped with organisational and strategical matters—including intimidating the Assembly—but there were so many things only Hange could do; both as the commander of the Survey Corps and the brilliant inventor she was. Plus, Nora had to put a lot of time into mastering the Colossal, and Levi accompanied her whenever he thought it necessary, and for the rest he was busy instructing the Scouts in their training. Their numbers rose steadily, but most of the new recruits were greenhorns, and skilled soldiers weren't made over night.

There was no way they had the time to consider all possible scenarios and all possible issues that might come to bite them in the arse at a later point. Maybe Nora wouldn't have thought of the Armoured, either, if she weren't constantly reminded of his existence in her dreams. Besides, that question wasn't anywhere near close to the most important, pressing ones. Just another thing they could only speculate about.

"The titan biologists at the research facility probably know what happens when a shifter dies," she remarked regardless, because why not add it to the list of maybes.

"Yeah," Hange said wearily. "They probably do."

#

They had left checking out the facility for the very last evening. Just in case. It would only be Levi and her; anything else would attract more attention than necessary. And besides, it wasn't like they could do more than take a quick look and maybe gather helpful information for yet another future possibility, another risk.

Soon after dinner, Hange sent them on their way. "You two go for an evening stroll and behave like the couple you're supposed to be, for once."

Once they had left the estate grounds, Levi held his arm out to her, elbow first, looking at her expectantly.

Nora blinked, struggling to interpret the novel gesture from him. "What?"

With an annoyed sigh, he took her wrist, looped her arm under his, laid her palm over his forearm.

"Oh. The couple thing. Right." She flexed her fingers, then tried to relax them on his sleeve. It felt like she'd suddenly forgotten how her hand usually worked.

He clicked his tongue at her fidgeting. "Can't you behave normal, for once?"

"Normal?" She raised her brows at him. "Why don't you teach me how?"

He expertly ignored her rebuttal.

They walked at an unhurried, leisurely pace; at least compared to their usual, goal-oriented tempo. Inconspicuous. Normal. Nora decided after only a few minutes that it wasn't for her; her mind was still running as fast as always, already way ahead, and she had too much time to overthink the way her stupid, stiff arm felt around Levi's, and the way their shoulders brushed occasionally, and how strangely proper the contact was. Nothing about him and her and their behaviour towards each other ever seemed proper to her.

"This is weird," she muttered after a while.

"Shut up and deal with it."

She had to admit it to herself, however. Walking like this, touching, and closer than usual, was also… kind of nice—her impatience and the purpose for this stroll aside—but if she told him that, it would make this situation so much more awkward, so she decided to follow his polite suggestion.

They made the rest of the way in silence. The occasional car rumbled by, fast and loud and unexpected, always far too close to the sidewalk, making her flinch every time. How did people get used to those death machines? How come they didn't get run over all the time?

Once they reached the industrial area, the people and traffic became sparser and the buildings bigger, blockier, greyer, uglier. The "city stink", as Levi called it, grew more pungent, harder to ignore. The main street they walked along was brightly lit in the early night; so different to the towns inside the Walls. It made her feel exposed. Paranoid, almost.

More familiar were the dark and narrow alleyways that separated some of the buildings, the kind that would make most people uncomfortable to pass through but seemed like a tempting retreat to Nora now. If their current surroundings were any indicator, there wouldn't be much to see at the facility. Not from the outside. Just like it had been with the Warrior Headquarters.

"This isn't as exciting as I expected," Nora said, "and I really didn't expect much."

"Never complain when things are boring, for a change." When she wanted to take a turn that was apparently the wrong one, Levi tugged at her arm—yes, still wrapped around his—and pulled her in the other direction, crossing the broad, cobblestoned street.

Another turn, and the street fanned out to a circular open place with a fountain in its centre, the cobblestone running all around.

Levi stopped abruptly, glancing left and right, then pointed across the square. "There."

"Of fucking course," she said. She was looking at a massive brick wall framing a broad gate made of solid steel bars, leading into the grounds of what could only be the Titan Biology Research Facility. The main building at its very centre was one of the tallest they'd seen so far.

Aside from the spaciousness of the premises, they seemed inconspicuous enough. Non-descript, at first.

But as she squinted at the small, narrow windows of the upper floors towering above the high wall, she saw there were grates before every single one of them. A cold shiver ghosted along her spine.

"Well, that sucks." Nora inclined her head towards the barred facility. "Also, not surprising."

Levi considered the obstacle before them for a few seconds, eyes slightly narrowed. "I'll go take a closer look, climb the wall or the adjacent buildings." He nudged her with his shoulder, waved a hand at the benches lining the fountain. "You stay put."

"But—" She hesitated, worrying her lip between her teeth. It wasn't like she could do any good accompanying him—but she didn't like him going, at all. What if someone saw him snooping around? "Sounds risky."

"Not much riskier than coming here in the first place. There aren't a lot of people around, especially off the street. Do you want our walk here to be for nothing?" His expression was stern, his entire demeanour poised, ready. Full-on captain mode.

Nora sighed. "I'd insist on coming with you, but I'm just a normal human and can't scale ridiculously flat, high surfaces."

"Tsk. Normal human. That's a good one."

She watched him leave until he was swallowed by the darkness between the brick wall and the building next to it. Resting her back against the hard iron backrest of the bench, she waited, watching, leg bouncing, wringing her hands in her lap. The occasional worker walked by, coming or going. No one paid her any heed. She probably looked like a woman waiting for her husband to finish his shift—and now there was a strange thought.

Here, at a distance from the noisier factories and in the calm of the late evening, she could hear the faint roar of the river nearby, just out of sight, probably hidden behind the row of buildings to her left. The ocean was uncomfortably far from this part of the city. In Paradis, she connected it with 'danger' and 'freedom' equally, but here in Marley it simply meant 'escape'.

It had only been three minutes—she knew exactly because she kept checking her watch—when something at the corner of her eye caught her attention. A man had interrupted his brisk walk mid-step, now standing at the edge of the square, facing her direction.

Looking at her just sitting there, she quickly became certain. There was no one else around.

Nora shifted in her seat, looked in another direction. Looked back again.

The man was still staring. His face, illuminated in the cone of the streetlight behind him, seemed vaguely familiar. She might be imagining it—maybe he just had one of those faces; dirty blond hair, no prominent features she could make out from the distance.

Seconds trickled by, slowly, her insides constricting. Still, she forced herself to remain relaxed in her seat—outwardly. Every now and then, she chanced a furtive glance in his direction. He didn't move.

Shit. She had a bad feeling about this. Whatever it was, the man seemed to want something from her. If it was what she feared it was, she wasn't the only one in trouble. And she might not even find out if she waited for Levi to return; right now, the man must be thinking she was alone, might be on the fence about what to do. Might peg her for easy prey. But if Levi was with her, he probably wouldn't dare approach them.

But then he might go alert the nearest authorities, assuming her hunch turned out to be correct.

Dammit. She had to find out before it was too late to do anything about it. And she had an idea.

Levi would rip her a new one for the risky manoeuvre she was about to pull.

Oh, well. Couldn't be helped. She wasn't nearly as good as him at thinking on her feet and making quick decisions. The last time she had to do it, she had ended up as grilled meat. She preferred thinking farther in advance, having enough time on her hands to come up with a proper plan.

Still, there had been no better option, back then, and she didn't see one right now. Also, her idea had worked, strictly spoken. She had to give herself at least some credit. Her previous decisions in precarious situations had brought her this far, after all, and without them, she wouldn't have survived even her first expedition.

And she could afford to take risks, now. She had the constitution for it.

So, Nora stood up, unhurried and casual, paying the man no heed. And headed for the narrow alley to her left, with no way of knowing if he would take the bait.

And if he did… Maybe the man was just a pervert.

Hell, did she hope he was just a pervert.

#

She bent down, right in the middle of the alleyway, where the direct light from the street didn't reach, fumbling with one of her mid-calf boots in the half-dark. For the not-so-random passerby, it would look like she was fixing her laces. That wasn't what she was doing, however.

Sure enough, steps alerted her to the presence of another person. Her heart sank, even as she tensed with dark anticipation.

Sometimes she hated being right.

The steps were very close now, slowing down.

Please, let it be a coincidence, don't mind me, just go on your way—

Something hard and sharp-edged pressed into her back. At the same time, a large arm wrapped around her shoulders, roughly pulling her upright, a hand clamping down hard over her mouth. Restraining, not trying to kill. Yet. Her fight instincts kicked in, setting every nerve on edge as her mind bombarded her with several manoeuvres to fend off her attacker, screaming at her muscles to spur into action. Red-hot fury overpowered fear, made her want to bite the hand covering her mouth, elbow the man into his balls, make him let go of her immediately, knife in her back be damned.

But Nora forced herself to stay still.

He was over a foot taller than her. Broader, stronger. Depending on their positions and movements, the neck might be hard to reach. She noticed, because she had been drilled to notice such things in situations such as this one.

"Don't move, girl. And don't scream, or I swear I'm gonna use that knife." He waited until she gave a terse nod under his grip—really, drawing attention was the last thing she wanted, anyway—then removed his hand from her mouth. The arsehole did not let go of her, though.

"Is this a robbery?" she asked, because a girl could hope.

He made a derisive sound. "I don't need money from you dirty Island Devils."

Her insides went ice-cold.

She was fucked. She was well and truly fucked.

When she stiffened in his stifling hold, he added, "You're even worse than the Eldian scum in the internment zone." There was a tremor in his voice, as was in the knife pressing against her back.

How would a normal woman react? For one, she probably wouldn't have asked if this was a robbery, but rather assumed it. Shit.

Thinly, Nora said, "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm—"

"Shut up. I saw you and your friends at the market, a few days ago. Acting like they'd been living under a rock, speaking Eldian but not even capable of reading a simple sign… But I didn't think much of it, and then I finish my shift today and find you here, sniffing around the research facility… and I knew."

So that was why he'd seemed vaguely familiar.

Regardless, Nora tried, one last time. It wasn't hard to make herself sound afraid, but it would have been far easier to sound furious. "We are tourists. We've never been here before. I was just taking a w—"

"Tourists don't usually go for walks in the industrial area," he hissed.

There went her last hope; he clearly couldn't be convinced. Her stomach twisted, her mind racing in tandem with her frantic heartbeat. She had to stall for time, figure out what to do.

Disarm him, make a run for it? No. He'd seen them. Or kill him right now? Also no; first, she had to find out if there were others who knew.

"Are you from the military?" she asked.

"Not anymore." The pressure of the knife in her back increased. "But my brother is. Navy. And he went to your cursed island months ago, and he didn't come back." The man was outright shaking with rage.

Shit. Of all the people… No wonder he'd gotten suspicious. No wonder he hated them so much.

But he seemed younger than her—no matter what he might be thinking—and he wasn't an experienced, active soldier. He had clearly acted impulsively when he'd recognised her, earlier.

Which meant he probably hadn't told anyone. There hadn't been anything to tell before today.

Nora relaxed in his grasp, like someone who had given up. Like someone who posed no threat. Inwardly, every part of her went on high alert, preparing for whatever might come after what she would say next. "Okay, so what's your plan here? You clearly don't believe me. If you want to kill me, anyway, you might as well do it now."

The heavy arm around her shoulders flexed for an instant. "I won't harm you, if you don't resist and come with me. I'll hand you over to the guards at the facility. If you're indeed who you claim to be, you've got nothing to f—"

In one swift motion, Nora turned inward, grabbed his forearm and twisted it away from her before the man could utter more than a surprised grunt. She let her knife slide out of her sleeve, closed her palm around the handle.

He counteracted her twist with brutal force, tearing his arm free with only the slightest delay, keeping the grip on his knife just before it could slip from his fingers.

No matter. She had got her opening.

She drove her blade between his ribs, straight into the heart.

That was when a sharp pain shot through her abdomen.

The man gasped, stumbled back. Nora doubled over, gritted her teeth to prevent any sound from escaping, looked down her heaving chest, incredulous.

He'd plunged his knife into her abdomen, right below her ribcage.

The fucker was as strong as she had expected from someone of his stature, but he had reacted faster than she had anticipated, leaving her no time to evade; her first priority had been to make sure her aim was true, to end this clean and quick.

Her shaking hand closed around the hilt protruding from her stomach, and she pulled it out with one decisive jerk. All the air burst from her lungs as another wave of searing, blinding pain crashed over her. Immediately she squeezed her eyes shut for a few seconds and focused. Focused on that single, excruciating place, as hard as she could not because she was masochistic, but because she had learnt it accelerated her regeneration. And fuck if that didn't hurt like a bitch.

But the prospect of imminent relief kept her sane.

The man's legs had given out before she'd even removed the knife; he had crumpled to the ground, his back against the opposite wall.

He wouldn't be able to get up, anymore. Never again.

He was watching her, eyes bulging, terror and agony contorting his features. Watching the steam rise from her wound, the heavy bleeding soaking her shirt, quickly reducing to a trickle. Watching her as she slowly straightened and stepped closer, when a normal human wouldn't have been able to do either. Crimson was blooming around his wound, too, but the flow didn't lessen. His hands clawed and grappled at the knife lodged deep in his chest, but he didn't seem to have the strength left to do anything about it.

Not that it would have done him any good.

"Monster," he wheezed, barely audible. "Please, don't..." And he lifted one trembling arm over his face, as if he expected her to attack again, as if he thought that would be necessary to end him. As if he thought he still had any chance.

From girl to monster.

"You should have just gone home," she said, her voice as cold and lifeless as she felt inside.

His lips moved, but the only sound that came out of his mouth was his rattling breath. One, two, three more, each shallower than the one before, and it stopped; his arm fell to the ground, limp. His eyes went empty, his chest deflated, and his entire body went slack.

AN:

...it killed the cat. (Do people even pay attention to chapter titles? Regardless, I'm having my fun with them.)

RIP, nameless OC from chapter 9.