I am very sorry for not having updated in a long time. I was on vacation and very busy and am generally a very slow writer (partly because English isn't my first language) If anyone is still reading this story please tell me what you think of this chapter. Levi's midnight expedition will get them in a bit of trouble.
Levi had his bleeding hand on her face holding back her head he saw the light in Nina's eyes fade as she slipped into a trance. First she had seemed blinded by fury, then after what looked like a struggle with her inner demons she fixed her eyes on him, marking him as her prey and he knew that she wouldn't stop until one of them was dead. He had the unfair advantage of wearing 3D gear but he wouldn't use it yet. He wanted to see how strong she really was. Berserk, blood sick uncontrollable beasts knowing only death and destruction - those were the words describing people like her. Levi had learned that she was from an old tribe of hunters from which her blood sickness originated. In the old days those afflicted were revered champions feared by friend and foe alike. In stories that were told like legends the berserkers displayed feats of inhuman strength like lifting trees and barehandedly fighting bears and wolfs whilst unable to feel pain. As time progressed, the fear grew and they were soon hunted and executed. Very few survived and one of them was glaring bloodthirstily into Levi's eyes her face misshaped and twisted with savagery looking every bit as fearsome as a titan. She darted at him, swinging a heavy branch hard and high but Levi dodged away, nimble as the wind.
He waved away from another blow and ducked under the second, each as hard as the other, quick and as deadly as lightening she struck again and again. His breath was quick and he could feel the sweat on his forehead run down in cold streaks as he watched her prowling, tightly gripping the thick branch. Nina sprang forward but Levi was ready, steering the thrust away with the blade he had drawn. He fired a hook and just as he pulled the trigger he felt her jerking at his belt with such force that he was immediately brought onto his knees. He rammed the hilt against her ribs but couldn't shake her off. He had hoped that it didn't have to come to this, that he didn't have to kill her but there was no leeway. He closed his eyes let out a short breath reeled and slashed at her without holding back. When he broke off he saw that she had somehow managed to take a replacement blade and the only thing he had cut was the wire connecting his sword to the rest of his gear.
"Shit! You are one bloody -",he snarled but before he could finish his sentence, she had flown past him, the cold steel of the blade she had stolen cutting through his arm like a hot knife through butter. He didn't let the pain get to him and quickly grabbed her by the hair pushed her down and pressed her face into the mushy ground. It took all of his strength to keep her down and before too long she broke free. The next thing he saw was a fountain of blood streaming out in every possible direction. Nina's blade was stuck in the horses' abdomen. It neighed and with a last dying effort landed a kick on her head sending her rolling down the hill.
There was a flickering in the corner of her eyes and she awoke to find Levi hunched in front of a sky was dark but it looked like it was not long before dawn. Her sight was blurry and her head felt like it was going to crack open with pain. She was overwhelmed with aches and a feeling of utter disgust as she wished she could simply slip out of her skin. She squinted and could just about make out that Levi was staring at her from the darkness. Just as she opened her mouth Levi raised his hand to stop her.
"Keep it shut", he picked up the flask next to him and threw it at her, hitting her hard in the ribs. She grunted in pain and gave a strangled coughing noise that was half laugh, half growl.
"You're quite the gentleman captain, your mama never told you that you should wake a sleeping beauty with a gentle kiss?", she chuckled and licked her chapped, blood-encrusted lips , her head drunkenly tilting to the side as she smiled at him wiping the drool from the corner of her mouth.
If looks could kill, she thought to herself. "Care to elaborate on our whereabouts or you just gonna sit there try'na bore a hole into me with your eyes?"
"Which part of shut up did you not get?", he retorted.
"The part where it would actually be physically possible for you to make me. No offense but you look like...", she looked him up and down and couldn't quite find the right words. "…absolute horse shit".
Levi gave a long sigh. His arm was sticking out of the sleeve of his torn shirt where a deep cut was showing. He was still holding the sooty dagger which he had cauterized the wound with.
"We are miles away from the Lavelle Castle and have one dead and an injured horse and can't travel back. All thanks you. Happy?"
"wow wow wow now it was your idea to drag me here in middle of the night and do .. whatever it was you had planned. I thought you were going to kill me.
"Yeah. I probably should have".
"Then why the fuck didn't you?" asked Nina.
His eyes traced the necklace around her neck and wandered down to her chest and thoughtfully lingered there for a short while before he continued.
"You almost killed me", he said.
"So somehow in your terms that means I deserve to live?"
"How much do you remember?", he asked genuinely interested.
"What does it matter? What's the plan how are we getting back?". She leaned on her hand to try and get up but cursed like a sailor when the pain of her broken fingers jolted through her arm.
"We get some rest and hope that the horse will take us two hours, if we walk the rest of the way we should be there at nightfall."
"That's oddly specific. You sure know your way around here. Do you often get lost here to do business?", she spoke the last bit with a silly voice while forming quotation marks in the air.
She slept uneasily and woke several times to see him still sitting in front of the fire seemingly not needing any sleep himself.
"I swear you are some sort of demon. Do you just not sleep?". She felt her stomach twisting then and she remembered that the best medicine against hunger in adversity was sleep. But it was hard to find rest when she knew that Levi was awake.
"I have the voice of an angel you know. You care for a tune?", she gave an acid burp.
She saw him roll his eyes before he turned to her. "Get your things, we are going." She was not sure what qualified as things when the only objects lying around were the pile of leaves and a bit of torn leather she had used as a pillow, a puddle of her own sick, and the flask he had thrown at her. Seemed he wasn't the type that thrived on banter so she let that one go.
It was broad daylight when they started riding back. He must have been some kind of horse whisperer cause Nina could have sworn that exactly after two hours the horse was done for. It was dead silent. Not once did Levi speak. The heat was unbearable and her body felt as heavy as if it were packed with lead rather than flesh when they slowly paced through the flat terrain that seemed to stretch out forever.
Apart from a couple of short breaks they hadn't stopped walking until the sun was starting to set. When they saw a nearby cave Nina dropped on the floor from exhaustion.
"One hour". Those were Levi's first words of the day.
"I don't care if it's 10 minutes until we arrive even Doombringer is exhausted"
He raised an eyebrow and gave her a questioning glance."Doombringer?"
The injured horse who had walked beside them knelt down next to Nina and she stroked it's mane.
"I tell you this horse is a better conversational partner than you.
"Hope it talks less crap than you do".
"Hahaha ... look who's developing a sense of humour. I applaud you Captain." It was the first time she had called him that. It immediately felt awkward and she could tell that it was weird for him too.
When he decided to sit down Nina felt the biting hunger in her stomach.
"Before you sit, could you just do me a favour and bring me a few twigs from that tree?" Somehow had she managed to craft a bow from her shoelace and the twigs. When she actually managed to kill a rabbit with it he had looked at her suprisedly, as if she had just pulled it out of a hat.
Not wanting to trigger another one of her frenzies Levi made sure it was him who picked up the rabbit and skinned it.
"Who taught you how to hunt?", he asked when they had finished eating.
Surprised that he had actually started a conversation, she replied "My dad, but I doubt he would be proud of me. And I'm not saying that because I killed a bunch of guys and ended up in prison ... my hunting skills suck compared to his."
She said the words with such ease that there was no room to believe that she felt the tiniest bit of remorse for her crimes.
"Why did you do it? Sure you have your moments, and a lot of them, but you don't actually strike me dumb enough to do it out of vengeance"
"Well thanks I guess ... why so talkative all of a sudden are you jealous of the relationship me and Doombringer have?", she grinned but Levi could see through her. Her voice had gotten brittle when she made the stupid joke and it was fairly obvious that she did it as a petty effort to hide how uncomfortable she actually felt.
He didn't break the eye contact and she felt like one could vanish in those stoney grey eyes of his. He wasn't wearing a mask, he might have come across stale and emotionless but Nina somehow always felt that she could directly see into his soul when looking into those eyes. She felt that unlike her, he didn't have his true self hidden under layers upon layers - hell she didn't even know who she was, too busy to pretend being someone else each time.
"I don't remember it." Maybe it sounded like an excuse to him but for the first time it felt like someone actually asked without judging her and she gave him the truth. She was haunted by nightmares of that day but she couldn't tell what was real and not. Sometimes those visions would crawl into dreams making memory and dream indistinguishable.
Her stomach gave a loud grumble making her feel ill. She couldn't stop coughing and took a sip from the flask Levi had handed to her but it didn't help. She shifted to the side and her stomach cramped and brought the contents of it into her mouth and then onto the floor. The taste of iron made her dizzy and she half-expect it to be blood but it wasn't.
Blood ... there was a loud buzzing in her ear and all of a sudden a vision of Levi's sliced thumb flashed before her eyes. It was his blood running down her face. The horse kicking out. His mouth forming words but everything was mute.
Trembling, she took Levi's flask and drank hastily from it again. She couldn't tell whether he was interested or worried but it seemed like his expressionless face was less vacant than usual. Nina reached out and waited for him to take it, she watched him grip it but there was no gash to be seen. When she reached out to grab his other hand he immediately pulled away.
"What do you think you are doing?", he hissed.
"Can I see it?"
"And why would you need your hands for that?", he opened his palm and Nina saw the clean cut across his thumb.
"So that's why you brought me here. But why would you ... again, if you knew why didn't you just kill me?"
"So you do remember?", he calmly asked.
Anger and fear came over her. A part of her wanted to tell him but a bigger part wanted to punch him in the face.
"Answer my question", she snarled in a raised tone.
Her vision became blurry, then her mind presented her with an image that had haunted her for so long that she was sure she'd never forget it. Blood splattering everywhere as the cart got smashed by a giant foot obliterating everyone she had cared for in one go.
The fact that he was still so indifferent drove her crazy.
"ANSWER ME", she grabbed him by his cravat and pulled him up.
"Erwin thinks you can be put to good use".
"And having almost killed you proved a point huh, or you think you can just tame me cause you are the great captain Levi"
"Get your hands off of me", he whispered with an almost tangible but steady threat in his voice.
She was only inches away from his face. "I won't be of any use to you or ANYONE else. Stop playing your shitty mind games, you should have killed me there and then. I can't protect anyone from the danger for I AM the danger."
He pulled out the dagger and pressed it under her chin.
She clenched her neck and stared into his eyes and started to push into him her head almost touching his.
"Do it. COME ON."
He withdrew and put it into her hand.
"If you are so keen on dying then why don't you do it yourself" he placed the dagger in her hand.
She looked utterly disappointed and her eyes filled up with tears as she was flooded by emotions that she had suppressed for so long.
"I can't", she said in a faint voice.
When researching her background Levi had come across four names. After she was knocked out he had gone over to kill her but couldn't get himself to do it when he saw the names of her former squad engraved into her necklace.
"Let me guess you promised one of your dead friends and now you have to honour it", he said in a mocking tone. He was never known for showing empathy but for reasons he couldn't tell he was just outright evil then.
"No .. I can't.. I just.. can't do it myself", she barely got out the words through her clenched teeth. Her voice was trembling and without taking her eyes off him she took the dagger from him and decidedly"let me show you."
Before he could stop her she drove the steel into her chest all the while staring at him, a single tear running down her cheek. There was a loud cracking sound and he couldn't believe his eyes when he saw crystals forming around her chest as the dagger snapped.
He didn't know what to do or say but then the air suddenly filled with a much louder noise. The ground started to shake and there were familiar sounds of very large footsteps in the distance.
The timing couldn't have been worse. He could see the silhouette of titans approaching in the distance. Titans inside the walls. He had no clue what just happened and now this. Nina's unresponsive state wasn't helping. He put his arms around her, gripped her tight and got on Doombringer.
I think I fell in love with Doombringer. I will always remember him as (according to Nina) the horse who has more character than our favourite Captain
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