Thank you for the support! Brief chapter, but I actually finished the fanfiction in a 4-hour spree on Sunday. :) Updates as I have time to get it typed up. I do hope it amuses. Please don't be distracted by the surprising nature of the crossover, I promise there is a more-or-less serious plot. (And Levi. Yes, I'm promising Levi.) (There will also be a full disclaimer at the end for anything I make allusions to.) (If I remember.)

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"Armin?"

Eren could see his friend flinch in surprise and wished for half a second that he could have telegraphed his presence a little better. Then he got over it.

"What the heck are you doing?" he said, dropping to the meadow himself and looking around for the entourage (i.e. bodyguards, to his mind) that Armin should have. "Where are the others?"

"Levi-heichou is dealing with some insubordination," Armin said evasively.

Eren was Titan-obsessed but he wasn't completely dumb.

"Like you running off to find… wherever we are?" the black-haired youth said. Armin bit his lip and tried to change the subject.

"Why are you here?"

"Because it's on the perimeter!" Eren snapped, though he hadn't exactly been told to come this far either. Armin smiled at his tone.

"You're insubordinating too."

"That's not a word, Armin, and you should both get back to your groups. Gowan already told me to come find you, Eren. Levi-heichou is going to have a fit, Armin." Mikasa dropped out of the tree above like a falcon in the dive.

"I'm doing what we came to do," Armin said firmly. "There's a man I have to talk to."

"Well, it doesn't look like anyone has lived here in a long time," Mikasa said. They surveyed the land together. The clearing was speckled with bits of ancient town that the wilderness was gradually reclaiming, with the adamant advance of time and dandelions. It was flat and exposed all the way to the channel with no Titans on the horizon. So far as they all knew, Titans didn't swim. It was something Hanji hadn't been able to test yet but probably would, when she could.

I have to find him, Armin reminded himself, and as he thought it he half-remembered something the book had said.

"They follow a sword…"

"What, Armin?" Eren asked.

"Oh, it's nothing. I was just thinking about the thing I need to find." He couldn't tell them point blank that there had been a magic sword in the book, not unless he wanted to be treated like Eren on his particularly vehement killing-Titans days – all kid gloves and soothing words. - but then again, Armin wasn't Eren. Couldn't become a Titan at the chomp of a hand. Someone would probably just tell him flat out he was crazy.

He had gotten Levi to undertake this mission by saying his grandfather had given him a book of history that talked about a miracle worker who lived in this area. Armin wasn't at all sure that what he had was a book of history anymore. He was pretty sure that he didn't have a magic sword.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash. Smoke? Not steam, not steam, not Titans, not now—no, it was actually smoke from a chimney. Shoving past Eren, Armin hurried into the meadow, into the ruined town and towards the ascending wisp of grey. It was attached to a hut, which was much smaller than any of the houses in their town had been. Despite its size, Armin knew he had been able to see it before. He knew there had been no smoke from the chimney and the hut had given no sign of being lived in. The whole area had been a graveyard for buildings; it felt lived in now.

Before anyone could stop him, he ran up and banged on the wooden door.

His friends didn't yell at him to stop, still he heard Mikasa become battle ready with the requisite clank of blades. Eren moved after him, body tight as a wire.

"What if it's a Titan?" Eren asked.

"You think a Titan would live in this dump?" A horizontal slot in the door slid open abruptly, revealing a pair of suspicious wizened eyes that squinted out at them. "What'dya want?"

"A miracle!" Armin said, almost stuttering on his relief. "You can do miracles. Right?"

A dismissive grunt. "I'm retired, kid."

The eyes drew back, the slot began to slam shut, and Mikasa moved faster than any of them could anticipate and stabbed her blade into the gap. There was a strangled sound of frustration. Not pain though.

Thank God. Armin started breathing again.

"Mi-Mikasa, you could have killed him—"

The slot was opened.

"I don't do miracles anymore!"

"I-It's for humanity," Armin managed as Mikasa withdrew her blade and replaced it, daintily, in its holster. Sometimes, he wondered if there was a border in her head between killing Titans and seriously threatening to kill anybody who wasn't Eren. She could have maimed the man. Blinded. And that was probably why Levi hadn't asked them along into the woods on the secret mission.

"Pssh, humanity. Only thing good about that is true love and I don't see any of you portin' around that!" the man said caustically, still not having opened the door.

"I would kill you for Eren," Mikasa said flatly. The pair of eyes looked taken aback, then focused on Armin.

"Aren't you the lucky guy?"

"Er, I'm not Eren," Armin said. Eren was, as usual, trying to pretend he was very, very far away from the embarrassing situation.

"Then no offense but get these two jokers away from my door and push off!"

"Don't the Titans threaten you?" Eren asked, putting a hand on the wall of the house and looking at its construction, then at the area around it. "Living like this?"

"None'a your business, take your girlfriend and go!"

"But we-!" Armin began to protest, when something caught Eren's attention. Armin knew what that sudden level of stillness meant. Eren's pupils had dilated, his breathing caught up in a gasp as he stared At something behind Armin, back towards the forest. Dreading the sight, Armin looked.

A black plume of smoke shot up from the forest. Mikasa saw it as well, though her only response was a tiny sigh. She faced the door of the hut, took a step back to steady herself, and cleanly cut the door off its hinges. The man let out a startled 'awk!' and scrambled out of the way of the door as it toppled inwards.

"Eren, get inside. Armin, go see what's wrong," Mikasa ordered.

"M-Mikasa, hang on!" Eren protested. "I don't even know what to ask him!"

At this statement, Mikasa looked judgmentally at Armin, as if he had orchestrated this entire problem just to make her have to choose between dragging Eren into certain danger or abandoning Eren in uncertain danger.

"Maybe it's nothing important, Mikasa," Armin said. "I am missing. That could be it."

It had been well over an hour since he left. Ruther would be keeping in line with Heichou's iron rule by now and they would be looking for him. Behind them, the white-haired man (who must have been in his seventies or older) was still staring down at his battered doorway.

"Y'crazy—"

"They could be injured," Eren told Mikasa. "We have to at least go and check."

"Send the crazy girl!" the white-haired man snapped, going for what he probably thought was the least of all possible evils. "You want a miracle, you gotta fix my door, but I'll hear you out at least. Just get her out of here."

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Thank you for reading.