A/N: This and the next chapter are probably one of my favorite chapters up to date. I hope you all enjoy and let me know what you think!
Chapter 33
Present Day – The Retaking of Shiganshina
The Armored Titan turns towards the wall, hardening his hands and feet as he launches himself towards the structure. He begins climbing the wall, reminding Reiner of when he first ascended this wall when he sent out his first attack against this damned island.
He thinks about how everything has brought him back to this place, realizing that it is only fitting for it to end here as well. He will finally see an end to this long battle. He will finally capture the Founding Titan, and he will finally return home.
He watches as the Scouts launch themselves from the wall and figures not to worry about them. His main objective is to kill the horses and place the Scouts in a compromising position, where they will be unable to flee. Once they are broken down and starving, they will take Eren without a fight left in any of them.
The Armored Titan lifts himself atop the wall, looking down at the horses as his mind wonders at how close he was to death. He has to hand it to Levi; the short little fucker was fast, and had he hesitated transferring his consciousness into his body, he would have been a goner back there. He figures they still have some tricks up their sleeves with Erwin running point, and will not allow himself to get blindsided by them again.
He hears a crackling of lightning and thunder and he turns around with wide shocked eyes. He looks over his shoulder to see Eren standing before him in a cloud of steam, taunting him as he looks up at him.
Reiner gasps at the sight, shocked at his appearance. Surely they know that he is their main target; coming out here in the open is foolish, and he questions what sort of plan they have prepared for him.
Reiner glances over at Erwin. Leave it to the Commander to sacrifice others so easily, he thinks to himself as he turns his attention back to Eren. It is clear they are trying to stray him away from the horses and his main task. Not giving me any time to think, Commander. You clever bastard. Making me get down when I just climbed up.
He figures that Zeke and the others will be able to handle the horses while he handles the Coordinate, so he turns from his objective of killing the horses and moves towards Eren. He follows his Titan deep withing the city of Shiganshina.
Reiner chuckles to himself, knowing what Eren is trying to do. He is keeping them away from the walls so Bertolt cannot attack as he did when they first captured Eren. He smiles to himself knowing that their silly plan will be for nothing if Bertolt is needed. His entrance will be explosive, and they will have nowhere to hide if his intervention is required. But Reiner will not let it get that far.
They begin fighting, their hardened fists crashing against one another's as they land heavy attacks. Eren has learned how to harden his skin in the time that they have been gone, and Reiner cannot pretend that he is not impressed. It's clear that he is making the most of having the Founding Titan's powers, but he will do everything to make sure the little bastard does not assume its full power.
The Armored and Founding Titan grunt and roar as they punch one another, the sounds of their cries heard throughout the city. Willow watches with wide eyes, unable to see the battle from her location and feeling helpless to do anything as she hears its outcome.
She launches herself with her ODM gear from the Cart Titan, to the back of the Beast Titan's ear. She holds onto a tuft of hair as she tries to get a better vantage point of the fight. She looks past the battle towards the wall where she watches the Scouts scramble to move the horses.
"They are scattering the horses so we cannot make a single direct attack at them," she notices and the Beast grunts at her observation. "The Soldiers are having some trouble mowing down the smaller Titans you send to them, and the ones moving the horses are not Scouts," she begins and he glances over to her. "You can tell by the way they hesitantly react to the Titans," she observes.
"They have not been trained to be desensitized to the Titans like they do in the Scouts," she spots, "Meaning they have to be Garrison or Military Police. There is no way they have this many bodies in the Scouts. My guess is the ones that can do the actual damage are within Shiganshina, working on protecting Eren. These are just decoys; bodies for Erwin to play with."
The Beast smiles at her observation of the Scouts and how they struggle to kill the smaller Titans they throw at them. She can see that they have grown weak since she departed, frowning at the realization that all the good soldiers have died off and she's the cause of death for most of them.
"Here's the thing that is bothering me though," Willow continues her sentiment. "Looking at these Scouts, I can't see any of the veteran contingent; not a single one. That means that all of them must be protecting Eren."
"Obtaining the Coordinate is our primary objective," the Beast reminds her.
"Right, but with what weapons?" she asks and his red beams glance back at her. "Regardless of talent, we were unable to take down the Armored using our swords; they were like glass against his armor. We didn't have any hope of taking him down unless we had artillery cannons," she begins explaining.
"But Reiner isn't as stupid as he looks," she jeers. "When we attempted to lure him into cannon fire, he knew what we were doing. The veteran forces have to know that Reiner would smell an ambush anywhere."
"So?" the Beast offers her to continue her assessment.
"So, they can't have stationary cannons where they will lure the Armored into an attack, and they seriously cannot have the supplies to place cannons on every rooftop."
"You really enjoy keeping me on the edge of my seat," the Beast jests as she continues.
"What I'm saying is I have a problem with this plan. Let's say they manage to lure the Armored and use artillery cannons against him, why do they need all of their veteran forces? If they somehow managed to lure Reiner into a trap, the cannons will provide the bulk of the damage and once the cannons have immobilized the Armored, Eren in Titan form can finish him off easily. They wouldn't need Hange, and Mikasa, and Jean and the others to supervise the attack."
"Maybe they are protecting his nape?" the Cart Titan challenges her.
"How?" she questions the Titan below. "Their swords will do nothing against his armor. A hardened fist to the back will be difficult to evade, and once he makes an attack like that, there's really no offensive maneuvers they can work with," she tells both of them. "So, the question still remains, why are all the good soldiers within Shiganshina? What are they all for? Why aren't they here helping the inexperienced on the frontlines?"
"Too valuable to be Titan fodder?" Zeke questions.
"They wouldn't be Titan fodder if they were out here fighting us," she says knowing the Mikasa and Levi alone could do some serious damage to Zeke's forces, regardless of the lack of ODM gear points.
Right as Willow brings this to Zeke's attention, two distant explosions are heard, followed by the sound of a Titan roaring. Willow's heart drops as she looks beyond the wall, blind to what could possibly be going on.
Shortly after, several more explosions are heard, followed by the woeful roar of what sounds like an animal trapped and awaiting death.
"We need to do something," Willow says frantically, "They've figured out a way to attack him. Reiner is—" before she can say anymore, additional explosions are heard. She watches wide eyed, trying to listen for confirmation that Reiner is still alive, and hears none.
Her heart drops as she believes they've found a way to kill him. "No… he can't be…" she breathes with staggered breaths as her body temperature rises. "We have to do something, we need to—"
Before she can finish a last deafening roar cries out that makes her cover her ears from the sheer pitch of it. She looks up with wet eyes as the Beast moves towards the Cart Titan. Willow holds onto the hair behind his ear tightly as he grabs for the barrel that Bertolt climbed into earlier. The Signal, Willow thinks to herself.
She holds on tightly as the Beast launches the barrel into the air. She turns, watching as the barrel flies past the wall and into the district of Shiganshina. She swallows hard, waiting and watching him with baited breath as he flies closer to the ground.
"Why isn't he turning?" Willow asks with wild fear in her voice.
"Reiner," the Beast grunts under gritted teeth.
Willow looks onto him with wide eyes, figuring that Reiner must not be dead and rather incapacitated and unable to move from the blast. With worries that he will kill is friend in the attack, Bertolt refuses to turn. She groans at Bertolt's heart for his friend, knowing this was their only chance at killing all the Scouts with one single attack.
"Zeke, listen to me," she says looking at the beast's red beams. "You need to allow me to go in there. I can retrieve Reiner and open the field for an attack from Bertolt." She looks at him, seeing that he is not convinced, "Please, you can trust me," she tells him, knowing that she has given him no reason to trust her since she handled the death of her Squad so poorly, but figuring there must be a sliver of hope since he went through the trouble to get her out of the crystal.
"Very well," he releases with a heavy grunt. "Use your ODM gear to retrieve Reiner and return to us. You are in no condition to fight on your own."
"Thank you, Sir," she smiles at him, propelling down his body and lifting the hood over her head so no one will notice her as she runs towards Shiganshina.
She runs past the group of soldiers that struggle to fight back against the small Titans, knowing that if Derrek or Hal or Malik were here, they would all be steaming corpses by now. She wrinkles her nose at the shameful state the Scouts have turned into, figuring this will be easier than she would have liked. She looks up the wall, propelling herself so quickly that no one notices her.
She flies up the wall until she reaches the top where she lands lightly on her feet. Her heart drops when she glances over at the single body that stands atop the wall. She holds her swords tightly in her grip as she turns to him, unable to pass him without showing him her face once more.
Willow turns to him, removing her hood while her hands still grip her swords. He looks over at her and when their blue eyes lock, he inhales sharply, completely shocked at the image of her now. An uncontrolled smile appears on her lips as she sees the look of pure disbelief in Commander Erwin's eyes; something that she has never seen before from him.
She stares him down, holding her swords tightly by her sides as she looks onto him. A soft breeze flows through her golden curls as strands flow in front of her face. Her icy blue eyes move from his, down to the fabric of his missing arm flowing in the wind. She frowns at the sight of the incomplete man.
"Are you here to finally deliver on your promise?" Erwin speaks up, watching her as he sees the whites of her knuckles gripping onto the swords.
She swallows the growing lump in her throat, but it only returns to restrict her airways. "I have nothing left to say to you," she says to him, knowing all her words to have fallen on deaf ears. She turns from him and Erwin gasps as she walks away.
"So, it ends here then?" he calls out to her. "Like this?" he asks, "After all those years of fighting me, you turn away from your chance to end it all?"
She stops moving from him and looks down at the decayed city below her. She looks down at the rotting city of Shiganshina as she is so close to her goal, but needs to speak with him; they both owe each other that.
She turns towards him, looking at his curious blue eyes. "It's never going to end, Erwin," she tells him, quoting Derrek's last words as she looks out towards the sunrise. "People like us, don't get to see an end to this," she tells him. "We are monsters, Erwin. We've climbed atop the backs of those we've dragged into the ground, and look at the view we've made for ourselves," she says gesturing towards the beautiful horizon that shows her everything but beauty.
"You know," she begins swallowing hard, "I always fantasized about being up here when I was younger. I always wondered what it would be like to stand atop Wall Maria and extend my arms out to the endless horizon, feeling the cool breeze flow through my hair."
She closes her eyes and lifts her arms out, extending them to the sky as the soft wind blows her long golden curls. She frowns when she opens her eyes. "It's not as satisfying as I imagined," she says lowering her arms. "Then again, the reality of it never really is," she sneers.
Her eyes look off into the horizon, unable to look Erwin in the eyes as she speaks. "I plotted for three years the death of all of you. For three years I lived with a crushing hate on my chest, constricting my airways every night as I planned how I would take out each and every one of you. I couldn't breathe until I made sure that you were all buried in the ground for what you left of me."
Erwin watches her carefully, seeing her seething before him, and not daring to say a word to her. "Killing Levi Squad was so easy, that the three years it took me to perfect the plan made delivering the blow so… disappointing," she scoffs. "And in that moment, I realized that vengeance wasn't sweet. I still couldn't breathe."
She turns her body to Erwin, looking at him head on as he watches her from the corners of his eyes, body still pointed at the Beast Titan and his forces. "Killing you won't help me breathe again. Killing Levi won't help me breathe again. I know that now," she looks down at her hands, relaxing her grip on her swords. "We don't deserve the release of death, Erwin. Monsters like us get to keep on fighting because there is nothing left of us that's human. Reiner and Bertolt are right in their own way; we are devils, and death is too good for the likes of us."
She turns from him, readying herself to jump from the wall to aid Reiner. Her eyes scan the area for him at this vantage point when she locks onto his location. She looks back at Erwin over her shoulder before she jumps, calling out to him, "The Beast plans on killing each and every one of you. Why don't you rile them up for one last hurrah, while you stand up here and add more bodies to your mountainous view."
Erwin looks down at the bodies that have already lost their lives fighting the small measly Titans the Beast sent them, with more on the way that will level the ground with their bodies. He watches as Levi struggles to fight them all off on his own, while the other soldiers panic and cry at the events unfolding around them. They are not the soldiers he trained. Those soldiers are all dead, and atop this wall he realizes that their bodies distanced him from those on the front lines.
"I failed them all," Erwin breathes and she looks back at him. "I won't let their sacrifices be for nothing," he promises.
"Go down there and lead the charge then," she begins, "Or stay up here and watch them all die," she shrugs, "It doesn't matter. Either way, they all perish in the end."
She turns from him, but he speaks before they can end it like this. "I apologize for pushing you," he tells her, eyes focused on the red stains on the ground below him. "My intentions were for the preservation of our race. And in that time, we thrived as a regiment. I do not regret what I required from you, but I do regret not acting when the pressure was too great. Had I safeguarded your health, I don't think we would be standing here like this."
Willow swallows, her throat burning at the truth. "You treated me more like a weapon than a soldier," she tells him, looking down at the decaying city before her. "And I treated you like shit more than a Commander," she adds, gritting her teeth and unable to look at his response to that. "I was a terrible soldier, only thinking of myself while you were thinking about the future of each one of us. You were always a good Commander in that respect," she winces as she tells him the unspoken truth. "I just wanted more from you," she says lowering her head as her hands shake with the blades in her grip.
She looks to the sky as a stray tear falls down her cheeks. "I guess I am sorry for that," she says, shocked with herself for admitting that to the man. "I should have been a better Soldier for you. Maybe everything would have been different…" she lingers, wondering how many lives would still be alive if she listened.
"Then devote your heart now, Soldier," he says, giving her his final command as his head shoots up to the sky, watching the clouds move above them. "Whatever the path you've chosen, give it your all," he says knowing that she's made her stand against the Scouts, but hoping she will be true to herself and act of her own fruition.
She exhales, watching the calming movement of white clouds above them. "Yes, Sir," she returns firmly, and with that, she jumps from the wall, leaving Erwin behind as she takes in her first breath.