Rain
"For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first."
~A Feast for Crows, George R. R. Martin
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Levi didn't remember closing his eyes. One moment, he was staring at the ruins of the Shiganshina, the next, he was choking on a cloud of ash kicked up by his rescuer. He was still being carried under an arm, although the man had slowed to a brisk walk, either from fatigue or wanting to conserve the energy for when he needed it. As the pair of long legs to his left alternated one in front of the other, Levi caught glimpses of a scarred and blunted paring blade. Most likely one of his rescuer's last ones, otherwise he'd have discarded the useless weapon ages ago. He must be out of gas, too, or close to it. He'd have taken to the rooftops and used it to cross large gaps between buildings if that weren't. An experienced soldier then. He thought groggily. Probably a Scout.
Had he cared more, he might've tried identifying him, but his broken leg had gone numb with pain and his right arm, the one he half knew, half denied was dislocated, flopped and dangled with every step. His shoulder was numb, too, and he could feel countless cuts and scrapes and bruises peppering his limbs and face. He grit his teeth in pain as his rescuer stepped over a beam that had fallen in their path. The mystery soldier grunted in reply and weaved through shattered pieces of white rock. If he had passed out, it must not have been for too long. A couple minutes at the very most.
How close were they to the Inner Gate? Did they have enough gas left to scale the Wall? If not, would others be willing to help them? Were there others? It occurred to him he hadn't seen anyone for a while. Not since the Garrison woman who'd been eaten, and then the presumed Scout who'd saved him from the same fate. Was there anyone left? Or had those who remained made it over the Wall when the order to retreat came?
His friends?
Suddenly, his rescuer stopped and cursed, then bolted down a narrow side street with towering wall to wall tenement houses, sprinting as fast as he could. Levi squinted as the upside down image of a fifteen meter titan stepped into view, wearing a fierce scowl on its old, craggy face. The goliath followed in long, slow steps, one for every twenty his rescuer took.
Until he came to an abrupt halt. "Shit!" Levi blinked. That voice…. "Shit, shit, shit! Now there's two of them. And one's a crawler, dammit."
Levi lifted his head, blinking blearily at the new titan that had appeared in front of them, a crawling female with gawky limbs, ratty hair that trailed against the ground, and bright, violet eyes that gleamed with excitement. He dropped his head and peered at the male closing the distance behind them. The man carrying him cursed again and lowered him to the ground.
Supporting himself with his only good arm, Levi twisted his neck around to find Oruo drawing a second blade, just as dull and scratched as the first, and facing the approaching crawler. The man was filthy, covered head to toe in so much ash and dirt that his grey hair was almost black now, his skin a powdery slate hue, and the Wings of Freedom were barely visible on his frayed and burnt cloak. Levi shivered at the thought that maybe he was the same way and resisted the urge to look down at his hands. Oruo turned his head but not to look at him. His copper eyes glared at the fifteen meter heading their way. Levi heard it coming, its footsteps crunching glass and debris without discrimination.
Oruo scowled. "They smell your blood. Human scent alone is enough to attract them, but the stench of blood really draws them in."
Levi didn't want to ask how he'd learned that. It didn't really matter if they were going to die, right? His leg was broken, and one man against two titans was impossible odds. There was nowhere to run; this was Shire, a district in Shiganshina with nothing but long, narrow and tall tenements pressed so close together the sun only shown on cobbled streets for only a couple hours a day. It offered a profound reminder of the Underground and Levi avoided the place at all costs. Especially now, he would've never come here without gas, but Oruo didn't know the city that well and probably realized his mortal error five steps in when he saw the towering brick buildings with no alleys to escape through.
His arm and leg throbbed. I'm going to die. "You should go. If I'm the one attracting them like you said, then you've got a chance to get out of here. You should take it."
The elder Scout ignored him and turned back to the crawler, his hands gripping the blades. She was grinning at them now and flexing her long, skinny fingers, digging deep furrows into the street. She was going to pounce, Levi realized. Like a kitten chasing her first mouse. He saw she was a small titan, now that she had gotten closer. A wee, little thing compared to the other, with an oddly childlike face.
"Go." He said again, looking up at the old man.
Oruo looked at the fifteen meter, then the crawler again, not appearing to hear him.
"Go, just go!" He pleaded. "Don't-"
"Shut up." Without warning, he took three long and calculated strides toward the little titaness, then spinning wildly on one foot, he detached both blades and hurled them toward her face. She screamed in agony, covering her eyes and burying her child face into the ashen street. Oruo darted forward, scaling her lowered head with the speed of an irked squirrel, but instead of simply killing the beast then and there, he fired a grapple into one of the tenements buildings and launched himself into the air. Levi was caught between watching him go and glancing at the steadily healing crawler less than eight meters away.
The second titan took a swipe at the old man, missed, and shrieked a dying cry as its nape was slashed open. Levi turned back to the crawler and recoiled at the bloody holes where her eyes had been. Bloody, evaporating tears rolled down her cheeks as she whimpered and cried. He dug the heel of his uninjured leg into the ground and pushed himself away. His broken leg dragged and twinged, making him wince and grit his teeth. The crawler's expression somehow brightened at the noise and she turned toward him, half formed eyes fixated in his general direction. Then she again shrieked in pain as Oruo reappeared, landing on the back of her neck and cleaving through her nape.
He wasted no time after that, sprinting toward him, grabbing him up, and running back for the main road. "I spotted another one while I was up there." He explained. "I'm trying to put some distance between us."
"How big?" Levi gasped, a little shocked at being handled like a potato bag. And even more so at the efficiency of Oruo's attack, the strategic method and the execution both.
"Twelve meters?" Oruo guessed. "Problem is, I don't know if I have enough gas left to bring it down and climb the wall, so I'm going to try and outrun it. There should be plenty of places to hide in this city."
He could run faster if he left me behind. He thought. Plus, I'm still bleeding. I'm still attracting titans.
"Don't you start." The old man snapped. "I didn't kill three of those monsters just to leave you for dead minutes later."
Three titans dead in the span of less than ten minutes. How many others had Oruo killed today? With a technique like that, probably plenty. Hell, how many had he killed? He'd lost track after Stendahl died, crushed by a titan's hand slamming him into the ground. He'd never known what hit him. Levi had killed that titan, as well as the one standing behind it. He found another in what had been the market and dispatched that one, too. Then there was one in front of Cattedrale Meryem, but Mike had gotten to that one first. He'd watched Petra take one down at some point, and that had been the last he saw of her, then he assisted Smith in bringing down another. After that, everything was a vague blur of the passing hours, dotted with countless kills and countless deaths, both soldiers and civilians who'd been unable to escape the city.
Suddenly, the earth shook with the crash of a might footstep that knocked Oruo clear off his feet and sent them flying. Levi landed hard on his bad shoulder and bit his tongue. A gush of warm blood filled his mouth as he forced himself upright. Oruo was lying motionless on the cobblestones, a streak of bright, red blood flowing from a gash in his forehead. He opened his eyes moments later and lifted his head to see the incoming titan reaching for him. Immediately, he leapt to his feet and tried darting out of reach, but either the disorienting head wound or his lack of a running start preventing him from going much further than two meters.
The old man screamed as their pursuer caught him. It was a shrill, terrified sound, punctuated by the snap of an overused blade when he tried stabbing the titan's fingers. Levi watched a section of the ultrahard steel fall to the ground with a metallic clatter as the creature lifted his comrade to its gaping maw.
"Son of a-" Without thinking, he scrabbled against the street cobbles for something to throw, and finding only fistfuls of gravel, he turned to his blades instead. He had three left, but those were useless without vertical maneuvering and gas. Weren't they? His mind flashed back to how Oruo had blinded the crawling titan earlier. How had he done that? Throwing knives was one thing, but throwing swords was completely another, never mind his right arm was dislocated. Hitting the titan anywhere but the eyes would make it angry and blinding it wouldn't guarantee Oruo's release. There was always the chance he would hit Oruo, too. Although, maybe it was better to kill the man quickly rather than let him suffer the agony of being eaten alive.
He loaded one blade and, as quickly as he could, forced himself to his feet, balancing on his good leg. Oruo didn't call out for help, whether out of pride or out of knowing Levi couldn't answer, he didn't know. From where he stood, he could see tears streaking the old man's sooty face as he drove what remained of the blade into the titan's thumb. "Dammit…."
Memories of Farlan's death punched him hard in the gut and before he could even think, much less aim, Levi swung his arm around and released his paring blade, sending it pinwheeling toward the titan's face. Simultaneously, he lost his balance and crashed into a heap on the ground, but he raised his head, frantically praying he hit his mark. The blade caught the titan in the hollow above its left eye, and the creature roared in agony and lost its grip on his comrade. Oruo landed in a crouch, skinning his knee in the process, and pelted towards him. Infuriated, the titan made a grab for him again, but something leapt from the rooftops high above. Levi looked up to see Erwin Smith attach a grapple into the goliath's neck, reel himself in, and swing his remaining blade around in a wide arc, like a farmer taking a scythe to wheat. The thing went still in moments and slumped forward onto the street.
"Are you two all right?" He asked, sheathing his last blade and running toward them. Two more soldiers neither of them recognized appeared on the roof above and made their way down. Erwin's hair was now an ashen, soot grey color, his cloak was gone, and he was just as big a mess as they were. "Are either of you hurt?"
"You're a godsend, Smith." Oruo called to their savior. "May all your children have the good sense to stay away from the Wings of Freedom."
The man gave him a humorless smile, then jerked his head toward Levi. "What happened to him?"
"Gas shortage happened."
"Get him up then." He ordered. "Shadis has ordered the retreat. It's time to go."
Levi froze. What? He looked back and forth between the two Scouts, like a condemned man searching for mercy where none could be found. Oruo looked just as surprised and pointed out he hadn't seen a flare. Erwin just silently gestured to the thick smog choking the air. Of course a flare wouldn't be visible in that smoke. Bile rose in his throat at the idea of leaving Shiganshina after all their attempts to save it. The South City was his home now. The Winged Sister was his home. It was the Winged Sister that saved him from walking down a road he would've regretted. The Winged Sister, the advice of its kind and wise old landlord, the support of his employees, the persistent curiosity of his little grandson, the company of good and honest people like Stendahl and Brauer and Royceston, and Petra's friendship, of course. Thank god a thousand and one times and double for all of them. If they fled now, it'd be years before they saw it again. Hell, he might even be dead by the time humanity saw it again. They'd never be able to come home if they left now.
But he knew there was no Winged Sister anymore. Levi's face fell. He'd seen that for himself. Nothing left but an empty wall and a lonely staircase that led to nowhere.
And flames.
What choice did they have?
Abandoning Shiganshina was folly.
But staying meant death.
So he allowed Oruo to pick him off the ground again, but instead of carrying under his arm or over his shoulder like a sack of grain, the old man lifted him up in both arms, cradling him like a child. Levi blinked in surprise, and embarrassment. The last time anyone had ever held him like this, he had been eight or nine years old and had drifted off on the floor of the hovel he'd once lived in. He'd lost track of time, exhausted after a long day of scavenging and avoiding his foster father. But he remembered partially waking when Kenny found him, scooped him up, and carried him to the straw mat he slept on, covering him with moth-eaten blanket. It was the first and last time the man had shown him any form of tenderness, and he held onto that memory for the sheer oddity of it. Oruo stared on ahead, refusing to meet his eyes, and that suited Levi just fine.
He woke up atop the Wall sometime later, but he had no idea how much time had passed nor was he entirely sure how they'd scaled the steep incline with the burden of an extra unconscious Scout. What he did know was it was the screaming that woke him.
It was horrible sound, shrill and strangled and full of agony. Like an animal's howls in the slaughterhouse. Levi flinched away from the noise and found as he slowly regained consciousness that it was closer than ever, growing ever louder and louder. Why did no one knock that man out or something and put him out of his misery? Why let him scream like that? He was going to ruin his throat soon. Annoyed, he opened his eyes. Then someone wedged a rag that tasted like ash and dirt between his teeth and he realized he was the one screaming like a tortured and damned soul burning in hell.
A medic was resetting his broken leg. Two more people were holding him down and a fourth was ensuring he didn't spit the gag out. He felt the cloth cutting the corners of his mouth as he yelled and struggled against them. A woman's voice pleaded with him they were almost done and for him to just hang in there a little longer. "They're almost done." She repeated, so close he felt her breath and tears on his brow. She was sitting on his arms, pinioning them to the ground, and his dislocated one screamed in protest. The other two were holding his legs in place, ensuring he neither jarred the injured one while the medic set the bone nor used the other to kick the poor man in the face.
"Enough fussing." One of the men snapped, as though he were a child with a mere splinter. That voice he recognized, and as he cracked open his eyes and his vision refocused, he saw Oruo was one of the men holding his leg down. Upon closer examination, he saw the second man wasn't even a man. Petra, with her cropped-short hair turned almost black in the filth, had her arm wrapped around his thigh in a death grip as a medic was all but twisting it back into place. The crying girl with the rag was unknown to him, but she wore the Guardian of Humanity on her uniform.
No sooner than this thought passed through his mind, Levi vomited and gagged as the foul-tasting bile slammed right back into his throat, having nowhere else to go. Immediately, the girl yanked the rag away and turned his head to the side. He spat out the contents in his mouth, violently coughed up the rest, then retched again.
By then, the pain subsided to an intense throb as the medic had released him and was splinting his leg with what appeared to be pieces of the lost city and military cloaks torn into strips. Taking a shuddering breath, Levi looked down and saw his broken leg was swollen and mottled with blue and dark purple bruises, with a small gash where the bone had broken through his skin. His boot was just gone. Cut off and discarded over the side of the Wall, he was later told. His shoulder was still dislocated, but the hassled medic seemed to forget all about it and rushed off to his next patient. The girl followed him shortly.
Levi smelled blood.
He smelled smoke.
He smelled piss.
Bile, disinfectant, burning leather.
And cooking flesh. The air reeked of it. A fetid stench that swallowed the world whole. The titan stench.
Just the sight of his leg made him want to throw up again, but he swallowed it down and inspected his hands, cut and bleeding and stained with black and grey smudges. His skin crawled at the thought of more filth hiding under his sleeves, and the thought his face was even worse made him want to rip his hair out. One of his hands shook, clenching until the thin scabs reopened and bled.
More than anything, he wanted to pass out, wake up tomorrow, and find this was all just a horrible, vivid nightmare. The titans had stolen his friends from him, and now they'd proven they could take away their home as well. They'd taken Wall Maria. What was to stop these so-called Armored and Colossal Titans from shattering the gates of Trost and Ermich, devouring their way to the Capital, and annihilating the human race once and for all.
Maybe they were there now.
If only they could've stopped them, he thought. If only they could've stemmed the invasion long enough for the Garrison builders to block the Inner Gate. If only that monster of a titan…. If he'd just fought harder….
"You fought as hard as you could." Oruo answered, and he realized he'd been rambling aloud and hadn't even known it. The old man placed a hand on his head, smoothing his bangs out of his face. "You did everything you could, Levi. We all did. The idea of running away twists like a knife in the gut, I know, but it's pointless to fight a battle we can't win. Please don't dwell on that, or it may drive you mad."
The old man had saved his life. Levi blinked. He'd killed three titans for his sake. Why? The two of them had despised each other ever since they met. To Oruo, he was just 'a random vagrant picked off the street', an impression he'd never exactly improved on. He wasn't proud of it, but the night he found himself the Jinn home wasn't the last time he drank himself into such a state. How many times was it, anyway? He supposed it didn't matter. They could barely stand in the same room without Oruo's condescending attitude irritating the hell out of him. Not that their dislike ever led to frequent arguments, but the wall between them created a frigid atmosphere few were able to withstand.
And yet he saved him from not one, not two, but three titans, a practically impossible feat. He could've done it himself for sure had his limbs been in a proper working order, but Oruo? He would've never thought the old man had it in him. How had he done it?
"That was quite a show you put on back there." He said.
Oruo gave him a scathing look. Or at least what he assumed was supposed to be scathing, considering how exhausted and broken down they all were. "You think I've survived in the Survey Corps this long on pure luck? Don't be stupid."
"Thank you." No sharp retorts or barbs. Just the honest truth for once.
This time he succeeded in glaring at him, his forehead furrowing as he scrutinized his face for his usual brassiness. Finding none, his copper eyes softened, and he nodded, reaching out and patting his good leg, then turning away to face the burning city.
The rain came softly. No thunder roared, no lightning crashed, just a rain as sweet and gentle as a mother's love came tumbling from the heavens and washing away the filth of the world. He'd been born in a world the sunlight could not touch, a dark abyss with a cavern sky. Before he left the Underground, he'd never felt rain on his face before. Or sunlight. Or wind. Never known the world his mother wept and yearned for in the middle of the night when she thought he was sleeping.
The very first time he'd seen snow, truly saw it, had been here in Shiganshina. In the Winged Sister. He'd woken up early that day and was heading downstairs to the tavern for some breakfast when the old landlord's grandson seized him by his hand and pulled him eagerly toward the door. He'd stumbled out onto the wide porch and very nearly dove back inside, startled by the cold and the ice and the white, white, white extending all over the city. The boy grinned up at him for an instant, released his hand, and literally belly flopped off the porch into the street, landing in what had to have been forty-five centimeters of fresh powder. His friends came to play later, the trouble-making doctor's son and the little girl with the red scarf, so he was left to go about his day without further interruption. However, he did keep glancing out the window at the snow, so curious it seemed almost childish in retrospect.
"The rain feels nice." He whispered. Almost like snow.
Then he looked around and realized there were no thunderclouds. And Oruo and Petra's faces were dry and hollow. He looked past them and saw the victims and the survivors. The Scouts, the Garrison, and the Military Police all fought and died together that day, as brothers and sisters. He watched the Brigade girl cleaning a gash across a Scout's forehead. Scout tending to a Garrison man's broken arm. A Garrison soldier covering the face of an MP drawing his last breath. A few lucky, or unfortunate (depending on one's point of view), surviving civilians they'd managed to save stood among them, huddled in small, distraught groups of two to five or so. He saw a pair of boys, one dark, the other fair, sitting side by side as they watched the destruction of their home. Brothers, maybe? A woman rocking back and forth on her haunches, clutching her wailing baby to her chest. A middle aged man with hollow, broken eyes stared up at the stars beginning to appear in the twilight.
All of them were dry, save for their eyes.
Yet his rain continued to fall for lost Shiganshina.
"Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain. Classic thinking teaches us of the four doors of the mind, which everyone moves through according to their need.
First is the door of sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain.
Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly.
Third is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity.
Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told.
~The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss
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Author's Notes: So here's the long awaited continuation to Forlorn, and it broke my heart to write it.
Technically speaking, this is part three. Part one will also be written from Levi's point of view and will contain a bit more on the battle for Shiganshina, specifically the Garrison and Military Police's efforts and why they failed. (Not for lack of trying. Some unsavory someone who shall remain nameless joined the party.) Petra and Oruo might have their own chapter regarding Shiganshina, too, but then again, maybe not.
A note on Oruo's killing ability, I never really paid much attention to the titan kills anyone in Squad Levi had, but I remember him shouting he had the highest count in the group. So out of curiosity, I looked it up. Respectively, Gunther, Eld, and Petra have seven, fourteen, and ten kills, as well as forty, thirty-two, and forty-eight assists. In contrast, Oruo has killed thirty-nine titans and nine more through assists. Either that's the result of someone being in the Corps for a very long time, or he really is a proficient killer, or both.
Also, you may have spotted a couple (five) 104th Squad cameos in this one.
And finally, a special thanks to a specific reviewer for her support and patience.
And another thanks to Scordatura. She insisted I keep one of the parts with Levi and Oruo.
Hope you all enjoyed this installment of Tavern Ventures.
Shingeki no Kyojin is owned by Hajime Isayama. A Feast for Crows is owned by George R R Martin and The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Also, the quote from The Name of the Wind has been shortened since it was far too long to include the whole thing.