Chapter 5: The Breach Part 3: False Alarm

When things start to come back to me, they do so in wild flashes. Trees, grass, the night sky with stars spread over it. Then I can feel myself stumbling and I fall face first into the ground. The impact sends chunks of earth flying into the air. Spitting out grass and dirt I pull myself to my feet. I'm still in titan form, but dear god do I feel tired. I look up at the sky. It's a pale blue, growing steadily paler as the first rays of the sun appear from over the wall off to my left. 'I ran all night? No wonder I feel tired. The sun is rising to my left and I can see the wall curving away ahead of me, so I must be far south.'

I'm the edges of a forest (I can't tell if it's the same one I entered hours ago) where there are a handful of trees scattered sparsely over the ground. Then my hearing comes back properly and I hear people shouting. I turn to follow the sound. Just on the other side of an arm of the forest I've just exited is what looks like the top of a tower of some kind. There's a group of five people crowed on the top. It's one of them that's shouting, but at what I can't tell. Then I see the giant hand clawing up the side of the tower.

I start moving, sluggishly at first but I manage to find a hidden reserve of energy inside me somewhere. 'When I'm out of this titan I'm going to sleep for a month.' I smash my way through and come out into the open. Three ten metres are attempting to reach the top of the tower by climbing up it-though at this rate they're more likely to pull it over-and six smaller titans are milling about in the courtyard of what looks like a small castle.

My eyes widen as I recognise the five people on top of the tower. Reiner, Bertolt, Ymir Connie and Historia. They must have gotten cornered here during the night. I draw myself up and let out a roar. The three ten metres pause and turn their heads to look at me. The others on the tower turn to look at me also. 'All right then. I haven't actually fought regular titans as a titan myself yet, but from what Eren said it shouldn't be too difficult.'

I run towards the castle, jumping the low wall that stands in my way and landing in the courtyard with a crash. I grab one of the ten metres from behind and rip out his nape before throwing his lifeless body to the ground. Two of the smaller titans leap onto and bite into my left leg. With a howl of pain I rip them both off and smash their heads together. I then proceed to hurl them both at the ten metres, knocking them both over.

I kick a four metre into the air, my foot going clean through him and more or less vaporising the back of his neck. The smaller titans flock towards me and I crush each of them in turn with savage kicks. After two minutes there's nothing but smoking bodies the castle courtyard. I turn to look at the others who are still staring at me in amazement.

With the fight over, I suddenly feel a wave of exhaustion washing over me. I stagger several times before falling forwards onto my face.

I regain consciousness as someone pulls me from the steaming hot remains of my titan corpse. I can't see anything clearly. I can feel a pair of strong arms wrapped around me, but that's all. Then voices talking, all muffled as if behind closed doors. In my daze I can't even move my own body, being forced to let my arms hang limply by my sides.

I'm being laid down on the ground and there's a blurry outline of a face over me. The sky behind them looks blue with the usual white splodges of clouds. I try to speak, but I can't even move my lips I'm so tired. Everything in front of me blurs further, and then I simply close my eyes.

Then someone wraps their arms around me, and I can hear somebody crying. 'What are they crying about I wonder. Did, did someone die?' My thoughts are all loose and disconnected. 'Who, who might have died? Do I know anybody? Hmm, I can't seem to remember. Oh well.' I let myself slip into a comfortable sleep.

I come back to the world again lying on the back of a wagon. This time I can move, I just don't want to. My arms feel like leaden weights next to me and my legs don't feel any better. I move my head from left to right trying to see what's about me. There isn't much, a few boxes on either side of me and some blankets. Nothing else.

I yawn and decide to try and sit up. I'm successful the first time, however I manage to prop myself up on my elbow the second time. The wagon isn't moving. It's sitting just next to a large tent with people milling about it. Someone is sitting on the edge of the wagon and they turn around as I sit up. I'm surprised to see Connie looking at me curiously. "Oh hey, you're awake again," he observes.

"More or less," I agree, sitting up properly and rubbing my eyes.

"You've been asleep for the last three hours."

"Only three? No wonder I'm so tired. I felt like I'd need to sleep for at least forty eight."

"Well, you haven't, but I dare say you probably can now."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Surprising as it may sound, there's no breach."

"What?"

"You heard me. Multiple patrols went up and down the Wall during the night and another one this morning. There's no holes in the Wall anywhere. As far as we can tell it was a false alarm."

"Then, then where did all of the titans come from?"

"No clue. Soldiers have been patrolling around for the last few hours cutting the last titans down. When they're finished as far as we can see everyone should be able to come back home again."

"That's great news. But, but what about the Beast! Where did he go?!"

"Hey man calm down!" exclaims Connie putting his hands on my shoulders. "If you're talking about the giant monkey guy, he took off a little while before dawn. We saw him on top of the Wall from the tower. He chucked a few large rocks at us, then disappeared."

"Oh thank god! Is everyone all right? How many people did we lose?"

"Not all that many. Six Scouts and around ten Garrison soldiers. Oh, and by the way I meant to say thanks."

"What for?"

"For showing up like that and saving our asses. I was sure we were totally screwed."

"Oh, that. That was more by accident than by design I'm afraid. It's a long story but I spent the night without any control over my titan form and when I regained control that's where I was."

"Well, I don't care how you got there. You saved all our lives and we owe you one."

"Don't worry about it. Considering our line of work I'm sure you'll be able to find an opportunity to pay me back."

Connie smiles and slips off the wagon. "I'm gonna go get the guys. They'll want to see you now that you're awake again."

"All right," I say. I watch as Connie rushes off into the tent. 'If there was no breach, then how can there have been titans inside the Walls. Connie said that the Beast Titan climbed up and over the Wall, so that could explain how he got in. But what about the other titans, they couldn't climb up the Wall. He said something about being a Geshetar as if it was similar to being a murder or a thief. So, what exactly did he do?'

My train of thought is derailed as Connie comes back out of the tent followed by Eren, Armin, Mikasa and Historia. Historia hurries out ahead of the others and more or less jumps into the back of the wagon. She throws her arms around me and I nearly fall over backwards. "Gah! Careful," I caution her.

"Sorry," she says sheepishly. "It's just so good to see you. You saved our lives back there, thank you so much."

"What were you expecting me to do; let you get eaten by the Titans? I'll die before I let that happen."

Historia smiles at me as the others climb up more slowly into the back of the wagon. "Hey," says Eren. "We wondered if you were ever going to wake up."

"I almost wish I hadn't. I've got the worst headache ever. I feel like my head's being stepped on by the Colossal." I rub my forehead to illustrate the point. My head does feel like it's on fire, but I expect that's just the after effect of spending so much time as a titan without any rest. "So what happened to you guys?"

"Not all that much," says Armin. "There was one rather large battle a few kilometres north from here. We lost eight soldiers during the fighting, but we managed to bring down six titans during the combat."

"And I earned my first true kill as a Scout," adds Eren. "In fact I think that must be my first kill on ODMs full stop."

"And you almost got yourself killed doing it," says Mikasa. "You went out ahead of the rest of the squad and got separated. If you'd timed that any sooner you'd be dead."

"But I didn't okay. Get off my back about it already. Jeez."

"Umm, one other thing happened," says Historia. She looks at me with something in her eyes that looks like a cross between worry about someone else and worry about herself. "I uh, told everyone my real name."

I look at her in shock. "Wait, really?"

"Yes. Now everyone knows me as Historia Reiss."

"But, why did you do that? I mean, it's your name so I suppose it isn't really any of my business."

"No, I'll tell you. It's because I'm sick and tired of lying and being some who I'm not. Last night up in the tower I decided that Krista Lenz was a role I was sick of playing. So, I told everybody who I was."

"I see. I'm not really sure what to say."

"Neither were we," says Armin. "But, actually, we should probably have seen this coming."

"What do you mean?" I ask surprised.

"You remember the Wall Cult pastor we brought down with us. Well, he still refuses to tell us anything, but after seeing what the situation was like for the people in Trost he said that there was a girl from the 104th who was from one of the old families. He said that she might know something about the Walls that we didn't know."

"Unfortunately," says Historia, "I'm as much in the dark as anybody. Besides, it's not like my father would have ever told his greatest embarrassment anything important," she adds with a snort of disgust.

I sigh. "So after all that we're back to square one?"

"Pretty much," says Eren gloomily.

"Not entirely," says Armin. "Matthias, do you remember what we said about how we might find the traitors on the wagon ride out here?"

"Yeah, we thought they might have had some kind of attack like Eren and I did."

"Well, I've been asking around very carefully, and guess which two rookies had synchronised headaches and dizzy spells?"

"Who? Who are they?"

Armin looks at me very gravely. "You're not going to like this but, it was Reiner and Bertolt."