The horses sprang into action, galloping ahead picking up speed whilst the soldiers were listening to Commander Hanji.

"Once we reach the point, I want everyone to head to their given direction. The south will need more people as they will head back towards the wall and identify the location of the breach."

"Understood!" everyone shouted in unison.

Heading back towards the wall? That's where Mikasa should be right now, if I can join the group going south then I can reach her.

Eren had made up his mind: that's where he will be heading - even though he was given orders to go west and should trust Captain Levi, he couldn't help it.

"Commander Hanji!"

"Huh? Eren?!"

Hanji looked to her right watching the dark haired boy gathering speed, trying to ride alongside her. Everyone else had already split up into their respective groups.

"You're with the West group aren't you?" she questioned him once he managed to catch up with her.

"Y-yes ma'am, however…I feel like it would better for me to join the south."

"Really? What's your reasoning?"

"Well I…" Eren hesitated, trying to think up a good enough reason.

"Aah I see, you're worried about your special friend aren't you?" Hanji chuckled, looking at a rather flustered Eren riding right beside her. "Mikasa, is it?"

"Wh- No! That's not it…I was just thinking there'll be a lot of titans by the breach and so…you might need me-"

Eren was cut off by Hanji who noticed Eren's red cheeks and sighed "Ah young love" and rode off faster, leaving Eren hanging.

"Huh, wait! Is that a yes?!" he shouted after her, commanding his horse to go after her.

"Yes, but you gotta be faster than that!" she called back.

Thrilled, Eren followed the rest of the southern group as they spotted a nearby village and went towards it to help evacuate its inhabitants, he hoped there wasn't a lot of villages this far south, so he could go straight towards Wall Rose as soon as he could.

I wonder if Captain Levi has reached her yet. The walls at quite a distance from here and I can only imagine the amount of titans that must be swarming around there. But why would they send Mikasa to Wall Rose in the first place… and on her own? When they know that it's been infiltrated by titans? That's absurd! What the hell was he thinking!?

Eren was becoming angrier and angrier as he began venting in his mind not realizing that he was going full speed ahead of everyone else in the group. Suddenly a loud bang was heard up ahead, with a stream of black smoke shooting upwards, which brought Eren back to the task at hand.

What, black smoke? But that means-

"ABNORMAL UP AHEAD!"

"IT'S COMING STRAIGHT TOWARDS US!"

I'm going to kill it!

Eren took out his blades and hoisted himself up onto his horse so he was now in a crouching position on its back, still holding onto its reins tightly.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

They were growing louder and faster, the ground shaking beneath them; he could see it coming towards him.

You bastard!

He tightened his grip on his swords, waiting to pounce.

One meter tall, ten centimetres across. This is it!

A flash of green flew around the Titans neck and suddenly the titan stopped, dropping before Hanji and the rest. Eren relaxed himself again and sat back on his horse, putting his blades away. He looked up at the steam coming from the titan as it slowly evaporated.

"Ah! I see your nose is sharper than ever," Hanji grinned as she watched the tall blond land gracefully on his feet.

Mike Zacharias gave a small nod as he walked towards them. He was humanity's strongest fighter, second only to Levi, and his acute sense of smell allowed him to spot titans before anyone else.

"My team and I have cleared all of the villages up ahead. A lot of them were pretty vacant. It seems they escaped just in time," he told her, stopping just in front of her horse as he stood beside his. "Amazingly, we didn't encounter any dead bodies or casualties along the way".

"They escaped? All of them?" Hanji thought about this in her head for a few more minutes.

Could it be possible that they all escaped and not run into a single titan? Not even an abnormal?

"Hmm, that's strange, I assumed we'd have some casualties…I want to go to one of the villages immediately!"

"But Commander Hanji! We need to get to the wall!" Eren shouted desperately.

He knew they had already taken too long getting to where they were now and then that abnormal titan came out of nowhere. If she went to one of the villages now, who knows how long she'll take. Everyone stopped to look at Eren who was farthest from the rest.

"The villages will still be there when we get back but please! Let's just go to the wall now."

Hanji and Mike exchanged looks, then with a smile and a nod from Hanji, Eren raced off towards the wall. He was going to get to Mikasa. It wasn't long now.

Before long, a group of survey corps members caught up with him as he was nearing his destination. Light was slowly due to start turning into darkness now as the sun was just beginning to set, the sky a brilliant shade of red immersing into a warm, vibrant orange. Once one of the members was within earshot, Eren inquired about Commander Hanji Zoe's whereabouts as soon as he had realized she wasn't within their group. It turned out Hanji couldn't help herself, and decided to stop off at one of the villages on the way here, dragging Mike with her. Eren laughed to himself quietly as he remembered his first conversation with Hanji about her famous titan experiments, and how enthusiastic she was talking about them the whole night.

He saw the fifty-meter solid wall that was Rose and saw a group about the same size as his just up ahead of them. This was the first part of the southern group that was led by Mike. They were also the ones, Eren found out, that fired the flare gun and warned the others of the abnormal that was charging towards them.

"Eren!"

Eren looked around struggling to find the source of the voice until he spotted the blond-haired boy come into view and he smiled.

"Armin!"

He walked his horse over to his and they both rode side-by-side as the group circled the wall to find the breach. They were silent for a while as Armin watched Eren, who was determined to find the breach. However, instead of looking at the wall itself, he seemed to be concentrating on the tops of the walls.

"Eren?" Armin said after a while, breaking the silence. He didn't respond.

He's not looking for a giant hole in the wall, he's looking for someone.

"Did you find Mikasa?" Armin asked him whilst still keeping an eye on the wall, although he was pretty sure it wouldn't be hard to miss.

As soon as Mikasa was mentioned, all his attention turned to his friend. His green eyes peering into Armin's blue ones.

"You saw her?!"

Armin looked away from him, visibly concerned. They hadn't seen her for almost a whole day now.

"No…" he finally replied in a small voice.

"Captain Levi said that she'd be here…but I can't see her anywhere."

Eren sighed.

"Now that I think about it, I haven't seen him either."

Armin looked up at him again as he turned his attention back to the walls.

"She's probably inside the walls, the sooner we find the breach the sooner we'll find her," he assured Eren.

"Yeah…"

He gave him a small smile before adding "Let's find her," his horse galloping faster as Armin took off after him.

It soon became dark and it was getting harder to see where they were going by torchlight. Eren felt himself growing weary as he struggled to keep his eyes open - he was concentrating on the wall so hard he hadn't noticed how dim it was getting around him.

"We've been going around for hours and I still can't see a damn thing wrong with the wall," one of the soldiers shouted up ahead, clearly frustrated and tired.

Just then they heard people up ahead. Everyone stopped as they saw horses coming towards them, their capes with the wings of freedom flowing behind them.

"Hey guys!" Sasha called as they got closer.

"Sasha! What are you doing here? I thought you were west," Armin asked her.

"We finished quicker than expected, so we decided to lend you guys a hand. We just came round from the other side," Jean told him. "So did you find it?"

Everyone looked at him confused.

"The breach? What, no… did you?" one of the soldiers asked, puzzled.

"Did you go around the whole wall?!"

"Not the side you just came from, since we haven't seen anything yet, we thought you were bound to," Armin told Jean.

"What the hell?"

"Do you think we missed it?"

"A hole with titans pouring through? Even in this light I doubt it," Ymir chimed in.

"Now that I think about it…I did find it strange how we didn't encounter a single titan on our way up here," Armin said.

He had been thinking about this for quite a while now, but didn't want to say anything in case he spoke too soon. Considering they came from the south, which was where the titans were approaching from, the fact that they had only encountered the one abnormal seemed off. And now they couldn't even find the breach in wall Rose? What was going on?

"Well… should we go round again?" One of the soldiers asked.

"Nah, it's too dark now and we're all tired. We should rest up and try again tomorrow morning," Reiner said.

They all agreed rather quickly, and noticed an old, worn-out castle near the wall not too far away, and decided to head up there and use it as place of rest.

"Oi Eren. You're quiet today. What's the matter with you? Not find enough titans on the way up here?" Jean teased him as they all went towards the castle slowly, taking it easy on the horses who were now exhausted from a whole day of strenuous trekking.

"He's just worried about Mikasa, we haven't seen her all day and…well..." Armin answered him when he figured that Eren wouldn't. He still seemed upset and had barely talked at all. He noticed how hopeful he was when he saw Jean and his group arrive, thinking she would be there with them, but quickly realized she was not.

"Mikasa?"

Eren felt annoyed when he heard Jean say her name.

"Just stay out of it! This has nothing to do with you alright!" Eren yelled at him out of nowhere.

Armin and Jean looked at him surprised.

Why the hell is he so angry?

"HEY! Shut the hell up you little shit! Who do you think you're talking to?" Jean snapped.

I've had enough of Eren and his tantrums. He thinks just because he can turn into a titan he can act all Captain Levi on our ass? One kick and he'll go rolling down that hill! Bastard.

"I was just gonna tell you that I saw her earlier, but…since this has nothing to do with me I'll keep quiet," Jean finished, but this time he sounded calmer.

Eren's eyes lit up.

He's seen her? So she's okay? All this time I've been worried over nothing? And this horse-faced bastard isn't even gonna tell me about it? We'll see about that!

"Tell me where you saw her," he asked him. He was nicer in tone but in his head, a horse's head was bleeding out under the covers of Jean's bed.

"So now you want to know? You should've been nicer to me earlier. Too bad..."

Eren was really getting pissed off at the sound of Jean's voice.

Why won't he just tell me already?!

Without thinking Eren launched himself at Jean knocking him off his horse as they both rolled around the ground, Eren finally managed to stay on top, overpowering him, his hands around Jean's neck. Jean struggled to get his hands off of him, his eyes growing wide in desperation.

Armin jumped off his horse and ran after them, pleading them to stop, Reiner noticed him running off shouting something and told the rest to keep moving forward as he finds out what has happened. Bertolt then lead the way with Ymir and Christa; Connie and Sasha were behind them with the rest of the soldiers.

"Eren! Let go of him, he can't breathe!" Armin begged.

But this only seemed to make it worse, as it appeared Eren's grip had tightened around his neck and Jean was struggling less. Suddenly, strong arms grabbed Eren from his forearms and peeled his hands off of Jean, hoisting him out of the way and throwing him to the ground. Jean turned to his side, coughing violently and gasping for air, his face red. Reiner knelt down beside him and gave him some of his water after he had calmed down. Eren sat a few feet away from Jean, breathing heavily, trying to calm himself and staring at his hands.

How did this happen? How did I get… this angry… and why?

Armin stood back and looked at Eren, not quite sure if he should approach him just yet for he still didn't quite understand what had happened. He looked at his childhood friend - the one who would charge head first into a fray not concerned about his own safety or how low his chances were of beating them, just to protect Armin; the one he shared a dream with, to go to the outside world and see the giant bodies of water filled with salt, the huge mountains made of ice and the fields of hot sand.

Eren, what's happening to you?